Page 186 of Disillusioned
Within seconds, his body stopped convulsing altogether, a large pool of red spreading rapidly beneath him.
“Is he really dead?” asked Yanna, trembling.
Lilac nudged his shoulder with her boot, once. Then twice. She wiped the warm blood drops from her face and resheathed her dagger. “Not for long.”
“God. Oh gods, help me,” Myrddin gasped. His back finally inflated, rising as the warlock sucked in a sputtering breath. “You.” He turned his head to sneer up at them. “Really?”
Lilac bent and gripped him by the collar, lifting him all the way to his feet. “Take me to him. Now.”
“How, when I don’t know where he is? He didn’t tell me anything, only to keep watch over you.”
“You said that when you teleport into a building or structure, you canonly teleport to a person’s location. Doesn’t it work that way regardless of where he is?”
“I can only do it with certainty when I’m sure my tethered person is at that location, or in that building. The world is much too vast.” His hand ran over his face. “Your Majesty, it’s harder for me to do if I don’t knowwherehe is—there’s no promise we’d end up at his side. We could end up on the rooftop of a neighboring establishment, or in the middle of someone’s hearth in the next town over. We could land in a volcano, or worse—become separated.”
“I’ll take the chance. I believe in your magic, however it works. I believe in you.”
He glanced at her in incredulous warning. “Out of all the terrible decisions you’ve made, that is by far the worst one.”
Lilac hated the desperation that had overcome her. She could be wrong this time, but she hadn’t been the last, when she’d found him trapped by his own hunger at the brothel. The pull was undeniable. Garin needed her—needed help. She felt like she’d explode if they didn’t go.
Lilac gritted her teeth and released him. “Fine. I’ll leave on foot.”
“You willnot.”
There was a knock at the door, causing Yanna to jump and scuttle further into the room, her hands clamped over her mouth.
It was her mother. “Lilac!”
Another knock. A guard’s rough voice this time. “Open the door!”
Myrddin began to whisper frantically, a forlorn prayer to the arcane gods that had long abandoned him. “Modron, help me, I am surrounded by beautiful, terrifying women and a vampire who would delight in painting the trees in my blood for all of eternity if this goes wrong.”
Heart shattering her ribcage, Lilac held her hand out, bracing herself for the unpleasant sensation.
Myrddin grimaced, true doubt in his eyes. There was pressure at her palm, and the floor disappeared from under them as they were whisked away in shadow and smoke.
They stopped spinning,and she went careening sideways. Lilac splayed her arms out in front of her, only for her shoulders to slam against something rough and wide. She landed back on her ass, her head and shoulder knocking against Myrddin.
“My god,” she groaned, fixing her skirts and shoving off him. They were outdoors—in the shade, a cool breeze whipping around them, bringing with it a strange, unpleasant aroma.
Against her, Myrddin was dead still. Her heart dropped.Had he been knocked unconscious?
“Lilac?” Myrddin’s voice came from off in the distance.
Dizzy, Lilac staggered to her feet. Something was wrong, very wrong. They were in the woods, illuminated by the deepening sunlight of approaching dusk.
Panting, the warlock emerged from behind a birch trunk not twenty paces away, coughing and dusting himself off as he approached her. “That was much further than I’m used to.”
Then, he froze as he laid eyes on Lilac.
No, at her feet. She glanced down at the shoulder she’d landed against and nearly lost her footing. Her stomach roiled, threatening to loosen itself.
It was a pile of bodies—a torso, remnants of its head scattered nearby. Another beside it, his head intact but his torso crumpled in on itself.
She opened her mouth to scream, but was cut off by a high-pitched wail.
It was Yanna.
