One Fell Sweep (Innkeeper Chronicles #3)(86)

“Don’t tell me that.”

“And I would love Helen as my own.”

“Don’t.”

Arland rose. His face was grim. “I’m no poet. I’m a soldier. So, I’ll just tell you the way it is, as clumsy as it sounds. When I first saw you, it was like being thrown from a shuttle before it touched the ground. I fell and when I landed, I felt it in every cell of my body. You disturbed me. You took away my inner peace. You left me drifting. I wanted you right there. Then, as I learned more of you, I wanted you even more. You want me too. I’ve seen it in your eyes. You taught me the meaning of loneliness, because when I don’t see you, I feel alone. You may reject me, you may deny yourself, and if you choose to not accept me, I will abide by your decision. But know that there will never be another one like you for me and one like me for you. We both waited years so we could meet.”

He left the room.

Maud looked at me. “Say something, Dina. Please say something to me.”

I wanted to tell her that she was afraid of being loved, because her husband betrayed her. That she shouldn't throw away this chance at being happy. But there was too much darkness between us.

*

“I will be back,” Sean whispered into my ear.

A fire built inside me. A pressure that strained at the empty darkness. It hurt. The pain suffused me. I tried to escape but there was nowhere to run.

He brushed a kiss on my lips.

The pressure broke and I screamed. Don’t go! Don’t leave me! I’ll be all alone.

“I’ll be back soon.” He let go of me and went for the door.

He didn’t hear me. How could he not have heard me?

He stepped through the door.

Wait. Don’t go.

It closed behind him.

Wait.

Wait for me.

*

I sat on the porch, watching late afternoon slowly bleed into the evening. Maud had put my favorite robe on me, the blue one that our mother made. I looked like an innkeeper even if I didn’t feel like one. My sister had decided I should have the front row seat, so I would “snap out of it.” Beast lay on my lap. At first, when Sean had brought me in, she hid as if she didn’t recognize me and it scared her. Then, little by little, Sean coaxed her into my bed on the third night. Now she sat with me, sad and occasionally trembling.

Caldenia sat in a chair on my left. My sister stood on my right, holding my broom in one hand, and her sword in the other. In front of us the backyard stretched with the clearing behind it. Helen sat by my feet, holding her knives. The Hiru waited in the kitchen, out of sight.

Sean would come back. He promised to come back.

The corruption waited above me. It had flowed through the inn, filling the spaces between the branches. Gertrude Hunt had tried to stop it, but it escaped the inn’s grasp. Everyone forgot about it, but it was there, biding its time. It wanted something.

Maud, feel it. You will feel it if you just reach out.

Helen hugged herself by my feet and looked up, at the inn.

Maud!

“It’s about time,” Maud said.

“Are you up to this, my dear?” Caldenia inquired.

“I’ll have to be. What about you? Is all that plotting and talking you’ve been doing ever going to pay off?”

“All in good time.” Her Grace smiled, showing sharp teeth.

Maud looked at me. “Dina, please help me.”

I was trying. I was honestly trying.

A rift opened in the middle of the lawn. The werewolves from Wilmos’ shop walked out of it dragging a big metal box. They waved at us, planted the box on the ground, and the brown-skinned werewolf armed it through the panel on the side. The box unfolded like a flower, sending out a complex antenna-like structure made of shiny small cubes and triangles, each rotating in different directions.

“What is that?” Caldenia asked.

“That’s the projectile dampener,” Maud said. “It disrupts the path of kinetic projectiles and negates energy and heat weapon targeting. Very short range and outrageously expensive. We’re renting it for the next two hours. It cost us an arm and a leg. If… when Dina wakes up, she’ll kill me. I wiped out her budget. But if the Draziri want a piece of us, they’ll have to fight for it in my sword’s range.”

She bared her teeth.

“Were do you want us?” the female mercenary asked.

“Here is fine.”

They took up positions around the porch.

“Damn the Assembly,” Maud muttered. “We could’ve used help.”

“For all the reverence Dina shows for the ad-hal, I have yet to see a demonstration of their power,” Caldenia said.

“Trust me, you don’t want to witness that, Your Grace.”

I struggled to rise. My sister was preparing to repel an assault on my inn and all I could do was watch and scream into the silence wrapped around me. I had to move. Even if I could just twitch a finger.

A pale light ignited in the middle of the field, elongating into a glowing filament, like the wire of a lit lightbulb. The fabric of space ripped and Sean’s parents burst through the gap, two massive werewolves dripping blood, one dark, the other lighter. The darker one carried an Archivarian slung across his back.

They ran across the lawn. The rapid staccato of high tech rifles chased them. None of the projectiles landed.