He said nothing and reached for his sword.
She laughed, a crazed sound, and her eyes blackened to coal. “That won’t help you.”
“I tried to save her.” She had some kind of inexplicable power. Powers she’d spoken of with her mother in the forest when he’d met her.
“You let her die.” Pain twisted her face as tears spilled down her cheeks. “It was your job to protect her when she couldn’t protect herself. The baby sapped her power, and she relied on you! We trusted you!”
He flinched at the volume of her scream, and the pain in it. Her golden hair whipped around her head, borne on that unnatural wind that had surrounded Avera when she’d worked her magic. Two great oaks t
hat stood behind Aurora cracked down the middle and toppled over. The ground trembled beneath his feet.
“This isn’t possible,” he said, shaking his head.
“Oh, but it is. My mother forbade me to collect the power of souls for fear it would draw the attention of bloodthirsty mortals. But she is dead, and I have no need of her rules!” She flung her arm out and more trees toppled. “I’ve killed those who burned her, and I shall kill you too. You turned my mother over to those beasts!”
Rage welled dark within him. “Turned her over? I killed my kin to protect her!”
“Lies!” she screamed. Her eyes were black and crazed. She trembled, from grief or from the power raging through her, he couldn’t tell. “Perhaps I should burn what you love!”
“No!” Warren gripped his sword and stepped forward, but she’d already thrown out an arm and a jet of fire shot from her fingertips. It licked at the damp underbrush, igniting so quickly that it was clearly propelled by evil.
He lunged back as the fire roared high and hot, devouring the land and charging in the direction of his village.
Nay. He’d already killed his family. Not his village. Not because of him.
“Doona do this!” he yelled, now separated from Aurora by a wall of fire. He could see her through the flames, tears streaking down her face and her eyes black with madness and rage.
“Anything! I’ll give you anything!” he yelled.
“You have nothing I want!” she screamed, and waved her arm again. The fire shot hotter and higher, and he fell to his knees.
“Anything!” The smoke was choking his lungs and burning his eyes. Had it reached the village yet?
It felt like an eon, trapped in the heat with visions of his village burning, but eventually her voice carried, dark and powerful, across the flames. “Your soul. You’ll give me your soul.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Warren jerked out of the trance into which he’d fallen, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs. The taste of smoke lingered, now only a memory but too real for his sanity. He scrubbed his hands over his eyes and looked around the room.
He was still seated on the floor of his office in the quiet corner by the window. He used it for meditating when the memories of the past became too much, and although it normally cleared his mind and helped him find a bit of quiet, in this case it had sucked him back into his nightmares.
He heaved out a breath and stood. Perhaps he’d drifted off. It was still early and he hadn’t slept well after the encounter with Esha, but he’d never before fallen asleep sitting up. Hell, he might be losing his mind as Aurora had. More likely, Aurora’s near release was just dredging up the things he’d tried to pack away.
He was a soulless monster. Neither mortal nor Mythean. Mytheans were born to be immortals on earth, with varied powers. Only decapitation or grievous magic could kill their bodies and send their souls to an afterworld. But he was an aberration. A Mythean with no soul and no humanity. Without his soul to take him to an afterworld, he could not die. To many, it would be a blessing. To him, it was a curse.
The university had invited him to join them shortly after his transition. They’d tracked Aurora’s destructive magic to his village and found him where he’d passed out in the midst of the fire. He’d been totally unharmed by the blaze, and they’d explained what he’d become.
He’d accepted their invitation because he had nowhere else to go. His clan would realize he was immortal, and he couldn’t stay among them as a monster who’d killed his kin. There was no escape from his deeds and no way to return to his home.
When he’d arrived at the university, barely able to comprehend everything he saw there, he’d learned that Aurora had been imprisoned for stealing too many souls. The university couldn’t make her return the souls, but they could imprison her for her crimes. They would have executed her if they could have, but she was too powerful and too dangerous. The imprisonment spell had allowed them to maintain their distance but contain the threat.
He’d spent the last three hundred years so close to her and his soul, yet so far away. He’d have killed her to get it back if he could have, but with her locked away, it was impossible.
If the witches couldn’t maintain the aetherwalls of their prison and she escaped, he could kill her to get his soul back. But it would be a dangerous hunt, one during which Aurora would be free to wreak whatever havoc she chose.
He’d found a second home here when he’d had to leave his clan. More importantly, he’d found a purpose. Protecting Mytheans and mortals from the misery that had befallen him had become his life. He would uphold his agreement to put the university and the safety of other Mytheans before himself. Without his soul, his word was all he had.
With that in mind, he checked his watch and saw that it was late enough that he could visit the witches. He left his office and strode down the quiet corridors of the Praesidium, then through the early morning stillness across the rolling hills to their main cottage. When he found no one there, he checked the greenhouse that sat at the edge of their little collection of buildings. They often worked there, as well.