Victor snatched the bridle. “You can’t go up there. Whatever’s happening, you can’t stop it.”
“You don’t know that!” I tightened my legs, trying to force the horse to step around him. The wind began to pick up, beating against us, howling. But I feared it was not the wind howling. It was wraiths. I backed the mare away from him. “I need to go back.”
“What about Sookie?” the Spook shouted over the wind.
If I abandoned Corwin now, they would all die. Sookie would be lost anyway. I couldn’t help her until I helped Corwin. Because he couldn’t save us on his own. And even if he somehow managed to stop the breach, if he didn’t survive . . . if he died . . .
I couldn’t stand even to finish the thought.
As if Victor read my answer in my expression, he stepped aside and released the bridle. “Then we will both go back,” he said. “If that is what you must do.”
It was as if an invisible weight lifted when I heard him say those words. I could not imagine a world in which Corwin did not exist. I could not imagine my world without him in it.
I yelled to the mare and leaned forward in the saddle.
Chapter 20
Corwin
I FOUGHT MY way into Sanctuary, but the wraiths drove me back. They continued to swell in numbers, strengthening as they multiplied. I felt the chamber buckling around me as the wraiths forced their way inside.
Sanctuary had finally been breached.
Briarstone keened in agony, a sound that shook her very foundation, uprooting cellars, heaving towers, crumbling balconies. The underworlders drove me through the first chamber, through the weapons room, and into the chamber of my ancestors.
I was nearing the end. I would have to act soon.
My head swelled with Briarstone’s torment. She knew what I was about to do, and she resisted me even as she crumbled around me. It was the only way. I could not hold on much longer.
What power remained in me I would give to Briarstone, feeding her every last drop of myself so that she could stem the tide of destruction before it set fire to the world. We would have to completely cave in the catacombs, but it might be enough to slow the advance.
I regretted only that I would never see Bet again.
I flapped my wings and rose into the air. Wraiths spiraled around me over and over again, as if trying to wrap me in a cocoon of fire and shadow. Outside the stained-glass window the sky crackled with thunder, the clouds streaked with violent lightening. I set my teeth and landed hard, smashing a crater into the platform floor. I dropped to my knees and held out my hands, my palms raised to the sky.
I could see Miriam’s cold face in the wraith-filled darkness. Knowing I would soon join her gave me the comfort I needed.
I flung every part of my spirit into the stones around me, allowing myself to truly become one with them. I spread my consciousness throughout every corner, into every chamber, every tower. Briarstone wailed as I began to disappear, lost within her empty halls. I surrendered everything I was.
The moon rose over the Abbey. Along the briar wall, roses shuddered, scattering petals like dewdrops shaken from Quarrel’s coat. The stone took me gradually, a tide creeping to the shore. I rode the swell of the coming darkness.
I embraced the stone.
Chapter 21
Bet
THE MARE SKITTERED into an uneasy sidestep as we trotted through the mangled gate and onto the Abbey grounds. I swung myself out of the saddle. Victor cantered up behind me, shouting. I twisted. Not far behind him, pale figures peeled out of the trees.
“I see them!” I shouted. Not one but four ghouls emerged from the darkness, eyes glowing. How long had they been following us? I could hear them snarling, intent on the kill. I had never heard of their travelling in packs before. I wondered if they somehow sensed the trouble Briarstone and Corwin were in.
Victor dismounted and snatched a rifle from the saddle. He aimed and fired. One of the ghouls staggered backward, howling in pain, but it merely clutched a boney hand to its side and continued on. The Spook fired twice more before the thing collapsed to the ground. One of the others was nearly upon us. Having no time to fire, Victor grabbed his rifle by the barrel and swung it like a club.
I spun in a circle, searching for a weapon so that I could help. He would not be able to fight three of them. I snatched a rock from the ground and flung it as hard I could, aiming not for the ghoul Victor was fighting, but the one coming up behind it. My aim was true, but the ghoul barely jerked as the stone smacked into its chest. It swerved around Victor and barreled toward me with renewed determination.
Suddenly Quarrel burst from the darkness and caught the creature by the throat, ripping it clean off its feet. The ghoul clawed at the wolfhound, but Quarrel held it in a death grip. He did not let go until the thrashing monster fell still.
“Go!” Victor shouted to me. “We’ll hold them off! Get out of here!”
I did not need to be told twice.
The front door hung wide open as I plunged into the main foyer. The day Corwin carried me up this path and through these doors seemed a lifetime ago.
I needed to find him. I knew where he would be. He would be with his family. He intended to die with them, in their Sanctuary.
But Briarstone rearranged herself so frequently that finding Sanctuary would be like finding one particular creeper in the whole of the Neverway. It would be impossible.
“Show me where he is!” I shouted as I edged into the darkness. I pressed a hand to the wall to follow as I moved. “Briarstone, please! I’m here to help!” I pounded my palm against the wall as I trotted past, hoping she would open a staircase for me like the one I had stumbled upon that night so long ago.
Ahead of me I heard a sound like metal rending and stone exploding. Down the corridor, a Lonely with a torch appeared and rushed to join me at the jagged hole Briarstone had ripped in her wall. It was Twilight.
“That’s good!” I shouted as I snatched the torch from her hand. “More torches! Anything that will burn. They don’t like light, so let’s set the tunnels on fire!” I shoved past her, not waiting to see if she would obey. I trusted that she would.
I ran into the darkness, staring at my feet as Briarstone lifted stone steps beneath my boots, one at a time. Around me, the chamber felt as if it were ripping itself apart. Wraiths spiraled above me. They howled as Briarstone tore parts of the walls and ceiling free and smashed into them, trying to drive them away using any means possible.
I found Corwin on the round platform beneath the stained-glass window. He was on his knees, head bent, palms lifted to the sky as if he were pleading for the intercession of the Ever who had first given him this task. He was solid stone.
I ran toward him, dodging gargoyles and chunks of falling stone. I still did not believe that the Ever would give Corwin an impossible task. There was a way to survive this. There was a way to save Corwin. There had to be.
What did Corwin need? What had he always needed from me?
I remembered every proposal with aching clarity. Corwin had been trying to tell me since the day I arrived, the day he sucked the poisoned blood from my body: I was the one to help him.
Above, a wraith howled and began to descend on me. I ducked and rolled to one side as it spiraled past.
Will you marry me, Miss Haverly?
“He is Lonely,” I whispered, the words snatched from my lips by the snarling wind buffeting the chamber. He needed love. He’d been asking me every day since the day we met. But why? What power or magic was there in love? It was a silly, senseless emotion. The sort of nonsense Rosamond indulged in.
Or was it?
Hadn’t love for my family driven me to leave my home in the dead of night? Hadn’t love made Corwin stay with Briarstone all these years?
Perhaps love wasn’t so much about roses and romance as about choices and sacrifice.
The wraith recovered and angled toward me a second time. I swung my torch in an arc over my head as th
e wraith hovered above me, away from the burning fire.
I had been born a sister and daughter. Now I knew I was meant for something more.
Twilight appeared from the hole behind me, carrying two torches, and behind her more Lonely streamed into the chamber. I felt Dawn’s presence among them. They flooded around me, waving torches in the air as other wraiths began to descend.
I lurched across the ground, scrambling to reach Corwin even as I waited for another wraith to descend on me. I gripped one of his stone hands and stared into his unseeing eyes. “Corwin!” I shouted. I squeezed his hand until my fingers ached.
The shadows began to tug at me, eager to destroy, eager to feed.
I whirled about, moving so that I stood between Corwin and the darkness. I swung my torch and cried for Briarstone to help me. I remembered Corwin, how he called the castle to him, bent her shape with his commands, refashioned her into the barricades he needed. I remembered the fondness in his voice when he spoke of her, the fierce loyalty she showed him in return.
I remembered the look in his eyes so short a time ago, when he confessed his love for me.
“I need you!” I shouted to Briarstone. The wind snatched my words away, but I tried again. “I can’t save him without you!”
Only the howling wind answered me. Anger blossomed in my chest that she would ignore me at this moment of ultimate crisis.
“I love him too, you stupid hunk of stone!” I shouted. “I won’t—”
My head exploded.
Briarstone burst into my thoughts, thundering against the inside of my skull. I saw halls and windows and stone flash before my eyes. She felt both ancient and young at the same time, as if caught between two poles of time. I thought of Sookie and Corwin, thought of how I felt torn between them, and I sympathized with Briarstone’s plight. She snatched at this thought, at this familiarity, using it to bind herself to me. She spoke to me, but I couldn’t understand her words, couldn’t make sense of her thoughts. But then she thrust a picture into my mind.
Just as several wraiths whipped toward me I imagined an invisible dome surrounding us. I ducked and squeezed my eyes shut. I felt the terror of the Lonely, but I blocked them out and let Briarstone consume my thoughts. The force of this attack nearly drove the breath from my lungs. But I felt the fiends recoil. I opened my eyes.
I could see an invisible barrier shimmering above me, faint but tenacious. The wraiths continued to attack, hungry to feed, but I thought of my family. I thought of Corwin, of the unfamiliar but violent emotion burning in my chest. If Corwin believed there was power in love, then I did too. They wanted to eat?
“Feed on this,” I snarled between my teeth.
I gave them love.
I fed the invisible barrier with every drop of love I had. I snatched at my memories of Sookie as a child picking flowers in the meadow, of Rosamond weeping into my shoulder because of some unrequited romantic interest. Of Papa bouncing me on his knee. Of Mama. Dear, sweet Mama.
Of Corwin, his eyes filled with longing and loss.
I gave it all.
But Briarstone whispered to me: It’s not enough. I began to shake as the reserve of my memories ran low. Give more. The words implanted themselves in my mind as if she’d spoken them.
“I don’t have anything else!” I screamed to her. Wraiths attacked with renewed fury, as if aware of my weakness.
Give more.
I felt myself buckling. My knees hit the stone floor with bruising force. I stared up at the shadows coiling above me, wondering if I had been wrong, if love was not the only thing Corwin needed.
I inhaled suddenly as a desperate thought took hold and flourished. There was one last thing I could do.
“I accept!” I cried. “I accept the Calling!”
Warmth washed over me, and I knew I had chosen well. I felt a sacred heat billowing around us, driving back the invisible dome, lacing it with layer upon layer of emotions I couldn’t begin to describe. Heat and light filled the chamber. I closed my eyes as the Calling took me, felt it reaching down to the core of my being, refashioning me. I accepted the change.
The wraiths began to screech in agony. Light and love, to them, were as poison.
Chapter 22
Corwin
I INHALED.
Exhaled.
I found myself in a place of complete silence. I felt refreshed. Strengthened. If this was death, no wonder my family had left me so long ago. I opened my eyes and blinked.
I wasn’t looking at a burning sunset or rippling fields of golden wheat or floating white clouds. I saw nothing that suggested the After.
I was looking at a girl. Only the sleeping girl was not the one I had left behind. I watched the breath ease in and out of her body, feeling perplexed and fascinated at once. Could this possibly be Bet?
Could it be anyone else?
Briarstone reached out to me, opening and closing doors in agitation, clearly waiting for me to wake up. I smiled and sent her soothing thoughts. The doors closed, and peace fell in the Abbey. I sensed the Lonely nearby, but they too were quiet. I counted them, appalled to discover that many of them were injured, many were missing.
Bet blinked, as if sensing my stare, and opened her eyes. They were unusually pale.
I gasped as understanding dawned on me. “What have you done?” My voice creaked. I saw the other changes now, heightened cheekbones and eyebrows, broader shoulders, and wings the color of a walnut husk.
She sat up and blinked at me. The way the wings draped her shoulders made her look almost elegant. Strange, the idea of Bet Haverly being elegant. Usually she was clever and hard, like a swift kick to the seat of the pants. I liked her that way. But elegant was nice too.
“What have you done?” It startled me, the depth of sorrow surging through me. This was not what I had wanted for her, not at all. I had prepared my whole life to accept the Calling. She had been given only weeks.
“You needed me,” she said, as if that explained it all. Her voice was deeper, but the inflections were the same. Her eyebrows lifted as if she expected an answer.
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. “You came back because of me?”
She nodded, her eyes falling to her hands. She stared at them, flexing her fingers, then experimentally felt her injured arm, touching the scars that now looked like runes etched in stone. Her gaze shot back to mine.
“You are the bravest person I have ever known,” I managed, the words sounding awkward. “You look . . . beautiful.”
She offered half a smile and shrugged as if it didn’t matter. I realized that to her it probably didn’t. She was not that kind of girl. My gaze fell to the crazy brocade breeches she wore.
“You look better yourself,” she said, quite matter-of-fact. “Not quite, er, human, but your skin isn’t so pasty. And your eyes are clearer than I’ve ever seen them.”
I shifted, embarrassed under her intense perusal. I found my feet, pleased to discover them solid beneath me. I stretched.
Bet joined me, her wings shifting as she did so. She lifted them above her head, gasping. “Now those I like!” she exclaimed in pure delight. She darted toward the perimeter of the platform as if she meant to test them at once. Beyond her, through shattered glass windowpanes, I glimpsed the faintest hint of orange caressing the mountain peaks.
I lurched forward and hauled her back by the collar. “It’s nearly dawn!” I exclaimed, my heart in my throat.
She stared at me, her color changing several times before she shrugged me off. I could see the reality of what she had become sinking in. She was like me. We were bound by a different set of rules than the rest of the world followed. The cycles of the sun and moon would now control her movements.
When she spoke, however, it wasn’t about that. “There’s something important we need to discuss,” she said. Her awkward delivery suggested that our discussion would be equally awkward.
I felt my heart quicken, throbbing against my ribs in its eagerness;
a beating heart, not stone. I stared at her, mesmerized by her intense eyes and expressive features.
“I will not be locked in the garden shed,” she said and raised a warning finger. “Never again.”
My hopes fell. “I hardly think that was my fault,” I grumbled, disheartened by the direction of our conversation. “It wasn’t my idea. Exactly.”
“You have a number of peculiar ideas, Corwin,” she retorted dryly. “Such as sacrificing yourself to a demon horde. Briarstone plans to give you the scolding of the century, but I think she’s tired just now.”
Why did I get the feeling these two would soon be tight as thieves and tormenting me at every turn? But she was right. Briarstone was listing into complacency, as close to a state of sleep as she came. I let her go with my blessing. Even the Lonely were content for the time being. There would be time to lick our wounds later.
I heard the distant scrabble of claws over stone. Quarrel appeared and limped up the stairs toward us. I knelt as he approached, my hands reaching for the right leg he seemed to be favoring. He nosed me, his muzzle stained with blood.
“Oh no!” Bet exclaimed, dropping down beside me. She reached an arm around Quarrel in a hug. He whimpered, but his tail wagged with enough vigor to jerk his rear from side to side. I set his paw down, relieved. He had not been bitten.
“Good boy,” I murmured, and fondled his ears.
“Corwin, I need to ask you something,” Bet began. She pressed her face into Quarrel’s side. A long paused ensued. “This whole falling-in-love thing is not my specialty,” she mumbled. I had to strain to hear her and even then was uncertain I had heard her properly.
I held quite still.
She turned her face slightly. I could see her cheek and half of her mouth. One eye peeked up at me. “Will you marry me, Corwin?” she asked into Quarrel’s side. As if he actually understood her words, the fool dog began to wiggle in excitement, bumping against her face so that she had to move away from him. “But, for tradition’s sake,” she continued in a more practical tone before I’d even had a chance to comprehend what I had just heard, “I do insist you speak with my father about . . . about that.”
Five Enchanted Roses: A Collection of Beauty and the Beast Stories Page 16