I don’t know what has hurt Grayson, but even the thunder hasn’t stopped his pain. He’s slowly writhing on the floor, clearly in agony. Yesterday, he absorbed my destructive power without making a sound, so the fact that he’s shuddering now tells me how much pain he’s in. My Virtuous heart glows again, its compassion telling me to help him, that I can’t let his pain go on like this.
Stop it! I can’t feel sorry for him.
I smother my empathy with fear for my ladies. I have to get them out of here. I spin to Baelen. “Grayson won’t be frozen for long. He’s too powerful. Can your storm power carry twenty-one females? I need you to get Indira and my ladies out of here.”
“Twenty-two,” he says, piercing me with his green eyes. “You’re coming too.”
My voice breaks. “I… can’t.”
Indira grabs my arm. “We’re taking you home, Marbella.”
I’m shaking. “Grayson controls me. He controls my location and everything I do. If I run, he’ll pull me right back here. You can’t touch him, Baelen. He kills everyone he touches. You have to take my Storm Command and go.”
Indira’s eyes widen. “That’s why you didn’t want me to touch him.”
“Please. Take my ladies and go.”
Baelen is powerful and unyielding, a tower of strength as he holds me in his arms. “Grayson controlled you through the heartstones.” His eyes meet mine, clear and determined. “I don’t think he controls you anymore.”
He gently turns me in Grayson’s direction.
Grayson is curled up on the floor, shaking, small tremors that would be so much more powerful if he wasn’t contained within the force of the thunder. A soft crackle reaches my ears, a popping sound like twigs burning in a fire. Grayson’s spine is aglow and at first I think it’s the Rath Heartstone like before, but this glow is angry, a deeper shade of carmine, like blood. Beneath the heartstones, his skin bubbles and seethes. It’s such a shocking sight that I’m running before I know it.
Grayson told me that mercy was my weakness. Maybe it is. Maybe I’m about to make a terrible mistake. But the person he is when he drops the mask over his emotions is the one I want to help.
I ignore Priscilla’s frozen form. Her sorcery isn’t natural like Grayson’s. She can’t defeat the storm’s power and she will remain frozen until Baelen chooses to release her.
I kneel next to Grayson where he can see me, waiting for his eyes to meet mine. Then I pull him toward me so that the side of his stomach rests across my knees and I can reach his back. The stones are loose, boiling his skin. I reach for the first one—part of the Mercy Heartstone—and lift it away from him. It falls into my fingers and the boiling beneath it stops. I repeat that seven times for Mercy and ten times for Rath, gathering the pieces into a pile on the floor while Baelen watches over me. I have no idea what he’s thinking now. He must think I’m crazy to be helping this elf. But Grayson is part gargoyle and it’s the gargoyle that I’m helping now.
I glance up at Baelen in the middle of my task. “We broke the tether. When I bound myself to you, we must have broken his connection with our heartstones. The heartstones are punishing him for forcing the link.”
Baelen’s expression is shuttered, controlled. “We should take these with us so they can’t be used against you again.”
Indira swoops to place the shards in a pouch at her waist. Unlike gargoyle heartstones, elven heartstones aren’t deadly to touch so they don’t harm her.
By the time I’m done, Grayson has stopped shaking, but his eyes leak tears of pain. He squeezes his eyes closed, turning his face away. I guess he doesn’t want me to see him like this.
I check the wounds on his back. His skin has stopped bubbling but it’s burning hot. I can’t heal him but I can soothe the pain. I draw on Incorruptible’s ice, allowing it to seep from my fingertips into his spine. His skin cools immediately, the redness fading. I run my fingers up his spine again, making sure it is completely cooled, before I pause on a spot on his back, frowning at it. Underneath his golden runes, several strange bumps interrupt his smooth skin, but there’s no time to wonder how they got there.
He relaxes, the tension in his body releasing, but his eyes fly open, watching me again. He struggles against the force that binds him, confusion more than fear filling his eyes as he sees Baelen standing so close by. He probably wonders why Baelen hasn’t struck him dead already.
As a warrior, Baelen knows exactly what Grayson is thinking. But Baelen has always fought with honor. His jaw clenches. Lightning crackles around his torso. “This would not be a fair fight. But I will meet you in battle, Grayson Glory. And when that time comes, no measure of mercy will save you.”
I lean down to Grayson. Now that the tether is broken, I can leave. Grayson can’t pull me back to him anymore, but my feelings toward him are so conflicted. He said last night that he wished we weren’t enemies. I wish that too, but not for the same reasons as he does. I can’t love or be with anyone except Baelen who holds my heart and soul in his strong hands. But I’ve seen who Grayson is under the mask: he is a gargoyle, and that makes him one of my people.
I take his hand and fold mine inside it for a moment, asking for his trust. “I didn’t lie to you, Grayson. I’m sorry I took Gideon away from you. I wish I could change the past. But you need to question everything the Elven Command told you.Everything.”
I draw to my feet and use my power to send all the remaining glass shards speeding up and away. I could let them fall on the soldiers but, as Baelen said, with them frozen, this is not a fair fight. The shards quiver where they impale the walls.
Baelen sweeps his power through the room, mini tornados picking up each of my ladies and transporting them toward the door. He wraps me up in his arms and pulls me to his side, lifting Indira with his power at the same time.
“Baelen?” I’m heartbroken, can barely get the words out as I say, “They told me Elise is gone… They said she didn’t survive…”
Baelen and Indira exchange glances. “They thought she was dead,” he says, “But Elise is alive.”
“What?” I stare at him, dreading that I heard wrong, needing him to confirm that she’s alive.
“They left her for dead; threw her in a shallow grave out in a field. That’s how she escaped. She spellcast a call for help and I found her. But the location of your ladies was still cloaked and Elise had been separated from them for days so it was impossible for me to find them.”
