Defiance: The Umbra Chronicles Book 2 Read online

  Cuchulainn stopped fighting. His face was wretched, but he watched me go. By the time Yar Yarinann made his judgement on Cuchulainn, all I could make out was the sound of voices, but no words.

  More guards assembled around me. Cuchulainn must have believed me to be the Bach Chwaer, or he wouldn’t have fought for me like that. The guards must have believed him, because they were taking no chances on me escaping. I didn’t even try.

  I let them put me into a cage and sat there obediently. They removed the featherskin and left me shivering in my short shift. I ate the old bread and rotten fruit they threw at me, trying not to gag at the taste and texture. I was patient. My cage was in an open area. The featherskin was gone. Sooner or later, the moon would rise and I would have my vengeance.

  That night was a partial moon. I had lost track of the cycles of the moon during my long sojourn in the tomb, but I’d noticed that the moon didn’t rise until late in the night. Most of the moon’s light was overcome by the light of the sun in the daytime and was useless for magic. I got some sleep since I was going to have a busy night.

  When I awoke it was to the light of a sliver of new moon. I wasn’t sure if it was the light that woke me or the reawakening of my powers that brought a similar wakefulness to my body. I drew in a deep breath that seemed sweeter than ever and let it out on a long sigh. I sat up in my cage. I took my hair out of its knot and ran my fingers through it, enjoying the feel of its weight slipping over my skin.

  I stretched out my arms and popped open the lock of the cage with a tiny spark of lightning. The door swung open and I climbed out. I was still only wearing the ragged shift the Quarantine men had left me and moonlight gilded my skin. I took a moment to enjoy it, then started to walk along the road that had brought me here. My magic grew stronger with every moment I was under the moon.

  I was going to find Lynnevet. I was going to find Ronan. I was going to get them out of here and then I was going to find Aoife and send a spark of lightning through her she wouldn’t live long enough to forget. And then? Then, maybe, nothing.

  I wasn’t ready for the man who stepped out of the shadows. This wasn’t one of the quarantine men, or one of the garbage men behind the wall. His dragonscale armour was new and complete, not mismatched and shoddy. He was muscular and healthy, his skin clean, his face freshly shaven. Another man stepped out from behind a makeshift shelter, and another from my other side until I realised I was surrounded. They were all dressed in the same armour. They’d been waiting for me.

  I tossed my hair back and tied it into a quick knot. ‘I should warn you,’ I said, ‘if you don’t get out of my way, I won’t hesitate to set you on fire.’ I snapped my fingers and let a small fireball hover above my fingertips.

  The men didn’t pay any attention. That frightened me. A normal person pays attention to fire. I hastily fed the fireball until it was the size of a large melon. ‘I’m warning you!’ I cried.

  They started to close in on me. It was now or never. I threw the fireball at one of them. He brushed it away. I drew in a sharp breath so quickly it hurt. They were magi. I threw another fireball, but he brushed it away again.

  ‘Don’t waste your magic,’ one of them said. ‘We’ll take what we want and you can’t stop us.’

  I cursed my impatience. If I had waited in the cage a few nights, let the moon wax stronger, I might have been at my full strength, but I had only a small portion of my magic returned to me. I wasn’t going to be a match for any of them, much less all of them together.

  I gathered everything I had, let the magic course along my bones. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I may not be able to beat you all, but the first one of you who touches me is going to die. Ask yourself,’ and I grinned, because Yar Yarinann had taught me the power of a manic grin, ‘ask yourself if you want to be that one.’ I let the magic crackle sparks from my skin and hair that freed itself from a knot to float in the magic wind that surged around me.

  I kept my promise. The first one to touch me died. I used every bit of strength I had. When he lay his hands on me, I sent fire straight through him. He was dead before he even hit the ground. The second one to touch me caught me before I fell. I had nothing more. He lay me on the ground as the others drew near.

  I passed out.

  When I woke up, I was back in the cage and a woman was unlocking it. I made a noise I was ashamed of because it sounded like a cry. I swallowed the next sound and pressed my lips closely together.

  ‘Get up,’ she said. ‘Follow me. You’re going to work for your keep today.’

  I crawled out of the cage. I was paying attention to every movement of my body. As near as I could tell, I hadn’t been raped. Instead, there was a feeling of emptiness that I recognised. I had no more magic. They had taken my magic away from me. I didn’t know whether to be relieved, or to feel like this was just some new variant of violation.

  I spent the day carrying garbage. I didn’t understand what I was doing. They would just point me to a pile and I would carry it to another part of the miserable little settlement. I didn’t see Ronan or Lynnevet.

  That night, they put me back in the cage again.

  I’m brave. You know that. I sat there and let the moonlight kiss my skin and didn’t scream. At least, not out loud.

  I even drowsed. Sleep overtakes even the brave, sooner or later. When I heard someone opening the lock, I didn’t feel brave at all.

  The only thing that stopped me from screaming was the fact that I recognised him.

  It was Cuchulainn, the man who had tried to speak so eloquently for me to Yar Yarinann. His hair and beard were bright silver in the moonlight, the thin planes of his face cut sharply between light and dark.

  ‘Come with me, Emer, before they come for you tonight.’

  He didn’t grab me. He just reached out his hand and waited. I put my hand in his and followed him from the cage.

  We sneaked through the shadows in the dump, flitting from one pile of garbage to another. We went right to the edge of the spire and for a moment I wanted to throw myself off. Cuchulainn didn’t let go of my hand. He led me down a cunningly cut set of stairs that were invisible until you were right on top of them. The drop beside the stairs disappeared into darkness along the side of the spire.

  The old man led me into a cave, like the stairs, half hidden behind an outcrop. He stopped at the opening and ushered the me into the dark space. As soon as we were inside, he put his hands on a massive rock just inside the opening of the cave and pushed. He was a frail old man, even though he was using magic, so I helped him, holding out my hand and pushing the rock to cover the opening of the cave as I’d once used my magic to open the magical gates to the underground Library in Cairnagorn.

  A familiar voice greeted me. It was Ronan. ‘Emer, you’re alive!’ he cried. He threw his arms around me and held me so tight he lifted me off the ground for a minute.

  Lynnevet grabbed me too, pressing herself against my back and slipping her hands into my belt to hold me even tighter. ‘Hawk!’ she cried. The name nearly made me cry. Hawk and Sparrow were the only names we’d ever given ourselves. I pulled away from Ronan to hug Lynnevet.

  ‘I’m here, Sparrow,’ I said. ‘I’ll look after you, I promise.’ I hugged her and smoothed her hair and dried her eyes with my sleeve and told her she was going to have to find her own handkerchief for her nose because that’s just gross.

  That made her laugh. She gave one final, deeply unpleasant snort and stopped crying. I looked around at the old man. He was standing up against the huge rock that passed for a door. His head was tilted back and he looked like he was crying. His face was tight and even in the dim light from further on in the cave I could see the trails of tears along his hollow cheeks and into his beard.

  Maybe he knew I was looking at him. He opened his eyes and looked at me, his face twisting with some emotion I couldn’t understand. He peeled himself away from the door.

  ‘I’m glad you’re safe,’ he said curtly, his tone too b
rittle for the look on his face. ‘Come with me. There is food and a place to sleep. You’re safe here.’

  He led us to a large central cavern, to a corner where food was stored and a small fire was carefully banked for the night. We got on with mundane, but important things, like eating. I wasn’t hungry, but Lynnevet and Ronan were, so I sat there and moved food around my plate like I’d watched Sparrow do for years.

  The old man startled me when he laid his hand over mine. ‘Stop it,’ he said firmly. ‘Eat.’ He picked the bread roll off my place at pointed it at me. ‘I want to see you eat this,’ he said firmly.

  I stared at him. Interfering old bastard. ‘To hell with you,’ I snapped, slapping away the bread roll and the hand he’d dared to lay over mine.

  ‘Fine, to hell with me,’ he replied. ‘But you’re going to eat and that’s final.’

  I glared at him, even while something inside me broke and wept. What I wouldn’t have given for someone to have noticed that we were hurting years ago, when we were still with the creepyguardians. He took bread from his own plate and handed it to me.

  ‘Emer, please,’ he said softly.

  ‘Fine,’ I snapped. I tore into the bread, but I felt so sick it was like chewing gravel.

  He passed me the wooden cup of water. ‘Wash it down,’ he said, his voice still gentle. ‘It’ll help.’

  ‘Nothing will help,’ I replied, but I washed the solid hunk of bread down with the water none the less.

  I made it through the meal. Ronan and Lynnevet were nearly asleep, leaning towards one another, by the time I’d eaten enough to make the old man happy. He led us to our own cave.

  ‘We’re always ready, in case other prisoners manage to escape,’ he explained. The cave was already supplied with blankets and a few other bare necessities. ‘This is the space your friends have been occupying. Here, you can rest, be refreshed.’ He turned to me. ‘Emer, if you aren’t too tired, could we talk?’

  I was so sick of being at other people’s beck and call. It was always couched in nice words like ‘If you aren’t too tired,’ but how do you say no to that? He looked so hopeful. He probably wanted to discuss plans for saving the whole damn world. That’s what the Bach Chwaer was for, right?

  ‘Fine,’ I said, aware it was practically the only word I’d said all night, except when I’d cursed him. I followed him out of the cave and into a little tunnel. It came out onto a ledge on the outside of the spire, a good six feet square, crowded with shadows. I stepped forward and he caught my arm.

  ‘Don’t get too close,’ he said. ‘We’re up high enough that you’d have a lot of time to regret being so foolhardy if you fell.’

  ‘Before I died,’ I finished, seriously considering it.

  ‘Before you died,’ he said. ‘Come, sit down. I’ll explain everything to you.’

  He spoke about the community they’d built up in the tunnels and caves within the spire, like a naturally occurring hive. They were all escaped prisoners, he said. Those of them who had magic would fly away to get supplies at night, when they wouldn’t be seen, but they couldn’t fly very far because Aoife had laid an enchantment on them to tether them to the spire.

  I barely heard a word. I was thinking of the sheer drop only a few feet from where I was sitting.

  I didn’t owe these people anything. Who was I really? I didn’t know the circumstances of my birth, but it wasn’t like I was wanted. My mother had either given me up or I’d been so unwanted that she hadn’t tried very hard to get me back. I’d had no one but Sparrow, and now she was dead at Aoife’s hand. For a brief while I’d had Caradoc, and I’d lost him too. Lynnevet had needed me briefly, but she had Ronan who would feel duty-bound to look after her if anything happened to me. She was probably safer if I died. I wouldn’t leave a big hole in the world.

  The old man was still talking when I stood up. He said my name, ‘Emer?’ and heaved himself to his feet, but he was too slow and had no idea how viciously self-destructive I was feeling. The ledge was plenty big enough to sit on, big enough to stand on, wide enough to take several quick strides before throwing myself into the darkness.

  Chapter Ten

  I’d done it. The wind rushed past my face and I felt more weightless than I’d ever felt as a bird. I let myself go limp.

  I heard the old man shouting but that was above, beyond me now. No one was my responsibility any more. I looked up at the sky, at the stars and the moon.

  I didn’t see the old man jump. I just saw him coming towards me. He dived off the ledge, his arms poised in front of him like he was diving into a lake. I struggled to turn in the air, to make myself fall faster, because he was knifing through the air much faster than I was and I was damned if he’d stop me.

  He caught me around the waist. The shock of his impact made me fall faster, and for the first time I felt frightened. An instant after he caught me, he slowed our fall. He had powerful magic, to stop our fall without changing into a bird. It struck me that he didn’t need a wand to do magic ‒ it was in his blood and bone, like it was in mine. I struggled and he changed our trajectory, slamming me into the stone wall of the spire and down onto a narrow ledge.

  He hurt me when we landed. He fell on top of me, compounding the pain that slammed through me when my back fell flat against the stone. I wheezed out the agony. He groaned too ‒ his bones had to be brittle, they had no padding. I couldn’t move. He levered himself off me and held his hands over my body.

  A familiar golden glow came from his hands as healing warmth rushed through me, taking with it the memory of the pain. When I was able to move, I shifted away from him.

  ‘Heal yourself,’ I said. Between the silver beard and hair, his face was white in the moonlight. He had to have injured himself in that fall.

  He put one hand on my wrist to hold me still and put the other hand on his hollow belly. In moments, the colour had come back into his face.

  I pulled, trying to get my hand away. ‘Let go,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to jump again.’

  ‘It would be a lot easier to believe you, darlin’, if we weren’t on a ledge right now.’

  ‘Let go.’

  ‘Not until I know you’re safe.’ He shuffled over to crouch next to me so that I had more room to move but he didn’t let go of my wrist. He tilted his head back to rest it against the stone. ‘Oh, God, Emer. What you do to me.’ He drew in a deep breath and sighed gustily.

  I stared at him. He looked like he had before, when he’d been leaning back against the rock that closed over the tunnel entrance.

  ‘Why did you do it, Emer?’ he asked, his eyes still shut.

  I shrugged, not that he would see it, but he must have felt the movement through my wrist. I drew my legs up close to my body and pressed myself against the stone beside him.

  ‘You have your whole life ahead of you. That was so dumb, Emer.’

  ‘Life is about more than just time,’ I said quietly. ‘I’ve got plenty of time, sure. But there isn’t any life for me, not anymore.’

  He opened his eyes and looked at me. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t believe that. You had more fire in you than Darragh. What about Elisabeth ‒ or should I call her Lynnevet now?’

  ‘Lynnevet is who Elisabeth was when she was thirteen. They’re not the same person.’

  He frowned. I suppose it was a pretty fine distinction to make.

  ‘Anyway,’ I went on, ‘my Elisabeth is dead now. Aoife killed her.’ I had enough movement in my wrist to bring my hands to my face. ‘She killed her right in front of me.’

  I started to cry. I hadn’t cried so much for as long as I could remember. Once I started, I couldn’t stop and I started to really sob, my body jerking with the useless effort of holding in the tears.

  ‘Oh, Emer,’ he whispered. He put his arm around me and I leaned into the embrace. His chest was all bones and thin skin. He wrapped one arm around my shoulders and used the other hand to stroke my hair while he whispered soothing nothings.

&
nbsp; I cried until there was nothing left and had to resort to making the same disgusting snorting noises Lynnevet had made, because neither one of us had a handkerchief. ‘For God’s sake,’ I said, ‘talk to me about something else. I can’t bear to think about this anymore.’

  He let me go. ‘How about news and current affairs?’ he asked.

  It was so incongruous I actually laughed. Well, to be honest, I laughed and snorted, because I had some nasty human secretions to deal with. ‘Okay,’ I said. I remembered what he’d said about me having more fire than Darragh. He’d said it so easily that I was sure it couldn’t be something he’d heard from hearsay. ‘Actually, why don’t we talk about the past?’

  The next thing I knew, he was a foot away. ‘The past?’

  ‘Yeah. Did I know you in the past?’ I looked at him. He did look familiar. It was hard to tell, because he was approximately a thousand years old, give or take a century but no more than that.

  ‘Uh…’ If he shuffled sideways any more, he was going to fall off the ledge and I was going to have to go after him. ‘Actually-’ he stopped shuffling. ‘We did meet once.’ He smiled suddenly, his teeth flashing in the moonlight among the silver of his beard. The smile gentled, grew somehow serious. ‘It was, let me see, four years ago. Do you remember me, Emer?’

  I looked at him closely. It was hard to tell, there was only two or three square inches of face visible between beard and brows. I had to shake my head.

  ‘That’s all right, Emer. It was back in the hive at Caillen at the Winter Solstice. You and Elisabeth were about fifteen.’

  ‘Why do you say fifteen?’ I asked. ‘It could have been any year, really. We used to go to Caillen at the Winter Solstice every year.’

  ‘No, you were fifteen.’ He looked away from me for a moment.

  ‘You sound sure.’

  ‘Yeah, I was sure.’ He still wasn’t looking at me. ‘You had shadows on your face that year, Emer. You had to be fifteen.’