Belmary House Book Three (7 page)

“Foolish boy.”

Frozen hands of terror gripped him and he stopped breathing, unable to look up at the source of the voice. It was the sound of sorrow, emptiness, the shrill caw of birds circling a battlefield, looking for carrion.

“Breathe, and look at me.”

He did as he was told, having no choice in the matter. She stood in the doorway, ten feet away, but he could feel her brittle nails on the sides of his face, turning his chin to face her. Yes, he remembered this. He was definitely home.

She was so old. At least a hundred and thirty, well past her time to go, but greedily clinging to life. He knew how she did it. Probably everyone knew, but no one spoke of it, pretended it was a natural blessing that she lived so long, pretended not to notice when someone went missing.

The last wisps of yellowing white hair clung to her liver spotted scalp, her rheumy blue eyes almost lost in the dark recesses of her sunken cheeks, lips curled back over a mouth sporting decayed and cracked teeth. A moment later she had luxurious dark hair, her cheeks were rosy apples in a plump, youthful face, her smile full and welcoming. He hated her. With everything in him, he hated her.

“You’re looking well, Grandmother,” he said, imagining her melting like a candle.

The thought shocked him and she smiled, revealing her tobacco stained stumps. He knew his granny loved her pipe every night.

“You probably think you’ve been gone a long time, don’t you Konstantin?” she asked, finally entering the room.

He braced himself for the pain of her proximity, and it manifested as a burning heat inside his body. He broke out in a sweat but refused to move away from the fireplace. He knew she knew she was making him suffer, but he wouldn’t show it as long as he could help it.

“More than half my life,” he agreed, letting the sweat drip into his eyes, damned if he wiped his brow.

“But that’s not very long at all to me,” she said, sitting beside him and daintily smoothing her skirts.

He’d been so mesmerized by her changing face he hadn’t noticed she wore a yellow satin gown with tiers of pink ribbons. A few years out of style, but opulent and girlish. He felt sick, thinking of Serena’s penchant for those pretty shades, and how he loved seeing her dressed up for a ball or gathering.

“Adultery, Konstantin? I wouldn’t have thought it of you.” She snickered and rang a little bell he hadn’t noticed before.

The girl with golden hair returned with a plate of oranges. Oranges? At this time of year, in their village? He refused one, though he longed for the sweet, cold juice, afraid of what it might actually be.

He didn’t answer. His grandmother knew everything, there was no reason to defend himself. He’d thought Camilla was dead almost a year before he allowed himself to fall in love with Serena. He had a flicker of satisfaction when he saw his grandmother didn’t appreciate his silence, and the heat that engulfed him disappeared. The moment he breathed a sigh of relief, agonizing pain ripped through his spine and he cried out, no way not to. It stopped shortly after it started, and he leaned over, panting, his heart pounding from the shock of the terrible pain.

But it’s over, he told himself. And he had survived. She narrowed her eyes at him and shrugged, peeling another orange for herself. He stiffened, waiting for what came next, but there was nothing.

“Fear can be worse,” she said. “Yes or no?”

“Yes,” he answered, knowing what she was aiming for. By not doing anything to him, she thought he’d be waiting and fearing until he went mad. “But I’m past that.” He took an orange from the gilded plate and crushed it. Ashes rained to the floor.

“We’ll see,” she said, rolling her eyes. He was surprised she didn’t actually creak, she was so dry and withered. “We’ll have to do something about Rouleney. People are talking. Camilla was one of ours for a while, after all, and it makes us look weak that you couldn’t control her.”

He clenched his fists. Camilla was never one of them, that was the whole reason she’d been driven insane. She’d played nice until his curse caused their daughter to die, and then she’d thrown herself onto a battlefield she had no chance of ever leaving alive.

Hearing his grandmother’s indrawn breath, he realized she’d been trying to do something to him, but his anger over everything Camilla had gone through to drive her to such depths of madness, and his inability to save her, had somehow stopped her. He saw a flicker of doubt in her eyes, knowing he hadn’t been trying to block her, and yet he had.

This was very interesting, definitely something he’d never seen before. His grandmother, failing at a hex? And certainly one she was well practiced in, as she loved sending people to their knees, wracked with pain.

She blinked, and the cold disdain was back in her eyes, but he’d seen it. That flicker of doubt. She knew he’d seen it. He braced himself for something worse than the original failed hex, but she merely sighed. Was she afraid to try again? It seemed beyond his scope of imagination, his grandmother being afraid.

“What do you want me to do, Grandmother?” he asked, smiling at her confidently.

Too confidently, apparently, because he was hit with a blinding headache. An image of Serena popped into his head, and he tried pushing it aside, thinking it was a mocking warning, and not wanting his grandmother to be able to use her like that. But the more he thought of her, remembered she was the reason he’d come back home, the less his head hurt, and he was able to stand up. He was done with these games. If his grandmother didn’t have something specific to say to him, he was going to go.

“Get some rest, Konstantin,” she said. “We’ll see what the council has to say.”

He bowed and left, not relaxing until he was well past the rose bushes, expecting any number of awful things to happen to him as he marched away. When he reached the road leading back to town, he decided he was safe for now, at least.

He was positive his grandmother had had more in store for him during their first meeting in so many years. She’d been gearing up to let him have it over his wife running rampant and destroying the small village of Rouleney. He was positive she wanted to rub it in his face that she knew everything about Serena and the baby, gloat about his curse, and what he might do to have it lifted. She was shaken by his unwitting blocking of her hex, and had given up completely when he successfully fought of the next, stronger one.

He hurried to find Sorin, coming across him walking with Natalia, carrying a pail full of milk for her with his good hand while Natalia hauled several bags of flour. He tried gesticulating as he spoke to her, splashing milk everywhere. Sorin saw him and handed the pail to her, bowing deeply and making her blush with his formality. When she saw Kostya, she ducked her head in greeting and hurried off, barely managing her load.

“I could have helped carry some of that,” Kostya said, frowning at her quick retreat. “Is she scared of me?”

“Never mind that now,” Sorin said, leading him toward his hut. “You’ve been gone for two days.”

“No.” Kostya shook his head, suddenly realizing he was ravenous and exhausted. “Damn it all, I can’t stand this magical nonsense. It didn’t seem but an hour to me. I’d much rather work in a field all day than keep trying to figure out what’s real and what isn’t.”

“At least you’re in one piece. You don’t look that bad, actually. Did she do that thing where you think your eyes are coming out?”

Kostya shook his head, grateful for small favors. He couldn’t wait to tell Sorin about the flicker of doubt he’d seen, and the way he’d countered her spell without even trying. They came across Gustin and his son Daniel, and Kostya had to force himself to greet them politely, he was so eager to get to Sorin’s and get his story out.

Gustin clapped him on the shoulder, expressing how glad he was that Kostya made it out of his grandmother’s cottage at last. Sorin invited him to come along with them for the debriefing, and the lad was sent back to his work at the mill. Daniel didn’t look happy about it, obviously wanting to hear all the gruesome details, and had so eagerly seen him as a hero at the last meeting. Just the fact that Kostya was standing after two days in the company of his grandmother seemed to make him all the more heroic to the boy.

Foolish, he thought, telling himself he’d have words with Sorin for allowing children to be a part of their ill-fated group.

As soon as they were safely inside his warded hut, Kostya told everything while eating every last crumb of a loaf of bread.

“She could be trying to make you think that,” Sorin suggested. “So you become overconfident?”

“I don’t think so. She looked shocked. And I hardly suffered while I was there. Granted, I thought I was only there a short time, but after all these years? You know she wanted me wishing I was dead, but after she couldn’t make the one hex stick, she told me to go get some rest. She gave up, I’m telling you.”

“This is good,” Gustin said, looking longingly at the bread but refusing any. “Perhaps her cracks are finally starting to show. Perhaps she’s finally met her match.”

“I wasn’t trying to block her,” Kostya said. “I think she made a mistake. That’s what rattled her.”

Sorin and Gustin looked at him and shook their heads. “You’re out of practice, Kostya. You had to have been blocking her. Grandmother doesn’t make mistakes.”

“You’re just that strong,” Gustin added.

He didn’t like the way they looked at him, as if he was Father Christmas and his bag was full of freedom and prosperity instead of sweets and toys.

“Get some rest, Kostya,” Sorin said, gesturing to his own bed. “Here if you like, or I’ll walk with you to your house. I think some of the women put in some furniture for you while you were gone.”

He didn’t relish the thought of being alone, afraid of what his grandmother might have hidden deep in his thoughts during all the time he was with her but couldn’t remember. He buried himself under Sorin’s blankets while they continued talking, falling asleep to their excited, hopeful murmurs.

Tilly dropped the gun, terrified she’d made things worse with her wild shot, and watched in awe as Ashford transformed before her eyes. She’d never seen him so consumed. He looked at her but it was as if he didn’t see her. After she missed hitting Solomon, her mind scattered, knowing she had to try again, and knowing that she was too shaken and wouldn’t have time. He was already turning his gun on her and she steeled herself for the impact, wondering if it would hurt as much as she feared.

It looked like Lachlan might succeed in breaking through whatever magical tomfoolery Solomon tossed at him, but his face was twisted with pain and his limbs moved as if gravity sided with Solomon to keep them down. She saw Solomon’s finger twitch and turned to look at Ashford. In case she died instantly she wanted to see her beloved’s face one last time.

The light that exploded in the room blinded her for a moment, and when it cleared, she saw Ashford crumpled against the wall. Lachlan lay flat on his back with his axe resting across his chest, Piper struggling to pull herself up beside him. Solomon was nowhere to be seen.

Tilly ran for Ashford, the air in the room markedly colder than it had been in the hall. Liam popped up from behind the desk, shading his eyes until he saw the light was normal again.

“What happened?” he asked, scrambling around to help Lachlan and Piper. “Where’s Solomon?”

No one answered him. Tilly only cared about Ashford. The blinding flash of light seemed to come from him and it was the thing that saved her life, probably all their lives. He’d gone his whole life thinking he hadn’t inherited any of his family’s magical abilities, but it must have lain dormant all this time. She shook her head, still slightly addled by the shock of it, and not sure how it was all going to settle in her mind once things were calm enough to give it any real thought.

She brushed the hair off his brow and he opened his eyes, staring blankly ahead of him before blinking several times.

“Julian,” she whispered, the ruckus of the others trying to figure out what happened fading into nothing as she stroked his cheek. “Are you okay? Can you see me?”

He focused at last and turned to her. She watched as the emotions flickered across his expressive silver eyes. Fear at what had happened. Realization that it must be over. Finally, relief. She felt it too, and leaned down to kiss him. When she pulled back she saw his eyes had gone flat, like a tarnished coin, and she knew he had retreated to a place she wasn’t invited.

He looked sick and pale, and shook when she helped him sit up. Evie dropped down beside them and asked if they were all right. When Tilly nodded, she flitted away to the others. After a moment they all gathered around Ashford. Lachlan was also pale and his face was tense with residual pain, but he seemed unharmed by the blast. Liam once again asked what happened.

Piper scowled at him, then pointed a shaky finger at Ashford. “That thing you did,” was all she managed to get out.

Ashford looked down at his hands and shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I really don’t.”

He snuck a sidelong glance at Tilly and she grabbed his hand, sensing how alone he felt. She squeezed reassuringly but he didn’t respond and his hand was icy cold.

“Isn’t that what happened with Rose?” Evie asked, the only one who didn’t seem affected by any of it. She’d been well behind Tilly when the light flared.