by Kate Keir
When it realised it was discovered, it zipped past my face and disappeared through the trees in the direction of the Endwood, leaving me reeling with shock.
“Flora, what is it?” Pen was standing now and staring in the direction the soul had taken.
I started walking through the trees. “That was the same rogue,” I murmured.
“What do you mean, the same rogue?” Pen said. She and Finlay were both following me through the trees now, and Lyall had caught us up too.
I carried on walking through the Everwood as I spoke. “That was the same rogue soul that I just banished to the Endwood. It shouldn’t have been able to come back here.”
I reached the point where the poison of Sluag’s kingdom spilled over into my Everwood, tainting the beautiful grass and trees with death colours. I made sure I stopped well before the boundary of the Endwood, and I watched in horrified fascination as the green light meandered to the border, before crossing back over into the Endwood.
“I sent it to the Endwood. How can it have come back here?” I asked, bewildered.
Pen stood next to me. “Are you sure it’s the same soul, Flora?”
Closing my eyes, I reached out with my mind until I found the rogue soul. As I touched it mentally, I confirmed what I already knew.
“Yes, it’s the same one,” I replied.
Any further confusion was cleared up as we watched another rogue soul approach the border from the Endwood side. This little light didn’t even pause before flying across the border and into the Everwood.
Freya gasped. “Okay, that’s not good.”
Pen was unable to disguise the concern in her voice as she spoke. “Sluag was telling the truth. It’s the veil. It’s breaking down.”
“You always realise these things far too late, don’t you Penthesilea?” Sluag’s tall frame stepped from the shadows of the blackened trees. He bowed dramatically at Pen as he spoke.
Lyall, Artair and Finlay automatically formed a semi-circle in front of Pen and me. Each of them drew a blade that had been hanging at their waists.
Sluag laughed. “How chivalrous of you, Dion.” His eyes roved over each man until they settled on Finlay’s face.
“I don’t recognise that face, but I recognise that traitorous soul, Finlay Michaelson. How’s that body working out for you?” Sluag grinned at my best friend.
Finlay took a step forward and growled. “Want me to show you?”
Sluag took his own step forward and snarled at Finlay. “I killed you once, boy. I have no problem in doing it again.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted movement in the tree line nearest to the Endwood side of the border. The nearest tree was only a few feet from where Enid stood, and as I watched a Draugur emerged from the shadows, heading straight for her.
“Lyall,” I yelled to my Dion who was nearest to Enid.
Without hesitation he flew forward and grabbed the girl, before throwing her behind him and slicing the Draugur open with his sword. My heart swelled with pride as I watched him defend Enid.
Sluag didn’t seem particularly concerned with the loss of his Draugur. If anything, he seemed impressed. “Ahh, if only I could persuade you to swap your allegiance to my side. Of all of Flora’s Dion, you are the one who truly is, everything a protector should be, Lyall Harris.”
“I would literally rather die,” Lyall snarled before returning to stand protectively in front of me.
Sluag raised an eyebrow and took another step forward. “Oh, that can easily be arranged. Although…” His voice trailed off, and he sniffed at the air. His fire-pit eyes burned with delight as he stared at Lyall and me.
“You two are bonded,” he hissed.
Pen groaned quietly.
“What of it?” I called out from behind Lyall.
“Well, if I had known that, Flora, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time trying to get hold of you. If I kill him, worst case scenario, you will be so incapacitated by grief and loss that you won’t be good for anything. Best case scenario, you’ll die too.” He danced on the spot.
I pushed past Lyall and approached the border which I could not cross. “You won’t lay a single finger on him,” I snarled.
Sluag tapped an index finger thoughtfully against his chin. “You know, I am genuinely surprised. My money was always on Finlay to become your bonded Dion, but then I suppose murderers stick together, Little Dreamer.”
I glanced back at the other Dion. None of them knew about Lyall’s history, and their faces registered blank confusion. Looking to Lyall I saw him close his eyes and take a deep breath. He knew he would have some explaining to do later.
“I take it they didn’t know you were a killer, Lyall?” Sluag gestured at the other Dion as he spoke.
“Just stop,” I snapped at him. “What do you want, Sluag?”
“I wanted to demonstrate to you just how far the veil has fallen, Flora.” He raised his arms as he spoke, and suddenly hundreds of rogue souls appeared from the darkness like a swarm of bees. Angry lights of every single colour rushed toward us and poured over the border into the Everwood.
My Dion ducked and raised their arms to defend themselves as the evil rogues attacked them in droves.
“Get out of the Everwood. They can’t follow you,” I yelled over the noise.
Pen was the first to disappear, followed by Enid and then each of the others. I stood alone, surrounded by a roiling swarm of rogues that wouldn’t dare touch me for fear of obliteration.
Sluag smiled at me through the storm of lights. So, now you know, Little Dreamer. It won’t be long before I can cross that border too.”
“I’m going to kill you long before that happens,” I growled as I started to return to the real world.
“You’d better keep an eye on Lyall, Flora, because I’m coming for him and for you.” His voice tapered off as I faded from the Everwood.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I frantically searched around me as I re-emerged back into the sunlight of Castle Dion’s gardens, breathing a sigh of relief as I found each and every face of my Dion. Once I knew all of them were okay, I allowed myself a moment to focus on slowing down my rapid breathing.
Artair spoke up first. “What the hell are we going to do now? Will Flora even be able to go to back the Everwood?”
Lyall wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “There’s no way she’s going back there.”
I took a quick step back from him, slipping out from his embrace and firing him a hard look. “I have to go back, Lyall. There are hundreds of pure souls who could be under attack from those rogues right now.”
Pen lightly touched my shoulder. “Those rogue souls will be searching for a way to get through the boundary of the Everwood and into the mortal world. They will have little interest in the pure souls, Flora.”
Freya inhaled sharply. “Will they be able to? Get into the mortal world, I mean?”
Pen shook her head slowly. “I honestly have no idea, Freya.”
“What are we going to do?” Enid’s voice sounded very small.
“I need to go back and find out,” I insisted, ignoring Lyall’s growl of disagreement.
“I think you probably do, Flora,” Pen agreed. “I suspect the rogues won’t attack you because they will be afraid of what you can do to them.”
I nodded. “They’re too close to getting back to the mortal world to risk total obliteration.”
“You don’t know for sure they won’t hurt you.” Lyall turned burning amber eyes on Pen. “Pen, we can’t risk losing our Soul Keeper.”
A forced cough made all of us turn suddenly toward a black-haired stranger who was leaning against one of Castle Dion’s ancient oak trees. He blinked his emerald green eyes lazily before he spoke. “Can one of you weirdos explain why the hell I ended up at this castle, please?”
I took in his good looks and his well-muscled chest which rippled beneath his clean white T-shirt. I noticed Freya raise an eyebrow in approval as she looked the new
comer up and down.
Feeling Lyall’s eyes on me, I quickly averted my own eyes and waited for someone else to answer the question.
Pen took a step forward. “Bear?”
He frowned a little. “Yeah, Bear McKay. Who are you, and why are you talking about souls, and why does this castle look like it’s ruined until you get inside it?” He spoke with a lilting Irish accent.
Feeling as though it was my responsibility to answer—I was his Soul Keeper after all—I stepped forward and tried to answer his questions.
“Hi Bear, I’m Flora. This is Pen.” I pointed at Pen before continuing. “We all live here at the castle, and we are responsible for protecting the world from some of the stuff you probably just heard us talking about. We can explain everything to you if you’ll stay for dinner.”
He gave me a wide grin as he pushed himself off from the tree trunk and walked toward me. Stopping just in front of me, he made an obvious show of looking me up and down before he replied. “As if I can refuse dinner with a stunner like you. Lead the way, gorgeous.”
Lyall growled next to me, and I had to stifle a laugh as Freya pouted resentfully.
Bear noticed Freya’s face, and turning toward her, he gave her a cheeky wink. “Don’t worry, hotness, there’s plenty of charm for everyone.”
“Urgh.” Lyall wrapped his fingers through mine as he rolled his eyes and started for the castle.
I looked up at him as I squeezed his hand with mine. “What’s wrong? Jealous?”
“Pfft, not likely. I’m pretty sure peacocks aren’t your thing, love.” He quirked an eyebrow at me questioningly. “Are they?”
I fell into step next to my soulmate. “Nope, I’m more into the dark and brooding types, myself.”
“I am not brooding. Am I?”
I couldn’t resist laughing at his wide eyes.
“Only a little bit,” I teased.
The others started to follow behind us as Pen spoke. “Well, I suppose we will be having a crisis meeting over dinner. It’s good for us that you arrived when you did, Bear.”
The newcomer fell into step next to Freya, firing her a charming grin. Freya rolled her eyes, clearly unimpressed with Bear’s changeable flirting and walked a little faster.
“Ahh, don’t be like that, hotness. I noticed you first I swear.” He jogged a little to keep up with the dark-haired girl.
As we ascended the castle steps, I glanced sideways at Finlay. I frowned as I noticed a tightening in his jaw, as though he were in pain. My mind wandered back to Sluag’s warning. I give Finlay three days in there at most.
I knew with certainty that he was hiding the breakdown of his borrowed body from me. His soul was working free of the Draugur shell, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.
We all sat down in the dining hall, and Pen began to fill Bear in on our story so far. When I heard her outline it all for the newcomer, I was shocked by how completely hopeless our cause sounded. As though we didn’t have a chance against Sluag and his newly forming army of Super Draugur.
Bear sat back in his chair thoughtfully. “No offense, Pen, but it sounds as though this is a lost cause. I’m not entirely sure I want to be a part of it.”
“You don’t have a choice,” growled Artair. “You’re a Dion. It’s in your blood.”
Our newest Dion looked around the table at each of us. Leah had joined us at some point, and I was momentarily heartened by the size of our group—not only had we found replacements for our lost Dion, we had actually grown in number.
Bear’s eyes landed appreciatively on Freya. “Well, I suppose there’s a few perks to staying here.” He waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively, and Freya groaned and curled her lip in disdain.
Lyall leaned into me and tickled my ear with his lips as he whispered. “Poor guy has no idea what he’s getting himself into.”
I studied Freya’s scowling face and smiled to myself before whispering my reply. “She might make him work for it, but I reckon he could be just what she needs.”
Pen’s face held a mixture of relief and concern. “Well, now that we have a full complement of Dion we can begin planning how to stop the veil from being torn down completely.”
“I’m guessing you want me to continue training with Enid and to bring Bear in too?” Artair asked.
“Yes please, Artair.” Pen looked to Lyall. “Lyall, you know you’re the best choice for shifter training.”
Lyall nodded respectfully.
“Shifter training?” Bear asked inquisitively.
Pen’s voice was apologetic. “Usually we would try and introduce you to the various different benefits of being a Dion gradually, but I fear we don’t have time for that, Bear. I am sorry.”
Freya spoke up. “We can all shape-shift into different animals. Lyall is the best teacher we have to help you become yours.”
“What animal can I become?” Bear asked.
Lyall answered him. “Your name usually gives it away.”
“You mean I’m gonna be a bear?”
“Very likely, yes,” Freya replied.
“That’s a hell of another reason for sticking around, hotness. I’m in.” Bear winked at Freya.
“Whatever,” Freya grumbled.
Pen stood up. “So, Lyall, Freya, and Artair will train with our new Dion. Myself and Leah must spend some time trying to unravel Leah’s visions. That means Flora and Finlay will be left to work on research. We need to find some reference to the Super Draugur in the manuscripts.”
Finlay and I nodded. I didn’t love the idea of research, but I was glad to be able to spend time close to Finlay—it meant I could keep an eye on him.
Pen smiled at us. “Perfect. Get some rest. Tomorrow we need to start preparing to take Sluag down.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
After breakfast the next morning, we all split up to attend to our different tasks. Finlay was silent on our walk to the library, and he refused to look up when I studied his face. There was no trace of the pain he had shown yesterday but I was sure that was only because he was hiding it from me.
We sat around the central table in the library and surrounded ourselves with all of the manuscripts that Pen had collected for us. The process was the same every time. I would pick up a book, read it through from cover to cover, and then place it back on the table with a heavy sigh as I found nothing to help us.
I was startled when Finlay broke the silence after so long. “This is completely useless. We’re not going to find anything about Super Draugur because they’ve never existed before.”
I sat back in my chair and sipped at my water before answering him. “I pretty much agree, but we have to keep looking. If we can’t kill these things, then we’re going to lose this fight, Finlay.”
He dropped his head into his hands and started to massage his temples in the way that had become so familiar while he was inside this unfamiliar body. It worried me.
“Finlay, why can’t you be honest with me. That body is rejecting you. If you tell me, then maybe I can help—”
“You can’t help, Flor. This body is dying with me inside it and once it does, I’m gone. I’m out.”
Tears shone in my eyes as he finally admitted what I had feared. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered.
His voice softened. “Because I knew it would upset you. You can’t change it, Flor. It’s going to happen.”
“Then maybe I can move your soul into another Draugur body, just temporarily until I find a proper fix.” My voice was desperate. I couldn’t give up on my best friend.
“No.” His voice was almost a shout.
“I can’t lose you, Finlay,” I mumbled.
“You can’t keep moving me into a new body every few days, Flor. Apart from it draining your energy, it’s no life to live. When I thought I might be able to stay in one body. I did consider staying put, but I’m not going to spend the rest of forever hijacking a new body every few days.”
I stood up q
uickly and started for the door.
“Flor, where are you going?” He leapt from his chair and followed me across the room.
My tears threatened to spill over onto my cheeks now. “I’m going to the cellars. I’m going to find a way to get that Super Draugur’s soul out.”
He caught my wrist and pulled me back so I landed with my back against his chest. Wrapping his arms tightly around me, he whispered into my hair. “I’m not going to let you kill yourself trying to do the impossible, Flor.”
I fought against his iron hold. “Finlay, please. If you die, then I won’t be able to carry on.”
“Yes, you will.” He released his grip enough to turn me around to face him, but he held firmly on to the tops of my arms to stop me from bolting for the door.
“Flora, deep down inside you know you can’t change things for me. I should have stayed dead the first time around, but you’re so goddamn persistent.” He laughed softly.
I shook my head as the tears continued to fall. “I can’t do it, Finlay. How can I fight against everything, against Sluag, knowing that you’re gone?”
He looked at me sadly. “How about we do a deal?”
“What kind of deal?” I sniffed.
“I’m not gonna lie to you, Flor. I can’t stay as a soul in the Everwood forever. I’ll go mad if I do. But I promise that I’ll stay around until you finish this. Until Sluag is dead and buried.” He lifted a hand and gently wiped away a tear from my face.
I shook my head. “That’s not enough.”
He pulled me close into his familiar bear hug and kissed the top of my head. “It has to be enough,” he whispered against my hair.
I allowed myself to fall apart then, giving way to huge sobs of grief as I buried my face against the unfamiliar chest and held on to him so tightly my arms started to burn.
He held me quietly, letting me unleash my sorrow until I was worn out and could cry no more. When I stopped crying, he gently let me go, and we stepped apart from each other. When I saw his face, I realised he had been crying too, and I almost fell apart all over again.