by Jessi Gage
She stilled. Even the breath in her lungs froze in time. Not a molecule shivered in or around her. “Tell me you have not lost my moonstone.” Her voice reverberated with a trace of power. Though faint, it was enough to make the bars hum. The relic contained a portion of her very soul, the portion that sustained her people. Any mortal seeking to use it in her name, even for good, could unleash unprecedented destruction on their realm.
“Easy, love. I have not lost it.”
She began to relax.
“I gave it away.”
Chapter 3
Dread cloaked Magnus as his stallion galloped after his finest tracking wolves. He had taken every conceivable precaution to protect Seona from outside threats. He’d never imagined she would pose a danger to herself by fleeing Glendall. Why would he imagine such a thing? Women prized safety and comfort. What could be safer or more comfortable than the king’s palace?
“She means to return home.” Anya’s words repeated in his memory.
Apparently, she’d wanted it badly enough to ally herself with a felon and betray all Magnus had offered her. If any harm befell her, the fault would be his. He should have taken precautions to prevent this.
He would discover how Seona had stolen out of Glendall with Bilkes, but first he would find her and cure her of the faulty notion that anyone could be trusted with her wellbeing above him, certainly not the very criminal who had attempted to kidnap Anya.
A hair-raising howl sliced through the mist. Newell, the swiftest and strongest of his tracking wolves, had picked up Seona’s trail.
“Hi-yah!” He twitched the reins and flattened himself along Taranis’s mane as the stallion streaked through the royal hunting grounds. Dense steam billowed from his snout, hot breath colliding with wintery air. Behind him, the pounding of hooves meant the two knights who had mounted up with him kept pace. The rest of his knights were organizing multiple search parties and scouring the royal city for any trace of Seona and Bilkes.
He no longer believed Seona to be in the royal city. If she were, his tracking wolves wouldn’t have led him beyond the wall. What he couldn’t guess at was why she had fled with the gemstone instead of using it immediately upon obtaining it. Her goal was to return to her human realm, but the trail he followed proved she was still among them. She hadn’t used the stone yet. But she could at any time.
Perhaps she didn’t know how it worked. But she was with Bilkes, and he would know the stone’s secrets. At least, he would have observed Ari using its magic in his attempt to usurp Magnus’s throne. Many members of Breeding First had witnessed Ari using the stone, and, like Seona’s escape, it had happened beneath Magnus’s nose.
His fury had spread through Glendall like wildfire. While he could not countenance putting the plotters to death with the population so low, he’d seen them imprisoned for their crimes. They would not see the light of day again. But Bilkes had been captive with them, and he’d managed to escape.
Magnus would find Bilkes, and if he had harmed Seona in any way, Magnus would make an exception to his stay of the death penalty.
He followed the call of his wolves, urging Taranis up the gravel-strewn slope leading to Lachlan’s Promontory. The stallion knew the ground well, the landmark a familiar meeting place for Magnus and those he invited to hunt with him.
As Taranis carried him nearer the promontory, the mist broke. Cool sunshine kissed away the frost on the ground. They were a full morning of hard riding from Glendall. The safety of Chroina’s walls had fallen away an hour ago. To have come this far in so short a time, Seona and Bilkes must have secured horses. Which would have required planning and help.
By the moon, if he had to interview every servant in his keep once Seona was found, he would discover how Bilkes had stolen away with her. He would ensure nothing like this ever happened again, even if he had to keep Seona with him at all times, her hatred of him be damned.
As the cleft of the canyon came into view, another wolf call rose on the air. Newell’s victory call. His tracking wolves had Seona circled.
Commanded to isolate and protect the quarry whose scent they followed—in this case Seona’s—the wolves would attempt to separate her from Bilkes. The only reason they would stand down and await further instruction was if Bilkes posed a threat to her. As Taranis rounded the final switchback before the promontory, Magnus witnessed that exact scenario.
Named for Magnus’s ancestor, an ancient King of Eire, Lachlan’s Promontory was a flat, triangular rock jutting over a canyon. Normally, he stopped to rest and pray here before descending into the canyon to hunt sweet mountain goat or a rare lynx, but today, Bilkes occupied the rock, and in his grip was the rarest prize of all: Seona.
Bilkes stood with his back to the ledge, feet planted for battle. Struggling against his arm across her throat was the small human. The sight of her frightened eyes roused a surge of protectiveness. She had betrayed him, but that did not alter his duty, which was to protect her and return her to Glendall at any cost. Whether she wished him to do so was irrelevant. His people needed her.
He nudged Taranis forward to where gravel gave way to table-flat rock. Another few steps, and he’d be near enough to swing his sword and remove Bilkes’s head. If Seona were not in the way.
“That’s close enough,” Bilkes said, his voice dripping with an unfamiliar accent. “Close enough for you to see the fear in her eyes and to understand that I hold over her the power of life and death.” A small movement of Bilkes’s arm made Seona’s face redden. She struggled for breath.
Magnus had heard Bilkes’s voice twice before, once when he’d falsely reported Riggs as Anya’s kidnapper and again at his trial, which had occurred only the week before. The voice he used now was not what Magnus remembered. Further off-putting was the way the man no longer appeared disabled from the trampling injury he’d sustained two moons ago. Rather, he easily overpowered Seona as if he had full use of both arms. A closer look explained how such strength was possible.
Clutched in the dirt-streaked hand near Seona’s throat was the stolen gemstone, and glowing from Bilkes’s eyes was the red light of demonic power.
Understanding cut through him like a sheet of ice. This was the voice of the god Ari had chosen to serve, the one he’d betrayed Magnus for. This was the god whose power had imbued the gemstone before his priest had blessed it in Danu’s name. Hyrk. Could he have power over the stone again now that he possessed it?
Danu, help us.
So this was where the evil deity had gone after his most loyal followers, Bantus and Ari, had fallen. He had been lurking under Magnus’s very nose inside the body of a prisoner. Now, Hyrk could create a doorway to anywhere at any moment and take Seona from him forever.
Magnus must tread carefully. “Release her!” he commanded, but as he did so, he backed Taranis a step.
The distance did not encourage the imposter to loosen his hold.
Magnus’s wolves waited in a semicircle around the pair. Despite their raised hackles, they would make no move unless Magnus commanded it. Unfortunately, Seona was in too precarious a position to risk setting the wolves on Hyrk. He was betting Hyrk knew it as well.
“You lied!” Seona choked out, her lilting brogue so much like Anya’s. “You vowed the stone would send me home! You vowed to escort and protect me! I trusted you!”
Hyrk clucked his tongue. “Females are so simple to deceive, are they not? So easy to manipulate.” He leveled his chilling red gaze on Magnus. “You know who I am. I see hatred in your eyes.”
“I know who you are,” he confirmed. “You are the one who deceived my cousin. You sanctioned the kidnapping and torture of many women.” Despite knowing the name of this god, his priest had been able to uncover next to nothing about him. All they knew was that this vile being had brokered a deal between Bantus and Ari. Ari provided human women to Bantus using the gemstone in exchange for the use of Larna’s army in overthrowing Magnus. “You sought my destruction, but Danu gave us strength to
prevail. Now, it is you who shall be destroyed. Release her!” His command echoed in the canyon. Somewhere nearby, a hawk screeched and took flight.
A chuckle seeped from Hyrk’s sneering lips. “How quaint that you think your goddess has any power to aid you. It is I you ought pray to. It is I who shall soon rule your entire world. And your precious Danu shall be my servant for all time.”
Rage filled him to hear this blasphemy. “Speak ill of my goddess at your peril, demon! Release the woman!” His hands shook with the need to end this miserable being.
“You mean this thing?” He shook Seona, making her whimper. “I think not. She has yet to fulfill her purpose.”
“Her purpose is no concern of—”
“I shall be the one to speak.” Hyrk interrupted him, all mirth gone from his countenance. “You shall be the one to listen.”
No one dared interrupt Magnus, but he had never spoken face to face with a deity before. He tightened his grip on his sword. “Say what you must. Then give her to me. She is mine.”
“No!” The protest came from Seona. She coughed and sputtered, “—rather die than be yours.” Her words sliced through his pride. She yet despised him, even though he attempted to rescue her.
Behind him, the scraping of hooves on gravel meant his two guards restlessly awaited instruction.
Hyrk appeared unhurried. “Fear not,” he said to Seona. “He will never touch you.”
The nail in the coffin of his pride was the relieved drop of Seona’s shoulders despite the reddening of her face as Hyrk’s grip slowly suffocated her. She truly preferred the abusive captivity of this beast to him.
From the satisfied glint in Hyrk’s eyes, he knew just how deeply Seona’s reaction had cut. But he gave Magnus no time to dwell on it. “I’ve been meaning to have words with you, oh King.” Mockery dripped like boiling honey over the title. “One moon ago, I held in thrall two powerful men.” He referred to Ari and Bantus. “Thanks to your interference, both are gone. Do you know what happens to mortals who stand in my way?”
Magnus refused to answer. Seona was in danger, and he had to do something. Quickly. But his hands were tied. Any action he took to save her would be too slow. Hyrk could transport them out of his reach or worse, snap Seona’s neck. “What do you want for her?” His only hope was to bargain with Hyrk.
“What do I want? What do I want?” The prisoner’s lips peeled back with Hyrk’s cackling laughter. Seona’s tiny fingers dug furrows into the arm choking her. Her face purpled.
Hyrk seemed not to notice. He threw back his head and laughed even harder before sobering in an instant. All mirth dropped from his face as he locked gazes with Magnus. “What I want,” he said clearly. “Is for you to suffer.”
Quick as a flash, he spun around like a man throwing a disc. His cape flared in a tattered arc. When the fabric settled, the view beyond it gouged panic through Magnus’s chest.
At the tips of Bilkes’s outstretched fingers, Seona went over the ledge. The shock in her eyes and the swell of her hair as she fell out of sight were the last things Magnus saw before rage propelled him off Taranis’s back, dagger drawn.
* * * *
“You what?” The bars shook with Danu’s bellow. Her chest heaved with indignation. Power whirled around her, stirred up like silt at the bottom of a loch.
Duff went on, unperturbed. “I said, I gave it away. If you’d like to calm yourself and listen, I shall explain.”
Her power crackled and spun. Her hair swirled upward as if caught in a stiff wind. But the bars contained her fury.
How intolerable it was being shackled thus! Her power longed to break free. She wished with all her being to lay hands on her moonstone and return to her people.
If only she hadn’t failed her people! Failed her father, who had trusted her with the power of Creation! He had given her the greatest imaginable gift, and what had she done with it? She’d made a beautiful realm filled with beautiful mortals only to allow all that beauty to fall into the hands of evil incarnate.
She would give anything, do anything, to repair what her foolishness had wrought.
A rush of wind assaulted her out of nowhere. It sucked the breath from her throat before she could unleash the tirade she had ready for Duff.
With no warning, the chaos of screaming air filled her ears. Daylight assaulted her eyes. Turbulence like clawing hands ripped at her clothing.
She was falling.
Instinct had her thrusting out her power to halt her descent, but her power didn’t come.
Panic gripped her like the talons of a dragon.
A collision sent shock waves through her body. Bones shattered. Pain sluiced her from her toes to the tip of each hair on her head.
She’d landed in a heap, her body crumpled. She stared at a hand that looked like her own but not. Though its position was unnatural, she somehow knew it was attached to her broken body. In its death grip was a red gemstone she recognized in an instant. Hyrk’s relic.
It was the last thing she saw before blackness claimed her.
Chapter 4
Shock doused Magnus like icy loch water. Numb to all but rage, he charged his target. Mindful of the cliff, he dug his fingers into Hyrk and threw him to the ground.
In a heartbeat, Magnus was on top of him, hands locked around the throat of what used to be one of his subjects.
Hyrk put up no fight. His attention was on the cliff. “That bitch! She stole my relic!” He writhed and scrabbled for the edge of Lachlan’s Promontory, like he would throw himself over to retrieve his gemstone.
Magnus could care less about that hideous stone. He cared only about vengeance. A fall to his death was too good for the murdering bastard.
“You killed her!” He poured every ounce of his strength into squeezing the life from his foe. “She was to be our salvation!”
The former messenger’s face reddened, like Seona’s had mere moments ago.
Hyrk’s eyes bulged, and he finally shifted his focus to Magnus, as if he’d just realized the vessel he had possessed was dying.
Overhead, a hawk screeched. Its shadow passed over them.
Hyrk’s mouth curved in a sickening grin. Magnus’s efforts should have made it impossible for Hyrk to speak, but apparently, the normal way of things did not apply. Bilkes’s mouth said, “You’ll all die now. Your supposed vision will never come to pass. And once the last of you is gone, your precious Danu will be locked in my dungeon for all eternity.” Spittle flew into the air with his taunts.
“Go to hell, Hyrk!” Magnus squeezed with all his might and felt something crack inside Bilkes’s neck.
Vaguely, Magnus was aware of his guards surrounding him and of his wolves circling. He could have let either finish Hyrk for him, but he would not be deprived. Black satisfaction filled him as he squeezed the life from a wicked deity. The enemy of Danu. The enemy of wolfkind.
But what about Bilkes, whispered his conscience. The messenger had betrayed the crown and broken many laws, but had taken no life that Magnus knew of. He didn’t deserve a death sentence.
Magnus released his grip as if he’d been burned. The feeling of Bilkes’s windpipe collapsing was a memory on the skin of his palms. There would be no washing it off. He had acted rashly, and the messenger paid the ultimate price.
Bilkes should be dead, but Hyrk continued to taunt. “Foolish, sentimental mortal. You are a weak race. But not for long. I will have my way in the end.” He fixed his gaze on the hawk circling the canyon. Then the blood-red light went out of Bilkes’s eyes.
Cackling laughter echoed off the rocky walls. That awful sound had not come from Bilkes’s body but seemed to ride on the air all around them. The hawk swooped out of sight, seeming to chase the laughter.
Bilkes, at last, lay still. His eyes, back to their color of the harvest moon, stared into the sky.
Woodenly, Magnus sat back on his heels. Regret crushed him. He’d lost Seona and taken out his fury on one not ultimately responsible for her
death. “What have I done?”
“We both saw, Sire,” said Cadeyrn, one of his knights. “He killed your promised lady.” The knight’s face reflected Magnus’s grief. But there was something more. An acknowledgment of what they’d just witnessed: a deity possessing one of their kind. “You did what had to be done.”
Perhaps. Perhaps Bilkes had been dead from the moment Hyrk had taken him. Dearest Danu, take his soul to your breast. Forgive me.
He got to his feet and half-heartedly praised his wolves for their work.
“There’s still Lady Anya,” Cadeyrn said. “And her babe.”
He shut his eyes against a wave of jealousy. As much as he celebrated with Riggs and Anya, he wished it could be his offspring, his heir, to be the first child born to their people in eleven years. Still. Cadeyrn’s words brought a faint ray of consolation. He nodded his acknowledgement, throat too tight to form words.
Speaking of Anya and her mate—Magnus scanned the shelf of rock. “Where is Riggs?” He and Cadeyrn had given chase with Magnus. Riggs’s horse stood ground tied beside Cadeyrn’s, but the man himself was nowhere to be seen.
“He’s gone down into the canyon.” Cadeyrn frowned and averted his gaze. He didn’t have to voice the reason. Riggs had gone to retrieve Seona’s body.
Magnus should weep for her loss. His heart should be broken. All he felt was heavy despair for his people. And for Anya, who just one moon ago had rejoiced at finding the sister she’d thought lost forever. They knew now why Seona had gone missing. Ari had used Hyrk’s relic to invade the human realm and lure females to Bantus’s dungeon. Seona, Magnus had learned from Anya, had been the first. Of all the human women rescued from Larna, Seona had suffered the longest.
May she find peace at your breast, he prayed, gazing out at the canyon. Countless shades of gray and lavender striped the rock on the far side. Yellow moss grew in places where water trickled down to the river below. A treasured hunting spot, the canyon had provided game for generations of Marann’s kings. How cruel that the source of such beauty and provision could be so deadly.