Chapter 14 The Gift in the Gardens #3
She had hoped to find a place to hide, but the land beyond the gate was bewildering.
Celise stumbled down a short series of steps to the edge of a green pond.
She circled around the pool of gleaming water until she reached a dilapidated building on its shore—a shrine to Valestra, by the metal plate that hung above the empty doorway, the ancient symbol of the goddess almost rubbed off.
The building wasn’t very large, with only enough space for one or two people to pray side by side.
The roof was partly shorn off, and the plaster walls were cracked and decayed.
It didn’t seem like a promising place to hide—more like a cage to be trapped within.
Celise paused near the shrine to regain her bearings.
The shrine was surrounded by a small garden, filled with birthflowers of different kinds.
As her eyes probed the darkness, she saw a cluster of Ashfeather Bloom growing around the shrine’s front steps and a shimmering bushel of Tideweed in the shallows of the pond.
Glowbells sprawled between the cracks in the shrine’s walls.
It held a haunting, poetic beauty, but she didn’t have time to admire the sight.
Schrraaarrgh!!!
The daemon appeared without warning—it was right behind her.
Celise screamed. She turned to run, but with a furious roar, the monster reached out and snagged the back of her dress with a pincered claw.
Celise fell down, restrained by her skirts and crinoline.
She heard the snap of whalebone as the clumsy cage broke her hard fall.
She found herself lying on the ground inside a circle of moonlight.
Above her, a bright white object caught her eye. She looked up. There, just beyond her reach, a stunning, star-shaped dahlia glowed under the stars.
The Starlight Dahlia.
Her zodiac flower.
Celise choked out a half-sob, half-laugh.
So this was her fate.
She closed her eyes, prepared to meet her doom beneath the glowing purity of the starlit flower.
The stench of sulfur washed over her as the monster poised above its prey.
Its legs trapped her in a living cage. Its neck sloped downward, its mandibled jaws clicking, saliva dripping from its misshapen maw. Oh Goddess!
Then, with a sparking, hissing sound, a blade of silver-blue light appeared in the darkness.
Celise gasped.
The daemon recoiled.
From beyond the shrine, a man emerged from the overgrown wilderness. He appeared out of nowhere as though summoned by the Mother Herself.
Flash!—a streak of blue light sliced through the shadows.
The daemon leapt back as the ghost blade arced close to its spindly, long neck. It abandoned Celise to skitter up the shrine’s crumbling wall and perch precariously on the half-caved roof.
A low, rattling growl filled the night as the daemon observed the new threat.
A soldier. One of the Daemonguard?
Celise’s eyes returned to the ghost sword. Power crackled down the length of the blue rod, sparking fire. She stared at her savior, stunned.
Elias Blackwood’s silver eyes met hers—a mere glance, but his confidence was unmistakable.
He wore a double-breasted greatcoat, the collar popped high, his hair loosely swept back from his face in a roguish, careless way. No mask. This man—yes—she knew him. Trusted him. But where had he come from?
What was the duke doing in this abandoned area of the castle grounds?
Without warning, the daemon leapt from the roof.
It moved fast despite its awkward size. Elias charged to meet it head-on, his sword held before him, prepared to strike.
The blade arced upward as the creature flew down, its stinger thrust forward and pincered claws snapping at the air.
Celise didn’t see whose blow landed, but the daemon released a scream so terrible it made her teeth ache.
Using wide swings of his shined sword, Elias herded the daemon away from Celise’s position near the pond. The creature skittered backward on the defensive. It crossed its two pincered front claws before its body to create a shield. Blow by blow, it fended off Elias’s weapon with its hard claws.
Elias swung the shined rod expertly, slicing off one of the daemon’s pincered arms. The beast took a swipe at his head with its second claw, and he ducked and rolled out of the way. The daemon followed him, hissing, unwilling to give Elias an opening.
Celise could barely follow the battle with her eyes.
The daemon was fast and aggressive, whipping its arms about with the speed of a scorpion’s tail, but Elias evaded its strikes.
He leapt and rolled, dodging behind piles of rubble as the daemon attacked.
The pincered arm lashed out again, as long and bulky as a greatsword, but Elias moved with grace and power, dodging the clumsy appendage.
The daemon attempted to stab him with its stinger, its body thrusting forward, undulating and wriggling aggressively.
Elias evaded by moving closer to his opponent, slipping between the daemon’s spindly legs to reach its gooey underbelly.
Celise raised a hand to her mouth in horror, unable to look away.
Inside the daemon’s defenses, Elias lunged, cutting deep into its oblong torso just above the stinger.
The monster screeched as the magical edge buried itself in its rancid, muddy flesh.
Elias hacked and slashed through the daemon’s tough hide.
Black matter of a kind spattered across the dark clearing.
Celise raised an arm over her face, catching a few drops of the stuff on her forearm. It burned like fire. She gasped and cried out in pain.
The daemon turned toward her, reminded of her presence. It regarded her for a moment before lunging across the grass, its arms and legs scrabbling. The monster bolted toward the easier prey. She heard Elias curse.
Celise screamed, tangled up in her crinoline, unable to run or defend herself.
"Back to dust with you!” Elias yelled.
He lifted his ghost sword. The air crackled. A strange metallic scent filled the garden. With a gasp, Celise’s hair suddenly lifted up, floating to either side of her face, charged with static.
The creature’s angry snarl was swallowed by a deafening crack! Boom!
A fork of lightning split the heavens, blinding white against the black sky.
It struck the daemon dead center. The beast exploded in a shower of earth and gummy flesh.
The ground shook beneath Celise. A large maple tree behind her groaned and shifted.
With a cry, she scrambled out of the way as the tree collapsed to one side, uprooted by the quaking earth.
A thunderous, resounding boom! echoed through the wild garden. A flurry of bats rose from the roof of the abandoned shrine, startled by the sound. Shrieking, they dispersed into the night.
The roll of thunder was deafening. Celise crouched on the broken flagstone, trembling with her arms over her head.
Silence fell across the grounds.
When she squinted open her eyes, the garden was in chaos.
To one side, a giant maple tree lay like a fallen soldier in the long grass.
A few yards away, the daemon’s corpse smoked and sizzled.
White flames—caused by the lightning bolt—consumed the creature's body.
Fire licked up its six limbs, devouring its flesh like dry wood.
Celise watched the monster fold up and collapse in a pile of smoldering embers, just like a dead beetle.
She lay crumpled on the ground, not unlike the daemon’s fried corpse.
Her arm stung and burned where the black gunk had struck her skin.
She listened to her own racing heart as blood thrummed in her ears.
In the distance, another dull rumble of thunder traveled across the hills surrounding Gravenmere Castle.
Clouds gathered in the sky, obscuring the twin moons.
Then it started to rain.
Celise lay on the ground, her ball gown ripped and stained, wet dirt muddying her clothes, trembling from shock.
Boots crunched over wet leaves. Someone knelt before her. A hand touched her arm. She stared at it.
A scarred hand.
Just like his burned neck, his ruined ear, and his marred cheek, his left hand was also covered in shiny white scars.
Elias.
Or rather, Lord High Commander Elias Blackwood, the Duke of Gravenmere and Hero of the Realm: the man who had defeated the Daemon King.
“You . . . you summoned lightning!” she stuttered.
“We call them mana-bolts.”
“But that’s . . . .” She almost said, “impossible,” but stopped herself.
Of course it was possible, if she had just witnessed it with her own eyes.
The immensity of his power struck her. Summoning a bolt out of the blue seemed like a gift reserved for the gods alone.
Elias had destroyed the daemon with barely a snap of his fingers.
He knelt by her side, his hand going to her shoulder, his gray eyes sweeping over her for injuries. With a slight tsk, he reached down and grabbed a handful of wet leaves, then started wiping the stinging black gunk off her forearm.
“What is that?” she muttered, on the verge of fainting.
“Daemon blood. It’s acidic. Best to get it off before it eats right through.”
“What?”
Her head swooned. She felt a bit sick. Shadows danced across her eyes.
Then she collapsed forward against his chest.