20. Cym

Chapter 20

Cym

C ym's face felt like raw hamburger as he peeled it off the ground.

He rolled over to look up at a sky filled with a mix of ash and snow and wondered what he was doing on the ground. It wasn't just his face that was messed up. His entire body felt like it had been thrown into a dryer with a bag filled with tennis balls and set to run on high.

"That was not the best thing that could have happened," Sterling rasped out nearby.

Cym shook his head to clear it, and his vision swam. He saw stars, moons, and entire galaxies of constellations dancing inside his head, crowding the edges of his vision. Reality was just a touch too far out of reach for him right now.

Cym sat perfectly still, waiting for the effect to fade, but dared to ask, "What happened?" Only minimal constellations flared up from the effort.

"I think someone spelled the ground out from underneath us. We only fell a few yards, but your champion is down there somewhere," Sterling said, pointing toward a chasm a few feet away.

"Oh gods… Fourteen!" Cym leapt to his feet and promptly fell back to the ground as a supernova exploded in his head and his foot gave out underneath him. Maybe he should lie still for one tiny minute before storming to the rescue. Maybe give his brain a chance to reboot.

"I'm fine, by the way," Hester muttered from underneath Sterling.

"Thanks for breaking my fall, Mother ," Sterling said, voice dripping with contempt. "Glad to see you can still be useful to us."

Grudgingly he rolled off Hester, allowing her to sit up. She gave him a poisonous glare and pulled her knees to her chest. After noticing a hole in her stockings, she extended her glare to blanket both of her great-grandchildren, and Sterling rolled his eyes.

When the sparkling light show inside Cym's head faded to an acceptable level, he sat up slowly, trying not to dwell too deeply on how much damage he'd taken in the past forty-eight hours.

The second he thought he could move without passing out, he crawled to the lip of the chasm, trying to make out Fourteen's form. The sun had gone down at some point during Cym's incarceration, and the fires were too far away to allow him to make out anything but darkness in the hole before him.

He thought that if Fourteen was conscious, he might be able to hear Cym, so he shouted, "Fourteen!" Something green splashed a foot away from Cym's face and bubbled violently before burning away. He flinched and scrambled backward, setting off a new round of explosions at the edges of his vision. Cym looked up and saw two more spells—one orange, one red —detonate in the air above them. "Fourteen can't be far if his shield is still protecting us."

Cym didn't get a chance to feel any relief at the realization because Sterling immediately said, "Sorry, bro, that's me. I activated my own shield the moment the ground gave way." His words were hesitant, like he was talking to someone delicate and breakable.

A painful wail tried to claw its way out of his throat, but Cym clamped down on it before it could carry him away. Cym wasn't a precious snowflake. The last few weeks of his life had proved as much.

Seriously, fuck delicate. Cym had to find Fourteen and escape this hellhole first. Hysterics could come later.

Cym leaned out over the chasm as far as he dared but there was nothing to see. He sighed and asked, "Can you get me down there?"

"Not and keep the shield going, I'm afraid. Even with the power-up I got from Hester, it's taking everything I've got to keep this barrage off us," Sterling said.

As they spoke, the light show overhead intensified as dozens of spells exploded against Sterling's shield.

"This is amazing, Sterling, I had no idea you could make a shield like this. It's enormous."

"It's all thanks to Mommy Dearest, here. If it weren't for the power I'm siphoning off her, we'd probably be dead now." Sterling poked the woman with a finger. "I'm surprised your people aren't worried about hitting you in the crossfire, Hester. Care to enlighten us?"

"No." Hester turned her face away, looking sullen.

Sterling let out a surprised laugh. "Your monster abandoned you, didn't it? I guess that's what a few generations of betrayal gets you."

"Sekt wouldn't do that. He loves me. He needs me! Stella isn't enough for him, she—" Hester broke off, suddenly very interested in fiddling with the restraints on her hands.

"She what, Hester?" Sterling shouted. "She won't give him the sweet loving you can? What the hell is wrong with you?"

Cym ignored the argument and stared down into the dark, dust-filled pit that had swallowed Fourteen. He tried to find a way to climb down, searching for a second ledge he could safely land on, a conveniently placed bundle of roots, hell, even a slanted bit of wall he could chance sliding down would do, but all he saw was impenetrable darkness. For all he knew, it might only be ten feet deep. If that were the case, he could hang off the edge of the chasm and jump the rest of the way. Or it could be a hundred feet deep and he would die, but if it was that deep, the likelihood that Fourteen had survived the fall was slim.

Cym's heart skipped a beat at the thought, and suddenly he was screaming Fourteen's name like a madman without conscious effort. He made to swing his legs over the edge of the pit and came against Sterling's shield as it shrank down and nudged him away from the hole.

"Let me out, Sterling. I need to get down there," Cym snapped angrily.

"Sunny…" Sterling's eyes were pained. "I know I've messed up in the past, but I don't think letting you get yourself killed is a good way to make things up to you."

"Indeed it isn't." A deep, lightly accented voice with Middle Eastern overtones interrupted their debate.

"Sweet Vis! How did you get through my shield?" Sterling fell over in surprise and scrambled backward toward Cym and away from the intruder.

Fires raging in the distance framed the outline of an enormous man. With the flames behind him, it was hard to make out his face, but his size alone intimidated the shit out of Cym. How were they supposed to fight this new guy off?

Hester's only reaction to the newcomer was to draw her legs further into herself.

"Dreamwalker." The man poked himself in the chest as if it were an explanation.

It must have meant something to Sterling because his face went from shocked to hopeful. "The Guard is here?"

The Guard? Despite what he'd told Fourteen about them, Cym hadn't been entirely convinced the Guard was anything more than the dreams and wishful thinking of children. He'd never seen any evidence of them before now and was instantly pissed off. If they were real, where the hell had they been while Cym was running for his life? His chin came up stubbornly.

The man nodded and said, "Some guardians are here but not enough for this shitstorm. I'm here to rescue you lot—heroically and quickly—so I can get back to where I'm needed. So follow me and don't lag behind." When nobody moved to obey him, he sighed. "I do have the right group, yes? Missing heir-who-doesn't-exist and guests?"

Cym's teeth ground together hard enough to hurt, and he snapped out, "Yes, that's us, but we aren't all here." He pointed to the hole behind him. "One of us is down there, and we aren't leaving without him." Mythical hero or not, Cym wasn't taking orders from this guy.

"Of course you aren't. And there's no reason you should," The man muttered. "Okay, let's have a look."

He sauntered over to where Cym stood, acting for all the world as if a battle wasn't raging all around him. An exploding flash against Sterling's shield illuminated the man's face showcasing impossible rainbow colored eyes.

Time slowed, and Cym had the sensation of falling into their depths. As he continued to fall, he swore he could see stars. Dizzy, he averted his gaze.

After he was free, he realized he couldn't have described the experience properly if his life depended on it. It also occurred to him that the man seemed as unaffected by Cym's aberration as Fourteen.

The guardian craned his neck, and Cym saw his brother's shield ripple as the man's head passed though the edge of it and peered down into the hole. "Ah, there he is. I see your soldier boy, kid. He's down about ten meters or so. He's moving, but it looks like someone really rang his bell."

After looking into the man's eyes, Cym didn't question how he could see so well in the dark. Instead Cym asked, "Can you get to him?" He found his anger toward the Guard receding. If this guy got Fourteen back, all would be forgiven.

"I'll see what I can do. My friend will be here soon—be nice to her. She bites. The name's Jack, by the way." Then he stepped over the edge of the hole and disappeared.

Cym blinked, bemused, but before he managed to form any words a woman dropped down beside him.

"Gods, you people have to stop doing that!" Sterling grabbed his chest. "I'm too young for a heart attack."

"Nice to meet you too, I'm Adelle." The woman said wryly. Her honey-gold hair draped elegantly over one shoulder, looking pristine. With her dark, form fitting clothes, she looked like she belonged on a runway rather than a warzone. "I suppose you've met Jack."

"He's down there helping my Fourt—ahem, my friend." Cym pointed, beginning to feel a bit like the host of the hole.

"Fair enough." Adelle walked over to Sterling and crouched down. "This is a nice shield you have going, but you don't look so hot. How long have you been holding it?" She put a hand on his forehead.

For the first time, Cym noticed the sweat glittering on Sterling's face and saw that his hands were shaking.

"Not too long. I'll be fine," Sterling said, obviously trying to sound tough.

Adelle patted his head. "Moron. Here, this should help." She closed her eyes, and Cym saw the world around the woman and Sterling shimmer with a faint orange glow. When she opened her eyes again, she gave Sterling an appraising stare. "Well, that explains how you got the power to hold the shield in the first place. In any case, that should let you hold it for a bit longer. As for you"—in a smooth, fluid motion, Adelle shifted and settled in front of Hester—"you are a nasty little piece of work. You and I are going to have a talk later. That I can promise you."

Hester said nothing and stared into the distance, haughtily.

Sterling put a hand to his chest and looked down at it, then back at Adelle, gaping in wonder. "T-thank you."

Adelle stood with enviable grace, glided over to Cym, and crouched back down, looking him over in the scant light. "You must be the one everyone's been looking for. You've caused quite a stir, haven't you?"

Under the woman's penetrating gaze, Cym felt like more than his appearance was being examined. After his experience looking into Jack's eyes, Cym was nervous, but when nothing extraordinary happened, he relaxed. "Um… they started it?"

"Cymbeline!" Sterling hissed reprovingly. "She's a guardian, be respectful!" He had stopped sweating but still looked entirely unnerved.

The woman let out a low, rich laugh. "Your brother is right, I am a guardian, but"—her lovely eyes narrowed—"that doesn't mean much to you, does it?"

The woman was perceptive, Cym would give her that. She was also as unaffected by Cym as her partner Jack was. Curious. "Should it?"

"In a family like yours, you should have been taught everything about the Guard by now. For that crime alone your family would need to answer to us. This is a bad time to begin your education, sweetheart." Adelle tilted her head up to look at the ledge above where a large chunk of the Blaike family had gathered and was doing their best to knock out Sterling's shield. She frowned thoughtfully before saying, "Most of your family is protected from being put to sleep. I could do each one individually, but they would overtake us long before I finished. A distraction would be better, I think. You can escape while they're occupied."

Cym was getting tired of enigmatic people showing up and assuming they could tell him what to do. He drew himself to his feet, pulling as much dignity and confidence around himself as he could. "Listen, I appreciate your help, but—" he had been going to say, I'm not going anywhere without Fourteen , but his injured leg gave out, dropping him to the cold ground in a pathetic heap. He was certain people on the other side of the compound could hear his disgruntled sigh as he lay there, face down in the dirt.

Adelle held up a hand to keep Sterling from running to Cym. "You save your magic to power the shield. I'll fix your brother." Adelle leaned forward to help Cym roll over, but when Adelle's fingers grazed Cym's bare hand, she sucked in a breath and snatched her hand away in reflex. "You are full of surprises for someone so small."

Cym looked at the woman's face, expecting to see fear or anger there and was surprised when he only saw wonder. "Why doesn't it anger you to be so close to me?"

Perfectly manicured eyebrows drew together. "I suppose it would present as anger in people who don't understand what you are. Especially in a family like yours." Adelle's words were tinged with sorrow. "The crimes they have committed against you are unforgivable, little one. We will fix this, I promise you."

Rather than explaining herself, Adelle gently placed her hand on Cym's chest and closed her eyes.

It didn't feel like someone had a hand on his chest. Instead it felt as though Adelle's hand had sunk through his skin and reached right in to Cym's soul. He felt the pinkness inside of him rise to meet the orange of Adelle's magic.

:Watch. You might need to do this sooner than either of us might wish.: The words formed warmly in Cym's mind. Neither surprising nor invasive, it felt perfectly natural to have Adelle speak to him in such a way.

Instantly, he was aware of three large, dark spots in the pink and saw the orange weave tendrils through his essence until it met them. Cym watched as Adelle's magic wrapped around his own, and like a mother guiding the hands of a toddler, the orange guided the pink, sinking into the dark places and encouraging them to heal. He felt power flow from Adelle to himself as they healed his wounds, but rather than their combined magic diminishing, their power swelled until Cym felt as though he were about to burst.

Adelle opened her eyes and smiled. "That was lovely. Thank you, Cymbeline. I feel better than I did when I got here."

"Um… You're welcome?" Cym flexed his hands and feet. The injured parts still felt tender, but completely usable. Even the persistent throbbing of his head had calmed. "I mean, thank you, too. Now I might actually make it out of here alive. And Cymbeline is a stupid name. Please call me Cym."

Adelle caught and held his eyes, searching for something. "If only I had time to train you, Cym, this fight would be over in minutes. You are a gift to us all, you know?"

Cym snorted. "A gift? Lady, that's the first time anyone has ever considered me a gift."

Adelle's eyes went to the chasm behind Cym. "I wouldn't be so certain of that if I were you."

Cym followed her gaze, wondering if she'd been referring to Fourteen. He'd mentioned meeting some guardians earlier. Maybe this woman was one of them.

"If it wouldn't be breaking all the rules and going against my better judgment, I'd take you straight to Marshall. He could use someone like you right now. In fact, he's going to need all the help he can get against the demon that was inside your aunt."

"Demon? I thought it was a nightmare." Cym felt woefully uneducated about Other society.

"No, it's definitely a demon, but I can see how someone untrained would make that mistake. Traditionally, nightmares can't survive for long in the Real outside of a host. Once they're strong enough to take form and survive alone, we consider them demons, but for some reason, this demon has continued to live in a host. I've never seen anything like it." Adelle tapped her chin thoughtfully and murmured, "I wish I knew what its end game was."

"I know what it is. I had some kind of vision when I grabbed a hold of Hester—um, my mother, I mean. This lady looks like Elanor, but she's not. My great-great-great-grandmother Hester and this demon have been possessing the matriarchs of my family for hundreds of years. They use their souls to hide the presence of the demon. It—Hester called it Sekt—is planning on entering the Demon Realm as some kind of super power."

Adelle's lovely face twisted with horror. "We have to stop this thing right now. If it succeeds, and other nightmares hear of it, they'll follow in Sekt's footsteps. The demon population can't be allowed to gain in numbers. We're having a hard time holding them back as it is."

"I can help," Cym said before he could stop himself.

Until now, all Cym wanted out of his evening was to get to safety with Fourteen and his brother, but he couldn't take off if there was a possibility he could actually be useful. He'd never been useful before, and the idea that he might be needed for something important was like catnip for his soul. "I think when I grabbed Hester, it forced Sekt to run away." That had to mean something, right?

Adelle shook her head. "I'm sorry, little one. As much as it pains me to say no, I cannot accept your help." She placed a warm hand on Cym's cheek. "It really is too bad. Help from one such as yourself would be invaluable right now."

Cym had had enough cryptic statements, and he knocked the hand away with an angry jerk of his chin. "Plain English, lady. What exactly am I supposed to be?"

Cym could hear the smile in Adelle's voice when she said, "I promise I'll tell you once we're out of this." Then she cocked her head as if hearing something no one else could. "Please excuse me. Jack needs one of my trinkets to get your friend out of that hole. Once we're out, we can all go."

Cym watched Adelle drop into the hole and blinked. She'd made escaping sound like an afterthought. Like it wasn't something Cym and Fourteen had nearly died attempting. But what did Cym know about guardians? It was possible they wandered blithely in and out of battles rescuing random people for fun.

He gave a weary sigh.

"Them being here is a good thing, Cym. I promise."

Cym looked at where Sterling sat next to their traitorous grandmother, his body language announcing his readiness to pounce if she moved wrong. "How long can you keep this shield up? It isn't going to hurt you, is it?"

"No way. With what Guardian Adelle just gave me, I could do this all day. It's freaking awesome." Sterling's eyes burned with excitement. "I wonder if the Guard accepts sixteen-year-olds?"

"I'm the wrong person to ask." Cym watched nervously as the rim above them filled with more people. Some of them shone with a wrongness similar to Sekt's, though none of them were as terrible as the thing that had set up shop inside generations of Blaike women. "Are you sure they can't get through?"

"They'd be down here already if they could. They can't touch us," Sterling said with all the bravado of a teenage boy.

The earth underneath them began to tremble, giving lie to his words. As a single unit, the crowd above them stepped away from the ledge when the sides of the crater began to collapse. Massive boulders began to pound against Sterling's shield, causing him to wince as more and more struck. Cym barely noticed their own predicament, instead watching horror-struck as the hole Fourteen and the guardians were in filled with tons of rock and dirt.

"Can they get out of that? Do guardians have shields as good as yours?" Cym's voice sounded far away.

Shaken, Sterling's voice was just as faint. "They must have. They must…"

Witches began to pour over the edges of the newly widened crater.

"They know you're down here with us, right?" Sterling yelled at Hester, panic lacing his words.

"He'll come back for me. He always does. He always does…" Hester rocked back and forth as she mumbled to her hands, but when spells began crashing against Sterling's shield with a renewed frenzy, she flinched and shrank in further, hiding behind the fall of her once-pristine hair.

"What do we do?" Cym shouted over the sound of spellfire.

"Do what you did in the cemetery!"

"I can't! You saw what happened there. The gods only know what would happen if I did it on top of our friends!" More than half of the oncoming horde was running over the rubble covering Fourteen and the guardians. In order to be effective, Cym's attack would put his people in danger.

Were the guardians Cym's people? They were certainly something.

He'd deal with it later.

"Then point it that way!" Sterling gestured toward the dozen or so people climbing down the walls on the other side of them.

"Can you keep up the shield if I manage an attack?"

"I doubt it. The rock fall seriously weakened me." Sterling had begun to look sweaty and pale again. So much for him being able to do it all day.

"Then I'll save it as a last resort." Cym fully intended to take out the entire base if anything happened to Fourteen or Sterling. "Can you make it smaller? It could give us more time."

Cym eyed the advancing horde and realized several horrifying creatures were mixed in among the witches clambering toward them. It looked as though everyone from the compound had called a friend and invited them to bring a pet monster along just for fun.

Sterling looked pained. "It would buy us more time, but you and I would have to get a lot closer than we are now." The shame on his face was devastating. "I'm sorry, but I still remember how it felt the last time I got hit by your power. I'll be useless to you if it takes me over again."

"Oh." Cym had forgotten for a tiny, blissful minute, the terrible burden of his gift. It had taken less than two days with Fourteen to make Cym forget that he was a monster. "Don't be sorry, Sterling. I'm the fuck-up. This stupid power of mine… I'm sorry I can't control it. You're too young to have to put up with any of this, and I'm so sorry you're stuck here with me." Hot tears began to roll down his face.

How awful was it of Cym to want Fourteen with him right now? Aside from it meaning he hadn't been crushed by the rockfall, Cym really wanted to burrow into him and hide from the entire stupid world.

"Oh for the gods' sake, drop your shield so we can finish this. If I have to listen to one more sappy monologue, my dinner is going to make a second appearance." Astin's caustic voice cut in on Cym's not-so-tiny mental breakdown.

Hastily Cym wiped his tears away. He was grateful for his cousin's arrival; anger was easier territory to navigate than shame and it allowed him to put on a facsimile of confidence. He'd rather get blown into a million pieces than let that asshole see him be weak. "I'm surprised Sekt didn't eat you after Fourteen shot you, cousin. Demons aren't known for going soft on easy prey." Or so he imagined. Cym didn't know shit about demons, but he wanted to piss Astin off. The guy was a total asshole.

Fourteen had clearly managed to do some damage when he'd shot Astin earlier. Cym could see spell patches peeking out from under the sleeve on one of his cousin's arms.

Astin ignored his jab and called out, "Sterling, you little shit, cut this out right now, and we'll let you live. Your brother is too far gone to save. He needs to be put down for his own good."

"His own good? What the fuck is wrong with you? And like hell you'll let me go!" Sterling said angrily. "You forget that I know how awful you are."

Astin sighed. "I locked you in a cupboard one time, kid."

"For two days!"

"I got busy and forgot. I said I was sorry."

"Forget it. I don't care what's inside him. He's my brother, and you can go fuck yourself."

Shrugging his shoulders theatrically, Astin said to the crowd around him, "You heard him. Kill them both."

"So your orders are back to killing me? What happened to needing my body?" Cym didn't expect an answer, he was just stalling for time. He wasn't sure what he was hoping for, but not getting horribly murdered by his family for even another minute was pretty appealing.

Astin winked at Cym, making his blood boil. The fuckhead didn't give one single shit about either of them. Cym doubted he even cared about getting benefits from Sekt for helping. Given his psycho ways, Astin was probably there just because he was told he'd get to torture someone. Hester probably adored him for it.

Hell, it wouldn't surprise Cym if he found out Astin had been in on the whole thing from the day Cym had been first locked up. He'd always been awful when they were kids.

How many of Cym's family members knew the whole truth? And for those who didn't, what lies had they been told that could have convinced them to fight on the side of monsters?

The ground rumbled ominously. One look at Sterling's face, now devoid of any color, told Cym his brother's magic was at its limit. The next attack that came for them would be the end.

Then the world erupted around him for the second time that day.