57
Alone With You
That night you said our souls
Are made of the same thing
Niall couldn’t cry, he just couldn’t – even if the lump of tears he had in his throat was suffocating him. He needed to be at sea, but he couldn’t do that either. They had to stay together. All of them.
As the thought formed in his head, Niall felt a stab of pain in his heart. No, not all of us, he remembered. Just those who are left.
He watched the waves ebbing and flowing from the window in his room. Every wave called to him. Only the water could have healed his raw soul, but the water was forbidden to him for now. Only Winter, who was standing beside him, the same longing in her eyes, could understand how he was feeling. She’d held his hand throughout the burial and never left his side since. Winter’s hand in his, her warm body beside him, reminded Niall that he was still alive, that he wasn’t lying in that grave with Mike. Though it felt like it.
Niall couldn’t get Mike’s face out of his head. His voice, his jokes, his mannerisms. In the short time they’d spent together Mike had won Niall’s friendship, his admiration, his complete and utter loyalty.
And now he’s gone, killed by those bloody bastards we’ve been hunting all our lives.
“We must go and look for the King of Shadows. We must at least try and destroy him. Or we’ll be picked off one by one,” he murmured.
Winter touched Niall’s face. “I know.”
“I might not be back.”
“I’m coming with you.”
He turned to her in shock. “You can’t, it’s too dangerous! Please, Winter, stay on Islay. Wait for me.”
“Do you really think I’d be safe here? After what happened in this house? We’re all in danger, wherever we are. On land or in the water. There are no heirs left here, Niall. The nearest Families, as far as I know, are further north or down south in England, and I have no idea if they’re still alive. Islay is not safe anymore.”
“Probably, but it’s certainly safer than coming with us.”
“I’m not going to leave you,” she said. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and pressed her warm lips to his. They tasted salty, and there was the usual scent of fresh air and seawater coming off her skin.
Kissing her is like kissing a wave, Niall had time to think before all thoughts ebbed away. With her hands on him, and her lips on his there was no time to think, no time for anything but to wrap himself around her and dive into her warmth. He let his sorrow melt into her, he let his tears flow away, a river of sadness dissolving into the sea.
*
Dawn found them entwined, Winter’s silver hair on his chest, her soft breath in his ear. He opened his eyes to see her lovely face resting on his shoulder, her body against his. The sorrow for Mike’s loss invaded him again, but there was a little light of hope nesting in his heart now, that he would drink from her again and again, and that if night had to close on them forever, at least it would happen when they were together.
58
Blind
Pain is a secret society
That makes those who feel it
Kin
Elodie sat quietly, her hands in her lap. A frozen, still sky was pressing against her window, dotted with a million swirling snowflakes.
So that’s what it was. My hair standing on end every time Nicholas was around, those whispers that crawled in my ears and I couldn’t get rid of – that sense of unease, of danger – fighting with the evidence, the fact that Nicholas had saved my life. The fact that he could have killed me, twice, and he didn’t.
There he was, in flesh and blood, the man ultimately responsible for Harry’s death. The man who destroyed her life.
He was lying sleeping, curled up, as harmless as a child. He’d tried to get up, but had fallen on the floor, his legs giving way. He lay so still, so white, that for a moment Elodie thought he was dead – then she realized he had fallen asleep suddenly, like babies do. The torture he had suffered for hours, that terrible thing he’d called brain fury in his delirium, had left him half-dead and spent. And blind.
So this is the man who killed me.
There was nothing Elodie would have wanted more than to give Nicholas her poisonous kiss. It would have been an immensely stupid thing to do, of course – it didn’t take Elodie long to see that clearly, to turn her rage into a plan. The final plan. The time when everything would come together, and Nicholas would take them straight to the lair of the beast.
Elodie wetted a towel and washed the blood off his face, calmly. She’d never seen anyone bleed from their eyes before. She’d never seen anyone in so much pain. He had clawed at his own cheeks and bit his lips until they were shredded and bleeding. He’d bear the scars for as long as he lived.
Elodie had no sympathy for him, not even now, lying here a broken man. He hadn’t chosen to be born a monster, but he had chosen to do his father’s bidding, to kill and destroy for a long, long time. Until life had taken him to Sarah.
What is it about Sarah that enchants them all?
“Elodie?”
She jumped out of her skin. Nicholas was looking at her with black, shiny, unseeing eyes, so dark that the pupil fused with the iris. Elodie felt a wave of hatred, but didn’t betray any emotion. “You need to get up. We must go.”
He groaned. Immediately, he was sick by the side of the bed. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
For what? Killing my husband? Planning to destroy humanity? I have nothing to say to that. Nothing to say in the face of his apology.
Without saying a word, Elodie cleaned up his mess using some of the discarded bloodied sheets Sarah had removed. It was as if someone had been cut to pieces there.
“Come on. Let’s get you ready,” she said, bringing him to a sitting position. He couldn’t even sit upright. He whimpered as she lifted his T-shirt over his head, then fell back down as she removed his torn trousers.
So human, so vulnerable. Just a boy, really. The heir to the Underworld, half naked, wounded, helpless.
She led him to the bathroom, slowly, faltering step after faltering step – he wasn’t used to walking in darkness yet – and helped him sit in the bathtub. He closed his eyes as she ran the shower over him, washing the blood and pain away. An unwelcome voice was worming its way into her ear. A voice of compassion that she didn’t want to listen to.
You can’t hate someone as broken as this. You can’t hate someone while you run a wet cloth over their wounds, while you wash encrusted blood out of their hair, and they squeeze your hand when the pain is too much to bear.
Elodie hardened her face. She wouldn’t listen.
She helped him out of the bathtub and wrapped a towel around him, drying him as gently as she could. They walked out of the bathroom, and Elodie caught her breath in fright, which transferred itself to Nicholas. She felt his hand squeezing hers, heard his soft gasp of fear.
“It’s OK,” she reassured him. “It’s Sean.”
Sean was standing in the room with a steaming mug and a dark look in his eyes.
“All well, Elodie?”
Elodie nodded, faltering under Nicholas’s weight. Sean took a step towards them, but she raised a hand to stop him.
“Make him drink this, I need him awake.”
“Yes,” she replied tersely.
Then Sean left, with one last hateful look towards Nicholas.
“Is he gone?” Nicholas asked.
“Yes. He’s gone. I’m going to find you some clothes,” she said.
“Don’t go away,” he replied, an edge of panic to his voice. “Everything is dark. I don’t know where I am.”
“I’m here,” she said, echoing the words he’d said to her a few days before. Was it only a few days? It felt like a lifetime. She rummaged in his rucksack, looking for clothes. Her fingers curled around something small and cold, a precious stone. She examined it in her open hand. It looked like an opal. She considered asking him about it, but decided against it. She slipped it into her pocket, resolving not to tell anyone until she found out what it was.
Slowly, gently, she helped him dress, wincing every time he yelped in pain. Then she held the cup of coffee to his mouth, one hand resting on the back of his head. “Drink up. We need you standing, Nicholas.”
He took a sip. “I didn’t want to do what he said anymore, Elodie.”
It took you a long time to realize that, she wanted to say, but there was no point. Nicholas needed all his energy to lead them to his father.
“Why did he not kill me?” he repeated. “I betrayed him. I saved you all. He punished me with the brain fury, that’s supposed to kill you. But I’m alive. I can’t feel him anymore. In my head. He’s not screaming, he’s not whispering. He’s left me alone.”
“You ready?” Elodie interrupted him. This wasn’t a conversation she was prepared to have. She held him by the waist, and they stood together. He was so tall, and muscly – he was heavy on her, and still she supported him.
They were on the doorstep, when she stopped. There was something she needed to know. “Nicholas. On the beach, with the ravens, you told them not to harm me, and you were harmed yourself instead. Why did you stop them? You didn’t need me. Not like you needed Sarah.”
“I couldn’t bear to see you killed.”
Elodie laughed bitterly. “More deceit, Nicholas? Casting a spell on me, like you did on Sarah?” She spat out the words. All her hatred, all her anger came flooding back. The enchantment of the wounded man was broken.
“Look at me,” he whispered.
She looked into his unseeing eyes. She wasn’t afraid of any power he might have, of any witchcraft or magic he might use on her. She was the Brun heir, and Harry’s widow, and she was angry. He couldn’t deceive her.
She looked into his eyes without fear, and she saw that he had just spoken the truth.
59
Prophecies
Hidden away
In the White Tower
But he will come flying
On the wings of the raven
“Can we trust him?” Sean ran his fingers through his hair with a sigh. “Or will he lead us to our death?”
Sean, Sarah, Winter, Niall and Elodie were standing in the smoke-ravaged entrance to Midnight Hall, rucksacks piled beside them. They had left Nicholas resting on a makeshift bed in the kitchen while they readied themselves to leave.
“Well, how else will we find this gate? Only Nicholas knows where it is. You’ve seen the state he’s in, it’s not like he can attack us,” said Elodie.
“Nicholas said somewhere east, and the signal we intercepted back in Louisiana, Mike and I,” Niall looked away, still unable to say his friend’s name without a pang of sorrow, “it came from eastern Europe, somewhere.”
“There’s something else,” said Sarah, “something I remembered during the battle.” Sarah beckoned them to follow her down the corridor and into her grandmother’s study.
There was no light coming through the windows, just the black, snowy sky. The light inside the room was strangely blue, and the embers in the fireplace still glowed. Their shadows moved along the walls as they entered.
They watched as Sarah walked towards the desk and stepped behind it. She took the painting of wild horses hanging on the wall above and rested it carefully against the wall.
“I knew it,” she whispered. She’d been right. The secret alcove her grandmother had shown her was there, stone shelves carved in the wall itself. And on the shelves, a thick, leather-bound volume.
“My grandmother gave me this the day before she died. She must have known what was going to happen. She forbade me from reading it until I was sure it was time. And I had forgotten all about it.” She decided against telling them what had reminded her.
Sarah held the book up for everyone to see. Engraved in gold letters on the dark brown leather cover were the words Carmina Prophetica. “It’s a book of prophecies,” she explained, and opened it to where the bookmark, a red velvet ribbon, had been placed many years before.
“A great evil will rise from the East,” Sarah read. “Secret people will follow the blind man.” There was a collective intake of breath as their thoughts went to Nicholas. “And they will lose much and suffer much, because theirs is the ruined blood of the Secret children. The soil will run red and the trees will dance as the earth opens and the shadows rise in the white tower.”
“The white tower?” asked Sean. “Any indication of where that is?”
“Not a clue.”
They stood in silence for a moment. Suddenly, after all the uncertainty and wondering and waiting, the next step in the battle was becoming clear.
“That’s funny,” murmured Elodie, breaking the silence.
“What?” asked Sean.
“One of the tales in the book Harry gave me. It talks about a princess in a white tower. Never mind.” She gave a small shrug.
“Right. We need to get ready,” said Sean authoritatively, striding out. Elodie followed him.
As she walked towards the kitchen to go check on Nicholas, the French girl silently finished her thought. A princess prisoner in a white tower. And in the story a prince flying on the wings of a raven is the one who saves her.
A long, cold shiver slithered down her spine.