“It happened too fast.” Lyon heard Aeryx settle, a gray shadow perched on a boulder nearby. “The night is cold, old friend. We need warmth. Will you give this?”
“Gladly, Lyon. For you—and for your Rose.”
Emotion burned around Adrian Draycott’s dark form, but he said nothing. He stepped away as Lyon knelt on the ground beside Maddie and lifted her into his arms.
Instantly Lyon felt something was wrong. Time itself seemed unstable. Her light was too dim. Yet when he had met her, light had burned all around her like a restless garment. His hands tightened on her waist. What if he lost her now? What if—
He heard Aeryx hover above his right shoulder. “Finish, while you still have time. Her heart is weak and her light is nearly gone. Say the words.”
There would be no going back after the words were cast, Lyon knew. The tides would reach out and wrap around them forever. And yet what other way was there to cheat her death?
Lyon gripped her hand and cleared his mind of fear or anger. There could be no darkness here or the magic would be lost. They all might be lost along with it.
“Maddie,” he began. “Traveler. Stranger and yet no stranger, Rose of Winter, Rose of Dawn. Heed this first calling and feel our power joined.”
Lyon waited, but Maddie’s low, labored breathing grew weaker. He wrapped her small hand in his big one and leaned down, touching her face. “I hold your light,” he said roughly. “I breathe it now and bind you here; with hand and heart I claim you, so let it be.”
At first there was nothing. No flutter of eyelids. No change in the deathly pallor of her face. She barely seemed to breathe in his arms.
Lyon waited, stiff and silent. Had he been fast enough? Had he been careful in his touch—and clear in his calling?
Her face was blue-white now, the color of icy driven snow, and her eyelids were lined with blue veins. Lyon turned her arm and felt her wrists.
A pulse skipped, but too faint and far too slow. He felt time shift again, and the dark moved closer.
“Has she roused?” Adrian asked softly.
“No. And be quiet,” Lyon muttered.
“Then you must try again. You must have done it wrong. Get it right this time. I’ll have no more death on my conscience.” Adrian glared at Lyon, then shook his head.
But Lyon nudged him aside, leaning down to listen to Maddie’s breath.
Faint. But the sound was steady, he realized. He felt her slight shiver.
Then Lyon saw light fall over her arm. Moving slowly, it settled against her palm. It was a circle—too faint for a tattoo. Too intricate for ink or pigment. And it was alive.
Lyon’s breath caught as he saw the ancient silver marks of prophecy form—and begin to move.
Lyon felt a surge of elation. The marks had returned. But he could still lose her. Her breathing was far too weak and irregular.
Urgently he tilted her face up to his. “Come back,” he said roughly. “I order it.” Lyon’s voice shook. “Nay. I ask it, with full and solemn heart.” The words were barely from his mouth when she coughed hard. Blood and foam dotted her lips and she lunged for him, taking deep, choked breaths.
Her fists shook. She was in clear and great pain, Lyon saw.
“Stop.” Her hands opened again, hammering his chest. “You’re hurting me. My throat is on fire. And there—what’s wrong with my hands?” She shuddered, dragging in hard, broken breaths.
The first hurdle past. Now for those to come next, Lyon thought grimly. For what came next would be far more dangerous to them both.
The calling should not leave her in this much pain, he thought angrily. Her marks had come far too fast, before she had any control over them. He could only wonder what else was wrong.
But his worry was cut short by Maddie’s wild struggles. When he released her, she stumbled to her feet, blinking hard. “I feel—drunk. Did you drug me?”
“I did not.”
“Liar.”
“It is no lie,” he said coldly.
“Then—then what happened?” She glared at him, weak and confused. “Where are we? This doesn’t look like London.”
“We are in a place of safety. At a house of great age. It is called—”
“It is called Draycott Abbey.” Adrian Draycott moved past Lyon. “I am Adrian, its guardian. I bid you deep welcome.”
Maddie frowned at him suspiciously. “Guardian? Is that some kind of rental agent?”
“Not precisely.” Adrian held out a lace-covered hand. “Let me help you up to the house. You look tired.” He smiled darkly, as if very pleased when Maddie accepted his hand. “You see me clearly, do you? It is after all very dark here.”
Maddie shrugged. “It’s dark but I can see you okay. What I’m having trouble with is that weird costume you’re wearing. I don’t see a lot of guys wearing lace in my part of DC.”
Adrian’s voice became arctic. “It is hardly a costume. I wore this garment on the day that we celebrated the first balloon flight across the channel. It was a most exciting day, to be sure.”
“Balloon? So you do that reenactment stuff?”
“The year was 1785, my good woman. And the day is as clear in my memory as yesterday,” Adrian said irritably.
Maddie turned slowly. “You expect me to believe that?” She frowned at him and then turned to glare at Lyon. “I feel…sick. My chest hurts. Why did you bring me here?” She rubbed her hands slowly. “Why are my hands so hot?” Maddie’s voice broke when she saw her palms.
Light danced and shimmered in restless spirals, drifting in slow circles that broke and reformed in the still air in front of her.
As if they were alive.
She took a shuddering breath and moved her hands back and forth. When she did, the spirals moved with her. “Make them s—stop,” she said harshly.
“I cannot.” Lyon took her right hand and watched the marks pulse at his touch. “You are coming into your power. Your marks have come alive, just as they ought to.”
Maddie wrenched free, flinching as the bright circles spun free and drifted past her face. “It’s a trick,” she hissed. “Some kind of fluorescent bands. How are you doing that?” Her face was white with fear. “Just—just make it stop.”
“You order what I cannot give.” Lyon frowned when Maddie backed away from him in confusion. The change was too abrupt, overwhelming in its force. But he could not stop what had begun. He sensed that dark forces were at work, and that somehow they had shifted the normal order of her change. If Maddie was to stay safe, her understanding would have to come swiftly. “They are your marks of power, Maddie. Only you may command them. None other may control or remove them now.”
Maddie knocked furiously at the glinting circles, but each time they floated back to her. “Then I command them—to go away!”
The spirals flickered at her words. Slowly they grew smaller and dimmer, until they were only scattered pinpoints. Lyon knew well what would come next. “You should not ask this thing. Once the marks take life—”
Maddie cried out in pain and anger and gripped her right hand. “They’re burning me. What have you done?”
“Anyone who tries to remove your marks now will feel this pain. Even you,” Lyon said roughly. “You have the choice. But there is a cost.” And the cost was a terrible one, Lyon knew.
Maddie flinched. “I don’t want the choice. I damn well don’t want these marks either.” She locked her trembling hands against her chest. “Explain it. You’re supposed to understand everything.”
“Not everything. And I’m afraid—you can’t go back. When you were dying, I called you back to life. The price of your return was those marks—and the powers that go with them,” he said quietly.
“Let me make this clear. I don’t want them. I just want to go back home and be normal again. I want to play video games and drink coffee and learn computer code—” Maddie gasped in pain. “Why didn’t you let me stay the way I was?”
“And let you die?”
“You’re lying.” Maddie raised her hands. Only a faint trail of light remained. “Why do they burn this way?”
She looked up as great wings cut through the air above her, swooped low and then circled past. “They need not burn you.” Aeryx’s eyes glinted. “As the guardian says, the marks are yours to command. You must accept their power—and your own—first. Until you do, they will search for their master, and their search will be unending and painful.” Aeryx glanced at Lyon. “You will not tell her the rest?”
“It is not required. She must choose for herself.”
Maddie glared at the scattered points of light. “They really won’t go away? Not ever?”
“They will keep searching for their home, as all sentient life does. We all wish in our hearts to go home.” Aeryx sank onto a grassy slope and furled his wings. “Those marks are yours forever. You are now their home.”
“This is a nightmare.” Maddie rubbed her head. “I’m arguing with a creature who stepped off a medieval church tower. And my hands are on fire. Just…tell me this is a bad dream,” she whispered.
“My apologies, but it is no dream,” the winged creature rumbled.
Maddie’s mouth locked in a tight, stubborn line. “I was really going to die?”
Aeryx glanced at Lyon, who nodded gravely. “I was almost too late. You had stopped breathing.”
“You—called these things. And now I don’t get to go back?” She looked accusingly from Lyon to Adrian to Aeryx.
None of them answered her.
“Fine. If they’re going to keep burning like acid—” She made a flat, angry sound of resignation. “They can stay. Just don’t expect me to like it. Do you hear that? And I’m going to find a way to go back and be normal again.” She stared down at the marks with hatred. “But for now, since I have no choice—they can stay.”
At her words the light flickered. Moonlight slanted down from a sudden opening in the clouds. The cold silver light seemed to arc down to Maddie, dancing over her shoulders and across her fingers, reckless and flashing with life.
But they did not settle on any spot.
“What’s wrong?” Her breath was ragged.
As she spat out the angry words, the spirals flared up like forged gold. They writhed in unstable bands through the air around her and brushed her face. Then they circled her head and stretched out in a glowing path down to her feet. And still they burned her, Lyon saw.
He shook his head sadly. “You must offer them haven with true heart. Otherwise they will not rest. It is Law, Maddie.”
She stood, caught in rigid anger. “So many stupid rules.” And then her shoulders slumped. “Okay, fine. I give them—haven. To stay.”
At her low words, the spirals blew out in dizzying wings of light. They chased back and forth around her body in streaming strands of gold and flashing silver. They twisted upward, forming six-fold braids that burned fiercely.
And then they settled with infinite grace across her palms.
Maddie stared at them, her face sickly pale. “I don’t believe this is happening.” Muttering, she moved her hands back and forth, watching the bands of light rise and fall. “This is—totally nuts. And I’m going to be really sick now.” She pitched forward, holding her stomach.
Only the quick support of Lyon’s hands kept her from falling as she spewed up all the contents of her stomach.
“Be careful with her.” Lyon’s face was grim.
“I am being careful. But by my oath, I am not well used to lifting humans. In all my memory, only one human could see me.” Adrian said gruffly.
Over their heads Aeryx raced through the night, amber eyes burning.
“What did your winged friend mean? What have you not told her?”
“Her marks have an effect on all around her. She will learn this in time. For now she has enough to bear in her own anger and fear at all that she has lost.”
“What loss? Normal life must pale next to the power her marks will give her.” Adrian shook his head. “How can she prefer weakness to that?”
“We all prefer what we know best. Would you give up this house and all of these lands to hold such powers as hers?”
“Of course I would not.”
“Because this is what you know best. You are no different from her, Draycott.”
Adrian started to argue, but his muttering was cut short by Aeryx’s rumbling of laughter.
“The guardian has caught you well, Draycott. And he has the truth of it.” The air vibrated with the deep force of that voice. “She will learn what she needs. I can feel her spirits struggle even now. When you bind her, Crusader—”
“I will not bind her.” Lyon’s face was stony. “She cannot accept the cost. It would require force and I will not use force against her.”
Aeryx’s breath drew out in a long sigh of understanding—and sadness. “You risk much in this choice.”
“Explain this,” Adrian cut in. “What is this choice that she must make?”
“It is none of your affair.” Lyon kept walking. “I can see the house now. What of the alarm, Draycott?”
Adrian gave a sniff of disdain. “You think I may not subvert a few wires and sockets? No one and no thing will hold me from my own house.” He glared at Lyon. “Take your Rose and I will deal with the entrance door. Carry her to the old gatehouse.” Adrian’s eyes narrowed as Lyon carefully took Maddie into his arms. “How much time does she have before her powers must be controlled?”
“Not enough. Something is wrong. You feel it too, Aeryx.”
The creature fluttered his wings restlessly. “It digs at my bones and shatters my rest. Yet I can find no source.”
Lyon stared north, past the great oak tree and along the dark cliff known as Lyon’s Leap. Memories clung and his eyes were like pools of darkness. “There is only one source. They are awake, stirred by Maddie’s power. They have not seen her yet. But they will. And now that her marks have begun to stir, her presence will be hard to hide. I ask your protection, Aeryx.” Lyon looked gravely at Adrian. “And yours too. Can you put the past aside for her sake, if not for mine?”
“She will be safe here. You have my vow. Abbey lands will be safe haven for the Rose. As for the enmity between us, it shall be put aside.” Adrian’s eyes were cold. “For now at least.”
No alarms challenged them on their passage to the weathered gatehouse. The abbey’s beautiful halls lay silent, dappled by moonlight.
The night seemed to muffle Lyon’s footsteps as he carried Maddie up the curved staircase to a bedroom that overlooked the moat. The glowing silk chairs and polished wood seemed to hold a welcome, the air perfumed by roses scattered in vases around the quiet room.
After Adrian left, Lyon smoothed a white coverlet over Maddie and sat down on a nearby chair. He had not set foot within the abbey’s walls for too many years to count. The rooms were strange and the furnishings new to his eyes, yet the shadows still held the warmth of old memories.
Lyon felt the age and weight of the house’s past seep into his spirit as he watched Maddie sleep. She had much to learn and little time to do it. He must carry the weight of most of that training. As if aware of his thoughts, the marks on her palm stirred, growing brighter. Lyon reached out, watching the restless silver lines move—and drift toward his hand.
They slid across his fingers, faint and glowing as they searched.
Wherever they touched him, his skin burned with their restless fires. His jaw locked with the wrenching pain. There could be only one peace, in an act of irrevocable passion that Lyon would not permit. She had been hurt and betrayed. He would not do the same.
He closed his eyes against the searing pain as her rosemarks cut deep into his skin, calling for union. Demanding a hot, breathless release. He could take her there as she slept, sealing their bodies by the fire of his terrible need, claiming her in form, spirit and soul for all time. He could refuse her the choice and spare them both this agony of separation. He watched her sleep and
his blood stirred, hot with the awareness of her slim, exquisite body outlined in the moonlight.
He wanted her. His spirit called to hers.
He could bring her pleasures she could not imagine. The fire that seared him would also heal the old scars of their past. It would be so easy.
But to take her here and now would deny her what she valued most—her freedom.
Hard choices mocked Lyon. But hard choices were what the Crusader did best. So he looked away, and ignored his pain. He did not slip into the soft bed and stir her warm skin awake beneath him. He let her sleep, quiet and untouched. He guarded her restless dreams—even from himself. His hands glowed as her marks wrapped around him, searching.
Burning.
But he would keep her safe—no matter what it cost him to do that.
Lyon’s jaw locked against a fresh wave of pain as he stood slowly. Outside the French doors moonlight shimmered over the moat and a winged shape cut through the darkness.
“Guard her, Aeryx,” Lyon said hoarsely. At his words, the powerful form sank down on the stone railing above a bank of scented roses. The great wings closed, and Aeryx nodded gravely at Lyon, studying the silver marks that had followed the Crusader across the room, restless in their need.
“It is too soon,” the deep voice rumbled. “Take care, Crusader. Time is not as it should be. I feel the laws begin to shift again.”
It was nothing less than what Lyon had felt himself. But he valued the warning from a creature of Aeryx’s age and power. “I shall take care, old friend. For myself. And for the one who sleeps inside.”
A new wave of pain lashed Lyon as Maddie’s marks traced his neck and forehead. “I must go. She strains my control. We both need more time.”
“I will stay. None shall pass me.” The great body stilled, sinking to rest in the shadows. Now he was simply one more sculpture among so many that marked the abbey’s beautiful, weathered walls.
But the amber eyes gleamed, alive and brooding in the darkness.
Fallen Page 8
