Before I could say anything, Ulean was back, settling around me like a cloak of winds. She embraced me gently.
The Barrow stands unguarded, and I sense no Shadow Hunters in the area. I cannot vouch for what lies within—I was hesitant to enter. But Cicely, when you walk through that entrance, you will break the protection spell that Ysandra is keeping around you. And once it’s broken, whatever that cloud is out there, it will have free access to you. I can’t tell you if it will be able to get into the Barrow, but I can’t see why it shouldn’t.
I let out a long breath. There was no help for it. We’ll have to take that chance. There’s nothing else we can do.
I know, Cicely. Just be cautious.
I warned the others about what Ulean had told me, and we girded ourselves for the possibility. As we headed out again, I glanced over at Hunter.
“You said you can’t remember how the cloud killed them?”
He brushed his hands across his eyes. “Not precisely. I don’t think we ever figured out just how they died. One moment they were alive, and the next, the cloud enveloped them and . . . they were dead. Blood running out their noses and the corners of their mouths. Not savaged—not like the Shadow Hunters kill—but . . . just dead.”
Hmm . . . maybe this thing fed on life force—sucking the energy out of a person. Or maybe it disrupted the body’s systems, shut it down? Whatever the case, it was a hunter and therefore must have some motive for killing.
When we turned the corner, the abandoned Barrow mound came into view. Deep in the forest, surrounded by fallen logs piled thick with snow, in the heart of the Golden Wood, Myst’s renegade mound still existed. Here it was I had lived and died, a thousand years before.
As I stared at the Barrow, buried by drifts until it had become one large hillock of snow, a wave of panic rolled over me. Fear and betrayal, lust for blood, lust for Shy . . . It all bombarded me in one instant memory. I struggled against the sensation that I was drowning as my worlds of the past and the present collided. My wolf howled, shuddering against me, and Grieve let out a harsh cry and fell to his knees.
The next moment, he was standing again, but when our eyes met, I knew we were seeing both lifetimes superimpose, one over the other. We were back to where it had begun. Or, at least, as far back as we could remember. We were back to where I’d reveled in the bloodlust, and where Grieve had been Summer’s child.
Letting out a whimper, I reached for him, and he dragged me into his arms. “I’ve been waiting for this,” he whispered. “I knew it was true, but now . . . now it’s really, fiercely, true. We’ve made it back, my love. We’re back.”
I began to sob in his embrace. “We made it. We really did. And now, we’re fighting against my mother again.”
“This time, we have armies on our side. This time, our love isn’t forbidden. And Myst is no longer your mother.” Grieve pushed me back, holding my shoulders. “It’s time to put an end to this. Are you ready?”
I wiped away my tears, nodding. “Let’s do this thing.” Turning to the others, I said, “We’re going in. Keep watch, and especially keep watch for that fucking cloud monster.”
I silently thanked Ysandra for helping us get this far, then ducked my head and slipped into the Barrow. I took the lead—there was no question, no argument.
As I stepped through the entrance, it was as though a protective cloak was suddenly stripped away and Ysandra’s spell vanished.
It was darker than pitch, darker than night inside, as if something had sucked every drop of light from every corner, leaving a void behind. Taking a deep breath, I flipped on a small flashlight that I had hooked to my belt, and looked around. And right then, memories came tumbling back, memories from another life, and I knew exactly where I was.
I was standing in a large chamber that used to be Myst’s throne room. The Barrow wasn’t large, as Barrows go, because Myst had built it on the sly, and it didn’t have the backing from the Fae Court to truly make it grand.
The throne—built of wood as black as night—had long overgrown with tree roots and now sat, a living creature of root and limb over deadwood, in what seemed a grotesque parody of my own throne room at home.
Everywhere I looked, time had ravaged the Barrow, but memories crept through: the bloody lust and thirst that Myst had birthed in me. A glance at one corner, and I remembered devouring a young fawn there, holding its heart in my hands as I marveled at the life running down my throat. Another corner, and a glimpse of me beating a servant who moved too slowly. Everywhere, the memories of vicious joy overwhelmed me.
Something began to wake inside, a fierce drive that made my stomach quiver. With the hunger came the fear. I was thirsty, I wanted blood, I wanted battle. The same feelings that the obsidian blades of the Shadow Hunters had awakened in me slammed back full force. Just being in the Barrow was waking a part of my soul I’d hoped would stay sleeping forever.
“Grieve—I’m afraid. I’m . . .”
My wolf shifted, and Grieve caught me by the wrist. “Focus. I can feel the hunger. I know that hunger because I fight it every day. Listen to my voice. You are in control. The Indigo Court still lives within your soul, but you control it now. You are no longer bound by Myst, you are no longer bound to her or the Vampiric Fae by blood. Soul memory is strong, but you are stronger.”
His voice wove a sonorous thread through the waves of panic that swirled around me, and I caught hold of his words, using them like a string through the labyrinth into which my mind had spun.
“Lead me out. Lead me out. Bring me back to myself.” Moaning, my knees buckled, but then another hand caught me up, and Hunter, my grandfather, was holding me fast on the other side.
“I am your lineage this life, girl. You belong to my people now. We lay claim on you. While the Indigo Court may leave its mark, it will not claim you. You are the Queen of Snow and Ice, and regardless of who you were, this is who you are now. Do you hear me?” His voice was commanding, and I struggled to stand, to throw off the cloak of the past that threatened to swallow me up.
Cicely—come back to yourself. We need you. Myst cannot win, and if you give in to the woman you were—to the woman who was Myst’s daughter—then you are handing her a victory over you and over all that you love and protect and stand for.
Between the three of them, between the voices of reason who battered me with a continual barrage of support, I wrestled with the Shadow Hunter inside of me. With the Vampiric Fae I once had been. I’d never be fully free of her. My memories were too grounded in the past, and the ritual that Grieve and I had performed had left us inexorably bound to the Indigo Court, but this was a new life, a new day, and I would not let Myst win after all this time.
As I fought my way through the clouds, my vision began to return. I opened my eyes, breathing heavily. But as I was about to reassure them that I was regaining control, a sound from the front of the Barrow startled us.
The cloud creature that had been following us had entered the chamber, and was making directly for me. Without thinking, I threw myself back into the mists, back into the energy of Cherish, and raced behind Kaylin. I knew how to kill it, but I didn’t have the power. As the shadows of the past held sway, I gave in to the tempestuous blood lust that raced just beneath the surface of my heart.