Not until that moment did he realize just how far the evil glamour had infected him. And Seren’s magic had come along and bleached out all that darkness, leaving behind only the pure, raw energy his glamour had once been. But there was also something extraordinary about this new, bright glamour, something that hadn’t been there before. There was a fresh, reviving energy to it without a single molecule of malevolence or darkness. Brenn filled his lungs with cold, winter air and took account of the rest of his body. He realized he no longer fought to stand upright, and his headache had vanished. The small aches that had pestered his joints, simple nuisances only, were gone as well. Seren’s magic was acting as a buffer, holding back his minor aches and pains as well as the evil faeduhn sickness, so that he might use his glamour freely.
Brenn released his breath on a sigh of relief, then quickly got to work pushing the loose tendrils of his glamour into tiny, spinning orbs. The task came much easier now that he had Seren’s power lending him aid. Far above, the overcast sky started dropping wispy flakes of snow while Baird and Uscias continued their pointless bickering. Brenn’s tiny globes of power were nearly fully formed, so he sent out a few tendrils to reevaluate their surroundings. Both Baird and the Druid emitted agitated glamour, their attention far too focused on one another. Brenn gave silent thanks to the gods. Both of them clearly assumed the stones’ power would shield them. Brenn’s and Seren’s luck was holding out. That fact would definitely work in their favor.
Confident the two men presented less of a threat now, Brenn sent his glamour probing elsewhere. Arlana, who had remained quiet all this time, was now attempting to pacify the two men. Another welcome boon. Brenn tested the armed men as well, gently pushing into their minds to study their thoughts. All four of them held their ground, arrows ready in their bows. But they were also clearly distracted by the chaos caused by the Druid and his apprentice. Another distraction that would work in his favor. If Brenn waited much longer, their opportunity might slip away. No more delays. It was time to act.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Impasse
With carefully calculated skill, Brenn flicked the small concentrated pebbles of his glamour, sending them spinning like tiny planets toward their intended targets. The potent globules of magic easily slipped through skin and bone, embedding themselves deep within the minds of the four archers and their employers. The spheres of glamour burst open like starflowers, the petals of magic grabbing hold of each person’s free will. Almost instantly, Brenn was bombarded with a swarm of thoughts and emotions. Boredom, anxiety, anger, love, greed, irritation, regret, hope ... This was always the hardest part, in Brenn’s opinion. Overcoming the whirlwind of abstract thoughts was difficult enough, but it was even more challenging to sever all emotional sympathies and see these people as enemies and not people who could be his friends, if circumstances were different. People who had family and loved ones just as he did.
The four men’s memories continued to dance across his mind, like the flickering, golden light reflecting off the surface of a rippling pond. As Brenn strained his mental capacities to subdue the images, a few managed to break free of his hold and rise up to taunt him. One of the hired thugs had a wife expecting a baby, another had just won several silver pieces in a game the night before at one of the taverns in town. The archer hiding behind the standing stone directly behind him had just finished building a cabin on the edge of town. Just as a wave of regret threatened to crash into Brenn, other, more potent thoughts bubbled up to the edge of his glamour barrier like hot tar. The man expecting his first daughter or son abused his wife and would most likely do the same to the child. The lucky winner from the tavern the night before had stolen the money he used to enter the game from someone else. The archer who had built the cabin had procured the wood from sacred trees planted on another’s land.
Brenn knew none of these disgraceful acts deserved a punishment of death, but he felt some of his earlier regret melting away. They are here to kill you, remember that, he told himself fiercely. And simply to earn a little extra money.
Brenn felt the last of the men’s scattered thoughts settle, and he tightened his mental grip on them. With the minds of the archers under control, he moved on to Uscias, Baird and Arlana. He took Arlana’s mind first, focusing on how she had always stalked after him like some sly predator. All of her pleasant memories had evolved from self-indulgence, and the corruption and foul thoughts he found there made him sick. Her brother, not surprisingly, was worse. Baird had to be the most depraved, selfish and heartless Faelorehn man Brenn had ever encountered.
You should have been the one sent off to join the Morrigan, he thought bitterly, as he encouraged a tendril of cerulean glamour to wrap itself around Baird’s mind like a vine.
Everything was going to plan until he reached out for Uscias. He couldn’t tell if it was the foreign magic that tipped him off, or perhaps the simple fact that Baird and Arlana had stopped speaking. Either way, Uscias threw up a barrier of strong magic just as Brenn sent his glamour out toward the Druid’s thoughts. The effect created a backlash of power, and he almost lost control of all those around him.
Even though it had taken less than five seconds to ensnare Baird’s and Arlana’s minds, it still hadn’t been quick enough to fool Uscias. Cursing under his breath, Brenn quickly yanked on the tendrils grasping the minds of the archers. They obeyed without question, stepping out from behind their hiding places.
Uscias’ snarl of outrage greeted Brenn’s ears as he turned the archers to face one another, two against two. With a mere thought, he instructed them to line up an arrow and to aim it directly at the person standing across from them.
As the Druid bellowed again, the hired men released their arrows. All four of them collapsed as the projectiles pierced their hearts. Brenn felt their minds wink out as they died, and his glamour came whipping back toward him to rejoin the swirling mass in his mind.
“Brenn!” Seren cried out, tightening her grip around his torso as a dark shape came hurtling through the mist.
Brennon turned in a swirl of heavy fabric, his sword still held out in front of him as Seren let go to stumble backwards and out of the way. Immediately, he felt the effects of her absence as that wondrous glamour of hers snapped away from his. Exhaustion washed back in like a returning tide, and his head began to pound again. Her magic hadn’t been meant to heal him. It had only been there to stave off the pain while the bulk of it worked at bolstering his own power. But Brenn could not afford to succumb to such trivial weaknesses now. The fight had just begun, and the Druid was racing toward him, a dagger in one hand, his golden, ceremonial sickle in the other.
Brenn took a step back to face his enemy and tried to draw on his glamour. But without Seren’s contact, he had lost her stream of healing magic. And not until that moment did he realize how much her power had strengthened his own. The swirling colors had once again dulled, and his grip on Baird’s and Arlana’s minds slipped. He needed Seren’s aid to gain control again, but Uscias was fast approaching.
The Druid slashed at him with the knife while drawing the sickle in a rising cut at the same time. He was fast, faster than he appeared, and strong. Brenn managed to block both strikes with his longsword, but just as soon as the weapons were deflected, Uscias was ready to strike again.
“I’d hoped to hand you both over to the goddess,” the man hissed, his cold, pale blue eyes frosting over with ice. “But, it looks like I’ll have to kill you instead.”
Uscias swung the curved golden blade at him again, and Brennon met the attack with one of his own. The strike of his sword bent the sickle and tore it away, but Uscias was ready with his dagger. He stepped in close and brought the knife up quickly, slashing Brenn across the chest with a diagonal rising cut. Brenn hissed and fell back, his skin stinging where the blade had drawn blood.
“Brennon!” Seren screamed.
Stay back! he ordered using shil-sciar. Do not come near him. He hasn’t yet used his glamour,
and he will surely entrap you with it should you move closer. Let me deal with him. It’s only a scratch.
To his great relief, Seren heeded his warning.
“Your little trollop can scream all she wants. In the end, I will defeat you, Brennon Roarke. Your glamour may be unique and terrifying, but it isn’t all that powerful. Not compared to a Druid’s magic.”
Brenn ignored his mocking tone, and instead, focused all his energy on disarming Uscias. He wondered what was keeping the Druid from using that glamour he boasted of. Maybe the ancient power of the standing stones kept it at bay, just as they had helped keep the archers and the Corcorain siblings hidden earlier. Brenn guessed Uscias never meant to use his glamour at all. Perhaps, he had hoped the hidden archers and Rori’s predicament would be enough to keep Brenn under his control. If that were the case, he had thought wrong. The archers were no longer a threat, and despite Uscias’ fierceness, Brenn was confident he was stronger and more skilled in battle than the Druid. He just needed to wait for an opening.
As Brenn feinted left in a sudden, dramatic move, Uscias brought his dagger, and another blade he’d pulled from his robes, up to meet the sword. Without taking his eyes from his target, Brenn abruptly switched the direction of his strike, cutting lower than intended and then driving the point of his blade through an opening in the other man’s guard. Without much effort, the sword slid between two ribs and lodged in Uscias’ chest cavity.
Behind him somewhere, Seren gasped. He didn’t dare look at her, not wanting to see her reaction to his brutality. Instead, he locked gazes with the Druid and watched the slow, numb shock fill his blue eyes. Uscias had miscalculated terribly, just as he had misjudged the skill of Brenn’s glamour. Or maybe he had never counted on Seren lending her support
“Did I ever tell you, Uscias,” Brenn gritted, “after I crawled back here, starving and filthy and barely alive, that the Morrigan’s soldiers had trained me well in the art of combat?”
He drove the sword in deeper, and the Druid’s arms dropped to his sides, the blades he’d fought with falling to the ground.
Brenn lifted his boot and pressed the heel against Uscias’ chest, pulling back with his arms to remove his sword. Blood pooled in the gaping wound left behind and poured down the front of the Druid’s white robes. He slumped over to the side, his punctured heart bleeding out into the snow. He was dead in less than a minute.
The entire fight had taken five or six minutes, but Brennon needed a moment to regain his composure. During the fight, he had retreated into his mind, going to a place free of sentiment and emotion, the part of his brain that ran purely on the need to survive. Now that it was over, those emotions slammed into him with staggering force. He felt weak and vulnerable, his nerves humming with anxiety and his head swimming from exhaustion. He needed Seren to help him. Not just her glamour, but her spirit and her presence, as well.
Seren, come back to me, Brenn whispered into her mind.
When she didn’t respond right away, he glanced up in her direction, the blood draining from his face when he saw why she hadn’t answered him.
Seren hadn’t gasped earlier because the fight had turned in Brenn’s favor. She had gasped because, while he and the Druid had been busy trying to outmaneuver one another, Baird had closed in and grabbed the Fahndi woman. Anger, fear and disgust twisted in his gut. Why had he not tried harder to keep a hold of Baird’s mind? How could he have let this happen?
Baird’s arm pulled Seren flush against his body, a knife blade pressed to her throat. The fingers of his other hand were raked through her hair, and they held on tight, pulling her head back so the length of her throat was well exposed. He had his cheek pressed to the top of her head as if the two of them were lovers, and the smile on his face was feral.
Slowly, Brennon lowered the point of his sword until it rested against the trampled snow on the ground, the blood from the fight with Uscias running down the blade and staining the ground scarlet.
“Let her go,” Brenn all but growled.
Baird shook his head, clucking his tongue and pulling Seren a little farther away from him. His eyes were bright and feverish, and his body was drawn tight like a bow.
“I don’t think so, Roarke. Now that the Druid is out of the way, I think I’ll keep her.”
As he said this, he rubbed his face against the silky hair he clutched in his hand. Seren reached up and tried to claw his groping fingers away, but the slight twitch of his other hand changed her mind. A tiny incision, just deep enough to draw blood, welled at her throat.
Brenn felt what was left of his own glamour whip against his mind, anger and instinct driving it despite its weakened state. He had to shake his aching head to get it to settle down. When he could see straight again, he noticed the cut on Seren’s neck was gone, only a small stain of red remaining. She had used her glamour to heal it.
Baird tsked again. “The last thing I want to do is kill you, lass, but I will if I have to. You may be gifted with that delicious, rare magic, but it doesn’t matter how good or powerful you are with it. A knife pressed in the right place will end you before you get a chance to undo the damage.”
As Baird continued to pace in a circle, always facing his enemy and keeping Seren tight against his chest, Brenn quickly took stock of their situation just as he had when they first approached the crossroads. Although the standing stones pulsed with power, throwing his glamour off a bit, he no longer had to worry about the assassins hiding behind the cover of the mist.
Tentatively, Brenn sent out a tendril of magic to prod at Baird’s mind. The effort made his headache worse, but he had enough power left to force the man to comply with his wishes. Unfortunately, the Druid had trained him well. His mind was no longer open, but trapped within an incredibly strong shield. Without Seren’s help, Brenn could never get through that barrier.
Seren? Can you hear me? he sent silently.
Y-yes. I am well, the cut was nothing, she returned.
I cannot take Baird’s mind, Seren. He has constructed a shield I cannot break through without your help.
A flood of sorrowful colors poured into his mind. I cannot send you my glamour unless I can touch your bare skin, Brenn.
Brennon had a feeling that would be the case, but he had hoped.
Do not fret, mohr faelorah, he sent. I will find a way to set you free.
Brenn glanced quickly up into the tree. Rori was still there, tied securely to the trunk, still unconscious. Brenn clenched his teeth. There was no way to tell if his nephew was alive or dead. All he could do was end this as soon as possible.
“I am going to leave now, Roarke,” Baird announced. “The Fahndi woman is coming with me, but you can keep your little bastard.”
Brenn kept his eyes locked with Seren’s as Baird started backing toward the standing stones he and Uscias had used for cover. As they crept farther away, something moving in the mist flickered in the corner of Brenn’s eye. For a split second, he gave the movement some of his attention. A slim figure in a pale gown shifted behind the stones like a specter. Brenn’s heart clenched as both dread and an idea bloomed within him.
Can you hear me, Seren? he whispered into her mind.
She had been trying to struggle free now, the knife cutting her once again.
Yes, I can, she answered back, doing her best to keep her inner voice cool and calm.
I need you to do exactly as I say. Can you do that?
Yes.
Is there a way to use your glamour to distract Baird for a second or two?
Seren didn’t answer him at first, as Baird readjusted his grip on her. His arm dropped to hook around her waist, pressing her to him so tightly, she gasped for breath.
Yes, she finally managed.
Brenn recalled the way she had burned his skin earlier.
Good. When I tell you to do so, I want you to do just that.
With as much determination as she could muster, Seren started gathering her glamour, sending it into the ha
nd that clutched at Baird’s wrist. It was the arm he had pressed across her neck, the one holding the knife.
Are you ready? Brenn sent.
Yes.
A heartbeat passed, then another. Seren could feel Baird’s hot breath on her skin and smell the stale taint of alcohol clinging to him. He matched Brenn’s height and had his own share of good looks, but the two men couldn’t be any more different. Where Brenn was strength and hard muscle and patience, this man was rough, careless with his words and actions, and cruel. Seren wanted nothing more than to get away from him and find a place to bathe. But right now, she must survive. She must work with Brenn to be rid of their enemies, so they could recover Rori.
Baird took one more step back, dragging her with him.
In that instant, Brenn screamed across her mind, Now!
Seren sent a blast of her healing glamour straight into Baird’s skin, pushing it deep into his wrist, penetrating muscle, tendon and bone. Her captor yelped as the blood in his veins boiled, releasing the knife and loosening his grip. She twisted away from him, crying out in pain as he managed to grab her hair.
“You little witch!” he hissed, pressing his injured arm to his chest. “What in Donn’s underworld did you do to me?!”
Seren wrestled to free herself, but Baird’s grasp only tightened in her hair, yanking her back toward him. She tried to locate Brenn, but she now had her back to him, and her face pointed toward the frozen ground. Somehow, she managed to turn her head to the side, inadvertently catching a glimpse of Baird’s hand. Her stomach lurched at the sight of it and her glamour flared, this time driven by the instinct to heal. The skin above his wrist was swollen, bright red and blistered. The wound had to hurt. Seren wondered if she could convince Baird to release her if she healed his hand, but before she could ask, a flutter of movement distracted her. Baird yanked her back into a standing position just as something, no, someone, came flying at Baird from behind. It was hard to tell with all the confusion surrounding her, but it looked like a woman.
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