Page 122 of Nightshade

“But … does the Pentacrux answer to the Pope?”

“They do not, but the bishop respects power. Do not worry. All will be well. Whatever horrific acts of suffering have occurred here, they will not be permitted to continue.”

Even at the risk of getting in trouble, Lustina was glad she’d told Pentash Aurelia. She’d always been a trusted friend. Aside from the baron, perhaps her only true friend.

“Thank you. I pray the young friar reaches the Pope before a tragedy takes place here.”

40

Farryn

Still unable to sleep, despite the branch having been cut down, as Van Croix had promised, I opted for yet another trip to the library, which had become something of a second bedroom for me.

I passed the enormous organ, daring myself to press one of the keys, and kept on, up the stone stairwell that opened up to the vast room full of books. At the table, I plopped into a chair whose hard surface was sure to have my butt going numb at some point.

Despite its apparent age, given the worn state of the leather, the spine of the book I’d been given remained crisp and cracked when I opened it. The text looked as if it’d been inked by hand with an ancient quill, and it started off with Once upon a time … just like a fairytale.

A few pages in, I came across a portrait of what looked very similar to the cathedral, with a group of men standing before it. Some wore armor that reminded me of medieval garb, others wore what appeared to be leather brigandine vests with bracers at the arms, while a few dressed in long black hooded cassocks. Most likely priests, given the crucifix dangling from the white cincture tied at their waists. Nuns in habits also stood amongst them.

A young girl, perhaps fifteen, or sixteen, though the age of the artwork made it hard to discern, stood in the very front in a long white dress. Though her face was somewhat blurred, she appeared so innocent and angelic, a stark contrast to the dark figures surrounding her. Leaning in, I examined their faces, and frowned on seeing one of the vest-clad boys who shared an uncanny likeness to Van Croix. Perhaps an ancestor, considering the painting had a soft baroque nature, like something out of an ancient era. Precisely what Jericho would look like without the patch covering his eyes.

The beginning of the story spoke of a young girl, named Lustina, whose mother had been burned on the suspicion of witchcraft.

She was taken in by the church and raised with a stern hand by the pentashes there, ones who were often called on by the noblemen, and she would accompany them as a servant, assisting the bishop in whatever capacity he deemed fit.

The book held no glossary, but based on what I’d read already, I gleaned pentash to be something of a nun and pentrosh to be a priest. The book was set in a village called Praecepsia, and upon reading that, I paused.

Praecepsia. Where had I heard that before?

A ghostly white figure came to mind. A statue. Felix of Praecepsia. My nightmare, the one with the nuns who’d been hanged. The ancient city Xhiphias had told me about. Weird that I’d heard it again. In what I deemed to be a romance book, no less.

It was at the magnificent estate of the Lord Praecepsia that she met a belligerent, young baron. Spoiled and cruel, he made her clergy visits unbearable, always taunting and teasing. The boy was older than her years, and she felt helpless to his ruthlessness. Until one day, when she wandered down by the river’s edge while the bishop met with his father. There, she found a bird lying on a rock, desperately clinging to life. The girl tucked the bird into the skirts of her dress when the prince found her, and he asked to see what she had hidden. When she showed him, he insisted that she hand it over to him, a demand she refused to obey. Enraged by her insolence, the prince pushed her to the ground and a scuffle ensued, and the poor bird was lost in the tangle. It was while the prince loomed over her, with her arms pinned to the ground, that he finally stared into her stubborn and unyielding eyes, and something inside of him shifted. As if everything in the universe had stopped in time. He became mesmerized by those eyes, which spoke of distant places and magic, and entranced, he released her. A strange feeling had claimed him with the encounter, one he had never before felt. The girl, Lustina, had undoubtedly bewitched him, but he cared not. He knew in that moment that she would belong to him and no one else.

Pausing, I flipped back to the portrait in the beginning and studied the young girl, whose face was blurred by what looked like an errant brush stroke, then to the man behind her. The one I swore could’ve been a distant relative of Van Croix. So handsome and … familiar.

A warm sensation moved through me on a shiver of nostalgia. I ran my fingertip over his face, riveted by the striking features of his eyes, his jaw and mouth. How inescapably captivating he looked in all that leather.

“Reading at this hour?”

At the sound of the deep, penetrating voice, I snapped the book shut with a gasp and straightened in my chair.

Leaning against the bannister, Jericho watched me from across the room. The intensity of his dark, mercurial gaze stirred a fluttering in my stomach, like a dozen satin-winged butterflies exploding inside of me.

“Yes, I … couldn’t sleep.”

He rolled a coin across his knuckles in one fluid motion, providing only a momentary distraction from his soul-piercing stare. “And what is it that stirs you out of slumber this time?” The way he spoke carried a dangerously seductive quality about it, like a saccharin-dipped blade.

“I have nightmares.”

Something behind him shifted across the wall, as if his shadow moved while he remained still. Blinking sent the umbral twin back to its place at his back, and I frowned, wondering if I’d actually seen that, or if my brain had played some twisted trick on me.

He stepped toward me, his shadow following after. “What are these nightmares?”

Still fixed on the strangeness, I shook the distraction from my head and set my focus on Van Croix. “They’re quite graphic, actually.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, some are of war. Battles and blood. Others are flames and the stench of burning bodies. And I am always the observer.”