Well, because Fate loved fucking with her, Rook and everyone else got to see the full package. Which was why she had been trying so hard to be quiet, unassuming, and mostly invisible today.
It didn’t help that Obsidian had been sent off to a remote island for some traditional mumbo-jumbo where he was supposed to meditate on the duties that would now come with his new title of Adept.
While she was pleased that he’d completed the trial with flying colors and earned his title before everything had gone sideways, she preferred him near. Her gargoyle nature was still edgy. Since there were no reported dangers, it had to be the new fear and hostility some of the legion felt toward her after the berserker event.
She kept telling her gargoyle nature to sit down, shut up, and don’t cause a stir. Obsidian didn’t need his Kyrsu making any more of a ruckus.
Probably no one was buying her docile, good girl routine. Though, no one had organized a torch and pitchfork-carrying mob either, so she supposed she wasn’t about to get lynched.
But that wasn’t even her most significant concern.
The more she thought about it, the more she was sure Rook, that cagey bastard, had wanted her to go berserker for some reason other than to study her threat responses. But she didn’t have proof. Sighing in frustration, she turned her attention back to her present task, for now.
Anna glowered unhappily at the berry bush she was presently picking bare of ripe fruit. Truth had laughed at her earlier when she popped a couple in her mouth and promptly spat them back out. He’d then informed her they were only used in cooking with honey to sweeten them. The jerk.
“By the way, how much longer do we have to do this?” Anna called to him where he was working on filling his basket farther up the slope.
He glanced in her direction, looking unhappier than picking a few hundred berries should merit.
Hmm...something was up.
“You.” She glared at him. “What’s that look about?”
Truth sighed and set down his woven basket. “We already have twice the berries we need. Obsidian wanted me to keep you busy today.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. He wouldn’t go into detail, only that he had a task to complete that required solitude.”
“That’s what he told me as well.” Anna’s fingers strummed her thigh. “I thought it was some traditional ritual after becoming an Adept.”
“There is no tradition,” Truth confirmed.
“Damn it! Why didn’t I smell a lie?”
“He likely never told a lie, just didn’t correct your false assumption.”
“Fuck!” Anna abandoned her berry bushes and the baskets, half running up the slope toward a bare patch of rock where she had room to shift to gargoyle form.
She might be overreacting, but she couldn’t ignore the fact the elders might be setting up a test of some sort to see if Obsidian was like her.
“Where are you going? Anna!” Truth called her name as he came running up behind her.
“I’m going after Obsidian. I don’t know what the Masters have planned this time, but their last plan didn’t go so well.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I got my powers from Obsidian. I’m not the only berserker.” She said in a rush. “As a child, Shadowlight had that trait, too. Milder, but I can only imagine the breathtaking scope of Obsidian’s rage if they manage to trigger it, now, as an adult.”
“That makes no sense. If it were the mentors, he would simply have told me that. Though I see why the elders might not want you there.” Truth paused, and then said more softly. “It might not be the mentors.”
“Who else?” But then Anna knew. Reaver and the other gargoyles who might have turned hostile toward her and her Rasoren.
Anna reached the flat stretch of rocky ground and shifted. Moments later her wings were unfurling as she launched herself off the steep slope and into the air. Truth continued to shout after her as she climbed higher into the air.
Rounding the mountain’s peak, she spotted him beating his wings hard to catch up. She didn’t wait for him and headed out to sea, using her link to Obsidian to pinpoint his location.
“Obsidian are you alright? Can you hear me?” No answering words or thoughts echoed back along their link.
He was about eighty miles out. Easy distance for their link, but he didn’t respond, and she couldn’t touch his mind. How was that possible? Even if he was stone, she could still feel his mind.
Fear sped her wings, and she swiftly out distanced Truth.
“I can’t feel Obsidian. Can you?” she asked Truth along a private path.
“No. His mind is closed off to me.” Concern tinted the gargoyle’s thoughts. “I don’t like this.”
“I can’t wait for you. Keep up as best you can.”
“Go, go. I’m calling our friends. We’ll meet you there as soon as possible.”
“Thank you.”
Chapter 45
BELOW, THE OCEAN WAVES churned. They’d been growing larger the closer Anna got to Obsidian’s distant little island. A high black wall of clouds billowed out across the sky from the same general area.
Unfortunately, she feared the storm wasn’t natural, but fueled by uncontrolled magic. Obsidian’s magic. The taste was heavy and familiar in the humid air. She didn’t know what was being done to him, but her terror kept her wings beating at top speed even after fifty miles.
“Be at ease, young Kyrsu,” Death’s compelling voice was suddenly filling her head. “While your Rasoren is experiencing something he finds greatly distressing, he is in no physical danger.”
His reassurance fell short of actually reassuring her. “Why is he in distress?”
“Because there is a djinn within the Magic Realm and you no longer have the time needed to seal your powerful bond slowly, over time, as I would have preferred. But there was a faster way to see it molded into its potential. Obsidian is now undergoing the ordeal.”
“What is it? And was he willing?”
Death sighed out a long, sad note in her mind. “Your most traumatic memories. He’s reliving them. When it’s over, you’ll have no reason to keep a shield up around your mind. Once it’s done, he will understand as he never could have before, and you will be there to share in his pain and comfort him.”
Her heart felt like it seized in her chest. Obsidian was never supposed to see those. Never. She shuddered and swooped lower. Realizing the danger, she beat her wings harder and arrowed back higher into the sky.
“He was never supposed to see those. Why would he do this?”
Why would he do this to me? I trusted him.
“Your Rasoren can’t do anything that he’d see as harming you. He’s not physically capable. And he viewed what I asked him to do as a type of mind-rape. He’s a noble soul. But we don’t have time for noble. I forced him to take the memories.”
So, Death had done this to Obsidian.
Her rising rage had a target at least.
“Yes, I am the one who made a hard choice so neither of you would have to. Remember that before you decide to hate me forever.” Draydrak’s voice was filled with sadness. “Go to your Rasoren. He needs you now. Remember what you felt after the trauma and how all you wanted was to be comforted by your beloved? Obsidian will shortly find himself in the same emotional hell, but unlike the first time, you will be there to comfort him. Out of this shared pain and self-forgiveness, your magic will forge an unparalleled soul bond. One strong enough to rival what the Avatars share, and they began as one soul.”
Anna still seethed, but she would heed Draydrak’s words. None of this was Obsidian’s fault.
“I won’t fail Obsidian.”
“Good. Because your magical ability will increase tenfold and give you a fighting chance against a djinn of this one’s strength.”
“Go, Anna, rescue your Rasoren and forge a soul bond of a strength never seen before.”
She did, winging her way closer with each
heartbeat.
Chapter 46
ANNA BATTLED THE STORM as she circled the island in large loops, drawing closer with each revolution. Obsidian was down there somewhere. Her magic might not be able to separate him from the maelstrom created by his power, but her keen gargoyle sight served her well, scanning the land.
Ah, there.
He looked like nothing more than a tightly curled bit of darkness against the pale sand of the beach. But it was him.
Curling a wing, she changed direction and arrowed toward him.
The crosswinds and layers of wild magic buffeted her, tossing her around in the air. She overshot her planned landing site next to Obsidian and crashed into the surf at the edge of the beach instead.
Sand, wind, and rain pelted her in vicious waves. She formed a translucent shield of magic to protect against the worst of it. Then dropping to all fours, she stalked across the beach, her talons digging in against the gale-force winds.
When she got closer to Obsidian’s location, she saw why she’d overshot her target. He sat within a protective dome. The storm winds circled it like the eye of a hurricane.
Inside the air was calm, not even a little breeze to stir his mane.
She hoped this dome was the reason she couldn’t touch his mind.
Though the way Obsidian was kneeling with his muzzle tucked against his chest, wings mantled around him, and rocking back and forth ever so slightly as magic continued to bleed off his skin didn’t look good.
She shouted his name.
He didn’t respond.
Or maybe it wasn’t that he didn’t respond. Perhaps he couldn’t, his mind trapped inside the memories.
There was one ray of hope. His magic didn’t consider her a threat, and she was able to touch the dome without harm. After a moment of gentle coercing, the magic of the dome-shield granted her entrance.
She went to him then and knelt without hesitation, placing a hand on his shoulders. His magic stirred in acknowledgment of her presence, licking and caressing along her skin in recognition, but it didn’t attempt to drive her away or otherwise harm her.
Running her fingers along his spine, she moved them up under his thick mane until she could stroke the back of his neck. As a child, he’d always found that comforting. She hoped he still did.
While he couldn’t respond, he might still be able to hear and feel.
“Oh, my brave Rasoren. I’ve failed to keep this horror from you. I’m sorrier than I can say but know I’m here with you. You’re not alone.” Her gargoyle nature stirred in response to his distress, her magic reaching out, seeking a way into his mind.
At first something within him resisted. Then the link flared strongly, sucking her deep into his thoughts, a passenger in his mind.
Freezing in surprised recognition, she looked around at the parking lot she found herself in. It was the dark of a November night, a familiar crispness in the air that promised winter’s return. Light from the bar’s neon sign reflected in the puddles.
Vicious ghosts from a dark point in her past were here as well, flowing around her, on the hunt.
Their voices, the tone of their laughter and excited grunts chillingly familiar. Their faces were clearer than they’d ever been before. The smell of fries, beer, and cigarette smoke strong.
But this time they were not hunting her.
She discovered a new horror as her link whispered that they were attacking her Rasoren. And in the nature of these past memories, he could not fight or change the outcome. He could only huddle on the alley’s cold, wet pavement as he relived what had happened to her—a hapless passenger caught up in the memories.
Rage slowly built within her, replacing the horror and fear.
Seeing the vision-ghosts of her assailants no longer inspired dread. No. But it triggered something else—her berserker rage.
She welcomed it.
These lesser beings might once have harmed her, haunted her mind for months, but no more. They were weak. Easily torn to shreds with her talons.
The fools!
They thought to harm her Rasoren.
She struck out with her own magic, wrapping Obsidian’s mind in layers of protection before she turned her attention to the vision-ghosts. Even as the rage urged her to act, her mind remained sharp. She continued with caution, very much aware this was no regular battlefield.
These were her memories transferred into her Rasoren’s mind.
She wasn’t really here. These weren’t enemies she could just gut and claim victory over.
No. This would need a two-pronged attack.
First, she merged her mind with Obsidian’s more firmly, feeding him her love and strength. Magic flaring, it expanded, surrounding him in a protective shield.
In the real-world, Obsidian moved closer, and Anna curled around him, drawing him into her warmth and vitality.
“We are not victims. Together we are far too strong for some wispy dark memories to do us harm.” She came to kneel next to his shoulder and turned his face to look up at her. “Look upon the horror. Acknowledge what I once endured so there will be no more secrets between us. But then see me as I am now. Strong. Fierce. Whole. Know that I survived. I overcame that one dark night in my history. They did not tarnish my mind, my soul, or my sense of worth. I see that now. You showed me that.”
“Anna?” He blinked up at her. Seeing her for the first time.
“Yes, that’s it.” Anna continued to caress his face.
“They were so strong. But I am stronger. How could I have not fought my way free?” He sounded lost and confused. In shock, most likely.
At that moment she hated the God of Death.
“In life, we sometimes meet opponents we cannot fight. But I will show you the way free of this nightmare.”
“I understand.”
“Good. Now follow your Kyrsu.”
She went on the attack, her talons digging into the memories, shredding them as she summoned a second wave of magic. Beside her Obsidian came to his feet, shaking off whatever spell had held him immobile.
Together they destroyed all that remained of their tormentors.
When it was done, they started on the memory of the location, tearing it apart piece by piece.
Afterward, Anna and Obsidian reached for each other, burying their muzzles in the other’s manes.
“Oh, my fierce, beautiful one,” he whispered close to her ear, sadness thick in his voice. “I understand now.”
“No, you don’t, because you feel sadness. This moment is not about sadness.” Her mind expanded more, sweeping him in, surrounding his consciousness until she was everything. And then she shared herself, her emotions, what they were to each other. What he meant to her.
In response, his mind and magic reached deep, mingling with hers until he was a part of her, their thoughts, emotions, memories, their very souls, joining to form a new wellspring of strength and power.
Now fully merged, their bond finally fulfilling its potential, their minds sought out every bit of fear, discomfort or scrap of loneliness and set about erasing it all with the warmth of their acceptance and love.
Their bond was a strong heartbeat in their minds. Immense strength flowed from it, feeding both their souls and their magic.
“I think this must be a little like what the Avatars feel,” she said in soft wonder.
“Mmm,” he agreed with a delighted mumble, almost a purr.
“I understand now what Death wanted us to experience. It wasn’t the horror. It was this. Guess I won’t hold it against him.” Anna sighed and stretched. Though she was aware this present ‘body’ wasn’t real. Her body was still sitting on a beach, inside a dome-shield with a hurricane raging outside.
Obsidian was still holding tight, but he lifted his head and looked around as if sensing the storm as well. “Ah. It’s as Lord Dray said it would be.”
“The storm?”
“He didn’t say I’d call a hurricane to our shores, but he warned my power wo
uld slip my control.”
“We need to deal with it before it destroys the island.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
They were both reluctant to let the other go, but at last, Obsidian released his hold on her waist, and she dropped her arms from around his shoulders. With those actions their minds disengaged.
Anna blinked to find herself alone in her own mind, sitting on a beach with Obsidian’s body curled around her.
The dome still held, thank god.
While they’d been distracted, the storm had drifted to the east, heading toward the mainland.
“Damn. I’d say you leveled up.” Anna added an accompanying whistle.
Obsidian raised his head, taking in the beast raging across the sky. “Are you up for this? You used a lot of magic to reach me. I can steer it off course and back out to sea by myself if needed.”
Anna leaned forward, bumping him in the shoulder with her muzzle. “I’m good. Let’s go put a leash on the monster.”
“Come,” he said as he took to the air, his larger wings sounding like thunder as he fought to get airborne in this wind.
Anna launched herself into the sky after him. When she caught up, she touched their link, “You know how to control that thing?”
“Of course.” He rolled an eye in her direction. “But do you?”
“Not fair. You’ve got years more experience at wielding magic than me.”
“What I know, you can access as well.”
She wasn’t about to trust her new knowledge during a magic-induced hurricane. “Let’s work together. That hurricane is savage, and it isn’t getting any prettier.”
Obsidian studied the storm. “We will learn the limits of our new strength together.”
Then he opened his mind fully to her, and together they summoned more power. Though this time, they would be capturing the storm and reeling it in.
While he braided their power into an invisible tether, she created spells across the island to act as anchors.
The storm fought them, resenting being shifted off its course. But Obsidian was skilled, looping tether after tether around wind currents forming the storm until, at last, they’d managed to leash the monster.
The Complete Gargoyle and Sorceress Boxset (Books 1-9) Page 145
