Alistair leaned down to murmur in Ember’s ear. “Once we are married, you will learn who Rhys is to us, and you will love him as I do.” He spoke as if the words were a threat, and Ember blanched.
“Let us begin, Father Michael,” Eira commanded with a sweep of her hand toward the throng of guests.
The priest uttered the familiar words of the wedding ceremony, but to Ember they were an unintelligible jumble of sounds. She stood still as stone, trapped in this nightmare, able only to stare at the boy whom Alistair called Rhys.
When the priest prompted her, Ember managed to respond as required, but she became aware of the progress of the ceremony only when Alistair slipped a ring onto her finger. She looked down as the cool gold band touched her skin.
The signal.
Ember met Alistair’s gaze. In his bright blue irises she saw many things: lust, possession, regret—but not hope or joy, and certainly not love. She tried to pull her hand back, but Alistair stepped closer, grabbing her wrist with bruising force.
“Not yet, my love,” he murmured, and Ember couldn’t breathe.
He knew.
A battle cry rose from the crowd at Ember’s back, followed by another. The war calls mingled with shouts of alarm and fear. The bright ring of steel rose to join the screams. Wrenching her neck to look behind her, Ember saw the madness of war flood the courtyard. Clansmen hacked at Eira’s guard. Wedding guests not complicit in the attack scrambled from the flurry of swords and axes. The rain-soaked ground churned beneath trampling feet. Bodies fell in the mud, some dead, others living only long enough to be crushed in the stampede.
Agnes shrieked and clung to her mother.
Bosque looked at the huddled women and laughed. “Don’t be afraid, dear ladies. You’re quite safe, I assure you.”
Bosque lifted his palm and the muddy ground in front of the dais began to boil. Wraiths bubbled up from the muck, their shadow bodies slithering forward to take posts as sentinels between the wedding party and the embattled mass.
Rhys snarled at the appearance of the wraiths—Ember glanced down and saw the boy’s lips curl back. His teeth flashed in the sunlight, canines sharp as a wolf’s fangs.
“Be still,” Alistair said to the child. “Remember. Not until I say.”
Balling his fists, Rhys looked up at Alistair and nodded.
Seizing on Alistair’s distraction, Ember thrust her foot up, sweeping his legs from beneath him. With a cry, Alistair collapsed to the dais, and Ember was free.
Without hesitation, she whirled around, grabbing her mother and sister and dragging them toward the manor. Mackenzie might have men coming to their aid, but no warrior would get past Bosque’s wraiths. Ember hugged the outer wall of the building as she pulled Agnes and Ossia through the mud. Not daring to look behind her for fear that Bosque would send a wraith in pursuit, Ember could only hope that Alistair still wanted her alive.
“Keep running!” Ember shouted as she flung the manor door open. The three women stumbled inside, and Ember said, “This way.”
Ember’s mother and sister were sobbing as Ember pulled them down the corridor to the great hall. All Ember could think of was getting Agnes and Ossia to safety, and that meant away from Tearmunn. The only way out was Rebekah’s portal.
When she reached the double doors of the great hall, Ember heard rapid footsteps behind her.
“Get inside,” Ember hissed, cracking the door so Agnes and their mother could slip through. Only when they were in the great hall did Ember turn to see Alistair running at her. A young wolf loped at his heels.
Ember threw herself into the great hall, slamming the doors at her back. She desperately searched the room for a barricade. Her gaze fell upon the crescent table and its accompanying chairs.
“Mother, get a chair!” Ember shouted to Ossia. “We have to block the doorway.”
Ember lurched forward as something or someone crashed into the doors. Bracing herself, Ember struggled to keep the doors from opening.
It wasn’t enough.
An incredible force crashed against the doors, and Ember was sent sprawling across the stone floor.
The wind knocked from her lungs, Ember wheezed, rolling onto her side. The two doors had been blown to splinters. In the cloud of debris, Ember saw Eira, Bosque, Alistair, and the wolf standing over her.
“Wherever are you going, Lady Morrow?” Eira drew her sword. “Your wedding day has just begun.”
Glancing at the wolf, Alistair said, “Stay hidden until I call.” The wolf bowed its head. With ears pinned back, it slunk into the shadowed corner of the hall.
Ember scrambled to her feet, hoping to reach her mother and sister, but Alistair lunged into the room, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her back.
“You will not escape me,” he hissed in her ear.
At the far side of the room, a door of light appeared.
Alistair’s grip tightened on Ember when he saw the portal, and she coughed, struggling for breath.
“More guests,” Alistair whispered. “How lovely.”
He dragged Ember toward the door. She writhed in his arms, trying to free herself and catching only glimpses of the figures that emerged from Rebekah’s gleaming door.
A battle cry filled the room, and Lukasz rushed from the portal wielding his claymore. Kurjii and Tamur were at his flank.
Ember kicked at Alistair as he wrenched her around to face Eira and Bosque. She twisted as far as she could and saw Rebekah appear from within the portal, hanging back while Kael stayed at her side. After Rebekah closed the door, Kael guided her to the shadowed staircase at the far end of the hall that led to the gallery, hoping to keep her out of harm’s way while she performed the ritual. The portal was gone, but Barrow was nowhere to be seen. Ember didn’t know if she was relieved by his absence or disheartened.
Alistair had almost reached his companions when a new cry of rage sounded from the outer hall. Eira whirled, raising her sword just in time to meet Cian’s deadly strike. Eira’s face whitened and then her eyes hardened with fury as she glared at Cian.
“You betray your own blood?” Eira hissed.
“The betrayal is yours,” Cian answered. “And I have no choice but to make you answer for it.”
Father Michael appeared at Cian’s back, red-faced and huffing for breath. He took in the scene and tried to slide past the sword-locked pair and into the great hall.
Bosque’s silver eyes narrowed. Taking one long stride, his arm shot out and struck Father Michael, sending the priest flying across the chamber. Father Michael’s body slammed into the wall and fell limp on the floor. Pivoting to face the sisters, Bosque stretched his hand toward Cian, his fingers clawlike.
“No!” Eira shouted, catching his movement but not taking her eyes off Cian. “Deal with the others, but she is mine.”
“As you wish.” Bosque turned his palm over, and three wraiths rose from the stone floor, their bodies curling like smoke. He flicked his wrist at Lukasz, Kurjii, and Tamur. “Kill the intruders.”
The wraiths oozed like tar toward the knights.
Twisting in Alistair’s grasp, Ember shouted to her sister and mother, “Get to the gallery! Run!”
If Agnes and her mother could reach Kael, they would at least have some protection. A sliver of relief stole through Ember when she saw Agnes stiffen with resolve and pull their mother toward the gallery staircase.
Lifting his massive claymore, Lukasz shouted, “These creatures cannot be killed. Don’t let them touch you.”
Bosque threw back his head and laughed. “I shall enjoy watching you try to run from my wraiths. You will tire. They will not.”
At a nod from Lukasz, the trio of knights split. The wraiths separated to follow them, pursuing their victims with a slow determination.
Eira and Cian’s fight had progressed from the corridor into the great hall. The sisters danced around each other, their blades flashing through the air like streaks of lightning. Eira shoved hard, sending Ci
an staggering back. Eira leapt from the throne, flipping in the air to land with deadly grace at Cian’s back. Cian whirled and the sisters’ blades met again. The room sang with steel’s bright cries as Eira and Cian rained blows upon each other.
“Come to me, Lord Hart!” Bosque called from the doorway.
Ember cried out when Alistair’s grasp tightened. He swung her around, dragging her away from the swordplay.
Lukasz and Tamur had taken to weaving throughout the hall, keeping a distance between themselves and the wraiths that hunted them. Kurjii, however, backed too far into a corner, and before he could dart out again, the wraith snaked forward, wrapping itself around the knight. His sword clattered to the floor as his screams filled the room.
“No!” Ember shouted as the Mamluk warrior thrashed in the wraith’s clutches.
Alistair cuffed Ember, making her head ring from the blow.
“Forget them! You are still mine, as you always will be,” he growled at her. “And in my possession, you will learn the price of betrayal.”
Even through the fog of her blurred vision, Ember was sickened by the hatred in his eyes. She’d done this to him, at least partly.
“Don’t do this, Alistair,” she pleaded. “You’re better than this.”
“You’ve barely begun to know who I am. Submit to me, and I’ll spare your mother and sister,” Alistair replied. “Fight me, and you’ll watch them die.”
Ember saw a figure looming at her left side a moment before Alistair did. Alistair shoved Ember away so hard that she fell; he reached for his sword, but he couldn’t draw the blade before Barrow slammed into him, sending them both tumbling along the floor.
Scrambling to her feet, Ember reached under her skirt and withdrew the stiletto. Locked in a wrestling match, Barrow and Alistair pummeled each other, both struggling to get the upper hand. Ember held her dagger low and spun around quickly, surveying the room. Bosque blocked the way to the outer hall.
Lukasz and Tamur still dodged the wraiths that pursued them. Bosque kept his place in the doorway, watching in amusement and seemingly content to let the wraiths continue their cat-and-mouse game with the knights.
Ember’s gaze returned to Barrow and Alistair. They were still a tangle of limbs and fists on the ground. Gripping her stiletto, for a moment Ember thought to intervene, but she thrust the impulse aside. Barrow was in less danger than the others whom she loved here. Ember ran to the stairs, swearing that with her last breath she’d fight to save her mother and sister.
EIRA DODGED ANOTHER blow, gritting her teeth when Cian parried her next strike.
“I’m happy to see you’ll still fight your own battles,” Cian spat at Eira. “I thought I’d be reduced to slashing at Bosque’s hideous pets.”
“I wouldn’t miss the satisfaction of reminding you that I’ve always been stronger,” Eira snapped. “In all ways.”
Their swords met again, steel rasping as both sisters pushed toward each other.
“You mistake your ambition for strength.” Cian surged forward, sending Eira staggering.
Bosque was immediately at Eira’s side, steadying her. His silver eyes flashed as he leveled his gaze on Cian.
“Stop.” Eira pulled away from him. “This is my fight.”
“It is an unnecessary risk, my love,” Bosque murmured, but Cian heard him.
“What can a creature like you know of love?” Cian screamed at him. “You seduced my sister with lust and power. You have corrupted her!”
With a screech of outrage, Eira launched herself at Cian. Their blades met high in the air, descending into a flurry of blows.
Panting from the effort of her attack, Eira said, “How can you be so naive? Would you live under the thumb of men forever?”
“Men do not rule me,” Cian replied as their blades grated against each other. “My life has always been my own, as was yours.”
“You’re blind.” Eira’s retort came with another blow. “Gaining permission to wield a blade is not enough. I could have given you so much more.”
Eira brought her sword down in a sweeping arc; Cian ducked, rolling across the floor to escape the fatal blow.
“You are the pawn of the enemy,” Cian said, breathless. “I will never serve Bosque as you do.”
“I do not serve him.” Eira stalked toward her sister. “I love him.”
Though Eira hadn’t reached her, Cian reeled as if from a blow. “It is not love, sister. Love would not make you betray who you are.”
Eira’s laugh was bright as her blade. “You no longer see who I am, Cian. But I will show you.”
Advancing on Cian, Eira brought her sword down with incredible force. Cian rose to meet the blow. Eira suddenly twisted and flicked Cian’s sword from her grasp. Eira’s foot lashed out, hitting Cian in the chest and sending her sprawling. As Eira stalked toward her, Cian rose, but only to her knees.
“Yield,” Eira hissed.
“I yield only to death,” Cian answered.
Leveling her blade at Cian’s chest, Eira said, “When you draw your last breath, remember that you chose this fate.”
Cian bowed her head, whispering rapid words.
“It’s too late to pray for salvation, my sister.”
Eira thrust, and as the sword slid into Cian’s heart, she heard Bosque cry out, “No!”
Cian’s body slumped over Eira’s sword. Grimly, Eira withdrew the blade. The blood that covered her sword began to glow. With a cry, Eira dropped the weapon and stumbled back as the strange light blossomed from the pooling blood until it surrounded Cian’s body like a cocoon.
Eira felt Bosque’s arms around her, pulling her away from her sister’s corpse.
An abundance of colors suffused the sphere that rose from the ground, carrying Cian with it. Spears of light shot out from the gleaming circle, striking the wraiths in the room and making them shriek, their dark mass bubbling like pitch until they burst and were gone.
Bosque roared, and the sound reverberated through the hall, its fury shaking the ground. The stone floor beneath Lukasz and Tamur shifted and cracked, sending the knights tumbling.
“Take cover,” Bosque growled at Eira. He pushed her toward the edge of the hall and advanced on the sphere of light.
Eira saw that it moved with purpose, its beams growing wider and brighter as it approached the rift. As the sphere’s light reached the massive dead tree, Eira gasped. The scene before her flickered; with one blink, the tree stood as it was—bone-white and bearing the gaping wound of the rift—but in the next moment, Eira could see the tree as it had been, mighty and draped in the emerald tones of its vitality.
The sphere began to descend; there could be no mistaking its destination. Eira saw that it would fill the void perfectly, its light blocking the darkness. Sealing the gate to the nether.
Suddenly Bosque loomed in front of the rift. He reached into the undulating shadows at his back, and from within the rift, he drew a sword. The weapon was larger than even Lukasz’s claymore, and like Bosque’s steed, this blade appeared to be forged of shadow.
As he lifted the sword, Bosque rasped in fury, “This will not come to pass.”
With one stride, Bosque launched himself into the air, every muscle in his body working to power the stroke of his blade. His sword hit the sphere, barely piercing the surface of shimmering lights.
The sphere shuddered and burst. The explosion was deafening. It sent Bosque hurtling through the air until he landed in a heap on the far side of the room. The stained-glass windows of the hall shattered. Thick branches of the dead tree cracked, groaning as they sheared off the trunk and slammed to the stone floor.
Eira fell to her knees, but not because of the explosion. Where the sphere had been, Cian was floating in the air. Eira knew it wasn’t truly her sister. Whatever this spirit was, it had Cian’s features, but the hovering figure was transparent.
Cian was speaking, her words in Latin, filling the room as loudly as Bosque’s roar had, but not with a furiou
s cry. Instead the air trembled as Cian’s words became a song, a melody that blended aching sorrow and unflagging hope.
Stunned by her sister’s transformation, Eira couldn’t make sense of what Cian’s spirit song meant. She was only able to discern the final phrases:
Prolem cruces ferat.
Crux ancora vitae.
May the Scion bear the Cross.
The Cross is the anchor of life.
Cian spread her arms to the side, and her body became light, so bright that Eira could barely look at her. As Eira watched, the light separated into four distinct pieces. They grew larger, taking on the characteristics of the portals that Conatus’s clerics wove. Through each shimmering doorway, Eira glimpsed a different landscape. The first revealed a pine-covered slope and the dark opening of a cave.
Haldis.
Eira heard Cian’s whisper. It hung in the air for a moment. Then the portal curled in on itself, becoming a flaring ball of light.
Through the next doorway Eira saw the snowcapped peaks of mountains and the silver-blue of ice.
Tordis.
Like the first portal, at Cian’s whisper, the door shuddered, contracting until it too had been reduced to a ball of light.
The third doorway opened to the bluest seas Eira had ever set eyes on. More lustrous than the Mediterranean, the waters were surrounded by dense forests of a kind Eira didn’t recognize. The trees were short, ropelike vines twisting between trunks. The leaves were thick and broad, gleaming jade green.
Eydis.
Eira gasped, stepping back at the vivid imagery held within the fourth portal. Glossy black rock and rivers of fire. The earth belching ash and molten flame.
Pyralis.
When the final door swirled into a ball of light, the four spheres brightened to the point that Eira found it hard to look at them. Like falling stars, they shot from the room, blasting through stone, wood, and glass as they escaped the great hall, each flying in a different direction.
And then they were gone. The chamber was silent, and Cian’s body was nowhere to be seen.
THE EXPLOSION FINALLY ripped Alistair and Barrow apart. Their fight had been relentless and ugly. A fight with no honor, only animosity. Too close for clear blows, the knights had been reduced to biting, ripping, and tearing at each other like wild beasts. Neither gained the advantage, but both were so consumed by hatred that they willingly embraced the futility of their struggle.