“No,” Wigg assured him. “The fire has consumed them to the point that we shall have no worry of that.” No other words regarding the wiktors were necessary. “Time to go,” he said simply.
Tristan turned and, with a grateful look at Geldon, took his sister in his arms. With the others by his side, he headed across the destroyed room to the circular staircase. It was incredible that the staircase had survived all the upheaval. With any luck, it would lead them all the way up and out of the Recluse.
And then he stopped short, and the blood ran from his face.
Succiu’s body was gone.
A winding trail of dark-crimson blood led across the marble floor and to the staircase. Bloody footprints marked the ascending spiral steps. The other mistresses of the Coven still lay dead where they had fallen.
Tristan stared at the blood trail, speechless. He didn’t even know what to think.
Wigg’s voice broke the silence. “It’s all my fault!” the old one shouted. His hands were balled up into angry fists; his face was dark and threatening. He was literally trembling with rage.
“I should have known; I should have known!” Tears started to come to the old wizard’s eyes as he stood there in embarrassment and anger, beside himself with the pain of the shattering revelation flowing through his mind.
“It’s your blood,” he said, finally lifting his troubled face to the prince. “She carries your child, and therefore her body now also carries your blood. That’s why the shards did not immediately finish her, just as they did not harm you and your sister. I was a fool not to recognize the possibility sooner.” He turned to look at the bloody staircase she had used to make her escape.
“She was alive the entire time,” he said, curling his upper lip in anger. “Probably wounded, but alive. All she needed was an opportunity to run, and when we all faced the wiktor pit we conveniently gave it to her.”
The second mistress lives, Tristan thought in shock. And therefore so does my firstborn.
Before the wizard could stop him, Tristan handed his sister to the dwarf and ran up the bloody staircase.
32
The climb was hard, and the wound in his side had started to bleed again. He ignored it.
Tristan quickly realized that he had no idea how far up he would have to go to reach the first floor of the Recluse, since he had been unconscious during the trip down to the Sanctuary. Parts of the circular hallway looked as though they might give way at any moment. Dust and debris from the aftershocks burned his eyes and lungs as he forced himself on, wondering with every step if he would suddenly look up to see the slanted, almond-shaped eyes of Succiu waiting for him somewhere up ahead.
When the steps finally ended at a landing, he cautiously opened the facing stone door a crack and peered out. He could see no one. Opening the door completely, he walked through, dreggan drawn.
Slowly, he lowered his sword arm as he surveyed the devastation before him. He was standing in a great, circular hall, or rather, he reflected, what was left of one. In the center of the room stood another winding staircase, miraculously unharmed amidst the wreckage. Around it, entire sections of the pale-blue marble walls had been ripped away as if made of paper. Most of the stained-glass windows that had once surrounded the circular chamber now lay in colorful shards on the floor, their twisted lead frames yawning before him, revealing the predawn sky over the still-dark hills of the countryside beyond the Recluse. The soft flames of the wall sconces were flickering from the breeze that carried into the room the clean, fresh scent of an early morning rain. Everywhere there was silence.
Looking down he quickly found the blood trail. The second mistress had likely lost a large quantity of blood by now, and it increased his hopes of catching her. The trail once again led to the spiral stairs, and he began his second long climb upward.
The stairs finally emptied out onto what was a great, flat section of the Recluse roof. It, too, was of the same pale-blue marble. See-throughs lined every side of it, and other structures had been built upon its vast, rain-slickened surface. He stepped out onto the roof slowly, looking around, his dreggan firmly in his right hand. His eyes narrowed. There was no sound other than the rain that fell down upon him, beginning to soak through his clothes. It was then that he saw her, his endowed blood rising in his veins.
She was not as he expected her to be.
The second mistress was standing at one corner of the roof, bent over from her great loss of blood. The tatters of her once-resplendent black gown were completely soaked through from the rain and clung almost seductively to her skin. Her long, wet hair was matted against her face and shoulders, and there was a growing puddle of blood beneath her. Her belly hugely swollen, she looked as if she might give birth at any moment.
But it was her face that he found most arresting. She had a softer, more compassionate look, as if the wounding by the shards or the loss of so much endowed blood had in some way given her a greater sense of vulnerability. The almond-shaped eyes looked at him with apparent sadness in place of the loathing and hatred that he was accustomed to seeing in her face.
It is almost as if the loss of her sorceress’ blood has made her more human, he thought. She almost seems to be a different woman standing before me, rather than the one I know and hate so much.
Tristan stood his ground, not speaking, lost in a whirlwind of emotions as Succiu continued to crouch in the rain, shivering, watching his every movement like a wounded, cornered animal. I must kill her now if I can, while she is still weak from blood loss, he thought. If I do not, she may somehow regain her powers and be the end of us all. I must not make the same mistake twice. Not with this woman.
But there was something in her face that he saw as he stood there, something he had never before seen in her, and he wavered, thinking also of his firstborn child. If she dies now, so does my child, he thought. There has never been a more difficult choice in my life. He lowered the tip of his sword.
She smiled knowingly. “Do not fear, Chosen One. I cannot hurt you,” she said softly. “I do not have the strength.”
She raised one arm weakly and pointed a finger at his sword. A soft, azure light arced from her hand, but before it could reach its destination, it fell rather pitifully to the roof of the Recluse, dissipating and sizzling into nothingness in the cold puddles of rainwater.
“You see?” she said, almost kindly. “It’s true. I am no threat to you unless you let me live. To do so would be a grave mistake on your part.” She paused.
“And I can see in your eyes that you already care too much for our child that I carry,” she continued. “The ultimate decision, is it not? To kill a defenseless woman and therefore your own child, or let me live and endanger everyone you love, including that same unborn child as well?”
He took a step toward her, still unsure of what to do. She immediately took a weak, matching step backward, closer to the edge of the wall.
Despite all that he had heard and seen, Tristan had made his decision. Although his heart was breaking, there was no other answer. He remembered what Wigg had told him only minutes before, and he had to agree with it, no matter how hard it was to do. No endowed blood can be left in Parthalon. Finding the button at the hilt of the dreggan he loosed the blade the extra foot, its clear, slashing sound echoing off the rainy roof of the Recluse. Tears in his eyes, his sword hand trembling, he took another step forward. Soft thunder rumbled across the still-dark sky.
Just then she bent over in agony, screaming. Raising her face to his as best she could, she said the words that would remain in his heart forever.