Page 120 of The Daughters of Avalon
Crying out, Rosalynde dragged herself up and swung closer to the bauble, dropping the book as her fingers caught the cold metal.
Bind it, Rose.
The reliquary and chain cut into her palm, searing her flesh as the Shadow Beast squealed in triumph, catching thegrimoirewith its mutating tail, curling around the book.
Now, bind the Beast.
Rosalynde didn’t know binding words—and nevertheless, even as she lamented the fact, strange words sprang to her lips.
I call the fifth to me!
Goddess hear my plea!
Of smoke and mist you might be born.
Here I bind you now in mortal form.
Right before her eyes, the Shadow Beast began to coalesce into a more solid form—into the shape of a man, still with enormous black wings. Once more, Wilhelm rushed forward to pierce the creature with his sword, but he ventured no closer than the breadth of the creature’s wings. Its leathery appendages smacked him away, as easily as though he were no more than a flea.
Landing more than twenty feet away, his look dazed, Wilhelm sat, staring in horror as the creature put talons into Rosalynde’s waist, clutching her so brutally that she thought it must have broken her flesh. She cried out in pain and terror, and it was then Giles appeared, tearing through the woods atop his black courser, and what he did next took Rosalynde’s breath away…
As her spell solidified the beast, Giles charged them, his every move as darkly sinuous as that of the Shadow Beast’s,his movements as choreographed as a macabre dance—a dance of death. To her desperate eyes, it happened as though in slow motion. Once he cleared the boughs of low-lying trees, he rose up on the back of his courser, unsheathing a shimmering golden blade and wielding it so expertly it appeared to be an extension of his being—and he, an extension of the horse.
That sword—it glowed unlike anything Rosalynde had ever seen before. Her eyes transfixed on the haloed metal, even as the creature cut its talons deeper into her flesh.
She shouted the binding words again…
I call the fifth to me!
Goddess hear my plea!
Of smoke and mist you might be born.
Here I bind you now in mortal form.
Crying out, the creature thrust its black talons even deeper into her middle, and Rosalynde’s eyes teared with pain. But, then, just as the Beast hoisted her up, dropping her, only to catch her again more securely, preparing to fly away, Giles leapt off his mare, spinning through the air like a whirling blade. His shining sword caught the beast at its neck, severing the head.
The Shadow Beast opened its claws, releasing Rosalynde and plummeted to the ground. She fell with a thud and a yelp of pain, and barely had time to roll out of the way before the creature came tumbling into the bracken.
Stunned, Wilhelm remained seated on his bottom, staring with his mouth open.
Rosalynde righted her dress, crawling over to seize thegrimoire, and rose to her feet as Giles knelt beside the creature with his bloodstained sword still in his hand.
With trembling limbs, she ventured over to join him. But when she looked down into the Shadow Beast’s face, she gasped in horror. “It’s Mordecai!”
“What is a Mordecai?”
Rosalynde shook her head, her face pale as parchment. “Not what, but whom… he’s?—”
Before their eyes, the creature writhed one final time, losing its wings and mutating into the shape of a man. His youth fell away, withering his flesh until it turned to dust, and without so much as a breeze, the dust rushed into the reliquary still tangled in Rosalynde’s hand—vanishing… as though it had been sucked into the reliquary. Swallowing convulsively, she peered at the bauble in her hand… and the cuts and burn in her palm, then tossed the reliquary away, thinking at once of her sisters…
She’d had no idea such things were possible, and now, she feared she’d left Arwyn and Seren to their doom. “No,” she whispered.
“Where the hell did you learn to do that?” demanded Wilhelm, his face bloodied and scarred.
Giles turned to look at his brother, who was still seated on his rump. “In the seminary,” he said evenly, and Rose screwed her face, casting a questioning look at Wilhelm, wondering how that could possibly be true.
At this point, her wimple and veil were gone—herglamouras well, judging by the way Wilhelm was looking at her—as though she had suddenly sprouted another head.
