Heir of Thunder (Stormbourne Chronicles Book 1) (28 page)

The candelabrum in the common room cast a
soft, almost romantic glow over the guests who filled it. Their excited babble
reached me before Terrill guided me down to the last step, but when they saw
me, their prattle fell silent, and a heavy quiet oppressed the room. A strong
aroma of incense coated my nose and tongue with a sickening sweetness. I tried
to absorb all the details and picked over the faces of the crowd, looking for
sympathy, but found none. Terrill let go of me and I swayed on my feet. Keeping
upright and awake required a great deal of focus and escape now seemed like in
impossibility.

Daeg waited at the forefront of the room,
wearing a long black cloak over a dark gray suit. His blond hair spilled over
his shoulders and gleamed like polished gold in the candlelight. Next to him
stood Aodan, wearing similar attire, but his cape matched the sanguine color of
my gown. He had tried to tame his spiky hair, but a mischievous cowlick
threatened to rebel. He saw me looking at it and scowled as he patted it back
in place.

A strange man I didn’t know stood beside him—his
air of self-importance indicated he would play a major role in the evening’s
events. He towered almost a head above Daeg, possibly even as tall as Gideon,
and his long gray hair draped the sides of his wizened face. Comparing his
height to Gideon’s made me think of my reluctant guardian, despite my vows not
to. He was noticeably absent, but I didn’t know how I felt about that. Had I
expected him to be there, or had I thought he would hide in shame for what he
had done to me?

“Our honored guest has arrived,” Daeg
announced. “I would like to introduce you all to Evelyn Stormbourne, daughter
of Lord Trevelyan, and temporary Heir of Thunder.”

The crowd twittered and Daeg crossed the room
to my side. He waited for them to hush before continuing. “As you all know,
this night has been a long time in the making, and you are all witness to the
fulfillment of promise our ancestor made so long ago. The birthright of the
Lord of Thunder has returned to its rightful home, and soon, it will be
bestowed unto its rightful heir. You are all here to testify to the beginning
of a new legacy.”

As he spoke, he led me toward his son and drew
us both to his side. Daeg joined my right hand and Aodan’s left hand between
his own, forcing us to clasp hands, palm to palm. He held our hands together
until the older, gray haired man bound them with a bit of gold rope. He
whispered a few strange words over the rope, and it tightened. I couldn’t pull
away, even after Daeg released me from his grasp. The incense was cloying and
overpowering. My head spun, and I longed for a breath of fresh air.

“Diodorus, please proceed,” Daeg said, turning
the events over to the Magician who must have been hired to perform the
transformation of the birthright.

The Magician led Aodan and me to the front of
the room, where two chaise lounges sat parallel to each other. Aodan went to
one seat and stretched out while Diodorus pressed me down against the other. I
wanted to fight against him, protest the whole affair, but my body ignored my
commands, and, when I opened my mouth to scream, my thick and swollen tongue
refused to cooperate. Aodan’s hand and mine swung loosely between us, and he
stared at me with dark, sunken eyes. Greed and hunger burned in his gaze.

Diodorus crouched beside Aodan and rolled up
his sleeve. Lord Daeg stooped beside him, offering the Magician a polished gold
chalice encrusted with rubies. From the folds of his cloak, Diodorus drew out a
long, thin knife made of a dark metal that absorbed the candlelight. In a
flash, he drew the blade across the tender flesh of Aodan’s forearm. He
flinched but held his silence while the Magician captured the blood flow, trickling
dark and viscous, in the chalice. Aodan watched me watching him, and the corner
of his mouth twitched up in a haughty smile.

Because our arms were connected, the Magician
had only to turn to draw the dagger across the delicate skin of my own forearm.
I tried to pull away, but he moved swiftly and cut a ragged gash that stung
like fire. He and Daeg held my arm over the cup, letting the blood course into
it.

“This is barbaric,” I said, though through my
swollen tongue and dry throat the words came out as imperceptible gibberish. They
ignored me and kept their eyes trained on the blood dripping from my arm.

When they had filled the chalice to their
satisfaction, Diodorus staunched our wounds. Daeg poured in a measure of wine
from a second cup. The Magician chanted something unintelligible as he mixed
the concoction with his knife blade. It reminded me of my nightmare wedding to
Jackie, and I wondered how much had been my imagination, and how much
premonition.

Diodorus brought the golden cup to Aodan’s lips.
The boy gulped without taking his eyes from me. I wanted to look away. I wanted
to close my eyes and retreat into myself but the Magician or Lord Daeg’s elixir
had entranced me somehow. When the Magician pulled the cup away from Aodan,
blood had dyed his lips a deep crimson, and the boy grinned at me revealing red
stained teeth.

Diodorus turned and put the chalice to my
lips. I refused it, but he struck at my throat with a viper fast motion,
choking me and forcing me to gasp. When my lips popped open, he poured the
chalice’s contents in my mouth. He had managed to poison me much easier than
Lord Daeg, but I had less fight in me this time, thanks to Daeg’s preparations.

No words existed to describe the horror of the
taste. Copper, iron, wine, poison, and death twined together to form something
inscrutably putrid. The potion swirled around my teeth and over my tongue as if
it had come alive, and I tried to block it from going down my throat.

Daeg put a knee on my chest and forced me back
against the chaise. “Swallow it, Evelyn. Quit fighting and swallow it!”

Before he could force me again, I drew a deep
breath through my nose and spit the bloody concoction directly into Daeg’s
face. He roared and backhanded me across my cheek, sending stars exploding
before my eyes. I screamed at him, howling like a wild animal. The slap cleared
some of the confusion swirling in my thoughts, and I slid off the chaise onto
my knees, panting and spitting.

With the contents of the chalice still
dripping down his face, staining his white collar, Daeg grasped my upper arm
and slammed me back onto the seat. He brought out another knife from a pocket
in his cloak and pressed it into my neck until it pricked my skin. “
Dammit
girl
,” he hissed. “You will do as I say, or you will die, here,
tonight.”

I opened my mouth to curse him, but another
voice cut me off. “Stop, Daeg. No one has to die here tonight. But only if you
let her go.”

Gideon?

A brief spark of joy flared in my chest but quickly died. If
he had come to aid me now, his efforts were too little, too late.
He should have tried saving me days ago. He should have never brought
me here in the first place.

Daeg didn’t remove the blade from my throat,
but he pulled away enough for me to see the young man standing behind him. “Gideon,
what is this?”

Gideon aimed Sephonie with one hand, at the
center of Diodorus’s back, and held a knife poised at Aodan’s throat in a
mirror image of Daeg’s pose with me. Daeg’s blood-spattered face broke into a
crazed smile.

The entire audience had frozen in place,
obviously uncertain about how to react to the turn of events. Terrill started
forward, but Gideon shoved his knife against Aodan’s throat and the boy
squealed. Terrill stopped and flashed a nasty grin at Gideon.

“The castle is surrounded by my personal
security,” Daeg said. “Some are Trevelyan’s old Crown of Men. In this room,
there are many who would die fighting for me. You are outnumbered. How far do
you think you would get?”

“I don’t need to get far.” Gideon dropped a
meaningful look to the tip of the knife resting at Aodan’s throat. “Just a few
centimeters.”

“You’ll never get the girl.” Daeg spat the
words through gritted teeth.

“And you’ll never get the birthright.”

“Then we’ve found ourselves at an impasse.”

They hovered, Daeg over me, Gideon over Aodan,
and I thought we would be fixed in that moment forever, but then a crash of
lightning streaked across the sky and shattered the window beside us. The crowd
shrieked and drew back.

Gideon didn’t waste the moment. He threw
himself onto Daeg, knocking him free from me. The two men fell to the floor,
pummeling each other with ferocious blows.

Daeg bellowed before Gideon’s fist connected
with his mouth. “Finish it, Diodorus!”

The Magician approached me with the chalice
again. Aodan assisted him, holding me down and forcing my mouth open. Enraged,
I struggled against them. Fury empowered me and I shoved my knee into Aodan’s
crotch. He howled and fell to the floor. Diodorus tried to strike me in the
throat again, but I slid away.

I took a deep breath of the fresh air pouring
in from the broken window and focused my intent on the storm brewing outside.
There was another lightning bolt out there somewhere; I could feel it. If I
could only wrap my will around it....

Aodan rolled miserably on the floor while
Diodorus struggled to tug me back on the chaise, but I was still attached to
Aodan, and the old Magician’s hands were full, trying not to spill the contents
of the chalice. Where was Terrill, and the crowd? Why hadn’t they interfered?
Before I could answer that question, another streak of electricity called to
me.

I grasped it with my thoughts and hurtled it
through the broken window into the middle of the room, right in the midst of
the crowd. It exploded against the floor, and the lightning’s light seared
across my vision and my ears rang from the cannonade of noise.

“Evie. Get out of here,” Gideon said as Daeg
tackled him back to the floor.

I had thought the same thing, but the Magical
golden rope still bound me to Aodan. Diodorus had dropped the chalice. Its
bloody contents spilled across the floor in a vile puddle. The Magician stood
in place, locked by indecision. He had also dropped his dagger. It lay just
inches away from Aodan, who had rolled into a ball. He had closed his eyes and
pressed his hands against his ears, and he never saw me leap.

I snatched the blade and sawed through the
rope binding us together, leaving Aodan and me with a pair of matching golden
bracelets. Most of the crowd, the ones who were able, had fled after my
lightning blast, but some of the men, including Terrill, were inching back into
the room, their eyes glued on Daeg and Gideon, eager to leap to their Lord’s
assistance when he called for it.

Gideon clenched his hands around Daeg’s
throat, but the older man
pummeled
Gideon anywhere he
could land a blow. “Evie, run!” Gideon said.

I took a step forward, ready to follow my
earlier path through the kitchen and out to the stables, but paused. Resolution
filled me and urged me to hold my place. “No more running,”
I said
, quietly to myself. I turned on my heel and strode to the center of
the room. Daeg’s men watched me warily, holding their weapons ready. “No. More.
Running!”

Thunder rattled the windows and several broke.
The floor shook. It reminded me of the morning
I woke to
Fallstaff’s
destruction.
Good. Let Daeg have a little of his own medicine
.

Another lightning bolt jolted into my
consciousness. Despite his eagerness to rid me of my birthright, Daeg’s belief
in me, and the belief of his people, empowered me. He had prepared for so many
contingencies, but his own faith was something he couldn’t evade.

I grabbed the bolt and slung it into the room,
at the feet of Daeg’s men. They fell like stalks of corn in a hailstorm. The
acrid stink of singed hair and burnt skin stung my nose. I refused to let
myself care whether any of them had survived. If there would be guilt for my
actions, I would suffer it at a time when my survival was not so much at risk.

I turned my attention to the Magician. He
looked at me, squeaked like a mouse, and dashed from the room. I thought of
Ruelle Thibodaux’s Magic and laughed. Diodorus wouldn’t stand a chance against Le
Poing Fermé. His exit left me with only Daeg, Aodan, and Gideon to manage.

I considered hurtling another lightning spear
directly into their quarrel, but I recognized Gideon’s sacrifice. Maybe he
deserved a chance to get away. Still holding Diodorus’s black knife, I brought
it to Daeg’s throat, and he paused in mid strike to Gideon.

“Let him go.” I pressed the knife tip against his
skin until it pricked him, the same as he had done to me. “Gideon, move out of
the way.”

He rolled away from Daeg and crouched on the
balls of his feet.

“Thank you for your hospitality, m’lord, but I’m
afraid I’ve overstayed my welcome. Give your wife my condolences, and tell her
I said she has a lovely home.” I stepped away as another crack of thunder shook
the house. Daeg winced but stayed where he was. “Gideon, get Sephonie and train
it on him. If he moves, shoot him.”

He grinned and nodded, leaping forward to recover
his weapon. Daeg’s eyes bored into mine. He bared his teeth and growled. “This
is not over, Stormbourne.”