“No!” I screamed.
Bel and I are still connected by our shared blood. The fire will seek the Grail through me!
But before I could say any of that, Excalibur cleaved Bel’s heart in two and I became a pillar of flame.
CHAPTER TWENTY
CRIMSON
This time there was no hiding in unconsciousness; I was exquisitely aware of my agony. I was also aware that I was thrashing uncontrollably on the ground, screaming and screaming. I’d only had a taste of the Grail’s power when it entered me through the cut on my hand in the castle of the Fisher King. Now its entirety had emptied into me. It was more than my mortal half could bear, but as my mind burned, I still understood with perfect clarity that my Greylander heritage would allow me to suffer for months, maybe years, before I was granted the release of death. Everything I thought I knew about myself, every good or noble thought, was ashes. The only thing that mattered was making the pain stop.
I will do anything to make it stop.
Somewhere outside myself the others were trying to help me. Tynan packed my heated limbs with snow while Arthur braved the flames on my skin to hold me down and keep me from injuring myself. I could feel Peter desperately trying to reach me through our bond to help me regain control over the magic.
None of it could touch me. I was alone in the universe, a burning comet hurtling through nothingness.
Then my hand brushed against something sweetly, blessedly cool. Somehow I knew it was the pale pink, smooth-skinned apple from Avalon. It had to have fallen out of my pocket. My fingers clutched at it. It was my lifeline, and nothing which had gone before—not Guinevere, not Viviane, not even poor Seolan—was important anymore.
Father! Don’t let me die like this!
I opened my eyes and looked around in surprise at a scene out of a dream. I stood on a sloping hill looming over a grassy valley. Its colors were muted, grey, and the ground underneath my feet felt slightly insubstantial. I turned around. A few yards away, low-lying fog obscured the bottom of a stone tower that stretched up into pewter-edged clouds.
Relief spread through my limbs as I realized where I was. “Avalon,” I sighed.
“Not precisely.” As Merlin walked towards me out of the mist, I finally understood how he’d seduced Guinevere and so many other women. In the softer light of Avalon, his silver hair gleamed, and his face was younger and less cruel. Dressed in robes the color of slate, he appeared to be only a few years past middle age and still devastatingly handsome.
The thought of Merlin’s breeding program was nauseating, but I forced myself to ignore it and instead allowed myself to be grateful for the weak sun above which produced little heat and the cool, wet breeze on my face.
“If I’m not in Avalon, then where am I?”
My father stood beside me and together we gazed down at the valley below. A field of flowers the color of lichen ran across the bottom. Beyond them, a river coiled into the distance like a ribbon of liquid silver. He lifted a graceful hand. “Here, but not all the way. A part of you is in Avalon and anyone who happened across us would be able to see you. A part of me is with you in New York and I’m quite sure Arthur can see me as well. I wonder what he’s making of it.”
“How do you know I’m with Arthur?”
He turned and made a motion as if to brush a strand of hair from my cheek, but didn’t actually touch me. Searing pain ran across my face. Just as quickly, it was gone.
“What was that?” I gasped.
Merlin’s lips were pale but beautifully formed, almost chiseled looking. The corner of one side lifted ever so slightly. “I’m blocking your conscious awareness of your body so we can have a civilized discussion without all the screaming getting in the way.”
“A discussion about what?”
“I have no idea.” He indicated the apple in my hand. “I wasn’t the one who activated this communication. The last I saw you, you dropped a building on me. It was unpleasant, but I have to admit I was impressed.” He clasped his hands behind his back and walked away a bit, the mist swirling around his legs. “I also sensed what you did to control the grailfire. I would never have expected you would be able to give up so much power to create that spell. As it turns out, it’s a good thing for you that you did. You would be overwhelmed already if you hadn’t made a little storage room in your soul.” He shrugged. “Not that it will save you unless you can return the fire to the Grail.”
The sensation of heat flickered through me again and I was suddenly aware that most of my clothing was hanging around me in burnt tatters. The heat of embarrassment followed. As I crossed my arms over my chest to cover myself, there was a shimmer in the haze and a grey gown and soft leather boots lay on the ground at my feet.
With a small smirk, Merlin turned away while I shed my ruined clothes. Thankfully my ID and phone seemed a bit singed but otherwise OK. The cash I’d been carrying was burned all along one side but would still be usable. So was the leather holster that held Excalibur’s scabbard. As I changed, slipping everything into the deep pocket in the skirt of the gown and refastening the scabbard around my waist, I tried not to think about New York and the fire that was eating me whole.
If it’s working on my clothes, then my skin is next.
When I cleared my throat, he turned around, eyebrow lifted in expectation. I took a deep breath. “I need your help. I know you created me to be a living storage receptacle for the power you can’t contain yourself. I’ve felt you put power into me before, so it stands to reason that you can take it from me too. Please take the Grail’s power from me. Please get it out of me!” I was beginning to panic. When the look on his face didn’t soften, I added the only other thing I could to my plea. “I’m your daughter.”
Merlin grimaced at the word before shaking his head. “I doubt my nature would be compatible with the earth magic. The Grail was made to contain a power that living beings can’t. Why don’t you just return it to the talisman?”
I wasn’t sure if the aching feeling in my throat was from unshed tears or if the fire was now eating away my voice the way it did Bel’s. “Someone stole it,” I admitted finally.
He clicked his tongue. “You lost the Grail? How unfortunate. Still, I could feel its power calling to you before you found it.”
I hated that he somehow knew that. “Yes.”
“How did you control it then?” He darted towards me, his face avid. “How did it make you feel?”
I didn’t want to tell him, but there was no point trying to hide my sins now. “I almost couldn’t control it. It filled me with so much rage, but it also showed me things I could do, the power I could wield with that feeling if only I could master it. It was frightening, but it was exciting too.”
Merlin smiled. “Perhaps I have become jaded by my failures with your siblings, blinded to the possibility that you might be wasted as a mere receptacle. Perhaps what you really are is a weapon. I can show you how to save yourself, but there’s a price for such knowledge. You will bind yourself to find Guinevere and make her free me. After that, I will begin again to create a new, equally suitable receptacle for power to replace you. If I succeed, and only if, then you can take your place in Avalon beside me as my champion and heir.”
Heat began to fill the air between us, making it hard to breathe. “I told you before that I would find Guinevere.” I tried not to think about what he was planning to do to her once she took the Wall down and he needed new offspring to replace me.
He waved my protest away. “You would have said anything then to stop the pain. Now that a part of you is in my realm, I can lay a geas upon you that you won’t be so easily able to escape.” His eyes glittered with amusement.
He knows that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do.
If Merlin was laying a binding spell on me, I couldn’t feel it in the grey, smothering atmosphere of Avalon. He made a stroking motion down my body, though he still didn’t touch me. “Are we agreed?”
As the heat inc
reased, I couldn’t speak, so I nodded yes. That seemed to be the signal for the fire to find me again. Crying out in torment, back arching, I was under the bridge in Central Park. A wall of flame now surrounded me and had pushed the others away.
Merlin stood beside me, glaring at Arthur through the blaze. “Yes, my protégé, it is war between us at last. Soon I will be free and then one of us will take the world.” He closed his eyes for a moment, face set in concentration, then made a motion with one hand.
The flames froze, and with them, the pain—he’d taken us out of Time. I could almost perceive the weave of color and pattern that made up the spell, but I was too exhausted to hold on to any sense of it. I was still holding the pink apple in my hand. I tucked it into the pocket of my skirt with my ID and phone.
Folding his arms and pacing the inside of the circle of fire, Merlin was now the patient teacher. “You’ll still eventually need to find the Grail and return its fire. You have no other option. No body—human or otherwise—was meant to contain all of either of its powers. The Grail was only ever to be used in small doses. Its fire could strengthen a champion or destroy an enemy, and its water could rescue from illness or death. Most beings can bear a little magic; it passes through them and returns to its origin. You, however, are different. You’re like me. What you take, you keep, and the desire to take more will only grow and grow until it becomes an unbearable hunger.” For a moment, that hunger was naked on his face and I knew I was looking at my future. It was the same future I saw in Miko as she drained Titania. “I need you, or someone like you, as a container for the power I can’t hold on my own. You need the same. A child of your body would be best.”
When he raised his eyebrow, it took me a moment to work out what he was asking. “No, there isn’t . . . I mean, I don’t have a child.”
“Then this will have to do in the short term.” He stopped pacing in front of Peter.
“What do you mean?”
“This young man is your bonded Protector. With a little effort, you can funnel enough power into him through that bond to buy you time to find the Grail. It’s not ideal, but it should work.”
I stared at him in dismay. “I can’t do that! It might kill him!”
Merlin cocked his head, considering Peter. “I don’t think so. He looks strong and the Protector bond will give you access to that extra power if you ever need it. In fact, once you get rid of the grailfire, you might consider continuing to use him in that way.” He looked at me. “Have you been to see one of your mortal doctors yet? It isn’t your imagination that something is happening inside you. No purebred Greylander can withstand my power and all the other hybrids I’ve created have had their brains liquefy almost as quickly. I’m willing to spare you in exchange for your use as my weapon, but your own hunger for power will only increase the pressure on the corruption in your body. If you do what I’m suggesting, you’ll buy the time you need to prove your usefulness to me as well. Of course, I admit that you may find yourself in need of a new Protector, but they’ve always been plentiful. After I succeed in creating your replacement, I may even be willing to make you a new container of your own.” His eyes glittered. “Haven’t you always wanted a baby brother?”
“I won’t do it.” I moved to pull him away from Peter, but my feet tangled in the unfamiliar length of the gown and I fell to my knees.
Merlin laughed. “No? Prove me wrong then.” As he waved his hand, the weave of the spell unraveled and he disappeared.
When every nerve cried out in suffering, I knew I was back in Time. I would have gladly chosen death over the pain, but my still unblemished skin was proof that death was no friend to me. As the power destroyed all conscious thought, I couldn’t remember my name or the names of my friends. I couldn’t remember the world.
A bright green cut through the fire as someone braved the flames and kneeled beside me, taking my hand. I couldn’t think who it was, but I could hear him. “I’ve got you,” he whispered, but the words had no meaning. All I could understand was the rope between us. It led from a place near my heart to a green pool, deep and cool—a perfect place to extinguish a fiery power. Someone had told me I would find it, and what I should do with it, but I couldn’t remember who.
Embracing the peridot-green rope, I sent the conflagration coursing down it like electricity through a power line and was finally liberated as the flames died on my skin.
There was a strange, choking sound and I looked down to see a young man seizing at my feet. I tried to think who he was.
“Rhiannon! Stop! You’re killing him!” Another young man with dark, slightly shaggy hair was screaming at me.
“Who?” I asked with real curiosity.
“It’s Peter!”
I grasped at the scraps of meaning the name invoked, but the boy had already stopped shaking. Waving away the dark-haired young man’s help, he stood, swaying a little on his feet. “Stop now, Rhi.”
Surprised by the command in his voice, I obeyed. The flow of power snapped back into me and a wave of heat responded, but this time I was able to soothe the anger and violence inside and regain control. Once I did, I knew him again. It was Peter, my best and only friend. He was staring at me, breathing heavily, and though our bond was saturated with power, I could still feel the shock of my betrayal humming through it. I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn’t think of anything to say.
When I offered no explanation, he shook his head. “If you’d asked . . . I would have . . . I would have done anything for you. But you didn’t. You didn’t ask. You just took.” His face contorted. “And I could feel it! You were willing to let me die! That’s OK. I’m your Protector. That’s my job. But I could feel you! You didn’t even care!”
I should have realized we were on dangerous ground, but I wasn’t really listening. All I could see was the portion of the Grail’s power that I’d put into him. I feared it was too much for him to contain.
Or maybe I just want it back the way a junkie knows it wants the last fix that kills it.
I must have taken an involuntary step towards him because he yelled, “Stop!” Then he did something completely unexpected. Holding his hand out, palm up, Peter made a crushing motion with his fist and any sense of the fire I’d sent into him disappeared as if it had never even existed. It took a moment for the full meaning of what he’d done to hit me. Peter was my bonded Protector. The grailfire was threatening me, so he was given the ability to snuff it out. I’d never guessed the true extent of a Protector’s power.
He’s perfect.
The moment the thought crossed my mind, it crossed our bond too, and I knew he heard it. The expression on his face changed to one of disgust. I knew he could feel what I was just beginning to realize—that I would never be able to resist the temptation to use him again, not even at the risk of his life, not even if he tried to resist me. It was inevitable that I would eventually turn our love and friendship into an abomination. He was my Protector and I would damn us both; I would have no choice.
But I can atone for my sins.
“Peter,” I whispered.
He shook his head furiously, denying me, but I wasn’t trying to apologize.
I was saying goodbye.
His eye’s widened in alarm as I sent the Grail’s power up our bond again, but this time, I held tight to the end of it. For a moment, the magic between us took actual substance in the air as a fine green rope. Then it caught fire. I let the fury and grief over everything I was about to lose feed the flames until the bond between us burned away. There was a flare of searing pain in my chest as the last of it disintegrated near my heart, and then I was cold.
I hoped he understood what I’d done to save us both, but now I had no way of knowing. He stared at me, a stranger, and then turned and walked back up the path into the darkness.
He was going home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CRIMSON
“That was brave.” Arthur was standing with Tynan a few feet away, watching me
warily.
I couldn’t help but warm at the unexpected praise. “You know what I did?”
He nodded. “My sense of the earth magic is different from yours, but I could tell when some of it left you and went into Peter. He destroyed it somehow and you released him from his bond. I hope you haven’t made an enemy of the boy. The Protector magic is strong in him. He has the potential to become a great warrior. Hope also that you never have to face him in battle.”
“I had to do it. It saved me for the moment, but because of what I am, I won’t be able to stop myself from taking more power. Merlin told me how to use a vessel I’m linked to as a kind of battery to store what I can’t contain in my own body. I can’t un-know that, and I can’t risk giving in to the temptation to use Peter like that again. I won’t do that to him.”
Tynan shook his head. “We’ve got to get you back to the Grail then and put its fire where it belongs.”
When a tear rolled over my lips, I was surprised there was any moisture left in my body at all. I wanted Thomas Redcap to come and make me feel safe the way he used to, but the man was gone and the redcap hadn’t deigned to come and claim Bel’s body.
I suppose a second rate fire demon is beneath him. Or maybe he’s not bound by any rules at all now.
Taking a quivering breath, I was shocked at how cold the air was in comparison to my still too warm lungs. “We can’t. It’s gone. Daley took it.”
“Melusine,” Tynan guessed.
“Yup.”
Arthur’s face was grave, but I could tell that he was focused on something other than the loss of an earth talisman; he’d experienced that before. “Don’t worry, my son, I’ll find your foster brother and retrieve the Grail. It’s your birthright. It’s of no use to your poor mother, but if you choose to let Daley bring his lost love back, I won’t object.”
Wait a second. What do you mean Tynan’s birthright?
Sword of Elements Series Boxed Set 2: Bound In Blue, Caught In Crimson & To Make A Witch Page 45
