“Don’t treat him like that,” Sam said weakly, narrowing her eyes and seeing the jagged-tipped ribbon of light once more. Her soul shrank to half its size. Yes, something was wrong, terribly wrong! The whole room started spinning as a spasm of nausea gripped her insides. What had been done to that ribbon was an abomination. Something more perverse than murder.
Ashby held her by the waist to stop her from crumpling to the floor. “Sam!”
“What . . . what’s wrong with him?” she sobbed.
“Nothing. Uncle Bernard is just . . . a little unbalanced. He’s been like that for a long time. You mustn’t let him worry you.”
Bernard threw himself on the floor and kicked wildly at the guards. They lost their hold of him.
“Roanna,” he cried, “don’t take me away from my Roanna!”
“Take that demented man out of here, you incompetent buffoons,” the Regent yelled at the guards.
“No.” Sam protested, taking a step toward Bernard. “Let him be.”
“They won’t hurt him, Sam,” Ashby said, holding her back.
Sam put her hand out and reached for the errant ribbon of light. I can fix it, she thought. I can mend this horrible crime.
“Let go of me, Ashby.”
The grand hall was thrown into commotion. Something powerful was taking over her, a formidable instinct turning her into a force of nature. Whatever had been taken from this man, she could restore it. Doing nothing, standing idle would be the most terrible evil. Ashby released her arm. She took another step toward Bernard. Her hand reached desperately. The ribbon of light, which had been wafting aimlessly, swayed in her direction, like a snake beckoned by a charmer. A weak jolt of energy made her fingers tingle.
“What is she doing, Veridan?” the Regent demanded. For the first time, Danata sounded uncertain, even a little scared. There was no answer from the Sorcerer. “What is her mark?!”
The guards took hold of Bernard’s arms and dragged him toward the door. He thrashed, trying to pull free. Sam had to reach him before they took him away. In her logical mind she was baffled by her own actions, but there was no questioning the clarity of her instincts; she had to get to him. The ribbon of light floated above her. She stretched her hand upward, fingers twitching frantically, but it was too far. To grab it, she had to go to its source. Sam staggered weakly toward Bernard, her legs still numb and cold.
“Stop her,” the Regent commanded. Veridan moved to intercept Sam while the Regent yelled another order. “Tell me what her mark is, Ashby.”
Greg stepped in Veridan’s path. “Oh no, you don’t.”
The Sorcerer stopped and considered Greg warily.
“Danata, this is madness,” Portos said, speaking for the first time.
“Stay out of this.” Danata left the dais and approached Ashby. “Tell me what she is. Now!”
“I don’t know, Mother. I’ve never seen a mark like hers.”
“What does it look like?”
“Why is that so important right now?” Ashby asked.
Sam took two more steps toward Bernard. The link was within reach now. Seeing her close, the man fought more forcefully. She put out a hand, ready to take hold of the dangling, broken strand. She almost had it when Simeon let go of Bernard, grabbed Sam’s arm and twisted it behind her back. Sam cried out in pain.
“No! Take your hands off her!” Ashby tried to rush to Sam’s aid, but his mother dug her nails into his arm and held him back.
“Somebody fetch more guards,” the Regent ordered, but there was no one to follow her order. “Veridan, you good for nothing, do something!” But Veridan remained oddly impassive, merely staring Greg down, as if he feared the teenager more than the Regent.
“Let go of her, you bastard,” Greg shouted past the Sorcerer, ready to fight.
Simeon twisted Sam’s arm to a breaking point, driving her up onto her tip-toes, then planted a hand on her head and shoved her into Greg’s arms.
He caught her and wrapped her in a protective embrace. “Are you all right?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she disentangled herself and headed back toward Bernard. The second guard, Omar, was still struggling with him, an arm wound tightly around his neck. Simeon stepped up to them. “Stubborn old fool,” he said, and knocked Bernard out cold with a hook to the jaw.
Greg caught her by the arm, pulling her away. “No,” she protested. “I have to help him.”
“Okay.” Greg sighed. “Let me take care of these two assholes first.” He stepped in front of Sam and faced the guards.
The Regent howled in frustration. “Must I do everything myself?”
Suddenly sensing greater danger from the Regent’s direction, Greg whirled and shielded Sam with his body.
“Don’t move, Sam,” Greg ordered, his protective arms corded with tension. “I don’t know how, but she’s dangerous.”
Regent Danata laughed wickedly, and said, “You’re right to be afraid.” She stalked menacingly. “You won’t cause me any more problems, little Keeper.” She extended her hands above her head and mimed a beckoning motion with her fingers.
“Let’s get out of here.” Greg snatched Sam’s wrist and pulled her toward the door. The guards blocked the exit, but he didn’t hesitate.
Sam looked back at Regent Danata, standing there with her beckoning fingers and half-lidded eyes. Following her instinct once more, she squinted and located the two links that joined her to Ashby and Greg. To her astonishment, she saw one of the links descending into the Regent’s long fingers; it was the one that connected her to Greg.
“No,” she screamed. “Don’t do it! Stop, please,” she begged, the edge of desolation cutting right through her core.
In answer to Sam’s despairing call, Ashby stepped behind his mother and slid an arm around her neck. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I won’t let you.” He seemed shocked to find himself in that situation, but angry enough to act on his instincts. Sam’s plea had erased any hesitancy he had left.
Oblivious to what was happening behind him, Greg pressed forward toward the door.
“Enough of these kids’ games,” Simeon said, pulling a pistol from his hip holster. Omar did the same. “Stand down.”
Greg’s body shimmered and crackled. He flicked his hands and snapped out two bolts of lightning. Deafening thunder filled the hall as the guards’ guns went flying up in the air. The weapons hit the marble floor and slid out of reach. Simeon and Omar clutched their singed hands in shock. Looking warily at Greg, they put their hands up in surrender. In one swift motion, Greg pulled the burly guard into a headlock. The man groaned and cursed as he fought, furiously punching Greg’s sides. Soon, his voice became a choked gasp, and he fell unconscious to the floor. Greg let go just as Omar reached him. The guard swung a meaty fist at him, but Greg ducked with uncanny speed and retaliated with an uppercut to Omar’s stomach. When the guard doubled over, Greg caught Omar with a knee to the forehead and sent him sprawling next to his fallen comrade.
“Let’s get out of here!” Greg pulled Sam’s arm, but she dug in her heels. She couldn’t leave. Not without Ashby.
“Damn you, Ashby,” his mother cursed in a strangled voice, scratching at his arm. “Let me go!” She stepped to the side, trying to free herself from his steadfast grip. Her face was red, her eyes all but glowing with rage. “Let. Me. Go!” she repeated once more.
“No, Mother. This has gone too far. You need to stop.”
“Take your hands off me, or you’ll regret it. You’re no son of mine if you dare go against me. Don’t make me hurt you.”
“I’d let her go, if I were you,” Veridan said, looking as calm as if he were strolling through the park.
“Ashby, Danata, please,” Portos said, dancing around them like a headless hen.
Danata slammed an elbow into her son’s stomach. Ashby grunted and tightened his hold around her neck. The Regent’s face went crimson and her body shook with anger and impotence. A growl, like an animal�
��s, broke through her throat. Trembling, she thrust her hands above Ashby’s head.
“No!” Sam lurched forward.
Danata’s hands clasped together and gripped what might have been an invisible tree branch. Twisting her grip viciously, she jerked her hands apart in a brutal ripping motion. Instantly, Sam felt a wrenching tug in her very entrails. Like a rag doll, she crumpled to her knees. Hands spasming at her sides, she watched the luminous lifeline that had connected her to Ashby flailing like a fish out of water. She pitched forward and shook on all fours.
“Ashby!” Her voice was nothing but a weak whine of agony. Her Integral lay motionless at Danata’s feet. She reached out a trembling hand in his direction. “Ashby.” She tried to crawl toward him, but she felt devoid of energy. Lifeless. With a thud, she collapsed on her face. Cold tears ran down her cheek and seeped between the cracks of the marble tiles beneath her.
The room went utterly silent. In the back of her dimming mind, she knew no one there would understand what had happened. In a way, she had known all along but her mind had been too slow to grasp it. Her instincts had told her what was wrong with Bernard. Not just that, they’d also told her she could fix it—she’d had the power to mend what the Regent’s devilry must have done, only now it was too late. Her life was slipping away.
A vast chasm of emptiness opened and grew inside her, quickly engulfing her soul, threatening to swallow her forever. Her body, her mind, her whole being floated aimlessly. But she didn’t care. Ashby had slipped away, and she had nothing else to fight for. He had been swallowed as soon as his mother severed the lifeline between them. Her love was gone, dead. No gift, no magic could bring him back. She would follow him now. Without him, going on living was impossible.
Chapter 37 - Greg
The moment Regent Danata reached for the ceiling, Greg sensed the looming danger, his Keeper senses blaring louder than ever. But her decision was so swift, her gesture so weird, he had no time to understand, much less react to what she was doing. Ashby collapsed to the floor, then Sam a moment later. Portos gaped and stood speechless. The Regent’s gesturing to the heavens had done something, but Greg had no idea what. Only that it was ripping his world apart.
Wavering, he approached Sam and knelt by her side. Tears streamed from her open, vacant eyes. With a tremulous hand, he removed a strand of hair from her face and felt his own eyes sting with despair. After Veridan had looked into her mind and Sam crumpled to the floor, Greg had known she was fine. Now confusion and agony descended on him, chilling his very soul. She was breathing, but her face was ashen. Other than that, she might have been sleeping or . . . No! She would be fine. She would come to.
“It serves you right, you impudent lass,” the Regent said, rubbing her neck and looking down at Sam with contempt.
“Ashby?” Portos’s hesitant voice. The High Sorcerer knelt by him. Greg watched him impassively, waiting for the same strange fate to strike him down at any instant.
Portos rose to his feet unsteadily and backed away from Ashby. His face was contorted in horror. “What have you done?” he asked the Regent. “What sort of dark gift have you been hiding from us?”
The Regent laughed maniacally and turned to Portos. “A powerful one, Portos. A unique gift that a simple-minded, spineless Sorcerer would never understand.” Danata lowered her gaze and, for the first time, looked at her son.
“But how could you? Your own son . . .” Portos shook his head incredulously, pointing at Ashby’s prone figure.
“He brought it upon himself with his witless audacity.” Her words were harsh, but regret colored her voice. “Nobody raises their hand against me. I would rather have a lame son than such a rebellious, disrespectful one.”
“A dead one, you mean?” Portos said, his wrinkled face spelling the pain he felt for the boy that lay immobile at his feet.
Dead?! Greg’s eyes flickered down to Ashby, whose face was visible between the Regent’s feet. His features were ashen, distorted in a grimace of pain, but he appeared as if he would wake up any second. There was still color in his cheeks. He looked like . . .
Sam! Greg snapped from his trance. He put a hand over her chest. Oh God, did she stop breathing? Her chest didn’t seem to be rising up and down anymore. He pressed an ear to her chest and listened. Her heartbeat was faint, but still there. What do I do? He felt impotent. This wasn’t like at the soup kitchen, where he’d known exactly how to save her. Here, she’d just collapsed for no apparent reason.
“Dead?” the Regent asked dumbly. “What do you mean, dead? He’s not dead . . . he’s just . . .” Danata took a step back, away from Ashby’s lifeless body. “Veridan, Veridan!”
The Sorcerer walked reluctantly toward Ashby and knelt. With a blank and unfeeling expression, he got back up and shook his head.
“No, no,” Danata cried, shaking her head. “He can’t be dead. They never die.”
In a sudden dash, Danata rushed to Ashby’s side and shook him. “You’re not dead,” she yelled. “Wake up!” She grabbed his shoulders and shook him violently. “Wake up, wake up, wake up,” she repeated with each thrust of her arms. She fell into a frenzy, wailing and shaking his inert body.
Greg watched in a stupor, feeling his own life slipping away while Sam’s face grew paler and paler. This is it, Greg thought with a detached calm. She was slipping away, and he couldn’t stop it. All he could hope for was a similar fate. Except somehow he knew he wouldn’t share it. She was going to leave him behind. Death would not come for him now. It only felt that way because the thought of losing her was unbearable, because life without her would be senseless.
“Somebody help her,” Greg demanded suddenly. He couldn’t let her die if she wasn’t going to take him along.
No one came to their aid. No one said a word. The only sound in the huge hall was the Regent’s with her shrieks of denial, her hysterical laments for the son she had unknowingly murdered.
“That’s quite enough, Danata,” said a new voice.
Listlessly, Greg looked to see who had spoken. In shock, he realized it was Veridan. Not the blond, disheveled man who had prodded inside of Sam’s mind, but the fastidious Sorcerer with manicured nails and perfectly cropped hair, the man who had tried to kill her at the gas station. So it had been him all along, concealing his true identity through an illusion—a trick that was no longer needed, now that Ashby was dead, and Sam dying.
“Stop, Danata,” Veridan said, but the Regent carried on in despair. “Have you gone mad?”
All the commotion had attracted an audience. At every doorway leading into the hall, heads peered in, though no one dared to enter. Seeing Ashby’s body near the dais, many gasped in horror, and commotion grew outside.
“You, Xasdia,” Veridan said, pointing a finger at one of the peering heads. She stepped in shyly and exchanged a few quiet words with the Sorcerer.
Portos shuffled toward Greg, looking dazed and twice as old.
Greg looked up helplessly. “Please, help her.”
The High Sorcerer looked down at Sam’s motionless, crumpled body and shook his head. “I’m sorry, lad. This magic is unknown to me.”
The desire to stand and shake the old man flitted past him. Greg had no passion left in him. There was nothing left, only despair. He picked Sam up and cradled her to his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered in her ear. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep them from hurting you. I failed you.”
Sam’s clouded eyes looked to his. There was the barest hint of life left in them. Yet they seemed to tell him it wasn’t his fault. That she didn’t blame him for anything.
Oh, but it was his fault. He could have prevented this. He knew from the beginning that they shouldn’t have come here, but he’d been too busy building walls around himself—his pain making all the decisions for him. Being discarded so quickly and so absolutely had been too much, so he’d done the only thing he could to survive the blow. And in the process, he’d stopped fighting for Sam. Now it w
as too late to fight for her. The only thing he had left was to drop the pretense. He owed her at least that much.
Greg looked into Sam’s cloudy eyes and slowly lowered his lips to hers. He brushed them lightly and was shocked by how cold and lifeless they felt. He pulled back and searched her features. There was no reaction. Again, he lowered his mouth to hers, but stopped right before their lips met.
“I love you,” he whispered. He wished he’d said it before. He wished he’d been honest.
He touched his mouth to hers once more, pouring his entire being into the kiss. They would never be this close again. They would never feel the indescribable surge of their bodies melding into one. He lifted his face. He wiped his eyes angrily. She had just morphed. She’d had her entire life ahead of her. This wasn’t fair.
Someone has to pay for this, he thought. He couldn’t just sit there, crying like a helpless child. He had to avenge her. He looked past Danata, already ruined with grief. Past Portos, talking to her in hushed whispers. He looked at the first one who had put Sam in danger, the one who had reached into her mind and done God knows what. The one who had stood by, smirking while she was murdered, who had strolled about while Danata murdered her only son. The one whose arrogant, knowing gaze said plenty.
Veridan.
Greg kissed Sam’s forehead, set her down gently, and stood. He wouldn’t be a Keeper much longer. Whatever powers he still had would disappear when his link to Sam was gone. He had to do something with the remnants of his gift. He had to fight. Maybe even go down fighting, to follow Sam wherever she was going.
He spotted him in the back of the room, issuing orders to the witnessing crowd. In Greg’s mind, the Sorcerer still posed a threat to Sam, which was enough to let him wield his Keeper powers against the bastard. With suicidal determination, he charged in Veridan’s direction. Those talking to the Sorcerer retreated in panic.
Alerted, Veridan whirled to face Greg, reached inside his shirt and pulled out a thick chain. From it hung an amulet crisscrossed by intricate lines and set with a dark rock at its center. Veridan mouthed a spell and the necklace began to glow.
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