“Shh...” Gilliad pressed a cold hand on his victim’s chest. A single pulse of power rippled from his touch and the child—dear gods, it was a child, she knew that now—sagged into submission.
Jeren stared into her brother’s face, and saw nothing there she knew. Eyes without mercy gazed back, all love drained from them by madness.
Once they had laughed together, once they’d shared their lives but that was before their father died and the taint of magic in Gilliad had grown to ominous proportions. He’d become obsessed with her, obsessed with loyalty, with power, and her brother had vanished behind this monster. The curse of their line, vengeance on them for the theft of magic, had stolen him from her long ago. This thing was not her brother anymore.
“I know you’re in there, Jeren.” His hand slid lower on bare flesh and her stomach twisted in revulsion. She could feel his touch as if he caressed her, though she knew it wasn’t her. Gods, she had to keep telling herself that—that this wasn’t real, that she wasn’t there. But knowing that made it worse. He would stop at nothing to possess her. Nothing at all.
Now he was using an innocent to fuel the spell, one designed by the Fellna enchantress. Jeren’s two worst nightmares had banded together.
“She can’t respond.” The Enchassa’s hands closed on Gilliad’s shoulders. He shuddered with pleasure, his eyes half closed. When they reopened, the fire of madness burned like an inferno.
“But she is there. She can hear me.” He laughed. “For once, she can’t answer back.”
It was a nightmare, or a hallucination. It had to be. Jeren tried to will herself to waken, tried to call on her own magic in hopes it would tear her free but all she could see was Gilliad and the Enchassa, all she could feel was another body wrapped around her consciousness, a body too weak, too hurt to struggle anymore.
“The old man thought we’d let her go if he brought you here,” said Gilliad. He drew out a knife, toying with the blade. “But you know how gullible people can be when you have their grandchild trussed up like this.”
The girl sobbed. Jeren felt it around her, the body trying to close itself off with shock and grief. Despair.
“Don’t,” she tried to tell her. “We’ll find a way.”
But the girl couldn’t hear. Or didn’t believe her.
The blade pressed to the skin of her cheek, cold as ice. “I wanted to send you a message, Jeren.” Gilliad slid the tip down, marking her. Pain dug right into Jeren as if it was her own, a cold vicious line to reinforce his words. He moved to the other cheek and cut again, carving deep gouges in the girl’s flesh. Jeren cried out, or maybe it was their captive. The Enchassa smiled, drinking down their suffering with her endless eyes. “I want you to know what awaits you if you stand against me. I want you to know what it feels like when you die. You need to understand what lies in store one way or the other.”
The blade kissed her throat, a prelude to agony.
But he couldn’t kill her. Her brother. He wanted her, however sick his obsessions. He wanted to create a what he called a “pure dynasty”. He wanted an heir and thought she was the one to give it to him.
Jeren stared in horror into his eyes, past the madness and into the darkness beyond. Like the Enchassa’s, it never ended. They were windows into the pit of Andalstrom where the dark god lay chained. Her brother, even the insane monster she had known before she fled, was gone, shattered and lost in the evil spread by the Fell.
“I don’t need you anymore,” he said through gritted teeth and slashed her throat. “Don’t come back.”
The wash of hot blood, the shock of sudden pain, the bubbles of air she couldn’t grasp, all this struck her in an instant. And denial. Horrified denial.
Even as the Enchassa stepped forward to claim the blood, to feed on the spent life, to take the soul, Jeren’s mind found itself flung into darkness.
She flailed outwards, fighting the shadows clinging to her, pulling her down to drown in gloom.
A growl rippled around her and with it came light. She reached out for it, but something wrapped itself around her, pulling her back.
Back to pain. Back to fear. Back to all her doubts.
She woke to find Shan leaning over her, a damp cloth in his hand, his face exhausted and lined, but his eyes brimming with relief.
Grim faces greeted Jeren beneath a slate-grey sky. High overhead Kiah circled them, never too far away, never close enough for Jeren to reassure her. The owl had felt everything, had suffered as she had suffered. Of that much Jeren was sure. She was angry, as Jeren was angry. In pain, as Jeren was in pain. Clouds hung low over Sheninglas as if the mountains themselves had pulled down a shroud of mourning. Leithen Roh, with his youngest son Pern clinging to his side, stood like a guardian statue outside their tent. The moment she stepped outside, Vertigern of Grey Holt appeared, his face stricken. He didn’t speak, but she saw more in his eyes—he needed to tell her something, some new piece of terrible news—but he couldn’t say it now. His lover and bodyguard Elayne caught his arm, stopping him. She wasn’t in armour, but rather wore a green gown of simple design. Jeren stared at her, wondering what that meant, but a shake of Elayne’s head made her hesitate to ask.
The Ariah paced outside Indarin’s tent. So strange to call her that instead of Lara, even though the change had been Jeren’s doing. Name and title all rolled into one, magic and an all-compelling destiny... that was what she had heaped upon her friend. Lara was no more. There was only the Ariah now.
Another life given for you, Gilliad sneered deep inside her mind. She flinched.
Shan’s arm’s encircled her at once. “Are you all right? You should rest. You shouldn’t be up.”
She leaned into his warm strength. “I need to see.” Her voice came out as a hoarse croak. Her screams, it seemed, had been real.
“It was dark magic.” She had never seen Shan so shaken as when she had told them what had happened.
“But I’m still here.”
His hand brushed the length of her copper-brown braids, so simple a gesture, so comforting, that for a moment she could dream it had never happened. Then a chill would pass through her again, and she felt the trace of Gilliad’s touch, and she knew it had.
The Ariah took a step towards her and stopped. She opened her mouth to speak but someone else got there first.
“What he did was an abomination.” Fethan’s voice rang out angrily as he pushed his way out of Indarin’s tent. The Seer wore his customary black, but Jeren knew him at once. He seethed with distaste. It seemed to be his usual state when she was around.
The Ariah didn’t turn to him, but she stiffened. Fethan advanced on them, his face twisted in disgust.
The words washed over Jeren like a flood of ice. “You don’t know my brother.” It shook her to admit it, but the truth needed to be said. “He thrives on such horrors.”
The Ariah’s smooth forehead furrowed, still she said nothing.
“Not him. Indarin.” Fethan gave a snort of frustration. “He should have known better.”
“He saved Jeren’s life,” Shan argued at once.
“At risk of his own. His magic...”
“Enough,” the Ariah snapped. “Enough of this. How is he?”
“His magic is gone. He’s dying.”
For a moment her mouth just opened but no sound came out. Just for a moment, then the will of steel the Ariah needed to rule the Feyna reasserted itself. “Then save him. You are a Seer, chief amongst our Seers. Do something.”