The Lady of the Storm - 2 (36 page)

England, 1774

Drystan Hawkes woke in a cold sweat, still seeing visions of fire and blood and death. He blinked his eyes to dismiss them, but as usual, he had also been sent another image and he could never banish this last one so easily. A young woman, beautiful beyond his wildest imaginings, with the most startling multicolored eyes. Elven eyes.

Drystan untangled himself from his bed linens and raked back his pale hair, knowing he could not ignore the summons, for it was more than a dream or nightmare.

The three stolen scepters of the elven lords called to him.

His bare feet touched the cold flagstone floor and he suppressed a shiver, reaching for his stockings and boots, his own elven eyes quickly adjusting to the gloom of midnight.

“I would like to sleep through just one night,” he muttered as he finished dressing, crossing the room of his bedchamber with nary a whisper from the soles of his boots. He had learned to be quiet on his nightly excursions. His fellow orphans already thought him strange enough.

Drystan carefully opened his chamber door, causing only a slight squeak from the old hinges, and peered down the long hall of Carreg Cennen castle. One lone candle shone near the privy, but the rest of the passage lay shrouded in shadow, not even a mouse astir this late. He had taken this same route every night since he had ceased fighting the summons, so he strode confidently to the stairs, thinking he could now manage it with his eyes closed.

He had found it easier to answer the call of the scepters at night, than to suffer the fits brought on by their visions during the day. He only wished he had conceded sooner. Perhaps then the other half-breed children would not have come to treat him like an outcast. Because of the fits brought on by the visions, Drystan had gained the reputation of being cursed, or mad, or at the very least, physically abnormal. And any offspring of the elven lords rarely suffered from lack of physical perfection.

Drystan never knew when the scepters would send him a vision but he would fight it until the world went black, and he would awake in the middle of the schoolroom—a meal—the play yard—surrounded by horrified faces and children crossing themselves against evil.

Yes, when the scepters sent him a vision, it was better to answer the call and find out what they wanted. And as a man, he had gained some control. But the damage had already been done, and Drystan lived his adult life almost as isolated as he had as a child.

Drystan shrugged, discarding his loneliness the same way he removed his greatcoat. He had learned to be content with his own company, had even turned it to an advantage. And he had his books.

His stories transported him beyond the walls of this old castle. Novels where he became a hero who rescued the fair maid. Where he sailed the high seas, fought against the armies of the elven lords. Became a secret spy for the Rebellion.

And inside his stories, he had many friends who did not fear him. Indeed, they admired his strength and cunning and bravery…

Drystan reached the last flight of the circular stairs and entered the kitchens at the bottom of it, slipping past the cook whose bed nestled up amongst the brick ovens, and silently made his way into the cellars. Past the barrels of corn and turnips, behind the wine racks, to the enormous oak door. He fished out his key from his left pocket and unlocked the chains, careful to keep them from rattling.

Not many of the castle residents knew about this chamber, and Drystan had only become privy to it because of his… connection with the scepters. An old prime minister for the king, Sir Robert Walpole, created this storage place for the Rebellion years ago, when he began to smuggle the children that had escaped from the trials of the elven lords to this old castle in Wales. The once-leader of the Rebellion thought it safer to store records and enchanted artifacts beyond the barrier of magic that surrounded England. He thought they could be kept more safely here, where their magic would be inactive.

Sir Robert had been wrong, at least where the scepters of the elven lords were concerned. They may not have the power they would possess within England to enhance each elven lord’s magic, but they still retained a certain amount of dangerous awareness.

Drystan made his way down the earthen stairs into the castle dungeon—which had thankfully been cleared of torture devices and heaped instead with crates and barrels holding artifacts and the private journals of spies, historical accounts of England, and secret correspondences between the leader of the Rebellion and his allies.

He strode past it all without a glance, straight for the small cell in the back of the room. Drystan withdrew another key and opened the door. Bare earthen walls, stone floor. Nothing to indicate the malignant treasure it harbored within.

Drystan collapsed on a square of stone in the center of the room and pounded it with his fist. “All right. I’m here. What the hell do you want?”

The air shivered. The hair rose on the back of his neck. When he had been a lad and the scepters had first called to him, he thought it was God sending him a vision. How very wrong he had been.

Drystan pounded the ground again. Buried beneath the stone lay the stolen scepters of three of the elven lords. The blue of the elven lord of Dewhame, Breden. The lavender of the elven lady La’laylia of Stonehame. The silver of Lan’dor, the elven lord of Bladehame. Drystan knew the story of the theft of the blue scepter, for the two who had stolen it, Giles Beaumont and his lady Cecily, lived in the castle of Wales. They had taken over the running of the sanctuary and the children who sheltered here.

The two half-breed elven who had stolen the lavender scepter, General Samson Cavendish and Lady Joscelyn, had returned to Firehame to continue to aid the Rebellion. And the Duke of Chandos and his warrior-lady Wilhelmina had returned to Firehame as well, after they had delivered the silver scepter into the keeping of Carreg Cennen castle.

Drystan did not know all of the details about their adventures in stealing the scepters, but he had read about them, and more importantly, had seen glimpses of them in his dreams. Dreams he did not welcome.

Except for the lady in his visions. He could still see those rainbow-colored eyes staring at him with such loneliness, and hidden fury. Large faceted elven eyes that seemed to echo the very feelings within his own soul. Those haunting eyes possessed all the colors of the scepters within them: lavender, silver, blue and green, with flecks of brown and black and gold. As if her elven blood held a mix of all seven of the elven lords and their sovereignties. And perhaps each of those powers?

Drystan spread his fingers over the cold stone. “Where is she?” he whispered. “I have searched and searched to find any record of her…”

The ground shivered. Another vision sprang into his head with enough force to make it pound in fury and Drystan clutched at his temples. Seven dragons flew in a maelstrom of color above the swirling blonde hair of a black-clothed woman. The air sundered with a violence that tore apart the very fabric of the universe and the lady watched it all with mouth agape in horror. Then blackness, and another scene. The same woman casting her hands over the head of a child, a flash of a symbol that Drystan could not quite make out branded onto the child’s skin. And then a vision of another child, and another, each of them passing along the birthmark.

“I have looked for any reference to the descendants of the white witch of Ashton house,” he said to the empty cell. “The records of the family disappear with the elven wars of the fifteenth century. The family was captured and enslaved…”

Another vision assailed him. This time of an ivory-haired child that grew into the beautiful woman with the multicolored eyes. Her delicate face so pale. So vulnerable. She wore a dress of white that billowed around her thin frame and she ran from something hidden in shadow. Something that threatened her. And he knew he must save her. He held her only hope and salvation.

Her eyes kept him spellbound until the vision finally faded.

And then the scepters spoke to him in words he could comprehend.

The descendant of Ashton House holds the key to the doorway to Elfhame. Find her.

Drystan jerked at the unholy voices in his head. Fire screamed through his every nerve, like knives shearing open each vein and filling it with acid. The agony grew until spasms racked his body, until anguish beat at his mind and misery filled his heart. Whatever awareness the scepters held, those alien thoughts were not meant for mankind to endure.

But they had spoken this message to him before, and Drystan managed to hold onto consciousness. A grown man of five-and-twenty years now, he did not collapse into convulsions as he had done as a lad.

It took him some time to find his voice.

“I have tried.”

Although it had not been for their sake. Not just because they tortured him night after night. Not just because they would not let him sleep until he answered their summons. But for his own sake. For the lady who spoke to his heart with those unusual eyes. For the sheer desire he had to protect her. To hold her in his arms.

He had barely looked at another woman since she began to haunt his visions.

“I will not stop trying until I find her.”

Seemingly satisfied, the tug on Drystan eased, as if the compulsion that the scepters used upon him to draw him into this chamber relaxed enough to allow him his own free will.

He rose, a bit unsteadily, but with purpose. As he did every night, he locked the cell behind him and made his way across the dungeon to the heavy oak table that served him as a desk. He lit the candles, throwing a halo of light around him, casting eerie shadows beyond that circle. He opened the journal that recorded the contents of the storage room and noticed a new entry, written in Giles’s sweeping hand. A shipment from Dreamhame, procured with the loss of life of one of the Rebellion’s most precious spies.

Drystan felt a shiver of anticipation from the direction of the barred cell, but he hardly needed the inducement. He blinked his own golden elven eyes, a testament to his ancestry from the elven lord Roden of the gold scepter, who ruled the sovereignty of Dreamhame with his magical gift of glamour and illusion. Outside of the barrier of magic, Drystan could not know the strength of his own powers within England, but he often wondered. He held the looks of the elven lord in abundance, from his white blond hair to the extraordinary strength and grace in his limbs. Despite the disdain of the other orphans, Drystan fancied that his own powers would put the rest of them to shame.

And he often wondered how he managed to blend into the background at will. How he could charm someone when he set his mind to it. These were instinctive gifts, surely, remnants of the power that awaited him in England.

Not that he would ever know. Unless…

He stood and searched the room for the new shipment. There, next to the stack of journals from Terrahame. A wooden crate that Giles had yet to open and catalogue. The master of Carreg Cennen castle would not mind that his curator opened and recorded the contents. Indeed, only Giles and his lady Cecily knew of Drystan’s connection to the scepters, and his search for the lost key to Elfhame. They kept his secrets and shielded him from the curiosity of the other castle residents.

Like most of the other orphans, Drystan considered them his adoptive parents.

He dragged the crate over to his desk and pried off the lid. A small box sat on the top of mounds of loose papers and books, and when Drystan opened it, a flash of gold winked in the candlelight. A slip of paper described the enchantment of the coin within: it would appear as several coins, fooling any merchant who possessed less than a healthy share of elven blood that he’d received full payment for his goods. Drystan duly recorded it in the catalog, despite the hum of anticipation he felt from the scepters.

This crate contained something important.

Something that would finally help him discover the whereabouts of the descendant of the white witch. Drystan knew it as surely as he knew that snow fell beyond the thick walls of the castle.

He had felt the scepters’ compulsion grow stronger over the years. Drystan was dismayed to think that it meant he’d succumbed to their combined will. But perhaps it had only been because he was close to solving the mystery of the whereabouts of the white witch?

He slowly removed the first stack of documents from the crate. He would not rush. He would not give
them
the satisfaction.

But the thought of finding the lady in his dreams made his hands tremble.

He read the first packet of papers. Reports from a man named Mandeville to Lord North—the current prime minister and leader of the Rebellion. North had come to the position as a member of the King’s Friends, George the Third’s attempt to gather control of his government. A government which held little actual power. The elven lords must be laughing at such antics.

They considered humans as little more than animals. Playthings to use in their elven war games, a pastime that cost the lives of thousands of Englishmen. Just to keep them entertained.

Drystan set aside the packet, recorded the contents, shrugging off the impotent rage that accompanied his thoughts. Despite all of the Rebellion’s efforts, they still had not come any closer to freeing England from its slavery to the elven lords.

Although they had managed to save countless children. This was not the only castle in Wales that harbored orphaned fugitives. Lady Cassandra of Firehame discovered that the trials—the magical tests of power the elven lords put their half-breed children through—were a subterfuge for certain death. That the lords did not really send the children who showed exceptional magic to the fabled land of Elfhame. The tests were but a ruse to weed out those who might possibly grow into enough power to threaten an elven lord’s rule.