Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter
Forty-Two
Cian
I can’t get over the nausea that threatens to
overtake me. It’s been hours since Meg was taken from us. I don’t know what’s
happening to her, what she’s going through. I feel her loss like someone carved
my heart out of my chest and tossed it away.
“Where is she?” I think we’re wasting time, but Beck is so
certain, and I spent my life following my brother when things get dangerous.
“She said it would take her half an hour to gather the
ingredients for the spell.” Beck looks up from where he’s inspecting the circle
Liadan explained she will need to attempt the locator spell.
Liadan seemed deeply concerned when we spoke to her. She was
surprised to see us and then shocked at what was happening in our quiet
village.
I can’t stop thinking about the word seemed. It
plays through my head because something deep inside tells me Liadan is acting.
“Why would she help us find Meg?” I’m starting to ask the
questions I should have been asking all along. Of all the people in the
village, Liadan is the one who stands the most to gain if Meggie stays missing.
Or at least she’s the only one who might think she has something to gain. If
Meg is gone, Beck won’t go back to her, but this might not be about getting him
back. It might be about revenge. The more I shove my fear back and think
rationally, the more I’m convinced this is a bad idea.
Beck seems to think for a moment. “She’s a part of our
village. She wants to help.”
Something about Liadan…
I didn’t like her from the first. While Beck saw a pleasant,
lovely female, I was put off. I never figured out why, but I don’t like being
in the same room with Liadan. “Who would want Meggie gone? Lia. That’s the only
person in the village I can think of who would want to get rid of our wife.”
Beck’s hands go to his hips, and he glares my way. “Torin.
Our uncle certainly would do anything he needed to in order to keep us weak.”
“But we’re not weak.” The fact that Meggie isn’t dead and
our powers aren’t gone bugs me. It makes no sense. Oh, I’m fairly certain after
a time we’ll weaken due to the distance between the three of us, but it could
take months for that to happen, and the bond between myself and Beck will
remain in place, weakened though it might be. “Torin would have killed Meg. If
he’d sent someone to deal with her, it would have been to murder her, not to
haul her off the plane.”
“Or he kidnapped her and he’s going to use her to force us
to turn ourselves in,” Beck points out.
A valid point, but there’s still a problem with it. “I think
I saw a Planeswalker before she passed out.”
Right before I felt her terror, she managed to send a single
image out to me. It was foggy, but I’m almost certain now that it was the face
of a demon—a Planeswalker. I never saw one in person but there are books with
descriptions.
“Why would a Planeswalker come after Meggie?” Beck asks. “Do
you think he’s trying to sell her again? We would feel it if she was in the
marketplace. Reeve would protect her.”
I shake my head. “She’s not on this plane and she’s not on
the Vampire plane. We would feel that. The doors are open too frequently. No,
she’s somewhere far away. Torin wouldn’t have used a Planeswalker. Not even
he’s crazy enough to pay with his soul. And he wouldn’t have to. He could send
one of his men to do it. None of this makes sense.”
Unless the plan was initiated by someone desperate.
“It doesn’t matter who took her,” Beck insists. “We’re going
to find her. Lia doesn’t have a reason to hurt her. She understands. She told
me so herself.”
Something about Liadan…
“I think she had something to do with me fading the way I
did.” Over the course of the last weeks with Meg, the idea has been coalescing
in my head. I remember a familiar voice telling me to fade, and it wasn’t my
own. Smoke was involved, a sickly sweet smell that always accompanied my loss
of will.
Beck sighs. “You were fading because we hadn’t bonded. I was
doing my own version of it, too. There’s nothing more than a biological need at
play in that.”
“No, I was worse off than you.” I’m sure of it. Beck was
functional even at the worst stages.
Beck turns and sighs. “Because you’re the intellectual
half…”
He stops in the middle of his explanation because there’s
the sound of a thud and then Beck’s right shoulder flies back as an arrow hits
him.
I watch in horror as the arrow lodges in my brother’s
shoulder and blood begins to bloom over his shirt.
“I think he was trying to say that you’re the weak one,
Cian.” Liadan steps out from behind a copse of trees, a crossbow in her hand.
She changed clothes and wears pants and a black shirt, her cat slinking around
her boots. “It took you long enough to figure out I was the one behind your
need to fade. You weren’t doing it fast enough. I had to help you along.”
Beck goes a pasty white. “Lia?”
She stands slightly away from us, the crossbow still in her
hand. “Yes, Beckett. You’re not the intellectual half. You’re the idiot half
who can’t keep his dick in his pants, the one who didn’t realize he was
sleeping with a hag. His Majesty, King Torin sends his greetings. Your wife is
gone, and you won’t find her again. I had to pay for it, but the Hell plane
will be a lot like home for me. And I’ll have all of Beckett’s power.”
Beck grimaces and pulls the arrow out. “I’m going to kill
you.”
Yes, no arrow can take the warrior king out. I have my sword
in hand, but I won’t need it. This is what Beck was born to do.
Except when Beck starts to reach for the sword on his back,
he falls to his knees.
“Oh, feeling weak?” Lia asks. She starts to nock another
arrow into her bow. “That’s because the arrow is spelled. It will remove all of
your magic and shift it to me. I’m already quite powerful on my own, though
I’ve had to hide it for years while I waited to destroy the two of you in my
master’s name. I’ll return to Tír na nòg a hero with vast powers.”
Panic surges, but I have to tamp it down. I can feel Beck’s
weakness as my brother slumps to the ground. If I don’t work fast, Liadan will
hit me with an arrow, too, and then she’ll have all of our power.
I need help, and the forest comes to my aid. As though it
hears me, the massive tree Liadan stands next to reaches a branch down and
catches the back of her shirt, hauling her up. She screams but manages to hold
on to the crossbow.
I have to get my brother out of here. I lean over and am
about to lift Beck when it hits me. Magic. The moment I touch Beck’s skin,
magic flows into me, overwhelming me with all the powers of the storm. It
surges through me, but I don’t know how to use it. I can’t focus it, and it
threatens to overwhelm me even as I hear thunder crack overhead.
Behind me I hear Liadan struggling to get free. Her cat
climbs the tree in an attempt to get to her mistress.
“You have to run,” Beck manages to say. His eyes are only
half open, and it’s easy to see he’s fighting to stay conscious.
“Tell me how to kill her.” If she is what she says she is,
it won’t be easy.
“Run. Get us out of here, brother. Don’t let her shoot you
with one of those arrows.” Beck is fading fast. “Find a place to hide. There’s
a hunting cabin not far from here. Hide us.”
I know the place. I can’t wait. If Beck doesn’t think I can
defeat the hag, I have to take his word. I have to hide us because I have no
idea how to use my brother’s power.
Rain starts to fall and thunder rumbles even as Beck passes
out and becomes deadweight. I heft him over my shoulder, securing him there
with one arm.
Liadan grunts as she hits the forest floor.
I lift my free hand and beg the ground to aid me.
Grass shoots up all around Liadan, covering the hag with
green tendrils. She screams but I don’t waste another moment. I run. I run and
run, feet pounding against the forest floor. My lungs ache as I keep up the
pace, my brother’s weight slowing me down.
The forest around me shakes with her laughter.
“You can run, Cian.” The hag’s voice seems to echo through
the trees. “But you can’t hide.”
She’s wrong. Up ahead I can hear the river rushing past the
very place I need to be. I can hide. The trees themselves will aid me.
But I have to get deep enough into the forest.
I feel something shoot past me. An arrow lodges in a tree
not five feet in front of me and I stop, turning and lifting a hand to bring up
another wall of green between me and the hag.
It won’t hold her forever.
Eventually she’ll get close enough, and if she hits me with
one of those arrows, she’ll get what she wants. She thought all of Beck’s
powers would go to the one who cast the spell. She hasn’t counted on our unique
nature. When my brother’s magic needed a place to go, it found a home in me.
But if she gets me, too…
My brain feels like it’s going to explode. I wasn’t built to
handle both our magics. Every instinct in my body tells me to hide and sleep. I
need to find safety and lie down so my body can rest. It’s the only way we will
survive.
I struggle because my brain is processing so much magic it’s
difficult to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. I take a
deep breath and push on. Liadan won’t stop to give me a break. She’ll follow
until she catches me.
The rain falls in sheets now, and I realize I’m the one
doing it. Beck’s magic truly is mine to call upon. I will the storm to become a
hurricane. That will slow the hag down. My shoulder aches from Beck’s weight,
but I run through the gale untouched as the world whips around us.
When I see the small hunting cabin through the trees I slow
the winds down. Beck’s right. It is perfect, but it won’t be if it’s destroyed
by a storm. I make it into the small structure and gently lay my brother on the
dirt floor. My hands shake as I do what I need to do.
Within seconds, the cabin is engulfed in green. Inside, the
cabin goes pitch black as the world recedes under a wall of vines and thorns.
It’s thick, and the trees themselves have orders to protect this place.
I can hear the storm rattling the world outside. I fall to
my knees and am grateful for the darkness. There’s nothing but darkness now,
and it will stay that way unless someone can find a way to bring Meg back to
us.
As the hopelessness of the situation hits me, I lie down
beside my brother. My body knows what to do. Beck has gone into a fugue state.
He won’t wake unless our bridge returns. Only Meg can save us. Only Meg can
give Beck back his strength and me back my mind.
“Come to us,” I pray as sleep overtakes me.
Outside the small cabin, the storm roars on.