Chapter 39

At first, there was only the warmth surrounding me, the steady rocking of the world, a fierce heartbeat against my ear. The temptation to stay there, in that moment of dark serenity, was overwhelming.

But in the end, I forced my eyes open.

Nash's face hovered above mine, his gaze forward as he searched the darkness around us. For a moment, I didn't understand what was happening, only that he had hooked one of my arms around his neck and was carrying me.

"You can't ever do what I tell you, can you?" he was muttering, his steps quickening. "All the bravado of a peacock and the sense of a pigeon …"

"I think you mean Lark," I rasped out.

His steps slowed and he looked down at me in the dusky hallway. The walls around us were stone, and here and there, a few lanterns had been hung along the scattered rooms. The damp cold made me feel as though we were trapped under the earth.

This is not where I'm supposed to be.

Memory rose as quick and painful as a blister. I twisted, wrenching myself out of his arms, away from his coaxing hands. My legs threatened to buckle, too unsteady to support my full weight.

"Don't be a fool," he began .

I took in the hall around us with growing horror. It was a cellar of some sort. It had to be. "Where are we?"

"We're leaving" was all he said.

"No, we're not." I tried to move past him. "We're going to get the others. We can't leave them here."

"You're bloody well right we can, and we will!" Nash snapped at me. "You are my concern, not them. And we will find whatever Veins Kasumi's hidden down here if I have to drag you kicking and screaming!"

I took a step back, disgusted. "You really are a coward, aren't you? You put on a great act in Lyonesse, but all you ever do is run—"

"I don't care if you hate me for all eternity—I've hated myself enough for both of us over the centuries." He gripped my shoulders, shaking me. His usual swaggering confidence had unraveled, and what was left was raw. Tense. "All I've ever wanted, all I've ever tried to do, is protect you, and each time I found you, it was always too late."

"What are you talking about?" I demanded. "What does—what did you mean that I was never supposed to see those tapestries?"

His hold on me eased, but he didn't let go. Pain, alive and burning, flashed in his eyes.

"You always died—that bloody spell was supposed to protect you, but it became a curse," he said hoarsely. "She must have done something wrong, and mine was useless to stop it."

My blood beat a hard rhythm, turning my breath shallow. "Your … power?"

I knew Nash had the One Vision, so he had at least some magical ancestry. But he'd told us he never inherited his father's Cunningfolk talent.

He looked down at me again, saying nothing. He shook his head, as if deciding something once and for all. "You need to remember this now—your curse. You need to remember."

"Remember this?" A dark, sinking feeling overcame me. "You're not making any sense—why wouldn't I—? "

That memory, the one I'd forgotten. The story of the Goddess's daughter.

Horror wrapped its cold hands around my throat. "You did something to my memories, didn't you? That's your power. "

His gaze held mine, almost pleading, but he didn't deny it. But that was impossible—that wasn't one of the known Cunningfolk abilities.

Pressure built and built in my chest. It felt like ice was coating my lungs. "You had no right to play with my mind! To take anything from me!"

"I had every right!" he roared, running a rough hand through his hair. "I couldn't risk something awakening your magic and triggering your curse again! It took you every time there was danger, stealing the breath from you, stopping your heart. Again and again and again, bringing your soul into a new body so he couldn't find it. And each time, I was powerless to stop it!"

I reared back. "You …"

"I've used all my coins now—they were given to me to protect you, so I could ensure that you were reborn and lived a fulfilled life," he said. "That was the only thing she wanted, her last act before she became one with the world."

"You're not making any sense," I told him. "You—"

Nash didn't let me finish. He was frantic now, the words unraveling faster and faster. "I asked the Lady of the Lake to cast a spell to hide your soul, to protect it, but something in the spell was flawed, and now it'll all begin again—if I don't get you away from here, far away from here, you will die."

I was shaking my head, pulling away again. I held up a finger, as if it were a talon I could drive through his throat, to make him stop talking. But it felt like every drop of blood had left my body.

"Neve has Creiddylad's soul," I whispered in protest. One hand rose to claw at my chest, as if I could physically cling to my denial.

"She has a different role to play in all of this," Nash said. "I didn't see it until Lyonesse, when she took up the sword. Of course you found one another, Fate's always been a cackling old crow."

"What are you saying?" I demanded.

"Listen to me, Tamsy," Nash pressed on. "You weren't in danger before because your power hadn't awakened, but it's different now, isn't it? You felt it in the cemetery—the spark of potential, the call of new life. I know you did."

I'd felt something, but—

"There's no time left," Nash said. "If he takes you, if the curse activates itself and you die by it or, Mother forbid it, he kills you himself, he'll be able to capture your soul—the very thing it was meant to prevent. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

My mind only seemed to understand one thing.

"You lied," I breathed out. "About everything. The curse. Where you found me. Why you took me in … You suppressed my memories. How can anything you're saying be real?"

"You are as dear to me as my own flesh and blood," he said softly. "You are the daughter I never had, in a life I never saw for myself."

I shrank back from the words, from him, my heartbeat fluttering. How many years had I longed for him to say that to me?

"I've made so many mistakes in that time, but I can't let this be another," Nash swore. "You will live. You will survive this."

"The others—" I began.

"The sorceresses will know who Neve is by now," he said quickly, reaching for my arm again. "And the Dye boy will survive. Somehow they always seem to."

"You don't know that!" I tried to move around him, to dart back down the long hall, but my body was still too unsteady, and his hold on me was ironclad as he drew me the opposite way.

"Oh, but I do," he said. "It was the same for his father, his father's father, his father's father's father …"

One by one, he opened the doors we passed, revealing root cellars, rooms stacked high with barrels of wine, discarded crates of books, but no Veins.

"The only Vein I saw was upstairs," I told him, seizing on an idea. "In the archive. You must have seen it. Doesn't it make more sense to go up there?"

He stopped, turning to look at my face. Breath surged in and out of him.

"All right," he said, his voice strangely devoid of emotion. "Then go up and look for it, dove."

The look he gave me was one of a stranger—there was no warmth to his eyes. Something was wrong.

"What's going on?" I demanded.

"Go past me and head back upstairs," he said, his voice hard. "Right now."

"What the hell is the matter with you?"

Nash's face was wan, his eyes pleading in a way I'd never seen before. "Go back to the attic."

A moment later, I felt it. A cold heaviness had followed us through the cemetery, but it was nothing compared to the feeling that came over me now. The way it seemed to reach into my chest and grip my heart.

"Please," Nash said quietly. "Go, Tamsin."

But I had already seen it—the subtle shiver of the air behind me in the hall. The slight distortion of the lines of the stone walls, inexplicably curved.

My breath caught, and this time, I let Nash draw me behind him.

A laugh of disbelief rumbled through the room, as cold as it was scornful. With a faint rustle of fabric, Lord Death pushed Arthur's mantle and its hood back, fully revealing himself. His black armor. His hateful smirk. A dead king's face.

"Hello, brother," he said.

And from high above us, rolling through the sky like thunder, the horn of the Wild Hunt sounded.