Defiance: The Umbra Chronicles Book 2 Page 22

  Beyond the doors lay the Great Library of Cairnagorn, the greatest collection of books of magic in the whole world. But there was more past these doors than books. Beyond those doors was the deepest part of the underground Library: the Portal that led to the past and the future.

  Only the descendants of Umbra were able to open the Portal and even among these, it took knowledge of the Portal’s secrets to be able to navigate the streams of time and exit the Portal at the right time. It was quite possible that I was the last person alive to know how to do it.

  ‘Do it,’ he snapped.

  A momentary spark of independence reasserted itself in me. ‘Why?’ I retorted. ‘What are you going to do? Read a book?’

  He slapped me across the face, so hard that I fell to the floor.

  ‘I’m going to go back in time,’ he said. ‘I’ve thought of the perfect occasion. Do you remember that night Sir Cai took you out to the woods so he could harvest you and Princess Aine? This time, I’ll be able to make a real difference. But do you know the best thing? That will mean I will be in a world where you are never born. Aine will be tethered to her tree before she even conceives you. And then I can use my knowledge of history and current events to ensure myself a prominent place in the world. Now open the gates!’

  ‘And unleash you on history? I don’t think so.’

  He hit me again and knocked me down. This time, he laughed after I fell. ‘I could do this all day. But I don’t have to. Do you know why?’

  He leaned down to whisper in my ear. I was still getting to my feet from the last blow, still bent double.

  ‘I have David in my own house, Emer. I can do anything to him. You might wake up in the middle of the night to find him lying cold and dead beside you.’

  I gasped. It was even worse than I realised, to hear the words out loud. How could I ever sleep through the night again? ‘You wouldn’t!’ I cried. ‘You couldn’t, not even you ‒ he’s only a little boy! You’ve raised him as your own son!’

  He let go of my shoulder. ‘The question is, Emer, how far do you believe I’ll go? How important is David’s life to you? Important enough for you to open this door?’

  I straightened up. I didn’t answer, but I raised my hand towards the door and opened my palm to face it. The doors slid smoothly open. Maybe I had just doomed the world.

  I led him to the Portal.

  Umbra had prepared it five hundred years ago, just for me ‒ and I was going to use it to ruin history. Maldwyn’s face shone in the colours reflected from the dancing surface of the Portal.

  ‘So, this is it,’ he whispered. He reached out to touch the surface of the Portal that rippled like water. He drew his fingers away and examined them like he thought they would be wet. He turned to me and laughed like he wasn’t a monster. There was wonder in his eyes. ‘It’s real,’ he said.

  He laughed again and stepped forward boldly to pass through the Portal. There was a noise like nearby thunder and he was thrown backwards, down the stairs and halfway across the room.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t die. He picked himself up, groaning.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked. He focussed on me still standing by the Portal and lunged towards me. He grabbed me by the throat and pushed me up against the column that supported the side of the Portal. ‘What happened?’ he shouted.

  ‘I don’t know!’ I managed. It wasn’t hard to look panicked and confused ‒ but I did know. No one could pass through the Portal without holding on to someone from Umbra’s bloodline. If I told him that, he’d take me with him and all chance of saving David, saving my Sparrow, Cuchulainn, Lynnevet, would be lost.

  I had an idea.

  I pulled at his hand around my throat and he lowered it enough so I could reply. ‘Maybe you don’t have enough magic? Maybe you need to spend a few nights in the moonlight first. I should know ‒ it took nearly all my magic the first time and that was straight after a full moon.’

  All I was doing was buying time, but it was all I could think of.

  His grip tightened around my throat and he flung me backwards. I stumbled down the stairs and fell. Maldwyn followed me. I tried to roll out of the way, but he pulled me back by my hair.

  The beating didn’t take long, but he put his heart and soul into it. At the end of it, I was a mess. I lay in a crumpled heap among the rubble strewn across the floor. One of my eyes was swollen shut and I felt like something had come adrift inside me.

  Maldwyn left me there. I lay on the floor and wished I was dead. I kept drifting in and out of consciousness.

  I finally woke when it was night. The room the Portal was in had been damaged when the Queens had attacked a few days ago. Sections of the cavern roof had fallen in. You could look up and see the sky.

  I woke to the moonlight on my face. I used the new power to heal myself enough so I could stand up and the swelling in my eye went down far enough so I could see. Healing was always hard for me. Just doing a small amount of healing drained me until I was empty again. I went back to the house because I had to protect David.

  He was curled up asleep in my bed. Gwydion was asleep in Sparrow’s bed. I’d been dreading having to face him. He would be incensed if he guessed Maldwyn had hurt me and Gwydion would challenge Maldwyn, no matter how weak he was. I had to keep that from happening, at least until Gwydion was properly healed.

  I lay down next to David, who took up an astonishing amount of the bed and blankets for a small boy, and finally managed to fall asleep.

  The next time I awoke, it was to some small sound. Maldwyn was standing beside the bed. I gasped.

  He smiled. ‘I’m glad you’re awake,’ he said softly. ‘I wanted you to see this. You said today that you thought I wouldn’t hurt an innocent boy.’ He said it sarcastically, like innocence was something to mock. ‘I thought I’d prove it to you. And look on the bright side. At least you won’t have to waste your power on healing him now.’

  My gaze drifted past him to look at Gwydion. His face was turned towards me, his eyes open and staring, a dark stain all over his throat and chest. Maldwyn raised his hands so I could see them better. They were covered in blood.

  I drew in a jagged breath and clamped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming or throwing up. ‘No,’ I moaned.

  Maldwyn chuckled. ‘Yes. And clean this mess up. I don’t want him stinking up the house.’ He left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. I heard another quiet noise as he closed his own bedroom dor.

  David was awake, but silent beside me. I slid out of bed and knelt beside Gwydion. His throat had been cut and there was blood everywhere. I lay trembling hands over the open wound and offered him every last bit of power I had gained since I woke in the moonlight by the Portal.

  There was no change. It was too late to save Gwydion. He was already gone.

  ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘No, no, no, please.’

  In the bed behind me, David started to cry. I turned and put my arms around him. I cried and cried. It was impossible that Gwydion should die now. He’d been through so much. There was no reason for him to die except Maldwyn’s evil.

  When David started patting his little hand on my back and saying, ‘Be a good girl, don’t cry,’ I pulled myself together.

  ‘Don’t worry, darling. I’ll be all right. I won’t cry anymore, see?’ I wiped my eyes and tried to smile. ‘It’s just ‒ he was a good man. I liked him very much. He was your great uncle and you never got a chance to get to know him.’ I patted David’s hair. ‘If he had lived, he would have loved you very much. He would have protected you and made sure you were happy and safe. He always made me feel like the sun was shining somewhere. I wanted so much for you to know what it was like to feel that way.’

  So, naturally, David started crying and I started crying and eventually, we both fell asleep. He curled sideways on the bed so his head could rest on the pillow close to me and I sitting on the floor with one arm heavy over him. The moon passed overhead and its light fell over us as w
e slept.

  In the morning, it was even worse to see Gwydion’s body lying in the other bed. I disentangled myself from David and pulled the sheet over Gwydion’s face. I got up and checked the house. Maldwyn was already gone for the day. I was going to have to get Gwydion’s body out of the bedroom and I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage it.

  I slid my arms under David. He put his arms sleepily around my neck and asked, ‘Where are we going?’ before falling asleep again. I put him in Maldwyn’s room because there was nowhere else I could put him. I didn’t want him to see me dragging Gwydion’s body through the house.

  There was already food set out in the kitchen. Maldwyn probably left David alone most of the time. I wasn’t even sure if that thought made me feel relieved or angry. He was only a little boy. He shouldn’t have to be left alone. He shouldn’t have to think he was a bad boy if he cried.

  I rolled Gwydion’s body off the bed and onto a sheet. I tied a knot in the sheet where his head fell so he wouldn’t slide out once I started pulling on the sheet. He was incredibly heavy. He was tall to begin with and it was all I could do to drag him a few steps before I had to rest.

  I finally got him outside. I covered him with a blanket and went back inside. David and I shared our breakfast and he promised solemnly not to leave the house until I came back. Then I went outside and began to dig a grave for one of the best people I’d ever met.

  It took all day and still wasn’t as deep as he deserved. I rolled Gwydion into it and wept as I shovelled the earth over him.

  The sun had set by the time I finished. I was anxious to hurry home to get there before Maldwyn. I didn’t want Maldwyn to come home and think we were gone. I couldn’t afford to make him angrier than he already was. When Sparrow and I had lived here, Maldwyn had usually come home well after dark, but I couldn’t risk the possibility that he’d changed his habits.

  When the earth was again laid as flat and I could make it over Gwydion’s grave, I felt like I had an obligation to say something. I stood beside the grave, sweaty and probably smelly and realised I had no idea what to say. David’s small hand crept into mine.

  ‘Do you want to say goodbye to Uncle Gwydion?’ I asked. Because a four-year-old is more eloquent than I am.

  ‘Bye, Uncle Gwydion,’ David said, then he burst into tears and clung to me. I crouched down and let his little arms go tight around my neck.

  ‘It’s all right to cry, darling,’ I crooned. ‘Cry and hold on to me. You’re such a good boy and I love you so much. One day, darling, we’ll be happy and the sun will shine and we won’t ever cry again.’

  I was such a liar.

  #

  I felt myself being watched. I looked up, David still pressed close against me. I didn’t need to look around. I still knew every possible place to hide from my last time in Cairnagorn.

  ‘David, honey, go sit in the gazebo, there’s a good boy.

  David hadn’t seen the man, approaching through the overgrown gardens of the park, watching us every time he rounded a tree. David went to the gazebo happily enough. As he reached the gazebo, though, he turned to look at me, to make sure I was watching to see what a good boy he was. He saw the man, hurrying towards us now, and David clustered himself into a tiny little ball and hid under the bench seat, his face pressed between the palings so he could see what was going on.

  I planted my feet. I took a deep breath. Whoever he was, he wouldn’t be the worst monster I’d faced today. Gwydion’s grave was practically beneath my feet. I wasn’t going to dig a grave for my son.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The man called out and broke into a run. My heart struck against my breastbone so hard I was sure it was bruised.

  He surrounded me with a rush. He’d been running fast and when he reached me, he stopped suddenly and threw his arms around me. I was surrounded for a moment, not just by his arms but also by the folds of his cloak that flowed around us both.

  Eventually I realised he was saying my name. His hands were gentle on my face, turning me to look at him, stroking my cheeks and hair. He kept saying my name, like a prayer.

  I opened my eyes. Hair wilder than it had ever been, still littered with blue beads, eyes concerned and gentle and skin as pale as a pearl in the moonlight. Silently, my lips formed the name, ‘Caradoc,’ mute with longing, but aloud they said, ‘Ronan.’

  For a brief moment he closed those magnificent blue eyes that shone even in the twilight darkness. When he opened them again, he was all business. ‘I came as soon as I could get away, Emer. Are you all right?’

  ‘Ronan, what are you doing here?’

  ‘I couldn’t leave you alone with that monster, Emer.’

  ‘But I chose to come here. Of my own free will.’

  Ronan snorted. ‘Free will? After he threatened your child? I don’t call that free will!’

  I drew away a little. ‘I never said anything about a child.’ David was out from under the seat now, watching us.

  The corner of Ronan’s mouth turned up in a quick, sad smile. I watched David note the smile and took a tiny step forward. I gestured for him to come, over Ronan’s shoulder, then turned my attention back to the man in my arms.

  ‘I was at your trial, and his, remember?’ he said. ‘I knew you were pregnant five years ago, Emer. And at your trial a few months ago, you were accused of abducting Maldwyn’s four-year-old son. Of course, I guessed that he was your son, too.’

  I pressed my face close into his neck. ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Ronan, but you can’t stay. Maldwyn-’

  I looked around. David was halfway down the steps of the gazebo, so I lowered my voice. ‘Maldwyn killed Gwydion. He wanted to prove to me how ruthless he could be. He killed him while he was sleeping.’

  ‘The coward!’ Ronan muttered.

  ‘So, you must go, Ronan. If he sees you here, he’ll kill you or kill David. Ronan, I’d die if that happened. Please, you have to go.’

  ‘No, Emer. Leave you here with a small child, alone with a monster? No. Never. The others went to Cairastel, but I’m not leaving here unless you and David come with me.’

  ‘We can’t leave,’ I stressed. ‘He’s laid a spell on the city. He did it last time he had me and Sparrow here. No one with magic can come or go, neither in nor out of the city. Do you think he would put us in a prison without bars? He’s made sure that we can’t even fly out of here. The very sky is bespelled to keep us in. The only way in or out is through the Portal.’

  ‘What Portal?’

  ‘A magic door that makes you travel through time. But it’s difficult to control. If I tried to come out a little in the future, I might not step out until years have passed and Elisabeth’s ashes will have been long scattered on the wind. If I go into the past, he will be there ‒ he has always lived at Cairnagorn, ever since the Fall.’

  David drew level with us. Ronan crouched down to be closer to David’s height. ‘Hello, son,’ he said. That moment ‒ it was so precious to me. The man who looked like the man I loved, and my son.

  David took hold of Ronan’s hand and held it experimentally. I loved that David would reach out to Ronan, but I hated that Maldwyn had made David’s life so unsafe that the little boy was less afraid of strangers than he was of his own caregiver.

  Ronan stood up. ‘Show me the Portal,’ he said. ‘I might have an idea.’

  It was better than the ways I was considering escaping ‒ death or suicide. Even the addition of one more person opened up our options. Maybe now we might have a chance.

  Ronan shared his plan with me. I was to take David and Ronan a short way into the future. Then I could come back, deal with Maldwyn, save Sparrow, then wait until the proper time came when David and Ronan would step out of the Portal again. I’d warned Ronan that the Portal had a strong backward pull, trying to take the traveller as far into the past as possible, but his faith in me was unshakeable.

  If we were separated, Ronan would not be able to control the Portal. Only Umbra’s desce
ndants could do that. Ronan was trusting his future, David’s future, and mine, to the magical abilities of a four-year-old. David nodded and promised to be a good boy and do what he was told. He kissed me and told me he thought I was a very good girl.

  If good girls don’t cry, then I wasn’t a good girl, because that made tears slip down my cheeks.

  We were walking up the stairs to the Portal together, Ronan and me each taking one of David’s hands in a way that made me feel like we were a family out of a picture book.

  Maldwyn didn’t even shout. The first I knew he was there was when lightning arced over my shoulder to pick chunks out of the column beside the Portal.

  Then he shouted. ‘You lied to me! You can go through the Portal after all!’ Another tongue of lightning licked between us and I was forced away from Ronan and David.

  Ronan swung David up in his arms and stepped towards the Portal, but another streak of lightning rooted itself by his feet, arching and writing and waiting to bite. He looked back at me hopelessly.

  ‘You’re not leaving!’ Maldwyn shouted, sending yet another arc of lightning to lash out at me. I was pushed further away, tripping a little as I was pushed down the stairs by the winds that followed the lightning. Another arc nipped at Ronan’s ankles, which brought a cry to his lips. David’s face was buried very tightly in Ronan’s neck, his thin little arms around Ronan’s shoulders. They were standing right beside the Portal now, and I was halfway across the room.

  I didn’t care what sacrifice I had to make. Maldwyn was not going to get my son again.

  All it took was a single step forward to bring me into the moonlight slipping from the cracks in the ceiling. My face was set. This was it.

  ‘Get away from my son,’ I warned.

  Maldwyn leaped towards David. Ronan dodged out of the way just in time. I saw him glance at the Portal. We both knew that if he entered the Portal without me, he would be dragged backwards in time and I might never find him.

  ‘I’ll kill you and I’ll kill him, too,’ Maldwyn snarled. ‘Get away from the Portal, you son of a bitch!’