Edge of Pathos (The Conjurors Series Book 4) (12 page)

“Gideon, move!”
Valerie screamed.

But it was too late.
Gideon stumbled when the dark specks falling from Kellen’s wings landed on him.
Dulcea continued to writhe in pain. It was time to put the backup plan into
motion.

“Sanguina!” Valerie
whispered.

The ex-vampyre
appeared next to her, delivered from the callbox. She saw Sanguina quickly
assess the situation, and then step calmly through the chaos. Reaper saw her,
and Dulcea abruptly stopped screaming.

“You came back,”
Reaper said, his voice softer than Valerie had ever heard it.

“I never truly left.
I was confused. Angry for this,” Sanguina said, thumping her prosthetic leg on
the ground, once.

Sanguina reached
Reaper’s side, and she laid her hand on his arm. Valerie could move again.
Reaper’s gaze was unfocused, as if he were hypnotized by Sanguina.

“I had to do it.
Justice even for those closest to me. Especially for those closest to me,” he
said, staring into her eyes.

Valerie shivered,
for the first time imagining how it must have been for Sanguina to watch the
lower half of her leg dissolve before her eyes. But she couldn’t waste the
distraction that Sanguina was giving her.

Kanti’s statue lay
next to her, and Valerie slipped a vial out of her pocket that Cyrus had
procured from the Glamour Guild. She dropped its contents onto her friend’s
head, and the statue shrank small enough to fit in her pocket, which was where
Valerie immediately shoved it.

The movement caught
Reaper’s eye, and Valerie saw his face spasm with something like true grief
before it became hard again. He gripped Sanguina by her throat.

 ”You’re one of
them now, and I’ll slaughter you along with the rest of the cattle.”

But Sanguina slugged
him in the eye, and he dropped her.

“You forget. I
let
you take my leg. I won’t let you do anything this time. Add to that the fact
that there is powerful magic at work in this room, weakening your powers. If we
fight now, you will win, but not without cost,” Sanguina said, twisting out of Reaper’s
grasp when he grabbed her shoulder. She followed up with a sharp punch to his
jaw that snapped his neck backward. “Or we can negotiate.”

“I don’t negotiate
with traitors,” Reaper said, but his eyes searched the room, looking for
whatever source of magic Sanguina had spoken of that was limiting his flow of
magic.

“You’ll never be
safe in this castle now,” Sanguina said, her face drawn and vicious. “I lost my
leg, but you’ve lost your home. Where will you marshal your forces from now?”

At the truth of her
words, Reaper’s face became red, and electricity sparked off of his body.

He was angry, which
was Sanguina’s intent, Valerie guessed. She was hoping he’d make more mistakes
if he wasn’t cool-headed. Reaper threw his hand up. Sanguina was launched into
the air.

“Run, Valerie!”
Sanguina shouted, before she crashed into the wall. In spite of her leg, she
was swiftly back on her feet, ready to charge Reaper.

Valerie yanked a
moaning Dulcea up and turned to find Gideon. During Sanguina’s distraction, her
mentor had managed to shake off the effects of Kellen’s magic enough to snatch
the fairy from the air and throw him onto the ground. Kellen lay, unmoving, but
Gideon had also collapsed next to him.

“Can you walk?” she asked
Dulcea, who nodded once and began limping as fast as she could to the exit.

Valerie hefted
Gideon to his feet and threw him over her shoulder, never more thankful for her
strength. She looked back at Sanguina and saw that the ex-vampyre’s hair was streaked
with white from prolonged contact with Reaper’s magic.

She fought with
grace that belied the pain she must be in. Sanguina was resistant to the touch
of most magic, and maybe she’d escape. But even if she didn’t, Valerie had a
promise to keep.

Slashing her way
through the glass bodies between herself and the door, she struggled to balance
Gideon’s bulk as invisible fists pounded her.

Once she was out the
door, the going was a little easier. She quickly caught up with Dulcea, and
they made their way down a long hall that was flickering, an unstable part of
the castle. The farther they ran, the more nauseated Valerie became. Next to
her, Dulcea was turning green, but she didn’t complain.

“We’re close,”
Valerie said, recognizing the landmark Sanguina had told her about a few yards
away.

A stone gargoyle was
hunched in a nook in the wall. He was a huge dog with wings sprouting from his
back. Before Valerie could reach out to touch the beast’s head, as Sanguina had
instructed, Dulcea shrieked.

Oleander had followed
them, and she grinned as Dulcea twitched on the ground. Oleander had shocked
her with her touch, and Dulcea shook until her teeth rattled.

Valerie dropped
Gideon and tackled Oleander, making sure to stay clear of her hands so that she
wouldn’t be immobilized like Dulcea. Oleander was scrabbling against Valerie’s
mind, trying to find a way in, but her power wasn’t as potent as Valerie
remembered. Had the pulse of electricity that her father had given Oleander’s
mind the year before still affected her, or was the magic orb that Pathos had
unlocked dampening her magic?

With her magic
flowing through her, Valerie knocked Oleander to the ground and turned back to
the gargoyle. But she must have missed the pressure point, because Valerie
turned just in time to see her lunging with a black knife. Oleander only had to
nick her with it for Valerie to fall.

Dulcea surged
forward to protect Valerie, and Oleander slashed her cleanly through her
throat.

After that,
everything moved in slow motion. Before the first drop of Dulcea’s blood hit
the floor, Valerie flipped Oleander over her shoulder. The ex-Guardian landed
on her back, her blonde hair splayed around her. The castle flickered, and a
wave of nausea made Valerie so sick that she threw up. Then the flickering
stopped, but an entire section of the hall was missing, now replaced with a
wall. Oleander had vanished. The castle had swallowed her up.

Valerie threw
herself on top of Dulcea to use her vivicus power to save her friend. But
though her magic surged inside her, there was no one to release it into. Dulcea
was gone, and this shell that had once been her beloved friend wouldn’t accept
her magic.

Valerie released a
sound that was somewhere between a scream and a sob. She grabbed Dulcea’s body
with one arm and Gideon with the other, and then touched the gargoyle’s head.

Its eyes glowed
blue, and Valerie thought she saw sympathy in his face before she was tumbling
through darkness, away from the Black Castle.

Light was
everywhere, blinding Valerie. She had landed, with Dulcea and Gideon, in a lake
in the middle of the Oasis.

Thai, Henry, Cyrus,
and Jack splashed into the lake to help them get out.

“What happened?”
Cyrus demanded, but Valerie couldn’t reply through her sobs.

“Sweetie? What’s
wrong?” Jack asked as he gently took Dulcea from Valerie’s arms.

Jack’s eyes flicked
down Dulcea’s body, and her blood spilled all over his shirt. He clutched her
close, making a low moaning sound.

Henry huddled on the
ground. “No no no no no no no no,” he said.

“Get it
together, Henry,” Thai said sharply. “Your sister needs you.”

Thai struggled with
Gideon’s weight, dragging him ashore. Valerie collapsed next to her mentor on
the beach.

“Step back,” she
said, though her tears still fell.

She wouldn’t let her
mentor meet the same fate as Dulcea.

She unleashed her
vivicus power into Gideon, and this time, nothing stopped her. Her power poured
into him, and the intense heat of her magic was a sweet pain that burned away
everything else.

But then something
changed. Instead of burning bright and clear, her power became sluggish,
polluted with something dark—Kellen’s dark dust. She fought against it,
reaching out to Henry for his help.

Valerie and Henry’s
combined magic obliterated some of the dust, but its dark magic fought her
efforts to expel it. Valerie gritted her teeth and pushed back, pouring more
and more of her power, and herself, into Gideon.

“Valerie, stop!”
Henry’s voice sounded so far away, but then he was in her mind, and his
presence had never been more immediate.

He pushed against
the flood of her magic, forcing her to stem its tide.

“Stop! I’m not
finished!” she said, but her voice sounded weak.

“Yes, you are. Any
more and you’d be gone,” Henry said.

“That isn’t what
Gideon would want,” Thai added.

“I can’t lose him,
too. Please, I can’t,” Valerie said, turning in to Thai’s shoulder and burying
her face in his shirt.

“Shh, you didn’t.
He’s still breathing. We’ll take him to a Master Healer,” Thai said.

“It’s Kellen’s dark
dust,” Valerie said.

Cyrus was already
pumping light into Gideon. For several long minutes they both glowed, then at
last, Cyrus fell back.

“I did as much as I
could,” he said, and Valerie could read the truth of his words in the shadows
under his eyes.

“We’ll take him to
Nightingale. There’s still hope for him, Valerie,” Thai said.

Valerie
nodded numbly, fatigue trying to consume her as it always did after she used
her vivicus power. But before she gave in to oblivion, she reached in her
pocket to remove Kanti. Henry knelt beside her, and she opened her hand. She
saw light return to his eyes before she was overcome by darkness.

When Valerie woke
up, she was back in her own room, and Cyrus was holding her hand. He seemed
fragile, drained of his power. Light wasn’t attracted to him, so he lacked his
usual glow, and his eyes had never seemed so haunted.

He turned away to
shake a sleeping form on the chair by her bed.

“She’s awake,” Cyrus
said. “And I’m sure it’s not me she wants by her side right now.”

Before Valerie could
contradict him, Cyrus left the room and Thai took his place on the bed next to
her.

“Henry’s asleep in
his room. Gideon’s in the Healers’ Guild, and Nightingale is looking after him
personally. Somehow, Sanguina made it to the Healers’ Guild, too, and she’s in
better shape than Gideon,” Thai said.

“And…Dulcea?” Her
voice cracked as she said her friend’s name.

Some part of her
hoped that maybe there’d been a spark of life in Dulcea, that she would be
okay. Because it couldn’t be real. Dulcea wasn’t gone forever.

“Jack brought her
body to Azra and Clarabelle, to see if they could help,” Thai said softly.

“And could they?”

The tears in Thai’s
eyes were enough of an answer.

“Her soul is in the
ether,” Thai said.

“She’s really gone,”
Valerie said.

Thai pulled
her close, and she cried for a long, long time.

It was morning when
she awoke again and quietly slipped out from under Thai’s arm. A dull sense of
unreality pushed down on her. Her magic was a mere spark within her, nearly
drained from expending her vivicus power on Gideon.

Her mind was also
confused. She couldn’t remember the layout of her own home, trying several
doors until she discovered which one led to the kitchen. Then, as she tried to
write a note to Thai explaining that she was headed to the Healers’ Guild, she
found she couldn’t remember how to form certain letters.

A temporary panic
almost blinded her. How much of her mind had deteriorated by using her power
over the past few weeks? She refused to face what that might mean and forced
the thoughts from her mind. Maybe she wouldn’t survive this war, anyway.

Instead, she ran to
Silva, the cool morning air waking up her sluggish mind a bit. The Horseshoe
was empty in the dawn’s first light, and inside the Healers’ Guild, all was
quiet. She peeked into room after room and finally found Sanguina in one,
huddled on one of the cots. Her eyes were open, and her gaze followed Valerie
as she crossed the room.

Valerie gripped
Sanguina’s hand tightly. “In the middle of all this mess, do you know how glad I
am that you made it back to us?”

Sanguina’s skin was
gray, and with her hair streaked white, it was like she’d aged ten years. But
she was alive. “After you left and the others left, the throne room began to
flicker. That room has never been unstable before. Reaper left so that the
castle didn’t absorb him into itself. I’d say I was lucky, but really, I think
he didn’t consider me enough of a threat to risk staying the extra minutes it
would have taken to kill me.”

“He doesn’t think
anyone’s a true threat to him,” Valerie said. “Maybe he’s right.”

“He’s not,” Sanguina
said, her hand steady in Valerie’s.

 “Do you know
where Gideon is?”

Sanguina shook her
head. “But Nightingale will.”

Valerie turned and
saw Nightingale’s green form approaching Sanguina’s bed.

“Come,” he said.

After surprising
Sanguina by giving her a fierce hug, Valerie let Nightingale lead her to a
chamber she’d never been in before.

Instead of rows of
cots, this room held one bed, where Gideon lay. Her mentor had always seemed so
large. He stood a foot taller than her, and his lithe strength gave him a
presence that made him seem even bigger. But in the bed, he wasn’t invincible.
He was human.

“Will he live?” she
asked Nightingale, turning so she could examine his face.

She knew from
experience that doctors sometimes bent the truth, and she wanted to read his
expression for herself.

“He will survive.
But it is likely he will never regain consciousness,” Nightingale said.

“He has to. I need
him,” Valerie said, her voice wobbling.

“Oberon would have
said that you’re made of sterner stuff than that,” Henry said.

She hadn’t seen him
enter, or even felt him through their bond, and she jumped at the sound of his
voice.

“Even with the
damage I did, even without Gideon and Dulcea, you will lead us out of this,”
Henry said.

“Yesterday, you told
me that your actions had cost me the war. Today, you think I’ll pull us all
through?” she asked dully.

“Yeah, I do,” he
said, and he opened his mind to her to let her know the certainty of his words.
But along with that certainty came a sense of the volume of pain he was
enduring. It would drive him to madness.

“So do I,”
Nightingale whispered quietly. “And I promise you that Gideon will be cared
for, whether his mind returns to us or not, until the end of his days.”

Valerie fled the
room, away from the still form of her mentor, away from her brother, away from
her responsibility, and away from her guilt, which was tearing at the fragile
fabric of her soul.

Valerie ran without thinking,
and her feet guided her to the best place she could be. In a small grove,
Clarabelle was waiting for her. Azra slept next to her in the grass.

Valerie dropped to
her knees, but the little unicorn didn’t immediately approach.

“Am I tainted now?
Is that why you won’t touch me?”

Clarabelle trotted
closer and nuzzled Valerie’s shoulder. Valerie’s mind pinged with the sweet
sounds of Clarabelle’s voice, which was filled with love and tenderness. There
was no hint of the disgust she feared she’d find after failing Dulcea and
Gideon in the Black Castle.

Azra’s eyes opened.

Clarabelle has been
inconsolable since you left. The pain surrounding you called to her across the
Globe, and it was all I could do to stop her from racing to Dunsinane to be by
your side.

“I missed her, too.
I missed you both,” Valerie said.

I must take
Clarabelle somewhere safe. I have taken your advice and visited Chisisi. He has
told us of a place on Earth where we will be safe, but Clarabelle will not
leave you.

Clarabelle clearly sensed
the gist of what they were saying, because she stomped her tiny hoof, and
Valerie’s mind was filled with sounds of her indignation.

“Little friend, the
best gift you could give me is to hide. Knowing you are alive and happy will protect
a corner of my heart, whatever may come,” Valerie said. “When this is all over,
we’ll find each other again.”

And you could visit
us.

Valerie shook her
head. “Wherever I go, horror seems to follow. They won’t stop trying to find
Clarabelle. It’s better I don’t draw any fire in your direction.”

It will be the first
time that I have not been in the heart of a major battle of my people. It is
not in the nature of unicorns to retreat from danger.

“If I fail, you and
Clarabelle are the only hope of goodness surviving the Fractus’s reign. When
she’s older, she can take up the mantle if I fall,” Valerie said.

Your thoughts echo
my own, though they bring me great sorrow.

“Good bye, Azra,”
Valerie said, and she buried her face in Azra’s mane.

She knelt and hugged
Clarabelle. The unicorn’s blue eyes were clear as the sky, but her grief at
their separation filled Valerie’s mind with a sweet sadness that was very
different from her other losses.

Then the
two unicorns vanished from sight, leaving nothing but the scent of lilies in
the little grove.

Returning home,
Valerie still dragged a load with her that was tangible in its weight.

Henry and Thai were
kneeling in the dirt of her father’s garden, working silently side by side.

“I thought this
garden bloomed from some leftover magic of Dad’s, but it didn’t, did it? You
guys were taking care of it the whole time,” Valerie said.

Thai wiped his
forehead, streaking it with dirt. “It wasn’t a secret. I thought you knew.
Cyrus and Dulcea helped, too.”

Valerie swallowed twice,
trying to keep her tears from rising.

“There’s a piece of
her here, with a piece of Dad,” she said.

A flash of Henry’s
guilt slipped through his mind’s defenses, and it hit Valerie like a punch to
the gut. But before she could sense anything more, he turned away from her
toward a shadowy corner of the garden.

Valerie saw that
Kanti’s statue was there, life-size again now that the spell from the Glamour
Guild had worn off. Henry touched her face. Valerie opened her mind so he could
understand that in spite of her anger, she forgave him, since she knew that was
what he yearned for.

“I don’t deserve
forgiveness from any of you,” he replied.

There was nothing
more to say, so Valerie came and stood next to Henry. Thai stepped behind her and
she leaned back into his chest.

“Now we have to
bring her back to life,” Thai said.

“It seemed like the
least of our problems yesterday, when she was trapped in the Black Castle with
Reaper. But now that she’s here, who else could change her back?”

“Maybe
Dulcea…Gideon… Maybe it was all for nothing,” Henry said, his tone emotionless,
as dead as the look in his eyes.

“Or maybe not. Maybe
it’s simple,” Thai said. “Maybe Valerie can bring her back to life, once her
power is back.”

Valerie reached for
Thai’s hand and tentatively brushed her friend’s frozen fingers with her own.
At her touch, a spark of life pulled at the flicker of magic in Valerie’s core.
Thai’s power leaped out to join hers, amplifying it, and the little spark
became a flame. Without even trying, a pulse of magic zinged through her and
out her fingertips with no pain or even much effort.