The Lady of the Storm - 2 (31 page)

“Ah, don’t tempt me. You have no idea of my passion for the gentler sex. And you—I believe you would last so much longer than the others.” He threw the liquor down his throat in one fluid movement and then cocked his head at her. “But I do not think that’s what you were referring to, was it? Egads, don’t make me laugh again. We haven’t the time for such jocularity. I am not Breden of Dewhame. I do not seek your death. Indeed, if you but do what I ask, I will not reveal your existence to anyone. Including your dear father.”

Cecily took a deep breath. “What do you want from me?”

His handsome face twisted in a mocking grin. “The scepter, my dear. I want you to steal Breden’s scepter for me.”

Fourteen

Giles lay on the makeshift bed he’d tucked into a corner of the weapons shed, his hands beneath his head as he stared up at the beams of the ceiling, remembering every detail from last night. The way Cecily had felt within his arms, the way his body had felt inside of hers, the feel of her water magic as it swirled around them. The ethereal beauty of her face by candlelight.

He muttered a curse and sat up, rubbing his cheeks with his hands. If he continued on like this, he would not be able to resist her invitation, should her messenger boy send one. And he had to protect her. Even if it meant protecting her from himself.

She could not see it now, past the first blush of passion, but he knew people better than she. Cecily would come to hate him for making her an outcast. And although the disease had spread no farther, he had no assurance that it would not overtake him some day, turning him into a complete monster.

He should never have allowed last night to happen. Giles had always been in control with women, but Cecily had the ability to shatter him with only a touch. Faith, ever since that first day on the beach when she had come within touching distance of him, he hadn’t been able to resist reaching out to her.

If he didn’t think it would imperil their mission, he would tell Will that Cecily was here. Will would still be in love with her, and perhaps he could manage to gain her heart again. Then Cecily would quit pursuing Giles and leave him to suffer in peace.

Anger flared at the thought of Cecily with another man, but it did not stop him from wallowing in self-pity. And he knew he wallowed. It infuriated him… but sometimes he thought that it might be the only comfort he had left.

Giles had never thought much about his appearance, but he had apparently taken it for granted. Women falling at his feet. Little girls staring at him with large puppy eyes. Men casting him glances of admiration and envy. He had gotten used to it, had taken it for granted. And perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if he had suddenly lost his elven beauty and turned into a plain-looking human. But the contrast of his new life to his old was too great. Women looked at him with disgust. Little girls ran screaming from him. And his easy camaraderie with other men had completely vanished.

Ah, enough of this. He had best put his mind to better purpose, and try to figure out a way to meet the dragon this evening. He would not be able to meet Kalah in his tower; that would raise too many questions. But he’d asked around today, and discovered that the dragon sometimes went to his feeding grounds at night. The fenced pasture of cattle was located a fair distance from the palace, and he hoped the dragon would not mistake Apollo for a midnight treat. He had naught to do but wait until—

The sound of the door banging open roused him from his misery, and he called out, only partly grateful for the interruption. Few of the men would seek him out and he wasn’t scheduled for patrol for several more hours, so Giles figured it would be Cecily’s messenger boy, even before he saw him come barreling around the stack of swords.

Giles took one look at the lad’s face and started to pull on his boots. Jimson had not come to deliver a message for some lover’s tryst. He looked scared out of his wits.

“Catch your breath,” he told the boy. “Then tell me what has happened.”

One gulp. Two. “Fletcher’s water nymphs. They took my sister. And Lucy went after them.”

Giles cursed and stood, adjusting his sword belt. “Where? Take me to them.”

The boy must have had a hefty amount of elven blood, because he spun and ran fast enough that Giles pushed to keep up. They sprinted over bridges and past fountains, around pavilions set up for the overflow of guests at tonight’s ball. But the grounds were not yet crowded, and Jimson managed to keep to the shadows. Until they neared the palace walls.

Giles brought the lad up short with a hiss, ducking behind a small fountain, nodding at the two soldiers on patrol. The cheeky lad gave him a wink and did something with his hands, and disappeared into a sparkling mist. When Giles looked down at his body, all he could see was the outline of his sword.

“Bugger it,” whispered Jimson. “It won’t work on your blade.”

“My sword has magic of its own.”

“And it’s stronger than mine. Can ye drag it along the ground so the soldiers won’t notice it?”

Giles shrugged, but removed his belt and did as the boy suggested, scowling when the devil-blade emitted a whine of indignation at the ignoble idea of being dragged through the mud. The sound must have caught the guards’ attention, for Jimson passed them with nary a glance, but when Giles followed the thick mist that had become the boy, one of the guards elbowed his fellow and nodded at the movement on the ground.

Giles froze as the two men came over to investigate. Despite the worn appearance of his sword, he knew one of them would try to take it, for sturdy weapons did not come cheap. So the moment they both stood over it, Giles drew it from the sheath and whacked one upside the head with the flat of the blade.

If Giles had not been so anxious for Cecily, he might have laughed at the look on the other soldier’s face as the sword swung by itself in the air and smacked him as well.

“Jimson,” he whispered over the men’s prone bodies, for he could no longer see the mist now that he’d taken his gaze from it.

The lad materialized beside him and motioned him forward to the palace wall. Giles leaped to Jimson’s side, watched as the boy placed one foot on a brick near the ground, pressed another high up over his head, and a portion of the wall slid open. They quickly ducked through the stream of water that constantly slid down the palace exterior and were plunged into darkness when the opening closed behind them.

“Now what?” asked Giles, who couldn’t see two feet in front of his face.

“Forgot a lantern,” huffed the boy. “Take the back of me shirt and hold on.”

Giles strapped his sword belt back on and did as Jimson asked, hoping that the ceiling of the tunnels would be higher than his head. When he managed several feet without running into anything, he picked up his stride, urging the boy to go faster. The dank mustiness of the passages made it difficult to breathe, and Giles wondered that Cecily had managed so many nights of exploring these stifling corridors.

They passed several small round openings of light, the beams seeming brilliant in the darkness, but Jimson ignored them all until the passage angled upward and turned. The boy stopped and pressed his eyeball over the hole. He softly cursed, a phrase so colorful that it made even Giles’s eyebrows rise up.

“Let me see.”

The boy stood aside and Giles peered into a room decorated with enough seashells to blanket the shore of his old village. Mosaics of shells tiled the floor and walls in colorful patterns, but his attention quickly shifted to a pond surrounded by lifelike statues of sharks with open jaws and pointed teeth. Within the water sat two nymphs who appeared to be torturing a servant girl with one lethal-looking knife and both of their jagged claws.

Giles had never seen a water demon so closely before. They reminded him a bit too much of monstrous frogs, and he wondered if that’s what the elven lord had used as a source to create them.

“Your sister?” whispered Giles, his attention back on the servant girl.

Jimson strangled out a “Yes.”

“Where’s Cecily?”

“Who?”

“Lucy. Where’s Lucy?”

He felt the boy tremble. “The nymphs serve Fletcher. He might have taken her somewhere else. The demons will know.”

“Right.” Giles pulled his eye away from the peephole. “Is there a way to get into the room from here?”

Jimson’s face floated like a white ghost in the darkness. “Never tried. These are
Fletcher’s
rooms.”

His tone indicated the madness of the thought. Giles smiled, and it didn’t feel like a nice one. “Look for one. Now.”

Jimson plastered his hands on the dirty wall, frantically pressing and poking. Giles joined in, although he hadn’t the slightest idea what he might be looking for. Something that gave way beneath his touch?

“Water demons are nasty beasts,” whispered the boy. “Beware those teeth, for their bite is venomous. Ahh.” Something clicked in the stone, and Jimson kept his hand pressed on it while he continued to search with the other. “Claws are so filthy, I seen a man die from a scratch.”

Giles’s devil-blade started to hum and lift from his scabbard. He pressed his hand down on the pommel to keep it in place. His cheek burned, reminding him of the consequences of allowing a monster too close. “Do not worry, boy. They won’t get near enough to touch you. Didn’t you also push a brick at your feet to open the outer wall?”

A high-pitched scream came from within the room.

“Ellen,” cried Jimson, kicking at the bricks of the wall. Giles couldn’t tell which one opened the door, but with a rattle and a groan a crack appeared before them, spilling light onto the dirty floor. Giles shoved it open far enough to squeeze his body through and leaped across the room, landing in the pool with a burst of sprayed water, his blade flying to his hand.

He spitted the first demon like a fish on a stick and turned to the other who held the knife at Ellen’s throat. Damn, the water demon had carved Jimson’s sister into a bloody mess.

“Let her go and you live.”

The nymph cracked him a malicious smile, those buggy eyes straying to the mark on his face. “Where did you come from, gorgeous?” Her gaze flicked to her companion who still dangled upon his sword. “I never liked her much.” And then those buggy eyes widened as Giles’s devil-blade began to feast, sucking the fluid from the body until nothing but a shell remained.

Giles flicked the thing off his sword with a grimace. “Where’s the other woman?”

The demon carved another circle from Ellen’s flesh, but Jimson’s sister did not cry out, her mouth slack, her eyes glazed with shock. “As pretty as you are, I do not think I’m inclined to tell you anything.”

Giles’s sword absorbed the last few drops from the other demon and twisted in his hand to point at the nymph, quivering in anticipation. “Touch her again, and I will let it fly.”

Her eyes studied the blade. “Dark magic, that thing in your hand.” She heaved a sigh and released Ellen, who would have slid beneath the water if Jimson had not appeared to drag her away.

“’Twas naught but a bit of fun, warrior. We do not concern ourselves with human ambition overly much.”

“Then you won’t mind telling me where the other woman is.”

She licked her lips with a black tongue, displaying sharp green teeth. “You need more than a human female to properly appreciate such a handsome face.” She slid her hands down her chest, over her scaled bosom.

“My palm grows slippery,” warned Giles.

She shrugged. “La, you do not know what you are missing… no, do not release that thing! You humans have no idea of the powers that you fiddle with. The other girl is with mad Fletcher. Who else would take his next conquest to the Imperial Lord’s chambers?” And she slipped beneath the water with a hiss.

Giles fought the pull of his sword and let her go, for he had given his word. His devil-blade drooped sadly in his hand and emitted a ring of disgust when he sheathed it.

Jimson had dragged his sister from the water and sat on the mosaic floor next to her, washing her throat and crooning words of comfort.

“What is the quickest way to Breden’s chambers?” demanded Giles. The time for stealth had passed.

When the boy looked up at him, Giles noted with relief that those blue-green eyes held steady. “Down the hall. Gold double doors.”

Giles had already started toward the exit. “Use that disappearing trick of yours and get your sister far away from Dewhame.” He stopped and pulled a sack of coins from his pocket, half of what Sir Robert had grudgingly provided him, and tossed it to Jimson. “Take her to Firehame. You will both be safe there.”

The boy picked it up and weighed it in his hand. “What about Lucy?”

Giles drew his sword. “I will protect her. I have
always
protected her.”

And Jimson saw something in Giles’s face that made him swallow and nod.

Giles reached the door and stepped into the hallway. Silence. The guests would all be at the ball, but he had expected a few guards, especially outside the elven lord’s chamber. He sprinted past a fountain of dolphins spraying water from their snouts, a statue of selkies tipping buckets over the heads of marble humans, and crystal-wrought mermaids combing their long hair beneath sparkling waterfalls. But not one living soul. The back of his neck itched as he approached the golden doors. They had been etched with a relief of a map of the realm, seven sovereignties dividing the land of England, looking like slices of a pie the elven lords had carved up at their whim.

Giles reached for the handle with his left hand while his sword jerked away from the doors within his right. He wanted nothing more than to throw the doors open and charge into the room, but the reaction of his sword made him cautious and so he slowly cracked open the heavy door, slipping silently into the Imperial Lord’s chambers.

He only hoped his cursed blade would prove as powerful as Thomas seemed to think. It had not protected Giles’s father from an Imperial Lord’s wrath, nor his brother, John. But it would protect Cecily.