Before another moment passed, Amycate’s fingers moved deftly and Mirie couldn’t move again. Her eyes slipped downward and she could see the purple splinters of power twisting from herself to her mother. They curled around her like a large wine colored python enjoying playing with its next meal.
Amycate walked forward delicately as if reflecting on her next move. “So much trouble,” she said in English. “As a child, always clamoring for attention. Always disturbing me. And what the seer said about your future.” She paused halfway across the room and smoothed her dress down. “It wasn’t something I could have allowed.”
Mirie came into instant understanding. “You wanted Zyvana to murder me,” she breathed. “You wanted her to kill me all those years ago. Instead she took me away. To save me from you.” There was a modicum of respect for Zyvana. What Mirie remembered about the woman wasn’t bad. She had been kind to Mirie, even loving.
Amycate nodded politely. “Well, yes. She was an unpredictable Halfling. The agreement was that I would release her father from his imprisonment. But apparently she had too soft of a heart. Of course, her father died in the King’s dungeons and our agreement became a moot point. When we finally located her, she had married the Icelander and we never found you. We didn’t know that you had been hidden and that the Committee had taken you. Arisar didn’t tell me that.” She touched her mouth finely. “But Arisar kept certain events to herself, didn’t she?”
“Your restrictive spells didn’t ruin her mind,” Mirie said coldly. “Obviously she knew what she couldn’t say to you. She said what you forced her to say and nothing more.”
“An acute mind,” Amycate observed. She stopped about five feet away from Mirie and wrapped her hands together so that they rested on her abdomen. She could have been considering what to eat for breakfast. “You didn’t get that from your father.”
“Did you kill him, as well?” Mirie asked quietly.
Amycate nodded. “Of course I did. He wasn’t one to fight against the royal regime. He would have turned me in and any who had aided me.”
Mirie sighed. “Too bad. I would have liked to have known him. Unfortunately there’s just you.”
A little frown wrinkled Amycate’s forehead. Mirie knew that she wasn’t supposed to be cavalier. She was supposed to be on her knees begging for her life.
“Should I kill you then?” Amycate wondered aloud. “If you can’t be used, then there is no need for you.”
Eyes rolling, Mirie said, “As if. You’re not fooling anyone. You took a shot. You thought it might be possible to control Anarion with me. You thought incorrectly. I don’t believe Anarion is the type to allow that.”
Amycate’s face went blank and she said slyly, “You would be surprised. Laris told me how he lost his bearings when the two of you first touched. It is alleged to be like that with dedicated pairs. He would have killed the bodyguard who shot you if you hadn’t been dying. Probably with his bare hands and hoarse with rage. The Unseelie Fae couldn’t break him, nor did their counterparts with their antiquated torture methods.”
What had the unknown human/shifter said? “We’ve experienced the prince’s anger before,” the unknown voice said. “He is resistant to such maneuverings.” And he hadn’t been just human, had he? Amycate didn’t know that part? “Shifters were in league with the Unseelie Fae against the Land of Light?”
“Not the Land of Light but the High Court, against Artuntaure himself,” Amycate admitted.
Mirie relaxed and thought about what she learned. She was going to have to do something she didn’t want to do, but she was left without a choice. “Do you want to tell me your contact’s name, Lady Amycate?” she asked politely. “Or the whereabouts of the two artifacts?”
Amycate finally appeared surprised. “Why in the name of all the Gods would I do that?”
Mirie’s potencies shifted and she did what Amycate herself had taught her the first time she had ensorcelled her daughter in binding lengths of her magicks. The witch blade came to life with a blinding glare and sliced downward. The magicks split apart as if they were lifeless bits of rope and Mirie was free again.
The older elf’s horrorstruck face expressed her disbelief about the abrupt transferal of power. Amycate started to say something and Mirie’s left hand came about in a roundhouse that knocked Amycate onto her back on the floor.
There was a low moan from Amycate. Mirie ripped a strip from the bottom of Amycate’s dress and tightly gagged her. Then she straddled her body, trapping her arms and chest between her thighs. Amycate wasn’t saying anything or doing anything without Mirie giving her permission. And frankly Mirie was amazed at how easy it had been to defeat her.
“Now,” Mirie said. “Do you want to tell me the contact’s name?”
Amycate’s violet eyes glared up at her daughter.
“Fine. I’ll tell you something. You should have had Laris kill me before you tried your restrictive spells on me. Not only can I decipher your magicks, but I turned them around on you. I can do everything you’ve shown me and more that I’ve learned from the Committee’s Master Warlocks.” Mirie smiled serenely down at Amycate. “That was another of your mistakes. Now you can make it up by telling me where the Book of the Black Moon and the Eyes of the Amber Moon are.”
Amycate shook her head.
There was a roar of noise that came from the outside of the manor. Then there were wretched screams. Mirie held Amycate securely as she looked around. Great shapes moved outside of the windows in the twilight world. What had Nehemiah said about the manor and the immediate grounds being spelled against the things that lived here? That was pretty much it. Mirie’s eyes caught Amycate’s again and Mirie knew.
It was Amycate who had spelled the manor and the grounds and it was she who had disabled the spells. Just on the off chance that Mirie came out ahead. Just as she had done so.
Mirie clambered off her mother and stood. “Stupid. You could live. Perhaps Artuntaure would only jail you. Perhaps you could have escaped into another realm or taken refuge with the Unseelie Court. Instead you’ll die here along with everyone you’ve brought.”
Amycate reached up and removed the gag. “Alongside of you. Arisar’s prophecy will never come true. You’ll never do what was foretold.”
“What are you so afraid of?” Mirie asked curiously.
Distant doors crackled like toothpicks and something began to rumble through the manor. Something huge, hungry, and ticked off was coming fast. It was as if it were aiming directly for the thing responsible for holding it back, Amycate.
Backing away from the great room’s doors, Amycate looked around nervously. Mirie knew she had seen what roamed the exterior of this world and what was coming for them. It had killed the two elves outside and it was apparently still ready to deal some down and dirty with them. She frowned and readied herself, hating to turn her back on her mother. But Amycate wasn’t focusing on Mirie at all. She was pushing herself into a corner and desperately trying to focus her personal magicks.
The thing stuck its head through the opening and sniffed. At first appearance it seemed like an approximation of the beasts carved in stone on either side of the fireplaces. Long and lean, it was over twenty feet in length. Its muscles were catlike and flowed effortlessly down its body. Four feet ended in pads with scimitar claws. Its pink eyes glowed with the reflection of the witch blade. Covered in white fur that went all the way to its pointed tail, it considered her threat level.
Its triangle shaped head seemed almost like a lizard’s. It was half feline and half reptilian and something that had adapted to its twilight world by way of albinism. “Change your mind, Amycate?” Mirie whispered.
Amycate suddenly lost all courage and ran for the open door on the other side of the large room. The beast snapped to when it saw the motion and lea
ped over Mirie even as she abruptly crouched. It continued its charge at Amycate. Mirie saw it with dismayed eyes and spun to try to counter the animal’s attack. Its great length allowed it to catch Amycate fluently and brought her down without exertion. Its giant mouth opened and there was an audible snap as it bit down on her body.
Then Mirie leaped onto its back, straddling its great neck with her legs, holding on for dear life. The witch blade came down on the base of its skull. She didn’t know what it was, but she knew that it had a spine and that was where she pierced it, twisting the blade as she shoved with all her might. There was a roar of agony and it dropped Amycate while it teetered. Mirie felt the back end of the beast sharply slacken as the spinal cord stopped sending messages to it. The animal fell to the side and Mirie took a moment to finish it off.
Mirie crouched above the beast and listened. There was nothing else. Not yet.
But there was a little noise that almost a whimper that came from much closer.
Amycate was still alive. Barely. Her violet eyes glittered up at Mirie. Without hesitating Amycate grated in near whisper, “Arisar said one day the daughter would kill the mother.”
Mirie glanced around slowly. There was no one there. The portal was closed and Mirie knew nothing about how to open one. That was something only certain castes controlled and they bartered with other races to use them. The human or whatever he was had known how to open and close it. It had been open for Nehemiah. He had closed it just as he passed through. But if Amycate knew, she wasn’t speaking, and furthermore, she was dying. Dying slowly and utterly painfully. Her insides had been crushed and Mirie knew that it would be hours before Amycate succumbed to her injuries.
“Amycate,” Mirie said as she stood above her mother. “Tell me what I want to know and I’ll make sure that you-”
“I’ll never tell you,” Amycate said quickly with unholy determination and blood gurgled ominously out of the side of her mouth.
The witch blade slashed and Amycate breathed no more.
“Fine,” Mirie said coldly. “All your machinations and the prophecy still came true. It wasn’t worth all of the deaths. And it wasn’t worth yours.”
Mirie checked to see if the portal was open by some chance. It wasn’t. She heard another distant roar and settled in to wait for visitors.