Asylum

by Kit Bladegrave

  Once we were on our feet, he took my hand and led me from the hall, upstairs and through the castle. I wasn’t sure where he was taking me until we reached a set of double doors, much like the ones leading to his room.

  “Welcome to your new home,” he told me as he opened them and stepped aside.

  I walked in, and my jaw dropped. “Wait, this… this is my room?”

  He nodded, leaning in the doorway. “A room fit for a queen.”

  The furniture was gorgeous, hand-carved solid wood. There was a large four poster bed layered with soft furs I wanted to dive into. Richly colored rugs covered the floor and tapestries decorated the walls. Chandeliers made of antlers hung overhead, and two doors at the far end lead to a balcony.

  “This is incredible,” I said in awe. “That door? Where does it lead?” I asked, pointing to a door on the left side of the room.

  “That takes you straight to my room,” he explained with a wolfish grin.

  “I never saw another door in your room.”

  “It’s behind a tapestry. I… well, uh, I never thought I’d have a queen,” he said roughly. “So I covered it up to stop reminding myself of the fact.”

  I reached out for him and pulled him to me. “Eighty-seven is pretty young for you to give up like that,” I teased. “I mean, even though you are old, you’re not dead.”

  He growled as he kissed me. “I’m not that old. Just wait, you’ll be eighty-seven at one point, too.”

  I really would be. I had no idea how long I’d live. Guessed it was just something we’d figure out as we went.

  He told me he would have fresh clothes brought to me before he went to change, explaining once everyone was patched up, they’d be sending off the dead, and then there would be a feast that would last probably all night.

  Four dead.

  It wasn’t a large number, but any loss was tragic, especially when I knew what was coming.

  After the clothes were brought to me, I washed up, trying to think of happier thoughts, but the tidal wave of darkness was coming closer.

  I didn’t need a vision to tell me that. And what I’d said in the dungeon, the words toyed with me. I was fairly certain Kate was one of the warriors I had to find, but who else? I would have to figure out my own riddle if we stood a chance of surviving whatever Baladon threw at us next.

  23

  Tristan

  After the pyres were lit in the courtyard, and the bodies of our fallen burned, we gathered back in the hall for a feast of celebration for the lives lost, and for those saved. Ale was served, and meats were brought out, filling the tables as musicians picked up a lively tune. We hadn’t seen a feast like this in years, and I gave myself over to the night.

  Sabella had been accepted by the packs, and I watched her mingle amongst them, talking and laughing with Alice, dancing with the other leaders. She might’ve grown up thinking she was mad, but she was made for this life.

  “When’s the wedding?” Craig asked as he came up on my right.

  “Probably tomorrow,” Forrest said before I could answer, appearing on my left. “You know, no need to rush or anything.”

  “We’re about to be thrown into a war,” I reminded them, smiling as Kate and Sabella danced with one another, laughing hysterically about something, probably me or Craig. “I think a wedding can wait.”

  “And what if there is no tomorrow?” Forrest said seriously.

  “It’ll happen when it needs to happen,” I stated firmly. “For tonight, can we just enjoy our small victories?”

  “I’ll toast to that.” Craig lifted his glass.

  Forrest and I clanked ours against his.

  I had much to be happy about. Setting my glass down, I excused myself and pushed through the crowd to where Sabella was dancing. She spun away from Kate and right into my arms. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was laughing as I pulled her around with me.

  “What are you thinking about?” I asked when the music stopped for a few moments and we walked toward the windows.

  “Absolutely nothing,” she replied.

  “No voices? No visions?”

  “None.” Her smile faltered. “Tristan, if we’re going to stop Baladon, we have to find where he’s holding Farrah, and all the others.”

  “Tomorrow we’ll start planning, but tonight, I want you to enjoy yourself. You saved them all, Sabella,” I said, turning her to face the room. “You saved everyone here. Don’t forget how strong you are.”

  “Baladon is a god.”

  “Yes, and you are quite powerful yourself if you hadn’t noticed.” I wrapped my arms around her waist and rested my chin atop her head. “For one night, forget about what waits.”

  I didn’t say it, but I knew she understood the meaning of my request. Tonight may be one of the few nights we could have with laughter before everything changed.

  A few hours later, I left the hall and my pack to celebrate both victories, that of us joined together stronger than ever, and the death of the red-eyed demon.

  I had searched the hall for Sabella, but after finding no sign of her, finally managed to pry myself away from my slightly drunken guard to track her down. She should still be celebrating with the rest of us, but I knew what bothered her. That damned riddle and the vision of Farrah being tortured. Of all the others we needed to pry away from Baladon.

  I wanted a hot soak to ease my sore muscles from the fight that finally destroyed the statue, but I felt Sabella’s anxiety, and it pulled me to her. Now that my pack backed me fully, as well as Sabella, we could throw all our focus into defeating Baladon and not having to face a civil war at the same time.

  “Sabella.” I paused on the stairs, the strong scent of lilac hitting me in the face.

  At the top, I turned right, heading to her rooms. The rooms fit for a future queen. When I breathed in deeply again, the tang of fear made me run the rest of the way, bursting into her room growling, fearing the worst.

  The room appeared empty, and my heart thudded as my panic rose, but then I sniffed the air again and followed her scent to the balcony.

  She stood against the stone railing, staring out over the river lands. Her wild hair whipped in the gusty breeze. Rain was coming; I sensed the storm, but when I reached out for Sabella’s hand, she gave mine a death grip, and her head fell back against my shoulder.

  Her eyes were foggy, and I cursed. How long had she been here like this?

  “Sabella?” I tapped her cheeks, but there was no response. Her breathing was growing ragged, and I was ready to yell for help when her lips parted, and words spilled out.

  “They’ve come on the wave of darkness. They have come to do his bidding. The warriors must rise now or forever fall damned into eternity.” She choked over the last word and blinked, sucking in a deep breath. “Tristan?”

  “What did you see?” I asked, still holding her as she got her bearings back.

  She started to tell me, eyes wide with fear, but then she turned back to the river lands and pointed. “See for yourself.”

  I had to be imagining it, but dark clouds, blacker than towering thunderheads rose up in the distance. They stretched higher and higher, and as they went, I held Sabella closer, every instinct telling me to run. Those were not clouds. The tidal wave of darkness Baladon promised us was here. The darkness spread across the sky, chasing what little light remained of the crescent moon and blotting out the stars. A chill came with it, and Sabella shivered.

  “Tristan,” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”

  I’d gone rigid as those monstrous sounds met my ears, sounds she couldn’t hear yet. Shrieks and roars, growls of creatures long extinct from our world, ever since Baladon had been banished. But now he had returned and brought them all back, opening the gates to the hellish kingdom he was forced to remain in.

  “We need to warn the others,” I told her, backing us inside as if we’d be safe in here.

  “What do we do?”

  I closed the balcony doors and locked
them, leaning heavily on my hands. Why couldn’t we have had more time? Just a month, a week even to have to ourselves before our world was thrown into chaos.

  Slowly I turned to face her and wished I could say everything was going to be fine. But she was a seer. She already knew the truth; I saw it plain in her eyes.

  “We get ready for war,” I growled, “because war has come for us.”

  Visions Excerpt

  What do you get when you cross a sorcerer with the Goddess of Light?

  Sabella.

  What does the king of the wolf shifters get when he falls in love with Sabella during the end times?

  A whole heap of trouble.

  Join Tristan and Sabella in the continuing journey to defeat evil.

  Chapter 1

  Sabella

  Tristan was going to kill me.

  I swore I’d stay at the castle, stay where it was safe, with Lucy and the others, waiting for him and the hunting party to get back.

  I might’ve found out I was part god, but my power wasn’t the most reliable thing in the world. Worked wonders when I was under a high-stress situation, like fighting for my life or saving those around me. Otherwise, it was just pretty flashing lights.

  Which was why he ordered me to remain behind. Too bad I wasn’t a very good listener, but he should’ve known that by now. Even harder to stay behind after I get a vision telling me there’s going to be an ambush that he doesn’t know about.

  With Hank and the few other wolves with me—my personal guard actually thanks to my new position and Tristan’s overbearing nature. We traipsed through the mud and muck of the boggy lands near the outskirts of Torolf before reaching elven territory.

  I hadn’t been to Silver Valley yet, but Tristan promised it was on our travel list, if we could ever find a way to beat back the darkness that had taken over all the realms.

  For three weeks now, there’d been no sun. No light except for fires and torches and it was starting to get on my nerves. Everyone’s nerves really. The only bright side to any of this was spending so much time around Tristan kept the insanity far, far away. The visions were come and go, but now at least I could see clearly.

  Too bad I couldn’t see everything Baladon was about to throw at us.

  “We’re getting close,” Hank whispered behind me, pointing to the exact cliff face I’d described from my vision. “You're sure they’re up there?”

  I’d been wandering around the castle, impatiently waiting for Tristan and the rest of his hunting party to return from rescuing a group of villagers they said were bogged down by more of Baladon’s nightmarish creatures. When I found myself in his room, I’d barely touched the wardrobe when the vision hit me full force. I saw the hunting party at the village, killing the three grotesque, massive rats with their rabid young scurrying around the village, attacking anything that moved. They’d killed them, but it was when they’d been leaving the village the ambush happened. Spiders, the size of carriages, and pincers longer than my arms had descended from that cliff and the dying screams of the hunting party had been ringing in my ears when I’d sprinted through the castle in search of Hank.

  “Yeah, they’re there,” I assured him.

  “How many?”

  “Four, maybe five?”

  I closed my eyes, forcing myself to concentrate on the power within me. Farrah was a goddess of light, and she’d passed on some of that power to me. I thought only of the light and when I opened my eyes, saw them glowing, lighting up Hank’s face right before he shifted. He didn’t have to tell me he expected me to stay behind him, but it all depended on how the fight went.

  We crept through the trees, nothing to light our way except the glow from my eyes. I mostly clung to Hank’s back since they had much better night vision than I did. I wished I could say I was fearless, but every time I left the castle, it took everything I had not to curl up in a ball somewhere and hide. If not for the fact I was saving Tristan’s butt, or the rest of the hunting party I’d become close to, I would not have left the castle. Baladon had unleashed every beast and monster ever conceived. Each time we encountered a new one, I felt my regained sanity tested. Creatures I didn’t have names for attacked scouts and tore them to pieces. Left behind piles of nothing, but fingers, or worse, pools of blood and clothing. Everything else eaten or taken.

  I thought I knew what a real nightmare was, but since the darkness had fallen, we found ourselves living in a never-ending hell that was only going to get worse.

  When we started ascending the rear of the cliff, Hank grunted and shrugged his shoulders, signaling for me to fall back. I almost refused, but I’d seen those spiders in my vision, and unless I could get my power to work correctly, I’d be pincered in half in seconds. Though I’d shown some skill fighting that demonic statue, I was far from being on the same level as shifters who had been trained since they could walk. I stopped, watching their furry bodies slink further away before they were gone from my sight. I took a few more steps, hoping we’d get rid of this threat before Tristan and his party ever came close to this spot… my eyes narrowed at the wisp of white floating high above me in the trees.

  Quietly, I moved closer, reaching my hand up to grab it to find it was sticky.

  “Webs,” I whispered, staring ahead of me in the trees. “Oh no.”

  Webs covered the treetops and were hanging down in long strands, glowing a dull white in the surrounding shadows, barely visible. If Hank and the others walked into those, they’d be stuck, and the spiders would just kill them before they went after the hunting party. Muttering angrily at my visions for them not being more helpful, I raced up the hillside after Hank, hoping I caught up to them in time. It was hard to see, and the glow from my eyes kept flickering in and out as my fear started to get the better of me. I stumbled into something malleable and furry. When I reached down, I felt fur covered in sticky webs and heard an annoyed growl.

  “Hang on,” I whispered, not sure who I just walked into.

  I pulled at the webs, cutting them with the dagger I pulled from my hip, until the wolf was free.

  “Might be easier not to be in wolf form,” I added and a moment later, Danielle stood in front of me, her yellow eyes flaring in anger.

  “I got that,” she muttered and drew her sword. “The rest are stuck, too.”

  We moved together, and each time we found a wolf trapped in webs, we raced to get them unstuck so they could shift back and continue on our way. The further along we got, the more my unease grew, and I felt like we were being watched.

  “They’re in the trees,” I said in a breath, grabbing hold of Danielle’s arm to stop her.

  “Where?”

  I gulped as I heard those pincers start clicking… right above us.

  None of us moved, though I couldn’t stop myself from shaking as I heard the tree branches creaking under the weight of the monstrosity overhead. Danielle put a finger to her lips when I met her eyes, and I subtly nodded. Then she motioned to the shifters we freed, waving for them to spread out further as the creaking grew louder. I shut my eyes when leaves fell over my shoulders, throwing a hand over my mouth to stop myself from squeaking in alarm. Its shadow fell over me, and I felt this evil presence drawing closer and closer…

  “Now!”

  Danielle yelled the attack and grabbed my hand at the same time, dragging me out from under the beast as it crashed down to the ground. It shrieked as the shifters swiped at it with their blades. As it reared back on its rear legs, those pincers clicked loudly, dripping with a thick, gel substance that made me gag when the stench of rotting meat hit me full in the face. I fell to the ground with Danielle as those long legs swiped toward us until another shifter drove his blade right into its abdomen. It screamed as black blood that smoked as it pooled on the ground before the beast whirled around, still going strong.

  “Any of that light magic would be great right about now!” Danielle yelled.

  Whining of wolves up ahead turned frantic and more cre
aking sounding in the trees overhead. “We have to get the others out of the webs!”

  “Sabella, wait! Damn it!”

  I heard her yelling for me to get back to her, but Hank and the rest of my guard were about to be eaten alive, and I was not just going to stand there cowering in the shadows while it happened. I shook my hands out hard as I ran, willing the light to work with me, but nothing happened except a few sputtering attempts.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” I muttered as I staggered into another trapped wolf and furiously hacked away at the webs to free him. It wasn’t Hank, but he stuck with me as I moved to the next and the next until another dark shadow fell from the trees.

  A wolf snarled in fury, and I gripped my dagger tighter. Hank, that was Hank, about to be torn apart by that beast. Not thinking, and ignoring the guards trying to pull me back, I launched myself forward with a yell and felt a rush of power explode outward. The spider tumbled backward, crashing through the trees as I raced to Hank’s side. As soon as his fur was free of the webs, he shifted back and drew his sword.

  “It’s coming back!”

  I gasped as Hank threw me to the side and then he hit the ground, letting the monster run overtop him. He rolled back and jammed his sword up over and over again into the spider’s underside until it collapsed with a thud that shook the ground. It remained down, and when Hank found his feet, he was covered in the black, sticky blood, grimacing as he tried to wipe some of it off. The shifters down the slope yelled in triumph as they managed to take the first one down, but leaves fluttered over our heads, and I craned my neck, trying to make out their shapes in the shadows of the trees.