13
“All for her?” Panting, Bastion’s grin broke into a sneer as he breathed the words into his brother’s face. He moved forward, challenging Garin and allowing the blade to dig further into the meat of his own neck. “You know that dagger will not do me any harm.”
“It will if I take your head off,” said Garin quietly.
“That is quite enough!” roared Kestrel. At some point during their battle, he had procured a long wooden staff, just short of his own height. Gripping it tightly, he waved it in a half circle in front of him.
For a moment, nothing happened.
An enormous gust of shimmering wind blew outward, blinding the three of them. Lilac cried out and shielded her eyes against the pelting rubble. When the dust settled, she reopened them, dry and tired. Both vampires were gone.
They were pinned against opposite sides of the colosseum walls, Garin on her left and Bastion to her right. Thick, cord-like roots protruded from new cracks formed in the walls, restraining both vampires at the wrists and ankles so their bodies hung taut against the stone. A string of scathing expletives and protests flowed from their fanged mouths while they struggled against the enchanted vines.
The three guards surrounded Lilac closely now. She gulped, shaken by the frightening display of power from Kestrel. What was this incredible hold over the elements that he’d wielded? And why had he bothered to spare her from the same imprisonment?
Unless he had saved her for an even worse fate.
A familiar buzzing rattled against her hip beneath her wool cloak; she caught herself before she could gasp. Sinclair’s sword lay in the dirt where Bastion had dropped it, but her dagger had somehow appeared snugly back in her scabbard. She pretended to shift uncomfortably, crossing her arms while ensuring the wool of her cloak concealed it.
“Executed like a true soldier,” Kestrel directed at Garin. He studied the vampire speculatively as he flounced forward.
He twirled his staff like a baton. He neared, enough so that Lilac could see the fine details of its ornate etchings. A clouded gem sat embedded at the top, encircled with smaller garnets. She frowned at the sudden familiarity of the design—a full moon overlooking blood-red stars.
Kestrel stuck the head of the staff beneath Garin’s chin. “You still possess legerdemain—that enchanting sleight of hand. Even decades after your battlefield prime.”
Garin said nothing. His blond brother watched warily from the other side of the room.
“However,” Kestrel remarked, unhooking his staff and stepping away, “you were willing to harm—kill, perhaps—your own brother, over her. I’m curious… Is that your bloodlust bubbling to the surface after half a century cursed?” Kestrel smiled devilishly at Garin’s silence. “Or is it the girl?” He pivoted, cape twirling behind him, to jostle his staff toward the crowd. “What say ye?”
Bastion squinted in dubious confusion, reflecting the murmurs heard from the silhouettes above.
Garin’s livid glare toward Kestrel faded. He hung his head in exhaustion, all the fight and pride leaking from him like water from a punctured sack. The skirmish and Kestrel’s probing had scraped him clean.
Lilac felt contentedly invisible, stilling even further against the faerie’s words. Despite everything earlier that night, Garin’s defensiveness over her came unexpected. She nervously waited for him to look her way.
“You can’t expect all of this to unfold, and not have us questioning your loyalties, now can you?” Kestrel sprawled his fingers over his chest. Soon, howls of laughter filled the pit, rising into the still night air like the glory cries of falcons encircling their prey. Lilac cowered, terrified by the unholy cacophony.
“You mean to tell me,” Kestrel said after catching his breath, “the lesser brother does not know about your curse?” His rows of fangs glistened, as if the melodrama made him salivate. “My! I wonder, just how many secrets can one keep from his own family?”
“Stop calling me that,” Bastion snapped, directly addressing Kestrel for the first time. “I’m no lesser anything. I’ve been there for our coven far more than Garin has.” He was much calmer than he’d been moments ago, even when he turned to his dispirited brother. “Curse? What is he talking about?”
Garin sighed, shoulders drooping as far as the vine restraints would allow. “I am cursed, Bastion. I’ve been cursed. It’s why I can’t drink blood from any human.”
“Can’t drink blood? What kind —” he shook his head. “Bollocks!” Bastion spat, leaning forward in his cocoon of vines. “That’s impossible.”
“Bast,” Garin warned, his leer indicating he refused to discuss it further.
“Tell me, brother,” Bastion insisted. “What’s going on?” He sighed, eyes flitting to Lilac then back at his brother. “No more lies.”
“None at all,” Kestrel echoed distantly, swaying on his heels like a forlorn spectre.
The shadows above waited with bated breath while Lilac picked at her nailbeds. They were antagonizing him. She bit her lip, hoping he wouldn’t fall prey to Kestrel’s attempts to push him over the edge. She—and Bastion, she supposed—needed his sanity and cunning. Her word and reputation had held little to no weight at all in Brocéliande, but it would surely work against them in the Low Forest.
Silence hung like dew in the thick air. Bastion’s expectant stare only hardened. Kestrel chewed on his long nails, eyes glinting maniacally, and Lilac wondered if there was single sane bone in his body. Recalling Garin’s deadly fury at Sinclair’s camp and his ferocious lips pressed against her own, his silent remorse was unfamiliar.
“Is that why you couldn’t feed? After the Raid…” Bastion trailed off, his chest heaving. “You’d told me it’d been a matter of conscience. Of guilt.” He blinked disbelievingly.
Garin gave a bark of a laugh. “Is that really more believable than what I am confessing to you now? Come on, brother. You know what I’m capable of.”
“I wasn’t sure what to believe,” Bastion admitted quietly. “One day, everything was just different. So different. The change in you scared me. And what is this curse the faerie mentioned?”
Garin seemed to flush—something Lilac didn’t know was possible for vampires. He fell silent once more.
“By whom?” Bastion pressed urgently, as if he’d forgotten the whispering crowd above.
“Oh, we simply must know,” Kestrel giggled. He fingered the patch of hair on his chin, eyes bulging in anticipation as if he already knew the answer. “We have all the time in the world.”
Bile burned the back of Lilac’s throat. No. No, they didn’t. Time was of the essence. Time was all she had.
Garin’s strained snarl seemed to convey that he intended on keeping his promise; he clearly enjoyed the Fair Folk’s company no more than she and Bastion did. He’d get them out of there as quickly as he could.
“It was a witch.”
“Obviously,” Kestrel drawled. “You Englishmen are so chary, it’s no fun.”
“That’s it,” Garin insisted. “I’d crossed the wrong witch and she bestowed me a curse. I don’t owe you any other details that Bastion hasn’t been privy to.”