They were losing the fight.
If John won this, he would put every single one of them to death. Thane. Neve. Myles. Bran. Vera. Forcing panic down, Aini slipped down the hill and found the rectangle of rusted metal, about three feet long, that lined the bottom of the wall.
“Here.” Aini knelt on the wet grass and mud, and pulled at the metal’s lip. It creaked and cracked, but wouldn’t open.
“Owen said there might be a lock somewhere.” Vera bent down and pushed the growth away from the metal, searching.
Aini blindly ran her fingers over the cold, flaking rust, then a vision swept her away in a tide of fear.
They’re coming. They’ll know.
A woman—circled in the bright hue of an emotion that could only be called abject horror—crouched beside the wall. Her fingers were black. She shivered and lost hold of her shawl. A dog barked far off and she jumped. Voices came and her world dropped into nothing.
Aini panted as the vision slid off her mind.
Thane grabbed her and forced her into a flat position on the ground. His mouth rested on her ear. “I’m sorry. Quiet now.”
Everyone else was lying down too. What was going on?
A group of kingsmen wearing the king’s personal seal poured over the wall and into Edinburgh, taking off at a run.
When they were gone, Aini sat up and realized the group had opened the lock and the secret passage while she was seeing the vision of that poor diseased woman. She’d been a plague victim. A shudder tried to keep Aini from crawling through the passage behind Thane, but she fought it and won, coming up on King John’s side of the wall to join the rest.
Moonlight reflected off the wet ground in Edinburgh’s outer villages and streets. But one dark, square shape blotted the light. It was a large military tent.
“He’s there. It has to be him.”
Aini felt the familiar surge of anger the king’s presence always brought out in her. The man who had killed so many innocents. Taken mothers from sons. Fathers from daughters. Sisters from brothers. He taxed the people to the point where they had to choose who would eat and who would die. John ripped lives apart to keep his hands on the crown and his pockets full of gold. He used his birthright to step on Scotland’s neck, to abuse and take, take, take. Because of him, Nathair had gained power and taken her father’s finger and nearly his life.
She couldn’t wait to shove John’s face in the dirt right where it belonged.
With so many soldiers and military vehicles surrounding the place, it was impossible to see which path to the king’s tent was the least dangerous.
A massive oak towered beside Thane and covered him in darkness the stars couldn’t touch. If she could climb it, she could see the camp’s layout and find a way to John. But none of the limbs were less than ten feet off the ground. With a gravity-reducing hard candy, she could reach the high shadows of the oak and see the enemy in whole and find a way to infiltrate John’s tent. She opened one of her inner pockets and took out one of the lavender flavored sweets.
“What are you doing?” Thane grabbed her wrist, his gray eyes flashing and his aura beaming.
“If I get up high in those branches, I can see which is the best way to do this, to get into John’s tent.”
“You already ate the taffy. This,” he took the candy and held it up, “could kill you.”
“Mixing stuff made me puke my brains out at the safe house, remember?” Myles said.
“Can’t we just climb it?” Neve asked.
Vera was already trying and getting nowhere. She stepped back and cocked her gun at the tree.
“No,” Neve hissed, grabbing her wrist. “Keep your head. Don’t get wild.”
Vera snorted and put the gun away. “Little spit telling a woman raised in the Dionadair to keep her wits in the heat of battle. Let me just tell you that if we don’t get wild right now, none of us are going to live long enough to get anything ever again.”
Myles stood between them, a hand on each. “I don’t know what you meant for sure there, Vera, but I feel you. What do we do, Bran? You seem to have good ideas about things.”
“I was going to suggest I take the hard candy because all I took was the strength chocolate and I don’t think it really works too well on me anyway plus I’m expendable.”
“You are not expendable.” Thane shoved him hard.
Bran almost smiled and Aini wanted to cry and scream at the unfairness of the world at large. “No, Bran,” Aini said. “I love you for being the brave man you are, but no one has worked with the gravity-reducing stuff like I have. It’s not easy to use. You could end up on the moon for all we know.”
Thane raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think that’s possible. The ratio of—”
“Shhhh.” Vera put a finger to Thane’s lips, and he nodded, sighing and rubbing his hands through his hair.
Aini watched the spirits around them. They were nothing more than a shimmer here and a curl of smoke there, but many were present. She could sense them as clearly as her own arms and legs.
“I’m not going to die. And if I start having trouble, the ghosts will help me live through it. I am the Seer after all.”
Thane’s jaw tensed, and he gripped the candy so hard that his bones pressed against the skin on his knuckles. “After all of this, I can’t lose you.”
He crossed the wet earth and put his forehead against hers. A hot electricity snapped between them and the Coronation Stone necklace resting on his shirt neck hummed so loudly that it almost hurt Aini’s ears. She placed a kiss on each of his closed eyelids. He tasted like magic.
“You won’t lose me. I can do this.”
He swallowed, then handed the candy over. It was sticky from his palm. She chewed it quickly, the lavender-sugar taste rocketing over her tongue. It took effect faster than she’d guessed. Her head felt like as a bag of feathers, and a tingling sensation bloomed between and above her eyes.
Thane watched her closely. “You all right?”
She nodded, then as the chemicals took hold, she focused on the highest branch of the tree. Drawing on an invisible, imaginary line between her and the oak’s limb, she pushed out from that tingling spot between her eyebrows. She began to fly.
The night air streamed over her cheeks and a tickle danced through her stomach as she rose. Thane’s fingers trailed away from her boot as she cleared his head. Her toes brushed one of the lower branches and a clutch of leaves snagged her sleeve. She untangled it, her height slipping a bit.
“You all right, sweetheart?” Myles whispered, leaning into the trunk and looking up.
“Good. I’m good.”
Focusing, heart pounding, she floated higher, higher, higher. Thane and Neve were nothing more than small areas of shadow. Myles had completely disappeared under the cover of leaves beneath Aini’s feet and only the side of Vera’s red mouth was visible in a patch of moonlight. Bran hooked his thumbs in his weapons belt, looking grim.
Aini found the limb she’d been aiming for and landed light as a bird. The leaves touched the back of her hand and one had managed to tangle itself in her hair. She left it where it was, studying the landscape laid out like a living map below her. The night’s silver glow showed a solid unit of kingsmen with guns ready on three sides of King John’s personal tent. Milky, electric illumination leaked from the canvas walls and the silhouettes of more than five people shifted inside. Aini squinted at the seemingly unguarded back entrance. There were shapes in the dark…something with wide plates of metal and…
A chill ran over Aini’s back.
“Flyers,” she whispered to herself.
If her eyes weren’t deceiving her, there were only two. But the night swallowed the rest of the field in that direction, outbuildings and a rise of land blocking the moon’s efforts. Using the power of the hard candy, she skipped over some smaller tree branches attached to the limb and hooked a boot around the tree’s very last little arm, straining to see. She wished she could call on a spirit
to discover how many flyers there were and whether or not any pilots were readying them for takeoff. But if she asked for assistance, a ghost might make itself visible and draw a kingman’s attention her way. Doubtful, but possible. And she wasn’t out of range for some of those guns in their hands.
Leaving the lofty heights of the old tree, Aini locked eyes with Thane and drew herself down into his arms.
He hugged her tight and quick. “I like it when you’re here. Right here.” His heart hammered wildly against her cheek before she pulled away.
Bran glanced in the direction of the city, and Aini had the suspicion he was thinking of Viola.
Aini touched Thane’s cheek briefly, soaking up the look in his stormy eyes. “Me too. I have bad news.”
Neve gathered the group up close to the tree trunk like a mother hen. “What is it?” She nibbled her bottom lip and stood a fraction closer to Myles. Myles’s throat moved in a nervous swallow.
“Flyers.”
Thane’s eyes shuttered closed. “I knew they’d bring them. I just knew it.”
“I wonder why they are still grounded?” Bran frowned.
Vera held up her hands. “We need to get into that tent and take King John down before they do deploy those nasty birds. We need to take the wind out of this attack before it has a chance to really get going.”
Myles snorted. “I’d say it’s already going pretty strong.” There was zero humor in his voice as he looked back at the smoke flying from Edinburgh like black pennants. A scream and two blasts punctuated the air.
Bran stared at the ground.
Thane put an arm around him for a second, then dropped back. “She’s strong. She’ll fight hard.”
He was talking about his half-sister, Viola.
Aini suddenly ached for a time when she could talk to Viola and take her to the market for spices with Neve and Myles while Bran and Thane played poker at some terrible pub. She saw a flash of sunlight and heard laughter. Pain thrashed across her chest because it was only a wish, and there was little to no chance they would all survive this and experience a day like that.
“The side where the flyers are seems unguarded. I’m sure there are kingsmen there somewhere, but maybe because it faces away from the city, they have a setup we could infiltrate. I’m going to send some spirits out front for a diversion and ask one to check the back and report to us. I say we go ahead and run that way, sticking to the shadows, and see if we can slip in.”
“Spirits, if you are here, please stay hidden, but please listen. Bathilda, I would love to know if you are here.” Aini pressed herself to the tree trunk, on the side away from the king’s camp.
The temperature dropped, and Myles shivered. The air twinkled around the group and a haze of blue-green spirit smoke fizzled in and out of view.
“I am here, Seer.” It was Bathilda.
Aini sighed in relief. “I’m so glad to hear your voice. Would you go around the back of the king’s tent over there and see if there are guards there? I’m headed that way regardless, so just let me know what you see, please.” She faced the other shimmering shadows floating beside her. She felt like a ghost herself, half hidden in the tree’s dark domain and her feet a good five inches off the ground because of the candy. Dizziness swept over her and she gripped her head.
“Seer?” Vera took her elbow.
“It’s that double dose of candy.” Thane’s voice was sharp. “Aini. Talk to us. What are you feeling?”
She blinked up at him and the world tipped to the side. He took her in his arms. “I’m taking you back. We can regroup. I’ll…I’ll think of something.”
She pushed away from the lovely warmth of his body. “No. It’s just some lightheadedness. It’s already fading. Bathilda?”
Just Bathilda’s face emerged from the lightly shimmering air. “Seer?”
“A little help?”
Bathilda’s hands materialized on Aini’s shoulders, then the spirit looked back at another ghost. “You too, Liam. Place your hands on my back. Thank you.”
Heat flooded through Aini’s body like she’d stepped into a hot bath. It was wonderful. She let out a sigh as the weakness left her completely. She broke away from Bathilda.
“Thank you. That’s enough. I don’t want you to use all your strength. I need you now. I need all of you,” she said to the night and all the spirits crowding the spot beneath the ancient tree. “Do what you can to attack the kingsmen around the tent with cold, wind—anything you can do. Disrupt their weapons if you are capable.”
She didn’t bother asking who was on her side. The respect these spirits sent toward her, their energy, their presence, it was as clear as a resounding We are here for you. She wondered if the rest of the Ghost Talkers were having similar experiences inside the city.
“Go now, please.” She unsheathed MacBeth’s knife and held it high. “I am your Seer and I will do all that I can to see your grievances laid to rest with the death of this horrible king and the reinstitution of a Scottish government that cares for its people and those who love its land.”
“We will go, Seer,” Bathilda whispered reverently. She inclined her head, the bars of her eternal sixth-senser cage just barely visible, then blinked into nothing.
The night warmed a fraction as the ghosts sped away.
Thane’s eyes flashed as his fingers drifted close to the Coronation Stone hanging from his neck. “Aini, I need to tell you about a Dream I had.”
“Now?”
A sadness tugged at his eyes and the edges of his fine lips. “If this fight comes down to one of us choosing mercy or death for our enemies, we must choose death.”
Aini’s stomach knotted. “Because you saw what happens if we don’t.”
His throat moved in a slow swallow. “Aye. Our people will be forced to fight this over and over again. We must not hesitate in dealing out death.”
She could feel the truth of it, the shining, hard steel truth of it. “I understand.” Holding him close for a blessed moment, she realized he was the Seer in these situations. “You know,” she said quietly, seriously, “you are as much Seer as I am.”
He took her chin in his warm fingertips. “And you are Heir. We are in this together. Completely together.”
Heart beating steady and strong in her chest, Aini kissed his soft mouth quickly, then took off toward the king’s tent. Thane and her fierce friends trailed just behind, and her feet never once touched the earth.
Chapter 19
Banished
Bran was hot on Thane’s heels. The ground dipped and he nearly tripped over his own feet, catching himself on Myles’s shoulder. The colonial gave him a wink, the moon lighting his bald head.
“You should pull your hood up,” Bran said, huffing as they sped into the dark, toward the king’s tent.
Myles did as told and for once didn’t add a little comment. More than anything that made Bran worry. And it was enough to distract him and cause him to pretty much run straight into a kingsman on patrol. Myles grimaced and sidled into the shadows to follow Aini, Vera, Neve, and Thane who were already far enough away not to notice.
Bran’s fight training clicked in. Without thinking about it, he kicked the man below the navel to throw him off balance. Bran drove a knee forward and dropped the kingsman. He was sure someone had heard.
“Come on,” Myles whispered. He crouched beside a military truck.
The faint outline of Aini and the rest of them showed just outside the king’s tent. Aini was looking around like she was trying to find Bathilda or one of the other ghosts.
“Go on. I’ll catch up.” Bran uncapped a smoke bomb and threw it as far as he could in the opposite direction.
Two hundred thousand thoughts were flying through his head, but one specific fear gnawed at him with very, very sharp teeth as he sped toward what was most likely death in the form of a royal command and a quick shot to the head. He dialed Viola’s number as he ran.
“You alive?” Her voice was wispy but
steady, like a constant stream of incense smoke.
“I am. How is it coming along over there?” He stubbed a toe against a row of metal boxes labeled in pale military-style numbers.
“Nathair and this Jack Shaw fellow are killing as many of our own as the king’s. They just ordered an entire unit into what was clearly pure suicide.”
Bran breathed out and rounded the tent’s corner. The group had collected outside the door beside one of the king’s flyers. Aini and Thane were having a heated but whispered discussion.
“You stay out of that, aye?” Bran said to Viola.
“I’m liking you, Bran, but you can’t start telling me what to do now.”
Bran almost laughed. “I like you too. Can you please stay alive so we can discuss this further?”
“That I will agree to. Fare well, my good knight.”
“Fare well, my lady.” Bran tucked the phone away. The ground at his right boot sparkled oddly. He bent to check it out. Something like sand ran in a line as far as he could see in the dark.
He gathered some in his hand and met the group. “I found this on the ground. I don’t think it’s explosive…”
Thane frowned at the tiny grains in Bran’s palm.
Aini frowned. “The ghosts aren’t communicating with me. I don’t know what waits for us in there.” She floated a foot off the ground, her face drawn and worried.
“We can’t just stand out here,” Vera said. “We’ll just have to go for it.”
“Heir and Seer,” a voice said from the dark.
Vera had a gun aimed at him fast. “Who is it?”
“Walker and Sandoe,” another voice said.
Relief loosened the vice that had grabbed Bran’s chest. Ah. He recognized that first name. “It’s the colonial contact.”
Thane took a deep breath. “Och. Good.”
Walker and Sandoe came closer, the moon lighting on a man with silvery black hair and a woman with bright red locks, both in kingsmen jackets and armed to the teeth.
The Edinburgh Seer Complete Trilogy Page 60