Page 12 of Nightshade

Fool. Yes, even one’s soul could die in Nightshade, leaving them trapped in the realm with no hope of salvation, or deliverance.

But enslavement to the Fallen just might’ve been worse.

“Suit yourself,” I said, strapping the scabbard under my cloak to conceal it.

“God bless you,” the man said on a relieved breath.

I smirked at that. “There is no God in Nightshade.”

* * *

I knelt on a rock beside Cassiel, one of only two fallen angels that I had even a modicum of trust in, to call an acquaintance. He, along with his brother, Remiel, or Remy for short, had turned their back on their overlord years before, when I’d been taken prisoner by the Fallen. With their help, I managed to escape, and the two of them had served as something of a security duo ever since, watching over Blackwater Cliff and its surrounding property where I resided.

The path we overlooked ran adjacent to the dense forest that led toward Blackwater Mountain, and below, two men examine mutilated remains that’d been left there. Human remains.

“They’ll blame you,” Cassiel said from beside me. “Don’t be surprised if they come with their torches and demands for your head. The Reaper of Nightshade strikes again!”

I smiled at that, eyeing one of the men lift a blood-saturated shirt from the ground at the end of a stick. “I’m curious to know what’s doing this.” It wasn’t that I cared so much what the villagers thought of me—I much preferred that they avoided me. It was that many of the attacks had begun hitting a little close to the cathedral grounds.

“I’ll scope out the woods and see if I can find anything.”

“Remy can accompany you.”

“I’d rather he didn’t.” Cassiel groaned. “Last thing I want is to be regaled by his latest exploits.”

“Afraid they might rival your own?”

“I’ll have you know I only keep with whores these days. Chaste females are boring.”

I chuckled. “As if you’ve ever known a chaste woman.”

“I’ve known a few. Always had a thing for nuns.”

“How’d that work?” I glanced over to see Cassiel’s lips stretched with a wicked grin beneath eyes the color of ember color that set him apart from the silver-eyed heavenly angels. His matched the color of the very infernal flames which had forged his wings when he’d turned Fallen.

“Quite well, actually.” He nodded back toward the mutilation below. “What do you think it’s like?” he asked, quickly changing the subject. “Absolute death.”

“Peaceful, I’d say.”

He shook his head, still staring off. “Not for me. Not after having betrayed my brethren.” Death for the Fallen was never truly death. Their souls were merely sent back to the Infernal Lands, to be dealt with by whatever demon oversaw them. Unless, of course, they were struck by celestial steel. In that case, they returned to the Nothingness. “If the heavens find me unworthy of redemption, then I will find escape in Ex Nihilo.”

“You would choose eternal darkness and silence?”

“Yes. Should I ever land at the business end of your blade, I ask only one favor of you, my friend. Mercy.”

“You have my word.”

7

Farryn

For the three hours that followed, I read my father’s journal, riveted in the descriptions I remembered from my childhood, of a place that could’ve easily been in a dark fairytale. A place of strange woodland creatures, some of which he’d sketched, that looked like nothing I’d seen before. A place where shadows crawled independently from the objects casting them, and the wind carried whispers when no one was around.

Like some kind of messed up Wonderland.

As I read his vivid descriptions, I wondered two things: Had he actually been to that place? And exactly how sound was his mind when he wrote the journals?

On closing the cover, something drifted out from within and onto the desk. A scrap of a page that looked as if it’d been torn out of the book. Only a small portion of the writing remained on it, and on flipping back through the book, I noticed a number of pages had been torn out, down to the book’s spine.