She shook her head. “There was something Grolthox told me that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. He said I could have brought them back to life if I’d accepted him. I never could trust him and I didn’t love him, but he was…”
“What?” Baalor pressed as he combed his fingers through her hair and pushed it over her shoulder.
“He was good to me. Honestly, I can’t even remember now why the idea was so horrible, except I was afraid if I chose to marry him I would lose everything I loved. I kept secrets from him from the beginning, but maybe if I told him about Wyll in the beginning… Now I’ll never know what may have happened.” She smiled to see his scowl and then noticed her voice no longer shook. “I don’t feel sick anymore… what—”
“Whatever you think you have done, Vynasha, I won’t allow you to believe for a moment you are evil.” Baalor took her hands in his and seemed on the cusp of either great fury or worse. His eyes were too bright, full of the wolf.
At the back of her mind, Vynasha knew she should have a greater sense of self-preservation. The young woman she had been before coming to the Wylder Mountains would have never approached a man such as this. Skin-changer or no, he was an impressive-looking male, a creature of muscle with the wild in his green eyes. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to fear him, or want him to fear her anymore. So she waited for him to find his words as patiently as he had waited for her sickness to pass, and then let her speak of unspeakable things.
“You asked me why I tell you things I have not spoken aloud in years, but I don’t know. My family has tried to protect our way of life and for too long I let my hatred cloud my mind to what counts.” His breath was against her, hands lifting her closer to him. “All I know is I believe in you. I need you to help me destroy the evil that tried to take you and Thea from me.”
“Don’t you see, though?” she asked, breathless. “I’m the evil now. I’m the beast you should all fear. It won’t end if I stay with you.”
Baalor’s low growl ripped the air, stole her breath from her lungs as he lowered his forehead to hers. “Beautiful creature, it will end because I say it ends.” He lifted her bloody hands in his and placed them over his heart. “Vynasha, I—”
The cabin door opened wide with a fresh gust of sleet tearing through the warmth they claimed within. Vynasha turned first to see a whirlwind of fur-cloaked shadows and silence. The woman moved with unnatural speed and grace, more like a demon than mortal. Others spilled into the cabin, but before Vynasha could blink, the woman was upon them in a blaze of fury.
She opened her mouth in a wordless cry and in the firelight, the gleam of daggers flashed as they cut through the air.
Baalor threw Vynasha to the ground and twisted so his back took the brunt of the woman’s steel. A hoarse, wolfish whine escaped him. Vynasha flinched as she could smell his blood, almost feel the echo of pain burning into her back. She clutched his cloak and she gasped when Baalor opened his eyes. As the change came over him, his gaze bore into hers like green fire. When his eyes spread further apart and his face extended, white fur sprouted over his skin and his bones broke and reformed with blinding pain and surprising speed. The way he shifted shapes so effortlessly in spite of the pain was what frightened her most.
Now on four paws, Baalor snaked around, teeth bared. The woman leapt back in time to avoid the snap of Baalor’s jaws. When she landed, her black hair flew back from her face, long enough to show the large hungry eyes of Wolfsbane’s daughter. Resha grinned as she lifted both daggers in front of her, ready for the snarling wolf advancing on her.
Ceddrych lied, was all Vynasha could think as she briefly met the eyes of her brother’s lover.
Baalor’s hackles rose off his shoulders, radiating power, and yet he hesitated. Vynasha understood why he refused to advance now. In some strange, twisted way, this young woman was his blood and she would not hesitate to kill him.
Resha flashed her teeth in a sickening grin and feinted to the right, waiting for Baalor to follow, counting on his instinct to protect Vynasha. At the last possible second, the woman paused and darted to the left and aimed her dagger for the wolf’s underbelly. It would pierce his heart.
“Stop!” Vynasha threw up her hands just before Resha could bring her daggers into an upwards arc.
Majik which had flowed from her fingertips earlier flew forward and encased Wolfsbane’s daughter in a purple casing.
Time slowed and then froze.
THE POUNDING FORCE pulsing in her head had ceased in the moments following and the sound of silence was almost transcendent. She could see the world moving past the barrier she’d trapped Resha behind, could sense the flow of majik running through her. Such a wild intangible mystery suddenly rendered simple, a matter of will and inner strength.
Baalor twisted around to look first at Vynasha and then to the frozen human hunter.
Resha’s eyes were wide from behind the luminescent majikal force binding her and locked with Vynasha’s.
She almost smiled to see their confusion when it was so clear, so simple. It was all about seeing, the way Soraya spoke of in her journal. Majik was wild because it belonged everywhere, flowed around everything, hovering brightly around Wolfsbane’s snow-white form, dancing in patterns of memory around the forgotten cottage, bouncing darkly off the two figures watching from the entrance.
“Wyll?” Vynasha whispered his name like a prayer.
“Ashes,” Ceddrych began, approaching them carefully as he came to stand just behind Resha, “let her go, please.” His voice was calm, but she saw the terror screaming past her brother’s carefully constructed barriers.
Vynasha tried to speak past the lump in her throat as she lowered her hands. The ease with which she held the human girl faded as she curled her fingers back into fists. A distant pounding echoed in her mind, pulsing through her blood as she pulled the majik from Resha and drew it back into herself. She could have released it, back into the world where it belonged. But she was different from the others. Majik didn’t flow around but rather through her, filling her up again so she glowed effervescent.
Resha released a hiss of air as she fell back into Ceddrych’s waiting arms. He drew her up into his sturdy frame and buried his face in her neck.
Baalor, having shifted back into his human form, was now kneeling to help Vynasha to her feet. “Well, that was…”
“Don’t,” Vynasha warned him. At his wide-eyed mask of innocence, she added, “Nothing you say at this point will help.” Baalor lifted an eyebrow but his brow lowered, jaw set as he turned to look at Wolfsbane’s daughter.
Ceddrych checked the human hunter over with careful hands, then flinched when she elbowed him away. Resha stepped back, wild fury written in her face as she pointed their way with one of her daggers. The steel was still gleaming red.
Ceddrych rubbed his face with his hand. “I know. I should have told you he was here. I’m sorry.”
“Your woman is right in this case, Wanderer,” Baalor offered.
Ceddrych threw up a hand. “You have done enough!”
“She almost fashioned a new cloak out of my hide. Thank the Crafter for your sister.”
“Baalor!” Vynasha squeezed his arm. “Not helping.”
“Aunty Asha?” Wyll’s small voice called their attention away from the tension and bloodlust in the air. The boy took careful steps around the arguing pair and his scarred face pinched with concern as he took in the room.
Resha pressed a hand on his arm in an almost motherly gesture that was painful to watch.
What would Vynasha’s sister have said if she were alive to see? Tamyra should have lived to raise her son. Now a wild stranger was touching him like he belonged to her…
“Let me go, Resha,” Wyll insisted as he waved her off. His eyes were fever bright when he pulled forward.
Vynasha released Baalor’s arm to close the remaining space, lifting her nephew off his feet and into her arms as close as they could bear it. “I told you I
would come,” she whispered.
Wyll smiled. “I knew you would.”
She released him and placed her hands on his shoulders, again marveling at the changes in him. He was so thin, skin and bones indeed, and it was a wonder he could walk at all. But his heart beat strong in his chest. He was strong, so much stronger than she had ever been. They had lived through the deaths of everyone they loved, had relied on one another for so long. How could she turn away from him after today?
The smooth, unblemished half of Wyll’s face twisted. “What’s wrong, Asha?” He lifted a hand to cover hers. “Why are you crying?”
“I’ve just really missed you, sweetling.” She wiped away the offending tears, but her forced smile fell with Ceddrych’s interruption.
“He already knows what has to happen.” He shifted to stand closer to Resha in her peripheral.
Vynasha didn’t look away from Wyll’s blue eyes and ran a hand through his almost shoulder-length black hair. “Maybe we should cut your hair first. Has it been so long?”
“A whole season,” he said with authority. Wyll had always had an uncanny sense of time, even when she lost count of the days. He sucked in a breath and blinked rapidly as he added, “Snow would be melting in Whistleande now.” Wyll rolled a shoulder and his breathing became strained.
Vynasha watched with growing familiar dread. “Help me,” she called over her shoulder.
Baalor came behind Wyll and took hold of the boy’s shoulders, helping her guide him to her pallet in the middle of the cottage.
Resha crouched low nearby, keeping her blade bared and a hard eye on the pack master.
“Have the bad spells grown since he’s been with you?” Vynasha asked, drawing the hunter’s attention.
Resha paused, chewing on her lip a moment before nodding in assent and rocking back on her heels.
“What causes it?” Ceddrych asked as he knelt and placed a hand on Resha’s shoulder.
“Asha?” Wyll gasped, eyes wide but unseeing as the fever took hold. In an echo of her earlier spell, he began to tremble, but for an entirely other reason. The last time they were together, he’d claimed the mountains made him stronger.
“Wyll, I’m here. Try to relax. Concentrate on breathing.” Vynasha smoothed his hair back from his brow as he nodded and kept his gaze locked with hers. His breaths came in wheezing gasps and his skin turned paler than before.
She wanted to curse the majik Grendall’s blood bond gave her. What good was power without the knowledge to wield it? Whatever clarity she’d gained from stopping Resha before was gone. If she looked hard enough she could still see majik dancing in the air around them. How was she supposed to manipulate it at will without tearing herself apart?
A voice that sounded so much like Wynyth’s it brought tears to her eyes seemed to whisper to her then. For Wyll, what wouldn’t you do, little sparrow?
For Ceddrych, she gathered enough composure to finally answer, “Since the fire his heart has weakened. I don’t know what brings on the fever. I’ve tried Mother’s herbal remedies, begged apothecaries in the village, such as they were after the War. Nothing works. Every winter his condition grew worse. It’s why I was desperate enough to believe a lie and come here.” She glanced up and found Baalor’s pensive face. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
He looked surprised at first, but then looked to Wyll. “You have to try.”
Ceddrych crawled over to sit at Wyll’s feet and placed hands on their nephew’s thin legs. “Any time he started to get better, this happened.” His voice wavered and she saw the fear in her brother’s gaze tempered now with sorrow. “You know how I feel about majik, but I trusted you before all of this.”
Vynasha ran her hand carefully against the ruined skin on Wyll’s lower cheek. “What I did earlier to Resha was different. I didn’t think about stopping her, I just needed her to stop and she did.”
Baalor reached over Wyll’s torso to take her hand in his. “You can do it again.”
She squeezed his hand as she kept focus on her nephew’s clear blue eyes. They were just like Tamyra’s eyes. Her sister had practically thrown Wyll in Vynasha’s arms that night.
Go, don’t look back, she had said.
“I’ll try,” Vynasha whispered, hoped Tamyra could hear her now, wished more than anything she had made it.
Vynasha bent to kiss Wyll’s forehead. “I’m sorry I didn’t come for you sooner… I’m not very good at controlling majik yet, but a friend once told me I have the Source inside me. If I really am some legendary curse breaker like they believe, I have to at least believe I can cure you.”
Wyll whispered back on stolen breaths, “I believe in you.”
Vynasha shut her eyes and turned her head one last time for the others. “You may want to stand back.”
Ceddrych murmured low as he stood, “Come outside, Resha, please, for me.” Two pairs of feet shuffled to the entrance, whispering in what sounded like a one-sided argument.
Baalor squeezed her hand. “I’m not leaving. I’ll be here if you need me.”
Vynasha released his hand and tried to blot out all other sound in the room except for her nephew’s breathing and the erratic beat of his heart. She wasn’t sure how this should work. Maybe it was a matter of controlling emotions like Grandmother said, or maybe it was something else, a careful way of seeing she’d discovered before.
She released a deep breath and opened her eyes to find her hands glowing bright on either side of Wyll’s face. Her nephew looked up at her with Tamyra’s eyes and in the black center of his pupils she could see her face reflected, shining with growing light. “Hang onto me,” she whispered and then when she blinked she could see again.
Majik poured through her hands and joined with lights dancing in the air between them. Yet the space around Wyll was almost empty and black. She remembered then the moments before Ceddrych had pulled her away, the two black figures she’d seen at the other end of the cottage. Majik flowed around and through the rest of them, but not Ceddrych and not Wyll.
Vynasha pressed her fingertips to his skin, tried to push her light into the emptiness, fill it up, mend it. Instead the darkness was like an empty pit, an endless cave that swallowed everything.
She struggled to take her next breath. The air was tight and she was lost in the cave and couldn’t breathe. “Ceddrych,” she gasped.
Baalor answered, “He’s not here. Listen to me, Vynasha, follow my voice back.”
Tears bled down her face. “It’s so dark. Why is it so dark?”
A warm hand wrapped over both of hers and she could see flashes of white light hovering around them. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.”
She blinked and then she was looking into her sister Tamyra’s pain-filled eyes as the fire burned around them. “No! I’m not leaving you!”
A child was crying in her arms. “Asha!” the boy whimpered.
“Ease your grip, love, you’ll prick the boy with those claws,” Baalor soothed.
Vynasha blinked again and Tamyra’s face was replaced by little Wyll’s. Majik couldn’t penetrate him, something else was blocking her efforts. And she was holding on too tight. Baalor’s large hands were over hers, holding back the full force of her grip. Of course, she was a monster too, now.
“I’m sorry,” she pleaded with Wyll and tried to pull her hands away. Like before when she’d trapped Resha, it was much harder to break the connection. Baalor was trying to help her, but the pull was strong and her changed form was stronger still, stronger than the wolf holding her back.
She growled in the back of her throat and the wolf behind her doubled his effort.
“Easy,” he ground between clenched teeth somewhere over them.
The fear passing through Wyll’s blue eyes made her aware she was giving in too heavily to the curse. The curse was responsible for everything, the transformation that had stolen her father and brother from her, and now it was keeping her from healing Wyll, but why?
“Vyna
sha.” Baalor’s voice was firm, loud enough to shake her from her growing anger.
She blinked and released her hold on Wyll’s face with a sigh, crumpled in on herself. She closed her eyes and this time she felt like all the strength had been stolen away, sucked into horrifying blackness again, eaten away by the fire that had taken so much from them.
She opened her eyes and Baalor was checking over Wyll.
“Are you well, lad?” he asked and her nephew nodded before they turned her way.
She choked back a sob and lifted trembling hands to her lips. “I couldn’t… there was so much darkness and I couldn’t chase it away…”
Wyll held out a hand for her. “It’s all right, Asha, you tried.”
She took his hand in hers and buried her face in his chest, thankful she hadn’t broken him, hadn’t split herself apart as she’d feared. As she sobbed she tried to tell him. “It wasn’t enough. Why can I save Thea but not you? I can try again. Wyll, I swear I will try until I bleed myself dry if I have to.”
Blood majik.
Baalor ran a hand through her tangled hair. “We can come back here again, after you’ve healed. Between my mother and I suspect Thea, too, we’ll find a way.”
Vynasha lifted her head, meeting his eye and reached for the dagger strapped to her thigh. “There is something else I could try. It worked before when Gren… when the true prince bonded with me.”
Baalor shook his head, real fear in his face as raw as the day they almost lost Thea. “Don’t. Look what it made you, Vynasha. You can’t do that to the boy.”
Vynasha sat back, knife edge ready against her fingertips. She could have used her claws, she supposed, but this would be faster, cleaner. “Blood majik is stronger, isn’t it? If the curse is working against me by keeping majik away from Wyll, I may not have a choice.”
Baalor leaned forward. “You don’t know that. If his body won’t accept majik it doesn’t mean he’s beyond healing. It could mean something else. Remember how we weren’t sure which traits Erythea would inherit? What if this is something similar?”
Vynasha pressed the blade against the palm of her hand and looked down at Wyll. “Grendall’s blood healed me. It will make Wyll strong, too.”
Scarred Beauty Page 19
