She glared at him, wild-eyed. “You’re not in a bed, and it’s all I can think of to do, SO JUST SUCK IT UP, BABY.”
It hurt too much to laugh. Besides, if he did he was afraid one of his long, razor sharp teeth would slice into her delicate flesh. As wetness trickled into his mouth, more mountains fell out of the sky to batter the ground around him.
The gryphons called to each other in their wild eagle voices as they lunged and struck at Gaeleval’s army. Rune’s mate Carling ran over to kneel on the other side of Dragos’s head. The Vampyre wore a spell of protection against the light of day like an invisible cloak. She chanted one long, continuous incantation. As the words spilled from her mouth, hieroglyphs of Power hung in the air and glowed like lava in his mind’s eye.
Others arrived. An enormous black panther coughed a hoarse scream as it leaped from the back of a pegasus that soared down. When the pegasus touched all four hooves to the ground, it transformed into a tall dark man who leaped to join the panther.
Then with a laugh Aryal winged into sight, and the harpy whirled into action. She was at her most charming when she went into battle.
There was Grym too, hovering in the sky over all of the others, with his batlike wings and demonic face. Wait a minute, that couldn’t be true. Grym had stayed behind in New York. This was the other gargoyle, from Pia’s guards. Monroe. As Dragos watched, Monroe dove into the fight and then rose up again in the air almost immediately. In his arms he held a wriggling, filthy Elven child, and he wheeled to fly away.
The strange thing, Dragos noticed, was that Pia’s blood didn’t taste like blood. He had seen more than he had ever wanted to of her blood when she had been wounded last year. He certainly knew that it looked red enough, but the trickle that flowed down his throat did not have the heavy, rich taste of normal blood. Instead, it was like liquid moonlight.
Or maybe that was her Power flowing into his body. It cooled the hot agony that glazed his mind. He gasped as his shattered ribs eased back into place, and he was able to take in his first full breath since he had crashed. His neck fused into one long, sinuous unbroken line again, and his back straightened. The last thing to heal was his wing, partly because he had been lying on it. He rolled to pull it out from underneath his weight, and the bones and cartilage flared into seamless alignment. Rightness vibrated in his bones.
Most healing was just as messy as any wound or sickness, and healing spells and potions hurt like a bastard. This didn’t. This was Pia gazing at him with eyes the color of midnight, as she laid cool fingers against his face and said, “I love you.”
She was his best teacher, and the most Powerful force in his universe, and everything hinged on it, on her. Everything.
She watched him so worriedly. She still had her arm jammed in his mouth, which still made him want to laugh. Her face was dirty and bruised, and the battle rang out all around them, but somehow the viciousness never touched them.
They existed somewhere else, somewhere sacred, apart from it all.
That was until Carling rapped on his snout with her knuckles. Since you’re getting better, you ought to know that my protection spell against the sun doesn’t last as long as it used to, said the witch. I need to get out of the sun, and you need to take over this incantation. People are going to keep dying if we don’t figure out how to make some headway against this.
Dragos’s attention snapped back to what was happening all around him.
Not ten feet away, Graydon had wrestled Beluviel to the ground. He held the Elven woman pinned from behind, his arms wrapped around her as he gripped her wrists. Her body strained convulsively to break his hold until the tendons in her arms and legs showed white like bone against her skin. All the while she stared blankly into space through the tangled curtain of her hair.
Even though violence churned all around them, Graydon talked to her. His voice was gentle as he said, “You’re all right. You’re going to be all right.”
But while Monroe rescued children and Graydon held on to Beluviel, no one else had the luxury of picking just one person to save. He noticed that they tried to knock the Elves back without inflicting harm, but gradually they were both taking and inflicting damage as they were surrounded by an army that would not stop advancing.
Not until Gaeleval himself was stopped.
He focused on Carling’s incantation. Analyzing, he realized that she was acting as a focal point for the other magic users. Her incantation took their individual spells and wove them together in a patchwork defense against Gaeleval and the God Machine.
They were holding together a bubble of shelter around the sentinels and other fighters who had managed to reach him, while not twenty feet away, a hurricane force had picked up once again and battered against their shields. They were cut off from the rest of their troops, including Ferion and the other Wyr. Nobody else could fly in or out.
Even as he studied them, one of the magic users faltered and fell out of the pattern. Carling repaired the hole quickly by reweaving the other spells together, but Dragos could hear the strain in her voice. She wouldn’t be able to hold the spells together for much longer, and when she lost control of the pattern, all the rest would fall apart.
Dragos gently pushed Pia’s arm out of his mouth and shapeshifted, rolling onto his hands and knees. He straightened and put his hand on Pia’s shoulder, squeezing, as he asked Carling, “Can you hold for a little while longer?”
Not far away, Rune glanced over his shoulder as he batted several Elves away with one wide swipe of his giant paw. Carling’s face twisted but she nodded. The Vampyre wrapped her cloak tightly around her body and pulled the hood over her head, still chanting.
Pia said hoarsely, “I need to go to Calondir.”
There was nothing anybody could do for Calondir, but he did not tell her that. Instead he let go of her shoulder and said, “Go.”
Pia wobbled to her feet and, cradling her arm against her side, she limped toward the Elf Lord’s still form. Eva noticed and pulled back from the fighting. As soon as those on either side of her filled the gap that she left, she jogged after Pia.
He could no longer act in partnership with a dead man. Freed from his oath to the High Lord, Dragos turned his attention back to the sole reason why he had come.
To Gaeleval, who couldn’t seem to leave his mate alone, and who couldn’t seem to go off and be a maniacal despot in a pocket of Other land somewhere else that had nothing to do with Dragos or the Wyr.
And Dragos could learn to give in sometimes, in some ways, but there really was only so far he could bend.
This was not going to be one of those times.
This was the time to make a real victim out of that son of a bitch.
Dragos cloaked himself with a spell so tight, not a mouse would have sensed his presence. Then he strode between Constantine and Aryal, into the howling gale, and he walked into the enthralled army.
As he hunted through the sea of hollowed eyes and empty faces, one by one he filtered everything out. Carling and the other magic users. The God Machine.
Everything but that last thread of Power, the blood of his prey.
When he located it, he did not try to push against it or fight it. Instead he followed it, tracing it back to its source.
Unlike Gaeleval, he did not have a God Machine to magnify his abilities. He needed to draw close to his target for what he meant to do.
When he had gotten close enough, he curled his own Power around that singular thread, and he began to whisper a beguilement that brought him into an almost perfect alignment with it. Then he slid his intention into it obliquely, as if by accident.
You are the bringer of the end of your days, he whispered. His enemy was very near, gathered behind a knot of strong Elven warriors. This is the final note in your song. It was set in motion at your beginning. You have forgotten that Death himself i
s part of your whole. You have done your job well, and you can let go. Let go. What you wish for is here, your ending. Now you can fall into silence.
Others like Gaeleval might share a talent for beguilement, but no one could beguile quite like the dragon, who could whisper death with such gentle purity that it marked the soul for which it was intended.
Even still, his prey could have fought him, and might even have had a chance against the beguilement if his survival instinct had been strong enough, except that Dragos used what Gaeleval wanted most against him.
The singular thread of Power dissolved. He almost imagined a sigh of relief as it dissipated.
His eardrums pounded as the howling gale died.
Gaeleval’s army staggered to a halt.
Wyr shouted to each other and to him, while Ferion and others who had been left on the bluff raced toward them.
Several minutes later, searchers came upon Dragos standing over Amras Gaeleval, who was dead. The Elf sat in a lotus position, his empty hands in his lap. Like Calondir in the painting, Gaeleval looked as though he cupped something immeasurably precious.
Dragos stared at Gaeleval in silence for a long moment before he turned away.
• • •
Even as Pia and Eva had come close to the High Lord, Pia had known Calondir was gone.
Still, as she struggled to get past the restrictions of her leather armor and her stiff, sore body to kneel beside him, she knew she had to try. While Eva leaned over to shield her with her body, Pia slit her palm and let a few drops of her blood fall between the Elf Lord’s parted lips. Of course nothing happened. Her blood could heal, but it couldn’t bring back the dead.
She couldn’t do anything else for him, so she sat with him until Ferion, Sidhiel, and others plunged into sight. When their faces broke apart into fresh grief, she held out her hand to Eva who helped hoist her to her feet. They walked away to give the Elves a measure of privacy.
After everything that had happened, the rest followed so fast it was disconcerting.
Dragos came to find her. “Gaeleval’s dead,” he told her. She merely nodded. She couldn’t stop staring at the sea of catatonic people. He put his hands on her shoulders and tilted his head until he caught her attention. “Are you all right?”
She nodded and wiped at her eyes with the back of one hand. It was not quite a lie. “Did you find the prayer beads?”
He hesitated, then said, “There weren’t any prayer beads, Pia.”
She said dully, “I suppose that means the God Machine has turned into something else. I wonder where it has gone now.”
Dragos took in a deep breath, then shook his head sharply. “We can talk about that later. Pia, listen to me. If I don’t remove the beguilement soon, Gaeleval’s entire army is going to die. When I do remove it, many of them will still die. The rest of this is going to be horrible and tedious. You are bruised all over, and you have to eat something. Now will you go home?”
“No,” she said. She braced her aching back. “But I will eat something and go back to Lirithriel to help get in supplies of, well, everything. Medical supplies, food, clothing, shelter. Dragos, the survivors need to be sent back through the passageway as quickly as possible. It’s too cold here. As many as you think might die when you take off the beguilement, we’re going to lose more when the sun goes down.”
He clenched his jaw, and she could see he hadn’t had a chance to think that far ahead. “You’re right,” he said.
They parted with a quick, hard kiss.
Even though Carling kept deeply swaddled with her cloak, Rune was anxious to get her safely to shelter, either inside a building or under the cover of night. He flew Carling, Eva and Pia back through the passageway. They discovered that the time slippage between the Elven Other land and Lirithriel Wood had remained constant. Daytime in the Other land meant nighttime in South Carolina.
As soon as they cleared the passageway and the gryphon landed in the clearing, Carling drew back her hood and summoned Soren, the Demonkind Councillor and head of the Elder tribunal. Moments later, a cyclone whirled into the clearing and solidified into the tall figure of a white-haired Djinn with a roughly hewn face and starred eyes.
They told Soren quickly what had happened. He called in more Djinn to help. After they arrived, he blew away to inform the rest of the Elder tribunal. With dizzying swiftness, tribunal Peacekeepers began to arrive, along with doctors, other medical personnel, and all manner of supplies.
Pia had lost track a while ago of where her pack had gone. As soon as the first boxes of bottled water and emergency food supplies came in, she crammed an energy bar into her mouth, drank some water and threw herself into work. Eva never complained and never left her side, but worked alongside her, as did Rune and Carling. After a frantic explosion of activity, three large triage tents were set up and ready by the time the first of the injured Elves trickled through the passageway.
Pia was thrilled and relieved, and also incredibly saddened, when she saw that Beluviel was one of the first ones to come through. Graydon carried her close to his chest, his face drawn and jaw tight. The Elven woman, no longer the consort, was semiconscious and wrapped tightly in a cloak.
The trickle quickly became a deluge, and then word came back through the passageway along with the sick and injured. When the Lord of the Wyr had removed the last of the beguilement from the enthralled Elven army, over a third of the Numenlaurians had died. Everyone in the clearing fell into a stricken silence.
It was too much to take in. There were too many people coming over. There was too much to do. There was always some task right in front of her, until suddenly the next thing that stood in front of her was Dragos himself.
“Oh, hi,” she said hoarsely. She had gone numb a long while back.
He looked at her grimly, his mouth set. Then he pulled her into his arms and said, “Enough.”
Closing her eyes, she rested her head against his chest. She knew better than to argue with that tone of voice.
She was already half asleep when he picked her up in his arms, so she might have dreamed the next bit when Dragos called Soren over to him. Dragos said to the Djinn Councillor, “You have wanted to get me in your debt for some time. Now is your chance. Take us back to Cuelebre Tower, and I’ll owe you a small favor.”
Soren smiled, and his starred eyes turned calculating. “What a very precise bargain you offer.”
“My jet is fueled and sitting on the tarmac at the Charleston airport,” Dragos told him. “You are a convenience, not a necessity. Small, Soren.”
Soren’s smile widened. “You knew I couldn’t resist.”
“I was fairly certain,” said Dragos.
Then a cyclone swept them up, and for the first time in too damn long, they went to bed together in their own bed. Pia was too tired to wash, and they were both filthy, and none of it mattered, because they were together, and they were home.
Dragos helped her strip out of her clothes and held the covers back for her as she crawled between the sheets. A few moments later he joined her. He pulled her into his arms, and she rested her head on his chest.
“The Freaky Deaky,” she mumbled.
He lifted his head off the pillow to look at her. “The Freaky Deaky?”
“The Woo-Woo.” She couldn’t keep both eyes open at the same time, so she gave up and kept them closed. “You know, the Oracle’s prophecy. It’s all over now, right?”
He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Almost. There is one more thing to do.”
Almost? What did that mean? What else needed to be done? And please God, could it wait until morning?
Before she could ask him, the questions melted into darkness and she plummeted deep into sleep.
• • •
Dragos made contact with Grym to let the sentinel know that
he and Pia had returned. Telling the sentinel about what had happened in the Elven demesne could wait until later. It was too big of a story to share in a quick telepathic exchange.
As soon as Dragos was certain that Pia had fallen deeply asleep, he slid out of bed, dressed again in his dirty clothes and strode up a flight of stairs to the Tower’s rooftop. The winter night was bitter cold, and lit with a massive spray of colored lights. He could sense Soren’s presence lingering, but he ignored the Djinn for now.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the God Machine.
No longer a string of plain wooden prayer beads, the Machine looked like a perfect cut diamond, the largest and most sumptuous diamond Dragos had ever seen. It shone like a beacon in the darkness, the only true light in a world filled with uncertainty and shadows. Power burned in his hand, an eternal black lotus.
A perfect jewel, and Power.
They were his two most favorite things in the world, aside from Pia and the baby.
“No, you don’t,” he said to Taliesin’s seductive Machine. “You cannot influence me that way.”
He changed into the dragon, launched and flew out over the water. Past the New York harbor to open sea, and still further, flying strongly while the wind burned in his lungs and the stars overhead in the velvet night sky outshone everything on Earth.
Finally he reached a point where he was surrounded with nothing but dark ocean, sky and wind. The Djinn had wisely stayed back in New York, and he sensed no creature below the ocean’s surface.
He threw the Machine as far as he could. The bright diamond/black lotus flashed in the night as it arced through the sky. It worked its magic on him even as he let it go and watched it fall. When it disappeared into the water, he yearned to dive after it.
But another lodestone drew him, the memory of Pia, soft and warm and sleeping in his bed, and his yearning for her was even stronger than the lure of the Machine. He didn’t hesitate as he wheeled in the sky and flew back to the city, back home.
He landed on the roof and changed, more tired than he had been in a long time, and that was when the Djinn Soren chose to reappear, materializing in front of him in the figure of that tall, white-haired man with a craggy face, and shining, starred eyes.
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