Shades of Avalon (31 page)

“No matter how this ends up, I know I won’t get another chance, so…” Without further explanation and amid collective gasps, John covered Triona’s mouth with his.

The kiss wasn’t gentle either. One hand wound around Triona’s neck under her soaking hair, and the other slid down the length of her spine. She didn’t push him away as I would have expected, considering Caleb’s family surrounded them. After a moment hesitation, Triona clung to him, folding into his embrace and hooking her arms under his shoulders. It lacked the raw tension I’d witnessed between them in the basement, seeming more desperate than deliberate. Like a last breath. I wasn’t about to intervene, nor did anyone else. Samuel and Annice averted their eyes uncomfortably. How could they say anything? John was about to save their son. I wanted to avert my gaze, feeling slightly embarrassed by the display of affection. There was something not right about us witnessing a very personal farewell.

Triona drew back first. John rested his forehead against hers and neither of them spoke a word. He pressed a final kiss to the top of her head, scrunching his eyes closed for a fraction of a second before he took off running. Upon reaching Caleb, he dropped to one knee. He didn’t touch him or speak, and since John kept his back to us, it was impossible to read anything in his expression. When he stood again, he didn’t look back. The two men walked away from Caleb toward the other people gathered on the shoreline.

It felt as though we’d been out here for hours, and I shivered in my wet clothes. I’d neglected to put my watch on when Samuel woke us, but I estimated it was near midnight by now. As if on cue, my hollow stomach growled in protest. Emma and Amanda had to be emotionally shattered and exhausted.

We were too distracted by the events before us to spot that Emma had edged away from Amanda. I heard a ping and looked up to see an arrow whistling through the air. We parted around her. She scowled defiantly, the bow still in her extended arm, watching the arrow arch midway between the two groups. Zeal planted himself right in its path. It wouldn’t kill him—only destroying his heart would do that. It might slow him down. However, Zeal’s eyes followed the arrow with an expression of vague disinterest. He must have been an excellent judge of distance and trajectory because the tip swished over John’s head and pierced the ground inches from Zeal’s feet. He looked down and lifted his head just enough to see us from under his eyelashes and to show us his disparaging smirk.

“You missed,” Guinevere observed, sounding surprised.

“No, I didn’t,” Emma responded, any inflection in her tone absent.

Zeal didn’t waste any more time, and John was swallowed up by a sea of faces dissolving into mist. The cloud lifted into the air, blew out over the water, and vanished into the distance.

As if suddenly snapped out of a trance, Triona blinked and rushed to Caleb.

Chapter 24

Consequences

T
RIONA
C
OLLAPSED
T
O
T
HE
G
ROUND
a few feet from Caleb and slid the rest of the way, crashing into him.

“Caleb. Caleb,” she said his name repeatedly as the rest of us crouched around them. Triona’s hands traveled all over him, checking for injuries, whispering his name through grief-stricken tears.

He was unresponsive to her touch and the sound of her voice beckoning him. It appeared he was unable to comprehend our existence at all. He’d squinted earlier, or maybe I’d only seen what I wanted. Up close he looked worse than he had from a distance. His skin had taken on a chalky complexion, and his shallow breathing stuttered unevenly. I struggled to pick out his heartbeat over the others around me. It was there, but only just.

Joshua helped Triona lay him on the grass. Triona removed her jacket and placed it under his head, skimming her fingertips over his sunken cheeks. The vibrancy of his eyes had faded from sapphire to a dull, flat, blue-gray and stared vacantly.

“What’s wrong with him?” Triona’s fraught gaze searched our faces, pleading for someone to give her an answer. No one replied because no one knew.

Merlin edged to the front of our group, and Arthur assisted him in lowering to the grass. He shouldered Joshua out of the way, not bothering with pleasantries, and began to examine Caleb.

“What is it? What’s wrong with him?” Annice asked no one in particular. Her face was pale and drawn, her groomed eyebrows squeezed together with a small pucker between.

Samuel’s expression reflected hers, except with the addition of his tense jaw muscles hopping when he swallowed.

Guinevere sidled up beside them and offered a careful smile. “Give him a moment. Merlin will know what to do.”

I doubted her sincerity. I guessed she wanted to keep panic from getting out of control until we knew more. The adrenaline levels couldn’t get any higher.

Merlin checked Caleb’s eyes, retracting the skin below them with his thumb, one at a time. He flattened one palm to Caleb’s neck and used the other to turn his head. It was then I noticed the black substance leaking from his ears. At first glance I thought it was blood, but it was too dark and gloopy, the consistency of tar. There were traces around his nostrils too, and when Merlin opened Caleb’s mouth, his tongue and his gums were black. I had to presume the black smeared on his face and chest was the same gunk.

“He is poisoned,” Merlin said matter-of-factly. A chilling fierceness radiated from him as he remained very much in the moment with us for a change. “We should move him inside.”

“Poisoned with what?” Triona’s voice lifted in disbelief.

Nausea clawed up my throat. What kind of psychopath would do this to someone? “Is that why he’s not healing?”

“Inside,” Merlin repeated, using his cane to push himself up.

Samuel kissed Annice on the head and sucked in a deep breath. He hunched down and scooped Caleb up like a small child into his arms. Amanda tilted her head and gave me a reassuring smile, allowing me to leave her so she could comfort Emma while I escorted Triona inside.

As it turned out, Zeal had used jet stone to keep Caleb weak and to keep his connection to Triona dampened. Only Zeal didn’t stop at surrounding him with it. Merlin said the substance corrupted Caleb’s blood. Zeal forced it inside him through injections based on the angry needle marks running down the side of his neck. Likely through forced ingestion too, since he threw up black when Annice tried to get him to take water. The black gunk was his body rejecting it and trying to remove the jet dust from his system. After our experience beneath Camelot, I understood his current state better.

I had waited in Triona’s—Triona and Caleb’s room I supposed, while Eila escorted Arthur and Merlin to retrieve white quartz. The old magic man said he needed the mineral to counter the effect. He informed us this wouldn’t be difficult, and the mineral in raw form could be found locally. Amanda was comforting Emma. This left me with Triona and Annice.

This was a grander room than ours. Caleb lay in an elaborate and surprisingly short mahogany four-post bed with wine-colored, gauzy curtains drifting from a full canopy. It appeared antique, fitting in with the rest of the pieces in the ostentatious room. Except for the woven rugs covering the floor and heavy velvet curtains edged with tassels, which were clear reproductions based on the vibrancy of the colors, the originals would have long been faded and worn. Two small fabric couches faced each other in front of a polished, soapstone hearth. A fire blazed, orange flames licking high. Merlin said it would do Caleb good to sweat. After our time in the freezing cold, the fire felt good.

Like our room, it had an en-suite bathroom, which seemed to have been a later addition to the house. The plumbing was old but far too modern for the building.

Triona emerged from the bathroom with another bowl of water and fresh towels. She’d wiped Caleb down several times already, yet more back liquid seeped from his ears. It came from his pores too, to a lesser degree, giving him the pasty gray appearance. Despite his body clearly fighting to rid itself of the poison, his wounds appeared no better, and he remained in a state of oblivion.

I tapped my index finger rhythmically on the footboard of the bed. It calmed me a little until Triona shot me an irritated glare.

“What the hell is keeping them?” she murmured, lost again in her own thoughts.

Annice bit down on her bottom lip and stood abruptly from her chair at the opposite side of the bed. She went over to one of the couches and began to unfold and refold some clean sheets left there. There was no point in placing them on the bed yet. I went to her and placed a hand on her shoulder hoping to offer her comfort. Annice smiled up at me, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“I’ve never been in this position before, but I don’t know how to rationalize this to myself. I can’t make myself understand why this is happening.” She kept her voice low though Triona would still be able to hear her if she wanted to.

Annice had an uncanny ability to help things make sense. She had told both Triona and me that our role in the future was to live our lives and show how Guardians and humans didn’t have to fear each other. It seemed many Guardians now saw us as the threat instead of the solution thanks to Zeal.

“This will work out. It will. Merlin will fix Caleb. Zeal will show himself to be the lunatic his is, and we’ll get John back,” I said.

She patted my hand and sighed.

The door opened and Guinevere came in with Eila. Each carried a tray with a silver dome, a side salad, a tall glass of water, and warm bread judging by the aroma.

“Emrys has what he needs. He’s preparing it now,” Guinevere said.

“Samuel sent food up for you and Triona. He expected you wouldn’t leave Caleb’s side. Merlin suggested the rest of us should eat downstairs to give Caleb quiet to rest.”

“I’m not hungry,” Triona announced without looking up from wiping Caleb’s forehead.

Eila arranged the plates on the small table between the couches. “Nevertheless, you should try to eat. We need to be at our strongest now. Starving yourself won’t help Caleb. If anything, it will only give him reason to complain when he comes round.”

Whatever was under the domes smelled divine, garlic and sweet tomatoes with a hint of basil. My stomach grumbled loudly.

“Sorry.” My face heated, and I was sure I went as red as whatever was on the plates.

Annice scooped loose tendrils of hair behind her ear and smiled. “You should go eat something too, Ben.”

Annice lifted one on the domes to reveal steaming, glossy ribbons of pasta tossed in red sauce. My stomach grumbled again. I needed a shower too. My skin gave off the musty scent of dried rain and itched uncomfortably, but I was hesitant to leave. I didn’t want Triona to feel abandoned.

“Annice is right, Ben. I appreciate your support, but your fidgeting is going to drive me out of my mind.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded without looking my way. “If you eat, I will too.”

I walked over to her, the back of my neck aching from pressure. I avoided Caleb’s almost lifeless form and pulled Triona to her feet, meeting her shimmering emerald eyes. Fine lines formed between her eyebrows, and her chin quivered. I wanted to say so much, but the words caught in my throat, trampled by emotions I struggled to comprehend. I had wanted this life so badly. I had wanted to be special, for us both to embrace our supernatural heritage. Not like this. I never wanted any of this mess.

“I know,” she said softly, tears spilling over.

I crushed her to my chest and held her there. “I will make this better. I promise you. I’m going to expose that son of a bitch for what he is, and then I’m going to make sure he never hurts our family again.”

Triona pulled back and sniffled. We both understood I wanted Zeal dead. One way or another, he wouldn’t walk away from this. I flattened my palms to her temples and kissed the top of her head.

“We’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything from Merlin,” Eila said as she and Guinevere followed me from the room.

Chapter 25

The Better Part of Me

W
E
M
ET
A
MANDA
outside the door. “I was just coming to get you, Ben. Samuel has spoken to Merlin. He’s almost ready to administer the antidote to Caleb but said it will be morning before he comes around.”