Chapter 29 Lightning
When the first lightning turned night into day outside, Brun dove for his claymore even before the sound of the thunder rattled the glass on the window.
He blinked, forcing his eyes to get accustomed to the darkness, and scanned the whole room before daring to gaze at the bedside clock.
Two in the morning.
Not wasting another minute, he got dressed and looked at Lizzie’s sleeping form, her naked body partially covered by the bedsheets. The thundering of his heart got stronger and he could almost hear the blood sloshing in the veins of his neck. He tightened the grip around the hilt of the sword.
Perhaps it was nothing more than a storm.
Perhaps not.
The second lightning struck, with thunder following even closer and his magic flared in warning.
Someone was in the manor.
Leaning over Lizzie, he deposited a soft kiss on her lips and brushed hair away from her face. He needed her to wake up, but he did not want her to panic. Finn could be powerful, but he would be no match for two of them.
“Lizzie, I need you to wake up right now.”
She did not stir.
“Lizzie!” he called louder, panic gripping his heart at the coldness of her skin.
He was too late again.
Thesun was warm and Lizzie tilted her face up, eyes closed, hoping to enjoy that sensation as much as she could.
The waves swished on the sand. A seagull squawked in the distance and the calid breeze tussled her hair.
This is paradise!
“Lizzie!” her eyes snapped open at Brun’s cheerful voice and she turned her eyes to the sea.
He was in the water, the bottom half of his body hidden under the gentle waves. She bit her lower lip, watching as droplets of water ran down his skin, sensually making their way around the thin layer of hair covering his chest before sliding down towards his belly.
That man was a monument!
“Lizzie!” he called again, waving at her this time, beckoning her to join him in the water with the broadest smile she had had ever seen on his face. She had never seen him so relaxed before.
Smiling back she stood up, putting down a cocktail she had not noticed she had been holding, and jogged to the water. She looked down at herself, pleased with the lovely swimming suit she was using. It had floral patterns in blue and green. It was discreet, but feminine. Her mother truly had good taste!
Lizzie scanned the nearly desert beach. The sand was bright white and the sea turquoise. Her toes touched the water and it felt so warm…
Of course, she thought to herself, feeling silly, the Mediterranean is warm…
Yes, she remembered it now. That was the same beach she had seen on Vivian’s phone, the one she wanted to visit when her friend showed her the pictures of her trip to Greece.
When had she and Brun decided to go on holidays together? Had they figured out…
She could not recall, but there was something important that they had to figure out.
Brun called her name again. He was still waving and she jogged faster, eager to feel his embrace, his kisses. They had just made love, and this time there had been a different energy between them, it had been so… intense. In some ways it felt like the first time, only… well, different.
She had no idea how to put it into words.
Her eyes danced from his chiselled face down to his neck and then to his chest and she could not help admiring the hardness of his muscles, the smoothness of his skin…
Lizzie halted.
Something was not right.
“Lizzie!” Brun called a fourth time, but he stopped waving and a frown crept over his face. He no longer was happy and relaxed, but worried. Urgency flashed on his blue eyes.
Where are his scars?
As soon as the thought formed in her head, the landscape changed. Greece was gone. She was by the shore of the loch and the icy water was freezing her feet. The blue sky became as dark as lead and the soft waves of the warm Mediterranean turned into wild crests, as if a tornado had landed on the loch.
Lightning struck.
Storms always preceded the Dreams Thief assault.
The Dreams Thief!
“Brun!” she cried, helplessly watching as the waves engulfed him as if he were a floating toy. He became a faceless shape, bobbing above the surface for a moment before sinking underneath the white foam.
Lizzie screamed his name over and over, till her throat hurt and she was out of air.
The waves rose like water giants, moving fast towards her, ready to swallow her whole as they did with Brun.
Tears streamed down her face. He was gone.
How could she live without him? She… she…
She loved him. Truly, deeply. He was her soulmate, now and forever, and if he was dead…
Lizzie opened her arms, welcoming the death looming over her. Her chest hollowed…
Another lightning hit the ground across the loch.
It almost feels like the Dreams Thief wanted to announce his presence.
Hiding in plain sight.
Brun and the Dreams Thief are related.
Thirteen fathers will be in their graves after the gate is opened.
She told me that I was human.
Fayla is the one who foretold your birth.
Nine mothers will be born before the second comes.
Even with my mixed blood.
Fayla assigned me to protect the three Endellys sisters.
Alas! She found me! My sister found me and her hatred has no limits.
Surely you have learned about the Dreams Thief from Brun?
From Brun.
Victory comes when the bridge of time is crossed.
What makes you think that the Dreams Thief is a male?
Ioelena Endellys and Fayla Theynore were responsible for achieving that.
And then the Dreams Thief disappeared.
Brun Theynore.
Her hatred has no limits.
Pretending to be a Changeling.
She sacrificed herself imbuing my ring with her life essence to prolong my life.
Darkness is vanquished when the heart is sacrificed.
All you need to know now is that Brun holds the solution.
I assumed he was one of the Dreams Thief’s minions.
Mixed blood.
The song of the nightingale shall be the thief’s last.
Hiding in plain sight.
It was all wrong.
Bits of information swirled in her head, floating in front of her eyes like dialogue bubbles. The order was wrong. It was not logical…
What makes you think that the Dreams Thief is a male?
The journal! That should have been the first clue… That’s why Aranna was confused!
The sketch of the tree! She had even left the next clue inside the journal, guiding them to the puzzle box…
Words clashed, echoing and shouting, highlighting her own stupidity. They had been blind!
They had been completely blind!
Surely you have learned about the Dreams Thief from Brun.
Not from this Brun. From Brun Theynore!
She looked around. None of that was real. That was a dream.
That was the Dreams Thief’s spell!
“Lizzie!” Brun’s voice sounded clearer this time, tugging at the bond they had forged with the Coupling Rune, and she heard his desperation. She anchored her consciousness to it, knowing that that was real. She had only one chance to break the Dreams Thief’s snare.
This is a dark spell. Forbidden. Unseelie.
A dark spell.
The solution became clear. She had read enough fantasy novels to know that there was only one way to fight darkness.
Lizzie closed her eyes and began to sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
In the Fae language.
“Lizzie!” Brun was shouting now, his eyes burning with tears while he shook her by the shoulders as if that could change what fate had already sealed.
She lay inert on his bed, her skin cool to the touch, her heartbeat slowing down. He knew what that meant. He had seen it before. He had seen it too many times.
Not again! Not again! Not again!
Brun had been through a lot in his five hundred years of life. He had fought in human and Fae battles. He had seen plagues, famines, destruction and death of all kinds and scales, but nothing was worse than the sight of Lizzie dying on his bed.
He fell hard on his knees and howled in agony. He would not endure it. He could not watch her waste away. He could not bury her forever.
Brun stared at his ring. He would toss the vile thing away and plunge the sword into his own heart. It would be quick at least, and he would finally be free.
He touched her cooling face and kissed her briefly on the lips just as the third lightning struck.
“A lightning before death: O, how may I call this a lightning? O my love! my wife! Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty: Thou art not conquer’d; beauty’s ensign yet. Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, and death’s pale flag is not advanced there.”
He lowered his eyes in silent mourning. His final farewell.
Then something began to glow beneath the blankets.
Gasping in surprise, Brun tore out the covers from her body, staring in disbelief at the orb of light shining above Lizzie’s chest.
Her eyes flew open.
“At least you know your Shakespeare! I was beginning to think you were a lost cause!” she croaked.
“Heavens!” he sobbed and pulled her into his arms, showering her face with kisses, not bothering to contain his tears of relief, “Lizzie! My darling, my love! I thought I lost you!”
The sweetness of Brun’s words worked like a healing balm, dissolving the phantoms of the evil dream.
My darling, my love!
God, had he realised it too?
“How did you break it? How did you escape?” he whispered, holding her face with both hands, his expression one of utter disbelief.
Lightning struck outside the window making her shiver, while Brun jumped to his feet, his face hardening into a military mask.
“Come, I need you to get dressed as fast as you can,” he commanded, reaching for her hand, while his eyes darted around the dim room, “He is close!”
She looked at him and swallowed hard. He was dressed in green cargo pants and a gray T-shirt: the combination could be seen as a casual attire for a nature walk, but to her it felt like he was donning his battle clothes. His hands were tightly wrapped around the hilt of his claymore, and she noticed that he had put his ring back on. Maybe he hated the thing, but he was still relying on its magic.
Shit was definitely becoming very real…
“MacTaggart must have put a tracking spell on you when he met you in Aberfeldy,” he dragged her back to her room, “Did he touch you?”
“Brun…” she tried, while he reached for the small bundle of dirty clothes she had left on her chaise longue earlier and pushed it into her arms.
“Please, Lizzie, this is important. If he is tracking you, we will need to break the spell in case we need to flee.”
She pulled up her pants up and slipped into her jeans, “Yes, I guess he must have touched my arms or something… Brun, I need you to listen…”
But he was hovering his fist up and down her while she shoved her head through the T-shirt, as if he were a police officer searching her.
“I cannot sense anything!” he exclaimed in frustration, “Let me try–”
“Brun!” she called louder and he froze, eyeing her in surprise.
Lizzie sighed, knowing that her next words were going to shock him more than anything that even Aranna had said.
She held his face with both hands and trained her eyes on his. There was dread there and the need for action.
“Finn is not the Dreams Thief. Fayla is.”
He blinked at her. What she was saying was preposterous.
“Lizzie, Fayla is dead. She died two hundred and fifty years ago. I saw it with my own eyes!”
“Smoke and mirrors. That has always been her game. Hiding in plain sight, remember? You were right about that. The silly storms, the sleeping spell, the Changelings. It was all a diversion, a way to keep the attention elsewhere. While you were all waiting for the signs that the Dreams Thief was near, it was easy for her to arrive, find the Enchanter apparently in an irreversible coma and then drain their life essence out of them.”
He blinked again, as the pieces of the puzzle began to fall in place before his eyes.
Fayla had always been there. Always consoling those left behind. Always before the Enchanter exhaled their last breath…
“But what about the prophecies?”
Lizzie shook her head, “There’s only one prophecy: what Fayla sold as the first is actually the end of the second.”
Thirteen fathers will be in their graves after the gate is opened.
Nine mothers will be born before the second comes.
Victory arrives when the bridge of time is crossed.
Darkness is vanquished when the heart is sacrificed.
The song of the nightingale shall be the thief’s last.
He staggered back.
“By revealing only the final verse, she could manipulate the Fae, keeping their focus on the wrong Endellys, on protecting their saviours rather than trying to find out who the Dreams Thief truly was. After she killed Ioelena Endellys, the sisters understood that the whole thing was nothing but pantomime.”
“Very good! She is as clever as you said, Finn,” sounded a voice that Brun that had not heard in two and a half centuries.
He whirled on his heels, finding Fayla Theynore standing at the door of the bedroom with Finn McTaggart by her side.
Faster than Lizzie could blink, Brun pushed her behind his own body and lifted his sword across his chest.
She peeked over his shoulder at the couple standing at the door. The woman had very straight silver-blond hair, cut an inch below the line of her ears, and cold gray eyes shone like molten silver above a sardonic smile. She was dressed in an elegant black dress and stilettos. An ancient-looking medallion hung around her neck. Frankly, even if Lizzie did not know who she was, she would still have guessed that that woman was either a ruthless executive or a serial killer.
Possibly both…
Beside her stood Finn in his new bad boy outfit and a lopsided grin on his face. And like Brun, he was also holding a claymore.
Oh God, if either of them shouts ‘There can be only one’, I’ll seriously lose my shit…
Finn took a step forward, angling his sword in a mirror image of Brun’s pose, his eyes narrowing with hate. Obviously, Brun was his least favourite person in the world.
Well, in fairness, Brun tried to roast him alive…
“Fayla!” Brun gasped in disbelief, “How could you have done this?”
Fayla’s smile broadened, “Ah, little Brun, I have surely missed your nauseating naivety!”
Brun flinched and the muscles of his jaws tensed into rocks. Lizzie could sense his anger boiling like a cauldron as the dots connected inside his head and he understood the depth of the manipulation he had been victim of for five hundred years.
He was ready to burst and if she did not do something, it would be like watching an atomic bomb exploding.
Lizzie took a deep breath, and grabbed his arms, her nails digging into his muscles.
“Brun, you must calm down now,” she said in a low voice and was surprised to hear the power in it. She had not intended to summon her magic.
Across the room, Fayla and Finn exchanged glances. They had sensed it too.
“You see?” Finn whispered, “I told you that she can do this only with her voice–”
“Shut your mouth Finn!” Fayla hissed back.
Not hearing the brief exchange between Fayla and Finn,Brun looked at Lizzie from over his shoulder and for a moment he was lost in her eyes. Her irises were like an inviting lake and all he could think of was swimming in those soothing waters.
She was trying to compel him. No, not trying, succeeding, because he felt all anger wash away from his body until only cool calculation remained.
He returned his eyes to Fayla and Finn, knowing with deadly certainty that only cool calculation would help him – would help him and Lizzie – defeat them.
We will not fail.
I know you hate me, little Brun, but I promise you have a great destiny to fulfil.
A great destiny!
He had been destined to be a patsy in her hands from birth!
“That is why you named me Brun, is it not? I am the descendant of your brother! The one you killed!”
Fayla flinched for the briefest second, before her eyes became cold again and he knew he had hit a chord.
“How can you possibly know about him?” she snarled.
Lizzie took a step forward, coming to stand by his side, “Because of the little present that Aunty Aranna left for us, Fayla. She found your brother’s journal and must have wondered why you named a Changeling who was related to the Dreams Thief after your own brother.”
Surprise flickered on her face, confirming that she was unaware of the existence of Brun Theynore’s journal. There was at least one piece of information they knew that Fayla did not.
Hopefully, there was something they could use against her.
“My brother,” Fayla spat the word with disgust, “A stain on my Clan! My father hated him and it was only when he displayed the ability to wield both types of magic that I understood why. My own mother had mated with an Enchanter! The whore! He got her with child and vanished!”
She took a slow step into the room, her gray eyes fixing on the portrait of Triarell and Ryul for a moment.
“And that was when I realised that for millennia we had been lied to! We were taught that the two kinds of magic could not be blended, that it would weaken the power of the Fae! Filthy lies to keep Conjurers under the Enchanters’ control!” she panted, and hatred flashed in her eyes, “Far from being a weakling, my half-breed brother was more powerful than me! I wanted that power for myself!”
Brun’s eyes narrowed at her, “But that was not all… You also wanted revenge.”
Fayla lifted her chin defiantly, “Yes,” she agreed, her eyes falling on Lizzie, “I wanted to find the bastard who sired my half-brother and brought shame to my family!”
Lizzie frowned for a moment, but then her eyebrows flew up, “And you found him didn’t you? Elyon Torhorn!” she turned to Brun, “This is what Aranna meant when she said that the path of your destiny is intertwined with the Endellys bloodline! Brun Theynore was the Endellys sisters’ half-brother!”
“Heavens!” Brun muttered, his eyes widening.
Fayla scoffed, “You indeed are quite clever, little girl. My mother chose death over betraying Elyon! And I granted her wish!”
Brun gasped in horror. He had experienced Fayla’s coldness and she had left the mark of her cruelty on his own skin, but he had never thought that she was so utterly evil.
“She loved him. The whore loved Elyon more than she ever loved my father and she loved my half-brother more than she loved me! My little Brun, she used to call him!”
The hatred in her voice was sickening.
“Of all the Enchanters I killed, Elyon was the one who gave me the most satisfaction!”
Lizzie stared at Fayla horrified.
“Are you saying that you became this monster just out of spite?”
Fayla looked at her from head to toe, as if Lizzie were a pathetic little insect.
“No, silly girl. I have always wanted more power for myself. My mother’s shameful love affair was only a… motivation and my brother’s existence the proof I needed that a Fae could command both types of magic, or better said, that there were no such limits in magic.”
She touched her medallion, bringing it to her eyes.
“I studied all the ancient texts until I found a way to drain the life essence of a Fae, but I could not keep hold of their power. After a while it waned away, thus I had to keep hunting,” greed and frustration flashed on her gray eyes, “But Elyon suspected me and lured me into a trap. He almost succeeded…” for a brief moment, fear flashed in her eyes, “I escaped, but the fact that the elusive Dreams Thief was a Conjurer was uncovered and war broke out. And with the war between the castes, hunting became impossible…”
“Which is why you joined forces with Ioelena Endellys to bring an end to it,” Brun surmised.
Fayla acquiesced, “Just so. She did not trust me at first, but I disposed of some of my… supporters and gave her the final verse of the prophecy and that convinced her that I was her ally, that I wanted peace,” she spat the word, “It was the only way to kill her! She was far too powerful!” Fayla growled in frustration.
“But where does your brother come in this story? Why did he run away?” Lizzie asked.
Fayla’s mouth curved into a cruel smile, “His mixed-blood condition was our Clan’s most guarded secret. If the secret came out, he would become a pariah and someone like him would fit the Dreams Thief description perfectly…”
Brun’s eyes widened, “You wanted to frame him!”
“Indeed,” Fayla scoffed, clearly pleased with her cunning, “It would be easy to lay the blame at his door. His word would never have weight against mine! Unfortunately, he realised my intentions and fled.”
“Therefore becoming a loose end!” Lizzie concluded.
Fayla sneered at her, “Once I came to the human world, I secretly hunted him down. I killed his wife, but even though he was mortally wounded, he managed to flee with his daughter. I searched for decades, but he weaved powerful enchantments to conceal her,” her gray eyes flickered to Brun, “Then one day I found you, and I knew you were my half-brother’s descendant as soon as I saw you.”
“How could you have known that?” Brun’s voice was weak.
“You have his eyes. There were four hundred years between the two of you, thirteen generations! Thirteen fathers! And somehow you got his eyes!” she drawled and looked at Lizzie meaningfully, “Fae genetics is a wondrous thing is it not?”
“If you knew I was connected to the prophecy, why not kill me?” he argued, “Why turn me into a Changeling at all?”
Fayla shook her head, “Scrying is not an exact art, and meddling with fate before you know all facts is foolish. Who was to say you were my half-brother’s last living descendant?”
Brun shivered and Lizzie placed a sympathetic hand on his arm. She could feel his anger building up again.
“There could be hundreds of descendants! No, I could not kill you: if fate had made our paths cross, I had to change the prophecy somehow! I had to break you instead, make you mine! I wanted to use you to destroy the Endellys, so I placed you in Glennloch,” she sneered, “And how quick you fell in love with Triarell like a pathetic fool! I had to do nothing else other than to force you watch her mate with another male!”
Brun took a step back nearly colliding on Lizzie, all painful memories of his life flooding his mind. All the abuse, the beatings and floggings. Rather than grooming him to be a warrior, Fayla moulded him into some kind of human booby-trap.
His arms trembled and he nearly lost the grip of his claymore.
“Then why did you not let me die? I was broken, Fayla!” he bellowed, “You killed all of them! The few friends I had! You killed the woman I… the woman I believed I loved! All I wanted was to die! Why force me to stay alone and mourn for another two and a half centuries? What else do you want from me?”
Fayla threw her head back and laughed.
“From you?” she scoffed and raised a manicured hand towards Lizzie, “The only person I need now is her, and only you could bring her to me! Victory arrives when the bridge of time is crossed. I had to wait in this miserable world for another two hundred and fifty years for her to be born!”
Brun caught the glint of glass in her hand. He swirled on his heels, covering Lizzie with his own body and heard the crash of the glass and then the whole room was engulfed in purple smoke.
He took one cautious inhale.
A sleeping potion. They would be unconscious before either could cast a spell.
He looked above Lizzie’s head, towards her window already feeling dizzy.
With his jaws tightly clenched, he pressed his lips close to her ear, “Trust me!”
With a howl, he pushed her against the wooden frame.