“I’ll be damned before I let anyone keep me from him!” Penny replied with her usual spirit, making a smile creep across my face… or it would have, if my mouth and jaw hadn’t been a mangled mess of torn flesh and broken bone.
“He isn’t breathing, Penny. He’s dead. Take the children away, they shouldn’t see their father like this,” responded Dorian, in a somber tone.
I decided then that the charade had gone on long enough, and I opened my eyes to look at them directly. Dorian gasped and Penny ran toward me then. “He’s alive! Someone get to the house, we need to send a message to Walter! He’s going to need help immediately,” she shouted, kneeling beside me.
Looking into her teary eyes I couldn’t help but think how lucky I was to have her love, and I struggled to speak, to say just that… or at least make an inappropriate remark, but again my shattered mouth failed me. The gurgling that I did manage only served to alarm her more.
“It’s going to be alright, Mordecai. We’re all here for you. Walter’s coming, and he’ll make sure you stay alive until we can fix this, just stay with me,” Penny told me with tears streaming from her eyes. “Please,” she begged, “just stay with me… don’t die do you hear me!?”
I’m likely to drown first if you keep crying over me, I thought, but it was impossible for me to express my words to her. To reassure her I reached up, resting my hand gently upon her cheek, and delicious warmth radiated from her skin, suffusing me with a pleasant sensation. Simultaneously, her eyes widened in shock and fear. More quickly than I might have believed possible, she bolted upright, leaping away from me. Her rejection was the most painful thing I had ever experienced, creating a loneliness in my chest that was immediate and unexpected.
Why?
“He’s gone Dorian! It isn’t him… he’s gone!” she screamed in a heart wrenching voice. I had never wanted to hear such raw pain and emotion in her voice. It was the woeful cry of a woman that had just lost everything.
“What?” asked Dorian, puzzled.
Penny’s sword was out now and she brandished it before her. “He’s turned Dorian! He’s dead… he’s one of them!” she yelled hoarsely, with swollen eyes and a nose that dripped from tears. “Why!?” she cried, venting her grief at the sky.
I sat up, and my mind raced as I tried to figure out how to reassure them. I felt odd, certainly, and I probably had a concussion, given how strange the world seemed, but I wasn’t dying. I looked to my friend for support, since Penny seemed to have lost her mind.
Dorian had approached already, sword in one hand while reaching toward me with his other, now un-gauntleted hand. I put up my own, thinking he meant to pull me to my feet, but as soon as our bare skin met he stepped away, a pained expression on his face. “It’s true,” he said, and his face twisted in a horrific expression of grief, even as his sword arm shifted… preparing to strike.
I saw death in his eyes then… the murderous resolve of a man who must slay his best friend, and there was nothing I could do to stop him. I gazed at him blankly, numb with grief and sorrow at the realization that they thought I had turned. They think I’m one of the shiggreth now, but I’m not. It’s still me. Dorian’s stance changed, and I knew what he would do… what he had to do… what we always did with shiggreth. You cut them up and burn them.
A sudden movement reminded me that we were not alone. Penny had caught our daughter, Moira, by the hand, but Matthew slipped past before she saw him. Running to me he was yelling, “Daddy! Don’t hurt my Dad!”
Time froze then, as he leapt into my arms with the infinite faith of a child, as he had done so many times before. I caught him instinctively, and another surge of warmth ran through me, even as Matthew shuddered at the sudden cold… and then I understood the truth. They’re right, I’ve inherited Thillmarius’ spell-woven curse… I’m one of them.
Immediately I put my son down, trying to keep from touching his skin any further as I shoved him in front of me. He was still conscious, and he stood on his own… and despite the chill that he had just experienced, his faith never wavered. “Don’t you dare hurt him, Dorian!” he commanded my friend.
I could see a war of emotions raging through Dorian’s face as he tried to decide whether he could strike without endangering my son.
Penny tried to intervene, “Matthew, please come here,” she said calmly, but the boy refused to move. Desperate she continued, shouting, “Matthew… now! Get over here!”
“No, Momma… Uncle Dorian will hurt him. Tell him not to hurt Daddy,” replied Matthew anxiously.
Penny’s next words broke my heart, “That’s not your father, Matthew. It only looks like him.”
I wanted to die then, but the sound of giant wings distracted me. Looking skyward, we saw a giant form descending. Everyone was forced to move back as the dragon, Gareth Gaelyn, landed beside me. Staring at him I saw the flicker in his eyes as he registered the change in me.
What is your wish? He said, projecting the thoughts silently toward me.
Take me away, I thought at him, unsure if my attempt to communicate would work without my magic. I stood and moved closer to him, hoping he would understand my motion.
Leave the boy, the dragon responded, or I will not help you, bargain or not.
I had drawn Matthew with me, pulling on the back of his shirt without realizing it. I was reluctant to release him… for he felt like the only thing I had left to save me from the darkness that now surrounded me. I held onto his clothes stubbornly. I need him, you don’t understand.
The dragon roared, which sent even Dorian an involuntary step backward, while Penny instinctively sought to shelter Moira. Rose had already drawn the other children back into the stone sphere. Gareth Gaelyn’s thoughts came to me again, Trust me! Remember how I became a dragon. Release him before you destroy what you love.
Unable even to speak the words that were crushing my heart, I lifted my son and threw him at Dorian, trusting my friend to catch him safely. The moment I was alone the dragon’s claw caught me loosely, and with a great rush of air I found myself lifted, into the sky… staring down at the people I had loved.
Impotent and lacking even the capacity to cry, I was borne away by the dragon, no longer caring what might happen to me.
Epilogue
Penelope Illeniel, the Countess di’ Cameron, and now widow of the late Mordecai Illeniel, returned to her bedroom in a state of dumb shock. A few short hours past she had left on a trivial journey, to visit Rose Hightower’s family, never suspecting the tragedy that would befall her. Those hours seemed far away… they belonged to another woman, a woman whose life had not been rent asunder.
Her grief was so profound that, despite her initial outburst, she found herself now unable to cry, and her eyes were dry, though they remained swollen. She had not expected to return and find her husband dead, murdered by the undead fiend he had been pursuing for almost a decade now. The image of his shattered body, lying still on the road, yet haunted her. Each time her eyes closed she saw him there again, quiet and bloody… dead.
This can’t be real. It will never be real, I won’t accept it. This isn’t happening. In her mind she saw his eyes open again, remembering her relief at seeing him alive. But he wasn’t… As soon as his hand had touched her, as it had so often before, she had known. The cold touch, the bitter pain, those things she had learned well during her captivity among the shiggreth years before.
Despite the clear memory of his soul draining touch, her mind kept returning her to the look in his eyes… forlorn and haunted.
A knock at the door drew her attention for a moment. Lilly’s voice carried through the wood, “Mi’lady, your children are asking for you.”
What could she tell them? The enormity of it all threatened to sweep away her sanity. “Not yet, please! Tell Rose to give me a moment. I need to compose myself,” she answered, in a voice that surprised her by its calmness. Surely it wasn’t her voice? Those couldn’t be the words of a woman who had just lost her h
usband… it sounded far too reasonable to be the voice of such a woman.
Walking to the bed she sat down, wishing for tears that would not come… anything would be preferable to the cold pain in her chest, and then she spotted something new. Resting on the floor, next to her bedside table, was a wooden frame. It seemed familiar.
She lifted it and turned it over in her hands, discovering it to be a large mirror… a mirror she had thought long gone. She laid it on the bed, and was shocked to discover that, while it appeared the same it had a difference, for a ghostly image stared back at her from the glass. The face it held was her mother’s, from a time when she was young, a time when Penny and Mordecai had been children. Her mother’s eyes seemed to stare into her own, and there was a faint smile on her lips.
How can this be? she thought.
A small slip of paper lay folded on the bedside table. Opening it she read:
Penny,
I am so sorry for leaving this so long. I repaired this almost a year ago, and in the chaos that later ensued, forgot to return it to you. I discovered it in the corner of my workshop last week, and have been looking for a good chance to surprise you. The image in the mirror was almost an accident, a memory that came to me as I was fixing it. I hope you don’t mind. It seemed appropriate.
In spite of our busy lives, you should know that I have always been grateful for your love. You continue to amaze me daily, teaching me new things about myself, and showing me the depths that lie within your heart as you care for our children. Surely your mother must have been an incredible woman to have raised you… and it shows in the way you nurture your own sons and daughters.
Never forget how much I love you in return,
Mordecai
Sorrow found her then and Penny wept, clutching a pillow and shaking the bed with her muffled sobs.
Coming Soon:
Mageborn: The Final Redemption
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Mageborn: Book 04 - The God-Stone War Page 45