“Here.”
Cian’s rough voice roused me, and I glanced up. Standing over me, his back to the sun, his eyes appeared hooded and in shadow. This is it, I half-thought, he’s going to burn me now. I braced myself, ready for the final burst of power that set me ablaze. He had some magic outside his Shifter skills, possibly enough to murder me in a swift burst of fire. Yet – it didn’t happen.
He held a flask of water to my lips. All thoughts of willpower and sword vanished as I tilted my throat back. Icy cold water slid down into my belly like the sweetest wine. Though I half-expected Cian to yank it away, he permitted me several healthy swallows. Though I craved more, ‘twas enough to assuage the worst of my raging thirst.
Nodding my gratitude, I licked moisture from my lips as he pulled the flask away. “Why?”
Cian shrugged, plugging the flask with its wax stopper. “You saved my life once. Though I’m bound to take yours, I do pay my debts.”
Repay a life with life-sustaining water. I half-nodded, accepting the gift with grace. “Thanks.”
“You’ll burn at sunset,” he continued, as though informing me of where I’ll sleep that night. “We have but a league or so downriver to ride. Then you can rest.”
Crikey, I thought. Rest in peace.
“How’d you find us, Cian?”
He actually smiled. Squatting on his heels, he fingered the stopper on the flask. “We’ve been following you. We picked up you and Malik’s little party before Flynn and his boys attacked you the first time. When you and the princess took off for the cave, I had an idea of where you were headed. We merely rode ahead of you and waited.”
“I see.”
He fiddled with the flask, his gaze downward, as though unable to face me. “Just tell me, Van,” he said, his voice soft. “Why did you ignore the royal courier and go in that day? I’m not promising a repeal – I want the simple truth from you. You owe me that much.”
I swallowed hard, utterly flummoxed. “What courier? I had that warehouse surrounded, waiting for orders.”
Cian glared, growing angry. “The courier from headquarters. Don’t lie to me, Van, not now. You were told there were two terrorists inside, with twelve hostages, ready to blow everything up. You were told to stand down and await reinforcements. Why would you send in your unit against specific orders?”
“Gods,” I muttered, wishing I could run my hands through my hair. “Give me a minute, let me think, let me think.”
Frantic, my memory raced to that deadly day. A warehouse in the small fishing village of Dalziel. A Raithin Mawrn terrorist inside with hostages and barrels of oil. A single bomber. I dispatched my unit to surround the place and not permit even a mouse to escape. I held firm, shouting negotiations to the Raithin Mawrn, promises that would free the hostages and permit him to surrender unharmed.
“No courier came,” I muttered.
“What?”
“There was no courier,” I said, my voice rising. “Gaear flew in, as an eagle.”
“Gaear? Whatever for? He’s not in the courier corp.”
My memory flooded my head. I returned to that moment as though it happened yesterday. I crouched behind a nearby water trough, close enough to hear the Raithin Mawrn’s demands and deliver my own, yet protected from attack. Behind me, Sergeants Catlan and Zeani, both Shape-Shifters, awaited my orders.
Gaear dropped to the ground and folded his wings. “Orders, First Captain, sir,” he said, his raptor’s voice high. “The Lord Captain commands you send in your unit to resolve the situation. He understands there is but one unarmed Raithin Mawrn inside. There’s no threat, sir. Arrest him, and bring him in for trial.”
I frowned. “I heard through the local grapevine there were two buggers in there. How does Malik know there’s only one. And unarmed, you say?”
“Indeed, First Captain. The Lord Captain Commander’s intel is solid, sir. He wouldn’t have sent me, otherwise.”
I shrugged. “Jolly good. Will you join us in our hour of triumph, Gaear?”
“Sorry, sir, would love to, but the Lord Captain Commander has me racing to fetch him his favorite wine. It’s that day of the week, as you know, sir.”
I grinned. “I do indeed. Off with you, now. Tell Malik I’ll toss this prisoner at his feet in an hour.”
“Will do, sir.”
Gaear flew away. I organized my unit of twelve elite Atani soldiers into attack formation. With a sharp kick, I broke down the door to the warehouse just as my Atans either followed me inside or broke in through windows from the rear. Charging in, I saw two things at the same time. One: the frightened Raithin Mawrn with his hands in the air, screaming in panic. Two: the frightened hostages huddled together in the middle of the hall, surrounded by barrels of whale oil.
As the rest of my men grouped around the crying, milling civilians, urging them to their feet with jokes and laughter, I noted a third thing – the single hostage who watched me with a smile. A smile of deadly, deathly, calculation. Just as he lit the fuse.
“Get them out!” I bellowed. “Get out! Now! Now! Now!”
The fuse hissed and sparked its way toward a stack of dry wood. No doubt the bomber’s bundle of incendiary powder lay packed tightly within it. Set the wood aflame, then the casks of oil. If the oil ignited – it could bring down not just the warehouse but half the block.
The wood ignited. Fire raced outward from behind the barrels of flammable oil. But even oil took a few seconds to ignite, for flames to eat through the heavy oak to reach the combustible liquid inside. I shoved hostage after hostage toward the door, my Atans fearless and calm as they saved one life after another. When the smiling Raithin Mawrn came at me, swinging a savage dirk, I killed him with a single bolt of my power through his heart. I never drew my sword.
“Captain!” Catlan yelled, near the door. “Let’s go!”
The hostages and my Atans were safe. All had reached the safety of the doorway, or had run beyond into the late afternoon sunshine. But one hostage remained. He bolted toward the fire, not away from it. Obviously he felt something inside was worse risking his life for. His life was worth risking mine for.
I raced after him. My hand touched his shoulder just as the warehouse blew up.
A cask of oil struck me sideways and threw me, crashing, into the wooden wall of the warehouse. Had it remained solid, I’d have been crushed and killed instantly. But the blast fractured the wood’s integrity and I crashed through splinters not firm construction. Thus, the blast itself blew me to safety, and saved my life. The hostage I tried to save died, screaming as he lit up like a torch. Though I tried to scream orders, stay out, stay away, my team didn’t, couldn’t, hear me. They, as a group, ran back inside. They split up, dodging the flames, shielding their faces with their arms. I heard them calling my name, searching, frantic. Gods, no. Get them out. Get them out.
Struggling to rise under the weight of a broken pillar, I yelled, waving my arm. Zeani saw me. From across the flaming chamber she ran, yelling for the others. I see him! I see him! More followed her voice, scrambling to avoid the flames that reached with licking fingers to snag them.
Then the second explosion hit.
With a low coughing roar, the casks of oil previously untouched by flames detonated. A firestorm of liquid death spewed across the broken warehouse, striking my Atans with all the force of an avalanche. Most died instantly from the force of the blast and broken oak driven by searing winds. A few more, like Zeani, died more slowly. In agony, they sucked down the fires of hell when they drew breath to scream. Like living torches, they burned, consumed at last by the Raithin Mawrn hatred of our land.
“They died because of you.”
Cian’s voice broke into my thoughts. I nodded slowly. “Yes.”
I managed a small smile. “Just not in the way you think. I’m alive through sheer fate. They died because they loved me.”
He turned his face away, showing me his scar. “As she loved you.”
I tried to s
peak, and halted. The words rose to my throat and were strangled there. “She – Zeani – wasn’t what you thought she was, Cian. Malik placed her in my unit so I might watch her. Uncover her role. She was a spy in the employ of King Finian. She screamed his name as she died. ‘Twas him she truly loved.”
“You lie.”
I tried to shrug and smile. “I wish I was. For that would spare you great grief.”
Cian struggled, trying to come to terms that the love of his life didn’t just love another man, or was a whore, but a traitor who loved the greatest enemy our nation ever faced. Under Finian the Fair, the terrorists and the bombers had more than quadrupled, they quadrupled ten times again. Never before had we fought the silent war as we fought the Raithin Mawrn under Finian’s iron fist. He sent his spies, his horrors, his bombs in to kill not just our King but our magical way of life. He alone sought our beloved lands and to silence the joys of the Faeries. Along with the Centaurs, the Minotaurs and the sleek Griffins, Finian wanted, no lusted, to slay us. For some odd reason, he feared us the most: the Einion’nalad Clan – the Shape-Shifters.
Cian’s family.
His eyes calm, he asked, “You have proof?”
“Yes. Malik sent in his own spies, but they failed to uncover much. Then he got lucky. He waylaid certain letters, a courier was intercepted, a horse recognized – a Faery mimicked words meant for Finian’s ears alone. Malik ordered me to arrest her that evening, but the call to capture the Dalziel hostage taker came in. Placing her under arrest had to wait. Then, well – you know.”
“Did she know you were going to arrest her?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Why would she rush in to save you?” he asked, his tone not accusing, but curious. “If she suspected you knew about her, wouldn’t she see you burn before rushing in to save you?”
I managed a small smile. “My unit had no clue, remember. They didn’t know she was a spy or that the King planned a very long, painful interrogation. They rushed in, and if she were to keep her cover intact, she had to go along. Any Atan loyal to her commander would.”
Cian nodded. “I think I see. She didn’t plan to die.”
“She rushed in, yelling, hoping to find me dead. But I wasn’t. I remember her shock to find me still among the living. With so many witnesses, she couldn’t sink her dagger into my throat and escape. No one counted on or expected the second explosion. It killed her. It killed them all.”
Cian nodded, accepting all I told him as the gods’ own truth. He knew I spoke it. He saw it in my eyes, heard it in my voice. He recognized the truth when it was waved in his face. Though he didn’t reject any of it, he still loved her. In spite of all.
“This doesn’t absolve you.”
“I know.”
“Are you ready?”
I nodded. “I am.”
His arm under my shoulder helped me up. His eyes caught mine, a vague shadow of sorrow, or perhaps regret, behind them. “She shouldn’t have died, not that way,” he said, his voice soft. “But maybe I can forgive you, just a little.”
“Don’t bother,” I replied, my throat thick. “I can’t forgive myself.”
Nodding, he took up my chain once more and mounted his grey gelding. If his pace wasn’t quite so fast, only I noticed and appreciated that fact. His compassionate gift of the water offered much more than he expected. Already I felt some strength return, and my agonized ribs quieted a fraction. My mind focused more sharply, and if I spent too much of it remembering the past, who’d blame me?
As the sun westered over the distant mountains, Cian called a halt, his voice hollow. “Zorn, mind the horses. Tris, you, Kado and Drust gather wood. Only the dry stuff and lots of it. Yestin and Broc, find a stout tree, preferably dead with lots of space around it. No sense in firing the entire forest.”
As his men hobbled their mounts and hastened to follow his orders, Cian permitted me to sit near the rushing Auryn. Lying on my belly, I sucked down more refreshing water, easing my terrible thirst. He led the horses to a quiet rivulet nearby, urging them to drink their fill. I felt he was near to apologizing, for he glanced at me now and then, but he didn’t speak. I didn’t bother.
Instead, I used the added strength the water gave me, and buried my face in the icy stream. The chilling cold numbed the pain of my busted nose and cleared my head. It also washed away some of the horrid guilt of that dreadful day, and reminded me that while Iyumi still lived, I must be at her side. If an opportunity to fight came… well, Cian best look to his own welfare.
Letting him believe I’d given up, I permitted him help me to a rock to sit while his men piled armload of wood after armload under a long-dead red oak tree. Beneath its spiked branches, only rocks thrived. Greenish grass grew in sparse tufts, but as an execution site, it fit Cian’s order perfectly.
When the piles of deadwood reached halfway up the trunk, Cian stood up. He lifted my chain. “Van. It’s time.
I glanced at the sun. It hovered over the mountain peaks, its bright rays of gold, orange, pink and rose-blush streaking eastward as though yearning for the dawn. As you love me, your lordships, I prayed silently. As you love her, help me through this.
I offered no fight as Cian and Kado untied my hands only to retie them behind the stout, dried trunk of the old oak. Just more tinder to catch hold, I thought, gazing down at the pile that shifted uneasily beneath my feet. I leaned my head back against the bark and shut my eyes. Focus, damn it. Focus.
Concentrating, I slowed my breathing, my heartbeat – I focused on my sword. If you’re there, I said, deep within my mind, I need you now. Slowly, too slowly, I sank deeper into a trance. Only by casting out all distractions might I call upon the sword’s power. As is lay outside my own, perhaps it was not constrained by the cold pewter collar around my neck.
“May you be reborn in paradise,” Cian called, safely returned to earth with Kado in tow.
His voice broke my infant trance. Frantic to reclaim it, I felt it slip from my grasp. I heard a torch lit with a whoosh, scented its smoky flame. I knew someone, probably Yestin, handed it with devout ceremony to Cian. The sun sank an inch, coloring my closed eyelids in purple and gold.
Down, I thought, my mind fogged, sluggish. Down, deep and down.
The trance hovered at the threshold of my mind, calling to me.
At my feet, flames licked the dry wood and found it palatable. Heat rose to warm my body, and smoke teased my nostrils, burned my eyelids. Ignore it, my mind whispered. Ignore it and control thy fear. Fear is your enemy. Make it your ally.
Dropping deeper into a trance, I called to my own blood, captured deep within the sword. Hear me. Feel me. I am yours and you are mine.
I hear, the sword hissed in reply. I obey.
The flames rose higher, hungry, feeding on the dry wood. I needed no eyes to witness Cian fall back, shading his brow against the terrible heat. I saw within my mind his companions curse in dreadful fascination as they stumbled into one another, seizing arms, tripping over themselves in their haste to escape the licking fires of hell.
Sweat burst from my pores only to dry an instant later under the searing heat. The pain from my busted ribs felt as naught to the savage terror that filled my soul, my heart. The trance slid back, panic emerging, my throat raw and ready to scream. I’m going to die!
Not yet.
The sword’s power caught my mind, my heart. I saw through its empty eyes, felt its calm regard, listened to its silent voice. It knew me. I knew it. Like lovers reunited after a long absence, we rushed toward each other. We collided like twin moons in the aether, sparks and smoke erupting in showers. I now owned its absolute power, the kind of power the gods themselves outlawed eons ago.
“Break it.”
Hot, lethal flames surged upward, licking my knees, straining toward my thighs. Raging hot flame climbed up my body, burning, destroying. I knew, distantly, my boots had melted and only my feet smoldered, not quite burning. For the next ten seconds anyway.
I sharpened my mind and focused my will. Now!
With the sound of six-inch ice breaking, the collar about my neck shattered. As though hit with a divine hammer, it dropped into hundreds of pieces, into the licking flames, gone. My power roared through me, restored, my birthright. The agony of my injuries receded as the new flood of adrenaline forced it to the sidelines.
In a blink, I was airborne. The ropes that once bound my hands dropped to the flames, consumed. My falcon’s small form rose high into the violent colors of the sunset, my screech of triumph breaking across the sound of crackling flames and the scent of burning wood. My wings forced the dark smoke into roiling behind my tail, coiling like deadly serpents before the light evening breeze set it adrift. I soared high and free, climbing into the dusk.
“No!” Cian screamed, his voice echoing through the mountains.
Finish it. The soft voice whispered in my ear.
Yes, I thought. Let’s finish it. If I don’t kill him now, I’ll never be free of him or his vengeance. It’s time he met the true Zeani.
Folding my wings, I dropped like a stone. Straight toward the hot fires he set, the death he planned for me, I aimed my raptor’s beak. The wind whistled past my ears, rustled through my tail feathers. My keen eyes saw him, far below, watching the skies for me, his mouth open in a howl of despair. His boys flanked him, watching the sky, the wood, the mountain – huddled together like sheep before the onset of a storm. They feared me. They were right to fear me.
I was always the best. I won every contest. I defeated every prior champion. I could change forms on a pinfeather and slay with the fangs of a tiger before my enemy knew what killed him. My enemies feared me. My friends wished they could be me. No one ever bested me in a fight. I didn’t intend to lose now.
A rod from the ground, I changed.
Striking the ground in my human shape, sword in hand, I charged. From the darkness I rose, unseen. They searched the skies as I dropped among them. My first strike took Kado across the face, splitting his mouth from ear to ear. He smiled as he pointed his arrow at my knee. Then let’s permit him to smile forevermore.
The Unforgiven Page 48