Huntress, Black Dawn, Witchlight (31 page)

—to end,
he finished.

Oh.

Maggie’s eyes filled with sudden hot tears.

She did what was instinctive to her. She reached out to him. And then they were embracing in their minds, just as their physical bodies embraced, and there was that feeling of invisible wings all around them.

Maggie could catch fragments of his thoughts, not just the surface ones, but things so deep she wasn’t sure he even knew he was thinking them.
So lonely…always been lonely. Meant to be that way. Always alone…

No, you’re not,
she told him, trying to communicate it to the deepest part of him.
I won’t let you be alone. And we were meant to be like this; can’t you feel it?

What she could feel was his powerful longing. But he couldn’t be convinced all at once.

She heard something like
Destiny…
And she saw images of his past. His father. His teachers. The nobles. Even the slaves who had heard the prophecies. They all believed he had only one purpose, and it had to do with the end of the world.

You can
change
your destiny,
she said.
You don’t have to go along with it. I don’t know what’s going to happen with the world, but you don’t have to be what they say. You have the power to fight them!

For one heartbeat the image of his father seemed to loom closer, tall and terrible, a father seen through the eyes of childhood. Then the features blurred, changing just enough to become Hunter Redfern with the same cruel and accusing light in his yellow eyes.

And then the picture was swept away by a tidal wave of anger from Delos.

I am not a weapon.

I know that,
Maggie told him.

I can choose what I am from now on. I can choose what path to follow.

Yes,
Maggie said.

Delos said simply,
I choose to go with you.

His anger was gone. Just briefly, she got the flicker of another image from him, as she had once before seeing herself through his eyes.

He didn’t see her as a slave girl with dusty hair and a smudged face and coarse sacking for clothes. He saw her as the girl with autumn-colored hair and endlessly deep sorrel eyes—the kind of eyes that never wavered, but looked straight into his soul. He saw her as warm and real and vibrant, melting the black ice of his heart and setting him free.

And then this image was gone, too, and they were simply holding on to each other, lapped in peace.

They stayed like that for a while, their spirits flowing in and out of each other. Delos didn’t seem inclined to move.

And Maggie wanted it to last, too. She wanted to stay here for a long time, exploring all the deepest and most secret places of the mind that was now open to her. To touch him in ways he’d never been touched before, this person who, beyond all logic, was the other half of her. Who belonged to her. Who was her soulmate.

But there was something nagging at her consciousness. She couldn’t ignore it, and when she finally allowed herself to look at it, she remembered everything.

And she was swept with a wave of alarm so strong it snapped her right out of Delos’s mind.

She could feel the shock of separation reverberate in him as she sat up, aware of her own body again. They were still linked enough that it hurt her just as it hurt him. But she was too frightened to care.

“Delos,” she said urgently. “We’ve got to do something. There’s going to be trouble.”

He blinked at her, as if he were coming from very far away. “It will be all right,” he said.

“No. It won’t. You don’t understand.”

He sighed, very nearly his old exasperated snort. “If it’s Hunter Redfern you’re worried about—”

“It’s him—and Sylvia. Delos, I heard them talking when I was in the wardrobe. You don’t know what they’ve got planned.”

“It doesn’t matter what they’ve got planned. I can take
care of them.” He straightened a little, looked down at his left arm.

“No, you can’t,”
Maggie said fiercely. “And that’s the problem. Sylvia put a spell on you, a binding spell, she called it. You can’t use your power.”

H
e stared at her for an instant, his golden eyes wide.

“Don’t you believe me?”

“I wouldn’t put it past Sylvia to try,” he said. “But I don’t think she’s strong enough.”

“She said she got special ingredients. And she said that nobody else could take the spell off.” When he still looked doubtful, although a bit more grim, Maggie added, “Why don’t you try it?”

He reached down with long, strong fingers to pull at the fastenings of his brace. It came off easily, and Maggie’s eyebrows went up. She blinked.

He extended his arm, pointing it at the wall, and drew a dagger from his belt.

Maggie had forgotten about the blood part. She bit the inside of her cheek and didn’t say anything as he opened a small cut on his wrist. Blood welled up red, then flowed in a trickle.

“Just a little blast,” Delos said, and looked calmly at the wall.

Nothing happened.

He frowned, his golden eyes flaring dangerously. Maggie could see the concentration in his face. He spread his fingers.

Still nothing happened.

Maggie let out her breath. I guess spells are invisible, she thought. The brace was just for show.

Delos was looking at his arm as if it didn’t belong to him.

“We’re in trouble,” Maggie said, trying not to make it sound like
I told you so.
“While they thought they were alone in here, they were talking about all kinds of things. All Hunter cares about is getting you to help him destroy the humans. But there’s been some big split in the Night World, and the witches have seceded from it.”

Delos went very still, and his eyes were distant. “That means war. Open war between witches and vampires.”

“Probably,” Maggie said, waving a hand vaguely. “But, listen, Delos, the witches sent somebody here, an ambassador, to talk to you. To try to get you on their side. Hunter said they’ve got one of the Wild Powers on their side already—the witches, I mean. Are you getting this?”

“Of course,” Delos said. But now his voice was oddly distant, too. He was looking at something Maggie couldn’t see. “But one out of four doesn’t matter. Two out of four, three out of four—it’s not good enough.”

“What are you talking about?” Maggie didn’t wait for him
to answer. “But, look. I know the girl who came to talk to you. It’s the girl I was with on the rocks, the other one you saved from Bern. She’s Aradia, and she’s Maiden of all the witches. And, Delos, they’re looking for her right now. They want to kill her to stop her from getting to you. And she’s my
friend.
”

“That’s too bad.”

“We’ve got to
stop
them,” Maggie said, exasperated.

“We can’t.”

That brought Maggie up short. She stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m saying we can’t stop them. They’re too strong. Maggie, listen to me,” he said calmly and clearly, when she began an incoherent protest.

That’s the first time he’s said my name out loud, she thought dizzily, and then she focused on his words.

“It’s not just the spell they’ve put on me. And it’s not just that they control the castle. Oh, yes, they do,” he said with a bitter laugh, cutting her off again. “You haven’t been here very long; you don’t understand. The nobles here are centuries old, most of them. They don’t like being ruled by a precocious child with uncanny powers. As soon as Hunter showed up, they transferred their loyalty to him.”

“But—”

“He’s everything they admire. The perfect vampire, the ultimate predator. He’s ruthless and bloodthirsty and he wants to give them the whole world as their hunting grounds. Do you
really think any of them can resist that? After years of hunting mindless, bewildered animals that have to be rationed out one at a time? With maybe the odd creaky slave for a special treat? Do you think any of them won’t follow him willingly?”

Maggie was silent. There was nothing she could say.

He was right, and it was scary.

“And that isn’t all,” he continued remorselessly. “Do you want to hear a prophecy?”

“Not really,” Maggie said. She’d heard more than enough of those for one lifetime.

He ignored her. “My old teacher used to tell me this,” he said.

“Uh huh,” Maggie said. To her it sounded like just more of the same thing. The only interesting thing about it was that it mentioned the blind Maiden. That had to be Aradia, didn’t it? She was one famous witch.

“What’s ‘born in the year of the blind Maiden’s vision?’” she asked.

“It means all the Wild Powers are the same age, born seventeen years ago,” Delos said impatiently. “But that’s not
the point. The point is the last line, ‘Four less one and darkness triumphs.’ That means that the darkness is going to win, Maggie.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s inevitable. There’s no way that the humans and the witches can get all four Wild Powers on their side. And if there’s even one less than four, the darkness is going to win. All the vampires need to do is kill one of the Wild Powers, and it’s all over. Don’t you see?”

Maggie stared at him. She did see what he was saying, and it was even scarier than what he’d said before. “But that doesn’t mean we can just give up,” she said, trying to puzzle out his expression. “If we do that, it
will
be all over. We can’t just surrender and
let
them win.”

“Of course not,” he said harshly. “We have to join them.”

There was a long silence. Maggie realized that her mouth had fallen open.

“…
what
?”

“We have to be on the winning side, and that’s the vampire side.” He looked at her with yellow eyes that seemed as remote and deathly calm as a panther’s. “I’m sorry about your friends, but there’s no chance for them. And the only chance for you is to become a vampire.”

Maggie’s brain suddenly surged into overdrive.

All at once, she saw exactly what he was saying. And fury gave her energy. He was lightning-fast, but she jumped up
and out of the way before he could close his hands on her.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“No.”

“You’re going to
kill
me?”

“I’m going to save your life, the only way I can.” He stood up, following her with that same eerie calm.

I can’t believe this. I…really…can’t…believe this, Maggie thought.

She circled around the bed, then stopped. It was pointless; he was going to get her eventually.

She looked into his face one more time, and saw that he was completely serious. She dropped her arms and relaxed her shoulders, trying to slow her breathing, meeting his eyes directly.

“Delos, this isn’t just about me, and it’s not just about my friends. It’s about all the slaves here, and all the humans on the Outside. Turning me into a vampire isn’t going to help them.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “But you’re all that really matters.”

“No, I’m
not,
” Maggie said, and this time the hot tears didn’t stop at her eyes, but overflowed and rolled down her cheeks. She shook them off angrily, and took one last deep breath.

“I won’t let you,” she said.

“You can’t stop me.”

“I can fight. I can make you kill me before you turn me
into a vampire. If you want to try it that way, come and take your best shot.”

Delos’s yellow eyes bored into hers—and then suddenly shifted and dropped. He stepped back, his face cold.

“Fine,” he said. “If you won’t cooperate, I’ll put you in the dungeon until you see what’s best for you.”

Maggie felt her mouth drop open again.

“You wouldn’t,” she said.

“Watch me.”

The dungeon, like everything else in the castle, was heart-stoppingly authentic. It had something that Maggie had read about in books but hadn’t seen in the rooms above: rushes and straw on the floor. It also had a stone bench carved directly into the stone wall and a narrow, barred window-slit about fifteen feet above Maggie’s head. And that was all it had.

Once Maggie had poked into the straw enough to discover that she didn’t really
want
to know what was down there and shaken the iron bars that made up the door and examined the stone slabs in the wall and stood on the bench to try to climb to the window, there was nothing else to do. She sat on the bench and felt the true enormity of the situation trickle in on her.

She was really stuck here. Delos was really serious. And the world, the actual, real world out there, could be affected as a consequence.

It wasn’t that she didn’t understand his motivation. She
had been in his mind; she’d felt the strength of his protectiveness for her. And she wanted to protect him, too.

But it wasn’t possible to forget about everyone else. Her parents, her friends, her teachers, the paper girl. If she let Delos give up, what happened to them?

Even the people in the Dark Kingdom. Laundress and Old Mender and Soaker and Chamber-pot Emptier and all the other slaves. She
cared
about them. She admired their gritty determination to go on living, whatever the circumstances—and their courage in risking their lives to help her.

That’s what Delos doesn’t understand, she thought. He doesn’t see them as people, so he can’t care about them. All his life he’s only cared about himself, and now about me. He can’t look beyond that.

If only she could think of a way to
make
him see—but she couldn’t. As the hours passed and the silence began to wear on her, she kept trying.

No inspiration came. And finally the light outside her cell began to fade and the cold started to settle in.

She was half asleep, huddled on her chilly bench, when she heard the rattle of a key in a door. She jumped up and went to peer through the bars, hoping to see Delos.

The door at the end of the narrow stone corridor opened and someone came in with a flare. But it wasn’t Delos. It was a guard, and behind him was another guard, and this one had a prisoner.

“Jeanne!” Maggie said in dismay.

And then her heart plummeted further.

A third guard was half marching, half supporting Aradia.

Maggie looked at them wordlessly.

It wasn’t like Jeanne not to fight, she thought, as the guards opened the cell door and shoved the other girls in.

The door clanged shut again, and the guards marched back out without speaking. Almost as an afterthought, one of them stuck a flare in an iron ring to give the prisoners some light.

And then they were gone.

Jeanne picked herself up off the floor, and then helped Aradia get up. “They’ve got P.J. upstairs,” she said to Maggie, who was still staring. “They said they wouldn’t hurt her if we went quietly.”

Maggie opened her mouth, shut it again, and tried to swallow her heart, which was in her throat. At last she managed to speak.

“Delos said that?”

“Delos and Hunter Redfern and that witch. They’re all very chummy.”

Maggie sat down on the cold bench.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Why? Because you’re too stupidly trusting?” Jeanne said. “You’re not responsible for him.”

“I think she means because she’s his soulmate,” Aradia said softly.

Jeanne stared at her as if she’d started speaking a foreign
language. Maggie stared, too, feeling her eyes getting wider, trying to study the beautiful features in the semidarkness.

She felt oddly shy of this girl whom she’d called Cady and who had turned out to be something she could never have imagined.

“How did you know that?” she asked, trying not to sound tongue-tied. “Can you just—tell?”

A smile curved the perfect lips in the shadows. “I could tell before,” Aradia said gently, backing up quite accurately to sit on the bench. “When you came back from seeing him the first time, but I was too foggy to really focus on anything then. I’ve seen a lot of it in the last few years, though. People finding their soulmates, I mean.”

“You’re better, aren’t you?” Maggie said. “You sound lots more—awake.” It wasn’t just that. Aradia had always had a quiet dignity, but now there was an authority and confidence about her that was new.

“The healing women helped me. I’m still weak, though,” Aradia said softly, looking around the cell. “I can’t use any of my powers—not that breaking through walls is among them, anyway.”

Maggie let her breath out. “Oh, well. I’m glad you’re awake, anyway.” She added, feeling shy again, “Um, I know your real name now. Sorry about the misunderstanding before.”

Aradia put a hand—again perfectly accurately—on Maggie’s. “Listen, my dear friend,” she said, startling Maggie with
both the word and the intensity of her voice, “nobody has ever helped me more than you did, or with less reason. If you’d been one of my people, and you’d known who I was, it would have been amazing enough. But from a human, who didn’t know anything about me…” She stopped and shook her head. “I don’t know if we’ll even live through tonight,” she said. “But if we do, and if there’s ever anything the witches can do for you, all you have to do is ask.”

Maggie blinked hard. “Thanks,” she whispered. “I mean—you know. I couldn’t just leave you.”

“I do know,” Aradia said. “And that’s the amazing thing.” She squeezed Maggie’s hand. “Whatever happens, I’ll never forget you. And neither will the other witches, if I have anything to say about it.”

Maggie gulped. She didn’t want to get started crying. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop.

Fortunately Jeanne was looking back and forth between them like someone at a tennis match. “What’s all this sappy stuff?” she demanded. “What are you guys
talking
about?”

Maggie told her. Not just about Aradia being Maiden of the witches, but about everything she’d learned from listening to Hunter Redfern and Sylvia.

“So the witches have left the Night World,” Aradia said quietly, when she was finished. “They were about ready to when I left.”

“You were coming here to talk to Delos,” Maggie said.