One Fell Sweep (Innkeeper Chronicles #3)(83)

“No,” he said. “Freedom is an illusion. We are bound by restraints on every turn. Family, clan, religion, morals, duties; all those are restraints. For someone on the crossroads of worlds, you’re naive.”

“If you can’t have your freedom, then what’s the point of all this?”

“Give me the Hiru. Nobody has to know. We can do this in a way that leaves you blameless. I promise their deaths will be swift and painless.”

I wanted the seed. It called to me. I’d been playing for time, but I thought of nothing. No brilliant plans. No elaborate ruses. I felt so helpless.

“There is nothing to think about, innkeeper,” Mrak’s voice floated from the screen, soft, seductive. “The seed for two lives which are lost anyway. They have no planet. Their technology is dying. They can barely keep themselves alive. Death is a mercy. Make your decision.”

“Please give him what he wants,” the Draziri girl whispered. “Please.”

It felt like I was being ripped in two. The seed was right there, crying, begging to be saved. I could feel the two Hiru inside the inn. They were in the war room, probably watching all of this on the big screen. They stood very close. I wondered if they were holding hands.

“Please.”

I heard my own voice. “The safety of the guests is my highest priority. You will find no sacrifices here.”

“It is a pity, innkeeper.”

The Draziri girl cried out. Web shot out from her, clutching at me, binding me and the Draziri into one. She tore at her clothes. A bumpy metal object was attached to her chest. A door-maker, a small concentrated explosive used to breach the hulls of spaceships. A faint whine cut at my ears - the bomb was armed. Detonation was imminent. I had seconds.

There was no time to get free.

I flung open a door to the farthest connection the inn had. The orange wastes of the planet Kolinda rolled in front of me under a menacing purple sky. The door opened onto a cliff.

I lunged through the gateway, taking the Draziri girl with me, and slammed the door shut behind me. We fell off the cliff and plummeted.

This was it.

I hit the ground. The impact shook my bones. The backpack with the seed landed on top of me, the web stretching, binding it to me.

I blinked, trying to regain my vision. We’d fallen onto a narrow shelf along the cliff. The chasm yawned below us.

“Help!” The Draziri screamed.

Where was she?

The green web stretched from me over the edge of the shelf.

I crawled to the edge. She hung below me. The web binding us was so thin. Gray splotches spread through it. It was dying.

I reached for her. My fingers came a foot short. If I pulled her up, I could rip the bomb out.

“Help me!”

The web snapped. She plunged down and vanished in a fiery explosion.

Behind me the seed sprouted. I sat up. A glowing shoot with two leaves stretched from the remnants of the shell. Tears rolled down my face. It was too weak.

Its magic cried out, seeking a connection. It was scared and alone. I cradled it in my arms, bonding with it, sheltering it, reassuring it that it wasn’t alone. It was an inn and I was an innkeeper.

The tiny sprout wound around me.

It found peace.

And then it died.

*

There was no light. Only darkness. Neither cold nor warm. It just was. It surrounded me and I had no will to break through it. There was no point.

“Dina!”

Sean picked me up. He kissed me. He hugged me to him, but I felt nothing. The darkness was too thick.

He was calling my name, but I had no will to respond.

He looked terrified. I didn’t care.

“Dina, talk to me. Please talk to me. Please.”

I felt nothing.

“Say something. Anything.” He squeezed me to him again. “I’ve got you. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

We jumped up then, and he carried me up the cliff and through the rip in reality back into Gertrude Hunt.

The inn’s magic reached for me. I watched it try. It battered against the wall around me and fell back. There was no point. My little inn had died. I held it and then it died. I felt it die and I died with it. Everything was over.

My sister cried and hugged me. My niece cried, too. Orro brought me cookies. Caldenia said something, so did Arland. None of it mattered. There was only me and darkness.

*

“Fix her!”

My sister again. Some other innkeeper. Tony. His name was Tony. He looked like he saw a walking dead. That’s what I was. The walking dead. Breathing. Listening. Watching. But nothing alive remained inside.

“I can’t. She bonded with the seed. She couldn’t let it die alone, so she connected. Her inn is dead.”

“Her inn is right here,” Sean snarled.

“The inns are organisms of immense power,” Tony said. “They root through different dimensions, they distort reality, and they create matter out of basic components. People forget how powerful they are, because they obey the innkeepers, but their magic is immense. An inn requires an innkeeper. It can’t exist without one, so it forms a symbiotic relationship with a human and then it directs all of its magic and power into strengthening that bond. The innkeepers exist in the microcosm of the inn for years, exposed to their magic and influenced by it. They undergo a change we don’t fully understand, because the inns exist on planes and levels we can’t comprehend. We do know that preserving and bonding with the inn becomes the very essence of the innkeeper’s being.”