Page 257 of Disillusioned
“She does not come alone,” he repeated, the threat in his voice thick.
Morwenn laughed softly. Her tone dropped like a knife into water. “You mistake my hospitality for weakness, vampire. You both come freely atmymercy. I will not house human courtiers, or any flailing handmaidens clutching onto a blood slave’s skirts. This is no diplomatic visit. This is our reckoning.”
Without warning, she pressed her lips to the conch, puffed her cheeks—and blew. The sound was like a foghorn, a slow and steady moan that rattled the timber above, shaking her to her core and sending any perching fowl who’d decided to roost in the aftermath of their duel, flocking from the structure.
It sounded like a cry for help, a summoning for ships filled with the dead.
It might as well have been.
Even Myrddin looked panicked, his eyes bulging as the floor began to rumble, the wet pebbles bouncing. Everyone but Morwenn backed towards the walls and the cracked opening leading into the courtyard.
Just when she thought the earth would open up and swallow them all, the same seafoam mist that had infiltrated the castle with the Bugul Noz’s invitation began to rise from the floor.
The conch’s final note echoed like the dying breath of her chapel. The sharp stench of brine filled the air, seeping into her lungs before she realized what was happening.
This was aportal.
“No!” Lilac shouted, lunging for her sisters. They dashed past the altar toward her, Bastion and Giles shouting—but Garin was faster. His arm snagged around her waist, and he lifted her off her feet as the fog engulfed them quicker than she would’ve been able to escape it. She felt the ghost of her mother’s fingertips against her cheek, then Garin’s steady arms around her before the world fell away.
There was no scream,no wind nor weight to their falling. Only an overwhelming sense of dread and being dragged down, down—down through a deep, long silence. Through cold, across moors and towns, in the liminal dark.
Then—salt. Lilac gasped, the breath knocked out of her, the taste of it on her lips and the crash of waves below. The smell of kelp and brine thrashed in the wind, fluttering her hair back. She stared disbelievingly atthe vast swath of turquoise beauty—at the hiss of tides colliding with cliffs, the bones of the world cast in blinding sunlight.
The coast. A corner of her kingdom she’d heard of many times, but never experienced herself.
She sat up, groaning, eager to soak in more of its beauty despite the pressure of warning in her chest. She had landed hard on a mixture of cool stone and warm sand, silted and damp beneath her stinging, scratched palms. Her chains had broken in the fall, it appeared; she stretched and moved her wrists stiffly. The fog was gone, and something about the way the breeze howled and scraped across the granite under her told her they were very,veryhigh up.
Elbows bleeding, knees scraped, Lilac shifted on all fours and peeked over the nearby edge. Her stomach dropped. Just an arm’s length away, pristine aquamarine waters trickled in their gentle swell below the jagged cliff edge, footed by a too-small beach shrouded in sea spray, bramble, and peculiar bushes of purple petals and round, blue flowers.
Garin lay beside her, chest rising, coughing as he stirred. He let out a strangled shout and shot to his feet—and was met face-to-face with a hulking shadowed figure whose teeth bared in his periphery.
He yelped and stumbled back, but Lilac caught him, dragging him away from the cliff’s edge with more strength than grace.
It wasLoïg. Under him, Bisousig threaded herself between his hooves.
Lilac seized Loïg’s reins and tried to tug him toward firmer ground, when Morwenn emerged from behind the horse’s massive flank. In her arms, she held the limp but stirring form of the Bugul Noz. Without a second glance, the sea witch made her way to the cliff’s edge, where she dangled the creature’s body.
“No!” Garin reached for her, but it was too late.
The Bugul Noz fell gracelessly into the sea, landing with a plop before a wave rolled over him.
“He did nothing wrong,” said Lilac, the sheer height of the cliff making her dizzy. Garin gripped her arm.
“The sea is his cursed home. He’ll return to Ys, where he will be properly dealt with.” Morwenn eyes glittered, shards of shell in wet sand. “This is where I leave you both. You’ve got your steed with you, I see. Howconvenient.” She smiled toothily at Garin, her rows of teeth covered in algae. “That explains the one missing from the cavalry I summoned.”
Garin stiffened.
“Unfortunately, they’re inseparable from their tamers. I would’ve taken him back, but he’d be useless to me. Now, he’s yours. You’ll need him where you’re going.”
Lilac narrowed her eyes, the salt-wind tugging her hair across her face. Her grip tightened on the reins.
“You’ll make your way down to the beach,” Morwenn continued, gesturing toward the jagged descent behind them. “My galleon will collect you there and bring you to Ys.”
Lilac dared peek over the edge again. “There is no galleon.”
“It’s coming,” Morwenn replied. “Just as fate does, sometimes slow but impossible to outrun.”
“No.” Garin’s jaw was set. He uneasily eyed the waves tumbling over the base of the cliff. His voice was low and ragged as he mounted Loïg with ease. “Let’s go.” He held a hand down to her.
