Kristie Cook - Devotion

I exhaled a sharp breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding and sat hard on the edge of the bed. "What about the old woman?"

"She tells the same story as Tristan–and now you–but no one will listen to her. Nobody feels she's Amadis. It's strange, actually, as if she's a witch with no allegiance to either side."

"I don't know that she's a witch," I muttered. "She doesn't have a mage's mind signature. Not exactly, anyway."

"Then you see what I mean. She's not quite right … so no one trusts her. She's being held, too."

"Did she say anything about Lilith? Explain her?"

"Like I said, no one trusts her to listen to her, but she won't talk right now anyway. I think she's just an old, confused woman who doesn't really understand what's going on, what she's been put into the middle of. She's grieving, too. They won't let her near the girl."

"And Jax? The were-croc?"

"I think Martin let him go. He didn't witness anything useful, and Rina didn't find anything suspicious in his thoughts. They had no reason to believe he was a part of any conspiracy. He only wanted to help you."

Whew. I liked Jax and would have hated hearing he'd been part of setting us up, which, obviously, we had been. He didn't deserve to be dragged into this farce.

Convinced I had enough grasp of the situation, I stood up and pulled on my leather gear, which lay clean and folded neatly at the foot of my bed, the only clothes in sight.

"What are you doing?" Mom asked.

"Going to see Tristan, of course, and getting him out of there. He doesn't belong in jail. If anything, Julia does."

Mom's eyes flew to the door and back to me. "You'll see him soon. His trial's this afternoon."

"What? Already? Then I definitely need to see him first." I moved for the front room of the suite.

Mom shook her head and looked again at the door. Her eyes tightened, and I could tell she tried to communicate with me. I opened my mind to her. "They're guarding us."

Then I'll flash. Where is he?

A vision of the corridor under the Council Hall popped into her mind. "Third on the right. But wait."

"You need to rest, honey, before the trial," she said aloud as she leaned over and appeared to pick something up off the floor. Her thumb moved and my dagger appeared in her hand. I tucked it into my belt and made it invisible again, thought thank you and flashed.

Someone apparently had shielded the Council Hall because I didn't appear inside the dark cellar as expected. Instead, I showed up right outside the door at the top of the stairs, at the rear of the building. A guard–a Were in human form–blocked the doorway. He didn't bow.

"No visitors," he said curtly as I stepped toward the door.

"Do you forget my authority?" I demanded as haughtily as I could muster.

"Until I have further orders, you have no authority. Sorry, Ms. Alexis, but I can't let you down."

I flexed my left hand, preparing to show him I did have authority, but then Mom popped by my side, and we both looked at her with surprise.

She shrugged. "Thought I could help out."

The guard and I both smiled, each of us under a different impression of whom she planned to help. Mom placed her hand on the guard's arm while talking to him in hushed tones. She nodded her head slowly a few times, and he started nodding his, too.

"Yes, Ms. Sophia, a nap's a good idea," he said. "I didn't get any sleep last night."

He slid down the wall until he landed on his rump. His eyes began to droop close. Mom jerked her head at the door.

"More will be here soon for the trial," she thought. "Make it quick."

I rushed through the door and hurdled the entire flight of steps, landing at the bottom with a jolt. I ran to the third cell on the right, surprised to see the heavy wooden door wide open. But metal bars still kept me out. Tristan stood on the other side, his hands pressing at the space between the bars, but unable to go through it. Something blocked him from reaching out. I leaned against the bars and pushed my own arms through the openings–nothing stopped me from going in.

"Tristan," I half-breathed, half-cried as I caressed his beautiful, but tired looking face.

"Ma lykita," he said, his voice full of relief. "You're okay."

"We have to get you out of here."

He shook his head. "Magic blocks me from even passing my hands through, so I can't use my powers. But it's fine. We'll deal with this their way."

"But their way is wrong. They're all screwed up. You know what will happen."

"I do." His jaw tightened, making the muscle jump. "But there's a reason for it all, my love. Whatever happens, it's meant to be."

"Not if they're doing it on their own or … with the wrong influence."

"There's nothing we can do, Lex. We have to trust them. In the end, they'll do what's right."

Trust them? Ha! "You mean trust them to split us up? Because you know that's what they'll do. They want to get rid of you. This is all the traitor's doing, Tristan. There's nothing right about it."

"Lexi," he said, his voice lower yet still firm. He took my hands in his and pulled them to his soft lips. "Lexi, my love, none of it matters. We have to remain loyal. We have to do what's best for the Amadis. This is the best–"

"What? Separating us is not what's best. It's the absolute worst! I can't do that again, Tristan."

He pursed his lips together. "You have to, Lex. It's your responsibility and if you do it–and you are strong enough–you can bring the Amadis back together. You have to live your duty and your purpose. Even without me." He paused for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice came out bleaker than I'd ever heard it before. "What we have …" He stopped again and swallowed hard. "What we have, Alexis … it's not real."

My eyes bugged with incredulity. Had the crazies overtaken him, too? "What the hell are you talking about? How can you say that?"

"Listen to me," he said. His eyes looked deeply into mine, his dark with no gold flecks, the green a murky swirl of pain and turmoil. "I need to tell you something. As soon as Lisa mentioned the stone, I remembered it all. I said I didn't because I didn't want to believe what it meant, and your knowing would only make things worse. I thought …" He shook his head. "It doesn't matter what I thought. What I wanted. It's obviously true."

"What?" His defeated tone frightened me. How bad could it be?

"The stone, Lex, in the pendant. You and me–it only happened because of it. It's always been the stone. It had been given to me as a young child." His vision of a beautiful, golden-haired and golden-eyed woman showed in my mind, standing before us. From the perspective, I guessed Tristan to be very small. The golden woman held the triangular stone in her hand and pressed it against his chest, until it sank below his skin and disappeared. "She told me I would know when the right one came–my true love–the stone would tell me. I was to remove the stone and give it to this person, my soul mate. Only her, the woman stressed. Anyone else would be dangerous, perhaps fatal. But my soul mate would love me forever. For hundreds of years, the right one never came along. Not until I met you. Only then did the stone warm, whenever I was with you."

I saw the vision of him taking a scalpel to the skin over his heart, reaching in and removing the stone, then creating the pendant for me.

"Ooo-kaaay," I said, trying not to be creeped-out with where the stone came from. "You gave it to me. I am your soul mate. I do love you forever."

He shook his head. "Only because of the stone."

I couldn't help it. I laughed. After all, he had to have been kidding. This had to be a joke. But what awful timing for such a joke, and looking at his face, I knew he was completely serious. My jaw dropped, and I sobered. "Have you lost your mind? My love has nothing to do with a stupid stone."