World Weaver (The Devany Miller Series Book 4) (13 page)

He grunted.

I managed to open my eyes again. “Help me up. I need to get out there and figure out how to get Bethy back.” My arm gave out and I fell back. A small scream of pain escaped my lips and the room came into bright focus, as if I were about to pass out but my brain thought I needed to see everything clearly before I did.

“If you weren’t so damaged, I’d shake you,” he said. I ignored him until I caught sight of his hand reaching for my breasts. Then I slapped at him. He pushed my hands down, effectively trapping me since moving my arms was agonizing. “I want the beast’s ring so I can find him for you.” He yanked the ring from my neck with a sharp tug, breaking the leather, and vanished.

My wounded soul soon overwhelmed me again and I forgot about Ty as my mind went back to probing the gaping hole left behind from losing Bethany.

I’d touched her. I’d touched my baby. And I had to let her go again. “Damn you, Arsinua,” I rasped, wishing the witch were here so I could kick her.

Being in the Slip would have been good punishment for her. She was terrified of the place after having been made captive and tortured by another Skriven. She deserved to be locked in one of Ty’s torture cells, listening to the screams of her fellow prisoners, wondering daily if she would be next. I wouldn’t even have to torture her. I’d use her own imagination against her.

The bed jounced and I winced, turning carefully to see a hyena in the bed with me. The animal was unconscious or dead, I wasn’t sure which.

“Oh he’s alive. Tide-sick though. He needs to detox.” Ty brushed my cheek with his hand and his magic soaked into me, relaxing my muscles, sinking me into myself. “You’re safe here. If you need anything, let Nex know and he will call me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to test every inch of that damned barrier, see if there are any cracks in the armor.”

“Thank you,” I said, my eyes sliding shut. That didn’t stop the tears that slid underneath my lashes, but I didn’t have to see the pity on Ty’s face as I cried, so it was okay.

I felt the press of his lips on mine, but he pulled away too quickly for me to protest. The bed shifted again, the movement sending stabbing pains through my healing bones, and then the room was quiet but for the soft, slow breathing of Kroshtuka beside me.

I put my hand on his pelt, my fingers sliding into his fur. It helped having him beside me, even if he was unconscious. Whatever Ty had done to me worked fast. I slipped down into sleep and was free of the pain—at least for now.

***

I don’t know how long we spent in the Slip, healing. Ty nursed us both, which I might have found astounding had I been in my right mind. I wasn’t. I was ashamed to say that I went off the rails for a good long time. It was Ty who held me when I woke up in terror because Kroshtuka seemed to be trapped as a hyena and worse, in a coma.

I spent hours wadded up in a tight ball in the corner, wishing all manner of horrors on the Anforsa’s head. She’d been caught in the tidal wave too, though the Omphalos had seemed to be protecting her somewhat. If there were such thing as karma, then Kenda would be writhing on the floor in agony.

Tytan and a few other Skriven healed me, lending their magic to the work, guiding my own body toward wholeness. Kali stopped by, her dark face impassive as she watched me cry. She left without saying a word.

Vasili came and offered me a potion that would take away my memories of the event. I refused, wanting to etch every pain caused by Kenda and Arsinua onto my soul so that I wouldn’t forget what they’d done.

I asked Tytan to find a way to take my soul again, “For a little while,” but he refused.

The first night Kroshtuka managed to shift to human, I was asleep beside him, fighting off an ever-growing Anforsa in my dream. No matter how I hit her, she only absorbed the energy and grew, until her form blotted out the sun. She snatched me up and I was dangling over her open mouth when Krosh woke me.

“You’re back.” I wrapped my arms and legs around him, relief burning away the last horrors of my dream. “You’re back.”

“I’m sorry.”

I shook my head, fighting back the tears. “No. Please don’t. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

We fell asleep tangled up in each other. When I woke, he was a hyena again, but his eyes were open and he managed to drink some water from a pan Ty brought.

Nex bobbed in and out with news. More work was being done at the borders, more fortifications. “I am not able to see deep into the witch lands. The Omphalos has grown in power now that the border is sealed. But I’ve managed to use a few Wydlings as my eyes on the ground, and they report witches crossing the barriers into the Wilds in ever growing numbers. Some are defections and some banishments. The Wydlings are taking them in when they can, when the witches don’t refuse their help.”

My ribs still ached when I moved, but the pain was dulled with the healing magics and time. I moved stiffly to a chair and sat, letting out a pent breath. “What about the Riders?”

“They are quiet. Though I suspect that the influx of witches into the Wilds will give them plenty to infect.”

“Shit.” I found myself rocking back and forth, and threaded my fingers around my neck, trying not to lose my shit again. The smallest things upset me anymore. And this wasn’t small at all. “This is bad. So bad.”

“Devany, as your friend, I must speak plainly.” He bobbed a few feet from me, his intestines a whisper on the floor. “Stop taking responsibility for all this.”

“I—”

“You did not start the witches down this road. You did not instigate fights at the borders. You did not put the Omphalos in place and unbalance the magic of this world.”

Again I went to protest, and again he interrupted me.

“You are one small part of this. Perhaps you like to think you play a bigger part because the power excites you. At one point in my life, I felt the same way. I ruled over all the Swamps and thought I was more than satisfied with the power I held. And yet, when offered more by Tytan, I leapt at the chance.”

I’d never heard the story behind why Tytan had once wanted Nex’s head. He’d bade me take it and I refused. It had been Nex’s queen who had beheaded him and only because she could take his body home to let him regenerate.

“I fooled myself into thinking that I wanted the power to better rule my kingdom, when I really wanted to be the greatest king the fleshcrawlers had ever seen. Now I am here, for better or worse. I had forgotten who I was and who I was meant to be. If you don’t want to be swallowed by these events, you must never forget who you are.”

“I don’t know who I am. I suck at absolutely everything. I lost my kid—and suck at being Mom. I fixed the Omphalos, which was a very bad thing—and suck at being a citizen of Midia. I’m freaking nice to the damned Skriven—and suck at being a monster. I’m currently under investigation for the murder of two men on Earth—and suck at being human.” I paused, thinking of all the tragedy on Earth. “Okay. Maybe I’m really good at being human. But being human would have gotten me killed long ago. I don’t know who I am, Nex. Maybe you can tell me.”

His dark eyes held no answers.

I pushed to my feet and left the room, rather than wake Krosh with my rantings. I’d been tossed into this mess by accident and was trying to stick fingers into the cracks in the dam before it burst and flooded the world. I didn’t have time to figure out who I was. I was a hot mess. That was as close as I came to figuring myself out.

I didn’t realize he’d followed me, until he said, “I’m sorry for bringing you more pain. I only sought to help.”

He had helped, though. And he was right. I didn’t have a handle on who I was. I’d known once, before I’d taken Ravana’s head between my hands and snapped her neck. Then I’d lost my way, rejecting the person who’d taken a life, rejecting the implications of that action. Now I was reaping the consequences of my inability to choose.

I hadn’t wanted to be a murderer, so I buried my actions in excuses. I didn’t want to be a monster, so I rejected the Slip. I didn’t want to be bloodthirsty, so I told myself it was Neutria’s bloody thoughts in my head, not mine.

Hell, maybe I’d forgotten who I was when I’d discovered Tom had cheated on me. Maybe losing my identity as wife had sent me into the wilderness without a map or a path to follow.

“It’s okay, Nex,” I said, finally. “If you can’t rely on your friends to tell the truth even when it hurts, then who can you rely on?”

***

Time didn’t pass on Midia or Earth, so we missed nothing and gained back our health and well-being. At the end of our self-imposed convalescence, I could breathe without my heart aching, and my ribs were healed too. Kroshtuka was able to maintain his human form for hours at a time and insisted that he would fully heal only when he was home.

Home.

Not for me. Not without my daughter, but I said nothing.

“Thank you,” Krosh said to Ty, and Ty murmured something back that I didn’t hear.

“Take better care of her.” That I heard.

“He’s not my bodyguard,” I said, as Krosh said, “I will.”

I looked between them and didn’t like what I saw. Too much possessiveness over little old me. One, I wasn’t worthy of it, and two, I was my own person, damn it, and the only one who owned me was me.

Ty’s look told me he’d been delving in my thoughts again and he disagreed. “With both,” he said.

I hooked us away before things got weirder.

Krosh and I stepped out in the Dream Caves, and I stood quietly by while he told Lizzie and the other elders present what had happened. Glances and outright stares were directed at me. I wasn’t sure if they were sympathizing or wondering how long it would be before I went all crazy on their asses.

“We must join together as Meat Clan,” Lizzie said, finally.

I felt, rather than heard Kroshtuka’s reply. More time passed and then Krosh led me to a cavern illuminated by tiny points of light all along the ceiling. We filed in, more and more of us, and I searched for Liam in the crowd. When he saw me, saw my expression, his face fell and then he was hugging me. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I couldn’t get to her in time.”

“It’s okay Mom,” he said, voice rough with emotion. “We’ll figure it out. She can’t be gone forever. We can’t lose her. Right?”

“Right.” Though I wasn’t too sure of anything anymore. Her absence was a dark hole in my chest.

We sat pressed tightly against each other in a large circle. Krosh on my right, Liam on my left. When the clan members stopped filing in, the room still had plenty of room for more, it was that massive. Somewhere in the dark, water dripped and bats squeaked.

“Mommy!”

I shut my eyes again as Lizzie began to sing.

Magic flowed through us, good magic. Clean and free. It felt nothing like the heavy fist that had knocked me right out of Bayladdy. Nothing like the Omphalos that gave off energy like a small sun.

Krosh slipped his hand into mine, lacing fingers. His steady, warm presence kept me from falling off the precipice of my sorrow. Thinking of it that way was melodramatic, but it was truth even so. If I let go and fell into that abyss, all my troubles would be over. I refused to do that to Bethy and Liam, though. Refused to give up, no matter how hard it was to go on breathing.

I took several deep breaths, trying to rid myself of the darkness that had settled over me, rid myself of the despair. I followed the ebb and flow of the wild magic, letting it lap at my head, clearing my thoughts. It calmed me, something I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel again in the midst of my pain.

It occurred to me how self-centered and incredibly selfish parents of a missing child were. All of their energy had to be focused on finding their child. Nothing else was more important. Sure, life intruded, and maybe it seeped in more and more as time passed, until the parents almost seemed normal again. But they were never normal again. Whether they got their child back or not, the experience altered them in a fundamental way.

“There has been a great tragedy tonight,” Lizzie said, her voice filling the cavern. “The borders have been restored and the magic is caged like a beast. Even now, it cries out in pain, cut off from itself. Like the limb of an octopus, it will continue to writhe for a long time, seeking its home, looking for its own self to be whole. If the barriers are not destroyed, however, that limb will eventually atrophy and die. It will not thrive, even if we take the best care of it. Our way of life has been threatened in the biggest way possible. The witches finally have the means to destroy us all. The Omphalos will expand. That much energy cannot be contained. Where else will we go when the magic squeezes us from the Wilds? To the sea? Beyond? Make no mistake, this will mean our deaths.”

Silence greeted her words. A man’s low sob. Everyone’s hearts were breaking and there was no way to fix any of it.

“The Dreams show possibilities. I might see fifty outcomes of each major choice we make as a Clan. Only one comes to pass. It makes it difficult to divine the future, as some believe that’s what I do. It is not. I only see possibilities and pass on the information I think will help nudge us toward the most positive path. All the possibilities led to this moment. Every one. It’s rare when an event so changes the world that there’s only one true outcome.