Those Who Fear the Darkness (BloodRunes: Book 2) (21 page)

He stormed back into the bedroom - and
stopped short. His mother was standing there

watching him without a bruise on her. Her
magic was good, but not that good.

He eyed her warily.

“Forget the girl,” she told him, in a voice
not at all like his mother’s.

His chest throbbed.

“Forget the girl,” she repeated in the
monotone voice and she cocked her head to the side.

Nathair winced as a line of blood appeared on
her throat, as if drawn by an invisible knife. She didn’t seem to
notice.

“The Sleeping God must be awakened.” Blood
was fairly pouring out of the gash now, and he watched in
fascination as the streams flowed down her. His mind wrenched him
into a memory and he was the little boy once again.

Nat panted and stole a glance behind him as
he frantically tried to outrun the beast his mother had set against
him. It was her newest training; to make him fashion a bloodbeast,
only to turn it loose against him and make him defeat it.

But his mother had had too much fun last
night with a local drunk and in her power overload from the
excitement had improved upon his creation. It was far stronger than
he had expected.

He grabbed hold of a branch as he passed, and
used it to swing himself around into a small opening in a boulder
that had been split somewhere in the ages. The extra time it took
for the beast to go around would gain him precious seconds.

He felt the hot breath against his arm as the
beast took a bite at him, and he hastily snatched it away. He raced
towards the entrance to his secret place, hoping that his mother
wasn’t watching. He fairly shouted the magic to open the way and he
flung his hands up to protect his head, hoping that the spell
making the rock no longer solid worked quickly.

He was in luck, and he tumbled to the ground
inside, turning to re-solidify the rock entrance before taking
stock of his injuries. He heard something large and hard slam into
the wall moments after he saw the shimmer of magic and a shower of
rock debris rained down on him. The beast howled its frustration,
but the rock wall held. He looked down at himself, ignoring the
rhythmic pounding on the rock by the beast.

He was bleeding from several cuts, but none
were life-threatening and he spared a small amount of energy to
seal the skin to stop the bleeding. He felt along his ribs and
determined that several were broken. Though he suspected that at
least one of those was from last night.

The pounding stopped and Nat looked up in
alarm. Silence filled his little cave, and he sat motionless
straining his ears for some clue as to why the beast had gone
quiet.

“Be a good beast now and die,” his mother
purred. Nathair heard a whimper and a rush of energy flowed back
into him as his spells broke as the beast obeyed.

He started shaking. His mother would tell him
he had failed. That he had turned heel and ran like a coward. He
would be punished. He held a hand out in front of him, watching it
quiver like a leaf on a windy day. He concentrated on it, trying to
still it with willpower. But the fear was too strong.

He could feel her presence, and he knew she
could feel his. It was only a matter of time now, she was just
toying with him. He drew his knees up against him, and sat rocking
back and forth whimpering. Waiting. But he also poured his final
energies into hiding what was in the cave. He didn’t want her to
find out. She could steal from him his childhood, his free will,
even his very life, but he would not let her steal this from him.
This was his!

The rock shimmered, and his mother stepped
through.

“Well, well, well,” she said slowly, looking
down her nose at him. “I cleaned up a little mess for you outside.
I guess you weren’t man enough to handle it.”

Nat ruthlessly drove his finger into one of
his ribs and his eyelids fluttered with pain. He focused on the
pain, lest his very thoughts betray him.

“What’s that now?” his mother asked, her
expression turning to curiosity.

He drove his finger deeper and tears flowed
from his eyes, though he didn’t make a sound.

There is only pain
. He rocked back and
forth.
Only pain.

His mother closed her eyes and he felt her in
his head. She roughly pushed aside the thoughts of pain and tore
from him his secret.

“NO!” he shouted and stood, his voice
breaking in despair.

“Yes,” she whispered back, her eyes widening
briefly to punctuate the word. She smiled evilly. “At last, I’ve
found it.”

Anger overrode Nat’s fear. He would not let
his mother take this from him too. A scream tore from his throat
and-

He was abruptly brought back to the present.
His mother still stood staring at him eerily, blood pouring from
the wound on her delicate neck.

“I killed you,” he told her. He raised his
hand to the scar on his cheek. She had torn it open in the
struggle, but he had eventually been able to get his knife out of
his tunic and he had killed her - he had sliced her throat open.
And he had watched her die, bleeding out her neck like a
slaughtered animal. He had felt her die. And he had kept the scar
on his cheek to remind him.

“Who are you?” he asked it.

Though it still wore his mother’s form, the
voice that sounded from the bleeding throat was now more demonic
than human. “You
will
wake the Sleeping God.”

It came at him suddenly, hissing, and it
threw its arms out which burst into flaming wings. The thing hit
him, sending him reeling backwards from the force and his head
smashed into the wall with rattling impact. As he staggered against
it, stars dancing before his eyes, the creature shrunk down to
nothing becoming wraith-like and was sucked into the stone embedded
in his chest.

It was gone.

“Mother of God,” he swore softly to
himself.

Then he smiled.
What irony in this
phrase
.

He touched the scar on his cheek again.
Perhaps he would heal it. He gathered the power about him, and
paused.

Perhaps later.

He would have to look into this odd
development, to determine why this beast had been here parading as
his mother.
Maybe it’s your mind playing tricks on you
, a
voice inside him said, but he shook it aside. The thing was gone
now, his god-stone had eaten it up, so he could worry about it
later.

Now he would concentrate on his Layna. He
wondered how she had gotten to Treymayne. And how the man had
survived. Hadn’t he been the one who had been transported into the
killing chamber of the tombs? He had so many questions to ask her
once she was his.

It was a good thing that he had blocked those
memories from Jezebel. Seeing the two of them would probably have
driven her insane otherwise. She had been quite single-minded about
her obsessive revenge.

He stiffened as he heard a rustling in the
outer room. Taking the two strides to the door swiftly, he peered
into his office for the source of the disturbance.

A man stood there, draped in a black robe.
Nathair stared at him, and dark eyes met his steadily.

“Who are you?” he demanded, measuring the man
with his gaze and his mage-sight, but as he opened himself to the
latter, he was met with a shock.

To his magic, this man wasn’t there.

“Are you another product of my imagination?”
he hazarded.

The man remained silent.

“Speak!”

The man raised a hand, and it blotted out the
light. As Nathair’s world was plunged into darkness, he felt many
hands upon him and he tumbled into unconsciousness.

*

Jezebel stormed around in her suite, picking
up random items and throwing them at walls. There was no way she
could sleep after such an insulting meeting with the King.
How
dare he call on her so late and then just leave her like that! Who
did he think he was?
Her infuriated pacing soon became less
frantic, and she focused her thoughts on something more pleasant to
distract herself.

Her mind wandered to the blond girl she had
witnessed smiling at the man Gryffon. She’d had Devon look into the
girl and found, much to her amusement, that she could be useful in
several ways as she was the daughter of one of the Triumvirate,
Baron Thebius. Not only that, but she had also deliciously been
engaged to Gryffon. That would certainly explain why the other girl
was feeling a bit threatened. Jezebel had already arranged for the
two of them to have a luncheon and had now only to find a way to
use her against the girl she had such strong unexplained hatred
for.

Despite her initial anger, it was soon
overtaken by exhaustion and Jezebel climbed back into bed. In the
morning, she decided that she would put her plan with the blond
girl into motion as the hatred she felt towards the girl with
Gryffon was getting stronger by the minute, and inexplicable
jealous thoughts kept sneaking into her head.

Lady Aria was already in the gardens when she
arrived, sitting at the table that had been set up for the two of
them. “Gorgeous day out isn’t it?” the woman exclaimed
appreciatively, taking a deep breath of fresh air.

“Indeed,” Jezebel humored her, not bothering
to look around herself, “Thank you for joining me, I find that I am
a tad home-sick lately and needed the company of a non-political
nature.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Lady Aria leaned back
from the table a bit to let the servant place the food in front of
her. Jezebel didn’t bother to follow suit and she kept her eyes
glued to Lady Aria who was now inhaling the fragrance of the food.
The woman certainly enjoyed smells.

“It smells delicious, Jason, thank you.”

Jezebel was confused by this comment for a
moment, and followed Aria’s gaze to see that the servant was still
standing there beaming down at Aria’s compliment.

“Oh,” Jezebel added, “Yes, thank you.” He
bowed to both of them and retreated.

“So what do you think of it here,” Aria asked
her, picking up her utensils and cutting a dainty portion off, “is
it much different than Gelendan?”

“Not nearly as much so as I had expected.”
Jezebel took a bite of her own food and politely chewed and
swallowed before continuing. “Everyone has been so friendly, I
really have no complaints, it’s just not…” she paused, seemingly
unable to express her feelings.

“Home?” Aria gave her a sympathetic grin.

“Yes, and I feel as though I have to walk on
eggshells around everyone, that either they are waiting for me to
suddenly forget myself and have a different agenda, or that
someone’s waiting for me to slip up with something silly just for
the amusement of it.” She sighed.

“I know how you feel,” Aria commiserated,
“ever since my father’s been on the council, and especially the
last few years, I’ve felt the pressure to be politically correct as
well, even though really it has nothing to do with me.”

“Oh? Which one is your father, perhaps I’ve
met him during one of the audiences.”

“I’m sure you have, he’s one of the
Triumvirate. Baron Thebius.”

“Really!” Jezebel exclaimed, feigning
surprise, “I had no idea. He’s a very solid man, I liked him, he
seems to have a good head on his shoulders. And, he raised such a
nice young lady.”

Lady Aria laughed, taking Jezebel by
surprise. It was not the reaction she had expected. “Well, I don’t
know about that.” The woman
winked
at her! “But he did the
best he could by himself. My mother died when I was very young.
It’s been just the two of us for most of my life.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Jezebel took
another bite to give herself a moment. “My own mother passed away
when I was in my teens. I practically raised my dear little
sister.”

“Are you very close with your father?” Aria
had a teary-eyed look. “My father and I really bonded over the
tragedy. It was the one good thing that came out of it. We used to
do everything together.”

Jezebel pounced on this opportunity. “We
were,” Jezebel let her voice waver just a bit as she put emphasis
on the ‘
were
’ and her own eyes watered as she bit her lip
harshly enough to sting. “I actually just got the news while I was
here that…that…”

“Oh no,” Aria looked horrified. “I’m so
sorry! Are you travelling back soon?”

“I can’t,” Jezebel let her face harden into
stone again, making it look as though it was difficult to do so. “I
am here representing my country, I can’t very well let a personal
problem interfere. There is much more at stake here.” She raised
her napkin to dab at her eyes, “But come, let us speak of other
things to get my mind off it.”

Aria looked doubtful, but did not argue.
“What’s it like in Gelendan?”

“Much the same as it is here. We have many
ruins that are a testament to how it was during the golden times,
as I’m sure you have here, that have become some of our greatest
treasures. We have a museum in Naoham, the capital, which holds
many of the artifacts that were found in them. Many are so valuable
that the guards for the museum I believe may even outweigh those of
the royal treasury!” She paused, looking uncomfortable, “You
wouldn’t try and -“ she shook her head, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to
be -”

Aria reached over and touched her hand
gently, “Not to worry, today it’s just us girls. My lips are
sealed.”

“Well,” Jezebel started with a mischievous
smile, “just between us girls then, what’s going on with you and
that mouth-watering young man Gryffon?” She fairly had to spit out
the compliment for the awful man, but the woman didn’t seem to
notice.

Aria giggled.

Jezebel threw down some more bait. “I don’t
know how much you know about what he was doing in Gelendan,” she
paused for Aria to fill in the answer to the unasked question.