The Coming Storm (24 page)

He paced away, paced back, thinking. “She should be malleable enough by now. We can end it. You can do it. Give her the soul-eater. A gift. Make her promise to wear it. That’s all and we have her. Her and the magic.”

A sudden silence fell. Hesitation. Wariness. Fear.

Geric practically shrank into the chair, all his glee vanishing.

Tolan turned, his eyes narrowing. “What haven’t you told me? There’s something, I can feel it.”

Reluctantly, Geric said, looking away. “Not yet. We can do nothing yet. Not until her majority.”

“What?” Tolan demanded, his eyes furious.

Taking a breath, Geric said, in a rush, “She’s bound not to, not even by me. I made her promise. We spent days crafting the oath, getting the words just so, talking it over, thinking about it. Looking for loopholes and dangers. At first it was too long, too much for a child. We simplified it. As soon as she was old enough to speak, to understand, we made her swear. We bound her not to make promises until her majority, when she was old enough to understand the consequences. No magic where someone might see. No promises, not even to her mother or I. Not one. Save this one promise. And she did. She grew up normal, unknowing of her heritage, of the shadow over her. No one would know. No one does.”

Tolan went still again. Considering.

Frozen in the act of staring through that little hole, Ailith didn’t move. Couldn’t move. If her muscles cramped, she didn’t feel it. She was numb. Stunned.

Part of her mind whirled, calling up a dozen memories. All the times she’d tried to lie but couldn’t. Sitting in her mother’s lap, her young heart broken, trying to cry because Elena from the village wouldn’t play with her anymore. Ailith wouldn’t promise to be friends forever. It had hurt so bad but she couldn’t cry. Her mother had soothed her as she fought the grief over the lost friendship. The thousands of little oaths children swear to each other. Promise not to tell, Ailith? But she couldn’t, although she didn’t, as long as no one asked her directly. Swear not to do that again. She wouldn’t swear but she didn’t do it. How many little compacts, how many small oaths?

Memories of stories told around campfires. Horrible stories. An Otherling who’d started a terrible wildfire, another who’d drowned villages.

The other part of her mind waited and watched. What would Tolan do? What would he do now?

“A few days longer,” he said, suddenly, startling her. “A few days and Riverford is secure. The soul-eater has her. On the day of her majority you will give it to her. A gift from her loving father for all to see. You’ll make her swear to wear it always as proof of her love for you and then her Dwarven blood and Elven blood won’t be able to reject it. Now I know why it took so long for Selah and how she got it off. Her Elven blood. You have to bind those folk to give it time to take hold. We should have left it longer, given it more time to wear away her will. Ah, now I understand. A gift from her loving father on the day of her majority. You’ll make her swear to wear it always as proof of her love for you.”

Geric nodded.

So did Tolan, that odd mirroring. The excitement practically had him dancing.

Pacing across the room he waved at Geric as he strode out the door. “Enough. Get out. Go. I need to think. This has possibilities we hadn’t considered. No, we hadn’t considered. This is the reason I’m here, this opportunity. Yes, it is. Opportunities, yes.”

Geric lumbered out of the chair.

Doors closed.

Ailith sank to the floor. Her knees ached and her feet were numb. Her mind was a blank.

It was insane. She didn’t know what to think, didn’t know what to do. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t real.

She could almost feel her father’s hands on her face, his voice in her ears. A promise. The words were just out of her reach.

Otherling? No. Otherlings went mad
. That’s what her father had feared. It was too much. She couldn’t think of this. It couldn’t be real and it couldn’t be true.

The castle was quiet. Peering out the door, she made certain the way was clear then made her way up the stairs and crawled onto the bed.

Otherling. No
.

She buried her head in her pillow and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about it. It was too much. Where had her life gone? Everything she thought she knew and believed had been turned upside down. All she wanted to do was sleep, sleep and forget. Pretend she hadn’t heard what she heard.

Sleep was release. Sleep took her down into darkness. Ailith welcomed it.

Darkness.

In the dreaming darkness strange shifting misshapen shadows moved on rough stone walls. An odd sing-song voice whispered somewhere. Dreaming, but she knew that she was and she didn’t. Firelight and shadow danced on the walls. Odd shadows, huge. Dark, dripping walls. Mold bloomed on the stones like cankerous sores. Earth floors and iron doors. Flickering shadows.

A whispering voice, speaking. That strangely even voice, the odd sing-song.

It chilled her now, chilled her to the bone. It sounded slippery, slurred, almost drunken. And mad. Completely and utterly mad.

“Soon, soon. It begins soon, My Lord,” he crooned. “Raven’s Nest, first, and blood. The others will fall behind the snows. By the time they know of it, the north will be corpses and shadows. Corpses and shadows where only the dark things run and the ghosts walk. The heartland will be open.”

An odd sibilance hissed in the darkness, a voice that wasn’t a voice but a noise that hummed in her head, speaking, but she couldn’t quite hear it. Couldn’t quite understand it.

Unwillingly, she drifted toward a door.

Oh no
, she thought,
I don’t want to go closer. I don’t want to see this, I don’t want to hear it.

Drifting closer whether she willed it or not. Her legs felt like water, she wanted to run but she couldn’t. Her breath came short. If she’d felt afraid that night in the ruins it was nothing to the terror she felt in that moment. No, she didn’t want to see.

She didn’t want them to see her.

Like a feather on a breeze, tossed and turned, she drifted above the floor and drew ever closer to a door. A dungeon door, made of iron but gaping open. In a corner between the door and wall like a pile of rags was a body. She didn’t know him. And was grateful she didn’t. What had been done to him was terrible. Shocking. There was blood everywhere.

A lot of it, sprayed over the wall.

Closer.

“Yes, it’s taken care of. They’ll never see it. Their eyes will be on the north.”

A murmur, a sound that was almost a voice.

No, please, no
. Almost there.

Sheer terror spread through her veins like ice water. She didn’t want to know what was on the other side of that door.

“Did you know, did you know?” Tolan asked. In his glee he sounded insane, mad and nearly mindless. “The daughter, she’s Otherling.”

Sudden sharp attention. Ailith could feel it.

Like a wave it rolled through and past her, a craving that was almost like lust. A hunger, an exhilaration. Ailith could feel it. It made her cringe.

Almost there.

Please make it stop, please. I don’t want to see
. But she was dragged inexorably forward.

“She’s almost ours, the soul-eater has her. We’ll seal it to her on the day of her majority.”

The door was open and through it she could see.

A back. Sandy hair.

Something was wrong, all wrong, the head wasn’t right, the back wasn’t right. None of it was right. He turned a little, and the familiar features of his nondescript face ran like warm wax, shifting and sloughing, the eyes receded then tried to shift back. Long fingers that looked more like talons, with claws that retracted.

Half Tolan, half something else, something with mad eyes and sharp inward-facing teeth.

It was what was beyond him though that made her scream, what Tolan had been talking to that sent her flying out of sleep.

She saw it.

And it had seen her.

In seconds she threw on clothes, scrabbled under the bed for her swords and bow, flung them on even as she ran for the door.

From somewhere deep below her she heard something roar in a terrible fury.

The back stair and down, her feet sliding in the flour on the floor of the kitchen. The astonished cook backed away. Snatching at the table to keep her feet under her as she scrambled to the door.

A quick look outside. Nothing.

A look up. Darker shadows against the sky.

Don’t look this way
, she pleaded as she fled across the courtyard.

Duck around the stairs.

A shout somewhere. The alarm was up.

There’s no time left
.

Slipping through the narrow, hidden door, she drew it shut as quickly and quietly as she dared.

Utter darkness awaited her, the starlight only barely bright enough to see where her feet were. She ran, counting the stairs, her hand scraping the wall. One slip and all would be done. Which might be a blessing compared to if they caught her.

That man, that body tossed so carelessly into the corner, what they had done to him… She shuddered.

Each morning she’d practiced, counting the stairs so she wouldn’t forget and nearly run off them again. Her knees shook.

She could hear the shouts above her now.

“Smoke!” she hissed, clinging to the rope.

Something bumped her legs and she almost cried out.

A mottled shadow below her, a quick shake of head that made his mane whisper.

She dropped onto his back.

“Horse, if you value your life, if you’ve ever wanted to truly run, do it now.”

She felt his muscles bunch and ducked her head low, clinging to his mane as he leaped down the last of the hill and raced for the picket line. His muscles bunched to leap over it.

In the tower Geric cowered near the top of the stairs as Tolan stormed past him into Ailith’s rooms. The covers were thrown back in a jumble. She was gone. Otherwise, the room was neat, too neat for the supposedly thoughtless creature that had roamed these halls, as he’d seen with her mother.

How? How had she done it?

The soul-eater…

Where was it
? He could almost feel it. It should have been here, it should have been in the bed. Claws extended Tolan ripped the mattress apart. Nothing. Like a dog on a scent he turned his head, turned it to and fro.

Caradoc arrived at a run and stopped, frozen. Some instinct warned him to keep his distance as Geric did.

It was a wise move, Tolan’s blood was already up. He’d have ripped Caradoc to shreds and feasted on his entrails.

Where was it
?

Tolan knew it was here, if it wasn’t on her, it was still here somewhere. He quartered the room, feeling it closer. A string, where none should be, in the garderobe. He pulled on it, drew the filthy thing up into the room and screamed his fury.

He spun, holding it out. “No magic, you say? She doesn’t know, you say? She knows something!”

Geric shank further against the burning heat in those eyes.

His head turned on his shoulders, impossibly, his body still facing Geric, his head now looking at Caradoc behind him. “Find her. I want her back. Now!”

Caradoc unfroze, turned and ran, shouting orders to the guards below.

Advancing on Geric, who crouched in a corner, Tolan hissed, “Where will she go?”

Looking up at him, looking into those terrible eyes, Geric said, “To her grandmother’s. Selah’s mother. To Delae. Or to Gwillim of the Hunters. She’s always been fond of him.”

That scream echoed across the hills, sent a chill down Ailith’s spine. Fear spilled icy tremors down her spine as her fingers clutched Smoke’s mane where she crouched over him. He ran flat out, stretching for speed as if he knew the race was life and death.