The Lady of the Storm - 2 (18 page)

Cecily yanked off her mobcap, quickly shed the pins from her hair, placing them in the ruffled cloth for safekeeping. “Giles, you know good and well it’s near impossible for me to drown. What is the real reason for your stubbornness? Afraid you might miss out on some adventure?”

His lip crooked, a devilishly handsome expression that made her insides flutter. “That’s only a
small
part of it.”

Cecily grinned back at him, unbuttoning her riding coat. “Most likely there will be no way in from beneath. But I promise to give you all of the details should I indeed find Sebastian’s grave.” She untied her skirt and petticoat, and they dropped with a heavy squish. She discarded her shoes and rolled off her hose, but the look on Giles’s face made her leave on her stays and chemise.

Hungry, she decided. He looked very hungry.

He licked rainwater from his lips and muttered, “I still think this is a bad idea.”

“Lady Cassandra would not have sent me after my father unless she felt my magic would help find him. I
need
to do this.”

And before he could say another word she ran into the water, and with a final leap, reached the center of the river and dove.

The storm had robbed the river of enough sunshine to light the murky depths, and Cecily swam in near darkness. Slick scales brushed her arms and legs more than once, and her toes brushed the top of river grass, but when the current increased she swam in a dark void of nothingness. And then fell over some precipice and tumbled down, down, into the very deepest recesses of the earth.

Cecily used her fear to bolster her magic, gathering a shield of water to encapsulate her body, giving it strength by swirling the outer edges to protect herself from jagged walls or rocky outcroppings.

And still she dropped, the current tossing her around until her head swam with dizziness.

Then she thought she leveled out for a moment before the current pushed her upward, her shield springing against the force of one obstruction after another, unable to fatally injure her, but battering her about nonetheless.

Perhaps Giles had been right. Perhaps this had been a bad idea.

But she allowed the water to take her where it would, keeping her eyes open for the least glimmer of light.

It came in the form of a murky sort of grayness.

At the same time, she felt her stomach fly up into her throat as the upward motion suddenly ceased and she dropped down again, and then spun in a circle. Cecily swam upward, dropping her shield as she broke the surface of the water with a gasp of relief. She swam out of the small whirlpool and wrapped her arms about a jutting rock, looking up at the crystal spires of a large cavern.

She closed her eyelids to steady her vision for a moment, for she felt as if she still spun in circles. Then opened them again.

To her right lay the floor of the cavern, more spires creating a sort of maze across the surface, in places meeting the spires that grew downward from the ceiling above.

The cavern glowed with an eerie sort of light, and when she hauled herself out of the water and rested a moment against one of those crystal pillars, she felt the vibrations of the stone mountain.

Cecily sighed with relief. That wild journey could have brought her anywhere, into some subterranean depth of tunnels and caverns, instead of her hoped-for destination. Or she could have bypassed the interior of the mountain completely, appearing on the other side.

Her gaze went to the pool in the floor, to the whirlwind of water that gushed a fountain in the middle of it. She’d been spat out like a cork from a champagne bottle.

The outer edges of the whirlpool broke away, flowing to the other side of the cavern before disappearing beneath a rocky outcropping, presumably continuing on to form the river on the other side of the mountain. She hoped the journey would not be as difficult going out as it had been coming in.

But enough. Cecily ran her hands down her clothing and hair, shedding the water. She must hurry, or no telling what Giles would do. He might attempt to follow her, and he would never survive that journey. She would trust his good sense only so far, especially when it came to protecting her.

Her lips curved upward as she wove a way through the crystal spires.

To her surprise she quickly came to an opening, and when she ducked through it, a flat expanse of crystal spread out before her, open to the sky above.

Cecily would give much to see this place in the sunlight. Even with the gray skies the floor glowed like some ethereal hall of a mythical god, catching what meager light it could and tossing it from one crystal surface to another, lighting the soaring columns that surrounded the open space.

Cecily squinted. Something stood in the middle of this great expanse. A small building, like a garden pavilion, but made of the same stone as the mountain. And beneath it a square shape…

She stepped out onto that smooth surface and soon became drenched yet again, but this time from the rain. It fell in sheets, obscuring her vision, so she could not quite make out what lay beneath that pavilion until she reached it.

A box of stone. No, a coffin.

Cecily dried herself yet again, staring in wonder about the pavilion, which was decidedly larger than it had looked at a distance. Statues had been carved to form the pillars that supported the roof. A gryphon with beak opened in a scream of rage stood next to a hydra with multiple heads that sported needle-sharp teeth. An ogre with eyes of amethyst stood sentinel on the other side. A demon crouched, a centaur reared, a hellhound snarled… all of them in protective stances as guardians of the coffin.

And they had failed.

Cecily stepped closer to the coffin, watching her footing, for shards of crystal lay scattered about. Several cracks marked the top of the coffin’s surface, and on the other side it had been shattered asunder, revealing a skeleton draped in cloth of gold.

The carvings of the guardians sported cracks as well, and the entire back side of them had been shattered as thoroughly as the coffin. Oddly enough, the inside of those pillars held a hollow shape of the creature that had been carved on the outside of it.

Someone had found Sebastian’s coffin… or someone’s coffin, since the appearance of the corpse certainly did not look youthful, as the professor had described. But perhaps Sebastian had aged to normal when his ring had been removed?

With a shudder that carried to the soles of her feet, she searched within the cloth of gold, which crumbled at her touch, and around the skeleton, which she feared would sit up at any moment and strangle her.

But she could not find a ring. And her certainty that it had been her father who had found this grave, and had somehow managed to shatter the crystal that Giles’s sword could not, steadily grew within her.

“Father,” she finally said, “you took it, didn’t you?”

As if in reply, the rain abruptly ceased.

Cecily could not stop trembling. She must get away from this place. The ogre kept staring at her with accusing eyes, and the hydra looked as if it would slither forward and rip her apart with those sharp teeth. She turned and hurried back across the crystal hall toward the entrance to the cavern, heedless to use her magic to clear a path, her feet splashing through the puddles, her steps purposeful to avoid slipping on the wet surface.

The rain had stopped but the wind had not, for it took the song of the mountain and amplified it, until it almost sounded like words now accompanied the tune.

“Cecily.”

She came to an abrupt stop, her feet slipping out from under her, and went sliding across the smooth crystal, bumping up against one of those soaring columns. She sat up slowly, her backside aching, and used the column for support to rise.

That voice. It had sung her name. And it had sounded like—

“Cecily.”

She felt the song, too, this time, within the vibrations of the stone beneath her palm. “Father?”

“
Yes.”

Could he be using the crystal as a voice? Didn’t one of the traders tell her it was a natural conductor of sound and vibration?

“Where are you?” she cried.

Cecily felt the answer vibrate against her hand, but could not make out the words. She set her ear against the column.

“You were with me. Why did you not stay?”

“When? Where? What do you mean?”

“…not long.”

She slapped the stone in frustration. “I cannot hear you.”

“…weak.”

“Just tell me how to find you!”

“…Hell.”

No. She could not have heard right. Her father wasn’t dead; she knew it in her heart. And he certainly would not be in hell. He was the bravest, kindest, most heroic man she would ever have the privilege to know.

Cecily closed her eyes, but still the tears leaked from beneath her lids. “Father,” she moaned.

And then faintly. So faintly that at first she couldn’t be sure that she’d made out the words of the tune.

“Seven Corners.”

Cecily angrily dashed the tears from her face. Hell. And seven corners. The last place Thomas’s vision had appeared to her had been in that forest of wild magic. Could he have actually been within that chaotic place?

Merciful heaven.

“Father, do you mean the Seven Corners of Hell? Is that where you’ve been imprisoned all this time?”

“Yesss.”

“How is that possible?”

She waited with bated breath, her ear smashed as hard against the stone as she could manage. But she heard no more words within the mountain’s song, just the rhythmic tune of the gentle breeze that now swirled about her.

Cecily tarried as long as she could, hoping he would speak to her again. But she could not forget Giles. If she took too long, he would come after her, even if it meant he would drown.

The thought of his lifeless body spurred her to action, and she retraced her path through the cavern, getting lost only once, with the sound of the water leading her back to the whirlpool. She dove beneath the overhang, letting the current carry her on a wild journey yet again. She hoped Giles had thought to wait for her on the other side of the mountain, where the water emerged. For if not, she would have to trudge around the crystal, and exhaustion overwhelmed her by the time she reached the gently flowing river.

She should not have doubted him.

Cecily’s head broke the surface of the water; she blinked, and saw him standing on the riverbank beneath the gray skies, the rain having let up. She had never been so glad to see him, despite the anger that tightened his mouth. But when she trudged through the shallows, weariness dogging her steps, his expression changed.

She stumbled over a loose stone and he leaped across the distance separating them, catching her in his arms. Giles dragged her up his body and stared into her eyes. “Don’t you ever leave me like that again.”

And then his warm mouth met hers, and she threw her arms about him and returned his kiss with all the newfound confidence she possessed. He kissed her with a desire that warmed her blood, his lips so smooth and firm, his arms like a gentle band of steel about her. He smelled of rain and damp wool, tasted like water fresh from a spring.

He set her down reluctantly, staring again into her eyes. Cecily saw something within those depths. Something different that reached out to her very soul and made whatever barriers standing between them seem trifling.

“Come,” he said, swooping her up in his arms and carrying her back to land.

He had found a tree to shelter the horses, far off to her left, but had apparently sought no such covering for himself. She saw the muddy path he had worn along the edge of the river from his pacing.

Cecily touched his sodden hair. Had he stood in the rain the entire time while he waited for her? “But don’t you want to know what happened?”

“No. Not now.”

He helped her into her clothing and Cecily accepted his assistance, used her magic to dry the material, doing the same for him with a sweep of her hand. Giles crooked a brow at her, his look telling her he realized she did not need to fondle his clothing to dry it, but when he would have smiled at the innocent look she gave him in return, he did not. The intensity of the emotion that had taken hold of him would not allow it.

His strength had always impressed her, but never more so than at this moment, when he leaped into Apollo’s saddle, still holding her in his arms. He ignored her protests that she felt perfectly capable of riding her own horse.

They rode silently back to town, Giles cradling her against him. After all the distances they had traveled, the short trip back to the inn felt the longest of them all. For his determination lay in his eyes, in his gentle but firm arms, in the stubborn set of his jaw.

Cecily shivered, but not with the cold. Anticipation thrummed through her veins, banishing any lingering tiredness and making her acutely aware of his every move.

Giles had come to a decision.

When they reached the inn, he slid from their mount and set her on her feet, his warm hand firmly grasping hers. He bowed. “My lady, may I escort you inside?”