Trial of Fire (8 page)

Andrew turned and ran into the Council Chamber, returning moments later with a wooden chair and a cushion. He placed the chair down before Robert, the cushion on the seat. Then Robert, as though he could see through his closed eyes, turned slowly, bent and laid the Key/Calyx on the cushion. He stood over it, maintaining his touch, then he let it go; instantly, his knees buckled, but Finnlay caught him and eased him into another chair. A cup of wine was pressed into Robert’s hand and he took two long swallows before looking up and studying each of them. He frowned, and glanced around the cavern, noticing the increased noise echoing through the Enclave. For a while his eyes were barely focusing before moving on again; a few more deep breaths and they began to steady.

‘They’re getting ready to leave,’ Jenn said quietly, her fingers once again
resting lightly on his arm, as though she were afraid to lose physical contact with him. ‘What do you want to do first?’

‘Wait. Wait a moment.’ Finnlay held up his hands. ‘Are you going to tell me what happened? How did the Key and Calyx join in the first place? I thought the idea was to simply use the Key’s power to operate the Calyx. This wasn’t supposed to—’

‘Finn.’ Robert rested his head on the back of the chair. His colour was returning a little and his voice grated, but he still looked like he’d fought a terrible battle; it was impossible to guess whether he’d won or lost. ‘I wish I could explain everything that just happened – but I can’t. Not yet. Not until I can …’ He swallowed hard and Jenn moved closer.

‘Is it holding?’ she murmured.

‘Yes. It’s just not so easy, that’s all. We need to get moving as soon as we can.’

Now Finnlay remembered what it was like being around these two. Not only did they mindspeak; some of the time, they didn’t even seem to need speech of any kind. ‘Nobody’s going anywhere until I get some answers. What is holding? What did you just do?’

‘A trick.’ The ghost of a smile drifted across Robert’s face. He ran tired hands through his long hair and shook his head as though to clear it. As each moment went by, his strength seemed to be returning. ‘I … Jenn made the Key believe she was turning it into an
ayarn.’

‘What? But that’s impossible – the power required would be simply enormous!’

‘Only if she actually
was
turning it into an
ayarn
 – assuming she could. No, she’s just made it think she has by performing the first four of the seven steps required to make one.’

‘And?’

A dry chuckle escaped Robert at that moment. He looked sideways at Jenn and she shook her head, acknowledging the humour in the situation. ‘Because I was attached to the Key at the time, I can use it like an
ayarn
and make the mask through it. It will hold for a few hours at least.’

‘Serin’s blood!’ Finnlay swore. He put his hands on his hips and walked away for a moment. This was stupid. ‘You mean to say that after all those years when I begged you to Sand the Circle and let the Key choose you, when you deliberately did everything you could to avoid contact with the Key, when you virtually ran away from the power you could have had, you are, right now, actually—’

‘In complete control of it? Yes.’ Robert was laughing, although there was fear mixed in with the mirth. ‘Ironic, isn’t it?’

Jenn added, ‘He can’t control all of it without actually joining with the
Key. At the moment, the join is about half what I have with it. It’s enough for Robert to create a stable mask over the Key. Enough to stop Nash from seeing it – and us.’

‘A mask? Then you can’t move the Key?’

‘Yes,’ Robert said, getting to his feet. ‘Of course I can move it. I just have to move the mask with it. And that means I can’t go anywhere without it!’

Finnlay looked at Jenn, but her eyes told him nothing. When he turned back to his brother, he could see the lines of effort etched around his eyes. ‘And what happens when you can’t hold it any more?’

‘Why, then Nash will be able to see us again. So—’ Jenn murmured.

‘So,’ Robert’s voice turned hard, ‘we need to leave tonight, before dark. Heading due east, directly for Bleakstone. If I can hold the mask long enough, we’ll find an alternative means to hide it before he can find us.’

‘And if not?’

Robert smiled grimly at him. ‘Then we could be in a little trouble.’

A rattling wind creaked through the treetops, knocking ancient branches together, sounding like old bones echoing in a pauper’s forest. The house beneath the scraping branches stood alone and quiet. Inside, in the room bare of any furniture, Nash lay on the wooden floor, still, naked, and more whole than he’d ever been in his life. He gasped in a deep breath, then another, bringing his eyes open. Shock left him dizzy, nauseated and trembling.

The connection feeding him, sweeping him up into the heavens, making him fly: it had been broken somehow.

By whom – the Enemy? Or the Ally, still determined to have a say in her own fate? No person alive other than they would have the power to sever that connection.

Unless it had been the Key itself cutting off the lifeblood …

But how thrilling, how incredibly exhilarating it had been, for those precious few moments: to fly so far, so high, so fast. To soar through the nothing between them, to keep going, to hold his breath and then to see, in the Seeker’s mist, to actually
see
the Enemy, the Douglas, holding onto the Key, actually touching the thing he’d been chasing all his life—

To finally
find
it – and to show the Enemy, at last, that he could never win.

By the blood of his ancestors, of Bayazit of Yedicale, who had helped create the Key, who had made the Word of Destruction, down through all those who had followed him, by the blood of Thraxis himself: the journey was almost over. He was so close to victory that he could almost taste it, almost feel it in the fingers which tingled even now with new life.

The nausea subsided in the wake of his joy. Shaky with his new-found strength, Nash rolled to his side and carefully rose from the bare wooden floor. Again dizziness swept through him, but he was blind to it.

‘Taymar!’

A heartbeat later, the door opened and his devoted servant slipped into the room, fresh clothes draped over one arm, a cup of wine in the other. As Nash dressed, Taymar kept his silence. It was not the first time this man had aided Nash in regenerating; perhaps it would be the last.

‘How do you feel, Master?

Nash smiled, emptied the cup in one swallow and handed it back. ‘Invincible.’

Though his eyes were dulled by the Bonding, Taymar could match Nash’s smile. ‘Your men are waiting, Master.’ With that, he stepped back and opened the door. Nash walked through, emerging into a small sitting-room, where an unexpected richness of quality in the neat furnishings brought him back to the present.

Valena
. The woman who had pledged herself to his cause, who had shared his bed for many years, who had borne his daughter, had, in the end, betrayed him – just as he’d always known she would.

‘Where is she?’ he asked softly, almost enjoying not knowing. The prospect of what he would do to her was a pleasure just tasted and not yet devoured. He would take his time with her, because he could.

‘Lady Valena is outside, Master.’

Nash’s gaze flickered to the open door and the dank, grey view he could see through it. Wind kept the trees moving; all else was as still as death.

He stepped outside and lifted his face to the air, savouring the cool feather-touch upon his skin. He saw the wood and the hills. He saw his men and horses waiting for him at the bottom of the clearing. He saw the trees barren of leaves, their gnarled arms reaching to a sky they’d never touch. He saw that sky thick and grey, three days after the last time he’d seen it, before he’d taken in the blood.

Ah, such blood. Such power. His child, and Valena’s. The blood still fresh, still warm, still bubbling with bright power. And now it was all his.

He laughed. The trees were old. He was young. Again. And this time, he would stay young. He moved, feeling his newly awakened body tingle with fresh life, needing to run with the dry wind, to stretch and push, to exert and expend the hidden energy within. He had so much strength now, so much power at his fingertips.

How could the child’s blood have done this – surely all this was beyond Prophecy?

Of course,
this
child hadn’t been in the Prophecy. No, the child he was
supposed
to use should have been born of his blood and the Ally, or better still, of Ally and Enemy. It was clear, in all he’d read, that such a child would give him immortality; he didn’t know what this one would give him. It mattered not. Now he was more than young enough to sire another child; Valena herself was not yet too old to bear another – assuming he let her live.

‘Bring her here.’

She did not struggle. Though bound hand and foot, though drugged half-senseless, her defiance shone through; her eyes pierced him. This was no betrayal to her but obedience to some higher truth.

Flanking her were two Malachi,
Bonded
Malachi, though whether she could tell the difference he didn’t know. Even so, she would feel their devotion to him keenly. They drew her close, then forced her down on her knees before him. At his gesture, they removed her gag; she swallowed hard at its sudden absence.

She was still beautiful: lush honey-coloured hair, eyes of darkest brown, flawless skin, a mouth to invite seduction, a body to fulfill it. She had been the first woman he had ever touched, the first to make him weaken. Even as he’d taken her, he’d revelled in the danger in her eyes, the risk that one day she might try to kill him.

But even he had not thought her capable of infanticide. ‘You failed,’ he began with a shrug. ‘You must know DeMassey is dead. That’s why you …’

That was why she’d done it: because her protector was no longer around, though why DeMassey had gone to such lengths to protect another man’s child, he couldn’t begin to guess.

‘You know you will be hanged for murdering your own child?’

Her eyes blinked slowly, the result of the sleeping drug which had kept her under control while he was busy. ‘Hanged? You think I fear death after what you’ve just done? Hah. You underestimate me, as always.’ She turned her head away, but couldn’t stop the heavy tears which fell from her eyes. She neither blinked them away, nor moved to wipe them.

‘Why did you lose faith in me?’ Nash asked, genuinely curious. ‘I never turned on you. I gave you all you asked for. I even left you alone these last few years, hoping that you would tire of DeMassey and return to me.’

‘Liar!’ The heat was drugged away from her voice, but the bitterness remained. ‘I was of no use to you, that’s all. Just as I will be the moment you get your hands on Jennifer Ross, your Ally. I was always destined to be cast aside, so don’t pretend otherwise. I just wish I’d seen it sooner.’

‘Or you would not have borne my daughter?’

Valena blinked slowly again, meeting his gaze, but seeing nothing of him. Her voice dropped to a weary whisper. ‘I wish I’d killed her in my womb. She … she was a monster … just like her father.’

Nash laughed, triumphant. ‘You hated her! Like you hate me! Now I understand.’

‘You understand nothing!’ Battling the drugs, Valena struggled to her feet, fury blazing from eyes which knew him too well. ‘She was my child and I loved her. So did Luc, something you will never understand. I did it because’ – she paused, swallowing a sob  – ‘because I knew what a monster like you would do with your own flesh and blood. After all, didn’t you murder your own father and regenerate from his blood?’

Nash raised his hand to strike her, but paused. DeMassey had done this.
He’d lain in his bed, badly injured, deliberately taunting Nash, provoking him in order to— He would not put Valena out of her misery by conveniently killing her. This heinous crime, this
betrayal
demanded vengeance. She would suffer before he killed her. He would see that light of defiance in her eyes finally die; only then would he be satisfied.

He turned his back to her, facing the house. Raising his hands, he let loose the power which thudded through him, making his whole body sing. Shaking with the pleasure of it, he clapped his hands together – and the house exploded into flames. Even as a great cloud of smoke plumed into the air, he turned back to face her.

‘You will never be free,’ he murmured. ‘There is no one left to save you. I am your only path to release.’

For a moment, she blinked at him, as though gathering her strength. Then, finally, she hissed, ‘There is nothing left in this world that I love. You can do nothing to harm me more.’

Nash gestured to his men, his gaze still on Valena. ‘And now you will see what I have always tried to tell you: love is irrelevant. I think you’ll be surprised just how much harm I can do to you.’

He turned to his Malachi. ‘Take her and drug her again. The man who lets her escape will die in terror.’

‘Yes, Master,’ the Malachi responded in harmony.

As they dragged Valena back to the waiting horses, Taymar approached. ‘Master, the priest escaped. Do you wish to send men after him?’

‘Priest?’ Nash frowned. What priest? Oh, yes, the priest who had killed the child, hoping to keep her blood from Nash, when all he’d done was prepare it for him. So the priest had escaped. Godfrey, wasn’t it?
Bishop
Godfrey? Murder came within his purview, did it? ‘No, don’t waste the effort. Chances are he’ll just head straight back to Marsay, so I can find him when I need to.’

‘Then you’re not going to—’

Nash swung a fur-lined cloak over his shoulders. ‘To what end? For a man like that, killing an innocent child will make him suffer more than anything I could do. And if I killed him now, then I would lose the sport later. Besides, I have something much more urgent to attend to.’

He turned back to the blazing wreck that was Valena’s house. In the smoke he could scent hope. ‘Send to Ransem Castle. I want all of my Bonded Malachi, every man and woman I have. They are to meet up with me on the ride west.’