Maiden's Wolf (In Deception's Shadow Book 3) (3 page)

Beatrice managed
another quarter candlemark of travel, her alarm and fear growing with each
stride the horse took. Her dark magic seemed not to care and continued to
gather itself.

Nothing she did
calmed the magic. She didn’t understand what was happening. In the past, that
dark magic only roused when she was in danger. Yet her healing magic told her
there was no living creature close enough to be a threat to her life.

So why the sudden
stirring of her dark power? It hadn’t bothered to stir awake in years, not since
she’d actively started avoiding acolytes at all costs. She sent her healer’s
magic outward, searching the area in a half day’s ride around her once again
and still she sensed no acolytes near.

Beyond her
control, her dark magic continued to rise within her. It wasn’t yet visible to
the naked eye, and she didn’t think it was a threat to the gelding she rode,
but she could feel the dark power waking. For the first time in her life, that
power had a consciousness to it—a will.

Like a beast that
had long been hibernating and had come to awareness at last, it shook itself
fully awake and looked out through her eyes, and then used her own healer’s
magic to scan the area. With that dark power behind it, buoying her healer’s
magic as its fearsome strength, her reach was so much farther.

It stretched its
waking consciousness back along the trail, hunting for something far from her
present location—all the way back to River’s Divide.

There was
something there it wanted, something or someone it was interested in.

Perhaps ‘concerned
for’ was a better term.

Yes. The
knowledge was suddenly clear in her mind. Just a vague, nagging notion one
moment and then absolute certainty the next. She didn’t have long to worry over
the strangeness of her magic or its willfulness. She was needed elsewhere.
Almost against her will, she found herself reining the gelding around until
they faced the trail behind them.

The dark power
did not share more details. Beatrice desperately wanted to know more, but in
the end she couldn’t resist its urging, and she squeezed her legs around the
gelding’s barrel to hurry him into a trot.

In all likelihood,
she was about to ride into a pack of acolytes, but her fool of a Larnkin wasn’t
giving her a choice.

*****

Darkness was
falling, the shadows among the trees growing longer. Ahead Silverblade heard
the rushing of rapids over the sounds of his own passage and the blood pounding
in his ears. The crossbow bolt buried in his shoulder grated against bone and
the blazing pain caused his vision to go stark white with each step. He forced
himself to focus on their surroundings, not each and every agony inflicted upon
his body by the acolytes.

He and his mother
had escaped the acolytes. For now. But they wouldn’t remain free for long if he
didn’t focus.

He blinked his
snowy vision clear and looked around.

Yes. He knew this
area, had camped by the falls several times and set traps.

The river was
near.

They were never
going to make it. Silverblade knew it. Likely his mother knew it as well, but
still they ran, the underbrush snatching at them. Neither of them tried to hide
their trail. It would not matter if they had. The predators tracking them had
senses beyond the physical.

Some unknown
distance behind, the remaining acolytes still followed them.

Silverblade
darted around a tree in his path. His mother stumbled and slammed into it. He
doubled back for her just as she righted herself. Together they continued their
desperate run toward the river.

A phoenix might
be faster than a human, but they were still awkward on the ground. If he could
only shapeshift, he could outrun the acolytes. He’d even be able to carry the
phoenix on his back as he fled. But his Larnkin was still stunned and reeling
from whatever the acolytes had tossed at them.

He could still
feel the cold numbing chill from the acolytes’ strange net traps as if he was
still trapped underneath them. From what his Larnkin had gathered before it was
crippled, it looked like the elders and their guards had walked right into the
nets as if they hadn’t seen them. Or perhaps,
couldn’t
see them.

Not that
Silverblade had fared any better. Even with the screams giving him a few
moments’ warning, he hadn’t sensed those deceptively delicate nets about to
drop down onto his shoulders. Maybe had he not been idly chatting with his
mother, he might have seen what was coming, somehow prevented the tragedy from
unfolding. If he’d been doing his duty and actively scouting for dangers…?

Looking back, he
wasn’t sure if it would have made a difference. He’d never run across something
that had no scent, taste, or hum of power to it before. All life—all magic had
an essence, some form of taste or smell. But not these power-sapping traps the
acolytes had created. They were nothing—a void neither he nor his Larnkin had
sensed.

Cymael stumbled a
second time, but continued toward the river. A crossbow bolt still poked out of
her back, high up near her shoulder blade. Another had shattered her one wing
bone and the soft, cream-colored feathers were now drenched in bright blood,
her useless wing dragging behind. They didn’t even have time to secure it to
her back. If they slowed for even a moment, they were both dead.

Had their
physical ailments been the only factor working against them, he might hold more
hope of escape, but even though they were free of the nets, their magic
continued to bleed out as if they were even now caught in those deadly,
gossamer threads.

Cymael was the
most powerful elder in the group. Her fire magic seemed the only thing able to
kill the acolytes and burn through the net traps. But even she’d been too late
to save the first group caught in the nets—their screams still echoed in his
mind.

Ahead of him,
Cymael stumbled a third time and fell heavily onto her knees.

“Mother!”
Silverblade didn’t bite back the instinctive call, worry for his mother
overcoming centuries of training in a moment.

Again he sought
his lupwyn form even as he reached for her.

Not even a drop
of magic answered his call. Only a deathless cold emanated from that spot in
his chest, next to his heart, where his Larnkin used to dwell. His own injuries
ached and burned and bled. Rage was the only thing keeping him moving.

He gripped his
mother’s arm and dragged her back to her feet. “Mother, you must come. The
river is only a little ways farther. If we reach it first, we may be able to
lose the acolytes.”

Silverblade didn’t
actually believe that, but the hope might be enough to keep his mother on her
feet a little while longer. Her normally rich, brown skin was ashen, a fine dew
of sweat covered her skin, and she coughed, blood splattering her lower lip.
Shock and exhaustion were clear in her trembling limbs, but she staggered in
the direction he indicated.

They managed
another quarter candlemark of desperate, painful travel before he heard the
sound of horses coming up behind them. He continued to half-carry, half-drag his
mother towards the river. For all her height, she was slightly built, like all
of her species. She topped him by more than a head, but weighed only half his
mass. If she fell again, he’d carry her to the river, his own injuries be
damned.

Better they die
in the river’s embrace than feed whatever dark power these acolytes served.

Cymael lost her
footing again, the force dragging her from his side. She lay on the ground,
grey-skinned and panting with exhaustion. She no longer struggled to get back
up. Silverblade stood over her protectively. He just needed a moment to catch
his breath, gather his remaining strength, and then he’d carry her to the
river. The slow drip of his blood, tiny plops hitting the dirt and leaf litter
at too-frequent intervals alerted him that he didn’t have much time left if he
intended to make it to the river. His worst wound was the crossbow bolt still
embedded in his shoulder. Tearing it out would only make the wound bleed
faster, draining him even more—so he left it even though his fingers twitched
with the need to just rip it from his flesh.

“Silverblade.”
Cymael’s voice shook. He knelt beside her and she reached out to touch his
face. “Go. Go now. There’s nothing you can do. My Larnkin is dead. I will
follow it into the afterlife within heartbeats. Please, go. I must know that
you survived. Go to Grey Spires. Your father is there, tell him and the others
what we found here. I need to know that you live on in the world.”

“Mother, no.”
Silverblade begged. He hadn’t been a child in centuries, but his mother was an
elder—powerful, old, a part of his existence. She couldn’t die. It was not
possible.

Cymael reached
for him with trembling, blood spattered hands and cupped his face. “A child is
always a mother’s baby. Always, my beautiful boy. Promise me you’ll escape our
pursuers and live for me.”

He doubted that
was possible, but sometimes lies served the greater good. “Mother, I won’t let
the acolytes have me. I promise.”

She sighed softly
and then her fingers went lax against his cheeks and only his own hands kept
them cupped against his face.

“Mother?”

Her eyes were
still open, looking up at the sky, at the bright orange and pink clouds high up,
reflecting the sinking sun. Her spirit would already be flying up toward that
light, to sit up among the stars until he one day joined her there.

With a soft whine
of pain, he placed his fingers over her eyes and gently closed their lids. With
a prayer to speed her soul to the next life, he bent and gave his mother one
last kiss upon her forehead.

“Such a waste.”

The cold voice
came from somewhere behind him.

“The Divine
Speaker wanted to study her power. It had such a rich essence to it.
Fortunately, we still have you.”

Silverblade stood
slowly—it was all he could manage. Already he felt the acolytes beginning to
feed upon his critically weakened Larnkin. Even just standing would be beyond
him soon, but pride kept him on his feet. He wouldn’t tarnish his mother’s
memory by being weak, either in mind or body.

He would do whatever
he had to in order to keep his word, to not let the acolytes have him.

They still hadn’t
completely surrounded him. At his back, the fast-flowing spring-fattened river
offered an escape. It wasn’t one he’d take if he was given a choice, but he was
dead either way. The river just might allow his soul to escape to the
afterlife. But if the acolytes got to him first, he wasn’t sure if he’d long
have a soul at all.

He eased back
toward the river, casting one more look at his mother’s body. Pain lanced through
him. He wouldn’t break his last promise to her. The acolytes wouldn’t have the
satisfaction of draining him dry. Another step carried him that much closer to
the river. Than another. Almost there.

The acolyte
spurred his horse forward and suddenly, three more were flanking Silverblade on
both sides. He hadn’t even known they were there.

Knowing he was
out of time, he turned and willed his body into a run. He managed a dozen paces
before a horse’s shoulder slammed into him, knocking him off his feet and into
a patch of underbrush.

He landed hard. A
stout branch to the midriff drove the breath from his lungs.

Grunting in pain,
he rolled to his side, all his other wounds screaming with the movement.

Nothing was
broken, thankfully. Yet neither did he have the strength to move as more of his
magic was devoured by the surrounding acolytes.

One of the enemy
grabbed his ankle and dragged him out into the open. The second one to arrive
captured his opposite ankle and together they hauled him toward where their
leader still sat his horse and patiently waited for them to bring him his
trophy. Silverblade now knew what a felled deer felt when the huntsmen approached
to finish it.

This one wasn’t
Trensler. He wasn’t old enough. Two days ago, Silverblade had seen Lord Master
Trensler from a distance as the leader of the human priests was disembarking
from a ship in the harbor.

The leader of
this particular group might not be Trensler, but that didn’t make him any less
dangerous. Silverblade didn’t know this one’s name and he wasn’t likely to live
long enough to learn it. Not that it really mattered. Without his Larnkin’s
power, he had no way to communicate with his people over a distance.

He didn’t have
any hope of winning a fight against these acolytes either, not in his present
state. At best, he’d consider it a mercy if he escaped to the river and died
well away from the priests. But he was beginning to doubt his ability to
accomplish even that. He was also beginning to doubt if death was an escape from
ones such as these.

Of the two priests
dragging him from the underbrush, the one on the right clearly had his neck
snapped, while the priest on his left had an Elemental’s blade run through his
belly. The wounds were mortal, but didn’t seem to bother the priests. They were
already dead.