The Lady of the Storm - 2 (2 page)

The fountain suddenly erupted, pink arcs of water splashing against the still smoldering thatch of the roofs and the timbers of the cottages.

Cecily.

She walked toward them, her blue eyes gazing about the ruined village with a fury Giles had never seen the likes of before. The men surrounding him muttered a prayer under their breath at the power she so casually wielded, her fingers but flicking at the water to divert it until the fires were completely extinguished. Even the few villagers who had enough elven blood to possess a bit of magic crossed themselves. For they had only a little, since the elven lords destroyed all half-breeds who might possess enough power to be a threat to their rule.

Like Giles’s younger brother, John, who commanded enough magic at the age of six to help their father craft the devil-sword, a weapon more powerful than the sovereignty of Bladehame had produced in centuries.

And like Cecily.

She had never displayed such power before; indeed, Giles had thought Thomas might have found a way to suppress it in her. To better hide her. But he had never seen her this furious before, either. She’d never had a reason to be, in the idyllic little village life they’d led, safe from the horrors of the rest of their enslaved England.

And the full import of what had happened struck Giles. The soldiers could find her now.

When Giles had been assigned the task of protecting the girl he’d been naught but a headstrong lad determined to join the Rebellion that would free England of the elven lords who had invaded their land… and killed his father and brother. But after years of working the forge and feeling like nothing more than a glorified bodyguard—even if he enjoyed watching Cecily more than he should—when he longed to
fight
for freedom…

Ah, but Thomas had insisted Cecily could be the Rebellion’s greatest weapon, that Giles’s task held more importance than he knew. That Thomas himself could not leave the girl and do his important work for the Rebellion without knowing someone would protect her in his absence.

Giles had pleaded with Thomas to be assigned another mission. A small task even, just so he would be able to shed this disguise of a thickheaded village blacksmith, if only for a few days. But Thomas denied him, and each time Giles grew more restless and frustrated, suppressing his feelings as surely as Cecily hid her magic. For Thomas insisted that one day Giles would be needed to protect his adopted daughter. That Giles was the only man Thomas would trust in that task.

This must have been the moment Thomas feared. When he would be unable to return to watch over Cecily.

Thomas must be dead, or he would have come home. And now, Giles had full responsibility for the Rebellion’s treasured weapon. And a part of him did not regret that the day for action had finally come.

“I did not break my promise,” said Cecily. “I did not come until the fighting stopped.”

Giles nodded. He thought she would keep her word—that’s why he’d forced her to give it. Fie, he probably knew more about the lady than she knew about herself, after constantly keeping her in his sight for the past nine years.

He prided himself on the fact that she hadn’t been aware of his scrutiny.

“There are more soldiers coming.” Giles glanced over his shoulder at the rapidly approaching dust cloud. “Go back to the water and stay beneath it until I come for you.”

Her raven brows rose at that. “Your sudden concern for me is… mystifying, but there are others here—”

He grabbed her arm. The second time he’d touched her. And that same shock of excitement went through him. “No one is more important than you are; do you understand?”

Old Man Hugh made a choking sound and William, who’d been sweet on Cecily since they were children, took a step forward. “Now see here, Giles, if anyone be protecting Cecily, it’ll be me. Don’t think the number of men ye killed here today gives ye any rights to be bossing around—”

Giles grabbed the smaller man by his dirty collar and lifted him off his feet. In addition to his elven strength, he’d been pumping bellows for years to work off his frustration and had the muscles to prove it. “She’s not meant for the likes of you, William, so let it be.”

The younger man’s face paled until his freckles stood out in stark relief. Giles carefully set him back on his feet. He’d watched William moon after Cecily for years and for some reason it had irritated the hell out of him. With the aftermath of battle and the threat of another, Giles had allowed his hidden feelings to surface. He needed to rein in his control.

Cecily stood there, with eyes wide and mouth hanging open, staring at Giles as if she’d never seen him before, rather than almost every day of her young life. For a change, she looked straight into his eyes.

The world suddenly appeared to come to a stop, and Giles could no more tear his gaze away from hers than he could tear out his heart. Cecily appeared equally transfixed. They might have stood there enthralled with each other, if not for Eleanor Sutton.

The frail woman staggered into the clearing, clutching at her chest, her face black with soot. “Cecily!”

She wrenched her gaze away from Giles and turned. “Mother!” Cecily ran to the older woman’s side, clasping the thin hands in hers. “Are you all right?”

Eleanor coughed, an affliction she’d had for years, but which seemed to have worsened since her husband’s disappearance. “The smoke—the fire destroyed half of our little cottage, Cecily. The one Thomas built with his own two hands.”

“Mother, I’m so sorry.” Cecily turned back to Giles, the expression on her face now completely altered. “You shouldn’t have made me promise! She needed my help.”

The older woman collapsed at her daughter’s feet. Giles took a step toward them, but Hugh spat and said, “Stand firm, boys.”

Giles spun back around to face Breden of Dewhame’s soldiers. Hundreds of them. He wondered what had brought them out in such force. Thomas had been his only source of information from the outside world, and he’d been gone for nearly a year. But he’d gone on assignments for months before, and Giles had expected him to return any day.

It suddenly occurred to Giles that he might be wrong about the failure of the spell surrounding the village. Perhaps Thomas had been found out. Interrogated with elven magic. Perhaps he’d given away Cecily’s location to Breden of Dewhame. And his army had been sent here to capture her.

To hell with Hugh trying to reason with the soldiers. Giles couldn’t risk it.

With a roar he leaped forward, sword aloft and singing with glee, decapitating the mounted officer before the man’s body realized it, swinging around to kill another while the first slowly slid off his horse. The rest of the villagers had apparently forgotten his suggestion as well, for without hesitation they joined the melee, destroying the mounted officers before the soldiers on foot behind them could even get a shot off.

But the enemy rallied soon enough, firing at the villagers with abandon.

Giles took a bullet in the shoulder. He barely noticed. He had complete control of his devil-sword this time, and it flew in dizzying arcs, slicing through anyone foolish enough to get close enough.

They kept coming anyway.

Until he walked on bodies to reach the next group of fighters, saving his fellow villagers time and again.

But it would not be enough.

There were too many soldiers this time.

Screams of fury and agony surrounded him. The sharp scent of blood filled his nostrils. Betimes a red haze covered his eyes until he could barely see. Battle was not all he had dreamed of. The reality of it twisted his gut, brought a bitter taste to his mouth. Giles’s blade hummed with happiness while he regretted the death of each man he killed, trying not to think of the widows he created today.

Magic bit at him more than once—a pool of water threatening to trip him up, a liquid flail that sliced across his chest like a knife, ripping through linen and skin.

There must have been a few soldiers from other sovereignties as well, for fire magic from Firehame licked at his breeches. Giles fought an illusory Cyclops created from Dreamhame, and he even met the steel of another enchanted sword crafted in Bladehame. But none of the paltry spells could overcome his devil of a sword. It dissolved the flail, quenched the fire, cut through the illusion, and shattered the other blade.

Through it all, Giles knew he fought a losing battle. But he would not allow despair or regret to make him falter, for not once did he forget the reason he fought. And after nine years of his life revolving around one slip of a woman, he did not allow his awareness of her to waver.

And so. When she approached the circle of fighting he felt her. He cursed, took one dangerous glance behind him, cursed again. That quick glance revealed Eleanor’s lifeless body behind her, Cecily’s furious blue eyes sparkling like sentient jewels as she strode toward the fray. Giles gathered all the elven strength he possessed and jumped, landing lithely in front of her, effectively stopping her advance. His sword danced a pattern around her, warning anyone foolish enough to approach the woman to stay clear.

“Get out of my way,” she growled.

“The hell I will.”

“You cannot defeat them all. I can.”

She could. Giles could hear it in her voice. She might even be the villagers’ only hope of surviving this battle. But then what? For the past nine years she’d hidden the true strength of her magic. And Giles had to consider every possibility. If he was wrong about Thomas being captured, and the elven lord
didn’t
know about Cecily’s existence… word of this battle would spread quickly to Dewhame Palace. Breden would know one of his elven bastards had enough magic to threaten his rule.

They would hunt her down like a rabid fox. He wouldn’t be able to keep her safe.

“No,” he finally said. “When I say the word, you will run. Find a horse. Ride away from here as fast as you can. Go to Firehame Palace—ask for the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole—tell him you are Thomas’s daughter.”

“The hell I will.”

She’d thrown his words right back at him. Damn if he could not stop the smile that cracked his face.

“If you don’t get out of my way,” she continued, “I shall have to go through you.”

And she would.

He’d admired her growing beauty for years, but this was the first time he admired her strength of character.

Giles stepped out of her path but stayed near, protecting her back. For even the most powerful sorceress could be felled by a bullet or a blade.

A pile of bodies lay between them and the remaining fighters. Cecily’s uncannily brilliant eyes narrowed at the sight, her lips tightening with resolve. Giles could feel her call to the magic in her blood, could hear the distant sound of the waves which constantly crashed against the shore grow more furious by the second, could sense the multitude of ponds and lakes that surrounded the village rise up into pillars of whirling dervishes.

Giles had known of Cecily’s command of water but he’d never felt the complete force of it until now. Thomas had once told him she also commanded the more dangerous elements of the sky, that he’d seen her use a storm to defend them long ago. But the consequences of her actions had made Cecily turn her back on most of her magic, and Thomas had allowed it for his own reasons. If she called down her sky magic now, Breden of Dewhame would know that he dealt with more than an ordinary half-breed. That the daughter he’d let slip through his grasp still survived.

For only Breden could command the power of sky. Even his general, Owen Fletcher, reputed for his magical abilities—and more quietly—his perversions of that power, could not summon the tiniest of rainstorms.

Giles glanced up at the sky, still blue and soft with clouds, and breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps Cecily’s aversion to using that gift still ruled her.

But the power she commanded from earthbound water was impressive enough. The young woman who stood next to him radiated enough magical resonance to make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. And her head barely topped his shoulders.

Spears of liquid raced from ocean and pond, swirling in columns of water to create a density strong enough to wrap around the soldiers of Breden’s army. Saltwater tangled about their boots; pond water circled their arms and muskets. At first it soaked their clothing, the bloody dirt beneath them, but more water arced toward them until it surrounded them in a cyclone that had the strength to lift them off their feet. Their screams were muffled behind the silvery sheen of liquid.

Two of the officers possessed magical abilities and they managed to break free of their watery traps. Five other soldiers wielded swords that must have been crafted in Bladehame, for they sliced through their cyclones, trying to cut the tendrils that led to their fellows. But they did not wield a devil-blade like Giles’s, and Cecily’s power overwhelmed such puny strength. Soon they were trapped like most of their fellows.

The villagers gaped at the maelstrom around them for a few moments but soon began a retreat toward Cecily. The officers who remained free followed them with a yell of defiance. Giles resisted the impulse to leap forward and engage them in combat, his mission to protect Cecily keeping him by the half-breed’s side.

Her hands moved in a pattern that followed the swirling motion of the water. Those jewel-like elven eyes barely blinked, the blue irises glazed with some emotion Giles could only guess at. What would it feel like to wield such power?