The House Of Gaian

controlled it enough to escape it. I didn’t give him the chance.”
    Ari looked at her for a long time, then said softly, “As you will, so mote it be.”
    Morag leaned over and kissed Ari’s forehead. “Get some rest.”
    As she reached the bedroom door and opened it, Ari said, “Morag?”
    “Yes?”
    “Thank you.”
    Morag stepped into the hallway and found Padrick leaning against the wall, waiting for her.
    “Is she all right?” Padrick asked quietly.
    “I’m the one who killed Lucian. I took a spirit from a body that still lived.”
    “From what Glenn told me, the fire would have killed him anyway. You’re standing on one side of a line that’s no more than a hair’s width of difference.”
    “Perhaps,” Morag agreed. “But that hair’s width of difference is one Ari can live with.”

    She stood beside the cradle, smiling at the babe who stared at her. As she leaned over, pudgy hands waved in the air, trying to catch strands of her black hair. The babe made gleeful sounds, kicking its feet against the blanket that covered it.
    She raised her hand to brush her finger down one round little cheek...
    ... and saw another hand reaching to do the same thing. A dark hand with leathery skin and talons at the ends of its fingers.
    The enemy’s hand. Right beside her.
    No. No!
    She threw herself to one side, intending to shove the enemy away from the cradle, to put herself between this destroyer and the babe. The hand lashed out and disappeared.
    There was nobody to shove against, no enemy to fight.
    However, the movement turned her toward the doorway. Ari sprawled there, her eyes Death-blind, her torn body empty of life and spirit.
    Spinning around, she looked into the cradle and saw what those cruel talons could do to a small body. Empty of life. Empty of spirit.
    It had taken everything. Everything!
    But where was the enemy? Where?
    A last exhalation, a death rattle from someone already gone as Ari said, “As you will —”
    I don’t want this! I don’t will this!
    “— so mote it be .”
    NO!
    Morag’s hands shook violently as she pulled on her clothes and boots. She had nothing else to take with her. Her tack was in the stable, along with the canteen for water.
    She’d had one brief hope that the dreams would end now that Lucian was dead, that the dreams had been a nightmarish warning about his coming here. But he wasn’t the only enemy after Ari and Neall.
    There was another one. A far more deadly one.
    And she understood now that it would find its way here because of her, that it was following her , and through her would destroy what she held dear. So she had to leave, had to get away, tonight, right now.
    She had to lead it away from here until she found a way to fight it, destroy it.
    She ran through the corridors and clattered down the stairs, too driven by the need to escape to care about the noise she made. The lock on the front door thwarted her until she almost screamed with frustration. Finally, she forced herself to slow down enough to look, to think. After that, it took mere seconds to deal with what was, after all, a simple lock.
    She ran to the stables, pulled open one side of the double door. A chimney lamp with a candle burning low hung on the wall above a cot where a stablelad snored softly.
    As she hurried down the aisle, the dark horse put his head over the stall’s half-door and snorted an inquiry. Ointment glistened on his neck and face where cinders had burned him. Not too many. Not too bad, considering what they’d run through. When she opened the bottom half of the door, he stepped forward, and she watched his legs, his feet. No lameness. No injuries. She was almost sorry she didn’t have a reason to leave him behind.
    He snorted again, a bit more forcefully.
    “I’m sorry, boy,” she whispered, resting a hand on his muzzle. “I am sorry I can’t let you rest, but we have to go now. We have to get away from here.”
    “Huh? Wha‘?” The stablelad sat up, rubbed sleep from his eyes, and blinked at her. “What are you doing with the horse?”
    Morag spun around, desperation changing to fury. “Get out of here. Get out. Now.”
    The lad stumbled away from the cot, his fear-widened eyes watching her as he backed toward the outer door. He tripped when his shoulder hit the edge of the door. He was up and running almost before he fell.
    Morag barely had time to throw the saddle over the dark horse’s back before Padrick burst into the stable.
    “Morag?”