Captive

by A. D. Robertson

  When the last word of the incantation left his throat, Tristan fell to his knees.

  “Tristan!” Sarah left Moira huddled against the battlement and crawled to his side.

  Coughs wracked Tristan’s chest until his muscles cramped. Sarah wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight while he struggled for breath.

  “So this is where you’ve gotten to.”

  Seamus snarled, pinning his ears back as he glared at Lana. The succubus was perched atop the battlements, her wings framing her body as if she were a stone gargoyle, perfectly placed to watch over the courtyard.

  Lana gazed at Tristan. “Pulling the temple down on our heads, are we? A clever ploy. Too bad I sensed your spell as if it were being written on my very skin the moment you began to cast it. I should have persuaded Bosque to stay for a few days. He’s going to miss all the fun.”

  Sarah’s arms tightened around Tristan. He gave a slight shake of his head and pushed her away, whispering, “Get to Moira. Be ready.”

  He sensed Sarah’s reluctance, but she released him and scrambled over toward Moira and Seamus. As she moved, Sarah’s hand dipped to her knives and a blade flashed out toward Lana.

  Lana caught the glint of the knife and dodged, but not quickly enough. The blade buried itself in her shoulder and she screeched.

  Tristan jumped to his feet, ignoring the burning of his lungs. Lana rose from her crouch and tugged Sarah’s blade from her flesh.

  “I was going to make you a deal, Keeper,” Lana told Tristan. “A small mercy of killing your bitch quickly, but I’m afraid she’s just taken that off the table.”

  Tristan didn’t answer. He needed to conserve what little breath he had for when it was truly needed. He kept his eyes on Lana but also on the dark sky at her back.

  Lana turned her accusing glare on Seamus. “As for you, dog, I’m willing to name this foolishness an act of misguided loyalty. If you prove your loyalty to Bosque now, I won’t tell him of your treachery.”

  Seamus bared his fangs at the succubus, answering her with a vicious bark. The wolf’s hulking form shielded the two women.

  “How disappointing.” Lana stretched her hand out. A whip appeared in what had been her empty palm. Its length danced through the air, formed from shadow rather than leather.

  Seamus lunged at Lana and her whip lashed out, striking his flank. The wolf yelped, faltering, but he feinted from her next strike. Lana leaped from the battlement to meet Seamus’ next attack. He slipped beneath the snaking shadow whip and clamped his jaws around her calf.

  Lana screamed and fell back onto her elbows. She shrieked again when two more of Sarah’s knives lodged in her waist and thigh. Turning toward the women, Lana opened her mouth.

  “No!” Tristan shouted.

  A spout of flame jetted toward Sarah and Moira. Sarah turned, covering Moira’s body with hers, but the blaze didn’t reach them.

  Seamus snarled and leaped, throwing himself between the spear of flame and its target. The wolf’s growl died in a whine and his huge body dropped to the ground. Tristan gazed in grief and horror at the exposed bones and charred flesh revealed by the gaping hole in Seamus’s side.

  “You’ll regret that, Lana.” Tristan rushed to the fallen wolf, standing over him and taking up the role of shield for Sarah and Moira.

  Lana laughed. “I very much doubt that I will.”

  Behind her, an enormous dark shape came into view and Tristan smiled. “I think you’ll find you’re very wrong about that.”

  Tristan lifted his arms and shouted into the night sky. A sudden wind, followed by an inhuman cry, filled the air. Lana whirled around and gasped. With the succubus distracted, Tristan turned to Moira and Sarah.

  “Jump!” Tristan shouted over the screaming wind. “Jump from the tower toward the sea!”

  Sarah stood up. “Are you insane?”

  “You have to trust me,” Tristan pleaded. “Jump now!”

  Though she blanched, Sarah grasped Moira, who appeared too frightened to resist. Locking her arms around the girl’s waist, Sarah nodded at Tristan and then threw herself and Moira from the tower battlements.

  Tristan closed his eyes, hearing Moira’s scream. Then nothing.

  “You wretched child.”

  Tristan turned back to face Lana. The gaze she fixed on him was beyond hateful.

  “How dare you invoke the powers gifted to you by your master to thwart his will?”

  The succubus still held the shadow whip. She was bleeding but showed no sign of faltering.

  “I can’t kill you,” Lana snarled. “But I think I’ll be forgiven for causing you just a little pain.”

  She flicked her wrist and the whip coiled around Tristan’s arm. He went to his knees. The shadow whip’s lash hadn’t caused physical pain; instead it filled him with the agony of despair. His mind became a torrent of unbearable images: Seamus staring at him with dead eyes, Moira and Sarah’s bodies broken on the rocks beside the crashing waves.

  He bowed his head, trying to fight the hopelessness that wanted to consume him.

  “You will never leave,” Lana said. “And you will never forget that I am the one who’s kept you here.”

  Tristan dared to lift his eyes. What he saw at Lana’s back lit his heart with strength.

  “You’ve forgotten something more important, Lana,” he said, standing.

  She pursed her lips. “Have I?”

  Raising his arms once more, Tristan said, “I summoned the Morrígna.”

  “And little good that trick did you,” Lana replied, but her smug expression ebbed.

  “Now you remember,” Tristan said, taking a step back.

  Lana glanced up a moment before it descended upon her. Giant talons seized Lana’s shoulders, dreadful pops and cracks sounding as the bones of her wings were crushed in the Morrígna’s grip.

  As she screamed, flames erupted from Lana’s throat. She struggled against her attacker as she was lifted from the tower but to no avail. Tristan listened to Lana’s shrieks fade as she hurtled away from the castle and vanished into the night sky.

  Another bout of coughs seized Tristan. He doubled over and crawled toward Seamus’s unmoving body.

  Though the charred crevice in the wolf’s side was horrible to look at, Seamus’s face remained unscathed. Tristan touched the wolf’s soft muzzle.

  “I’m sorry, my friend.” Tristan bowed his head. “You did more for me than I ever could have deserved. Thank you.”

  Though he felt such a benediction hardly worthy of Seamus’s sacrifice, Tristan had to use what little strength he had left for his own flight. He crawled to the edge of the tower and pulled himself up onto the battlements. Tristan let coughs wrench through his lungs until he believed himself capable of completing the final incantation.

  He stood atop the battlements and dared to look down. Far below the sea roiled, dashing itself upon the shore in an endless assault. One last time, Tristan raised his hands and implored the midnight sky for aid. The wind roared at his back and Tristan let its strength propel him forward. He fell from the tower and into the darkness.

  32

  THEY WERE FALLING.

  They were falling, and Moira was screaming.

  Sarah felt a brief stab of thankfulness that when she’d jumped, Moira had been facing the tower. She wouldn’t have wanted the girl to see the sea rushing up at them the way Sarah was seeing it. She wondered if she should close her eyes.

  Is it better or worse to see your death coming?

  Her doom was suddenly blotted out, land and sea obscured by a giant black shape.

  Sarah grunted as they landed atop a broad surface covered with a silken substance that mitigated the harshness of their abruptly broken fall. Instinctively, Sarah grasped for something to hold on to. She grab
bed handfuls of the strange stuff around her, finding it soft yet strong.

  Feathers?

  “Are we dead, miss?” Moira still clung to Sarah.

  “No,” Sarah told her. Assured that they were no longer plummeting to their deaths, Sarah tried to gather some sense of what had happened.

  The wind still whipped through her hair and pulled tears from her eyes, but it hit the front of Sarah’s body as if they were being propelled forward through the sky. Along with the steady rush of air, Sarah heard another sound, a repetitive low whoosh, forceful as the beating of a drum but larger, its resonance hollow.

  The sound was accompanied by movement, slow yet great, on either side of Sarah and Moira. Wings. The powerful stroke of massive wings.

  Moira had been looking about with the same puzzlement as Sarah when she suddenly blanched.

  “It can’t be.” Moira began to whisper frantically under her breath. Her words made no sense, and then Sarah realized the girl was reciting the Ave Maria.

  Sarah grasped Moira’s hands. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s the Morrígna.” Moira’s voice shook.

  The fact that Moira could be so afraid despite the miracle that they hadn’t plummeted to their deaths made Sarah’s mouth go dry. “What’s the Morrígna?”

  “The war ravens,” Moira said. “Three goddesses—pagan goddesses—Badb, Macha, Nemain. I thought they were only legends.”

  Sarah peered into the darkness. She could just make out the head of the great bird that had saved them and was now bearing them toward the mainland.

  “Tristan summoned them,” Sarah murmured.

  “He can command goddesses?” Moira shuddered. “I knew Master Tristan had great power, but not like this.”

  “They aren’t goddesses,” Sarah told her. “They’re creatures from the nether, from Bosque Mar’s realm. Keepers have the ability to summon such beings into our world.”

  But not usually creatures of this magnitude. A thought Sarah kept to herself. No wonder Tristan hadn’t wanted to reveal this plan to her. Knowing that he could wield magic this dark made Sarah uneasy. She’d been right that Tristan was the invaluable object hidden in Castle Tierney, but she was only just beginning to realize what that might mean.

  Maintaining a tight grip on the giant raven’s feathers, Sarah craned her neck to look back at the island. A sooty, orange gleam silhouetted the castle, but Sarah could see little else.

  Where was Tristan?

  Fear spiked through Sarah’s veins. What if Tristan had never intended to leave? What if he’d arranged for her escape, using himself as a distraction but knowing he wouldn’t go with her?

  Desperate, Sarah climbed up the raven’s neck.

  “Where are you going?” Moira cried as Sarah left her behind.

  “Stop!” Sarah shouted at the bird. “Turn around!”

  “Sarah!” Moira scrambled up beside her. “What are you doing?”

  Ignoring Moira’s pleas, Sarah yelled again. “We have to go back! The one who summoned you is in danger! Please, we have to help him.”

  The raven gave no heed to Sarah’s commands. The inexorable beating of its wings continued to propel them eastward, away from the island.

  Sarah bowed her head, exhausted and defeated. She’d known there would be little chance that the great raven would respond to her. Whatever words Tristan had spoken during his spell were in a language completely unknown to Sarah. And the powers that Tristan—or any Keeper—invoked when calling upon the nether were those rejected by Searchers. No one but the Keepers could access the magic that connected them to Bosque Mar.

  Tears slipped from beneath Sarah’s eyelids.

  She’d lost him. She was free, but she’d lost Tristan.

  “Sarah.” Moira’s fingers dug into Sarah’s shoulders.

  Sarah opened her eyes and at the same moment her stomach dropped as the raven swooped toward the earth.

  “What is it doing?” Moira’s eyes were wide with fright.

  Leaning forward to see past the bird’s hulk, Sarah made out shapes far below. Shapes that were quickly becoming larger and more defined.

  “It’s taking us to the village,” Sarah said. Her heart lay heavy as a stone behind her ribs when it should have been exulting. But Sarah could find no joy in her freedom, only desolation.

  As the mainland rose up to meet them, the Morrígan slowed, gliding over the village, then circling, lower and lower. When they hovered just above the rooftops, the raven gave a sudden croak that rattled Sarah’s bones.

  “I think we’re meant to jump,” Sarah told Moira.

  She looked down. It wasn’t a bone-breaking fall, but it would be jarring and Sarah hoped not too painful.

  Sarah took Moira’s hand, squeezing the girl’s fingers tightly. “Together.”

  Moira nodded.

  They scooted to the joint where the raven’s left wing met its body and Sarah realized too late that jumping wasn’t part of the plan. The Morrígan’s silken feathers colluded with gravity to pull them off the bird’s back, and then they were falling.

  Sarah dropped Moira’s hand and shouted, “Crouch and try to roll when you land!”

  She hoped the girl had heard and understood. Tucking her body, Sarah hit the earth and let herself roll along the ground. She came to a stop and lay on her back, waiting for her breath to return. Above Sarah, the Morrígan gave another loud call and then its massive shape rose into the sky and was gone.

  As Sarah managed to draw her first breath after the fall, another silhouette loomed over her. There was enough light in the village that Sarah could see the crossbow aimed at her heart.

  “That was quite an entrance,” a familiar voice said.

  “Anika!” Sarah’s reply was something of a croak, and Anika laughed.

  “Give yourself a minute to recover.” Anika put the crossbow aside and offered Sarah her hand. “That wasn’t a short fall.”

  “Tell me about it.” Sarah found she could breathe more normally as Anika helped her to her feet.

  The moment Sarah was standing, Anika pulled her into a tight embrace.

  “We thought you were dead.”

  Sarah wrapped her arms around Anika’s shoulders, holding her friend close. “I came pretty close . . . a few times.”

  “What happened?” Anika stepped back, her gaze searching Sarah’s for answers.

  “It’s . . . There’s so much . . .” The joy of seeing Anika ebbed as Sarah’s mind sped back to the island. “Tristan.”

  “Who?” Anika frowned.

  From their hiding places within the shadows of the village, more Searchers appeared. All were armed and ready for battle. One of them had Moira by the elbow.

  “Sarah!” Moira cried out meekly, casting a fearful glance at her captor.

  Sarah was relieved to see it was Patrice who had taken the girl.

  “Patrice, she’s not a threat,” Sarah told the guide. “She helped me escape, and she’s a refugee.”

  Patrice glanced at the frightened girl and nodded. “You understand that we’ll have to take precautions.”

  “She’s not a Keeper,” Sarah protested.

  “I know that,” Patrice answered. “But she lived among them?”

  “Yes,” Sarah replied, throwing Moira an apologetic glance.

  “For how long?” Patrice asked, and Sarah’s heart sank.

  Moira answered before Sarah could. “All my life, ma’am.”

  Patrice’s chest rose and fell as she drew a long, uneasy breath.

  “She was born into service,” Sarah said, putting her arm around Moira’s shoulders. “It’s not her fault.”

  “I assure you she’ll be taken care of,” Patrice told Sarah. “But until we can get a better sense of who she is,
we’ll have to treat her as a prisoner.”

  “Sarah.” Moira looked up at her, eyes questioning.

  Sarah felt a surge of resentment toward Patrice but had to admit the rationale behind the Guide’s decision.

  “It will be okay, Moira,” Sarah told the girl. “I promise. No harm will come to you and you’ll be well treated. We’re soldiers, and this is a war. We always have to be careful. Do you understand?”

  Moira nodded.

  Patrice offered Moira a thin smile. “Brave girl.”

  Moira lifted her chin. “Sarah taught me how to be brave, ma’am.”

  Feeling her throat close up, Sarah gave Moira an encouraging nod but couldn’t speak.

  One of the other Searchers suddenly shouted, “Incoming!”

  The group scattered, diving back into the shadows and readying their weapons.

  “Come on!” Anika grabbed Sarah’s arm and pulled her beneath the eaves of a house.

  A familiar, bone-vibrating call sounded above them and then a figure dropped from the sky, hitting the earth hard. Tristan rolled along the ground and then rose to his hands and knees, shaking his head as if to clear it.

  “Tristan!” Sarah shouted and rushed to his side.

  She fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around him. Overwhelmed with relief at seeing him, Sarah could do nothing more than close her eyes and cling to him.

  “It’s all right.” Tristan folded his arms around Sarah. “I’m here. We’re safe.”

  “Step away from the Keeper, Sarah,” Patrice’s command sounded at Sarah’s back.

  Sarah didn’t let go of Tristan, but she turned to look at the Guide. Gooseflesh prickled along her skin when she saw Patrice’s sword in her hand, ready to strike. “This is Tristan. The one I told you about in my letter. He’s what was being guarded at the castle.”

  “Yes,” Patrice replied. “I know who he is. Now step away from him.”

  The Guide turned a hard gaze on Tristan. “Keeper, I urge you to come willingly and peacefully into our custody. It will go easier if you do.”

  “Custody?” Sarah’s heart was ramming against her rib cage. As much as she didn’t want it to, what Patrice was saying made sense. If they were taking precautions with someone as harmless as Moira, of course Tristan would be treated as dangerous. But reason eluded Sarah; her instincts screamed at her to protect the man she loved.