The Druid's Guise: The Complete Trilogy (The Druid's Guise Trilogy)

by Michael J Sanford

  The braided one shook his head. “No. Instead, why don’t I tell you why the Lord Regent sent me here to wait for you, destined for this moment?”

  “I don’t care—”

  “I know what you are,” the braided one quickly interjected.

  Wyatt faltered, thrown off by the Regent’s cavalier attitude. The younger one still seemed uncertain of the situation, but the other…he had just witnessed Wyatt dispatch his brethren with a simple thought and yet he stood defiant before him now. Taunting him. A growl rolled deep in Wyatt’s throat.

  “I’m a Druid,” Wyatt barked. “I’m the Druid.”

  The braided one shook his head again, almost lazily. “No. Well, yes, I suppose you were that. For a time. But that’s not what you are now.” He thrust a sword at Wyatt, drawing an invisible line to his chest. The braided one nodded once.

  Wyatt hazarded a glance at his chest. The gem that was his power pulsed with energy, a swirl of rich green and impenetrable black. The roots that lashed it to his flesh were blackened as well, and a spider web of darkened veins showed through Wyatt’s pale skin.

  “Don’t act like you know anything about me,” Wyatt hissed. He took a single step forward, unable to stop himself. It was beginning to look like he wouldn’t find the answers he sought. He’d have to settle for consuming two more Regents.

  “You see, Druid, my companions were chosen for this task to act as protection. One could even say bait.” The younger one flinched at that. “But I was selected because I possess a certain knowledge gained through extensive study of your kind.”

  Wyatt took another step and swiped at the air between them with his dagger. “I am the only Druid.”

  “Oh, I’ve not conducted any studies on the Druids,” the braided one continued. “But you I know quite a bit about.”

  “You know nothing about—”

  “The Fallen?” the braided one said, capping off Wyatt’s statement in a way that froze the blood in his veins.

  Wyatt took a step back and looked down at his chest again. The black and green swirled and pulsed as if the gem had a life of its own. He could sense it craving the Regents’ life energy—or whatever it was that he consumed when he unleashed his power. But it wasn’t separate from him. It wasn’t a weapon or a tool. It was him. I’m the one with the power.

  “I am not a Fallen. I’ve seen those creatures and I am nothing like them. I am Wyatt the Mighty, a Druid of destiny and great power.”

  “He sure does like to boast,” the younger one said. His eyes no longer danced to the crumbled ash of the dead Regent and his stance told Wyatt he no longer feared him.

  The braided one looked on, unamused and undeterred. “Perhaps not yet. At least not fully, but trust me, great Druid, it will not be long before it consumes you.”

  “And what do you care if it does? I will still destroy you,” Wyatt shouted.

  The braided one spun his silver swords around and slammed them into the ground. He stretched out all four of his arms, palms empty. “Then let us begin.”

  Wyatt didn’t need permission. He lunged for the braided one, hands twisted into claws, his mind already yearning to reach the Regent’s energy. But before he could close the gap, the younger one stepped in and swung both his swords in a wide crosscut.

  Wyatt dove to the side, narrowly keeping his head. He hit the ground hard, rolled, and rose into a crouch, eyes wild and searching. He narrowed his focus on the younger Regent. He will fall first, Wyatt decided, then the one with the arrogant mouth.

  The younger Regent lunged, thrusting with one blade and sweeping upward with the other. Wyatt leapt backward, kept his footing, and when the swords had passed him, dove headfirst toward his target. Wyatt barely covered the distance between them, landing hard on his chest. The gem sparked with power and shot sharp pain through his ribs on impact, but Wyatt shuttled it away, reaching out his hand for the Regent’s leg.

  The Regent took a step away and brought his swords back under control, but it was too late. Wyatt’s fingers were curled around the Regent’s thick ankle. Power shot through him as his mind’s eye found the strand of vibrant life and pulled.

  The Regent let out a howl of pain and fell backwards, breaking free of Wyatt’s hold, and landing with a dull thump. Wyatt’s vision centered as the tether was broken and he grinned at the sight of the Regent writhing on the ground, the bottom half of his leg gone.

  Wyatt slowly stood, savoring the image as the crippled Regent pushed himself up with his swords. The towering figure managed to stand, using each sword as a crutch. Sweat ran down his previously flawless face and traced paths down his naked chest.

  “You were right to fear me, before,” Wyatt taunted, circling slowly around the Regent.

  The Regent spun in place as best he could, in order to continue facing the strafing Druid. “I do not fear you, Druid. Not before and not now. I know my place and I know my destiny.”

  Wyatt frowned. It wasn’t the response he was looking for. As much as he craved the Regent’s life force, he too craved the creature’s fear. Wyatt gnashed his teeth like a feral beast, spraying the air with his spittle. Part of him knew how mad he must have appeared in that moment, but the larger whole didn’t care.

  The Regent didn’t try to bolster any sort of reaction as Wyatt ran at him. Even crippled and stooped, the Regent overshadowed Wyatt by more than two feet. Wyatt wanted to latch onto the giant’s neck, but had to settle for digging his fingers into the creature’s toned midsection.

  Wyatt craned his neck to lock eyes with the Regent, wishing again to see fear in the blue eyes. Instead, he looked upon a face of serenity; eyes closed, face impassive. Even as Wyatt lapped up the remainder of the Regent’s life, he remained stoically defiant. Wyatt watched as the still face twisted and contorted, rotting in mere moments. In the span of a heartbeat, it was done.

  Wyatt released his power and let the remains fall like ashen snow. He looked for the braided one, his power already forcing his body to movement. His mind was sharp and quick, honed to an edge to would shame even Rozen.

  The braided Regent stood a few paces away, holding the bound elf to his chest. The sputtering fire occupied the middle ground between Wyatt and his last foe.

  “Coward,” Wyatt bellowed. His hands curled and uncurled. He no longer held Rozen’s dagger, though he had no idea where it had gone.

  “Oh, but you have such great power, Druid,” the Regent said. “I would be a fool not to fear you.”

  Wyatt felt his body twitch and he nearly leapt across the fire, but the elf in the Regent’s grasp squirmed violently and let out a muted cry. Wyatt looked to the elf for the first time, truly seeing the captive for who she was.

  “D’raethe?” he said, recognizing the slight girl that had alerted the Coven of the Fae’s trickery. “But how? You’re the Unseen.”

  The Regent laughed and shook D’raethe as if she weighed nothing. “Nothing is beyond the Regency’s touch,” he said. “Not a small elf. Not a human girl with unnaturally red hair. And not a Druid.”

  Wyatt spat into the fire, feeling more animal than man. “Let her go.”

  “Well, if that is what you command, oh mighty one.”

  Tired of the Regent’s sarcastic insolence, Wyatt made to charge at him. He could clear the fire in one jump and be on him in the next. But before he completed the first step, the Regent released D’raethe and shoved her forward. Bounded and gagged, the young elf fell face first into the fire, immediately setting to violent thrashing.

  Wyatt was already in motion and he continued his trajectory, only changing his goal. He slid on his knees at the edge of the fire and set his mind to the growing flames. In the Coven’s forest city, he had not even needed to make contact with the fire in order to consume it. And that had been a veritable inferno. Child’s play, Wyatt thought as he reached out with his power. He saw two lives beautifully intertwined; that of the quickly dying elf and the other of the elemental force of fire.

  He knew he had
only moments to save D’raethe, and he quickly sought out the thread that fueled the fire’s life. He absorbed it with little conscious effort. It rushed into his body and the flames vanished, the fire rendered to a pile of cinder.

  Wyatt took a brief moment to savor the victory and newly acquired energy. But as he turned his senses to locate the Regent, a violent charge of energy erupted from his chest, immobilizing him. Shockwaves rippled from the embedded gemstone and drove him forward without his conscious desire.

  Limbs acting of their own accord, Wyatt crawled into the warm ash, hands groping for the elf that moaned at the center. Another magical charge brought his hands to D’raethe’s body, one pressed into her back, the other on her head. She was so small. So fragile.

  Nearby, Wyatt could hear the thick laughter of the braided Regent, but each passing moment made the sound seem further away, as if it was nothing but an echo within Wyatt’s own skull. His heartbeat thrummed as well, each panicked beat sending forth tendrils of power from the hungry gemstone in his chest.

  D’raethe tried to resist, but she was restrained and badly burned, and had little fight to offer. It made no matter, Wyatt had already found her life force. It appeared as a web of slowly dimming color, dancing provocatively in Wyatt’s mind.

  Wyatt pushed back against the desire that sang from his gemstone, seeking to send life into the elf, but the hungry machinations of his newly formed dark power were far too strong. Like the fires, Wyatt snuffed out D’raethe’s life in a single breath, bolstering his own life even as the young elf convulsed a final time before joining the ash around them.

  With the act completed, the dark energy released Wyatt and he fell back, his mortal senses returning in the same moment. He rolled and clawed his way from what he had done and when he had reached the untouched grass of the greater plains, he vomited.

  He collapsed into the grass, falling in such a way that he could look back onto the small campsite. He wanted to turn away, but found he couldn’t.

  The braided Regent walked around the fallow fire pit and approached Wyatt. Close enough that Wyatt could smell the giant’s musk, the Regent knelt, completely filling Wyatt’s field of vision. Wyatt still found himself unable to move.

  The Regent smiled, placed a hand on Wyatt’s shoulder and said, “Ah, there you are. Wyatt the Mighty no more, for you are now Wyatt the Fallen. May you be a scourge upon the Realms.”

  Wyatt could only watch in his stupor as the Regent stood, brushed off his red silk pants, and walked away. Unable to even think, Wyatt stared straight ahead as the Regent crossed the campsite, entered the long grass, and continued until he eventually vanished from view.

  With great effort, Wyatt curled upon himself and brought his gaze to the wicked stone nestled in his ribs. Though night had well and truly descended on the quiet plains, the moons were light enough to see that the source of Wyatt’s power, once a vibrant emerald, was now almost entirely black.

  Chapter Forty-One

  IT WAS STILL dark when Wyatt awoke, but the ache in his joints betrayed that it was not the same night as when he’d fallen asleep. For a long while he stayed in place, still facing the ruined campsite. There was little but trampled grass and scattered ash to see, but Wyatt knew what had been. He remembered what he had done.

  Eventually, he found some semblance of control and staggered to his feet. He walked to the fire pit and lowered himself to his knees.

  “Why?” he asked the ash.

  He looked down at himself and saw that the blackened veins had invaded his uppers arms and were beginning to show through the skin of both forearms. Only the faintest hint of emerald remained in the very center of the gemstone. A fragment of hope, perhaps? Wyatt shook his head.

  “I am not Fallen,” he muttered.

  The gem pulsed and Wyatt felt a subtle wave of energy release from it. A new whisper, not unlike what he had come to know as the Mother, danced through his mind. It called for life, stirring the dark hunger that had slain Fae’Herot, the Regents, and two innocent elves.

  Wyatt tensed every muscle in his body. “No, I won’t,” he said.

  The gem seemed to take exception to Wyatt’s resistance, and a jolt sent him sprawling as if he’d been struck by lightning. He clawed at the grass and forced himself to his knees, hands clutching at the gemstone. It had once brought him great power and he thought it would be enough to save all that had counted on him. But it wasn’t. Still they were lost or killed. He looked again to where the elf had been slain. Some at my hand…

  “I don’t want this anymore,” he shouted to the heavens.

  He dug his fingers into his flesh, seeking to wrench the gemstone from his body. He had been wrong. It was not enough and now his power was turning against him, controlling him, and destroying all he held dear.

  “If it hadn’t been for you,” he said through clenched teeth. “Rozen wouldn’t have been taken, the others wouldn’t have been killed, Athena wouldn’t have left, and I wouldn’t be alone.”

  The gem responded with a blast of heat, searing his prying fingers and forcing him to pull them back. His body seized under the pain and he watched as the skin around the embedded vines blistered and began to smoke.

  Sweat broke across his brows and mixed with his tears where they both slid down his neck to evaporate from his chest in small puffs of steam.

  It was killing him, he realized. Because he wanted to resist it. Because he didn’t want to be Fallen, it had turned against him. What have I done?

  “Mother,” he pleaded between sobs. “Help me.”

  Movement stirred in the nearby shadows and a figure grew from them, coalescing into a vaguely humanoid shape. Wyatt fell back, forgetting the painful heat radiating from the gem.

  “The Bad Man,” Wyatt breathed, too stunned to think of anything but the name Julia had given the creature.

  The Bad Man rolled its shadowy head and stepped toward Wyatt. It knelt at the edge of the fire pit and ran spectral fingers through the ash. Wyatt tried to rise, but the gem renewed its effort, turning his legs to jelly. He could smell his own burning flesh. Each breath was more difficult than the last.

  “You’ve been a bad boy,” the Bad Man said, turning to regard Wyatt with unseen eyes.

  “Mother,” Wyatt gasped again.

  “She can’t help you. Not after all you’ve done. Tell me Wyatt, are you tired of failing?”

  “Go away,” he managed to say. Despite the pain and desperation of his situation, he knew how weak it sounded.

  “I can help you,” the Bad Man said, still crouched a few paces away, fingers playing in the ash.

  “I don’t…want your—” A coughing fit seized him, choking out any further words.

  “I can take it from you,” the Bad Man said, rising. It took a couple of slow steps toward Wyatt until it loomed over him.

  Wyatt tried to speak, but no words would come. He tried to move, but his body was no longer his to command. And the gem continued to consume him from the inside out. He knew it would destroy him, sensing its motivation as if it were his own. Had it been controlling him the entire time?

  The Bad Man reached for Wyatt’s chest. Its shadowy fingers passed into Wyatt’s flesh and he could feel them curl around the gem. The pain subsided and breath rushed back into Wyatt’s lungs. A bolt of fear and panic struck him, but he knew it wasn’t his own—though he was trembling—it was the gem’s.

  “I can take this from you,” the Bad Man said again.

  “Get. Away from. Me,” Wyatt stammered.

  The Bad Man didn’t move. “Do you want to continue on like this? Hurting everyone you come across. You’re a failure, Wyatt, but I am offering absolution. Take it.”

  Wyatt shook his head and pushed at the ground, but he couldn’t move with the Bad Man holding onto him. He grabbed at the arm protruding from his chest, but it was no more solid than the air.

  “Remember Rozen,” the Bad Man whispered. “Remember Mareck and Gareck, and Grenleck, and all those in Ouranos
that you killed. Murdered. And what of Athena? You can’t help her like this. Just like you couldn’t help your grandmother. Just like you couldn’t help—”

  “Don’t,” Wyatt said.

  The sinister smile of absence split the Bad Man’s face in two. “It was your fault, just like everything else.”

  “No!”

  The Bad Man shook Wyatt as if he weighed nothing. “How many more will you let down, Wyatt? Athena? Maia? Julia? How many more will die?”

  “I just wanted to help,” he said between sobs. “I wanted to save them. To be a hero. I didn’t want to hurt anyone!”

  “And I can help you,” the Bad Man said, nearly whispering. “You don’t need this power. It’s corrupting you. Let me take it from you.”

  Wyatt knew he couldn’t trust the creature of secrets and shadow, but he also knew that the words it spoke were true. It was his fault. All of it. And just a moment before the Bad Man had appeared, Wyatt had been seeking to free himself from the magic’s hold. Was this his destiny as well? Except for that fleeting moment between realms, Wyatt had never even entertained the idea of giving up his power. If he didn’t take this chance would he ever receive another?

  “Okay,” Wyatt blurted. “Do it!”

  The Bad Man leaned in close and ran his free hand down Wyatt’s tear-stained cheek. He shivered at the cold touch.

  “I release you,” the Bad Man said softly.

  The ethereal creature pulled back and Wyatt felt the magic he had grown so accustomed to being torn from the very fabric of his soul. A bright flash erupted, blinding Wyatt, followed by a sound like thunder.

  He could feel the world closing in on him, collapsing upon his senses. Then that, too, vanished, and all he could hear was laughter. It grew into an echoing cacophony, assaulting him from every direction.

  Chapter Forty-Two