by A. W. Exley
Dusk’s Revenge
Silent Wings book 3
A.W. Exley
Published by Ribbonwood Press
www.ribbonwoodpress.com
Copyright © 2019 by A.W. Exley
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Author’s Note:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
About A.W. Exley
Also by A.W. Exley
For Jenny and Erin. Due to good company and a wine glass that was never empty, instead of writing this book while away, the only words I managed to get down was this dedication…
This book uses British English
1
Elijah placed the last book into the box and closed the lid on his childhood. All morning he had gathered together remnants of the boy he once was and placed them in boxes. The books would be returned to the library downstairs. The toys and keepsakes would go in the opposite direction and head to the attic.
Over the last two decades he had studied dead languages, dry theories, and ancient hypotheses. He was tired of staring at shapes in an atlas while tethered to Alysblud and longed to move among the world. He wanted humidity to make the shirt cling to his back in tropical climes. To smell exotic spices in a brilliantly coloured marketplace. To hear musical languages caress his ears.
He had never experienced the world. His knowledge was confined to books in a monastic lifestyle inflicted upon him by his mother. With her gone, freedom beckoned. Like his aunt Lettie, he wanted to explore new faces and fresh opportunities beyond the boundary of their estate and village.
As he stood by the door he surveyed his large room, now stripped bare of everything that was old and familiar. Even his desk, pushed up under the window, lacked anything to conceal the worn wood or the marks scratched into the surface over the decades. The bedside tables held only a lamp each. A clock sat on his dresser and marked off the minutes and hours.
With one last look, Elijah closed the door and headed downstairs. Today his uncle Jasper and soon-to-be aunt Dawn returned from Sunderland and he wanted to hear their news and deliver his own.
He paced in the front parlour with its view of the drive, unable to settle as he waited for his uncle. His mind skimmed over his past and recent events. He couldn’t mourn Ava as a mother, because she had never been one. She’d abandoned him when he was born and he had never known maternal affection. There was no doubt that his family loved him, but his life would forever contain a cold void that should have been filled by the unique love only a mother could bestow.
The man he had grown into knew the deficiency was Ava’s and that he had never been anything more than a pawn in her twisted games. But the child within him believed he was at fault. Why else would a mother abandon her newborn child on a chill autumn morning, without caring if he were discovered or not? He would always wonder if, in the instance of his birth, his mother had perceived a grave defect within him that had made her spurn him.
Elijah shook his head to clear the maudlin thoughts. He would spare as much time pondering his lost relationship with Ava as she had spent considering him. There was a shadow that dwelt in his mind that took the image of a man he had never known. The father taken before the son was born. He would honour his father’s memory, now that events provided an opportunity.
His uncle’s mate, Dawn, had breathed new life into the estate and allowed the whole family to spread their wings. Aunt Lettie had already left. Now it was his turn and he had one goal.
Revenge.
His uncle had sent a raven to briefly tell him that the Sunderland Soarer family had fallen and that he and Dawn had news of great importance. Waiting for the full version of events set his nerves on edge.
At length, the carriage rolled to a stop before the house, and through the window he spied his uncle helping his mate down.
Elijah burst out into the entranceway as they walked through the main door. “What is your news?”
Dawn smiled and hugged him. “My true father was a salamander and the Hamiltons have had their hands in events all along.”
“What?” He wasn’t surprised that the family who had slaughtered his father were tied up in the deaths of Dawn’s parents. It was the other snippet that tantalised him. “The accountant was really a salamander?”
He looked to his uncle, who remained silent on the subject.
Dawn pulled off her hat and stripped off her gloves. “James Uxbridge was not my father. My mother was mated to a Soarer called Zadoc.”
Confusion collided with excitement inside Elijah. His uncle had taught him that some Warders held to old beliefs that being born the child of a Soarer made you the enemy. Despite their sad history, or perhaps because of it, their family took a more liberal approach. Each person made their own choices and was judged on their individual actions. Dawn was untainted by her father, just as Elijah did not carry any reflection of his treacherous mother.
Dawn handed her hat and gloves to a hovering maid. “Could you fetch some tea, please? I’m parched after our journey.”
Jasper gestured down the hallway. “Let’s go through to the small parlour, Elijah. I will tell you all that Lettie discovered while Dawn fetches a paperweight.”
Elijah frowned. His uncle must be more tired from the journey than he suspected, for he wasn’t making any sense. “Why does Dawn need a paperweight?”
The earl kissed his mate’s cheek before she headed up the wide stairs. Then Elijah followed his uncle to the small rear parlour. Once he took a seat, the story began. Elijah found himself as enthralled as he had been as a small child when his uncle read from a book. The tale had undying love, tragedy, new love for Aunt Lettie and Dr Day, action with the destruction of the Soarer mansion and…a paperweight.
“You think Dawn’s father died to steal a paperweight from the Soarers?” As Elijah asked the question the door opened to admit Dawn. It seemed ridiculous. What value could a paperweight hold, unless it was covered in precious gems?
In Dawn’s hand was a polished obsidian lump. She passed the object to Jasper. “I know it sounds foolish, but my mother always told me the paperweight would protect us, so long as we protected it. This is the only item that holds any significance from my childhood.”
Jasper turned the shape over in his hands. “Is it always this warm?”
Dawn reached out and ran a fingertip along the dark surface. “It becomes warmer the longer I hold on to it. I always assumed the stone heated from contact with my skin.”
Elijah rose fr
om his seat, drawn by curiosity. In the tale, his uncle had said that Dawn’s father entrusted her mother with two precious things: one their unborn child, the other a valuable object stolen from his Soarer clan.
“May I?” he asked, holding out his hand.
Jasper placed the item in his palm. It was heavy, as though it were solid stone, but that was to be expected of a paperweight. He held it up to the watery light penetrating the window, but he couldn’t see through it. The black surface was smooth with no marks or scratches, and it was almost like glass, except that it seemed to absorb light and no reflection came from its polished surface.
He stood at the window and stared at the paperweight while he thought aloud. “I once had a tutor with an interest in palaeontology. He was very proud of the few fossils he possessed, including one of a small sea creature. The work of thousands of years had turned its body to stone. Given the shape and size of this, it makes me think of a fossilised egg.”
“A fossilised egg?” Jasper stopped his pacing and frowned.
He held out his hand and Elijah returned the object to his uncle. He stared at his empty hand; his skin seemed to miss the warm weight already.
The earl held the object up between thumb and forefinger. “I think Elijah has the correct line of thought.”
“It’s some sort of fossilised egg?” Dawn asked.
A slow smile spread over Jasper’s face. “Not fossilised, no, but an egg made of a substance able to withstand incredible heat.”
An idea exploded in Elijah’s head. There was only one sort of egg impervious to heat that a Soarer would value. “It’s a phoenix egg.”
“Impossible.” Dawn stood up and crossed to her mate.
Elijah joined them and they all stared at the paperweight, but it held tight to its secrets.
Dawn caressed the egg’s curve. “I have possessed it my entire life, and if it is a phoenix egg, surely the creature inside it must be long dead, or fossilised as Elijah says?”
Jasper balanced the egg in the middle of his open palm. “Not necessarily, although how exactly the phoenix procreates is a Soarer secret. But like us, to establish a new clan they need a new heart, or spirit is their equivalent. For Warders, a cutting is taken from a Ravensblood tree and nurtured until it has sufficient roots to establish a new home. For Soarers, a new clan requires its own phoenix.”
Elijah tried to recall the little he had read about the fiery bird. If they could crack the stone paperweight open, what would they find? “There are many legends and stories about how a new phoenix is created. Some stories say that if you burn two phoenix, three eggs will be left in the ash. Other stories say they only mate once a century.”
Jasper closed his fingers around the egg. “However the egg appeared, what we do know is that it takes an extreme amount of heat to hatch one. Far more than you could ever generate by dropping it into the fire or sleeping with your fingers curled around it.”
Dawn slipped an arm around Jasper’s waist and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Zadoc died to steal it. If it does contain a phoenix, no wonder Delens hid it from the Soarers.”
“And no wonder they sought Verity. As Zadoc’s mate they probably guessed he would give it to her.” Jasper drew Dawn closer to his side, as though to protect her from the long-ago actions of her parents.
“What do we do now?” Part of Elijah itched to build a fire big enough to incubate the egg. He tried to imagine a Warder clan with a phoenix. That would ruffle a few Elemental feathers.
Jasper’s hand tightened into a fist. “The first thing we need to do is conceal this where no Soarer will find it.”
“That is already accomplished. No Soarers can find it because Delens hid it from them. For years now it has survived in plain sight on my desk.” Dawn prised open Jasper’s fingers and reclaimed her paperweight.
Jasper captured her hand and laced his larger fingers with hers. “There are still mortals and Meidh who work for the Soarers. Don’t forget your mother moved you to Whetstone because someone had recognised her. They won’t have forgotten her or what Zadoc stole. Time might run slower for us, but that doesn’t mean they can’t catch up to you.”
A shudder ran through Dawn and she nestled back against Jasper, one hand holding the egg against her chest. “Very well. I will let you hide it. Then we need to make a new plan, since we have the Esmeralda to follow.”
“A ship that isn’t a ship,” Elijah said. It was a riddle—when was a ship not a ship? The Hamiltons occupied an estate in Kessel, further north than Alysblud and closer to the border with Scotland. There they ran a cotton mill for the English market and their Scottish neighbours. There was a slim chance that they’d had the boat sent to them in pieces to build and launch on the west coast. But if that were the case, why the secrecy surrounding it?
Jasper made a low noise in the back of his throat. “I need to see who we know in Kessel that could watch the Hamiltons for us. As for you, Elijah, I want you to go to Whiterock. There is much you could learn from Samuel and he would appreciate the support of another Warder.”
Elijah stood before his uncle and clasped his hands behind his back, so as not to give himself away with the nervous tremor that threatened to make his fingers twitch. “Of course I shall consider that, Uncle Jasper, after I have finished in Kessel.”
Jasper growled, a deep rumble of thunder from a stormy sky. “Absolutely not.”
Elijah steadied himself. He would not be dissuaded from his path. “I am not asking your permission, Uncle. I’m giving you the courtesy of telling you my plans.”
“I forbid it.”
Dawn stood silent, her eyes wide. As the heart of their sanctuary she could force him to stay, but Elijah hoped she wouldn’t use her power to cage him.
He squashed down his rising temper. Nothing would be achieved if he started yelling like a petulant child. “You promised that my father would be avenged. We shook on it.” Elijah drew a long breath through his nose. Gargoyles were stubborn creatures, and if he simply butted heads with his uncle, they would never progress the discussion. He needed to try a different approach. He gestured to the black egg. “If that is truly a phoenix egg then these are dangerous times, and the Soarers have spent twenty years hunting for both it and Zadoc’s child. Would you go off to confront the Hamiltons and leave your mate and the egg to my protection—an untested youth?”
Jasper ground his jaw, his teeth scraping like boulders pushed together. His arm flexed around his mate. It was a dirty tactic to use his love for Dawn against him, but Elijah had spent his life waiting for his chance to avenge his father, and he would use whatever advantage he could find.
“What Aunt Letitia and Dr Day discovered in Whiterock has given us another piece of the puzzle. Now it’s my turn to find the last pieces and bring peace to our family,” Elijah said.
At length Jasper exhaled a long-held breath. “I could not bear to lose you, too.”
“If that should happen, the wound would dull to a throb over time.” He should know, he had spent a lifetime mourning a man he’d never met.
“Don’t speak like that, Elijah. Please.” Dawn laid a hand on his arm. Worry pulled at the corners of her eyes.
Elijah brushed off her concern with a shrug. “It’s the truth. Of all of us, I am expendable. Uncle Jasper has you now and one day, you will start your own family with little gargoyles or Meidh to play on this estate.”
Jasper turned and grasped the mantel above the fire, his hands gripping the wood. “I am useless while you and Lettie confront our old enemies.”
“No, you’re not useless. You have a different role to play and it is important that our sanctuary and heart are guarded,” Elijah said.
“Is there a way to learn what this paperweight truly is?” Dawn asked of her mate.
“The Warder Council may know, but I think this is a secret best kept to ourselves. The fewer people who know, the fewer tongues there will be to spill the truth.” Jasper’s short nails tapped on the mantel.
Silence lay heavy over the room. Then Jasper turned and nodded. “Very well. May Gaia guard you and keep you safe. Do nothing against them and keep your true nature secret. Only gather what information you can that might help our cause.”
Elijah bit the inside of his mouth to hold in his grin. “Of course, Uncle. Consider me like a seeker—there only to ferret out their secrets.”
2
A few days later Elijah sat on a hard pew in the Alysblud church. As soon as Nurse Hatton had returned from Sunderland, Hector had swooped into action. By the time Elijah and his uncle had emerged from the cosy parlour, the old family retainer had already proposed to his long-time love. Events were set in motion, with an entire wedding being planned within the space of a week.
Every seat in the small church was taken, with children perched on the knees of adults. Excited chatter rose to the vaulted ceiling as the residents crammed in as tight as sardines in a tin. While he hadn’t been born in the village, Hector had quickly found a place in the affection of both the village and the Seton family when he had taken up a position on the estate as a lad. With a notorious reputation as a rake when younger, no one wanted to miss the day he finally became a married man.
