They set out for the lake after that, with the exception of Niclas and Malachi, who agreed, not very happily, to remain in the castle, and Mr. Goodbody, who had expressed no desire to become involved in any unnatural doings.
It was a somber procession, with the exception of Loris and Desdemona, who rode side by side, conversing as if they were long-lost friends. Dyfed and Kian, riding farther behind, looked on gloomily, well aware of the dangers that lay ahead for the women they loved. Professor Seabolt, who wished to see the athanc for himself, also to be present in case his expertise was needed, rode alongside Horas, discussing matters both magical and historical, while Kian’s entire contingent of men, fighting and otherwise, brought up the rear, pulling along a cart filled with heavy chains that Kian had enchanted earlier.
“This is going to be the end of it, Kian,” Dyfed said. “Tomorrow the land will be whole again.”
Kian released a taut breath. “I pray it is so, fy gefell.”
It was unlikely that the athanc would come tonight unless it was called. It had roamed and fed for the past four nights and done an enormous amount of damage without Desdemona Caslin to control it. The village had suffered the most, with well over half the buildings destroyed. It would be years before it could be completely rebuilt and far longer before any of those at Tylluan would forget these past few months.
The lake was calm and quiet when they arrived, with no sign of the beast. Kian brought them all to a stop well within the trees, and he and the men worked quickly to lay out the chains in the place where Kian would be able to make the fastest use of them.
The trap was prepared long before Kian had thought it would be, and the time had come. The night was foggy but not so heavy that the light of the moon couldn’t be seen. It was a dim, cold glow, but enough for the business at hand.
“Are you sure you understand exactly what to do?” Kian asked as he and Loris walked out of the trees and toward the shoreline. “You must sit perfectly still. Say nothing to the beast. Don’t touch it.”
“Professor Seabolt explained everything,” she told Kian. “And I must touch the beast if it begins to rise. I must keep its head upon my lap until you’ve bound it securely, else it might change back into liquid form and escape.”
A tremor of panic ran the length of Kian’s body, and he brought Loris to a halt. “Don’t touch it,” he said, the words tumbling out in a hoarse, shaking voice. “I know firsthand how powerful the creature is. Its claws are as sharp as knives. Let it lay its head upon your lap, but if it moves or rises, don’t draw attention to yourself. Let me worry about binding it.”
She reached up to caress his face. The softness of the gloves she wore warmed his cold skin.
“I won’t do anything foolish, Kian. You mustn’t think of me, but of the athanc. This will likely be the only chance we’ll have to be rid of it. Concentrate on the beast.”
He gave a shake of his head. “You’re asking the impossible of me. You’ll not be out of my thoughts for a moment, Loris.”
“I know,” she whispered. “You won’t be out of mine, either. Please be careful.” Her fingers traced the line of scars on his cheek. “I would rather not go home with you bearing more of these.”
The stark reality of what they were about to undertake, of the danger she was going to put herself in, made Kian suddenly short of breath. He clasped Loris to him tightly and kissed her, hard, with desperation and fear, before letting her go.
They took their places. Kian and Dyfed and the other men hid in the woods. Loris sat down upon a log near the water, where the chains had been laid out close by. She set her feet side by side, striving to keep her knees from knocking together, and smoothed her skirts down. She had worn one of her old, unfashionable dresses and a heavy woolen cloak that she clutched tightly in a vain effort to keep warm.
Desdemona Caslin stood beside Loris, gazing at her in a calm, level manner. She was a fascinating female, Loris thought with a measure of envy, and clearly unafraid of what was to come.
“I shall call the beast from that side of the lake,” Miss Caslin told her, “and will direct it toward you. It has a very keen sense of smell, and will likely catch the scent of warm flesh almost at once. Don’t let that alarm you, for it moves but slowly, being so large a creature. The professor assures us that it will not kill you if you speak the incantation, and it has not yet killed a human that I know of. But it is a stupid creature, and easily enraged. Take every care, Lady Tylluan.”
“Thank you, Miss Caslin,” Loris said, her lips trembling as she tried to smile in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. “I’m ready, if you are.”
Desdemona Caslin nodded, held Loris’s gaze for a long, solemn moment, then turned, black cape whirling, and strode away. The sound of her booted feet crunching on the rocky ground faded far too quickly, and Loris was left alone in the silent darkness. But not really silent, she told herself. The water in the lake sloshed and slapped as it moved back and forth, and behind her, in the trees, she could hear the nervous whinnying of horses. She wished Dyfed would say something to her in his silent speech, but she supposed he was busy communicating with Miss Caslin.
The fog had thickened and the air grown colder. A slight breeze picked up the scent of the water, teasing Loris’s senses with the fresh, familiar smell. Everything here smelled wonderful to her, after having been in London. Loris supposed if she was going to die, she could not have chosen a finer place, here in the mountains that she loved so well, helping the man she loved and his people. Their people, she corrected.
Desdemona Caslin came to a stop a good distance away. Loris could scarce make the dark figure out in the fog, but enough so that she saw when the other woman lifted her hands.
The water in the middle of the lake began to swirl, though Loris heard rather than saw it. The sound grew louder, bubbling, and the waves near the shore began to move more violently.
The creature began to rise, parting the fog as it did, slender at first, but growing larger in the way that a sponge grew larger when taking in water.
It was an enormous beast, fearsome and dragonlike, covered in dark, wet scales and as tall as a tree. It began to move toward Desdemona Caslin, but at her command, turned and came toward Loris.
She thought, for one awful moment, that she was going to faint. Her body had forgotten how to take in air, and a wave of terrified confusion made her senses swim dizzily. If her legs hadn’t been trembling so badly, she might have gotten up and run, but they wouldn’t obey and shook with embarrassing vigor.
Steady, she heard Dyfed say. The incantation, Loris. Say it now.
“Ades dum,” Loris uttered in a faint whisper, her voice shaking harder than her legs. “Mellesco ferinus. Dormio.”
Again, Dyfed said. Louder. You must draw it to you.
“Ades dum,” she said again, her voice rising to a higher pitch. She was obliged to ball her hands into fists to control their trembling. “Mellesco ferinus. Dormio.”
The beast’s head turned toward her, and it fell still, its gaze fixed upon Loris. It looked a little like one of the dogs at Tylluan, wondering whether it was being lured forward for a treat or something far less pleasant.
She repeated the words once more, a bit louder, and lowered one shaking hand to touch her lap.
The athanc came closer, its scaly legs swirling up great mounds of water as it moved. Its hands were webbed and clawed, with long, sharp points that grew from the ends of what looked more like sinewy tendrils than fingers. At this closer distance Loris could see the beast better and wondered how its huge head would ever fit upon her lap.
“Ades dum. Mellesco ferinus. Dormio.”
Come, gentle beast. Sleep.
Loris didn’t possess any magic, but the words clearly did. The creature drew even nearer, its black eyes fixed on Loris’s face, as if it were beneath a spell. At last it was before her, and, as Loris continued to repeat the words, it knelt and slowly, so very slowly, bent to place its forehead—all of it that
fit—upon her shaking knees.
The touch of it, wet and icy and prickly because of its scales, sent jolts of shock skittering through Loris’s body. Water drained off the athanc, soaking her clothes and shoes.
Her breath came in great, painful gasps, and yet somehow she managed to keep repeating the incantation. She only had to keep the creature there for a few moments longer, and Kian would be able to chain it in its bodily form. Once chained, it wouldn’t be able to transform, and then Kian could perform the enchantment to put it back into eternal slumber.
He’s coming now, Loris, she heard Dyfed say. Hold on.
The moment the athanc set its head upon Loris’s lap, Kian sprang forward, having already cast the spell to make his movements silent. But he was still obliged to move with care, lest the rocks beneath his feet cause the beast to rise before he could get the chains about it.
It was going to have to be done quickly, but Kian had no worry on that account. Fear for Loris strengthened his powers tenfold. When he lifted his arms to send the chains flying, his muscles were taut with increased potency.
“Adligar attinere!”
The chains flew from the ground and struck the creature full force, almost knocking both it and Loris to the ground.
The creature reacted just as they had expected and recovered from the surprise attack quickly. Before the final chains could take its arms captive, it had wrenched one of the clawed hands free and swung it wildly. With a roar of fury, it also tried to lift its head from Loris’s lap.
Kian saw her lifting her arms, heard her shouting the incantation over the beast’s wrathful noise, and before he could tell her to stop, she placed her hands on the creature’s head and held it down.
Everything happened then in a blur of motion. Kian heard Dyfed and his men rushing out of the trees with thunderous shouts. The beast’s claw rose high in the air and began its descent. And Loris shut her eyes against the impending strike, still saying the incantation, still holding the athanc down with all the strength she possessed.
“Castrere conficio!” Kian shouted, running toward the beast at full speed. The chains pulled tight, one slid up to clasp the wayward arm, but it was too late. The claw came down, striking Loris across her face and chest, before the chain caught and trapped it.
Kian hit the beast with such force that its enormous body tumbled over onto the ground. It writhed and emitted a howling screech that deafened everyone present, but the chains held fast, and it could no longer transform and slip away. The athanc had been captured, because of Loris. She had given Kian the precious extra seconds he needed to completely confine the beast.
Kian rolled to his feet to finish the enchantment, shouting, “Vorago aevum!”
The athanc’s yowling came to a halt almost at once, and its frantic struggles began to lessen. Kian’s men surrounded the beast and watched as it grew silent and still and as its dark, reptilian eyes began to close.
Kian didn’t care to watch as the creature fell into the deep rest that he hoped would last an eternity this time. He went to Loris.
Dyfed and Desdemona were already there, kneeling on the ground where Loris lay. They stood and moved back as Kian approached.
“Oh, God. My God.” The words spilled from Kian’s lips in a terrified whisper. “Loris.”
She had been torn open, with long, deep stripes of red running from the top of her head down her neck and across her breasts. Her throat had been badly cut and her clothes shredded into tatters. She was no longer breathing.
“Loris.” He knelt and gathered her into his arms. “Don’t,” he pleaded. “You can’t leave. We cannot be parted.”
Tears slid unbidden down his cheeks, and he buried his face in the softness of her unbound hair. Pain, hot and sharp, knifed through him, and he wept.
He had never felt anything like this before—a grief so profound that he knew, as clearly as he had ever known anything, that he would not survive it. Voices and sounds faded around him. All other sensations—the coldness of the air, the darkness of the night, the hard discomfort of the rocky ground—faded. All he knew was Loris, her body physically in his arms but her spirit leaving him to an aloneness that could not be borne.
And it was in that moment, as everything else dimmed, that Kian discovered an entirely new dimension to magic. He closed his eyes and let it happen, discovering the gift as it came upon him, and knew, somehow, that this was from the Guardians. They had been watching, as they always were, and knew that he couldn’t live without his unoliaeth. And so they had given him the ability to bring her back.
There were only the two of them, he and Loris, pressed together. Closer, and closer yet, until everything that separated them melted away and they were one.
His heart beat and hers took up the rhythm. His breathing slowed and became even, and Loris breathed as one with him. The blood that flowed through his veins was hers, and when he opened his eyes he saw what she saw. Stars, and the moon and planets, and them, being one, spinning in the midst.
He could hear her voice as if it were his own, asking questions that he asked, too. Where were they? What had become of their bodies, or of the earth, for that matter?
The answers didn’t matter, because they were together, as they would have been if not for the curse. They were unoliaeth and were floating, as one soul, out of all time and physical restraint. He gave his life to her, and she gave it back in turn.
And then it began to change, as Kian knew it must, and he felt them separating, becoming two again, except that he held on to Loris even more tightly, keeping her with him as they went back.
Physical sensation returned, along with sound and smell. It was like waking from a deep and powerful slumber, such as the one that the athanc had so recently been called from. Kian was kneeling on the hard, cold ground, and a tumult went on all about him. Dyfed and Desdemona and Professor Seabolt were all trying to get Kian’s attention, and the men were standing about, murmuring. The many horses they’d brought were pawing the ground and whinnying. Kian could even hear the sounds of the water in the lake as it waved to and fro in time with the earth’s rotation.
All these things he could hear and envision, but he cared for none of it. Loris was in his arms. She had opened her eyes and was smiling at him, and her wounds had all been healed, leaving behind only the bloodied, tattered gown as proof that she’d ever been harmed.
“Kian,” she murmured, reaching up a hand to touch his face. “It’s gone.”
“Yes, love.”
With her other hand she touched her breast, over her heart, and gazed at him with wonder.
“I can feel it here, as if a heavy shadow has been lifted away. It’s gone, Kian.”
It was odd, Kian thought, that fresh tears should begin to fill his eyes. He had never been happier in his life, but he was weeping like a child.
But she was weeping, too, because she knew, as he did, that the blood curse had at last been lifted.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Perhaps it wasn’t precisely noble of Kian, but after ten years of impatient celibacy and waiting for the woman he loved to love him in return—and having almost lost that same woman to a fatal blow—the last thing he wanted to do was spend another minute at the lake dealing with the athanc.
But it had to be dealt with, and so, ignoring the great interest in the now slumbering beast, especially by Professor Seabolt, who was actually jotting down notes and sketches in a journal with the small help of the nearly fog-shrouded moonlight, Kian floated the creature up into the air until it was directly over the deepest part of the lake and then lowered it into the water.
“Write the enchantment down in as many journals as you possibly can, Professor,” Kian advised. “I don’t want a future Baron of Tylluan being obliged to wait so long in order to deal with the brute, should it ever be raised to life again, may God forbid it.”
As to the other magic that had occurred, bringing Loris back to life and breaking the curse, Kian had no explanations. The
new magic that the Guardians had gifted him with was something he would have to ponder for a long while and discuss with Malachi at length in order to understand it. As to the curse, Kian was truly baffled. He’d done nothing that deserved such a boon; indeed, he’d nearly lost Loris forever.
“It wasn’t you having to do some great deed,” Desdemona Caslin said, casting a patient glance at him. “It was you putting your foolish man’s pride away and letting her make a sacrifice for you. Because of love,” she clarified when those around her merely looked mystified.
“I believe she must be right, Kian,” Professor Seabolt said. “All these years, we assumed you would have to perform some great task, but perhaps the Guardians were simply waiting for you to prove that you learned a lesson about needing someone—your own unoliaeth, for instance.”
“Of course Desdemona’s right,” Dyfed said, beaming at his beloved with adoration. “She knows a great deal about how much those who love need each other.”
It was nearly dawn by the time they arrived at the castle, though the fog made the sky as dark as before. Kian had sent the men away to their homes, promising that another celebration—much larger this time—would be held that evening. Everyone who lived within Tylluan’s borders was to come to give thanks for the victory over the athanc and to give the new Lady Tylluan a proper welcome home.
Kian held the reins to Loris’s horse as the others made to dismount. When Dyfed looked at him inquiringly, Kian said, “Malachi and Niclas will be waiting for explanations. Do me the favor of making them for me.”
Dyfed smiled and nodded.
Kian guided his and Loris’s horses through the bailey and to the back of the castle. Outside the gate that led to the gardens, he dismounted and moved to lift her from her saddle. Standing with his hands on her waist, he gazed into Loris’s upturned face. For the very first time since they’d met at the Red Fox, so many years before, he saw love, for him, in her eyes. Unvarnished and unhidden.
Touch of Passion Page 36
