Chapter 18 #2
Only when we returned to Rosewarren—the lycans slaughtered and the surviving refugees shepherded to a nearby settlement—did I start to resurface from the fog I’d fallen into. As we crossed the snowy grounds and approached the priory, all my senses prickled in warning.
Something was wrong.
It was midmorning, the Mist-shrouded sky a churning dull gray, the wintry air so cold it hurt my lungs, and yet no smoke came from the chimneys. The barns were still shut, the training yards were empty, and all the priory’s windows were dark.
And we were still in our avian forms. Normally we transformed back to our human selves the moment we touched down at Rosewarren after a mission. But here we all stood with our talons and feathers, which meant that either the Warden had chosen to keep us this way or she was incapacitated.
My horror at the thought was the real first thing I’d felt all day.
Caralind was the first to reach the rear doors.
“Locked,” she said, frowning. “That’s odd.”
“Odd,” Brigid agreed grimly, “and ominous.”
The sound of quick footsteps crunching through the snow made us turn to see Berthel, one of the human stable hands in our employ, frantically running toward us.
“He has taken control of the littles,” she said, tears making her voice thick. “I don’t know how, but he’s turned them against us!”
Brigid caught her by the arms and held her steady. “Slow down, Berthel. What do you mean, taken control? Who is he?”
Berthel shook her head, barely able to speak. Her hair was coming loose from its knot, and her eyes were glazed with horror.
“He has the Warden trapped in her office,” she said, “and somehow he’s gotten hold of the littles’ minds.
All of them. They’re ruthless, and much stronger than they should be.
They’re chasing the older Roses through the house, they’ve locked dozens in the barracks, and they’ve raided the armory.
” Her voice caught on a sob. “I think they’ve killed—”
Before she could finish the sentence, a sharp twang rang out, and an arrow hit her right in the neck. She collapsed in Brigid’s arms and bled out in seconds.
“There!” Cira pointed to an upper window in one of the priory’s turrets.
I saw a flutter of motion, a flash of color, then nothing.
Imagining any of my sweet littles as deadly snipers made my blood run cold.
Our familiars scattered; with a fierce shriek, Freyda soared up to the window and dove inside, undoubtedly determined to track down the perpetrator herself.
I whirled around and kicked down the locked doors, reducing them to splintered shreds. We raced inside, ducking another two arrows shot from above.
“What in the name of the gods did she mean?” Brigid muttered angrily. Her whole front was red with blood. “Who is he? Is it Kilraith?”
Cira glared down the corridor, dagger in hand. “But how could he have gotten past the wards?”
“We don’t know the full extent of his capabilities,” I said quietly, though a terrible idea had begun to form in my mind, even more terrible than the prospect of Kilraith taking over Rosewarren. “He’s gotten hold of the littles’ minds, whoever he is,” I murmured. “A child of Jaetris, then.”
“We’ve got thirty littles living here right now,” Brigid said. “A single person couldn’t control so many minds.”
“No, but if they used another mind—a strong one—as an amplifier and an anchor, they might.”
Brigid glanced at me, understanding dawning on her face. “You don’t think…”
But I did, and somehow I knew I was right.
He wasn’t Kilraith.
He was Gareth.
So much mind to grab on to, Luthaes had said.
And someone was using it to wreak havoc among us.
“Secure the house,” I said, pushing hard against my rising panic. “Disable any littles you find, but for gods’ sake, try not to hurt them. Brigid, Cira, cover me.”
As the others ran off down the shadowed corridors, the three of us flew upstairs toward the Warden’s office.
I kept my eyes straight ahead, but Brigid and Cira fought off what had to be ten different attackers, all of them with the light, quick footfalls of little girls.
Every thud of a small body against the carpet—every soft grunt of pain—lit me up with a brighter fire.
When we reached the Warden’s office, I rammed the door down with such force that it flew off its hinges and crashed through the windows on the opposite wall.
Quickly I took in the scene. The Warden was unconscious on the floor, blood pooling beneath her head.
Three littles, bound in ropes, cowered in front of the desk.
Two of them cried silently; one wept into her hands.
And seated at the desk was Gareth.
His green eyes had an unnatural sheen. At our entrance, he sat back in his chair with an indolent smile.
“I was wondering when you’d get here,” he said. “Took you long enough. But that’s all right, we’ve had an excellent time all on our own.”
His voice was his own, but sweat beaded at his hairline, and the tendons in his neck stood out as if he were straining against something I couldn’t see.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
He put a hand to his heart. “You wound me, Mara. Or are you simply being playful? It’s so hard to read you.”
“We can play if you want. I like games.” I scanned the room, my mind racing, my sentinel senses and godly power stretching out to find the truth. If Gareth was the puppet, where was the master?
“Oh, I know.” Gareth leaned forward, chin in his hands. “He told me about how well you played in Mhorghast. You and the Vilia. Nesset, right?”
“Mara,” Brigid muttered. She held her bow, a nocked arrow at the ready. I felt the anger radiating off of her and waved her quiet with a flick of my hand.
“Nesset, that’s right,” I said. “What a good memory you have.”
“Tell me, did your trials really happen that way?” Gareth’s eyes sparkled behind his glasses. The sight of something so familiar turned so evil made my bile rise. “Did you really win every single one of the Warden’s games?”
Something tugged at my fingers, a resonance, like feeling the weight of someone’s eyes upon you in the dark. I was close.
“I did, easily,” I answered.
“And the girl, Petra. Did you really kill her? She was your friend, wasn’t she?” His voice slid around its words like a snake. “Funny, that. Even we demons don’t—”
He froze, but it was too late. I’d found the source of the magic sizzling at my fingertips, and with a white-hot rage, I sliced through the ropes binding the littles.
The girls immediately scrambled away, but I caught one of them by her collar—the one who had been crying into her hands—and lifted her into the air with one hand.
With the other, my bandaged one, I pressed the point of my dagger into her neck.
“Show yourself,” I hissed.
The image of the girl flickered like a sputtering flame. A slow smile spread across her tearstained face.
“Kilraith says hello,” she whispered, “and sends his compliments.” Then she thrust herself onto my blade, pushing it hard into her throat.
I dropped her to the floor, watching in disgust as she choked on the rug. With her last gurgling breath, the illusion vanished, and in its place lay a woman as gorgeous and pale as Talan, with shining ash-brown curls and cunning blue eyes now frozen in death.
“A figment?” Cira asked, coming up slowly beside me.
“A demon,” Brigid replied, her lip curling.
She nudged the dead woman with her boot.
“A greater demon, I’d say, just like Talan.
A child of Zelphenia and Jaetris, blessed with an empathic mind and the power of illusion.
The perfect conduit for Kilraith, especially with Gareth’s mind to augment her abilities. ”
I hardly heard them as I slowly approached Gareth, my heart in my throat. He sat frozen at the desk, and his eyes were his own again, but he looked pale and drawn, and he gripped the edge of the wood with white-knuckled fingers.
“Hello, Gareth.” I set down my weapons. “Can you hear me?”
He said nothing, not until I stepped closer to the desk and reached for him. Then it was like something inside him exploded.
He lurched to his feet and stumbled away from me, knocking over his chair. “No,” he whispered. “No!”
“It’s all right,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “You’re safe now.”
“No, no, no.” He put his head in his hands. His voice shook, full of tears and terror. “Not safe, not— Gods, no. Please. Please.”
“Gareth—”
“Don’t touch me!” He staggered back, crashed into a table, and fell hard to the floor. His eyes were wild. “Don’t touch me. Don’t make me touch them. Don’t make me!”
I knelt a few paces away from him, my throat aching with sadness. “I won’t make you do anything. Your mind is your own.”
That made him laugh. Tears leaked from his eyes. “My mind is his. It will always be his. He found me. He’ll always find me.” He struck his head with the heel of his hand—hard, fast, over and over. “Get out,” he shouted, “get out, get out!”
I’d seen this before. Living as a soldier, it was inevitable. But seeing Gareth caught in the grip of this awful panic—consumed by the animal urge to fight or flee—broke my heart wide open.
“Gareth, please look at me,” I said gently. I moved a step closer to him. “It’s me, Mara. You trust me, don’t you?”
He didn’t answer me. He was too far gone, his breaths coming hard and fast. If he didn’t slow them down, he would faint.
I moved closer still. “I know you trust me. I know you—” I stopped just short of saying a word I wouldn’t have been able to take back.
“I know you. And I know you’ll believe me when I tell you that you’re safe, and that I will do everything in my power to ensure that this doesn’t happen to you again.
” I paused, then moved within reach of him.
It was agony not to touch him. “Gareth?”
He clapped a hand over his mouth, sobbing so hard that he nearly choked on his own breath. He reached out to me with shaking fingers. When he found my feathered arm, he fumbled to grab hold and tugged me toward him.
“Mara, oh gods,” he choked out. “What they did to me. What they did. And now again, they’ve done it again.”
Holding back my own tears, I took him in my arms and folded him into the soft brown cocoon of my wings, letting him cry against the down of my breastbone. He held on to me with a grip that would leave bruises, like I was the only thing standing between him and certain death.
I rocked him gently, my cheek pressed against the hot golden crown of his head.
On the other side of the room, Brigid helped the Warden sit up.
Cira was herding the two hysterical littles out of the room.
Distant cries of grief and screams of horror rose up the stairs to greet us, and I gently pressed my hand against Gareth’s ear to shield him from the worst of it.
“I’m here,” I whispered into his hair over and over. “I’m here, and I’ve got you. You’re safe. You’re safe. Gareth, I’m here. I’m here. I won’t let them hurt you.”
It was then, as he clung to me and I to him, his heart full of nightmares and my own breaking at the sight of his tears, that I knew. The certainty of it crashed down through my body and stole my breath.
I didn’t want to. I knew I shouldn’t. This road could only lead to sadness.
But I did.
I loved this man.
I loved him.
I closed my eyes, letting him keen. Witnessing this grief felt like something sacred—like it belonged to the gods of my childhood, the gods I’d once worshipped with my whole heart.
I loved Gareth Fontaine, and I didn’t know what that would mean for me, for us. Once the horror of this moment passed, maybe I would manage to talk myself out of it. I hoped I would even as I prayed I wouldn’t.
But I knew this much: Whatever came next, whatever evil came to find us, I would die before letting anything hurt him like this ever again.