Those Who Fear the Darkness (BloodRunes: Book 2) (10 page)

Their group stopped back at Aileen's cottage
to pack and meet up with Charles, who despite his wild stories,
seemed just as surprised as Layna to encounter a talking horse.

“Well, I never,” he had said when Echo
introduced herself into his mind. “I'm not bein' hoodwinked here am
I?” His reaction made Layna feel slightly less like the untraveled
maid that she really was. “You see?” he announced in Layna and
Gryffon’s general direction, “I told you there were strange things
brewin’.” He flashed a fearful look at Echo and added, “No
offense.”

At Layna's urging, Gryffon took a quick nap
while they readied the supplies. The fact that he didn't object to
this suggestion was reason enough for Layna to know that he sorely
needed this rest. She covertly sent a healing tendril his way,
lending him some of her own energy.

In short order they had their provisions
ready and they each mounted their respective horses, with Aileen
riding Echo as she had threatened. Without further ado, they set
out across the field where just this morning an impenetrable
barrier had blocked passage for hundreds of years. There was not
even a line across the grass to betray the earlier separation. As
they crossed the field, Layna half-expected some sort of feeling as
they crossed the invisible line, but there was nothing. They simply
rode farther and farther out of Gelendan and closer and closer to
Endlyfta, the capital of a country Layna had never dreamed to set
foot in.
A country with talking horses
.

Echo shook out her brilliant mane which
sparkled in the sunlight, and she looked over her shoulder at
Layna. Instantly, Layna refortified her shields, wondering if the
horse-woman had overheard this thought. If so, at least it was
laughter behind the large deep brown eyes, and not hostility.
This is a strange adventure I've gotten myself into, all right.
I just hope I live to see the ending.

*

Jezebel blinked her eyes slowly. Her lids
felt heavy as she struggled to focus on her surroundings.

Dark blobs eventually started to take form as
the images cleared, and her eyes adjusted to the light. She was
aware of a tingling sensation throughout her body, as though she
had been hit by a lightning bolt that had set fire to every inch of
her.

The fire had died down now, however, and she
could withstand the dull ache that came from within. Automatically
she reached for the power to help her heal and she cried out, a
strange sound to her ears as if it was being torn from her
throat.

My channels are gone!
There was a void
where once she drew strength. A terrible feeling of loss and
emptiness spread over her, and her head lolled back on the table
she was lying on in despair.

Then her eyes narrowed as she took in her
surroundings.
Where am I?
In half consciousness she
remembered seeing someone, someone she knew.
Who was it?
Her
mind felt as fuzzy as the rest of her and she moved to raise her
hand to rub her eyes.

Except that she couldn't move it.

It caught on something tied firmly around her
wrist and apparently attached to the table.
So, I am a prisoner
here. Just wait until my father finds out!
She thought angrily,
but another part of her mind corrected her.
No,
it said
,
just wait until YOU get out of here and find out who did it to
you
.

Even as she had these thoughts they confused
her.
Who was her father? Who am I for that matter?
Instinctively she moved all her limbs, flailing against the bonds
the best she could. But they didn't budge, each were quite snugly
stuck to the table.

She sighed and leaned her head back again,
tired from the effort. Obviously she had been hurt, she could feel
still healing wounds, and she was certain that normally she would
not feel so drained from the momentary struggle. She once more
tried to force her mind to focus. Snippets of memory floated before
her vision, but they were elusive and she couldn't make any sense
of them.

Men in black robes, an older man- perhaps her
father-, glowing runes, dogs barking, and time and time again the
same face in bright light.

She strained her head to look down at
herself. As she had already determined, she was fastened to a large
wooden table by shackles on her wrists and ankles. She was naked
and she could make out the faded pink of old wounds almost
completely covering her body, a huge long scar down the length of
her torso. Her eyes widened.

How long have I been here?
It was
rather disturbing to have lost track of what was going on,
especially in light of the implications from the extent of her
wounds. Perhaps there had been an accident and she was recovering
from it.
But then why am I shackled? To keep me from thrashing
and further injuring myself?

Unlikely at this stage in the process
.
She would simply assume that her captor didn't want her to leave.
And that made her suspicious of him.

Him. Yes, I just saw a man in here not
long ago. And then he had disappeared
. She tried to picture his
face in her mind and slowly an image formed. She felt an odd tickle
in the back of her mind, but it was gone before she could identify
it. She had thought she had known him.

A sharp *pop* suddenly filled the small room
and the man whose face she had just been imagining appeared out of
thin air before her. She would have jumped had she not been so
firmly attached to the table.

“I will not,” he was saying to someone out of
her range of sight.

She eyed him narrowly. He was an extremely
handsome man, a long white scar running down his otherwise
statue-worthy features. He was expensively garbed and was wearing a
circlet on his head.
Is this my King?
It wouldn't surprise
her, though she had momentarily lost her memory, she knew she was
something special. She had no doubt she was a very important
person.
Perhaps there had been an accident after all, and the
King himself is overlooking my recovery. Hmm, and maybe the guards
had insisted that I be restrained as in my wounded state I might
lash out with my powers and accidentally hurt or kill him.

Except that my powers are gone
.

She felt the emptiness creeping back over
her, threatening to pull her into a depression.

No!
She thought fiercely. Her power
couldn't be gone. It was simply hurt, just like her body had been,
and she would do anything -
anything
- to help it heal as
well.

The man was pacing now.

“But that's not the plan!” he wailed,
sounding awfully whiny coming from such a strong looking man.
But that's only to be expected of a man
.
They always
think they are better, despite their obvious faults
. She must
have missed what the other person had said while she was lost in
thought, and she strained her head to see who it was that he was
talking to.

She wasn't able to turn completely around,
and only succeeded in giving her neck a good pinch before she gave
up, resorting to watching the man. Jezebel imagined the unknown
speaker giving him a look since he sighed and rubbed his temples in
reply to some silent comment.

“Fine,” he stated and started to walk past
her. He paused next to the table and looked down, as though
noticing her for the first time. “It seems I will have a new job
for you, my dear. Better rest up,” he said shortly to her and then
continued on behind her.

She grew suddenly tired, and her eyelids felt
heavy. She struggled to keep them open, but fog closed in around
her, and soon she faded back into slumber.

*

Nathair stormed up the stairs, struggling to
control his emotions. He could feel himself slipping back into his
childhood.
She has that effect on me. And now she wants to
change all of my plans.

He growled deep in his throat. He reached the
top of the stairs, and found his mother lounging behind his
desk.

“You've done well,” she purred at him.

Nathair involuntarily shuddered, though he
immediately reprimanded himself.
I'm not a little boy any
more
.

“Yes, I have,” he answered shortly, “and I
did it without you.”

She tilted her head to the side and the
tiniest of smiles escaped her lips. “Indeed. So tell me, what
exactly was your brilliant plan that I am so disrupting with my
humble suggestion?”

Nathair opened his mouth automatically to
explain it to her, and then clamped it shut again in annoyance.

“It's not as if I don't already know,” she
said quietly, giving him a look that one might give a young child
who has misbehaved. When he stubbornly maintained his silence, she
stood gracefully from the seat and came to stand by him. She seemed
not to have aged a day since last he saw her, her beauty matched by
none but himself as she too had sculpted her flesh to her liking.
In fact, it had been she who first introduced him to the
possibility.

She drew close to him until the sweet smell
of her enveloped his senses and she leaned forward to whisper in
his ear, her breath tickling the hairs on his neck and causing the
most unwanted sensation.

“You've never found anyone else have you,”
she whispered and he closed his eyes trying to block her out. “No
one who could do what we can.”

She raised her hand to his face, stroking the
scar along his cheek with her thumb. Then she turned her hand over
and slid her ring across his jaw sharply, drawing blood.

He let out an intake of breath at the sudden
pain and the sensation as she opened her power to him. He felt
himself reacting and hated himself for it, welcoming the pain as
punishment. She took a deep breath and he found himself unable to
tear his view from her heaving chest as she watched him in
excitement her full glistening lips parted in anticipation.

He raised his arms to push her away but she
caught them and pressed them onto herself. The warmth of her body
threatened to overwhelm his sensations but he fought it back, his
hands shaking with the effort to stop them from moving where they
wanted to go.

“No!” he fairly shouted at her, pushing her
from him in a sudden burst. “I will not let you control me again,
Mother.”

She stumbled back from him, and tripped over
her dress to fall ungraciously to the floor. She gazed back up at
him through her eyelashes, looking very indignant sprawled on the
plush carpet.

She snarled at him. “Fine, don't listen to
me. When your plan blows up in your face you know where to find
me.”

She pulled herself to her feet while Nathair
watched unmoving, unwilling to trust himself to touch her to offer
her a hand to stand. She stood there staring him down for a long
moment before gracefully taking herself out of the room without
another word.

Nathair breathed a sigh of relief and sat
down heavily onto the couch, his hands buried in his hair. He spent
a long moment in that position, grasping at the balled handfuls of
hair as though they were a life-line and he took several steadying
breaths. He brought a hand up to his chin where he could feel the
sting of the cut.

When he removed it, he could see that it was
still bleeding. He rumbled his anger deep in his chest, and tapped
his bloodied finger on his leg. He shook his head, and stood
abruptly to descend the stairs back to where his prize lay. She was
sleeping, but her body would still react. He drew a knife off of
its sheath on the wall and took a deep breath before placing the
blade along her wrist.

The blade lay gleaming against the smooth
skin, and Nathair could see the pulsing of her blood causing faint
vibrations in her arm as her heart beat life through her body.
Swiftly, he drew the blade along it and watched as the skin parted,
and then slowly welled with blood. He dropped the knife and put a
hand in the air over the wound, and closed his eyes as he soaked up
the energy released. Nowhere near what would have been available if
she had been conscious, especially had he worked her into a
terrified frenzy first, but it would do to repair the damage that
his mother had done to his chin.

How much damage have I had to repair over
the years?
He wondered.
Have I ever really been
repaired?
He had been able to resist her tonight, but just
barely. He leaned back against the wall to regain his strength.

Looking back down at Jezebel, he saw that
blood was beginning to drip down the edge of her wrist. As he
watched, a small droplet formed and splashed down onto the table
below.

Nathair made a face.
I should not have
done that. I should have simply used some of my own power, it was a
small cut
. But he knew why he had. He couldn't bring himself to
give any more of himself over to his mother. She had taken enough
from him. And yet, he couldn't totally dismiss her plan either.

Now that the earthquake had caused such an
upset, it would be impossible to launch a proper attack on
Treymayne. If, however, they were to infiltrate and play nice, they
could perhaps gain support for the damage that had occurred while
gathering knowledge on a foe who for so long had been isolated from
them. It did make a certain kind of sense.

The only problem was that it was his mother's
idea. Nathair sighed and swept a hand over Jezebel's wound, closing
it but not healing it.
Let her heal with time
, he thought
and left her to rest. She would need it for the job he had for
her.

CHAPTER 5

Katya perched on the side of the building,
pressing her body flat against the stones as she strained her keen
ears to hear the people inside the window.

“I know we need to do something about it, but
what would you have me do? Half the city is beating down the doors
at the Hall of Justice either begging for help or accusing their
neighbor of having pillaged their house. The whole country is in a
state of uproar. We have a crisis that needs to be dealt with
before we can go squabbling for power.”