Chapter 47
“LILLIAN!” GREGORY ROARED her name as he leaped forward. Catching her in his arms, he gathered her close to his chest. When he touched her, he felt the demon soul within her seeking the spirit link to Lillian’s hamadryad. The great tree quaked under another blow as metal bit into her bark.
An axe. Someone was taking an axe to Lillian’s tree. The demon soul released control of Lillian’s body and focused all its attention upon sending strength to the tree in a frantic attempt to heal it.
But nothing the demon soul did could protect the hamadryad over such a great distance.
“Gregory?” Lillian stiffened in his arms. She shuddered. “What’s happening?”
A cold lump of dread, like a frost-chilled stone in winter, weighed heavy in his stomach. He tightened his arms around her. “Lillian, don’t give up. Fight. I’ll carry you back to your tree. I’ll heal you.”
He hastily called on his power and wove a ward over her wounds to slow the bleeding.
“My hamadryad... she’s dying.” She sucked in another short, pain-filled breath. “Let me go. It’s better this way. The demon dies with me.”
“No.”
With that one word, he denied the Divine Ones, the Lord of the Underworld—death itself. He would not serve, not this time. He would not stand by and watch Lillian die.
Cold reason slid over his emotions like a calming blanket. He focused his mind. “What kind of battle are we about to land in the middle of? Can you tell me how many are in your glade?”
“Not sure. Only one, I think.” Her answers came in short, pain-filled bursts.
Gregory ached just hearing her soft gasps. But what she said made no sense. It would take at least ten powerful demons working for an hour to break the new stone circle he’d built.
But it didn’t matter how many enemies were awaiting him in the glade; he’d fight a thousand Riven for the chance to save Lillian.
“Easy now,” he whispered and lifted her into his arms. She weighed so little, as if the loss of her magic were draining her of substance. “I’ll keep you safe.”
He leaped into motion and spread his wings while he ran. With a thunder of wing beats, he left the ground and flew toward her dying hamadryad.
HE CIRCLED THE HAMADRYAD’S canopy, scanning the ground below as he flew lower. The tree shook with each new blow, but he couldn’t see who was wielding the axe. The foliage was too thick, the branches too wide near the base. The rest of the clearing looked empty, free of other visible enemies. There was no scent of Riven. And the stone circle still stood, untouched. It didn’t make sense.
Four feet from the ground, he folded his wings tight to his body and dropped down onto his hind feet. He deposited Lillian behind him and whirled on his prey.
Partially obscured by the redwood’s branches, a slim figure wielded the axe.
As the axe connected with bark in another mighty blow, Lillian cried out. Reason fled before the all-powerful need to protect his lady. He lunged, talons poised for a killing strike. Sable turned to him, the axe lowering, and his blow caught her across the throat.
He blinked in surprise even as blood drenched her pale dress.
The axe slipped from her fingers, and she stumbled back against the redwood’s trunk. Instinctively, she reached to cover the deep gash across her throat, trying to stem the flow of lifeblood. She locked gazes with him and attempted to speak. Blood flowed from her mouth instead of words. Panic shone in her eyes, but something else, too: deep sorrow.
“Please,” she whispered into his thoughts. “I have an unborn child. The Riven know the location of my tree. If I don’t kill Lillian’s hamadryad, they’ll kill my daughter. Please. Save my innocent little girl.”
He couldn’t lie to the dryad and tell her he’d save her child—he wasn’t sure if he had the strength to save Lillian and himself, but he could tell her what he knew about the Rivens’ fate at least. “Lillian killed most of the Riven. Those still living are on the run. They’ll not have time to hunt down your child before the Clan and the Coven dispatch them.” Perhaps she could take comfort in that.
“Thank you, Avatar.” Her fear bled away along with the spark of life in her eyes.
Sable slid sideways and collapsed to the ground. Even in death, the dryad Elder retained her grace.
“May peace find you,” he whispered.
He returned to Lillian and gathered her up in his arms. She was unconscious. Naked, she looked small and fragile. He didn’t like the sickly pallor of her skin. He was running out of time. Fear dug icy talons into his chest. Everywhere their bodies touched, he sent healing magic into her. After a few minutes, she regained consciousness, a look of confusion on her features. She touched his cheek. “What’s happening?”
“Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.”
“I feel strange,” she said, her voice groggy and slurred. “Am I drunk? No? Dammit, I’m dying, aren’t I?”
He leaned forward and nuzzled her, feeding her more strength as he did so. She returned his caress with shaking fingers, her touch a brand against his shoulder. Her thoughts whispered of her love. He pressed their bodies together and began weaving between the ground-sweeping branches of her tree.
The soft foliage brushed at his arms, and then swept out of the way, making room for him and his burden. They continued to spread until there was a space for him to stand close to the buttressed trunk. Bark pulled back like a seam unraveling, and a fissure opened in the redwood’s trunk.
A touch here and a slight push there, and he guided her closer to where he wanted her.
“Relax,” he whispered into her hair. “This will come naturally to you. Just give yourself over to your tree. When you are healed, come back to me. Do you understand?”
“Um... I’ll come back,” she said, sounding like she was on the edge of sleep. “You’ll be waiting?”
“Always.” In this life or the next.
“Goodbye, my gargoyle.” She closed her eyes and gave in to a dryad’s instincts, her face becoming tranquil. As if a gale blew through the meadow, the redwood shuddered, shaking its branches as the fissure in its trunk widened. Blood-red fibrous vessels, delicate as a spider’s web, enveloped his lady’s shoulders and crawled across her lower body. Then the cavernous maw swallowed Lillian, pulling her into the tree’s embrace. Her arms fell away from him. He held her hand in his for a moment more—a final caress before he let her go completely.
He stared at the tree for a long time after the bark had smoothed over. His heart ached. Dread held him frozen in place. His reassuring words to Lillian did nothing to soothe the chaos of grief and fear in his own soul.
She could still die. Her hamadryad had sustained near-fatal wounds, greater than even what dryad and demon together could heal.
There was one final thing he could do for the tree. Bowing his head, he began reciting a blessing in a deep chant. Drifting into a light trance, he slashed both wrists and allowed his blood and magic to drip down upon the ground. He continued to chant as he walked the tree’s perimeter. His powerful heart began to labor after a few moments as more and more of his blood splashed upon the grass and dirt at the redwood’s base.
“Drink,” he whispered feebly to the hamadryad. “Feed. Grow strong. Then one day, return my beloved to me.”
Lightheaded and shivering with cold, he leaned against the trunk to rest. His thoughts blurred as his mind began to shut down.
His heart faltered. The little blood he still possessed retreated from his outer extremities, and his skin grew hard and cold. He stumbled toward his old pedestal and half-collapsed upon the sun-warmed stone. His dying mind noted the random details. Pitted gray stone. A few patches of fuzzy moss. He ran his fingers along the greenery.
As he settled upon the pedestal, his thoughts strayed back to Lillian. He brushed her sleeping mind one more time, sending a wave of love and reassurance to her.
“Live,” he whispered into her mind. “Even if I do not.”
Chapter 48
CHILLED AIR STRUCK her belly, the fingers of cold invading further into her dreams of warm bedding and soft pillows. Its next strike fell upon her chest and face. The sudden, cold slap shocked Lillian fully awake. She gasped, dragging in a deep breath. The first lungful of air burned down her throat. Spasms tightened her lungs. She gasped and choked with deep, retching coughs. What? Did I just swallow an entire swimming pool full of water?
She tried to force open her eyes, but her lids were heavy and stiff. Clumps of damp hair swung across her face, the strands stuck together by some kind of goopy slop. Her coughing subsided. Slowly, her lungs stopped burning. Another gust of cold caressed her thighs, then lower, creeping down her legs a few inches at a time. The rest of her body was as limp and uncooperative as her eyelids. She felt empty. Cored out.
Worse, her sense of balance told her she was upright, but slumping forward, inch by inch. She couldn’t move her limbs to fight the slow workings of gravity. Whatever was holding her up seemed to be letting go.
With nothing else to do, she waited, barely daring to breathe. A slight tingling encroached upon her silent, unfeeling world. It started in her shoulders and worked its way up her neck. Feeble energy stirred.
She ran her tongue along her lips. They tasted sweet. It was a strangely familiar flavor. A moment later, she had it. The watery sweetness of tree sap.
Feeling slowly returned in the wake of the tingling. Her eyelids opened. After blinking several times, the gray world sharpened into strands of her dark hair coated with tree goop. She gave her head a shake. The motion lacked the strength to toss the lank strands over her shoulder, but it swung enough that she could see the ground. Knee-high grass waved in a breeze. Now that her wet skin was adjusting, the air felt warmer.
Lillian sighed and rested her chin on her chest. Thinking required too much energy. It was easier to relax and be lulled by the sounds of the breeze blowing through tree leaves. She supposed she was in her glade. It smelled like it. And she’d always felt safe in her glade until... until when? No, she didn’t want to think about it.
Sleep was encroaching upon her consciousness again when Lillian’s world shivered. An earthquake? Here? The strange sensation subsided after a few heartbeats. The silence and stillness lasted for a minute more. Then a deep groaning like the wind in an old tree, its branches creaking in winter, echoed all around her. The world tilted on its head. Whatever was holding her upright loosened. One arm came free. Her upper body lurched forward. She was pulled up short by her other arm, still trapped within the same warm, wet blanket that held her thighs and lower legs. A pained gasp escaped her. By the radiating pain in her shoulder, she’d damn near dislocated it.
She was hanging upside down, bent almost double at the waist, hair pooling on the ground. Her new position showed her something she’d missed before. It was impossible to miss now because her nose was almost touching it.
And the “it” was the exfoliating bark of her redwood. The rough bark grew up and over her legs, midway up her thighs. Her upper body had emerged faster than the rest of her. One arm was still trapped within the trunk, but she could feel the arm slipping.
“This can’t end well.”
The prickling bite of returning sensation crawled down her body in a hot wave. A few more minutes and she might be able to move, maybe even extract herself from the tree without harm.
The tree gave another series of contractions.
“Ah, my usual luck, I see.”
Her arm came free from the tree’s hold. At the same time, the fissure in the trunk widened, releasing her legs. Lillian started to fall head-first toward dew-covered grass. Desperate to protect her head, she tucked and rolled. Or at least tried. She hit the ground with an expulsion of breath, then grunted in pain when she rolled onto her strained shoulder.
Judging by the throb, her shoulder would be colorful come tomorrow morning, but she didn’t think it was dislocated. Her midair twist and roll hadn’t been pretty. Actually, it probably resembled something a sea lion on land might do, but the maneuver worked for the most part.
“Nastiest wake-up ever,” she mumbled as she stared up at her tree. The fissure she’d just fallen from was closing, the bark healing over the mass of red tissue and wood fiber. When it was healed, it looked like any other redwood trunk, nothing like a tree that had just given birth to her.
“Yep, a tree just gave birth to you,” she muttered.
With a small part of her brain that decided to work, she realized, with a hint of amusement, she was probably in shock.
The grass was cold and wet from recent rain. She was buck-naked. Tree sap and blood covered her from head to toe. Her mind flailed for a moment, and then she remembered everything. The Riven. The demons trying to sacrifice her so they could corrupt the Lord of the Underworld’s sword. The demon within her awakening and saving her and Gregory from the Riven.
Events were blurry after that point, but she remembered the demon using her body to seduce Gregory, or at least trying damn hard and failing. Then the agony of an axe biting into her hamadryad. Sable with an axe, tears running down her cheeks.
The last lucid thought was of her gargoyle placing her in her damaged hamadryad in a desperate bid for them both to heal. Then Gregory whispered his love and told her to “live.” She remembered the loving touch of his mind. But there was something else, too: “Live, even if I do not.”
That horrible emptiness. The sensation of being cored out. God, no. No, no, no, no!
“Gregory!”
Lying on her side, propped up on one shoulder, she was facing the wrong direction. She struggled to get her muscles working. The pins-and-needles sensation intensified. After a few moments, feeling returned to her legs and she rolled over.
He was there on his pedestal.
Head bowed, unmoving stone.
She tried to touch his thoughts, but no magic stirred within the emptiness inside her. His last words to her echoed in her mind once more.
Live, even if I do not.
She crawled toward him. The sweet fragrance of sun-warmed grass coiled around her. Bees and insects buzzed close to her head, sounding loud to her ears. Everything was as it had been all her life. The maze. Her glade. Her redwood rustling in the breeze. Her silent stone guardian.
But it was all wrong.
“Gregory, please,” she whispered as she continued to crawl closer.
Horrible emptiness crushed all hope. She’d felt his willingness to sacrifice himself if it would save her. Gargoyle blood could heal a hamadryad. Her hamadryad had been grievously wounded. It would have taken a lot of Gregory’s magic-laced blood to heal those kinds of injuries.
Gregory’s pedestal loomed in front of her. Her fingertips brushed the rough stone. Then she reached up and grabbed a handhold to haul herself to her feet. She swayed but held on to her gargoyle’s leg. After struggling up onto his pedestal, she looked up and stared into his beloved face. It didn’t matter what form he wore, she loved him regardless. Fingers shaking, she caressed his muzzle.
Words she’d spoken once before whispered across her memory.
“I trust to the Father’s choice.”
She leaned against her beloved, breathing across his stone skin, trying to pick up even a hint of his scent.
“Dark Watcher, immortal servant of the Light, with my power, I summon you to wake.”
No power stirred at her command. She fought back against a sob and continued in a shaking voice. He couldn’t be dead. Not after they’d defeated the enemy.
She couldn’t be alive, and he be dead.
“With my will, I do claim you.”
She focused all her shock-benumbed thoughts, her sense of purpose, her love—everything she was—and willed it into the stone under her hands and prayed some part of her beseeching litany reached Gregory.
“Hear me and awake. My friend. My
soul.” She pressed her lips against his forehead. The stone was as rough and cold as the rest of him.
“Evil walks the land.”
She paused and then continued weakly. “I have need.” Of you. Forever. Beloved.
Nothing happened. At that moment, hope died within her. As she had since childhood, she dropped down onto his stone knee, then she wrapped her arms around his neck and sobbed. The echoing hollowness within her opened wider, threatening to devour her soul. Agony built within her until she couldn’t hold it back. She screamed great gasping howls that hurt her throat. Tears flowed onto her lips, their taste salty.
When her voice failed, she continued to sob in silence. But no tears could fill the void within her.
“Listen. Hear me, my lady.”
She jerked in surprise and looked into his face. Still cold, unmoving stone. Her grief must have been playing tricks on her mind.
“We are one entity, one soul. We are the two halves of the Avatar. Nothing can part us. Not even death.” Gregory’s words echoed back to her from her memories. Either that or grief had broken her mind.
“My love, you are sane. At least as much as anyone on this cursed, magic-less world.”
Lillian couldn’t prevent her arms from tightening around his neck. Could it be?
“I live. And for you, my lady, I will try to wake. I think I’m healed enough to resume warm flesh.”
Worry made her stomach tense.
“Gregory, don’t endanger yourself for me.” She hugged his stone neck harder. At that moment, she didn’t care if she had to wait another twelve years for him to heal enough to be with her again. He was alive. She’d give daily thanks to the Divine Ones while she waited. “Rest. Finish healing and then come back to me.”
“I’ll not make you wait another twelve years.” There was a smile in his mental tone.
The Complete Gargoyle and Sorceress Boxset (Books 1-9) Page 26