Horrified, Tylar fell back. What deadly Grace was at work here? He found his back pressed to the mortared stone of a burned-out structure. He huddled into a doorway’s alcove, seeking refuge inside, but the entrance was boarded tight.
Trapped, his eyes widened, seeking any clue, any answer to the slaughter. Something shared the shadows with the knights-but what?
Across the alley, a fog of light swelled between two soot-painted buildings. A glowing vessel flew into the square. It was a mekanical flutterseat, an open carriage held aloft by a pair of blurred wings. It bore a lone woman, crouched on the single seat. Other knights flanked the carriage and trailed it.
But one after another, they fell, afflicted like the others, until there were none.
Alone and unguarded, the carriage canted, struck the cobbles, and spilled over. Broken wings shattered against stone. The passenger, a wisp of a woman, flew free of the wreckage and landed spryly. She twirled in the center of the shimmering mist. A dance of panic and wildness.
Tylar was again struck by a swell of sweet-water scents, stretching from some distant spring. But now it held a touch of winter’s frost, too.
Fear.
Tylar knew the woman was the very bloom of this bouquet. She was also the source of the glow, a living lamp. The cold sheen of terror on her skin cast its own light. She must be richly blessed in Graces to shine with such power. Perhaps a noblewoman, or someone of an even higher station… Her dress was snowy finery and lace, her hair loose to the shoulder, as dark as her skin was pale.
Somewhere deep inside, he knew he should go to her aid. But he remained in place. He was no longer a knight, but a broken man. Shame burned as bright as his fear.
The woman fled to the center of the dark square, still dancing warily, eyes flashing with glowing tears. She was indeed powerfully blessed, rich in humoral Graces. The blessing of the gods flowed from her every pore, misting from her body as she whirled. But with whom was she dancing?
The answer was not long in coming. Darkness took form at the edge of her glow, coalescing out of shadow.
It stood upright like a man-but was no man. It was scale and snake and shattered teeth. A crest trailed from crown to whipping tail. As it approached, a mist of Gloom steamed from its skin, a contrary Grace to the bright glow of the lone woman.
She faced her enemy, stopping her dance. “You will not win,” she whispered.
As answer, a hiss of fire licked from its burned lips. There were no words, but a sound accompanied the flame, distant, yet still reaching clearly to Tylar in his hiding place. It pierced and ate at his will. His legs shook. He knew it to be a voice, but no throat could utter such a noise. It was not a sound that belonged anywhere among the Nine Lands, nor anywhere across all of Myrillia. It was a keening wail, crackling with lightning, laced with the scurry of dark things under the ground.
Tylar covered his ears, but it did not help.
The woman listened. Her only response was a paling of her snowy skin. Bone shone through. Her eyes dimmed. She uttered one word: “No.”
Then the beast lashed out, moving faster than the eye could follow. Darkness crested like a wave over the bright well of Grace that shielded the woman. Lightning flashed across the darkness, lancing out and striking the woman.
She fell back, arms outstretched, momentarily impaled between her breasts by the stroke of brightness. It was not lightning, Tylar realized, but something with substance… yet at the same time not completely of this world.
Pierced through the chest, the woman cried out, a wail of a songbird, sharp and aching.
The beast pursued, leaping. Darkness swallowed the woman away, rolling over her. Both vanished in the steaming gloom of the creature’s shadow.
Tylar held himself clenched.
Then like storm clouds roiled away by swift winds, the blackness swirled outward, becoming a tempest trapped between stone walls.
It struck all around, tearing at mortar. Glass shattered.
Tylar clutched the walls of his alcove, nails digging for purchase. He fought to hold himself in place, but he also felt a tug on all that held his spirit in place. His sight was taken from him-or perhaps it was the world that had been stolen away. He teetered at the edge of an abyss. His skin both burned and iced. His heart stopped beating in his chest. He knew his death.
Then he was let go. He fell back against the boarded-up door. Before him in the square, darkness roiled into a great vortex as if draining away down some unseen well. The darkness whirled, growing smaller-then it swept down and away.
Across the ravaged square, the beast was nowhere to be seen.
All that was left was the woman’s form sprawled in the center of the square. Her limbs still glowed, only weaker now. Rivers of brightness ran and pooled out from her form. Blood, shining with the richness of powerful Graces, flowed from her. She did not move.
Dead.
Tylar stumbled from the alcove. He sensed in his bones that whatever had entered Punt had vanished away. Still he dared approach no closer. He headed away, past the bodies of the slain. Sprawled in their blessed cloaks, the knights seemed like ghosts, blending with the shadows. Though the wearers were dead, the cloth still maintained its Grace, working to hide its owner even in death.
As Tylar skirted the square, the scent of flower petals and warm sun swelled around him. He turned, knowing the source. The pale, misty beauty remained unmoving on the stone. From this angle, he spotted the black hole pierced through her chest, as wide as a fist, blackened and wisped with curls of smoke.
He sensed it was down that hole that the darkness had vanished away, the well through which the enemy had escaped.
Though the forces at work here had nothing to do with a fallen knight, nor a broken man, he found his feet walking him toward the woman.
As he approached, he attempted to keep his feet from her glowing blood, but there was too much. He moved into her light, careful of the slick stone. She surely was a noblewoman of high stature. It was seldom someone was blessed with such a degree of Grace. Perhaps she was even one of the eight handservants to Meeryn, the god-made-flesh of these islands. Such servants dwelled in the god’s castillion, harvesting and preserving the humours from the god they served.
Tylar eyed the castillion blazing atop the isle’s highest point, Summer Mount, the seat of Meeryn. If he was right, if the lass had indeed been in service to this realm’s god, he pitied the hand behind this attack. A god’s vengeance knew no pity.
He reached the woman’s side. He stared down into the wan beauty, brought low here. She was young, no more than eighteen. Her face glowed with a fading brilliance, gone to embers. The blank eyes, as blue as the seas, stared skyward.
Then those same eyes twitched in his direction, seeing him.
Tylar clenched back a step in shock.
She did indeed still live! But surely not for long…
“Child,” he whispered, not knowing what words he could offer at this last moment.
He crouched, soaking his pant leg in blood. As the dampness reached his skin, he realized his mistake. The blood burned his flesh-not like fire, but like spiced wine on the tongue, as much pleasure as pain. It was a burn to which he was well familiar.
Crying out, he fell backward.
Fingers latched onto his wrist, holding him, squeezing like the iron manacles that had bound him for five years.
He gaped in horror. The woman was not dead. Then again, how could she be? She was not a woman at all.
Tylar knew who lay before him now, who clutched him.
It was not a handmaiden.