“Aurelia, please, this is not the time.” Elaine pleaded with her, but she wasn’t asking for forgiveness.
“You don’t understand what it was like being there. I wanted something to make the pain go away.”
“And did it?”
She looked at her mother, a sharp agony puncturing her chest over and over in time with her heartbeat. “How could it when he’s not really dead? When that monster…” The terror and hurt bubbled inside her and she screwed her eyes shut.
I will not cry.
A soft touch scalded her.
“Don’t!” she shouted. “I don’t want your comfort.”
Elaine’s hand retreated. “Then tell me what you do want?”
Since she was twelve, she had kept her mother’s secret, sealed it with the promise that one day her mother would come for her, and together they would work amazing magic. In the meantime, Elaine taught her when she could, but never stayed long. Even so, she had kept faith as the questions stacked inside her.
Why did she leave her children behind? Why let Henri live when he deserved the worst kind of punishment?
“I want answers. What was that thing, and why was it inside Henri?”
Her mother couldn’t avoid it. She’d imprisoned her in ignorance long enough.
V
Freedom! The charred meat fell away, and Xadrak slipped from the clutches of mortality. True, he’d been banished, but now he soared on the winds of the ether.
He rose into the astral, a higher plane where his power increased. The ether mixed the earthly and the astral, balancing one with the other. Being a spirit, he could not hope to rule Earth, but in the astral he was already filling with energy and might.
He would gain dominion here then seek a way to return to Earth in his full glory, horns gleaming, tail thrashing and wings intact. Then he would rule the world, just as he had sought to rule Crion.
A gaze shifted over him, slid down him, examined him. He stopped. There was nothing there, nothing to see, but he knew he was being watched and appraised, as if he were a curiosity.
The gaze circled him, and he responded in kind, sensing it with his mind. It was human, someone with power of a sort, though small compared to what he possessed. Knowing it had been noticed it bounded away, no doubt searching for some burrow in which to hide.
Xadrak released a whisper of his power, near undetectable, and hooked gently into the other mind. The softness of it drained him, being unused to such careful work. Subtlety had never been his strongest trait, even when he’d been whole. Sinara had called him a brindlelock, the six-legged beast that roamed Crion’s mountains. They didn’t go around the boulders strewn in their path; they pushed through them with their curled horns and massive shoulders. She’d laughed, lying in his arms in the deep valley, the purple grass swaying in the warm breeze. He’d stroked her—
He quashed the memory, and floated after the mind, gradually drawing nearer. He skirted its edges and found a name—Loic—and the mark of another.
Sinara.
This Loic belonged to her. So, she’d made it through as well. And if her minion searched for him, it wouldn’t be long before she came within his reach.
Then the bitch would suffer.
VI
“His name is Xadrak.”
Aurelia shivered. “So that thing wasn’t Henri?”
“Please understand that while he was human, he was harmless.” Once spoken, her mother rushed to cover her ill-chosen words. “I didn’t mean—”
“Harmless? He forced himself on me. On Olivier. He slashed Thierry from ass to neck, and yet you did nothing. What could have been so important to justify leaving us with that?” Her eyes stung. This time she couldn’t hold back the tears as her mother’s callousness struck her heart like an axe.
Arms encircled her and held her tight. She struggled to break free, but she couldn’t, and eventually she succumbed to her mother’s warmth. For too long this had been all she’d ever wanted, but now her mother’s affections were tainted. She sniffed, clawed back her emotions, and pushed her mother away.
“I’m—” Elaine began.
Aurelia cut her down. “Who is Xadrak?”
Elaine opened her mouth to speak but closed it again and looked at the ground. When she finally spoke, she sounded empty. “Many years ago, there was a war between the demons in a world separate from our own. Xadrak led dark forces but when his army began to lose, he attempted to escape through a portal, pursued by another demon.”
“What demon?”
Elaine looked into her eyes. “Me.”
Beetles skittered up her body. Remembering the awful beast that had been Xadrak, she summoned a banishing pentagram.
Her mother—the demon—tilted back her head and looked to the cave’s roof, shaking her head slightly. “You have nothing to fear from me, Aurelia.”
“How can I trust you?”
Elaine stepped towards the pentagram, and Aurelia imbued it with more power. “I am your mother.”
“If you are my mother, then Xadrak is my father.”
“No, it doesn’t work like that. Henri and I are both mortal, but the spirit that inhabits our bodies is demon.”
“Even less reason to trust you.”
Elaine’s shoulders sagged. “Though I have not always protected you, I have never directly caused you harm. There is no need for you to guard yourself from me.”
Grudgingly, Aurelia admitted her mother was right. Whenever they had been together over the years, Aurelia learning at Elaine’s side to control the power she’d been given, she had been generous. While it now made her feel as if she’d been bought off, she’d not been in danger.
She withdrew the protection.
“What happened when you followed him through the portal?”
“We fought and during the battle it collapsed, sending us to Earth. Here, our powers were forced into human blood and bone.”
“Why do you have power and Henri didn’t?”
“For a while I was the same as him, but then I started to get flashes of memories that weren’t my own. And with the memories came my power.”
“And then you left.”
She had seen her mother near hysterical back then, weeping when she’d thought she wasn’t being watched, and chasing her out of the house when she’d caught her spying. The twins hadn’t noticed or, if they had, they didn’t let on, but Aurelia had. Not being able to help ease her mother’s worries had sat like cow dung in her stomach.
Then she was gone.
And Henri changed.
“I had to find out what it meant.”
Aurelia folded her arms, the weight on her belly easing the nausea brought on by the memories. “And did you?”
“Yes, an oracle helped me discover what my path was and how I must finish what Sinara started.”
Sinara. Two names for two faces.
“And what’s that?”
“To return Xadrak to his realm where he will face justice.”
“Then why is he still here? If you knew what he was, why did we have to suffer him?”
“It wasn’t the right time. I didn’t have all the pieces, so I had to wait. While human, he was without magic. Now that he’s a spirit, he’s out there, growing stronger and becoming everything he once was.”
“And he’s going to come for you.”
“For us. We’re in this together, Aurelia.”
Aurelia’s heart tried to break through her chest. Elaine wanted her to face the demon again?
“I want none of this. Xadrak is your problem.”
“A problem you created.”
“You blame me for this? An accident of birth is what this is. Everything else is your battle, your fight, and your burden to bear.”
Elaine reached for her. “I can’t do this without you.”
“Why not? I seem to have made this all so difficult for you. You could leave me be and that would be the end of it. You left me once before. I’m sure you can do it agai
n.”
Elaine slapped her, knocking her to the ground. Her head swam from the blow. When her vision stabilized, her mother’s face was close to hers, her hand near her cheek. She jerked away.
Elaine pulled back her hand. “I’m sorry. Please, Aurelia, I need your help. I worry that it won’t be safe for you now Xadrak is free. Help me rid the world of him forever. If not for me, then for yourself.”
She had been coping fine without a mother for longer than Elaine knew. She had been the one to care for the house. She had patched up Thierry and Olivier’s wounds, her only failing that she couldn’t save them from their curse. Her mother had been a fantasy, a dream she now knew could never become reality. Too much had happened, too many scars carved into her flesh. All she could hope for now was some consolation, and to take the only thing her demon mother could still give her: power and freedom.
She pushed herself off the ground. “I’ll help you, but I’m doing it for me. You will teach me all you know; I won’t be kept blind. And we will work together.”
“As you wish,” Elaine said, her voice packed hard with grit. “Let’s get out of here.”
She held out her hand, and Aurelia recoiled.
“Would you rather walk?”
“If it means not having to go through that tempest again, then yes.”
Elaine’s lips thinned. “I was unsettled before. It won’t happen again.”
“But what if he’s there waiting for us?”
“I’m prepared. Summon the pentagram if needed. It should allow us time to evade him.”
“Should?”
“If everything was predictable, we wouldn’t be here right now, would we?” Elaine stretched her hand for her daughter to take.
Aurelia was about to argue, her mouth opened and ready to complain, but she thought better of it. And even though she’d won a battle, as the skin of her palm met her mother’s, she couldn’t fight the way it soothed her.
Xadrak didn’t follow them, though Aurelia had been ready to blast the demon with everything she had. Relief swept through her as they landed on a stone ledge overlooking a valley. Elaine’s hand ripped from hers, but Aurelia was too fixed on the sight of the mountains to care. Peaks beyond pierced the sky, and below them a lake reflected the deep blue. Her heart swelled at a beauty she had barely dared to dream of.
“Come!” came Elaine’s sharp order, shattering her reverie. She turned as her mother disappeared into the darkness of a tunnel in the side of the mountain.
She couldn’t match the forceful stride, not knowing what waited for her within, but she stepped into the black anyway. She walked blind for a few steps, each one barely covering a few feet. The gloom was pervasive, sticky, and slowed her down. Then it faded, releasing her, and a glow appeared ahead. The tunnel ended quickly, no doubt a trick of her mother’s to guard this place, and when she stepped into the light, she stood inside a chamber with a tall vaulted ceiling. White marble lined the walls and glowing orbs shone from above. Three other corridors led off from this room.
Whenever her mother spirited her away from Carcassonne, they had gone to forests, the seashore, to anywhere but a home. She had often wondered where Elaine lived.
To think that this is now my home.
But for all its magnificence and the power required to create such a thing, she couldn’t help but feel suffocated. There were no windows, and no natural light penetrated this deep. She would be spending as much time as she could out on the ledge.
“This way,” Elaine commanded as she disappeared down the corridor to the right.
Aurelia hurried after her mother. There were two doors on either side, and Elaine stopped in front of the last on the left. Pushing open the wooden door, she gestured for her daughter to enter.
“This is your room.”
Aurelia’s steps slowed, suspicious of what her mother had provided. An empty room perhaps? A straw mattress on the floor? Anything would have been better than what she’d come from because here there was no Henri to be forced to lie against. She peered around the doorway and gasped.
Her eyes fell on the bed, a proper one raised off the ground, no doubt a thick mattress beneath the quilt that covered it. And the size!
Forgetting her mother’s stare, she stepped into the room, her hand open over her chest as if she fought to keep her heart inside.
Beautiful, lush rugs carpeted the floor. Carved chairs, stained and lacquered to a deep, rich red, sat around a square table. On the far wall, a tall wardrobe that, when opened, revealed clothes of many colors, with a dominance of green, her favorite. She touched the velvet of an emerald dress, the restrained smoothness a delight beneath her fingers. Her throat ached with the lump lodged there. She had never seen such wealth.
Are you so easily bought?
The thought whipped her mind, and she snatched back her hand, closing the wardrobe with precise movements. As she turned around, she glanced over at the dresser, no doubt also stocked with bribes.
Elaine stood in the doorway, eyes of iron, mouth grim. Aurelia nearly said thank you, but she kept her jaw tight. It would take more than a few dresses and a cozy bed for her to forgive.
They stared at each other. The air between them grew cold. Aurelia wouldn’t speak. She wouldn’t betray her crippling need for comfort, even as the weariness heaved its way into her body and mind. Before, she would have wanted nothing more than to lie with her head in her mother’s lap, to feel Elaine’s fingers comb through her hair, and send her off to sleep. Now her back stiffened from the sentiment.
“Rest. We will discuss more later.” Elaine’s lips parted to speak again but she closed them and walked away.
A moment later one of the doors in the corridor opened and locked. Aurelia stuck her head out but couldn’t see which one Elaine had entered. Pulling back into her room, Aurelia shut herself in and sagged against the stout wood.
She was alone.
Screams rose through Elaine’s chest and throat, ready to roll out of her mouth, but turning the key in the lock was enough to hold back her howling. Denied release, they crashed through her body, freezing her hands in open, shaking claws. Shattering, she collapsed on the floor.
How had she got this so wrong?
She had left Aurelia and the twins behind, believing she was the dangerous one. Seeing battling demons inside her head had nearly sent her leaping off Carcassonne’s high walls. And when she’d learned the truth, she couldn’t kill Henri. A human monster was preferable to the one that would be released at his death. Each of her daughter’s cries had stabbed her heart, but she couldn’t change the past. Instead she taught her magic, incantations, and spells that she eventually used to keep his grimy fingers off her.
Elaine breathed deeply, noisily, as guilt stung her eyes. She forced herself up and paced the room to help ease her anguish.
Back then she’d believed she’d done the right thing.
Now?
“I’m a fool.”
But she was hopeful Aurelia would still help her. She had to be, even when she just wanted to crawl into bed and never wake. Henri’s execution had brought them to crisis, and exiling Xadrak to Crion wasn’t yet possible. She still needed the key.
And when I get it, what of my sons then? What becomes of them?
She wrenched her head to the right, screwing her eyes shut.
This has to be done. It was what they were made for, Sinara spoke inside her mind.
She used to fight that voice, but the more she denied it, the more it pursued her with memories of strange places and a world that wasn’t her own. It wasn’t until she accepted they were a part of her that she got some semblance of peace. They gave her purpose and a mission that soothed her need for answers and for action.
But it came at a price, and one a mother should never have to pay.
VII
Hame attempted to make out shapes as he peered into the black above him. Loic’s muttering in his sleep nearly drove him crazy, but it wasn’t that which kept him
awake. It was Elaine’s daughter, Aurelia.
While he’d never met her, he knew her mother from her visits to Loic. Even though Loic had named him his successor as oracle, Elaine had barely exchanged more than a few words with him. She was polite, but she knew he wasn’t up to the task. He was an apprentice that would never become a master. He could no more control his visions than he could control the weather.
Hame threw back the blanket, sleep scared away completely by the frustration thrashing within him. When he’d returned from the river, Loic had been distracted and unwilling to listen to what he’d seen in the vision, so he’d been left to puzzle it out by himself.
Without stopping to dress, he stamped out of the house, not worried about waking the master.
What use was it to see Aurelia burned at the stake?
A brisk chill shot up his feet when they hit the grass and goosebumps rose over his skin. To warm himself, he jogged into the forest, dim moonlight enough of a guide to the place he knew even better than the hut.
Navigating the rough terrain through trees and over rocks, he arrived at the edge of a circle of old oaks. In the middle of it stood the dolmen—two upright stones with a capstone across the top—that Loic would sit beneath and let his mind drift. No, drifting wasn’t the right word. It implied a lack of focus, and if there was anything the oracle had in abundance, it was focus. His mind shot with precision into the astral, directed to whatever point in time he desired, and struck its target.
Loic could have a vision anywhere, but he favored the dolmen. He said the fresh air provided clarity and he often encouraged Hame to sit beneath its shadow, hoping it would activate his control.
It didn’t.
Hame walked across the grass towards the looming black stones. His breath quickened as he neared them, hopeful despite his cynicism that this time he would succeed. Because if he didn’t try something, didn’t continue working on it, he would go mad.
Burning Blood: Bonds of Blood: Book 2 Page 3
