The Lebrus Stone (48 page)

I took a smaller step, but slipped and fell, sloshing through a muddy ridge. No matter where I placed my hands or how I tried to stand, I slipped, sometimes on my front, but mostly on my back and sides.

I managed to crawl toward dry dirt, lifting myself onto a large rock. There I could scan the woods. Yet the area was too dark. I couldn't even make out my grimy hands.

I needed to find Savril and my parents. I shouldn't have left my spot to get to Cray. He had given up too easily, choosing to stay loyal to a woman he thought was his mother and could actually be helped.

I tried not to have a panic attack, supped the air like it was a glass of cold water from the lake that could cool my insides and my head, take away all the thoughts of being isolated and stuck.

I stood and fumbled around. There was nothing but rough bark and crisp leaves between my palms as I slipped along what must have been a trail close to the river bank. I gripped hold of every branch that sprung out in my face to secure myself, sensing my most familiar presence. The sound of a twig snapping came from behind me.

Keeping my stance, I kept on moving in the opposite direction. It might not have been Cray. I couldn't risk being caught. A rustling of leaves from my left froze me in place. It seemed too close. I tried not to make any sounds, not even with my breaths. If I stood very still, whoever it was wouldn't be able to trace me. I could move when it felt right.

Someone called my name ever so faintly. It sounded like Savril. When I heard it again, I spun around.

I was about to take a step in the direction of the voice, but was pulled back; an arm wound round my waist. My mouth and nose were covered with a hand, blocking all airway.

My feet were dragged across the muddy ground as I struggled to remove the hands from my face. I couldn't shake the grip; it was too strenuous, hurting every muscle in me to fight. Even kicking them in the shins did nothing.

I was thrown onto the river bank on my stomach. My attacker was visible under the reappearing moonlight. I gasped. Kellice grabbed me by the hair and spat, "Think you're something, do you? You think you're better than me?"

She dragged me from the ground. I tried to loosen her hold.

"You're nothing," she shrieked. "Your death will mean nothing to anyone."

She pushed me into a tree. I turned to take a swing at her, and clipped her across the head, leaving a gash that trickled with blood. I tried not to look at it. I didn't want to feel anything other than hatred for her. I needed to get away, not feed on anyone.

But I didn't feel anything. I wasn't…thirsty, or that way inclined anymore. Maybe Savril had been enough. Maybe now I was back to normal like Cray said I would be in time. Even this fast.

I just had to fight Kellice, make her leave me alone, make them all go away so I could escape with my parents.

Kellice touched her wound and peered at me with eyes that throbbed a blood burst red. She charged for me and leaped for my neck, pressing with her thumbs as she threw me onto the ground and tried to throttle me. I gasped for every bit of air I could slip through my teeth. I pulled and scratched at her face, but she held on tighter, pressing her thumbs into my windpipe. Blood and drool dripped from her mouth.

"Cray doesn't want you," she screamed, slamming my head on the ground. "He never wanted you," she screamed louder. The ground moved beneath me until dirt began to seep into my mouth. "He's mine, mine, mine!"

Her voice became slower and distorted; her face became a blur of rage.

She let go and I turned onto my front and tried to groan, but my lungs felt too heavy. The blackness crowding me became unbearable.

"Crys!" It was Cray. I lifted my head. He was standing wide eyed in the distance, panting. He was held back by three Sha'lacs.

Gundulla was standing beside him, watching with utmost joy. I tried to crawl my way to Cray. His name came out as a whimper.

"Crys, behind you." His warning came too late. Kellice hauled me over to the edge of the riverbank.

"Now die," she screamed, dunking my head into the cold water. "Die, die, die!"

She was so loud I could hear her while under. Cray's pained voice was muffled by cheers and claps.

"Why don't you just die?" she yelled in my face.

I was flung to the ground again, this time punched in the face, kicked repeatedly on my arms, legs, and eventually my stomach.

I didn't scream. The sound wouldn't come out of me. The pain was too excruciating; a sharp shuddering strike all the way down my spine and to my abdomen. My toes curled as I tried to keep myself still and scrunched into a ball.

"Stop that," Gundulla barked. "Stop that now!"

Someone placed a hand on my stomach, calming the nerves attached to the pain.

"You idiotic girl! I said to cause her pain, not destroy her chances of having the child," Gundulla howled.

I think Kellice stomped away.

Cray loomed beside me, placing my head onto his lap. He held me to him, rocking me in his arms, begging me to forgive him.

"Get her back to the manor and tie her back to her bed," Gundulla said. "We can no longer take any chances. I should not have listened to you, Cray. You have become reckless with this girl."

Someone tried to pull her out of Cray's arms. But he held on tight.

"No," he seethed. "Stay away from her, all of you."

"So now you want to play the hero." Gundulla laughed. "You're a little too late for that, dear boy."

"You've been using your spells on me. I haven't had the chance," he lashed. "She isn't yours to take."

She was right, though. It was a little too late for him to defend me, regardless of why he hadn't before.

"Cray, you made her mine as soon as you both kissed. Do you think this was all by chance? Why, you're more clueless than I thought."

"Just go away and leave us alone," he muttered. "Please, it's all I ask."

"Oh, and you asked so politely," Gundulla cooed. "But I am afraid that can never happen."

"She won't cause you any harm," he said. "I'll make sure of it."

Gundulla laughed so hard the sound hurt my ears.

"Why, thank you for your concern, darling, but it is you who shall come to harm. I shall only savor your demise."

Cray frowned and stood, helping me up. He urged me to walk with him. I winced, the pain in my stomach dulled.

"I do wonder if you remember her," Gundulla said from behind us.

Cray paused then proceeded to guide me away.

"Then again you were both very young at the time. I doubt you would recall very much from that age."

He stopped and turned. "Stop with the mind games, Mother. This is over."

"No," she snapped. "This is only the beginning. And I have waited a long time for the two of you to be together. I almost thought I had lost hope. I still recall you sitting in your little den. Your mother showering you with her shambolic love. It was an adorable sight, yet completely pointless in regard to what you really are."

"Who are you even talking about?" Cray asked

We were both facing Gundulla now. I could stand, but it was painful to inhale.

I tried not to look at either of them. Not when I knew what Gundulla was preparing to tell Cray heartlessly, even if it might not be the truth.

"Your real mother, of course. Surely you remember the letch."

He stepped away from me to approach Gundulla until they were face to face.

"You have her nose. Wouldn't you say, Judith?" Gundulla smirked.

Judith agreed with her toothless grin. So did the others, the elders mainly, all the hapless women.

"Yes, it was a pity we had to destroy her," Judith divulged. "But, you see, it had to be so. You, too, had to be ours." She grinned, but there was pity in her eyes.

Cray peered around him, lost for words.

"We couldn't allow her to get in the way," said one of the smallest of the men in the coven, and usually the quietest. "Our whole life's work depended on it. You were the last link."

They all murmured to one another in agreement. Cray looked at everyone, including me, like he felt betrayed and bullied into a corner, a corner he knew no way out of and with no one to turn to. He must have felt like me, except more begotten in loneliness, fear, and confusion.

"I don't know why you're doing this, but I'm not playing along," he said. "I want out of the coven. I don't want anything to do with this."

Without looking at me, he turned me around and led us away. I knew Gundulla wasn't finished with him yet, lies or not.

"Lorraine was her name," Gundulla bellowed. "Crystal's aunt.

I tensed.

" Half cousins in love," she chided. "How…unorthodox."

Cray stopped in his tracks and darted a fearful glance at me. I looked away, too afraid to see what his eyes would show me. How he might be sickened and shocked by my ignorance not to tell him? Disappointed? I wanted to tell him she might be lying; that we still had a chance to be together if he wanted to be. But I couldn't open my mouth.

He stormed over to Gundulla. I kept my back to everyone, holding the pain that was returning in my stomach as well as my heart.

"Stop this," he ground out. "Stop lying or I'll —"

There was a vicious a slap. I turned to find Gundulla gripping Cray's face. He was allowing it. He didn't react; he faced her like anyone would their once loving mother.

"Seventeen years I have suffered raising the parasite that you are," she hissed. "The worst of my many years of existence was listening to the whines and woes of a revolting spawn. I have had to care for you like my own flesh and blood that you make crawl. Now you shall pay me in kind. Crystal
and
your child will both be mine to do with as I please." She pushed him away. He stumbled back, his expression unreadable.

"You won't get away with this," I said, standing behind Cray. "I'll never let you get what you want."

"You shall give us the child," Gundulla said, undisturbed.

I spat in her face. She grabbed me and pushed me against a tree; her hand pressed to my stomach. It made me heave as a surge of heat pulsated up to my chest.

"The child grows stronger within you as we speak. It will be a gift for a gift. The deed is done, the seed has been planted. The power to enter Shimmarian will be ours."

Tears poured down my face at her determined conviction.

"Then it will have to be over my dead body," Cray said calmly from behind her. But his pupils were a livid red. His skin was turning into a layer of scales. I couldn't watch him turn into what he had at Agermont.

"I'm sure that will also be so," Gundulla remarked. "And no one will care."

The river began to bubble; a blend of waves arched to the side like water held wings of an eagle, causing the earth to shift like a quake was befalling us. A head emerged, conjoined by beautiful sprigs of vibrant red hair. Savril.

My parents appeared from either side of the clearing. A huge smile spread across my face.

Gundulla released me from the tree and lifted a hand to Savril, muttering a chant and releasing her expected powers upon him with no desired effect. She tried again, but was hit by a forceful wind from his hands. It threw her and the rest of them against trees. They became a heap of bodies, slumped or clambering to their feet.

My parents took my hand and led Cray and me deeper into the woods. We followed a trail of sparkling white dust that surrounded us through a tunnel of leaves, until we ended up at an open part of the forest.

The cusp looked like a flood light of chrome that levitated into a cylinder shape of  ultra violet beams.

We stepped inside and it rotated. I turned to hold Cray, wanting us to experience it together. But he was outside of it, hovering in the air above us, connected to a blue cord of light from Gundulla's hands to him. I could hear his bones crack as she kept him suspended. His body twisted, causing him to cry out. I screamed, trying to step out of the cusp, but bright pink orbs momentarily struck my hands and legs. I collapsed to my knees, still screaming. No one listened. My voice was like a radio signal with severe static.

Cray was thrown across the forest. He landed at a fallen tree trunk and missed it by centimeters. My heart climbed to my throat as I watched him lay helpless. I had to do something. But the Lebrus stone, the one thing that could possibly destroy him was pierced into his back by Gundulla, leaving me deafened by my own screams.

Savril stood in front of me so that I could no longer see Cray bleeding to his death. They had no reason to keep him alive if I was pregnant. All they cared about was making me step out of the cusp.

I sank into my mother's arms. I had managed to escape. I should have been feeling victorious, but I knew I was never going to be truly happy, not without Cray.

"Shhh…There's no need to worry now." My mother soothed. "We're going home. Home to Shimmarian."

About the Author

Miriam is from Cheshire, England and comes from a family of six siblings. Her love for creativity led to acting at her local theatre before being a lead vocalist in rock bands. During those years, she often found solace penning her thoughts and feelings through lyrics or poetry. She chose not to continue singing in 2006. Two years later she woke up with the idea for The Lebrus Stone and began typing, revising and editing it for the next six years.

She is now eager to see what readers will think.