Veil of Thorns

by Gwen Mitchell

  Lucas yelled and gripped Bri’s hand so fiercely that she cried out too. She spun to see a phantom punching at Lucas’s exposed side as he defended their front. The clawed hands were reaching into him repeatedly, but he’d only cried out the once.

  Bri swiped through the phantom attacking him until it backed off, but it was too late.

  The circle of blue smoke closed around them.

  Lucas let go of Bri’s hand and attempted several spells, while holding the hungry blue vapor at bay with the arc of his blade.

  She tried to cover his other side, but phantoms kept leaking through wherever she wasn’t defending. They were only attacking Lucas, raking deeper and deeper into him with each clawing grasp. His left foot was starting to drag, his movements slowing as more and more of them closed in.

  Bri charged at a cluster of them, blade swinging wildly, and they pulled back. But a wall of them leaked from the ground between her and Lucas.

  He whipped around, searching for her.

  Their eyes met through the blue mist, his tight with concentration as he sliced in her direction.

  She lunged to meet him in the middle, but a phantom shot up right in front of her, and she instinctually ducked away. The move threw her off balance, and her ankle caught on the edge of a hidden puddle.

  Her backside hit the frozen ground hard. She tasted blood in her mouth as she wheezed from having the wind knocked out of her. Once the air was flowing normally again, she frantically searched the ground for her blade as the circle of phantoms tightened. But as she waved her hand through the blue haze, the mist evaporated.

  She did it again, reaching farther. The cloud pulled back. She climbed to her feet and rushed at them with her arms held wide, unarmed. They retreated. They were not harming her. Even the clawed hands had disappeared.

  The screeching stopped.

  The army of phantoms sifted into a blue-grey mist and evaporated into the monochrome sky.

  She spun on her heel and looked up the embankment at the twisted worm of gaping mouths. Tentacles had sprung out of the top, and one of them was a mere twenty feet away, coiled around Lucas’s legs, dragging him to the edge.

  Lucas was curled on his side, his mouth locked in a silent scream as if he’d been frozen solid. But the golden discs of his eyes were still alert and flaming with fury. She couldn’t tell if his chest was moving.

  She sight hit her like a physical blow to her gut, the kind that ruptured something internal and left you bleeding your life into a hollow pit. It was Kean all over again. Freezing to stone beside her. Leaving her. Leaving her alone. And just like before, she was helpless to stop it.

  No!

  She tore up the hill, grabbing Lucas’s sword from the ground. Using all her weight, she swung it over her head in a high arc and sliced through the giant tentacle.

  SCREEEEEEEECH!

  “You can’t have him,” she screamed back. She knelt beside Lucas and rolled him over to face her. She shed her Second Sight to find his skin a chalky grey.

  “No.” She looked into his glowing amber eyes, willing him to somehow acknowledge her.

  As he gazed back at her, the fire faded, and they were the soft charcoal grey they lightened to whenever she laughed at his jokes. Her heart stuttered with relief.

  Then, his pupils narrowed to pinpricks. His chest convulsed, and his eyes rolled back in his head. His body lifted off the ground.

  Bri screamed and tried to jump on top of him and force him back down, but his body jerked away from her. She went sprawling into the icy rocks. Lucas flew ten feet into the air, twenty, hovering above the black pool.

  With her Second Sight, she saw him impaled on the end of one of the tentacles. She reached for the sword again as the tentacle dropped Lucas into the gaping mouth at the top of the monstrous coil. The whole thing slithered back into the water without a splash.

  Her heart was a thunderous sound in the silence that encompassed the valley. She climbed to her feet and skittered down the muddy embankment to the edge of the black pool.

  “Lucas!”

  The water was deathly still.

  But this can’t be the end.

  That was the only silly thought her mind would form.

  It doesn’t end this way.

  She would know. When anyone she cared about died, she always knew. She always saw it. Practically lived it. This couldn’t be the end of him. He was an immortal, and he had promised he wasn’t in the habit of dying.

  Okay, think.

  If this wasn’t the end, that meant there was some sort of solution. Something that could be done to save him.

  Maybe she could see the answer.

  She bent by the pool and gazed into the glassy dark surface as she reached for the well of magic behind the wall she’d constructed. She willed her reflection to swirl away in white smoke, and it did. When it cleared, she saw two limp, wet figures on the ground beside the pool. One of them had pearlescent white skin and impossibly perfect hair and was dressed in a long black cloak.

  “Ryder!” Bri screamed into the sky. She screamed herself hoarse.

  She’d was cursing his name to the heavens when the wraith finally shot from the sky like a smoking arrow and coalesced before her.

  “Thank the gods,” she said, panting. She pointed at the water. “It’s Lucas. Some thing took him into the water.”

  Ryder gave an irritated quirk of his brow as he walked to the edge and stared into the pond. His oil slick eyes focused on it as if he could see straight through the fathomless depths.

  “I hate getting wet,” he said, lip curling. He slinked into the water and sank like a stone, leaving only a faint ripple in his wake.

  Bri gathered up Lucas’s blades and sat on the frozen bank clutching them to her chest, willing what she’d seen to come true as the first snowflakes began to fall.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Ryder and Lucas broke the surface, Bri gasped in so much frozen air her chest ached. It took an eternity for Ryder to paddle to the shore with Lucas’s heavy, lifeless body in tow. She waded in to her knees to help drag him onto the snow-dusted shore. Once they were out of the water, Ryder collapsed beside Lucas on his hands and knees.

  Bri’s vision slid into place like a key in a lock, a missing puzzle piece filling in reality with what she’d already seen. It was an odd sensation that she was watching the whole thing from outside her body. She was left with the lingering eerie feeling of still being in a dream.

  She rolled Lucas over and searched for a pulse. Miracle of miracles, he had one, but he was still unconscious and not breathing. She pressed on his chest the way she’d learned in a CPR class once. Though she put nearly all her body weight into each thrust, his chest barely moved.

  “Let me,” Ryder said, crawling over to her. His normally luminous skin was fading in and out of shadow, and his unshakeable sardonic expression was veering into grim territory.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked, as he shoved her back.

  “I haven’t fed in three days,” he snarled. He arced his fist and delivered a brutal blow with immortal strength to Lucas’s chest.

  Lucas jerked upright, coughing out green-black water. Rivulets of it ran from his nose, yet he didn’t open his eyes. After the spasm, he fell back, still unconscious. But at least he was breathing.

  As if they’d barely been holding out until that moment—when she was certain Lucas was alive—Bri’s muscles went slack. The rush of adrenaline receded, leaving her weak and nauseous. “What do we do now? That creature…”

  Ryder had flipped onto his backside and, propping himself up with his arms, his black gaze hollow as he regarded her. “He’s your wolf. Summon him.”

  Bri frowned. “How?”

  “Order him to wake. I cannot feed without him here to facilitate,” he said, clenching his teeth on the last word.

  She stared at Lucas’s face, slack and pale. Her mouth opened, but she froze, unsure what to say. Tentatively, she placed one hand against
the bare skin of his neck. The tingle of magic between them was still there. She leaned over to whisper in his ear. “Lucas, wake up.”

  Ryder watched her hungrily. “You have to mean it, love. Use your magic.”

  Use your magic…right.

  Ryder wasn’t aware of her lack of abilities, so she said nothing.

  She could mean it. She did mean it.

  “Lucas, please wake up. I…I need you.” She squeezed his hand. It was limp and cold. And that was all wrong. He was supposed to be hot and vital. He was supposed to be unbreakable.

  “I need you,” Bri said again, her voice tight. She laid her head on his chest to listen to his heart. It felt like an eternity between beats, and the emptiness of that eternity made the truth that much heavier.

  She needed him. Not her Familiar or an immortal sworn to protect her. Lucas. Her Lucas. Who she was not supposed to lose. Ever. In that moment, Bri realized how much she needed that. The safety. The security. And she realized that this man, who annoyed and frustrated her but always knew what to say to make her smile, who was loyal, steadfast, and patient with her, had already become her touchstone. Her most trusted guide in the world of magic, an anchor to the mysteries of her past, her origins, and her powers. Through it all—past, present, future—he was the one thing that felt as sure and steady as the rising and setting of the sun.

  She took all the warmth that filled her chest with that realization and pictured it coalescing into a ball of energy. If she concentrated, much like using her Second Sight, she could shut out everything but that faint buzz of magic where they touched, the cord of it binding them. She imagined sending the golden ball of warmth down the cord of magic like an electrical signal as she mentally screamed her summons in her head.

  Lucas Moncrieffe, you come back to me. I’m not finished with you yet.

  ***

  Ryder would not be able to stand the ache for long. The center of his being was about to collapse in on itself like the black hole that it was. Staying corporeal was draining the last dregs of his energy. He barely had enough strength to keep from folding into shadow. But he couldn’t feed that way.

  Finally, the wolf jolted awake and sat up, staring at Briana with wide eyes. Wide eyes that flashed with fire as he cupped her cheek and leaned toward her…

  Ryder jerked at Lucas’s sleeve. “Me first, lover boy.”

  Bri nodded and took Ryder’s hand.

  After a moment of charged hesitation, Lucas circled his hand around Briana’s upper arm. At last, a jolt of rich, delicious Zyne energy spiraled into the yawning emptiness in his core.

  He drank deeply of her. Until it brimmed over and filled him with—almost—the same feeling as the Light. He may have groaned in delicious agony before he let go, but he did let go. He couldn’t leave Bri too weakened. He would not put it past the Kinde to starve him again if he overreached.

  Bri had slumped across Lucas’s lap, but the wolf did not seem to be upset about that in the slightest. He combed a piece of hair back from her face as she gazed up at him with tears shimmering in her eyes.

  “Well,” Ryder said, sliding through shadow to stand, “that’s about as much sentimental reunion as I can stomach. Let’s not get all weepy. Can’t say I’m glad you’re back, Moncrieffe, but I am glad to be myself again. Let’s get out of here before that thing comes back for seconds.”

  He loomed above them, delighted at the shock on both of their faces when he yanked Bri to her feet and steadied her. He twirled her out as if they were dancing, led her back around, and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Climb on my back, love.”

  She didn’t recoil, but hesitated. “What about your…ah…wings? Do you have wings?”

  He did, though they weren’t made of matter. He cast a wicked grin at her over his shoulder. “Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing.”

  Bri rolled her eyes and climbed on his back, and the gesture was so accepting—affectionate, almost—that he froze in a momentary stupor. This witch was not afraid of him. At all. She actually trusted him. Didn’t she know better? Her naivete was appalling. And it would most likely get her killed.

  “What a waste that would be,” he muttered to himself as he picked up Lucas under the arms and launched all three of them into the sky.

  As long as she dies after I get my payment.

  By the time he found them a suitable place to make camp, the storm had become a true blizzard. Lucas had passed out again and was dangling from Ryder’s grasp like a limp kitten. Briana’s teeth were chattering so loudly he could barely hear himself think.

  He dropped the wolf a few feet before they reached the ground. As suspected, the fall revived him. Lucas rolled to his hands and knees and stared around, startled and alert.

  Ryder sank gracefully into the snow and eased back to let Bri climb off.

  “Better get Bri out of these elements quickly, Moncrieffe. She is a mortal.”

  Though she apparently still had enough heat left to give him an admonishing glare. And he found himself…glad.

  He’d found a corner tucked against the base of a cliff and surrounded on two sides by trees. It protected them from the worst of the wind, but the snow was still swirling thick in the air. “You won’t be able to have a fire.”

  Lucas grunted and climbed to his feet. With a wave of his hand, a grand tent appeared in the center of the clearing, lit from within. It was large enough to walk right in standing up. Inside, a lantern hung from the ceiling, and a propane heater sat in the corner. One side of the tent was a cooking and eating area. One side was a sleeping area with two cots.

  The wolf stumbled to the nearest bed and collapsed onto it.

  Bri made a small sound of distress and rushed to his side, peeling his wet clothes off.

  “Can a Kinde die from hypothermia?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “I have no idea. Probably not. It sounds like a mortal affliction.”

  “Aren’t you going to help me?”

  “I like people to be conscious when I take their clothes off.”

  “Well, grab the heater, bring it over here, and turn it on,” Bri said in a huff as she wrestled with one of Lucas’s boots. “We have to get him warmed up.”

  Ryder was amused at the way she ordered him about. He normally would rebel on principle, but the way Bri did it was not a statement of power or superiority, only urgency.

  As soon as the heat was on, Bri stripped out of her coat. Her teeth had stopped chattering, but she was still soaked to the knees and shivering, her movements clumsy and stiff.

  “Let me,” Ryder said, pulling a blanket off the nearby cot and tucking it around Lucas’s near-naked form.

  Bri nodded gratefully and collapsed onto the other cot. She didn’t move to strip off her own clothes. She didn’t move at all, only sat there staring into space as if her spirit had flown out of her body and left the empty shell behind.

  Ryder cleared his throat, and the only change in her was the slow closing of her eyelids, like blinds being drawn down. He had no idea what to make of it, so he hovered there—awkwardly—for a few minutes. He had decided to retreat into shadow and hover nearby when Bri finally spoke.

  “What was that thing?”

  He sighed and pulled a chair from the eating area over to sit beside. “A powerful spell gone sour. Magic left to run wild. But most likely a trap. The layers of magic protecting her lair run deep. From memory curses on the nearby villagers, to myths and legends handed down by generations, to the warding and the magical snares meant to keep treasure hunters and glory seekers out.”

  A dainty crease appeared between Bri’s brows. “When you put it that way, it sounds like she just wants to be left alone.”

  Though he had no need for oxygen, Ryder heaved an impatient sigh. “Yes. Until you remember the sacrifices, and the missing children, and the plague of magic that haunts these parts. The reasons the legends endure. Hedvika wants to be worshipped, but she’s still sane enough to understand that the world has changed a
nd would destroy her. Since she cannot have dominion over all of it, she has settled for dominion over a small populous in a remote area of the world. She’s traded adulation for fear, but the currency is power nonetheless.”

  Bri scrubbed her face. Her hands were a startling white and shaking.

  Ryder pulled the blanket she was sitting on from under her and wrapped it around her shoulders. He angled the heater so that it was pointing at both of them…fragile mortals.

  Technically, Lucas wasn’t mortal, but even though they shifted forms, Kinde were still bound to flesh, which in his opinion was an inferior form of existence.

  His currency was choice. Freedom. He’d spent all his millennia stuck on this plane trying to amass more of it. He’d risked–he could never resist a good gamble–and lost. Many times over. Now, he was so close to the prize he could almost feel it in his clenched fist.

  But still, it depended on Briana. She needed to survive, or else his deal with the wolf was moot.

  He went to the cooking contraption on the other side of the tent and fiddled with the knobs and buttons until a flame burst to life. He set a pot on the flame and looked around for something to put into the pot. A can of soup was conveniently prominent on the nearest shelf. Humans liked to make soup when they needed to feel better. Ryder heated it up and brought it to Bri in a steaming mug.

  She was on her back under the blanket, staring at the ceiling, unblinking. It was very odd behavior and beginning to raise alarm bells. He didn’t know anything about human health besides the difference between a wound and a killing blow. But something was definitely wrong with her.

  Had he drawn from her too deeply?

  “Soup.” He nudged her with his knee.

  She sat up and accepted the mug. “Thank you.”

  “What is the matter with you?”

  She stared into the tendrils of steam twisting between her hands. “I’ll be okay.”

  Ryder frowned. “That’s not what I asked.”

  “It’s just…I guess I didn’t realize the magnitude of what we were facing. No one told me there would be giant worms of screaming mouths and tentacles made out of blue mist…” She sipped the soup, then took a bigger gulp. Warmth returned to her cheeks. “We haven’t even crossed the wards yet.”