Sebastian e-1

by Anne Bishop

  The currents of Light and Dark power that resonated with her grew stronger, almost too strong to contain.

  She stared at the Wizards’ Council. They stared back at her, not quite able to hide their malevolent glee at finally getting her within reach.

  What they hadn’t considered was that they, too, were within reach. Because no Landscaper had ever tried to give Heart’s Justice to more than one person at a time.

  Listen to every heart in this landscape, she commanded. Find the landscape that resonates with each of those hearts and send them on to that place. Send every heart to the Light or the Dark that it deserves. Strip every heart of the masks used to hide its true resonance. Now, Ephemera. Now!

  Throwing back her head, she raised her arms—and let the world channel Heart’s Justice through her.

  “Guardians and Guides,” Dalton whispered, as something powerful swept through him, resonating, seeking. “She’s unleashed Heart’s Justice on all of us!”

  He set the brake and tied off the reins to keep the horses from bolting, then turned to grip his wife’s arm, forming a barrier in front of their children. “Henley! Addison! Tie up your horses and get in the wagon.”

  Henley and Addison dismounted. But they moved away from the wagon.

  “You’re a good man, Cap’n,” Addison said. “But I’m not a good man. Not that way. I like drinking and gambling and the company of women who aren’t ladies. Same with Henley.”

  “But—”

  “You hold tight to your family,” Addison said. “Henley and me, we’ll make our own way. Good-bye, Cap’n. Travel lightly.”

  The two guards were fading, as if they weren’t quite there anymore.

  As he held on to his family, waiting to be swept away by the storm of power, one thought echoed through Dalton’s mind: Heart’s hope lies within Belladonna.

  He hoped, for all their sakes, the man Koltak had brought to Wizard City was right.

  Follow your heart. I, and Ephemera, will give you what you most desire.

  Lynnea looked up, startled. The ground felt so strange, so…fluid. And everything around her looked…wispy.

  It was happening. Heart’s Justice.

  I, and Ephemera, will give you what you most desire.

  “Sebastian,” she whispered, pulling away from Lee and taking a step toward the man who had shown her laughter and love. Who had given her a chance to discover she was more than Mam and Pa and Ewan told her she could be. She was a tigress, and she could do anything she wanted with her life. Anything.

  Follow your heart.

  She took another step, feeling as if she were being buffeted by fierce winds even though no wind tugged at her clothes or blew on her skin.

  The winds of change. And she could have anything she wanted.

  “Sebastian,” she whispered again, taking another step.

  He didn’t deserve a place that was bleak, barren, and cold. He deserved to live in the Den, where the people needed him to be their Justice Maker. And he deserved to live in his cottage, where he could just be a man. And he deserved sunlight and warmth and friends and family and…love.

  She took another step. And another.

  Those wicked men had done something to him, had made him believe he didn’t deserve those things, just like Mam had made her believe she didn’t deserve anything. No. Mam hadn’t made her believe anything. She just hadn’t been strong enough to believe anything else.

  She was strong enough now. She was a tigress.

  He needs me.

  If he wasn’t able to believe for himself, she would believe for him.

  Follow your heart.

  Sebastian. Sebastian. Sebastian.

  She ran while the ground seemed to fall away beneath her. She ran, keeping her eyes on Sebastian.

  He was her heart’s desire. They deserved laughter and friends and love. They deserved to live in the cottage, in sunlight. And they deserved the Den, that strange carnal carnival. And they deserved to be together.

  Sebastian. Sebastian. Sebastian.

  She felt the world shifting, trying to reach for her heart to take her away.

  Not yet. Not yet.

  She bore down, striving with everything in her to reach him before the world swept them away.

  Closer. Closer.

  His eyes were closed. That was why he didn’t see her, why he wasn’t reacting. But she had no breath to call out to him. So she let her heart call for her.

  Sebastian!

  His eyes snapped open. His beautiful green eyes weren’t empty anymore. They were filled with shock, disbelief, and a frightened yearning.

  Ephemera pulled at her. In another moment it would be too late.

  With all the strength she had, she leaped.

  The last thing she saw was Sebastian reaching up to catch her. The last thing she felt was his arms wrapping around her.

  Then the world swept them away…and there was only darkness.

  Glorianna staggered, barely able to stay on her feet. She felt hollowed out, scoured clean.

  Insanity. That was what it must have been to think she could give Heart’s Justice to an entire landscape. But…

  The city was filled with Dark currents that didn’t match her Dark resonance. And the hearts in the city that had yearned for the Light…

  Gone. All gone. Free of this place.

  She looked around. Sebastian and Lynnea were gone, and she hoped with all her heart that she’d done the right thing for both of them.

  Everyone had disappeared…except a wizard with a bandaged foot. He was on the ground, moaning.

  She looked up at the city, then at the man. Not one of them, but too much like them. Had there been a moment when his heart could have made a choice? Was that why he was still outside the city?

  Pity stirred in her, and she wondered if there was something—anything—she could do rather than leave him in this place.

  Then the wizard saw her and struggled to sit up.

  “Glorianna,” Lee said in a low voice. “Just back up. I’m right behind you, on the island. Get out of there before that bastard has a chance to do anything.”

  She took two steps back, then stopped. “I have to finish this. If I don’t, all the risks we took will be for nothing.”

  “Glorianna.”

  She reached inside herself for all the power she had left—and altered the landscape, taking the piece of Ephemera that held Wizard City out of the world.

  So exhausted she could barely stand, Glorianna backed up another step closer to Lee and the island. Almost there. Almost.

  “You bitch!” the wizard screamed. “What did you do to the council?”

  “I gave them Heart’s Justice,” she replied, although her voice was so weak, she doubted he could hear her.

  Fury twisted his face. He raised his hand.

  She stared at him, knowing what was about to happen but too drained to move.

  Then Lee grabbed her and hauled her onto the island just as the wizard’s lightning struck the ground where she’d stood a moment before.

  “That was too close,” he said, sounding scared and furious.

  “I know.” Her voice sounded funny, far away. “Lee?”

  Then everything faded away.

  There are weeds in every garden.

  —The Book of Lessons

  What is considered a weed in one garden

  is a vital plant in another.

  —Belladonna

  Chapter Twenty-six

  S till scared and furious.

  That was Glorianna’s first thought when she opened her eyes and found herself staring into Lee’s face. “What happened?”

  “You fainted. Don’t ever do that again.”

  “I didn’t like it much either,” she grumbled. He looked mad enough to punch her, but the moment she tried to sit up, he was there, helping her. Then she found herself pressed against his chest, his arms around her while he rocked them both.

  He’s shaking. “Lee,” she said, w
rapping her arms around him.

  “Scared me, Glorianna. When I saw that bastard wizard raise his hand, I wasn’t sure I could reach you before…” He swallowed hard. “It scared me.”

  “Me too.” But listening to his heart slowing to its normal, steady beat combined with the sound of water trickling in the fountain began to pull her under. “Lee?”

  “Hmm?”

  “So tired. Can we yell at each other later?”

  He didn’t answer for so long, she started to drift off. Then, “Okay. We’ll yell later. Just sit here while I shift the island back to Sanctuary. I was feeling a bit too unnerved to do it before.”

  He got up and left the sheltered center of the island.

  She knew the moment he made the shift—not because anything about the island changed, but because of the resonance of the land around it.

  Strong currents of Light flowed through the landscape, along with thin threads of the Dark.

  Glorianna struggled to keep her eyes open, struggled to keep her mind working. The currents of power in Sanctuary and Wizard City were exact opposites. One current dominated the landscape, but threads of the other still existed, were still necessary. She knew why she nurtured those threads in Sanctuary. What did the wizards gain by nurturing those threads of Light?

  Once she understood that, she might be able to figure out how to face the Eater of the World…and survive. But for now…

  She felt herself being tugged, shifted. Then Lee kissed her forehead, and said, “Just rest now, Glorianna. Get some sleep.”

  Panting and sweating—and hoping that Sebastian had ended up in the foulest landscape that existed in this world—Koltak hobbled up the stairs closest to Harland’s chambers. Harland had to be here. Harland had to be all right, despite that bitch’s attempt to use Heart’s Justice as an attack on the council.

  It had been agony to get himself into the pony cart and drive back into the city. What had happened to the guards and drivers who had come out with the council? And where was the council?

  Reaching the top of the stairs, Koltak stopped to rest.

  Order had to be restored—and quickly. He’d driven through streets swarming with angry, confused people who realized something had happened to them, but not what had happened to them. At least in the upper levels of the city, there was a more orderly confusion, mainly butlers and housekeepers standing outside shouting the names of missing servants. Not that any of those servants would respond.

  Heart’s Justice.

  Koltak shuddered. Who would have thought, even in the wildest moment, that a Landscaper could be powerful enough to send Heart’s Justice sweeping through an entire city?

  Powerful. But not invincible. He’d been able to fight back, had been able to hold on to where he was instead of being swept away to another landscape. If he could resist her, then surely Harland and the rest of the council had been able to do the same.

  Koltak resettled the crutches, but he didn’t move as a thought filled him. Of course most of the council had withstood Belladonna’s attack, but maybe there would now be a vacancy that needed to be filled by a wizard who had stood against Belladonna and fought back?

  Excitement had him moving down the corridor with as much speed as he could manage. When he reached Harland’s door, he flung it open and went inside, relieved to see the tall wizard standing at the window, wearing rumpled, grass-stained robes.

  “Harland! I—”

  What turned away from the window was—and wasn’t—Harland. Human shaped…but not human. Terrifying and yet compelling.

  Koltak’s heart thudded in his chest. He knew what he was looking at. He just couldn’t believe it.

  Fury blazed from Harland’s eyes. “It wasn’t time yet to show our true faces. It wasn’t time!”

  “Dark Guide,” Koltak whispered, knowing the moment he said it that even that much recognition had been a mistake.

  Harland moved toward him, smiling. “We hid well, did we not? Justice Makers. Champions of the Light. The ones willing to shoulder the burden of deciding who was unworthy of living in the daylight landscapes. By stripping a heart of all hope, by twisting happy memories into something painful, by preparing that heart before calling on a Landscaper to perform Heart’s Justice…We couldn’t reach the Eater of the World, but with the Landscapers’ unwitting help, we were able to use It to rid ourselves of people who would have gotten in our way.” His smile widened, turned savage. “Why do you look so shocked, Koltak? You always wanted to know the inner secrets of the council. Now I’m telling you.”

  Koltak couldn’t move. This was wrong. All wrong.

  “We hid well,” Harland said. “So well that when we finally brought ourselves to their notice, the Landscapers and Bridges accepted us as allies. Over time we poisoned their minds, blinded them so they couldn’t recognize the truth about the ones whose power was different from theirs. Generation after generation, they helped us eliminate the true Guides of the Heart, preparing Ephemera for the day when we could take control of the world.” His mouth twisted into a snarl. “We failed only once. And thanks to your brother, that one is more powerful than all the others before her.”

  “Peter?” Koltak stammered. “What does Peter have to do with this?”

  “By mating Dark power with Light, he helped create a child who has both! No one else could have revealed us for what we are! No one else could be a real threat to the Eater of the World.”

  I have to get out of here, Koltak thought. I have to get away from this city. I have to warn…someone.

  Harland looked past Koltak. “I think it’s time Wizard Koltak was initiated into the council.”

  “No,” Koltak said. “No, I—”

  Feet kicked the crutches out from under him. Hands grabbed his arms before he fell.

  He could call the lightning. He could fight, get away. He could—

  Kill your ambition, Koltak? voices whispered in his mind. If you fight us now, you will never have what you most desire. Isn’t that why you struggled to stay in this landscape? Because here is the only place where your ambitions could bloom?

  He didn’t fight, didn’t struggle. He tried to keep his injured foot off the floor as members of the council—barely recognizable as the men they’d once pretended to be—opened a panel in the wall and dragged him down flights of stairs and through secret corridors.

  Finally they stopped in front of a heavy wooden door.

  Harland pulled back the bolts and opened the door, closing it behind them once the Dark Guides dragged Koltak to the edge of a barred gallery that looked down into a dimly lit pit.

  Holding on to the bars to stay upright, Koltak stared into the pit. Was there something moving down there? Yes. Something moving out of the shadows.

  The female—since the creature was naked, there was no doubt it was female—stared up at them. Then she screamed—a sound that lifted the hairs on the back of Koltak’s neck.

  “That is the reason you will never be part of the council, Koltak,” Harland said.

  “I…I don’t understand.”

  Harland smiled as he watched the female, who was now stroking her breasts and moaning. “These are our breeders. They were never able to alter their appearance to pass as humans, so they had to be hidden, protected. They have a feral intelligence, and they’re quite vicious. When they come into season and are desperate to be mounted and mated, they have to be restrained to keep them from savaging the males.” He turned his head and looked at Koltak. “The council is made up of purebloods. Has always been made up of the purebloods. Your ambition made you a useful tool, but you’re too human to be one of us.”

  “Why…why are you telling me this?”

  “So that you understand.”

  “But…” Koltak’s head was reeling as all the things he’d believed shifted into a different pattern. “But if this is what you are, why were you so opposed to Sebastian?”

  “We weren’t,” Harland replied. “There was no way of knowing the boy�
�s potential, but by our exploiting your shame in having sired a child with a succubus, you became a useful tool. And the boy…” He sighed. “The incubi and succubi are two branches that came from the same root as the Dark Guides. Like us, they have the power to slip into other minds through the twilight of waking dreams. As one of us, Sebastian would have been a more powerful wizard than you could dream of being. But as an enemy and Belladonna’s ally…” He smiled. “But once again, you proved yourself useful by helping us eliminate him.”

  Sebastian. Tears stung Koltak’s eyes. All of these years, he could have had a son, could have taught the boy to use the power that lived inside him. They might have worked together…as Justice Makers.

  Harland studied the females gathering to stare at the males who were out of reach. “They cannot go out among the humans, so they need toys to play with. It makes them easier to handle when it’s time for us to mate with them.”

  “Toys?” Koltak stammered, pulled back to the danger present all around him. What kind of toys…It suddenly clicked. “The people who disappear, who are thought to have gotten lost in another landscape.”

  Harland nodded. “It’s convenient that some people do cross over to another landscape and aren’t able to return. So no one suspects that anything else might have happened to them.” He paused. “Except Peter. A true Justice Maker, he wandered where he shouldn’t have while helping a shepherd boy round up some sheep. He discovered one of the barred openings that let light and air into this chamber. When we realized he had seen our secret, he had to disappear.”

  Koltak just clung to the bars and stared at Harland.

  “Your brother was a strong man,” Harland said. “He lasted for weeks before the females broke him, body and spirit. I wonder if you’ll last even half as long.” He lashed out, kicking Koltak’s injured foot.

  Koltak screamed as the pain tore through him. He couldn’t fight, could barely struggle as two members of the council dragged him down the stairs and through a tunnel carved out of the pit’s stone walls. Then they opened a door and shoved him into the pit, swiftly locking the door behind them.