The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [238]
Vani! He tried to cry out. Beltan!
He had no voice. The crack swallowed him, and Travis fell through a hole in the sky.
53.
Durge stood rigid and unblinking as the feydrim slunk into the hall. Grace searched his face, looking for any trace of the man she knew, any sign that she might still reach him.
There was nothing. His features were the same as they had always been—craggy and careworn—only vacant of the nobility that had always resided there, like a castle where the kindly lord no longer lived, where only shadows now dwelled.
Aryn let out another cry as several of the feydrim sidled toward her, talons scraping against the floor. She retreated until her back was to the wall, then thrust out her withered right hand. The two closest beasts fell back, snarling and whining, biting and clawing at their own flesh. Grace didn't know what spell Aryn had cast, but it had worked. However, more of the creatures poured through the door until the hall was a sea of writhing gray fur. Hisses and growls echoed off stone.
I don't understand, Grace. Aryn's frightened voice sounded in her mind. What's wrong with Durge?
There was no time for words. The Pale King wanted Grace alive, to torture and corrupt; the feydrim might harm her, but they wouldn't kill her. They had no such orders regarding Aryn. Grace gathered everything that had happened since the day she and Durge rode into Gloaming Wood together and wove it into a single, shining globe. She sent it spinning along the Weirding toward Aryn.
Oh, came Aryn's astonished reply. And then again, only this time as a sound of sorrow, of horror. Oh . . .
Aryn knew now. She knew what lay in Durge's chest. She knew what he had become. And she knew that he had loved her with all his heart.
Another scream ripped itself from Aryn, only this one was not a sound of fear, but of fury. She thrust out with both hands, and the air rippled like a pool into which a rock had been thrown. Grace felt the threads of the Weirding go taut as power was pulled from them. The six feydrim closest to Aryn shrieked, then fell over, brain and blood oozing from their snouts.
Wary now, the creatures retreated from Aryn. She rose to her feet, her face a porcelain mask, her eyes brilliant as gems. Power crackled around her, and tears streamed down her cheeks.
Some of the feydrim now turned their attention on the unconscious forms of Oragien and Graedin. They began to paw at their bodies. Grace drew Fellring and swung it with all her strength. Most of the feydrim were quick enough to scramble out of the blade's reach, but one was not; its head rolled away across the floor, trailing blood.
The blood shimmered, then vanished as if evaporating.
No, that wasn't it. Rather it was as if the blood had been absorbed into the stones of the floor. However, there was no time to think about it.
“The Master knew you would resist,” Durge said, his voice hollow and empty as his gaze. “Yet there is no use in it. I have dealt with those who stood guard at the secret door. The way is now open. Already the servants of the Master work to enlarge it. They will pour into this keep like a dark river, and all your men will perish in the flood.”
Aryn looked up from the corpses of the feydrim around her. She stepped over them and walked across the hall, toward Grace and Durge. The creatures scuttled out of her way; they knew her touch was death to them. Grace tried to call out to her to stay back, but she couldn't form the words. Blood flooded her mouth, and fragments of a tooth.
The young witch stopped before Durge. She reached out her left hand, as if to touch his cheek, then pulled back. “What have they done to you, Durge?”
His eyes were stones. “They have made me perfect, my lady.”
Grief lined Aryn's face. “No, Durge. You were perfect.” A broken