The Last Rune 4: Blood of Mystery

by Mark Anthony

  As before, they made idle conversation as they ate, but Grace hardly heard it. She could not stop thinking of the lord’s presence; she could feel the heat of his body as if from a fire. Nervousness caused her to gulp wine, and soon she felt her fear subside, and a strange boldness came over her.

  “My lord, I have a question for you.”

  Elwarrd raised an eyebrow. Before she could think better of it, she went on. “The empty place that’s always set so carefully to your left. Who is it for?”

  The others gaped at her, and Grace knew she had made a grave error. The wine-induced giddiness fled, leaving only a dull throb in her head. However, the lord didn’t rebuke her for her rudeness. Instead, after a moment, he smiled.

  “I’m surprised it took you so long to ask, my lady.” Elwarrd’s voice was jovial, but there was a hardness in his eyes. “Indeed, it does seem passing strange, does it not? That chair is for my mother. Every night, I bid the servants set a place for her. And every night she refuses to sit there. It is how she punishes me, you see.”

  Grace licked her lips. “Punishes you?”

  “Yes, my lady. For my disobedience.” He lifted the wine cup and took a reckless draught. His voice rose as he spoke. “You see, I haven’t always lived my life precisely as she’s wished. I have, on occasion, dared to disobey her. For these crimes, as a young man, she punished me by telling lies to the king, claiming I had a frail constitution, and begging him not to make me a knight, claiming it would be the death of me. And so I was passed over for knighthood.” He drained the wine cup and wiped crimson fluid from his beard with the back of his hand. “And now that my father is three years gone, and I am earl in his stead, she punishes me still by refusing to acknowledge me as the rightful lord. Isn’t that so, Mother?”

  These last words became a shout. He shoved his chair back and stood. “Don’t you think it’s time you showed yourself to our guests?”

  His body went rigid, the cords on his neck standing out as his voice echoed throughout the hall. Grace stared, unable to speak. She saw Vani rise and stalk fluidly toward the curtain that hung over the end of the great hall. A second later Grace saw it: The heavy curtain moved, as if someone—something— stood behind it. Vani reached out and snatched the curtain aside.

  Nothing was there; the earl’s solar was empty.

  Elwarrd passed a hand in front of his face. “You must forgive me.” His voice was low now. “I am weary from my recent labors, that’s all. There are things I...that is, I must take my leave. Please forgive me.”

  And before they could say anything, the earl of Seawatch strode from the hall.

  31.

  “Well,” Falken said, “that was a bit on the awkward side.” They had gathered again in Grace and Vani’s chamber, not knowing where else to go.

  Beltan spun a knife in his hand; he must have taken it from the dinner table. “I don’t know where his mother has been hiding all this time, but it looks like we’ve gotten ourselves stuck in the middle of a family argument.”

  “A topic you know something about, is that not so?” Vani said, arms crossed.

  Beltan thrust the knife into the mantel above the fireplace and glared at the T’gol. “Just what is that supposed to mean?”

  Grace held a hand to her head. She didn’t need Vani and Beltan’s animosity right now. There was something going on, something she needed to remember.

  “What is it, Grace?” Falken said, touching her shoulder.

  “Something happened to me just before dinner. I didn’t have the chance to tell you about it, but it was very odd.”

  She related her encounter with Mirdrid: the shroud the young woman had made for her dead father, and the bird that watched over him, embroidered in black thread. Then, as she repeated Mirdrid’s words, Grace finally remembered why they had seemed so familiar at the time. She had heard words like them before, in the port town of Galspeth in Perridon, spoken by the clothier’s daughter when she saw Grace’s necklace.

  You shouldn’t wear that. He doesn’t like it when you do odd things. Things no one else does....

  “Something is wrong in this keep,” Grace said after she told the others what she had remembered. “Just like it was in Galspeth. I think we should get out of this place. We’re all well enough to travel now.”

  However, the earl had left the hall before granting them leave to go, and Falken still seemed reluctant to depart without permission. Grace supposed it was akin to Falken telling her to rob a bank just because she was a little short on cash.

  “Elwarrd favors you, Grace,” Beltan said gently. “We’ve all seen it. Maybe you could talk to him alone and ask permission to leave. I don’t think he would deny you anything.”

  Grace felt their expectant gazes, and she knew she couldn’t let them down, even though going to see Elwarrd was the last thing she wanted to do right then.

  And is that true, Grace? Don’t you want to see him after all?

  Her body was trembling beneath her gown, but whether out of fear or anticipation, she didn’t know.

  “I’ll do it,” she said.

  Finding the earl was easier than she had guessed it would be. She stopped a servant who was lighting lamps; an hour had passed since supper, and it was full dark. The servant had just seen Elwarrd minutes before, returning to his solar at the end of the great hall.

  Grace pushed through the hall’s massive doors. They dwarfed her, making her feel like a small girl doing something forbidden. The only light was from the fire that still burned in the cavernous fireplace. Grace walked across the hall, conscious of her echoing footsteps, to the heavy curtain drawn over the vast room’s far end.

  She cleared her throat. “My lord?”

  The only answer was the snap of a burning log.

  Perhaps she had not spoken loud enough. “Lord Elwarrd, are you there?”

  Grace lifted a shaking hand, touching the rough fabric of the curtain. Then, steeling her will, she pushed the curtain aside and stepped through.

  Lord Elwarrd, Earl of Seawatch, turned around.

  She had caught him just in the act of taking his shirt off. The garment slipped from his fingers, falling to the floor in a heap. He wore only boots and breeches, and the bare skin of his chest gleamed in the light of a dozen candles.

  A gasp escaped Grace. “My lord, forgive me.” She began to turn away.

  “And what should I forgive you for, my lady?” His voice was deep, soft: for her only. “For making manifest what I had been dreaming of moments ago? When I saw you there, I thought you were only a phantom, conjured by the fever that has burned in my brain since I first laid eyes upon you. But you’re here, aren’t you? You’re real.”

  Despite herself, his words drew her back around and led her farther into the dim space of the solar. Her eyes adjusted to the candlelight, and she saw him more clearly. His chest was smooth, damp with sweat, and his stomach was so taut she could see shadows flicker across it in time to the beating of his heart. Dimly, she wondered where he had gone after supper, and where he had just come from.

  She realized it was her turn to say something, and she grasped for something, anything to say. “It was very kind of you, my lord, to take care of Mirdrid’s father as you did.”

  “What?”

  “Mirdrid. The old steward’s daughter. She told me of your generosity—how you laid him in the family crypt.”

  “My lady, I won’t believe you came here to talk of serving maids.” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. As he did, several dark droplets scattered across the floor.

  Grace’s instincts as a doctor leaped to the fore. “Your hand, my lord. It’s bleeding.”

  He stared at his hand, as if he had not noticed it himself until just then. Grace took his hand in hers, turning it over, examining it. Blood oozed from two sets of puncture wounds, one on the back of his hand, one on the palm. She pulled a handkerchief from her gown and wiped away the blood so she could examine him more clearly. She had seen wounds simil
ar to this in the Emergency Department. It looked almost like a dog bite.

  “It’s nothing, my lady. I can’t even feel it. Not with you here.”

  “Hold still.” She wrapped the handkerchief around his hand and bound it in a makeshift bandage. Immediately, spots of crimson began to soak through, but it would do for the time being. All at once she was conscious of how close she was to him. She took a step back.

  “Thank you for your care, my lady. But now you must tell why you really came to see me.”

  Grace drew in a breath, gathering strength. “I have come to beg your permission to leave Seawatch, my lord. My companions want to depart in the morning.”

  “Then why not let them go?” His gaze ran over her face, her throat, her breasts. “But look at me. Look at me, and then tell me you really wish to leave.”

  He was a lord, and his words a command, and she could not resist them. She did look at him, touching him with her gaze, her thoughts. His face was fine, his lips surprisingly full for a man, his arms sculpted with muscle. Against the tight cloth of his breeches, the shape of his desire was plain: hard and compact like the rest of him.

  A shudder coursed through her. For so long she had been unable to touch another, to allow another to touch her. But she had put that shadow behind her in Tarras. This time it would be her choice, an act of passion not violence. A heat rose within her, so fierce it must surely burn her gown to ashes.

  In a single step he closed the distance between them. He coiled his unbandaged hand around her neck and bent her head down with irresistible strength, for she was taller than he. Her lips brushed against his nose, his beard, then found the hot, hard moistness of his mouth.

  And from the shadows around them, a voice spoke, at once shrill and croaking, like the call of a crow.

  “Heretic! Trespasser! I see what you do.”

  Grace froze. A moan ripped itself from Elwarrd—fear or rage?—and he jerked away from her. The taste of metal flooded Grace’s mouth. She touched a finger to her lips, and it came away dark with blood. Blood that was not her own.

  “I know what she is,” the voice croaked. “A harlot. A witch. And far more. She is not for you!”

  Elwarrd spun around, searching for the source of the voice. Motion caught Grace’s eye. There, in the darkest corner of the room, where the light of the candles did not reach, something moved. Grace started to reach out with the Touch.

  As if struck a cruel blow, her mind was slapped back, her concentration shattering.

  “Keep your foul magics to yourself, witch! I have labored too long to let you poison him now with your spells!”

  By the time Grace saw it coming, it was too late to move. Candlelight glinted off steel as the dagger flew through the air. She braced herself for its deadly bite.

  The dusky air before her rippled, folded. A hand lashed out and clamped around the dagger, stopping it before it could strike. Grace found herself staring into golden eyes.

  Vani threw down the knife and lunged in the direction from which the weapon had come. She snatched a tapestry from the wall, and the resulting puff of air caused the candles to gutter, flare. Their light reached the far corner, revealing a wooden door. It stood ajar.

  “Whoever it was went this way,” Vani said.

  Laughter bubbled out of Elwarrd. “You won’t find her. I can never find her. I don’t know where in this godsforsaken keep she finds to hide.” He pressed his wounded hand to his temple; the bandage was soaked with crimson. “Everything I want, she denies me. Everything I try to do, she mocks.” He threw his head back, chest heaving as he shouted. “I won’t do it, Mother! Do you hear me? I won’t be what you want me to be. You’ll have to kill me first, just like you did my father!”

  Vani watched this spectacle in silence, hands on hips. Grace reached out a trembling hand. “My lord, we have to go. Please. We have to leave Seawatch.”

  He batted her hand away. “No one is leaving until I say so. I am the earl, and this is my fiefdom. If you leave, you will all be outlaws in Embarr. I will send word of your crime to every corner of the Dominion. You’ll be caught and beheaded before you can reach the borders.” He clenched his wounded hand, and blood ran down his arm. “Return to your chamber. Now!”

  Grace couldn’t move—shock paralyzed her—but Vani pulled her, guiding her back into the great hall and the corridor beyond. Cooler air struck Grace’s cheeks, and she returned to her senses. What had she done? And what had Vani seen? She felt again the lord’s lips on her own.

  “Vani, I didn’t...what happened in there, I...”

  The T’gol’s strong hand on her arm propelled her forward. “Do not think of it now, Grace. We must go tell the others what has happened.”

  Minutes later they gathered in Falken and Beltan’s chamber. Grace was still shaking, so Vani told the two men what had taken place. However, the T’gol did not speak of Grace and Elwarrd’s kiss, and for that Grace gave her a grateful look. Falken poured wine for all of them, and Grace gulped hers down, feeling her nerves grow a bit steadier.

  Beltan set down his empty cup. “It sounds like Elwarrd’s mother is completely mad. I can’t believe she tried to harm you, Grace.” His expression was hard with anger.

  “It was not Grace his mother was trying to kill,” Vani said, her voice cool, almost clinical. “The dagger was aimed at Elwarrd. Had I not stopped it, the blade would have pierced his heart.”

  Falken flexed his silver hand. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would she kill her own son? Grace is right—something strange is going on in this keep. And I bet the earl’s mother is the only one who knows what it is. Vani, did you see which way she ran?”

  “No, she moved with a strange swiftness. The only trace I found was this, caught on a nail in the door.” The T’gol set a small scrap of black cloth on the table.

  “It doesn’t matter where she is,” Beltan said. “We’re getting out of here.”

  Falken glanced at Grace. “Did he grant us leave to go?”

  It was Vani who answered. “No, he did not. And he threatened that if we go, we will be branded as outlaws and hunted down.”

  “I imagine he means it,” Falken said with a sigh.

  Beltan jerked the knife from the mantelpiece. “We can take care of anyone who follows us.”

  Grace stared into her empty wine cup. Something about her conversation with Elwarrd nagged at her. Then she had it: When she mentioned Mirdrid and the old steward, he hardly seemed to know what she was talking about.

  She looked up. “Vani, the other day when you searched the keep, did you go into the family crypt?”

  “I did. There was nothing in there save old bones.”

  A chill coursed through Grace. “Are you sure? You didn’t see the body of a man? Elwarrd told Mirdrid he put her father in the crypt just a few days before we arrived.”

  Vani crossed her arms. “The only bodies in the crypt had been there for years.”

  “Maybe it’s somewhere else in the keep,” Beltan offered.

  Falken shook his head. “Vani and I went through the entire keep, and we didn’t see any bodies. The only place we couldn’t go was behind the door marked with the rune of shadow.”

  With an electric surge, two pieces of knowledge connected in Grace’s mind. “That’s it—it has to be. Elwarrd said he didn’t know where in the keep his mother hid from him. He doesn’t know about the door, but she’s found a way to open it.”

  The bard rubbed his chin. “I suppose you’re right, Grace. But I don’t see how that helps us. It’s Elwarrd who has to grant us leave to go, not his mother. Besides, there’s no way we can see beyond the door.”

  But there was, and Grace knew it. She stood, forcing her legs to stop shaking, and picked up the scrap of black cloth from the table. Yes, it would be enough. She turned around to regard the others.

  “I’m going to do a spell. But it’s dangerous. Once before when I did it, I was...” It had been the time she had used the half-coin to see Tr
avis being hauled to his execution at the Gray Tower. She had nearly been lost, her spirit permanently severed from her body. “I need you all to keep watch over me.”

  Falken’s expression was grave. “Are you sure you want to do this, Grace?”

  “We have to know what’s happening here,” she said, although she could feel the dread rising in her chest.

  In minutes she was ready.

  “I still don’t like this,” Beltan said, pacing. “How can we defend you when you’re not in your body?”

  Grace sat in a chair, the scrap of black cloth in her lap. “You’ll see it on my face if I’m in trouble. And the potion will wake me.” She had given Falken a bitter concoction of herbs. The smell should shock her out of her trance.

  Falken knelt beside her chair. “I’ll watch you closely, Grace. I’m not going to lose you a second time. And Beltan and Vani will make sure no one bothers us.”

  Grace held his gaze a moment, grateful for the bard’s calm. Then it was time. She shut her eyes and reached out with her mind to Touch the scrap of cloth.

  Instantly she was flying through the keep.

  Bodiless, she floated through stone corridors, down winding staircases, and past an old servingman who couldn’t see her, but who shivered as she went by. A pair of huge wooden doors loomed before her; she slipped through them like they were an illusion, only it was she who was without substance.

  Both times before when she had cast this spell, Grace had glimpsed events that had not yet taken place. This time she was seeing the present, she was sure of it.

  With a note of faint panic—she was so cold, so hollow, it was hard to feel anything at all—Grace realized she was being drawn to the curtain at the far end of the great hall. Before she could fear more, she fluttered through the fabric like a delicate breeze. The earl was no longer in his solar. The blood on the floor was the only trace of him. Grace flew onward, through the half-open door in the corner, down a winding flight of steps, and then through an archway into a small room.