by Natalie Grey
But I wanted to believe him. Hell, part of me did believe him.
And so I tried to explain.
“I came here tonight because I remembered that Jo helped me and I knew Harry wasn’t going to turn me in,” I told him.
I saw the retorts come to his lips, but he didn’t say them.
My heart softened slightly. “Yeah, I fucked up,” I told him. “I know.”
“It’s not—”
“But it wasn’t any of the people I trusted who betrayed me,” I insisted. “I only have blind instinct to work with.”
“Look.” He took his hand away from my face and held it up until I clasped it tentatively. “I didn’t see what Darcy was up to, either. People in love can be….”
“Stupid?” I suggested.
He laughed. “Ironically, I was going to say ‘canny.’ She was desperate to do what Philip wanted, even for a scrap of his attention. And the trap hadn’t even been laid for you, she just seized an opportunity. So it wasn’t like we had any real warning.”
There was a silence.
“But … together, if we take our time, if we think and watch, we can catch these things.” He looked at me. “Deal?”
I hesitated, but not for long. “Deal.”
“Just, uh….” He sighed.
“Yeah?” My voice sounded wary. Justifiably.
“You’re really good at persuading people of things,” he said cautiously. “Just be careful.” He gave a self-deprecating smile. “Have pity on me?”
I stared up at him, and his smile died.
Keep him as a pet if you want. Philip’s voice seemed to echo between us. I don’t think you could stop manipulating people if you tried.
“Nicky, I don’t believe a word he said about you,” Daiman said urgently.
“Then you’re an idiot,” I said, before I could stop myself.
He went rigid.
I stepped back, tugging my hand out of his.
I knew what I had to do, and as much as I couldn’t believe I was about to do it.…
I had to.
I rubbed at my forehead, trying to find the strength to say the words.
“You have to go,” I said quietly.
“What?” He said the word like he was lost.
“He was right, Daiman.” I shook my head. “I manipulate people … like I breathe. It’s just what I do. He’s right about Terric. The man you knew? He wanted, so badly to be the man you believed he was. And he just wasn’t anymore. And that’s probably because of me.”
“There are a thousand reasons he might have ended up that way,” Daiman said urgently. “Not least of which is that power corrupts. It’s a cliché, but it’s cliché because it’s true. Not everyone is cut out to rule the world. It makes more sense that his power got the better of him than that you somehow warped his entire worldview by accident over the course of, what, a few weeks? Seven hundred years ago?”
“You don’t want to see it, but it’s true!” I argued. “What am I going to do to you, Daiman? You said I might take other people down with me this time, and it’s true. I can’t—”
My throat seemed to close. It was painful to swallow, but I forced myself onward.
“I can’t ruin you.” I wiped tears away and cursed myself for being this weak. “You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met, Daiman. I can’t lose you.”
“So don’t.” He gave me Eshe’s answer, and I saw from the twist of his mouth that he knew he would spark that memory.
“It isn’t that simple.” I shook my head. “Maybe someday, when this is all over….”
His kiss was like fire. My knees buckled and I was clinging to him, my fingers in his hair, his sliding up under my shirt.
“I told you before that I didn’t want to wait for ‘someday,’” he murmured against my mouth. “And I still don’t. I won’t, Nicky.”
That gave me the strength to push him away. My chest was heaving, and my lips tingled where they’d brushed his.
“Yeah, well, it’s not just your choice to make.”
God, this hurt.
“I’m only going to say this once more.”
Seriously, it felt like someone was twisting a runeblade in my chest.
“I am not going to live my life knowing that I ruined you the way I ruined Terric.”
The pain was white-hot in my chest. I wanted to double over at the look on his face.
“This isn’t a negotiation,” I told him. “This isn’t something you can talk me out of. And I think, if you’re honest with yourself, you’ve always known that someday you were going to have to choose between me … and everything else that’s ever been important to you.”
He stared at me wordlessly. His lips were parted, but he didn’t speak.
“So let’s just cut our losses.” My voice didn’t even sound like mine anymore. “Go … be a Hunter. Go make the Acadamh what you thought it was. You’d be a better leader than Terric ever was, Lord knows.”
There was a silence, and the sound of the trees, and the distant chiming of the runes that were still here.
“And what will you do?” he asked finally.
It felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.
“I don’t know. I’ll figure something out.” I tried to smile, and failed miserably. “Goodbye, Daiman.”
He stared at me for a long moment, so still he might have been a statue, only his clothes rippling in the wind. He stared at me for so long that I thought he was going to tell me he wouldn’t go, that this was crazy but he was going to stick it out to the bitter end anyway.
But he didn’t tell me that. He nodded his head once and he backed away from me, and turned on his heel, and left.
He paused once, looking over his shoulder. “Nicky?”
I couldn’t speak.
“Be safe,” he said finally.
And then he was gone.
Chapter 12
Lawrence, it turned out, had called the rest of the group to him somehow. They looked up as I came over, and I saw him trying to mask his satisfaction that I was alone.
Frankly, it made me want to punch him, but I took a deep breath and tried to remind myself that he was a Monarchist and Daiman was a hunter. Of course he was glad Daiman was gone.
Unfortunately, Daiman had also been right about him—the man looked a little besotted. My old self whispered to me that a besotted underling was a useful thing to have.
I told the bitch to shut up.
“We should go,” I said.
“What happened?” Tamar asked me. She was fairly plain, with sallow skin and small dark eyes, hair drawn back severely. I suspected her skin might turn golden brown in stronger sunshine, and from the few escaping strands of hair, I was willing to bet she had a gorgeous head of curls when she let her hair free.
I wondered why she didn’t play up her charms. Her face was honest and open, the sort of face you wanted to trust, and her eyes had a flash of intelligence in them that I liked.
Perhaps she preferred to watch, rather than be watched.
In any case, I had no idea what to tell her. “Daiman—the Hunter won’t be coming back with us.”
Those dark eyes didn’t even flicker, but they grew wary. “And Darcy?”
I looked at Lawrence in surprise. Was that what Tamar had meant from the start? “You didn’t tell them?”
“I thought….” He raised a shoulder. “I’m not in charge here.”
I didn’t really know what to say to that. I nodded to the others. “Let’s talk when we get back, then. No need to explain it twice.” Being decisive helped me forget what had just happened. “Now, unless any of you have a way to detect runetraps….?”
They all shook their heads.
“Follow me, then.”
It was a miserable trip. I tried to lose myself in the process of listening for the traps, but using Daiman’s techniques only reminded me of him.
We’d been practicing druidic techniques almost constantly. It was a constant strug
gle, but one I couldn’t seem to let go. Learning to sense life had been easy for me, only an extension of my own powers, but learning to work with wind and stone—the deeper, quieter forces of the earth, not alive in any way I could normally touch—had been an exercise in frustration.
Their souls, Daiman told me, the souls of each pebble and breeze, bled into the larger soul of the planet—which, itself, existed in the shimmering mass of deep space.
He had been excited to tell me that. Over glasses of ouzo—a dangerous drink if ever there was one—he had shared the druids’ millennia-long search for the limits of the universe.
“They could hear it,” he told me. “They could see, all of it, they just had no idea what they were seeing. And now, because of the humans, they understand stars and supernovae and nebulas, and so much more. It’s amazing. What humans have accomplished without magic, with such short lives….”
I remembered watching him, drinking in the joy he had for life, for the world around him. The baking heat of the day had been bleeding into night chill and the breeze that came in the window carried the scents of cooking fish and vegetables, the shrieks of children at play, the sound of the church bells. Daiman, for all that he’d been born in the weathered stone and green of Eire, looked entirely at home in that whitewashed kitchen.
Daiman belonged anywhere he was. For him, loving things was easy.
Usually.
Back in the present, I swallowed down the lump in my throat and pushed onwards.
“Are you all right?”
Lawrence’s voice jolted me out of the reverie and I looked over at him, wide-eyed.
I took the time to study him now: fairly tall, broad-shouldered, his lopsided smile and brown eyes surprisingly arresting when one took the time to look at them. His blond hair was messy, thick brows sitting low over his eyes, and his cheekbones stood out strongly. His chin had a dimple in it.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I forced a smile.
Not far to the camp now, and I needed to figure out what the hell I was going to say.
I didn’t get your guy back, and it turns out you were totally sold out by one of Philip’s lackeys.
Sometimes, there was just no good way to spin things.
“Is the Hunter going on another mission for you?” Lawrence’s tone was careful.
I didn’t look over at him. He’d seen the fight, and I was sure he had noticed that it hadn’t exactly gotten better.
Although … there had been that kiss. My lips tingled at the memory, and I shoved the thought away.
Best not to think of Daiman at all.
“I don’t really know where he’s going,” I said shortly.
“He didn’t want you to help us,” Lawrence said. His voice was soft, but hateful. “He didn’t think you should trust us. Like we’d hurt you, of all people.”
At that, I laughed. “You realize that the woman you’ve heard about wouldn’t have been exactly keen on all the humans you keep around. She’d be thinking the same sort of things Darcy said to you.”
Lawrence stared at me, wide-eyed.
So … pretty, but dumb.
I sighed. “I’d trust Jo with my life,” I explained. “I’d trust Daiman with my life.” Or … I would have. Maybe I shouldn’t anymore. I swallowed hard. “But I get why they wouldn’t trust each other. You see?”
“He’s a Hunter,” Lawrence said. “I don’t see why you’d trust him. At all. You, of all people.”
“Yeah, well, life has a way of giving you strange allies. You live long enough, you’ll figure that out.” I looked him over. “How old are you?”
“A hundred.” He lifted a shoulder.
Practically a baby, by our standards. “I see.”
I was just trying to figure out whether or not I wanted to ask the story of his life—and only end up encouraging his infatuation, I was sure—when Harry melted out of the mist in front of us. His eyes were worried.
“You’re back,” he said simply. His eyes did a quick scan of the people. “Where is everyone?”
“You need to move, and quickly.” I didn’t sugarcoat my words. There wasn’t time. “Get everyone to someplace Darcy doesn’t know about.”
There was a ringing silence. The low-voiced conversation behind me stopped.
Harry’s face went cold. “You’re not saying—”
“Yes.”
“She struck a deal with Philip?”
“The deal was struck long ago.” My voice sounded less bitter than I felt. “She’s been his from the start.”
Harry’s head bowed. He looked, suddenly, as old as he really was.
“Of course,” he said dully. “Of course she was.”
“She came here for Jo,” I explained. “Maybe Ari, too, I don’t know. But I was the real prize. She seized her chance to get me when I got here, and I … well, I walked right into it, didn’t I?”
But he had no time for my self-pity.
“You need to go,” he told me flatly.
“Wait just a second,” Lawrence protested. He looked around at the others. “We need to protect her!”
“You need to protect the cell,” I corrected him. This wasn’t good for his ego, but I wasn’t going to prioritize a crush over the rest of them. “That means Ari especially. I can take care of myself.”
Lawrence’s chin set stubbornly.
“Harry is right.” I stared him down. “You don’t have allies right now. Philip wants to control you all just as much as the Separatists do, and there is a Hunter that was on Ari’s trail. The only reason he hasn’t struck yet is that the Acadamh was in such turmoil, but he won’t hold off forever. While they’re all occupied with one another, all of you need to run—and I need to leave, to keep from drawing attention to you all.”
Lawrence looked uncertain. “But….”
His voice trailed off, and I didn’t answer.
Harry was watching me, approval in his wise eyes. “We’ll keep Ari safe,” he promised me. “The Hunter tracking her … it wasn’t Bradach, was it?”
I gave a bitter smile. “No. I don’t think you have to worry about him.”
“And where is he, then?”
I looked up to meet his gaze, angry at what I was certain was a jab—and saw only compassion in his face.
“He left,” I said shortly. “It was for the best.” I wavered, and dug my nails into my palm until I could speak without my voice trembling. “Some alliances aren’t meant to last.”
What Harry thought of this, I couldn’t be sure. He gave a slight nod.
“I … should get my pack and go.” I hesitated. “I know this is crazy, but … do you have any idea where Fordwin Delaney is? Terric’s mentor? He’s been searching for me since the plague.”
Much to my surprise, Harry considered this. He was just shaking his head regretfully when Tamar spoke up.
“There’s a place in Russia where the ley lines connect. You sent Philip there once, just before you died.” She frowned. “Well, before—” She broke off.
I nodded for her to get on with it.
She hunched her shoulders awkwardly. “Anyway, it’s hard to get to, but if you were going to scry for someone—if you could use that much power, if you knew how—it might be the best place. You could use it to find him, if he’s not there already.”
I nodded to her. “Thanks.”
She hunched her shoulders in an uneasy acknowledgment. She wanted me gone from this place, I could tell.
Oddly, that reassured me. Darcy had pretended to be my friend, and look where that got me.
“I brought your pack,” Harry said. He held it out to me. “We left the hideout as soon as you were gone—didn’t want to take the chance of Bradach betraying us.”
I forced myself not to say anything. I took the pack, studying the clasps covertly. It didn’t look as if they had opened it.
“If you’re heading northeast, you’ll want to follow the path down into the valley.” He pointed. “It’s over that ridge.” He began t
o walk with me, ushering me gently but firmly away from the group until I started my scramble up the ridge.
“One thing, Harry.” I turned back.
“Yes?” He stared up the hill at me.
I crouched down on top of a boulder. “When Daiman first found me, before he knew who I was, he told me that children at the Acadamh were told my story, were told everything I did and what it cost the world.”
“A morality tale?” Harry looked amused.
I didn’t smile. “You need to tell Ari,” I told him bluntly. “She should know. But don’t tell her the story they tell at the Acadamh. She’s … always going to be the most powerful one in the room. She’s always going to leave everyone else in the dust. I know how that feels. Telling her not to use the power she was born with … it’s not going to work.”
He waited, his face wary now.
“Tell her she’ll have to live with what she does for the rest of time,” I told him. “Tell her you can only run from how much you hurt people for so long. Someday it catches up with you and you realize everything you’ve done, and you have to face the fact that you will never forget it, and you will never make up for it. You will live the rest of your life with those faces in your mind, with the memory of the blood in the streets. Tell her … tell her I know what it’s like to want to die, and to know that even that wouldn’t even the score.”
He stared up into my face, and I wondered what it was like to grow old among a group of immortals, watch them change, know that you would be gone soon and that someday, the memory of you would fade.
But now wasn’t the time to ask, and—I felt my heart twist unexpectedly—I might not see Harry again before he passed away.
“I’ll tell her,” he said quietly.
“Thank you.” I stood, and shouldered my pack. “Thanks for everything, Harry. I’ll remember you. And … I’ll do what I can to get Jo back, okay? Find him, and get him back to you—alive.”
Harry nodded silently, though his eyes told me that he doubted my ability to do so.
I set off into the night, glad of the silence and hating it at the same time.