Winter's Fallen (The Conquest of Kelemir Book 1)

by A. F. Dery

  He managed to look up and saw Grace still curled up on the bed, as close to the wall as she could get. She was weeping silently, her body wracked with tremors. His shoulders slumped.

  “Grace, I’m sorry,” he managed to say.

  “W-what was that? W-what h-happened?” The words were muffled behind her arms, which she hadn’t moved, but he could still make them out.

  “I…there’s another reason I…would rather be the wolf,” he admitted. He closed his eyes, feeling dizzy and numb. “The magic…I can’t control it very well…as a man. But the wolf…can’t use it…except to change.”

  Slowly, Grace lowered her arms. She stared at him, her mouth forming an “o.” “You…you mean to tell me that you just…just explode with magic at random…but you’re protecting me from Hadrian? Who will protect me from you, I wonder?”

  “You’re safer with me…than with him,” he said defensively. “I stopped the magic in time. It only happened because…” and he quickly snapped his mouth shut. He was suddenly, painfully aware that there was no reasonable excuse for what had happened that did not involve admitting to something that could have suspiciously resembled, to the ignorant, petty jealousy. He felt Grace’s eyes boring into him. “It was a fluke,” he amended. “I…won’t let it happen again. I haven’t been a man…in a long time.”

  Grace was silent, still staring at him. Finally she asked grudgingly, as if the words were being torn from her, “And are you all right, after all that? You don’t look very well.”

  “Just tired,” he sighed. He rubbed his face with cold hands. He dreaded trying to keep her in here when he was in this state, but what other choice was there? “I’m sorry I scared you. I’m really sorry,” he repeated, looking away. He felt, even on his knees, like he was crumbling into pieces, right there in front of her. He tried to tell himself it could have been worse. It could have been heat rather than cold, and fire rather than frost.

  But the accompanying mental image of Grace bursting into flame failed to offer any comfort.

  After a moment, he heard her moving on the bed. His whole body groaned in protest at the very idea of trying to pursue her from the room, and he was sure she was about to try to run past him. He didn’t know if he could even make himself move, however much he wanted to. But to his shock, he felt a hand on his head, and looked up startled into Grace’s bloodshot eyes.

  “You’re cold,” she said quietly. “I’ll get you a blanket.”

  He opened his mouth to protest and she added, “From in here.” He watched her distrustfully as she went to the chest of drawers on the other side of the room and pulled out a blanket, then brought it over to him. She held it out, but when he just stared at it, momentarily unable to piece together what was happening, she draped it around him.

  “You need to rest,” she told him. Her voice was gentler.

  “Can’t,” he said flatly. “I’ll be fine.”

  Grace sighed heavily. “I won’t leave until you wake up. You have my word, until then. You look like you’re going to either fall over or throw up, no matter what I do.”

  He would have put coin, if he had any, on falling over, but he mimicked her sigh. She was right. Whether he believed her or not, he had little choice here. The numbness was beginning to wear off, and a deep, aching pain was taking its place in every fiber of his being.

  He cast her a last pleading look, silently begging her to just stay put, then laid down right where he was and fell into darkness.

  When he next opened his eyes, he laid there for a long time staring blankly at a stone wall and wondering why his legs were too long before he came to himself. Then he sat up abruptly, looking around wildly until his eyes fell on her.

  She was still there. He rubbed his eyes, but he was not imagining her. Grace was curled up in the chair, her knees pressed to her chest and her eyes watching him intently.

  Her expression seemed to soften as he met her eyes. “I told you I’d wait,” she said softly.

  He immediately leapt to his feet and strode from the room, shutting the door behind him and leaning against it before he did anything he could regret.

  Like change his mind.

  Hadrian felt empty.

  Somehow in the time that had passed since the wolf had dragged Grace into the tower, he had felt something other than cold, known something other than darkness.

  And now it was gone, she was gone, and he was hollow. It didn’t matter that physically, she was still in the tower somewhere. He couldn’t imagine that she’d ever want to see him again, or say anything to him that wouldn’t serve to worsen the growing ache in his chest. If she could bring herself to say anything to him at all.

  Part of him thought that he must have truly gone mad, to think that there was any way to escape his past, to evade those ghosts, even for a single winter. Of course the wolf would be a man; of course that man would reveal Hadrian’s transgressions, the very moment he forgot them, and forgot himself, and wanted nothing but to taste sweetness and light, if only for a moment. Of course. It could have been no other way. He could perceive that all too clearly now.

  He’d stood in the work room for a very long time, scarcely even noticing when the other man left, distantly hearing the man’s howls at a different door but the sounds not quite managing to register in his mind. He stood until the cold drove even him off, and he took himself off to the only place he could be near to her without being near to her, the room directly next to the bedroom. He walked directly there, half expecting the man who had been a wolf to stop him, but he heard no indication that he was still present, and no one tried to stop him.

  He shut himself into the room silently. All was coated thickly with dust. Grace had not troubled to clean an unused room full of useless odds and ends. He felt what might be some warmth seeping in through the stones on what he guessed was the wall adjacent to the bedroom, and he groped his way there, striking his shin on something along the way and relishing the pain.

  Oh, how he deserved it.

  He sank on the floor, leaning against that wall. He thought his head would be spinning with his self loathing, but it was oddly silent. Empty. Dark.

  He wasn’t sure how long he sat like that. He drifted in and out of sleep, hardly noticing which state he was in at any given time. He thought he heard some kind of noise in the outside hall, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it; he thought foggily that the wolf-man must still be trying to woo Grace out of the bedroom. It made sense, and of course, he would succeed eventually. She’d just been feeling angry and, understandably, betrayed, but he knew she would overcome her initial embarrassment at learning of the wolf’s true form, and seek his company when there was no other tolerable company to be sought.

  And the wolf-man would take care of her, as Hadrian recognized the wolf had tried to do in his own way ever since he’d brought her here. He was sure of it.

  Some time later, still drifting, he vaguely heard a man bellow words he could not make out.

  And then he sensed something, felt some uneasy chilly prickle in the air that lifted the little hairs on his arms and on the back of his neck. When he opened his mouth and licked his lips, he tasted something cold and bitter. Just then he heard the faint sounds of what could only be sobbing. His eyes flew open by sheer habit, even though it changed nothing; he scrambled to his feet.

  Magic. It was magic. He would know it anywhere. It was magic he sensed, raw magic, unshaped magic, and Grace was crying, and the man had been yelling…

  Oh no, what did I do, setting him free? I thought he would protect her, I thought…

  In his haste to get to the door, he tripped over something and fell hard enough to crack his head on something hard.

  One darkness melted into another.

  When again he managed to pry his eyes open, it took him a moment to remember where he was and what he’d been doing.

  Grace. Oh, God, no please let her be all right…

  Again he tried- albeit more carefully- for the door. S
ome instinct made him hesitate and listen before opening it, but he heard nothing.

  He crept out into the hall. Still nothing. Quietly he went to the door and pressed his ear against it, but all was silent. The sense of magic had vanished from the air.

  How long was I unconscious? Am I too late? Do I risk going in? Hadrian’s head throbbed, and it was hard to think.

  Just then he heard a voice- Grace’s voice. Relief flooded him, tinged with fear. That she was alive didn’t mean she was unharmed. He heard sudden urgent footfalls approaching the door and barely made it down the hall and back into the work room, where he flattened himself at once against the wall next to the doorway. He held his breath for a long moment, unsure if he’d made it in time. He heard the bedroom door creak, then nothing. He exhaled and listened.

  Sounds of shallow breathing; a muffled groan. It was the wolf-man who’d gone out.

  Hadrian stood and listened for some time, but the other man did not leave, nor did he approach. He must not have seen me, then. He pondered what to do next. Being sightless left him at a distinct disadvantage, but he could not forget the sound of Grace crying, or the feel of the magic in the air. It had been wild magic, untutored magic, magic simply released without any end or purpose. Such magic was indescribably dangerous, there was no way of telling what form it would take when unguided, or what effect that form would have on its environment. And the other man had apparently just released it into an enclosed room with Grace in a moment of anger. He could have killed them both, or worse.

  He wasn’t safe, not at all. The best case scenario, Hadrian reflected, was that the man had simply lost his temper and lashed out- which made him dangerous. The worst is that he had magic, but could not control it, and so had not chosen to lash out- which made him extremely dangerous.

  There was nothing else for it: he had to at least try to protect Grace from this newest danger, the one he himself had thoughtlessly created by letting the man go. There was no way she could defend herself from magic, having none of her own, and there was no telling what harm she might have already experienced because of it. I should have questioned him further before I cut those ropes, I should have determined how and why he had taken wolf form for so long, Hadrian berated himself.

  Quietly, he gathered his own magic to himself. Not as the wolf-man had done, but smoothly, subtly. Once he had been brilliant, and powerful. When he felt the magic, when he took it in his hands (so to speak), he remembered that part of himself, a memory crafted of sensation and devoid of all word and image. It, like the magic itself, was an instinct, an impulse, a living writhing unseen thing that was everywhere and tied to everything. In his mind’s eye, which could not be blinded as his body’s eyes, he saw it glimmering everywhere, the air thick with it like an impossibly intricate spider’s web linking everything that breathed and anchoring them to all that didn’t.

  He followed the threads interiorly, with a sight that was not sight, and “saw” the man outside of Grace’s door. At once he could have kicked himself for not having thought to look for him that way in the first place. The man’s magic burned like a furnace, and it was, as he feared, untamed and unlearned, only contained by the most precarious of means. He had never been taught, it seemed, or if he had, it had not taken. He was torn between pity and disgust; pity because such power was a hard thing to harness, he knew that well himself, and disgust because if the man had been deliberately negligent, then he had essentially chosen to just chance the wanton destruction of anyone and everyone whose path he crossed. All were apparently at the mercy of the man’s emotions, and who could possibly trust such a fickle thing as emotion with the living of a single day, never mind the fates of an untold number of lives?

  He pressed still farther with his “sight,” but while he could sense Grace’s presence within the bedroom- nothing living was wholly devoid of magic- she had, as he had thought, insufficient magic of her own for it to ever be usable, or to even delineate her as clearly as it did the man outside her door.

  He withdrew mentally back into the hallway, realizing his only hope of containing the man was to render him unconscious. Then he’d need to contain him somehow. Merely locking him in a room somewhere would not suffice; it was possible the heightened emotions of being confined by a man he no doubt saw as a mortal enemy could end up in the destruction of the room, or even the entire tower. Hadrian didn’t care what fate befell himself, but he would not see Grace killed for his carelessness.

  No, the wolf-man must be bound in some way that would prevent him from lashing out randomly with his uncontrolled magic and possibly harming Grace. He had sufficient supplies, now that his work room was sorted out, to keep him drugged, but he couldn’t possibly do so for the entire winter.

  But it will buy me time to think of something else, and keep Grace safe for at least that length of time, Hadrian mused. It wasn’t a perfect plan, and it certainly had its weaknesses, but he could think of nothing better.

  He did not want to think of killing the wolf-man unless there was truly no other option. He would not be guilty of any more death if he could help it. If there was any other way, it must be taken.

  Drawing a deep breath, he moved into the doorway.

  At once he heard the wolf-man stand; at once, he struck out with his own magic, forming it into a cudgel with the intention of knocking the other man out.

  But to Hadrian’s surprise, the wolf-man’s own magic surged in answer, forming a shield to block it. So he has been taught something, Hadrian thought grimly. He clenched his jaw, his resolve hardening. He could have killed her.

  He sent a burst of magic to disrupt the shield, immediately followed by another that would have struck the wolf-man like a brick to the face and hopefully knock him down, but the other man’s magic formed a new shield immediately behind the dissipating one, which he then threw at Hadrian.

  Hadrian plucked it from the air with hands made of magic. He heard a sudden sharp intake of breath from the other man, who was evidently surprised. Hadrian cast the shield at the man’s knees, propelling it with a burst of his own magic.

  The wolf man was not able to dodge it in time. It cut him on one leg, and he cursed, falling onto the other knee. Hadrian effortlessly retrieved the shield and struck the man flatly across the side of the head with it, taking care to use no more force than necessary. He heard the man crumple the rest of the way onto the floor, at the same moment that the man’s magic dimmed sufficiently that he could no longer discern his outline.

  He was unconscious.

  Hadrian hastened to gather up the cut ropes, still lying on the floor behind him in the work room. As quickly as he dared, he went to the other man and bound him again, hand and foot. Then he hauled him, with great difficulty, into the work room. At one point he thought he heard the muted creak of the bedroom door, but he disregarded it. He could only hope she wouldn’t hit him with a chair before he managed to drug the wolf-man.

  He leaned the wolf-man against one wall, fairly upright, then hurried to the work table. In his haste, he was having trouble finding anything; he feared the other man would awaken at any moment.

  “Let me help,” a quiet voice said from behind him.

  He froze, momentarily suspended between hope and dread, but managed to get out, “I’m not trying to hurt him.” He barely recognized his own voice. It sounded like it was made of gravel. He cleared his throat.

  “I know,” she said simply. “Tell me what you need.”

  You, Grace. Forgive me.

  “Can you find the knife?” he said instead.

  Between the two of them, he managed to brew the necessary potion. Grace said nothing else, simply doing as he asked and finding what he needed. The ease with which they worked together put a lump in his throat.

  Before long, he was tipping the potion down the other man’s throat as he coughed involuntarily, resisting even in unconsciousness, and then the deed was done.

  Hadrian sighed, sitting back on his heels and running a hand t
hrough tangled hair.

  “He should be out for a few hours now,” he said.

  “You won’t be able to drug him forever,” Grace pointed out.

  “You’re not safe with him, Grace. I’m so sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I truly thought he would protect you, as he did when he was a wolf. I never imagined he’d be so reckless, so horribly irresponsible with his magic.”

  “You know about that?” Grace sounded surprised.

  “I sensed the magic, when he released it the first time. I tried to get to you, but I fell.” Hadrian winced. The words sounded cheap, even to him. He stood and turned to her, or where it sounded like she was. “Please…tell me he didn’t hurt you.” It came out as a whisper, and he held very still, listening for any response, anything at all, to either reassure or damn him.

  He started as he felt a hand on his arm. He realized he was shivering and willed himself to be still. “I’m fine. I managed to keep away from it, and he managed to rein it back in before it got to me…he told me that is why he likes being a wolf. He can’t really control it, but as a wolf, he can’t use it except to turn back.”

  Hadrian shook his head slowly. “He can, it’s just a lot less likely that he could do so accidentally. He may think that’s how it is, if he’s never attempted to use it for any other purpose while in that form. He’s definitely studied magic, though.”

  “Yes, he did say he tried to study to be a mage, to learn to control it, but it didn’t work, at least not beyond being able to change forms. Oh Hadrian, what do we do?”

  The fearful tremor in her voice wrenched at him. He longed to hold the hand that was on his arm, to reach out and embrace her.

  He didn’t dare.

  “For the time being, we keep him unconscious. We can’t do that all winter, of course. Unfortunately, his magic is strong enough- and dangerous enough- that just locking him up would be no guarantee of safety.” He cleared his throat. There was no good way of saying what he had to say next, and he knew it. He feared her reaction, but there was too much at stake to be dishonest. “Please understand, Grace. This isn’t what I want to do, but you need to know that when a mage as powerful as this man can’t be trained, they are executed. It is for the safety of all involved. There is no way to bind magic this strong, and no way to simply keep him in a form that can’t use magic, since any living form can. Some are safer than others, as we’ve seen with the wolf, but there is no way to truly eliminate the threat, or prevent him from ever changing back, even if doing so wouldn’t be horribly cruel. Perhaps he did take wolf-form to protect others from his magic, but if he did seek training first- and I know he must have done so, for I’ve seen him demonstrate that training myself- then he also used becoming, and staying, a wolf to escape a certain death sentence. To be found and recognized as what he is, while human, would mean his death.”