“And Brienne?” he asked, unwilling to leave her behind. His senses told him he had no choice.
“She is alive until you make your choice.”
William knew he was lying, but he could not take the chance to challenge him on it. If she was alive, it was because Hugh needed her for some purpose, for some part of this “great endeavor” of which he spoke. Alone, he could not defeat this man who held such inhuman powers. He needed help and needed to get to them now. Will lifted the latch and was pushed through the door. When it slammed behind him, he could not open it again.
He ran, grabbing his horse and riding as fast as he could out of Yester Castle, with the terrible stench still in his nostrils. Brienne was in danger and he must find a way to get back to her and help her.
By the time he reached the hillside opposite his own camp, he could barely keep his vision clear and his blood from seething through his body, changing it. But he would, because right now in this moment, it was the only way to save her. He jumped from his horse before it had even stopped and stood before Marcus and the young seer.
“Tell me more. Tell me what I have to do.”
ChapterTwenty-One
“Brienne.” The voice was like a whisper, slipping into the darkness where she existed now. “Brienne, sweet, wake up.”
“Father?” It was Gavin’s voice that spoke to her, calling her toward him.
Pain! More pain struck her and she fell back.
“Brienne.” He called her once more. She forced her eyes open.
She lay on the stone floor of a chamber she’d never seen before. Gavin and James knelt next to her, staring down at her. They helped her to stand, and she remembered battling her father over William. Turning around she saw Lord Hugh there, standing before a wall, staring at it.
“What is this place?” she asked, brushing the dirt from her palms and pushing her hair out of her face. She could see and feel the terror in both Gavin and James. He answered instead.
“This is the first sacred place my grandfather discovered here in Scotland. An ancient circle of stones buried deep in the ground. The king at the time gave my grandfather these lands, never knowing of the kind of power that existed here.”
He lifted his hands and touched the wall, almost caressing it, as he slid his hands carefully over its surface in a circular motion. She shivered just watching him.
“Are we belowground now?” The dampness and cold spoke of a cavern or a cave that sank deep into the bedrock.
“Aye. This chamber was the first one built by the goddess,” he replied. He faced her now, but never lost contact with the wall. “Chaela sent her power through to my grandfather, and he used it to build this,” he said, glancing around the chamber. “Now that you are awake, you will feel it.”
And she did.
Her blood carried it through her body. Every brick in this chamber had been touched by evil. And she had been, too, since the same power of this evil flowed through her blood. She knew what was about to happen, so she flung herself away from Gavin and James.
And became fire.
A body of living, breathing, moving fire.
She could see the horror and shock in their faces but paid them no heed.
The fireblood was free now, and she reveled as its power pulsed through her, burning and surging stronger each moment. She walked over to where her father stood and reached out with hands of fire to touch the wall as he did, trying to glean the source of its power. Instead she felt something moving toward them from the other side.
“What comes?” she asked in a whisper of heat and sound. She knew it was a being of immense force and it approached from behind that barrier. The fire that she was now could not resist its call.
The wall disappeared to nothing. Her fiery hands passed through the opening and she waited. It was coming.
Chaela was coming.
Her father’s laughter grew louder, and she sensed that it was coming from a place of desolation and emptiness. An instant later, the searing touch of another fire melded with hers, and she screamed in agony and ecstasy as they merged. This was nothing like what she’d felt when her father had touched her or punished her. She fell back then, swirling and burning and screaming from the inconceivable power and pain of the one. Gathering her fire, she moved closer to the goddess. Peering into the place beyond the barrier there, she watched and waited and saw something so magical and ancient that her human mind could not comprehend it. It flickered inside her thoughts, but she could not hold the image there.
“This is our goddess. This is—”
CHAELA.
The voice screamed it so loudly that every brick and stone in the chamber shuddered. Gavin and James fell unconscious at the sound. The pull of it, the call of it, drew her once more, her flames silently sliding toward the opening.
