tried to force Quin to help, but he’d succeeded only in hurting her and others. He was prepared to hurt, or even to kill, if it was absolutely necessary. You mustn’t be scared to act, his mother had told him, all those years ago, as she was dying in front of him. Be willing to kill. And yet it was better, of course, if he didn’t have to go after Quin. The Young Dread had offered him an alternative.
She’d asked, in return, for his full dedication to the training. He intended to give it and to prove himself an excellent student. He was eighteen, older than Seeker apprentices usually were. This was his chance, at last, to learn to use an athame and to become the man his mother and grandmother had expected him to be.
The wound beneath his left shoulder, where Briac had shot him on board Traveler, throbbed painfully, but it was halfway healed already, thanks to the finest medical treatment his grandfather’s fortune could buy. This was good, because Maud didn’t accept pain as an excuse for poor performance.
The Young Dread herself was dressed similarly to John, only a loose undershirt and simple short trousers on her slender, wiry frame. Whatever her demands upon John, she was no less demanding of herself. He could see her lean muscles outlined with shadow. She, of course, was not shivering either. She held her body in such tight control, John imagined she would freeze to death before she allowed herself to tremble. He’d come to understand that she preferred discomfort; it kept her sharp.
Maud’s hair was tied up behind her head, and the youthful planes of her face looked both terrible and splendid in the moonlight, a statue of a vengeful goddess on the threshold of springing to life.
At her feet was a pile of objects—rocks, rusted metal horseshoes, clods of dirt, broken pieces from old weapons. They had collected these items for days, scouring the estate when his training had begun. And now the Young Dread was using them against him, over and over and over again.
Sitting on the ground near the heap of objects was John’s disruptor. Maud had left it in sunlight all day to gather energy. Now its iridescent metal shimmered in the glow of the moon, making it look almost pretty, when in truth it was a weapon designed specifically to instill horror. It resembled a small, wide cannon with a barrel ten inches across that was covered with hundreds of tiny openings. When it was strapped across the user’s chest and fired, swarms of electrical sparks rushed from those holes to encircle the head of its victim. And if those sparks caught you, if you failed to get out of their way, they twisted your thoughts and destroyed your mind. You became disrupted.
John knew the Young Dread would not fire the disruptor at him tonight. She’d told him that would come only later in his training. Still, she’d brought it here to the castle ward and set it near her where he could see it easily. Terror of the disruptor had been his downfall when training under Briac Kincaid, and so Maud wanted him to become used to its presence. He tried not to look, but his heart beat more quickly whenever his eyes happened upon it. He thought of his mother’s words: Do what has to be done. Somehow he would overcome this fear.
“Begin!” the Young Dread called.
John kicked his muscles into motion and started running around the perimeter of the courtyard, which was littered with stones, dead branches, and chunks of the ruined castle. He stared ahead, taking in everything before him and everything in his peripheral vision without moving his eyes. Maud had taught him the focus of the steady stare, which he used now. He could see her at the corner of his right eye, her body turning to follow his progress, turning so slowly and smoothly that her feet did not appear to be shifting at all.
“Now!” she said, giving him a warning.
And then she began to throw things. Her arms moved—so fast that he saw only a blur—and a dark object was hurtling toward him.
John pivoted to his left, using his speed to turn full circle, as a rock whistled by his head and crashed into a boulder at the edge of the yard.
“Now!” she said, another warning, and a new black shape flashed toward him.
John leapt atop a piece of rubble and pushed off, carrying himself high