The Pact - Dark Roads, Book One

The Pact - Chapter One

(You are reading a sample of Brantwijn Serrah's full-length novel, The Pact.  If you like what you read, you can find the full book at www.brantwijn.com/the-pact. )

CHAPTER ONE

Serenity Walker woke from her sleep to the quiet snap and pop of burning logs. The crackling fire chased away the chill of the moonless desert night, and she welcomed it, smiling. No lonely drifter could refuse the satisfaction of a good campfire.

Turning over in her bedroll, she opened her eyes to see who'd come to visit.

The flames burned high, much higher and brighter than those of the small cooking fire she'd built several hours ago. The soothing glow warmed her skin like a mother's hand, but the brilliant dance held an exotic feel. Something otherworldly. Though the desert around her stretched bone-white and barren under the spray of stars, the smell of jungle lingered in the air like a prowling, primordial spirit. Her horse nickered from the edge of the camp, anxious, and shuffled farther away from the feral light.

Her visitor sat across from her, on the other side of the fire. Between the licks of flame, his face lay hidden from her. No surprise there, though. Darklings rarely showed their faces.

So you're awake then, fleshling?

His words echoed in her head. They came voiceless and timeless, a resonating whisper like a feline purr. D'aej, come out from his den in the back of her mind to speak with her in person. Or, as close to "in person" as a bound darkling like D'aej could manage. A visual trick of the senses, a ghostly projection. He might not be really be there—like this fire he'd created, only an illusion—but if she reached out to touch him, she would still feel the icy velvet of his black, featureless skin, the mellow shape of his noseless, mouthless muzzle.

She nodded an acknowledgment. The shadowy outline of her companion ducked and danced behind the flames, but his eyes—yellow, wily, cat-like—remained steady on her.

Old legends and wives' tales said to have a darkling visit your camp was an ill omen. Plants would wither, dogs would go mad, and milk would sour. Serenity, though, trafficked with enough darklings and otherworlders to expect the occasional appearance and never think anything of it. She lived in a world of ill omens.

D'aej, for that matter, wasn't just a darkling. He was a part of her, close as a Gemini twin. Having him in her camp was nothing new at all.

We've gone too long since resting these bones in a real bed, Serenity.

She sat up and stretched, relishing the false heat of his trick fire. The flames hid him from her, affording her only a glance of him here, a glance of him there, as he flickered in and out of sight.

"Why are you complaining?" she teased. "It's not as if it makes any difference to you."

Grim annoyance slithered across their psychic link.

The body is as much mine as it is yours, and I am growing weary of its aching joints.

"There's a town less than a day's ride from here," she said. "We'll be there soon enough. But we won't be staying long. We're on a hunt."

He didn't reply, but she sensed familiar seething distaste. After traveling the desert for almost nine days, with nothing but sand on the horizon, and no one but each other for company, D'aej lamented far more than the lack of creature comforts. But sometimes the hunt took turns like these, and the darkling should have learned to live with it by now.

With a grin, she sunk back into her bedroll and turned over, away from him, leaving him no one to banter with.

"We'll get to a town soon enough," she repeated. "Until then, you just keep your nose to the wind and keep us on the trail."