Rise of the Gryphon (Belador #4)(113)

Evalle sent the gryphons orders to drive the Medb from the island, confident that the five thousand Beladors and seven gryphons outside would be successful.

Green power ripped across the room and Macha appeared, not looking as fresh as usual.

Holding the ward must have really zapped her.

Macha stared at the hologram with a sinking look of horror. “Where’s Brina?”

Tzader told her what he’d found right before Brina and Lanna had disappeared. His voice came out gutshot. “I failed her, and I failed you.”

Macha gave Tzader a thorough look. “How are you standing here inside this castle alive?”

He sighed and explained how he’d rushed in with no thought for his life, needing only to protect Brina.

Evalle could practically hear his heart shattering. Evalle said, “We’ll find her, Z. Lanna was caught with her. She’s Quinn’s cousin and pretty powerful. Quinn may have family who can track Lanna. When I get back to Atlanta, I’ll get Storm. He has other gifts and may be able to tell us more once we bring him here. If not for him, you wouldn’t have gotten my note to know what was coming.”

“He didn’t give us the note,” Tzader said.

“What do you mean? How’d you get it if he didn’t?”

“I went looking for you.” Tzader cut his eyes over at Macha to find her glaring at him. “You made me Maistir because you trust me to watch over all the Beladors and to know who I can trust and who I can’t. I have never doubted Evalle and you shouldn’t either, especially when she’s the reason you still hold Treoir.”

“We don’t have Brina.”

“That’s not Evalle’s fault, and she’ll help us find her.”

Evalle still wanted to know about the note. “What about Storm?”

Tzader said, “When I got to his house, no one was there. Your note was sitting on the nightstand.”

“Was it a whole piece of paper or . . .”

“All of it. The part you wrote to Storm was still attached.”

“Where was he?” She hadn’t intended for that to come out panicked, but some emotions couldn’t be controlled.

“I found a note he left you in the kitchen. The room smelled like licorice incense.” Tzader pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to her. “You know what the note means?”

Evalle nodded, eyes blurring. Why had Storm gone after the witch doctor without waiting for her?

She wasn’t sure she could restart her heart anymore today, but it was pounding in the danger zone.

Had the witch doctor tricked Storm?





FORTY-NINE





Cathbad stared in horror at the scrying wall, then turned on Flaevynn. “How could ya send our daughter out there with no way ta heal herself?”

Flaevynn’s lips trembled. “She failed. They all failed.”

“Ya whore. Ya killed your own child, and now ya will die.”

Trembling, she turned to Cathbad, voice jumping. “Fix this. You . . . you know the curse. Make it . . . do something.”

“Die, ya miserable waste of life.”

Flaevynn railed at him. “This is all your fault!” She tried to strike him with her black fingernail, but she staggered back.

All at once, her body began warping and shriveling, then spinning until she turned into a human tornado of sparkling purple dust.

Cathbad stepped back, not too sure about this. He’d thought the old witch would just dry up and poof away like the others before her.

When the dust settled, Flaevynn was definitely gone, but another woman, a far more beautiful creature, stood in her place. Hair as black as sin fell around her shoulders, and eyes as green as a new leaf studied what should have been Flaevynn’s body. She seemed as surprised as Cathbad was to see her slender arms and fine shape in a purple gown fit for a queen.

Cathbad scratched his head. That had not happened in recorded history. “I do no understand.”

The gorgeous female laughed, a full, throaty sound. “That’s because the prophecy has been fulfilled. I have returned.”

“Who are ya?”

“Maeve, the first and only true Medb queen.”

“How can ya be here? The prophecy—”

She nodded, her eyes twinkling with mirth. “—said birth before death and death before birth. The Alterants were born, then died, then were reborn as gryphons.”

Cathbad still battled to understand. “But the immortal queen . . . ?”

“That would be me.”

“How?”

She sighed. “You don’t have time for all of this, so I shall be quick. The female gryphon had to evolve by rising a third time, which she must have, because she fulfilled the prophecy and brought me back to life.”

Cathbad processed everything at blinding speed. Now he understood what he had not seen coming. The curse had not been about gaining immortality for the reigning queen. It had been about reincarnating the original one.

But wrapping his head around that meant . . . “If ’tis so, then . . .” His body twisted and warped, going through the same gyrations. He yelled, but his voice sucked away with his life.

“I told you that you didn’t have much time.” Maeve waved at him, laughing over the prophecy actually coming true. She had certainly hoped so when she and her greedy partner had come up with this plan.