CHAPTER 2 - "Kangaroo Court"
My heart was pounding fast, throbbing at my temples. I grit my teeth stubbornly, refusing to let the fear get too tight a grip. No way was it ending like this! No way was I going to roast like some demented marshmallow on a camp fire.
"Trenton Aloysius Kalamack," Reginald intoned gravely, sounding rather like he was trying to imitate one of those magistrates in an old movie. "You have been found guilty of treason to your race. Of consorting with demons ... "
"That's not actually against the law," I interjected, derailing Reggie's unbearably pompous recitation. "Elf royalty is allowed to consort with demons, or don't you know your history? As long as he's not married, it's practically encouraged." Well, that's what Al had said once, anyway. "And he's not, since thank God he never actually tied the knot with you," I shot a venomous glare towards Ellasbeth.
Reggie seemed a mite flustered or put out and struggled to find his place again. I smirked. This guy was slime, and he wasn't even good at it. Trent would never have let me shake him that easily.
"Trenton Aloysius Kalamack," Reggie finally started over again, glaring at me because of the looks a few of the others were now giving him. "You have been found guilty of treason to your race. Of consorting with demons and plotting with them against your own kind. Of knowingly and willingly creating day walking demons and allowing them to roam free." He pushed on, obviously ignoring my input and the questionable legality of these cooked up charges.
Behind me, Trent sighed loudly. If his hands were free, he probably would have been pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Is this really necessary? Does anyone here really not understand what a farce this is? You can wrap yourself in legal pretense and moral outrage all you want, but this is about power, nothing more, nothing less. What I don't understand is why you are letting yourselves be used this way. Do you think this will do you any good? Any of you? Reginald, even if I'm gone, you don't really think anyone's going to let you lead anything, do you?" Trent laughed in dark amusement.
"Your bloodline is too weak, you're not even on the radar of having that kind of pull. Anyone who has convinced you otherwise is just playing you. They are using you as a dupe to get rid of me so they can step into the void. There will be retribution for this," he promised with absolute conviction. "There are those who will avenge both my death and Ms. Morgan's and they will be most ... savage in the doing. Those people will be coming for you. You are the convenient and expendable scapegoats in this scenario. You have to see that. You can't be this dumb."
There was a soft undertone of murmuring from some of the onlookers that made me think that perhaps at least a few of them hadn't considered the matter in that light before, but I didn't think it was going to be enough to make a difference. The truth was that underneath they were all afraid. They were doing what they thought they had to do to survive. You couldn't reason with that. I had been here before, just with different faces and different races. Being morally in the right hadn't stopped the Coven of Moral and Ethical standards from condemning me, and I didn't think it was going to stop this kangaroo court either.
"Honestly, I think they can," I muttered. I felt more than heard Trent's soft snort through the touch of our shoulders.
"Unfortunately, I agree," he returned under his breath.
I smiled, even though there wasn't really a turn-blasted thing to be smiling about at the moment. I felt something warm against my numb, abused fingers and realized that Trent had pushed his arms back and to the side enough that our fingers could brush. I gave his fingers a firm little squeeze, despite the fact that the motion kind of hurt. We'd both survived worse than this before. There had to be something we could do. Think, Rachel, THINK!
"Ellasbeth, I know you think you have to do this. That it's for your family, for Lucy, but this is not the way to usher in a new age," Trent's voice was low and coaxing again as he singled out his one-time fiancé with a hell of a lot more grace than I could have managed if one of my old flames had turned Judas like this. Nick came readily to mind and I quickly pushed him back out again because I was so done with that pond scum.
"Is this really the path to the future that you want?" Trent's earnest voice sent a little shiver through me. "One built on treachery, bloodshed and murder? Is that really the legacy you want to pass on to our daughter? I thought we wanted something better ... I know you did. We talked about the kind of world we want her to grow up in, and I know you weren't lying. Don't sacrifice that. Don't let them make you become this. There's no going back, Ellasbeth. Trust me. There are some things, you can never take back once they're done."
There was the hint of painful experience in Trent's words and I felt my jaw muscles ratchet a few notches tighter. I was not inclined to give Ellasbeth as much benefit of the doubt as Trent apparently was, although I suppose at the moment honey was a lot more likely to sway her than vinegar. I could feel nothing but disgust as I watched the rich, beautiful woman standing there with her daughter in her arms, watching the father of her child about to be burned alive. How did anyone get to the place where that could seem okay?
At least she had the decency to drop her gaze when Trent spoke to her. Her free hand fluttering agitatedly about, fussing with the hem of Lucy's coat as the little girl wiggled and tugged plaintively at her mother's collar to get her attention.
"Mommy, Daddy forgot his coat and he needs Band-Aids. I have another princess Band-Aid, see?" The toddler prattled with innocent concern. The little girl had pulled something small and bright pink out of her coat pocket. "Daddy can have it." She strained in her mother's arms, reaching for us, clacking her knees and heels against Ellasbeth as if the woman were a stubborn horse she was trying to nudge into motion.
I had to look away. I just couldn't understand it. Ellasbeth had everything. Power, money, a precious daughter and a good man who would have married her if she'd been willing to be even a little more supportive of the difficult road he was attempting to walk. What more could she want? What could possibly make this ugliness seem like the better option?
Lucy was proof that she must have felt something for Trent once. He was the father of her child for God's sake! But then, that was probably part of the problem. Ellasbeth wanted Lucy, but by elven law she belonged to Trent. Trent had tried to reconcile with her to a point, but apparently that wasn't enough for her. She wanted Lucy without Trent in the picture. I'd seen messy divorces and bitter custody fights before, but could she really hate him this much?
Looking at Ellasbeth's tense body and her pinched, pale and possibly guilty face made me wonder though. I wasn't so sure this was really about her wanting to hurt Trent. Maybe she was simply as weak as she was selfish. Maybe Trent was right. Maybe someone had convinced her it would be better this way and she let herself be used. I didn't believe that she had much political ambition of her own, but she was colossally self-centered and critically short sighted. If she thought this was the best thing for her family politically and it meant she got Lucy back unequivocally ... I could see her going along, whether or not she actually wanted to see Trent dead.
Damn elves and their damn power games and politics and damn ... damn-ness!
"I'm sorry, Trenton," Ellasbeth's voice was quiet and not entirely steady, but it was also closed and distant in a way that said she wasn't sorry enough. "I would have preferred it not come to something like this. Mother is going to be very upset. But what you have done ... I can't ... this ... it's nothing personal. It's just the way it has to be."
I gave a short, hard bark of incredulous laughter. "Nothing personal? What a load of crap! I think that roasting someone alive is pretty damn personal! Do you even listen to yourself?"
"For these crimes, you and your demon have been bound according to the law. Your souls are sentenced to exile and you will burn together in the fires of the Goddess," Reggie finished sourly, sounding less pretentious now and more like he just wanted to get this over with.
I thought it was kind of racist of them that they full-named Trent while I was only "his demon". That was just insulting.
"Hey! I am not his demon!" I protested angrily, not that anyone cared. I was getting the sinking feeling that for once I wasn't actually the main focus of this particular scheme. This was about Trent. They'd obviously dug up some lame old law that allowed them to ritually execute even elven royalty if they'd been convicted of treason and could be burned with whatever demon they'd been consorting with. I was set dressing. I was the excuse they were using to justify murdering someone too powerful for them to touch with impunity.
That just sucked. I sure as hell wasn't going to die because of Trent's political problems. No. Fucking. Way.
The elves holding the torches made their way to the front of the circle around us. I saw that all of the torch bearers were wearing those little caps and ribbons like I'd seen Trent wear before when practicing some forms of elven magic. That seemed weird, but maybe it was like their ritual gear or something.
"And I have a damn name, you know!" I shouted, continuing to rant as ice water filled my veins.
"Really, Rachel? That's what's bothering you right now?" Trent murmured with world-weary wryness behind me. I felt a slight shift of his shoulder against mine and guessed he had leaned his head back against the post, perhaps looking up at the slowly fading winter sky beyond the waving tops of the pine trees. Taking a last look?
"Hell yes, really!" I shot back. "If some jackass is frigging going to kill me, they can frigging call me by my frigging name! I am damn well not dying as elven stage dressing!"
"Stage dresssning!" Lucy's indignant little voice mimicked mine in tone, messing up just a little on the unfamiliar last word and obviously not getting the meaning. My heart tore just a little more. Why was she still here? Ellasbeth couldn't really be this heartless, could she? She couldn't really want her child to witness what was about to happen?!
"Ellasbeth, if you have any shred of decency in you, take Lucy and leave," Trent's low, urgent voice told me his thoughts mirrored my own. "Please, don't make her watch this!" he was almost begging now, his thoughts and concern fixed firmly on his daughter as the torch bearers arranged themselves into a tight circle around the two of us and began chanting in something that wasn't Latin.
My flesh crawled and panic clawed at the back of my throat. They were going to burn us. Oh. God. They were going to burn us. There was something terrifyingly primal about this age-old fear that I'd never expected to face in our supposedly enlightened times. It was hard to breathe. I twisted my wrists behind me desperately, no longer caring how badly the metal cut my bleeding skin or how much it hurt. Damn it to the turn ... I would cut my damn hand off if that was the only way out of this. Unfortunately, I had no means of doing so.
The chanting around us buzzed in my brain and I felt the tingle of wild magic slowly beginning to build. What the hell were they doing? Burning us wasn't enough? They had to do some freaky-ass elf magic thing too?
"She'll never forgive you," Trent was still speaking to Ellasbeth. His voice had dropped a register, it was darker now, harsher. "Do you think Lucy will ever be able to love you, once she's old enough to understand these memories? After having seen for herself what you've done?"
Already fidgety, Ellasbeth blanched visibly. Her back was stiff and her stance proud, but she turned on her heel without a word and strode away through the throng. The others parted for her, even as a murmur of ripples rose up about them.
"Ellasbeth!" Reginald called after her in disapproval, but the elf woman kept walking and did not look back.
"Call us when it's done," she said tightly, holding Lucy to her with a white knuckled grip as the little girl started to squirm and voice her protest at being taken away.
"Mommy, no! I don't want to go! Can Daddy and Aunt Rachel come too? Stop, Mommy! They come too! I want them to come!" the child's high-pitched complaints carried easily on the chill air. Lucy had always been a fairly perceptive child. She could tell something wasn't right. She could feel, even if not understand the wrongness of what was happening.
Smoke from the torches blew in my eyes and my vision blurred. Or maybe it wasn't really the smoke that made tears sting my eyes and burn the back of my throat. Oh God. This whole thing was awful and ugly and so wrong. I couldn't even imagine what Trent must be feeling. Once the pale cream of Ellasbeth's thousand dollar jacket disappeared completely into the trees and Lucy's fretful complaints were no longer audible, I actually felt him relax a little against my back, some of the tension bleeding out of him now that his daughter was safely out of range of this barbarity.
I shared the feeling to a certain extent, but I was kind of still worried about our little part in said barbarity, so I didn't really feel like relaxing just yet. The wind was picking up and my hair was blowing in my mouth again. I spat it out and shook my head. A moment later I felt a tug on my hair and Trent's head bumped mine as if he were shaking it. Apparently, it was in his face now. Not my fault.
The chanting about us was rising in pitch and the rest of the gathering began taking part, the swell of a collective building about us and I realized the wind wasn't natural, it was being stirred up by slowly turning churl of the wild magic that was being called upon and spun up all about us. Goosebumps raised along my arms and my neck prickled hard. God, I hated wild magic sometimes.
"Trent? What are they doing?!" I had to lift my voice a little to be heard above the chanting and the growing rustle of the pine boughs above us. I eyed the torches with trepidation. How in the name of little green apples were they going to get any kind of fire to catch with all this wind they were kicking up?
"It's old magic," Trent said bitterly. "Very old. Probably hasn't been used in centuries. They mean to burn us with the fire of the Goddess, it's not ordinary fire, Rachel. The torches are just part of the ritual. They don't have nearly enough fuel here to burn two bodies completely by normal means."
"Oh," I said. "Lovely. Glad to know that. Aren't we special, then?"
"I've never seen it myself, but some records contend that it's not technically fire in the literal sense at all," Trent continued, ignoring my sarcasm. I wasn't sure why he wanted me to know, but it seemed he did. I hoped it wasn't just out of morbid fascination.
"Well, might not be that bad then," I said without much real optimism, tugging bodily against my restraints and feeling more than a little annoyed that Trent wasn't struggling at all. He better not be giving up on me, damn it. We are getting out of this. We are.
"They describe it more like a very powerful curse that consumes flesh and soul together, binding the soul and sending it into exile beyond the limits of the two worlds." The last part sounded like a quotation, probably direct from whatever text Trent had read about this.
"Or then again, maybe it is that bad," I said dryly, feeling the building thrum of the wild magic like the palpable tang of summer lightening on a stormy wind. This was so not good! "And what the hell is with all this exile business? That just a fancy way of saying we'll be dead, or are they trying to send us to purgatory or something?"
"No, quite the opposite. That's exactly where they don't want us. I have no idea where exactly the souls are supposed to go, but exile is not meant as a euphemism. The whole point of this curse is to make sure that the deceased do not return. Apparently, that used to be a real problem at one time."
"Oh, yeah, I can see how that would be really inconvenient," I growled unhappily. The problem was, I actually could. I'd known Peirce. I'd seen the dead brought back in the flesh. I remembered that Al, Trent and I had all tried resurrection curses to bring Ceri back after she died. It failed because she was at peace, as even Peirce was now. Yet the fact remained that those who suffered wrongful and violent deaths had a higher chance of sticking around. Being burned at the stake did seem the type of thing apt to leave an un-restful spirit kicking about who could be brought back, especially if you were talking about demons or elves who were trading with demons. I could see why the ancient peoples might have wanted a little insurance.
I realized with a sinking feeling that a resurrection curse was indeed the first thing that Al would try upon learning of my death. Well, right after ripping apart those he deemed responsible. Quen would probably do the same for Trent, in roughly that same order. Wouldn't do any good if our souls were trapped off in exile somewhere.
The very thought made me shudder. Stupid frigging elven magic, messing with souls all the time! I remembered when Trent had put my soul in a bottle to save me after my aura had been shredded in the lines. Would it be like that, I wondered? Would you just be in that gray, hazy state forever with no one to call you back out of it? Forever not quite awake but not really at rest? Anger and fear balled sickly inside of me. That was crap! You couldn't do that to people! No one had a right to condemn someone like that, not just to death, but to something possibly even worse. Fear was almost blanking my mind and I struggled to stay on top of the panic. To stay focused. To stay angry. To stay alive. Oh God, to stay alive!
"So you got a plan, here, or what?" I snapped at Trent as the chanting rose to a fever pitch and my head ached with it. I didn't have one and that sucked big time. I was still lunging against my bonds and Trent was still doing frigging nothing. "Tell me this is all part of one of your crazy ass, half-baked schemes." Freeing an insane, soul eating demon and bringing down the St. Louis arch came to mind ...
"Do I look like I was expecting to be roasted on a spit today?" Trent shot back tersely. "I would almost certainly have worn different shoes."
I barked a short, sharp laugh despite myself. "Oh yeah, you're gonna go down in infamy forever, allowing yourself to be fried and exiled for eternity in shoes like those."
"I did not foresee this turn of events," Trent admitted softer and more earnestly after a moment. "I'm sorry, Rachel. I'm sorry you got dragged into this. This is not your fault."
"Damn right it's not!" I grit out through my teeth, tugging against my left manacle until my arm was nothing but pain. Damn it, damn it, damn it! "But it's not yours either," I allowed a little more quietly.
More honestly it was both our faults, but then again it was really the fault of the weenies with the torches and "hey, let's burn the witches!" attitudes that should have died out in the middle ages but obviously hadn't.
Gasping for breath in the wake of my useless struggles, my arms burning with pain, I let my head fall back against the post. My right shoulder and arm brushed up against Trent and I almost jerked from the sharp prickle of wild magic that zinged through me. For a moment I thought it was the spell around us, but then I realized that it was very definitely coming from Trent.
A thread of hope quickly wound its way around my heart. I'd been right! The spell had finally worn off of Trent. He must have been slowly gathering the wild magic into him for a while now, using the growing cover of the spell around us to call forth and build more and more energy without it being detected by the others. Even I'd missed it until I touched him. From the harsh, electric tingle I felt even through my coat sleeve, he'd already built up quite a head of steam and he was still building it, probably pouring in everything he had. Would it be enough?
Leaning back against the post as if exhausted from my struggles, I pushed my bloodied hands back until I found Trent's again. I gave him a firm, supportive squeeze - silently indicating that I understood what he was doing and was ready for action.
I could feel the tension in the body behind mine, along with the pulsing, glowing buzz of power. "I can't break the silver," Trent murmured, twisting sideways a bit and turning his head so his mouth was almost by my ear. His breath was warm as it stirred my wildly tangled hair, his almost inaudible voice rich with both determination and apology. "I don't know if I can protect us, but I'm going to try. If I can't ... I'm so sorry, Rachel. Truly."
Trent's determination was a hard, shiny jewel in the slippery wash of silt swirling around us. Only because I knew him pretty well by now, could I also sense his fear. Not a fear of dying, but a fear of failure, of not being enough. The fear that defined far too much of his life.
I swallowed hard. If we couldn't use the magic to break free and disrupt the spell or get the hell out of there before it could finish forming, then the only other option was to try to counter their curse when it was unleashed. Trent was strong and determined. He was full of purpose and the desire to protect as well as survive. He would do his best, but the sad truth was it wouldn't be enough. It wasn't his fault, there was no lacking in him, but we were up against a damn collective of 50 plus elves bent on sending us to hell, figuratively speaking. Trent couldn't pit his magic against all of them at once and hope to come out on top, no one could. Even demons were afraid of elven magic, and I'd seen enough last year to know why.
But Trent wasn't alone, and I wasn't your average demon. I could re-invoke elven silver. I'd been able to handle and tap into the wild magic that Trent conjured when we were fighting Ku'Sox. Wild magic had acknowledged me.
I pushed my hands deeper into Trent's, twining our fingers together. I didn't know if we could do this without the rings, without a conduit to allow us to share power. But with physical contact, you could draw energy through anyone, especially if they were willing. I felt empty and naked without the ability to pull a line into me, without being able to fill my chi with the familiar warmth. Yet the prickling, dancing fingers of the wild magic seemed to be tingling and spilling their way into me through my grip on Trent's hands, filling me with a different kind of energy. Something foreign and lyrical and almost mischievously dangerous. Power that taunted and sang and danced like a wild drum beat. I couldn't grab it. Couldn't control and contain it like I did with a ley line. It was not raw energy waiting to be used and converted, it was like a living essence waiting for you to find the right question for which it was the answer.
I struggled to do something, anything with the slippery, taunting tendrils of power, but they just slid like smoke through my fingers when I tried to grasp hold, mocking me. It was so damn frustrating. After a moment, I forced myself to still and listen closer to the inner music being created by Trent's spelling. Elven spells were songs, I'd heard Trent at it before. I didn't know the lyrics, but I was willing to learn. Trent's song seeped into me, similar and yet distinctly different from the musical cadence of the collective spell being woven around us by our captors. I could see the common elements, however. They were rhythms of entreaty and supplication. It seemed you didn't command, you asked.
I didn't know how it was that I could perceive Trent's spelling like this. He was silent and gave no outward sign away to those around us, and yet somehow I could feel what he was doing. Maybe it was because we were touching, but I think it was more than that. He and I had been connected in a lot of unusual ways during our long and at times rather colorful past. He'd been my familiar once, even if I'd never treated him that way. Then there had been the slave rings, and I'd flat out taken control of his mind and his will to save him from Ku'Sox, wresting away control of the other demon's familiar bond with Trent in the process. We'd fought the demon together as a fully connected and integrated pair, our minds open to and tangled up in one another. Maybe some of that played in now. Maybe it was a little easier for me to connect with him because I was already acquainted with the pathways into his mind. Because I'd fully owned them once, even if it felt completely dirty to realize that.
Well, I could feel bad about it later, if I actually had a later. Right now, it was pretty damn useful and I didn't think Trent was going to complain if I could make this work the way I hoped it would. Although, it did make me think I had probably better keep an eye on Al if we survived and if there was any chance the way we had connected last year through his rings could give him this kind of continued insight into me. He hadn't owned me though, so maybe it was different. Hopefully. Because I was kind of pretty darn deep into Trent's mental space right now and it wasn't all that hard. I felt his jerk of surprise and shock when he felt me there and a momentary flutter of something that might almost have been panic. It wasn't nearly like the kind of full connection we'd shared through the rings, it was a lot more nebulous and vague. I got sensations and colors from him rather than actual pictures or words.
"I can help," I whispered, turning my head towards his so I could just see him out of the corner of my eye. "Show me."
Trent's mental landscape calmed instantly as he understood my intentions and I felt the warming glow of his optimism increasing. He obviously must think our chances had just gone up significantly. I rather hoped so too. We could do this together, couldn't we? Maybe? We had to!
The sun was still up, but the air around us had darkened to an unnatural, stormy night. The cold air had grown warm and I was starting to perspire beneath my coat and sweater. The pine branches tossed as if caught in a gale and the fervent chanting of the elves seemed to have reached its climax. They were all repeating the same thing in unison now, over and over. We didn't have much time left, I could feel it.
Slowly and deliberately, as if oblivious of the storm whipping about us, Trent spelled for me, showing me what he was doing. That I could pick up on pretty clearly for some reason. Maybe the magic wanted me to, although there was no fathoming why.
Hesitantly at first, then with the bravado of the desperate, I pitched myself into the song with him. I entreated the goddess' attention, more than ready to believe there actually was some such entity or entities out there on some plane of existence I didn't understand if that could get us through this.
Hear my call. Lend strength to my skill. Lend skill to my strength. I am yours. I fell into the rhythmic sway of the spelling, acknowledging more debt to the wild, capricious power that already knew me and had responded to me before.
I am yours.
Trent's mental voice wrapped around my own in a kind of two-part harmony and I felt a deep thrill of heat thrum through me as I unconsciously recalled hearing those same words from him last year, directed at me with the same heart-stopping earnest intensity with which he currently addressed his goddess. Oh my, God, Rachel. About to be burned alive, remember? Is now ever not the time!
Flustered, I pushed myself harder into the spell, even more embarrassed when I felt the small mental hiccup from Trent that told me he had noticed ... something. Crap on toast.
I could swear I heard laughter like the little chiming of bells ringing through my mind and I scowled at it mentally, which only seemed to increase the amused tinkling.
"We are both yours and you know it, so don't be a jerk and give us a little help here, huh? They're trying to use you to burn us! That is NOT cool!" I growled in my head. Trent's little recoil of mingled amusement and shock mixed with the growing tinkle of the bells which was swiftly becoming a burgeoning cacophony, so loud I wondered if the others could hear it, or if it was only in my own head. Maybe I was losing it.
Trent's fingers tightened around mine. The energy sparking between us was wild and alive, humming with a glorious, frightening harmony. I felt it fill my body like and yet totally unlike line energy. Oh God, it felt good. The way the magic seemed to be jumping between Trent's and my clasped hands felt even better.
One lazy, purple lidded eye of a thousand opened and fixed on us. A soft chime echoed through my mind as power filled me to the brim, leaving me breathless and giddy. We had been acknowledged.
There was a sudden drop in pressure and an audible popping sound as the spell that our would-be executioners had been weaving came to completion with a last shouted word followed by a sudden, profound silence.
This was it. It was still only us two, against a collective of dozens, but we were here and we were either going to get out of this or go down fighting like hell. That was the choice we made.
TBC...
A/N: Possibly taking a few liberties with wild magic here, although I tried to keep it consistent with what we've seen in the books so far.
Please review if you have a minute. I'd love to hear your thoughts and it would help me stay motivated. Thanks!