“Michael!” she called, her heart in her throat, but the boy ignored her, picking up speed. In places, the ledge was no wider than ten or twelve inches. If he kept it up, he was going to fall and…
She shoved the thought away in horror.
“Shit!” Corbbmacc cried. “Why wasn’t someone holding onto him?”
“Yeah, because he’s shown suicidal tendencies before, right?” Garrett said.
“She’s here,” Emily snapped, cutting off Corbbmacc’s retort. She looked around them. There was nowhere else to go but down the path or back into the forest. One way was madness, the other was certain death. With a surge of panic, she realized she wasn’t sure which was which. But it didn’t matter. The choice had already been made.
“Come on,” she said, and she started forward.
As she stepped onto the first of the path’s sloping ledges, Marianne’s voice, carried to them once more by the strange power she wielded, filled the world around them. Her tone was calm and infinitely reasonable.
“You can’t escape. Surrender now, and no one need be harmed. I only wish to speak with you.”
The words sounded so sincere, so pleading that for a moment, Emily almost believed them. She remembered her first sight of Marianne, sitting at the window in her green gown and looking so weary, as though the weight of the world rested on her shoulders.
Then sanity reasserted itself, and she sidled along the path, facing the cliff and moving as fast as she dared. She couldn’t afford to get entangled with whatever mind games Marianne’s magic allowed her to play.
“You have been used,” Marianne’s voice went on. “The wizard has placed you on the board like a pawn, and he will sacrifice you like a pawn, as he has before.”
Emily reached out, clutching at the rough rock and steadying herself as she sidestepped along the ledge. A gust of wind blew her hair into her face again and pressed her into the cold stone wall. She squinted and gritted her teeth, terrified of letting go.
Not a pawn, she thought savagely, a knight. I’m the knight. She wished she could block out Marianne’s voice. It was making it so damn hard to think clearly.
She glanced up and, with a thrill of fear, saw Haake climbing straight down the mountainside toward her. He was clutching the wall of rock with his hands and dropping from ledge to ledge in a straight vertical descent. He moved past her with sickening speed, every one of his sharp, jerky movements increasing his resemblance to an enormous pale spider. Wind tore at his clothes, and she had a horribly vivid image creep into her mind of the spindly man being torn loose from the mountainside by its force.
“What the hell are you doing!” she shouted after him as he flashed past. He was going to get himself killed.
Haake didn’t answer, but Mona was making her way down now, moving slowly and searching for extra handholds amidst the surface of the cliff. Her expression was composed, and she was hiding any anxiety she may have been feeling well. Miraculum was cradled in his sling. The babe was crying, but not loudly—not yet, anyway.
Emily reached the end of one ledge, then stepped down onto the next and began sidling in the opposite direction.
Don’t look down, she told herself. But of course, she had to. She needed to see if Michael was okay.
She stopped, stealing herself, and let her gaze drop.
She fought off the wave of vertigo that washed over her and forced herself to focus. Michael was on a ledge several levels below. Haake had caught up to him and was blocking his way along the path, forcing him to go more slowly. This seemed to be frustrating Michael, but he had neither the words nor the ability to express it. Haake began moving sanely, edging his way along the path, and Michael followed, shoving at Haake’s shoulder to urge him on faster.
Emily reached the end of the next ledge, stepped down again, and moved on. The further down the cliff she moved, the more terrifying the prospect became. The shore of the lake below didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Wind whipped around her, first pushing her against the cliff face, then threatening to tear her free and send her tumbling away, as insubstantial as an autumn leaf.
“You’re playing right into his hands, child,” Marianne said, and now there was fathomless sadness in her words. “Is that really what you want? To merely be a means to an end? To be discarded once your purpose has been served?”
She looked up and saw Garrett coaxing Celine along the path, Corbbmacc on their heels. Poor Celine. Her face was white with terror. She’d had a hard time crawling across the gap between buildings; how much worse must this be for her?
Rascal flitted from ledge to ledge, moving leisurely down the cliffside. He made it look so goddamned easy.
Focus, she told herself. Just focus.
She went on, staring at the wall before her and trying hard not to think about anything except the need to keep her feet moving. It was hard. She was racked with terror for Michael below and the others above.
One ledge down…two…three…
“Foolish girl.”
Emily paused at the end of another ledge and glanced upward again.
On the path above, Mona was slowly making her way down the slope toward her. Beyond Mona, Garret urged Celine onward. Both he and Corbbmacc stood on either side of her, grasping her arms and keeping her moving. Celine’s head was bowed, and her shoulders shook with silent sobs.
Emily stopped, her gaze flicking farther upward.
Standing on the peak, now far above, was Marianne. Her gossamer gown swirled about her in the wind, seeming more a thing of smoke than silk. She was staring down at them, her head bowed and her hands folded before her like a woman in prayer.
“One last chance,” Marianne said, though even from this distance, Emily could tell her lips were not moving with the words. “Come to me, Emily of the Haven. I extend the olive branch to you…for old time’s sake. After all, you were useful to me once, were you not?”
Of the Haven?
Emily’s feet started moving once again, and she tore her gaze away from the woman above her. Her heart thundered in her ears. She felt as though something enormous and frightening was hurtling toward her, and she would not be able to outrun it this time. There was something that felt horribly like truth in Marianne’s words.
She’s messing with your head, she thought. Don’t listen. Marianne had shown she could manipulate her mind at Seven Skies. She could not allow that to happen again.
“So be it,” Marianne sighed. “Remember that I gave you a choice. I’d say to remember it the next time the wheel comes round, but the worlds are one again, and the wheel is coming to rest at last.”
There was a cracking sound, and suddenly chunks of rock and loose dirt showered down on her from above. She gasped and choked on a mouthful of grit. Dust filled her eyes, and shards of broken stone stung her face.
She stumbled, coughing and wiping at her streaming eyes with one hand as she clung to the outcropping beside her with the other. The wind rose again, howling between the spires, and the sound made the stone vibrate beneath her palm like the body of some ancient and forgotten musical instrument.
She glanced up, trying to see what was happening through the blur of tears.
The rocky ground at Marianne’s feet had cracked apart. A jagged fissure spiraled outward from her, splitting the ancient stone and sending cascades of rock and soil down the mountainside. In its depths, Emily could see the lush, glistening green of vegetation as it stirred with unnatural life and reached out to the light.
She stared, transfixed, as vines like those that had guarded Michael crept from the stone and began making their way inexorably downward.
“What are you doing?” Mona demanded beside her, snapping Emily out of her trance. “I can’t get past you! Move!”
Reluctantly, Emily started moving again, her eyes on the swaying vines above. Garrett and Corbbmacc had seen them too, and they were desperately trying to get Celine to move faster.
Celine, though, was becoming increasingly hysteric
al as they moved, and with growing unease, Emily watched the foliage slither toward them like cobras scenting prey.
Marianne stepped, unhurried, onto the path, making her way with graceful ease along its narrow ledges. As she moved, she beckoned, and fresh flora crawled forth from the cracks and crevices of the cliff’s stone face, green leaves and stems snapping with eager anticipation. In their midst, white roses bloomed, turning their ravenous petals toward the feast to come. Thorns twitched, their sharp points glistening with moisture.
This time, when Emily stopped, the path was wide enough for Mona to step past her. Emily clutched the rock wall, watching in horror as Garrett and Corbbmacc grappled with Celine. She was fighting them blindly, and it was all they could do to keep all three of them from tumbling off the ledge.
Above their heads, Marianne’s familiars crept ever nearer. The sound of their leaves and thorns scraping against the hard, unyielding stone mingled with the whine of the wind to create a terrifying symphony. Somewhere, far away in the deepest recesses of her mind, recognition flared. She had heard that music before; she knew that song.
A man stepped onto the path behind Marianne. He was clad in chain mail and carried a bronze sword easily in one hand. Sunlight gleamed from its polished blade. Emblazoned on the shoulder of his armor was the guards’ insignia of the sword being broken over a boulder, and a sudden surge of conflicting emotions washed over Emily as she caught sight of his ravaged, familiar face. It was Marcom. His expression was grim, and he did not look at her. His gaze was trained on his feet as he made his way, with considerably more caution than Marianne, along the path.
A row of armed men appeared at the edge of the cliff behind him, holding longbows at the ready. For a moment, Emily wondered if one of them was Matthew. She hoped not, but she couldn’t see them clearly enough from here to be sure. One of them pulled an arrow from the quiver at his shoulder and nocked it. The others followed his lead, their eyes fixed on the chaos unfolding below them.
A piercing shriek tore through the air, and Emily’s gaze snapped back to Celine and the others. For one heart-stopping moment, ice filled her veins, and her mind seemed to go frighteningly blank as each and every detail of the image before her was etched into her memory.
A vine had wound itself around Celine’s wrist and was hauling her upward, lifting her off her feet, until she dangled against the stone wall like a gruesome pendulum. Garrett and Corbbmacc had their arms wrapped around her knees, making Celine the prize in a grotesque game of tug-of-war. Blood streamed down her arm where thorns tore at her flesh. Fat crimson drops fell from the wound, and as they splattered on the stone, fresh roses seemed to blossom from all around her, emerging from the cracks and crevices. Their petals unfurled as they strained toward the offering like hungry wolves.
Celine screamed again. The sound was strangely breathless, wrought with the threat of approaching insanity. It broke Emily’s paralysis.
She could almost feel the switch flip over somewhere deep inside her. Desperation and fear gave way with dizzying suddenness to fury, and adrenaline flooded through her veins. Its rush was accompanied with the liquid pleasure of the knowing. She welcomed it; she seized it.
As the howl of the wind was drowned by the whine in her head, Emily started to run back along the ledge. The knowing guided her feet on the path as she climbed upward, and the terror left her. Only a single coherent thought pounded in her mind: get to Celine.
As she ran, she heard the twang of bowstrings from above, and the air was suddenly filled with the ping and clatter of arrows as they rained down around her. Distantly, she heard someone cry out below her, but there was no time to check if anyone was hurt. There’d be time to find out later—or there wouldn’t. Either way, she could not afford to care just now.
A second barrage of arrows filled the air, and she felt the whoosh as one sped past her ear, missing her face by inches. Another struck the center of her chest, bouncing off the chain mail and clattering to the ledge at her feet.
She pushed past Garrett and Corbbmacc, hardly registering their cries of protest as her feet strayed dangerously close to the brink of the abyss. Though the ledges constantly narrowed and widened, she never lost her footing. She kept her eyes focused ahead of her, refusing to think about anything but what she needed to do.
She stepped up onto the next ledge and sprinted up its length. Already, fresh plants were springing up from between the stones, filling the crevices with more poisonous green. They snatched at her heels and clawed at her face with the sharp talons of their thorns. She could almost feel the hunger radiating off of them in waves.
She fell to her knees beside the snarl of vines that were fighting to pull Celine back up the mountainside and leaned out over the edge, looking down into Garrett’s and Corbbmacc’s frightened faces.
“Hold on to her!” she shouted at them and then drew her sword.
She hacked at the vines, wincing as a jolt ran up her shoulder each time her sword collided with the stone ledge. The vines were unnaturally strong, and it was all she could do to penetrate their tough hides.
As her sword came down again, brilliant pinpricks of pain erupted across her arm, and she cried out, startled. She nearly toppled from the ledge, scrambling for something to latch onto. With her free hand, she grabbed the only thing she could—the vine.
The pain in her arm vanished, obliterated by the agony of the razor-sharp thorns that plunged deep into the soft flesh of her palm. She cried out, but forced herself to hang on.
She felt the wet stickiness of the blood that ran between her fingers as she pulled herself away from the edge. Beneath her, velvety soft petals opened and edged nearer, seeming to blossom from the very rock. The air was full of their sweet fragrance, and Emily felt her burning temper rise. She was sick of this—sick of all of it. She had had enough of pain—enough of Marianne’s power that twisted beautiful things into hellish nightmares—enough of being frightened for her friends and for herself.
She glanced down at her arm and saw a series of small, shiny blisters scattered across her skin. What the hell…? But there was no time. No time. She shook her head and looked away.
She wiped the blood from her palm on her leg and return to hacking at the vine.
When her sword hit the ledge this time, she saw the bright sparks that flashed between the steel and stone, and suddenly understood.
The vine snapped where she’d hacked into it, and she heard Garrett’s cry of surprise over the high-pitched screeching that suddenly filled the air from the dying plant. She scrambled back over to the edge, leaned out over it, and looked down at the others.
Corbbmacc and Garrett were holding Celine’s limp form between them. She seemed to be unconscious, or perhaps she’d merely fainted. Wrapped around her arm was the brown, shriveled remains of the vine Emily had severed. Rascal had flown back up to them and was now perched at Celine’s feet, mewing piteously amidst a bouquet of rustling roses.
“Go!” she shouted down at them. “Get her out of here!”
The sight of the brown and dying vine had triggered a memory, and the image of the dungeon beneath Marianne’s tower at Seven Skies filled Emily’s mind. She heard the bat-like screech of the dying plants; she smelled the sweet perfume of jasmine; and she saw the tiny flame of Celine’s candle as she touched it to the withering leaves.
She studied the mutilated vine before her. It twitched and snapped, a yellowish puss-like substance dripping from its end. Could she do it? Could she actually do it?
She glanced up the side of the mountain. Marianne and Marcom were still far above her, but they were coming fast. Would she have time enough to do it? That was, perhaps, the more pressing question.
There was a thud as something struck her left shoulder. Perplexed, she looked down—and then the pain hit her like a tidal wave.
The blue feathers of an arrow protruded from her shoulder. Blood was blossoming from around its shaft, and the agony was enormous. It seemed to slice down her
entire left side. Muscles in her arm spasmed involuntarily.
She dropped her sword to the ledge beside her and reached for the arrow, intending to pull it out, when Marcom’s voice came to her, speaking through a film of pain and memory.
“If you’re shot,” he’d said during one of their handful of lessons that seemed so long ago now, “don’t pull out the arrow. It’s going to hurt like a bitch in heat, but if you pull it out, you’re as likely to bleed to death as not. Break it off and keep fighting, and have someone else take out the head after the battle if you’ve still got your life. Mind, if you’re in bad enough shape to have gotten yourself shot in the first place, that ain’t all that likely.”
Gritting her teeth, she leaned against the rock wall beside her, using it as leverage against the feathered end of the arrow, and snapped it in two.
The arrowhead dug deeper into the muscle, and she screamed with the pain of it. Gray mist started to close in around her again.
No! she screamed inside her head. I will not faint, goddammit! I will not!
She blinked, and the grayness faded. Tears streamed down her face, but she hardly noticed.
With fierce determination, she snatched the vine up from where it writhed, still in the throes of its agony, and began hacking it to pieces.
More arrows rained down around her, but she ignored them. They would either hit her or they wouldn’t. She could only do what she could.
Four…five…six strikes of the blade, and a long coil of vine was severed.
She did it again, separating long sections of it and piling them up on the ledge before her.
Tendrils closed around her ankles and snatched at her arms. Fresh pain made its presence known as thorns punctured the flesh of her calves and scraped skin from her thighs. She paid them no heed.
“A tantrum? You will simply hack my pets to bits? I thought better of you, child.”
Emily ignored the taunt. All of her strength was focused on her task, willing herself to keep moving despite the pain.
She paused, looking down to find that she had four long brown fragments of vine before her. It would have to do.
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