The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (63 page)

She did not hesitate now. Maelys threw her arms around him
and pressed her cheek against his bare chest, and he felt so right,
so safe
, that for a few seconds the
Numinator went completely out of her mind.

‘You’re shivering,’ said Emberr. ‘Are you cold, my love?’

‘I’m not cold … but I am hungry.’

‘Come inside.’

Taking her by the hand, he led her up the steps and closed
the door behind her. He took her through a small entrance hall into a room with
thick rugs on the floor and a fire flickering in a grate. The Nightland flames
gave forth little heat, but they were very cheery.

‘There
is
something the matter, though, isn’t there, Maelys?’

It came flooding back and she had to tell him, had to reveal
that she’d betrayed his trust, no matter what happened once she had. ‘The
Numinator,’ she gasped. ‘It’s my fault, Emberr. She forced me to tell; she used
some spell. I couldn’t resist it.’

‘Then how can you be blamed?’

‘But I’ve betrayed you to your mother’s enemy. She’s coming
to kill you.’

‘I don’t think so, Maelys.’

Why wouldn’t he listen? ‘Emberr, please.’

‘She cannot harm me here. I’m well protected.’

‘Are you sure? I’m really afraid …’

‘I’m very sure. My cottage cannot be found unless I will it;
it was made that way. You’re perfectly safe.’

Maelys felt it too – the moment the door had closed
behind her, the threat of the Numinator had faded away. She sat on a cushion
and watched him go back and forth, preparing titbits for her. He handed her the
platter and sat opposite, watching her while she ate. Maelys had no idea what
she was eating, and after taking several morsels she laid the platter aside and
went to his arms again, letting out a little sigh.

‘I feel all hot and inflamed inside.’ She’d never felt this
way before. ‘And ever since I came through the portal, my skin has been
tingling so much that I can hardly bear the way my clothes rub against me.’

‘Then you must take your clothes off, Maelys.’

She did not hesitate, though she did feel rather shy at
revealing herself. When they were piled on a chair he looked her up and down,
at the white chthonic flames still shimmering faintly all over her, and gave
her an enigmatic smile. ‘You truly are the woman who will free me. Come.’

And she went to him.

Maelys lay in a daze afterwards, then drifted into a
blissful sleep, cradled in his arms. She had never felt so warm, so safe, so
fulfilled.

She woke slowly, not knowing whether mere minutes had
passed, or hours, but with a feeling that something wasn’t right. She felt
chilly, and alone again, though Emberr was still with her, sound asleep. The
fire in the grate had gone out and the room was cold. She disengaged herself,
careful not to wake him, stood up, and the back of her neck prickled. The
Numinator was out there somewhere – how could she have been so bewitched
as to put
her
out of mind just
because Emberr said they were safe? How could he be sure his cottage was hidden
from her? He’d never met her; never left the Nightland, while her mighty Arts
had once controlled a whole world.

Maelys looked down at him lovingly. His skin was so fine and
pale, and the lines of chthonic fire that had been flickering on her skin now
moved in ghostly patterns all over him. He seemed so contented and peaceful
that she couldn’t bear to wake him, but he was in terrible danger. She went to
the front door, eased it open and looked out. And jumped.

The Numinator was not far from the gate, standing with her
head cocked to one side, staring at the cottage, though Maelys did not think
she could see it. The stiletto was still in her hand and yellow fumes were
writhing up from its hilt. Heart crashing in her chest, Maelys tried to ease
the door closed, but at the movement the Numinator’s head shot around and she
saw her; saw everything. By opening the door, Maelys must have broken Emberr’s
enchantment and revealed his cottage.

She leapt backwards, slammed the door and tried to lock it,
but there was no lock or bolt. She ran to Emberr, shook him and hissed into his
ear, ‘Quick! The Numinator is here; she knows where you live. I’m sorry; I’m
sorry!’

Maelys ran back, clothes in hand, and put her back against
the door. She was trying to scramble into her pants when a blow on the front
door forced it open and sent her skidding across the floor.

The Numinator stepped in, and there was a peculiar light in
her eyes, an inner glow that Maelys could not quite reconcile with the
satisfaction of imminent revenge. She got up, gathered her fallen garments and
backed down the hall to where she and Emberr had lain together. The Numinator
followed her in. She glanced at Maelys, then at Emberr who lay naked on the
rugs with his back to her, dimly illuminated by the white fire on his skin. The
Numinator took a deep, shuddering breath; the stiletto hung loosely from her
hand as if forgotten. What was going on?

Maelys dressed hastily, her face flaming. The Numinator
walked around Emberr, studying him in a way that made Maelys smoulder. How dare
she look at
her
man so! The Numinator
crouched to look at his face, then gasped and rocked back on her heels, the
stiletto rolling across the floor towards the fireplace. Maelys watched it all
the way, wondering if she could dive on it before the Numinator realised what
she was doing. She was too far away, but if she edged along the wall a bit …

‘So like!’ the Numinator whispered. ‘He is so very, very
like.’ She stood up and her stern face was ablaze with an incandescent joy that
stripped decades off her and revealed a trace of the stern beauty she had been
long ago.

‘Like who?’ said Maelys, not understanding.

‘Rulke, of course.
My
Rulke; my precious, only love, who died in my arms. He was bigger, of course,
and darker, but in other respects – oh, Rulke, Rulke!’ A tear winked in
her left eye but the Numinator dashed it away. ‘He’s gone forever, but now, out
of two hundred and twenty years of failure I see a new and better way –
the perfect way
. And Emberr has been
here all this time, preserved in youth by the Nightland, never ageing, waiting
for me to come. If only I had known of him before.’

Chills radiated out from the centre of Maelys’s back. This
didn’t make sense, but whatever the Numinator had in mind for Emberr, it wasn’t
good; Maelys could feel the little hairs on her arms and legs standing on end.
‘He was waiting for his mother to return, but she could not. Why not, if she
was so powerful that she could create this place, and maintain it for all this
time?’

‘I know who his mother was,’ said the Numinator through her
teeth. ‘I can see her in his face. It can only be Yalkara!’

‘Yalkara?’ said Maelys. ‘The Charon from the Histories?’

‘The same. She pretended to treat me kindly after Rulke was
killed, but I now know that she was my enemy – she stole Rulke’s body and
took it back to the void! Yalkara, who claimed all down a thousand ages that
she hated Rulke, and that their clans had been enemies since time began. And
now,’ she said savagely, ‘I learn that she mated with him while he was in the
Nightland.
Mated with my Rulke
, and
created this beautiful child here.’

Rage shook her; she slammed her clenched fists against her
sides, and for a second her eyes rolled madly, but the age-old self-control
reasserted itself and she went on, ‘But she failed, and now Emberr is mine
– to fulfil my long-held purpose, and revenge myself on her at the same
time.’

What could she mean? Maelys couldn’t think; couldn’t work it
out. All she knew was that Emberr was in danger, and she could not allow it.

‘Oh, life is sweet!’ said the Numinator. ‘Life is very
sweet. Together he and I are going to create a new species of humanity –
one with all the strengths and none of the weaknesses of Charon, Faellem,
Aachim or old humans.’

Was she mad? It certainly sounded insane. ‘Rulke is dead,
Numinator.’

‘But I have his son.’

The Numinator thrust Maelys out of the way, and again she
felt that she was utterly insignificant, even worthless. Only then did the
obvious strike her – the Numinator wasn’t planning to kill Emberr at all,
but to
mate
with him to fulfil her
age-old plan, whatever it was. But if the Numinator had been Rulke’s lover too,
she had to be hundreds of years old, since he had been dead for two hundred and
twenty years. This was sick; disgusting; depraved. Maelys wanted to claw her
face to shreds, but the Numinator had the poisoned stiletto. Maelys had to be
careful, wait for an opportunity, then strike ruthlessly.

The Numinator went to her knees again, reached out to Emberr
and gently stroked the hair off his brow. ‘So like,’ she repeated, ‘though
softer; gentler. Rulke had a hard life and he had to be as adamant to survive.’
She touched his cheek with her fingertips. ‘You’re cold, Emberr, so very, very
cold.’

She flicked her fingers at the fire and it sprang to life,
then took Emberr’s right hand in hers, rubbing it, but after a few seconds went
so still that she seemed turned to stone. Worms crawled up Maelys’s backbone.
What was the matter?

A shudder racked the Numinator; she felt Emberr’s throat;
pushed up one eyelid with a finger; laid her ear against his bare chest, on
which the last trails of chthonic fire were slowly winking out, like a life.

‘No!’ Maelys whispered. ‘Emberr?’

What could the matter be? She went slowly towards him. Her
muscles had gone stiff; she could barely force them to move, and it felt as
though every hair on her head was standing up, writhing in horror for what had
happened here.

‘Dead!’ the Numinator shrieked, letting his head fall with a
thump.

Maelys wanted to strike her down for treating him so rudely.
He couldn’t be dead, he was just deeply asleep. She tried to push the Numinator
out of the way and was slapped across the face so hard that it knocked her
sideways.

Maelys snapped; she threw herself at the Numinator, clawing
at her face. She had to get to Emberr. He couldn’t be dead; he was just cold
from lying on the floor, and if she could only hold him in her arms the way
he’d held her, she knew she could make him better again.

The Numinator thrust her back against the wall, holding her
away with the Art. ‘You murdering little bitch!’ she said, biting off every
word and spitting it in Maelys’s face. ‘You did this deliberately, just to
thwart me.’

‘I love him,’ Maelys whispered. ‘You came here to kill him,
and now you blame
me
?’

‘Kill him!’ cried the Numinator. ‘I came to test him.’

That didn’t make sense either. ‘W-what for?’

‘Fertility, of course. I didn’t know who he was, but since
he’d been in the Nightland all this time, there was a faint possibility he was
Rulke’s … though I never dreamt it could have been with another Charon –
with
her
!’

‘Why not?’ Maelys said dazedly.

‘Rulke and Yalkara hated each other. And on Aachan, most
Charon had proven tragically sterile. They were becoming extinct. But I
thought, just maybe, here …’

She picked up the stiletto, squeezed a yellow drop of what
Maelys had thought to be poison onto a small white disc, and bent over Emberr’s
middle. Shortly she rose, holding the disc carefully. The yellow drop went
white, then colourless, then in an instant changed to a brilliant carmine.
Again that racking shudder from the Numinator, and the quivering indrawn
breath.

‘Fertile – massively so.’ A tear formed in the corner
of her eye. ‘And you robbed me. You killed him.’ She stood up straight, forced
the emotion down and became the icily controlled Numinator once more.

Maelys pushed past her and went to Emberr. He was really
cold now and his open eyes were glassy. She put her head on his bare chest and
felt nothing: no rise and fall, no heartbeat. He was dead. She slumped to the
floor, dazed, numb, lost.

She couldn’t take it in, much less that the Numinator should
believe she’d murdered him. She crouched over his body. How could it be? He’d
been awake after they’d finished making love. He’d held her in his arms,
rocking her tenderly to sleep. He’d spoken to her, though she’d been so drowsy
she couldn’t remember what he’d said.

The Numinator sprang at her, the stiletto upraised and her
wrist wreathed in yellow fumes. Maelys saw her coming but couldn’t focus;
couldn’t react; too late she tried to swerve out of the way but the stiletto
caught her in the fleshy part of the left shoulder. It was so sharp that she
barely felt it pierce her until the yellow fluid began to burn, spreading in a
red-hot line down her arm. Sweat burst out on her forehead and the soles of her
feet; she slipped and fell down.

The Numinator stood over her, her face a frozen mask, then
bent and raised the knife again, as if to stab Maelys in the neck. She tried to
scramble out of the way but her sweaty palms kept slipping on the floor.

At the moment the shining, hollow point of the ice stiletto
was about to tear through her throat, the Numinator twitched it aside and bent
over Emberr again, studying his naked body in a calculating way.

‘What if a child should come of their union?’ she mused,
even more controlled. Pushing Maelys against the wall, the Numinator felt her
belly. ‘It’s the right time of the month, I see, and it is clear that she was a
virgin, so there can be no doubt any child would be his. Ahh, but the potion is
inimical to new life!’

She sprang at Maelys, threw her onto her back, squatted over
her and thrust the point of the stiletto into her shoulder wound. Maelys
screamed; she couldn’t help it this time.

The Numinator put her lips to the hilt of the ice stiletto
and began to suck and spit the yellow, fuming potion onto the floor, where it
fizzed like water on a hotplate. Maelys’s bright red blood began to ooze,
thread-like, up through the hollow stiletto into its hilt, followed by blood
that was a murky yellow-brown. When the oozing blood turned red again the
Numinator wrenched the stiletto out of the wound and stabbed it into Maelys’s
inner arm, near the elbow.