Rising Fire (25 page)

B
rienne shivered herself awake in the cold mist of the morning. The
haar
was so thick she could not see more than a foot or two away from her. Corann shivered his sleep. She felt him and heard him, but he did not wake. Brisbois had given her a potion for him he said would ease the man's pain, and it held him in sleep's grasp now. As she tried to pull the blanket over him, the rope around her wrists kept her from doing so.

“Brisbois? Can you untie my hands?”

She peered through the heavy, moving fog and listened for his reply. Nothing. Had he moved away then, called to some duty by Lord Hugh? Then she noticed the unearthly calm that the fog seemed to cause, for she could hear no one and nothing.

Then it came. His war cry split the silence, and her blood surged at the sound.

William was coming for her!

She needed to free herself and help Corann so they were ready when he got to her. Scrambling to her knees, she tried to loosen the knots. Brienne could still
not see into the fog, and it seemed to thicken around her.

“Brienne?” a soft voice whispered from a few yards away.

Before she could answer, the attack began, or attacks, for she could hear fighting in three directions. Men rushed through the camp with torches, trying to defend their lord.

“Brienne? Are you here?” It was Aislinn, the girl from Marcus's people.

“Aye, and Corann,” she whispered back. “I need help getting free. Where is William?”

Aislinn reached her side, cutting through the rope and checking Corann. “We must hurry. His distractions will last but a short time.”

“Aislinn, what are you doing here?” A man joined them then, grabbing the girl and moving her aside. “Does Marcus know?” he asked as he uncovered Corann and knelt next to him.

“He needs me,” she answered back.

A wind began then, whipping the fog into swirling shapes.

“Get him!” Aislinn looked at her. “We must get away now.”

Brienne stood, ready to follow her to William. The man gathered Corann and put him over his shoulder. Standing, with Aislinn helping him to balance Corann, the man pointed in the direction they must go. She'd taken one step when flames of fire came for her. Moving at an incredible speed, the living fire seemed to hop from torch to torch, growing and changing until Lord Hugh stood before her, illuminating the area around her.

Aislinn was exposed, too, so she grabbed for Brienne's hand when the fire landed at her feet around her. Shocked by Lord Hugh's ability to move from flame to flame, Brienne screamed out in pain, for she still could not change and knew she would die. Lord Hugh shifted partly to human form, maintaining a burning grip on her. Since she could not overpower him, she watched in horror as he called out more orders to men he clearly had at the ready.

“Brisbois! Take her now!”

Brisbois stepped from the shadows and grabbed Aislinn, wrapping his huge arms around her and tightening his hold until she could not move.

“She is more valuable than the half-dead one,” Lord Hugh said. “My thanks to your warblood for providing me with one of the most powerful priests I have ever encountered.”

Brienne watched helplessly as Brisbois dragged Aislinn along with them. Lord Hugh's men gathered behind them, protecting them as they mounted their horses and rode to the circle. The sun broke over the horizon as they reached it, and Brienne could see the field where Lord Hugh's men already were in position to defend. He rode through the line, and they closed behind him. Reaching the lower of two circles, he dropped her to the ground and dismounted.

The same low hum she'd heard as they'd sailed past the castle on the coast was here, too. But it grew louder with every step they took up the hill. And her power flickered within her, too, unable to resist the call of the stones.

Brisbois stared at her as she allowed it to rise through her skin. Lord Hugh shifted to his fiery shape and
continued to surround her, controlling her, but as she watched Brisbois, she remembered what he'd done for her. He'd stopped giving her whatever Lord Hugh was adding to the water to keep her powers from answering her command. Mayhap he hoped she would remember her promise to make his death a quick one?

“Is Paulin within the circle?” Lord Hugh called out.

“Aye, my lord,” Eudes replied, grabbing the reins of their horses. He handed a torch to Brisbois.

“Brisbois, take the priest to him. Make certain she reads the signs and is ready when the warblood arrives.” His torturer dragged Aislinn, crossing into the circle and taking her to the altar stone.

“William will not open the gateway for you,” Brienne said. “He will sacrifice himself before he helps you bring . . .
HER
 . . . into this world.”

“Ah, sweet Brienne.” He laughed as he dragged her closer and closer to the stones, which began to glow and hum louder. “He would not do a thing to save himself, but for you and the seer and his father, he would go to hell and back. And that is exactly what I intend for him . . . and you.”

He used little force against her, believing her still compelled by the magical potion he'd been feeding her. Brienne allowed it and did not reveal that her strength and power and ability to change were back and were even stronger because of the stones that seemed to be the source of it. She waited, giving William a chance to save Aislinn before she would take Lord Hugh through the barrier in the heart of the circle and let their fireblood seal it over them.

Brienne had seen it in the memories of the goddess when they'd merged and melded in the barrier. Her
blood and his, the last living firebloods, would forever close this gateway, preventing what he was trying to do. She could bring an end to the possibility that their bloodline would rise again.

Now she peered into the circle and saw Aislinn there, at a stone altar with Brisbois at her back and another man at their side. Lord Hugh was focusing his efforts on making the perimeter of the stones a hell. He set it all on fire so that none could pass. Chanting, he walked around it, casting more fire until the stones were almost invisible among it.

“Warblood!” he called out in a voice too loud to be human. “I will destroy them both if you do not do my bidding now.”

It was a voice that combined male and female—Hugh and the goddess spoke. Brienne felt the ground trembling and knew she was attempting to force herself through the barrier that was the center of the circle. All it would take was a slight rupture and she would escape into this world.
Their
world.

She was held, burning and not being destroyed, against the tallest of the stones. It towered over her and seemed to grow taller by the minute. All the stones did, stretching and groaning and changing. Symbols appeared, being carved before her eyes like metal in her father's fire pit.

Flames. War hammer. A horse. A tree. A sun. Water moving. A stick figure of a man. A bolt of lightning. Carved, glowing, and disappearing. Again and again, across all the stones.

Then she heard the clamor of fighting coming closer and saw William striding toward her. Her blood roared and her powers soared as he approached.

He was enormous, almost as tall as the stone at her back, with huge muscles. His limbs were weapons that no man could have wielded. His eyes were huge and red, and his skin was the color of the sky and ice. He was death walking, and he was aiming at Lord Hugh.

He paused before her, and his eyes were William's for a moment, as was his voice.

“Brienne, my love,” he said. He reached through the flames that surrounded her and stroked her cheek. She watched the skin on his blue hands begin to burn and still he did not pull away.

“Save Aislinn. She cannot survive the fire,” she urged him.

He stepped back, the warblood once more, and faced Hugh.

“'Tis not just the one, Warblood,” Hugh called out to him, and he pointed to the other side of the circle. Marcus's priests were surrounded by the flames. “I will kill all of them now or feed them to my goddess later,” he threatened, “unless you open the gateway.”

Hugh set one of the priests aflame to demonstrate his power and his determination. But William understood that Hugh would kill every last one of them if the warblood became his pawn. He watched every second of the priest's torment, honoring his sacrifice as others would honor his, for he could not allow the gateway to be open.

He pulled the power into his blood, urging it on, forcing his body to push to a new size and strength. Then he turned his hands into flat hammers. With one last look at Brienne, the woman he loved, the fireblood he would never claim, he ran, aiming at the stone next to where Hugh held her. The pain of the impact of his
body against the stone was immeasurable, but so was the pleasure at feeling it move.

Hugh did not realize his intent until he did it a second time . . . and a third. The warblood's bones crushed and healed, crushed and healed with each impact. If he could bring down this stone and destroy the altar stone behind it, the integrity of the circle would break and no spell could be cast there.

The stone began to wobble. The warblood smiled and prepared to hit it for the last time.

And Hugh screamed and attacked him.

The fire swarmed him, burning his skin, burning his lungs, and driving him away. All it would take was one more blow to knock it over, but the heat and torment of the flames directed at him forced him to stop just a few paces from the stone. He laughed then, for Hugh had forgotten he needed the warblood for the spell and was destroying him on his own. Either way, it would end here.

And Brienne would survive.

I love you, Brienne.

If he died saving her and the rest of his world, so be it. The warblood closed his eyes.

She was there before him, a shield against the flames her father aimed at him. He felt Brienne but saw the fireblood around him.

I love you, William,
she whispered in his thoughts and in his heart.

Hugh screamed again, and it sounded like a roar around and in him. Brienne did not relent, surrounding him so that nothing touched him.

Go, get Aislinn. Save them. Trust me.

And he did.

As she spread herself into a wall of flames, wider and longer over him, a path opened for him into the circle. He ran to get the priest but found her waiting for him. The warblood looked back and saw that the flames battled each other now, Brienne trying to keep her father out of the circle while he was in there.

“Hold up the torch,” Aislinn said to the soldier who had carried her there. He was one of Hugh's men and yet he followed her orders without hesitation. The other lay dead on the ground. “Your hand, Warblood!”

He rushed to the altar stone and held his hand over it. Aislinn cut across his wrist, and his blood, blue now and glowing, flowed onto its surface. Then she held her breath, grabbed his hand, and did the same to her wrist. He watched as her human blood, rich and red, mixed with his.

“Call her now, William! Now!”

BRIENNE!
He shouted it with his voice and his thoughts and his heart and his soul.

In horror, he watched the firefight outside the circle between Brienne and her father end in a flash—one second she held him back and in the next she disappeared. He heard Hugh's victorious laugh ring out. If Hugh entered the circle now and completed the other ritual with his blood, the world would end in fire and destruction.

In the next instant, before he could breathe or move or think, Brienne materialized from the torch that Hugh's man held. Still fire, she held out part of her and it became her hand and arm. Aislinn grabbed her, joined the three, and cut her wrist over the pool of their blood, adding the molten-gold colored blood to theirs.

The marks of their bloodlines lit up on their skin,
and suddenly the stones vibrated, sending out a sound unlike any he'd ever heard before. Chiming bells or singing stones? A barrier formed between the stones, keeping them inside.

And Hugh was outside.

“We are not finished yet, and he still has the power to destroy those outside,” Aislinn said. “The stones must be marked and sealed.”

The warblood turned and saw a great chasm form in the center of the circle. A roar emanated from deep within it.

“The goddess will try to escape now. Find the stone carved with your symbol and”—she smeared some of the gathered blood onto her mark—“and place yours on it.”

He dipped his hands into the blood and smeared it on his arm, covering the mark in blood that boiled and swirled with the mixed colors and powers of the three of them. Brienne did the same, and they ran into the circle to the stone carrying their symbol.

The roar from the center of the circle increased, and the warblood saw talons and glowing eyes there. And fire, long bursts of fire and molten streams against whatever held it captive. The ground shook and the stones' song grew louder and louder.

He found his stone and waited for the fireblood and priest to take their places. When they did, they raised their marks and placed them in the carvings at the same moment.

The sky above them glowed and swirled, creatures or beings appeared over them, and the stones melted and reached for that sky before bending over to touch in the middle, over the abyss. The altar stone cracked
in two, and the pool of blood flowed onto the ground and dripped into the void. Screams of rage and agony erupted as the pit sealed from the edges into the center. Then it was gone, all of it, leaving them in the middle of an empty field, the stones buried once more deep in the earth.

The warblood, the fireblood, and the priest were gone, and only William, Brienne, and Aislinn remained.

But Hugh de Gifford was only defeated, not dead.

William took Brienne in his arms and kissed her hungrily, then stepped away. There
would
be time for them, but first he needed to deal with the threat to his men, their people.