Night Seeker (21 page)

I have your back.
Ulean whipped around me, stirring the air with her frenzy.
Heather must not return to Myst.

I know, Ulean. I know. This is not easy. She was…is…my aunt.

She is your aunt no longer but one of Myst’s witches, one of her changelings. Remember—the form is deceiving. Heather will do what she must for Myst. She is owned heart and soul by the Queen of the Indigo Court and owes no other allegiance.

With Ulean playing at my back, I readied my fan in one hand, the stake in the other. At a single nod from Grieve, we charged through the last strip of woodland onto the path, aiming for Heather. Dying time again.

Heather had expected us to come in from the path, not from out of the woods, which gave us an advantage. I whipped my fan forward, whispering, “Strong gust.” The resulting wind knocked Heather off balance.

Chatter moved forward, Rhia beside him, but Heather was too quick—the transformation had given her incredible reflexes. She recovered from the breeze and whirled toward me, her hands weaving together a pattern that I knew was some sort of spell. The next moment I went flying back into the snowbank as a nearby piece of wood rose and hit me square in the midriff.

That’s right, she works with earth magic. Crap.
I rose, shaking from the blow.

Yes, she does, but she’s weak when it comes to air, and fire can destroy her, even if the light cannot.

“Please, one last time I beg of you, stop this madness. Let us help you.” Rhiannon was screaming at Heather, tears racing down her face. Her heart was breaking and there was nothing we could do to stop it from shattering.

Heather faced Rhia, looking all too ripe and luscious. She licked her lips. “My daughter. My dear, deluded child. I give you a chance. Come with me, come to Myst and let her taste you, drink you deep, bring you into our world. Just think…you and I together again. Working side by side, together, forever. You have rediscovered your flame. Think of all we could do, you and I.” She held out her hand, the look on her face sure of success.

Rhiannon paused. For a moment she seemed to waver, but then Heather laughed, and her laughter was like an icicle through the heart. Rhia stepped back and held out her hands, dropping the stake on the ground.

She whispered, “Fire, burn through me,” and a spray of fire shot forth from her fingertips, surrounding Heather, lighting the gossamer gown aflame.

Heather screamed as the flames roared to life, feeding on the cloth. The next moment, she threw herself into a
snowbank, extinguishing the burning material. When she rose, a murderous smile filled her eyes.

“I can play rough, too, my darling daughter.” Another whisper, and this time the forest shook, the ground beneath our feet shifting. I lost my balance and fell, as did Rhiannon. Kaylin went sprawling over a tree trunk. Chatter and Grieve caught hold of trees to keep themselves afoot.

Heather was intoning a dark chant, deep and ancient, and terrifyingly old, and the tree next to Rhia began to topple toward her. I screamed as Chatter rushed forward, grabbing her around the waist and rolling clear just as the tree landed where she’d been standing.

I unfurled my fan. “Tornado force.” With a wave of my hand, the fan let out a low howl as a funnel cloud appeared, ripping trees from the roots as it headed directly toward Heather. My aunt screamed as the twister bore down on her. She held up her hands.

“Rock and boulder!” The earth shook between the force of the tornado and the thrusting up of some giant behemoth—and then I saw it was no monster, but a huge boulder propelling itself to the surface. Heather ducked behind it as the twister raged over her. Any normal magic-born or yummanii would have died from the force of my attack, but she belonged to the Indigo Court. She held on to the rock, her fingers exerting incredible strength to keep herself from being sucked into the vortex.

As the tornado shrieked off, I felt a tremor from my fan—it raced through my body and I wasn’t sure what was happening but I had no time to figure it out now. I grabbed my stake—this could end only one way—and headed over toward Heather.

But Rhiannon was in front of me. She’d broken free of Chatter, and stake raised, she raced to her mother. Her other hand was a ball of flame that coalesced around her fingers, shifting fire that seemed to barely faze her. Heather was just managing to stand again, when Rhiannon reached out and sent the ball of flame singing off her palm, straight into Heather’s face.

Heather screamed as the fire caught her hair and sparked
it to life, her red locks becoming a mane of flame. Once again she dropped to the ground, rolling, but as she did so, Rhiannon leaped on her, catching her on her back. She straddled Heather, bringing the stake up above her head with a wild-eyed, glassy look.

“You would kill your own mother?” Heather’s voice was soft, so much like it had been before she’d been captured. Her face a mass of burned flesh, she reached up for Rhiannon’s neck and grabbed her.

Rhiannon began to choke as she struggled against Heather’s grasp. In a raspy voice, she gasped out, “You are not my mother. You are not my mother.” Tears raced down her cheeks and fell onto Heather’s face, sizzling against the burned flesh.

And then, in a silent moment, Heather paused. Her hands fell away from Rhiannon’s neck, and she spread them wide to her sides, waiting. Rhiannon wavered, staring down at Heather.

“You have seconds, only seconds, my love,” Heather whispered. “Please, just do it. Release me. I can only keep hold of my sanity for a few seconds at a time. I love you. Don’t let me hurt you, don’t make me fight to the death or you will surely die. I am too strong, I can bend the earth to swallow us up. Rhiannon, my baby, you must let me go.” Heather’s voice was tender, like I remembered from childhood.

“Mother…I can save you—I can…” And then Rhia stopped and shook her head. “I can’t save you. There’s no coming back for you, is there?”

Heather began to weep through the burned flesh that scarred her face. “Unlike Grieve, I died. I will never live again. And I choose not to live in this state, controlled by a monster, turning into a monster. I have done horrid things since she took me. I cannot live with them on my conscience. Either I become the horror she plans, or I die. Bless me with the gift of death, Rhia. Please, please, don’t make me live like this.”

Bloody tears poured down her face. Rhia began to sob and so did I. But we had no choice. We had moments,
perhaps seconds, before Heather faded back into the freak that Myst had created. I slowly knelt beside them and reached down, kissing Heather on the forehead.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t get here in time to save you, I’m so sorry I was too late,” I whispered, pressing my hand to her cheek.

Heather’s starry darkened eyes glimmered and I could feel the rush of fury coming on her again. I turned to Rhia. “Quickly. It has to be now. Do you want me to do it?”

“Help me. I have to do it, but help me, Cicely. I need you.” Rhia gave me a horrified look and I put my hands on hers, holding the stake above Heather’s chest.

Heather smiled, then, in one last moment of clarity. “I loved you as my own daughter, Cicely. Know that. And Rhiannon—you will know your father in time. Trust me. You will know.” She closed her eyes and a snarl came to her lips. “Now, before I retreat—
now, it must be now!
” Her voice was frantic.

I held tight to Rhia’s hands. She was gripping the stake with an uncanny strength, but she was frozen. I came to her rescue and began to drive the stake down toward Heather’s chest. Rhia dropped her head back, a silent scream on her face, and she ripped the stake from my hands and plunged it into Heather’s chest by herself. A spray of blood fountained up, spattering us both, leaving a dappling of crimson against the snow.

Heather let out a low scream that echoed along the slipstream, and then a rush of wind passed by, and Ulean was there, cloaking us. My aunt lay still, a bloody symbol of what we’d been driven to.

Rhia stared at her, a look of horror on her face. And then Chatter and Grieve were there, lifting us up, away from Heather’s body. As they led us away, Kaylin went in and what he did, I could not see, but when we turned, the body was no longer there, just a spreading crimson stain, freezing to the snow as the flurries raged around us. A small pile of dust whipped up and away, into the wind.

I let out a shudder, then a sigh, and pressed my face into Grieve’s shoulder. He kissed me softly on the cheek, then
on the lips, demanding and fierce, and I lost myself in the feel of his lips against mine, of his skin against mine, of his body entwined around me. We stood, like two silent trees, rooted to the spot, tongues barely touching, softly dancing under the falling snow, until the exquisite pain of losing my aunt, of watching her die at our hands, was forced back into a corner, and blessed numbness swept over me.

Turning, I caught a glimpse of Chatter and Rhiannon. He was doing the same, comforting my cousin, kissing her, holding her, and she had lost herself in his embrace. My heart skipped a beat. This was the way it was supposed to be. Rhiannon and Chatter. Grieve and me. It felt right. It felt true.

Another moment passed, then Kaylin cleared his throat. “We should be off. I know it’s hard, but we have to reach Grandfather Cedar. We aren’t far. Let’s go.”

I broke away from Grieve. “You’re right. And on we go.” As we took up our march again, my heart was both heavy and yet—inexplicably light. We’d just killed the one woman in the world I thought of as my real mother, and yet we’d freed her. Torn her from Myst’s grasp. We’d given Heather the final gift, that of release.

I hung back, reaching for Rhiannon’s hand. We walked awhile, trudging through the snow, hand in hand. She seemed oddly calm, but I understood what she was feeling. The numbness was a blessing.

And whatever lay ahead of us, we would meet the challenge and do our best, no matter the outcome.

Another twenty minutes and Grieve said something to Chatter. Across a little clearing, we could see the cedar from my dreams—the cedar Lainule had indicated as the entrance to the tunnels leading to her heartstone.

“Grandfather Cedar,” Grieve whispered, a reverence in his voice. And indeed, the tree was taller than most any tree in the forest. It towered dark against the sky, a sentinel guarding the forest, with a trunk wide enough to build a home in. “We must find the tunnel.”

Chatter parted a swath of ferns. He knelt and blew on the surface of the snow, a faint flame whispering from his
lips to melt the snow. After a moment, the glimmering outline of a door with a brass handle atop it came into view. The door in my dreams.

“Can anyone else see this?” I asked, hoping that we’d leave no trace once we climbed into the tunnel.

“Only those of Cambyra blood,” Grieve said.

Kaylin nodded. “He’s right. I can’t see it.”

Rhia stood still, staring. “But…but…
I can
.”

“What?” I whirled, staring at her. “
You
can see it?”

She nodded, her lips pale, as she stared into my eyes. “I can see the door, Cicely.”

“Does that mean…Grieve, are you sure that only those of Cambyra Fae should be able to see it? Because if so, that means…”

“Rhiannon also possesses Fae blood in her veins.” Grieve looked at her. “You possess fire magic, like Chatter.”

“No,” she whispered, pressing her fingers to her throat. “I can’t be part Fae. Mother…she would have told me.”

“My mother never did. And Heather said you will know your father in time.” As I stared at her, a suspicion began to form in my thoughts, but I kept it to myself, not even wanting to dwell on the possibility at this point.

“We must hurry. We can speculate on Rhiannon’s heritage when we have found Lainule’s…treasure.” Grieve touched the door handle and it sprang open to his fingers, as if it had been waiting for him.

I peered into the darkened opening. A swirl of color began to spin, gold and green and brilliant blood red.
My dream, this was my dream.

I looked up at the others. “We have to take a leap of faith here. No hesitation, only action.”

And with that, I swung my legs over the edge, inhaled deeply, and before they could stop me, I pushed myself over, falling into the swirl of color, leaping into the rabbit hole.