by Jamie Magee
Talon jarred back. Everyone in the room did.
“Why? Tisk?” Talon asked.
Reveca shook her head. “Ambrosia. For him, owning something another Lord, or Lady, wants gives him power over them—apparently her domain is tastier than his revenge.”
“What now?” Judge asked stepping forward.
Reveca searched his eyes before she spoke. “I convinced him to take Chalice and Latour instead. I turn them in and move about my list, or I turn Talon in and have no list.”
Sick revenge masked Judge’s face, the room dropped a degree or two. “Then you best be giving me the weapon you need him laid down with because it will be by my hand if Chalice is sent anywhere.”
Reveca sighed in assent.
“You just let him railroad you like that, Vec? What the fuck?” Talon raged, looking and acting so much like he had when she first met him, a young warrior deadly in every way, including charm.
“No. I deliver, and I get Tisk back.”
She squinted her eyes as they all began to yell at once. “Enough!” Reveca roared. “She is deadly where she is. I have to get her out and strip her mind before she destroys us all.” She lifted her chin. “And then kill her slowly, a hundred times over.”
Talon closed his eyes and lifted his head to the ceiling.
“I’m going to have to make sure Chalice and Latour are stripped before they die too, which means we’re going to have to be crafty about this tradeoff.”
The Sons all gave a ready nod as if it was just an item on a to-do list.
Adair spoke up, “Um, what about me meeting my mother?”
Talon was aware again. Slowly he lowered his head and met Reveca’s waiting stare.
“She attacked us,” Reveca responded. “Before you ask, a fire hurricane. It is her mindset you are both my prisoners, and I was to return you, or she would ensure that the Dark God, Revelin, knew where King or rather his people, Dagen and others, were.” She lifted her chin. “Basically she promised to slaughter King.”
Talon felt all the blood flush from his body. Brosia didn’t promise only King’s death, she promised far more if any of this were true. He was ready to rip her apart. Fuck her girlish obsessions. No war sense what-so-fucking-ever.
“I’ll deal with her,” Talon said with resigned confidence.
“Well, when you do, teach her to barter because she sucks at it. I handled it.” She glanced to Adair. “I’m not locked in a barter that says I have to make you meet with her, but I think it would be best.”
“Why?” Talon asked.
“She made deals, with who, I don’t know. She’s pissed at you, clearly, but not Adair. She might tell her with who. Someone has been yanking that woman’s chain.”
“Who?” Talon demanded.
“I don’t know.” She took a step toward Adair. “You’re not going to want to hear this, but it would be best for Jade to take you to this meeting.”
Outrage rang throughout the room. Reveca lifted her hand again.
“Take your father if you wish, your lover, your best friend, or the army that would lay its life down for its president’s daughter. However, I cannot go—I feel it will only agitate her more and counteract my claim that I do not have control over you or Talon. Jade knows how to make her visible to you.”
Reveca took another step toward Adair and reached to hold her arms in the most comforting way. “No matter what though, she cannot take you against your will. You are not in danger of imprisonment.” She squeezed her arms. “Even if she had the power, I have the feeling that she has a barter with someone who has stirred this hell up with Talley, and she could not take you away until her side was fulfilled. Understand what you need to about your mother, it’s your time. But any—I mean anything—about this conflict or any other barter she has made that will bring danger will help us all.” Reveca pressed her lips together. “I don’t care for Jade, but I know Finley trusted her for some fucked reason, and I know she is very aware of your circumstance. Do with that what you will.”
“When?” Adair asked, ignoring the outrage coming from Judge.
“Meet Jade at sunset where Finley passed.”
Adair nodded warily.
She turned to look at Talon. “The boys need to be ready for this trade.”
He nodded once, and Reveca made her way to the door.
“Where the fuck are you going?” Talon demanded.
She smirked. “It’s been a helluva night. I’m riding, then I’m going to play in my garden because if I don’t, I’m going to lose my shit.”
She turned sharply and left.
By the time her feet reached the bottom stair, the sunlight was rising over the buildings. She was going to have to find away to keep her head up and not cry, at least until she drove far enough away she could not feel the hum of King’s energy.
As calmly as possible, only barely trembling, she mounted her bike. With a shuttering breath, she reached for the throttle.
She felt him then. His body encasing hers, his long arms around her. Her eyes closed with a painful bliss, and that was when she felt and heard the bike fire to life.
Her eyes flew open when they jarred forward. She knew they were going too fast for the turn she’d have to take, and for a split second she thought this was her punishment—he was going to wreck her, literally.
Everything turned white.
Chapter Three
Reveca had grown used to King moving her from one place to another. At first, because she was always so aware of the energy around her, it would throw her a bit. She could feel the slow build and all that he was encase her.
Now, going from one side of the Boneyard to the other or even him moving her and her bike across town didn’t give her enough reason to notice the rush about her.
This was different.
Instead of it occurring so fast a small blink could mask the change, the white light she was bathed in lasted longer. There were rays of light that looked like varying degrees of sunsets. And then there was darkness…followed by a blinding green.
As the bike emerged like bullet near a waterway, nature took flight. In one majestic swoop, birds of every color soared above while other animals splashed around in the distance and rustled in the tall grass. It took her a second to comprehend, to remember. But once she had, she used all her power to stop the bike and then stumbled from it, not meaning to ignore the existence of King but being so struck by nostalgia, she had no choice.
This was hers.
Her river.
Her water.
She knew every bend, she knew where it pooled, she knew how the lavender moss would reach for the water and the butterflies of every color would prance from one swamp flower to the other.
She knew it all.
And she had watched its destruction. The skies open. The end of time.
She fell to her knees by the water, sure she could not take this roller-coaster of emotions any longer. It was going to kill her. After all this time she was going to die of shock and grief.
She heard them, the echoes of her past. The voices of her parents, her grandparents…the laughter of children. As she stared wide eyed at the waterway before her, the rush of memories went on and on. This was her kingdom—the one place her father had settled them all those eons ago in another world.
“This will be yours, child. A man of great measure will rule with you. I’ve seen it,” the echo of her father’s voice sent a shiver of shame down her spine.
He was wrong.
Evil, dark magic that even the bravest of spell casters would not touch, destroyed this world and Reveca fled with twenty-one others. Only her sister, Saige, was of her blood and Jamison of her house. The others from their village, those who were still alive, her parents included, watched. The plan was if Jamison’s spell worked, if they were able, they would all follow.
They never did. Jamison didn’t move the twenty-two from the desolate place where they landed, that later became New Orleans, for a solid de
cade—waiting, hoping the rest would follow in time.
Then after hiding the home they arrived in under thick magic, they set out to explore in the hopes they might find more of their own. They didn’t. Instead, they found that wars and strife existed in every realm and have been surviving since.
What broke Reveca from her breathless gaze into the past was the thunderous sound of galloping horses. She turned sharply, sure her mind was playing tricks on her. Just behind her, bathed in the sun, King sat mounted on her bike. In the distance behind him, a herd of wild horses ran through a field that was abundant with flowers—flowers that could only belong to her home.
Her eyes raced in every direction looking for other signs of life—she knew she should be able to see the tip of the castle that was just barely taking shape ages before, the homes all about, and smoke from the fire pits. She should hear something.
She didn’t.
King slowly dismounted the bike, looking like an alien from another land. His relaxed jeans, the tight black t-shirt, along with his boots—the bike itself—did not belong in this setting, this far back in time.
As if she were a wounded animal, he approached her carefully then reached his hand down, a silent offer to help her stand, but she was sure her legs would not work.
“You took me back in time…how—why?”
He smirked and slightly shook his head as he lowered himself before her. His scent drifted over her, pure, fresh—flowers, the earth itself. “I took you home, Love. In this time.”
She shook her head franticly. “I saw it,” she gasped as her hand flew to her mouth. “I watched it burn.”
“Time heals,” his voice, deep but quiet, swore. He bowed his head and then looked up at her. “I’ve been here before.”
Reveca struggled to focus on him and understand any of this.
He lifted his brow as he glanced to the water behind her. “I was drawn here often over my life as an Escort. I knew this place, but I didn’t know how, and even though it was a ruined swampland, it gave me peace.”
Her gaze met his.
“I came to it five years ago, too, when I was trying to understand dormant memories the city of New Orleans was sparking in me. It was the same, dark, ghastly swampland.”
Reveca drew her brow together in utter confusion.
“Then I came here after I spoke with Windsome.” His eyes glinted. “She said the land had been awoken and for good reason, their sovereigns had reunited.”
Reveca felt boneless, and she swayed. His hands landed on her shoulders, and just as Dagen had done, without any seduction at all, vim soared through her.
Though she felt stronger because of the energy, it was not making the knowledge that she had forsaken him twice over the night before any easier to swallow.
“And we’ve been a bit busy since then,” he mentioned in passing, not really clarifying who the “we” was in his statement.
“I don’t understand. Even Jamison said it was gone, as if it was never there.”
“He’s right,” King said with a tilt of his head. “The dimension, the world you and I were born in, collapsed, slipped into a dark hole, or so the Gods or anyone beyond the Creator himself would assume.”
Reveca questioned him with her weary gray eyes.
“The end was destructive, horribly so, but it was a cleansing. The world was rebuilt from the bottom to the top and now is miraculous and vast.” His gaze lingered in hers. “It is hidden from the darkness, love.”
“It’s safe?” she asked as her stare flicked to the sky—the very sky Revelin descended from.
“It is undoubtedly hidden from him.”
“You can’t know that, not for sure,” she argued.
“I do.” He gripped her arm. “I have sent spies to his halls. Where we are, two other dimensions meet. We’re nestled in obscurity, a vast darkness that is anything but.”
“You’re sure?”
He nodded. “I even sought travelers, those who move between dimensions. The passages are hidden. As Windsome said, there is only one way here.”
Reveca didn’t care to hear the one way, well she did, but fear and defense emerged first. “Donalt—Windsome loves him. The King of Fear.” It was her way of saying trust should be limited now when it came to the likes of Windsome.
King nodded as if he already knew.
“Absolution, she has it, and I don’t,” Reveca said as she felt herself become boneless all over again. It was yet another way she had forsaken her King, her beloved.
“I know.”
“And you are not vengeful? Do you really wish to die? Have I pushed you to wanting it even more?” she raged weakly.
King clenched his jaw and stood in one fluid motion. He extended his hand once more, and this time, she took it.
Slowly, they walked along the bank in utter silence. Despite where she was, knowing it had to be significant, her mind twisted over the dread she felt. This void between them. One he was acting like was not there.
He was holding her hand, his fingers were laced between hers, and his thumb was swaying across her flesh like this were an ordinary stroll, one they had a thousand times over when they were young and new.
When they reached the valley where her home would’ve been, she clenched his hand for support. It was gone.
It looked as if shards of rock, boulders miles wide and even more so high, stabbed through from the earth. Each rock had crashed into each other, meeting and driving into the sky in one breathtaking reach.
Her home, her town, had been buried alive.
The surface wasn’t all rock. Nature had taken root in some parts: there were sporadic trees with beautiful white bark and flowing leaves of blue, patches of grass, and falls of water.
“Come,” he said, only giving her a brief moment to grieve. He was being cold in the most hidden ways, but she felt it. She imagined that before last night he would have told her to cry, held her as she did, and helped her remember them all the more.
Now, instead, he gripped her hand, walked another fifty feet, then pulled her against him as they vanished and appeared halfway up the enormous rock just above a trio of waterfalls.
They stood on a vast ledge, a bridge of stone made by Mother Nature herself.
He looked down at her, grinned weakly, and then picked her up. She squealed, her erratic mind was expecting a million things, and none of them were good—was he throwing her off this mountain?
Holding her terrified gaze, he stepped forward, taking long, careful strides into an opening in the rocks. Then still entrapping her gaze, he sat her down. “Call me superstitious,” he admitted dismissively.
Slowly, she looked from him to what was before her.
She had seen enough horror in her life to be sure that the light of nature was dying. But she had seen beauty too, the unexplainable elements of nature—ones that would make her inhale, glory she could not explain.
But this, what she was seeing now, humbled every beauty she had ever seen.
It was like standing inside of a massive tree, or perhaps a cave—something strong, beautifully and perfectly woven together.
The space before her was so vast she could not see the other side. When she looked hundreds of feet up, she could see rays of light streaming from holes just before rivers where water was majestically flowing.
Below her, it went on and on, not into darkness but into light.
As remarkable as the natural border was, there was a manmade element molding perfectly into place with it.
Reveca had to wonder if because her people could not leave, they created this shelter with their powerful magic, but even this logic failed to make sense. It looked as if, over time, the rock had molded to the homes that were there. Trees, the beautiful white trees, and all their elaborate branches were both fossilized into the stone and flourishing at random parts throughout.
The walkways from one abode to another were either stone or white branches that were no less than twenty feet wide.
/> The castle her father had nearly built, with all its elegance, was carved into the left of the rock shelter. Its windows and balcony reached out, looking over the kingdom before it—and how glorious it was.
In the very center, there was a wide oval, stone stage. In the center was an enormous tree, its long branches stretched out like a canopy, and the violet moss dangled below.
Stone paths and steps led there. It was a throne, a place where the people and leaders come face to face.
All through the kingdom, there were homes—some she could swear she remembered, but others looked new, carved into the stone recently as if someone began where the last civilization left off.
Beds of exotic flowers framed the paths of the water flowing along the stone, leading to the pools it fell into. The steam coming from them told Reveca they were heated springs.
Though it was all stone and wood, comfort and security resonated in the air. Royal charm that any mystical race would find comfort with.
“There is more to be done, but we have restored much.”
Nervously, she looked up at him.
“Who?”
“Ou—the Helco Faction.”
“They’re here?”
He grinned, it was a weak grin, but it was still one. “No, I’ve asked them to leave, but if there is trouble, Dagen can find me.”
Reveca lowered her head, mostly in shame but in understanding as well. The all-knowing Dagen. “They are safe here?”
“They are. They don’t have to blend in or hide, they can be themselves, as if they would in the Realm.”
“You can raise an army here. Revelin would never see you coming.”
His silence only offered agreement.
“They adore it, most have claimed homes, and others are creating even more.” A glint of pride shown through his eyes.
“Everyone is staying in here? The rest of the world, is it not—”
“Livable? It is. But in here, every need is met. Well, they have to leave to feed but.” He glanced to the waterfalls cascading in various areas. “I have plans to work toward.” He looked down at her. “We don’t need the wild game that is about. Using this allows them to do their thing, us to do ours—we won’t have to clear land for more shelter, everything can keep growing, all of nature. In here, we have a taste of what is to come.” His gaze moved over the expansive room. “A world without darkness or war.”
