A Knight's Nightmare
Damien's POV
I jerked awake with my hand already reaching for my sword.
Pain exploded through my head like someone had hit me with a war hammer. Everything hurt - my back, my arms, even my teeth ached. But that wasn't what scared me most.
I had no idea where I was.
The ceiling above me glowed with tiny suns that gave off light without fire or candle flame. Impossible. The walls were painted white as fresh snow, smoother than any stone I'd ever seen. And the air smelled wrong - clean in a way that made my nose itch, like someone had scrubbed every bit of dirt and life out of it.
This wasn't my bedchamber in the house. This wasn't anywhere I'd ever been.
I sat up fast, ignoring the way my head spun, and saw her.
A girl sat pressed against the far wall, looking at me with huge dark eyes. She looked young, maybe eighteen or nineteen, with black hair that hung loose around her shoulders. But it was her clothes that made my heart race with fear.
She wore dark blue leg covers that fit tight as a second skin, and a strange tunic that had writing on it I couldn't read. No proper lady would dress like a peasant man, showing the shape of her body so openly. Either she was a servant girl who'd lost her mind, or...
"Witch," I breathed, and my hand found the handle of my sword.
The girl's eyes got even wider. "I'm not a witch! I keep telling you, I'm just a college student!"
College? What was a college? She spoke my language, but some of her words made no sense. And her accent was strange, like she came from a place I'd never heard of.
I pulled my sword from its sheath in one smooth move. The familiar weight of it in my hand made me feel a little better, a little more like myself. "What magic is this place? Where have you brought me?"
"I didn't bring you anywhere!" she squeaked, pressing herself harder against the wall. "You crashed through my roof! You broke my coffee table!"
Coffee table? More strange words. But I could see broken wood scattered around me, so something had definitely been destroyed when I came. However I'd arrived.
The last thing I remembered was standing in the great hall of the castle, watching Marcus raise his stick high above his head. Dark magic had poured from him like black water, and then there had been light everywhere, pain like being hit by lightning, and the horrible feeling of falling through empty space.
"Marcus," I said, and the name tasted like poison in my mouth. "Where is Marcus? What has he done to me?"
"I don't know who Marcus is!" the girl said. "Please put the sword down. You're scaring me."
But I couldn't put my sword down. This girl might look innocent, but looks could lie. Marcus had many slaves, and some of them were young women who used their beauty to trick good men into trusting them.
"Tell me your name," I ordered, pointing my sword at her throat but not quite touching her skin. "And tell me what year this is."
"Maya," she whispered. "My name is Maya Chen. And it's 2024."
2024. The number hit me like a punch to the stomach.
"That's impossible," I said, but even as I spoke, I knew it wasn't. The strange bright lights, the smooth walls, the girl's impossible clothes - this wasn't my world. This wasn't my time.
"It's not impossible," Maya said softly. "You're really from 1524, aren't you? You're really a knight from five hundred years ago."
Five hundred years. I'd been thrown forward five hundred years.
My sword hand started shaking. If I was truly in the future, then everyone I'd ever known was dead. My king, my fellow knights, my people - all dead and gone to dust ages ago. And Marcus...
"The battle," I said, more to myself than to Maya. "Marcus sent me away so I couldn't stop him. By the time I find a way back, it will be too late. He'll have won."
"What battle?" Maya asked. "What was Marcus trying to do?"
I looked at her - really looked at her for the first time. Her face was kind, worried about a stranger who'd crashed into her home and threatened her with a sword. She didn't look like one of Marcus's maids. She looked like someone who truly wanted to help.
But I'd been fooled before.
"Why should I trust you?" I asked. "How do I know you're not working for him?"
"Because I have no idea what you're talking about!" Maya said, and I heard real frustration in her voice. "An hour ago, my biggest problem was finishing my computer code homework. Now there's a knight with a sword in my living room telling me about some bad sorcerer named Marcus. None of this makes sense!"
Computer programming. Another phrase I didn't understand. But her confusion seemed real.
I was about to lower my sword when something made me freeze. A sound from outside - footsteps coming up stairs, slow and deliberate. Maya heard it too, because her face went white.
"That's not normal," she whispered. "My friends are all asleep. No one should be coming upstairs this late."
The footsteps stopped right outside what I thought was the door to this strange chamber. Then we heard something that made my blood turn to ice.
The sound of someone singing. A tune I recognized.
It was the song Marcus always hummed when he was ready to kill someone.
"He found us," I said, raising my sword again. But this time, I stepped in front of Maya instead of frightening her. "Somehow, he's followed me through time."
"What do we do?" Maya asked, and I could hear the fear in her voice.
Before I could answer, the humming stopped. The quiet was somehow worse than the sound.
Then we heard a voice speak from the other side of the door. A voice I knew better than my own beating. A voice that had haunted my dreams for years.
"Sir Damien," Marcus called out, and I could hear the evil smile in his words. "I know you're in there. And I know you're not alone."
The door handle started to turn, even though no one was touching it.
"Come out, come out, my dear knight," Marcus continued. "Let's finish what we started. And bring your new little friend with you. I have such wonderful plans for her."
Magic sparked around the sides of the door frame, and I knew we had seconds before Marcus broke through whatever barrier was keeping him out.
I grabbed Maya's hand and pulled her to her feet. "Is there another way out of here?"
"The fire escape," Maya said. "But it's a three-story drop if we fall."
"Better than facing Marcus unprepared," I said.
But as we turned toward what I hoped was another exit, Maya's magical box - the one she called a computer - lit up with words that made my heart stop: TOO LATE. THE SPELL IS COMPLETE. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE DESTINY.
The door burst inward in a shower of splinters and purple light.
And Marcus stepped through, looking exactly the same as he had five hundred years ago, except for one terrifying change.
His eyes were burning red like coals from hell, and when he smiled at us, I saw that his teeth had become sharp as a wolf's fangs.