by Brenna Lyons
“Regana,” he rasped into her hair. Gawen knew he was shaking, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He could have killed her. Without his instruction, Regana dropped the blade in her hand to the floor, and he relaxed his grip on her wrist to wrap his arms around her fully.
“Gawen?” Ger asked tentatively.
“Light the fires. We have to see what we’re dealing with.” In the meantime, he brushed his hand over her hair and soothed Regana while she shook. “What were you doing?” he finally inquired as the fires were lit.
“I thought they found a way in,” she managed.
His anger resurfaced suddenly. “They would have killed you. Why would you try something like this?” he demanded.
“Sibold gave me his weapons. What else was I to assume I was supposed to do?” she asked weakly.
Gawen was still struggling with the improbability of such a thing when he got a good look at her in the new lights being lit all over the building. Her clothing was stained with blood, and smudges of it marked her face and hands, human blood. Gawen ran his hands over her looking for some sign that he — or anyone had injured her.
Regana shook her head in understanding and half-dragged him toward the shadowed depths of the room. “It’s Sibold’s blood,” she corrected him. “He wants to see you.” She hesitated and shuddered. “If...”
Gawen lengthened his stride, passing between the protected family members huddled on the floor. He noted that they sank back in shock, but their eyes weren’t locked on him. They seemed wary of Regana for some reason, but he didn’t have the time to question that now.
Ditrich was already at Sibold’s side when he arrived. He looked up at Gawen and shook his head. “The damage is too severe. There is nothing that can be done.”
Gawen nodded and knelt to lay a hand on Sibold’s shoulder as Ditrich wandered away in search of his family.
The master trainer opened his eyes and smiled weakly. “Battle is for the young, Gawen,” he commented.
“You kept them safe. You gave your life to keep them safe, just as you promised.”
“Now that is your duty. You know the stone chose you to be my replacement.”
“I could never replace you,” Gawen protested weakly.
“You are the stone’s lord. You are the master trainer. You must train them to fight the beasts.”
“I only know what little you’ve taught us so far.”
Sibold growled out his displeasure. “You have a duty, and you will perform that duty. The stone will guide you.”
Gawen tightened his jaw and nodded. “I will do my duty,” he agreed.
Sibold looked past his shoulder, and Gawen followed his gaze to Regana, standing quietly at the edge of the crowd of protected who distanced themselves from her carefully. “You have another duty,” he whispered.
Gawen nodded and met his eyes. “Yes, I know.”
“The beasts will not rest in their quest to take her from you now. I gave her my weapons to give her some protection until you came for her.”
“Why? Why do they want her?”
“She is different than the other women. She is a fighter. The stone will explain when the time is right. For now, just know that they will pursue her.” He looked to Regana again. “Call her.”
“Regana,” Gawen ordered.
She surged forward and knelt across Sibold’s body from her brother. Regana took the dying man’s hand gently. “Do you need something?” she asked.
Sibold laughed lightly and touched her cheek with one gnarled hand. “For hours, you have asked me that. What I need is your safety. You do not follow orders well, young woman,” he scolded.
Regana darkened and flicked a wary look at Gawen that made his heart pound. She smiled weakly as she met Sibold’s eyes again. “So my brother has told me many times, and so you have warned him that I would not almost as many,” she admitted.
“It is all right,” Sibold soothed her. “I have indeed made that prediction of you many times. I owe my life, living long enough to pass his duty to him properly, to your headstrong nature. I should have known the stone would protect you.”
Regana nodded. “I’d prefer not to make my brother an old man by telling him the tale,” she teased.
“You must,” Sibold told her. “You must tell Gawen everything. Until he knows the whole tale, he will not know his path.”
Regana swallowed hard and nodded.
Sibold tightened his grip on her hand. His eyes were suddenly piercing. “Everything, Regana. The stone cannot lead him properly to all he must do until he knows everything you have to tell.”
She met Gawen’s eyes and nodded again. “I understand, Sibold.” But, there was something in her eyes that was new, something dark and closed off where Regana had always been open to him before. Gawen knew that she would not willingly tell him everything, whatever everything was.
Sibold lived long enough for the transfer of power, as the stone requested of him. There was no question when Gawen crossed to the stone and unsheathed his blades. He crossed them before his face and laid them on the stone. The surge of power was like a cold wave washing up his arms and gripping his mind in a numbing rush. Before the stone released him, it passed an amazing amount of information to him.
Talking to the stone was maddening. At times, it was clear and concise in its instructions — how to kill beasts, their limitations and so forth. Sometimes, it talked in riddles — strategies and timelines for defeating them. With regard to Regana, the stone was absolutely still and silent.
Released at last, Gawen sank to his knees and tried to catch his breath, his muscles unknotting. His eyes moved from warrior to warrior and settled on Regana. Regana with her hidden secrets in her eyes, suddenly feared by the villagers, and a black spot in his seemingly bottomless well of knowledge.
Gawen met Pauwel’s eyes as he pushed to his feet. “Send the protected ones home,” he instructed. “We have much to discuss.” He grabbed his sister lightly by the arm as she tried to brush past him toward the doors. “Not you. You have a story to tell.” She slid her eyes from his and headed back into the room.
* * * *
Regana sat with her back to the wall, watching the warriors nervously. Everything? There was no way she could tell them everything. She looked at the stone and bit her lip in worry. Would the stone tell Gawen if she lied? Worse, would it really refuse to lead him if she did? Regana shuddered at the thought.
She started as she realized that Gawen was watching her intently. His eyes were narrowed in a way that made her blood run cold, and she tightened her jaw stubbornly in response. He nodded in challenge as he stalked toward her, looking every bit the warrior and not at all the brother she loved. Regana supposed that made what she had to do easier.
The other lords dropped to the ground in a semi-circle around her, but Gawen stood with his arms crossed over his broad chest and his eyes cold and hard. “What happened last night?” he asked. “We’ve heard a lot of unbelievable stories. We need the truth.”
Regana nodded. This much, she could tell him. “I woke when Sibold started putting out the torches.”
“Why?”
“He said he didn’t want the beasts to see inside easily. I helped him put out all the fires and get the protected against the far wall. Then he went outside.”
“But not you?”
She felt her cheeks darken. “Of course, he told me to stay with the others,” she admitted.
“Why didn’t you?”
Regana shrugged hopelessly and let her breath out in a huff. “I don’t know. I just went.”
“Outside?” Pauwel demanded.
She shook her head and pointed to the window slits by the door. “Just there to see what was happening.”
“What did happen?” Wil asked.
“Sibold was out on the path. I could see three men approach.”
“Three?” Olbrecht asked in confusion.
“Marclef,” Pauwel surmised.
“And two b
easts with him,” she supplied.
“Resten and Veriel,” Gawen corrected her.
She looked at him in confusion.
“Tilbrand and Jörg?” His patience was obviously straining.
His attitude annoyed her as much as the sick sensation in the pit of her stomach did. “If you already know everything, why are you bothering to ask?” she snapped back at him.
“I don’t know everything,” he noted, a touch of sarcasm biting at his words.
“Fine.” Regana took a deep breath and began again. “Jörg— Veriel,” she managed weakly, “insisted Marclef tell Sibold the truth about the beasts.” She furrowed her brow. “He kept saying ‘the others,’ as if he wasn’t...” She struggled to find the words to express the separateness he was expressing.
Gawen nodded. “Did Marclef admit to promising them their rights?”
Regana glared at him. “I thought you didn’t know this story?” she demanded.
Her brother tightened his jaw dangerously.
“Yes, he admitted it. He begged Sibold to accept it, but Sibold explained why it wasn’t possible.”
“What happened next?” Cunczel interjected.
“Resten went mad. He started demanding his rights. He grabbed Marclef by the throat and demanded that he find a way to keep his word.” She shuddered at the memory.
“Did they kill Marclef?” Ditrich asked.
“I don’t know.”
They looked at her expectantly.
“Veriel removed Resten’s hands and took Marclef from him. He told Resten to go tell his brothers they had been lied to while he took care of Marclef’s treachery.” Regana considered the chill that passed through her when Jörg seemed to meet her eyes directly in the darkness and shuddered again. “Somehow, that seemed worse,” she admitted. “He took Marclef away into the trees, east. I don’t know where.”
“What about Resten?” Ger asked suddenly. “Did he go with them?”
“No, he didn’t. When the others were gone, he demanded his rights of Sibold. He demanded to choose his mate.”
“Why didn’t he take a woman from the village? An unprotected one?” Wil asked.
“He said his chosen mate was in here,” she answered simply.
“Did he say who?” Gawen demanded.
Regana looked at him in surprise. His face was set in harsh, angry lines and his eyes were emotionless as a snake. Gawen was abruptly someone that she didn’t recognize at all.
She shook her head and pressed her back into the wall. “No. He just said that she was inside.”
He nodded stiffly. “Resten tried to force his way in?”
She nodded. “Sibold held him off as long as he could. He even wounded him. You saw what Resten did in return.” Regana swallowed a sour lump at the memory of the pain the beast had inflicted on the master trainer. “Once Sibold had been defeated, Resten charged at the doors, but he was thrown back when he touched them.”
“So, he couldn’t get in,” Ditrich prodded.
“He grabbed Sibold and demanded to know the secret of how to get inside. When he found out that the stone would never let him pass the doors, he ordered Sibold to bring us out or lose his life. Sibold refused.”
“What happened?” Olbrecht asked.
“Veriel appeared out of nowhere and they started fighting. He had some sort of weapon with a lot of blades on it.”
“Did you see this weapon?” Gawen asked.
“It was too dark to see it clearly. I thought he was going to kill Resten, but he stopped. I could hear them arguing. For some reason, he couldn’t kill him.” She shrugged. “I can’t explain it any better than that.”
Gawen nodded. “The beast elders can only be killed by a warrior. They can’t kill each other.”
“What did he do?” Ger asked.
“I don’t know.”
They all stared at her intently, and she groaned in frustration.
“Am I to blame if Veriel kept dragging his — prey, victims, what ever they are — out of my field of vision? All I can tell you is that they left.”
“Not by Resten’s choice, obviously,” Wil noted.
“Then what?” Gawen asked.
Regana grimaced. “They were gone, and Sibold was hurt.” She winced as her brother glared at her.
“You went out there?” Pauwel exploded.
“Have you gone mad?” Ditrich asked.
“You had the stone to protect you in here,” Olbrecht noted.
“Sibold was here to protect you, not the other way around,” Wil shot at her.
“Let her tell the story,” Gawen demanded over the riot of other voices.
She sighed. “I tried to get the others to help, but no one would. The most help I could get was help with the doors if — when I made it back in.”
“So you walked right out and brought Sibold in?” Gawen asked sarcastically.
“Don’t make it sound so easy. Yes, I went out there, and yes, I dragged him back to the doors.” She hesitated.
“And?” Gawen prodded.
“And, Veriel came back before I was back inside,” she admitted quietly. Surely, the others had already told him that much, so it shouldn’t be new information for him. “We were so close. I couldn’t leave Sibold a mere body length from the doors. So, I pulled harder and made it all the way to the doorway, but the others wouldn’t let us in because they could see Veriel.” Regana grimaced at the memory of the argument behind the doors that ended in the decision to keep them closed. “Veriel — said he wanted to help.”
“Help? Help how?” Gawen asked suspiciously.
“I don’t know, and I wasn’t prepared to find out. So...” She met his eyes and grimaced again. “I pulled Sibold’s blade from his hand and threatened Veriel with it.”
“What did he think of that?”
“I am sure he wasn’t very happy about it, but he backed off.”
“He backed off but he didn’t leave,” Gawen noted pointedly.
Regana nodded.
“What did he say?”
She sighed. “He was trying to convince me to put the weapon down.”
Gawen raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
“He tried to convince me that he didn’t pose a danger to us, and he claimed that he hadn’t chosen his course — to become beast, I mean.”
“How did you respond to that?”
“How do you think, Gawen? I had just seen him drag a man and a beast away, and neither of them came back.”
He stared at her intently.
“All right. I told him I’d plant the blade between his eyes if he didn’t leave.”
Gawen rubbed his forehead roughly. “What did he say to that courteous offer?”
“He—” She furrowed her brow.
“Regana?”
“It was rather disconcerting,” she admitted. “It was — like talking to Jörg. Just Jörg.”
He looked at her in confusion.
“The same jokes, the same looks. He still treats me like I’m seven. He always treated me like that. I can’t explain it,” she decided in frustration.
“He was trying to lull you into trusting him,” Gawen decided. “Did he say why?”
“No, but it didn’t work.”
“Good thing,” he mused.
“I wouldn’t have come back either,” she decided miserably.
“Most likely not.” Gawen stared at the stone. “What else?”
“When he realized I wasn’t going to drop my guard, he left.”
“You mean he disappeared.”
“No, he walked away into the trees,” she insisted.
“Why?”
Regana hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe, so the others would see he was gone? Maybe, so they’d let us back in? I don’t know. He didn’t exactly explain himself.”
Gawen was quiet for a long moment. “What else?” he prodded.
“They let us in. Kethe, Anabilia, and I tried to stop Sibold’s bleeding. I tried to give his weapon back,
but he told me to keep it then handed me the other as well.”
“Why?”
“For protection.”
“Whose protection?”
“Everyone, I suppose.”
“Why you? Why not one of the men?”
Regana groaned and buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know. Maybe because I was willing to use it against Veriel. Maybe because I was the only one who came out to get him. You should have asked Sibold while you had the chance.”
“Didn’t you?” he demanded.
“No, I guess I never really thought about it,” she admitted. “I had other, more pressing, problems on my mind like trying to keep Sibold alive.”
Gawen seemed to consider that. “What else?”
“You know the rest. We waited for daybreak. We planned to send someone for Landric when the sun was up. That was when you arrived. I didn’t know who you were because you didn’t announce yourselves, and I didn’t want to chance the beasts seeing me at the window slit, so I attacked the first person through the door.”
“What else?” he demanded.
Regana rubbed her head. She was really starting to loathe that refrain. “I don’t know what else you want. That’s it. That’s all that happened last night.”
“What else did Veriel say?”
She stared at him in exhaustion. “I’m tired, Gawen. He just kept trying to convince me that he wanted to help and that he wasn’t a danger — over and over.”
“There has to be something else,” he insisted.
“There were people just behind the doors. There were people at the window slits. Ask them. For the love of all that’s holy, I don’t remember anything else.”
Gawen ran his hand over the beard on his chin and regarded her with a look that chilled her. “Come with me,” he ordered.
A few of the other lords started to rise.
“Alone,” he qualified.
Regana followed him outside, trying to ignore the looks on the other men’s faces. She wasn’t sure what the stone was telling him, but she knew it wasn’t good. Gawen motioned for her to sit at the base of a tree and sat facing her.