Page 10 of Secrets of Avalon

The fine lines around her eyes crinkle when she smiles at me. “I’ve been here a few days, but I came through a waterway, not the portals. I was visiting with an old friend in the forest.”

“How is Cyrus?” I ask, guessing at the friend she was visiting, but still suspicious. She never comes to Avalon and even more rarely visits the forest unless it’s to see the only unicorn left in the whole universe. There’s no way to truly track a Siren as they can come and go through any body of water large enough for them to fit through.

She laughs flatly and spins that ring again. “Old and as grouchy as ever, but mostly lonely.” Her gaze moves from the table to meet mine again.

I flatten my features, using everything my father ever taught me about remaining unreadable. My brother might have thought I needed her help. But she’s the last person I need poking her metaphorical fins into my problems.

“Hawke, you know Sirens help find mates. If you don’t tell me what’s going on, how can I help you?” She uses my given name again and it grates on my nerves, but I hold back my temper. She’s trying to make me comfortable with her, but it’s having the opposite effect.

“You haven’t helped anyone find a mate in a thousand years, Nimue.” I go for the hit I know will hurt the most. I don’t want her here. Better to just piss her off. “That was the punishment for doing what we did. We saved a world, but we broke everything else in the process.”

Her purple eyes flare bright at the insult. “If not for the High Council’s ineptitude we could fix it. Don’t you think the World Tree is trying to tell you something, giving you a vision through the door? What did she look like?”

How the hell? Destrien… I answer my own question.

“The Fae are hated enough without being seen associating with you and your blatant disregard for the High Council’s authority.”

She laughs again, a laugh that says you’re-stupid-and-you’ll-regret-your-words. And maybe I will. But I can’t trust her. And I can’t be seen with her.

The Sirens are quite public in their hatred of the High Council. That they do not respect their authority or their decisions. My brother was foolish to include her in my secret. And I know it will cost me… at some point.

“This isn’t nothing, Hawke. Tell me what you saw. Let me help you.”

“No.” I rise from my seat and walk out, leaving her alone in the chamber.

“I know what’s happening with you and the other Knights. You don’t have a lot of time left, Hawke,” she says, her voice calm and quiet at the door behind me.

Don’t react. My inner beast is snarling, but the years of training to remain impassive kicks in and I say nothing. And so I keep walking. And walking.

Until I find myself back in the Hall of Realms. Back in front of the Earth Realm door.

I place my palm on the cold metal of one of the dragons. Then the cool surface of the wood. Nothing happens this time. There’s no vision of the beautiful brunette woman with a piece of my soul glowing within her. Which is ridiculously crazy to think about that being real… and it leaves only one conclusion.

I am losing my mind.

CHAPTER 5

From Darkness To Dragons

Melinda Mayweather

A man with a knife to my throat forces me to face the grisly scene. My father, Margo, Dottie, Lars, and the guide lie motionless–all lined up in front of me, lifeless, their eyes staring into nothingness.

“Look at what you did, Melinda. Look what we had to do to catch you.” The words cut deeper than rope wrapped painfully around my wrists.

Tears scald my cheeks. The unbearable weight of guilt and grief are crushing my soul. They all died because of me, because of what I am, what I carry within me. Their blood is on my hands.

The man’s hot breath brushes against my ear, his words dripping with scorn, the knife pressing hard against my neck. “You’re evil, you know. The magick your parents tried to protect–it’s an abomination.”

“And you’re worse,” I scream. Rage, long suppressed, erupts from me, a volcanic fury I allow to flood out of me and race toward the Inquisitors. The cataclysmic force of my magick sends them all hurtling away from me. Their bodies crumple against the stone with sickening bone-snapping sound effects.

My screams fill the chamber, raw and unending. Every hurt. Every regret. Every solitary pain I’ve ever felt. I scream for my mother, for my father, for every soul I’ve failed, for every life I’ve unintentionally taken and will take in the future.

The magick roars, then fades to a familiar, manageable hum.

I collapse, my wrists still bound behind my back, sobs wracking my frame. The tears don’t stop. They can’t. I’m broken, hollowed out by loss and guilt.

The silence that follows is thick, oppressive, as if the very air waits for me to shatter it again. But what’s left to destroy? I’m already in ruins and alone.

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