Siren's Fury (23 page)
“You’re aware you nearly drained the air from this room, yesss?”
“Because I can’t focus it enough. I need to narrow it in. We try again.”
He puts his hands up. “No offenssse, but I’m not sure I want to chance being suffocated in my own bleeding room. Perhaps a jaunt—”
A knock on the door sounds just before one of the Bron guards bursts in. He looks around. At the floor, the walls. At me.
“May I help you?”
The soldier’s face narrows. “Pardon, but it seemed there was an earthquake of some sort.”
“And you thought to look for it in here?” Myles says.
The guard frowns. “We just . . . I was simply ensuring you were all right. Very good, sir.”
The door closes.
“Well, your ability was strong enough to grab their attention.” Myles glares at the space where the guard was just standing. He stretches the kinks from his neck. “Might I suggest a short break in which you adjourn to your room and I stay in mine? I’d like a final nap before heading to whatever death’s being brought on by Draewulf’sss army.”
“Did you see those bodies in Rasha’s room? We don’t have time—”
“I’m simply pointing out we’ve been at it eight hoursss, and it’s now nightfall, and I, for one, have not eaten yet from that plate of less-than-mouthwatering mush sitting on the desk. Nor have I enjoyed the peace and silence that comes when a woman’sss doing whatever she does
elsewhere
.”
Eight hours?
I look down at my sweat-soaked shirt and stringy hair. Does the vortex inside of me absorb time as well as power?
“Might I beg food at leassst? After that we can resume up on the roof if you promise to refrain from speaking. Perhaps tossss things over the side at the Dark Army while we’re at it.”
I nod but I’m hardly listening because something’s caught my eye. I frown. My deformed hand. My wrist is straighter. As if the broken bones in my gimpy fingers have almost smoothed back into place.
I lift it to him.
His expression doesn’t show the surprise I expect. Instead he almost seems pleased.
As if he was expecting it.
I stare at him but he just shrugs. “I’ve spent the past two monthsss trying to show you what you can become. You wouldn’t listen.”
“And what am I becoming?” I ask cautiously.
“Perfection.”
The way he rolls it out, as if savoring the word on his tongue . . . It evokes that image of him and me standing over Draewulf’s dead body and the entire Hidden Lands together. “At least in body and ability. Because I’m fairly certain your personality’s hopelessss.”
A
N HOUR LATER, OUR STOMACHS SATED ON FRUIT and chewy bread, Myles and I slip up the staircase toward the roof. Hissing fills my head even from five corridors away. I try to shake the noise off but it just seeps in, like angry ocean foam spitting at the back of my neck. It makes my skull ache. I shiver. “Don’t they blasted ever stop?”
“Who?”
“Those
things
with their ghost language.”
He tips his head and gives me a curious sweep with his eye.
“What?”
He clears his expression and peers ahead. “An effective method of communication that’s undetectable to people for the most part.”
“Can
you
understand them?”
“No, but the fact that my mirages work on them means they understand usss.”
I halt on one of the steps. “If that’s the case, then why not use your ability to stop all of them? You could stop the war! Why the litches are we wasting time sneaking around here when—?”
“As flattering as your confidence is, my abilities do have
limitsss. One of them being their lessened impact the more widespread a space they’re used on. Sneaking us up here is easy, but deceiving an entire army is a bit much even for me.” He continues climbing.
I frown. “Why not use it on a few at a time then? Get the wraiths to turn against Draewulf or Isobel, or each other even. What if they’re gathering information or they’re the ones that killed those guards and maid?”
“Oh, I’m quite certain they’re gathering information. And I think any number of people or
things
could’ve killed those guardsss. But as I’ve told you, some gifts are best left unannounced until they’re needed. Much like yoursss.” He pushes a door open and enters first. It leads us to another stairwell, which, if the cold air is any indication, is close to the roof. How he’s so adept at maneuvering us through the Castle, I can only imagine.
How much time did he spend here selling out King Sedric and Faelen?
Another door, this one heavier, thicker, looms from the dim, and when he clicks the handle and shoves the metal open, we’re suddenly outside.
On the roof.
In the middle of a lush garden.
The hissing clobbers my head. It’s a million times louder up here and requires a minute to get my bearings amid the noise. After days of only seeing copper walls, everything looks alive and green in the dim—the white brittle trees and tiny flowers and the trickle of a brook. And the sky. Deep, midnight blue, lit up by freckles of stars winking through the leaves. Was this Eogan’s mother’s garden?
A private oasis in the middle of madness.
I slip my way through the flower bushes and forest and follow the trickling brook, half wary that there’s someone else up here and
half enamored at the size of the enchanted space. The creek leads us a good many paces toward a waterfall that is taller than three of me put together.
Myles’s footsteps might be silent on the soft grass, but his whisper sounds loud. “This way.” He leads me through the small forest to the side of the roof nearest the door through which we came. We stop at a low wall that overlooks the main portion of the city, and when I look down on it, the spindle streets are lit up, making the place a giant glowing button.
“Mother of a bolcrane.”
“Hmm. Rather nice at night, isn’t it?”
But I don’t mean the city. I mean what’s caught my eye beyond the city. I point over the great wall encircling the capital to where the incessant hissing is coming from. To the soot hovering in the air in a gray dust cloud over that mass of black, crawling darkness. It’s interspersed with fires flickering in sparks like a thousand separate stars on a tar canvas. They are surrounding the city as far as my eyes can see.
That sickening feeling that invaded my gut when the wraiths entered the War Room earlier tears through me now full force. I stare at the army. No wonder Myles’s ability couldn’t work on the entirety. How can there be that many? The guilt slips up my chest again.
Perhaps Rasha and I should’ve killed Draewulf when we had the chance.
“Where did he get them all?” I whisper.
Myles doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. Something niggles in my memory, suggesting I already know. The voice of that terrified soldier who’d had too much to drink at the common house I visited with Colin and Breck.
“Draewulf’s plagues turned men unearthly. Into monsters.”
“Did you know about them when you came here years ago?” I can taste the bitterness in my tone.
“Only through rumorsss. The difference between Bron and Faelen’s views on it at the time was that Bron actually knew Draewulf still existed. After Eogan’sss father and Draewulf had a falling out, it was thought he’d gone into hiding and let Lady Isobel take leadership over their dying land. Now, it seemsss, we know why they were dying.”
“He was using them for experiments.” I shudder and recall Eogan telling Colin and me as much a few weeks ago. “He made his own monsters.”
I let the horror of that settle into my bones, and with it comes a deep, soul-wrenching sorrow. “Why now?”
Myles frowns.
“Why is he doing this now? Why’d he come to Faelen at all when he could’ve just taken Bron with this army at any time?”
He shrugs. “Maybe he needed something from Faelen. Or someone,” he adds, staring at me meaningfully. Then turns away. “Or maybe he simply needed more men to turn into wraith soldiersss.”
“So he took some of our Faelen army for this? That doesn’t make sense. Why not just take them from Bron?”
“You forget Bron’s forces were incredibly powerful until you demolished half of them. I’m surprised Draewulf hasn’t thanked you for that yet. And as far as his beasts . . .”
Something in his tone drags my gaze up to his face.
What I see there makes my stomach turn. He actually looks like he admires them.
“Considering he couldn’t force allegiance on a large scale, and he couldn’t reproduce naturally, beyond bequeathing the world
with Lady Isobel, of course . . . Really it’s an ingenious idea when you think about it.”
My gut twists. “You’re despicable.”
I turn toward the forest only to pause as something hatches in my mind. Something he said. Something I’ve never thought of before. I frown and flip around. “How
is
Isobel his daughter? He’s a wolf and she’s human.”
He waves a hand. “He wasn’t always a wolf. Nor
is
he always, seeing as he does in fact have his own body. Rumor is, up until ten or so years ago, he could still switch into his own human form. And believe it or not, despicable men can and frequently do tend to marry.” His smile appears, but I swear there’s a hint of sadness underneath. “Never to normal women, mind you.”
I study him. Study that sadness.
Until he covers it up with a smooth smirk. “The story goesss Draewulf was smitten and tried to change his ways for a Mortisfaire who bore him Isobel. But like all men who have vision for the bigger things in life, he couldn’t be swayed from his purpose. He returned to his wolf form and pursued it.”
“And what
was
his purpose?”
“Ah, that’s the silver question, isn’t it? With the new developmentsss . . .” He waves a hand at the surrounding army. “I think we can safely assume it’s still of the world-dominion sort. How he plansss to do that though is what I suggest we figure out before it’s too late.”
Before it’s too late.
“You mean how he plans to use us to make that happen.” I stare out at the crawling mass. “Do you think he’s going to make us all . . . like
them
?”
“Hulls, let’s hope not. Those rags . . .” He adjusts his limp cravat at his neck. “Ssso unbecoming.”
“Can’t you stop
any
of it? I mean, no offense, but if your abilities are only good enough to sneak around the Castle, I’m beginning to doubt their usefulness.”
“My ability will be used effectively when the time isss needed,” he snaps.
“What are you holding out for?”
“Nothing. I simply see no sense in wasting it. Nor should you. Now here.” He puts his hand on my arm and shuts his eyes. The next second they flutter open and he stares at me as if I’ve turned into a bolcrane. “Can you feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“The energy you’re drawing. From them.” He flicks a hand toward the black crawling mass and murmurs, and the next second he’s forcing an image. From the ground rises a wraith from the Dark Army. Rags seeped in a putrid-smelling oily substance drag as he walks toward me. His hands are made of bolcrane claws and his face is that of a dead man’s. “Take him down,” Myles whispers.
I inhale, and to my surprise, he’s right. I am drawing energy. Out here in the night air and span of atmosphere, it’s as if my body remembers how to do this. How to come alive with power. Just like with my old Elemental abilities, my reactions and control are the same, even if what’s feeding this surge feels colder. Stickier. Darker.
I lift my hand and it flattens, the bones not so bent as I press it against the wraith’s chest, and it’s so real I feel his clammy skin and taste his defiling breath as he lunges for me. I duck and shove my palm harder against him, and abruptly I can sense the energy drain inside him, fueling the hunger inside me. His eyes go blank and his body falls, dissipating into a gray fog.
M
YLES AND I HAVE RUN THROUGH THE SCENARIO twice when, just as the last of it fades, the hissing filling the night air spikes louder and I swear I hear actual voices. Myles must hear them too because he tugs my sleeve and steps away from the low metal wall and into a shadow thrown by the white trees. It takes a minute before I locate the voices as coming from the far side of the roof. The speakers don’t seem to be moving this way.
My body tingles with the energy in the air, the energy I’ve been drawing on. I glance at Myles and promptly mutter a curse at him when he whispers up a new façade for both of us, which turns me into a short, balding Bron soldier. I spin on my heel and creep into the forest toward them.
As we draw closer, the gurgling water muffles the voices, but from what I can tell, three speakers are arguing on the other side of the waterfall. Slipping next to the noisy brook and then round the giant rock outcrop, I wedge behind a thick spurt of trees. Sinking my feet into the grass, I peer through the branches.
My lungs arrest.
Draewulf, Isobel, and a wraith.
Myles’s slimy hand finds my shoulder and squeezes, whether in reminder to be silent or because he’s a nervous bolcrane baby I’m not sure, but I shake him off and, sliding out a knife, hunch down to watch the three carrying on about something.
“Why not crush the Bron soldiers?” Isobel’s voice rings out. “We can take full control instead of this farce of working with them!”
“Because, my shortsighted daughter,” Draewulf snarls, “we don’t expend resources for the sake of a control we already have.” His hood is thrown back, revealing jagged hair smeared back in a distinctly unlike-Eogan style. He looks at her with a twisted expression that is at once hateful and weary. The effect only makes him loom more dangerous, like it’s requiring effort not to snap.
“Yes, and morphing that many would require more energy than either you or I should spare at the moment. But if we’re still in Bron when the Assembly realizes this is a coup—”
“They already know it’s a coup and they will believe what they need to in order to stay alive. Just like draining an animal’s blood—do it too fast and you’ll waste the experience. Drain them slow and you’ll get the rush of seeing them whimper and succumb, my dear.”
