Unmade (The Lynburn Legacy Book 3) (22 page)

Framed by branches and curling leaves was a roughly built shed. He had come here with Kami, once. Kami had come here before, alone, before he ever met her. She had seen blood and death here, and he had been so afraid for her.

The door to the shed stood open. As they watched, they saw a few leaves stray onto the floor on a sigh of night air.

Rusty pitched his voice very low. “The noise came from inside.”

Jared strained his ears for what Rusty was so sure he was hearing, and moved in front of Rusty, arm outstretched. He might not have magic but he had meant what he said: Rusty was Kami's. Rusty was Sorry-in-the-Vale's. And Jared was a Lynburn. Aunt Lillian would say it was his responsibility. Jared would do anything he could to protect him.

He was totally unprepared for the blow that hit square between his shoulder blades, sending him crashing onto his hands and knees on the rough wooden floor. He scrabbled on dirt and leaves, flipped himself over and launched himself at the door, but it was already shut and bolted.

“I thought you might help me,” said Rusty, from outside the door. “But I understand why you won't. Take care of them, okay, Sulky?”

“What?” Jared demanded. He hated the way his voice sounded, like a distraught abandoned child's. “What are you talking about? What are you doing?”

Rusty's voice was so kind. It had always been kind under the put-on disinterest and drawl, Jared thought numbly, but it had never seemed as kind as it did now. “Take care of yourself too, if you can manage it.”

It was only then that Jared understood.

He threw himself at the door, hard enough so his whole side ached, and then he threw his aching side at the door again. He smashed his fists against the door and saw the bloody streaks on the wood before he felt the pain of the skin splitting. There was a window, but it was too small to break out of, even though he smashed the glass with his elbow. That was another shock of pain but he ignored it.

He was trapped—again—and this time he was trapped knowing he hadn't been able to save anybody. He couldn't get out, and he knew what Rusty was planning to do.

K
ami woke to the sound of a door opening. She jerked upright on the sofa. She had not gone to sleep in any of the beds Jared had made up. Instead, she had curled up on the other end of the sofa from a sleeping Angela, taking comfort in the fact that they were close even if Angela was very unconscious.

Her neck hurt, and her tucked-up legs were cramping, and none of it mattered, because Ash was at the door, pulling his jeans on, his T-shirt sleep-rumpled and his hair going in all directions, the light behind him reflecting from his flying locks like a shattered halo.

“Something bad is happening to Jared,” Ash said. His voice was panicked and Kami felt his panic spiking through her. “I don't know what. It's not like with you—he can't tell me anything—but I can feel what he feels and it is horrible. We need to find him. We need to go to him now.”

Kami glanced at Angela. She was already awake, uncurling from under her blanket, blinking sleep from her eyes. She looked vulnerable for a moment, in the brief confusion between waking and sleeping.

Kami did not know which of them should go and which should stay. She wanted to help Jared, but she could not abandon her father and her brothers when her brothers were being hunted, when they were so entirely vulnerable. She was almost certain none of Rob's men would kill Jared.

Almost certain was not entirely certain.

She sat there, fists clenched and body frozen, and they heard a slamming of fists against the door. Kami jumped at the sound, echoing through the house, and Ash hurtled from the doorway down the hall. Kami and Angela ran into the hall as Ash flung the front door open and Jared burst in. He was bloodstained and wrecked, a shining thread of red leading down from his temple. His shirt was torn and bloody as well, with a large rip in the back, and one of his elbows was as raw as the skin on his knuckles.

“Jared, what happened to—” Kami began, but Jared cut her off.

“It doesn't matter,” he said. He didn't even look at her, and that sent prickles of unease down her spine. She saw his eyes were fixed on Angela, and it was suddenly hard to breathe through the fear. “We have to go now.”

Ash was the only one who looked confused, still worried about Jared. “Why are you—”

“Ash,” Jared interrupted. “What is the one thing that would bring your father the most power?”

Ash went white as he answered: “A willing sacrifice.”

Holly volunteered to stay behind. The Lynburns all had to go, the ones who Rob would not kill, and Kami had to go because she had the most magic. They could not leave the boys unprotected, though. They had to leave a sorcerer to guard them.

Kami saw the look Holly gave Angela, knew how much it cost her not to insist on going too. There was nothing Kami could do about it. There was nothing Kami could do at all, except try to get to Rusty as fast as possible.

There were no glowing foxes in the woods in the early morning. The sky was dark and slowly lightening, like ink being gradually diluted with water. They had run through these woods before, but never so silently, never so desperately.

The trees were whispering wildly, boughs crackling above them, the winds running as fast as the wolves. The woods were in turmoil, and Kami felt the buffeting wind and tumult of leaves as if they were at sea.

A loud clear call sounded once, and then again, like thunder coming from the earth rather than the sky. Except, Kami realized, that the sound was not coming from the earth. It was coming from the river.

From river to sky the peals echoed. It was a toll, warning and despairing. It was the sound of Elinor Lynburn's bells, sunk beyond finding five hundred years ago.

Then it all stopped.

It was as though the whole world had shifted a degree. The air pressed down heavier, the shadows flattened the landscape, and nothing in all the once-wild woods moved. Light had been streaking across the sky but now it was dull. In no more than a moment, their town had become a still and silent land: no longer really their town at all.

Kami did not stop running. She could not bear to stop running. They all ran up the road to Aurimere and around the bend until they reached the manor house.

The fire was not raging around the manor. It was a soft peaceful day now, clouds muffling the sun. The whole sky was muted.

They had taken the stone slab that Jared had been tortured on when his magic was bound in the crypt of Aurimere, in the very heart of the house. They had brought the slab out and laid it before the golden manor, on the highest part of the hill overlooking their town.

Jared's blood was still on the stone, mingled with older blood that had sunk in, the stain part of the very stone. There was fresh blood shining on it now, the only bright thing in a gray world.

Rusty's face was turned toward them. His eyes were shut as if he was just resting quietly, having one of his naps. As if it was an ordinary day. There were marks of pain on his face, but no anger and no fear. He looked a little sad.

She could see the rest of what they had done to him, the evil fools. They had tied his hands, Rusty who could fight better than anyone in town, who had carefully taught her to defend herself from anything. Nobody's face was marked with bruises, nobody was limping or otherwise hurt. He had let them do it. He had been an irresistible offering, a willing sacrifice. He hadn't fought them, and they hadn't needed to tie his hands, but they had done it because they could.

There were other people standing there, Rob's sorcerers and a handful of townsfolk. Kami looked at their scared, sick faces. Alison Prescott, Holly's mother, was crying. So was Amber.

Rob Lynburn was standing before the stone slab, with his brown muscular arms bared and the great golden Lynburn knife coated with scarlet in his hands. In this moment, all masks were off. Rusty looked like what he had always been, and Rob looked like what he was too. His face was rapt with evil delight.

“This is the inevitable end of all struggles against a greater power. This comes every turn of the year, every season, if the sorcerer chooses,” Rob said. “Every breath you take is by my mercy, a sign of your lord's graciousness. I took my death, in recompense for the winter price this sorry town failed to offer me. I was given this death at the year's awakening, as is my due. Finally, all has been set right.”

Angela threw herself at Rob like a dagger flying for his throat.

The air itself slowed, held Angela like a dragonfly suspended in amber. Rob strolled forward casually and laid his knife against her throat. The blood from the knife smeared on Angela's skin, as if it was jam on a butter knife.

“Don't move, little source,” said Rob. “Or she dies with her brother.”

Kami froze.

“Nobody else has to die today,” said Rob. He turned around, arms up, as if he was expecting a cheer to rise from the crowd. The bloody knife was still in his hand. All he received was a great rush of silence. “But you came here to interfere with the sacrifice offered to me. There is a price to be paid for that.”

Kami spoke through stiff lips. There did not seem enough air left in the world to breathe, let alone speak. “What price?”

Rob must know that she had lied before. He would ask her to break the link with Ash, and that would mean the ceremony of the pools would not work. Their last hope would be gone.

Kami did not feel panic at the thought. She felt empty, desolate as the gray sky, quiet past the point of misery. It seemed almost reasonable that hope would die too.

“What would any man want, with the world at his feet, but someone to share it with? I want my wife.”

“No,” snapped Jared, and took a furious step forward. Ash said nothing, but Kami felt the flare of determination behind the walls in her mind. He stepped up too, standing at Jared's shoulder, having his back.

Rob's eyes traveled contemptuously past Jared, over his shoulder, and fixed on his wife's face.

“Lillian,” he said. “Will you come?”

“If I do, you will let every one of them go?” asked Lillian, and stared ferociously at Rob. Kami knew Lillian well enough by now to know that she was deliberately not looking at anyone, unwilling to betray that she had weaknesses.

“Lillian,” said Kami's dad. “You don't have to.”

Kami saw the look on Rob's face when he heard that. She had a single terrible moment when she thought she would have to act, would have to choose whether to save Angela or her father.

“Shut your mouth.” Lillian's voice was more cutting than Kami had ever heard it, like a whip handled in expert hands. It was either a Lynburn's scornful outrage or a desperate plea for him to
be quiet.
“I am so tired of hearing you babble to your betters on subjects you know nothing about.”

Rob's tensed muscles visibly eased, and a smug smile spread across his face.

Lillian turned her salt-white face to her husband. “I assume I do have to, if I want them to live?”

“I would prefer to think of it as you seeing the cleverest and most reasonable course of action to take. You are my lady. You should be second in this town only to me, and all should bow their insolent heads to you.”

“All
should
bow their insolent heads to me,” said Lillian. “That's true.”

Rob wasn't stupid. He saw what Lillian was implying. But he laughed, gently. It seemed bizarre and grotesque, seeing the two Lynburns bicker over a body. But Kami saw Lillian's hand clenching into a fist at her side, knuckles whiter than her face. She had to trust that Lillian was playing for all of their lives.

“I always admire your spirit, Lillian,” Rob said. “Even though I find the display of your spirit often so stupid. Are you going to be smarter now?”

“Are you going to let them all go?”

“Go, go,” said Rob, and waved a benevolent hand. “All of you can go about your business now. All of you can rest easy in your beds. Order has been restored to Sorry-in-the-Vale. You may depart, safe in the certainty of a true sorcerer's peace.”

He waved a hand negligently at Angela, who sagged, gasping, as if she was a fish held on an invisible hook. Jon Glass stepped up to Angela and took her hand, caressed it and would not let it go. He held her back and drew her away, not letting her lunge again or stumble as she went.

Rob did not deign to notice what any of his defeated foes were doing. He held out a hand to Lillian, a gesture less of affection than command.

Lillian reached out and took it.

They walked, the golden pair, the lord and lady followed by their retinue, into Aurimere.

Enough of Rob's people stayed behind so that Kami knew they had to go, and go quickly. Any one of them could be a victim of Rob's malice, even if he had already taken his sacrifice.

She could not go, though, not quite yet.

She stepped up to the stone dais. She refused to look at the ruin that was Rusty's body. She looked only at him.

Kami used the edge of her sleeve to clean the blood from his dear face, until it was untouched, until she could tell herself he looked as if he was only sleeping, as if he might wake soon. She smoothed back his hair with a tender hand, light as though she could wake him, and bent down and kissed his cold brow.

“Sleep well, sweetheart,” she whispered.

She hated to abandon him there on that cold stone, but she did it. She turned and walked the long road down.

All the words that I utter,

And all the words that I write,

Must spread out their wings untiring,

And never rest in their flight. …

—William Butler Yeats