Текст книги "Alien god"

Автор книги: Ursa Dox

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CHAPTER FIFTY Wylfrael

With my bride in my arms, I stepped through the sky door. We had not returned to Sionnach, as I’d originally wanted to.

We’d come to Heofonraed.

Torrance would not accept any more waiting now that she’d learned from Sceadulyr that Skalla’s mate was human. “What if it’s one of my friends?” she’d cried, tears a veil over her eyes. “What if she’s hurt, or needs help?”

Or dead.

I hadn’t said that part out loud, though I thought it rather likely. If Skalla was even half as mad and strong as he was when I’d last fought him, a human woman would not stand a chance. I’d grown to learn by now that the human spirit was strong. But that strength was not matched in body.

I hoped, more for my wife’s sake than anything, that Skalla’s mate was not dead. Torrance had lost enough, she didn’t need to lose this, too.

Torrance in my arms, I touched down on the shining white stone of Heofonraed. The two giant Eaforswynne eyed us closely, and Torrance cringed into my side.

I would rather have left her on Sionnach. Many of the council’s brides chose to stay on their own worlds, but all stone sky gods were required to bring their bride to witness the vote that would either help them gain entrance onto the council, or reject them.

“I, Wylfrael of stone sky and Sionnach, have brought my bride to the gates of Heofonraed,” I shouted. “I have come to face the council and to request a vote of membership.”

I held Torrance tightly, keeping my gaze fixed on the gates. For a long moment, nothing happened, and I wondered if Maerwynne had been wrong, if the council wouldn’t even open their gates for this.

But then, just when I was considering shouting again, the gates parted, swinging inwards without a sound. Torrance breathed out unsteadily at the sight of Heofonraed’s great hall – a huge, towering structure of dark red material that looked more like opaque crystal than the stone of the gates.

Not wanting to dawdle, lest the gates slam shut in our faces, we passed through them. Much like the gates, the large red doors of Heofonraed’s hall opened soundlessly and without anyone around seeming to have done it. Inside, the walls encased us in red, the floor the same white stone as outside.

But there was nothing else. No one in the space.

“Will you not come and greet us?” I called. “I will stand before the council for the vote!”

Silence.

“What’s going on?” Torrance asked, unease clear in her lovely voice.

“I do not know,” I answered honestly. “I expected the council would have met us here. The gates and doors can only be opened from the inside, so I know they are here.” Members of the council could leave Heofonraed temporarily, to take care of any business or to visit their mates on another world. But there were always at least two members at Heofonraed at all times.

“Wylfrael.”

Torrance jumped, slamming a hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming at the sound. My name boomed in the space. My jaw worked, my eyes tracking everywhere, searching for the source.

“You have come before the council seeking membership. To do so, you must pass our trial.”

“Trial?” I snapped, spinning in the space, drawing my sword. “What trial?”

Joining the council required winning a majority vote among the members. That was it. There had never been any trial.

Things have changed since I’ve been gone.

The voice said nothing more. Instead, I heard something else. A terrible roar that shook Heofonraed’s walls.

“What is that?” Torrance whispered, her eyes huge behind her mask, her face pale.

“I don’t know,” I said again, “but I do not like it.”

The roar sounded again, terrible and agonized, and I realized with a sick lurch that it was coming closer. Coming closer to Torrance.

This must be the trial, I realized. Facing and killing whatever is making that noise.

Fear tightened my grip on my blade. Not fear for me, but for my bride.

“Stay here,” I hissed at her through clenched teeth.

“Wylfrael, wait, wait!” she cried. But I did not turn, and I did not answer. I had a monster to kill.

I sprinted through Heofonraed’s halls, turning red corner after red corner, running towards the roars. The creature was making its way to me as well, the labyrinthian distance between us collapsing as we barrelled towards each other. Finally, as I skidded around a corner, it came into view.

It was huge, and ugly, a roiling, round black body with numerous legs spilling out from its sides. Easily twice as tall as I was and much wider than my wingspan, it fixed me with a single dull eye and opened its monstrous maw, howling.

I was in the air in an instant, slashing and hacking with my blade. I quickly realized I could not use any of my power in this trial. The shining stone walls of the palace did not respond to my focus, and neither did the body of the beast I fought with.

I would have to rely solely on my physical body, my blade, and my fighting skills to defeat this thing. I flew over it, stabbing along its hunched spine. The thing writhed and shrieked in rage, but it did not slow down. It had no wings, but it climbed the walls with ease, taking away my advantage of height.

As we fought, I lost all sense of time and space. I lunged and stabbed and slashed, while the monster howled and battered me. We rolled and flew and crawled through the halls. As we rampaged, dread unfurled heavy wings inside me. The monster was not responding to my attacks as I’d thought it would, and without my power to subdue it, I began to worry that it could not be killed.

That dread turned to fear when I realized we’d ended up back in the main hall. The place where I’d left Torrance.

NO, I screamed inside my own head, fighting harder, driving my sword deeper, over and over again, though this putrid thing did not even bleed. But Torrance was here somewhere, Sionnach save me, I could smell her. New strength infused my limbs, my primal need to protect Torrance overriding all else. For the first time, I began to drive the beast back. It retreated, its many legs skittering, until I’d backed it against the wall. My arms moved faster than they ever had. I felt like I was chasing something, something important, and that if I only moved fast enough, buried my sword deep enough, I’d find it.

Triumph and rage swirling inside me, I plunged my sword forward, right through the creature, pinning it to the wall. Instantly, it stopped moving.

Cursed stars, all I could smell was Torrance, along with something else, something bitter and familiar.

“Torrance!” I bellowed, twisting, keeping my arms in place while I looked for her. But she wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere.

The starburn hit me one treacherous moment too late. Too late to have warned me. Too late to have helped me sense what I was doing, what I’d done.

Fever slamming through my body, I snapped my gaze back to the monster only to find it gone. A mere illusion, a collection of shadows dispersed into dust. And the one I’d pinned to the wall with my blade...

Was Torrance.

I screamed so loudly I thought I’d smash my own ribs with the force. Totally obliterate myself. There she was, my perfect one, my snow-and-honey-eyed girl, my beloved little bride, my mate, my mate, my mate, unblinking and unmoving, slumped over my blade.

Words smashed against each other in my reeling brain. Words like no, no, no and whispering echoes of Rúnwebbe’s prophecy.

Fated bride of Wylfrael. Starburning, but afraid,

And when she dies it will be by her husband’s hand and blade.

I’d tried to outrun it. Tried to hide from it. Tried not to seek out my fate.

But fate had found me anyway.

Found me, and left me ruined.

Not knowing what else to do, I scooped my beloved, so limp, so cursedly limp, Sionnach save me, into my arms. I wanted to pull out the sword but knew it would do no good. She’d only bleed out faster that way.

I could feel her heartbeat, slow and weak against me as I ran out the doors and the gates.

And I could feel it stop as I launched madly into the air.

The council could not, would not help me. That was as clear as summer Sionnachan sky. They’d orchestrated this for some reason – set up this illusion so that I’d kill my own mate and therefore kill myself. It was only the fact I hadn’t starburned or given Torrance my knot yet that I was still alive.

I starburned now, though. A harrowing heat searing through my limbs, making my wings quake as I pulsed them in ragged strokes, bringing us ever higher. The cruelty of the timing made me want to die. I should have. Back in Heofonraed’s halls. I should have disappeared for what I’d done. Should have gone with her into the dark.

“Torrance, Torrance, I love you. Love you. Please, please, please don’t go.”

I begged her as I flew, knowing she’d already gone but not able to accept that I merely held a body now and not my beloved.

There’s still time, I told myself, fierce with desperation, latching onto one last mad, unlikely hope. There was only one god I knew who could beat back the shadows of death without the council’s power. Vowing that I’d make him help me even if it killed me, I channelled all my remaining strength into opening a sky door. I flung myself through it, clutching Torrance as I hurled back into the sky of the Shadowlands.

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CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE Wylfrael

By the time I crashed down into Sceadulyr’s courtyard, night had fallen, and all the other gods were gone.

“Come out, Shadowlands god!” I screamed into the star-pricked sky. “Come out here and face me!”

I need not have shouted so. He peeled himself out of nearby darkness, like seeping liquid freezing into something solid before my very eyes.

“I do not remember inviting you back here after your earlier insolence,” Sceadulyr said, walking agonizingly slowly towards us. I ignored his words, holding Torrance up, like an offering, a terrible homage to what I’d done.

“Save her,” I gritted out. “She is dying.”

Sceadulyr normally schooled his features into whatever emotion he wanted others to see. But even he could not hide his shock at what he saw in my arms.

“She’s dead, I think you mean,” he said, silver pupils large as he stared down at my bride. “And, if I am not mistaken... is that not the very sword you cut me with in my own home, Wylfrael?” The shock on his face melted into a taunting sneer. The cursed god was enjoying this. Enjoying my pain, enjoying how I suffered. “Clearly, you are entirely too careless with your blade.”

“Save her,” I hissed. My arms shook. “Save her, or I will destroy you and this entire world.”

I meant it, too. The agony inside me expanded like a storm, howling, burying everything. I’d kill him. I’d kill everyone. No one else deserved to live when she did not.

Especially me.

Sceadulyr’s silver gaze was flat and merciless.

“Your threats bore me, Wylfrael. Tell me why I should help you and your pathetic human mate when you have nothing that I want.”

My arms shook even harder. I’d never felt like this – so helpless. So weak. I hated it almost as much as I hated myself.

“I do have something,” I said, hoping against hope that it would be enough. “I have a star map.”

Sceadulyr tensed slightly.

“And?” he said. He sounded like he did not care, but I knew that he did.

“And I will lend my powers to you. I will open sky doors for you, sky doors anywhere, for as long as you want.”

I didn’t want to owe Sceadulyr like this. But there was no other choice. I was on the brink of begging him.

“Take the deal I offer,” I hissed. “Take it. If you save my mate, I will help you find yours and restore your star map.”

Sceadulyr regarded me emotionlessly for so long I thought he’d refuse.

But then, in the casually sudden way one might announce what they intended to eat for breakfast, he said, “Alright. I’ll do it. Bring her inside.”

“Thank you,” I said tightly as I followed him into his palace.

“I don’t want your thanks,” Sceadulyr replied. “Just your star map.”

He led me into a room at the base of a tower that had some furniture and directed me to put Torrance down on a chaise longue with a white linen cushion. Sceadulyr frowned as I did so.

“I hope you know you’ll owe me a new cushion if she bleeds all over that,” he muttered.

It took every ounce of stone sky will inside me not to smash his head in.

“Just hurry up,” I snapped. “Forget the cursed cushion.”

“Patience, Wylfrael, patience,” he chided. “She’s not going to get any deader.”

Sceadulyr was possibly, no, certainly, the most maddening god in the cosmos. But right now, the putrid shadow wielder was all I had. I ground my fangs against each other, swallowing everything I wanted to say, and focused on Torrance.

But looking at her was even more maddening in its own torturous way. My anger at Sceadulyr froze and shattered inside me, turning to grief that threatened to consume me. I’d lain her on her back, and her head was turned towards me. I peeled away the mask from her pale, cool skin, and knelt beside her, taking her little hand in mine.

Please, please don’t go.

“Stop holding her hand, you sentimental fool. I need you to pull out the sword,” Sceadulyr said. He stood on the opposite side of the chaise longue, his hands poised in the air above Torrance.

“You won’t let her bleed out?” I said, rising unsteadily to my feet and gripping the blade’s handle with both hands.

“Need I remind you of the cushions?” he said crisply. “Besides, her heart has stopped, so there won’t be much pumping out of her before I fix that.”

“Fine. Just fix her. Ready?”

“Always, Wylfrael. I expected you’d know that by now.”

I breathed in deeply, giving Torrance’s beautiful face one last, longing look before I slid the sword smoothly out of her chest. Sceadulyr’s eyes fell shut immediately, concentration furrowing his pale brow. Shadowy shapes swarmed over the table, sinking into Torrance’s wound, stopping blood from flowing out.

“Cursed skies, Wylfrael, you’ve really made a mess of her,” Sceadulyr growled, his lips twitching with the effort of whatever he was directing his shadows to do inside her body.

“Just fix her,” I said again, softly this time. I dropped my blade, unable to stand the red that coated it. Torrance wasn’t breathing. My hands curled into fists.

“Why hasn’t she revived yet? Why is it taking so long?”

Sceadulyr’s eyes opened, and he scowled at me.

“It is taking so long because, Wylfrael, every moment you deprive a mortal creature of blood flow after death is a moment that damage is inflicted, particularly in the brain. Perhaps you cannot appreciate that fact, as you do not seem to have one.”

I bristled at his insult but kept my mouth shut.

“My shadows have to work through every organ. I must make repairs, and her body is unfamiliar to me. If I woke her up now, she’d be alive, but would never stand, walk, or talk again. Is that what you want?”

“No!” I shouted.

“Then kindly make yourself useful by shutting up. You’re distracting me.”

I obeyed him, even though it physically pained me. I wanted to question his every move, wanted to understand what he did every moment. The feeling of helplessness came back, squawking and clawing at me, as I watched another god save my bride when I could not.

Feverish and afraid, I stared at my slaughtered bride, unable to do anything else besides wait and wonder and apologize to her in silence.

Sceadulyr worked all night. The only reason I registered time passing was because warm dawn light began to filter through the room, though there were no windows, replacing the earlier moonlight. By the time dawn became full morning, cracks were showing in Sceadulyr’s control. He’d started out standing upright but was now hunched over Torrance, fingers curling with tension. His eyes were screwed shut, his nose and mouth twitching. His head was tilted slightly to the side, as if listening hard for something just out of earshot.

I wanted to whisper his name, to scream at him, but I was too afraid to break his concentration now. I felt that we were nearing the end of the process. I just did not yet know what the result would be. I’d watched Torrance so closely that I’d almost fooled myself into thinking she had started breathing several times when she had not.

“Almost there,” the Shadowlands god croaked through tense fangs.

Sceadulyr’s voice had broken the silence and shattered my fear of speaking. All the questions I’d held back poured out in a tumbling rush.

“Almost there? Almost where? Stone of the sky, will she live, Sceadulyr?”

Slowly, Sceadulyr straightened up. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck, rubbing a hand down his face before opening his eyes.

“She already lives. I venture to think she will continue to do so as long as you don’t run her through with any more swords.”

I’d been standing, having spent much of the night pacing, but now I fell to my knees. I grasped Torrance’s hand, breathing so hard I almost missed the soft, whistling sound of her breath.

He’s done it. She lives.

“She will need time to recover,” Sceadulyr said. “I’ve done all I can, repaired the internal damage and pushed death’s darkness back, but it will take time for her to awaken, and more time beyond that for her to fully regain her strength, puny as it is.”

Her strength wasn’t puny. It was monumental. The most awe-inspiring thing I’d ever witnessed. Every breath she took was a testament to her power.

And, as much as I hated to admit it, to Sceadulyr’s.

“Thank you,” I told him, unable to tear my gaze away from Torrance’s face, where the tiniest blush of colour was ebbing into her cheeks.

“I already told you I don’t care about your thanks.” Sceadulyr bent to retrieve the blade from the floor, frowning at the dark, cracked blood. He held it out to me, but I ignored it. I couldn’t look at it. Couldn’t touch the blade now. Sceadulyr tossed it back down. He sidled over to a nearby wall, leaned back against it, crossed his arms, and stared at me.

“What is it?” I grunted. “You’re done here. Go rest.”

“Not quite done here, yet,” he intoned. “I have questions for you, Wylfrael.”

I suppressed a groan. I should have known that I wouldn’t have gotten away with a simple trade, offering my star map in exchange for Torrance’s life.

“Fine. What?” I asked. I held Torrance’s hand between both of mine, gently rubbing her smooth knuckles along my chin and jaw.

“Well, perhaps most obviously, how in the stone sky did this happen?”

I thought about lying, or not answering. But I’d have to share news of this eventually, at the very least to warn other stone sky gods away from trying to join the council. Haltingly, I told Sceadulyr of all that had come to pass after I’d left the gathering.

“Hmm,” he said slowly. “Well, that answers some things but confuses others. Only mortal gods can put themselves forward to join the council. Which brings me to my next question. Why are you alive?”

“I have not given her my knot yet,” I said, avoiding the whole messy truth of the bargain Torrance and I had created, our fake marriage, the lies we’d crafted together.

“So, you wanted to fool your way onto the council, even though you are not mortal yet?’ Sceadulyr probed.

I let out a biting sigh.

“Yes.” A sudden thought hit me, sent me reeling. “You do not think they knew? And that is why this happened...”

Could the council have somehow seen through our ruse? Was this a punishment?

“As much as I would love to take any opportunity to wax poetic about your stupidity and lack of foresight, Wylfrael, I do not think so. I know of at least two other truly mortal, mated gods who have not been heard from since they attempted to join the council. It now seems very clear to me that they killed their mates, as you did, but because they actually followed our rules and our ways, they died in the act.”

“Well, perhaps I’m not so lacking in foresight after all, then,” I grumbled. “If I’d played by the council’s rules, Torrance and I would both be dead now.”

“True.” He leaned his head back against the wall, looking down at me through lowered lids. “Word will get out about this, you know. The other gods must be warned. What will you tell them, about why you lived when others did not?”

“I’ll simply tell them that by some stroke of luck, I didn’t kill Torrance. She was badly wounded, and almost died, but I got her here just in time.”

“I suppose you expect me to go along with that flimsy story as well, then? Since you’ve now pulled me into this mess.”

“Yes.”

“Fine,” Sceadulyr said, pushing off from the wall. “Torrance can recuperate here. As soon as you are able, we will begin.”

“Begin...?”

“Our travels, of course,” Sceadulyr said brusquely. “I have many worlds to comb through yet before I find my mate.”

I placed Torrance’s hand gently down and rose to face Sceadulyr.

“No. As soon as I am able, I will open a sky door to Sionnach. That is where my bride will heal.” There wasn’t even the slightest sliver of a chance I would leave her here, vulnerable and unprotected in the Shadowlands, while Sceadulyr dragged me by my balls across the cosmos.

Sceadulyr regarded me with raised brows.

“And what do I have to ensure that you will actually return here and hold up your end of things if I let you take her away now?”

“My word,” I grunted.

He laughed bitterly.

“Ah, yes. Your word. It holds a lot of weight, very credible. Especially after you went before the council and lied about your mortality, and now will lie to every other stone sky god who asks about what happened here.”

“This is the deal,” I bit out. “I will not leave this world without her.”

“It’s like trying to reason with a block of ice,” Sceadulyr muttered. “Alright. I agree to your terms. Take her back to Sionnach as soon as your strength allows you, and return here in three days to open the first sky door for me.”

“Three days? It is not enough. I-”

“This is the deal,” he snapped, shooting my own words back at me. “You’d be wise to remember that everything I have done here I can yet undo.”

We stared at each other in silence until I finally agreed.

“Three days,” I acknowledged, turning back to Torrance. Sceadulyr smiled and strode from the room.

“Three days,” he called over his shoulder, as if I needed reminding. “I’ll be waiting.”

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