Riven (The Illumine Series)

by Anders, Alivia

  Arielle nodded. “Yes. Tragically, she was slain, long before she ever found her Watcher and ascended into her gift. Lucretia went wild shortly after, setting wild demands to our world. It was around the same time we cut ourselves off from her tainted reign. Many followed her, but there were a few who stayed in her graces while plotting rebellion from the shadows.”

  My thoughts drifted to Kayden, Lilix, and Ursula. Three people lost in the pressure of their world, forced to play one hand while hiding the other. Kayden had probably taken his time, waiting for the right person to enact his revenge on the woman who stole his love. Part of me was secretly happy he wanted to use me for his revenge, a knife hiding behind his back, a secret weapon.

  “Since Lucy’s death, she has gone mad trying to find someone to replace her, or have a child of her own,” Arielle went on, pulling up images of orbs, the same crystal balls I had seen in the castle. “She had sought out prophets across our world, anyone to predict when the next female Nephilim would be born. Some she captured, held hostage in the castle’s black jagged mass, left in the dark until they gave her the premonitions she desired.”

  “Wait,” I held up both hands, my mind reeling. This was a little too much to swallow in one bite. “Kind of feeling overwhelmed here. What do you mean she held some hostage in the black parts of her castle?”

  The images on the table changed, painting the shape of a blue-skinned male, one large sea-green birthmark covering a portion of his face. I recognized him instantly; Carsanthum, the same person who handed Ari and I the orb, telling me to trust my blood. Shame my blood was as tainted as a prostitute.

  “My first husband,” she whispered, withering instantly from her righteous fury to a timid, heartbroken woman. “A Fae, known for the spontaneous prediction that came true. She had taken him off the streets of Charon one evening, leaving his daughter parentless.”

  Two more pieces of the puzzle shot into place. “But Zeevna has you,” I pointed out, watching Arielle’s face grow shocked and surprised. “The birthmark on her foot, it’s nearly identical to the one on his face.”

  Softly, she swore, but even in her anger she managed a faint smile. “I told her to keep shoes on at all times.” She shook her head. “Zeevna is mine and Carsanthum’s, but has another daughter, one from a first marriage. A Fae named Serena.”

  “You’ve got to me kidding me,” I managed to get out, gripping the table. Carsanthum had been right there in front of me, and I had left him to die. That was why he passed me the message for Serena, why he looked like both Zeevna and Serena. My brain was ready to explode high out of my head.

  “There are many who have been hurt by Lucretia’s actions,” Arielle put a hand on my shoulder, offering a sympathetic nod. “But those same people are willing to help, if you only ask.”

  “I just... this is insane, you know that, right?” I threw my hands in the air, swearing. “You all expect me to take her out, but look at how many she has fooled and manipulated and hurt so far. What do I have that no one else does?”

  Hands folded over her chest, Arielle smiled. “Heart, you have heart.”

  Both white doors flung open, Kayden and Ari leading the front, Zeevna carrying two swords of gold as she brought up the rear. Smoke curled off Kayden, blood and ash staining his white long-sleeve shirt and black pants. White fire flared on Ari’s knuckles and palms, ash and blood equally covering him.

  “Vens, at least fifty of them. We have five, maybe ten minutes at the most,” Ari filled us in, looking over his shoulder and nodding at Zeevna. She swung them shut with barely a flick of the wrists, passing a hand over the gold detailing on each door. The gold spun, twisting and intertwining until it formed a net over the white, turning solid to keep others out.

  Arielle hissed, meeting Kayden’s hardened gaze. “How?”

  “I don’t know, but now isn’t the time to be pointing fingers. They know Essie is here, they’ll burn this place to the ground looking for her,” he brushed past both of us, sparks kindling on my arm. “We need to leave, just like the last time.”

  Zeevna gave a jerk of the head, eyes darting to the room opposite where Arielle and I had shared tea. Screams sounded outside, followed by the sound of breaking glass. “Portal, right. It’s in there, hurry.”

  Kayden and Ari rushed to the other room, and I quietly followed behind. “Wait,” Arielle put a hand to my chest, keeping me in place. “Before you go, you need to know.”

  My eyes darted to Kayden and back, nervous. We had deviated from the very thing I needed to know of the most. “My soul, how long?”

  “Hours, a day at the most. This bottle of salve-water, and those bands you are wearing will help, but only so much. The second soul created from Lucretia’s vial of blood will fight to consume you, destroy and distort the world around you until you cave. You must not give into it.” Pain tensed her body stiff, and she licked her lips. “I have a friend, Bartimaeus, a vampire in New York. Go to him, he will hide you. I trust him. Oh, and Essallie?” Pressing the tiny grey bottle into my hands, she waited until I stared her directly in the face. She drew across her heart in the shape of a cross, marking the spot with emphasis. “Trust the blood. It knows what you do not. It fears no one, and always strikes true. Trust the blood.”

  I couldn’t even begin to understand what was happening; it felt like someone had taken the tense reality I had tried to grow and shattered it in seconds. Lucretia wasn’t going to stop looking for me, not until I was dead, and not until she got what she wanted.

  The white-double doors shuddered, creaking as the wood began to bend and splinter. Zeevna crouched before them, gold swords unsheathed for the battle. Wild rage had boiled her eyes to a translucent white, the dark blue mark on her face standing out.

  “Go!” She screamed at us, keeping her eyes locked on the door. Chunks of wood burst from the door, flinging to her left and right, scattering along the floor. “Get out!”

  Arielle shoved me into the spare room, finding Ari and Kayden poised above an old oak wardrobe. Ari turned to the sound of our footsteps, spotting me and holding out his hand for me to take.

  “Come with us,” I begged at Arielle, reaching for her arm. She side-stepped me in a swift move, using her spare arm to push me into Ari’s waiting hand. “Please, they’ll kill you.”

  Arielle grinned, straightening until she stood identical to the Siren Queen I had first seen only hours ago. “You underestimate me, Nephilim. Zeevna and I will see you soon, stay strong.”

  Kayden flung open the wardrobe door, beams of white and yellow light filling the room. Ari pulled me against, wrapping an arm around my waist as we vanished through our own version of the rabbit hole.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  LIGHTNING CRASHES

  We had exploded into the middle of a glittering, grimy metropolis.

  Lights flared past us, sounds melting as one in the chaotic rush of noise and sight. Cars blaring their horns, tires screeching on pavement, headlights blaring, it all collided into one as we were tossed onto a gravel-encrusted alleyway.

  I smashed into one of the walls, collapsing over a bag of something rancid before scrapping my arms on the loose gravel crunching under my weight. Wasting no time, I scrambled to my feet, taking in our surroundings. The alleyway was dark and vacant, save for several bags of rotting trash and the spare gutter rat. Chances were no one saw us materialize into the air.

  Grunting sounded nearby, Ari shoving off a bag of garbage as he stumbled to his feet. My heart leapt to life in my chest, and I ran over to hug him, flinging my arms around his waist. “Holy crap, Ari, I thought you-”

  Laughter rang behind us. “What, did you think your precious squeaky toy would leave you hanging like that?” Turning around, I spotted Kayden perched atop a metal container, rolling his eyes. “He wouldn’t give you up even if you were a zombie attempting to maul his face off. Actually, he’d probably enjoy that.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, forcing myself to count to five before I spo
ke. “Good to see you survived too, Kayden. You know, this time and the last.”

  He winked, jumping down from the metal container and standing beside me. “You too, lovely, you too.”

  “Alright, enough of the happy-hug-time bull,” Ari huffed, pulling away from me. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out a familiar, tiny white heart. “I believe this would be yours.”

  I nearly leapt on him again for a second hug. My glass heart, the only thing I had from my ever-elusive father. I had made sure not to wear it the night of the party when I had cloaked myself as Lilix, too afraid it would have lit up and given me away. Without it, I had felt lost. I greedily clasped it around my neck, feeling it settle on my chest, warm on my skin.

  Beaming at Ari, I asked the first question we needed to address. “Now what do we do?”

  “We find that vampire Arielle told us to search for, silly girl,” Kayden answered before Ari could, rubbing a hand along his chin in thought. “Problem is, I don’t trace vampires.”

  Ari and I exchanged a look, one that told me he remembered how I had traced Kayden inside the castle. While it worked once, I wasn’t so sure it would work this time; Kayden was a demon, and Bartimaeus was a vampire, two different supernaturals in a vast pool of creatures I couldn’t track.

  Still, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. “I might be able to,” I said, taking a few steps back from the both of them. I closed my eyes, tuning out each noise one by one, like one of a dozen doors shutting in a hotel hallway. By the time they had all closed, I felt the wave of scents and sounds hit me, pin-pointing demons all across the bustling city, but no vampire.

  I opened my eyes, head shaking. “No dice. Couldn’t tell you where a vampire is in the city, but I can tell you there’s a demon feasting on six women right now halfway across town.”

  “Now, that sounds like my kind of guy,” Kayden snickered, Ari punching him in the arm with a fist full of flames. Lazily, he dissolved his arm into smoke, forming his arm perfectly in seconds. “His face is probably grinning from ear to ear right now.”

  “Yeah well, I can tell your face looks like a hat full of assholes,” Ari swore, moving to punch Kayden again.

  I shoved between them, ignoring Kayden’s hiss as my touch lit up his arm again. “Seriously, knock it off. We need to find this damn vampire. And Ari... that didn’t even make any sense. A hat full of assholes? Really? Are you drunk or something?”

  “Only intoxicated on your stunning wit and charm, my love.”

  I blinked. “Yeah, you’ve definitely been around Kayden too long. He’s rubbing off on you.”

  He ignored my comment on his behavior. “You know, we don’t have to find that vampire,” Ari suggested with a shrug. I stared at him, eyebrows high as my hairline. “There is another person we should be looking for, especially if there are Vens after us.”

  “Arielle said-”

  “I know what she said,” he interjected, eyes threatening to roll irritatingly. “I get it, she’s all for the rebellion, but right now we need more of us, Essallie. And we both know for a fact that there’s another one out there, waiting.” Digging a hand in his pocket, he pulled out a crystal ball, the very one Carsanthum has given me. I thought I had lost it when I dropped it aside to save Kayden.

  Gingerly, I stepped closer, ignoring the nerves that started in my legs. “We still have it?” I pointed at the crystal ball. It looked harmless enough, like an oversized pearl. Spirals of blue, purple, and white coiled inside the precious ball, forming hazy pictures that never seemed to completely form.

  “I grabbed it, not too long after you dropped it to free Mr. Flesh Muncher over here,” Ari jerked a thumb at Kayden, who grinned and waved like an idiot. Glancing at me, he shook his head at Kayden’s tackiness. “If that guy gave it to you, it must be important. Didn’t you say the pedestals they were on had names under them?”

  I nodded, focusing on the orb in his hands. “I counted five. There was one for you, one for me, and one for someone named Rinae. I never caught the names on the other two plaques.”

  “Rinae?”

  “Yeah,” I said, a bitter taste coating my tongue as I recalled that night Lucretia had taken me hostage. It had been a small plaque of gold, the name Rinae etched in red. “At first, I thought they were little lights, or jars holding a prize of some sort. Now I have no idea.”

  Continuing to pass the ball between his hands, Ari nodded absentmindedly. “I have a theory,” he started pensively, his voice faraway. “Lucretia is keeping these crystal balls for a reason. I think one is tied to each Nephilim, so she can track them down somehow, or monitor them from afar.”

  “Is that even possible?” I asked, watching him. Fear slithered inside my gut, twisting in sharp knots. If she really could track us, what was the point of leaving her castle? Heck, what was the point in fighting her at all? She would know our attacks before we’d even have time to land the blows.

  “Yes,” Ari said somberly, confirming with the nervous twitch I was starting to develop. He held the ball out in one hand, as if he were offering it to the sky as a gift. “But there has to be some kind of limitation, something that stops her from using it constantly, or else she would have found you and I a long, long time ago.”

  My mind was racing, I had to make it stop, or risk possibly throwing up. I switched topics, running a new sets of gears in my head. “Okay, so let’s say she can. That still doesn’t help us understand which crystal ball this is, and who it belongs to. If it’s either of ours, having it is pointless. But, if it’s one of the other three, we could find the person attached to it.”

  “That’s where my theory continues,” he pressed on, rotating the ball in the air. Slivers of light from nearby neon signs caressed and bounced off of it, splitting mini rainbows around us. “That the crystal balls are enchanted. My guess is that they only work for her.” He looked at me, a slow smile spreading on his face, the action instantly reminding me of Kayden. They had definitely been around each other far too long.

  I could feel the frown tugging at my lips. “So we can’t use it.”

  “To the contrary. I think we can.” He paused. “Or rather, I think you can.”

  “How?”

  Ari closed the distance between us, swift and fluid as water rushing through a faucet. Using his free hand, he took one of my hands, hovering it precariously over the orb in his open palm. Heat rolled over my skin, and I wiped away at the sticky sweat beading my forehead.

  I looked up, seeing his grin turned a sickly mixture of grim and delight. As much as he didn’t like saying it, his words were true. “You have the Queen’s blood inside of you.”

  I stared at him, hard. It wasn’t like he was exactly wrong, but calling on her blood like that, the very thing slowly destroying what precious sanity I had left along with my own mortal clock, well, it wasn’t like I was jumping at the chance to tap into it.

  Holding out a finger, I felt the need to rant coming on. “Let me see if I get this straight,” I said hotly. “You want me to tap into her twisted-sister demon blood, the poison that’s killing me with each tick of the clock, and try to work the crystal ball?”

  Ari childishly rolled his eyes. “Well, when you put it like that.”

  “This is absolutely your stupidest idea yet, more than venturing into Charon with those damn emerald earrings.” I bit my lower lip, hard enough to draw blood. Every cell in my body screamed this was a bad idea, that touching it could open the very door I wasn’t willing to face. Who was to say touching the orb wouldn’t induce Ebony to re-surface from the dark corner of my mind, take over my body, and run amok? Then again, what choice did I have; it wasn’t as if we had a better plan on finding Rinae, or Euriel.

  Staring at the orb, I let out a nervous breath. Swirls of navy blues, crimson reds, and burnt orange rushed around in the confined space. Whispers tickled at my ears, a tingling sensation creeping on the back of my neck. Fingers extended, I put my hand on the perfectly polished crystal.

 
Nothing happened.

  Ari was watching me, eyes narrowed to catch the slightest change in my demeanor. I stared back at him blankly, shrugging half-heartedly. Everything felt exactly the same as it had before; same tiredness seeping through my bones, same urge to sleep and never see the sun again, same sinking feeling we were wasting time when we could be searching for the missing link to our party.

  “I don’t think anything is happening,” I started to say, when the words caught on my lips. My vision began to shimmer, Ari and Kayden and the alleyway waving into a swirl of distorted colors and sounds. White noise filled my ears, blasting loud enough that I covered my ears, screaming for it to stop.

  The visions hit hard, a collision of lights and music that brought me to my knees. Flashes of purples, blues, reds and more blinked past my sight. A familiar thump of music, something deep with bass and electronic synthesizers, replayed in the background. Club music, like the kind I used to hear every night in New York until the sweltering sun rose over the high metal skyscrapers.

  Just as fast as the sun shined, it vanished, leaving me filled with dread in a cold sweat. The music and lights continued to flash, as a brush of bright red hair entangled with someone with dark, olive-tanned skin. A girl and boy, backs against another, as they stood in the middle of a dark alleyway, shining silver weapons drawn for a fight.

  “Rinae,” the olive-tanned boy said, his voice hard. The red haired girl gave a minute nod of acknowledgement, white fire rippling over her hands as dazzling crystal wings covered her back. With a wild cry, she leapt at the shadows surrounding them, lancing fire like a western gunslinger firing their pistol.

  Just like that, the images pulled back, washing the vibrant colors from my sight and replacing them with the warm, underwater dome we were temporarily calling home. Ari watched me intently, studying me for the slightest reaction. His hand rested on my shoulder, steadying me as he slowly repeated my name.