“Yes. I’m going to be an uncle.” Shadowlight wiggled happily. “Do you think it will be a dryad or a gargoyle?”
Anna’s laugh sounded a tad bit hysterical.
Chapter 27
A CURRENT OF MAGIC swept past Gregory’s feet and on out into the surrounding land as he stood at the entrance of the maze. It had been four days since he’d last been here. He was neglectful in one of his duties.
The Sorceress missed him.
“What is it?” Lillian asked as she rubbed at her arms. She too felt the chill of Spirit magic. “Scratch that. I know what that is. Are we in danger?”
“No,” he said truthfully. They were likely safer than they’d been since they’d first come to the Magic Realm over twelve years ago. The Sorceress was awake and watching over them. He hadn’t expected that, though perhaps he should have. Normal hamadryads were moderately sentient. Combine that with the soul and magic of the Sorceress, and a humble hamadryad became something more.
“No? Care to elaborate?”
“Your hamadryad is becoming the Sorceress in truth.”
“Ah. That totally does not tell me anything more than I already knew.”
“It might be best to show you.” Gregory gestured her forward into the maze.
They made their way deeper, plodding through the familiar passages until they reached the last bend and stood on the threshold of a small meadowland glade. In the center, the Dawn Redwood stood tall and proud.
He narrowed his eyes.
Make that taller and proud.
“Oh, my God!” Lillian muttered.
“Goddess in this case,” he corrected her.
She glanced at him and scrunched her nose up while giving him a slow shake of her head. After that, she focused back on the tree.
“It has grown fifteen or twenty feet in four days. Someone is bound to notice.”
“Doubtful, humans rarely look up. I think your tree is safe from discovery.”
“But why the sudden growth spurt? And how much bigger is it going to get?”
“She,” he corrected her again. “And I think this is likely a response to your pregnancy. The tree is preparing to receive our child in a few weeks. She probably wanted to be stronger to handle the gestation. I think this may mean the child will be a gargoyle, not a dryad.”
Lillian gaped at him again, her hand dropping to protectively cover her stomach. “Weeks?”
“Yes.” He took her hand and guided her over to the tree. He set the basket of food on the ground and motioned her over to the tree’s base. With her hand still captured in his, he pressed her unresisting palm flat against the trunk.
Above and all around them the hamadryad shifted, her branches swaying even though there was no breeze.
Lillian jerked her head up to watch. “That’s new.”
A branch brushed Gregory’s shoulders, the soft needles tickling his skin. He turned his head enough to touch the branch and then gave it an affectionate rub. “I missed you too, my Sorceress.”
The tree quivered, every branch shifting and swaying.
“Is my hamadryad about to uproot herself and go for a stroll? Because someone is sure to notice.”
“Of course not.” Gregory wondered where Lillian got some of her strange ideas.
“Uh, Gregory?” Her tone turned questioning as she slowly backed away from her hamadryad. A mass of questing branches followed her, attempting to pull Lillian back toward the trunk. “I thought you said she wouldn’t want the baby for weeks yet. She seems pretty eager to grab me now.”
Gregory laughed at Lillian but was forced to keep half his attention on the hamadryad. The over-eager branches had nearly knocked his feet out from under him twice now. “She is just happy to see us. We have been through a lot. This is how she is showing her affection.”
Several branches suddenly twined around him, snapped taut, and hoisted him off the ground before he could warn Lillian. The tree shifted him higher up within seconds.
“Gregory!”
“I’m fine,” he called down to her. “I’ll be but a moment while I extract myself.” He attempted to do as he said, but found for each branch he pushed away, three more would take its place.
Since struggle got him nowhere, he relaxed in the tree’s grip and let her do as she wished.
Three smaller branches emerged from the tangled mass holding him in place to flutter around his face and head. Realizing what the tree wanted, he tilted his head back so she could reach his neck.
Delicate needles stroked his throat, and he felt the Sorceress’s magic flow over his body. The tattoo ringing his neck flared to life and slapped out at the hamadryad’s magic. The tree seemed unconcerned. Well, from what he could tell. Never in all his long lives had he seen what a concerned tree looked like, so he had nothing to compare it to.
The hostile power circling his neck flared a second time, unpleasantly burning the surrounding skin.
“Gregory! My tattoo is getting pissed off about something.”
“Easy. The Sorceress is examining my tattoo. She will not allow us to come to harm.”
“You know that for sure because...?”
Gregory sighed at her flippant tone. The hamadryad’s magic flowed over him in another stronger wave, sinking into his muscles and bones. Unable to help himself, he reached out for his own link to the Spirit Realm and was surprised when it answered his call without needing Lillian to first give him an order. Hope burned hotly in his gut.
Gregory’s lips pulled back in a toothy grin. Perhaps his Sorceress would free him from the cursed collar earlier than he’d thought possible.
The tree shifted him off to one side and then with another great shifting of branches he heard Lillian squeal. It was in surprised alarm, not a sound of pain, so he waited, and as he expected, her sounds of disgruntlement grew louder as she joined him up in the tree’s canopy.
If it hadn’t been for the unpleasant heating around his neck, the hamadryad’s chilled Spirit Magic would have been soothing and renewing. Between one heartbeat and the next something changed. He stiffened, gasping as the wellspring of his Spirit Magic flowed into him faster than he could release it into this realm. He only had a moment to realize something had gone terribly wrong, and then even the trickle of magic he’d been bleeding off into the Mortal Realm stopped, but the magic rushing into his body didn’t. Too much. It was far too much power for any one body to contain, even his.
His wings quivered, as his body instinctively fought both the hamadryad’s hold and the magic continuing to flow into him. “My Sorceress, please stop this.”
“Gregory! What’s wrong?” Lillian cursed long and loud. “Talk to me!”
“My Sorceress,” he continued reasoning with the tree between waves of pain. “I appreciate your aid, but if you force this slave collar into killing me, we all will be returning to the Spirit Realm in defeat. I, for one, would very much like a chance to raise our child.”
The hamadryad didn’t respond with words or thoughts, but Lillian was suddenly thrust in front of him. When her wild-eyed stare landed on him, her brows scrunched up. “God Gregory. What the hell?” Then her lips parted in understanding. “I order you to stop drawing magic from the Spirit Realm. Stop now!”
Blessedly, the magic flowing into him slowed and then stopped. Yet, he still felt like his body was going to split apart at any moment.
“Beloved, talk to me. Tell me what the hamadryad did to you.”
“I don’t know.” Which was true, but as his mind began to process what had just occurred, he began to get an idea of what had gone wrong. Gregory was still panting in pain and shock, so said the first thing that came to his mind. “Your tree, did you sense anything unusual about her just now?”
“Besides your pain! No. But I’d say death by homicidal tree counts as unusual.”
Her answer confirmed what he believed had just happened.
Lillian fought to free herself. When that failed, she reached out to touch him but sto
pped, clearly horrified. Then in a softer tone, she whispered, “Beloved, you look like Frankenstein’s monster.”
Gregory groaned as the tree loosened her hold on him. He didn’t know of what monster Lillian spoke, but he felt instant sympathy for it if it suffered half as much as he did at this moment. Blood welled up and flowed across his skin from a thousand tiny stone-ridged fissures. Even as painful and ugly as they were, the surface wounds were minor. It was the internal ones that were of more significant concern. His body was already going about the business of healing them, but it would take days at this rate.
“Gregory, please talk to me. Why did my insane tree just try to kill you?”
He met her gaze and saw the fear in hers, concern for him. Then he glanced down at himself. Yes, between the hamadryad and the slave collar, they’d made a mess of him. He understood why Lillian might think her hamadryad had tried to harm him. “I will recover. And, no, the Sorceress wasn’t trying to kill me. She was trying to free me from the slave collar but triggered some kind of trap.”
“You know that for a fact? Because from what I’m seeing, I’d say she has another agenda.”
“Order me to heal myself.”
“I don’t think more magic will solve anything.” Lillian had liberated her upper body from the hamadryad’s embrace and was now trying to leverage her legs free.
“I have internal injuries,” he admitted.
Lillian swore again. “Heal yourself. I’m here now and won’t let my hamadryad harm you again.”
Warmer magic filled him at her words. He’d never been so happy to call on the warmer, less turbulent power from the Magic Realm. It was a much slower process, but he was more than happy to just sit and wait for it to heal him.
He grunted in another pained gasp as the hamadryad shifted him closer to Lillian’s position. His beloved uttered an unladylike profanity and then she was suddenly within touching distance.
Slowly the magic engulfing him withdrew, his pain already fading as his injuries repaired themselves.
“Do you know what happened?” she asked a second time.
“Something changed the slave collars, mine at least. I can no longer summon magic from the Spirit Realm, not without killing myself and possibly anyone near me.” For the first time in any of his lifetimes, he found himself afraid of his most potent power. He could only hope the Sorceress had learned something valuable from all his pain.
As the warrior-protector half of their pairing, he was formidable and skilled in his own right, but in the past, the Sorceress had exerted an iron-like control upon her magic which he’d envied. Lillian once had challenged him to admit the Avatars were equal in power—and yes, he was a great worker of magic, but he secretly thought the Sorceress’s strengths were greater.
Now with his primary power out of reach, he needed to rely upon the Sorceress. Dare he trust her?
With another shuddering shake of her branches, the hamadryad began to lower them to the ground.
“Gregory,” Lillian’s voice drew him from his thoughts, and he heard her deep worry. “Tell me you’ll be okay.”
“I will be fine.” Gregory pressed his forehead against the trunk’s shaggy bark and then studied the fine white lacing of scars which now crisscrossed his skin. Lillian helped brace him while he gathered the strength to stand on his own two feet. “We will be fine.”
But he only hoped his words were the truth.
Chapter 28
COMMANDER GRYTON STOOD at the maze’s north exit, his magic held carefully in check. He was nearer to his enemies than was safe, but he’d felt the hamadryad calling the Avatars to her, and he had been coming to investigate when his slave collars blazed a warning, telling him someone was attempting to tamper with them.
For once fate had been kind, and he’d arrived in time to avert a disaster. The hamadryad Sorceress had been examining his slave collars, and by the complex currents of magic he felt shifting through the earth and air, she had been far too close to unraveling his spells.
And that was not part of Gryton’s plans. It should have come as no surprise though. Containing something as powerful and elemental as the male half of the Avatars wasn’t a static task, but an ongoing, ever-evolving one.
Even without the hamadryad’s help, the Gargoyle Protector could override Gryton’s spells given enough time. That was the nature of magic from the Spirit Realm. It cleansed that which did not belong, and nothing could withstand its power. Nor could anything, not even Gryton’s greatest spell-work, prevent the Gargoyle Protector from calling to that high power and having it answer.
So, the Protector’s near escape shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
But it did. The hamadryad’s interference in this was most unwelcome. Worse, somewhere deep inside, in a tiny flawed part of Gryton’s being, he felt betrayed by the hamadryad as if she had welcomed him and offered a mother’s protection and then took it all away. It was foolish. He’d known within moments of his birth he could trust no one, not if he wanted to survive.
This little incident just solidified his wavering resolve. He would root out and crush that tiny seed of weakness. It wouldn’t happen again. He would deal with his personal weakness just as brutally and swiftly as he’d corrected the flaw in his slave collars. Just a minor change to each collar was enough to prevent the gargoyle from harnessing and controlling his Spirit Magic.
And should a power that vast just happen to lack any kind of outlet? Why, there could only be one fatal outcome.
Gryton’s lips stretched into the slightest of smiles. The Lady of Battles might not be happy with him should the Protector be killed by his own power, but somehow, Gryton couldn’t be bothered to concern himself with that at the moment, not when the Avatars had been so close to escaping his control. His own survival took precedence. The Battle Goddess would just have to start over once the Gargoyle Protector was reborn.
Gryton’s collar should now, if not wholly neutralize the Gargoyle Protector, at least make him somewhat less lethal—though he didn’t know if his fixes would keep the hamadryad from meddling. Likely not.
After all, the Avatars were still powerful enemies, ones he wasn’t yet ready to attack openly. He needed to separate Lillian and Gregory from the hamadryad Sorceress without getting himself captured or killed.
The hamadryad had allowed him his freedom so far, but if he threatened her dryad or her beloved Gargoyle Protector further, there was no guarantee she would remain peaceful.
Gryton eased away from the threshold, heading deeper into the maze as he debated his options.
A direct attack was out of the question. Yet, a subtler trap might be discovered by the Gargoyle Protector or be neutralized by the hamadryad long before Gryton could use it to capture the Avatars.
He cautiously exited the maze and was heading for better cover in the forest when his magic stirred with interest. Never one to ignore its guidance, he followed where its tug led and found himself gazing toward the stone cottage where the Avatars sheltered. A small drama was playing out in a window on the topmost level of the abode. A human female was hanging half out of the window when River’s son slapped a hand over the human’s mouth and dragged her back inside.
The human was of little interest to him but seeing the gargoyle child opened other possibilities.
There just might be another way to return the Avatars to the Lady of Battles. Fate was being abnormally kind to him of late.
While the Avatars might be too much for him to take unaware, the gargoyle child would be easy enough to capture and returned to the Battle Goddess’s domain. Once the child was within the Lady’s grasp, Gryton would bet his life Darkness and River would come to the younglings rescue. More importantly, Lillian wouldn’t sit idly by if her little brother was in trouble. Presently the Sorceress or not, where Lillian went, Gregory would follow.
All the Battle Goddess’s plans might still come to pass. Gryton might just live through this whole debacle. It just hinged on capturing one young
gargoyle. Easy prey.
Gryton just needed time to lay the groundwork for a trap. A day or two should suffice even in this magic-starved realm.
Chapter 29
ANNA COUNTED THE NICKS on the bathroom doorframe. Taking out the knife she’d filched from Shadowlight’s bag, or rather the bag he had filched from his father, she made a third notch below the first two lines.
Three days.
Seventy-two hours.
Four thousand, three hundred and twenty minutes.
Dawn would be hello to day four.
And here she was still trapped in this godforsaken room.
Oh, she didn’t fool herself. Her life could be so much worse. Shadowlight brought her food and clean clothing. The kid was entertaining, she’d grant him that, but she was still a prisoner. After Shadowlight had caught her trying to escape a second time, he’d had Greenborrow strengthen his spells since she was able to circumvent any spell of Shadowlight’s making.
In the last two days, she’d discovered there was more than just physical changes. She now could ‘see’ the energy Shadowlight called magic, and she could even unravel the weavings. The unforeseen side effects were more instinct than memory, but she’d still been quick to take advantage of it.
Regrettably, she hadn’t been able to bypass the leshii’s shielding spells. She’d tried. Repeatedly.
Referring to the barrier as magic spells and wards, while still mildly weird, was starting to seem familiar. Which was more disturbing than the changes in her body.
Some of the alterations were beneficial, like her ability to see in the dark, and her heightened sense of smell and hearing. She’d bet she had greater stamina and strength, too.
Not that this tiny room allowed her the chance to test her theory.
She was going stir crazy. The inability to do anything might just kill her. Wouldn’t that save everyone a headache? Too bad she was too stubborn to roll over and die—even if no one had ever, actually, died of boredom.
The Complete Gargoyle and Sorceress Boxset (Books 1-9) Page 69
