The Ciphers of Muirwood (Covenant of Muirwood #2)(80)
The steel hand of fear gripped Maia’s heart. She knew struggling was useless, and it was only tiring her more quickly. How could she hope to stop these men?
It begins with a thought.
The jumbling and swaying was dizzying, but she tried to center herself and clear her thoughts. Fear was her enemy. She had to calm down in order to think clearly. Focus on what you want, burn it to life with your will, and the Medium would help it happen. As her emotions began to cool, new thoughts awakened in her mind. This was her father’s design. He did not want to risk the outcome on the morrow. He did not want to alienate his people by staging a confrontation between himself and his daughter. If she was on his side, if only physically, it would make it easier for him to topple the abbeys of the realm.
What he did not surmise or understand was what would happen to Maia once she left the grounds. Ereshkigal was probably waiting just outside the wall, ready to pounce and claim the body she had previously stolen.
Jon Tayt—I need you!
She sent the thought into the wind, hoping he would hear her. She focused her thoughts, her emotions, her intensity on that one wish, desperate to summon the abbey hunter to her aid. Collier would be blind to the mists. Her grandmother was inside the abbey—what could she do in time? But Argus could use her scent to track her, succeeding where others would fail.
Find me! Cider Orchard, nearing the end of the wall.
Maia felt the rhythm slow. As it did, she could hear the mewling sounds of the Myriad Ones in the distance. It felt as if she were nearing the shores of a vast lake, the waters rippling along the edge. The abbey was the dry ground; the rest of the world was the lake. As her captors continued to move toward the edge of the abbey grounds, she could feel the force of the Myriad Ones’ thoughts pressing against hers—hungry, sniffling, greedy to taste her again. Once more, her heart began to hammer in terror, and she struggled against her bonds. She felt the tether burning the skin at her wrists as she struggled to slip her hands through.
They left the protection of the abbey grounds.
Maia knew the instant it happened. The feeling of warmth and protection she had experienced upon coming to Muirwood vanished like a candle guttered by a storm. Feelings of blackness and despair enveloped her, worse than the bonds and the hood and the choking gag. She could feel the voracious, mewling creatures surround the soldiers, who seemed oblivious to the taint of their black presence—perhaps because they were so accustomed to it. To Maia, they felt like smoke that choked her lungs and stung her eyes.
“Thank you, Sheltin,” the sheriff said. “The king wants her tonight. I need to return to the grounds to lead the search when it is discovered she is missing, and keep them away from our trail. Graves will go with you to make sure she arrives safely.”
Maia felt the nuzzling pressure of the Myriad Ones as they swarmed her body. She began kicking again, not against the soldiers, but against the invasive, violating touch of the Myriad Ones. The ropes and bonds were nothing compared to the awful feeling of the creatures worming against her clothes.
You are us. You are part of us.
Join us, Sister! Choose us! We are your flesh!
We are your bones.
You are us and we are you.
Let me have her first.
Maia wept bitterly as the mark on her shoulder started to burn and her thoughts began to cloud. She focused her will, champing on the gag with all her strength. The Myriad Ones were relentless, and she felt the blackness begin to invade her mind.
“Take her,” said the sheriff grimly.
She struck the ground with a heavy jolt. Shouts and grunts sounded all around her. The sudden impact of falling made her unable to breathe, and she blacked out for a moment. As soon as she came to, she wriggled with renewed violence and managed to free her wrists from the bonds. A grunt of pain sounded, and something collapsed next to her head. Maia’s wrists stung and felt wet with blood, but she had freed her hands, and she began squirming through the wrappings, trying to loosen the ropes around her arms as she tugged at the bonds around her knees.
“Run! Run for the village! Run for—och!” She heard the sound of gurgling breath cut off by a blade.
Another thump followed by another. Maia rocked on her shoulders, trying to change position and escape the bonds. She was desperate to free herself—not just from the Myriad Ones, but from whatever was attacking the sheriff’s men.
“I am the sheriff of Mendenhall!” came a scream, the voice warbling with fear. “Stay back! Stay back!” She heard his last breath hiss out of him.
The Myriad Ones were feasting on the death and carnage, their thoughts suddenly loose from her. They lapped up the emotions of the dying, whimpering with pleasure at the taste of the shock, fear, and horror.
A knife slit the ropes around her arms, knees, and ankles. The bags and bonds were flung away from her. She heard heavy breathing, the sound of a man tired by effort. Maia wrenched the hood from her head, her hair sticking to her face.
Crouched over her, sweat dropping down his nose, she saw the kishion holding a bloodied dagger.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Kishion
The Myriad Ones were all around her, thick as the vapors of mist shrouding the air. Although Maia was free from the bonds, she was not certain if she was truly free.
The darkness concealed much of the kishion’s expression, but she recognized the size and bulk of him, and he radiated that same awful menace she remembered from the weeks they had traveled together. A shiver of fear went through her body as she watched the puffs of mist from his harried breathing.