Sorceress Awakening (29 page)

Chilled air struck her belly, the fingers
of cold invading farther into her dreams of warm bedding and soft pillows. Its
next strike fell upon her chest and face. The sudden, cold slap shocked Lillian
fully awake. She gasped, dragging in a deep breath. The first lungful of air
burned down her throat. Spasms tightened her lungs. She gasped and choked with
deep retching coughs.
What? Had she just swallowed an entire swimming pool
full of water?

She tried to force open her eyes, but her lids
were heavy and stiff. Clumps of damp hair swung across her face, the strands
stuck together by some kind of goopy slop. Her coughing subsided. Slowly her
lungs stopped burning. Another gust of cold caressed her thighs, then lower,
creeping down her legs a few inches at a time. The rest of her body was as limp
and uncooperative as her eyelids. She felt empty. Cored out.

Worse, her sense of balance told her she
was upright, but slumping forward, inch by inch. She couldn’t move her limbs to
fight the slow workings of gravity. Whatever was holding her up seemed to be
letting go.

With nothing else to do, she waited, barely
daring to breathe. A slight tingling encroached upon her silent, unfeeling
world. It started in her shoulders and worked its way up her neck. Feeble
energy stirred.

She ran her tongue along her lips. They
tasted sweet. It was a strangely familiar flavor. A moment later she had it.
The watery sweetness of tree sap.

Feeling slowly returned in the wake of the
tingling. Her eyelids opened and after blinking several times, the gray world
sharpened into strands of her dark hair coated with tree goop. She gave her
head a shake. The motion lacked the strength to toss the lank strands over her
shoulder, but it swung enough she could see the ground. Knee-high grass waved
in a breeze. Now that her wet skin was adjusting, the air felt warmer.

Lillian sighed, and rested her chin on her
chest. Thinking required too much energy. It was easier to rest and be lulled
by the sounds of the breeze blowing through tree leaves. She supposed she was
in her glade. It smelled like it. And she’d always felt safe in her glade until…
until when? No, she didn’t want to think about it.

Sleep was just creeping back into her
consciousness when Lillian’s world shivered. An earthquake? Here? The strange
sensation subsided after a few heartbeats. The silence and stillness lasted for
a minute more. Then a deep groaning like the wind in an old tree, its branches
creaking in winter, echoed all around her. The world tilted on its head.
Whatever was holding her up loosened. One arm came free. Her upper body lurched
forward. She was pulled up short by her other arm, still trapped within the
same warm, wet blanket that held her thighs and lower legs. A pained gasp
escaped her. By the radiating pain in her shoulder, she’d damn near dislocated
it.

She was hanging upside down, bent almost
double at the waist, hair pooling on the ground. Her new position showed her
something she’d missed before. It was impossible to miss now because her nose
was almost touching it.

“It” was the exfoliating bark of her redwood.
The rough bark grew up and over her legs, midway up her thighs. Her upper body
had emerged faster than the rest of her body. One arm was still trapped within
the trunk, but she could feel the arm slipping.

“This can’t end well.”

The prickling bite of returning sensation
crawled down her body in a hot wave. A few more minutes and she might be able
to move, maybe even extract herself from the tree without harm.

The tree gave another series of
contractions.

“Ah, my usual luck, I see.”

Her arm came free from the tree’s hold. At
the same time, the fissure in the trunk widened, releasing her legs. Lillian
started to fall head first toward dew-covered grass. Desperate to protect her
head, she tucked and rolled. Or at least tried. She hit the ground with an
expulsion of breath, then grunted in pain when she rolled onto her strained
shoulder.

Judging by the throb, her shoulder would be
colorful come tomorrow morning, but she didn’t think it was dislocated. Her
midair twist and roll hadn’t been pretty. Actually it probably resembled
something a sea lion on land might do, but the maneuver worked for the most
part.

“Nastiest wakeup ever,” she mumbled as she
stared up at her tree. The fissure she’d just fallen from was closing, the bark
healing over the mass of red tissue and wood fiber. When it was healed, it
looked like any other redwood trunk, nothing like a tree that had just given
birth to her.

“Yep, a tree just gave birth to you.” With
a small part of her brain that decided to work, she realized with a hint of
bemusement she was probably in shock.

The grass was cold and wet from a recent
rain. She was buck naked. Tree sap covered her from head to toe. Her mind
flailed for a moment, and then she remembered: the Riven. The demons trying to
sacrifice her so they could corrupt the Lord of the Underworld’s sword. The
demon within her awakening and saving her and Gregory from the Riven. Events
were blurry after that point but she remembered the demon using her body to
seduce Gregory, or at least trying damn hard and failing. Then the agony of an
axe biting into her hamadryad. Sable with an axe, tears running down her
cheeks.

The last clear thought was of her gargoyle
placing her in her damaged hamadryad in a desperate bid for them both to heal.
Then Gregory whispered his love and told her to “live.” She remembered the
loving touch of his mind. But there was something else, too: “Live, even if I
do not.”

That horrible emptiness. The sensation of
being cored out. God, no. No, no, no, no!

“Gregory!”

Lying on her side, propped up on one
shoulder, she was facing the wrong direction. She struggled to get her muscles
working. The pins-and-needles sensation intensified. After a few moments,
feeling returned to her legs and she rolled over.

He was there on his pedestal.

Head bowed, unmoving stone.

She tried to touch his thoughts, but no
magic stirred within the emptiness inside her. His last words to her echoed in
her mind once more.

Live, even if I do not
.

She crawled toward him. The sweet fragrance
of sun-warmed grass coiled around her. Bees and insects buzzed close to her
head, sounding loud to her ears. Everything was as it had been all her life.
The maze. Her glade. Her redwood rustling in the breeze. Her silent stone
guardian.

But it was all wrong.

“Gregory, please,” she whispered as she
continued to crawl closer.

Horrible emptiness crushed all hope. She’d
felt his willingness to sacrifice himself if it would save her. Gargoyle blood
could heal a hamadryad. Her hamadryad had been grievously wounded. It would
have taken a lot of Gregory’s magic-laced blood to heal those kinds of
injuries.

Gregory’s pedestal loomed in front of her.
Her fingertips brushed the rough stone. Then she reached up and grabbed a
handhold to haul herself to her feet. She swayed, but held on to her gargoyle’s
leg. After struggling up onto his pedestal, she looked up and stared into his
beloved face. It didn’t matter what form he wore, she loved him regardless.
Fingers shaking, she caressed his muzzle.

Words she’d spoken once before whispered
across her memory.

“I trust to the Mother’s choice.”

She leaned against her beloved, breathing
across his stone skin, trying to pick up even a hint of his scent.

“Dark Watcher, immortal servant of the Light,
with my power I summon you to wake.”

No power stirred at her command. She fought
back against a sob and continued in a shaking voice. He couldn’t be dead. Not
after they’d defeated the enemy.

She couldn’t be alive and he be dead.

“With my will I do claim you.”

She focused all her shock-benumbed
thoughts, her sense of purpose, her love—everything she was—and willed it into
the stone under her hands and prayed some part of her beseeching litany reached
Gregory.

“Hear me and awake. My friend. My soul.” She
pressed her lips against his forehead. The stone was as rough and cold as the
rest of him.

“Evil walks the land.”

“I have need.”
Of you. Forever. Beloved.

Nothing happened. In that moment, hope died
within her. As she had since childhood, she dropped down onto his stone knee,
then she wrapped her arms around his neck and sobbed. The echoing hollowness
within her opened wider, threatening to devour her soul. Agony built within her
until she couldn’t hold it back. She screamed, great gasping howls that hurt
her throat. Tears flowed onto her lips, their taste salty.

When her voice failed, she continued to sob
in silence. But no tears could fill the void within her.

“Listen. Hear me, my lady.”

She jerked in surprise and looked into his
face. Still cold, unmoving stone. Her grief must be playing tricks on her mind.

“
We are one entity, one soul. We are the
Avatars. Nothing can part us. Not even death.”
Gregory’s words echoed back
to her from her memories. Either that or grief had driven her insane.

“My love, you’re not insane. At least,
no more so than this world makes anyone.”

Lillian couldn’t prevent her arms from
contracting around his neck. Could it be?

“I live. And for you, my lady, I will
try to wake. I think I’m healed enough to resume warm flesh.”

Worry made her stomach tense. “Gregory,
don’t endanger yourself for me.” She hugged his stone neck harder. In that
moment she didn’t care if she had to wait another twelve years for him to heal
enough to be with her again. He was alive. She’d give daily thanks to the
Divine Ones while she waited. “Rest. Finish healing and then come back to me.”

“I’ll not make you wait another twelve
years.”
There was a smile in his mental tone.

The stone warmed under her hands, then all
along her body. She didn’t care if he gave her a scorching sunburn; she wasn’t
moving. The shadow of his wings moved up and away as his arms encircled her
shoulders. A warm tongue slathered across her cheek and Gregory’s rumbling purr
broke across her skin.

“Tickles!” she gasped as tears streaked down
her cheeks. She squirmed to get away. Helpless to stop, she continued crying
and laughing and shaking.

Gregory licked up her tears. To her utter
surprise, his shoulders began quivering, shaking Lillian’s entire body with the
force of his silent sobs. The need to protect and comfort, as powerful as anything
she’d ever experienced, had her rocking him back and forth, murmuring
meaningless words into his neck. “Hush now.”

“I didn’t know if your tree could heal you.
The thought of losing you again…”

“We survived.”

“Yes, you’re a tough little dryad.”

She gently pushed away from him just enough
to look up into his face. His dark eyes tracked the motion of her hands as she
reached up to caress his cheeks. “I love you, too, gargoyle.”

Stretching up on her toes, she tried to
plant a kiss on his cheek. Her foot slipped and she lost her balance. He caught
her, but was far from steady himself and they both pitched sideways. She yelped
in surprise as they toppled off the pedestal. Gregory reacted faster and turned
them in midair. He landed first, taking the brunt of the impact on his back.
She still slammed painfully into his chest, knocking the breath from them both.

“Thanks,” she managed between bouts of
laughter. “Having an eight-foot-tall gargoyle land on top of me isn’t on
today’s to-do list.”

“I think I’ll just stay here for a few
minutes until I figure out which way is up.” He lay underneath her, panting,
his wings spread to their fullest to either side. After a moment he started to
chuckle. “You’re welcome to use me as a pillow for however long you like.”

“And would your willingness have anything
to do with the fact I’m as naked as the day I was born?” She decided modesty
required too much energy and simply snuggled closer.

His eyes remained closed and he replied in
a slow, lazy drawl. “Entirely possible.”

“You’re incorrigible. You know that,
right?” Her words were playful, but a sense of seriousness was settling over
her heart, eroding her earlier joy. She remembered the demon all too clearly.
And she didn’t believe for a minute the demon was gone, even if she couldn’t
feel it slithering around in her soul. It would only be a matter of time before
the demon grew strong enough and made its reappearance.

“My little dryad, you do feel different,”
Gregory said.

She frowned as she mused over his words.
She did feel different, and wasn’t certain if that was good or bad. “My magic
is gone. I’ve been cored like an apple.”

“Hmm . . . that explains it,” Gregory
rumbled by way of answer, sounding more relaxed than she ever remembered
hearing. He nuzzled her hair, making sounds of contentment deep in his throat.
A large, warm hand settled on her shoulder, then moved down leisurely to stroke
her back.