Sacrifice

by Heather McCollum

  “You can do that?” William asked.

  “No one can,” Jackson said. “It is unnatural.”

  “It could break the web of reality, destroy the order that God has laid out,” Kailin said. She shook her head. “Drustan, we all have people we miss, people who have died.” The image of an old man with a brilliant smile flashed through her mind. “But they have gone to another plane of existence and should not come back.”

  “Who dictates this order?” Drustan asked.

  “God, the Earth Mother, the laws of time,” Kailin argued, flinging her hand out wide.

  “Perhaps it is time for a new order, one that allows people to remain, live forever.”

  “Ludicrous,” Kailin said. “It will rip reality apart. If you cut a single temporal thread, billions of people will be resurrected, not just those few you miss. What will you do with the others? Those who are confused and overpopulating this planet?”

  “Semiazaz has a plan to return them quickly to wherever they are now.”

  “By killing them,” Jackson said. “Will you do that, then, kill a billion people by touching them? Will they line up for you to lay your hands on them? Or do you merely need to think them dead?”

  Drustan glared at the man. He didn’t need to answer his questions.

  “Will you be able to stand the fear and pain you feel coming from them?” Kailin asked. “Withstand it without your soul turning as black as a demon’s? Have you truly thought about this? Because I have, at great lengths.”

  “She’s filled books on it,” Jackson said and indicated a large trunk that sat against the wall.

  “And what do you care about my soul, sister?” Drustan asked.

  “I…” Kailin started, her mouth open as she shook her head a smallest bit. “Of course I care about your soul. You are my brother.”

  “A brother you have met now just three times. I was less than a week old when I was abandoned to Semiazaz.”

  “You weren’t abandoned,” Kailin said. “You were snatched away.”

  Drustan braced his fisted hands on the table. “Drakkina tried to kill me. Gilla had used all her magic to save her daughters. I had only my own powers to protect myself. When she couldn’t kill me, Drakkina flung me away like a bit of trash for the demons to find. How was I not abandoned?”

  Silence stuffed the room like a bloated carcass. Drustan stood up from the table, William mimicking him. “I do not want your pity,” Drustan said. “I want your understanding. I will bring back Gilla and Druce and my sisters. We will all live together again. I will create the family I should have had instead of one comprised of a pack of malicious demons. If that means momentary discomfort for a billion, so be it.”

  Kailin didn’t rise. She looked at her folded hands on the table. “What do you think demons eat, Drustan?” Her face tipped up so that her gaze met his. “When the Orb of Life and Drakkina’s amulet come together to give them back their bodies. What will sustain them? These creatures Semiazaz brought from Hell.”

  Drustan’s brows pinched as he looked at his sister, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Like I said,” Jackson said, standing up. “Kailin has spent a lot of time exploring every aspect of the end-of-world prophecies.” Through Jackson’s memory, Drustan saw his sister filling journals with her writings on the subject, images of her meeting with her other sisters on some interdimensional plane, and her sitting next to Drakkina as the Silver Witch scried in a shallow brass bowl.

  Kailin unbent to stand straight. Her voice was soft but strong, every word enunciated clearly. “The demons will eat the people you bring back.”

  Bechard’s razor-sharp maw, Trill’s pointy claws, Troglodytarum’s lust for children. Drustan blinked but met his sister’s hard stare. “I will keep them in line or kill them,” he said.

  “Then it will be left to you to kill the billions of unwanted people brought back on that thread,” Kailin said. They remained staring at one another, the room full of tension like cords pulled to their limits. One nick on a single cord, and they might all explode.

  ****

  Anna took the bottom step in silence as Patricia tsked for the thousandth time. “Well, you certainly should have at least asked William to accompany you to town. He would have gotten you out of that freakish blizzard. It’s a wonder you’ve not caught the ague. Maybe Matilda should tend you when she returns from helping that woman give birth.”

  They rounded the corner into the great hall and stopped. Drustan stood tall and strong, surrounded by William, Hamish, a man in a cowboy hat, and a regal woman in travel-weary clothes. No one moved.

  “Good God, he’s frozen them,” Patricia said.

  Anna moved briskly into the middle of the standoff. “Release them, Drustan.” Just as she reached his side her body stopped as if stuck in invisible granite. She couldn’t even turn her head. Only the parts of her face were left mobile. Anna gasped. “I can’t move.”

  Had Drustan frozen her, too? What did that mean? Was she not his soul mate? The thought ripped through her. Had their night together done something to sever their link? Her chest constricted as her heart pounded with the sickening pall of worry.

  “Don’t touch him,” the regal woman said.

  “Why can’t I move?” Anna asked, her gaze sweeping to Drustan. Whatever emotion showed from her eyes made him move directly to her.

  “Let her go, Kailin,” Drustan said. “She is immune to my powers.”

  “What is going on?” Anna asked even though she couldn’t turn to look at everyone.

  “Release her,” Drustan said, smoothing some hair back from Anna’s forehead to catch behind her ear. “She doesn’t wilt at my touch.”

  Anna fell forward into Drustan as the barrier engulfing her body disappeared. He caught her, helping her stand against the disorienting dizziness.

  “How is that so?” the woman, Kailin, asked, her brows furrowed.

  “How is it that your mate mutes your powers?” Drustan said, his arm around Anna’s shoulders.

  The steady pressure of his touch loosened the panic Anna had felt at first.

  “She is your soul mate?” the woman asked.

  “She is my queen,” Drustan replied and took Anna’s hand. “Anna Pemberlin meet my sister, Kailin Whitaker Black.”

  Anna sized up the very proper-looking woman and nodded a greeting. “So, you also possess magic.”

  “Queen?” Kailin said, ignoring Anna’s statement. The fire in the hearth roared upward, scorching a black path along the cut stones.

  The man in the brimmed hat reached out and tucked his arm through Kailin’s. Instantly, the flames receded. “Let’s not burn down the castle, Atsilv.”

  “You mute her powers,” Anna said and looked at Kailin. “Do you affect others with your touch like Drustan?”

  The woman’s eyes remained overly round. “Jackson, he’s chosen a queen. Does Drakkina know about this?” Her gaze moved to William.

  It was true that Anna didn’t follow strict standards when it came to polite conversation, but having her questions ignored and her existence possibly viewed as a catastrophe was a bit too much. Anna drew herself up to her full height. “Doctor Whitaker Black, I can assure you that I have neither been crowned nor wed to your brother—”

  “As of yet,” Drustan slid in, but Anna continued.

  “But since I seem to mute his powers, those in the family feel that we are destined to be together. We are both unattached, self-reliable adults without family to object to any pursuit of union on which we decide. So you have no need to insult either one of us by looking so distraught.”

  “I am his sister,” Kailin said, her gaze swinging back. “And I object.”

  “On what grounds?” Drustan said, his face growing fierce.

  Kailin’s husband intertwined his fingers with hers. Were they all in jeopardy of being consumed by the hearth fire if he were to let go? Kailin met Drustan’s gaze with a piercing stare filled with spark. “On the grounds that
she will die in the final battle.”

  “I will not allow that to happen,” Drustan said.

  Kailin took a step closer, her husband with her. “It will be by your hand.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Anna forgot to breathe, her inhale caught in her throat like a bubble underwater. Kailin’s words echoed in her mind. By his hand? For long seconds Anna waited, they all waited, but no one spoke. Finally the pain in her chest, made her exhale. “This is one of the prophecies that Drakkina has shown you?” Anna asked softly. How much had the spirit woman kept from her?

  Kailin met her gaze. “There are many prophecies, many possible outcomes, but nearly every one of them has your death within the final moments.”

  “Final moments of the battle?” she asked.

  “Final moments of my brother’s goodness,” Kailin said. “Your death is the final strike against his soul, turning him completely dark.”

  “If you believe the Silver Witch,” Drustan said.

  Anna’s legs wobbled under the layers of her day gown. “I…I would like to sit,” she said.

  Drustan led her to the bench. “I want the details of these prophecies.” Drustan’s words sounded reasonable, but his tone held death, like a seething roil of anger. Anna glanced at him, which was a mistake.

  The handsome features of Drustan’s face held such tight, sculpted fury that it was as if he stood ready to kill them all. Anna clasped her hands in her lap and forced her breaths to even out.

  “Semiazaz hasn’t shared the details of his plan with you,” Kailin guessed, ignoring Drustan’s glare. She was either very brave or had massive powers of her own. Maybe both. “He will use you as he sees fit to win his plans for destruction. You will be his puppet, brother. He has been tying strings about you for thirty years, teaching you, taming you to his lead.”

  “I have no strings around me,” Drustan growled.

  “Patricia,” William said. “Go above.”

  “But—”

  “Go upstairs.”

  “No,” she said and plopped down next to Anna. Patricia grabbed up Anna’s hand and squeezed it. The support made tears press behind Anna’s stare. She blinked them away.

  “Semiazaz has no power over me,” Drustan said, his voice thundering through the hall. Several tapestries fell from their attachments, thumping down at the base of the wall near the hearth. Everyone except Kailin and her husband jumped.

  “Information is power.” Kailin pushed on. “He doesn’t share it in order to keep command over you. I doubt he’s helped you with anything of substance, like this touch of death that’s plagued you.”

  Anna’s gaze lifted to Kailin. “You know how to neutralize his touch?”

  Kailin finally met her eyes. “No, but with the resources of my sisters and Drakkina, we can solve just about any issue.” She shifted to Drustan. “But Semiazaz doesn’t want to help you. He will use you to kill off the people he brings back. Why would he teach you how to shut off your deadly touch? He gives you promises instead, but not what you really need.”

  “I need only Anna,” Drustan said. His voice no longer shook the granite around them, but the flat tone bespoke something more frightening. Resignation?

  Kailin nodded. “Something you most desperately need, yet Semiazaz has limited. Love.”

  Anna looked between them. Two exceedingly strong people with immense power. She disentangled herself from Patricia to stride to Drustan where he stood, once more alone against the world. She took his hand. She wouldn’t let him give up. He’d lived through so much, made his way alone in the cruel world without even a sister or parent to scold, yell at, or kiss him.

  “And yet you object to our union,” Anna reminded Kailin. “It seems as if you wish to make Drustan your puppet as well.”

  “If I can convince him to desert Semiazaz’s band of demons and thus save the world, he can love whomever he wants,” Kailin said. “But with your death being the key to the destruction of his soul and thus the world…” She shook her head. The woman seemed to soften slightly and exhaled in a slow huff. “Do you love him?”

  “There hasn’t been enough time,” Anna said. Love was a subject she didn’t want to discuss. Drustan said he didn’t know what it was, had never felt it, and therefore wouldn’t pretend to feel it. And yet wasn’t love a requirement for a complete union?

  “Then perhaps the prophecies I’ve seen will not occur,” Kailin said, her brows furrowing in confusion. “They have recently become so blurred in Drakkina’s scrying bowl, as if there are too many possibilities rising up from moment to moment.” Her gaze took them both in. “With each interaction between you two, the outcome of the world sways between scenarios of redemption and destruction.”

  “Then, there is hope,” Anna said, her voice rising. “A positive outcome must include hope. Without it, every scenario is doomed.”

  “In every outcome that I’ve seen,” Kailin said slowly, “someone dies.”

  “Even in the good outcomes with the demons being defeated?” Patricia asked, coming to Anna’s side. When Kailin nodded, Patricia took hold of Anna’s arm. “Good lord, it’s like a sacrifice,” she said. “One good soul must die so the world can go on.”

  “Within Semiazaz’s plan,” Drustan said slowly, “there is control over life and death.”

  Kailin threw her hands in the air and pulled away from Jackson. Instantly, all the candles flared up, the fire in the hearth scorched into the chimney and all the dishes on the hall table rattled. “His plans are self-serving and barbaric! He will harm all these people along the thread he cuts; bring them back only to have you kill them again, thus harming your soul. Why can’t you see that?”

  Anna felt Drustan tense as she held his arm where she stood between him and Patricia. His words came slowly. “You, Kailin, have been raised believing that life and death are a linear progression,” Drustan said, amazingly calm in the light of his sister’s outburst. “I have been raised literally from the cradle being told that this plan will make the world a better place, a world where I can have a true family.”

  Strength etched lines around Drustan’s hard mouth and eyes. Raised by demons and yet he held onto his honor, curbing his deadly power. Anna turned to Kailin. “He’s had barely a week to hear the other side of the story, an hour to take in your view point. Yet, he’s had thirty years to be convinced that Semiazaz’s strategy is the right plan.”

  Kailin plopped down into the wooden chair behind her, and Jackson rested his hand on her shoulder. She scratched her forehead. “You’re smart, Drustan. Consider all the ramifications. I’ve brought my journals for you to read.” She shook her head. “There is no forcing you, not with your powers. I’m sure Semiazaz has known that from the start. And you are my brother, son of Gilla and Druce, just like me. Your heart is sound and good. Only trickery would make you destroy the world.”

  “Some things must be destroyed in order to rebuild something better,” Drustan said.

  That was true when it came to the diseases Anna fought, like cancer, but not the entire semblance of time and reality.

  “Read my journals,” Kailin said. “And make sure you aren’t just parroting the words of a dark warlock who’s been whispering in your ear your entire life.”

  The sounds of tiny slippers hitting the steps preceded Sarah as she ran ahead of Alicia from the stairwell. “Mama?” Sarah called and stopped short, blinking wide blue eyes at the standoff before her.

  Alicia jogged across to catch her niece, bending to grasp the child’s hand. “Your mama is still tending Mrs. Cooper and her bairn.” Alicia looked at the silent group. “Is something amiss?” Her gaze rested on Kailin and she smiled. “Kailin.” She strode briskly to Drustan’s sister, tugging Sarah with her. The two hugged. “Did Emma come?”

  “Not this time,” Kailin said with a forced smile. “She’s going to have her first baby and we didn’t want to risk it.” Her gaze flitted to Drustan before returning to Alicia. Anna supposed that if she had a gran
dchild on the way, she’d keep it as far from possible Armageddon, too. While Kailin bent to talk to Sarah, Anna watched Drustan. His mind must be a jumble, yet on the outside he seemed to watch the interactions.

  She rose on her toes to get close to his ear. “We can take the journals to your room and look through them. Figure out what it all means.”

  His clear blue eyes turned to meet her gaze, and her breath stopped again. When Anna thought of torture and pain, she thought of heat and flames of intensity. But what she saw in Drustan’s hard, icy eyes could only be described as torment. Clear and steady, exceedingly strong, yet empty of everything except the anguish of loneliness. She squeezed his hand. “Of course, I will help you.”

  His sensuous lips parted. “I cannot think of a possible trick or way that would make me harm you.”

  She nodded. She knew that, but with his words something opened in her chest. Relief? She blushed at the thought. Despite his background, Anna felt like she knew Drustan, the man, or she surely wouldn’t have slept with him the night before. Could the man who’d held her so tenderly, touched her in such amazing and tantalizing ways, who’d given her time to adjust to his size within her, could he really be evil and bent on the destruction of the world?

  “I know, Drustan, but we need to look at all angles, and Kailin has spent quite a bit of time doing that.” She glanced at the beautiful woman. “Your sister seems very intelligent and quite straightforward. Despite her barely-controlled ability to gut the castle with flames, I like her.”

  A tug on her skirts brought Anna’s gaze down. Little Sarah stared up at her while Alicia spoke to Kailin. As Anna bent her knees to be on the child’s level, she made sure to hold tightly to Drustan in case Sarah leaned into him. “Have you eaten, Sarah?”

  “Shall we skate now?” she asked, ignoring Anna’s question.

  The child had no fear that the world would possibly come to an end. Just as it should be. Anna smiled. “I still don’t think the loch is frozen, though that blizzard surely cooled things down.”