Just then Steve felt a slight heat and the crystal glowed against his chest. That familiar presence entered his mind quietly like a ray of sunlight peeking from behind a cloud.
Even when she would marry another? came the calm, deeply resonating voice of the other presence.
Steve had already learned controlling speech was an entirely different matter than controlling one’s own thoughts, and before he could think otherwise…
Yes, he replied.
And the prince?
The prince can go to— Steve abruptly clipped that sentiment off in mid-thought. With his eyes closed, he stepped back from Sonya, forcibly shutting down his traitorous feelings. What are you trying to make me do? he demanded silently. If I screw with the prophecy, I take a chance on everything—
I am aware of the responsibilities you hold toward your friends, and all sentient beings of Mithal. All that you are, I share. And in sharing thus, I have heard you wage this same conflict within yourself a hundred times.
“You’re hearing it again, aren’t you?” Sonya asked concerned. “I can see it in your face.” She waved a hand before his eyes. “Steve, can you hear me?”
His eyes moved and he looked at her. “Yes, I can hear you.”
Would you speak your feelings to her?
Shut up.
?
Yes, shut--up!
“Steve, what’s it saying to you?” she asked.
“It…it’s nothing,” he replied hesitantly, torn between the conversation in his mind and the physical world. “Can we please change the subject?”
“Not if this thing might somehow be able to help the Resistance.”
“Sonya, please!” Even as Steve raised his voice to her he was already sorry, as much so as she was surprised. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout. Just trust me, this thing has absolutely no concern for the Resistance, or for fulfilling the prophecy. It has no interest in anyone save me—and what makes me such a special concern to it I couldn’t even begin to tell you.”
Sonya looked at him sympathetically, but also a little worried. “It isn’t harmful, is it?”
“I don’t think so. It’s just that…you know how you get these thoughts in your head that are there for just an instant, and you know you wouldn’t act on them but…”
Sonya was nodding. “But the thought was there anyway?”
“Exactly. Well, whatever this voice is, it listens to those thoughts and makes me consider them a little more seriously than I should.”
Sonya looked relieved, and yet a little disappointed at the same time. “Well, I’m glad it’s not overly bothersome. Though I am sorry that—whatever it is—it isn’t of help to our cause.” Then her eyes looked playful and with a winsome smile she asked, “Just what kinds of thoughts are we talking about here?”
Steve wagged a finger at her reproachfully but couldn’t hide his mirth. “Rated PG, thank you very much.”
Sonya was nodding, but looked wholly unconvinced. “And you can be sure I believe that, too.”
Steve poked her in the ribs and punctuated it with a, “Why you little…!”
She shrieked and darted away with Steve hot on her trail.
“Ah, blast the bad luck!” Jiv said slowing from a run as he reached the place the two young people had only just been. He bent and rested with his hands on his thighs as he breathed heavily, and silently cursed the forces of nature that didn’t see fit to give sprites wings. Then, pausing only a moment more to catch his breath, set off at a run once more.
Steve dived for her waist and his hand brushed her clothing for a split second, but Sonya twisted and veered and Steve went headlong into the tall grass.
Sonya ran for several more moments before she realized she had lost her pursuer. Slowing to a walk, she turned and peered into the darkness, trying to find where her friend had gone. Gradually, moving carefully, she retraced her steps.
“Steve?” she called. When there was no answer, her brow knit in concern. “Steve, are you all right? Where are you?” Her steps came quicker with her mounting apprehension until ultimately she was racing from one place to the next to find him. “Steve! Steve, where are you? Ste—“
Her foot brushed something solid in the grass and, dropping to her knees in the darkness, she found him there lying face flat on the ground. With a little effort, she managed to roll him to his back.
“Steve, are you—“
Steve’s eyes opened and his arms shot out like twin vipers to wrap around her waist and then roll her beneath him. By the time it was all over Sonya was staring up at him, her surprise evident on her face.
“You know,” Steve was saying somewhat smugly, “that has got to be one of the oldest tricks in the book.” He watched as the realization, and then frisky defiance, slowly crept into her eyes and then—
“Woah!”
With amazing agility, Sonya shifted her weight just enough to continue the roll and bring herself back on top, straddling Steve’s waist. She put her hands about his throat as if to choke him, and laughed, “You jerk! You scared me half to death!”
“What?” Steve asked innocently.
“You know exactly what—or have you forgotten I’ve already raised you from the dead once already?”
Steve had to concede she had a point there. “Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry.”
“You should be,” Sonya replied trying to sound hurt, but not entirely succeeding.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Moving her hands to her hips, she pretended to think it over before saying, “Maybe one more.”
“I’m sorry,” Steve piped obediently. “So am I forgiven now?”
“All right,” she said raising her index finger like a teacher might scold a student, “but only because I’m a nice person.”
“Oh, but of course.”
With a short laugh, Steve rolled out from under her as she leaned and then he seated himself cross-legged in front of her. For several moments, they did not speak, and in the uninterrupted silence Steve noticed the moonlight gave Sonya’s hair a dark luster he had never seen before. He very nearly mentioned it before a sudden sound cut him off. Sonya, too, had heard it, and Steve placed a finger to his lips at her questioning glance. He was not sure why, but caution told him to remain motionless until he was sure of who it was.
Steve reached out with his thoughts into the darkness and Kayliss answered, his massive form hidden in the tall grass not more than twenty feet away. The great tiger was somewhere behind them, but the noise had come from somewhere in front. Steve’s caution grew. The sound might very well have gone totally unnoticed for some time had not their conversation turned to silence. Something out there was getting progressively closer, the sound of it moving through the grass getting louder.
No, Steve replied in response to Kayliss’s urge to hunt. Not yet. He could understand the big cat’s impatience, for the wind was blowing in the wrong direction for the tiger to get a scent, and who or what was out there was something they both would have been more comfortable in knowing.
Steve and Sonya raised their heads slowly out of the grass and, indistinct at first, then appearing more clearly, two figures emerged out of the gloom and shadow walking hand-in-hand. In a few more moments, the moonlight revealed the silhouettes of their friends, Scott and Kurella.
Sonya leaned close and whispered in Steve’s ear, “You never told me those two were an item.”
“I didn’t know it had gone quite this far,” Steve whispered back with a shrug.
Scott and Kurella approached at an oblique to Steve and Sonya’s hiding place, and when they stopped they were less than a hundred feet away. They then turned and faced one another, their profiles oddly somber and intently serious.
“I am ready, beloved,” Kurella said to Scott.
“Then so am I,” Scott replied.
Sonya seized Steve by the arm and pulled him down, barely able to quiet her uncontrollable giggling. “I don’t think they
would appreciate us watching this.” Steve tried to quiet her by placing a hand over her mouth, but it served to make her giggle all the more.
Then the sound of the change abruptly quieted them both.
Together they raised their heads above the top of the grass line once more. Kurella – or at least what once was Kurella – growled monstrously as bones continued to stretch and settle into joints newly formed. The tendons in her hands thickened and stood out remarkably beneath her skin for a moment before her skin darkened and disappeared under a heavy coat of fur. The nails across her fingers and toes turned dark and lengthened into a fearsome set of claws.
Scott’s eyes stayed resolutely on the form of his lover, and his countenance remained devoid of expression even in the face of her startling metamorphosis.
Kurella howled mournfully as her muzzle took shape, exposing the deadly lengths of her fangs. Until now, she had always hidden the change from Scott; he had seen her only as one or the other, the woman or the wolf, and the sound escaping her expressed her fear he would somehow shun her should he ever see the startling change. Humans had always hated wolves, viewing them with a mixture of fear and loathing for what they are. But now it was all very real; the two were one, and together they were the werewolf. With the transformation complete, Scott looked up into the red eyes of Kurella, and smiled.
Even standing seven feet tall and built like a nightmare made flesh, Kurella could still look heartsick and vulnerable. “I am ashamed,” she said, her voice keening with a canine’s whine.
Scott shook his head, “No. Don’t be. I love everything about you, and what you and your people have is beautiful.” Kurella looked back at him, the red of her eyes showing adoration, a low, throaty growl rumbling in her chest. Scott then took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I’m ready.”
Kurella nodded once slowly, and then, cradling the back of his head in one huge clawed hand, she poised the other high in the air, her deadly talons glinting in the moonlight.
Steve’s heartbeat quickened in alarm. “What the hell is this?”
Kurella paused. “I love you,” she said.
“And I love you,” Scott replied.
With an ear-splitting, animal scream, Kurella’s upraised hand came swiftly down on Scott’s throat.
“Noooo!” Steve cried leaping to his feet.
Kurella’s head snapped around and, seeing him, she released her grip on Scott and fled into the darkness. In almost the same instant, Steve sprinted the distance to his fallen friend and paused in horror at the state of the body.
Sonya arrived only moments behind him and immediately dropped to her knees beside Scott’s twitching form. Without hesitation, she placed her hands over his throat and her entire being ignited wildly in a brilliant golden aura. She focused her power and willed the tissues to mend, the cells to knit and become whole once more.
But something was wrong.
“It won’t close,” she sobbed, tears streaming down her cheeks as the fear poured into her voice. “Oh, no, don’t do this to me! Scott, hold on!”
Steve staggered a moment where he stood and then collapsed as his legs gave out. Numbly he reached into his mind and searched for the other presence. He searched for long moments, but nothing.
Answer me! he screamed within himself, yet still nothing. Answer! he screamed again.
The time Steve waited for a reply—any sign of acknowledgement—might well have been an eternity, as his friend’s life’s blood continued to drain from his body, flowing between Sonya’s fingers that now gripped the wound in a vain attempt to stave off death.
What Steve had feared since first arriving on Mithal had finally come to pass. One of his friends, who should never have come to be involved in the war of another world, now lay dead. Still unable to grasp the loss, Steve looked over at the still form of his friend—and then suddenly the belief was there. And anger. An anger that burned him so deeply it touched the fringes of his very soul. The beating of his heart quickened, his blood raced, and the burning anger ignited a fire that poured hatred through him and brought him to the very threshold of insanity.
Then Steve raised his eyes. “Kayliss, kill her!” he thundered.
Thirty feet away, a massive, white streak tore through the grass like a crossbow bolt. With the crystal singing shrill in his ears, Steve leaped from the ground and followed it.
“Steve, don’t!” Sonya called after him, and then shrieked as a tiny man jumped into her lap.
“Thanks be ta God I found ya, lass!”
“Jiv, not now,” she said through her tears. She moved as if to wipe at her eyes but her hands remained covered in Scott’s blood. “I don’t want to—“
“Lissen up, lass! Ah realize ee was your friend an all, but there be bigger trouble un that. They found the emperor dead with’is guts all torn out. An if ‘Aldorum’s right, it be a far cry from over. Ya’ve got ta get back!”
Sonya hesitated a moment, briefly confused about what to do next, not wanting to leave her friend but knowing others needed her, before finally wiping as much of the blood as she could on her trousers. Then, pausing only long enough to scoop Jiv up in her hands, she stood and ran, sobbing, back in the direction of the camp.
Kurella’s forward and back claws dug deep into the earth with every stride as she propelled herself headlong with powerful lunges. The ground passed by beneath her in a dizzying blur and the shortening grass whipped at her flanks, and still a quick glance over her shoulder showed something was blazing a trail through the field behind her. And gaining. It was more than just something. Kayliss was fast behind her and, at this rate, he would overtake her before she could escape the Crag and into the swamp beyond. Given that, it seemed Fate had dealt her a single, inexorable choice.
Kurella slowed to a stop and stood erect, the grass here reaching just above her calves, and waited. Possessing neither silver nor magic, the tiger could not actually kill her, but it was entirely possible for a wolf to be wounded beyond the ability to heal properly, and life as a crippled wolf that could neither hunt nor fight was a worse fate for a lupine than death could ever be.
Kayliss appeared out of the taller grasses, his ghostly white tigrine form moving rhythmically in the moonlight. He closed the distance and then, with a savage roar, the great cat leaped at her. Kurella instinctively ducked, and then howled as Kayliss’s claws raked her back as he sailed over.
Kurella stood, growling against the pain. She whirled around to face the tiger only to be hit from behind as Steve, screaming his fury, barreled into her out of the darkness with the force of a cannonball. Incredibly, the wolf-girl left the ground, flying nearly a straight line only to come down again in an uncontrollable roll twenty-five feet away.
Kurella staggered to her feet and then fell, her concentration seemingly lost and her senses confused, as her focus on the spirit of the wolf that maintained her fearsome form waned. Her body reverted back to its natural form even as she lie stunned and disoriented with her face in the grass. Groaning with extreme effort, she managed to rise to all fours before a hand closed around her throat and lifted her into the air.
“He trusted you!” Steve screamed, his cheeks streaked with his own tears. “He trusted you and you killed him!”
Kurella’s hands instinctively closed about Steve’s wrist.
“Change back!” Steve commanded her. “Do it! Now!”
When she did not the grip about her neck tightened and Kurella gasped for air. His hold upon her tightened further, but she did not change.
“I… will… not,” she choked. Already her lungs were seizing, trying to draw in the air for which she was starving.
“Change!” Steve bellowed. “Change!”
The power of his voice hit her like a fist and Kurella’s head lolled as her eyes rolled back in her head. Steve watched her with fury bordering on madness as she started to slip into unconsciousness. It would be easy, he knew, simply to snap her neck. His rage drew a vision of himself ripping her apart,
tearing her limb from limb, and spreading her parts throughout Shallows Crag…
It would be so easy. And yet…
Kurella collapsed onto all fours, taking in huge breaths of air as Steve wept above her with his head in his hands. He could not understand his hesitation, and he cursed his own weakness. Here she was, the murderer of his best friend, defenseless, and he could not even bring himself to avenge Scott’s death.
What the hell is wrong with me!
Then distant shouts and the sound of combat brought him about and drew his gaze in the direction of the camp. His eyes glowed with a white nimbus as the magic in his blood took on a new form, and the faraway scene rushed toward him under the magic magnification. He did not understand what was happening, or how it was possible, but a huge, unearthly green portal had opened in the center of the camp and hordes of Shangee and Jalkora were flooding through it.
Steve bared his teeth and spittle flew forth as he exhaled with a vicious smile, for now he had an enemy he could hate. This was an enemy he could kill; a conduit to vent his grief and anger his conscience would not dare rise against. He drew his sword and jumped to Kayliss’s back, urging the tiger into a full run to where the fighting was heaviest.
He wanted only to hate…and to kill.
Chapter XXIII
The guard kicked open the door and rushed, in followed by two of his fellows, swords drawn, with Haldorum, General Duva, and Haze close behind. Although prepared for the worst, nothing prepared them for what they found. The Emperor lie on the floor in a pool of his own blood, one knee bent, hands frozen in a gross imitation of claws as he had scratched at the floorboards when death overcame him. A small trickle of blood had run from the left corner of his mouth, nearly dry with the passage of time. What chilled them to their very bones, however, was the gaping hole in the emperor’s stomach from which the pool of blood had come.
“By the Third!” General Duva whispered with eyes wide.
“There!” Haldorum said pointing to the left of the Emperor.
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