He kissed her hair and closed his eyes. He held her tight, but not to restrain her. He had to protect her from herself, from the power boiling just below the surface. “There, there, lassie. It’s awright now. Ye’re safe now.”
She sobbed. She wouldn’t raise her head to look at him. She huddled out of sight and slipped her arms around his waist to hold him close. How good she felt! Nothing held him back from her. No invisible barrier stopped him from feeling how much he loved her and craved her and dreamed about her. She was his mate. No enchantment could ever replace that.
All at once, she reared back with a terrifying roar. In the blink of an eye, she erupted into flaming red scales, razor spikes, and slashing teeth. Fergus shifted as fast as he could, but he barely got his coils around her in time. He missed her wings, and she launched herself into the air with him still clinging to her for dear life.
They rocketed through the skies. Hazel bellowed and attacked him again and again. He had no choice but to fight back for his very life before she cut him down like everything else.
He weaved sideways to miss her slithering head coming at him with blinding speed. He whipped his tail around her tail and entwined her long red coils in his grip. He yanked it free and sent her careening into space. She threw her wings out to her sides and raced around in a smooth curve. She charged him going so fast he didn’t have time to recover.
He turned to face her, and they collided. Her weight smashed him onto his back. She lunged for his throat and would have ripped his life out if he hadn’t met her coming the other way. Their fangs locked. Their wrenched their snake necks from side to side, but neither could gain an advantage.
All at once, the red dragon wasn’t there any longer. Fergus’s mind struggled to understand what was happening before Hazel’s willowy body started to plummet to Earth. She screamed in terror and tried to grab hold of him. He threw out his tail and caught her just in time.
He hugged her against his scales while he flapped back down to the ground. She cowered against his chest, and he laid her on the ground. “I’m sorry, Fergus,” she gasped. “I can’t stop it. I’m trying. I swear I am, but I can’t stop it.”
He lay down next to her and took her in his arms. “I ken’t, lassie. I ken’t. Ye’re learnin’. Ye’re learnin’ what it means tae be Urlu. Ye’re learnin’ fer the first time, just like the rest o’ us had tae. Ye do what ye mun’, lassie. I’m ’ere. I’m ’ere wi’ ye fer good’n all. Do ye hear? I’m ’ere fer it all.”
She burst out crying and threw her arms around his neck. “I don’t want this! I don’t want to be this!”
He kissed the tears off her cheeks. Whatever else she was, she was all his. She was still there—the real Hazel he loved so much. Her power didn’t destroy her—not yet. She still had a chance to gain control over herself if he could only keep her alive long enough to let it happen.
Another wave of fury swept over her. Her body tensed all over. She arched backwards, and the wicked red scales covered her skin. She let out an ear-splitting roar, but the next instant, the rage died away and she regained her own form. Her skin turned pink, and she relaxed in his arms.
Fergus collapsed at her side. He couldn’t fight her anymore. He loved her too much, but he had to hold himself in tense anticipation. She might shift in her sleep. Her power might attack him and kill him without her knowing it.
He shuddered. Could he really deal with her? Maybe not. Maybe he wasn’t strong enough. He needed a real wizard like Ross to stop her destroying everything in sight. He admitted that to himself for the first time, but he couldn’t leave her.
He held her close and shut his eyes. If he had to die, he would do it here, with her. He would give his last ounce of strength to save her and take her home.
He murmured into her ear until she settled down enough to listen. “Ye’re fightin’ a battle ’ere ten times worse than any ye’ve e’er fought afore. Ye’re no just Urlu, lassie. Ye’re a witch, and ye mun’ gain control o’er yer power. No one else can fight this fight fer ye. Ye mun’ do it all yerself, but ye’ll conquer, me lassie. Ye’ll conquer the way ye allus do. Ye’re fightin’ yerself, and ainly ye can defeat ye. Do ye hear? Ye’ll conquer. I ken’t.”
She sobbed into his hair, and the tension went out of her limbs. He held her close for hours. Time and again, she shifted, either all the way or partly. She launched, shifted back, and launched again until he thought he would go insane from the tension. He fought her. He had to, or she would kill him.
On and on it went until long past sunset when she collapsed unconscious on the ground. He pried himself out of her arms long enough to build a fire. Exhaustion, terror, and despair robbed him of all his will to go on. When he finished stacking the sticks in the blaze, he sat down next to her. He gazed down at her lifeless face and almost burst into tears himself.
He couldn’t lose her—not now after all they’d been through. She couldn’t fall victim to her own power after she defeated so many other supernatural forces. He couldn’t live without her. He stroked her hand and cheek, but she didn’t respond. Would she ever come out of this? Would she ever gain control, or would he be stuck with an insane hybrid between two opposing magical forces?
He sat up by her side while the forest fell into peaceful night. Nothing disturbed the chirp of insects or the deep groan of the wind through the trees. The Loch Nagar witch would never come after them again. No Burgees threatened to attack out of the dark.
The curse presented a different problem, but he didn’t have to worry about that now. If Hazel couldn’t get control over her power, she couldn’t break the curse. That was the simple fact. If she couldn’t get control over her power, none of this meant a thing.
His chin fell on his chest and he closed his eyes when a choking sound startled him out of his wits. He jumped to Hazel’s side to find her stiff and writhing on the ground. Her staring eyes searched the sky above her head, but she didn’t see him bending over her.
“Lassie!” he called. “Lassie, wake up!”
She gnashed her bared teeth. She groaned in agony and flailed in all directions, but she couldn’t break the grip holding her. She didn’t shift. Her skin stayed white and alive. Her breath rattled in her throat, and her fingers clawed the dirt. She groped for something to hold onto, but when Fergus took her hand, she jerked away.
He couldn’t bear the sight of her like this, but he could only kneel at her side and pray she made it through this along with everything else. She already had too much power for one body to handle. Now she became Urlu on top of all that. How could one person cope with all that power surging through their being?
Dear God, let her be okay! He prayed to anyone who would listen to help her. He would give anything to help her, even if it meant sacrificing his own life. He loved her more than anything. She, above all others, deserved to live and thrive and find her place in this world.
He pressed her hand between his and murmured into her stricken face. “Dinnae do this tae me, lassie. Please, God, dinnae die on me now.”
She gave one more catastrophic spasm. Her body convulsed. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and frothy sputum bubbled between her clenched teeth. She jerked and twitched all over. Then she fell back on the ground and moved no more.
Chapter 28
Hazel drifted out of her body. She flapped her blood-red wings in the air and peered down at Fergus bent over some woman on the ground. His shoulders shook with sobs. He hung his head, and his hair hid his face. He pressed one of her hands to his chest and rested his other hand against the woman’s shoulder.
She never saw him so upset. She couldn’t understand it. What was wrong with him? The woman lay still and asleep, so what could cause him so much distress?
Hazel couldn’t think about that. She flew away from him into the dark forest, far, far away from all those useless human feelings. None of that mattered now. She flew out to dark Loch Nagar lying dormant in its bed. It breathed in the night, but no magical forces leapt o
ut to attack.
Hazel soared to the middle of the lake, where she hovered in mid-air. She fixed her burning eyes on a spot out in the dark and breathed her power into it. The hole opened, and she plunged down the tunnel into the sunny blue sky over the cabin.
She stooped low toward the door, and it burst open before her. She sailed into the cabin and up the stairs to the attic. She landed on the clean wooden floor and turned her long body around. The attic fit her perfectly, and her tail coiled to drag across the floor. She turned a complete circle and stopped in front of the bed.
She arched her neck back to eye the quilt. It shivered and shuddered more than ever now. She cocked her head, drew a long breath, and exhaled a blasting jet of flame at the bed. The quilt top caught fire and puffed into smoke and ashes.
The mice screeched and jabbered underneath. They clawed over each other in a mad race to escape, but for some reason, they never left the square where the quilt top used to be. They climbed over each other and scratched each other to pieces before Hazel’s flame cooked them alive.
She never let up until she roasted them to cinders. She incinerated them to blackened bones, and still she burned them until nothing remained but the bare, charred mattress. She shut her mouth to scrutinize her work. Not a trace of mouse or quilt remained. The mattress spread bare and empty under the window.
She tilted her head to listen. No sound disturbed the cabin. The rot eating away its foundation no longer tainted the peaceful environment, but she couldn’t stay here. She lifted off the floor and flew down the stairs. She sailed out through the open door the same way she flew into it, and it closed behind her.
She rocketed into the sky, closed her eyes, and dove back into the hole through which she came. In an instant, she found herself back in the dark forest.
She snuggled into Fergus’s arms, but he didn’t wake up. She burrowed her face under his chin and hugged him around the waist. He sighed in his sleep, and their bodies fitted together like never before. She closed her eyes and drifted into a peaceful slumber.
She woke up when he tried to peel himself out of her arms. She started awake, and her eyes searched the forest until she found his face. He leaned back on his arm. “Weel, weel, weel, look who we ha’e ’ere.”
Hazel blushed and covered her face. “Yeah.”
“Ye’re awright, lassie,” he remarked.
“Yeah, I’m all right. I’m sorry I worried you.”
“What happened tae ye?” he asked. “I thought ye’d be dead fer sure.”
She sat up and ran her fingers through her hair. “It’s all over. The curse is destroyed.”
“But ye’re still ’ere,” he pointed out. “Are the others sent back, then?”
“No, they’re still in Urlu.” How she knew this, she couldn’t explain, but she knew it.
“What did ye do? How did ye break the curse?”
She shrugged. She couldn’t look at him. “I’m not exactly sure. It just sort of happened. I guess my power did it. I fought a battle with myself like you said, and I won. After that, it was easy. I went to the source of the curse, and I used my power to destroy it. I can’t explain it any better than that.”
“And the holes…and e’erythin’…?”
“We won’t see them again. There’s…well, there is one more thing I have to do, but that doesn’t concern anybody but me. I can do that on my own.”
“Let me help ye,” he insisted. “Whate’er ye mun’ do, I’ll help ye.”
“You can’t help me. You won’t ever go there, but it doesn’t matter. I can do it with no trouble. We can go back now. There’s nothing to stop us.”
He eyed her with his head one side. “Are ye sure? Is it really all o’er?”
“Althea told me it would be like this. It will take me years of practice to master this power, but the hard part is over.”
He turned away and refused to look at her. “Dinnae talk aboot Althea no more.”
She laid her hand on his chest and kissed his cheek. “It’s all right. You don’t have to explain. Leave the past to die here, and let’s take the present and the future.”
He turned his head to meet her lips. “Ye’re more forgivin’ than I’d be.”
“I have as much reason as you do to forget Althea. I killed her and a lot more people besides, so let’s not belabor the point.”
He folded her in his arms. “Awright. Ye tell me where ye wish tae go, and we’ll go there.”
They got to their feet and put out the fire. They strolled hand in hand back to Loch Nagar. On the way, they caught a stray horse running wild in the forest. They took it with them to the heap of stone and debris that used to be the castle.
Hazel surveyed the damage. “What a mess.”
“Can ye see’t anywheres?”
“You’re the one with sight,” she replied. “Where is it?”
He scanned the rubble. “It’s no ’ere.”
“It has to be. I saw a vision of you sitting on it. She must have hidden it.”
He turned a complete circle and let his eye rove over the mountains. He came to a stop facing the lake and shuddered. “It’s down there.”
“Where?”
He pointed to the flat surface of shining water. “Out there.”
Hazel’s eyes flew open. “It is?”
“It’s at the bottom o’ the loch,” he replied. “That’s where she hid it.”
Hazel came to his side. She saw only flat water out there, but she trusted him. He never steered her wrong yet. She extended her hand over the lake and groped her luminous tendrils around the lake bottom. She felt a few skeletons, a few rotten sunken boats, a few lurking monsters that never saw the light of day.
She crawled her fingertips over the slimy rocks. She came across a mound of rough boulders. A few eels and crabs hid in caverns underneath, but she didn’t find any stone like the one she saw Fergus sitting on in her vision.
She prepared to move on when Fergus shouted in her ear, “Stop! There it is.”
“Where?”
“Ye just touched it,” he told her. “Gang ye back.” She crept back the way she came until she found the crabs’ hole. “There. Right there.”
“I don’t feel it.”
“It’s underneath. Ye mun’ move the rock, and ye’ll find’t.”
Move the rock? Okay. She stuck her finger in the crab’s hole and pried back the boulder. It rolled aside, and the eels and creatures of the slime darted away in all directions. Sure enough, there was the Stone of Scone, embedded in the lake bottom where the boulder once sat.
Hazel wrapped her fibers around the Stone and gave it a tug. It erupted out of the lake in a shower of spray. Waves and fountains burst aside, and the Stone vaulted through the air to land at Hazel’s feet.
Fergus stared at her. “Ye done it.”
She blushed and grinned. “We did it. We did it together. I never would have found it without you.”
They loaded the Stone onto the horse’s back and set off westward. By evening, they left the mountains and entered a vast plane stretching far into the distance. “We ought tae make camp now,” Fergus remarked. “It’ll get a mite cold tonight, if I’m no mistaken.”
“We don’t have to,” she replied. “There’s a Faery mound just beyond that hill. Let’s go underground. I don’t like traveling with the Stone out in the open. I keep expecting someone to come along and steal it.”
“Eh?” he exclaimed. “A mound? Did ye see that yerself?”
“Something just told me it was there. Don’t ask me how.”
He nodded and urged the horse forward. “That’s the way it is when ye gain yer power. In time, ye’ll recognize all sorts o’ Faery signs wi’ no bother. It comes naturally after a while.”
“I still find it hard to believe I lived like this all my life without ever knowing it was there. It seems so obvious now.”
“Ye kenned it,” he replied. “I saw’t in those pictures o’ ye when ye were young. Ye kenned it then, b
ut ye blocked it out tae fit intae that world. Ye did yer best tae belaing there, but it ne’er worked—no really.”
Hazel shuddered. “I don’t want to think about it. I never want to go back to that world.”
“Where do ye wish tae go?”
“Me?” she asked. “Why, I want to go back to Urlu, of course. Where else is there for me to go?”
“Ye can go anywhere ye wish,” he replied. “Faery go e’erywhere. They’re welcome e’erywhere, and e’erybody loves ’em.”
“Everybody except the Loch Nagar witch, you mean?”
He shrugged. “The world belaings tae Faery.”
“Well, I belong to Urlu,” she replied. “That’s where I belong, and that’s where my people are.”
He laughed and hugged and kissed her. “We’ll gang down the mound and deliver the Stone. Then we’ll gang alaing home tae our own kin. I’m sure yer friends’ll be right glad tae see ye.”
“It’s the others I can’t wait to see,” she replied. “It’s Angus and Rob and Jamie and all the other Urlus. I want to fly with them. I want to be one of them. That’s what I can’t wait for.”
“Ye will be, lassie. Ye’ll be one o’ ’em, just as soon as they get o’er their surprise at the whole thing.”
Hazel burst out laughing. They both laughed until the tears rolled down their cheeks thinking about the looks on their friends’ faces when they found out Hazel was Urlu.
“Come on,” she told him. “Let’s get out of this wind. I’m hungry, and I want to change my clothes.”
They led the horse over the hill and found the mound right where Hazel said it would be. They parked the horse on the mound’s smooth top, and Fergus took her hand. He kissed her one more time. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
The mound caved in under their feet, and Hazel, Fergus, and the horse all came to rest standing on their legs in the passage of another underground palace.
Destiny Stone Page 20
