What if you figure it out and it turns out that it’s either me or Cynewísan?
Now, here he was, living the question. And what had he said back then, arrogant, reasonable Constable Brayden?
Then I shall have to figure something else out.
Only there was nothing else. There was no choice here. And if there was, Dallin had made it that first day in Dudley, when he’d sat in a cell and listened to the shaky, broken tale of what had passed for Wil’s life. And had kept making it, over and over again, ever since.
“You’re going to have to kill him,” Dallin told Wil. “He won’t stop ’til he’s got what he wants or he’s dead, and now he’s got two countries at his back.”
And we’ve got none.
The Commonwealth troops had gathered behind Siofra, watching, looking to their captain for instruction, who in turn looked to Siofra. Siofra gestured them back, said, “The Chosen is mine,” and boldly came closer.
A small whimper broke loose from Wil’s chest, barely audible over the roar of the wind and rain. Still, the rifle came up, barrel leveled at Siofra, finger twitching at the trigger. Wil’s dark hair was plastered to his head, thick sopping hanks dripping over his brow, into his eyes. He kept his narrowed gaze steady, though his jaw twitched and his hands shook.
Siofra just kept coming, walked steadily toward Wil, still smiling, until his chest met the barrel of the rifle. “Chosen,” he sighed, lifted his arms at his sides, welcoming.
“Don’t call me that,” Wil whispered through his teeth, shaky and small.
“And what should I call you then?” Siofra asked, fake sincerity oozing through the words. “Aisling? Gift?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Wil?” His smile dipped sad, and he shook his head. “None of these are your name, my lad.”
“I’m not your lad! ” Wil shrieked, high-pitched and near to hysterical. He took a long breath, said more quietly but no less angrily, “I don’t belong to you—you didn’t choose me, you stole me—and I have no name because you didn’t give me one. I was never anything to you, and I’m nothing to you now but a well you want to suck dry. You’re doing it right now, I can feel you.”
Dallin could feel it, too, a small shift in the pressure about him, a tug and gutter of that tensile presence that leaked from Wil’s pores. Thunder boomed directly above them, loud and violent enough to make Dallin nearly flinch, but Wil and Siofra stood perfectly still, eyes locked.
Light steps sounded from behind, steady and familiar, and then the simple relief of the accustomed grip of his revolver was pressed into his hand. Dallin glanced over at Corliss, a tangle of sopping auburn swathed like a cap to her head, sticking to her face. Her eyes were terrified, flicking between the three of them and settling on Dallin, asking. Dallin gave her a slight nod and a twitch of a smile he didn’t believe any more than she did, then turned back.
Wil and Siofra hadn’t even noticed; it was like only the two of them existed. Dallin gripped the gun in one hand, reached out with the other and laid it to Wil’s shoulder, just to remind him.
“We are one, you and I,” Siofra murmured, closed his eyes and lifted his face to the rain. “Bound in heart and spirit. I feel you every time you open your soul.”
Right. Dallin had figured that one out a few seconds ago. “It’s how he found you so quickly,” he told Wil. “He can feel it every time you use your magic. He can follow you even when you’re not dreaming. He will always be able to follow you.”
He couldn’t tell if Wil even heard him. No movement, not even a blink of his eyes, just that steady hum beneath his skin, that power leaking from him, thick and charged. Dallin could almost see Siofra growing more substantial, more present somehow, as he pulled it into himself.
“He’s doing it now.” Dallin’s heart was racing, his gut curling and lurching, the revolver growing steadily heavier in his grip. “Alive inside a cage, Wil. Don’t make me do it.” Because Dallin really didn’t know if he could.
His fingers tightened around the burled grip. “Kill him,” he growled, low and frantic. “Kill him now.”
Siofra looked at Wil, gaze half-lidded, sly. “I kept you safe.” He jerked his chin at Dallin but didn’t take his eyes from Wil. “I kept you safe from all of them. You know his destiny. And you’ll stand here and listen to him trick you into betrayal?” He reached out his hand, palm-up.
“We’re one, my lad, my Chosen. Come to me, and we’ll sing your true name to the stars.”
Wil’s face had been set in stone; with that last cajoling whisper, it twitched, melted to confusion and pain, and the air about them changed again—slipped. A staggering of control, and a shift Dallin could actually feel. The earth trembled, a shimmy of energy that spangled up from beneath his boots and tremored up his spine.
“Fuck me,” Dallin whispered, weak and watery, and his finger, all by itself, slipped around the trigger of his gun, flicked the safety.
“What?” Corliss wheezed behind him, touched her hand to the small of his back, and leaned in. “What’s happening?”
Dallin clenched his teeth, sucked in a shaky breath.
“He’s winning.”
“I’ve a name?” Wil asked, lost and small as a little boy.
Siofra flicked his glance to Dallin… grinned. “Ask your Guardian.”
Wil frowned, turned to Dallin, the rifle sagging in his grip. His eyes were full of confusion, complete emotional upheaval, but no real accusation yet.
“It’s what he truly guards, lad,” Siofra murmured, just as he’d promised he would, pushed the barrel of the gun away from him, and stepped in closer to Wil. “The crux of your power, the key to your soul, and he has it. Struck a cowardly bargain for his life with it.”
Dallin held Wil’s wounded gaze as steadily as he could then shook his head. “He’s done nothing but lie to you your whole life.”
Siofra edged closer. “He is the Mother’s creature.” His voice curled distressed, sympathetic. “Oh, my poor lad—you didn’t actually believe his lies, did you?”
His hand came up, reaching. Without thinking, Dallin let go Wil’s shoulder and knocked Siofra’s hand away. Numbly, Dallin shouldered Siofra aside and pulled at the rifle’s barrel, resting it against his own breastbone.
Corliss gasped, but Dallin didn’t hesitate. He lifted his own gun, pointed it at Siofra’s head. Grimly, he marked out the corner of his eye as every soldier behind Siofra shouldered his rifle and aimed it at Dallin.
“Do what you have to do,” he told Wil, as calmly as he could manage. “Believe what you must, but don’t let him touch you. He’s taking it now, can’t you feel it?” He pulled the hammer back on the revolver. “If you can’t do it, say it and I will,” he offered. “We’ll end it here.”
“They’ll kill you,” Corliss gasped, dismayed. “Brayden, you do it and the war starts right here and now.”
Wil’s eyes narrowed at her, flashed. Dallin was glad she was behind him. Wil already held a grudge against her, and he wasn’t the forgiving sort. Of course, if Wil believed Siofra, Dallin wasn’t going to be much of a barrier for long.
“Wil?”
Wil’s chin trembled. “D’you know my name?” he rasped.
“No. And if I did, I wouldn’t give it to him.” Dallin shook his head. “I didn’t know you had one. Wil’s always been enough for me.”
“It’s never been enough for me.” A strained whisper, so very quiet beneath the steady wail of wind and rain. Wil jerked his chin at Siofra, but he kept his eyes on Dallin.
“He knows it.”
“So he says.”
“If I kill him…”
“Then we find it another way,” Dallin told him. “He said it was the key to your soul. D’you really want him walking about with that in his pocket?” He firmed his tone. “This is yours,” he said slowly. “Of all the things you’ve taken on, this is truly yours. Say the word and I’ll take it from you.”
Wil stared at him, long and hard. His green gaze roved over the soldiers, pausing on
each and every one, then slid over to Siofra, measuring.
“Lies,” Siofra told him. “He knows nothing else. He’ll use you and take from you, and empty you at the feet of his whore-goddess.” His hand came up again, beckoning.
“Come to me, lad. Come out of the rain. We’ll warm your cold hands by the fire, just like when you were a boy, remember? You’d sit on my knee, listen to the old tales, and—”
“And drink…” Wil paused, met Siofra’s eyes, brow twisted tight. “And drink my draught,” he murmured, eyes gone dull with memory and… something else Dallin couldn’t define.
“Yes,” Siofra breathed, smile curling triumphant.
“You’ve missed it, haven’t you? The peace, the sweetness of the dreaming.”
Wil nodded, slow and heavy. “I have,” he said softly.
Dallin’s stomach dropped into his boots. He adjusted his grip on the gun, whispered, “Wil?”
“You loved me once,” Siofra pressed. “You were as my own, and I took care of you, protected you. I was as a father to you, starless boy.”
Wil just kept staring, standing there in the driving rain, brow twisted tight, and eyes burning, flashing incandescent with the crackle of lightning. Slowly, Wil turned to Dallin, face made of marble. He lowered the rifle, stepped in and placed his hand over Dallin’s. He pushed the revolver down.
“Wil, don’t—”
“Do I look like I don’t know what I’m doing?” he murmured. He slipped the rifle’s strap over his shoulder.
“Trust me.” Tilting a smile that was small and sad, he leaned up and placed a kiss to Dallin’s mouth that was warm when it really shouldn’t have been. “Remember your promise,” Wil whispered.
With a long, shaky breath, he pulled back, turned to Siofra. Slowly, the corner of Wil’s mouth curled up, and he glanced sideways, looked at Dallin, sly and halfway-wicked, then… smirked.
Took Siofra’s hand.
Chapter Seven
He’d known how this had to go, had known it for… he couldn’t remember, didn’t know where the knowledge came from, but it was no less real for its ephemeral origin: you either killed the monster or the monster ate you. Dreams, he supposed, too damned many dreams, too damned many times walking through someone else’s nightmares, not knowing if you were the monster or the sacrifice, just knowing your feet wouldn’t move fast enough and you couldn’t scream.
Dallin was watching, too obviously afraid, but he didn’t move away, didn’t back down. “It’s yours, it’s in your hands, but… Wil, it’s only a name. Is it worth the risk?”
Only a name. Only everything.
Dallin didn’t understand. How could he? He had one— pride’s people, from the valley, brave—made of the hearts of mountains and he never had to wonder…
Wil snarled. “It’s mine.”
He stopped there, choking on it, because it was far too big for mere words, and there was far too much of his Self tied up inside them. How did you say there was a blank, you-shaped space wandering about the universe, and it wasn’t named Wil, and it wasn’t named Aisling, and it wasn’t named Chosen—not even vicious little shit who never bloody quits. And none of those names even began to define what you needed it to be? How did you say you were searching for a definition of yourself—your Self—and you could only find it in a word someone else had handed you, handed it to you because they loved you, thought you worthy of it? That all your life, you’d thought you didn’t deserve one, thought you were nothing, and then you find out it was there, you were there, and someone had kept it all from you, stolen everything about you when they’d stolen you, right down to that one little word attached to your Self?
“He has it and it’s mine,” was all Wil could rasp.
Dallin said nothing to that, though Wil could tell he wanted to. Probably wanted to drag Wil away from here and just go, or maybe shoot Siofra and end this now, clean and quick. But he only nodded.
Stayed.
Wil dragged his eyes from the only gaze that had ever really cared enough to look, to see, flicked it to the soldiers, the guns, the men and women cowering in the street, flooding from the Constabulary. Calder was there, flanked by the two men in blue and brown that had shown up with the woman Dallin called Corliss. They stood back behind the line of red and gold, Commonwealth soldiers all in a neat row, potential firing-squad. Shaw watched from the steps of the Temple with some of his initiates and apprentices, worrying his thin lips, brown hair stuck to his skull, anxious eyes burning across the city’s ruined square.
Even the horses were quiet, standing almost at attention where Wil had left them, tethered half-arsed to an ale cart by the fountain—the first stationary object he’d come to when he’d barreled his way down the street from the stables the second time. Not running from this time, but running to.
Everyone was watching, waiting…
Wil put them all aside and turned to face his monster.
It was strange. Patterns danced all around him, wove themselves in and out of each other. Twining then severing, tightening and slackening, as time and synchronicity, synergy and stasis changed them, let themselves be changed, tangled themselves in continually shifting templates. A raindrop splashing against a stone, momentarily joining the weave of it, then changing it, re-joining the torrent, widening the pattern, before slipping slowly to the ground, appending the shapes of soil and cobble… Everything had a pattern; all threads changed and re-wove themselves, wed inextricably to water and earth, air and fire.
He couldn’t see Siofra’s patterns. No threads, no weave. Just a man-shaped blank spot sucking fibers of Wil’s patterns into itself, forcing them into empty crevices, glutting itself. He can’t take from you anything you don’t give him. Taking the statement purely on faith, Wil staunched the flow, dwindled it to a trickle, just enough to maintain a tether. Almost shocked that he could, even as he was doing it.
I couldn’t find you. I looked for you and I couldn’t find you. You hid your Thread from me, and now you’re trying to hide behind mine. How are you doing this, and how am I supposed to fight it?
There was a push there. Wil couldn’t see it, but he could feel it. Grinding at his senses, digging inside his head, whining and chittering, angry that it couldn’t gain purchase. Harsh and brutal, willing to tear away layers of Self to find what it wanted.
Wil had felt it before, felt it the second before he’d heard Siofra’s voice back in the stable, had kept feeling it since. Felt it in Old Bridge, in Dudley. You’re one of them.
You came from them. Or maybe they came from you.
Too familiar. He tested its limits, felt for its boundaries… Smothered a smile, looked down at the ground to hide whatever light might be dancing behind his eyes.
I learned it from you. Isn’t that ironic? Funny? Fucking hilarious? You took from me, but I took from you, too.
And I didn’t even know it. But the funniest part? You didn’t know it either.
He glanced again at Dallin, saw narrowed worry, brilliant faith.
It’s yours. You can do this. And if you can’t, we’ll make it ours. Just don’t get lost inside it.
Wil didn’t need any kind of connection to understand it—it was there, all over that hard-set face. When had big, scary, unreadable Constable Brayden become calm, reassuring Dallin with his heart in his eyes?
Wil took a long breath and leveled his gaze at Siofra. “As a father to me,” he whispered.
Siofra smiled and squeezed Wil’s hand. “Blood to blood.”
The touch, cool and too familiar, brought back comfort and revulsion both, horrible intimacy and deeply entrenched body-memory that made Wil shudder. “Blood to blood.” Wil made his mouth quirk up in a return smile.
“You know my name.”
“Oh, my lad…” Siofra’s face twisted into a mask of concern, a mimic of love that nearly scored Wil’s heart with his pathetic wish for the reality. He made himself not flinch when Siofra reached up, brushed cold fingers over Wil’s wet cheek. “I
know everything about you. I know things your Guardian—” He spat the word “—can only guess, things that would turn him from you, things that would twist that honor of which he’s so proud to righteous murder.” He leaned in, laid a kiss to Wil’s temple, whispered, “I know; I see. I only ever wanted to protect you, keep you safe.”
The pushing ramped itself up to a whining buzz, seeking fingers crawling over Wil’s mind, searching for a crack… “Keep me safe.” Wil suppressed a shudder, let his cheek turn into the cold caress. “Keep me safe, keep me dreaming.”
“Yes.” Siofra’s eyes had a glint Wil used to think of as cajoling in his once-naiveté. Now he knew it for predatory. “You understand. It was too big for you, too much—it hurt your mind, so I took you to a place it wouldn’t hurt, to keep you safe and happy.”
“Happy.” Wil had to pause and choke back bile. “And took it for yourself.”
Siofra pulled back, grasping Wil by the arms. “I had to. You aren’t well, my lad, you never were. It dragged at your mind, at your spirit. You weren’t strong enough. You still aren’t strong enough.”
I think you are many things, but weak has never been one of them.
Wil tilted his head, genuinely curious. “Am I mad?”
Siofra’s smile slid sympathetic. “Ah, my lad, my Chosen.” He pushed sopping hair out of Wil’s eyes. “‘Mad’ is such a harsh word. Unbalanced. Confused.”
I think you’re different. I think that what I might once have seen as madness is more just a way of coping and carrying on that I never would have thought of.
“I took the pain away,” Siofra continued, low and crooning, in that too-familiar tone that skittered down Wil’s spine, sliding oily tendrils into his gut and twisting it into a cold, hard knot. “I took it all away for you. For you, Chosen. Always for you.”
“And is that what you want to do now?” Wil asked softly, peering into those blue eyes that had been so many things to him—intimacy and perdition, love and hate, want and revulsion. “You want to take it away? For me?”
The Aisling Trilogy Page 62
