Huntress, Black Dawn, Witchlight (33 page)

Hunter Redfern was standing there smiling. Sylvia was behind him. And behind
them,
crowded together, were armed guards.

“We’ve had to dispose of the few idiots who insisted on remaining loyal to you,” Hunter said amiably. His eyes were shining like the purest gold. “The castle is now under our control. But do go on with your plans, it’s very sweet to hear you trying to save each other.”

“And it’s no use trying to pretend,” Sylvia added spitefully. “We heard everything. We knew you couldn’t be trusted, so we let you come down here on purpose, to see what you’d say.”

For someone who’d known Delos a while, she didn’t understand him very well, Maggie thought. Maggie could have told her that pretending was the last thing that would occur to Delos. Instead he did what Maggie knew he would; he launched himself at Hunter Redfern’s throat.

Delos was young and strong and very angry—but it was no contest. After Sylvia had squeaked and withdrawn, the guards all came to help Hunter. After that it was over quickly.

“Put him in with his friends,” Hunter said, brushing off his sleeves. “It’s a real pity to see my only surviving heir come to this,” he added, once Delos had been kicked and thrown into the cell. For a moment there was that note of genuine feeling in his voice that Maggie had heard before. Then the golden eyes went cold and more bitter than ever. “I think tomorrow morning we’ll have a very special hunt,” he said. “And then there will be only three Wild Powers to worry about.”

This time, when the guards left, they took all the flares with them.

“I’m sorry,” Maggie whispered, trying to inspect Delos’s bruises by touch alone. “Delos, I’m sorry…I didn’t know…”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, holding her hands. “It would have happened eventually anyway.”

“For a vampire, you didn’t put up much of a fight,” Jeanne’s voice came from the back of the cell.

Maggie frowned, but Delos turned toward her and spoke without defensiveness. “That witch bound more than just the
blue fire when she put this spell on my arm,” he said. “She took all my vampire powers. I’m essentially a human until she removes it.”

“Aradia?” Maggie said. “Can you do anything? I mean, I know only Sylvia is supposed to be able to take the spell off, but…”

Aradia knelt beside them, graceful in the darkness. She touched Delos’s arm gently, then sighed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Even if I were at full power, there’s nothing I could do.”

Maggie let out her breath.

“That’s the only thing I regret,” Delos said. “That I can’t save you.”

“You have to stop thinking about that,” Maggie whispered.

She was filled with a strange resignation. It wasn’t that she was giving up. But she was very tired, physically and emotionally, and there was nothing she could do right now….

And maybe nothing ever, she thought dimly. She felt something steadying her and realized it was Delos’s arm. She leaned against him, glad of his warmth and solidity in the darkness. There was a tremendous comfort in just being held by him.

Sometimes just having fought is important, she thought. Even if you don’t win.

Her eyelids were terribly heavy. It felt absolutely wonderful to close them, just for a moment…

She only woke up once during the night, and that was because of Delos. She could sense something in him—something in his mind. He seemed to be asleep, but very far away, and very agitated.

Was he calling my name? she wondered. I thought I heard that…

He was thrashing and muttering, now. Maggie leaned close and caught a few words.

“I love you…I did love you…always remember that…”

“Delos!” She shook him. “Delos, what are you doing?”

He came awake with a start.

“Nothing.”

But she knew. She remembered those words—she’d heard them before she had actually met Delos on the mountain.

“It was my dream. You were…going back in time somehow, weren’t you? And giving me that dream I had, warning me to get away from this valley.” She frowned. “But how can you? I thought you couldn’t use your powers.”

“I don’t think this took vampire powers,” he said, sounding almost guilty. “It was more—I think it was just the bond between us. The soulmate thing. I don’t even know how I did it. I just—went to sleep and started dreaming about the you of the past. It was as if I was searching for you—and then I found you. I made the connection. I don’t know if it’s ever been done before, that kind of time travel.”

Maggie shook her head. “But you already know it didn’t
work. The dream didn’t change anything. I didn’t leave as soon as I woke up in the cart, because I’m here. And if I
had
left, I would never have met you, and then you wouldn’t have sent the dream….”

“I know,” he said, and his voice was tired and a bit forlorn. He sounded very young, just then. “But it was worth a try.”

“T
he hunt of your lives,” Hunter Redfern said. He was standing handsome and erect, smiling easily. The nobles were gathered around him, and Maggie even saw some familiar faces in the crowd.

That rough man from Delos’s memories—the one who grabbed his arm, she thought dreamily. And the woman who put the first binding spell on him.

They were crowded in the courtyard, their faces eager. The first pale light was just touching the sky—not that the sun was visible, of course. But it was enough to turn the clouds pearly and cast an eerie, almost greenish luminescence over the scene below.

“Two humans, a witch, and a renegade prince,” Hunter proclaimed. He was enjoying himself hugely, Maggie could tell. “You’ll never have another chance at prey like this.”

Maggie gripped Delos’s hand tightly.

She was frightened but at the same time strangely proud. If the nobles around Hunter were expecting their prey to cower or beg, they were going to be disappointed.

They were alone, the four of them, in a little empty space in the square. Maggie and Aradia and Jeanne in their slave clothes, Delos in his leggings and shirtsleeves. A little wind blew and stirred Maggie’s hair, but otherwise they were perfectly still.

Aradia, of course, was always dignified. Just now her face was grave and sad, but there was no sign of anger or fear in it. She stood at her full height, her huge clear eyes turned toward the crowd, as if they were all welcome guests that she had invited.

Jeanne was more rumpled. Her red hair was disheveled and her tunic was wrinkled, but there was a grim smile on her angular face and a wild battle light in her green eyes. She was one prey that was going to fight, Maggie knew.

Maggie herself was doing her best to live up to the others. She stood as tall as she could, knowing she would never be as impressive as Aradia, or as devil-may-care as Jeanne, but trying at least to look as if dying came easy to her.

Delos was magnificent.

In his shirtsleeves, he was more of a prince than Hunter Redfern would ever be. He looked at the crowd of nobles who had all promised to be loyal to him and were now thirsting for his blood—and he didn’t get mad.

He tried to talk to them.

“Watch what happens here,” he said, his voice carrying easily across the square. “And don’t forget it. Are you really going to follow a man who can do this to his own great-grandson? How long is it going to be before he turns on
you
? Before you find yourselves in front of a pack of hunting animals?”

“Shut him up,” Hunter said. He tried to say it jovially, but Maggie could hear the fury underneath.

And the command didn’t seem to make much sense. Maggie could see the nobles looking at each other—who was supposed to shut him up, and how?

“There are some things that have to be stopped,”
Delos said. “And this man is one of them. I admit it, I was willing to go along with him—but that was because I was blind and stupid. I know better now—and I knew better before he turned against me. You all know me. Would I be standing here, willing to give up my life for no reason?”

There was the tiniest stirring among the nobles.

Maggie looked at them hopefully—and then her heart sank.

They simply weren’t used to thinking for themselves, or maybe they were used to thinking only
of
themselves. But she could tell there wasn’t material for a rebellion here.

And the slaves weren’t going to be of any help, either. The guards had weapons, they didn’t. They were frightened, they were unhappy, but this kind of hunt was something they’d seen before. They knew that it couldn’t be stopped.

“This girl came to us peacefully, trying to keep the alliance between witches and vampire,” Delos was saying, his hand on Aradia’s shoulder. “And in return we tried to kill her. I’m telling you right now, that by spilling her innocent blood, you’re all committing a crime that will come back to haunt you.”

Another little stirring—among women, Maggie thought. Witches, maybe?

“Shut him
up,
” Hunter said, almost bellowing it.

And this time he seemed to be saying it to a specific person. Maggie followed his gaze and saw Sylvia near them.

“Some beasts have to be muzzled before they can be hunted,” Hunter said, looking straight at Sylvia. “So take care of it now. The hunt is about to begin.”

Sylvia stepped closer to Delos, a little uneasily. He stared back at her levelly, as if daring her to wonder what he’d do when she got nearer.

“Guards!” Hunter Redfern said, sounding tired.

The guards moved in. They had two different kinds of lances, a distant part of Maggie’s mind noted. One tipped with metal—that must be for humans and witches—and one tipped with wood.

For vampires, she thought. If Delos wasn’t careful, he might get skewered in the heart before the hunt even began.

“Now shut his lying mouth,” Hunter Redfern said.

Sylvia took her basket off her arm.

“In the new order after the millennium, we’ll have hunts
like this every day,” Hunter Redfern was saying, trying to undo the damage that his great-grandson had done. “Each of us will have a city of humans to hunt. A city of throats to cut, a city of flesh to eat.”

Sylvia was fishing in her basket, not afraid to stand close to the vampire prince since he was surrounded by a forest of lances.

“Sylvia,” Aradia said quietly.

Sylvia looked up, startled. Maggie saw her eyes, the color of violets.

“Each of us will be a prince—” Hunter Redfern was saying.

“Sylvia Weald,” Aradia said.

Sylvia looked down. “Don’t talk to me,” she whispered. “You’re not—I’m not one of you anymore.”

“All you have to do is follow me,” Hunter was saying.

“Sylvia Weald,” Aradia said. “You were born a witch. Your name means the greenwood, the sacred grove. You are a daughter of Hellewise, and you will be until you die. You are my sister.”

“I am not,” Sylvia spat.

“You can’t help it. Nothing can break the bond. In your deepest heart you know that. And as Maiden of all the witches, and in the name of Hellewise Hearth-Woman, I adjure you:
remove your spell from this boy.
”

It was the strangest thing—but it didn’t seem to be Aradia who said it. Oh, it was Aradia’s voice, all right, Maggie
thought, and it was Aradia standing there. But at that moment she seemed to be fused with another form—a sort of shining aura all around her. Someone who was part of her, but more than she was.

It looked, Maggie thought dizzily, like a tall woman with hair as pale as Sylvia’s and large brown eyes.

Sylvia gasped out, “Hellewise…” Her own violet eyes were huge and frightened.

Then she just stood frozen.

Hunter was ranting on. Maggie could hear him vaguely, but all she could see was Sylvia, the shudders that ran through Sylvia’s frame, the heaving of Sylvia’s chest.

Appeal to their true hearts,
Maggie thought.

“Sylvia,” she said. “I believe in you.”

The violet eyes turned toward her, amazed.

“I don’t care what you did to Miles,” Maggie said. “I know you’re confused—I know you were unhappy. But now you have a chance to make up for it. You can do something—something
important
here. Something that will change the world.”

“Rivers of blood,” Hunter was raving. “And no one to stop us. We won’t stop with enslaving the humans. The witches are our enemies now. Think of the power you’ll feel when you drink their lives!”

“If you let this Wild Power be killed,
you’ll
be responsible for the darkness coming,” Maggie said. “Only you. Because you’re the only one who can stop it
right now.
”

Sylvia put a trembling hand to her cheek. She looked as if she were about to faint

“Do you really want to go down in history as the one who destroyed the world?” Maggie said.

“As Maiden of all the witches…” Aradia said.

And another, deeper voice seemed to follow on hers like an echo,
As Mother of all the witches…

“And in the name of Hellewise…”

And in the name of my children…

“As you are a Hearth-Woman…”

As you are my own daughter, a true Hearth-Woman…

“I adjure you!”
Aradia said, and her voice rang out in double tones so clearly that it actually stopped Hunter in mid-tirade.

It stopped everyone. For an instant there was absolutely no sound in the courtyard. Everyone was looking around to see where the voice had come from.

Sylvia was simply staring at Aradia.

Then the violet eyes shut and her entire body shivered in a sigh.

When she spoke it was on the barest whisper of breath, and only someone as close as Maggie was could have heard her.

“As a daughter of Hellewise, I obey.”

And then she was reaching for Delos’s arm, and Delos was reaching toward her. And Hunter was shouting wildly, but Maggie couldn’t make out the words. She couldn’t make out
Sylvia’s words, either, but she saw her lips move, and she saw the slender pale fingers clasp Delos’s wrist.

And saw the lance coming just before it pierced Sylvia’s heart.

Then, as if everything came into focus at once, she realized what Hunter had been shouting in a voice so distorted it was barely recognizable.

“Kill her! Kill her!”

And that’s just what they’d done, Maggie thought, her mind oddly clear, even as a wave of horror and pity seemed to engulf her body. The lance went right through Sylvia. It knocked her backward, away from Delos, and blood spurted all over the front of Sylvia’s beautiful green dress.

And Sylvia looked toward Hunter Redfern and smiled. This time Maggie could read the words on her lips.

“Too late.”

Delos turned. There was red blood on his white shirt—his own, Maggie realized. He’d tried to get in the way of the guard’s killing Sylvia. But now he had eyes only for his great-grandfather.

“It stops
here
!”

She had seen the blue fire before, but never like this. The blast was like a nuclear explosion. It struck where Hunter Redfern was standing with his most loyal nobles around him, and then it shot up into the sky in a pillar of electric blue. And it went on and on, from sky to earth and back again, as if the sun were falling in front of the castle.