Warrior's Curse (Imnada Brotherhood) (19 page)

He felt Meeryn move closer, her hip brushing his leg, her fingers tightening. “Mother of All, what is this place?”

The corridor they left had been dark, the passage they entered was as if someone had tossed a blanket over their heads and dropped them into a tar bog. Cobwebs clung to their faces and arms, the air dry and still as if it had not been breathed in a thousand years. “The Imnada built them throughout Deepings in case of attack.”

“Find this in one of your books, Professor Gray?”

“I told you that’s where the answers are. This passage leads to a lower storeroom. From there, we can skirt the kitchens. You can slip up the servant stairs to your chambers.”

The floor descended for another hundred yards before beginning a slow but steady ascent. Gray shuffled
his way forward in the complete blindness of the tunnel, leading Meeryn by the hand.

“And then what?” she asked, even her whisper seeming loud in the crushing silence. “Pretend nothing happened? Morieux is dead. He was the last tenuous thread holding Sir Dromon back from taking over completely. The clans are without a leader until you return and take your place.”

“I’m dying, Meeryn. I’ll be dead within the year unless I can lift the curse and break my dependence on the draught. When that happens, the clans will be no better off than they are now.”

If the silence had been crushing before, it now thickened, solid as the earthen walls surrounding them. He could hear his heart beat, the rattle in his breathing, the grind of his bones with every footstep. He tensed, waiting for her sympathy or, worse, her pity. He wanted neither.

“You can only break the curse with my help . . . Jai Idrish’s help. Together we work out what we did wrong. We try again. We figure it out together just like I told you we would.”

“
We
do nothing.
I
—”

“Oh!” Meeryn stumbled and tripped onto her knees. “Drat! Who on earth would leave a pile of rubbish in the middle of the floor?”

Gray knelt, a hand out. “Not rubbish—bones. Here’s the skull.” He picked it up, only to have it crumble under his fingers.

“The question remains with only a slight adjustment—who . . . and why . . .?”

“Perhaps the poor devil lost his way.”

“Or perhaps Sir Dromon knows about these passages
and our skeleton was unfortunate enough to run into an Ossine.”

“No, he’s been down here for centuries.”

They continued, quieter now, huddled together. Gray pulled her close, her cheek soft under his lips. “We’re close,” he whispered.

He felt along the wall for the rounded panel that marked the end of the passage. Pressed it, feeling the rush of wind chill the cold sweat on his face and shoulders as they stepped into an empty storeroom, long since abandoned as Deepings population and prominence declined.

“Go back to your rooms, Meeryn. Lock yourself in and don’t come out. No matter what you hear or see, do you understand? If anyone asks, you’ve been there all night. You know nothing.”

Her chin jutted in challenge, body braced for a fight. “If Sir Dromon captures you, he won’t wait for a proper grandiose execution as an example for those who cross him. A quick blade to the gut will serve him just as well. He can weave any tale he wants afterward.”

Arguments Gray had already played over in his mind as he lay in a stinking pile of straw with his body one raw nerve. He gave Meeryn the same answer he’d repeated to himself in the bitter watches of his despair until he almost believed it. “I can take care of myself.”

Her gaze was hard and clear as diamonds. “You forget, Gray. So can I.”

*  *  *

Gray must have taken a pounding to the head if he thought she was going to slink back to her rooms like a frightened little girl. Instead Meeryn slipped
back down the stairs to the laundry and the drying yard beyond. Sheets billowed like ghosts in the salty breeze while enormous wooden racks waited empty for tomorrow’s washing. She snatched up a canvas bag hanging from a peg on the wall, slinging it over her shoulder as she headed through the wooden gate and out onto the lawn. No question. No hesitation.

An owl called from the park, sending her heart leaping into her throat. Movement at the corner of her eye had her diving for the bushes until she realized the long sinuous shape was merely a kitchen cat on the prowl.

So there might be
some
very slight hesitation, but nothing a stern talking-to and a few deep breaths wouldn’t fix.

Thus fortified, she moved swiftly and softly over the grass, hugging the hedges and buildings as she raced for the Crystal Tower. It rose shimmering above her, moonlight shining through the high windows to create eerie dancing shadows as if someone moved within the topmost sanctuary. Whispers hovered on the breeze, lifting the hairs on her arms with their sibilant hissing words in a language she’d never heard and didn’t understand.

Sir Dromon? A phalanx of lurking Ossine? Someone . . . or something . . . else?

Her heart drummed in her chest as she crept up the stairs, testing her weight upon each step, waiting for the inevitable shout to halt, stop, cease, and desist. None challenged her, no one leapt from the dark with swords drawn, and the sanctuary was empty save for Jai Idrish upon its altar.

Gray might think the great crystal slept on, unmoved by the magic of the Gylferion, but she knew
better. She’d sensed the stirrings of power, felt the world drop away in those swift frightening moments. Excitement, terror . . . hope.

Sucking in a steadying breath, she laid her hands upon Jai Idrish. Immediately, a jolt of energy sizzled up her arms, curling and slipping over her brain like the undulations of the seas. A voice spoke to her with the same clarity as a pathing, or was it three voices speaking as one? A hundred voices. A million. All of them blending and separating, one taking over from another as they repeated a string of unknown words—chanted prayer, relentless command.

“Afeitha eineia tharthei
.
Afeitha eineia tharthei
.
Afeitha eineia N’thuil noractha tharthei.”

Her eyes watered as the dark opened up before her in a twisting spiral of unending black, the voices rising and falling in a hypnotic cadence. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. The crystal vibrated beneath her fingers. The world dropped out from under her bare feet, the sweep and streak of stars moved past her in a dizzying spiral of color and light.

It’s in the blood!

A new fourth voice smashed through the drone of the other three like the blast of a gun. Wait—Meeryn tore her hands free of the crystal—that
was
a gun! A shot rang out. Then another. The sounds of running feet and men’s voices raised in crisp command bounced off the high walls of Deepings.

Gray’s escape had been discovered.

Trying not to dwell on the number of sacrilegious desecrations she was committing by stealing the Imnada’s most sacred object, she gritted her teeth against the gut-snarling knot and the seeking, searching
voices, and snatched the crystal from its altar, stuffed it into her sack, and raced for the stairs.

Lantern light flashed along the eastern ramparts and down into the kitchen yard. Riders streamed out the main gate, while from the roof of the armory, eagles took flight one after the other to wheel away into the night. Calling reinforcements? Searching the countryside beyond the Palings?

Carrying the disks of the Gylferion, Gray wouldn’t be able to shift, and on foot, he’d not make it a mile before he was brought down.

In the chaos, none noticed her serpentining her way from pillar to post.
Where are you, Gray?
she pathed, even her mental shout breathless and slightly frantic.
Have you got the disks?

The library. Have to . . .

What? What do you have to do?

He didn’t answer. What the hell stunt was he pulling? He was supposed to be in the damned guest hall. He was supposed to be getting the hell out of Deepings. What was there in the library worth—she skidded to a halt, her feet sliding across the hall’s parqueted floor, nearly colliding with a suit of armor and two Ossine.

Sir Dromon stepped off the stairs, still in dressing gown and nightcap, his face purple with frustrated rage. “Find de Coursy. The duke’s murderer cannot be allowed to escape justice. His crimes cannot go unpunished.”

“Aye, sir. The house is being searched room by room. He’ll not get away.”

“Send word to the Gather elders. In case they have ideas of taking him in, I want them to fully understand the penalties dealt to those who harbor fugitives.”
He noticed her, his eyes taking in her strange attire, his lips ringed in white, his eyes like coals as he continued barking orders. “If they are not with us in this, they are as guilty of treason as he is and will suffer his same fate.”

This was the clearest threat yet to the elders’ authority. Would they bow to the Arch Ossine and his army or would they finally fight back? Would she?

Stepping free of the shadows, she lifted her head. “His proper title is Duke of Morieux.”

Sir Dromon’s expression cleared and a small twisted smile curled the edge of his mouth. “So it is and as worthless a title as N’thuil these days.” He snapped his fingers. “Mr. Thorsh, apprehend our misguided little sparrow before she makes any more trouble.”

Meeryn hadn’t seen the Ossine until he stepped around Sir Dromon, his bullish shoulders wide as ox yokes, his furry knuckles resting on his hips. His face was bruised and battered, his smile still as vicious. “My pleasure, sir. Knew the crystal was wrong when it chose her. A chit of a girl brings naught but trouble.”

She backed away, her hand clamping the sack to her side, the crystal banging against her thigh. “You know he’s innocent. His Grace died, but it wasn’t at Gray’s hands. We can still salvage a peace between us. Stop this now before anyone else gets hurt.”

“Like you?” Sir Dromon snarled. “Mr. Thorsh! Now!”

Hands grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. She screamed and kicked as she was dragged backward into the library. She managed to smash her heel into her attacker’s shin. Wiggled an elbow free enough to slam it into his stomach.

Gray responded with a grunt of pain, shoving her away to slam and lock the door. “Next time I’ll let Thorsh have you.”

“You scared me to death. You might have warned me.”

“I was too busy trying not to get skewered.”

She’d thought he’d looked bad before. She’d not realized how much the darkness of the catacombs had hidden. Gone was the nobleman’s polished austerity. This was a savage fighter with nothing to lose, the burning intensity in his gaze and the raw power in his frame sucking the air from the room and the breath from her lungs. The trembling in her knees and the fluttering in her chest that he evoked was akin to the effect that touching Jai Idrish had on her—as if a new and amazing world hovered just out of reach. She just needed to be strong enough, clever enough, hold on long enough . . .

Hammer blows bulged the door as Thorsh and the Ossine struggled to break in. She caught the click of a cocked hammer a second before Gray threw her to the floor, just as the lock blew out in a shower of deadly splinters.

“Now what?”

Cradling his damaged arm to his side, he pulled her back to her feet with the other and yanked her onward, plunging through unguarded doors leading into a salon, an adjoining drawing room, an antechamber, a gallery. Room after room, up stairs, down passages. One step ahead of their pursuers. They finally emerged onto the ramparts, racing along the narrow stone wall walk. A stitch cramped her side and her bones wobbled like jelly, but she kept up, the bag slapping her thigh, the crystal seeming to grow heavier with each step.

“We can head for the cliff tower,” she suggested.

“It’s too far. This way.”

An Ossine stepped from an archway in front of them, pistol raised. Gray lunged to his right as the gun erupted with a spout of flame and the bullet smashed the wall beside them. He answered the man’s shot with one of his own from a pistol whipped from his pocket. The man crumpled to the ground and they were past, Gray tossing the weapon aside as he stepped over the body.

“Not murder,” he gasped. “Self-defense.”

“I’m not arguing.” She grimaced and on they raced toward the guest hall.

Once there, Gray passed through the rooms, intent and unswerving.

“You were almost clear away. What on earth sent you to the library?”

“Answers.” He held a parcel wrapped in heavy oilcloth.

They finally came to rest in a set of musty chambers. Gray locked the door, but that would only serve them for so long. He crossed to a heavy armoire, fumbling with the doors as he sought to open them one-handed.

“Let me.” She pulled the doors open.

Instead of retrieving something from within, he stepped up inside the wardrobe, turned to motion her on behind him.

“We’re hiding in a closet?” she asked, trying not to sound as panicked as she felt. She refused to give Gray the satisfaction. “What is this? A sadistic game of sardines?”

“No, it’s the way out.”

*  *  *

All right, so he might have been a bit optimistic when he announced their imminent escape. What had seemed like an inspired idea at the time had become a panic-drenched nightmare. Black water swirled below him. Sucking and slapping at the rickety ladder. A cold infinite crushing mass waiting to push him under, roll him over, pull him down.

“Gray, we have to go.”

He took a shuddering breath. He could feel his heart pounding wildly under the hand cradled to his chest. “Perhaps the cliff tower might have been a better option after all.”

“It’s too late now. They’ve got us pinned in here.”

“Right. Give me a moment.”

“We don’t have any more moments.”

He tore his eyes from the water. Meeryn had stripped out of the dirty shirt and stolen breeches. Her hair tumbled loose and honey-blonde over her shoulders to drape and curl over the curve of her breasts, and he was struck—yet again—at the toned perfection of her golden body. It was like watching the sea, one minute all silken, graceful movement, the next tempestuous, storm-tossed ferocity. He needed tidal maps and depth charts to understand all her hidden, secret facets.