Beyond the Crimson (The Crimson Cycle) (6 page)

“Who?”

His head jolted back at me like he was surprised I was even there. “Nobody,” he murmured. His hand clutched at his stomach, and he turned his grief-stricken face up towards the ceiling almost as though he were looking for an escape, shifting on his feet and keeping his deep breathing in a steady pattern. Though a large part of me was still fearful he might attack, I could not pull my eyes away from him. The force was magnetic and a part of me yearned to get closer.

“W—why did she curse you?” I stammered out, desperate to understand him.

“I know nothing of her mind,” he growled, giving me an annoyed look, but there was blankness in his eyes and suddenly a new fear was born; the dumbfounded haze cleared, and I realized he might not remember anything at all. He seemed utterly confused and rapidly the anxiety began to rise.

“Do you remember anything?”
I asked; my voice rising as panic trounced over my usual calm nature. He had to remember something; I had to know the secret behind the smile! But he only shook his head with the angry scowl still upon his face, and I felt myself shatter.  

“In the portrait you were smiling,” I blurted out, frantically hoping to trigger a memory.
I had to know his secret!
It was tormenting me, and I was too close to uncovering it to let it escape me.

He low
ered one eyebrow presumptuously. “Smiling?” he derided. He was awfully good at making people feel insignificant, and I was certain it was in part of his noble upbringing, but it was still galling and nothing like I had imagined a knight to be.

“Yeah, in the portrait you were grinning, but it doesn’t make sense to grin while going into battle
, so why would you smile?”

“Is it not obvious?” he scoffed. “I was to take her life
, and I would hardly call such a
battle
.”

“So you do remember something,” I said with renewed enthusiasm, but his eyes burned into me,
fizzling my excitement to smoke with only dread seeming to be incombustible.

I was certain his unwavering glare was enough to make even the manliest of men cower
, and it wasn’t until he appeared to be satisfied that he had dissolved me into nothing more than ash, did he release me from the power of it, and I couldn’t help the large part of me that despised him for it. He gave an irritatingly smug look, lifted his head to examine the high shelves, and began to strut down the long hall, but before he could get too far, his body jerked awkwardly as he suddenly came to a dead stop, looking to have hit a wall. He tried to push his foot forward, but it would go no further. He groaned and slowly turned back around to face me. “It would seem I am bound to you,” he said gruffly, tilting his head upward as though he were cursing the ceiling-covered sky.

He motioned for me to step forward, but I hadn’t forgotten the way he had made me feel
, and as the power switched hands, clout outweighed courtesy, and I took a step back, putting a test to his claim. His body jolted towards me, and I almost laughed, but his face turned so wicked; I gulped instead. 

“Stop that,” he warned, glaring at me with reproach. I didn’t like the imperious way he looked at me and stubbornly took another step back, ridiculously thrusting his body forward again
, and this time I did laugh. “Give me the bracelet. Now!” he commanded angrily. I held it out for him, not willing to submit to his demands but also slightly afraid to keep provoking him. He groaned, obviously not as entertained as I was, but stomped towards me to retrieve it, keeping his dark eyes locked into mine. He snagged it out my hand roughly and suddenly a loud swooshing sound broke through the room, followed by a bright light bursting out of the portrait. 

He tw
isted. “A vortex,” he whispered with his arms hanging limply at his sides.

A loud strange screechin
g sound pierced through the air; we both crouched down, covering our ears. “You opened it when you touched the bracelet!” I accused over the terrible noise. He turned his back to the vortex and looked at me with wide eyes, surprised but not afraid. He quickly shoved the bracelet back into my hand, and the brilliant light started to fade, but not before I saw the huge, dark, bird-like creature with navy blue scales instead of feathers swoop out of the portrait into the warehouse.

“Behind you!”
I screamed, pointing at the terrible beast soaring out of the closing vortex. He whipped around, putting his arms out to hold me safely behind his body in the first archetypal gesture of a chivalrous knight that I had yet to see from him. 

He stood up, grabbing his sword from his sheath. “Keep clear, girl!” he yelled.  I crawled behind metal shelves, shaking and willing myself to wake up from this dream. The large
creature snapped its beak, as Brendelon swung his sword across the bird’s face, slicing a large gash over its snout. It twisted its head up, screeching in pain, flapping its terrible wings angrily, and sending Mr. Riley’s precious antiques crashing to the floor. The bird swung its large pointed tail into him, knocking him backwards into hard shelves, causing him to lose his grip on his sword. He quickly regained himself and scrambled towards it, but all of a sudden he stopped in place, inches from his weapon. The bird reached back and started swooping forward for its kill.

“Damn it! Move
forward
!” he roared. Instantly, I remembered that he was bound to the bracelet. Finding my senses, I did as he commanded, and grabbed a large brownish vase from the closest shelf and threw it into the creature’s face to distract it.

It worked, but I almost regretted it because the bird wheeled its fiery head into my direction. I froze, so afraid that my brain could not even register to flee. The bird whipped back, screeching with a terrible ferocity
, as it was about to attack me, but in the same moment Brendelon dug his sword into the side of the overgrown monster. It roared so loudly I was sure my eardrums would pop. I covered my ears and knelt to the ground. The creature flapped its wings desperately. Brendelon pulled his sword out of the beast’s side and thrust it again in the chest. The bird crashed to the ground, and in an instant was nothing more than black ash.

I shook with fear at how close we were to death. Shock, yes, this must be shock. Brendelon came closer to me. He was talking
, but I couldn’t hear him. I just stared into those brilliant eyes waiting to wake up from this nightmare. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet, but I swayed to the left. He quickly caught me and gently helped me back to the floor. He knelt beside me still speaking, but I just squeezed my eyes shut. He patted the top of my head, as I inhaled deep breaths.

“It is over,” he said with a slight chuckle, as my hearing slowly returned. Finally
, I peeked at his lovely face through my eyelashes. He smiled his picturesque crooked smile, and though it appeared to be enough to dissipate my resentment toward him, I still couldn’t understand his humor in near danger experiences. He stood up and held his hand out to me. I took it as he helped me to my feet, still shaky but finding my balance.

“I have fought worse beasts than that little baby dragon. You have nothing to fear.”

“B-b-baby dragon?” I stammered. Was that thing really a dragon? It looked more like a monstrous bird.

H
e laughed again. “Aye,” he said, eyes twinkling, “have you not seen one?”

I shook my head. “W
—we don’t have d—dragons,” I faltered, still struggling to speak.

The smile fell and h
is eyes widened. “No dragons?” He put a hand to his forehead. “What kind of dwelling is this?” he muttered to himself, and I couldn’t help but notice his eyes glanced over my attire once more. He scratched the side of his head, turning slightly to the frame. “When did the dragons disappear?” he asked quietly.

“I… I never even knew they really existed.”

He turned back to me, eyebrows burrowed tightly together. “If you do not have dragons in this realm and know not of their existence, then that must be a vortex to
my
world.” His face lit up suddenly. He moved to the frame and began examining it from all angles, running his hands down the sides of it. 

“You don’t know that for certain,” I said with anxiety climbing. I wasn’t sure if was from fear of letting another creature in or the fact that he might disappear before I had the answer to his secret.

“I know for certain it would be more my world than
here
,” he said contemptuously, looking around in disgust. His fingers traced the inscription and suddenly his jaw clenched, thrusting out the small muscles above the bone. He turned back with a sinister look and stomped towards me, yanking the bracelet from my wrist, and in the same instant, the large gust of wind blew past us with the same blinding light. He covered his eyes for a moment then straightened his shoulders, grinning wide and lop-sided. “Farewell, lady,” he said without a care, as he turned and strode back to the frame, but as he went to step through he halted, unable to go any further, impeded, just as he had been with the bond.

“What have you done?” he hollered
, as he pulled back his fist and pummeled it into the entrance of the vortex, but nothing happened as the invisible barrier prevented anything from passing through.

“Nothing!”
I yelled back. “You’re the one with
my
bracelet!”

He cursed loudly
as he tried to throw his body into it over and over again like a wild animal, but it was to no avail. He swept his arm across a nearby shelf in his rage, smashing more items to the floor.

“
Stop it!” I shouted, horrified as irreplaceable items became nothing more than ruined fragments.

He
backed up looking defeated, fists squeezed tightly as though ready to punch anything in his path. Then he opened his palm to look at the bracelet in his hand and angrily threw it to the ground, sliding it back towards me. I picked it up and placed it carefully on my wrist. It was still
my
bracelet; it was a gift from my grandfather, and he had no right to take it. Slowly, the light faded, and the vortex closed once more.

He squatted down with his head between his hands, gripping his hai
r on both sides. “You mean to trap me!” he growled, keeping his face downward.

“
I
freed
you!” I yelled back irately.

He lifted his head
, and I took a step back, preparing for the fiendish look I was already becoming familiar with, but his eyes never made it past the level of the floor. Instead they lit up, and I followed his gaze to a bright green glimmer coming from the linoleum tiling. There, resting on the ground was a beautiful emerald jewel, the same shade as his eyes, hanging from a golden chain. I figured it must have been one of Mr. Riley’s artifacts that crumbled to the floor from the destroyed shelves. He crawled towards it and slowly reached out his hand—hesitating for just a moment—then suddenly snatched it up, and at the same second a loud burst sounded throughout the warehouse, very different from the previous vortex.

It looked like an explosion
, but instead of combusting outward it forced everything inward like a sinking black hole, dark and dangerous. The shadow began to expand forward, grasping outwards like a hand. It overtook Brendelon, and his whole body jerked towards its center. In one quick motion, his hand shot forward, grasping on to one of the metal shelves that lined up next to the frame, but the force was unrelenting, determined to take him.

His eyes were back to black.
“Run!”

But it was too late;
I could feel the pressure pulling me forward, keeping me within fifteen feet of him; we were still bound together. I looked down at the brilliant swirls of green and purple; he had realized this too.

“Take the damned bracelet off!”

But I couldn’t. I felt an urge to protect his life even if it cost me mine. There was no reason to my madness, but I couldn’t fight against it. “No!” I screamed back at him. I positioned myself behind the rack to support the pull. I could feel the force yanking me more and more, as it pulled him deeper into the hole, but I couldn’t let it take him. I’d use the bond to save him.

“Take it off!” he hollered again.

A terrible screeching of metal rang out through my ears as the rebar’s that held the aisles in place began to rip up from the concrete ground. His legs lifted upward, and he held on as tight as he could to the remaining aisle. The racks were going to give. I could feel the pull intensify. My body yanked against the rails, and I felt like my bones would be shattered into millions of different directions, but I held on. He gripped tighter onto the rack that was barely into the ground, and I felt the tension ease slightly, but it was only momentarily because the bars gave their final give and ripped clear out of the ground. Like a vacuum, the abyss sucked them towards its center as though they were nothing more than measly specks of dirt. The only thing anchoring him now was my body being smashed into the metal shelves. The pain was excruciating and right when I was certain my bones would shatter, the ghost-like hand reached out and grasped onto the rack that fastened us to the museum, ripping it clear out of the ground and in the next instant I was slingshot forward into the darkness, smashing my body into his.