“Don’t suppose you brought cutlery?”
He shook his head. Cutlery—those things humans like to eat with. He’d forgotten about those items.
“Hmmm. Fingers it is.” She shoved the cottage cheese off to the side and took an orange and a banana. She peeled the orange, but her attention was all for him. “It was noble of you to offer your aid, but I can’t accept it. You shouldn’t be anywhere near enemy lines. It’s not your responsibility.”
His ears twitched and his tail flicked gently in confusion. That had to be one of the oddest things she’d said to him.
“Of course it is. I saved you and put you in your present circumstances where you are now forced to question your loyalty and morals.”
“That is not how it works. I’m not your responsibility. I’m the adult. Doesn’t matter the species. Adults protect the young.”
“I’m a gargoyle. I exist to destroy evil. My physical age has no impact on my duty to serve the Light.”
“Screw that. I want no part in serving your ‘Light’ if it requires children to be conscripted into its army. Having children fight your wars for you is pure evil. I don’t condone child soldiers and I certainly won’t allow you to put yourself in danger because you think I’m somehow your responsibility.”
Her words were truth, he felt it resonate within him. Yet, he was a gargoyle. His nature demanded he be a protector—a destroyer of evil. Those two truths did not rest comfortably within his mind. Children didn’t fight in the Divine Ones armies. Gargoyles did. Unable to hold her gaze, he rubbed his muzzle against his forearm, scratching a fake itch as a distraction.
His inability to hold her gaze didn’t stop her words. “Your family shouldn’t have included you in the attack on the transport. It was wrong on so many levels.”
“They didn’t want too. Nevertheless, they needed another gargoyle to have any hope for it to be both bloodless and a success. They knew I’d only follow anyways.” He glanced back up hoping she’d show even a little bit of pride in his accomplishments, but her expression wasn’t warm or proud. “None of the humans were seriously hurt.” He ducked his head and stared down at his talons. “I just wanted to make my parents proud.”
“Oh, kid.” She came over to him and patted his back rather awkwardly, but he didn’t care and tucked his muzzle along her side, being careful his horns didn’t catch her in the throat. After a moment, her arms came around his shoulders in a comforting hug.
“Kid, you’d make any parent proud. You’re smart, brave, noble, and have the biggest heart. You don’t need to put yourself in danger to prove anything. You’re still a kid. Promise me you will work on just being a kid. No more of this warrior stuff, no more live fire missions, hand to hand combat, or infiltrating behind enemy lines. There will be lots of time for that when you’re older.”
Shadowlight sighed. She’d basically just told him not to be a gargoyle. However, it was nice to be hugged, he decided as he snuggled closer. He would try to do as she asked.
“I won’t seek out trouble.” He agreed at last.
“Good.” She patted his back and then straightened. “If your mother is half the battleaxe I sense she is, I’ll deal with her if it becomes a problem. No more of this child soldier crap.”
He frowned. “What if danger comes hunting me?”
She gave him a grin, flashing her new fangs. “Then I’ll kill it.”
“And if you can’t?” he asked in the most reasonable voice he could manage.
“If it gets past me, you’re free to do what comes naturally. We’ll worry about morals later.”
Relief flooded his body. At least he’d tied himself to a malleable human. They were such a backward species in some ways, but he had hopes for this one’s trainability.
“Ha! Trainability! I’m not a dog. Nor am I the unreasonable one, my friend.”
He decided it was time to change the subject. “I’m going to be an uncle.” The word still tasted strange on his tongue, but he was excited all the same. Then something occurred to him. “What does an uncle do?”
“Uncle? Wow.” The human’s expression turned judgmental. “Your sister’s younger than me and she’s having a kid? She’s, what, all of nineteen or twenty?”
Shadowlight tilted his head, wondering what had caused the new round of questions tinted with displeasure.
“She’s twenty.”
“Kid’s having kids, great.”
This time, Shadowlight laughed. “She may only be twenty years old in this lifetime, but the Avatars are much, much older.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and then ran her fingers through her hair. “Thanks for the reminder that I’m now housemates with billion year old demigods. That’ll be fun to explain in the report.” Sitting heavily in the chair across from the bed, she gave him a bemused look. “So the demigods are having a baby.”
“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 Twenty-Seven
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 being 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 meadow. In the centre the Redwood stood tall and proud.
He narrowed his eyes.
Make that taller and proud.
“Oh my god!” Lillian muttered.
“Goddess,” he corrected for 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’s 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. “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 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 on 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 feathery 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.
“Ah, 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 entwined 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 snapped 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, burning the skin in an unpleasant way.
“Gregory! My tattoo is getting pissed off about something.”
“Easy. The Sorceress is examining the tattoos. 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. 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.” Lillian fought to free herself. When that failed, she reached out to touch him but stopped, 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 what monster she spoke of, 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 greater 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, fear 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.”
Lillian swore again. “Heal yourself. I’m here now and won’t let my hamadryad harm you again.”
A 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 simply 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.
“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 primary 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 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 own pain and he heard her deep worry. “Tell me you’ll be okay.”
“I will be.” 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.”
But only if Lillian was wrong, and th
e Sorceress hadn’t just tried to kill him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
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 intricate currents of magic he felt shifting through the earth and air, she had been far too close to unravelling his spells.
And that was not part of Gryton’s plans. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise though either. 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 great 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.
The Avatars Series: Books 1-3 Page 70
