CHAPTER 31: Then There Were Four
CHAPTER 33: Doubts and Speculation
CHAPTER 34: The Valley of the Shadow
CHAPTER 35: Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing
CHAPTER 36: Evidence and Speculation
CHAPTER 37: The Company of Strangers
CHAPTER 40: Unexpected Complications
CHAPTER 41: A Time of Reckoning
CHAPTER 44: Affairs of the Heart
CHAPTER 45: Beginnings and Endings
Jeanette bent over Devin, her brown curls lightly brushing his cheek. When his eyes fluttered open and focused on her face, she smiled.
“Am I dead?” he asked.
She kissed his cheek. “No, my love,” she assured him. “You aren’t dead but you need help.”
He cupped her cheek with his hand, ran his thumb across her lower lip. “My God, I love you,” he murmured. “Where have you been? I’ve been so worried.”
“Not far away,” she answered. “But I have to go now, Devin, I’m sorry.”
He found her hand and held it. “Don’t go,” he protested.
“I can’t help you, Devin,” she explained. “But Marcus is coming back.”
“Marcus tried to kill me,” he said.
She shook her head, her eyes big in her slender face, and rose from her knees. Her dress swirled around her bare feet. “I have to go.”
“Don’t go!” he begged.
She kissed her finger and stooped to touch his mouth. “I must,” she said. “Be still.”
“When will I see you again, Jeanette?” he asked, raising his head. The pain sent him back down into darkness, her name still on his lips.
Devin’s head pounded in time with his heart as it slowly pumped his life’s blood onto the forest floor. He lay in deep, velvety darkness as rain spattered the leaves of the trees above him and slid in rivulets down his cheeks like tears. Gone was the fragrance of pine, the wind fresh off the ocean. The air stank of burned paper and cloth. The Chronicles were gone … he had tried and failed to save them and now they were lost forever. The entire history of the provinces had been destroyed by ignorance and flame. Ultimately, his trip to the provinces to preserve the Chronicles had led to their destruction and he would forever bear the guilt of it.
He opened his eyes to a dizzying view of tree trunks and rocks spinning in front of him. He swallowed convulsively and tried to shift to his back to see for himself if perhaps some small part of the repository remained. Nausea rolled over him in waves and he stopped moving and lay very still, half on his side, the way he’d wakened. Minutes passed as the sickness that threatened to overwhelm him finally stilled. He lay stiffly, his teeth clenched, one hand digging into the earth.
Finally, he touched his temple gingerly and found the whole side of his face was caked with a sticky mass of blood, pine needles, and dirt. His hand involuntarily rummaged in his pocket searching for a handkerchief and found it completely empty. Even Marcus’ rosary was gone.
Last night seemed decades ago, when he and Marcus had sat and talked on the banks of the stream, weathering a storm together. What had Marcus told him? “Trust me.” And Devin had. He had trusted Marcus with his life and Marcus had shot him. So, where was his bodyguard now? In some tavern toasting René Forneaux’s bid for chancellorship? Did he regret having shot the current chancellor’s son when he had been sworn to protect him? Or did he accept his new position with the same intensity that he accepted his role as Devin’s bodyguard? What kind of man was Marcus Berringer, anyway, to change loyalties like the wind?
Devin let out a deep breath. He was on his own now. He’d need to find his way back to La Paix … to Chastel, Armand, and Gaspard. Together they would plan a way to thwart this new regime and Marcus would be forever marked as an enemy, not an ally.
Devin tried again to move … to catch some small sight of the repository that had housed the Chronicles. Perhaps there was something left … even a few pages that could be salvaged and reassembled. But the forest lay shrouded in mist and smoke and drizzling rain; here and there an evergreen branch appeared momentarily before the mist swallowed it again. Everything seemed muffled and unreal. Even the birds were silent.
A frightening notion wiggled into Devin’s thoughts like a worm. Perhaps, he would die here after all, only a few feet away from the greatest discovery in Llisé’s history. At least, he had seen this arcane