Those Who Fear the Darkness (BloodRunes: Book 2) (26 page)

Her mind made up, she retraced her steps back
to the main part of the palace and towards the lady’s suites. She
almost ran straight into the woman as she came bursting out the
door.

Aria’s wide and crazed-looking eyes lit upon
her and the woman rushed forward, grabbing Katya by the shoulders
“Please, help me…Layna…I-…I don’t know what happened, I never
meant…”

Katya would have liked to have slapped the
girl upside the head and tell her to get a hold on herself. And
then ask some pointed questions about exactly what she meant about
not meaning to do something, not meaning to do what?

But instead she took hold of the girl’s hands
on her shoulders and removed them a trifle roughly, pushing past
her into the room beyond.

She spotted Layna sprawled on the floor next
to the chair, along with a puddle of spilled liquid around a
shattered tea cup.

Katya knelt by her side and sent her magic
around her. With her magesight she saw that Layna’s entire body had
been filled by a toxin, spread by the beating of her heart. Katya
could not tell much underneath the murky poison, but as she
filtered it away she breathed a sigh of relief that the girl was
still alive. As it began to clear, she could just make out the
tiniest of heartbeats, as if Layna’s heart had been slowed to keep
her alive until help arrived to slow the spread of the
malignance.

Katya kept up the feverish work, slowly
siphoning out the poison and the damaged parts, coaxing the healthy
parts to re-grow. She was unaware of anything around her, all that
mattered was keeping her alive. She was the last remnant of her
past and Katya certainly wasn’t going to let her be poisoned along
with her parents. She hardly noticed when Gryffon joined her and
added his strength to her own.

Soon after, she felt his hands pry her away
from Layna and she reluctantly did so. She had done all that she
could, and her body had no strength left itself to lend to Layna’s
healing.

She felt liquid pressed against her lips, and
seeing it was Gryffon offering it, she opened her mouth. She gulped
it down, realized it was broth and collapsed on the chair Layna
must have fallen from, too weary to care about anything but
sleep.

When she woke, it was dark out, but the moon
shone brightly in through the open window. She stirred and a dark
shape moved at the end of her bed. Her hackles raised, she
froze.

“Don’t be frightened,” said a deep, kind
voice and Katya relaxed, recognizing it as Gryffon’s. “My name is
Lord Gryffon. I’m sorry I don’t recognize you, but nonetheless owe
you a debt of gratitude. I don’t know how you did it, but thank
you.”

“Layna?” her voice was raspy and she nearly
choked on the word as if her throat was swollen.

“They think she’s going to be alright. Thanks
to you. She’s here,” he pointed to the bed next to Katya’s. “She
hasn’t regained consciousness, but her vital signs have
stabilized.”

It took Katya several days to recover
herself, but was soon back to full health even after almost
draining herself completely to pull out the poison. Layna still
hadn’t woken, however, and Katya was beginning to worry. She lay
motionless on the bed, her face as white as a ghost’s, her
breathing barely a whisper. Not wanting to let the girl out of her
sight and lose her only means of finding out about her past, Katya
had insisted on staying with her. Therefore, she was immensely
grateful she was so fastidious in her disguises. Being such a
prominent figure in such a scandalous event was sure to get her
noticed - and it had.

Luckily, so far her credentials as a servant
who was supposed to be here were still valid, as she’d made
tracking them down so confusing that she’d doubted any would follow
it through to completion. At least, that was what she was counting
on.

She made her way to Layna’s side. She just
couldn’t die. It would be too cruel for the Three to allow her a
chance to find out about her past only to kill all of the people
who might be able to tell her about it.

She picked up Layna’s hand in her own. It
felt cold and clammy. Her throat suddenly constricted and her
vision blurred. A strange emotion washed over her in a suffocating
wave and she felt something cool and wet slip down her cheek.

She was crying! The surprise was almost
enough to snap her out of it, but not quite. She was not enjoying
the intense rushes of emotions that seemed to suddenly be
overtaking her.

Someone cleared their throat behind her and
she spun around, blinking away tears. Gryffon gave her a small
sympathetic smile and took his place by Layna’s side. He’d been
forced to leave this spot - reluctantly - to help find out what had
happened, but he always returned as soon as he could and stayed for
hours, whispering into Layna’s unhearing ear.

After a suitable amount of time had passed
that she was sure he wouldn’t bring up the subject of her crying
she looked at him.

“What have they decided to do with her?” she
asked, referring to the Lady Aria who had readily admitted to
putting a potion into Layna’s tea, and whom Gryffon had just come
back from seeing. She claimed that the man she bought it from told
her it was truth potion, but so far they’d been unable to track
down the mysterious merchant to confirm her story. Not that he was
likely to back her up anyway when it would mean admitting to his
own less-than-legal activities.

Katya felt that either way, Aria should have
known better.

Gryffon looked up at her, “They’ve put her on
house arrest for now, but nothing formal has been charged. I just
can’t believe she’d do something like this.”

Katya had a surge of anger, “How can you say
that? She’s already admitted she did, and your Layna’s lying here
practically dead and you’re defending the woman who did it to
her?!”

Gryffon looked taken aback, and he looked
back down at Layna.

“Do you know she’d been keeping Layna busy
with that Noam character so that she could steal extra time with
you? And now she’s looking for your sympathy and attention. You
can’t tell me you haven’t let her cry on your shoulder even once.
Do you not see what’s she’s doing? Layna certainly has. I thought
that you and Layna were close.” Her tone was more accusatory that
she meant it to be. She didn’t know why she cared.

“We are,” Gryffon defended himself, “I’m not
doing anything with Aria…how do you even know?”

Katya clamped her mouth shut. She had said
too much already.

“Besides, I don’t even know what Layna and I
are, if there even is a Layna and I. She’s going around telling
people we’re just friends.”

She just gave him a disapproving look. Her
emotions were wrecking havoc with her good sense and she resolutely
shut her mouth, determined not to say any more.

CHAPTER 15

It remembered its name…Nuko, yes. That is
what he was once called. From his temporary prison, he probed the
host. He could see where his subliminal thoughts had twisted the
weak mind. He smiled to himself at the fact that they continued to
breed for talent. That particular suggestion has been easy to
convince the host, and those before him, to carry out.

They had already grown strong enough to
accommodate him, in fact, this one had even been able to resist him
- though given it was only a tiny portion of his essence he was
resisting…a fact that both annoyed and thrilled him…it wasn’t all
that impressive. Unfortunately, the desire to seek out others with
the mark was very well ingrained upon them, even more so for those
of strong talent and those, as he was observing in his host, who
also happened to be the males of the species. He supposed it hadn’t
been hard to nudge their minds towards wanting to breed. He snorted
inwardly. He would have to work on breaking this compulsion, the
host’s need to find these two women that had imprinted on him was
proving to be a nuisance. He needed it to move on towards
performing the rite, no longer was it necessary to strengthen the
hosts.

He mused at the intricacies of his own spell,
creating the hallucination of the man’s mother to try and convince
him to summon him.
Though had I been fully awake and had
realized what a twisted relationship they had
…he let the
thought pass quickly. The past did not matter. Now that he was
awake, nothing would be able to stop him. Soon the host would
surrender its body to him, willingly or not, and he would finally
return to the world.

Nuko pondered his next step quietly while the
host continued its day to day business, seemingly oblivious to its
scheming.

*

Nathair could feel the thoughts of his
intruder beneath the surface of his own, but not quite make them
out. They felt very smug, however, which Nathair was not entirely
pleased about. They did contain vast knowledge though, knowledge
that he fully intended to use. He had ‘visited’ Katya’s mind to
determine that Layna was in fact still alive and she was in no
immediate danger so Nathair was content to leave them while he
concentrated on his unwelcome guest.

From the knowledge that his intruder had
already given him, Nathair had been able to learn to use his dragon
form and had quickly mastered changing from one to the other. It
had been with extreme trepidation that he had attempted to change
back to his human form, having no desire to repeat the painful
process, but he had been happily surprised to have made the
transformation with only the tiniest bit of discomfort. Apparently
only the initial awakening of the power within him required the
agony.

He practiced changing back and forth once he
had figured out how, and returned to the place where he had been
held captive to sit back and wait for the woman in charge to
return. He had no doubt that she had some sort of magical link to
her minions and perhaps himself as well that would tell her that he
was no longer under their control. Before he returned to dislodge
the imposter and take back his rightful place on the throne, he had
some questions for the woman.

In short order she arrived, and she was not
alone. There were five of them altogether, and the moment that
arrived, spirited there by magic, he held up a hand to hold them in
place.

The woman scowled at him. “What is the
meaning of this?”

“The meaning of what, my dear?” he mocked
her, echoing her earlier words. “I am simply restoring things to
their natural order.”

“Where are Nichols and Davis?”

“I assume you mean the slime you had holding
me here,” he smiled cruelly, “Stupidity gives me indigestion.”

She was still processing this with a confused
look upon her face as he transformed. He broke his hold on the man
farthest to the right, who bolted the moment he was free. Nathair
darted forwarded and demonstrated what he meant for the woman.

Her face had gone pale. She obviously
recognized the significance. He changed back so that he could speak
again. Another of the men had gone limp against his hold and was
sagging slightly, only held on his feet by the spell.

“Now that you understand the gravity of the
situation, I expect you to answer some questions. If you don’t,
another one of your little minions will become dragon food.”

All three of them were quivering in fear now,
and the woman looked around at them, her head the only part of her
body that she could move. “It is more dangerous than you think,”
the woman’s tone was more pleading now, having lost its earlier
arrogance.

“Maybe to one less capable than I, but it is
mine. And now a part of me as you have seen.”

“It won’t just let you draw upon the power of
the stone,” she practically pleaded with him, “It’s not just a
stone. It’s his very essence, we haven’t found a way to control
that yet, that’s why he needs to remain sleeping. The fact that
you’re still here at all is only luck!”

Nathair contemplated this information for a
moment. That would explain the presence in his head, the stone was
alive. And its consciousness wanted to be in control.

“What is this essence? Is it the Sleeping
God?”

“Yes!” her voice faltered, “Who knows what
he’ll do if he wakes, we need to force him back into slumber!”
Nathair felt a great wave of anger wash over him and he abruptly
changed form, snapping up the last three men with ease, but the
woman popped out of existence seconds from becoming his next
victim.

He struggled to maintain control and forced
the body to change back into human form. It fought him, but he
prevailed.

Of course he could control this. He was the
God himself.

CHAPTER 16

Katya glanced up as Gryffon hurriedly
reentered the room. He took Layna’s hand in his own and felt for a
pulse.

“I think she’s strong enough to move,”
Gryffon said and Katya held her tongue to hear his explanation,
allowing one brow to rise in question.

“I’ve been sending prayers along the river,”
he continued, “And it’s finally been answered.”

“And?” Katya prompted as he paused, pulling
his brows together in confused frustration.

“The Oracle said to ‘bring her to the head so
that it may breathe life back into her’. Only I’m not sure where
that is yet.”

Katya rolled her eyes - that was one emotion
she hadn’t had to work hard at figuring out. “The headwaters, or
source, of the river perhaps?” she suggested with as little sarcasm
as she could manage. Gryffon’s sympathy towards the
Lady
Aria had tried her patience with him.

His face lit up, “Of course! The very source
of the river and the Oracle’s voice. How could I have missed this
earlier?”

“How indeed,” Katya mumbled, too low for him
to hear, then raised her voice to ask, “Do you really believe what
the Oracle says?” She had been trying to wrap her mind around her
own experience and didn’t want it to be true.