Maylin's Gate (Book 3) (10 page)

“It’s not that simple.”

“You’ve channeled magic a thousand times and you’ve never harmed me.” Rika’s gaze met his. Starlight reflected from tears flowing down her cheeks.

“It’s different now. I’m different.”

“What happened on the pass was an accident,” Rika said. “You weren’t channeling Elan’s magic.”

“I don’t think you understand Rika. I’m changing inside. I think the headaches are a sign.” He dropped his gaze and stared at the packed snow beneath his boots. “I’m terrified.”

“Then let me help you,” Rika said. “I love you. That’s what people do when they love each other.”

“You’re too important.” He couldn’t look at her. “You’re everything to me. And the baby….” A hard lump formed in his throat and he choked on the words.

“What if we need you?” Rika said. “What if we’re all dead when you come home?”

The thought sickened him. “You can find me at Moira’s,” he said. “Or, Dragon’s Peak, but please don’t follow me.”

Rika didn’t speak for a long moment. “What do you want me to do?”

He gazed into Rika’s eyes and smiled. “I want you to find Sir Alcott. He’s excavating the ruins in the Trinity Range where Danielle found the Book of Order.”

Rika nodded.

“Tell him what’s happened here. Tell him what I’ve done.”

Rika squeezed his hand. “What then Ronan?”

A shiver raced along his spine and his eyes drifted down the mountain pass toward Ripool. “Raise an army.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Around the Forge

The sharp ring of a blacksmith’s hammer rose above the construction noise. Carpenters stood atop ladders hanging rafters across the Citadel’s new roof. Their apprentices measured and sawed sixteen-foot sections of hard oak.

Danielle pulled her cloak tight and stepped around piles of fresh sawdust and stacked boards.

The ringing grew louder and heat waves radiated from the forge’s open doorway.

Warmth. She hurried forward eager to drink in the forge’s heat. After her time in the desert, she never thought she’d welcome heat, but winter had taken a toll.

Ayralen’s mild year-round climate had spoiled her. Winter stirred memories of festiveness and celebration among the forest people.

A hard pang tugged inside her chest. She’d never experience another Heartwood winter.

The ringing grew louder and she paused inside the forge’s open door. Welcome heat washed over her face and hands. She untied her cloak and draped it over her arm.

Arber’s bald head glistened. The guardian stood over a black anvil pounding a piece of red-hot steel.

When the steward told her she could find Arber in the forge, she thought the man mistaken. Arber Stroman hadn’t spent ten minutes inside a forge during his years in the Heartwood.

“That’s it. Turn it over and work the hammer near the guard,” a second man said. “You need to flatten that section.”

Arber nodded without looking up.

She suppressed a smile. Had Arber taken up an apprenticeship?

Arber moved sideways and dipped the blade in a water barrel beside the anvil.

She started to speak and froze.

The second man appeared when Arber moved. The smith’s blond beard disguised his features, but she would recognize the man anywhere.

“Jeremy?” She said.

Jeremy’s head swiveled toward the doorway and he smiled. Sweat streaked the front of Jeremy’s leather smock, and the shield knight had tied his hair back in a single knot.

When had Jeremy’s hair grown long? Her legs slackened under Jeremy’s penetrating gaze. She entered the forge and hung her clock on a peg beside the door. “I wouldn’t have believed it, but here you are.” Her mouth hung open and she gawked at the shield knight. “You’re a blacksmith?”

Jeremy pushed aside an errant lock of sweat-soaked hair. “I am.” The knight’s gaze drifted to the stone floor, “Well, I’m a close approximation anyway.”

What else didn’t she know? She had spent the last month so consumed with the heartwood, she ignored Jeremy. “Who taught you?”

“I apprenticed under a smith right here in Freehold while I trained at the Citadel,” Jeremy said. “After I took the shard, I tried to keep my skills sharp here at the Citadel’s forge.”

“He’s selling himself short,” Arber said and peeled off a stained pair of leather gloves. “Jeremy’s a master smith.”

“Can you make shard blades?” She said.

Jeremy nodded. “Devery taught me last year. I’m not as good as him, but I’ve finished a few blades.”

“You’re teaching Arber?” She said.

“He is,” Arber said. “We’re in desperate need of blacksmiths, and Jeremy needs the help.”

That a guardian of Arber’s skill and stature would plug a leaky hole came as no surprise.

Rather than pitching in, she had spent her time chasing a fantasy. Maybe Trace had been right about her.

Arber mopped the sweat from his brow. “Did you pry anything out of Trace?”

She touched her leather belt pouch. “Yes. Well, sort of.” She spent the next few minutes recalling her conversation with Trace.

“You’re doing the right thing Danielle,” Arber said.

“You think so?”

Arber nodded. “Don’t let Trace make you doubt yourself. You’re on the right track.”

“Trace said he didn’t know where the sapling came from or where to find the heartwood tree,” she said.

“The visitor,” Jeremy said.

“Excuse me?” She said.

“When you asked him about the visitor it caught him off-guard,” Jeremy said. “What if the visitor gave him the sapling?”

“I think Jeremy has the right of it,” Arber said.

Her pulse quickened. “If the visitor gave Trace the sapling then where did it come from?”

“I’d wager the silver key is at the heart of this mystery,” Arber said.

“Earlier today, you mentioned Aren Broderick,” she said. “You said he handed the key to Trace?”

“That’s right,” Arber said.

“Aren must know more about the key,” she said. “Like what it unlocks or where it came from.”

“It’s a good place to start,” Arber said.

“Pack your bags,” she said. “We need to find Brees.”

“Brees?” Jeremy said. “So you’re going back to the desert? I’m going with you Danielle.”

“No. I can’t ask that of you,” she said.

“You didn’t ask.” Jeremy stripped away a sweat-soaked shirt revealing a muscled chest beneath. “But I’m going anyway.”

Her gaze swept over Jeremy’s chest and rippled stomach. Her face flushed.

Jeremy reached for a fresh shirt and slipped it on. “You’ll need my shields.”

“He’s right. We could use Jeremy’s help in the desert,” Arber said. “I would’ve given anything for a knight’s shield during my last trip through the Chukchi.”

She nodded. “Alright, but hurry.”

“Will Brees be able to find his brother?” Arber said.

“I hope so,” she said. “I’m counting on it.”

“He’s at the excavation site in the Trinity Range,” Jeremy said. “He and Keely left last week. Sir Alcott uncovered something and needed a set of translations from his office.”

“Then we’re off to the Trinity Range,” she said.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Betrayed

Tara sat bolt upright and choked. Her eyes stung and tears streamed down her cheeks. Leaning forward in bed, she covered her mouth as she gagged and wretched.

Smoke filled the air inside her one-room cottage. Orange flames licked the walls beside the closed bedroom door.

She stretched her mind outward and searched for her pets. Nothing. Memories of the explosion flooded back. The avalanche had destroyed her minions. The humans kidnapped General Demos.

Panic seized her and she tossed back the covers. Why hadn't one of the troopers come for her? Had the humans set Ripool ablaze? Her throat constricted and she rolled from the bed and hit the floor with a thud.

Pain flared in her broken arm and she screamed. Her nightgown tangled in her legs and she rolled onto her back.

Flames licked the cottage's wooden rafters and raced toward the far wall.

She yanked at the nightgown and pulled lace high around her waist. Billowing smoke burned her throat and eyes. Mucus streamed from her nostrils and she pulled in short hard fought breaths.

Less than a dozen feet away, the closed door beckoned.

She lurched forward using her forearms and pain erupted in her arm. Clutching her nightgown in her good hand, she stood and ambled toward the door outlined by a blaze of fire.

Heat, unlike any in her centuries of life, hit her like a sledgehammer. She gasped and staggering backwards.

Three feet away the door loomed. A wooden board rested in two brackets. A security precaution she'd demanded. Fire consumed the brackets and the ends of each board.

Using her good arm she lifted the board and tossed it aside.

The board popped and cracked engulfed by flames licking the wall

She pulled the door handle and screamed.

The stench of burning flesh mingled with the smoke. Her flesh.

The iron door handle glowed orange and her palm throbbed.

Screaming, she rammed her shoulder against the door. It didn't budge.

A whoosh sounded above her and flame shot across a beam while a second board fell to the floor near her feet.

Panic seized her and she kicked the door near the handle.

The door didn't budge by a fraction. Blocked.

A sickening realization set her stomach spinning. She had endured too many assassination attempts not to recognize the signs. She whirled toward a desk sitting against the adjacent wall.

Last night's dinner, roast chicken and beets, sat on a tray untouched.

She had no doubt the food would contain poison. Whoever wanted her dead would believe the poison had either killed her or left her unconscious.

The flames spread halfway across the ceiling. Chunks of burning rafter fell in rapid succession igniting her bed in flames.

In minutes, fire would engulf the cottage. She squinted through the smoke.

On the far wall, a single window stood closed.

She expected assassins waiting on the other side

Beside the dinner tray her gaze locked on a fist-sized pewter paperweight.

She stumbled ahead and grabbed the paperweight. She grabbed her white dress hanging from a nearby wall peg. With both items in hand, she crawled toward the window keeping low.

The fire hadn't consumed the window and she pressed her back against the wall. She clutched the paperweight and the dress near her body and paused. Her breathing came hard and ragged. She couldn't wait any longer or she might pass out.

With a grunt, she hurled the paperweight through the window.

Glass shattered and the window's wooden frame exploded. Fresh air raced inward and smoke poured through the opening.

Behind her, the fire drank in the fresh air and flared spreading across the ceiling. Fire engulfed the desk, the bed, and her personal belongings stuffed inside a chest of drawers.

Terror clutched at her mind and she recoiled from the flame. Outside the window, frigid air called. Like a welcome friend, she turned to embrace the night.

Smoke billowed out the window, but the assassin remained hidden.

The assassin would keep away from the window. In an instant, she could take a pet, and she had no doubt the assassin would not underestimate her threat. She hadn't kept a baerinese pet in decades. Not after her vow to General Demos. If she broke her vow, would General Demos welcome her back? Would her bloody reign begin again?

A wall of heat slammed against her back, and a rafter fell in the room's center battering her bed and desk.

She could no longer wait. She slung her dress through the shattered window and dangled it outside like fish bait.

In succession, two sharp thuds slammed into the cottage's wall and pinned the dress in place.

She screamed for affect and pulled herself through the window. Her bare feet touched the icy cobbled streets and she ran without looking back.

Tapping into her precious energy, she built a wall of blackness in the space behind her. A void curtain capable of consuming physical objects. The curtain would protect her from the next bolt, but at a cost. Without her pets she couldn't draw on the energy forever.

Ripool's streets stood empty. But, thousands of baeriense souls huddled inside homes and businesses. The baeriense detested winter nights.

She ran along the street, bare feet slapping the cobblestones. With fresh air filling her lungs, she gained speed and sprinted ahead.

To her right, lights glistened against the harbor’s melting water.