CHAPTER 29
Maire.
Maire.
Would she hear him calling? Would she know he had come for her?
Kierus strained against the confines of the stone. At times he thought he felt it give, but it was never enough.
He had failed his wife. Failed his daughters. He had to get out, but how?
A thousand years. He had already lost his concept of time.
One night felt like ten, one day, a hundred.
A blink of his eyes started his day all over again.
It seemed a thousand years had already passed, but he was sure he was just at the beginning of his sentence.
He had to be. He couldn’t accept anything else.
He began to live for things like a bird chirping, the sound of rain.
Footsteps. He prayed to the gods for footsteps.
Today, he heard horns. Three long bellows of a carnyx. A funeral. Someone was dead.
No matter how hard he strained, he couldn’t get closer. Sometimes he thought trying was more torturous that giving in, giving up, but he had never done that before. He wasn’t that far gone yet. He tried again.
Bri, he screamed. If anyone could hear him, she would. But she didn’t come either.
And then an unwelcome voice stirred in his head. This used to be your favorite.
It wasn’t the angry words that tore apart his insides but the quieter ones. Words that made memories flood back. What he had lost. His bond with Tyghan. The grief that always followed him and spilled over into his art.
You decided wrong.
Never. Not in regard to Maire and his daughters.
But it hurt to see the terrible pain in Tyghan’s eyes and know he had put it there. If he had only had more time, if only he could have found another way to stop him and the army of knights from hunting Maire down, he would have. This is what he was condemned to think about for a thousand years.
He pushed against the stone, pounded, called out, determined to break free. The wonder of Danu never gave up.