Scryer (17 page)

“Then I should run.”

Another burst of light showered the sky,
and we both blocked our eyes from it.

He shook his head. “It won’t make a
difference, but there is something that I can do.”

“What is it?”

“The Circle has so many people to do
their bidding. Powerful people, witches. My family won’t be able to trace your
body once you’re dead, and the Circle could raise you up again provided your
heart is still intact in your body.”

It took me a moment to process his
words. “Caleb,
no
.” I began to move away from him, my hands sinking into
the dirt and leaves to search for a weapon. “There will be another way. I’ll
find another way.”

A burst of blue and silver light cut
through the sky again, showering us in falling light that seemed so concrete
that I could reach out and touch it. There was another burst and my head went
upwards. That was when he grabbed my hair and pulled me hard against him.

“I’m sorry, Ivy. I wish that there were
another way. I’ll make sure that the Circle finds you. Trust me, you’ll thank
me later.”

My mouth opened to protest but a hot pain
seared through me with such intensity that I couldn’t cry out as the blade bit
into my skin and slid across my neck. I felt it gush from me: my blood, my
life. He released my hair but still held me close and a kiss was pressed to my
forehead. “Shhh, Ivy. It will all be okay.”

My head collapsed down and I saw the
flow of red down me, sliding down my body to the ground below and taking my
life with it. My eyes were open and they should have been closing forever. The
leaves, the blood, the fucking red—that was all I saw as I waited for darkness
to come.

But it didn’t. Slowly, everything turned
silver, and I felt relief. I was not cold, I was not scared, and there was no
pain. The beauty of the silver light overcame everything and I wanted to tell
Caleb how this beauty transcended everything. But I couldn’t feel his touch any
longer.

There was only light.

I
saw myself when I awoke. The mirror above me showed only my face with the rest
of my body covered up to my chin by the bed covers. My face was pale, shadows
circled my eyes and my lips were bloodless and thin. Even my hair, normally so
unruly and wild, appeared lifeless and limp.

I didn’t need to be told where I was. It
was the Corins’ ritual room.

And then I remembered everything else
and a disappointing feeling came over me. The light was gone and a depression
collapsed down on me at that realization. Slowly, I dug my fingers into the
fabric of the covers and pulled them from me as if pulling a scab from a wound.
I lowered them enough just to reveal the red angry scar that lined my throat
like a necklace. Gouging scar tissue twisted nastily from one side to the other
and made me cringe at its grotesqueness.

I turned my head to the side to spare
myself from my reflection and was faced with Lake sitting beside me and staring
down at me. Slowly, his lips formed a smile.

“You live. I doubted it would work.” He
reached over and took my cold hand. “But it did.”

I opened my mouth to speak but instead
of words just a rasp came out.

“Wonderful. A scryer who cannot speak.
What use is she?” Dorothea Corin’s bitchy voice snapped from the corner,
searing at my ears. I couldn’t find the energy or the will to face her.

“There’s no reason for you to be here,
you hag,” Lake said dryly, never taking his eyes from me.

A sharp intake of breath was audible
from wherever she stood. “No reason? I have every reason to be here. What I
have sacrificed to have her live again is more than anyone should have to
give!”

I heard footsteps on the wooden floor
before the person came into view. Except this wasn’t Dorothea. I managed to
make a gasping sound in fright as I was confronted with her. Her face was
withered, skin sagged from her bones and deep lines of time crisscrossed over
her cheeks. Maybe she was hairless now, because she wore a purple scarf wrapped
around her head in the style of a turban. Enormous bags swallowed up her eyes,
and her downturned, thin lips revealed yellowed teeth as she laughed sourly.

“She’s scared! She’s scared of me! I am
her savior and the little bitch has the nerve to look at me like I’m a
monster!?” She reached toward me with withered and nearly skeletal hands,
yellowing nails out like claws.

Lake gripped her hand before she could
reach me or scratch me, whatever her intention had been. She howled in pain at
his touch even though it did not appear that he had held her tightly, and he
let go abruptly. She speedily retreated with that hand back to being held
against her chest.

“My bones! You broke my hand,” she
snapped at him. “My bones are brittle now.”

There was no sympathy coming from Lake.
“Go. You have no business being here. If you enter here again without my
permission I will have you locked away, naked in the dungeon. Judging by the
state of you now, it would not take long for the cold to kill you.” The cruelty
in his eyes made me shiver.

She glared at him and then at me, before
she retreated, still gripping her injured hand. The slamming of the door
indicated that she had left, and I looked to Lake in question.

His eyes softened. “You should rest,” he
said gently. “You don’t need to worry about anything anymore. We have brought
you back to life, and you’ll be safe with me. That’s all you need to know.”

I heard the door open and Felix came
into view. My eyes widened and he gave me a small smile as if he could read my
mind. “I didn’t die, Ms. Scryer. Nearly, but I’m very hard to kill.”

He put down a tray on the edge of the
bed. “Soup?” I managed to shake my head. “Maybe later then.” He gave a nod to
Lake before retreating out of the room with his tray, but just as he reached
the doorway, he turned back to us. “I’m sorry about the scar. The herbs didn’t
work the way they normally do. Perhaps coming back to life meant that your body
could accept no more manipulation.” Then he stepped through the doorway and
left us alone.

I opened my mouth again to try and
speak, but Lake shook his head. “Ivy, you need to rest. The witches…they
haven’t done a resurrection for centuries. We don’t know a lot about the effect
that this will have on you. So please, just rest for now.” He gave my hand a
small squeeze, and then leaned over and delivered a small kiss on my forehead.

The memory flooded back to me of Caleb
doing the same as my blood pulsed from my body and I jerked in reaction, my
hand going to my neck. Grasping at my scar, that terrible rasping coming from
me sounded like I was some kind of nightmare creature. Lake gently pried my
hands away from my skin and brought them together, tucking them under the
covers.

“It will be all right, Ivy, I promise.”

But then he left me, switching off the
lamp before he walked through the door so there was nothing but darkness. I was
glad that I could not see my reflection any longer though. I had no desire to
see the corpse looking girl that I had become.

Later, Felix returned. Maybe it was
morning or evening, I couldn’t tell because the heavy drapes had not been
opened. He propped me up on the pillows and slowly and patiently fed me soup.
“You need your strength,” he said as I listlessly opened my mouth for the
spoon. I felt no hunger though, and after he left, I did not feel satiated in
anyway.

When I was alone in the room, I would
try to speak. It was such an odd sensation to move my mouth and feel my throat
that had been slit move with each sound that I managed to make. In the dark, I
imagined myself as some nightmarish creature to be feared, which was preferable
to the reality that I weak and pathetic, with no control over anything. What
was I? Half dead? Half alive?

I managed to get out of bed, only to
fall to the ground and not be able to control my limbs or voice to call for
help or move from the floor. Felix found me, and after that, he would open the
drapes and settle me in an armchair beside the window. It was winter now, and
deep snow blanketed the world and made it white and almost pure. I found the
white calming and would just stare out that window for hours.

In the evenings, Lake would sit with me.
With Michael’s demise, he was the leader now and you could tell. The way that he
carried himself and the confidence with which he spoke all told me that he was
making his mark.

He would tell me about their hunt for
the white witches. They would find small enclaves of them and systematically
slaughter them, yet they had to find their leader, Caleb’s father. There was no
revulsion rising in me when he spoke of the slaughter, but there should have
been. This should have worried me, yet it didn’t. It was almost like I was a
canvas as blank as the snow outside. Somehow, when I died, something else in me
had died as well.

But I did want to ask about Caleb. I
knew now that he had killed me to save me, alerting Lake somehow to where I
lay, dead and cold, before the white witches could tear open my chest and
extract my heart.

“Hello,” I managed to greet Lake one evening, my voice little more than a
whisper. His face broke into a smile as he sat opposite me at our usual seat by
the window.

“I missed the sound of your voice,” he
said, and for just an instant, he wasn’t the formidable powerhouse of the
Circle, he was the Lake that I had thought I’d known.

I smiled at the memory.

“What happened to Dorothea?” I asked.
“Why is she such a…”

“Monster?” He snorted. “She always was.
Only now you can see it on the outside. For the resurrection, the witches I
recruited needed a sacrifice. It’s tricky. They needed life but no one could
die.” He gave a brief smile. “It’s like a riddle. So what they did was take her
youth, her lifespan was dramatically shortened, yet she will not die straight
away.”

“How did she agree to that?” I rasped
out.

He looked me straight in the eye. “I
told her that I would crucify her if she didn’t. She stood by and let Michael
lock you up while I was going after the witches. I entrusted you to her and she
betrayed me. It’s as simple as that.” He reached over and took my hand. “I am
not a good person, Ivy. That is no news to you. I’m selfish and ruthless and I
will always get what I want because of it.” He took a breath. “I can’t undo the
past. I can’t take away the lies and how I used you, but right now, I’m being
honest about what I am, and what you need to know is that there will be nothing
getting in the way of my protecting you. I don’t care who I have to kill, I
won’t let anyone hurt you again.” His eyes glittered with the ferocity and
bloodthirstiness of his words.

“What will happen to Caleb? Is he still
alive?”

Lake leaned back in his chair. “As far
as I’m aware, yes.”

“Will he live if you catch him?”

“It’s highly unlikely. Why do you care
so much?”

“He saved my life.”

Lake opened his mouth and then closed it
again, standing. “So did I.”

As he walked past me, his hand swept
down a strand of my hair lightly, and then he was gone. I spent the remainder
of the day watching the snow until night closed in and Felix arrived to help me
back to bed.

Lake
stayed away for several nights after that. My arrogance refused to let me give
in and ask Felix where he was. As I sat in my armchair watching the snow, I
heard the door creak open. I straightened and raised my head, waiting for Lake
to sit beside me once more.

But it wasn’t him. Dorothea shuffled in,
a hunched over and pathetic figure. She used a cane, holding it tightly even as
she lowered herself to sit opposite me. She still wore opulent and expensive
garments, but they now hung on her emaciated body, too bright against her
paper-thin skin and liver spots.

I watched her and waited for her to
speak. She took her time, freely inspecting me with her squinting eyes.

“You were never as pretty as me,” she
began. I let myself smile as best as I could and chuckled slightly.

She raised a sparse eyebrow and
continued in spite of me. “I don’t know what it was that Michael saw in you. I
always found you so dreary and depressing.” She let out a snort. “Maybe that’s
what men like best—stupid little sluts who play hard to get.”

I kept my face immobile. “I’ve never
played games, Dorothea. My hatred was always real.” My voice was stronger and
clearer now.

“Your
hatred?”
Her eyes glittered
with the most life in her that I had seen thus far as she pounced on the word.
“You’re a fool, do you know that? You played the poor victim card so well, when
in reality you
enjoyed
it. This is what made you special. We made you
special. Otherwise, what would you be? Just some other pretty girl among a thousand
others waiting for the boredom of an ordinary life to hit them, every step and
decision just bringing you closer to death. We gave you purpose.
I
gave
you life.”

I shook my head at her. “What’s the
purpose of your little speech? Get to the point.”

She adjusted herself in her chair, her
shriveled eyes shooting daggers at me the best they could. “I’m dying because
of you. I gave you life. I don’t want to see it wasted.”

I barked out a laugh. “Why? Why do you
even care?”

She leaned in closer, gripping the cane
for extra support. “
Because
,” she said in a low voice, “when they raised
your corpse from the dead, they stole my youth, they stole years from me and
gave them to you. You’re not just Ivy Scryer now. Oh no, you have part of me in
you now. I will live through you. You will take on my characteristics in some
form. My ruthlessness, my lust for power…” Her lips formed a gruesome smile.
“My lust for gorgeous young men…when I die, you will have far more life in you
than you have right now, but up until then, I will feel what you feel. When you
take a lover, I will feel his lips on your skin. When you rise up in lust, I
will rise with you. When you taste good wine, I will taste it with you. Until I
die, I live through you. Your happiness is my happiness.” Her cheeks were
flushed with the exertion of speaking while her eyes shone with satisfaction.

I waited a moment before speaking. “You
don’t know me very well then, my life is rarely happy.”

“I know! And that is what I’m telling
you to change. I will not live out my final years in the misery that you have
made your life. You have had every opportunity to grasp happiness and you avoid
it at every turn like it’s the plague!”

I concentrated on breathing as her words
sunk in and swirled around in my head. “You’re right, Dorothea. You’re
completely right,” I finally said.

She smiled and looked smug.

“But, the only problem is, that I don’t
like to share.”

“You don’t get a choice,” she snapped.
“This is how it is.”

“I’m going to take your advice. I’m
going to pursue happiness. And this is how I’m going to start,
by not
sharing.
”

I wrenched the smooth cane from her weak
grasp with ease as I stood. My excitement and intent gave me more power than I
had felt since I had woken up from my death. She shrunk back in fear, but I did
not see the old and withered woman, I saw Dorothea at her prime—her snake like
painted smile, her cruel tongue and manipulative ways. She was Michael’s
vessel, and she needed to break.

I swung the cane at her face. It hit her
square across the cheek and she fell to the floor. I swung it again, almost
blindly, and blood splattered. I hit her again, and this time the blood hit my
lips. My tongue darted out automatically to lick at it. And just that taste of
her blood sent something through me like a bolt. I felt invigorated all of a
sudden, like I was taking what was mine. And it was. It was her life blood…and
it belonged to me. Once she was dead, her life and energy, would be mine.

She lay unmoving at my feet, but I knew
that she wasn’t dead yet. I could
feel
that she wasn’t. Again, I raised
the cane up above my head and with mechanical motions, brought that stick down
on her time and time again.

I felt it the moment she died. I let the
cane drop from my grasp as the energy came over me. I sensed it pouring into my
veins and arteries and pumping around my body. I turned to look at myself in
the mirror. No longer were there dark circles underneath my eyes, color pulsed
in my cheeks and vitality shone in my eyes. My hair had returned from the limp
lethargy of before to something that would not be tamed or harnessed. My lips
were reddening as I watched my self revitalize in the mirror before me.

The door opened, and Felix stood there,
tray in hand. He didn’t drop it, just calmly placed it down on a side table and
stared down at the body.

“Is she dead?” he asked smoothly.

I didn’t tear my eyes away from the
mirror. “Yes.”

“I’ll have the body removed, then.”

“Good.”

Soon, all that was left of Dorothea
Corin was blood on the floor and the vitality running through my body. Lake
appeared later, his eyes going to the stain.

“How do you feel?”

I looked straight at him. “Wonderful. I
feel alive.” I couldn’t stop the smile forming on my face. “Isn’t it funny? The
characteristics that I received from her were the ones that ultimately ended
her life. Her cruelty, her selfishness…”

“Are you sure that was all?”

My smile froze. “What do you mean?”

He stepped closer. “All I mean is, are
you sure that those thing weren’t there all the time. That this is the real
you—ruthless and ambitious.”

I stared at him for a moment before
letting out a peal of laughter. “Ruthless and ambitious. Perfect for the
consort of the powerful leader of the Circle. Are you looking for a queen,
Lake? Someone to sit at your side and stroke your ego?” My tone was supposed to
be mocking, but he stepped even closer and the look in his eyes made me half
want to run, while the other half of me wanted to drag him into bed.

“And just what is so wrong with wanting
that?” he asked softly as his eyes bored into me in such a way that I couldn’t
escape.

“We…” I faltered, all reasons escaping
me. “We’re enemies.” It sounded weak and lacking conviction, even to me.

“Are we? Your hatred has softened, and I
don’t think that is Dorothea’s doing…”

I shook my head, not knowing what to
say. He gazed at me for a while longer and when it became apparent that I had
nothing more to say, he straightened his posture. “Anyway, I’m sure that you’ve
lost track of days but tonight is the ritual.”

“Is it?”

“I’m here to give you a choice. You can
either be left alone, or you can spend the night with me. There’s no threat
here or ultimatum. The choice is yours.”

I cleared my throat. “And if I say no,
will you just go ahead and choose someone else to take my place, take someone
else against their will?”

“Stop it, Ivy! Stop turning this around
on me. I need the information that I get. It’s vital for my success. Now I want
to be with you, only you, but I will not put everything my family has worked so
hard for in danger. I can’t, and I’m sorry.” He stared at me for a few seconds
longer before turning on his heel and heading toward the door.

“Wait!”

He stopped and turned, looking at me
with hope in his eyes.

I took a breath. “All right, if that’s
what you want.”

He frowned and strode back to me, his
arms going around my waist. “No. Not because it’s what I want, but because it’s
your choice to want me. You did so long ago, Ivy. It can be the same again.”
His tone was nearly begging.

Could it? The bitterness had overrun all
coherent thought for such a long time…

“Come on,” I told him. “Let’s go to bed.
Let’s do this. We can talk in the morning.” Unwinding his arms from my waist, I
took his hand and led him to the bed. I felt almost nervous as I kissed him.
There was nothing hurried about this. I was like we were lovers for the first
time as we slowly undressed each other, letting our clothes fall to the floor,
one by one, as we took in each other’s revealed form.

When he stood before me, naked and
still, I raised my hand to trace my fingers along his collar bone and down to
the muscles of his chest. “I can feel your heart beating,” I murmured as I
pressed the flat of my palm against him.

His hand came up to cover my breast. “I
don’t know what I would have done if they had ripped out your heart,” he said
softly.

“Can you feel it beating?” I asked.

He waited. “No.”

“Does it matter that you’re in love with
someone who’s really dead?”

He leaned in so his forehead touched
mine. “I would take you in any form that you were given to me,” he whispered.

He kissed me slowly and softly, and I
felt warmth from his lips and his touch as if I had been frozen in ice for
centuries. As he lifted me up onto the bed, I let my legs circle around him to
coax him in, but he shook his head.

“No, just let me touch you for a while
longer.”

I lay back as his mouth came to lick
across my breasts, his tongue dragging around each nipple until they stood up
as stiff pink peaks and my breasts felt achingly full. He kissed down my rib
cage and across the flat of my stomach while his hands massaged my thighs and
my body arched up to his touch. He broke from my skin and grinned up at me.

“Patience, Ivy, we have all night.” But
he moved down between my legs to run his tongue over my folds tantalizingly
while I squirmed, willing him to take me all in his mouth. Finally, he let my
clit have relief, massaging it with his tongue while I sucked in desperate
breaths, trying not to cum just yet. I closed my eyes as he worked on me, and I
felt myself lift up to nearly out of control. Yet some part of my brain was
still coherent, and it wasn’t just his touch that was making me feel this way.
In truth, I felt like a queen beneath him. I felt adored and that added to
every sensation that he gave me.

But was it me or Dorothea that cared so
much about that?

He took his mouth from me and my eyes
flew open, ready to protest and force him back there. He merely smiled and
shook his head, instead kneeling above me and pushing himself into me. I gasped
as he began to move, his hands on my breasts, above my dead heart. I began to
feel myself build up. The foreboding knowledge of what would occur after I came
did nothing to dampen or dull every wicked response in me to his thrusting and
touch.

My head thrashed around as moans erupted
from me. “That’s it, baby,” he grunted. “Cum, sweetheart, cum.” We both cried
out at the same time, our fingers curving into each other’s flesh, the dead and
the living, the king and the queen…

And then we waited as we lay side by
side not touching as if there were an invisible barrier between us. We waited
for the curse to descend on me and prepare to tell every little secret and
piece of insider knowledge that the Corins required to continue their empire
and crush every enemy foolish enough to get in their way.

But nothing happened.

The silence stretched on as we stared
into each other’s eyes.

“What happened? Why didn’t it work?” He
pulled me against his chest.

I shook my head as the realization sunk
in. “I don’t know, but I guess it’s because I died, maybe…maybe the scrying
died with me.”

Lake held me tighter and pressed a kiss
against my forehead.

“Do you care?” I asked him. “Does this
affect…us?” I should have been dancing with delight, but instead, I felt an
almost disappointment descend on me.

He shook his head and took hold of my
chin to plant a kiss on my lips. “It’s better this way. At least you’ll know
that it’s you that I want and not your gift.”

A thought struck me. “But you’ll sleep
with others, won’t you? You’ll make them wear the red skirt and
moiraine
flowers in their hair and you’ll take what you want.” I curled up as much
as I could. I should have been delighted that I was free, but instead, I felt
the absence of the curse weigh over me like a descending sword about to fall.

He shifted. “I can’t answer that right
now, Ivy. I have…obligations and—”