The Golden Apple (21 page)

She didn’t know if she could, but her fingers tingled, and she felt the charge in the air above her head from the wild magic. “Yes.”

Sooty’s gaze had not wavered from the asrai since they’d first seen her, and Kayla looked down, saw she was looking to the left. “She’s over there.” She pointed.

Without another word, without a single hesitation or break in his stride, Soren walked towards the part of the bank she’d indicated.

The asrai sprang, water streaming off her white blonde hair, pressing the translucent fabric of her dress to her body. Her mouth was drawn back in a snarl, and she screamed as she leapt forward.

Kayla felt a surge of power. Shock at the explosiveness of the asrai’s attack, fear for Soren, fizzed through her, and the force of wild magic she drew threw her hands out in front of her. A flash of purple blinded her and the asrai’s scream turned into the cry of a bird. When she blinked away the spots in front of her eyes, Soren was jumping back as a heron stabbed at him with its long, sharp beak.

Sooty crouched down, growling low, and the heron stopped its attack. It leapt clumsily, wings flapping, into the air.

Soren said nothing as he watched it fly over the trees and disappear. He stood, cool and calm as ever. “Are you ready to continue on?”

Kayla let her gaze drift from the point where the bird disappeared, and drew in a deep breath. She had just turned an asrai into a bird. She’d thought when she’d seen it stabbing a stick at Soren how like a heron it had looked. Somehow, the wild magic had taken that thought, made it real. Or was it her? Her doing entirely?

She took another deep breath. “I’m ready, but I think we are wasting too much time. Time we don’t have. I said the last time I saw Eric, he was in Gaynor, but I’ve just remembered, that isn’t true…” Kayla let her words trail off. Turned to the sphere behind her. It was directly at eye level.

“I think…” Her voice trembled. “I think I have just remembered a short cut.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

H
e burst through the mist, and suddenly he could see the massive keep that dominated the landscape, standing on the slope at the far end of the valley.

Behind him, the fog had gone, and so had the wells. So had his bags. Like his approach on the other side of it, if he moved his head he caught the opening from the corner of his eye.

From thin air, he heard a keening sound and shivered. The second grindylow had just found its fallen companion.

Time to go.

As he approached the massive wooden double-door of the keep, he wondered how Eric thought to get the gem. Had he instructed the grindylows to kill everyone who came through the mist, and bring him the bodies to search?

Eric had never intended to lift the enchantment. Never intended to let them live. Or never intended to let
him
live. He had no idea how the grindylows would have dealt with Kayla.

He thought Eric’s interest in Kayla too intense for him to want her dead. Then he remembered the strange encounter Kayla had with Eric in the forest. Rane did not know what had been said between them. Perhaps Eric had decided Kayla would never be compliant enough.

He reached the stairs, climbed them to the double doors and lifted his hand. Before he grasped the knocker, shaped like a lightning bolt, he paused. Tried to strip his soul of any softness. Any pity.

The only way to come out of this free of enchantment—to come out of this alive—was to be as hard as the gem strapped to the small of his back.

* * *

“It is here, somewhere.” Kayla looked at the sea of spheres hovering in front of her. She had called them to her, like she called Sooty, and they had come.

That they
had
come, that she had that power, was too big for her to think about. Instead, she concentrated on finding the sphere that had given her access to Eric’s dungeon.

“What do you mean, it’s here?” Soren leant against a tree, arms crossed over his chest, and Kayla felt a slow, deep-burning anger at him. How many times must she save him before he trusted her?

“I mean,” she spoke each word carefully, as flat as she could, “that one of these wild magic spheres was created when Eric cast a spell in his dungeon. Somehow, it is still connected to its place of creation. It gave me a window to step through before, right into Eric’s castle.”

Soren stood straight, forehead creased. “You think you can call forward the right one?”

Kayla lifted a hand. “I don’t know. But even if I have to touch every single one, it will be quicker than wasting time we don’t have following Rane’s trail.”

She closed her eyes. Thought back to the night she’d found herself in Eric’s lair. She’d run down the path, away from the woman in the clearing, and wild magic had blocked her path, stretched into a flat oval.

Had it been offering her an escape?

She shook her head, opened her eyes. One sphere moved, darting between the others towards her.

She held her breath, and as it stopped in front of her, it flattened, stretched, into a window. She leant forward, and saw the stairs, heard the faint drip of water off the walls.

“Kayla?”

She breathed out at last. Turned to him. “Run back to the main path and get our bags. We have a way in.”

Soren looked at the glimmering oval. “You want me to go through there?” His mouth set in a hard line.

She was at the end of her patience. “Do what you like. It obviously means nothing to you that your brother is through there because he’s trying to save your life. Leave him to his fate, stay here and count spheres of wild magic. Throw yourself at every dangerous creature you can find. Offer yourself up to Jasper for more torture. Whatever makes you happy.”

His head snapped in her direction, his mouth open.

She turned and stalked away, back to the main path.

“Wait!” There was a note of panic in his voice. “Where are you going?”

She looked over her shoulder. “To get my bags.”

He shook his head. Pushed past her, his body stiff with frustration.

“Stay here. I’ll get the cursed bags.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

R
ane let the knocker fall. After his deliberate silence, its crack made him wince.

There was no response.

He slammed it against the door again.

Footsteps sounded, quick and strong.

The door swung back and Eric stood before him. His face was emotionless, but Rane noticed a tick in the corner of his left eye, and felt a surge of satisfaction.

“Where is the princess?” Eric looked beyond him.

Rane felt something dark and ugly crawl over his skin at the eager look in Eric’s eyes. “Why would I bring her to you?”

Eric shoved him aside, stepped outside and looked around. “Where is she? She must be here. The enchantment won’t allow for anything else.”

“She isn’t here. And if she had come with me, what would those grindylows have done to her? What they tried to do to me?”

Eric turned slowly, his eyes moving over the fields, as if unable to let go of the certainty Kayla was here. “No. Their instructions have always been to kill only men. All women are to be brought to me.”

“I never realized grindylows were so easily commanded.”

Eric sneered. “They are not normal grindylows. They are creatures of my…tinkering.”

Rane fought down his distaste. He thought he heard another howl of grief from the empty field.

“She must be dead.” Eric spoke slowly, then cocked his head to one side, as if he heard the howl, too. “That is the only way it makes sense. Kayla is dead.”

Rane raised his hands as if in surrender. “Yes.”

Eric gave a cry of rage, and leapt, staff swinging back. Not for a spell. He wanted to strike a physical blow.

Rane leapt out of Eric’s way, ducking into the hallway of the castle, hand reaching for his knife.

Before he could, he was grabbed from behind, his arms pinned to his sides, and as he struggled to get free, Eric lunged again, his staff connecting with Rane’s shoulder.

Rane roared with pain. He twisted and bucked against the arms holding him, hitting the massive body behind with elbows and head. The hold tightened, crushing his chest, and Rane saw the green-grey arms of a stone giant. He stilled in shock, letting his body go limp.

“You thought I was alone?” Eric slammed his staff into Rane’s abdomen, and Rane gritted his teeth to stop calling out.

He had hoped Eric would be alone, but he’d never counted on it. A stone giant, though…Despair clawed at him, weighed him down. They were fast, incredibly strong. Almost impossible to beat. He could smell the hot energy of it, the stink of iron, enveloping him as he stood trapped in its arms.

“Where’s the gem?” Eric brought his face right up to Rane’s, his dark eyes blazing on the edge of control.

Rane took as deep a breath as he could with the tight hold the stone giant had on his chest. Braced himself in advance for the retaliation. “Let me go, first.”

Eric struck, hitting him in the midriff again with his staff. “You have no power to bargain. Where is it?”

Rane closed his eyes, as if in defeat. “In my bags. I left them in the mists with the grindylows.”

Eric stepped back. “Find them,” he said to the stone giant. He lifted his staff, and as Rane was released, blue light flashed.

He was paralyzed again, just as he had been on the jousting field of Gaynor Castle. The stone giant stepped around him and down the stairs. It was double his size, stocky, every inch rippling with muscle. It wore nothing but a leather flap from its waist, and Rane saw its back was scarred with burns.

“Come with me.” Eric stepped into the hallway, and Rane’s body followed him, jerkily, like a badly-played marionette.

To be so out of control…Rane tried to clear a calm space in his mind, to get over the rage that was a conflagration within. He needed a cool head. To conserve his energy, not fight a battle he couldn’t win.

“This drives you mad, doesn’t it?” Eric waited for him, his face twisted in a mixture of rage and gloating. “Every step I make you take barely shaves the edge off my fury. I know you must have had her, and the thought of your filthy woodsman’s hands on her…” Eric clenched his fists, swallowed convulsively. “She was
mine
. I saw what she was and I forced an agreement from her father. And then you…” He lifted his staff, and Rane had time only to understand Eric had finally lost control.

Blue light hit him, sent him flying through the air. He slammed into the wall at the far end of the hallway, and lay, crumpled, paralyzed, the world shrinking around him, with darkness framing his vision.

He heard Eric walking to him, the footsteps faint, as if coming from far away. He could not move, could only watch Eric’s black boots come closer and closer. Watch, helpless, as his foot drew back and slammed into his face.

Chapter Thirty

S
ooty would not go through the wild magic sphere, and Kayla stepped through without her. The cold of the stone stairwell enveloped her, a shock after the steamy heat of the forest.

Sooty leant forward, as if looking into a fishpond, and tapped at the sphere with her massive paw. It dipped through the shimmering light into the stairwell, and with a chirp, Sooty pulled it back. Her whole body shivered.

Kayla crouched low, looking up the stairs to make sure no-one was coming, and then crept round the curve on the wall and peered around it to see what was beyond.

Last time, it had been unlit, but it wasn’t dark anymore.

Light flickered from torches along both walls, and Kayla realized how massive the chamber was.

Something hung, strung up by its arms, head bowed, much as Soren had been, to her left, quite close, and she leant forward, trying to get a better look.

It was dark purple, tall, and painfully thin. Its back was to her, and she could see burn marks across its shoulders.

There was a clink of metal, and with a start, Kayla noticed Eric, standing with a grey-green giant, at the far end of the room.

They were wrapping chains around something—someone—and Kayla risked rising up a little, straining to see who it was…

Rane.

Her heart seized in her chest, the pain forcing her to press a fist into her ribs.

She began forward then stopped short. Where was Soren? He’d been right behind her. A mix of panic and anger rose up in her, choked her, as she realized he hadn’t come through.

She edged back to the stairwell to see if she would really have to do this alone.

As she rounded the corner, Sooty jumped through, crouching as low as Kayla on the icy stone floor.

Wherever they were, it stood to reason they were not in the Great Forest. Eric had seemed genuinely afraid of it, back at Gaynor Castle. So it followed there would be no wild magic to draw on here.

She peered out of the oval, to the forest beyond, and tried to draw power to her through the portal. It came reluctantly, she could feel the resistance as it passed through the shimmering purple light. Her hands sparked, but she was getting a sense now of how much power she had available at any one time, and she knew she couldn’t do much with what was coming through to her.