The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [263]
She gripped the necklace, licked her lips. “It was the orphanage, back in Colorado. I was there again, the night the placed burned down. Only I—”
Her heart lurched, and she looked up at the others, cold despite the balmy air. “It was me. I was the one who did it. I didn’t remember it that way. I don’t … I don’t think I understood at the time. But now, seeing it again, it was so clear.”
Aryn moved toward her. “What was clear, Grace?”
“The fire. I was the one who started the fire that burned down the orphanage. With a spell.”
The baroness stared in amazement, and Melia pressed her lips together and nodded.
“I have heard,” Melia said, “that sometimes a witch’s talent can first manifest in a moment of great duress.”
Dizziness swept over Grace. Duress. Yes, that was one word for it. She remembered the stairs, the door opening, and Mrs. Fulch on the chaise, the gaping wound in her chest …
She gasped and looked at the bard. “Falken, I have to tell you something I saw. It was so horrible, I must have … I must have locked the memory away somewhere inside myself. But now I remember everything. I …”
The others gazed at her, concern on their faces. Falken took her shoulders in his hands and held her firmly but gently.
“What is it, dear one?” the bard said. “You’re safe here. You can tell us.”
It was so hard to speak. The words tumbled out of her like fragments of glass.
“Ironhearts. At the orphanage on Earth. I saw them making one. Mrs. Fulch. They put it in her chest, the lump of iron, and she woke up. And the other was there. The Pale One. And then I saw it in the wraithling’s light—the symbol of the Raven Cult.” She shook her head. “But it’s not a raven’s wing. It was an eye … an eye set in a horrible face, and they said they were going to help him get back, to return to his world and rule it all.”
Melia’s face was ashen. Falken’s fingers dug into Grace’s flesh, his eyes intent.
“Who, Grace? Who were they trying to help get back to his world?”
Somehow she forced the words out one by one. “The Lord of Nightfall.”
Melia gasped, and Falken swore. The bard seemed to realize he was squeezing her brutally and let go.
“Grace, forgive me, I …”
She shook her head, laid her hand on his arm. Her mind worked furiously, putting the pieces together, making her terrible diagnosis.
“It’s him, isn’t it, Falken? I asked you about it once—how if the Little People could come back, why couldn’t the Old Gods? And it turns out he’s been there all along, on Earth, searching for a way. He’s been behind everything—the Pale King, the Raven Cult. Even the Scirathi. I’m sure of it, from what Xemeth said. He’s the cause of all of this.”
Aryn and Beltan exchanged puzzled looks, and Vani frowned.
“Who do you speak of?” the assassin said. “Who is the master of all these evils you describe?”
Grace licked her lips. “Mohg.”
Melia was shaking. “The eye … of course. We should have seen it before. Not a raven’s wing, but an eye. The eye that was blinded—”
“—and which sees once more,” Falken finished.
Melia’s face was stricken. She held her arms out to Grace, then pulled them back in. “Oh, my dear one, what did we do to you? We thought to protect you, and instead we sent you into the very hands of darkness. How you suffered because of our deeds. You must hate us.”
Grace couldn’t bear it. She had not regained her heart only to have it break like this.
“I love you, Melia,” she said softly. “I love you and Falken both, so much.”
The amber-eyed lady turned back, her face writ with agony and astonishment, as was the bard’s.
Grace moved to them. “You fought for the lives of my parents, and for my life as well. How could I do anything but love you both?”
She caught them in a fierce hug. For a moment the bard and the lady were too stunned to move, then they returned her embrace.
“My little Ralena,” Melia murmured.
“No,” Falken murmured. “Our Grace, all grown up.”
At last they stepped back from one another.
Beltan was gazing at them, green eyes hazed with confusion. “I don’t understand,