George’s warnings in his head, his driving passion to save Vivian, to destroy the witch before she could make good on her plans—were as a child’s whim, and with as little power.
Jehenna smiled, slow and seductive, then leaned toward him and kissed him. He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of her face, and when he opened them, she was gone.
His mind sprang free, his body once again his own to command. He leaped for the door, closed now. It had no lever, no handle. Pushing against it had no effect. He ran at it, struck with his injured shoulder, and landed in a heap on the floor, biting his lip until it bled to keep himself from whimpering with the shock of pain.
There must be another way out.
Searching the room, he found a metal grate, big enough to drive a semi through, but it was also locked. No other doors. He circled the chamber seeking an exit, unwilling to believe that he could not get to Vivian, could not stop the witch, after all he had done to get this far.
Steps led up onto a stone dais. He climbed them. Clotted blood in a basin, mixed with something black that had etched away stone where it splashed out onto the dais. Zee shivered, a sense of something evil and dark coming over him, and he retreated, sick at heart, to sit down and press his back against the wall next to the door.
The best plan he could come up with was that if anybody came in, he’d make a dive for freedom while the door was still open. If he was too late to save her, he could avenge her. And for that he would need to spare his waning strength.
Remembering, he put his hand into his pocket and brought out the cloth-wrapped object. Open only at the end.
Not quite yet. Not the end so long as there remained the smallest fragment of hope.
Resting his head back against the wall, he closed his eyes and focused on his breath, waiting.
Twenty-nine
Vivian looked out across the closely trimmed and carefully tended grass, emerald green and weed free, to where the stadium walls rose sheer on all sides, the seats beyond that, tier after tier, filled with shouting humans. Above, blue sky, without the shadow of a single cloud.
Across the field she saw the red upthrust of stone. She could feel its power flickering at the edges of her reality, despite the blunting effect of the silver. Her guards, still careful not to touch her, signaled that she should walk the length of the field to the stone. Steadying herself, she stepped out onto the grass.
The vox humana crescendoed into a roar. A fanfare floated out of the stands.
Last night, she had been a spectator. Tonight, she was the show. Head held high, not willing to let the maddened crowd see her fear, she crossed the stadium. The longest walk of her life, but not long enough, a duality of time expanding and contracting, both eternity and an ephemeral breath.
She pressed her back against the stone, feeling its power pulsing against her skin. The guards fastened a heavy chain around her waist and left her there. The silver bracelets were loose around her wrists; she could slip them off at any time and—do what? Hope withered under the gaze of thousands of hostile eyes, thousands of voices shouting for her death.
Jehenna had the key.
She, Vivian Maylor, the last of the Dreamshifters, had failed in every possible way.
Trumpets blared. The priest paraded to the center of the field. He raised his staff and waited for the crowd to quiet so that his voice could be heard:
“In the last night and day, portents have been written across the sky. Strange creatures have appeared and disappeared. Reality twists and bends in on itself. Is it coincidence that these things should come to pass at the same time this sorceress appeared in Surmise?”
The crowd moaned, pressing forward against the barrier. “Death, death to the sorceress,” a single voice shouted. The crowd took it up as a chant.
The priest raised his hands for silence. It took longer this time for the ebb of sound, but he waited, master of the drama, until all tongues were stilled, all ears listening. “We hereby give this woman in sacred ceremony to the Dragon, that the portals may be closed and the evil be driven from our kingdom.”
A deafening response from the crowd.
“Let it be so!” He turned and