Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I ola used to tell them wonderfully intriguing stories, when they were little girls. The three sisters would eagerly go through their bedtime routines on those nights that Momma promised story time. Each story would pull them in, the characters brought to life by Momma’s vivid descriptions and scenarios. Worlds were built and destroyed in their bedroom, the only sound besides their mother’s voice gasps of surprise.

Now Gwen understood. Not only was story time a time of a loving mother spending time with her children, but also training. Once they became older, the stories continued, stories they knew by heart, but now their mother added more information. They learned that evil existed, just as there were good people in the world. They became intimately aware of the spirit world, spinning simple spells to help lost souls or keep evil ones away from the innocent.

To help, her mother told them, was their purpose. The reason for the Lockhart women’s existence—as it had been for ages.

When Gwen, the oldest, got the nerve to ask about their vast differences in appearance and coloring, their mother told them her story. She’d fallen in love with a mysterious man who’d come to her one day. She’d been seduced by his looks and ability to spin words into compliments like she’d never heard before. For years they’d been lovers, creating three vastly different-looking offspring. He’d insisted it was the way of his family as he’d come from a mixture of races. Then one day, he’d announced to her that his time with her was over. According to her mother, he’d seemed heartbroken, not willing to tell her where he went. And just like it had begun, one day he was gone.

Gwen racked her brain. Somewhere in one of her mother’s lessons lay the answer to her current predicament.

Sitting on a tree trunk, she devoured the last of three apples, her first meal in two days. She’d been on the run since she’d panicked and vanished when Meliot ordered his wolves to seize her. Invisibility didn’t stop her from being tracked, so she’d conjured up a flying spell and was able to float short distances, not very far above the ground, but high enough to keep her scent off the path, making her hard to track.

Weak after two days and nights of travel with no sleep, she was ready to give up. Nerves raw from avoiding capture, she’d tried different methods of reaching Meliot’s castle undetected. Now, as she sat keeping an eye on said castle, the front door opened, and sentinels exited. They sniffed the air and trekked away from her. The wind was in her favor, or perhaps it was the constantly falling snow, covering scents and tracks. Finally, an opportunity.

She floated to the castle entrance and slipped inside. She’d find Clara, make the girl invisible, and hopefully take her to safety.

That was it. Her only plan.

Once inside, darkness loomed, making visibility hard. She strained to listen for voices, the sounds of the wind outside making it impossible. She went down long corridors, listening at doorways for the sound of a little girl. Most doors were silent. Hoping to feel the presence of the child, she opened her senses, moving along the hallway, once listening at a door, and a second time allowing her intuition to guide her.

A soft whimper caught her attention. She barely heard it over the sound of her rapidly beating heart. Freezing, she listened intently. The whimper sounded again, and she floated outside a door, trying to decide how to proceed. Feeling as if she had no choice, she reached for the doorknob. Footsteps sounded. Gwen opened the door and rushed inside, forgetting her invisibility. She stood inside the door, her head leaning on the wooden panel, waiting for the footsteps to pass by.

No sooner did the footsteps pass then the sound of another whimper caught her attention. A small child lay in a bed crying, her slight body shaking. Gwen became visible and approached the bed slowly. Although not tied up or bruised, the child’s clothing was in tatters, her feet bare.

“Hey,” Gwen whispered, trying not to startle the child. Shiny green eyes met hers. The eyes told it all. This was Clara. “Hello, Clara,” Gwen said, smoothing the girl’s messy hair. “I’m here to take you to your daddy.”

“Da? He’s here?” Clara’s bottom lip trembled. “He’s finally come?”

“No, he’s not here, but I know how to get you to him. You have to be very quiet. Promise me you won’t make a sound,” Gwen told the wide-eyed girl. She wanted to cry at the thought of this child being held for so long, forced to remain a little girl for hundreds of years. Meliot’s heart was indeed black and evil.

Gwen wrapped the child in the blanket from the bed. It was not enough to keep her warm outside, but hopefully she’d be able to find Sterling quickly. “Hold on to my neck,” Gwen instructed Clara. “Don’t let go. We’re going to be invisible—isn’t that fun?” Clara nodded, a small smile curving her lips. She looked so much like Tristan it made Gwen’s heart ache. “Here we go, shhh.”

She floated out of the room, closing the door softly behind them. When they reached a second corridor, it was a dead end. Panicked, Gwen doubled back and turned the opposite way. This, too, became a dead end.

“You’re here,” Meliot’s voice sounded behind her. “There is no escaping. Each time you turn down a corridor, it will become shorter and shorter until it will be easy to reach out and grab you.”

She ignored the wizard, avoided looking at him, and flew down the corridor back towards the room. The hallway ended, much shorter than before. He hadn’t lied.

They were trapped.

Panic always affected her in strange ways; her first reaction usually was to do something senseless. True to form, instead of giving up, Gwen ran straight into the wall in front of her. Clara screamed as they flew through the wall and straight out into the snow.

An illusion. Meliot’s specialty.

They were outside. No time to celebrate, however, because she couldn’t breathe. Landing on her stomach with the child on top of her, knocked the wind out of her. Not able to move, she waited for the suffocating feeling to go away. When she was finally able to take a gulp of air, she realized they were both visible again. The black sentinels saw them too, and ran towards them, growls filling the air.

Gwen jumped to her feet, grabbed the still-wrapped Clara and pushed the girl behind her, turning to face the wolves. The sentinels surrounded her, their luminous eyes locked on her, a terrifying barrier, even when keeping their distance. She had no doubt they were holding her for Meliot. She wasn’t about to stand around and wait for the madman to appear.

Hopefully she’d be able to vanish again and float away with Clara. Gwen tried, nothing happened. When she tried the second time, they flickered, but didn’t disappear.

“You can’t disappear. Not now.” Meliot stood before her. “My magic is much stronger than your feeble attempts.” The wizard seemed to float above the snow as he neared them. “What have you got there?”

“We made a deal, you have to let her go,” Gwen told him. “I’ll stay, but Clara must be returned to her father.”

The wizard stopped, frowning. “What are you talking about?”

“Clara,” Gwen moved aside. The Wizard’s eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t speak. “I didn’t trust you to release her, so I came to get her. I was taking her back to the knights’ keep.”

Meliot stepped closer, his soulless eyes pinned to the child, his lips curving into a twisted version of a smile. “A deal is a deal after all, isn’t it?” He glanced at the sky. “The Icing comes. You and the child cannot make it far now. Not without freezing to death.” He waved toward his castle. “Return inside and I’ll ensure she is escorted back.”

“ The truth.” What did Prince Sterling say about the truth? Gwen racked her brains.

Gwen noticed that he didn’t get any closer. The amulet around her neck grew warm and she glanced down, it glowed. She narrowed her eyes at Meliot. “You can’t touch me, can you? Not while I’m wearing this amulet.”

Meliot glared, his black eyes narrowing. The malevolence in his expression gave her chills. The intensity of his stare traveled through her body. Her arms began to tingle. When her hands moved up to the leather strap around her neck, she fought against it, but couldn’t stop her fingers from pulling the strap up over her head. With a shaky hand, she held the amulet out in front of her. Meliot did not make a move to take it from her. “Well, should I make you throw it? Or should perhaps you should just give it away?” Meliot motioned to one of the wolves.

Her legs gave out and she fell to her knees, hand still outstretched. One of the wolves came and snatched the amulet out of her hand. He trotted away into the woods.

Meliot walked closer. “Now make her disappear. Enough with the parlor tricks.”

“She’s not a parlor trick. She’s real.”

“I know all about making beings appear, I have armies of them. Make her disappear and come with me now.”

He turned and began walking back towards the castle. Gwen fought against her body, but she followed behind him willingly. “Clara come, stay right beside me,” she whispered to the frightened little girl.

“Enough!” Meliot turned, his face transformed in rage. “Make her disappear now,” he told her through clenched teeth.

“I can’t.”

“You can and you will. Or I will.” He held his hand out to the now screaming Clara.

“No!” Gwen cried. “Look, please, just allow her to go home.” Gwen began crying in desperation. “She’s just a little girl.”

Meliot froze. He peered at Clara again. “Where did you find her?”

“Inside your castle, in a room.”

He scanned the wood line behind her. Gwen pulled Clara closer and tried to hush her. While Meliot was distracted, she tried to vanish again, but whatever ward he used kept her from being able to do so.

“What kind of trickery is this?” Meliot moved so fast Gwen didn’t see him snatch Clara until he held the wincing girl up by her arm, her skinny legs dangling. “Answer me!” the wizard yelled into the air.

A bright light flashed at the point where Meliot held Clara. He released her.

Clara fell to the ground. Meliot stared at his singed hand.

Clara had powers!

Gwen hoped she could get away. If she could only get to her, but her feet refused to budge, and she almost fell forward trying to reach the child.

The child was quiet, lying on the ground without moving. Then Clara stood up, she began to grow and transform. She morphed into a lithe woman, dressed in long emerald-green robes, her features no longer favoring Tristan. Frosty blue eyes met Meliot’s.

“Esmeralda, I should have known.” Meliot took a step toward the woman, but she held up her hand, energy burst from her palm, and he flew backward. Meliot flashed back and returned with a blast of his own. It rippled around the woman, her hair and robes flying in the wind. “I’m warded, cousin.”

She looked at Gwen. “You can move freely now.”

Gwen tried and she indeed could. She went and stood next to Esmeralda.

“A deal is indeed a deal. I believe Tristan McRainey’s enchantment has been broken. Gwyneth willingly sacrificed herself, was willing to trade places with his daughter out of love for him.” Esmeralda told the wizard in a scolding tone. “My brother alerted me to this woman requiring help, and I decided to see about it myself.”

She held out a hand, palm toward Meliot. “It ends now.”

Astonishingly, Meliot bowed his head. “I will still win the war, dear cousin.”

Esmeralda’s expression was sorrowful. “I hope not.”

She turned to Gwen. “Take my hand, I will return you to your world.”

“Wait,” Gwen told her. “Where’s Clara?”

The woman looked over to Meliot, enraged. Then she turned with a distressed expression toward Gwen. “The child died in the forest that day.”

Gwen took Esmeralda’s hand, and they were gone.