Chapter 4 #2
“I think, possibly, because we’re living inside a spell right now, that when we’re not occupying the space, it’s going to revert to Giles’s more powerful magic.”
He huffed out a breath. “As I said before, I hate all magic but yours.”
“But you shouldn’t,” I soothed him. “It’s always all around you.”
“Doesn’t it make you angry that you can’t fight him?”
“I use my magic for healing and defense, you know that. I revere nature, as I was taught, and that works best for me, for you, for our family and friends, and for Corvus.”
“I know,” he said, giving me a squeeze.
“I don’t think Giles does that. There’s no restoration in the magic he practices.”
“I get it, I… If this was the middle of summer, Corvus would be vigilant, and Giles Corey would be miles underground.”
“Perhaps…or not. He’s a Corey as well, and if he wanted to claim Corvus and be the guardian, it’s possible the land would recognize him.”
He shook his head. “You never give yourself enough credit. You’re the only one we want—me, your friends, and Corvus.”
“Well, certainly you and my friends. Corvus, at the moment, just wants to remain undisturbed for another two months.”
“Until Imbolc.”
“Yes, that’s right. Very good.”
He rolled his eyes, making me chuckle.
“Okay, so in this archaic version of our home, is there even a bathroom?”
“Yes, dear, it’s in the same place. But you’re going to have to mix the water from the hearth with what you pump into the tub.”
“Okay, I can do—”
“That’s going to take time, and we need answers more than I need to be clean. Let me put my clothes back on so we can go talk to Giles.”
After checking my shoulder, amazed there wasn’t even a scar to mark the injury, he helped me get dressed, and visibly shaken that my T-shirt, sweater, and coat were all covered in blood, he eased me into his arms and held me close.
“You need to eat and rest.”
“Mostly rest, but I’ll be all right. Let’s go back outside.”
When we were once again breathing in the arctic air, he darted around the side of the house and returned with the iron axe that in our time was still used to chop firewood.
“What are you doing with that?”
“I refuse to be unarmed going forward.”
“Okay,” I murmured, and had to lean on him. It was slow going through the icy snow that was up to my knees. And even though I was healed, I had still lost more than a bit of blood, so I was not as strong as I normally was.
“Oh look, more tricks,” he muttered.
Lifting my head, I saw there were now two Giles Coreys buried up to their heads, no longer one man and one wolf.
“I don’t want you to—I feel like Corvus has got them, and that leaving them there to freeze to death is not a bad idea.”
“Lorne, you’re a guardian, a knight. You could never let people die.”
“But those aren’t people. Those are…other. I think we should just go back to my brother’s house.”
“I doubt we can. I don’t think we’re in the right time for the house to be there, and even if it was, there’s no way we could walk that far.”
“You know, in your grandfather’s diary he wrote that there was no one in your family, not one, who had a kind word for Giles Corey. I mean, we get it now, right?”
I smiled at him.
“What?” he rumbled.
“Even now, with all this, you’re okay.”
“I have to be. I’m your rock, aren’t I?”
“You certainly are,” I said with a long sigh.
He kissed my forehead, passed me the axe, and then bent, whipped my legs out from under me, and carried me to the two Gileses. Gingerly, he put me on my feet, took the axe from me, and charged forward. Both men screamed at the same time, the former wolf not quite as loud as the other.
“What are you doing?” I yelled at the man I loved.
“I’m going to put this axe through one of these assholes’ heads and see who is Giles Corey and who is not.”
“It’s me,” Wolf Giles insisted, his teeth chattering loudly, a bluish tint to his skin.
The first Giles didn’t look quite as cold, but the same level of terrified. “I am Giles Corey, can’t you tell? Come touch my face. You’ll know then.”
“No!” Wolf Giles shrieked. “I’m the one. Ask him how I knew that if I bit you, you wouldn’t change into a wolf.”
“Clearly, you’re already a shapeshifter,” the first Giles said to me. “Of course you can’t be changed into something else.”
“No. That’s wrong,” Wolf Giles said. “Because yes, you can shift into a flock of ravens, but not because there’s a curse on you.”
“Obviously it’s not a curse,” the first Giles said. “The power comes from the Corey line.”
“He’s merely repeating. He doesn’t really know,” Wolf Giles heaved out the words, then began to cry. “You have to believe me. I’m Giles Corey.”
“Xander, it’s me. You know you hate me. Everyone in the family hates me. And think about this now. How could a powerful hedge-rider ever become a wolf? Is that even possible?”
He had a point. Maybe.
Wolf Giles appeared utterly bereft, and without any covering—he was naked in the ground after the shift—he’d be dead soon. “Believe me,” he barely managed to get out.
Calling on the elements again, I removed the snow near me, then sank into softened earth. Shoving my hands in deep, nearly to my elbows, I called on Corvus.
Sleep.
Please let me—
Sleep.
Leaning back, I sighed deeply. The land was tired.
And it was impossible to know if it was truly done—because, again, this was midwinter—or if the spell covering Corvus made it not mine to reach.
My grandmother had advised me to dig deep, but I’d been underground and still couldn’t get the land to respond to me.
“Well?” Lorne asked.
“Unless it’s life and death…”
“Which it just was,” he said roughly, still recovering from seeing me hurt.
“Which it just was,” I agreed. “Yes. The land is supposed to be sleeping.”
He nodded. “Okay, then, axe it is.”
Both men shrieked in terror, as I would have as well. And then it hit me. “Oh!” I gasped, my eyes on Lorne. “Did you see Argos inside?”
“No, I—I dunno. I don’t remember.”
“Well, go back to the house and call him and see. It’s cold, and he hates to be away from the fire in the winter.”
“You want me to bring the cat?”
“Yes, I do,” I told him, not reminding him that Argos was actually a daemon.
Lorne was so much faster than me in the snow. He was built bigger to begin with, all the power and muscle, and was moving in seconds.
“I’ll be dead before you get this sorted,” Wolf Giles whimpered.
“Well, maybe if you weren’t such a prick, your family, meaning me, would be happy to see you, and none of this would be necessary because my magic would intuitively know yours.”
“I will kill you.”
That was bravado talking. We both knew he was good and caught by the earth. “Why did you bite me?”
“I meant to bite him,” he said, tipping his head toward the other Giles, “but you got in the way. And then”—he had to stop talking as a shiver tore through him—“I was terrified I’d killed you. Without you, I have no chance of breaking this curse.”
“I’m the one cursed,” the first Giles shouted.
“This is what happens when you visit dark places and walk hidden paths, Xander. You get a murderous shadow that can follow you to every realm, always trying to kill you, never letting you eat or sleep until you’re nearly mad.
I’m blamed for all manner of horrors now, no longer the hedge-rider who cares only for himself, but now one who leaves blood across realms that this wraith alone should be blamed for. ”
There was no way for me to know who was telling the truth.
“Corvus will discern what is real,” he assured me. “Wake the land. It will know.”
But I’d already tried, and maybe he knew that.
“Wake the dogs,” he advised next. “Wake the C?n Annwn who now sleep under the snow deep in the woods. They will discern the veracity of my claim.”
“No,” Wolf Giles rasped. “If you wake them now, they will make sport of the animals left in the forest. You will taint the land with the spilling of unnatural blood. Let sleeping dogs lie.”
The thing was, they were both right. Because yes, absolutely, Arawn’s companions, who stayed with me until spring, would kill whatever or whoever didn’t belong on the land.
A shifter of any kind would be eviscerated.
A wraith, as well, could be destroyed by the magical hounds.
But also, once woken, they would run across Corvus and kill whatever crossed their path.
It was why I made sure they slept until nature woke as well.
In the spring, they waited for Arawn to collect them, and they were gentle, curious, and guarded Corvus from anything that would harm any living thing on the land.
Much like my land, neither wanted to be awake in the winter.
The primal rhythm of the natural world was to rest.
“Here,” Lorne called, bringing me from my thoughts, carrying Argos in his arms like a baby.
Argos, who also slept away the winter. Unlike the land and the dogs, though, he got up to eat, look out the window—not too long, as he wasn’t a fan of the cold glass—and even occasionally walked out into the snow.
He enjoyed sleeping in front of the fire most of all.
“What do you expect a cat to do?” Wolf Giles asked snidely. And yes, he was freezing, I was sure, only his magic keeping him from death, and he was clearly at the absolute end of his patience, so I understood why he was mean.
The first Giles chided him. “A witch’s familiar is always welcome.”
Lorne put our black cat down, and Argos did that thing that all cats do where they take a step, then shake their foot, then another, and the pattern repeats. It would take him hours to get where I needed him to be.
Quickly, using my power, I brushed all the snow aside between him and the two men, and Argos walked slowly over to the Gileses. Wolf Giles recoiled, then ordered him to get away. When Argos hissed, Wolf Giles froze, eyes wide. He didn’t make a sound as Argos smelled his face.