by Ash, Sarah
I’m done for. Unless . . . Gerard closed his eyes a moment, seeking for the elusive presence of wind as the cavalrymen continued to fire, creating a distraction. If ever I needed you, zephyr, breeze, gale, I need you now.
A sudden rush of power buffeted him, almost knocking him over. He tried to seize hold of it, wrestling with its wild, willful fury to direct it toward Ardarel as he hovered above them. The gust, as it passed through him, knocked him flat on the ground and hit the wounded angel with full force. Ardarel let out another agonized cry and the flames gouting from the fiery blade dimmed.
The rent in the sky gaped open once more and Ardarel retreated, disappearing from sight above the clouds.
Gerard listened. The gilded vibrations that emanated from Ardarel’s wings and sword had ceased. He was winded—but unharmed. But as for the Emperor and his great-grandfather . . .
***
“Kaspar. Kaspar, can you hear me?”
The Emperor had raised the Magus’s head and shoulders and was supporting the old man’s body against his own as Gerard hurried over.
“Is he . . . ?”
As Gerard knelt beside them and reached out to take his great-grandfather’s hand, Eugene slowly shook his head, indicating the scorch marks left by Ardarel’s blade across the Magus’s robes.
“He saved my life.” Eugene’s strong voice shook. “And now, I fear . . .”
The rattle of carriage wheels over gravel and the soft whinny of a horse cut across his words. A barouche had appeared from the direction of the palace, drawn by two elegant grays and was slowing to a stop outside the lodge.
“Magus!”
A pale, fair-haired girl jumped out of the barouche and flung herself down beside Linnaius on the grass, reaching out to caress his wrinkled cheek with slender fingers.
“Don’t you dare die!” she said, her tone surprisingly fierce for one so young.
Gerard, still dazed from Ardarel’s attack, wondered who she could be to his great-grandfather to address him in such a familiar way.
“Kari?” The Emperor sounded almost as surprised as he. “But how did you—?”
She glanced up at him. “The same way you did, Papa,” she said. “I felt the disturbance when it broke through.” So this was the Emperor’s eldest child, Princess Karila.
“Karila,” Kaspar Linnaius stirred and his hooded eyes opened.
“Yes, it’s me.”
“You’ve . . . grown.” But the shrewd and piercing silver gleam had dulled and Gerard was obliged to lean closer to try to catch his halting words.
“Where have you been? Why did you leave us for so long?” Her voice cracked on the last question as tears spilled out and she added with a poignancy that touched Gerard’s heart, “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I was looking . . . for my own daughter.”
Gerard saw a look of disbelief pass between Eugene and the princess.
“And did you find her?” the Emperor asked gently.
“No.” Linnaius closed his eyes as if too weary to continue. But then a moment later, he opened them again to glance up at Gerard. Gerard tightened his hold on his great-grandfather’s hand, realizing how chill it had become, as if warmth and life were ebbing away too swiftly. “Although I found my great-grandson instead. This is Gerard.”
“ You’re the great-grandson?”
Gerard felt the full probing force of the Emperor’s stare boring into him. Undaunted, he nodded, daring to hold the Emperor’s gaze. “My name is Gerard Bernay,” he said. “But until today I had no idea of who—or what—I really am.”
The Emperor suddenly let out a little snort of amusement. “Those eyes certainly give the game away, Magus Bernay.”
Magus Bernay? The title sounded strange—and yet not unpleasing—to Gerard’s ears. And it had been conferred on him by the Emperor himself. Even as he was adjusting to the confirmation of his new identity, he felt a slight pressure on his hand and saw that his great-grandfather had closed and opened his eyes in tacit approval. And then Linnaius’s gaze drifted upward, focusing on the skies above their heads. Gerard, feeling his skin prickle with a chill, new sensation, looked upward too to see the wouivres streaking toward them.
“What a truly wonderful sight,” he heard the Emperor murmur.
“ You can see them too, imperial majesty?” There had been rumors about the Emperor’s dabbling in the hidden arts at the time that the Drakhaouls appeared in Tielen but Gerard had doubted their veracity . . . until now.
The wouivres slowly descended in an elegant downward spiral that set the air whispering and stirred up eddies of white dust from the gravel. Yet as they alighted, each one shrugged aside their glittering coils to emerge in human form. Gerard gazed at them, speechless; he had experienced so much beyond his comprehension in the last hours and yet this unexpected transformation was the most surprising of all.
His great-grandfather stirred again, making an effort to raise himself up; Gerard and the Emperor supported him into a sitting position. Gerard could feel how frail the elderly Magus’s body was, bones as brittle as twigs beneath the papery wrinkled skin as thin as skeletal leaves; only Linnaius’s indomitable will power must be keeping him alive. The princess snuggled closer, inserting herself in the crook of her father’s arm with one hand placed protectively on Linnaius’s shoulder.
One by one, the wouivres came forward, to kneel before Kaspar Linnaius. Clothed only in their long locks of floating silvery hair, their slender, insubstantial bodies were almost translucent, showing a tracery of glimmering veins. Each in turn raised their hands to him, whether in supplication or greeting, Gerard could not be sure. All he knew was that their presence resonated deep within him, stirring a feeling of loss and longing so powerful he feared it would utterly overwhelm him.
Linnaius slowly, tremblingly, extended his right hand toward them. Gerard could feel the supreme effort that it cost him to make even this simple gesture.
“Serapiel,” he whispered. So he knew them all by name. “Nahaliel.” As he brushed their extended translucent fingertips with his own, each wouivre in turn bowed their head. “Auphiel. Asamkis.” And to the tallest one who waited until the last to kneel, Linnaius looked up and a smile curved his lips. “Izkael,” he said, his fading voice touched with warmth. “How can I thank you for all these years of faithful friendship you’ve given me?”
Izkael . The name reverberated through Gerard’s mind more strongly than all the rest.
“We knew this day would come,” Izkael said. “Our sister warned us. You’ve lived a long life for a mortal. But we are grieving. Because we owe you our freedom. You set us free from the cursed Angelsnares of the Saint Knights of Sapaudia.”
Gerard listened in amazement, hearing unfamiliar and mystifying names that suggested tales yet untold of his great-grandfather’s long life—tales that he feared that he would never get to hear.
“And now you have to let me go.” Linnaius raised his free hand to gently touch Izkael’s bent head. Gerard sensed the immense effort it cost him as if will alone were sustaining him. “But I place my great-grandson in your care. Make a new pact with him, Izkael. Break the pact we made and protect him. With Ardarel and the Warriors on his trail, he’s going to need your help.”
Izkael said nothing.
“Well, if you won’t, then I must.” There was still the ghost of formidable willpower in Linnaius’s voice. “I set you free, Azhkanizkael, from the pact that has bound us all these years.”
Izkael’s head drooped lower. “Our pact is at an end,” he said haltingly. “Josse—Josselin Vernier—we are no longer bound together.”
The name—Francian from the sound of it—was utterly unfamiliar to Gerard. And from the murmur of surprise that passed between the Emperor and his daughter, he guessed that something had been revealed that Linnaius had kept hidden even from them. Vernier. The name of my grandmother before she married. Is that his real name?
Izkael raised his head to stare at Gerard, fixing
him with his unearthly eyes.
The significance of the moment sent a shiver of elation through Gerard’s body. He had dreamed of dragons. He had modelled his flyers on the Drakhaoul dragons he had once glimpsed flying over Tielen. Now he was about to become bound to an elemental air dragon—for life. The realization that his dream was about to come true both thrilled and terrified him. Undaunted, he stared back into Izkael’s inhuman eyes and said in as strong and clear a voice as he could muster, “Acknowledge me, Azhkanizkael.”
Without hesitation, the wouivre replied, “I acknowledge you . . . as my new master, Gerard Bernier.”
The Magus gave a little sigh and his head drooped against the Emperor’s shoulder.
“Kaspar!” The Emperor’s cry seemed to rouse him and his lids fluttered open once more.
“I’m rather tired, Eugene,” he said in tones of tender irascibility. “I could do . . . with a rest . . .”
Gerard was shocked to hear his great-grandfather speak so familiarly to the Emperor but Eugene seemed used to such chiding.
“I left . . . my researches to that idiot Kazimir . . .” The Magus reached out to Eugene who caught his hand in his own. “But will you promise me . . . to protect Gerard? He has inherited the gift—and the curse—of the silver eyes. He’ll need . . . to study. But with your patronage, I believe he will serve you and your heirs for many years . . . as I have tried to do . . .”
“You need have no worries on that account, Kaspar.” The Emperor turned to Gerard and, again, Gerard felt the full force of his penetrating gaze, disconcerting yet inspiring at the same time. “I offer you my full protection, Gerard Bernay, in the hope that you will stay by my side and continue your great-grandfather’s work.”
Overwhelmed, Gerard lowered his head in gratitude. “I’ll do my best to live up to his expectations.”
Linnaius lifted his other hand toward him, as if to beckon him closer. His lips moved. Gerard leaned closer, taking his hand in his own, trying to catch what his great-grandfather was trying to say.
“The key . . . protect the key . . .”
A sudden chill breeze gusted across the parkland, setting Gerard’s senses tingling. All the wouivres dropped to their knees, heads bent, their luminous eyes averted. As Gerard stared, he saw—or thought he saw—the shadow of a bird of prey, arise, hawk-like, from Linnaius’s body and dart away, fading into the uncertain daylight.
And then all was still.
“Magus?” cried the princess.
But Gerard felt his great-grandfather’s grip on his hand slowly relax and drop back to his side. Tears glimmered in Eugene’s eyes as he and Gerard gently laid the old man back on the grass.
“Papa,” whispered the princess.
“Farewell, old friend.” Eugene leant forward and closed Linnaius’s eyes.
Chapter 53
Gerard knelt by his great-grandfather’s body, head bowed.
“Attend on us at the palace when you’re ready,” the Emperor said quietly as he helped his weeping daughter into the barouche and Gerard nodded automatically in reply. The imperial cavalrymen remounted to form an escort and the party set off along the drive toward the palace.
Even as Gerard watched over Linnaius, he sensed a subtle change taking place. The Magus’s lined face was tranquil in death, the skin so translucently pale that it reminded him of the pearlescent discs of honesty seedpods that used to grow in his mother’s garden. And then to Gerard’s bewilderment, the features blurred as if a fine mist had settled upon them.
“What’s happening, Izkael?”
The wouivre gazed at his dead master’s body. “Ah. His mortal form is breaking down. He was very old, after all, in your terms.”
“How old, exactly?” Gerard wanted to avert his gaze but his eyes were fixed on the horrifying yet oddly beautiful sight of his great-grandfather’s bodily dissolution until the Magus’s features suddenly disintegrated into a cloud of silvery dust and the body beneath the robes collapsed inward.
“Your kind live much longer than ordinary mortals,” Izkael said. “It’s a gift and a curse too. Or so he said, more than once.”
And as Gerard stared down on the crumpled clothes and the fine powder that had so recently been his great-grandfather and the reality of his own mortality—even if he lived to anything like as great an age as Linnaius—filled him with dread.
Am I looking at my own death? Is this how it will end for me?
A sharp breeze suddenly swept across the parkland and began to disperse the dust. Alarmed, Gerard started up, wanting to preserve the last remains but he felt Izkael place a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“There’s nothing you can do. Let the North Wind scatter his remains. It’s as it should be.”
“But what shall I say to the Emperor? He’s probably planning a funeral ceremony already—”
“I’ll take you back to the court. You’ll be wanting to make your farewells.”
“I will?” Gerard was still too numbed to think about what he needed to do next. A sudden shaft of sunlight fell on the empty tumble of clothes and he caught a glint of metal. Looking more closely, he saw a slender silver chain with a key attached; his grandfather must have been wearing it around his neck.
Izkael bent down and picked up the key, handing it to Gerard. “This is for you. He planned to give it to you himself.”
“ The key ,” Linnaius had whispered to him with his dying breath. ‘ Protect the key” ’
Gerard hesitated—it seemed a little like grave-robbing—and then closed his fingers around the cold metal. He wondered what the key would unlock and what secrets would be revealed. But as he turned toward the sky-craft, he found himself staring directly into Izkael’s translucent eyes.
Rush of ice-chill waters, steaming as they tumble from high, jagged rocks into a mist-wreathed gray lake.
Gerard shivered. “What was that?”
“ Our home. The mountain waterfalls and lakes that we protect, far from here, the source of our life force .” Izkael’s deep voice resonated in his mind, the rumble of a storm wind heard on a turbulent winter night. “ I will take you there later, if you wish .”
I am bound for life to this creature of wind and water. The realization was oddly comforting amid all the confusion raging in his mind. And then he remembered that he had not yet checked to make sure Toran was all right. And that’s another part of my life I have to renounce. He nodded. “I do wish to go there, Izkael, with all my heart. But for now, I have urgent unfinished business at Swanholm.” He clambered back into the craft and, without another word, Izkael shrugged off his mortal form, returning to his powerful wouivre body in a dazzle of silvered scales.
***
Why? Eugene asked himself over and over again as he and Karila rode back to Swanholm in the princess’s barouche. He was still in a state of shock at the merciless way Ardarel had struck Linnaius down.
Why did that Winged Warrior have Oskar Alvborg’s face?
It was possible, of course, that Galizur’s Heavenly Guardians were able to show mortals what they most feared or hated, and Ardarel had read in his mind a suggestion already planted there by Karila. Or worse still—and he tightened his grip around Karila’s shoulders—Ardarel had possessed his half-brother and used him to attack them.
And if that was so, somehow—in spite of Baron Sylvius’s vigilance—Oskar had evaded all his agents and slipped back into Tielen.
He’s failed in his first attempt to assassinate me. But who knows where he’ll strike next if we don’t stop him? He wouldn’t hesitate to single out Astasia and the children . . . That thought alone stirred up such a storm of alarm that he could feel his heart thudding beneath the crisp gray cloth of his uniform jacket.
Beside him he heard a stifled sob escape from Karila. He realized that he was so caught up in his own worries that he was neglecting her. His daughter was making a supreme effort to restrain her tears—but she must be doubly traumatized by the death of her beloved Magus at the hands o
f Oskar Alvborg, the one who had abducted her and subjected her to a terrifying ordeal at the Serpent Gate.
“Kari,” he said gently, giving her a reassuring squeeze.
“I’m sorry, Papa.” She nestled closer to him. “You must be so sad too. The Magus was your good friend.”
“He was,” he said, touched by the fact that she was concerned about his feelings, putting aside her own sadness to console him. “I don’t know what we shall do without him.” He heard his voice falter and cleared his throat. They were nearly back at the palace and he could not allow himself to betray any sign of weakness in front of the court.
The barouche slowed to a stop by the double stair and an equerry came forward to open the door. Eugene hesitated, half in, half out of the barouche, torn between his own need to mourn for the Magus and his instinct to protect his family. The instant he stepped down from the coach, his courtiers would be looking anxiously to him to reassure them that all was well even when he knew it was far from being so.
“Are you all right, imperial majesty?” Gustave came hurrying down the left stair to greet them.
“We are unharmed,” Eugene said in the most robust of tones. “Where is Countess Marta?”
“Here, majesty.” The ever-dependable Marta appeared, arms extended, to welcome Karila who threw herself into her arms and hugged her tightly.
Gustave shot Eugene a questioning look as Marta led Karila away. Eugene said, sotto voce , so that only he would hear, “We have just lost the Magus.”
Gustave said nothing but one eyebrow quirked inquiringly.
“I’d like to see Countess Lovisa,” Eugene said. “Can you ask her to come to my study?”
Baron Sylvius was currently in Tielborg but his most trusted agent (and mistress) Lovisa, Countess of Aspelin, was keeping a watchful eyes on affairs at Swanholm in his absence.
As Eugene passed through the airy mirrored reception room on the way to his study, he seized a little glass of aquavit from one of the attendants’ trays and downed it in one gulp. The sharp, stinging bite of the spirits revived him; he needed a clear head to deal with this new threat.