Come to Me (12 page)

Samira opened her eyes and winced against the brightness. "
Midnight sun
," she cursed softly, putting her hand over her eyes. A strange tingling ache ebbed and flowed through her body, and then quickly faded away. She lifted her hand away from her eyes and squinted at her surroundings.

"
Son of a sun
," she swore, her voice trembling. She was in trouble.

Serious trouble.

The brightness that had so stunned her eyes was the face of the full moon beneath her. She was floating in space above it. Around her was the blackness of the void itself, studded with distant stars and galaxies, but subtle distortions in the scene told her that the openness was an illusion; she was in fact in a small room, its sides formed by invisible walls of energy.

There was only one place she could be: the palace of Nyx, the Queen of the Night.

It was not a healthy place to unexpectedly find oneself, when one had been breaking rules right, left, and every which way inbetween.

In the beginning there had been Chaos, and out of Chaos had come Nyx. Darkness was her consort; Death and Sleep were her children. Nyx was the source of all existence in the Night World.

Samira, like Theron, was one of the Oneiroi: one of the One Thousand Dreams, the demons born of Nyx's son, Sleep. There was a complex hierarchy among the Oneiroi, and different branches of their demon family had different talents, but they were all grandchildren of Nyx.

Which was not to say that Samira could expect grandmotherly feelings from Nyx. Nyx ruled her family as any strong queen would rule her subjects: with an iron fist.

Capturing Nyx's attention was rarely a good thing. Not even the great gods of the past, like Zeus, had ever dared to cross her. Born of Chaos, Nyx was a force as elemental and powerful as the universe itself.

And she lacked a sense of humor.

Holy stars of the night
. Samira had been safer in Nicolae's conjuring circle.

"Are you feeling better?" a voice asked. The sound of it was as slow as the hum of the universe, vibrating through Samira's body.

Samira turned around, and she saw the flash of a disembodied, star-white smile. Pinpoints of starlight swirled and gathered to form the whites of Nyx's eyes, then scattered freckles of twinkling light coalesced on the surface of her black body, making it visible. She was like a sculpture carved from deep space. Tall and slender, fine-featured, and with a river of black hair falling down her back, Nyx was simultaneously beautiful and eerie, inhuman and perfect, frightening in her elementality and yet soothing for the same basic, fabric-of-the-universe reason.

"I am feeling… whole, Your Majesty," Samira said. "Thank you."

"A moment more and you would have felt nothing at all," Nyx said, and as she gestured with her hand, a trail of stars trailed from her fingertips.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

There was silence as Nyx gazed at her. Samira shifted uneasily and looked down at the moon. Should she compliment Nyx on her choice of housing? The thought brought a nervous giggle to Samira's throat.

"Something humorous, Samira?"

Samira swallowed and looked up at her queen. "No, Your Majesty. My apologies."

"I should not think amusement to be the mood of a succubus so recently captured by a wizard, and nearly destroyed."

"No, Your Majesty. It is relief I feel, and a deep gratitude. May I ask how you knew what was happening to me?"

Nyx made a careless gesture with her hand, sending more stars flickering out into the room. "I feel it when one of my descendants is destroyed. Sometimes they have brought it on themselves, and I let events continue as they will. Other times, the situation is not so clear, and I do what I must. So it was with you, and your wizard."

Samira was less than reassured. If Nyx had known more, she would have left Samira to be destroyed. "I don't think Nicolae is a true wizard. He doesn't fully understand what he is doing."

Nyx sat down on an invisible chair, her starred legs crossing as she sat back and made herself comfortable.

"Interesting. And concerning, as well. As the mortals like to say, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. I can't have him capturing my grandchildren whenever he pleases."

"He has a book," Samira said. "It was that which let him do it."

"Hmm." Nyx tapped a nail on her lower lip. "I never like to hear that information is being gathered about the Night World. We may know everything about
them
, but they should know nothing of us. It is always better to have them unaware of our existence.

"What do you think?" she asked. "Should I send a demon to destroy this book, and send Forgetfulness to erase the memories of it—and of you—from this wizard's mind?"

Samira wet her lips, nervous. It seemed the perfect solution for escape from Nicolae's hands. She could go about her merry way, free of the wounded man's threats and possible blame, and neither he nor Nyx would ever know all the trouble she had helped cause.

She was tempted. For a long moment, she saw the door of escape open wide before her.

But something inside would not allow her to step through it. Some frustrating, annoying, hell-bent-on-trouble part of herself reached forward and shut the door.

"I don't think that would be fair," Samira said, her voice barely audible.

"What was that?"

She cleared her throat. "I said, I don't think that would be fair. To Nicolae. You see…" She trailed off, her courage failing her.

Nyx tilted her dark head to the side, starry brows arching in question.

Samira hunched down, and then poured forth the tale in one breath. "You see, I gave a dream to Dragosh of Maramures, and it caused him to break off an engagement between Nicolae and Dragosh's sister, Lucia. And then a war started, and Nicolae was hurt. So it's really my fault that Nicolae is stuck in a tower reading magic books, and I think I should find a way to help him, instead of just making him forget everything." Samira winced, and dared to meet Nyx's eyes.

Nyx stared back, her white and black eyes wide. The stars in the walls around them began to whirl, and a coldness swept through Samira.

"You
what
?!" Nyx said, her lips barely moving.

Samira hunched lower, her head beneath the tops of her wings.

"You delivered a dream to a
ruling prince
?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," Samira whispered.

"You
knew
that only Morpheus, Ikelos, and Phantasos are allowed to deliver dreams to rulers. You know the reason: It is to avoid such disasters as you have created."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"You knew all that, and yet you did it anyway?"

"I was very much in the wrong, Your Majesty. I should not have done it. I did not think of all the harm it could do."

Nyx stood and began to pace, the stars whirling yet faster around them, the air turning colder. Nyx's black hair seemed to grow longer and float out around her, obliterating half the light from the distant stars and the moon. Samira flinched away from a strand of it that came near her, afraid of what might happen should she touch that inky blackness.

Nyx stopped, and faced Samira where she huddled on the moonlight floor. "Why?"

Samira tried to meet her gaze but failed, her eyes dropping guiltily. "I wasn't thinking," she said, in a half-truth.

"You must have had a reason. I have never known you to misbehave in such fashion before. Why?"

Alarm ran through Samira. Had Nyx truly been keeping some sort of watch—however haphazard—over Samira and all her other subjects? How much did she know and how much could she sense?

"It was mischief on my part," Samira said. "Dragosh saw his sister as a woman so pure she was no longer human. I thought it was funny to shock him with a dream that was the opposite."

Nyx narrowed her eyes. "There must be more to this story. Are you hiding something from me, Samira?"

Samira gazed fearfully up at her queen. She had sworn to Theron that she would say nothing of his role in this. "I have more concern for this Nicolae of Moldavia than I should. I want to help right the wrongs that have been done to him. I feel… responsible."

Nyx continued staring. "Was someone else involved in delivering this dream to Dragosh?"

Samira flinched. Nyx's lips tightened.

"Who?" Nyx asked.

Samira shook her head, her whole body quivering. "I swore."

"Who?"

Samira prostrated herself on the moonlight floor and crawled to Nyx's feet. "I swore," she whimpered. "Please, Your Majesty. I swore."

Samira felt a cold force yank her up by the wings. She dangled before an enraged Nyx, the Queen of the Night's eyes gone as lightless as black holes.

"You refuse to answer me?"

"Kill me. Please," Samira said. "I deserve it, I know. I have been disobedient. But…"

"
But
?" Nyx screeched.

"But please make things right for Nicolae."

The cold force threw Samira against the far wall, and she crumpled to the floor.

"
You
will make things right for Nicolae of Moldavia.
You
will learn how fragile a thing is a human life, and how easily harmed.
You
will learn why it is that we of the Night World
serve
humanity, and do not play with them as toys.

"You will have thirty days, Samira, to discover that which sets the mortals above us, and makes them more precious than any creature of the Night. Thirty days to reverse the damage you have done to Nicolae of Moldavia."

"Isn't it their souls that make them special?" Samira asked.

The cold force picked her up and shook her, before tossing her again against the wall.

"Do not speak to me," Nyx said. "You know nothing of souls or humanity. You know nothing of why the mortals are precious, and why the gods of both the Night and the Day seek to serve and protect them.

"Thirty days, Samira. Tell me then why the humans are above us; tell me how you have used that knowledge to help Nicolae; and tell me then who else was involved in this dream you sent to Dragosh.

"If you fail, you
will
be destroyed."

Samira slowly pulled herself to her feet. "With your permission, I will begin at once, Your Majesty." She didn't have any idea how, or what she would do, but eager obedience seemed her only course.

"Not like that, you won't," Nyx said, a cruel twist to her lips. She flicked her fingers at Samira, shooting stars into her.

Samira screamed in pain, and then felt herself falling, falling, falling…

Lac Strigoi

Samira landed with a splash into cold water that sucked her breath away. She flailed, gasping for air, not knowing which way was up, or how to swim even if she did know up from down; and then her feet found purchase in the muddy bottom and she stood, hair dripping, hands clearing the water and weeds from her eyes.

Wet
. She was wet. Never in her three thousand years had she been wet. Mud gushed between her toes, and slimy water weeds brushed against her thighs. "Uuuuuugh!" she moaned, and threw herself toward the dim shadows of the lake's bank, clumsily lunging her way through the thick and slowly parting water.