The hurricane eased to a light sighing breeze. The delicate scent of honeysuckle perfumed the air, a layer of sweet over the stench of the lingering smoke. After a count of three, I raised my head and straightened. I turned this way and that, my gaze darting from shadow to shadow.
Nothing.
I licked my dry lips. “I’ll tell you what you want to know about my brother. You don’t have to—”
A sharp crack from the woods made me flinch but it was only Mad-one coming back through the hole she’d made between two tall saplings after the sudden gale had sent her hurtling toward the tops of the tree line.
The hairs on the nape of my neck were damn tired of standing at attention but now they positively bristled as Mad-one studied me, head canted to the side. Graceful as a swan coming in for a soft landing, she readjusted her altitude—slowly sinking from her lofty tree-top hover, stopping only when the long, trailing hem of her gown stirred the waist-tall grasses in the clearing.
The Old Mage gave up on trying to assume paternal or even kind. “Close your eyes,” he snapped. “And then open them, for we must meet.”
“What do you mean?
“Close them!”
Doing that required faith that Mad-one wouldn’t use it as an opportunity for attack. And there was something about the way she watched us—arms folded as if she were on the cusp of making a really bad decision—that had armed my alert system.
I sent a silent appeal toward my Goddess for a little heavenly protection, then closed my eyes. When I opened them, the mage stood beneath our tree. For all intents, fully corporeal, right down to the suggestion of a paunch. A patchwork of light dappled his ruddy cheek. Thinning, tousled white hair.
“Neat illusion,” I said, glancing down at myself. My trembling arms were still occupied cradling the mate’s soul light and I was still on one bended knee. I rose stiffly. “It would have been a better one if I wasn’t still here, holding your cyreath.”
“Tell me about your brother,” he demanded.
“Lexi’s a liar and a thief—just like me. He’s cruel, and merciless, and … so damn lost. He’s what I could have been, if I’d gone to Merenwyn. He’s probably what I’ll be, after a few years as your unwilling soul mate … And yet…”
“And yet?”
“And yet, there is a piece of the real Lexi inside there still. But it’s buried so far beneath his addiction that I can’t even remem—”
“What is his addiction?” he asked sharply.
The urge to squeeze his cyreath until it popped like bubble wrap was overpowering. But I couldn’t do that, any more than I could go over there and hit him, so I settled on giving him the facts coupled with a hard, accusing stare. “My twin needs a ration of sun potion every day, or he will die. Which is a real problem for him, because my world doesn’t happen to have any.”
The Old Mage’s eyes turned to slits, the wrinkles fanning outward in sharp emphasis. “Then he must return to Merenwyn.”
“He can’t go back,” I said, watching him stalk to the base of our citadels. “He’s failed the Black Mage.”
“How long has he been taking the draught?” he asked.
“At least eighty or more Merenwyn winters.”
He stopped, mid-stride, and slowly turned. “How many hours since his last dose?”
“Is there no end to this!” he snarled.
He spun around to glare at me. “He will be dead within hours.”
“Lexi’s got wolf blood in him. He can fight this.”
“Can you not see with your own eyes?” The wizard drew in a seething breath through his teeth then jabbed at the black walnut. “There is no cure for what ails him in your world or mine. No elixir to swallow. He will die, and as your destiny is forever tied to his, you will shortly follow.”
My stomach squeezed. “No.”
“When he dies, you will feel a crack in your heart, a sudden, inexplicable pain. Shortly after that his citadel will fall, and when it does so, it will tear a wound in the trunk of your tree that will be irreparable. Within hours, your cyreath will drop to the ground, and you will complete your own fade.” He ran agitated hands through his hair. “I needed more time. Two days to travel to the castle. A few hours more to destroy the book.”
Lexi goes, and—oh, too bad, so sad—I follow?
My mind spun then sharpened into a needle, silver bright. I jabbed its tip into the concept of my brother and me sharing fates, stared at that for a second with eroding disbelief, then—
“Trowbridge,” I whispered.
“Who?” he asked testily.
“My mate.”
He shrugged. “Yes, your lupine mate will die, as well.”
Despair, a lead weight in my chest. “You could have saved yourself the termination speech. I’ve got it— okay? Lexi and I are toast. Trowbridge, too.” I couldn’t bear to look at him, or at Mad-one who was watching me with something akin to “what bug is this” interest, or at the purple-blue northern lights curling around Lexi’s side of the black walnut, so I dropped my gaze.
The old wizard’s soul ball glowed in my arms, his frustration as orange as the sun sinking angrily below the horizon. Ugly.
I lifted my head to give him a cold stare. “Will you let me go home so I can tell my mate and brother the good news? Or are you going to make me stay here, holding your cyreath, until a new mystwalker shows up? Because if that’s your plan, I should warn you that it won’t go well.”
“A mage can have only one nalera,” he said with exquisite resentment. “Whether or not my cyreath joins yours, the agreement is sealed. We are bound—sharing fates, strengths, and enemies—until your final fade.”
That made me happy in a bitter kind of way. Given Lexi’s prospects, our association would be short-lived. I gave him my worst smile. “Wow, Karma got a two-for-one.”
Four minutes ago (at least by my reckoning), the Old Mage had tapped the air and conjured up a chair. Now he sat slumped in it, worrying his chin. Six more leaves had dropped in that space of time.
“What did you need two days for?” I asked Mr. Mage.
“To save my world and yours from catastrophe,” he said with a total lack of irony. When I rolled my eyes, his mouth pulled down. “It would be a conceit to pretend I am other than what I am. Mages are born but rarely, great ones even less frequently.”
“And yet, the Great One managed to blow it.” I flexed my fingers against a cramp. “Got himself forced into the Big Sleep.”
He gave me a slit-eyed glance. “I had a daughter. Impetuous, and very often, foolish. She gave birth to a —”
“A half-breed like me.”
“Elorna sought to hide his heritage before he reached the cusp of manhood as she greatly feared what would happen once his beast obeyed the moon’s call.” The Old Mage thoughtfully drummed his fingers on the curved armrest of his chair. “It was an interesting problem, but once I turned my attention to it, I did succeed in divining an elixir that allowed him to hide himself among us.”
“Good job,” I said dryly. “That potion destroyed my brother and led you right back here.”
“It was an error in judgment,” he admitted, looking, for a moment, honestly regretful. “And in the eyes of my Maker, but one of my crimes.”
