P.C. Cast - Burned

Stark shook himself mentally. This wasn’t just about love. He’d known it when Seoras had first confronted him, asking whether he’d risk his life for Zoey, even if he lost her. “I stay with her,” Stark had told him. “Aye, laddie, as her Warrior fer sure, but perhaps not as her love.”

Perhaps not as her love.

Stark looked at Zoey and really saw her. She was completely broken. Her tattoos were gone. Her spirit was shredded. She was losing herself. Yet still he saw the goodness and strength within her, and Stark was drawn to her. She wasn’t what she’d been before—she wasn’t what she could be—but even shattered, she was his Ace, his bann ri shi’, his queen.

. . . Know there is no going back, for this is the law and lot o’ the Guardian pure, nae grudge, malice, prejudice, or vengeance, only yer unflinching faith in honor can be yer reward, nae guarantee of love, happiness, or gain.

Stark was Zoey’s Guardian, no matter what. He was bound to her by something stronger than love: honor.

“Zoey, you have to come back. Not because of you and Heath, and not even because of you and me. You gotta come back because it’s the right thing, the honorable thing to do.”

“I can’t. There’s not enough of me left.”

“There is now that you’ve got help. Your Guardian’s here.” Stark lifted her hand to his lips, kissed it, and then smiled down at her as he remembered. “Aphrodite made me memorize a poem for you. It’s one of Kramisha’s. She and Stevie Rae think it’s like some kind of map you might be able to follow to get yourself whole again.”

“Aphrodite . . . Kramisha . . . Stevie Rae . . .” Zoey whispered hesitantly, as if relearning the words. “They’re my friends.”

“Yeah, that’s what they are,” Stark squeezed her hand again. Since he seemed to be getting through to her, he kept going. “So, check out the poem. Here goes:

When he’d finished reciting the poem, Zoey stopped moving long enough to meet his gaze, and say, “It doesn’t mean anything.”

She started walking again, but she had a tight hold on his hand, keeping him with her.

“Yeah, it does. It’s about you and Kalona. He has something to do with you getting free of here.” Stark paused, and then added, “You remember you two are linked together, right?”

“Not anymore we’re not,” she said quickly. “He broke that link when he broke Heath’s neck.”

I sure as hell hope so, Stark thought, but what he said was, “Yeah, still, part of it’s already come true. You followed what you thought was the truth about him to find him on water. So the next line says: Purify me through fire. What do you think that could mean?”

“I don’t know!” Zoey shouted at him. Even though she was obviously getting pissed, Stark was glad to see the animation in her face that had been so blank and dead-looking. “Kalona isn’t here. Fire isn’t here. I don’t know!”

Stark kept a tight hold on her hand and let her settle down before he told her, “Kalona is here. He’s come after you. He just can’t get into the grove.” Then, without rational thought, he spoke the next words as if they came from his heart and not his mind. “And fire got me here. Or at least it felt like fire.”

Zoey glanced at him, and in a very matter-of-fact voice, changed the course of his life by saying, “Then it sounds like that poem’s for Kalona and you, not Kalona and me.”

Her words settled over Stark like a mesh of steel. “What do you mean, Kalona and me?”

“You went with me to Venice, and you knew the real truth of how much of a monster Kalona is before I did. Fire brought you here. The rest probably means something to you if you think about it enough.”

“A double-edged sword . . .” Stark spoke the words softly. The claymore was double-edged. And he’d destroyed as well as released with it. He did know the truth about Kalona being dangerous when he followed him with Zoey to Venice . . . the fire of pain from Seoras’s cuts had brought him to here, a place that reminded him of earth, even though it was in the Otherworld. And Zoey was trapped here, needing to be released. And now he had to follow what his spirit knew about honor to bring this whole thing to an end. “Oh, shit!” He looked at Zoey, ever-moving beside him, and the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “You’re right. The poem is for me.”

“Good, then it shows you how to be free,” Zoey said.

“No, Z. It shows me how to make both of us free,” he said. “Kalona and me.”

Her troubled, restless eyes lit on his face before looking hastily away. “Free Kalona? I don’t understand.”

“I do,” he said grimly, remembering the killing blow that had freed the Other. “There are a lot of different ways to be free.” He tugged on her hand, making her slow down and look at him. “And I do believe in you, Zoey. Even shattered, you still hold my Oath. I will protect you, and as long as I remember honor and don’t ever let you down again, I think anything is possible. That’s what being your Guardian’s all about: honor.”

He lifted her hand and kissed it again before he began walking. He didn’t let her circular pacing control him. This time Stark led her in a straight line directly for the edge of the grove.

“No. No. We can’t go over there,” Zoey said,

“Over there is where we have to go, Z. It’ll be okay. I trust you.” Stark kept walking toward the widening bright spots between the green that marked the grove’s edge.

“Trust me? No. It doesn’t have anything to do with trust. Stark, we can’t leave this place. Ever. There are bad things out there. He’s out there.” Zoey was pulling at his hand hard, trying to get him to change direction.

“Zoey, I’m gonna say some things to you really fast, and I know your concentration is messed up right now, but you gotta hear me.” Stark was almost dragging Zoey with him, but he kept relentlessly moving them ahead, to the boundary of the grove. “I’m not just your Warrior anymore. I’m your Guardian. And that means a major change for me and for you. The biggest change is that I’m bound to you by honor even more than I am by love. I’m not ever gonna let you down again. I can’t tell you what your change is gonna be.” The end of the grove shimmered in front of them. Stark stopped and, following a gut impulse, he dropped to one knee in front of his shattered queen. “But I do believe one hundred percent that you’re gonna be up to it. Zoey, you’re my Ace, mo bann ri, my queen, and you have to pull yourself together, or none of us are getting out of here.”

“Stark, you’re scaring me.”

He got to his feet. Stark kissed both of her hands, and then her forehead before saying, “Well, Z, stay tuned, ’cause I’ve only just started.” He gave her his old, cocky grin. “No matter what happens, at least I made it here. If we get back, we’ll be able to tell the sticks-up-their-asses Vampyre High Council ‘told ya so!’ ” Then he parted the leaves of two rowan trees and stepped over the rocky boundary of the grove.

Zoey stayed within the grove but held the branches open so she could stare out at Stark as she rocked back and forth, causing the leaves to rustle like a murmuring audience.