Lord of the Abyss

Chapter 25

Micah didn’t know this land. It wasn’t his. Rather than speaking to it, he had to force his power into the earth, literally pull up the magma. It was difficult, leaving his muscles rigid. Knowing the thin streams of molten liquid would retreat the second he broke contact, he waited until Liliana was safely on the other side before rising and jumping onto his night-horse in a single smooth motion.

The intelligent creature leaped at the same instant and they were off, the earth’s heated tears already retreating. Hissing, the snakes began to arrow back, their goal the legs of his horse. He saw Lily jump off her own steed, caught the light glinting off the blade in her hand and knew she was ready to use her blood magic. Not yet, not yet.

He bent down flat over the night-horse’s nape. “Ready, my friend?”

A powerful leap, muscles bunching, and the night-horse cleared the final snake to come to a scrabbling stop on the slight rise beyond. Dropping her blade, Liliana ran to him as he jumped off the horse. He expected an embrace. She thrust at his chest with both of her hands instead. “How could you do that to me!” Fury colored her cheeks, brightened her eyes. “You could’ve been lying there dead with those horrible snakes biting into you!”

Micah grabbed her wrists, but she just started kicking him instead. So then he crushed her in his arms, tangling her legs with his own. “Liliana,” he began, but she wasn’t listening. Having never had an enraged woman in his arms before, he wasn’t quite sure what to do, but it seemed reasonable that pleasure might mute her anger.

So he kissed her.

She bit his lip.

Jerking away, he glared at her. “I saved us!”

“By putting your life in mortal danger!” She tried to push at his chest again, her breath coming in jagged spurts. “How would you have felt if that had been me? How?”

Ice down his spine, through his veins. “I’m sorry, Liliana.” He’d never before said such a thing to anyone—the Lord of the Black Castle need not apologize to a soul. Except, it seemed, the bad-tempered creature in his arms, the one who had bitten him hard enough that it stung.

She blinked at his words. “Sorry?”

“Yes.”

Her lower lip quivered and then she was throwing her arms around his neck and squeezing him tight. “If you die, my heart will break. You mustn’t die, Micah. You mustn’t.” Wet against his skin.

She was crying.

“You are using up all your chances for the year,” he growled. “Don’t think I’m not keeping track.”

A sniff, a hiccup and then she was lifting away her head to touch her finger to his lip. “Does it hurt?” Remorse in those storm-sky eyes that had become his lodestar.

“Terribly.”

“Oh, Micah.” Rising up on tiptoe, Liliana sucked that lip into her mouth, suckled gently before going back down flat on her feet and taking a deep breath. “I have to tell you something.” He’d be so angry, but after what she’d just lived through, she understood what a staggering hurt she’d be doing him if she sacrificed herself to save him.

Her heart still ached from the pain of that instant when she’d thought he wouldn’t make it, her mind tortured with images of him helpless under those slashing fangs. The nightmare sight wasn’t one she would ever forget, and it made her take a grim look at the consequences of her plan. To make Micah helpless while she died…it would do more damage to him than any of her father’s traps, savage that proud heart.

A heavy scowl on his face. “You’ve lied to me again.”

“It wasn’t a real lie,” she said, knowing she was only digging the hole deeper.

“I can read your guilt. Tell me.”

Knowing there was no way to dress up the cold finality of the act she’d been contemplating, she just spit it out. “I know how to kill my father. However, the spell requires a death.”

Rage turned the winter-green molten. “And you’re angry at me?” He’d obviously realized exactly whose death would’ve been involved.

“I didn’t know you when I came up with the idea.”

Wild fury, his eyes never shifting off her.

“I’m sorry.”

No effect.

Baring her teeth, she pushed at his chest. “I accepted your apology.”

“I didn’t plan to die and forget to tell you.”

Guilt stabbed but she folded her arms, because if she gave in now, he’d bully her into doing everything exactly as he wanted. “You also didn’t warn me. I just did.” And in so doing, had ended their best hope of defeating her father—because there was no way Micah would allow her to go through with it.

Snarling, he kissed her. “If you even think about using that spell, I’ll chain you up to a tree while I go meet your father alone.”

Fisting her hands against his chest, she bit at his jaw. “You dare do that and I’ll use blood sorcery to send you to another kingdom.”

He threw her up on her clearly bemused night-horse with a growl. “I’ll punish you later.”

“Vengeful man.”

“Remember that.”

With that, they were on the road to Elden once more.

It was perhaps noon that they came upon the giant bridge troll with a stone mallet so big it would’ve crushed both man and beast should he have brought it down. But in this case, no violence was needed.

The troll, a creature who had something of a magpie’s nature, was appeased by a gift of pink sapphires and rough-cut topaz. Micah scowled at losing so much of his treasury, but Liliana glared at him and so he didn’t say a word—not until they were past the gloating creature, who was currently holding his jewels up to the sun. Then he muttered about the wisdom of giving such precious gems to a troll who would only hide them in his cave.

Liliana turned to argue with him since, at least now, he’d calmed down enough to talk to her, but never got the chance to speak a word—because that was when the arrows began flying.

A sharp pain.

Crying out, she fell over the neck of her horse, an arrow embedded in her left arm. Desperate for her blood not to touch the earth—her father might not have bothered to tie warning enchantments to the air as that took much power, but he would most certainly have tied them to the land—she clamped her hand over the wound and tried to keep her seat as her night-horse followed Micah’s to a small ridge behind which they could take cover.

Grabbing her from the saddle the instant they were stationary, Micah sat her down. “We must pull this arrow out.”

Nodding, she bit down on the gauntleted arm he held against her mouth as he removed the arrow with his other hand. Tears rolled down her face, but she forced herself not to use her sorcery to stitch up the wound. Any trap her father had laid would spring at the confluence of her blood and magic.

Slapping a wadded piece of cloth over the wound and telling her to hold it there, Micah wrapped the arrow in another cloth and thrust it into a saddlebag to ensure none of her blood touched the earth.

“Brave girl,” he murmured, cupping her face. “I am sure I would’ve roared with displeasure and threatened to throw you in the dungeon.”

His words made her smile through the pain. “I’m sure you would have.” Squeezing his wrist when he went as if to call on the power he carried within, she said, “You already used it with the snakes. You must conserve your energy,” and tugged at the bottom of her tunic. “Rip off a piece of this and tie it over the compress. It’ll do—I’m not bleeding much now.”

A scowl. “Lily—”

“You must listen to me on this.” Arrows thudded into the rise behind them. “I know my father’s strength—and we’ll need everything we have if we aren’t to use the death spell.”

“We’ll talk about this later.” Ripping off a strip of her tunic, he tied it around her arm.

More arrows thudded home.

“Do you know who’s shooting at us?” she asked.

“A pod of gremlins.”

Liliana winced. The small, thin creatures with their pointed brown teeth, corpse-gray skin, and thirst for blood were natural allies of her father, feeding as they did on carrion. But it appeared they had turned from scavengers to hunters after years of unparalleled freedom. “They won’t give up now.”

“Then we’ll have to get rid of them.” Going to his saddlebags, he returned with both the arrow that had hit her and a number of small, sleek knives.

He touched the arrow to a blade, murmured low deep words under his breath. “A small magic, Lily. Child’s play.” Rising, he threw the blade in the general direction of the gremlins. A scream of pain sounded, followed by a hail of arrows landing around them.

Smiling, Micah began to pick them up.

The gremlins ran off screaming after their arrows kept returning—to unerringly find living targets. “That was very clever,” she said as he helped her back onto her horse. Her arm hurt, but she could still use it and that was what mattered.

“It’s from a game my father taught me.” Micah pulled himself up onto his own horse, looking no more drained than he had after dealing with the snakes. “To find things.”

And what Micah had found, they saw when they looked into the bushes where the gremlins had been hiding, were the hearts of the shriveled and hairless creatures who had the two legs and arms of man, but the intelligence of a rat. The only things they wore were their weapons. Before running away, their “friends” had hacked off an arm and a leg each—to snack on, most likely. Gremlins didn’t care what they ate as long as it was dead.

“Nothing here, Lily. Let’s go.”

It seemed like forever before they reached the border to Elden, the sky turning from blue to orange to dark red as the hours passed. There were other obstacles in their path, including a hungry ensorcelled bear and a fleet of crows with venomous beaks. The bear they’d been able to simply fool, but Micah had had to use his magic the other times…and he was getting weaker with each incident.

It was on the edge of sunset that they finally crossed an invisible line that had him saying, “Elden.” The wonder in his voice quickly turned into rage and sorrow as he saw the state of the land around them, unmistakable even under the shadow of oncoming night—the trees stunted and browned, the ground cracked, no birdsong in the air, though it was early yet.

Jumping to the earth, Micah touched his hands to it. “We have come,” he whispered. “We have come.”

The ground rumbled, but it was broken, almost dead.

No, no. A tear fell in her heart. Without the earth’s strength, Micah was now too weak to battle the Blood Sorcerer and live.

He lifted his head at that instant, his eyes incandescent with a chaos of emotions. “Give me a knife, Lily.”

“No, Micah.” Jumping down herself, she blocked him from going to his saddlebags. “If you bleed yourself here, my father will win and the land would die, anyway.”

His body vibrated against her palms and she knew that should he decide to shove her out of the way, she’d be unable to stop him. “Please listen to me. You are here now—the earth will heal. It will heal.”

The eyes that looked down at her were of the deadly Guardian…and also of a prince of Elden, blazing with strength and incredible raw power.

“How?” she whispered, for around them the land lay dying.

“The power is ancient,” he said, his voice resonating with the force of it. “It lay hidden, slumbering until it sensed my presence. The price was this sickness—the land sacrificed itself to protect that power.”

She staggered under the weight of the magic in the winter-green, but didn’t back down. “My father tried to end your lineage two decades ago,” she said, forcing herself to hold that terrible, beautiful gaze. “You do this and he succeeds. Your parents’ sacrifice, that of the land, will have been for nothing.”

His fingers gripped her jaw. “You know nothing of my parents.”

“No,” she said, taking the emotional blow because she was the daughter of the Blood Sorcerer, the reason why Micah was an orphan.

“I hurt you.” His hand dropped from her chin, his expression losing its stony edge.

“There was no hurt.” She tapped the unbruised skin where he’d held her. “See?”

“Not there—” a big palm settling below her breast, over her heart “—here.”

That heart clenched in need, in sorrow, in love. “It’s all right—”

“No, it’s not.” He shuddered, dropped his forehead to hers. “This land, it sings to me in a broken voice until I can’t hear my own thoughts.”

Trembling, she reached up to hold his head against her, stroking her fingers through the thick silk of his hair. “It is only happy that you have come, Micah.” So long had Elden waited for its blood to return.

Kissing the tip of her nose with a tenderness she didn’t expect from the Lord of the Black Castle, he brushed his thumb over her cheek. “If I promise not to growl at you anymore, will you believe me?”

She shook her head, touched her fingers to his lips. “I’m keeping track, too, you know,” she teased. “Perhaps I’ll ask you to give me your best jewels in recompense.”

“You can have them all.”

“Oh, Micah.” Though she wanted nothing more than to stay in his arms, she forced her mind back to the task they couldn’t afford to leave incomplete. “Ask the land to be quiet until you’ve dealt with my father. It will understand.”

Going down to his knees, Micah touched his fingers to the dry and cracked earth, murmured his plea for quiet. Not forever, he promised. Just until the bad blood is gone. I am here now—I will sing to you as you need.

The earth sighed, answered with a caress of peace.

“Come, Lily. It is time.”

Mounting their night-horses in silence, they began the last leg of the journey to the castle that had once been the heart of Elden and was now the seat of such evil it had shattered the earth itself. They rode until they reached a place Liliana called the Dead Forest.

“I used to play here,” he said, remembering the shimmer of the aseria blooms, the bright green of the dew-honey trees heavy with their tulip-shaped flowers, the symphony of birdsong.

Now it crawled with plants the shade of rotten flesh, blackened trees shooting their diseased branches out into the sky. The living things that roamed its murky depths, Liliana told him, were akin to the gremlins—nasty creatures who lived only for death.

And who would delight in bringing down a night-horse.

“Go,” Micah told the proud beasts after they’d dismounted and unburdened the night-horses of their gear. “We thank you for your help.”

The horses shook their heads.

Gripping their manes he looked each in the eye. “You must go. The things that roam here will hurt you, and if they do, Liliana will cry. I don’t like it when Liliana cries.” He put all the menace he was capable of—and the Guardian of the Abyss was capable of a great deal—into his voice. “Go.”

The night-horses reared and turned, neighing loudly as they raced away.

Going to the saddlebags, he removed the knives and strapped them to Lily’s body so that she would have physical weapons, before picking up his sword.

“Wait.” Liliana took out the food Emmy had packed and forced them both to eat to further armor themselves with energy.

Prepared as well as they could be, they stepped into the hungry jaws of the Dead Forest. Things jeered and skittered at them from above, but nothing came close.

The strange plants that smelled of decaying meat, however, tried to lick out, as if they would wrap their enormous tongues around Micah and Liliana and drag them into the teeth-filled maw of their “flowers.” Micah sliced out at one aggressive tongue and the plant screamed, its appendage gushing black blood. The others snapped back at the warning. Walking past without pause, Liliana used her knife to hack away a vine that had attempted to wrap itself around her arm.

That was his mate, he thought, fierce and strong.

Teeth bared in a smile of pride, he walked beside her as they cut, sawed and sliced their way through this once-lush forest become a nightmare. It took too long, time slipping through their fingers at an inexorable pace. Bones crunched underneath his boots sometime later, hours after full dark.

“My father,” Liliana said, flinching at the sound, deep grooves around her mouth, “disposes of his enemies here or in the lake.” A hollow statement. “He used to ask his minions to bury them, but he no longer cares, as long as there’s no stench from the rotting flesh.”

Micah stepped with more care after that, for though some of these bones might be of men who had once served the Blood Sorcerer, many would be those of innocents. It was as he was making his way around a skull gleaming white in the night air that he caught his first glimpse of what had once been Elden Castle.