Chapter 22

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“I think we’re in trouble,” Dain said, looking out the window as they went up the stairs. Dynan wanted to make sure Marc had gone back to himself, and while Dain didn’t share the same reservations, he wanted to make sure he was all right. What he held meant ruin if he ever faltered, and Dain didn’t think Marc could do it alone. The storm building outside was a direct result of a growing weakness he couldn’t define. The natural order of life seemed at risk, where things normally contained in the mind escaped to run rampant in the real world.

Dynan glanced at him, shaking his head slightly. “Really? You think? When did you first figure this out, Dain?”

He didn’t answer him. Dynan didn’t expect him to and started muttering under his breath, listing out all the problems he’d faced since waking.

“Four days ago!” he said, not quite yelling, but really close to it.

They stopped at the ballroom so that Dain could catch his breath. His ribs hurt enough to make it hard to move, much less breathe. He watched Dynan pacing in front of him. Drake kept looking out the window, and Ralion seemed equally nervous. Geneal was watching him, still dazed by what she had witnessed. She was likely trying to understand how Dain could have been dead one moment, then alive the next with nothing worse than a set of cracked ribs to show for it.

“Trouble,” Dynan went on. “Instead of an adept who was almost insane to start with, we now have an adept holding on to another one, who was supposed to be dead! Let’s not forget about Alexia, and Creal. How do you suppose they’re going to react to this news? And then of course we have that.” He pointed outside. “Something that doesn’t belong there. Something that shouldn’t be able to manifest itself in reality.”

Drake turned from the window. “Are you saying that this storm isn’t real? It’s inside our minds?”

“No,” Dain said. “Just the opposite. What’s inside our minds is becoming real. Think about when it started. Avry said while we were in the dungeons.”

“Marc is doing this,” Dynan said.

“No, Dynan. Not Marc. Maralt. This is what he represents. What they can’t hold any more. Marc is the only thing standing between us and that. What happens to him, happens to us out here. You think he’s going to be able to do all that by himself?”

Dynan swore and started up the stairs at a trot. Dain wasn’t able to keep up with him and thought it fairly important that he be there at the same time. Not that Marc was going to do anything to anyone, but just in case. He still didn’t have the greatest control, and now he had Maralt with him.

Ralion came up behind him, taking enough of his weight to make getting up the last sweep of stairs easier to manage. Geneal and Drake followed. “So, you think maybe we can call us even yet?” Dain asked quietly, looking up at his former guard and hoping he’d agree.

“Maybe.”

“It’s just that at the rate I’m going, it may take a while before I feel up to anything. I was thinking that Geneal might not want to wait that long for either of us. And since she doesn’t want me anyway, I figure it’d be better if both of us don’t lose her.”

“Doesn’t want you?” Ralion repeated, glancing back at Geneal to make sure she wasn’t listening. “She was in your bed yesterday morning, Dain. Didn’t look to me like she didn’t want you.”

“Ralion, I didn’t even know she was there until you woke me up.”

“So I’m supposed to think if I hadn’t shown up, it wouldn’t have happened at all? You’re saying this is my fault?”

“Nothing happened. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s the truth. She was just trying to say goodbye. She doesn’t want to be with me. She wants to be with you. So you might want to think about getting on with it. I’m sorry, all right? I’m even sorry I ever took her away from you in the first place. I know that’s how you look at it, but it wasn’t something I did on purpose then either.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Look, I’m not the one who gets the girl at the end of all this, so I don’t know what you’re so mad about.”

Two guards snapped to attention and opened the door for them. Ralion was about to explain why he was so mad when Geneal hurried up to them. “Alexia and Creal are on their way over here. Seems everyone is a bit nervous about our weather. Drake is going to stall them.”

Dain snorted. “I think the answer is we officially don’t know.”

Dynan was almost to the stair leading to Marc’s rooms when Shalis, Loren, Bronwyn, and Garan came out into the hall. Garan rushed over to Dynan and he pointed back to Dain. The little boy was frightened and started to run.

Dain stooped to pick him up, even though he shouldn’t have. Ralion had to help him back up. “It’s all right, Garan. It’s just a storm.”

Garan shook his head, and buried his face. “It’s bad. There’s something bad there.”

Dain shook his head, wishing he thought his son was wrong, and tightened his arms around the little boy. “We’ll be all right anyway.”

Dynan glanced at him. “While we were down in the dungeons, before anyone else knew that we were in trouble, Garan kept saying that something was wrong.”

Dain started to shake his head at the way his brother was looking at him, but he knew it was true. Maralt had known it too. “Garan, do you hear what me or your Uncle Dynan are thinking?”

“Yes, Papa. Sometimes. Is that bad?”

“No. It’s all right. We’re going to be all right.”

With a look that said he didn’t believe it either, Dynan turned for the stair, and Dain handed Garan off to Bronwyn. He hurried after his brother, fearing that his words would return to haunt him.

The Lord Chancellor’s rooms were eerily silent and they moved back toward Marc’s study. They passed through the ballroom. Dain noticed a curtain billowing and felt cold air sliding across skin. “Dynan,” he called, nodding to the balcony. “He’s out there.”

Marc leaned on the railing, grasping the wrought iron tightly with one hand, the other balled into a fist. He faced the mountaintops, now shadowed in dark, swirling mist. Dynan walked to his side, while Dain stayed by the balcony door. Marc turned slightly so that neither of them could see his face.

“Is that going to go away, or come over the mountain?” Dynan asked.

“Neither.” Marc bowed his head, turning again when Dynan tried to look at him. “It’s going to stay right there.”

He turned to them both, his back to the growing dark that threatened to come and take them all, but kept his gaze on the balcony floor. Dain frowned, moving for a closer look at him. All around them, a deep, forbidding silence hung. When Marc looked up, and Dain saw his eyes, saw what had been done to him, fear clenched around his heart.

“What ... what happened to your eyes?” Dynan asked, staring at him. They were white, with only the slightest touch of grey that spread out from the center where his pupils used to be.

Marc didn’t look at them long, leaning back against the rail. “I can’t see.”

“What do you mean you can’t see? Why not?”

“I mean that I can’t see. I’m blind.” He gestured behind him. “And I guess that’s why not.”

For a moment, none of them spoke, turning to look at the mountains again when they didn’t want to. Dain pulled in a breath and smelled ion charged air. It made everything seem statically charged, casting a grey-blue pall over the land and creeping up the Palace walls. He couldn’t see how an adept without the use of vision could ever hope to stop the black tide sweeping toward them.

“Now I know we’re in trouble.”