Lies and Prophecy (16 page)

Postcognition wasn't my strength, but I wasn't incapable of it, either. Closing my eyes, I reached out with my mind.

I realized my mistake an instant later, but not before a pounding headache leapt into being. If I looked crosswise at the circle of bare earth, I could see the radioactive glow of the spot, power heating the earth and all but blinding anyone who tried to examine it. The Dean and her cohorts must have set up a buffer to investigate this. No one could possibly read magical signatures out of something that volatile, not directly.

Trembling, but not from the cold, I perched myself on a boulder and sat looking out over the river. Sunrise was closer now, pinking the sky, but as yet doing nothing to warm the air.

Sitting there, waiting for the sun to rise, I slowly released the various barriers within. My recent calm was unnatural. I knew it, and Liesel did too—but it was necessary. I could not afford to break down.

Except now, in this little moment of quiet before the day began once more. Looking at the river, I exhaled a long, unsteady breath, and let myself acknowledge my fears.

I might never see Julian again. Even if I did, he might not be whole, in body or mind. And then these past years, all the times I backed off, giving Julian the space he seemed to crave … I'd curse that lost time, those lost chances to reach across the gap and, perhaps, be more than a friend.

My throat closed up tight. I balled my hands, but my gloves kept my fingernails from digging in. Oaths to do better were pointless; I might never get the chance to make good on them. But with the river's icy surface blurring in my vision, I sent up a private prayer, to whomever might be listening.

“Please—bring him back safe.”

~

I hated tears, but they did bring catharsis. Once my face and nose had frozen solid, I went back to Wolfstone, and if my heart wasn't lighter, at least it felt stronger. In the entryway of the dorm, I paused to shake a light dusting of snow off my coat, and was almost shoved back outside as Liesel came off the staircase at a dead run.

She rammed my port into my hand. “You left this in the room.”

I stared at her. “What's going on?”

“I've been waiting for you to come back,” she said, grabbing my arm and hauling me out the door. “They found Julian.”

~

I careened down the hospital corridor, avoided a tray-laden nurse by the narrowest of margins, flew past a desk and the objecting man there—leaving Liesel to cover for me—and threw myself into a scene of chaos.

Two doctors stood on opposite sides of Julian's head, arguing loudly as a harried nurse tried to edge around them. A security guard—what the hell was he for?—stood uncomfortably, off to one side yet somehow in everyone's way, doing his best to ignore the Dean chewing out Professor Grayson.

I ignored all of them. Elbowing past a second nurse, I ducked around Grayson to crouch at Julian's side.

My stomach lurched at the sight of him. His dead white skin gleamed with a sheen of cold sweat, beading down his face to soak into his tangled hair. Far worse, every wiry muscle in his body strained desperately against the straps binding him to the bed.

“
Enough
!”

Grayson's voice cracked like a whip through the babble. Everyone froze and stared at her—even me.

The white-haired woman pointed one imperious finger at the doctor on my side of Julian's bed. “You. Out. This isn't your patient, and your counsel has not been called for. If you are needed, you will be summoned.” The woman tried to look outraged, but withered under Grayson's glare and departed. The finger moved on.

“You. That work can be done later. Go away.” The nurse under fire fled, nearly running over the one I'd shoved past. He, too, thought the better of being there.

“You. Can you not guard a room from outside?” The security guard escaped with relief.

When the professor turned to the Dean, her hand dropped and her tone softened, but not by much. “I'll do what I can, Emily. You've put me in charge of this affair; now please allow me some time—and quiet!—in which to work.”

Grayson was in control? No wonder she could get away with ordering everyone around. The Dean looked like she wanted to say something more, but decided against it. Leaving, she almost bumped into Liesel, who chose to stay in the hallway. Wise of her.

That left four people in the room—me, Grayson, the second doctor, and Julian. In the silence I could clearly hear the rasp of his breathing as he struggled with crazed strength to free himself from the bonds that trapped him.

My usual shields must have been in tatters, because Grayson's voice gentled when she spoke to me. “Kimberly, you shouldn't be here. We'll let you know if anything happens.”

“
Why is he tied down?
”

The question came out too harshly, but I wouldn't have taken it back if I could. Julian's hand spasmed open and shut on my own as I slipped it into his, and he gripped my palm hard enough to grind bone against bone.

“We had to restrain him,” the doctor across from me said, reeking of soothing bedside manner. “He could injure himself, or others. He wouldn't even let us get an I.V. into his arm.”

I straightened from my half-crouch, knees stiff, and looked down on my friend. What I saw made me sick.

Julian's eyes were open, but there was nothing of him in the blind rage I saw there. His lips were peeled back in a silent snarl. Every scrap of strength in his lean body directed itself against his canvas chains, jerking against them as though he could break free by sheer will. He fought with the desperate fury of an animal gone berserk.

I knew Julian's mind—better than anyone else in this room—and I knew what sent him over this edge.

I could barely speak past the fist-sized lump in my throat. Julian's straining body blurred into a smear of color; I wiped the tears away with my free hand. “Let him go.”

A pause. Then Grayson replied.

“Kimberly, we can't do that. Look at him. He could hurt someone, maybe himself.”

Julian's left hand was the only part of him not throwing itself madly against the straps. It remained steady and white-knuckled, crushing my palm.

“
Release him,
” I snarled. Were it not for Julian's hold on me, I might have shaken her.

Grayson looked at me. The doctor glanced back and forth between us, uncertainty written on his face. Guardians, even retired ones, had a certain amount of legal authority in such cases. The doctor wanted to keep Julian bound, but if the professor gave the word, he would probably have to cooperate.

Desperate, I marshaled my empathic control, gathering up my certainty and tossing it to Grayson. Not to force it on her, but to show her, in the most direct way possible. I wasn't just a panicked young woman, upset by her friend's condition. I
knew
.

Grayson said, “Untie him.”

The doctor hesitated, but it wasn't his call. I turned back to Julian and knelt, returning his grip with all my strength, as he began to unbuckle the straps.

Julian surged upward as soon as his body was freed. One wide-flung arm knocked the I.V. stand over. The doctor lunged to save it. Grayson undid the band across his legs, and was almost kicked in the jaw for her pains. I put my hands on Julian's shoulders, talking desperately to him. I had no idea what I was saying; I was simply trying to get through to him, past the madness, trying to find a spark in him that could still hear.

At last he subsided, breath rasping in his throat. His left hand sought out mine once more, clutching it convulsively. I stroked his wrist, still speaking in a rapid, low voice, calming him as best I could. While I soothed Julian, the doctor examined his I.V. and checked several monitors beeping their displeasure.

He backed off, out of my peripheral vision, and I dimly heard him speaking to Grayson, who answered briefly. The door opened and shut. Then there was quiet, except for Julian's gasps.

“Why were you so certain?”

I ignored Grayson's question. Julian's eyes were closed, but the tendons in his neck no longer stood out as sharp ridges against his skin, and healthier color was returning to his face. Not enough, but he looked less like a corpse.

After a moment, Grayson departed as well. Left alone in the hospital room, I sat with my eyes on Julian's sweat-covered face, still whispering to him, holding his hand in both of my own, trying to call him back to himself.

~

I stayed there for hours. Nurses showed up from time to time, to tinker with various pieces of equipment and make marks on a chart. Food was put on a little table for me. I ignored it. Even Grayson appeared once, staring not at Julian, but at me, for a long time before leaving.

He slept, but not peacefully. Dreams sometimes clawed at him, making him jerk his head back and forth, muttering incoherently; I gripped his hand and tried to ease him through them. Sometimes he stared at the ceiling, and didn't seem to see me or anyone else. Then his eyes slid shut, and soon another nightmare took over.

I didn't know how to stop them.

I needed more information for that. The room was quiet; no one had been in for a while. I settled my feet flat on the floor, breathed myself into a light trance, and called on a skill Liesel used much more often than I did.

Julian's aura surged with about eight different colors, few of them happy. Fear predominated, a sickly green. Murderous fury slashed through in almost equal proportion. But it was also streaked with dead-black horror, and colorless despair, grey confusion—and, oddly enough, repeated threads of bright curiosity. Other emotions, too, flashing in and out too quickly to be registered.

I considered my options. I wasn't some mind-numb PK specialist headed for Hollywood, but neither was I an experienced empath, trained to interpret Julian's mental condition from his chakras or other signs. The doctors would already have done that, and this stalemate was the result.

To know more, someone would have to do something that, given Julian's current state, was insanely dangerous: they would have to touch his mind.

Grayson would stop me in a heartbeat. But she wasn't here right now; no one was. And Julian hadn't hurt me. He
wouldn't.
I had to believe that.

I couldn't live with myself if I left Julian to face this alone.

So I'd told Liesel. And I was here—but that wasn't enough. Julian was alone right now. If I could touch him, even for a moment, it might help.

Taking a deep breath, I reached out and picked up his hand once more, curling the slack fingers around my own. The danger still lurked just beneath the surface, the terrible, uncontrolled power that could crush me in an instant.

I gathered myself, closed my eyes, and dove in.

Julian's madness washed over me, carrying me down into the abyss.

~

“Find anything?”

Grayson's voice jolted me the rest of the way awake. I sat up abruptly, confused to find myself in a hospital bed. The room was empty, save for the white-haired professor and a tray with a little plastic cup on it.

How could I cover? She'd obviously found me tranced, and knew what I had done. There was no real way to save face, but I had to try. “Professor Grayson, I—”

“Did you think I'd forgotten you were in there with him?” she said, before the excuse was out of my mouth. “I was hoping you would do it.”

“You
what
?” Confusion and fury vied for the right to choke my voice off. “You
wanted
me to touch a wilder?”

“It's dangerous, I know.” Grayson seemed unfazed by her own understatement. “The best of us are leery of letting someone touch our minds, even under the best of circumstances. Wilders are a thousand times worse. They have natural defenses—they're taught to control them, of course, as a part of their earliest training, but conscious control left Julian Fiain a long time ago. In his state, he's liable to kill anything that comes near him.”

“Then why the
hell
did you want me to probe him?” I asked through clenched teeth. No wonder I'd had that window of opportunity, without any nurses coming in. Grayson wanted me to work uninterrupted.

“Two reasons,” she said. “The first is that several people, all of whom I believe, have told me that no one in the world is closer to him than you. If he would trust anyone, it would be you.”

The “if” and “would” made Grayson's argument dangerously weak. But I clamped my jaw shut and waited to see if she had anything more convincing.

“The other,” she went on, “is everything that's happened since you appeared. You saw instantly that he should be released.”

“It was obvious,” I said. “The only way to quiet him was to free him.”

Grayson shrugged. “You saw it. We didn't. And don't think I missed his grip on your hand; he held on to you, when he's tried to destroy anyone else who so much as lays a finger on him. Once he was untied, he still held on, and your voice calmed him.”

Her gaze bored into mine, relentless. This wasn't a professor I was facing now; it was an ex-Guardian. “He trusts you like
no one else.
You're not an empath, but sometimes that bond of trust can do more to protect and aid you than any amount of talent or training.

“Now I ask you again. Did you learn anything we can use to help him?”

I closed my eyes against that iron voice. Could anything be gained by hiding the truth from her?

No. When I opened my eyes, I told her what little I knew.

“I don't know what happened to him. But whatever it was—
whoever
it was—they bound him against his will. That's why he snapped when he was tied down. If you want to preserve what's left of his sanity, don't try that again.” Grayson nodded, but I went on without waiting for her agreement. “Some of the rest seems all of a piece. Anger and hatred and fear. Despair. Things that could be linked with being held captive. But there are things that don't fit.”