Lacuna - N.R. Walker Page 0,17

Tancho, and the pain was gone. “Give me your dagger,” Crow said to him. “I’ll cut it off.”

“Cut what off?” Soko cried.

“The birthmark. My whole hand if need be.”

Soko laughed, but when he saw Crow was serious, his smile fell away. “Have you fallen into madness?”

“Give me your dagger,” Crow hissed at him.

“My king, I will not,” Soko said quietly. “I dare not defy you, but I cannot allow—”

Adelais interrupted curtly. “The ties between you are in your blood. The only thing cutting your arm off to be rid of the birthmark will ensure is that you’ll require assistance to lace your boots for the rest of your days while your blood still burns.” She recomposed herself. “I would ask for patience until Maghdlm arrives.”

“And I would ask for this to be gone,” Crow replied, holding up his wrist. “It’s been weeks.”

Adelais cocked her head. “Weeks?”

Crow gave a nod. “Yes.”

“It began last full moons,” Tancho added. “For me at least. First, it itched. Then it grew warm. I thought it might burst aflame.”

Crow gave a nod, and for the first time since they’d met, they actually agreed with each other. Crow turned to Elmwood. “Does your mark give you no grief?”

Elmwood held out his right hand, palm up. His birthmark was the shape of a tree, of course. “Not at all.”

Samiel held up hers, showing three zigzag lines. “Mine neither. I forget I have it. And you say yours has troubled you for weeks?”

Both Tancho and Crow nodded, but Adelais became concerned. “I assumed the marks became troublesome upon your arrival.”

The guard returned with Maghdlm scurrying behind him. She was out of breath, and her cheeks had some colour. Tancho could see her eyes better in the daylight and they appeared a dark, cloudy blue. “What troubles?” she asked.

“They cannot have a distance between them of more than twenty paces without immense pain,” Adelais explained. “And they say this began at the last full moons.”

Maghdlm looked up at both of them, concerned, confused. She mumbled something in an ancient tongue and shook her head. She took Tancho’s wrist and covered his birthmark with her hand, mumbling, chanting, and then she did the same to Crow.

Her fingers danced above their skin and sparks glittered again, but this time their birthmarks glowed red. There was no pain, they stood too close for that. But there was . . . something. As though Maghdlm was drawing the bond out of them or closer together, Tancho couldn’t be sure.

Then it was over. Maghdlm let her hands fall away, the echo of her chant still lingered, and her eyes were wide. Tancho recognised fear when he saw it. “What is it?”

“Something evil comes,” Maghdlm whispered.

“Evil?” Tancho asked, a shiver running down his spine.

Crow’s hand went to the hilt of his sword. “From where?”

“From far and near, and we are not ready,” Maghdlm replied, frowning as if she didn’t like that at all. Then her eyes grew fierce. “Remember the lacuna. You must stay together, so the distance between is no distance at all.”

Just then, a guard came running into the courtyard. “Elder Consul!” he yelled as he ran toward them. “Four riders come, at pace.”

Adelais gasped, and everyone drew their weapons. “From where do they ride?”

“From the Westlands,” he replied, his gaze falling on Tancho. “They come from the Westlands.”

Tancho’s blood ran cold, his belly turned to ice. And from somewhere deep in the castle, a bell tolled.

Chapter Seven

Adelais and Tancho led the way back to the grand hall, Crow and Soko close on their heels, Elmwood with his two guards, Kearmore and Cardwick, as well as Samiel and her two guards following behind them. Not that Crow could go any distance from Tancho, it would seem, but this time he didn’t want to.

Evil was coming, Adelais had said, and then riders came at pace from the Westlands.

This couldn’t have been a coincidence.

They burst into the grand hall as other elders arrived at the same time, faces ashen, eyes wide. Before Crow could demand to know what was going on, the western doors opened and the four riders, wearing the Westlands white cloaks, were escorted in by a guard.

“Hikari,” Tancho said, going to them. “Hitode, Unagi, Iruka. What brings you?”

The first, who Tancho had called Hikari, bowed his head. He was pale and beautiful with long brown hair. Were they all so damn pretty?

“My king,” Hikari said. “We bring news. Beings, creatures we cannot describe, came. They appeared overnight on the first day after your