Luminous

107 - The Blood Druids

(Six years earlier)

Never had darkness been more welcome. For hours fire, not dawn, painted the sky glowing red, using Hadrian Castle's mighty keep as its easel, but they had doused the last tongue of flame. All that remained were blackened stone and snow of ash. 

Baron Hadrian staggered down the alley between lines of cheering men, nodding his thanks at their faces swarthy with soot and sweat. The ropes of the pulleys, once pulled taut and laden with swinging buckets of water, lay abandoned on the sodden, trampled grass of the courtyard. 

Kellis threaded his way towards the marquee that housed the injured. Healers and housewives bustled in and out the flap-door. He ducked inside and spotted his wife Sylvia sitting in the furthermost corner. She spun around at his approach, then her pale, marblelike face cracked into a sob,

"Kellis!" She launched herself into his arms. Kellis pressed her to his heart.

"Thank Freda." He breathed the perfume of her hair to cleanse his nostrils of the smell of burning, then his gaze fell upon the two boys asleep behind her, "How are they?"

Sylvia peeled off and slumped beside the mattress, smoothing Zier's hair. The boy fell asleep with his nose inches away from his big brother's pudgy cheek, their fingertips just about touching.

"Zee never left his side. I had to put Lexi to sleep. He kept bolting up to go find the other Graye girl." Sylvia whispered as she fingered the vial of laudanum at Coris's bedhead guiltily. Kellis's attention was drawn to the young girl on the mattress next to his sons. 

The bridge of her nose, once high, had sunken to level terrain. The fire must have burned away whatever disguise she had molded atop it. Her shoulders were bare. So was her head. Her left wrist peeked out from the blanket. A sliver of purple-black marred her fair skin. He flicked the cloth back, revealing three deep, gaping gashes scored into her forearm, with swollen lips of purplish rot. So, this was the cause of the fire.

Sylvia rose to her feet beside him.

"I asked everyone I came upon. Not a glimpse of Agnes nor Klythe." She whispered, sharp and collected as ever. However, when Kellis turned and met her eyes, she betrayed a shiver, 

"What do we do now? What do we tell Crosset and Graye?"

Kellis turned back to Persephia, hesitant. He couldn't answer. There were still too many mysteries, gaping holes to be filled with logic and evidence. Facing his wife, he grasped her frozen hands in his, 

"Do not let her escape your sight. I must be the first to question her once she awakens." He hissed, then his voice softened as he pressed his lips to her forehead, "I won't be long."

He tore himself from her soft arms and left the tent, pulling the hood of his cloak over his head. No one called out to him or stepped in his path as he entered the double doors of the evacuated Keep and scaled the empty stairs to the third floor. However, when he made to cross the threshold into the Graye sisters' quarters, an arm barricaded his way.

"Milord!" 

Kellis reared back in surprise. He whipped around and found the weary face of old Hamlin, eldest of the Blood Druids. In his other hand he held a lamp aloft. His seemingly black eyes glinted emerald in its light.

"You cannae enter, milord. Dunno if the floor will hold." 

Hamlin nodded towards the room's interior. The fire had melted brocades into the wall in some places, eaten through then cracked the lime in others, and churned the naked flagstones like butter. Kellis reluctantly accepted defeat, sighing,