Authors: Crystal Collier
“How many? When?”
“Hundreds.”
Every nerve froze. Hundreds? Were there even that many in existence? She leaned on the stair, barely able to summon a voice. “What are we going to do?”
“Die.”
“Miles!” she shrieked. He stared back blankly. The help stopped in their tracks and turned. She worked to calm herself. “They are coming for Kiren?”
The confusion in his face nearly swallowed her. “For who?”
He did not know his master’s name? “I—I mean, for your master?”
He pulled himself out of the mental ambush. “They want something else now.”
“What else could they possibly—?”
“Time.”
The world faded in and out. She couldn’t comprehend what he meant to tell her. It had something to do with Dana, something to do with what happened tonight, something to do with
her
? They wanted her? “To—to weaken him?”
His head shook.
“. . . I do not . . . why?” The right question wouldn’t come.
Miles’s trembling amplified. He rose, shaking from head to toe. Dark circles under the eyes widened and swallowed half his gaunt face. He took a step forward.
“Miles!”
He stopped, meeting her stare with dispassionate eyes.
“Do not let them take you.” She reached for him. “Think of Nelly, think of
him
, think of . . . me.”
His fists tightened. He rocked backward.
Where was Father? She needed him. She’d have him restrain Miles until the danger passed.
The ghastly youth jolted up and charged down the steps.
“Miles!” She clambered to her feet and crumpled. She caught the rail and pulled herself forward. Misery bit through every step.
Beyond the open doorway, hung a dark sky. Gray cobbles outlined the empty drive, dust settling from his passage. The thickest cloud hovered around the swinging property gate.
She staggered through the open doorframe, out into the night. Cool air flushed her cheeks, and then nothing. An absence of wind. Arctic stillness.
Her eyes darted around the yard. She limped backward, landed on her bad ankle, and tumbled to the ground. Gravel scraped her face. She pushed off it. Dizziness rushed upon her and she held her breath, halting the flux of her stomach.
She had to return to Kiren, to safety. Miles was beyond the hedges. Gone. She could do nothing for him.
She lifted onto her elbows, twisting toward the house.
Movement.
A tattered shroud stood between her and the lighted doorway. Its head cocked. She fumbled backward, scuffing across loose rocks as they bit into her palms.
Another creature materialized from the shadows of the house, black robes limp in the absence of a breeze. Two sets of crimson pupils burned into her.
The hungry glow pierced her, like a tick nestling its head below the skin, paralyzing her. Her throat constricted. Her pulse thundered in her ears, slowing with each beat.
Scarlet circles. Open circles.
They promised love. They promised joy. They promised peace. They felt as familiar as Father, as dear as Sarah, as kind as Rupert.
Come
.
Her chest lifted toward them.
Come
.
They grew closer, or she grew closer to them—couldn’t tell. The irises formed a ring, a place she needed to inhabit, a vast emptiness which piqued the curiosity of childhood, the ultimate seduction, answers to the unknown, all she’d ever wanted in this life, an all-consuming need!
She reached for them from where she sat on the ground.
A gnarled black limb stretched toward her fingers. Ashen knuckles slid from beneath a dark sleeve, dirty yellowed nails and visible bone at the center of its palm.
She pulled back.
More raven forms solidified out of the dark, following the first two, brilliantly murderous eyes, a great rolling tide of black.
She scrambled backward, rolling over to her hands and knees. Inky waves washed through her head. She forced herself forward, veering unsteadily to her right, to the left, landing on her elbows. The ripping fabric of her dress drowned out her panicked panting.
Why hadn’t they overtaken her? They could move so much faster! Did they enjoy her flight? Perhaps they mocked her with the hope she might escape?
She lunged between the gateposts marking Father’s property.
Multiple crimson pupils bored into her from the wooded shadows—hungry, piercing, a great wall of black.
Miles stood a couple paces ahead, whimpering in terror.
The wall of shrouded figures curved around them, hateful eyes blaring down.
She pulled herself to Miles and grasped his quaking hand. His eyes found hers, and widened.
She smiled. At least neither of them would be taken alone.
His brows squeezed together. A buzz ran down her arm and she could see
a grime-covered girl, sprawled on a dusty night road. Raven locks curled about a tortured pale face, green eyes wide. She was beautiful.
And she had seen this girl dead.
Her nightmare was true. Soon Kiren would discover this stunning girl lying in the road, dead, alone.
She let the dread sink. No more tomorrows. No more stolen moments. No more sunrises.
Miles’s fist tightened. She looked up at him and words filled her mind, words that weren’t hers:
Why did you follow me? I could have drawn them away.
She stared, awed. In his grim countenance she recognized for the first time a person of beauty, the one these terrible beings could never touch, the reason Kiren trusted him so totally.
She squeezed his hand in return. “Would you have drawn them off, or would they have infiltrated your will?”
His eyes closed.
The circle about them solidified, a ring of death.
“I am sorry, Miles.”
“No.” He breathed, gripping her tighter. “Run, Alexia!”
The words startled her. Run where—and how could she go anywhere while he kept this crushing hold on her fingers?
Dana’s voice echoed through her mind:
. . .the absence of time . . .
Creatures converged.
Torrential agony tore through her head. Her body collapsed as she leapt—not stepped, but leapt out of time.
87
The End of the Dream
Something was wrong.
Kiren roused himself with a grunt. He fought the grogginess, forcing consciousness to straighten.
Mend
, he commanded, calling on the last energy reserves of his depleted muscles and everything he’d regained in his brief rest. His heart pumped faster. New blood cells bubbled up from the marrow, infusing themselves into his veins. He prayed the tourniquet around his leg would keep the iron from spreading, from poisoning him. He was going to pay for this.
The room about him was quiet, far too quiet.
He turned his hearing outward, stretching beyond the chamber, down the hall, into the entry.
“. . . she is gone?” He cringed at Charles’s gasp. Heavy footfalls echoed across the lower floor. “Search the gardens. Search the yard. Find her. Find her!”
Kiren opened his eyes. Alexia was missing.
Miles!
He sent out the mental summons.
He groaned and shoved an elbow beneath himself, rolling up onto his side. Great billows of blackness roiled across his vision. He commanded the oxygen through his system and demanded the blood flow to his brain. The darkness dissipated. He stumbled to his feet, rocking back unsteadily and landing against the bed.
Miles?
Where was the boy?
Kiren stepped carefully through the throng of prostrate corpses, thumping into the doorframe and leaning against it. He panted. He could only will his body so far without proper rest and nourishment.
He forced himself down the hall, one hand bracing him up against the wall. He made his way to the stairs and found them empty, abandoned candles flickering on the ruined entry floor.
He stumbled down the steps.
A whisper of sound touched his ear. He turned his head, focusing.
“Run, Alexia!”
Kiren sprinted for the exit, limping on his wounded leg, forcing adrenaline to pump through his system. Hisses raged across the night wind. He freed the pendant from his neck and clasped it, realizing he didn’t possess the strength to use it again.
The hedges at the end of the lane parted.
He lifted the necklace and braced himself. This was going to hurt. Like Hell.
Black shrouds shrieked and scattered into the trees, fading into the shadows. He lowered his arm, turning his face heavenward and whispering a prayer of thanks.
Starlight glittered down over the dusty road. Miles crouched on the ground. Kiren neared. The boy’s arm arced protectively over a form.
NO.
Miles’s head whirled around. His eyes widened. He fell back on his rear, scuffling away as Kiren approached.
Pastel material bunched around her legs. Her fingers lay across her bodice, raven locks curled like a dark halo about her head. Her skin held the luster of pearls, eyes wide and blank.
Every muscle tensed. Rippling pain shuddered through him. He dropped to her side. “Alexia! Please, Alexia . . .”
She stared blankly past him into the night, as though dead. He touched her chin, warm, but vacant.
“No.” He looked to the black heavens, tears flooding free. “NO!”
88
Disquiet
Helpless. He was helpless.
Kiren knelt in the center of the street, unable to rise.
He vaguely understood someone was talking to him. There were voices, but as he clung to her limp hand he could comprehend none of it.
I want to be where you are,
his heart whispered, but she gave no reply. His chest tightened.
You cannot leave me, Alexia!
Someone touched him on the shoulder. He shrugged them off.
“. . . take her inside.”
He couldn’t process the words. He had spent everything he had racing to her side, and he was too late. There was no fight left, and yet he lived. Why did he live?
He pressed his forehead to the rough gravel, letting go. His body gave up, reserves exhausted.
***
Blinding pain drilled through his leg. Kiren bolted upright in bed. Hands grabbed his arms, forcing him back down.
“Ah, I thought that would bring you to.” Ethel lifted a set of tongs, a gun ball locked in its jaws.
Kiren dropped back onto the sheets, sweat beading down his brow.
Lester patted his shoulder. “Here’s hopin’ the ball’s poison ain’t deep.”
Miles fingers bit into his other arm, the boy’s mouth a grim line. Edward stepped into view, handing the boy a handkerchief, and Miles dabbed at Kiren’s brow.
“Where is she?” he rasped.
Ethel dropped the ball onto a tray next to her and lifted a glass of liquid to his lips while Lester bound his leg back up. An earthy smell hit his nose: Tea. He drank begrudgingly.
“You need to rest, sir,” Ethel said.
He shoved up into a sitting position, head spinning. Hands reached for him as he leaned on the mattress, but he waved them away. Off-white walls and the hint of elm pollen inundated him, telling him instantly that he was in Charles Dumont’s home. He turned his eyes on Miles. “Where?”
“Her room.”
“Here now, yer not goin’ alone.” Lester looped Kiren’s arm over his shoulder and hauled him up, waving the others off.
They hobbled out into the hall, Kiren gaining more motion with each step. “How long have I been unconscious?”
“Less’n a day.” Lester whispered, “Yer not goin’ to like what you see.”
Kiren tensed. “Is she dead?”
“Not least wise what Ethel can tell, but there ain’t no life in her, neither.”
Tendrils of depression curled through him, looping about his heart and squeezing it tight. He hadn’t felt so helpless since the day Bellezza’s scream nearly killed Alexia.
Kiren snapped to. “What are you doing here? You are supposed to be after Bellezza.”
The runner grunted. “Damage done.”
“How much damage?”
“Wo, ‘bout fifteen dead nobles and three burnt estates.”
Kiren closed his eyes and groaned. “She got her revenge on the acquirers after all.”
His friend shrugged. “Not sayin’ you can blame her, but the thing what bothers me most is the way it were done—startin’
with that Galedrew fellow. No one deserves a ladle through the heart.”
“And the others?”
“One man were nailed to his own wall. Another were missin’ his hands—what were found as nothing but bone and ash. She’s a vixen, that one. Smart too.”
Kiren ran a hand through his hair. “All this, toying with the Soulless, launching the war, sending Alexia on an impossible mission, these were but diversions to keep us occupied?”
Lester’s mouth crooked. “You have to admit it were brilliantly played. That girl’s got some wit.” His brow crinkled. “But sabotaging them restraints what John built so careful in the below? That were cruel, that one.”
Kiren halted, turning on his friend. “In the below? In the cellar.”
“Aye.” Lester nodded. “Must be some nasty grudge what she has against these Dumonts. My guess is the wood widow irked her somethin’ sore.”
His fists clenched. “And where is she now?”
“Poof, you know how she does. Not to worry. We’ll track her yet.”
They arrived at Alexia’s door and Kiren freed himself. “Thank you, Lester. For everything.”
His friend saluted and left him to it.
***
Kiren would have been pacing at the foot of her bed if his leg didn’t feel like it had been injected with a years’ worth of wasp venom. He sat, leg propped up on her mattress, clinging to her fingers and begging her to wake.
Charles paced enough for both of them. “Tell me exactly why you cannot heal her?”
Kiren rolled his eyes and indicated his leg. “One injury at a time.”
The nobleman growled and scratched over-vigorously at his head.
Kiren sighed. “First I must purge the poison from my own system, if you have the patience for that.”
Charles tugged a handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed his nose.
Kiren didn’t blame the nobleman. His own impatience probably outweighed her father’s. “Her body must do the healing until I can aid her, but you must be prepared. There are some injuries I cannot best. The intricacies of the brain are very fine.” He leaned forward, curling her limp fingers between his and studying her still face. “I could kill her as easily as help her.”
“And if she never wakes?”
Kiren stilled. He could not even consider that possibility. She had to wake up.