The Might of Evil Dreams (A Novel of the Elemental Chronicles)

Ten - What Sleeps Within

^^Image: The Gleaners byJean-François Millet, 1857.^^

Thomas

Everything was not rosy, however, when we returned to the inn. We found Ray tucked into a back corner, his clothes torn and face bloody. His hair was dishevelled and it appeared that someone had managed to rip a few clumps out. One of his ankles was bent completely the wrong way, and was swollen to twice its size.

"My God, Ray, what happened to you?" I shoved the table away and knelt down next to him.

He only groaned and twitched away from me, and that was what made Joshua round on the bartender.

"Oi. What happened to him? Who did this?"

"Them pirates," said the bartender, not looking up from polishing the same glass he'd been working on when we'd come in. "Scuffle broke out. Roughed 'im up pretty good."

"Bloody hell..." Joshua kicked a chair, so hard it went screeching across the floor and hit another one with a bang. "He needs a doctor."

"I'll go," I said, because I needed time to think. And if I should meet Blanchard, what we would say to one another. If he had indeed been the one to beat Emmeline, we would be meeting again, and only one of us would come out alive.

"Tom..." Ray said, distracting me. His hand was reaching for my coat sleeve.

I turned back to him. "What is it, Ray?"

"They said..." He took a breath in, and winced — he must have broken a couple ribs as well. "We don't know how to harness our powers at all..."

Then his head dropped backward and he was out cold.

I rode for the doctor's soon after, his words still echoing through my head. We don't know how to harness our powers. Whatever that meant, I knew one thing — there was something about us that those pirates, or whatever they were, liked. And it was something they wanted. It fit with the details of Emmeline's captivity, forcing her to produce fire and then beating her when it didn't happen. But we needed more information before even attempting a move against these men. That was a given. And if this wasn't enough to sway even Charles Ashbury, then I hadn't the slightest idea what would.

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Emmeline

I did my best to stay busy while he was gone. Lucian and I went out to the garden and the fields, and although he insisted that the lady of the house not do any work, I argued that there was nothing else for me to do. I was not about to sit around all day while others served me. I wanted honest work and fresh air. And I wanted to fall into bed exhausted, so tired that the nightmares that Tom kept away would not visit me while I slept alone.

Which was why it surprised me when Lucian stopped his scything and squinted back towards the house, eyes shaded with one hand. I stopped my work as well — digging at the weeds in the grass — and picked out Mrs Shute, running down from the house faster than I'd ever see her go.

"What on earth...?" Lucian wiped his brow with the back of his hand, his straw-colored hair clinging to the sweat coating it. "She runs like the Devil's after her, she does."

"Mrs Shute?" I straightened as she approached, running my hands over the apron I'd borrowed from Peggy. They left streaks of dirt and blood from a blister on one of my palms. "What is it?" I called.

"Ashbury, milady," she panted as she skidded to a stop in front of us. She was not a thin woman, nor was she tall. But she was a swift runner when the situation merited it. "Come to call on the new mistress."