“And that is exactly what we will do, Mr. Tate,” Creigh said. “I’m sure you agree we have more important things to deal with than petty squabbles.” She gestured, and I saw the light of a lantern making its way toward us.
Iskander held it, and I bit back a cry of horror at the sight of gray corruption blighting his bronze skin. And behind him, in the grip of two cinereous, were Whyborne and Christine.
Chapter 28
Whyborne
My heart pounded madly as the cinereous dragged us into the torch-lit circle. The windmill loomed overhead, some bearing within squeaking with every revolution of the blades. Creigh stood smirking in triumph, an uncertain looking Tate beside her. Vernon was there, the bastard, as was Marian, her expression one of murderous fury. And what the devil was sprouting from her head? It almost looked like the beginnings of horns, or antlers, furred with black mold rather than velvet.
Nella cringed next to Griffin, her eyes wide with terror and her face streaked with tears.
My gaze met Griffin’s, read the fear in his emerald eyes. They’d bound him to a scarecrow, either because it was convenient, or because it had been a bit of set dressing for the lie about the sacrifice.
The lie Iskander had told. I didn’t dare look in Christine’s direction.
If Griffin was bound, did that mean he wasn’t corrupted? Certainly he appeared terrified, and there seemed no reason for such a charade now. God, if only I had his shadowsight. I would have seen Iskander’s corruption and kept us out of this trap. Perhaps even turned the tables on Creigh.
Creigh touched the stone at her throat. “Bring Dr. Whyborne to me,” she ordered.
The cinereous dragged me to her—then shoved me roughly to my knees.
“Stop!” Griffin shouted, and the fear in his voice tore at my heart. “Let him go!”
“You’re going to be sorry!” Christine bellowed.
“I think not.” Creigh’s eyes gleamed as she looked down at me. “Quite the opposite, actually. Widdershins is too critical to leave in the hands of a rogue sorcerer with no allegiance to anyone save himself. You might have bowed to the masters willingly, hybrid. Now, you will bow whether you wish to or not.”
No. I had to do something—anything.
I reached for the water in the well, the plan Christine and I had made now a matter of desperation. I felt the water begin to surge, the world respond—
Then Marian lifted a languid hand.
The spell drained away from my grasp—not unraveled like on the edge of a witch hunter’s blade, but just...gone.
Griffin gasped in shock—no doubt his shadowsight revealed whatever had happened.
I tried again, putting more power into it. But again, the spell drained away, like water through my fingers.
“Keep at it,” Marian said with a grin. “I’m hungry.”
Hungry? Was she absorbing the spells somehow? The corruption in her feeding on their energy? None of the other corrupted had shown any ability to do anything like that.
Something was clearly different about Marian. But what? And why?
There was no time to figure it out. Tate had gone to the well pump while Marian toyed with me. Now he returned, carrying a cup of water.
No.
“No!” Griffin cried. “Don’t! Ival!”
I fixed a glare on Creigh, determined to give nothing away. “This will do you no good,” I told her. “You won’t be able to fool my friends and family back in Widdershins. They’ll realize something is wrong.”
“Just as you noticed something wrong with your friend?” Creigh asked with a smirk.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Whyborne,” Tate said. “Fallow is dying—will die if we can’t ship the corn east. This is the only way to save the town.”
The cinereous seized my head as Tate approached with the infected water. I struggled against their grip, but they were too many, too strong.
“Ival!” Griffin called from somewhere behind me, and oh God I wished I could see him one last time, while my mind was still my own. “I love you!”
Then they forced my mouth open, and Tate poured the water down my throat.
Chapter 29
Griffin
Ival’s struggles ceased. He hung in the grip of the cinereous, while the rust worked its horror on him. I longed to close my eyes, to look away, not watch this happen to my love. But it would feel like an abandonment if I did.
My shadowsight revealed the grayish black lines spreading over his skin. The scars on his arm seemed to attract the corruption; they flushed dark, all the way to the very tips of his fingers.
“No,” I whispered helplessly. Tears slicked my cheeks, but I was bound tight, and I couldn’t even wipe them away.
“I’m going to kill every last one of you,” Christine said, her voice shaking with a mixture of rage and grief.
Creigh and Tate ignored her. “Let him go,” Creigh ordered.
The cinereous released their hold on him. Ival fell to his hands and knees, head bowed. I couldn’t see his face anymore, couldn’t see the black tendrils creeping across his beloved features.
Marian let out a low, ugly laugh. “How does it feel, Griffin?” she taunted. “What should I have him do first? Kill your friend? Or no.” Her gaze fixed on Ma, who shrank against me. “Your mother deserves to die.”
“Silence,” Creigh snapped. “You forget who is in command here. I shall decide what use to make of Dr. Whyborne.”
Ival laughed.
It was a strange sound, nothing like his usual reserved chuckle. His whole body jerked, and then...
And then he burned.
It was nothing anyone else could see, but my shadowsight revealed the rush of magical fire. It started in his fingertips, touching the earth beneath which ran the arcane line. The black-clotted scars were stark against his skin...
And then the black began to crumble, to flake away, replaced by blue fire.
Marian let out a cry, almost of pain.
Creigh frowned, not yet alarmed. “What is he doing?” She glanced back at Marian—then seemed to realize something was truly wrong. “Stop him this instant!”
“Stop me?” Ival asked in a voice like something ancient, something that lay within the earth and the sea. His body convulsed, and he coughed, expelling a cloud of black dust.
The rust, burned to ash.
“Stop me?” he repeated, louder this time. “Do. You. Know. What. I. Am?”
He surged to his feet, his movements slightly jerky, as if he didn’t quite fit his own body anymore. When he turned on us, his eyes blazed with blue fire even in my ordinary sight. Creigh let out a gasp of shock. “Seize him!”
“Do you know what I am?” he howled in that ancient voice. The cloth above his scars began to char into ashes. “I am the fire that burns in the veins of the world! I am the maelstrom made flesh!” He dropped into a crouch, slamming his palm against the barren earth. “How dare you touch me, filthy parasite?”
The arcane line exploded in my vision, forcing me to look away. Power howled through the field, and I could feel it against my skin like a blast of hot wind. Something roared beneath the ground, answered by a scream of agony from Marian. Both were nearly drowned out by the warning shriek of overstressed metal. The windmill swayed madly—then water surged from the well, smashing wood and steel to flinders.
“Look out!” shouted Tate.
The windmill struck the ground in a twisted heap. Water pooled around it—but no trace remained of the spores. The arcane fire had burned away the rust beneath the ground.
I felt hands plucking against my bindings. Startled, I looked down, and found Ma working at the ropes with shaking fingers.
Vernon held Marian, who looked dazed. Creigh and Tate were distracted, but they wouldn’t remain so for long. They’d realize they could still use us as hostages against Ival, and Ma couldn’t free me fast enough to prevent it.
And I wasn’t going to let them turn me into a weapon against him a second time.
<
br /> “Ival!” I yelled. “The stone! Use the curse breaking spell on it, now!”
He staggered a bit as he rose, but kept his feet. Creigh grabbed the stone and it pulsed. The protrusions on Marian’s forehead pulsed in answer.
The cinereous released Christine, rushing toward Whyborne. Without hesitation, Christine seized a steel rod from the fallen windmill and attacked the cinereous from behind. The rod sank deep into their soft flesh with every blow, leaving behind dents as she wrested it free. It didn’t stop them, but it slowed them just long enough for Whyborne to reach Creigh.
Creigh stumbled away, but Whyborne was faster and seized her wrist. Before she could fight back with some magic, the arcane energy flared once again.
There was no finesse to what he did, not this time. He grasped the jewel in his hand and simply tore the spell into shreds.
The cinereous making for Whyborne stopped in their tracks. Perhaps encouraged by their stillness, Christine began to beat them with even more force.
The bindings around one of my wrists came undone. I began to frantically untie the knot around my other wrist, as Ma attacked the rope securing my legs to the scarecrow’s pole. I held my breath, expecting Iskander or the cinereous to attack us at any moment.
But they didn’t. None of them moved, or showed the slightest interest in anything happening in front of them.
Creigh raked her nails across Whyborne’s face. He released her, and she staggered back. “This means nothing,” she snarled. “Marian—stop him!”
Marian laughed softly, and the sound turned my blood cold.
“You think to order me?” she said, a triumphant grin twisting her features. Was it my imagination, or were the antler-like growths on her forehead getting longer? “Now that the spell of control is destroyed, why should I listen?”
“You treacherous bitch!” Creigh shouted. “You’re nothing but a tool! Without me to guide you—”
Vernon laughed. “Oh, I think my Marian can guide herself,” he said, putting a hand to her waist. “Especially since she had the brilliant idea of providing several of the dishes for the community dance, even though we couldn’t go ourselves.”
Horror closed my throat. The dance. Everyone in Fallow would be there, from editor Carson to Lawrence and Annie, from the oldest man to the youngest child.
“I’ve felt them come into my control all evening,” Marian said. “They’re mine now, to do whatever I want with. Revenge at last, and I have you to thank for it.”
“No!” shouted Tate. “My wife, my daughter were there! You have to let them go. You can’t do this!”
The last of my bindings gave way. I fell to the ground. If we could just get away while they were distracted, perhaps—
“Parasite,” Whyborne snarled. He paced toward Marian, a blaze of light in my vision.
Marian turned to him, and an odd look of glee crossed her face. “You. I didn’t see you, hiding in that pathetic skin. What are you?” She licked her lips, and the corruption unfurled around her like wings. “You’ll make the perfect celebratory dinner.”
Then she struck.
Whyborne tried to pull on the magic of the arcane line, but he was spent. In a moment, she was on him. The dark arms of the corruption snatched his spells from the air—and then speared directly into him.
His mouth stretched open in a soundless cry, and his back arched. Dear God, what was she doing to him?
“Yes,” she groaned. “I never realized. They’ve kept me in famine, when I could have had a feast!” Her eyes widened with revelation. “But this is nothing compared to the vortex they spoke of. The one in Widdershins. If I could feed on it, I would be unstoppable.”
Tate pulled a revolver from his pocket and leveled it at Marian.
There came the roar of a gun. Tate jerked back, blood coating his vest. Iskander lowered the pistol he’d used to shoot Tate, looking utterly unconcerned by his own actions.
Vernon laughed. “I guess you shouldn’t have underestimated us after all,” he said.
Then he staggered forward. Creigh stood behind his fallen body, her expression wild and desperate. In her hands, she clutched a length of wood from the windmill, which she’d used to strike him.
Marian jerked, her attention distracted from Whyborne. “Vernon!”
I couldn’t hesitate, couldn’t think. Whyborne lay motionless on the ground, and I ran to him. “Christine! Leave off and help me!”
“Kander!” She dropped the metal rod and grabbed her husband.
And he grabbed her in return, his hand closing mercilessly over her wrist.
Then he staggered as Creigh struck him as well. “Come on!” she gasped. “Tate’s wagon is this way!”
Christine hesitated, visibly torn. “You can’t help him if you’re corrupted too,” Creigh snapped. “And if we try to take him with us, Marian will know where we are instantly. Either come on, or stay here and join him!”
The cinereous began to shamble toward us.
Christine swore, scooped up one of Iskander’s dropped pistols, and ran to me. Between us, we hefted Whyborne’s weight on our shoulders. Spasms wracked his body, nearly tearing him from our grasp.
“Come on, Ma!” I shouted.
She came, and Creigh, the four of us stumbling along, dragging Whyborne with us. Christine twisted around and fired, picking off the nearest of the cinereous.
Somehow, we reached the road just ahead of our pursuers. Creigh led the way to a horse-drawn wagon. “Hurry!” she shouted. Christine swung up beside her, and pressed the pistol into Creigh’s side.
“So much as look like you might betray us, and I’ll blow you straight to hell,” Christine warned.
I heaved Whyborne into the bed of the wagon, helped Ma up, then leapt in after them. Even as the cinereous reached the road, Creigh snapped the reins. “Hee-yah!”
The horses sprang into motion. Then we were gaining speed, the cart careening madly along the road. I shifted Ival’s head into my lap and clung to the side of the wagon as we left the fields behind.
Chapter 30
Griffin
Whyborne’s body arched, his heels drumming against the wagon bed. “He’s having a seizure!” I cried, and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Ma, hold his legs!”
To my relief, she did as asked without question. Whyborne thrashed in our grip, spine bending and eyes rolling.
“What the devil did Marian do to him?” Christine shouted. I glanced up to see her dig the barrel of the gun into Creigh’s side. “Tell us!”
“I don’t know!” Creigh exclaimed. Her pale face was drawn, but her eyes remained fixed on the road ahead. “What is he?”
“I am the fire that burns in the veins of the world!” he’d shouted. “I am the maelstrom made flesh!”
“He’s our friend,” Christine growled. “And it’s thanks to you Kander is corrupted and Whyborne injured! Give me one good reason I shouldn’t shoot you and dump your body in the road for the vultures to find?”
“Because Marian is out of control and wants to kill us all now,” Creigh said with remarkable composure. “Keep her from murdering me, and I’ll tell you anything you wish to know.”
Whyborne’s body heaved against my grip—and his eyes flew open. “Griffin,” he said between gritted teeth.
“Yes,” I said. God, what was happening to him? “Come back to me, Ival, please.”
He blinked rapidly—then suddenly his eyes burned with arcane fire, and I nearly jerked back from the shock of it.
“Can you see me, Griffin?” he demanded in the voice of something ancient.
I tightened my grip on him. “Yes, I see you, Ival,” I assured him. “I’m here.”
“I found you.” His fingers scrabbled at my wrists. “I saw you. Broken, perfect, beautiful, fractured, Griffin, do you see me? Do you see me; do you see me?”
“Yes!” I dug my fingers into his shoulders, desperate that he hear me, that he understand. “I see you!”
“What’s wrong w
ith him?” Ma asked sounding frightened.
“Slap him a few times,” Christine suggested.
I ignored them both and cupped Whyborne’s face in my hands. “I see you,” I repeated, since he seemed fixated on the idea. “I see you, my dear.”
“Yes.” His eyes drifted shut. “You’ve always seen me. That’s why I brought you home.”
The tension left his shoulders. I shook him slightly, but received no response. “He’s lost consciousness.” I looked up at Creigh. “What did Marian do to him?”
“I already told you, I don’t know.” She let the horses slow and glanced back at us. “The rust feeds on arcane power. That’s how it survived the millennia—it latched onto the arcane line and fed enough to keep itself alive. It’s how Marian can devour spells. But she was feeding directly on him, which shouldn’t be possible, unless he’s going about with arcane energy inside him.”
I ran my fingers down the side of his face. “Fire in His Blood,” I whispered. The name the ketoi gave to him.
The version of him I’d glimpsed in July, in those moments when he slipped free of mortal chains: burning in my sight the same way the maelstrom burned.
“I am the fire that burns in the veins of the world!”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Christine said. “Where are we going? And how are we to save Kander?”
“I don’t yet know how to save him, but we will,” I said. “We have to regroup first. Perhaps we could go to the Reynolds’ farm. At least to get our things.” I swallowed. “I suppose they’re all corrupted now.”
Christine shook her head. “Whyborne and I told them to stay home. They’re safe.”
Thank God. I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead to Whyborne’s. Breathing his breath.
“And there’s another thing you have to answer for,” Christine said to Creigh. “Vernon’s farm supplied the food to the community dance. Did you know about that?”
“What’s going on?” Ma shouted abruptly. I looked up, and Christine fell silent. Even Creigh looked surprised.
Fallow Page 16
