The One and Only Crystal Druid (The Guild Codex: Unveiled Book 1)

by Annette Marie

  The Dullahan’s steed threw its head back, hooves stamping as it snorted. The gray smoke thickened, obscuring its form, and Zak grabbed my arm as he shoved to his feet. I staggered up beside him.

  The black equine leaped through the coiling smoke, eyes rolling and mouth gaping.

  Zak threw me clear as the horse rammed him, knocking him down. I fell, rolled, and scrambled up on shaky legs. Zak had staggered up too, one of the crystal artifacts on his chest glowing. His hand lit with a golden glow as he cast his whip spell at the horse’s face. The equine reared, front hooves kicking out.

  He couldn’t fight the Dullahan, so he was attacking the fae’s mount—but that wouldn’t protect him for long.

  Whirling on my heel, I sprinted toward Laney.

  She yanked something from her boot and lunged to her feet. An eight-inch utility knife flashed, her fingers clutching its handle. I pulled out my switchblade and pressed the trigger. Four inches of steel popped out with a click. Behind me, the Dullahan’s steed screamed furiously, its hooves thudding against the ground.

  I didn’t wait for Laney to posture, to threaten, to brace for attack. I rushed in, silent and determined.

  Fear widened her eyes, and she slashed clumsily. I caught her wrist with one hand, and with the other, I thrust my short blade down into the top of her thigh. She screamed as her leg buckled. I shoved her down, rammed my knee into her sternum, and twisted her knife out of her hand. Flinging it away, I pressed my knife to her ribs.

  Tears of agony streamed down her contorted face. “Just kill me already.”

  “I’m not going to kill you.” Keeping my knife on her, I grabbed the tangled chains on her chest and yanked them over her head. “And I didn’t kill Arla either.”

  Druid.

  The weight of the Dullahan’s voice slammed down, almost driving me into the ground.

  Give me your name.

  I shoved off Laney, stumbling weakly, my legs threatening to buckle. Gold chains in hand, I left the witch where she lay and ran toward the shadow-enshrouded Dullahan and his mount, Zak somewhere beyond them. I couldn’t see the glow of his whip spell.

  Druid, give me your—

  “I know his name!”

  Laney’s crazed shout rang out, ten yards behind me, and my running steps faltered. I spun, halfway between her and the Dullahan.

  As she pushed up onto her knees, bitter triumph and stark anguish competed in her expression. “That man is Zakariya An—”

  Her eyes widened, that blend of triumph and guilt frozen on her face—triumph that she would extinguish the life I was trying to protect, guilt that she’d failed to protect her mother’s life.

  She blinked slowly. Her hand lifted, fingers fluttering around the handle of my switchblade, embedded in her throat. Blood bubbled around the wound. She sagged backward, sitting on her heels.

  I lowered my arm, still able to feel the blade leaving my hand. Still seeing it flash, spinning end over end in a perfect arc, before striking her throat.

  She collapsed onto her front, limbs jerking. Awful wheezes and gargles filled the otherwise silent woods.

  I turned away from her. The Dullahan, atop his huge mount, watched the woman with his invisible gaze. Air rushed around us with the creature’s slow inhalation, as though he were savoring the welcome arrival of death.

  Behind the black steed’s long legs, Zak was on his knees, a hand pressed to his head and his shoulders heaving. I peeled a long chain from the tangle I’d taken from Laney and crumpled it into a ball.

  The Dullahan’s hood turned as he refocused on his preferred victim. Druid, Zakariya—

  Zak went rigid, the creature’s call hitting even harder now that he knew part of his name.

  —give me your—

  “Here!” With my shout, I flung the necklace beneath the horse. It landed on Zak’s knees.

  I dropped two more chains over my neck, and clutching the last one, I dove toward the glint of steel on the ground—Laney’s knife. Snatching the handle, I ran toward the Dullahan as I wrapped the gold chain around the blade. The horse’s head swung my way.

  Feet flying across the mossy ground, I leaped at the black horse. My grasping fingers caught a handful of the ragged fabric hanging from the Dullahan’s thin body, and I hauled myself up as the horse skittered away.

  My arm drew back. Swung down.

  I drove the gold-wrapped knife into his chest. It plunged in as though sinking into hard clay instead of flesh.

  Then clawed fingers closed around my throat.

  At the touch of the Dullahan’s hand, I had a moment, just a moment, to realize how utterly stupid I’d been to think a mortal weapon could harm this being. How utterly stupid I’d been to think I could survive him when so many had perished, when even powerful fae fled his presence.

  Because the moment he touched me, the full force of his soul-rending power deluged me. My limbs seized. My heart stopped—literally stopped, succumbing to the storm raging through my body and spirit. The icy weight of gold around my neck disappeared. Nothing could protect me with the creature’s touch on my skin.

  This was how Jason had died. This was why his locket hadn’t saved him.

  Give me your life, Saber Rose Orie—

  Zak lunged up on the Dullahan’s other side, grabbing the horse’s mane for leverage, and looped the gold chain I’d thrown him over the creature’s hooded head.

  The Dullahan’s arm snapped toward him, impossibly fast—but he didn’t grab Zak by the throat.

  His black-clawed fingers plunged into the druid’s chest, disappearing inside his body. Holding me by the throat and Zak by the chest, the Dullahan lifted the druid close to his shrouded face as he inhaled. The mind-crushing pressure of his power shifted to the druid.

  If you will not give me your heart, then I will take it.

  In my blurred vision, I glimpsed a line of gold glinting against dark fabric. My limbs trembled. I was weak—but I’d always been weak. I was defeated—but I never gave up.

  I grabbed the chain Zak had dropped around the Dullahan’s neck and pulled. The gold links snapped taut, and for an instant, nothing happened—then the chain slid.

  Slid like a wire cutting through clay.

  Slid right through the Dullahan’s neck.

  The resistance on the chain disappeared and I fell, landing hard on my back, the gold chain clutched in my numb, quaking hands. A thud sounded as Zak hit the ground on the horse’s other side.

  The Dullahan sat atop his unmoving steed, a dark figure with no head. The horse’s ears were flattened, its fiery orange eyes rolling, its legs straight and stiff.

  Air rushed through the clearing. The Dullahan inhaling.

  But he had no head. No face. No mouth.

  He inhaled—then he howled.

  The bellowing cry slammed me down as the creature’s power exploded out of him in a wild, uncontrolled tidal wave. The mists of the crossroads writhed, the semi-transparent trees rippling, the vines and their flowers withering and dying.

  A dark shape plunged out of the dark, misty sky.

  Black wings spread wide, Lallakai plummeted—a beautiful woman with streaming black hair and the phantom wings of her eagle form. A blade of black power arched from her hands, and as she met the headless Dullahan, she drove it through the creature’s chest.

  Her momentum hurled the Dullahan off his mount, and together they crashed to the ground. The black horse leaped away, galloping into the mists.

  Lallakai pinned the Dullahan to the ground with her blade. Black flames raged around the two fae—two wielders of shadows and darkness. She drove it deeper into him, and his clawed hands twitched and jerked toward her weapon. Her emerald eyes blazed brighter, and the twisting darkness around them swirled into a tight maelstrom, sucking into her black sword.

  The Dullahan convulsed, then sagged—and sagged more, his black robes sinking to the ground as the Night Eagle’s power devoured his body, his very essence. The spinning darkness faded. Lallakai
pulled her weapon from the ground and straightened, her wings arching off her back. The Dullahan’s dark garments were empty, the ragged fabric pooled on the moss.

  The headless horseman was gone.

  I slowly pushed into a sitting position. A few yards away, Zak lay on his back, his chest heaving with rough breaths and one hand gripping the front of his shirt where the Dullahan had sunk his hand into him.

  His shirt wasn’t torn. No blood. Though the creature had held him off the ground with his phantom grip, he hadn’t damaged Zak’s flesh.

  Fae magic was terrifying.

  Lallakai opened her hand. Her shadow blade faded away like dark smoke, and her phantom wings furled against her back and melted into nothing. She turned, studying her gasping druid, then looked at me, her beautiful face unreadable.

  With a rough cough, Zak pushed onto his elbows, then sat up as though so exhausted he could barely manage that small movement. His weary green eyes lifted to mine. I could see the questions in his gaze—why had I come back to warn him, why had I tried so hard to save him, why had I killed a woman to protect him?

  I stared back at him, too tired to answer his unspoken queries.

  Especially since I had no answers.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  With a boisterous neigh, Whicker cantered the length of the paddock. Prancing and blowing excitedly, the big gray swerved toward me. He lipped at the strange object I wore—a white sling holding my left arm—and I patted his neck reassuringly. He trotted off again, delighted to stretch his legs after so much time in a stall.

  It was strange to be back at the rescue.

  I hadn’t planned to return, not with an MPD ambush waiting for me, but on our way down the mountain, Zak’s phone had gone off. He’d checked his messages, tapped out a reply, then informed me I was clear to go home.

  He’d refused to explain how he knew that, but I’d gone along with it anyway. After all, had there been agents waiting, I would’ve made sure they arrested the notorious Crystal Druid instead of me. Lucky for the both of us, there’d been no sign of agents or bounty hunters on our return.

  But it was still strange that the MPD had suddenly backed off, and I didn’t trust it. I didn’t feel safe. I couldn’t relax.

  Leaning against the paddock fence, I lifted my gaze to Mount Burke, its rounded peak hazed with clouds stained pink by the setting sun in the west. Almost forty-eight hours had passed since we’d killed the Dullahan at the crossroads.

  Forty-eight hours since I’d killed Laney.

  As Whicker frolicked around the paddock, I wondered, for the thousandth time, what was wrong with me. Why I made such self-destructive decisions. Why I seemed so determined to ruin my life.

  Instead of leaving Zak, whom I hated, whom I wanted dead, to fend for himself against the Dullahan, I’d gone after him. Instead of escaping while the Dullahan was focused on him, I’d tried to help. And instead of letting Laney call out his name, I’d killed her.

  Before we’d left the crossroads, I’d located Balligor’s pond and thrown my switchblade and Laney’s knife into its murky waters, but I knew disposing of the murder weapon wouldn’t be enough. I was already the prime suspect in Arla’s murder, and most of my coven had witnessed my and Laney’s confrontation at her house.

  Now Laney was missing. It was only a matter of time before I became the prime suspect in her disappearance.

  I’d already packed my things. At the first sign of the MPD’s return, I would flee into the wilderness and disappear. I should’ve already run for it, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave. This was the only place that’d felt like home since my parents’ death. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing it.

  Especially now, mere days after recovering my missing memories. I was still raw, still bleeding inside. I’d never forgotten that I’d killed my aunt, but reliving the whole thing—the building hope, the crushing failure, the soul-tearing betrayal, my violent retaliation …

  Lost in the past, I was still staring at the clouds, now dark and dusky, when Whicker walked over to nose at my pockets. Shaking myself, I clipped a lead line to his halter and led him back into the stable, his hooves clopping on the concrete aisle. I settled him in his stall, checked on Whinny and the other horses, then locked up.

  The weather was still humid, though not as unbearably hot as it’d been two days ago. I breathed in the scents of night, squinting toward the glowing lights of the house as I debated.

  I am hurt, dove.

  “You’re fine,” I replied without looking away from the house.

  I am most wounded.

  “You’re fine.”

  With a flash of white fur, a blue-eyed cat leaped onto the mounting block beside me. I nearly perished, yet you can’t trouble yourself to ask after my wellbeing even once.

  I shot Ríkr a withering look. “I asked plenty yesterday, and all you did was complain that I was smothering you. Weren’t you the one saying how you’re a fast healer and you’d be fine with a day of sleep?”

  He slanted his ears sideways. My assurances should comfort your concern, not erase all worry.

  “Oh really.” I waved at his unblemished fur with my good hand. “And the fact you look perfectly healthy again also shouldn’t erase my worry?”

  Hmph. He jumped off the wooden block, his tail lashing. Such a cold heart.

  “Don’t pretend that isn’t your favorite thing about me.”

  I do adore your viciousness. Never change, my lovely dove.

  I turned away from the welcome lights of the house. “Not planning to.”

  Aside from a single visit to my apartment to grab a few changes of clothes and pack my getaway bag, I’d been sleeping in the house since returning from the crossroads. Zak was in my suite, and wherever he was, I didn’t want to be.

  Seeing him would mean confronting him about our past and his betrayal ten years ago. Despite my claim that I wanted an explanation, part of me wanted to just stick a knife in him and be done with it.

  I strode toward the stable’s rear door. Ríkr watched me go but wisely didn’t follow.

  Pushing the door open, I started up the stairs, my senses stretching ahead of me. I knew Zak was there. Ríkr was right that the druid’s energy spread out from him like a slowly expanding wave, claiming more and more land the longer he stayed in one place.

  It set my teeth on edge, his essence suffusing my home. At least I couldn’t sense the sharper buzz of Lallakai’s power; she’d been guarding him closely since returning from the crossroads, but she must be off somewhere else right now.

  I stopped at the suite door, my good hand drifting toward my pocket—but my trusty switchblade was gone. I was unarmed, and I hated that too.

  I hated everything about this.

  Jaw clenched, I threw the door open and swept inside. The main room looked more or less untouched except for the blankets folded on the sofa, a pillow stacked neatly on top. My bedroom door was shut, as I’d left it, but the bathroom door was open, light spilling out into the dimly lit main room.

  At the thump of the door shutting behind me, Zak stepped into the bathroom’s open threshold. Black jeans hugged his legs and clung to his lean hips. He wore no shirt, leaving the sculpted muscles of his torso on display. Strips of white gauze were taped to his lightly tanned skin.

  His hair was damp from a recent shower, his jaw clean-shaven and his green eyes sharp as they met mine from across the room.

  I glanced from the bandages—around his left bicep and right forearm, over his right side just below his ribs, and a square on his left pectoral—to the roll of medical tape he held. I didn’t remember the Dullahan injuring him like that.

  A brief memory replayed in my head: a crazed scream erupting from my throat as I lunged for him with my knife.

  Right. I’d injured him like that. Those were knife wounds.

  I raised my chin, daring him to look for nonexistent guilt in my expression or body language. I didn’t feel guilt. He’d deserved that and more.r />
  My gaze moved over his face. The sight of him, the understanding of who he was, ignited the fires of hatred, regret, and self-loathing from that night ten years ago. His betrayal tore at me, as fresh as if just yesterday he’d walked away from our promise, leaving me beaten and broken in the rain.

  He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb. “You’re back.”

  “I didn’t go far,” I replied, my voice husky with the emotions I was battling.

  “I know. I saw you.” He waved toward the window overlooking the pasture, then turned his attention to my sling. “How’s your shoulder?”

  Answering him calmly, casually, was almost impossible, but I forced the words out. “Cracked collarbone. When are you leaving?”

  “I need to collect the fae favors owed to me. After that …”

  “After that, you’ll leave and never come back.”

  He pushed off the doorframe and stepped into the main room. “Will I?”

  “You will,” I snarled. “Or I’ll gut you and feed your entrails to your own vargs.”

  “Really.” He was advancing toward me with slow steps, a jaguar stalking his quarry. “Do you want me dead? Or do you just want to hurt me?”

  “Both. Pain, then death.”

  He drew closer, too close, but I had no way to stop his approach.

  “I find that hard to believe,” he rumbled.

  “Did you already forget who gave you those wounds?”

  “You did … but they weren’t even close to lethal.” His broad shoulders filled my vision, and my traitorous feet stepped backward. “Shortly after you knifed me, you risked your life to save me.”

  I stepped back again and my back hit the door.

  “Strange thing for someone who wants me dead to do, don’t you think?” He stopped, barely a foot of space between us, his stare pinning me. “Why did you save me?”

  My heart drummed behind my ribs, my innards churning, sharp edges grinding. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to make him bleed.

  But what I most wanted was for him to speak the words that would repair the broken pieces inside me. The words that would fix all the ways he’d shattered me. The words that would let me lay my past to rest forever.