Барб Хенди - Between Their Worlds

Dorian stood there, his lips barely parted, caught between a stray “wolf” wandering in the keep and his instructions. Wynn folded her arms and waited, daring him not to go after Shade. Dorian pushed Wynn back and grabbed the door’s handle.

Wynn had to shift aside when he jerked the door with a slam. She exhaled in relief and scurried to the window, waiting to see Shade lead the annoying “guard” off and out of sight.

Magiere still fumed as she passed the bailey gate and kept on toward the castle’s southern corner. She looked for any way to get in that wasn’t in plain sight. The bailey wall was at least twenty feet high in most places. Leesil might be able to scale it and then throw down a rope to haul her and Chap up. But this wide street, comprised of the backs of shops and other buildings, not to mention the keep towers themselves, some of their windows glowing from lights within, was all too exposed.

How could they possibly get over the wall without being spotted? Late at night, later than now, perhaps, though she still hadn’t seen what lay around the castle’s grounds along its three other sides.

“We can’t just wander about out here,” Leesil warned. “This isn’t some sages’ barracks in Bela, tucked into a forgotten corner of that city. Look around you!”

She had, and he knew it, but her guilt wouldn’t let her stop. They’d left Wynn behind again, and this time it wasn’t due to Chap’s insistence that the sage would be safer here.

Magiere was sick of complications inevitably falling on everyone who passed through her life. At least if she kept those who mattered close to her, she might have a chance to stand between them and whatever came, until she found a way to put an end to all of this. Leesil had to understand what that meant; they were not leaving Wynn behind again.

If she couldn’t find a way into this keep, a way to Wynn, she’d make one.

Magiere stopped and turned about, abandoning her search of the castle’s bailey wall and high towers.

“What now?” Leesil asked.

Chap hopped out of Magiere’s way as she stalked past Leesil and back toward the bailey gate.

Leesil faltered, watching as Magiere strode back along the bailey wall. At a loss, he looked at Chap, who just stood there, as well.

“Do something, you mangy mutt!” Leesil whispered. “Aren’t you supposed to be the all-knowing big guide and guardian here?”

Chap curled a jowl in reply and took off at a trot, and Leesil bit back sudden shame for his outburst. He knew he hadn’t been fair, and he broke into a jog to follow. Getting Magiere to listen had become just as hard for Chap.

They caught up as Magiere grabbed the handle of one side of the bailey gate.

Chap bolted in around her as the gate cracked open, and he lunged, slamming it shut with his forepaws. Leesil dropped the travel chest without a thought and snatched Magiere’s upper arm, jerking her around to face him.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“I’m going to get their attention,” she answered coldly.

“Then what? Wait to see if any of them are stupid enough to raise the portcullis?”

He had always been the one to find them a way through whenever the path was blocked by something she couldn’t get around.

“Oh, they will ...” Magiere answered too quietly. “If just one of them gets close enough to the bars.”

Leesil went cold as the chill in her voice washed over him. This wasn’t his Magiere. He’d done terrible things in his youth, serving a warlord who kept him, his mother, or his father hostage while one of them was out following orders. How many had he killed in those days?

Most of his victims died quietly and quickly in the night. They never suffered, if he could help it, especially those who’d done nothing but pit themselves against the tyrant who held him and his parents captive for blood work. But they weren’t the only ones he’d harmed.

As Leesil stared at Magiere, he barely heard Chap’s growl begin to grow in his ears.

There had been fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, and friends of his targets left behind. The living had suffered tenfold more than the dead for what he’d done in those days.

And Magiere wanted to use whatever sage she could get her hands on ... to get her way.

Before Leesil uttered a word, he flinched at the clack of Chap’s jaws, but neither of them looked toward the dog. Magiere suddenly clenched her eyes shut and hunched as if some pain grew in her head. In less than a breath, she tried to push Leesil aside as she hissed at Chap.

“Stay out of my head!”

Chap lunged at her.

Leesil got between them and slammed Magiere back against the bailey gate. He pinned her there, his forearm barred across her upper chest.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

When she did, he saw her irises had flooded completely black. He shriveled inside and could’ve wept at the sight of her.

Her pallid face was covered in a sheen that was not quite an open sweat. Her short, rapid breaths shuddered under the vibration of fury in her body. How many times would he have to be the only one to keep her at bay when she lost herself to her other half?

She could’ve thrown him off, with her dhampir nature on the edge of cutting loose. She didn’t, though tears began rolling from her eyes. He couldn’t tell whether they came from the strain of her change or from the night growing too bright before her eyes, or from realizing she’d almost lost control again.

How many more times before that one time when she wouldn’t hear or see him ? As always, it was just as bad to watch her come back to him.

Magiere’s muscles slackened, and she went limp against the gate. The lustrous brown began returning to her eyes as her irises contracted. She clenched her eyes shut, turning her head away, as if she couldn’t bear to face him. She’d stopped saying “sorry” a long while back, as if that only made the next time even worse.

Leesil leaned in, with his lips close to her ear, and whispered softly, “Look at me.”

She wouldn’t. He carefully took Magiere’s jaw with his free hand and turned her face toward himself. She still wouldn’t meet his gaze.

“We’ll get to Wynn,” he whispered, and leaned his forehead against hers. “But not like this. If anything, they’d expect that now. We can’t make things worse for her ... or for us.”

Her breath still came in shudders, her face so close he could feel it. Then her hands slid around him, up his back, and clamped on his shoulders. Her tight grip made him stiffen, because he worried she might try to fight him. But her mouth suddenly pressed hard against his.

It wasn’t the time or place for this, but it had been a while. Leesil couldn’t bring himself to stop her—until he heard the grind of gears and clank of massive chains.

Chap huffed and his claws scrabbled on cobblestone as he took off. Before Magiere tried something rash, Leesil grabbed the travel chest’s nearest handle and jerked his wife along the bailey wall.

“Run!”

Chap raced along the street close to the wall, looking for any quick way out of sight. But whoever might come out of the keep would easily spot them if they tried to cross the open street and dash for any alley along its far side.

Once again, events had almost gotten beyond reason because of Magiere. That had grown slowly worse along the journey back out of the northern wastes.

After what had happened to her up in that realm of ice, after what she had done to gain the second orb, she was more often losing control of her dhampir nature. How long before it controlled her? Chap could not yet face what he would have to do when that happened.

When he reached the curve around the bailey wall’s southern corner, he halted and turned, hiding just around the bend. Magiere had barely raced by him, ducking around, when the bailey gate swung open. Leesil joined them, crouching down, as the first figure ran out of the gate.