Those Who Fear the Darkness (BloodRunes: Book 2)

by Cole, Laura R

  “The one you call the Sleeping God.”

  Layna almost spit out the spoonful of soup she was about to swallow. The god that the noble class had converted to following was this woman’s slumbering evil? “Excuse me?”

  “Indeed, your religions have gotten quite convoluted over the years. Not that it was ever supposed to have been that way in the first place…”

  “So what are we supposed to do, ask people to stop praying that the Sleeping God will wake?”

  “Child, they are doing much more than praying. There is an object that is needed for his full awakening: A Bloodstone that his essence is trapped within. The Hyrdraeden has kept it hidden and safe for years, separated by the barrier from those who could use it. But recently it was…” she paused, taking a deep breath and looking forlorn, “discovered missing. I have had to isolate myself from Treymayne and was therefore unable to personally oversee its protection.”

  “Are you one who could use it?”

  “No,” Aileen answered, scrunching up her face, “Well, I suppose yes, but that’s not why I needed to stay in Gelendan. Regardless, I feel responsible for its disappearance and we need to act quickly to remedy the situation. I fear that it has already been brought into the country, I can feel its aura. The barrier has failed. It is imperative now that we open the lines of communication, as you three have already come to the conclusion on, to Treymayne. There are those there who will be able to help us.”

  “I thought the reason for the barrier was to protect the people.”

  “It was. To protect all people.”

  “So what does this have to do with the King? “

  “He is one who might seek to control use of the stone. And if he finds it, from what we’ve seen he will try and use it. Had I known earlier…” she trailed off and then fixed her gaze on Layna. “You and he have a great deal in common.” Layna’s blood froze in her veins. What was Aileen saying, that because of her ancestry of the Dark King, that she was capable of awakening this great evil? That she might want to? She shuddered and looked away.

  “What do you mean by that?” Gryffon demanded, his tone slightly hostile.

  “Only that they both are extremely strong talents. The strongest to have ever walked this world perhaps. Certainly both with the ability to change the course of events. For better or for worse.” She said the last softly, eyeing Layna as though measuring her. Layna resolutely avoided making eye contact. Saying that she might be one of the strongest mages in the world was ridiculous. She was a maid.

  “I really don’t think…” she began, but Aileen cut short her protests.

  “You will need to start to think, and think hard. Will you let the evil inside of you manipulate your actions, or will they be your own?”

  “How dare you talk to her like that?” Gryffon’s voice wasn’t just hinting at hostility anymore and he rose swiftly from the table, leaning forwards onto it in a menacing stance towards Aileen.

  She watched him for a moment before focusing her eyes on Layna, then turning her whole head towards her. It had an eerie effect that made Layna shiver. “We can take no chances,” she stated, “the mark you bear is powerful, and is much more than just a symbol. Bearing it shall be no easy task. The lure to its power is great and it will get harder to withstand as the evil grows stronger. The evil must be stopped soon.” Her eyes seemed to bore into Layna.

  Layna's breath caught in her throat. A cold nose nudged at her fingers, and she realized she had them clasped together quite tightly in her lap. She pried them apart to stroke Weylyn's head which was now resting on her leg. The memory of the pain he had endured at the hands of Jezebel, in the name of blood-magic, floated to the surface of her consciousness and her anger flared anew. No! She would never give into a temptation of power that would cause her to inflict such pain on another living creature. She would never kill hundreds of innocent people because they were ‘unworthy’. She was not evil.

  “Layna does not have an ounce of evil in her,” Gryffon declared, echoing Layna’s own thoughts.

  Aileen was still staring at her, her eyes searching, and Layna clenched her teeth together determinedly, staring back at the woman in defiance.

  “No,” she agreed after a long pause, “I believe you are correct. But I had to be sure. In which case, we need to figure out what we’re going to do.”

  “We?” asked Gryffon incredulously.

  “Yes, we,” Aileen said firmly. “The barrier’s magic has been altered so that no one can get through, as you found today. You will need my help if you hope to pass.”

  Aileen’s demeanor was unusual to say the least, and Layna wasn’t sure she believed her story about the Bloodstone and the Sleeping God, and she was sure she was mad when she said that Layna was one of the strongest mages in the world, but she obviously did not approve of what was going on with blood-magic and the King and she seemed to want them to get to Treymayne to beg their assistance as well. If their end goal was the same did it really matter if some of the woman’s beliefs were a bit farfetched? Layna didn't know the answer, but they needed help and here it was presenting itself to them. They would be foolish not to accept it. I hope. I hope we are not being foolish to accept it.

  “How do you plan to help us pass?” Gryffon asked.

  Aileen was silent, rubbing her chin with a gnarled finger. “We'll have to take it down,” she said definitively after a long moment.

  “You can do that?” Gryffon asked.

  “Well of course,” she stated matter-of-factly. “I helped put it up.” Gryffon and Layna

  exchanged a look.

  *

  Karl was still mulling over the mysterious disappearance of his daughter and the events which were taking place within the Order as he absently looked over the latest reports from his business. And to top it all off, I've had this string of bad luck. He tossed the papers into a drawer, and thumped his fist on the table in annoyance.

  This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen to him. He'd had his little pet visit a few people he had been sure had been behind the accidents, but so far the bad luck had been continuing. He had at first wondered if it was a sign, but the priests assured him that he was still devout in the eyes of the Sleeping God. Therefore, it must be earthly beings causing him such trouble, and he fully intended to find out who it was so he could crush them. He felt his tenuous control slipping through his fingers.

  The events transpiring within the Order were disturbing, and it was now evident that there were more people orchestrating the assignments than there were supposed to be. He wondered just how out of control it had really gotten. There was much riding on the successful completion of their plans, and it would be a horrible mess if it were to get out of hand. They had carefully regulated experiments being conducted into some of the old ways, but it was a precarious position to be in without the support of the King and consequent propaganda to the commoners. If they found out that simple forms of blood-magic were being used, even in a small degree, it could cause a mass outrage. They could potentially have a revolt on their hands, and that was something that Karl and his peers were not wont to deal with.

  He'd gained an interesting, though disturbing, piece of information while conducting his investigation into Jezebel's disappearance, one that gave him further proof of a mole within the Order's ranks: Jezebel had been raising a pack of hellhounds on one of the country manors before she had disappeared - On one of my manors! She must be trying to ruin me.

  After an extensive inquiry into the matter, it was discovered that the orders to prevent Jezebel’s culling from the herd of specimen, support her candidacy for the council, and include her in the bloodbeast project had all come from a colleague of his. Karl had been irate, and had immediately insisted that this colleague’s identity be revealed so that he could be questioned as to his reasons for these actions. His peers had agreed and a full examination of the situation was conducted. Unfortunately, what it revealed had been even more troubling.

 
The man was dead, and from the state of decay of his corpse, he had been that way for quite some time. It begged the question: Who had been giving orders in his name? And furthermore what other instructions had been given? Hopefully the lock-down that Karl had ordered would help quell some of the mischief that had been set into motion and give them a chance to weed out the thorn in their midst. He really didn’t have time to deal with moles within the Order when he had his hands full with his own problems at the moment.

  Karl banged open the drawer and shuffled through the papers once more, squinting at the scribbled notes. Hmm...perhaps I'll have my pet visit the supplier. It seems he's benefiting from my losses more than he should be.

  *

  Katya sat on the edge of the fountain and dipped her finger into the cool clear water. She watched as the rings expanded and dispersed outwards in an intricate pattern as they collided with the ripples caused by the falling water from the opposite side. Birds chirped around her and the breeze blew coolly over her bare neck. She closed her eyes in relaxation.

  Though her eyes were closed, she was completely aware of her surroundings - as she always was - and therefore she knew that someone had joined her in the garden even before she heard the twig snap. She felt a tugging around her neck and she sighed in resigned annoyance.

  She rose to her feet fluidly and slipped soundlessly through the garden to emerge in front of her owner. He gave a slight start before he caught himself, causing Katya to smile inwardly.

  Apparently, he decided that she had seen his cringe despite the neutral expression that her trained face always wore, and he curled his lip at her. He drew back his hand to hit her.

  She had plenty of time to move out of the way; his motions were pitifully slow compared to her own, but she didn't flinch. The open hand connected hard with her cheek and Katya let her head be thrown sideways, closing her eyes for a moment before lifting her head back towards him. She raised her eyes to meet his with a bored stare.

  Katya caught the flicker of fear that passed across his face before he wrinkled it into a grimace at her. “You know I don't like it when you keep me waiting,” he growled, “I have a job for you.”

  Katya simply nodded, but she was worried. He had been using her services quite often lately and even with her unique skill of creating accidents, people were bound to be getting suspicious. That made her job that much more dangerous. If she was caught, her owner would deny all knowledge of her, and with no one to protect her she would be hung like the regular killers out on the street. Not that she wasn't very capable of getting herself out of trouble, but she knew what kinds of things the officials were using these days and her collar denied her the use of her magic when not expressly allowed. She had no desire to let them try out any of their new toys on her.

  Karl had been experiencing a myriad of bad luck lately, and he had been pulling at straws to try and find who was behind it. He sent Katya as his messenger each time he decided that he had finally discovered the culprit, only to have another shipment go bad.

  Katya knew that, in fact, it was his own daughter, that sad excuse for a human - the Lady Jezebel, who was behind it all. Each of the accidents reeked of her man Devon. Katya would know his stench anywhere, having had the displeasure to have observed him in the past. No one actually met her, of course, she was simply a shadow in the city, a nobody, the untouchable on the street that everyone avoids looking at. But she had watched Devon, studied him, and his handiwork had a unique and most unpleasant style.

  Katya was not about to share any of this information with her owner, however. Let him learn the hard way. She may be controlled by the collar to obey him, but she was stronger than he thought and could resist far more compulsion than he was aware. His ineptitude constantly displeased her, being sent on missions for purposes that were completely useless because the man behind them insisted on pretending he could follow the intricacies of covert operations when he really should just stick to the frivolous court intrigues.

  Her owner was describing the details of her latest adventure, the process of which she would change later after studying the situation and creating a plan which would actually work unlike any of his ill-thought out schemes, and she only half-listened.

  At least being so busy lately had given her plenty of practice to hone her skills. With all that was happening she was bound to need every ability she had eventually. Another interesting side-effect of the distraction that all this bad luck was causing her owner was that he also seemed to have less time to worry about his bonds over her and was underestimating her strength beneath them. He had been foolish in his insistence that she be pushed so hard to excel, it had made her far stronger than he could ever control if the power of the collar ever wavered. It was lucky for him that he had not designed it himself, else she had no doubt she would be free of it already. However, even with him only holding the end of the leash, if he continued to let it slack she could put in one powerful yank and snap it. She would bide her time and someday she would be free of him.

  She wondered if she should free the others as well, but they weren't like her, most were the women that he used to satiate his pleasures and many were happy to do so as he lavished them with gifts in exchange. Katya knew that he had thought about using her for this purpose too, and though the collar would have forbade her from harming him, Katya made sure he was afraid enough of her that the idea never lingered.

  He was coming to the end of his elaborately detailed out plan which was doomed to failure and Katya nodded in understanding to satisfy him that she was listening. She ingrained in her memory the name of her target and as soon as her owner had marched away set to work formulating her own plan for dispatching her. At least she would not mind this job, her target was almost as slimy as her owner himself.

  *

  Nat looked down at his arm ruefully and took a deep breath, trying to ignore the pain that kept threatening to overcome him. His mother's eyes followed his own and she raised a brow.

  “Why don't you heal it?” she asked him and he immediately recoiled. “Now now,” she scolded. “There's no reason you should suffer when there's plenty of other things around that will do it for you.”

  She murmured something again and a squirrel ran out of a nearby tree to scurry up her leg and perch on her outstretched arm, looking at her curiously. “Go on then,” she said to Nat, holding out the squirrel towards him.

  He shook his head negatively and whimpered.

  His mother's face took on a look of stern impatience. “Nat, you will do it or I will.”

  He still did not move.

  “So be it,” she said, pursing her lips. As Nat watched in horror, she started tearing the poor creature apart with torturous detail. He backed away from her as a look of ecstasy spread across her face and her lips parted in delight.

  She opened her eyes to look at him, and they were filled with intensity as she reached out a hand for him and he started to turn, to run, when something shot out from her hand into him and he stopped short, hit by a pleasure so intense that he became weak and he fell to his knees.

  His arm began to tingle and he watched in fascination as the wound upon it stitched itself back together until it was nothing more than a puffy red scar.

  His mother threw away the mangled corpse of the animal and let out a sigh. “Now, doesn't that feel much better? And that was just a squirrel, imagine the power in other things.”

  Nat closed his eyes and let the memory of the feeling wash over him. Was this what his mother felt when she hurt him?

  Nathair opened his eyes, and lifted a hand to the back of his head which was sticky with drying blood. His feet were shackled together with iron cuffs that were hooked around a beam. “Now was that really necessary?” he asked Devon who was busy tearing apart his desk in a frenzy.

  Devon looked up at him, and pointed a knife at his face. “Where is she?” he demanded again.

  “Tsk tsk. Is that the only thing you care about?” Devon just looked at him
sternly. Nathair sighed. “Very well, yes I know where she is, but she's in no condition to be receiving visitors. Now, why don't you remove these shackles and we can have a civil conversation like the grown men that we are.”

  “I'm not taking them off until I see her,” Devon answered and Nathair shrugged. He waved a hand to unbuckle the irons around his ankles, handling the power with ease after his recent entertainment. Devon's eyes widened in amazement, but he held his ground and watched warily as Nathair got to his feet.

  “That's better,” Nathair soothed. He strode over to take a seat in front of his desk, surveying the awful mess that Devon had made. Devon took a step back, and held the knife up between them. “There's no need for that.” Nathair smiled and the knife vanished.

  “Alright,” Devon finally conceded, “You've proven your point, so why am I still here?”

  Nathair laughed, a sound that made Devon cringe. “Why wouldn't you be here my fine pet? You are quite a useful tool, especially having just proven yourself even more capable than I had thought by getting past my guards. That's no easy task you know. I could use someone like you.”

  Devon looked as though he was warring inwardly with himself over being flattered by this statement or annoyed. “Why should I do anything to help you?”

  “Because I have something you want of course.” Devon cocked his head to the side in a manner that very much reminded Nathair of a dog. “Not to mention the fact that you just failed an assassination attempt on the King.” He paused for effect. “That's frowned upon you know.”

  Devon eyed the door as if wracking his brain for a way to escape.

  This man is getting more delightful by the minute! “I assure you, you won't get out alive,” Nathair informed him.

  Devon stuck out his chin stubbornly. “What is it that you want me to do?”

  Nathair was pleased. “A certain wealthy merchant has been having a bit of bad luck lately,” Nathair paused again to let him squirm, “and he's been dealing with it by killing off all the wrong people. I want him to kill the right people, you see?” His grin grew broader as Devon's face contorted with confusion. “Not you of course, my dear sir, but who I tell you are the right people.”