Нора Робертс - The Becoming

“No. No. No. That’s not me. It was just a way to help me see the rest. It was night in the forest. I saw the moons when I came out, so it was night. We have time to stop it.”

She flew toward the rising sun.

Since the bloody rain had finally stopped, Keegan decided to stay with the search for the first few hours of the morning before beginning the laborious travel to the other portals. To check on the guards, see they remained alert.

And maybe, with the gloom lifted, they’d find this shagging tree of snakes Breen had told Sedric to look for.

Following his thoughts, Tarryn shrugged. “Portents, as we know, are tricky matters. It may be a symbol of some sort, or literal and on the other side, or we’ve simply yet to find it.”

“We’ve covered nearly every inch.”

“But not every. If we don’t find success today, you should go to her tonight. And bring her with you tomorrow. She may be what we’re missing.”

He looked around. Trees, he thought, full of squirrels and birds. He could hear the drum of a woodpecker after its breakfast, and the rustle of a fox or rabbit after theirs.

“I’m thinking I’ll go now. If she is what we’re missing, we shouldn’t waste another day. I felt it best to leave her where she is. I’m not sure altogether why, but I felt it best. But now—”

He broke off, looked up. “A dragon and rider, coming fast. Cróga sees them, and wants me to … Bloody hell, I told her to stay.”

“Breen?”

“Aye, and I told her to stay in the valley, or the cottage.”

“You were about to go get her, so this saves you time.”

“I told her to stay,” he repeated as the shadow of the dragon covered them. With the trees too thick to allow him to land, he glided on.

“I’ll get her.”

“Don’t send her back again because you’re pissed off,” his mother called after him.

Knowing he’d been tempted to do just that, he kept going.

The dog reached him first, but Breen—fleet of foot indeed—came close behind.

“I had to come.” Though she knew better, seeing him whole, alive, unharmed had her throwing her arms around him in relief. “You were dead, in the dream. You were dead, and your blood all over my hands.”

“For the love of the gods, woman, you don’t fly across the world because of a hard dream, and when I told you to stay behind.”

“It wasn’t just a hard dream.” She jerked back. “There was blood on my hands when I woke up, and that wasn’t the worst part of it. He got through. I was too late, we were too late, and he got through. And … do you remember the vision before, the dream I pulled you into when you tried to pull me out?”

“Aye.”

“Like that. The castle burning, death everywhere. And Odran, holding your sword, your staff.”

“My sword’s at my side.” But he brushed a hand over her hair. “My staff’s where I left it.”

“For now. He’ll come through if we don’t stop him. If I don’t do anything. He said this world was his because I did nothing. There was blood on my hands, Keegan.”

“All right.” He kissed her absently on the brow as he thought it through. “All right now. I was coming to bring you anyway.”

“You found it?”

“No, and there’s the problem.”

“It’s not, because I know where it is. I saw it. I saw the tree in the dream, and I know where it is.”

“Show me.”

“It’s not far.”

“We’ve covered all the not far.”

“I can’t help it.” She grabbed his hand, started down the path she’d seen soaked with blood.

Keegan gave a whistle, and seconds later an elf raced up. “Fetch all the others and find us.”

Dread filled her, threatened to block out everything else. “I ran this path after the tree started to move.”

“Move?”

“Snakes, forming its branches, its trunk. I ran because I heard the screaming, and the battle. That way.” She veered left. “We—you and I—were in the sunlight first. A field, flowers, so beautiful. But you said things you wouldn’t have said, wanted me to say things I wouldn’t. Then you were covered in blood.”

“What things?”

“Later. It’s this way.”

His mother came first, guided by another elf who whisked off again. Tarryn said nothing as Breen continued on.

When the path narrowed to a gutted track and forked, Breen pointed.

“There.”

“I see a tree right enough, and a good-sized one, but nothing resembling snakes. And we’ve covered this ground.”

“There,” she said again. “It hides and waits and holds its breath. No bird will nest in it, no creature burrow. Its leaves are false when summer comes, another mask, for nothing grows on it or from it. It eats light and life when it can, in secret, as it guards the door to hell.”

She let out a breath. “It didn’t look like this in the dream, but it’s an illusion. Dark magicks are cloaking it, and blocking the light from seeing or sensing. But I can feel.”

She started to hold out a hand, but Tarryn stopped her. “Wait for the others. If it’s this strong, we’ll want the others.”

“He made this, conjured this, created this, so he could come and go as he pleased, take what he wanted. But it took more, powers dimming, and more, powers draining. So he needed a child. He made them, but they weren’t enough. Until my father.”

She turned to Keegan. “I know it. I don’t know how, but I know it. And I know he hasn’t been able to open it again. Not since he killed my father. It takes so much, more and more, so he’s tried other ways.”

An elf raced back, a silver cat on her shoulders. The cat leaped off, and Sedric stood studying the tree. “This?” At Breen’s nod, he rubbed her shoulder. “I don’t feel it. I’m sorry. Let me move closer.”

“Not yet,” Tarryn said. “And I think it must be Breen to break the illusion.”

Marg came in the arms of a faerie, then Loren, then the others who’d spread out through the forest.

“I think the portal’s in it—or it is the portal. Like the Welcoming Tree, but its antithesis.”

“Aye,” Keegan agreed. “I think you’ve the right of that. Illusion or no, we seal it. Destroying it, while satisfying, may rip it open, so we seal it.”

“Without seeing or feeling, how will we know?” Marg asked.

“We cast the circle and begin. We close it off from Talamh.”

Beside Breen, Bollocks growled low, and she felt herself drift.

“Don’t you see it?” She saw it go black, saw the branches coil and begin to slither. “It’s swallowing the light.”

She threw up a hand and, as she swayed, as Keegan caught her, she stood on the other side with the black castle looming.

“So valiant.” Odran laughed. “The key, they say, but not just for them. Your father’s blood closed it. And yours opens it. Blood on your hands.”

He swiped the blade of a knife over her outstretched palm.

She held it up as Keegan steadied her, showed him the blood.

“He’s coming.”

The tree bled. Black streams of blood sizzled down its trunk and carved through to smoke. As the smoke, fetid with sulfur, eked out, Keegan raised his sword.

He turned to the elf beside him. “Go.”

She blurred away while, dazed, Breen stared at her bloody hand.

Marg gripped it, and that sudden fresh shock of pain brought Breen back. “Fight. He won’t take you, he won’t have you, but you have to fight.”

Dark drove out behind the smoke. As the cracks lengthened, claws gripped the edges, pulling them wider. A head pushed through, black eyes rolling, long teeth snapping. Keegan severed it, but more cracks opened, breaking the rough bark like a shattered mirror.