Free Lynn Viehl - [Darkyn 08 - Lords of the Darkyn 01] by Nightborn (mobi) Page B

of Alexandra, whom he had lured there more than once.
    Nor could he sleep as once he had during his mortal life, as one of the prices of immortality was perpetual awareness. Even when blood loss and injury shut down his physical form, his mind remained active.
    Being nowhere, he sensed only what there was: nothing.
    Korvel knew the brief battles in which he had engaged had not harmed him greatly, but the poisonous effect of the copper lodged in his flesh had rendered him weak and listless. In another time he would have fought his way back to life and his place in it, but his current apathy made it a difficult thing to desire. Why leave the dull gray void in which he lay suspended, only to return to a world that no longer held any interest for him?
    His dismal thoughts conjured images of the young nun with the angelic face. She had been tormented and nearly raped; she remained alone on the other side. He suspected he hadn’t killed all of the men who had attacked the château, and if they came upon her while he was helpless…
    Korvel reached for consciousness, and at once the void dragged at him, becoming a sea of muck through which he waded, one infuriatingly slow step at a time. He was much weaker than he had guessed, dangerously so; if he were to awake it would have to be by will alone.
    Once more he thought of the green-eyed angel who had tended to his wound. Whatever faith had compelled her to abandon life and serve an uncaring God, she was still an innocent. As such she needed—no, deserved—his assistance. I will go to her and keep her safe.
    He could feel her, close to him now, her presence like a muted caress. Even through the gnashing teeth of fresh pain, she calmed him. His weakness grew as his sense of her faded, and he reached out blindly, capturing her warmth and enfolding it against him. There she remained, unresisting and silent, until his thoughts dwindled and he entered a darker corner of the void to rest and heal.
    Sometime later, the setting of the sun roused Korvel to consciousness. He sensed this time that he had more strength to draw on, and crossed the emptiness with only a brief effort. He felt her warmth slipping away, and opened his eyes.
    Cracked hand-carved moldings framed a rough plaster ceiling spotted with small water stains and draped in one corner with the dusty remains of some long-dead spider’s trap. The soft amber light illuminating it came from fat beeswax candles set in crystal goblets half filled with pretty pebbles and shells, which had been spaced like treasures across a stone shelf. A muslin pinafore hung from the knob of bolted door, over which a plain wooden cross had been nailed. A basket with balled wool and knitting needles sat beside a shabby tapestry chair; a chipped blue stoneware jug sat inside a matching basin in an iron stand.
    He turned his head to see a small shrine built atop an old secretary: flowers and votive candles in punched-tin holders surrounding a diminutive statue of the Virgin Mary in her blue robes and white headdress. A rosary of gray stone beads and blackened silver lay draped around the base of the statue.
    If this were the cloistered cell it appeared to be, then the nun had brought him to her convent. If this were a jail cell, the French police had greatly improved the living conditions within their prisons.
    A flutter of fabric drew his attention to the foot of the pallet, where the nun stood with her back toward him. She was in the process of undressing, and while Korvel knew he should look away, he couldn’t stop watching her. She pulled the bloodstained gray habit over her head to reveal the long line of her spine. She tugged at the drawstring of her only undergarment, a pair of loose cotton drawers, before sliding them down her legs.
    Now naked, she went to the basin stand, where she poured water from the jug into the bowl and began to wash the blood from her body.
    The tightening of his muscles didn’t distract Korvel from watching her, but