Before the Storm

by Claire Ashgrove

  A pained look flashed across his face. He pushed both hands through his hair, fell back against the couch, and let out a hard, harassed sigh. “No one has ever converted a lich. No one.”

  I halted and stubbornly folded my arms across my chest. “I bet the windwalker has. Maybe I should find him.”

  “He’s dead!” Kale exploded. He snapped his mouth shut, remained silent for several seconds, then said more calmly, “You’re reacting emotionally, not thinking logically.”

  “Of course I’m being emotional! I’ve been using my emotions since I walked into this cave, before that even! Now you want me to stop?” I snorted. “Pick one or the other. Halle and magic, or Halle and logic. You can’t have both.” As anger began to get the better of me, I stabbed a finger across the distance between us. “And you won’t convince me saving my mother is impossible. I refuse to accept it.”

  Tufty half-hopped, half-fluttered onto the couch and let out a squawk, seemingly agreeing with me. He followed the belligerent noise by spreading his wings, puffing out his breast, and flapping at Kale. Whether he had taken a side or not, the action was so perfectly timed that Kale’s attention snapped to him. I couldn’t help but grin.

  As Tufty settled into the corner of the couch, Kale studied him. The ticking of his thoughts reflected in his face. First annoyance, then contemplation, then…resignation. His shoulders slumped a fraction, and he turned sad eyes my way. “What do you intend to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Several long moments of silence stretched between us, neither looking away from the other. I refused to budge, refused to yield. I couldn’t. Accepting felt like failure, and I hadn’t come this far to turn the other way.

  Kale broke the quiet with an almost inaudible question. “When are you leaving?”

  I hadn’t even realized I’d come to that conclusion until he asked. But as the words wrapped around me, I realized the truth of it. I was done waiting. He could choose to go with me or watch me walk away.

  “Two days. We’re going after my uncle and rescuing my mother. You have tomorrow to teach me whatever else you think I need to know. After that, it’s up to fate.”

  “Halle, this is crazy.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Are you going with me?”

  “You know I am.” He slammed a fist into the cushion. “Fuck!”

  His furious outburst softened me, and my shoulders sagged. I knew he worried about my safety, hell, my very life. He didn’t want to lose me—perhaps even more than I didn’t want to lose him. But I’d backed him into a corner, drawn an unbending line between us…given him no choice. I didn’t want to hurt him, and yet, I knew no other alternative.

  Sudden fear struck. Had I broken us?

  “Kale?” I whispered.

  His gaze lifted to mine. The hard set of his jaw and his steely blue eyes struck like a knife between my ribs. Without a word, he rose and stalked to the bedroom.

  Twenty-two

  I stood in the middle of my front room, staring at the dark hallway, for what seemed like hours. Did I go after Kale? Did I force him to talk? If so, what more could be said? I wouldn’t convince him into seeing things my way, and he couldn’t convince me to write off my mother for eternity. There really was nothing more to discuss. I’d gotten my way, only victory lacked the sweetness of success.

  The silence became deafening in the handful of minutes that truly passed. The bed squeaked as Kale lowered his weight onto it. With that sound, my heart twisted a degree more. I closed my eyes, counted to ten, and forced my feet to move. Whether he wanted me there beside him or not, I needed his closeness.

  I padded down the hall, so attuned to the rustling of my covers I barely noticed Tufty followed on my heels. Light from my bedside lamp illuminated the doorway, and I approached, each step feeling like iron chains were wrapped around my ankles. More nervous than I could recall ever feeling, I stopped in the entry.

  Kale lay on the bed, facing the wall, his broad back to me. By the tension that clung to his bare shoulders, I could tell he wasn’t asleep. Twenty bucks said he was as aware of me as I was of him.

  Say something, please.

  He didn’t. The only movement he made was to adjust his pillow.

  And I didn’t know the right words.

  Did I go in and claim my side of the bed like everything was normal between us? I glanced back the way I’d come, then looked to the empty space beside him. I wanted to. More than anything I wanted to crawl into that bed, curl up against his back, and hold on tight until all the anger dissipated.

  But the fear that he would shrug me off was suffocating. I turned away and walked back down the hall. If he had called out to me, I would have run back and thrown myself onto the bed. He didn’t though. And when the lamp clicked off, I stopped hoping he might.

  I laid down on the couch, wrapped in the same dark emptiness that had blanketed me every night in my rat-infested warehouse corner. Cold, despite the warmth of the room. As alone as I’d ever been, only now I no longer possessed the barricades that had once shielded me from the reality of my life. Kale had stripped my defenses away.

  For the first time in as long as I could remember, tears slipped down my cheeks.

  Humiliated that a guy could reduce me to crying, I swiped at them furiously. They only fell harder. As a sob rose in my throat, I rolled over and buried my face in the throw pillow. No matter how deeply he cut me, I would never let him hear me cry.

  * * *

  I woke to the sound of something heavy thumping onto the table. Startled, I rose to my elbows and blinked swollen eyes. It took me a minute to realize whose shadow fell over me. When it did, I blinked harder.

  Kale.

  But I could have sworn after last night…

  He gestured at the coffee table before I could say a word. My gaze followed the trajectory of his arm to find my book sitting atop the smooth surface. Confused, I summoned more energy, pushed into a sitting position, and scrubbed at my face. God, I hoped he couldn’t see the tear stains on my cheeks.

  “My book,” I mumbled, uncertain what else to say.

  Instead of answering, he tossed a wire-bound notebook on top then motioned for me to scoot to the side. Still fogged from exhausted slumber, I shuffled sideways, trying to make sense of what he was doing here and what, exactly, was going on.

  He settled into the cushion beside me, opened the notebook, and took out two loose pieces of paper, which he spread on the table. “This is a map of the Yaksini mines.” He tapped a circle on the far left hand side of the first page. “We’ll enter here. The trick is to eliminate their first round of guards before we get into the first old cart tunnel. If we don’t, we’ll have a hell of a fight in an instant. If we succeed, it should be quiet until we reach the first bridge.” He tapped what looked like a set of rail road tracks near the middle.

  “But…I thought…” Perplexed, I squinted at him. I’d totally expected that he’d be gone when I woke; that he’d decided I was too stubborn to be worth his time.

  As if he hadn’t heard me, he moved his index finger to a spiral drawn on the far right-hand side. “These are the tunnels that lead into the heart of the mine. We have to go all the way down. Unseen. At any point in here, we’re apt to run into his personal guard. If we do, the best suggestion I have is to run like hell.” Leaning across me, he moved to the second sheet of paper. “As I remember, your mother is usually here.” He double-tapped a square that had been outlined so many times the pen threatened to cut through. “Here is your uncle’s…I guess you’d call it a lab. We don’t want to disturb anything in this room. We are not confronting him.”

  My attention locked onto that square, and I scanned the tidy print he’d annotated different things with: lab, residential chambers, personal chambers, room of souls. A small, solid diamond symbol stood out in the far bottom corner. I ran my finger over it. “What’s this?”

  “You can’t really tell—I can’t dra
w that well. But this is a cross section, and that’s three or four layers deeper. I don’t remember clearly. I have unfinished business there.”

  “What sort of business?” I asked warily.

  He gave an infinitesimal shake of his head. “Something I left behind.”

  I’d learned enough about him to know he wasn’t sharing everything, but given that he was here, that he’d taken the time to draw out a map, I didn’t figure I should press for more information. I’d ask while we were en route. When the timing was more appropriate.

  Shifting position, Kale laid a worn leather scabbard on the table and flattened his hand over it. His gaze met mine for the first time. “If your magic doesn’t cooperate, use this.” He lifted his palm, revealing the full length of a wide-bladed dagger. “I had the healers infuse it this morning. Most undead creatures can’t be touched with a regular weapon. This will kill. Strike first, aim for a critical area, because if you don’t, you won’t get a second chance.”

  Wow. The full reality of what I was about to embark on settled heavily on my shoulders. I wasn’t just freeing my mother but walking straight into the enemy’s camp, so to speak, and vastly outnumbered. Both in skill and allies. I swallowed hard, unable to tear my gaze off the dagger’s tarnished hilt.

  As I digested the gravity of the situation, he shifted his weight again. This time, metal clinked as he laid two heavy brass cuffs on the table top. Joined together by a half-inch thick length of chain, they looked like something straight out of a medieval prison.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  He blew out a short, hard breath. “I don’t know if it will work, but Maude advised it’s our best chance at saving your mother. I can bind her for a short while. Long enough you can lock these on her wrists. The brass is ancient. Forged by dragons and infused with magic very few have ever controlled.”

  My breath caught and my gaze pulled to the book. Dragons. They were real.

  Seemingly aware of my focus, Kale pushed the book beneath my nose. “Legend has it Rafini was bound by these, or a similar pair. If that’s true, I’m sure it’s in there.”

  I couldn’t hold back a bit of sarcasm. “So you want me to read it now?”

  “No. I don’t want you within twenty miles of that book.” He flopped the notebook shut and rose to his feet. “But you told me I had today to teach you whatever you still needed to know. There’s your lesson. When you’re finished, if you’re still committed to this suicide mission, we’ll leave tomorrow.” Still frowning, he held my gaze for several long heartbeats then added more quietly, “I hope you’ll change your mind.”

  “I see.” Inwardly, I sighed. He still didn’t get it. At the same time, he’d handed me the thing that intrigued me the most, and I wasn’t about to tell him there was no hope I’d decide to abandon my mother.

  Caught up in my dismayed thoughts, I didn’t notice him bend closer, and the soft press of his lips to my temple made me jump in surprise. But before I could twist my head and return his kiss, he straightened.

  “I have some things to do. I’ll come back to make dinner.”

  With that, he turned and strode through the door.

  Tufty let out a loud, protesting bellow, reminding me it was time for his usual dip in the tub. While my mind swirled with what had just transpired between Kale and I, churning it over and over, I drew a shallow bath and helped my duckling friend inside. I really needed to investigate that spell. He’d probably be so much happier out on the pond with his feathered family. Yet I wasn’t ready to tackle that this morning. And Rafini’s journal called to me like the song of a long-lost lover.

  As Tufty splashed and squawked, I wandered back to the front room and made myself comfy on the couch. I pulled the book into my lap, enchanted once more by the magical shifting emblem on the cover. How was that possible?

  No need to ask. Everything I wanted to know waited behind that alluring demonic skull.

  Twenty-three

  Nine hours later, I’d found my answers. I knew the unspeakable destruction an archlich could unleash. I knew what purpose those hooded riders served, and I wanted to forget it. I knew how Rafini died…and I knew how he continued to live.

  I even learned the reason my magic didn’t cooperate like everyone in the camarilla believed it should. Because I wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t Yaksini like my father either. No, I had been born to a different fate. That of a windwalker. Gifted—if one could call it such—with the power of the ancient dragons.

  I couldn’t say the knowledge excited me. Not by a long shot. What lay ahead—I didn’t want to consider what the future held. And I didn’t want to accept it. Not now, not ever. But there was no mistaking what I was. The similarities were as identical as my two hands. Different circumstances, but nevertheless, the same.

  Wrestling that power into something I could control, however, was another story altogether. The dark places Rafini went, the planes he traveled—they were a far cry from Applegate, or even Miami. Hell, they made the black market sectors of Singapore look like a trip to the zoo. Complete with snow cones and cotton candy. I wasn’t about to embark on that journey. Not now. Not ever.

  Still, what I was, meant I could destroy my uncle and save both my mother and sister. Not that I would but that I was capable of doing so. Which made my conviction to try that much stronger.

  I set the book aside, having merely held it for the last hour and processing everything I’d read. I grabbed the nearest tome of magical incantations and flipped to a random page.

  Starburst.

  I scanned the passage briefly, noting the spell was more or less a parlor trick of lights. Good. No possible damage if it worked. If it flipped into something else—well, that was the norm. I’d deal as needed.

  Having absorbed the basic demands of the conjuration, I closed the tome and closed my eyes. I mentally compared the ritual Kale tried to instill in me with my understanding of Rafini’s manipulations. The way the two methods aligned stood out instantly—they didn’t coincide at all. My poor rationale the previous day was far closer. To succeed, I needed not only to will the outcome into fruition, but I also needed to reach deeper within myself, to the source of my strength, to the tiny particles the majestic beasts’ gave to my long-ago ancestors.

  I said nothing, recited no formal incantation. Power bristled on the tips of my fingertips. I concentrated on that until I could feel that energy pumping through my veins. The same, distant feeling of protection wrapped around me as it had the night I exterminated my father. In all the spells Kale and I had worked, it hadn’t been present. Now, it thrummed around me like a living thing.

  Slowly, I breathed in. Breathed out. Once. Twice. Three times…

  I opened my eyes. Now.

  In a dazzling flash of sparkles, bits of light burst through the room. They radiated out from an unseen source, then floated like snowflakes to the ground. Tufty, who I’d let out of the tub around lunchtime, let out a frightened honk and bolted under the table. As the bright confetti fizzled out, I laughed.

  Laughed at my duckling, at the ridiculous splash of color, at the joy of finally, finally, getting everything right.

  I flipped the book open, chose another easy spell. After a few moments of preparation, it too snapped into substance, sending a fluffy white cloud floating across the room. Whoever had made this book must have been thinking of a child’s party. But damn, it was perfect!

  One after one, I tried again and again. Not all of them worked; a few—okay a good half—flat out failed. No unexpected outcome. Just nothing. Nothing except a sharp, agonizing pain in the middle of my spine that varied in duration. I assumed the longer it hung on, the worse I’d failed. And as much as I wished otherwise, the process remained arduous. Still off, somehow.

  A knock at my door had me scrambling to set the tome aside. Kale—it must be dinner time.

  Before I could stand, the door opened, and he let himself inside. He carried a pot of somethin
g with a rich and hearty aroma that made my mouth water.

  “Oh, wow, what’s that?” I nearly tripped on his heels as I followed the delicious aroma.

  “Pork tenderloin with roasted vegetables,” he answered as he set the pot on the counter. “Just out of the oven.”

  “God, feed me now,” I groaned with a laugh.

  Kale chuckled. “Patience, princess. The wine’s still in the hall.”

  Wine? I eyed him suspiciously as he stepped out the door then entered again, holding a bottle and two glasses. “Trying to get me drunk and have your way with me?” Or convert me to his way of thinking when it came to rescuing my mother?

  He flashed a devilish grin. “Ten bucks says I don’t need to get you drunk.”

  A delightful shiver possessed me. “No,” I confessed. “No, you don’t.” If that wasn’t the shameful truth of it all.

  “Later. I promise.” He tossed a wink my way. “Right now though…” Trailing off, he pulled two plates out of my cupboard then set them on the countertop. “I believe the princess requested food.”

  “Yes, she did.” I grinned. This playful banter was so drastically different than the way things had been when he’d left. But I didn’t dare spoil it by asking where it came from. My gut said we’d have that conversation eventually.

  And instinct blared loud warnings Kale wouldn’t like what I had to say.

  I leaned both elbows on the counter, content to watch as he dished out two plates and filled the glasses. Red wine—that was new to me. Come to think of it, I’d only drunk wine on two or three occasions, and that had been the five-dollar, convenience store variety. I highly doubted the variety Kale brought came from the same stock. He put too much effort into mealtime to go cheap.

  “Penny for your thoughts?”