By Vengeance Guided (The Lost Shrines Book 1) (16 page)

She turned to glare at the sickly potion.

"With that, I was prepared to do all three. I was going to slip that--" Lia pointed at the bottle with a sharp, three-fingered jab. "That swill into the drink of a man who's never done anything to harm me or my valley, because of what
might
happen."

The tears started again, and she swiped at them with a hard, uncaring poke.

"But you didn't."

She looked up then, surprise warring with her self-loathing at his simple words.

"Because I failed. The potion failed."

"Maybe." He shrugged and took a slow, careful step forward. "But it doesn't mean you'd have gone through with it if you’d succeeded."

"I would have. I think."

Her lip ached where she pinched it between her teeth. She'd had her doubts from the moment she and Nel had begun researching the potion. Would she have chickened out in the end? Would she have gone through with it?

"You can't know I wouldn't have done it," she insisted, to cover up own uncertainty.

"You're right. I can't. Consider how much you're beating yourself up over what you
might
have done. I think you would have at least given it a second, and a third, thought before going through with it."

Wyn stepped right in front of her again but kept his hands to himself this time. Made sure there was enough space so she could get around if she wanted to escape.

She didn't want to. Instead, Lia leaned forward and rested her head on his chest. Let her arms settle around his waist. Let herself trust, for the moment, that maybe if he believed she would have done the right thing, she could believe it too.

When his strong fingers tilted her face toward his, she met the kiss halfway.

Unfortunately, that sweet, brief kiss was all they dared share. It left Lia aching and lonely when she returned to her empty room.

*****

It was reckless and impulsive for Lia to follow Wyn in the full light of day and she knew it. But when she'd finally shaken the constant shadow Daen had become, all she thought of was picking up the kiss where they'd left off in the herbarium last night.

"What are you doing here?"

Lia stopped abruptly when she heard the angry rumble of Wyn's voice. She didn't think he'd even seen her following him and she was still around the corner of the barn out of his line of sight.

Before she could decide how to answer without sounding needy or pathetic, though, another voice answered him.

"What do you think I'm doing here?"

Daen.

Wyn hadn't been talking to her. He'd been talking to Daen. The way they spoke, it sounded like they knew each other.

Lia shifted back farther from the corner, close enough to eavesdrop, but far enough that her shadow wouldn't spill out and give her away.

"I'm here because I haven't heard a word from you in weeks and my fiancée is in danger. A fact that I had to hear from her brother-in-law."

"Despite what you think, I am not one of your subjects nor am I your personal spy. I came here for a specific purpose. Since I have no answers, there was no reason for me to contact you. Besides, it was an accident. A poacher."

The bark of frustration in his words didn't faze Daen at all.

Lia frowned and shifted quietly closer, confused by the whole conversation. If he was working for Daen, why did he stick with the poacher story when she knew he didn't believe it?

As if reading her thoughts, Daen asked nearly the same question.

"You don't believe that nonsense about a poacher, do you? This valley is filled with secrets and undercurrents and intrigue. I can't believe for a second it wasn't intentional." Daen paused, but, when Wyn said nothing, he slyly added, "Since you are the one who took the arrow for her, it seems like you'd know better than anyone."

"Apparently, I'm not the only spy you have in the valley."

Lia bit down hard on the inside of her lip to keep from gasping. Pain wrenched through her, pulled her heart in two. A spy. Wyn was a spy. She'd hoped, even while she'd eavesdropped, she'd find some other explanation for the bizarre conversation she was hearing.

But there wasn't. It had been a lie. All of it had been a lie. Humiliation and anger and a fierce desire to punish burned white hot. She held it in check with sheer will and the blazing need to find out
why
.

"Gui thinks something funny's going on in the valley and he's concerned about his sister-in-law. Or, perhaps, that Lia might be up to something that has gotten her into trouble. In your time here, you haven't noticed anything strange?"

Fear began to cool the righteous anger. What had Gui shared with Daen? How much of the valley's secret knowledge had been spilled? What, exactly, had Wyn come to find? Had she inadvertently showed it to him when she'd welcomed him within the Circle?

"There is something odd here, but it isn't like any magic or sorcery or witchery I have ever seen. They say they remember the old ways better than most."

"You believe those old wives’ stories?"

"I haven't found a better explanation yet."

Still, Wyn was keeping some of her secrets. Why? What game was he playing, telling one story to Daen and another to her?

"And your lack of knowledge, it has nothing to do with Lia, herself?" Again, Wyn remained silent. "Gui suggested the two of you have become inappropriately close."

"You wanted answers." Wyn's growl now had a knife-edged danger to it. "In a tight-knit, tight-lipped community like this, I had to get close to find the truth."

Fury boiled over inside of her, sparking off a torrent of dark, fierce emotions that washed away any logic or reason. The look of shock and surprise both men wore when she barreled around the corner was mildly satisfying but Lia wanted more. She wanted answers and she wanted blood.

"What truths? What could you possibly need to know that you had to send a spy for, Daen?"

The Prince straightened his shoulders, the faint wrinkles around his eyes tightening. But he wasn't the real target of her pain-filled fury and before he could lie to her, she turned on his cohort.

"And you. You spied on me. You lied to me, Wyn." The barest hint of flinch in his blue eyes made her pause. "That's not even your name, is it? Another lie."

"In a way. My name is Caerwyn. Wyn was a childhood nickname." He rolled a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug but his eyes held hers, a silent plea she steeled herself to ignore. "Not everything was a lie, Lia."

"Maybe not but I notice you still haven't offered a surname. Or even an origin. You're still hiding more than you’re telling me, Wy—
Caerwyn
."

Daen took that moment to step forward and remind them of his all but forgotten presence. His eyes narrowed chillingly while he watched the by-play between the two of them. A blind man couldn't miss the passion and pain that could only be fallout from two lovers.

"Yes, Caerwyn. Why don't you tell her who you really are? Or, better yet, why don't you show her?"

The snarl that burst from Wyn shocked her and she took half a step back, and he turned with violent fury to growl at Daen. "Stay out of this."

"I think she has the right to know what exactly she's been sleeping with."

What. Not who. Wyn's eyes looked torn between haunted dread and furious anger when they flicked from Daen to Lia and back.

How dark were the secrets her lover was keeping? Did she really want to know?

*****

Caerwyn wanted to throttle Daen.

More, he wanted to reach out and sooth Lia. Wanted to reassure her that everything was fine. Wanted to wipe the flickering wariness and hurt and betrayal from her face.

He knew what would happen if he reached for her and he didn't want to see her recoil away from him. His hands flexed, futile and useless, at his side and he kept his sharp, dark focus on Daen, instead.

"I don't think here, now, is the best time or place for this conversation."

The Prince didn't even flinch at his danger-edged voice. He stepped into Caerwyn, daring him with an unspoken challenge.

"You made a promise to me, Caerwyn. I'm just asking you to live up to it."

"I only promised to look into your concerns. I told you that you might not like what I found. That you wouldn't have any say in the outcome."

"What about me? Do I have a say?" Lia pushed between the two men. "Do I get a say in the fact that you lied to me? That you inserted yourself into my life to spy on me? To do what, judge me?"

Caerwyn helplessly glanced at Daen, hoping for help in digging out from under the weight of too accurate observations. But little sanity seemed to be left in the Prince. His eyes were intense. Consumed with an obsession that burned from him like a beacon.

So Caerwyn did the only thing he could. He fell back on the truth.

"He believes you bewitched him. Used sorcery to make him fall in love with you. I'm here to find proof."

The scathing look she cast over him left him raw with regrets. The hurt and suspicion radiating from her was a dark and dismal replacement for the warm welcome he'd had only too briefly from her.

"Do you believe that?" Her mouth pinched white when she asked.

He remembered the dark herbarium. The self-doubt and self-flagellation she'd tortured herself with over something she hadn't even done.

"No. No, I don't believe that." His throat twisted tight, the words scraping out in hoarse rasps. He willed her to trust him as she stared up at him, searching for the truth. Skepticism lined her face, pulling her mouth into a hard, straight line.

"She's got you, too." Daen broke into their quiet moment, harsh, surprised and bitter. "Don't you see she has you under her spell, as well? You have to Judge her. Now. Before it's too late for both of us."

He glared at Daen over the top of Lia's head. "No. I don't have to do anything."

The smile he got in return was full of madness, empty of sense or humanity. Caer braced himself for a fight, whether physical or verbal.

Instead, Daen began to chant.

Icy fear rolled down Caerwyn's spine when he recognized the ancient, familiar sounds. Words the Prince should not, could not, know.

"Daen. Don't do this."

Panic welled and the glittering sparks of his Attribute awakening flashed through him. He looked to Lia, who had stepped away, just out of reach, confused and uncertain when she glanced between the two men.

Then it was too late. Power rippled through the air and twisted its way around him, through him, wrapping him in a prickly inferno.

The alteration of his body and mind was a swift, painful shift. His brain went numb, his body burned and the Attribute wrested control of both.

Caerwyn wanted to moan in misery when the wings burst from his skin, shredding his shirt in their wake, but even that was denied him. The Attribute ruthlessly suppressed everything that was Caerwyn.

When the transformation was complete, Caer longed to look at Lia, to see her reaction, to reassure her. To reassure himself. Instead, Vengeance turned toward the one who'd called it forth.

"What do you seek?"

The traditional words echoed tonelessly around them.

"I seek vengeance." Dark, haunted intensity stared back from Daen's eyes as he spoke with nothing but burning anger.

"For what do you seek vengeance?"

"I seek vengeance for the sorcery used against me. For the tampering of my soul, my mind and my emotions. For the binding of my free will and for the damage it has wrought." For a moment, the lunacy receded, and Daen's voice dropped to a nearly inaudible whisper. "I seek freedom."

Then the prince drew himself up, regal and mad. "I seek vengeance against the one responsible for my pain."

A long finger pointed at Lia and she took an involuntary step back when the prince and Wyn turned toward her.

"Liadan d'Hara, stand and be Judged."

The part that was still Caerwyn couldn't help but approve of the annoyed scowl Lia scorched him with. Even faced with an aspect that had made powerful men tremble, she remained strong and defiant.

The shadows, however, had already begun to wrap themselves around her, twisting in a dark curtain that held her steady, opened her soul to be Judged for the crime.

Relief poured through him like clear spring water when the atlas of her soul unfolded, unmarked by guilt.

The shadows spooled back into him when the Attribute spoke.

"You have been Judged, Liadan d'Hara. Innocent."

Daen squawked in outrage but already the Attribute turned to him, whispers of shadows threading around the prince. "Stand, Prince of Galwei."

Daen's soul did not open for Judgment, but a constellation of influences sparkled in the darkness surrounding him. Vengeance spun out connections and links and Wyn began to understand exactly what had happened.

His Attribute used the shadows like knives, slicing through the star chart it had assembled until satisfied.