by Cege Smith
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Although he had Angeline tucked closely behind him, Connor knew the situation was bad. Very bad. With Searon standing in front of him, and Caspian off to the side looking like a satisfied tomcat, he realized that he had been played. If he didn’t think of something fast, he and Angeline were in a world of trouble.
He knew that Angeline was upset with him for not being honest with her, but how was he supposed to know that once he met her he was going to have feelings for her? How was he supposed to know that he would do anything, including put his own destiny in jeopardy, to make sure that she was safe? He could only hope that she would follow his lead now and that he could find a way out of this mess.
“I should have known that you finding us in the forest so quickly was a bit coincidental,” Connor said to Caspian. He wasn’t going to give Caspian the satisfaction of knowing how betrayed he felt at that moment.
But he wasn’t ready to confront Searon yet. Although Monroe may have thought that he had paid attention to nothing during his training for the Master’s guard, he had grudgingly listened the whole time. That had a lot to do with the fact that as much as he despised what Monroe had done to him, he found that the more he learned about Monroe, the more he respected him. Monroe was very good at what he did, and one thing that he had engrained into the trainees was always to learn the depth of any alliances and to look for weaknesses. There were always weaknesses.
Caspian shrugged. “Not so coincidental. Even if Searon hadn’t told me about the Master’s special game, I patrol that edge of the woods frequently. It’s a common place for vampires to leave their ‘unmentionables.’ It just so happens that in this instance, Searon’s pursuit mirrored mine.” Caspian peered at Angeline. “This one is different than any wraith I’ve ever encountered. I would have liked to study her longer.”
“You’re lucky I gave you the two days I did, old man,” Searon snarled. “I’m bored with this game. I want to be back in the coven, and that,” he pointed at Angeline, “is my ticket in.”
“I am taking the princess to the Master,” Connor said. He calculated the odds in his head. If Angeline lent a hand, he could take both of them. He knew he could. It had been awhile since Monroe had tested him in hand-to-hand combat, but Monroe was the best.
As if Searon had heard his thoughts, three more vampires entered the room and encircled them. Connor could feel Angeline tense behind him. For the first time, he hoped that she would be scared enough that the beast inside her would take control. An unleashed wraith could turn the tables quickly.
Then Connor heard a crackle of pure energy, and as he turned he watched Angeline slump to the floor. He could see that she was still awake but her mind was empty; a very effective taming spell had been cast. Within seconds her hands and feet were bound by heavy metal clamps. He cursed himself for thinking he could find an advantage to leverage. Of course Caspian would have prepared them for her.
“Your wraith won’t be any use to you right now,” Searon said. “If you are very lucky, and by lucky I mean you cooperate with me in every order I give you from this point forward, I will tell my father that we were working together and that we found her in this state. I will spare your sire the shame of knowing that this was your mess and you having to deal with my father’s wrath.”
“Why would you do that?” Connor asked. As long as Searon saw a use for him and didn’t kill him that would give him time to think. He needed to find a way to get himself and Angeline out of there, but there wasn’t anywhere to run in this dark cave and he wasn’t sure if there were more of Searon’s men.
“Because then you would owe me a favor. And let’s be frank, shall we? Once I am accepted back into the coven, it won’t be too long before I have full control. I’ll need men that I can trust. Men who understand how things work in the world,” Searon said.
“Why would you trust me?” Connor said.
“I know you have no love lost for your sire or my father,” Searon said as he started to pace around the room, taking it all in. “I know what you want, Connor. If you serve me faithfully, I will gladly give it to you. Once I am Master, I will have the confidence of the Grand Counsel. I will have access to all of the secrets since the beginning of time. All that I ask in exchange is faithful service. I need men like you to help me now, and that will not be forgotten.”
Connor felt sick. He knew exactly what service under a man like Searon would mean. Death. Plague. Pestilence. The end of humankind. Connor wanted to rejoin the human ranks, not extinguish them. But now wasn’t the time for debate. He knew that Searon was expecting an immediate answer.
“The princess becoming a wraith was an accident,” he said stalling for time.
“Of course it was,” Searon said. “I’m sure there was nothing to be done to avoid it. Unlike my father, I understand that mistakes happen.”
“What do you mean to do with the princess?” Connor asked.
“Finish the game and claim my prize, which will to rejoin the coven,” Searon said. “Of course, I will give you credit for assisting so that your sire is still able to add to his pride, for as short a time as that kind of thing is relevant.”
“The Master will not be pleased that she has been turned into this creature,” Connor said.
“The rules of the game did not specify that she could not be a wraith. They said only that she could not be a vampire or dead,” Searon said. “Besides, knowing my father, he’ll still figure out a way to turn it to his advantage.”
He has thought of this from every angle, Connor thought.
“Besides, why do you care?” Searon said with narrowed eyes.
Caspian, who had been only observing the exchange so far, snorted. “Isn’t it obvious? He cares for her.”
Damn the man!
“I care for her only to the extent that she was an ends to a means,” Connor lied smoothly. “It was critical to my methods that she trusted me. You just heard me admit that to her myself a few moments ago.” Connor needed to deflect the attention from his intentions. “What about you, Caspian? What do you gain from helping in this plot?”
“There’s no love lost between me and the Master. He doesn’t approve of my methods or my work.” Caspian sniffed. “Searon is not the only one who has tired of being banished outside of the coven. I wish only to return to my rightful place and my honor. Searon will benefit from my counsel.”
So for now, there was no chance of turning the two against each other.
“The sun will be setting soon,” Searon said, finally standing in front of Connor again. “What say you, Connor? Are you with me or are you going to make me kill you?”
“I will join you,” Connor said. His time of stalling had run out.
“Good,” Searon said. “Now I am going to be ready to be leave as soon as dusk arrives. So you both need to get busy.”
Connor raised his eyebrows.
“Those spirits out there aren’t going away, and we need a plan for moving the princess out of here,” Searon said, pointing at the books. “Caspian, have you found anything yet? They were fine letting us in, but I get the sense that your boundary is going to come falling down soon.”
“Did you see them up above, Connor? I noticed you made quite an entrance when you returned from your hunting trip,” Caspian asked.
“No, but I didn’t see them when I was leaving either,” Connor said sarcastically. He wanted to check to make sure Angeline was okay, but he didn’t dare. He couldn’t let on to Searon or Caspian that his interest in her was anything more than business.
“That was an unexpected complication,” Searon complained. “After all this time living here, you’ve never developed any kind of spell that could deflect them?”
“I never had any need to.” Caspian snorted. “Had I known that I was going to be in the presence of Alair Robart’s descendant at some point, I may have paid the matter a bit more attention.”
Connor was getting anxious. It seemed like the dangers to Ang
eline were quadrupling by the moment. “Okay, let’s think this through,” he said. “What is it about her that is drawing them here? How do they know she’s here?”
“The blood always knows,” Caspian said. “It’s like a bright homing beacon in the darkness. Some of the spirits may not even know why they were drawn here. But the Robart curse on them will draw them as surely as her blood will.”
“Well then that’s it,” Connor said.
“What?” Searon asked suspiciously.
“If it’s the Robart curse, and the Robart blood that binds and ties them here, then we need to lift the curse,” he said.
Caspian’s face showed his shock. “The Master would be most displeased if those spirits are released. It is their energy that provides when the blood supply is low.”
“That hasn’t happened in the last three hundred years,” Connor said. “And if I’m reading the new Master’s plans correctly, there’s nothing here that he’s going to want soon.”
They both looked at Searon, who had flopped into one of the easy chairs and was looking intently at Angeline sitting on the ground. Angeline was staring up at the ceiling and didn’t appear to notice. Connor didn’t care for Searon’s look one bit. He wondered if Searon had been paying any attention to what they were saying at all.
“So you want permission to release the spirits of the Amaron forest?” Searon said without looking at them.
So he had been listening after all.
“That’s assuming something like that could even be done,” Caspian said. “I may have something here that would give us a clue of what spell Alair used.” He started scanning the bookshelves again.
“If we can’t leave with the princess, I can’t win the game and I can’t take my rightful place in the coven,” Searon said. “I need her alive. Do what you need to do.”
Connor sat down across from Searon. He was going to have to multitask, trying to solve the problem of the finding the counterspell and keeping an eye on Searon.
“How did Alair even find the spell?” Connor asked. “There was nothing in the histories that indicated he was a magician. A warrior, yes, but not a man of magic.”
“Alair had powerful advisors. Every Robart king always has, even up to modern times. These advisors knew many things because they were the human descendants of the clan that Mamette encountered.”
“What? How would Alair have come into contact with that clan?” Connor asked.
Caspian laughed. “It should come as no surprise to you that the clan always makes an appearance at critical junctures in history. It was what they wanted all along; to control Altera’s destiny. They are always there with their fingers into anything that has a significant impact on the world as we know it. I wouldn’t be surprised to find they were dabbling in these current events.”
Even as Caspian was saying it, Connor could see that he had not considered that possibility before, but now that he had he was uncomfortable with the idea; he wanted to feel like he was in control of his own fate. But this wasn’t the time or place for a philosophical discussion around who or what may be tampering with the fabric of Altera’s history. “Okay, so Alair got his hands on a spell that bound the spirits of the damned here. It would have had to have been a potent spell to hold this many here for this long.”
“Sacrifice,” Caspian said. “It would have definitely involved blood and sacrifice.” He dashed to the far bookcase and pulled out a book that was tattered and looked like it was at least as old as Caspian. “I remember reading something about an old binding spell that the Grand Counsel used during the vampire wars. I assume that this spell would be a derivative of that.
“Seems odd that the old goat bound the spirits of the vampire victims here, doesn’t it?” Searon said, spinning a knife around in his fingertips as he lounged in the chair. “I mean, if it were me I would have been trying to bind my enemies here instead.”
Connor’s eyes met Caspian’s, which had widened. “Holy hell,” Connor said. “Was that what he may have been trying to do?"
“Well, there’s only one way I know to find out what we need to know to release the souls and get the princess out of here in one piece,” Caspian said, stroking his chin. “Shame I didn’t think of it before now. Would have saved us some time.”
“How?” Connor asked. He didn’t like the sound of what Caspian was proposing.
“We ask him,” Caspian said.
“Alair Robart has been dead for the better part of two hundred years,” Connor said.
“His body, yes. But again, his blood lives on.” Caspian nodded at Angeline. “We can use her to bring him to us.”
“That sounds dangerous,” Searon said. Connor was surprised that on this point he and Searon agreed, and thought for a split second that they were on the same page. But then Searon continued. “As long as she’s alive when I throw her in front of my father I don’t care. So just make sure you don’t bleed her out.”
Connor had heard of the conjuring spell of the dead before, but it was rarely attempted because of the risk to the divining instrument, which was always a member of the dead’s family. He was terrified of what was going to happen to Angeline, but he couldn’t think of a better way to find out how to release the spirits who had been bound to the forest.
“Assuming this works, which we’re not even sure it will, how do we know that Alair would tell us the truth?” Searon said.
“He’ll tell us to save his kin,” Caspian said. “If there is one thing that I know, it’s that Alair was dedicated to a fault to his family. I am sure that sentiment carried over into his afterlife.”
“Where do we begin?” Connor asked. The sooner they got the ritual over the better.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Angeline was starting to get used to coming to in pain. She felt like her skin had been flayed off and her eyes were blinded by what seemed like a bright light. This time, though, when she felt the familiar shove in her mind, she grabbed tight to the thing that was trying to beat past her and shoved it back down. She was disoriented but she wasn’t going to give the demon the upper hand.
She struggled hard to think and put her memories back in order. Then it all came rushing back. History. Betrayal. Blackness. She heard low chanting close by. Where was she? She also heard a slow heavy dripping.
Her arms were cramped, and she realized it was because they were bound again, but this time over the top of her head. But the direction felt wrong. They were hanging over her head. She was hanging upside down. That’s when she became aware of trails of liquid running all over her body. She opened her eyes again and forced them to focus. She was in the middle of the clearing. As she craned her head to look down, she saw that the liquid falling from her body was her blood. It was flowing into a bowl by her head.
“I think that’s enough, Caspian,” she heard Connor’s voice say. She started to shake.
“What’s going on?” she cried.
“We have to be sure,” Caspian’s voice floated over to her.
She was starting to feel dizzy. How many times could a person lose all of her blood and still survive? Once in a lifetime seemed lucky, or unlucky, depending on the perspective.
Connor’s face suddenly appeared before hers. “We have to get you out of this forest, Princess. The method may feel a bit unorthodox, but you have to believe that this is the only way.” He stood up and disappeared from her view. “I’m cutting her down. We will need her to control him, and she’ll need to be coherent.”
Angeline didn’t understand what was going on. She thought that she could trust Connor but he seemed to be in league with Caspian now. Home seemed so far beyond her grasp that she was starting to want to die. Why couldn’t she just die?
She felt strong arms underneath her pulling her up and then her legs were cut free. Connor carried her quickly to the side where there was a small bucket of water. His gentle hands washed her skin clean. She could see now that her skin had been ravaged to open her veins. But even as she wat
ched, she could see the threads of her skin knitting back together. So she had the healing powers of the vampire. She detached this awareness from her body so that she was looking at the situation as an observer. It seemed better that way.
Then she was wrapped into a luxuriously warm robe and Connor picked her up again and jumped up into the left eye of the cliff wall with her in his arms. He made it seem effortless.
“Quickly, Princess. You must get dressed. They are waiting and I only have a few moments to tell you what is happening.” He stalked to the entrance and stared out into the dark forest with his back to her.
Angeline floated over to the rack and found a simple shift dress which she slipped over her head. If she treated this like some horrible dream that she would soon wake from, she thought that perhaps she could deal with it.
“The spirits are going to break the barrier soon. We needed to find a way to undo the spell that binds them here, that attracts them to you,” he said.
Angeline sighed. The conversation seemed tedious. She thought that she would wake soon.
Connor turned and approached her. The expression on his face was angry. He took hold of her shoulders and shook her. “Angeline! Do you know what the Conjuring Spell of the Dead is? Did you ever read about it in your studies?”
Angeline frowned. When she was twelve, she snuck into the forbidden section of the palace library. It was where her father kept the books about magic, because magic was forbidden in Altera. Her father said that was because magic in the wrong hands could bring the kingdom to its knees. So it was better to forget that it even existed. But she had been fascinated by the topic, and so almost every night for a month, she had found a way to escape to the library and dig into those books. She vaguely remembered a spell that referenced a way to speak to the dead.
“Yes, I think so,” she said, putting a hand to her head. She tried to shake out the cobwebs in her mind. She tried hard to think. Then it hit her. “You use blood. The blood of a relative is needed to speak to the dead. But you need a lot of it, so it was only used in instances of great need.”