by Natalie Grey
“What? How many?”
“Fifty, maybe? More?” She considered. “Well, no wonder the druid wanted nothing to do with releasing it. This will be a trick, and no mistake. Still, we might as well begin.” And then her voice changed. “Ah, Philip. I wondered when you would show up.”
My head jerked around. There he was—Julius or Philip, I didn’t know which, handsome and composed. The journey to the island had clearly drained him, but there was power crackling in the air all around him.
“Who is that?” I asked Eshe quietly. “I recognize him, but I don’t know why.”
“Philip Allaire.” She didn’t take her eyes off him. “Your former lover … and the one who’s been leading a cult in your name ever since Terric defeated you.”
20
“Nicola.” Philip’s voice broke on the word. He stayed where he was, the rain driving his tunic against his perfect form, and I had the sense that while every part of his image was planned and carefully executed, right now he couldn’t care less about any of it.
I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say. This man had been my lover, he was staring at me like his heart was breaking and I remembered nothing of him save that he had sat at my right hand at banquets and whispered in my ear.
He could see that. His face twisted. “Do you not remember me? Truly?”
I shook my head, a jerky little motion. I felt wrong in my own skin suddenly. He knew more about me than I did.
“What did they do to her?” He looked at Eshe as he strode forward. “Who took her, and why? What did they do to her?”
He reached out to pull me close to his chest and I stepped back. It was reflex, nothing more. I didn’t want him to touch me, even if I couldn’t have put into words why. Perhaps it was too strange to have hands that knew my shape sliding over me, while he was nothing but a stranger to me right now.
But he froze when I moved away from him. His eyes narrowed.
“You will remember,” he told me carefully, as if he were explaining something to a child. “We were everything to one another. I never forgot you—and when Eshe takes the veils from your memory, you will remember me.” …And be the woman you were before. The unspoken words hung heavy in the air. They were so obvious to him that he didn’t even feel the need to say them.
My fingers clenched unconsciously. I don’t want to be her.
But I was afraid to say it. I didn’t have my magic. I didn’t have any recourse if he wanted to force me to leave with him.
Eshe, however, was in no mood to let me leave with him. “She needs rest,” she said bluntly. “And to remember everything slowly.”
“She needs me,” Philip said instantly. “She was brought here by a druid, a Hunter. She needs someone to protect her. Terric is hunting her—the druid will only turn her over to him.”
I made a strangled noise, and froze when both of them looked sharply at me. “Terric … is alive?”
Philip’s face took on a surly cast. “He’s powerful. He was always powerful. You couldn’t defeat him.”
I jerked back. I hadn’t meant anything by those words beyond my own surprise—I had simply assumed that if Philip was here, Terric was dead.
“She is protected by me,” Eshe said simply. “When her memories are recovered, then she can contact you and return to the world. Until then—”
“I will stay,” Philip finished. “She needs me.” He repeated the words almost reverently.
“I don’t want you here,” I said flatly.
“What?” He looked at me like he wasn’t sure what he was hearing.
I wasn’t sure what had possessed me to be that direct. Eshe had been sending him away gently, seeming to promise everything he wanted without actually promising anything. It had all been in hand, and then I had gone and been blunt about it.
“I just need time.” The words were weak. I hated this, pretending to be smaller than I was, but if he got angry…. “I need to remember, that’s all.”
“And you’ll want me here when you do,” he assured me. He was smiling again. “You’ll want to return with me, to see all the people who have remembered you all these years.”
There would be no persuading him, that much was clear. Over the centuries, I had become a talisman to him, not a human being.
And I hadn’t even been a very good human being to start with.
“I don’t want you here.” I said the words clearly. I drew myself up. “I have spent almost 700 years not knowing who I was, and not being able to work magic. I don’t know much yet about who I was back then, but I do know what I did, and I know I never want to do anything like that again.”
Philip Allaire stared at me, open-mouthed. “But the Monarchists need you,” he said blankly.
“I’m not a Monarchist,” I gritted out. “I’m not a Separatist. I’m not a Unitarian. Right now, I’m not Nicola Beaumont. I haven’t been her for centuries. And by the way, since you’ve held it all together and started another black plague plan in my absence, apparently you don’t need me, you can murder millions of people just fine on your own!”
Eshe gave a small sound that might have been a snort, and Philip rounded on her.
“What did you do to her?” He sounded furious. “What did the druid have you do?”
“Young man, this is my house.” Eshe’s eyes narrowed slightly and the wind rose to an ungodly shriek. “I will not be accused of mind-control in my own house just because you’re having a lovers’ spat. Nicola was my student once, and gods willing, I will train her better this time—but that is between me, and her. You must go.”
“No.” The word was wild. Philip looked between the two of us, shaking his head. “No! Nicola.” He pulled something from beneath his cloak. “Nicola, look at this, do you remember this?”
I froze. Half of me wanted to shrink away from the orb in his hand, and half of me thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Inside the glassy depths, color swirled: purple, blue, black, green.
It called to me. My magic sang at the sight of it.
“It took us 500 years to rebuild it,” Philip whispered. “We knew only that it was possible, because you had done it.” He smiled ruefully. “It’s not as good as you could have done, but it’s still beautiful, is it not?”
Fingers trembling, I reached out for it. I could hear a high, sweet note, drawing me closer. “What does it do?”
“It kills cities.” Eshe’s voice was the storm—the wind, the waves, the salt spray. “It is an unimaginable evil. That orb holds the death of millions. You made some like it, once. You sent them to Venice and Genoa and Paris, ready to spread their poison as soon as they were shown to the world.”
I yanked my hand back.
“It is your legacy.” Philip held it out. “Nicola, don’t listen to her. You were going to free us. We live in fear of them, they have become what we were afraid of. They see everything, they have eyes beyond this world, staring down at us every day. Our children, the next generation of sorcerers, are abducted from us. They disappear and they never come back. We cannot hide for much longer. This needs to be done, and it needs to be done now.”
I backed away from him. It all made sense, a terrible sort of sense. Memories were struggling free in my mind and I gave a cry of pain as the spells began to break. I had said words like this once. I had warned people that this day was coming and Philips’s words made a terrible sort of sense.
I didn’t want it to. I wanted, desperately, to reject all of it.
But it did make sense. I could feel anger twisting in my heart. They’d take me, they’d take Daiman. They’d take the boy he’d saved and brought to the Acadamh, and they’d destroy us in their quest to turn us into weapons. They’d do anything they could to make more of us, like little slaves.
Them. Humans with no power, humans who could not look at power without wanting to have it for themselves. It was an old hatred, and it had made a well-worn path in my soul.
It was too easy a solution and I k
new it, but I couldn’t take my eyes from the orb. I could fix everything. I’d had that power in my hands—I might not remember the moment, but I knew it was true. And when you had that kind of power….
“Get out.” I don’t know how I managed to say the words, but I did. I shook my head at Philip. “Get out. Take that away from me and go.”
“Nicola.”
“Go!” If I had it, I would use it. I stumbled back over the rocks in my panic. I was shuddering with cold, but I couldn’t feel it. “I don’t want you here, go!”
“No.” He strode across the rocks after me, his face set.
He was reaching for my arm when the wall of water rose between us.
“She is not yours.” Sea and sky spoke as one. “You are not welcome here, Philip Allaire. Give up the orb, and leave.”
His power rose around him, a crackle of white lightning. Thunder boomed, and I did not know which one of them it was.
“This is our future!” He held the orb out to Eshe as he screamed the words.
She was cloaked in power. Shadows played over her features like the ripples of light and shadow cast by water. Clouds swirled around her, and the wind lifted her hair. She twitched her fingers, and the wind made to tear the orb from his grasp. Lightning sprang up between them as he yelled his fury at her.
“I will not give it to you!”
Waves slammed against the island, knocking me to the rocks and taking the breath from my lungs. I spat seawater as I struggled to my feet.
“You were not meant to wield such power.” Her words echoed in my very bones.
“I will begin what she started!” Philip stared into the heart of the storm that surrounded Eshe. “If you have brainwashed her so she will not use it, I will!” He gave me a wild look as he backed toward the edge of the cliff. “And when you remember what you are, who you are—come back to me, Nicola.”
The wall of water that rose behind him was like a mountain. It hung in the air, deep-dark, shadows in its depths, and I knew a moment of pure terror. When I cast a look at Eshe, even she was shaking with the effort of it. It dwarfed anything I had ever seen, be it building or mountain. It loomed over Philip as he stared up at it.
“Give up the orb, or you die here.”
“Fine.” He turned, and there was a terrible smile playing on his lips. “Then take it!”
He threw it, crackling with energy, at the heart of Eshe’s storm—and vanished into thin air the next moment.
21
I heard the roar of water behind me as I ran for Eshe, and a gust of wind grabbed me bodily to drag me onto the rocks. I had just enough time to see my death coming for me before the water slammed into a barrier I could not see. The stone beneath me creaked. Black and green and blue swirled over the shield, water colliding over itself, and I was alone with the fury of the sea mere inches from my face.
Purple light exploded through the water, shooting over me with a hollow boom, and I curled into a ball, uselessly, praying for something to stop this so I could get to Eshe—and Daiman. How I would help, I didn’t know, but Philip had meant death to her when he threw that orb, and the wall of water had dwarfed the whole island. Both of them were in danger.
Only when the water drained away did the barrier vanish, dousing me with the last dregs of sea foam. Nursing a stabbing pain on my side, I clambered up and let my head slump forward in relief when I saw Eshe’s house still intact.
Daiman was safe, at least. I turned, wincing, and caught my breath.
The orb was gone, but Eshe was curled on the ground with her hand over her stomach. Tendrils of black spread from her chest and she put up a hand to keep me back as I limped toward her.
“Not … safe yet. Wait a moment.”
“I’ll go get Daiman.” I had never felt so useless. I could do nothing, but he—
“No.” The tendrils slowly faded and her face split in a weary smile. “No need. Come sit with me.”
Relief coursed through me. I made my way carefully over the rocks to sit next to her. The storm was dying down and dawn was breaking. The wall of water had left seaweed and shells in its wake, and a pure smell that was already fading into the heavy salt scent of the sea. I was soaked through, and Eshe laughed, a weak sound, as I tried to get my hair unstuck from being all over my face and neck.
“You look a sight.” She lay back for a moment. Her breath was coming into her lungs in a wheeze. “Come, lean closer.”
She had pushed herself half up. I leaned in, and jumped when she put a finger out to touch over my heart. Ice exploded through me in a riot of pain and was gone as abruptly as it had come, and Eshe sagged back onto the rocks again.
“Once more, child. Come here. I don’t have … the strength to….”
I leaned in, my brow furrowing. “But you’re going to be fine, aren’t—”
Her finger touched my brow this time. She shook her head to cut off my words and let her eyes drift closed. I had the sensation of things coming unknotted, falling away. I sensed nothing new in my head, but after a few moments, she smiled.
“They’ll come back … gradually. All those memories.” She reached out to take my hand. “It’s not how I … wanted … to do it, but it will have to do. You’re free, Nicola. Do something good with it this time.”
“What?” I clenched my fingers around hers. “You’re not going to train me again?”
“I’m dying, child.” The words were a wheeze.
The silence was suddenly deafening. “No, you’re not dying. You said—”
“There’s no … eating a spell like that without it eating you.” She let out a breath and I saw pain hit her for a moment. “Couldn’t let it into the sea, though. In any case, five thousand years is … enough.” She tried to laugh, but I saw fear in her eyes.
“You’re not dying,” I told her. Tears were blurring my vision. “You’re not. You’re going to be okay.” Inspiration came to me in a rush. “It’s my magic! Isn’t it? I’ll undo it.”
“There’s no undoing death with more death, child.”
“But it’s my spell! I should be able to—”
“The damage is done.” She shook my hand slightly to cut off my protest. “It’s done its damage already. There’s no healer in the world that could fix this now. But it took … a great deal to bring me down. That’s something. And he doesn’t still have it. That orb should have killed many more than just me.”
“But I can’t lose you,” I said blankly. “Eshe, I need you to train me. I need to make sure I—I don’t—”
She smiled. It was a kind smile. “If you don’t want to be Philip’s figurehead,” she told me. “Then don’t be.”
“It’s not that simple.” I wiped tears out of my eyes with my free hand. “Part of me wants to. Part of me understands.”
“What, you think you’re the first woman who ever made a difficult choice?” Some of the no-nonsense tartness was back in her voice. “You’ll pick your path just fine, girl. Now enough of this whining. And crying. I hate crying. Go inside and get that druid of yours. Leave me here.”
I couldn’t speak. I looked around me. It was a good place to die, part of me thought. There were gulls, and there was the sound of waves. Dawn had come up a blazing orange, and was fading to gold.
But she was afraid. I could feel it in the way her grip trembled, see it behind her black eyes. She had never thought she would die. After five thousand years, steering clear of all of our kind, she had escaped death for so long that it was the only thing that frightened her.
“I’m not leaving you to die alone,” I told her quietly.
“You should.” She gave a shudder as another bout of pain wracked her. “Death isn’t pretty.”
“No?” The memories were trickling back now. “You don’t think so?”
“Undignified,” she managed. “Too quick and too slow all at once. I wish it would be over. I hate waiting for things, especially things I didn’t want to start with.” She let her breath out and stared up at the
sky.
I felt a tear make its way down my cheek. I could speed this for her, I could take the pain and the fear away in an instant.
But then her last moments on Earth would have been spent afraid, and I didn’t want that.
“Daiman made a forest for us to travel through,” I told her. I was looking out at the ocean. “He says it’s in the same world this island is. There was no one else there, no humans. I saw birds and rabbits, though. Squirrels. Beetles. At night, he would make us beds of moss to lie down on.” I looked over and saw her watching me, head tilted. Something in her face had eased as she lost herself in the picture I was building. “When I went to sleep at night,” I told her, “it was with my head not an inch from the earth. I could smell the leaves, the way they crumbled into loam. There were beetles and centipedes and spiders I would see sometimes, making little homes, eating the leaves.
“Those leaves fed the moss and the acorns, too. I would see them sprout sometimes, break through the soil. I saw leaves unfurling. Sometimes there were beetle shells or bones, but it wasn’t a graveyard. All of it was alive.”
Eshe gripped my hand.
“I’ve seen a soul leave a body,” I told her. “It dissolves into the world like the beam sunlight makes on water. There’s peace in it. There’s sunshine and wind. You aren’t held in a body anymore, you can fly with the birds—and you do. You’ll be part of the sea, Eshe. You’ll be in the waves and the dawn.”
She closed her eyes and turned her face away from me. When I broke off unsteadily, she shook her head. “Keep talking.”
The memories were flooding back. “You told me you grew up in a tiny twist in the river. You said you loved the mornings. There were crickets singing and your mother hummed lullabies to your baby brother while she cooked. Do you remember?”
“Yes.” Her voice was a breath.
I began the spell. It seeped out of my fingers and into hers. Sleep. It took her pain slowly, and I watched her face ease.
“I grew up in a city,” I told her. “Town. It barely deserved the name. I would sneak out in the mornings to brush my fingers over the dew in the grass by the road and watch the sun come up. I loved dawn. I loved the new day.”
