by Rinelle Grey
“Yes, I’m planning on staying,” she said softly.
His face lit up, and he let out a breath in a soft sigh. He hugged her tightly. “I’m glad.”
The words were inadequate for the emotions he was obviously feeling, and Brianna wasn’t quite sure what to say. But then he smiled, kissed her again, then stood up and helped her to her feet. “Do you think you’ll be able to swim back?”
“Of course,” Brianna said stoutly, though somehow the boat looked quite a bit further from shore than it had seemed earlier.
The swim back to the boat taxed her, though she would not have admitted it. And once she arrived, she realised that getting back onto the boat posed more of a problem than getting off had. Lyall managed to propel himself far enough out of the water to grab the rail, then pull himself up and hook his leg over the rail. Brianna eyed the side of the boat, doubtful that she could manage the same feat.
Before she could attempt it, Lyall swung a rope over the side. Gratefully, Brianna grabbed hold of the large knot on the end. At regular intervals along the rope were more knots, making the climb a simple one. But before she could, Lyall began to pull her out. Independence flared for a moment, then subsided, and she relaxed and accepted his help and the hand he offered once she reached the rail.
Lyall pulled her up and over the rail, and then they collapsed together in a heap on the deck. “I was beginning to wonder if I was going to make it back on the boat,” Brianna said, laughing breathlessly.
“So I could see,” Lyall responded. “But don’t worry, I wouldn’t leave you in the water.”
Brianna punched him lightly on the arm. “You’d better not,” she warned.
Lyall just laughed and put his arms around her waist and kissed her.
She lay on top of him and could feel the immediate response in his body when she kissed him back. And the response in her own, a tingling between her legs and a slight twinge. So it had hurt. Just a little though, not enough to stop her doing it again.
Lyall however, must have seen something in her face, for he said, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Brianna replied, lest he think the minor irritation enough reason to stop.
Lyall still hesitated, so she bent her head to his and kissed him. He groaned softly against her lips, and his hand slid down, sliding between her legs. Brianna gasped at the feelings his gentle fingers evoked, then jumped as they grazed a more tender spot.
Lyall pulled back and frowned. “It did hurt, didn’t it?”
“Only a little,” Brianna admitted, “but I didn’t notice until after. It’s not that bad, you don’t have to stop.”
Lyall stared at her for a moment, then to Brianna’s chagrin, he laughed. “Anna, you sweet darling. We don’t have to stop. You forget that you’re with a mage. I can heal you!”
Then Brianna did feel stupid. “Oh,” she said in a small voice. Then she laughed too. “That is probably a good idea.”
Lyall rolled her gently over so that she was lying beside him and slid his fingers between her legs again. This time she recognised the tingle of magic, a little like the day he had changed her face, back in the city. It was silly feeling strange about it , since she was here on this island full of mages and had, indeed, been trying to do magic herself. But she did nonetheless.
So to distract herself, she asked, “So how does using magic to heal, work? What can you heal?”
Lyall considered that for a moment, and Brianna tried to ignore the fact that his fingers seemed to have finished their magic and were exploring again, sending delicious shivers through her body. “Magic can heal pretty much anything, if the mage is powerful enough. There are rumours that even death can be healed, though no confirmed reports.”
The idea was unbelievable. And Brianna would have liked to give it more thought. Later. Some time when Lyall’s finger wasn’t making slow circles between her legs. She was about to surrender the idea, when something occurred to her. “But what about your mother? Can’t she be healed?”
Lyall’s hand stopped its movement, and she almost wished she had kept the question to herself. He frowned. “There is one limit to magical healing. It can heal anything except damage that has been done by magic,” he said, his voice tight.
Brianna was tempted to leave it. Obviously the topic was painful for him, and she really had no business pressing the question. But the idea that someone had done that to his mother left her feeling like she should know. “Why would someone do that?” she asked quietly.
“Jealousy,” Lyall said shortly. Then he sighed. “It’s a long story and it happened when I was just a baby. My father, well, he’d been involved with someone before my mother. A very powerful mage. Everyone thought they would marry, but at the last minute, he pulled out. He saw something in her, a darkness, and despite her power and what it meant for him, he couldn’t live with her. She disappeared, and he met and married my mother, and I was born. Then one day out of the blue, she reappeared...” he trailed off, and Brianna didn’t need to know the details.
“What happened to her?” she asked quietly. “The other mage, I mean?”
Lyall shrugged. “She was arrested and thrown in the dungeon. Powerful as she was, enough mages working together could overcome her. As far as I know, she’s still there. We don’t talk about it.”
Brianna could see why. She shivered, despite the heat of the sun. Somehow, the mood of the afternoon had been spoiled, and even Lyall’s nakedness didn’t inspire her to passion.
Lyall seemed similarly put off, because he said after a pause, “I’m hungry, do you want to have something to eat?” And Brianna was more than happy to go along with his change of subject.
11
Nightmares
Trolls poured over the ridge. Brianna could hear the guttural cries, could see the sun glinting off their swords. She screamed a warning to the warriors waiting in the pass. They had no idea what was coming.
But they didn’t hear her. Just sat there, one sharpening his sword, yawning and the other cleaning under his fingernails with a knife.
They recovered quickly and fought valiantly, but they never stood a chance, the numbers were too great, greater than any Brianna had seen before. The warriors were overcome in minutes. Brianna could only hope that the runner, an eleven year old boy who had jumped on his horse and fled at the first sign of the trolls, had time to warn the village.
She had never seen an attack this big. So many trolls. How could the village ever hope to repel this force?
Rapidly, she moved through the air, her stomach turning until she was over Eryvale. Warriors fought, wives fought, even older children picked up swords as their elders fell.
Slowly, pushing the villagers back, the trolls advanced on the graveyard.
Why? What did they want there? Why were they ignoring the houses, the inn, the tavern, the areas they usually raided, in favour of an area that held nothing of value?
They pushed on relentlessly and new bodies joined the already dead, sprawled over gravestones, their blood staining the grass. A troll swung his club at the crypt in the middle of the graveyard, a monument centuries old with ornate twin statues at the door.
The marble shattered and he stepped inside. There was no one left to protest his entrance, and Brianna’s angry scream didn’t even register.
A moment later, he strode back out, something in his hand. He hoisted it triumphantly in the air with a cry of victory that sent shivers down Brianna’s spine. The trolls around him lifted their weapons and joined him in his cry.
Then they headed back to the pass, attacking anyone between them and the ridge.
Brianna’s heart was in her mouth as her mother stepped into their path, yelling a war cry. She watched in horror as a troll swung his sword at her mother’s head. She screamed, the silent sound echoing around inside her head. She couldn’t look.
Nor could she turn away as her mother’s body slumped in the dirt. Mianna screamed and raced forwards, throwing herself to
her knees in front of the troll, clutching at her mother’s body.
“Get up!” Brianna screamed. “You have to get out of there.” Mianna had never excelled at sword fighting, though she had the same training as Brianna. She didn’t stand a chance against a troll.
The troll smirked. He didn’t even bother to rush. He lifted his sword and uttered one guttural word.
Before he could bring it down on Mianna, her twin sister picked up their mother’s sword, and with a battle cry Brianna would have be proud of, she swung it up and buried it deep into the trolls throat.
His eyes rolled back in his head, and he still looked surprised as his huge body tumbled backwards. Blood dripped off the sword still in Mianna’s hands, and her sister’s eyes held murder. She screamed loudly and ran towards the next troll.
She killed two more as they retreated over the ridge, then slumped in a heap, exhausted. Terion caught her. She looked up at the sky, grief streaking her face. “Brianna, come home.”
“Mia,” the cry left Brianna’s mouth, and she sat bolt upright in the narrow bed on Lyall’s yacht.
“Brianna?” Lyall’s voice was sleepy.
How did she get here? Was any of what she had just seen real? Shudders wracked her body, and tears ran down her face.
Lyall sat up, his face was concerned and laid a hand on her arm. “Are you all right?”
“I...” Brianna shook her head. “I had a bad dream. I think.” Surely it was just a dream? Another shudder shook her.
“That must have been some dream. You shouted very loudly. Who’s Mia?”
The memory of Mia’s voice, asking her to come home, tore at her heart. Brianna threw back the covers. “I have to go home.”
“Sure,” Lyall said readily, though his face still registered confusion. “I’ll pull up anchor, and we’ll head back to the palace.”
“No, not the palace, my village. Something happened. They’re all dead.” The memory of the sheer number of bodies haunted her. Panic and guilt swirled through her. She should have been there. She could have protected Mia, maybe saved her mother’s life.
“But it was just a dream, Brianna,” Lyall said softly. “Wasn’t it?”
“I... I don’t know.” It had seemed so real. Was it? Or had it just been a dream? There was only one way to find out. “I have to go home and see.”
The lines on Lyall’s forehead deepened. He stared at her for a moment, then he nodded once. “I’ll come with you. If everything is as bad as you fear, then I can help. And if it isn’t, well, I’d love the chance to meet your family.”
Brianna blanched at the thought of introducing him to Mia and Terion. “I’m sorry, Lyall, it’s just not possible.”
Lyall frowned and stood up. “Marry me then. Now, before we leave. If we arrive at your village already husband and wife, no one can try to make you marry someone else.”
“Lyall... I...” Brianna looked at him helplessly. How could she even begin to explain?
The ship jerked to one side. The sudden movement caused even Lyall to clutch at the side of the bed. “Someone’s on board. Wait here,” he said shortly
Maybe it was the after effect of the strange dream, but fear clutched at Brianna’s heart. What was someone doing on the boat?
Lyall climbed the ladder to the deck and moments later she heard him arguing with someone. “Can’t it wait? I’m in the middle of something.”
Whoever he was talking to must have spoken more softly, because she didn’t hear the reply. She did hear Lyall swear loudly, which was most unlike him. She would have smiled if she wasn’t feeling so on edge herself.
Moments later, the hatch opened and Lyall returned. “We have to go back to the palace,” he said shortly. “Something is wrong, Urster won’t tell me what.” He paused for a moment, then said more softly, “We’ll figure out a way to get you home as soon as I’ve talked to Father and sorted this out, I promise.”
Brianna just nodded. Despite the fact that the urgency to rush home without pause hadn’t left her, she didn’t think Lyall was going to accept her leaving without him. And she couldn’t take him with her. She needed to find another way.
Lyall was silent for the short sail back to the dock. He tied up the yacht and held out a hand to Brianna. She stared at him for a moment, and realised she couldn’t face his family right now. “I’ll wait here, if you don’t mind?”
Lyall searched her face. “Brianna, I know I pushed you about marriage earlier, and I said I wouldn’t. I’m sorry. We’ll work something else out.”
Brianna nodded her head and threw her arms around him. “Thank you, Lyall.”
He held her tightly for a few moments, kissed the top of her head and then jumped down onto the dock. Urster met him at the road, and they talked quietly, heads together, as they hurried to where a pair of horses waited.
Brianna went back below, closing the hatch behind her and curled up on the bed. But try as she might, the images from her dream, her mother’s body slumping to the ground, Mianna running towards the troll screaming, and the blood and death everywhere, haunted her. She rose and paced the small room, then climbed and opened the hatch, staring towards the palace.
What did the king want? Lyall could be hours. And who knew what could be happening in her village in the meantime. If the trolls came back...
*****
“Hyah.” Lyall slapped the reins on the horse’s rump, hurrying him through the city streets. People parted in front of him. One or two turned, a complaint on their lips, but it died as soon as they saw him, and they just hurried out of his way.
He had no intention of listening to Urster if he told him to slow down, but to his surprise, his father’s stalwart advisor said nothing. In fact, he kept pace beside him, urging his horse to speed.
That worried Lyall more than the hurried summons.
It had better be something damn important to have dragged him away from Brianna right now. He threw a glance over his shoulder, even though he knew he couldn’t still see the harbour.
She had been so shaken by the dream. And it had to be a dream. She’d been sleeping beside him, and she had barely any skill with magic to speak of. There was no way she could really know if something had gone wrong in her village.
But this might be just the key he needed to convince her to take him home to her village and introduce him to her family. He had no doubts, once he got there, that he could convince them to accept him.
He jumped out of the saddle and strode up the front steps, not even bothering to look back. Someone would take care of the horse. Urster kept pace. He pushed open the doors to his father’s study.
“What’s so urgent you had to drag me away from Brianna?” he said without preamble.
King Balen’s eyes narrowed as he looked Lyall up and down. “You’ve bonded her? Good. You’re going to need all the strength you can get.”
A sense of foreboding settled in the pit of Lyall’s stomach. “What is it?”
“We detected a massive spike of magic from the mainland, to the northeast, about an hour ago. The rebel mages are back.” His father’s words were calm and measured, but they produced no calm in Lyall’s heart.
He had never believed in his father’s assertion that the other mages were still out there, just waiting for their chance to attack, so he wasn’t prepared for the fear that washed over him. Echoes of the stories he’d heard, stories of magic that almost destroyed a whole continent, flitted through his mind.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’m too old for this fight. I’ve ordered the troops to prepare. You leave for the mainland in one hour.”
Lyall stared at him in disbelief. “Me?”
A slight smile twisted one corner of his father’s mouth. “You’ll do fine, Lyall. You always excelled in your lessons, and you’ve matured well. You’re capable of thinking things through on the fly, which means you’ll never been uncertain for long.”
Lyall’s back straightened autom
atically at the first words of praise he ever remembered hearing from his father. “I have to tell Brianna, she’ll need time to pack.”
His father frowned. “Are you sure it’s wise to take her? We still know nothing about her past, or where she is from. Hell, for all we know, she might have something to do with the mages’ mysterious re-appearance.”
“I may not have any idea where Brianna is from, but I know she’s not the enemy. I trust her to stand by me, and if you want me to do this, you’ll have to trust her too,” Lyall said angrily.
“If you trust her so much, then I guess you know what she’s doing leaving the harbour in your yacht?”
Lyall’s head snapped around at Urster’s measured words. He took two strides to stand next to the man, staring across the roofs of the city to the harbour. As he watched, Brianna unfurled the sails, and a second later, an unnaturally fast wind sent her speeding away.
He stared in disbelief.
“Maybe you can’t trust her as much as you thought.”
Did his father’s voice hold a note of sadness?
Lyall shook his head. Brianna wasn’t like that. She wouldn’t leave without a good reason. “She had a dream this morning, that there was some sort of trouble in her village. It distressed her greatly. She must have gone home to see if her family was in trouble.”
That was a rational explanation. It had to be it.
“Seems like a bit of a coincidence doesn’t it? She needs to rush back to her village because of ‘trouble’, just as we detect a spike of magic? Come on, Lyall, the strength of her magic and her choosing this exact moment to flee without warning? That’s too much of a coincidence.”
“What if it’s not a coincidence?” Lyall snapped. “What if your mysterious mages are the danger Brianna sensed in her village?”
His father didn’t protest, but the look in his eyes said he doubted. “Either way, looks like you’re headed to the mainland. Don’t let searching for your girlfriend distract you from your real purpose. If you don’t find those mages and deal with them, the whole world could be in trouble.”