by Natalie Grey
I hunched my shoulders as I thought. “But I was just born with my power, you worked for yours. Doesn’t that make yours more impressive?”
Daiman smiled at me.
“Someone’s trying to restart Nicola Beaumont’s plan,” he said finally.
I stared at him. “What?” I managed finally.
“To kill off most of the humans and enslave the rest,” he said, as if that were the part that needed explaining. “We keep getting word that the Monarchists are moving, that they have a new figurehead to follow. They think what she did was the right thing, and that Terric was a traitor to magic to kill her.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what this had to do with me, and I didn’t want to know. What if I was one of the people who was involved in that?
I didn’t want to be, but when we came right down to it, what did I really know about myself?
“What I mean is—” Daiman broke off and rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “We need you right now. We need every sorcerer and druid we can recruit, and we need them trained, and we need them ready. You don’t defeat that kind of evil without getting into the fray. Maybe you’re afraid of Terric, and after the past couple of days, I can’t blame you for that—but I like to think you’re more scared by the idea of someone hurting a bunch of innocent people. If the Monarchists get their way, billions of people will die—children, people who have never done anything wrong.”
I looked over at him, unable to hide my horror.
“Maybe they didn’t wipe your mind and hide you because you were dangerous, or you knew too much, or you were in on their plan,” Daiman said quietly. “Maybe they hid you because you didn’t agree with them and they knew you could take them down. That’s the woman I’ve seen over the past few days, that’s who I think you are. Isn’t fighting this worth some sacrifice?”
I blew out my breath in a sigh and looked away, blinking away tears. He thought well of me, and that made me want to cry for some reason. I wanted to be the person he thought I was.
“What if I’m—not—”
“You are what you choose to be,” he told me simply. “Right now, you could be anyone—so why let your fears of who you might be get in the way of who you want to be?” He smiled at me. “Who do you want to be?”
I felt myself sway toward him and caught myself just before I fell over. “I, ah….” I ran my fingers through my hair. “I feel this is a little unfair. As far as I know, I’ve only been alive a week and you’re using 500 year old logic on me.”
He laughed at that, really laughed, and then he helped me stand up. For a moment, we were close together and his hand was warm on mine.
“Not every sorceress with dark powers is Nicola Beaumont,” he told me seriously. “Deep down, Terric knows that and so does the Coimeail. I’m on your side, Nicky.”
“Thanks.” I stepped away from temptation and smiled. “So much for trying to kill my power, then.”
“Yes. Let’s get you some sleep.” He jerked his head back to the castle and started back. “And I’ll return those books. It never happened.”
13
I slept on a soft bed for the first time I could remember, and fell into a sleep so deep as to be entirely dreamless. I woke to find the sun high in the sky and my stomach growling, and had just enough time to wonder what had awakened me before a pounding at the door showed me exactly what.
“Yeah?” I pushed my hair out of my eyes.
One of my guards opened the door and nodded curtly. “You’re to make yourself ready to see the Coimeail,” he informed me. “You have fifteen minutes.”
I was out of bed like a shot, running the water in the impossible shower and washing my hair with some soap that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. My clothes, through some trickery, seemed to have gotten clean by the time I came out of the bathroom, and I combed my hair with my fingers while I pondered this. Come to think of it, they hadn’t been nearly dirty enough given how far I had apparently trekked in them.
Sorcery of some sort, and I was glad enough of it. The rip in one elbow had even been fixed. I slid on the loose-fitting top and the grey jeans, and pulled my boots on. There was another thing to be grateful for: self-cleaning socks.
At least my future had some perks.
I followed the guard out of the room with a sense of genuine hope. Sleep had done wonders for my morale, and Daiman’s pep talk hadn’t been bad, either.
I might also have fallen asleep picturing that moment in the long grass ending very differently than it had, but that was neither here nor there.
It was clear as soon as we stepped out into the sunlight, however, that something was different. People were hurrying to and fro, whispering to one another. Everyone seemed to be looking at me and then looking away hastily when I caught them.
“Hey.” I caught up with my guard. “What happened?”
He looked down at me, as if surprised to find out that I could talk directly to him. “Terric arrived back an hour ago,” he explained. He’s with the Coimeail now, that’s why you’ve been summoned.”
Terric was back so soon? I stopped dead in my tracks.
“Come on.” The guard gestured to me impatiently.
“He’s already back?” All of my confidence had dissolved. “I’m going to see him now?”
The guard shrugged. My anxiety was the least of his concern. He was probably getting tired to guarding a door, for one thing, and looking forward to me being someone else’s problem.
The distance to the tower seemed far too short. I hadn’t prepared anything to say to Terric, and my mind had gone so blank that I couldn’t even think of what I might say. I seemed to have forgotten all of the words I knew.
When I saw Daiman on the stairs, I sagged with relief. “Thank God.”
“You’re not nervous, surely?” He gave me a sunny smile and fell in beside me, elbowing me gently in the ribs. “This is Terric, and you are the newest recruit to the cause.”
I gave him a look that reminded him things weren’t quite so simple, but he serenely ignored me.
The guards at the door looked uncertainly at Daiman when they saw him. They were wearing extra fancy uniforms today, with velvet livery of a deep blue, and they looked incredibly uncomfortable.
“The lady can come in,” one of them said finally, trying to be as diplomatic as possible.
“Oh, good.” Daiman reached out to open the doors for me and followed me inside, cutting off the man’s half-hearted protest with a cheerful thank you.
“They’re trying to keep you out?” I asked in an undertone.
“Well, they’re not doing a very good job, are they?” Daiman asked me. He shook his head. “And everyone’s just in a furor because Terric’s back, it’s nothing serious.” He looked around the room and gave a satisfied smile. “Good.”
“What?”
“Julius isn’t here.”
“Someday,” I said quietly, “you are going to have to tell me why everyone hates him.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt you’ll learn to hate him all on your own soon enough.” Daiman’s voice was bitterly amused. “A more self-centered man you will never meet. What Terric sees in him, I don’t know. That’s Terric, by the way.” He pointed.
Terric Delaney was not in his throne. He stood in close-headed conference with the Coimeail, and so the only impression I had of him was that he was fairly tall and thin, with hunched shoulders and sandy-brown hair.
I tilted my head slightly, trying to catch a glimpse of his face. For some reason, despite the fact that I had no memory of the Acadamh or the Coimeail, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew this man from somewhere.
Then he turned and saw me, and his face went deathly white.
“Everyone out!” His voice was high and wild. “Out! Now!”
Chatter ceased. The Coimeail disappeared with enough speed that they might well done their vanishing-into-thin-air trick, but Daiman, thankfully, stayed glued to my shoulder.
&nb
sp; “Out!” Terric yelled at him.
Daiman didn’t waver. “What is this about?”
“Nothing that concerns you.” Terric fairly spat the words.
“On the contrary.” Daiman’s voice was serene. “I brought her here. I promised her that she would be safe.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have promised her that!” Terric gave me a look filled with utter panic. “You don’t know who she is. You don’t know what she’s done.”
Daiman shot me a look, but I knew no more than he did. I shrugged—and then Terric’s words sank in and I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. You don’t know what she’s done. Good God, what had I done?
The doors opened behind us.
“Everybody out!” Terric yelled.
“What, even me?” The voice was a smooth drawl.
Daiman’s shoulders tensed, and I turned to see one of the most handsome men I’d ever laid eyes on. From his wavy blonde hair to his high cheekbones and deep blue eyes, every part of him was perfect. He was so good looking that I couldn’t come up with a single thought. I only barely managed to avoid saying, “wow.”
But he, like Terric, had stopped dead in his tracks. There was something moving behind his eyes as he stared at me—shock, awe, something else. I couldn’t be sure. He looked from me, to Terric, to Daiman.
And then he smiled. It was not a nice smile.
“Well, well.” His drawl was filled with a savage pleasure. “Isn’t this a surprise.” He looked at Daiman. “Did you know?”
“Know what?” Daiman looked at Terric.
Terric was turned away, his shoulders rigid.
“Our dear Terric,” the newcomer said, “is a liar.” He was clearly having fun with this. He smiled like the cat that had the cream, just waiting for someone to ask what he meant.
“Get on with it.” Daiman’s voice was tight.
“What is Terric Delaney famous for?” The newcomer, who I was beginning to think might be the roundly-despised Julius, strolled to Terric’s throne and dropped into it, one long leg draped over the arm carelessly. He raised an eyebrow at Daiman, and sighed when Daiman showed no inclination to play along with his game. He gestured at Terric. “Terric, here, is famous for killing Nicola Beaumont. No?”
Daiman shrugged. “And?”
“And who do you think is standing right beside you, Bradach?” Julius sounded delighted. “Why, none other than the Butcher of Venice, herself, the Scourge of Genoa, the woman who decimated the Western world and singlehandedly brought down the Mongols. That, right there, is Nicola Beaumont.”
14
In the utter silence that followed, Terric gave a little moan and buried his face in his hands.
I didn’t dare look at Daiman. I didn’t dare look at anyone. I went hot, and then cold. I couldn’t even tell which way was up. Nicola Beaumont. Had they actually called me the Butcher of Venice? Well, why the hell shouldn’t they? How many people had I killed? Millions. Tens of millions.
I bent over and was promptly sick on the beautiful black-and-white floor. My head was swimming. There were what seemed like ten thousand memories trying to escape from behind the veils of the memory wipe, and I nearly vomited again at the thought of what I would know when they broke free.
I didn’t doubt what Julius had said. There was nothing to doubt. It was true. Somehow, through everything that had been done to my memory, I knew that much. And I knew that I knew him. He had met me before. If anyone would know who I was, it would be him … and the man who had supposedly killed me.
“You lied?” I heard Daiman’s voice dimly.
I didn’t know, I wanted to say, but a moment later, I realized he’d been talking to Terric.
“I told Fordwin!” Terric threw the words at Daiman pleadingly. He looked at Julius and back to Daiman. “I told him, I swear, I never said I had killed her! I didn’t intend any of this!”
“Oh?” Daiman’s voice was shaking. “Then what happened, exactly? Because you sure as hell didn’t correct anyone. By the time I came along, we all knew you as the savior of the whole goddamned world!”
“Fordwin said not to tell.” Terric passed a shaking hand over his brow.
Ironically, not one of the three of them seemed to remember that I was in the room. I had become entirely invisible. I sank down on the ground, shaking, and tried to keep a hold on both my stomach and my mind.
Neither seemed like an achievable goal at the moment.
“He said … he said there would be a panic if people knew.” Terric squeezed his eyes shut. “The Monarchists were on the run, the Separatists had finally gotten the support of the Unitarians. He told me to start the Acadamh, and he would search for her. He said she’d been almost dead, that she was drained from the fight, she wouldn’t … be a problem. He said he’d make sure she wasn’t a problem.”
“That’s where he’s been all this time?” Julius threw back his head and laughed. “The old man’s been trying to undo his protégé’s mistake for the past 700 years? Oh, that’s rich. No one deserves it more, I assure you. Sanctimonious bastard.”
Daiman had crouched down to look at me. His eyes searched mine, as if he could see behind the spell this time now that he knew what he was looking for.
“Is it true?” he asked me.
As if I could somehow make it not true.
I would have, in a heartbeat.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. My head seemed to be shaking on his own. “I’m so sorry.” I didn’t know.
“So you told everyone that you killed Nicola Beaumont.” Julius sounded halfway between delighted and furious. “Other people stopped that plague. No one killed Nicola. But you took credit for the whole damned thing. You let the lie keep going just so you could build your precious little prison and kill anyone whose magic reminded you of hers.”
Daiman and I looked over sharply.
“Oh, you didn’t know?” Julius gave us a vicious smile. “All the rumors were true. Terric here has been very devoted to the common good. Absolutely determined to make sure that no one too dangerous gets unleashed on the world. Why do you think you were trained, Hunter? So you could be a force for justice? So you could save people? Oh, no. Nothing of the sort. How many have you brought here to die? You have to wonder.”
Daiman’s face had gone white.
“Fifty million!” Terric screamed the words at Julius. He flung an arm out to point at me. “She killed fifty million people! What the hell are ten lives, a hundred lives, compared to that? Better they die as children than turn into what she was. She would have killed the whole goddamned world just to rule over ashes!”
“She would have made the world into what it was supposed to be!” Julius roared back. He was on his feet now. He took one step toward Terric and checked himself, then crossed the floor to crouch at my side. “Nicola.” He stared deep into my eyes, searching for something. “Nicola, it’s me. It’s Philip.”
I shook my head at him. I didn’t have the first idea what was going on. Wasn’t this Julius?
“It’s Philip,” he said again. He cupped my face in his hands. “Don’t you remember me?”
I managed to shake my head. As with Terric, I had the sense that I had met him, but I couldn’t have said any more than that. I had the vaguely hysterical urge to ask if he’d tried to kill me, too.
“Get away from her,” Terric hissed. “I’m finishing it. I didn’t kill her before, but I’m sure as hell going to do it now. Then you can do whatever you want. Call me a liar. I’ll tell them all what I did. I did it for the right reasons, and I did the right thing, too. So get out of the way.”
“No.” Julius—Philip?—gave me one last searching look and stood. “I thought she was gone. I thought I had lost her forever. I’ve spent the last 670 years trying to repair the damage you did … and take just as much from you as you took from me.
“I was so close, too. Every day you were getting closer to turning into everything you had despised. It wasn’t even hard to push you int
o it, did you know? You always thought you knew better than everyone else what they needed. One day you were going to wake up and realize you’d done exactly what you’d killed Nicola for, and you were going to die knowing you were a hypocrite and a murderer.
“But this is better.” A laugh was building in his voice. “This is so, so much better. I get to show the whole world that you were a liar. And I’ll have my Nicola back.”
A hand closed around mine.
“Come on.” Daiman’s voice was barely a breath.
“What?” The word was a terrified exhale.
“Run,” Daiman whispered back. “While they’re fighting, we need to get out of here.”
“I was never going to turn into a Monarchist!” Terric’s fists were clenched. “I never stopped doing what was right, no matter what you may think.” He managed an eerie smile. “Perhaps you were turning into a Separatist without knowing it.”
Daiman’s hands levered me up from the floor and the two of us backed away quietly across the floor.
“A Separatist? You think they’re any different?” Philip was laughing. “You decide who gets to live and who has to die. You’ve overseen the execution of humans who knew too much. You send druids to hunt your own kind down. And you claim you aren’t a Monarchist at heart?”
We weren’t heading for the door, I realized. We were heading for one of the windows. I felt the heat of Daiman’s body as he turned me and brought my arms up around his neck.
I froze.
He smiled down at me. “Hold on,” he said gently.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and heard Philip’s roar of fury as the window shattered, and strong wings beat to carry me away into the night.
15
As the shards of the gorgeous window tumbled away into the gardens below and flame licked at my heels—Terric’s power, I wondered, or Philip’s?—I clutched the neck of Daiman’s bird form and discovered an all-encompassing fear of heights.
The world was so small from up here. I remembered a dizzying view of students pointing, the tower receding with Philip silhouetted in the window—and the way he screamed my name, like someone whose heart was being cut out.
