by P. C. Cast
Sgiach nodded, looking pleased. “So your return comes from a place of power, not one of manipulation, though Neferet will not know that. She will believe that it only took one simple death to make you do her bidding.”
“Jack’s death isn’t a simple thing,” I said angrily.
“No, ’tisnae simple for you, but a creature of Darkness kills quickly, easily, and with nae thought beside her own gain,” Seoras said.
“And because of that Neferet will not understand that you return to Tulsa because it was your choice to follow the path of Light and Nyx. She will underestimate you because of that,” Sgiach said.
“Thank you. I’ll remember that.” I met Sgiach’s clear, strong gaze. “You and Seoras and any of the rest of the Guardians who want to could come with me, you know. With you guys beside me there’s no way Neferet could win.”
Sgiach’s response was instantaneous. “If I left my isle the consequences of that would ripple through the High Council. We have coexisted with them peacefully for centuries because I chose to absent myself from the politics and restrictions of vampyre society. Were I to join the modern world they would not be able to continue to pretend I do not exist.”
“What if that’s a good thing? I mean, it seems to me it’s time the High Council was shaken up, and vamp society with it. They believe Neferet and let her get away with killing people—innocent people.” My voice was strong and sharp and for a moment I thought I sounded almost like a real queen.
“ ’Tis not our battle, lassie,” Seoras said.
“Why not? Why isn’t fighting against evil your battle, too?” I rounded on Sgiach’s Guardian.
“What makes you think we’re not fighting evil here?” It was Sgiach who answered me. “You’ve been touched by the old magick since you’ve been here. Tell me honestly, before then had you ever felt anything like it out there in your world?”
“No, I hadn’t.” I shook my head slowly.
“It’s fighting to keep the old ways alive we’ve been doing,” Seoras said. “And that cannae been done in Tulsa.”
“How can you be so sure?” I asked.
“Because there is no old magick left there!” Sgiach said, almost shouting in frustration. She turned her back and paced over to the huge picture window that looked out on the sun setting into the gray-blue water that surrounded Skye. Her back was stiff with tension, her voice thick with sadness. “Out there in that world of yours, the mystical, wonderful magick of old, where the black bull was revered along with the Goddess, where the balance of male and female was respected, and where even the rocks and trees had souls, had names, has been destroyed by civilization and intolerance and forgetfulness. People today, vampyres and humans alike, believe the earth is just a dead thing that they live on—that it is somehow wrong or evil or barbaric to listen to the voices of the souls of the world, and so the heart and the nobility of an entire way of life dried up and withered away…”
“And found sanctuary here,” Seoras continued when Sgiach’s voice faded. He’d moved to her side. Her back was turned to me, but he faced me. Lightly, Seoras touched her shoulder and then let his fingers trail down her arm to take his queen’s hand. I could see her body react to his touch. It was like through him she’d found her center. Before she turned to me, I saw her squeeze and then release his hand, and when our eyes met again she was, once more, noble and strong and calm.
“We are the last bastion of the old ways. It has been my charge for centuries to protect the ancient magicks. The land here is still sacred. By revering the black bull, and respecting his counterpart, the white bull, the old balance is maintained and there is one small place left in this world that remembers.”
“Remembers?”
“Aye, remembers a time when honor meant more than self, and loyalty wasnae an option or an afterthought,” Seoras said solemnly.
“But I see some of that in Tulsa. There’s honor and loyalty there, too, and many of my grandma’s people, the Cherokee, still respect the land.”
“To some extent that might be true, but think of the grove—how you felt within it. Think of how this land speaks to you,” Sgiach said. “I know you hear it. I see it in you. Have you felt anything truly like that outside my isle?”
“Yes,” I said before actually thinking. “The grove in the Otherworld feels a lot like the grove across the street from the castle.” Then I realized what I was saying, and Sgiach all of a sudden made sense. “That’s it, isn’t it? You literally have a piece of Nyx’s magick here.”
“In a way. What I really have is even older than the Goddess. You see, Zoey, Nyx hasn’t been lost to the world. Yet. Her masculine balance has, and I’m afraid because of that the balance between good and evil, Light and Darkness, has been lost, too.”
“Aye, we know it has been,” Seoras corrected her gently.
“Kalona. He’s part of this out-of-balance thing,” I said. “It’s true that he used to be Nyx’s Warrior. Somehow that got out of whack, along with a bunch of other stuff when he turned up in our world, ’cause that’s not where he belongs.” Knowing it didn’t make me feel sorry for him, or bad for him, but it did make me begin to understand the air of desperation I’d sensed so many times around him. And it was knowledge. With knowledge came power.
“So you see why it’s important that I not leave my isle,” Sgiach said.
“I do,” I said reluctantly. “But I still think you could be wrong about there being no old magick left in the outside world. The black bull did materialize in Tulsa, remember?”
“Aye, but not until after the white bull appeared first,” Seoras said.
“Zoey, I would very much like to believe that the outside world hasn’t entirely destroyed the magick of old, and because of that there’s something I want you to have.”
Sgiach reached up and untwined a long length of silver from the mass of twinkling necklaces that dangled from around her neck. She lifted the delicate chain over her head and held it up at my eye level. Hanging from the silver was a perfectly round milk-colored stone that was smooth and soft and reminded me of a coconut-flavor Life Saver. The torches that the Warriors had begun to light flickered against the stone’s surface, making it glisten, and I recognized the rock.
“It’s a piece of Skye marble,” I said.
“It is—a special piece of Skye marble called a seer stone. It was found more than five centuries ago by a Warrior on his Shamanic quest as he ran the Cuillin Ridge on this very island,” Sgiach said.
“A Warrior on a Shamanic quest? That doesn’t happen very often,” I said.
Sgiach smiled and her gaze went from the piece of dangling marble to Seoras. “About once every five hundred years it does.”
“Aye, that’s about right,” Seoras said, returning her smile with an intimacy that made me feel like I should look away.
“In my opinion, once every five hundred years is more than enough for some poor Warrior dude to do the Shaman thing.”
My stomach give a silly little flip-flop of pleasure at the sound of his voice and I looked from the queen and her Guardian to see Stark standing in the shadows behind the arched doorway, rumpled and squinting at what was left of the fading light in the picture window. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and he looked so much like his old self that a pang of homesickness—the first real one I’d felt since I’d returned to myself—speared through me. I’m going home. The thought had me smiling as I hurried toward Stark. Sgiach made a gesture with her hand. The heavy drapes were drawn over the last of the sunlight, allowing Stark to step from the shadows and take me into his arms.
“Hey, I didn’t think you’d be up for an hour or so,” I said, hugging him tightly.
“You were upset, and that woke me up,” he whispered into my ear. “Plus, I was having some majorly weird dreams.”
I pulled back so I could look into his eyes. “Jack’s dead.”
Stark started to shake his head in denial, and then stopped, touched my cheek, and blew out a long
breath. “That’s what I felt. Your sadness. Z, I’m so sorry. What the hell happened?”
“Officially an accident. Really it was Neferet, but no one can prove it,” I said.
“When do we leave for Tulsa?”
I smiled my thanks at him as Sgiach said, “Tonight. We can arrange for you to leave as soon as you have your bags packed and ready.”
“So, what’s with this stone?” Stark asked, taking my hand.
Sgiach lifted it again. I was thinking how pretty it looked when it twisted gently on the chain and my gaze was pulled to the perfect circle in the center. The world narrowed and faded away around me as my entire being became focused on the hole in the stone because for an instant I caught a glimpse of the room through the hole.
The room was gone!
Fighting a wave of nauseating vertigo, I stared through the seer stone at what had looked like an undersea world. Figures floated and flitted around, all in hues of turquoise and topaz, crystal and sapphire. I thought I saw wings and fins and long, swirling cascades of drifting hair. Mermaids? Or are they sea monkeys? I have utterly lost my mind, was my last thought before I lost my battle with dizziness and ended up flat on my back on the floor.
“Zoey! Look at me! Say something!”
Stark, looking completely freaked, was bent over me. He’d grabbed me by the shoulders and was currently shaking the bejeezus outta me.
“Hey, stop,” I said weakly, trying unsuccessfully to shove him away.
“Just let her breathe. She’ll be fine in a moment,” came Sgiach’s uber-calm voice.
“She fainted. That’s not normal,” Stark said. He was still gripping my shoulders, but he had stopped rattling my brains around.
“I’m conscious and I’m right here,” I said. “Help me sit up.”
Stark’s frown said he’d rather not, but he did as I asked.
“Drink this,” Sgiach held a goblet of wine under my nose that I could smell was laced heavily with blood. I grabbed it and drank deeply while she said, “And it is normal for a High Priestess to faint the first time she uses the power of a seer stone, especially if she is unprepared for it.”
Feeling much better after the bloody wine (eesh, but yum), I raised my brows at her and stood up. “Couldn’t you have prepared me for it?”
“Aye, but then a seer stone only works for some High Priestesses, and if it hadnae worked for yu, yu’d have had yer feelins hurt, now wouldn’t ya?” Seoras said.
I rubbed my backside. “I think I’d rather have risked the hurt feelings instead of the hurt butt. Okay, what the heck did I see?”
“What did it look like?” Sgiach asked.
“A weird undersea fishbowl through that little hole.” I pointed in the direction of the stone, but was careful not to look at it.
Sgiach smiled. “Yes, and where have you seen beings like that before?”
I blinked in understanding, “The grove! They’re water sprites.”
“Indeed,” Sgiach nodded.
“So it’s like a magick finder?” Stark asked, giving the stone a sideways glance.
“It is, when used by a High Priestess with the right kind of power.” Sgiach lifted the chain and placed it around my neck. The seer stone settled between my breasts, feeling warm like it was alive.
“This really finds magick?” I put my hand reverently over the stone.
“Only one kind,” Sgiach said.
“Water magick?” I asked, confused.
“It isnea the element that matters. ’Tis the magick itself,” Seoras said.
Before I could say the huh that was obviously all over my face, Sgiach explained, “A seer stone is in tune with only the most ancient of magicks: the kind I protect on my isle. I am gifting you with it so that you might, indeed, recognize the Old Ones if any still exist in the outside world.”
“If she finds any of that kind of magick, what should she do?” Stark asked, still giving the stone leery looks.
“Rejoice or run, depending on what you discover,” Sgiach said with a wry smile.
“Mind, lass, it was the old magick that sent yur Warrior to the Otherworld, and the old magick that made him yur Guardian,” Seoras said. “It hasnea been watered down by civilization.”
I closed my hand around the seer stone, the memory of Seoras standing over Stark, trance-like, cutting him over and over again so that his blood ran down the ancient knotwork in the stone they called the Seol ne Gigh, the Seat of the Spirit. Suddenly I realized I was trembling.
Then Stark’s warm, strong hand covered mine and I looked up into his steady gaze.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be with you, and whether it’s time to run or rejoice, we’ll be together. I’ll always have your back, Z.”
Then, for at least that moment, I felt safe.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Stevie Rae
“She’s really coming home?”
Damien’s voice was so soft and shaky that Stevie Rae had to lean down over the bed to hear him. His eyes were glassy and more than a little vacant, and she couldn’t tell if that was because the drug/blood cocktail the vamps in the infirmary had come up with was actually working, or whether he was still in shock.
“Are you kiddin’? Z got on the first plane outta there. She’ll be home in, like, three hours. If you want, you can come to the airport with me to pick her and Stark up.” Stevie Rae was sitting on the edge of Damien’s bed, so it was easy for her to give Duchess’s head a rub—since the dog was curled around Damien. When he didn’t make any response except to stare blankly at the wall in front of him, she gave Duchess another pat. In return the Lab thumped her tail weakly once, twice. “You’re a dang good dog and that’s all there is to it,” Stevie Rae told the blond Lab. Duchess opened her eyes and gave Stevie Rae a soulful look, but her tail didn’t thump again and she didn’t make her usual happy huffing dog noise. Stevie Rae frowned. Did she look thin? “Damien, honey, has Duch had anything to eat recently?”
He blinked at her, looked confused, looked at the dog curled around him, and then his eyes actually began to clear, but before he could say anything Neferet’s voice came from behind Stevie Rae, though she had no way heard the vamp enter the room.
“Stevie Rae, Damien is in a very fragile emotional state right now. He should not have to be concerned about such trivialities as feeding a dog or acting like a common butler and going to the airport to collect a fledgling.”
Neferet swept past her. Full of motherly concern, she bent over Damien. Stevie Rae automatically stood up and backed several feel away. She could have sworn that something in the shadows that lapped around the hem of Neferet’s long, silky dress had begun to slither toward her.
In a similar reaction, Duchess moved off Damien’s lap and curled up morosely at the end of his bed, joining his still sleeping cat, all the while keeping her unblinking gaze trained on Damien.
“Since when is picking a friend up from the airport the butler’s job? And believe me—I know what’s what with a butler’s job.”
Stevie Rae glanced over at the doorway where Aphrodite seemed to have just materialized.
Well, slap me and call me a baby—am I so out of it I can’t hear nothing anymore? Stevie Rae thought.
“Aphrodite, I have something to say to you that applies to everyone in this room,” Neferet said, sounding regal and super-in-charge.
Aphrodite put a hand on her slim hip, and said, “Yeah? What?”
“I have decided that Jack’s funeral should be in the manner of a fully Changed vampyre. His funeral pyre will be lit tonight, as soon as Zoey arrives at the House of Night.”
“You’re waitin’ for Zoey? Why?” Stevie Rae asked.
“Because she was Jack’s good friend, of course. But more important, because of the confusion that reigned here when I was under Kalona’s influence, Zoey served as Jack’s High Priestess. That unfortunate time is, thankfully, behind us, but it is only right that Zoey light Jack’s pyre.”
Stevie Rae thought how terr
ible it was that Neferet’s beautiful emerald eyes could look so perfectly guileless, even when she was weaving a web of deceit and lies. She wanted so badly to scream at the Tsi Sgili that she knew her secret; Kalona was here and she was controlling him, and not the other way around. She’d never been under his influence. Neferet had known from the start exactly who and what Kalona was, and what she was doing now was lying her butt off.
But Stevie Rae’s own terrible secret stopped the words in her throat. She heard Aphrodite draw in a breath, like she was getting ready to launch into a major ass-chewing, but at that moment Damien drew everyone’s attention to him when he put his head in his hands and began to sob, saying brokenly, “I-I just c-can’t understand how he can be gone.”
Stevie Rae pushed around Neferet and pulled Damien into her arms. She was happy to see Aphrodite stride over to the other side of the bed and rest her hand on Damien’s heaving shoulder. Both girls gave Neferet narrow-eyed looks of distrust and dislike.
Neferet’s face remained sad but impassive, like she knew Damien’s grief but she let it wash around her and not into her. “Damien, I’ll leave you to the comfort of your friends. Zoey’s plane lands at Tulsa International at 9:58 tonight. I’ve set the funeral pyre for midnight exactly, as that is an auspicious time. I shall see all of you then.” Neferet left the room, closing the door behind her with an almost inaudible click.
“Fucking lying bitch,” Aphrodite said under her breath. “Why is she playing nice?”
“She’s seriously up to somethin’,” Stevie Rae said while Damien cried into her shoulder.
“I can’t do this.” Damien suddenly pulled back and away from both of them. He shook his head back and forth, back and forth. The heaving sobs had stopped, but tears continued to leak down his cheeks. Duchess crawled up to him and lay across his lap, with her nose pointed up near his cheek. Cammy curled up tightly against his side. Damien wrapped one arm around the big blond dog, and another around his cat. “I can’t say goodbye to Jack and deal with Neferet’s drama.” He looked from Stevie Rae to Aphrodite. “I understand why Zoey’s soul shattered.”
