Poison (25 page)

Pain tore through Ailill's body. "No. You can't mean that. He can't—they can't— No!" he screamed. "Vanya isn't dead!"

"I'm sorry," Etain repeated.

Ailill started to say more, but he was drowned out by the scream of agony that tore out of Gael. "No!" Gael bellowed. "I will find him. He's out there somewhere, and I'm not going to rest until I find him or see his body for myself. I always find his body! The nightmares wouldn't lie! He isn't dead! I will swim if I must!" He charged toward the edge, and snarling when Freddie tried to stop him. "Let me go!"

"Stop, Gael," Freddie said, voice trembling with tears. "He's gone. You did your best!"

"No!" Gael screamed, and the sound tore Ailill apart because he felt every fiber of Gael's agony, his heartbreak.

Ivan was dead. Ailill hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye—mercy of the Oak, he was the one who was supposed to be close to death. Nowhere did it say that Ivan would die. "Vanya," he said quietly, closing his eyes and covering his ears to try to block out the awful sounds of Gael's mindless, raging grief.

He jerked at the sound of flesh striking flesh and stared numbly at the blood pouring from Freddie's nose. "Let me go!" Gael snarled.

Freddie just looked at him before she burst forward and punched Gael, then struck him over the back of the head and caught him before he hit the ground. "When is it going to be enough?" she asked, tears falling to join the blood on her face. It dripped down, smearing along her throat, covering her clothes, and dripping onto Gael. Against all the white, the blood was horrifically bright and sharp.

Ailill couldn't stand it. He stood, unable to move, and watched as Freddie carried Gael back into the palace, Etain at her side. The others scattered like startled mice, leaving Ailill alone on the bridge.

He sank to his knees, then sat down completely and buried his face in his hands.

Vanya was dead. Ailill was never going to see him again. But why had Ivan gone out? That was the part that troubled him the most. Ivan always told him, and not because they were lovers. He always told Ailill where he was going because he was smart, careful. He had not spent most of his life as the head of a band of mercenaries because he was an idiot. Ivan and his men were good because they were a solid team; they always knew where to find each other and what they all were up to. They kept track so they would know sooner that something was wrong.

It wasn't like Ivan simply to vanish. The only other time he had was when the city first started succumbing to rage. He'd had good reason, then. But why now? What had happened? How had he and Noire both …

Noire. A fresh wave of grief drowned Ailill. An old friend regained, a young man with so much life left to live, someone strong enough to be the Unicorn's lover—and so happy.

Gone.

What was the point of it all when, at the end of the ceremony, there would still be so many dead? Even if it worked and the gods were restored and the Beasts saved, thousands of others would never return. It would take years to rebuild the city and the palace. It would take lifetimes to regain the trust of the people.

A century, to erase everything and set it on the proper path once more.

The words were soft in his head, but cold, like an enemy leaning close from behind to whisper threats in his ear. Ailill began to shake, not liking the voice, the words, or what they seemed to indicate.

Where had they come from?

His head began to throb, first at the temples, then moving to encompass the whole.

What have you done?

It's your fault.

You killed them.

No, you killed them!

Ailill felt scared, cold. He shoved the unwelcome thoughts—memories, he suspected—away and slowly stood up. He could not deal with it, with anything. It all seemed pointless when Vanya was gone. Ailill tried to think, tried to distract himself, but it was impossible. They hadn't made plans yet, but Ailill had stupidly hoped that maybe Ivan would stay with him a while longer. Help to get Verde back on its feet, and they could return to Pozhar ...

Oh, Sacred Oak. Ailill buried his face in his hands again when he realized he would have to tell Ivan's men. They deserved to know, to be told directly by him—not to have to go in search of him and learn the hard way.

Feeling more wretched than ever, Ailill dragged himself to his feet, but he could not quite turn away. He stared out over the moat at the city beyond. It seemed an unworthy death for Ivan, slain by beasts lost to a mindless rage. All the fights Ivan had won, all the jobs and adventures he'd survived, it didn't seem fair that he died far from home and because of a battle that had never been his to fight.

Ailill knew, on some level, that it wasn't his fault. But he also knew knowing that was not enough to convince himself. Ivan had come to see him, had stayed for him ... and Ivan was dead.

Finally tearing away before he did something stupid, Ailill trekked back into the palace and up to his room. He almost couldn't bear to go inside it, especially when he saw Ivan's leather armor still lying on the table waiting to be cleaned. His clothes were piled haphazardly around the bedroom because they never seemed capable of putting it all neatly away.

Ivan's scent, the smell of sex, lingered in the sheets. It was far too much for Ailill to take. He went back out into the sitting room and dropped down onto the couch and stared up blindly at the ceiling as he started to cry.

What was he supposed to do without Ivan? He'd always prided himself on his independence, that he could manage quite happily on his own. But the thought of spending the rest of his life—whether it lasted mere days or many decades—suddenly seemed unbearable. He didn't want to live without Ivan.

"I won't live without you. You're mine! If I can't have you, no one will!"

"Don't do this!"

"I'm doing what's best for you—what's best for us. We are the Triad, we're meant always to be together. You've just forgotten. You've been distracted by those harlots. But I'll fix it. I'll take it all away and help you remember the way it should be. When you come back, you'll come back to me. You'll stay with me. Everything will be perfect again."

"Holy Queen, don't!

Ailill gasped and jerked, crying out in pain as he saw it all. The memories rushed through him like water through cracked glass, slowly at first, but then the glass shattered and threatened to drown him in memories.

The world had not yet fallen apart, then. Alarming rumbles had resonated from Piedre, but nothing ominous. The skies were cloudy, but not black the way they would turn shortly.

He'd been the first to enter the Sanctuary, there to attend as an honor guard while the Faerie Queen and Guardians poured life into the Sacred Oak, poured it into the world.

He had walked in to a nightmare—just in time to see the Faerie Queen kill the Unicorn and Pegasus. The blood went everywhere and her screams of rage, the madness in her eyes, were carved into his mind.

"Holy Queen, don't!" he begged.

She turned on him, the knife she'd used caked in blood and gore, white dress soaked crimson. Still more bathed her arms, splashed her face and throat. He stood there, too horrified to move—and then it was too late, as she took his mind and bent him to her will.

He had thought he was going to die, and he did eventually, but right then she only kept him from moving and laid him down a few paces from the tree. As the rest of his fellow Beasts appeared, one by one, save for the Hawk and the Owl who arrived together, she did to them what she'd done to him.

He felt it when she delved back into him, took his power, his life energy, and used it to seal everything within the Sacred Oak. She bound them to it to make her control of them so absolute it would carry through all their reincarnations. She started with the weakest and worked her way around to the strongest, using their power to lock away all knowledge of her evil deeds. And as the spell slowly did its work, he felt his life leech away.

Tears pricked his eyes, trailed down the sides of his face, but though he tried, he could not move.

Then he heard it—the softest groan. Heard the Faerie Queen gasp, saw the Unicorn rise. He would not live much longer, but he lived long enough.

By the time the Faerie Queen reached the Unicorn, it was too late to undo the way he had stolen her spell and managed to change it just enough, binding the souls of the Beasts to the Sacred Oak as the keys.

Instead of stealing their power, their memories, and destroying them, she would need them if she ever hoped again to access the power of the Oak.

And as she knelt to drive her knife into his stomach one last time, the Pegasus grabbed her from behind and shoved a dagger into her side. All three died there, a tangled, bloody heap in the Sanctuary. As the Faerie Queen's spell finished and closed, he succumbed and was the very last Beast to die.

Ailill wanted to throw up. The Faerie Queen was behind it all. Ivan had tried to tell him and—

He screamed as pain tore through his mind like claws raking his skin.  When it finally stopped, he was curled up on the floor in a ball, gasping desperately for breath. Distantly he heard the door open, heard the soft swish of skirts.

Knew it was all over. Etain knelt beside him and reached out to tenderly stroke his hair back from his face. She smiled at him, sweet and gentle. Her eyes whirled with a hundred colors and a mixture of love and hate. "Time and again, I try to put everything back the way it should be. Always, always, you horrid Beasts start getting your memories back too soon, and I am forced to react, forced to spend too much time and energy keeping everything contained. You're always the most stubborn, my White Panther. The weakest in power, but the strongest in will, which is why you always break the last and so close to the ceremony."

She stroked his cheek, and if he did not know better, he would have thought the gesture loving. Instead, it just made his skin crawl. He felt sick thinking of all the times he had thought her kind and nurturing. All the words and touches he'd lapped up, mistaking poison for honey.

"You're evil," he whispered.

Etain's nails bit into his skin. "I'm betrayed. But this time—this time I'll do it right, and they'll love me again, and the rest of you will stay dead forever."

Ailill tried to speak again, but found he couldn't. All he could do was lie there and endure her touch, the sickly sweet smell ...

Smell. Memories old and new shuffled in his mind, and he realized abruptly the poison had been in her flowers the whole time. No doubt tailored to each Beast, and the remains of it faded off shortly after. The two times he'd reacted badly, it had been because he'd entered the bedrooms of the victims very shortly after they'd fallen. The poison had lingered.

It had been right there the whole time and he'd missed it—been forced to miss it because the Faerie Queen had controlled all of them so delicately they'd never noticed their minds were not wholly their own. But it must exhaust her to manipulate the entire country on top of everything else she did. No wonder she'd been so weak of late.

"Your thoughts are spinning in that foolish head of yours," Etain said and pulled him up to lie in his lap. "You should relax; so much distress is not good for you, especially on top of your grief. Shall I tell you a story?"

Why wouldn't she just put him out already? What was the point of drawing it out?

"The point is that you, all of you, have made me suffer for nine hundred years. I think it is not too much to ask that you suffer a bit yourself." She stroked her fingers over his brow and down his cheek, like a parent soothing a sick child. "Once upon a time there were two men. One was a stupid, filthy half-breed from the mountains. The other was an arrogant fire child. They thought themselves noble, and oh so clever. But one day, while waiting for their equally worthless lovers, they heard a poor woman scream for help."

Ailill tensed at her words, wanted to scream at her, hit her. He tried to call out for help, reach the minds of Freddie or Gael, but felt her bat his attempts away as though they were nothing.

"The foolish men went to help the woman and eventually found themselves far from home with no way back. They soon found themselves surrounded by more beasts than they could fight. Though they tried to fight, to live, they were soon vanquished and died as miserable and alone as they deserved."

"Evil," Ailill bit out.

Etain laughed, the sound so sweet on the surface, but rife with menace beneath. "It took me a long time to develop the poison I use to put you Beasts under so that I can spare my energies for other things. Go to sleep, White Panther. Join your worthless fire child in eternal oblivion."

She wafted something beneath his nose, sticky sweet and rotten all at once.

After that, Ailill knew no more.

Gael could not feel. Refused to feel. It hurt too much. Memories of Noire played over and over in his mind—not just from one lifetime, but all of them; glimpses and flashes of the man he loved in every life. Nine times Gael had failed to protect his lover. Nine times he had failed to protect his people.

Tears began to fall down his cheeks as the agony finally sank in and twisted. He turned in bed and buried his face in his pillow, still able to smell Noire in the linen. So close, so very close. Less than three days remained; he had dared to hope they might actually make it.

He should have known. Hope was a useless thing. Verde had been hoping for nine hundred years. When every other country had seemed resigned to the Loss, or desperate to make it permanent, Verde had hoped and tried to regain the gods they'd Lost. Verde had never stopped hoping.

And all that hope had brought them what, exactly? A ruined city, a ruined country. He could barely feel his children anymore, and those he did feel only fed him fear and pain and a black despair that only brought more tears.