Oh gods.
Miss her?
Fear took her in its clutch.
“Then…do not…do what it is…you intend…to do,” she pushed out.
“Oh no.” He shook his head. “This was the mistake I made last time, my witch. And I shan’t make it again.”
Marian had just managed to start the tingle she felt at the small of her back…
When there was nothing she could do but scream.
Gods.
Agony.
“Yes,” he breathed, his voice animal, her eyelids fluttering.
Still, through them, she saw the Beast.
His beauty gone, his breath fetid, his claws embedded in her gut.
Her entire body jerked, pain blistering throughout her frame as he pulled them out, drew back his arm, and she saw his long talons dripping with her blood before she cried out again, this much weaker, as he struck down.
Automatically, she shut her eyes tight as his claws scored into the stone of the slab beside her head and a great light rose out.
“Yes!” he bellowed, and she tightened her eyes tight, for even closed, that light burned them.
She felt his presence leave her, the light dimmed, and her head fell to the side as she again opened her eyes.
“Come, brother!” he shouted, and she watched him from behind as he again drew back his arm and embedded his claws into one of the standing stones.
Bright light poured out and she flinched against it before she saw a figure fall out of the light, out of the stone, into the snow before it.
By the gods.
He had…
The time before, he had emerged from that broken stone.
“Up, brother,” the Beast urged, moving to the next stone, in which he rooted his claws, crying, “Come, sister!”
With effort, Marian turned to the side, thinking vaguely of escape, feeling in her movement another rush of her blood over the slab under her.
And she watched as the creature freed from the stone pressed up to its hands and knees in the snow.
“Come, brother!” the Beast exclaimed and there was another shaft of light.
She reached to the edge of the slab, curled her fingers around it, tried to pull her weight toward it, and felt another gush of blood come from her.
She stilled and her eyelids drooped.
“Come, sister!” the Beast called on another flash of light.
She had failed.
She had failed dearly.
For there was not one of them.
There were five.
Her eyes were almost closed when the light in the circle changed.
She saw colored streaks and heard an almighty squawk of pain that was so grotesque, it scored at her ears, and with the last of her strength, she could do naught but lift her hands and cover them.
The circle filled with a flash of green.
“Four!” she heard a woman shout.
“No!” A flash of red and another woman’s shout. “Five!”
There was then a flare of blue.
And a roar of fury.
“Nandra! Lena! That one! Concentrate on the one still down in the snow!”
Another gods-awful screech and a flash of coral.
A flare of it scored over her.
“Melisse! Return! Give warning!”
Another pained, hideous screech.
Marian curled into herself.
“Sister!” the Beast thundered.
The circle filled with an explosion that was a mix of blue, coral, green and red light.
The green blinked out.
“Rebecca!”
“No!”
“Return! Return! Return!”
“Nandra, go!”
Her body was jolted as another went careening over her and Marian saw over the edge of the slab the dark hair of a Firenz woman fanned out on the snow.
It did not move.
“Give…it…all!”
Bright coral and intense blue suffused the circle and then a boom exploded so mighty, her frame jerked with it.
“We can do no more! Go!”
A flash of blue.
One of coral.
And…
Silence.
Marian noted vaguely it was snowing again.
Not snow.
No.
A heavy downfall of black ash.
As her vision faded, she watched the Beast in the form of a beast drop to his knees into the snow, murmuring, “Sister.”
Her eyes closed.
They opened on hearing him snarl and the hair of the Firenz woman was dragged from sight. She heard a terrible ripping noise, saw a spurt of crimson desecrate the white.
And her eyes did not close again.
But they could see no longer.
King Cassius
Upper Hall, Sky Citadel, Sky Bay
AIREN
He stood, ignoring the boom of fireworks above, the sounds of celebrations that rose up from the bottom gate, and stared at Reginald standing before him.
“I have situated her in the room she had before, but she shall be moved at your direction, if this is your requirement. As ever, your orders will be carried out to the letter,” Reginald said.
Cassius said nothing.
When he did not, Reginald did.
“If you wish my bars, sire, I will give them to you,” he declared. “My watch. My responsibility. And as I’ve failed it, not only with this, but also not knowing communications were getting through my guard, if you intend to relieve me of it, this is something I will not argue.”
Cassius continued to say nothing.
“I am sorry, my king, that my failure in my duties has put a pall on such a triumphant day,” Reginald muttered. “I am also sorry for your loss.”
“What did you say?” Cassius asked.
Reginald studied him a moment before asking, “Which part?”
“What did you call me?”
“Um…my king?” Reginald queried, as if Cassius’s confirmation was needed to state he did, or did not, call him that.
“Fuck, I am,” Cassius said.
“Sorry, sire?”
Cassius snapped into the conversation.
“Your king,” he said. “I’m your king.”
“Well, yes, uh, since, you see, the other one is rather…um…dead,” Reginald replied.
Cass studied his uncomfortable warden.
Then he made his decision.
“We have spoken of the other,” Cassius began. “I understand feeling responsible for the entirety of your men. I would have no man in your position who didn’t. But no one is all-knowing and all-seeing. The men who are responsible have been identified and dealt with. And that is all that needs said about that.”
Reginald inclined his head.
“And he ordered today’s nonsense through his council, Reginald,” Cassius told the man. “One hundred and fifty-seven Airenzian men are dead today because of him. A stand they should not have taken that could never have been won, ordered by a king who was no longer in the position to put his people in the path of harm. I would have had to take his head, Reginald. Through sheer obstinacy, he is responsible for what befell my citizens today. For even if they stood against the changes I’ve made, they’re still Airenzian. So, it’s rather fortunate that Horatia saved me from needing to order the execution of my father.”
“Well, I suppose, if you’re looking for a bright side,” Reginald mumbled.
“He was a terrible king, a dreadful father and a hideous husband. He will be missed by few, and those would do as such, in the doing, do not matter,” Cassius said.
Reginald nodded. “And what do you wish for her Lady Royal?”
“Perform an investigation,” Cass commanded. “We obviously can’t have guard or staff at the Bailey circumventing justice. If you discover her conspirator, we’ll deal with him, or her, then. Horatia will serve, in her current quarters, the sentence of a seditious soldier who defies the orders of a commanding
officer. This is six months confinement then dismissal from service. As she’s not a member of my army, when she’s done with her confinement, she’ll simply be returned to her manor in the south. Done.”
Reginald dipped his chin. “Yes, my king.”
“Reg?”
“Yes, my king?”
“Bloody call me Cass, would you?”
Reginald smiled. “Yes…Cass.”
“Go home and celebrate,” he ordered.
“Righty ho.”
Reginald affected a cocky salute, turned and walked away.
Cass watched him, then he too turned, but he did not take that first step.
This was because Ellie was coming out of the red room.
She exited it only enough to step to the side of the door and lean her back there.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she whispered.
She’d heard.
No.
She’d been listening.
“He will not be mourned,” he told her something he knew she knew.
“I’m not sorry for his loss, for he was horrid. I’m sorry you did not have a good father. I’m sorry his last command acted out on this earth proved that beyond all doubt. And I’m sorry because I know you, you’ll draw that in and allow it to harm you until me and Aelia and Dora can dig it out from where it never should be, for he is no part of you. You left him behind long, long ago.”
Cassius did nothing and said nothing but expel a deep breath.
“And her legacy is complete,” she said softly.
His gut burned as he stared at her.
“She is standing beside my mother and they are very proud of you, my king.”
“We agreed not to call each other such,” he growled.
“Just this once,” she whispered.
And he was upon her, pressing her against the wall of his bloody Citadel, in his bloody capital, in his bloody realm.
Kissing her.
Deeply.
The sound of Macrinus calling, “Fuck, Cass. Cass!” was the only reason he broke the embrace.
Both he and Elena looked down to the mouth of the hall where Mac was standing.
“Now…come…now!” Mac shouted, then he was away.
They hesitated long enough to glance at each other before they both jogged that way.
The entryway was vacant, but voices could be heard in the Great Hall, thus, they moved there.
A handsome, dark-skinned Mar-el woman lay back on a couch, gasping for air and appearing in pain.
Melisse sat on her arse on the floor as if she’d collapsed there, knees up, head and back bowed, forearms on her knees, deep breathing into her lap.
Fern was standing above the woman on the couch, her eyes closed, her hands hovering over her, her lips moving in silent wording.
True and Farah were already there, and Aramus and Ha-Lah ran in moments after Cassius and Elena had arrived.
Elena dropped down to a knee beside Melisse, one hand on her friend’s back, bending to her.
“What’s happened?” she asked.
Cassius stood close to them but looked to his right to see Mars jog in, holding Silence’s hand, (though, Silence wasn’t jogging, she was on the trot to keep up with him).
“What’s the urgency?” Mars demanded, his gaze snapping about the room, taking it in.
“Melisse, what’s happened?” Elena asked.
Everyone drew in close as Melisse tipped her head back.
“Rebecca. Nandra,” she said.
But then said no more.
“Rebecca?” True asked.
“What of Nandra?” Mars bit off.
“We…we killed one. It…she…it had not quite recovered from its emergence, I think. Vulnerable. They…my sisters, my sisters are gone, but before they were lost to us, they made it so it is also gone,” Melisse said.
“It? What it?” Elena asked.
Cassius watched as Melisse looked into Elena’s eyes before her gaze moved all around.
She finished, however, back on her sister-daughter.
“There is not but one beast,” she whispered.
The air in the room stood still.
“There are four.”
149
The Examination
Silbury Henge, Argyll Forest
AIREN
The zinging stopped and mists of snow and ash bloomed up when the tridents struck it all around the slab in the center of the circle.
Immediately, there formed ten men, two to each trident.
They stood in the circle, motionless, alert, hands on their weapons.
When they heard nothing, they glanced about.
The clearing all around was mostly covered in black soot, with some disturbances, indications of the movements of beings.
The origin of the ash, it was clear, was the area in front of one of the stones, where there was crater in the earth, the frozen dirt that was exposed oozing with some form of black sludge.
King Cassius Laird was the first to move, his boots crunching in the snow.
He went to the crater and crouched beside it, staring into it in contemplation.
King True Axelsson of Wodell shifted next, going to the slab in the center upon which, covered in fallen ash, there was the corpse of a woman who, through the dark powder that covered her features, he noted had been quite pretty.
But now the skin of her face he could see through the dust was ashen, except about her lips and eyes, where it was blue.
The lifeblood that had flowed from her onto the slab was a muddy red-black color, as it had dried or frozen, but before doing so, had soaked up the ash. Though he could see it was fully crimson where it had seeped over the side into the snow.
King Aramus Nereus of Mar-el moved next, going to squat beside another lifeless body.
She was a woman in Dellish clothes with light-brown hair. She lay facedown in the snow. One arm was cast above her, her wool skirts covered her legs, her cloak was fanned out beside her as if someone had lifted it to let it catch the air and fall in order to spread it artfully.
Blood soaked the soot-covered snow in a pool all about her.
The next to move was King Mars Laches of Firenze.
His boots crunched through the black and white and a vein beat in his temple as he cast his eyes along the length of the slaughter.
He noted immediately there were body parts missing.
Thus, his gaze followed some red droplets, and in the not far distance, he saw her head and her pelvis.
He closed his eyes.
His captains began to shift about outside the stones, keeping alert, tridents at the ready, as King Jorie of the Mer moved from stone to stone, examining the large impressions in the snow before them. The disturbances of nature’s blanket on the ground.
And the footfalls, or what looked like hoof falls that led away from this place.
One of his males came to him and asked low, “Do you wish us to follow them?”
“No,” he grunted, watching True reach out with a gloved hand to close the eyes of the dead woman on the slab.
He then turned to watch as Aramus gently rolled the woman in the snow to her back, and Jorie drew in a deep breath at the gore that had been made of her, from her face all the way down to her sex.
Cassius straightened from his crouch at the crater, his eyes to the body Aramus had turned, and his words came as a rumble.
“They did not die in vain,” he stated. “Four is worse than one, but five is worse than four.”
True moved to stand by Aramus, looking down at the witch from his realm, his expression an oddly affecting mixture of gentle and enraged.
“These stones imprisoned them,” Aramus noted. “One of them somehow freed himself. The one of lore.” He indicated the broken stone that had no impression in the snow before it. “The others have been here, perhaps since time began.”
Mars also moved close to Aramus and True, indicating a stone with a jerk of his head, stating, “This is the work of the
gods.”
Cassius and Jorie joined them, Cassius glancing at a stone embedded in the earth, agreeing, “It has to be.”
“We must come back, with men, follow those tracks, discover where they went,” True said.
“Look upon them,” Aramus said quietly, indicating the woman at their feet and then with a slight lift of his other hand, the one in parts across the circle. “This was done with bare hands. Men who track these creatures must do it with witches. Powerful ones.”
“Melisse and Lena are completely depleted,” Cassius said. “And our wives are getting nowhere bloody near this mess until we have a better handle on what we’re dealing with.”
“We return to Sky Bay,” Mars grunted. “Now. We send men to collect these bodies, take them to their realms where they will join the veil. And then we plan at the Citadel.”
“Mars—” True started.
Mars locked his gaze with his friend. “I do not like to leave them here as they are either, True. But the longer we are away, the more afeared our queens will become. I will not be here any longer than I must before I return to my Silence to show her I am all right. We will send men to take care of them. Now let us leave this…fucking…place.”
Jorie jerked up his chin to his men.
They approached.
Arms were linked.
Tridents were thrown.
And they embedded themselves in the courtyard of the Sky Citadel.
The Mouth of Triton, Fifteen Miles Down the Coast from Nautilus
MAR-EL
His orbs were glowing so brightly, their light had to reach the top of the vortex.
He remembered the creation of this vortex.
In his fury, he had cast her to the depths of the sea, and when she did not emerge, his grief was so strong, he had driven himself into the earth.
And he did this not knowing he would never climb out of this hole.
He lifted his hand to the orbs, seeing his fingers gnarled, his knuckles grotesquely swollen, his nail a long claw, the bed of it black with dirt.
Ah, so much lost.
And not simply the glory of what he once was.
He touched the orbs and closed his eyes.
“Our children,” he whispered. “Our naughty children, my love. They are awake.”
Her voice was weak when it came to him, not weak as in she was not strong, weak because she was very far away.
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