Grave Chance

by D. D. Miers

  "Must I forget?" It seemed unnecessary to take memories away since he was such a special creature, and I'd been the one to raise him…Or maybe that was just another lie I'd have to learn, and Mort was simply Mort and didn't need me at all.

  He explained how I’d gotten turned around and directed me go back to the well to find my way. He asked for another scratch, this time between the bare patches on his shoulders. “It always seems dry and itchy there,” he muttered, groaning in relief as I dug my nails in.

  I sat on the stone curb, and he rested his head on my shoulder for a moment before walking off the way he'd come, while I dropped my head into my hands, too tired to think properly.

  When I opened my eyes, I was on my side, curled in the fetal position on the side of the road. “Oh, my God. I just dreamed that Mort came and talked to me. I really am losing my mind.” But the dream felt so real, I could still remember the way back to the well.

  Well, I might as well head that way, maybe my subconscious was trying to tell me something, I thought, wondering which was worse, when I had mental conversations with myself, or when they started to leak out my mouth.

  I walked the way the Mort in my dream had explained, and gradually, I began to recognize my surroundings. “Well. I’ll be damned. It really did work. Good job, crazy subconscious that decided to send my dog to save me.”

  The rest of my dream came back to me too, about Aethon being on the hunt for me. I had no reason to think his plans had changed, but I had the candle, he needed it. Didn’t take a genius to figure out that I was the primary target until he could take it back.

  I picked up my pace, remembering that dream-Mort had said I needed to go all the way to where I’d started before turning ninety degrees and heading back toward the still viable portal. Ahead of me was the well, and no sign of Aethon. Small miracles.

  Gwydion was there, marking the spot where I’d left him. He lay crumpled on the ground, barely moving, his chest slightly rising and falling with each weak breath. I’d taken more than I realized, and he hadn’t made it into the well to safety.

  “Shit.” Cautiously, I moved closer to check his vitals. “Okay, I thought you’d have healed a little by now.” I turned to go, but the warning about Aethon being hot on my heels scared me. I was mad at Gwyd, but he hadn’t tried to hurt me. I couldn’t just leave him to be bulldozed by Aethon for helping me.

  And you have helped, more than hindered, even if you haven’t been a whole lot of help at times.

  I leaned over and kissed him, softly, breathing just enough magic into him to keep him moving, but not enough that he might overpower me. “Come on, Sunshine. Time to get up. You’ve got to move.” I hefted him up to his knees on the last sentence. “Get your feet under you, or I will leave you behind for Aethon, so help me.”

  He struggled to his feet and leaned heavily on me, steering me when I overcorrected my turn back toward the portal. Within a couple of minutes, he was walking on his own. “You got caught in the maze, didn’t you?”

  “I got a premonition Aethon’s coming for me and decided I should give you a chance to survive,” I hedged.

  He leaned heavily on me. “We would not be in this mess if you’d had the presence of mind to come with me to claim your crown and your power.” He smirked at me, all the condescension back as he regained his strength a little at a time. “Are you sure you will not come with me instead?”

  I considered dropping his arm and letting crawl back on his own. "We're going home. Now," I ordered. "I should've left you to Aethon, but you'd probably just team up with him to save your skin and where would that leave me?" But my irritation with him was already vanishing. The Endless City was not a place to be lost and alone. Gwydion at my side was already better than being alone. Not that I was about to admit that to him.

  He huffed at me and pointed ahead. "We'll go through there, it leads back the way we came but gives us better cover from prying eyes."

  I glanced up, but the only eyes I saw were strange black birds about the size of ravens. They were always here, and I knew they wouldn’t talk to Aethon anymore than they had to me.

  “You need to tap into the remainder of your power, Vexa. I did not lie to you, as you already know.”

  “You never lie, but you never just tell the truth, do you? Deceit isn’t limited to an outright lie, and we both know you’re incapable of being forthright.”

  "I am as my people are. A wrong word can lead to tortures; you cannot even imagine."

  “But I’m not one of them.” I followed him down an alley, flinching at the shadows. “For all your study of humans, you keep missing the fact that you betrayed my trust when you tricked me here.”

  He leaned against the wall and glowered at me. “I offered to make you powerful enough to stop Aethon without effort, without pain, and you turned it down because you think it makes you better than the fae not to be one.”

  “I’m human.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You are the one human I’ve met who has the potential to be the greatest power on the planet, and you dismissed it out of hand, despite the trouble bringing you cost me. You owe me a debt. All I asked was that you repay it by accepting the power to save the world, and those men you care so much about.”

  A snarky retort stuck in my throat at the hurt I felt in his voice. “I care about you too, Gwyd.”

  “But you don’t love me. You love them. When you think of saving the world, it’s not because I’m in it.”

  “But that’s just because you’re already immortal, not because I don’t care about what happens to you. I literally just came back for you so Aethon wouldn’t get to you before you could get to safety. How can you be complaining that I don’t like you enough now?”

  “This is not complaining. I am simply making an observation.”

  “An observation that I don’t love you, because I don’t do what you tell me.”

  He sighed. “I was not criticizing you.”

  “Maybe not. But you can’t say that you don’t matter to me, because you know that’s a lie.” I stepped in front of him and forced him to look at me. “Wouldn’t it?”

  He sighed and shrugged in admission. “It would be.”

  “You are damned fine and tasty, master Gwydion. But you trick me and try to manipulate me, even while you’re telling me that I’m meant to be a queen, a powerful ruler among the fae. I don’t know what I feel for you. But I would miss you if you weren’t in my world.”

  “As I would miss you.” His expression softened. “More than even I had previously thought.”

  "If you want my trust, you've got to trust me, too." I poked him in the ribs, and he flinched and groaned like it hurt. "Sorry."

  “I am still weak, but I feel better than I did…until you tried to push your stabby little finger through my ribcage.”

  I feigned another poke. “You were just faking the pain anyway.”

  A chill slithered down my spine and

  I snorted. “Right, and there was nothing in it for you.” I turned the next corner and froze, my limbs caught fast in some kind of a magical trap, different than anything I’d ever experienced, even when fighting Aethon.

  Gwydion appeared in my peripheral vision as he turned the corner, confusion in his eyes as he approached. I hissed at him to stop in an almost unintelligible mumbling, unable to move anything by my eyes as I tried to warn him not to get too close.

  Chapter 10

  “What the hell?” I muttered, still unable to move much more than my eyes and, (I’d learned when Gwydion stepped in the trap and mashed me to the wall with his paralyzed body) limited use of my mouth. I immediately started using it to chew him out. “What have you gotten me into now?”

  “I am not the one who drew enemies here,” he mumbled next to my ear. “Now stop talking and think of flames, heat, summertime, anything that will help to melt the ice that’s got us trapped.”

  I did as he commanded, ignoring the cold that was so intense I couldn’t even shiver.
My first thought was of a candle’s flame, then taking the flickering image in my head and making it grow. I felt Gwydion’s fingers brush my side as he regained control of his own body, and the silken brush of his fingers on my skin changed the image in my mind to the heat of bodies rubbing together, slick with sweat and heavy with building need.

  His breathing changed, and the hardening length of him pressed against me echoed the heat building low in my body. As his fingers danced under the hem of my tank top, they brushed over the top of the leggings I’d pulled on back at the house.

  "Vexa." Our eyes met, and he dug the thick bulge in his pants into me, his hands now massaging and squeezing handfuls of my hips. "Not the heat I'd intended, but I must say, it is working."

  I managed a breathless laugh as he worked his fingers under the waist of my pants and stroked the tender skin just between my hip bones. Like springtime, I felt the icy chill that slowed my blood dissipating as he stoked a fire that had nothing to do with magic, and everything to do with good, old-fashioned sex.

  And I knew sex with Gwydion was worth the bump in my heart rate and the heat between my legs. His eyes, so close to mine that my vision swam, were dark with things that had everything to do with primal needs beyond survival.

  Just as he leaned in and brushed his lips across mine, my legs trembled, freed from the trap that had held us. I jumped to one side and exhaled hard. “Okay, that was, uh, an experience. Let’s see if we can avoid any more traps, right?” I shook myself and did my best to ignore the rush of my pulse through my veins as I started back in the direction he’d directed before the trap caught me. “Was that courtesy of Aethon?”

  “Maybe. Then again, it might have been any fae or being from another realm who sensed an alien presence and wished to detain us.”

  “Fabulous. How do we avoid them?” I pressed my back to a wall and peered around the corner. No runes glowed, no big signs with arrows declared more traps ahead… Which was a shame really, I could’ve used a little humor.

  He followed suit, surveying the road ahead before stepping out in front of me, rolling his eyes. “The runes on the wall will glow for an instant before the trap is sprung. Move slowly and pay attention,” he snapped.

  I didn’t know if it was because he was upset with our circumstances, or because I’d pulled away from him, but his supercilious tone had returned full force, even if his strength hadn’t. The warm, sensual feeling that had made my pulse bump up faded in an instant.

  “Tell me again how much safer I am with you than I would be with the others?”

  He cursed under his breath without replying and stalked ahead, forcing me into a jog to catch up.

  "I thought we had to go slow and be careful?" I tugged on his arm. He ignored me. Pushing on with his head swaying from side to side as he looked out for trouble. "Hey. I didn't bring us here, you did, remember?" I tried to force him to stop and face me, but it was like we'd switched roles, and now he was the one trying to get away from me.

  “I offered you a crown and more power than you even have the capacity to imagine, and you are behaving as though I was forcing you into submission to the fae. I cannot fathom why you would be so limited in your thinking, and yet, knowing your humanity, I prepared for that as well.”

  “You thought kidnapping me, then using my debt to you to coerce would win me over?” I glared at his back until he felt my stare and turned around.

  "I hoped that without the white noise from the others, you might make a better choice." His shoulders sagged. "I did not wish to coerce you. But I offer you a power beyond the boundaries of mortality, and still, I knew you would resist."

  That was the crux of it, really. He could never understand that as a mortal, the freedom to make my own choices and guide my life was paramount. "You have had many lifetimes to make your choices, and perhaps you see yourself as wiser than us mere humans. But we see the fae, with their long lives and great powers and still, they are cruel, selfish, and without compassion for those around them. We do not trust your ‘wisdom' any more than you trust our emotions."

  “You are frustrating, but I have given my assistance because I value parts of humanity more than the myriad of flaws you cling to so tightly.” He sighed and glanced around again, as though he expected a surprise attack from the windows above.

  “I don’t know who you’re looking for, but I doubt Aethon will be up there.”

  “There are things more terrifying than Aethon in the Endless City. Things that have hunted this realm longer than even your lich has existed.” He paused for a moment, lost in thought. “We shouldn’t have been here so long.”

  He turned away, and I touched his arm to make him look at me. "Don't give up on me just yet, okay?" I took a step past him into the intersection of two narrow alleys and saw a brief light out of the corner of my eye, just in time for me to throw myself in the opposite direction and raise my arms to shield my face.

  Without meaning to, I touched the power of the candle within me and the frost that was meant to slow my body crystalized over the shield I’d unwittingly erected, crawling up it harmlessly before dissipating like steam.

  "Good work. This way." Gwyd waved away the remaining tiny crystalline icicles still hanging in the air, and we broke into a light-footed jog through the streets, taking a roundabout way back toward the portal.

  The twists and turns we took were dizzying at times, but I felt us getting closer, grateful that at least Gwydion wasn't going to fight me anymore. We took what seemed to be the hundredth right turn, and I recognized where we'd come through. Before we could go any further, several feet ahead of us a light flashed, and I cursed, throwing myself into an alley behind Gwyd. We pressed ourselves against a building as a wall of flame passed by. "What the fuck, Gwyd?"

  He touched my face with one fingertip, "Can you feel it? I've no magic to expend. I cannot protect you as weak as I am." His hand slid back to my neck and tightened in the messy bun I'd tied my hair up in. "Let me take what I need to combat this unseen enemy, and we can return to the human realm safely." He slid his other arm around me, drawing me in for a kiss with practiced ease.

  “You are not activating those runes to force me to give you more, are you?” I pushed on his chest with both hand and scowled into his face. “No. Get me to the portal, or I’ll go without you. I remember how to get through the Endless City, and I know where we came in.” I scoffed as a light went on in my head. “I don’t need you to keep me safe.”

  The last of his confidence leaked out of his face as he released me. “Vexa. I have not…”

  Yeah, right. I didn’t bother to say anything else, I just walked away, breaking into a trot as I cleared the area affected by the latest magical booby trap.

  Within seconds I heard him curse in a language I didn’t know, probably for the best, then the rapid slap of feet on stone as he ran to catch up. Sympathy for his weakened condition slowed me to a walk, and almost immediately another set of runes flashed, filling air was filled with the hum of magic.

  I dropped and pivoted to see where the magic was coming from, only to see Gwydion snapped into a literal trap of cold iron. Already weakened from my attack on him earlier, he collapsed in the center of the cage, as far from the iron as he could get his body, as his skin gained a sickly pallor.

  Chapter 11

  “Oh, fuck. Gwyd, how do I get you out? Where’s the goddamned door to this thing?” I examined the bars, circling the cage like a mad woman as I tried to find a weakness to exploit. There was none. Where there had been an empty street, iron had sprung up like a demented flower garden all around him, almost twice as tall as he was, and the bars only a few inches apart.

  He hugged himself, doing his best to avoid even touching the cold iron prison. “Just…go. Quickly.” His weak, gravely whisper broke my heart in half.

  “Oh, shut up,” I snapped. “I’m not leaving you here to become a martyr to the selfish obstinance of humans. Now help me get you out of there.”

  He didn
’t answer. He seemed to collapse in on himself, sitting with his head resting on his knees, his arms wrapped around them, pulling them in tight. I’d never seen him look so vulnerable. It was as though the touch of iron had stolen what was fae from him and made him wholly human. Another time, if I wasn’t watching him die, I might have enjoyed seeing him humbled. But not like that, tortured and undone as weak as he was, gloating would have to wait.

  The bars of the cage glimmered with fae magic. I reached out to touch one, and it stung me. I jerked back from the sensation of being electrocuted, and when I examined my hand, there was a pink sear-mark across my fingertips.

  “Okay, shit. That fucking hurt.” I drew upon raw magic to heal the small magical burn, horrified that Gwyd would feel that same burning on every part of his body that touched the inside of the tiny iron cage. No wonder he was curled up as small as he could make himself.

  As my fear for him grew, the candle’s power flared within me reminding me that raising the dead was not all I could do with the power I held. Gwydion’s death would harm me, no matter how angry I was at him for separating us from the others, or for trying to manipulate me into aiming for new magic without considering the consequences.

  He was mine, just like Cole and Ethan, and even Julius were mine. I wouldn't have left him there any more than I could have the others, whether he believed I was sincere or not. I touched the dark power inside me, cool and dark and familiar, and pushed it into the cage like a cannon blast.

  The power ricocheted back at me, knocking me on my ass before I could put my hands down to help break the fall. “Oh, holy shit. Okay, not doing that again.’

  Gwydion’s eyes widened as he looked at me over his kneecaps, but he didn’t say anything, watching and waiting to see if I could undo the cage before whoever had set it returned.

  "Okay. No problem. I'll try something different. We'll get you out of there in no time." Instead of blasting away at the iron bars, I remembered Cole's instruction and focused the necromantic magic to a point. After all, everything decays, right?