He couldn't think of her as his wife, despite the beauty of her nearly unclad form, the angelic contours of the face he saw in his dreams. The eyes betrayed her, the icy blue fires of the wraith within. Her bare feet crushed razor slivers of broken glass, but the pain was either unfelt or ignored as she left behind crimson footprints. Her mouth twisted in hatred that contaminated her beauty.
"You are a fool, Marcellus. What do you fight for? Your king has betrayed you, the noble principles you believed in are ground to dust. Yield, and you can find the peace that has been robbed from you. Yield, and we can be together for eternity. You, me, and our child."
His heart stopped. "No. You wouldn't do that. Not to a child. Not to my daughter."
She smiled the way a cat might at a cornered mouse. "Do? My love, it is already done."
Red-hot blades stabbed into his leg. Marcellus gritted his teeth and looked down. The sight was almost more than he could bear. Alexia had wrapped her arms and legs around his leg, much like she did in times past to greet him. But her fingers were hooked into his flesh, sending waves of fire through his veins. Her eyes were flickering candleflies, her grin a snarl of clenched teeth.
Marcellus threw back his head and howled like a man gone mad.
A glowing-eyed shadow streaked toward him. He roared and swung the blade, but Evelina bent as though her backbone was made of mist. Her head grazed the floor when she glided under the sword. Launching forward, she raked at him with fingers curved into claws. He gasped at the sting when her nails slashed through his shirt and raked bloody furrows across his chest.
Still hampered by the child-creature on his leg, he snatched the bust of Reynar and hurled it. It exploded against Evelina's head in a blast of white powder. As she reeled, he snatched the childish fiend by her hair and hurled her to the floor. She sprang to all fours with her teeth bared, hissing like a cat.
Even then he could not use the blade's edge. He struck with the flat of the blade, crying out with the child at the bone-splintering crack. The momentum carried her upward and out the broken window, where she fell with a pitiful wail.
"My child!"
The cry that tore from Evelina's throat was raw and so human that Marcellus gasped at the crime he committed. His sword fell from his hand as she brushed past him and without slowing, hurled herself out the window. The back of her shift exploded just before her body passed from sight, dark shapes unfurled from her back and fanned out. The moonlight revealed the cartilage between the stretched membrane and the veins than ran across the leathery surface of her wings.
Marcellus fell to his knees and vomited. The world swam around him, and darkness circled, sought to pull him into its clammy embrace.
His hand fell on the hilt of the sword.
The room slowly stopped spinning, and his vision shimmered back into focus. His lungs were sagebrush, his breath thorns that tore at his throat. Nothing that happened seemed real. But what lay under his fingers — the cold, unfeeling, uncaring metal forged into a killing weapon — that was real. It seemed the only real thing in the world as he let the cool steel rest against his forehead. He was surprised it did not hiss when it touched the fiery drops of sweat upon his brow.
"Marcellus…are you all right?" Light flooded the room once more as Nyori regained the staff.
His eyes snapped open as screams and footsteps raced by. There were other sounds too, ghoulish laughter like the hells of Narak might disgorge, maniacal hilarity from an inhuman throat. He motioned Nyori to stand behind him before he drew a deep breath and burst out the door with his sword raised.
Even then, noting could prepare him.
Lily gurgled as Master Huib seized her by the throat. The Chief Steward's other hand held Lily's hands above her head. Even as Marcellus stared, the veins blackened in her flesh as Huib drained the very life from her.
Marcellus didn't know whose howl was more terrifying, Huib's or his own as he sank the sword into steward's side. Lily hit the floor in a lifeless heap as Master Huib furiously turned. Ignoring his wound, he seized Marcellus with one hand. Marcellus gagged and tried to break the iron grip that cut off his windpipe. His legs kicked helplessly, a full span above the floor.
A spear pierced Huib's chest, almost grazing Marcellus. Huib snarled and dropped Marcellus, seizing the spear that impaled him.
Dradyn held the shaft firmly. His teeth clenched, his brow knitted into a look of pure fury. "Quickly, milord. You must take off the head!"
Marcellus didn't hesitate. The blade hummed, slashing through meat and bone. Huib's severed head thumped off the ground and rolled down the hall. Immediately the same bluish flame that Marcellus saw as Murdon died enveloped the body, blackening the flesh until only a pile of ash remained.
"Well done, milord."
A scrabbling noise drew their attention to Lily, who twitched in her death throes. Nyori had already knelt, but before she could touch her, Lily gave a violent twist and laid still.
"Too late." Nyori made it sound like a curse. "I can do nothing for her now."
Dradyn threw a fearful look over his shoulder. "We will be next if we do not move. We must go quickly. Come."
He led the way down the dim hall. Nyori wisely kept her staff darkened as they looked about warily and kept their weapons raised. At one point they ducked behind the pillars of the Great Room as several figures passed, heads swiveling as they searched.
Marcellus' heart froze as he heard Evelina's voice.
"Find him, you fools — or Vivienne will have your heads. They can't have gone far!"
Marcellus' hand tightened on his sword, and he started forward.
Dradyn restrained him with a strong arm. "Milord, please. All you will do now is go to your death. In daylight we will have a chance, for the sun makes them as mortal as you and me. They will go underground before sunrise. We must stay alive until then."
Marcellus wavered for a moment, then finally nodded. They hurried outside and streaked across the wintry fields, all too aware of their visibility. Dradyn led them to the small abbey at the end of the fields, where in fair season clerics visited to assist the servants and workers who could not make the trip to the chapel. Dradyn snatched open the door. "Here, milord."
He pulled Marcellus and Nyori inside. The air was dank, the floor dusty. Only a small platform stood before a row of benches where the Sword of Deis hung in the center of the wall. Marcellus staggered over to stand before it.
"They cannot enter a holy place?"
"It is not that, milord. This abbey is old, is it not?"
"Yes. It was here when I inherited these lands. I was told it dates back to the Age of Chaos."
"The doorway is lined with Banestone. Did you not see the runes? In the days when the Elious roamed the earth, men had only one protection from their powerful Crafts. The Aelon left the Banestone, which repels the powers of the akhkharu and makes them vulnerable. They will not come close if they can help it. We should be safe until the morning."
Nyori nodded as though she knew what Dradyn spoke of. Then again, Shama probably were schooled in such things.
Shouts were still audible in the distance, but Dradyn's word proved to be true. Although footsteps approached, they retreated just as quickly.
"Marcellus!"
Marcellus ran to the doorway at the sound of Evelina's voice. He peered through the cracks in the timber.
She stood in the frosted snow, diamond dust that glittered in the moonlight. The cold did not appear to touch her even though she was still nearly unclad and barefoot. Her skin was ivory, her eyes cobalt gems.