Those Who Fear the Darkness (BloodRunes: Book 2) (23 page)

“I said I only recently came across the
evidence of it, which I did. Once I knew, I set about finding out
everything I could. And I didn’t know about the army.”

He held out his hand, and after only a split
second of hesitation, she took it, feeling another tingle as they
touched which settled into a pleasant hum of energy sparking
between them. She opened herself fully to the power and reached out
with it towards him.

Again her logical side was screaming at her
that she was putting herself in a vulnerable position for a man she
hardly knew, but knew enough to know he was dangerous. But for once
she paid it no heed. The pull to free him was too strong for her to
resist even if she had wanted to.

Their two powers connected roughly, like two
magnets suddenly close enough to no longer resist the attraction,
and Katya gasped. She felt him drawing off of her strength and
watched with fascination as he wove it together into a massive ball
of explosive power. He poised to ‘throw’ it against his invisible
bonds and then squeezed her hand giving her another rush, and he
unleashed it.

Katya tumbled backwards from the force. Not
even the wave of power from the border magics had been this
intense. She blacked out.

When she blinked her eyes open, the King was
kneeling over her, a concerned look upon his face.

“Are you alright?” he asked her with sincere
concern.

“Yes,” she answered, slowly sitting herself
up and reaching back to feel where a bump was beginning to form on
the back or her head where it had smashed against the hard
ground.

Her gaze flew to the opening in the tent.
“Your captors…”

“Out cold,” he assured her.

She glanced over at him, and pulled her brows
together as she saw with dismay that the collar was still around
his handsome neck. “It didn’t work,” she lamented, sitting back
onto her heels.

But the King smiled. “Oh, but it did,” he
said, “I am no longer under their bonds. But I don’t want them to
know that just yet.”

“If you’re free, we should go!”

“Not just yet, my dear. I don’t know what
they’re up to. I want to learn everything I can about them before
thanking them for their hospitality.”

He inhaled deeply. “You need to leave, now,”
he said, suddenly urgent, “I can smell those two returning.”

She immediately rushed to the entrance, but
surprised herself once more by pausing to turn back to him. She
opened her mouth, but he interrupted her.

“Go!” he commanded her, and then in a softer
tone, “I’ll find you.”

As she raced away from the campsite, she
heard the voices of the invisibles and she increased her pace.
There could not be enough distance between her and those two. But
she had left the King there alone with them…She shook her head to
clear it of the strange emotions that were churning inside of her.
Why had she just compromised her safety like that? For someone who
may well be creating armies of slaves. She had only his word that
he wasn’t. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling like she had known
him forever.

Ever since she had gotten rid of her collar,
her control on her emotions had become more - tenuous - and she was
beginning to be a bit concerned. Frustrated by this fact, and her
recent actions, she shoved all her thoughts into the back of her
mind and concentrated instead on her running, counting her steps in
meditation.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four…

CHAPTER 12

Layna sighed. Noam was giving her another
tour of the palace which included going through each of the royal
halls and learning the histories of each and every statue,
painting, and tapestry that resided there.

“Am I boring you Ms. Layna?” Noam asked her
with a hint of annoyance, and she quickly plastered a look of
interest on her face.

“Sorry,” she apologized, “just tired, I’m not
used to this kind of treatment.”

Noam’s expression softened into the pitying
look of understanding that she was starting to become quite
familiar with. He seemed to have decided that she was either too
dull or too common to quite grasp the concept of things that he
thought any civilized person should appreciate, and oftentimes
Layna felt that he treated her much like a child. But at least he
wasn’t taking her lack of interest personally anymore. She’d rather
deal with him assuming that it was simply beyond her realm of
understanding than moping about at her disinterest as he had been
doing previously.

“This piece here was a gift from Lord
Emmerson, who you’ll of course remember is the man who was the
second cousin to the wife of Baron Grimaldi.”

Layna nodded as if she had any clue as to
whom Noam was referring to. Just then, Aria appeared in the doorway
and Layna mouthed ‘help me’ when Noam wasn’t looking. Aria gave her
a smile and a wink before clearing her throat so that Noam turned
to see she was there.

“Ah, Lady Aria, how nice to see you,” Noam
greeted her and moved forward to kiss her hand. She playfully
batted him away with her other hand, giggling that it wasn’t
necessary. He insisted, and his hand lingered on hers a split
second longer than was required.

“Do you mind terribly much if I steal Layna
away from you? I’d be much obliged, I have a new dress for tonight
that I simply must get a woman’s opinion on, and everyone seems to
be busy with something else.” She put on a cute little pout and
Noam was like putty in her hands.

“Not at all, my lady, please let me know if
there is anything else that I can do for you.”

Layna suppressed a smile.

Aria beamed at Noam who fairly glowed with
the attention and then looped her arm around Layna’s to lead her
out of the room.

“Whew!” Aria exclaimed when they were safely
out of Noam’s hearing range, “I only caught the last bit of his
speech, but I had to come rescue you. What was he doing, giving you
our entire history in one day?”

Layna laughed. “Something like that. I think
he means well, but…” she let the thought trail off, especially
because she wasn’t really all that sure that he actually did mean
well. He was an extremely hard person to read his real intentions.
“So do you really have a dress for me to look at?”

“I can find one.”

Aria led her back through the winding palace
halls to the suites that were occupied by her and her father, Baron
Thebius. The front chamber was a large sitting room where
presumably he carried out meetings as one of the Triumvirate, and
there were many doors leading out from it into the other living
spaces.

Layna couldn’t contain her curiosity so she
asked, “Do you think that your father will support Gryffon’s
charges against Lady Jezebel?”

Aria looked rather taken-aback, and Layna
instantly regretted asking. No doubt Aria had to deal with people
trying to get to her father through her on a regular basis. She
hesitated a moment before answering, but when she did so it wasn’t
with any tone that would indicate that she was upset with her, so
Layna relaxed slightly.

“Honestly I try not to talk to him about
things like that because I really don’t want to get caught in the
middle of his council business. But, if I were to guess I would
think that he’d be more willing to look past what may or may not
have happened or have been the plan in the past and rather focus on
what we can make the future into. So I think that he’d vote to
treat it as if these claims were not brought against her and move
forward towards opening our borders. He’s been trying to get the
rest of the council to see the benefits of coming out of our
isolation for ages now. I doubt he’d let Lady Jezebel’s
questionable character ruin his chance of doing so.” She paused for
a moment and added, reminding Layna that no one here knew what she
and Gryffon did about Jezebel, “She doesn’t seem so bad.”

Layna had no polite response to that and Aria
shrugged and looked away, obviously wanting to drop the subject, so
Layna did so. She spent large part of the afternoon with the woman
looking at and trying on different dresses and chatting about
mundane matters. Layna was sure to keep the topics steered clear of
anything political in nature or of her past with Gryffon, though
Aria kept trying to bring him up, asking her questions about the
two of them and how close they were. The questions made Layna more
than a little uncomfortable and she found herself answering most of
them with shrugs, and ‘we’re just friends’ to avoid more probing
queries.

After a while she excused herself and she
went to find Gryffon to see if he wanted to go for a ride. She
needed to get away from the palace which was beginning to feel
rather claustrophobic with the constant threat of running into Lady
Jezebel always in the back of her mind and Aria’s comments about
her and Gryffon before she could be steered away from the subject.
She wasn’t sure what had changed with Jezebel, but the single
minded hatred that had been present before in her gaze seemed to
have dulled somewhat. She wanted to talk to Gryffon about her
too.

She found him in the library and he gladly
accepted her invitation. As they rode out into the woods, Layna’s
mood improved greatly. After a while, she brought up the subject
that she had been dreading. She hated to bring up such a difficult
subject when she felt as though their friendship was already
faltering, but she had to.

“Has your life-sucker been acting up around
Jezebel?” she asked him tentatively.

He looked away abruptly and she was
half-afraid that he’d simply ignore her. Finally he spoke. “It’s
retreated to a dull ache…I don’t notice any difference when I’m
close to her other than the reaction that anyone gets from being
too near something so wicked. Do you think I’d be able to tell if
it was her?” Layna brightened at the question, happy that he seemed
willing to discuss it with her.

“I don’t know,” she replied, “but if Aileen’s
right about what you have, I don’t see it being anyone else. Did
you see when she opened herself to probes during the meeting?” She
left the thought unfinished he could fill in his
interpretation.

“She hasn’t regained use of her magic yet,”
he supplied, “but is obviously trying to portray it as though she
never had any talent to begin with so that people think that we’re
crazy for accusing her of having hellhounds. I think that maybe she
was a little messed up in the head - more so than she was already I
mean - when they attacked her. I honestly don’t think she has any
real memories of who we are. Either that or someone else is
controlling her emotions, because she certainly isn’t capable of
controlling them herself. She’s an
act-out-of-rage-now-and-have-daddy-clean-it-up-later kind of
person.”

Layna chewed on this for a moment. “I’d say
you’re probably right. There was definitely something lacking when
we saw her. Like she knew that she didn’t like us, but she didn’t
know why anymore. That’s somewhat good news, isn’t it? Being burned
out and having no memory of us certainly makes the odds of her
discovering what she’s done to you and using it tilt in our
favor.”

Gryffon raised his eyebrows shortly and
sighed. “Hopefully. But that still doesn’t help us know how to get
rid of it.”

“Maybe we should ask,” Layna commented
softly.

“Ask who though? Aileen and Echo are the most
knowledgeable, and neither could give us an answer.” He sounded
like he had given up finding an answer altogether.

“Perhaps we should ask the Three. You said it
yourself that they actually send you answers through the Oracle
down the river here. It wouldn’t hurt to try.”

He looked thoughtful and didn’t disagree, but
when he spoke again he changed the subject. They spoke of more
trivial matters for the ride back to the palace.

Layna still couldn’t muster up the courage to
ask him about Aria though it was tearing her up inside. Now that he
was back, would he be interested in regaining his relationship with
her? They had one thing in common that Layna could never hope to
compete with - a shared past.

They neared the palace and both quickly
dismounted upon seeing a commotion. They hastily left the mounts
with the stable hands and Gryffon broke into a run with Layna only
moments behind. They followed the growing crowd towards the royal
suites and Layna got a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach
which only grew worse as the people in front of them turned -
towards Lady Aria’s suite.

Shrill screams suddenly echoed against the
stone walls, growing more and more agitated and Layna soon saw the
reason.

Lady Aria was being dragged away from her
father’s office, kicking and flailing in the guard’s arms and
screaming at the top of her lungs. Layna only caught a glimpse
before another guard hastily shut the door behind them, but she
swore she saw a dark red stain underneath the Baron’s desk and was
not too naïve to think that this was a simple case of spilled ink
or wine.

She watched the horrific scene in paralyzed
confusion, but soon had to force her unyielding legs to move
beneath her as the guards shuffled her out along with everybody
else. Gryffon made as if to follow where they had taken Aria, but
they blocked his passage.

They milled about in the hallway with the
rest of the displaced crowd until somebody from near the doorway
that had been shut against them moved away from it where he’d been
pressing his ear and whispered conspiratorially loud enough for the
whole room to hear.

“Baron Thebius has been murdered!”

CHAPTER 13

Jezebel gently set the bell down after
ringing for a servant. Moments later, one appeared and she smiled
at the woman. She was trying to take extra care to build a
favorable reputation within the servants’ ranks after having had a
rather unfortunate blow up at one of the girls make its way back to
the council.