Leoht (BloodRunes: Book 3) (18 page)

As he had expected, the assassin hadn’t
bothered with much of a shield near his feet, and Gryffon’s magic
was able to break through for long enough for the sword to hit its
mark. The blade sliced through the man’s boots and found flesh. He
howled in pain and dropped to the ground, throwing curses at
Gryffon along with a barrage of nasty spells.

Gryffon was able to deflect most of them, but
a few hit him square on and he gasped in pain. He felt
simultaneously frozen, burnt, suffocated, and smashed before he was
able to completely dispel the remnants from his body.

His agonized flesh begged for a break, but he
pressed his advantage. The man was still grabbing at his ankles,
and Gryffon shot forward, plunging the sword into his chest. The
assassin looked up at him, eyes wide in surprise, then down at the
sword protruding from his heart. A trickle of blood formed at the
side of his mouth and his head lolled backwards. After a few
moments in this position, Gryffon stepped forward and put his
fingers to the man’s vein on his neck. He was dead.

He turned back around to Layna and saw that
she had succeeded in freeing herself from the bonds around her feet
and she was currently working furiously to free her hands, running
the blade like a saw over the cords. He went over and took the
knife from her, sliding it between her wrists and expertly slicing
the cord in two with one swipe.

She flung her arms around his neck and cried
into his shoulder and a wave of relief spread over him that she was
alright. He put his arms around her protectively and buried his
face in her hair, inhaling the fresh scent. He never wanted this
moment to end. He didn’t care if she didn’t return his feelings,
that she only wanted him around because she needed him or whatever
her reasons were, it didn’t stop him from loving her. Nothing ever
could.

Eventually her erratic breathing steadied and
she pulled away from him. He let her go reluctantly. “I’m sorry,”
she apologized, wiping her cheeks with her sleeve, “I was just so
terrified…”

“You didn’t look it,” Gryffon commented.

*

“I was,” Layna assured him, sniffing the last
of her tears away. “But I figured assassins are like dogs, you
know, they smell fear and all?” She smiled weakly and was rewarded
by Gryffon’s contagious grin. Then he drew her in his arms again
for another bear hug.

When he released her he said with a tone of
excitement in his voice, “Guess what?”

“What?” she asked, curious at his mood given
what had just occurred.

In answer he opened up his shirt, and she
admired the toned muscles of his chest, imagining what it would be
like to feel them rippling underneath her hand. Then it suddenly
hit her what he was trying to show her before she get lost in her
fantasy. “Your life-sucker!” she exclaimed happily, “It’s gone!”
She crinkled her brow in confusion. “But how did you…”

Gryffon looked a little sheepish as he
explained, “Jezebel came storming onto the scene right after you
hit the ground which made the assassin transport you here, or else
I would have been able to take him out right there.” Layna noticed
the confidence in his voice and was encouraged by it. Aileen seemed
to think that his manly pride had been hurt by Layna’s personal
growth in power, having forgotten himself just how powerful HE was.
Layna hoped he remembered now. He was the most amazing person she
had ever met. He was still telling his story. “I let myself get
distracted by my anger towards her and I stabbed her.”

“Did you kill her?” Layna wasn’t sure which
answer she was hoping for.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted, “I hit her
harder than I really meant to, and then the stupid woman took the
knife out and stood there bleeding out just to throw insults at me.
I had more important things to do than wait around to see if she’d
smartened up and put some pressure on the damn thing.”

“Thank you.”

“We should really get out of here. That
display of magic is bound to have gained us some attention, but we
need to figure out what to do about that,” he put his hands on
either side of her collar and narrowed his eyes at it in thought.
“It looks similar to the one that Katya described to us, but the
power signature is a little different. I’m not sure the same spells
would break it. We might have to break down and use a little more
magic while our location’s been blown wide open anyway and get
Aileen’s advice.”

“Well, it will be up to you,” Layna said,
spreading her hands wide as a reminder that at the moment she
couldn’t do any magic. It was an eerie feeling, and it made her
realize just how much she had come to rely on magic the last few
months. She picked up Leoht from the ground next to the slain
assassin and re-sheathed it awkwardly. “Hey Gryffon?”

“Yeah?”

“Think you could teach me how to actually use
this? I feel a little silly just wearing it.” She braved a joke.
“Not that I don’t make it look good just sitting there.”

“Yeah you do,” Gryffon replied, “But yes, I
would be happy to.” He was moving into the woods from the direction
he had burst out of. “Right now, however, we need to move. I can
hear people crashing in the woods. Someone is heading this
way.”

He led her to where he had left the horses
and they found Axe firmly planted to the spot, his battle-horse
instincts having taken over after the fight and consequent race
towards Layna’s captor’s new location. Fly, however, was nowhere to
be seen.

Gryffon mounted Axe and hauled her up after
him, urging the horse into a run. Layna clung to his torso,
thanking Fly for taking off and giving her the extra minutes to
enjoy him. A few miles out, Gryffon halted him again and they
dismounted.

“We’ll have to make this quick,” Gryffon
warned, and pulled out the stone to call to Aileen. Layna held up
the mirror and waited for the old woman’s face to appear in it.

“Well, hello deary, to what do I owe the
pleasure?” Aileen crinkled face smiled at them, but then, taking in
Layna’s bruised face it settled into a more serious expression. “Oh
my.”

“We’ve just been attacked by someone who said
that it was because Layna was prophesized to ruin all their plans
or something and she’s ended up with a collar on. Only it’s not
exactly like the one that we were told about so we wanted to ask
you if you had any thoughts as to how to safely remove it.”

Aileen looked as if she was trying to see the
aforementioned object and Layna obliged her by tilting the mirror
so that she could see the collar better.

“How wonderful!” Aileen exclaimed and Layna
moved it back to stare at her.

“Excuse me?”

“Well, it just so happens that I was looking
for one of those, and now you’ve gone and found one for me.”

“Why were you looking for one of these?”
asked Gryffon.

“It’s just what we need for our plan, don’t
you see? Once we have the King, we’ll put this on him so that he
can’t do any magic, which will prevent Nuko from rejoining his
body. It will make it perfectly safe for the Bloodstone and the
source to be together.”

Gryffon and Layna exchanged a look. That was
true…

“But first we need to get it off of my neck,”
Layna reminded the woman, “Can you help?”

“But of course, we’ve been watching them for
some time, and along with Katya’s information…” she replied,
failing to mention exactly who ‘them’ was, and went on, “This is
how you do it…”

CHAPTER 11

Ranis felt the death of the assassin and
dropped what she was doing. The spoon clattered to the floor
noisily. He hadn’t killed her? Everything was riding on the
completion of his mission. He had assured her of his imminent
success and she had believed him, moving forward the rest of the
plans under the assumption that his end of the bargain was as good
as done.

Having the girl alive was even more dangerous
now than it had been previously. Their position was precariously
out in the open and if the heir got a whiff of them, it could mean
worse than the destruction of the Bloodstone. Yes, it was an
integral part of their eventual goal, but if it were to be
destroyed it only meant that Ranis wouldn’t get to see the
completion of that goal in her lifetime. Problem was, she was set
on seeing it.

Her stress level hit an all-time high and the
pain in her side popped back into being. It had been lessening the
last few days as she relaxed thinking that all the pieces were
falling into place, only to have them scattered to the winds once
more.

She sat down. She just needed to think.
Everything was riding on her shoulders because she could handle it.
They knew she was the most capable. She would come up with a plan.
She’d just have to take care of the girl herself. She still had
Jezebel after her as well, and if nothing else at least as a means
to track her.

She focused on her breathing so that she
would stop hyperventilating and fanned herself with a piece of
paper. She closed her eyes and forced her mind to clear for the
count of ten. When she opened them, she picked up the abandoned
spoon and wiped it on her napkin. She determinedly ate every last
spoonful of the stew before allowing herself to move.

She’d just take care of the girl herself.
That’s what she should have done in the first place. She just
hadn’t wanted to waste such a valuable asset to the Order on such a
risky mission. She had already had a taste of what the prophesized
ones where capable of with the King, and she hadn’t wanted to put
herself at that kind of risk again. Without her, they’d never be
able to accomplish everything they had set out to do. The back of
her mind nagged her.
Fine,
she admitted,
I was
scared.

Resigning herself to the job of assassin in
the morning, Ranis drew a deep bath for tonight. She really needed
to relax before she worried herself to the bone.

As she unwound in the warm water, so did a
few of her spells.

*

Katya greeted Layna and Gryffon, the two of
them seemed to be on much better terms this time, and both smiled
at her in the reflection.

“I thought you two weren’t going to be able
to check in for a while because you didn’t want to use magic.”

“Well, we were just forced to and so far it
hasn’t seemed to draw any attention that we haven’t been able to
handle so we figured we’d use the opportunity to update you with
some important information.”

“Such as?”

“We figured out a way to have the Bloodstone
and the source in the same place without it being dangerous.”

“How?” She did a double-take on Layna’s
image, the light finally reflecting in such a way that she could
see that the darkened blotch beneath her eye was not just shadow,
but a rather large bruise forming. “What happened to your
face?”
“The incident that forced us to use magic was an assassination
attempt where they used a collar on Layna,” Gryffon told her and
Katya felt outraged at the use of the collar once again. “So Aileen
suggested that we use it on the King when we transport him. That
way, he won’t be able to perform the rite to reunite Nuko with the
rest of himself.”

Katya was glad she had years of practice
keeping her face in a neutral expression otherwise she was sure it
would have given away the horror she felt at the thought of using
the collar on another human being, and especially once more on the
King. Granted, what they were saying made a certain amount of
sense, but she just couldn’t wrap her head around the idea.

“Is that really necessary?” she asked, hoping
the displeasure in her tone wasn’t too obvious.

“We don’t see any other way,” Layna said
apologetically, “I understand your hesitation to use it after what
you experienced, but how else can we bring the Bloodstone within
the vicinity of Nuko’s physical body without fear of losing control
and having him regain access to his true form’s immense power?”

Katya nodded.

Layna seemed to sense her reluctance to
discuss it further and she changed the subject. “The assassin that
was sent after me said something about a prophecy, have you ever
heard anything about it?”

“What kind of prophecy?”

“Um…he said something about my parentage
making me unique, and that I was the one who would ruin all their
plans. Ring any bells? I forgot to ask Aileen about it we were so
concerned about how to get the collar off.”

Katya lapsed into thought a moment. “I
remember reading about one that spoke about the dragon and the
phoenix coming together to produce the one capable of finding but
also of destroying the essence of god. Pretty likely the ‘essence
of god’ refers to the Bloodstone. The author had postulated that
the dragon and phoenix referred to the house crests, that when a
union between the two produced a child that it would be the one the
prophecy talked about. He also thought that this child would be
capable either of using the Bloodstone, or of destroying it. What
you’re talking about though, that ‘you’re the one that ruins it’
doesn’t really fit. That’s the closest one I can think of though,
sorry. ”

“Hmm, yeah, it doesn’t really sound like it’s
quite right. My family crests weren’t dragons or phoenixes. Thanks
though.”

“Have you come across anything significant
there? Anything that might give you a clue as to where the prison
might be?” Gryffon asked.

Before she could answer, Layna added, “The
Three just remembered that the prison was located inside a
mountain. They called it ‘Fire Mountain’ if that helps. Kai also
remembers there being a forest not far away and he thinks there was
something to do with a star or maybe a star shape very close to the
opening at the base of the mountain.

Katya took a moment to think about this new
information before answering. “Well, I have just entered a forested
region,” she moved the mirror in an arc behind her so they could
see the change in landscape. “I just sort-of picked a direction and
stayed on that course since we had no real course laid out at
first. If my goal is a mountain, though, I think it’s a pretty safe
bet to say I haven’t passed it. The plains have been very flat and
I can see for miles around me. There’s also been quite a few
interesting new animals…if you can call them that. Creatures that
are somewhere between animal and insect and who knows what.
Something new every day.”