Rain of Ash: Skydancer Book 1 (The Zyne Legacy)

by Gwen Mitchell

Kean opened the screen, wondering if he was going to have to kick the door down, or possibly scale the trellis and find an open window. But the door was unlatched. He built an energy blast in his palm and nudged the slab of solid oak forward with his knuckles. It swung in a slow, squeaky arc. He stepped over the threshold and felt no interruption. No wards. His back broke out in a cold sweat as he eased inside.

  Devastation. That was the only word for it. The steel ball in his stomach, which used to be his heart, heaved.

  The breeze from outside stirred the debris littering the uneven planks of the floor. It looked like a bomb had gone off. What could do this? Geri’s home was a pile of broken things, a life smashed to rubble. For the first time since he could remember, Kean stood at ground zero of chaos and his strength wavered. How could he fight some unknown, unseen foe capable of so much destruction?

  He felt…powerless.

  That thought filled his nerves with a hot, churning lava of rage. The energy in his palm grew. He clenched his jaw, letting it build, letting anger fortify him. Only then did he turn his eyes toward the hall leading to the kitchen.

  The limp, tattered figure of a woman he’d known his whole life, a coven elder he loved and respected, swung to and fro. Something scuttled behind him. Kean whipped around, cutting his energy blast loose. He jerked his arm at the last second, and the bolt blew a hole through the brick fireplace at the far side room, instead of flying directly at Gawain’s chest.

  “Get a hold of yourself, Fitzgerald.” The words were clipped, toneless. Soldier’s words.

  Kean sidestepped to let the Sheriff take in the whole of the damage. It brought him a step closer to the body. That’s what he had to do: remember it was a body. He’d carried lots of those. Some living, some not. Just another body. Female. Elderly. And — dammit! — someone ought to cut her down.

  As he reached up with his pocket-knife ready, arm braced to catch, a sharp gasp sounded behind him, followed by the sound of someone spilling their guts on the porch. Kean glanced over his shoulder and saw Bri staring at him with wide, owl eyes from the doorway. Astrid was bent over behind her.

  Gawain turned and grabbed Briana by the elbow, but she wouldn’t budge, as if some force outside herself had taken over. She stared, transfixed. Kean followed her gaze.

  Geri spun around on the rope as it unraveled where he’d started to cut. She was broken everywhere. Her white nightgown was soaked with red. Her silver hair was matted down, but some of the blood from her multiple lacerations had dried in streaks down her forehead, over her closed eyelids, and down her cheeks.

  Hot stinging pressure built up in Kean’s throat and behind his eyes.

  “Tears of blood,” Bri whispered, suddenly beside him. She didn’t even blink, her whole body was rigid. She lifted her hand toward the body.

  Kean shook himself and latched on to her forearm.

  Bri turned her eyes on him, that unnerving Oracle mist swirling in their green depths. She’d already seen this. She’d already known he would fail her. Then why had she given herself into his keeping? There were no answers in her unflinching gaze — only a vast ocean of things she would never tell him.

  “Help me get her down,” Gawain said.

  Bri took a step back until they lowered the old woman to the floor, her look bordering somewhere between stunned and wondering. Astrid remained huddled on the front porch steps, rocking back and forth. Kean’s shoulders ached hard from holding in the surge of raw power squeezing his spine. He really wanted to blow something up.

  They covered most of Geri’s mangled body with a scrap of torn-down curtains. Bri crouched by her head and lifted the covering to look again.

  “That’s enough,” Gawain sneered, reaching for her wrist.

  Kean had Gawain’s other hand in a twist before he could lay a finger on her. He nodded to Bri, “Go ahead.” Then low, for Gawain’s ears only, “Don’t you ever fucking touch her.”

  He let go of the other man before there could be a struggle. Gawain pulled his shirt straight and cracked his neck, but wisely kept his mouth shut and his hands to himself.

  Bri yanked on a leather strip plastered to Geri’s skin. It pulled thickly away, and her pale white fingers turned a rusted brown as she gathered the slack. An amulet appeared from under Geri’s shroud and fell into Bri’s palm. She bowed her head to put the necklace on, then paused and stared at him thoughtfully.

  Kean closed the distance between them and enveloped her in his shields. He wanted to take her away from all of this. He’d just gotten her back, and already this life was changing her, asking too much. He turned her around from Gawain’s dirty look, toward the porch where Astrid sat waiting.

  “Kean, put this on,” Bri said softly. She lifted the loop over his head. “Promise me you won’t take it off for any reason.”

  His nerve-endings froze, and a chill raced up his spine, exploding at the back of his skull — not from Bri’s words, but from an unmistakable flutter against his senses.

  Hohlwen. Close.

  He jerked Bri behind him, but it was already too late. They reached out from the shadows falling over the yard as if they’d been there the whole time. One of them snatched Astrid and lifted her into the charcoal grey sky.

  She screamed.

  Kean lunged off the porch after her, but two more came at him from either side. The three of them met in the air in a bone-crushing slam and tumbled down the steps into the yard. Kean rolled to his feet, crouched in a ready stance. His shields were useless against the Hollow Ones, but they had to touch him to do any real harm. He could hold them off with his powers, but he’d need a potion or a weapon to do anything permanent.

  The last of his sense fluttered away when Briana yelled his name, not a cry for help but a warning. Which didn’t compute, because Gawain was leading her down the stairs in handcuffs and handing her over to the leeches…

  Kean sprinted towards them. Briana yelled his name again, screaming at the sky over his shoulder. He turned just as a black blur flattened him to the ground. He could normally hold up pretty well in a fight, but against immortal strength and quickness, caught unawares and unarmed, he deserved what he got. The leech gripped both of his wrists in one hand and clamped the other around Kean’s straining neck. “Son of a bitch.”

  “No!” Bri screamed.

  Kean rolled enough to see her struggling with Gawain. She butted him in the face, right on his bandaged nose. The Sheriff cursed and let her go as blood started gushing again. Bri took the opportunity to run to where Kean was laying face down in the grass. As the Hohlwen sucked deep of his energy reserves, he blundered for the strength to tell her to run the other way. She did stop. Long enough to kick the Hohlwen in the face.

  The leech snarled and let go of Kean to reach for her. Bri jumped right into the waiting arms of another. A last immortal pressed a high-heeled boot into Kean’s lower back. Needlessly, since he couldn’t move. He’d never been on the receiving end of a Synod retrieval before. “Can’t… fight them, Bri.”

  “Maybe there is a brain in that rock of yours,” came the Sheriff’s nasal voice.

  Kean strained his neck to look up at the first person he was going to strangle once he had the use of his hands again.

  Gawain was holding a cloth to his nose, his eyes watering. His gun was out, held loosely against his thigh. He gestured to Bri. “This is the one you want.”

  “No.” Kean struggled to get his hands under him. The boot ground into his back again, shoving him down. “I’ll get you for this. You’re going to pay. Oathbreaker.”

  Gawain squatted beside him as two of the Hohlwen wrestled Bri to the ground. They tied her feet and gagged her while Kean watched, raging inside a body that wouldn’t listen to his commands as he fought to remain conscious.

  “I’ve broken no oath. You never forbade me to tell the Synod your little coven had cost yet another Zyne life. You can’t call blood for this.”

  Kean squirmed again, only to feel his legs being lashed toget
her. One of the Hohlwen dropped Astrid’s limp body to the ground beside him in a heap. Kean ground his teeth.

  “Now you’re their problem,” Gawain said, a smirk in his tone. “Sweet dreams.”

  A cold, silent hatred filled Kean’s chest as the Hohlwen leeched him into oblivion.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Flying through the November Pacific skies bound and gagged in the arms of a life-sapping immortal was at the top of Bri’s list of things never to do again. If her stomach hadn’t become a frozen lump, she’d have puked it up. Her body ached from the cold, and she could no longer feel her hands or feet. They must have left her awake only to torment her. Both Kean and Astrid were unconscious.

  They dropped below the clouds just as the rising sun began to warm her with the promise of light. Soon, they were slowing down and sailing through wisps of clouds along the tops of swaying evergreens. A familiar jagged fortress cut through the grey. They spiraled further down, closer to the spraying water, into the gaping mouth of a cave. Bri squeezed her eyes closed, bracing for impact, but they touched ground in a landing softer than she would have believed possible, given their speed. Since her arms and legs were bound, the Hohlwen continued to carry her, flanked by his brethren. She relaxed some, back on the ground, but long quakes of shivers wracked her entire body.

  Her carrier gave no reaction and kept his focus ahead of them. Bri studied his face as they passed between carved stone columns and into a large arching hallway lined with flickering torches. The Hohlwen’s skin shone like pearl, fine and smooth. His shoulder-length hair was a decadent honeyed brown. His features were sharp-edged, but undeniably perfect. Twin colorless diamonds winked at his ears. But cruelty lurked beneath the porcelain façade, and in the middle of all that nice wrapping were eyes as empty and cold as the abyss in her dream.

  Thinking about that, she remembered the demon’s face in her dream, the comet, and Geri’s warning.

  Do not face him alone. Geri wanted her to wear the amulet, which she must have imbued with some kind of protection spell. Somehow through her misery and guilt, she’d had an epiphany. Geri had intended it for her, but once it was hers, she could change its purpose without screwing up the future. She’d decided to protect Kean instead — and just in time. If her visions were right, he would need it before her.

  But you still have time to change it.

  She had to believe that.

  They emerged from the deeper levels of the fortress into the familiar maze of hallways. Bri’s skin tingled. She could imagine thousands of those cold black gazes, which didn’t even reflect the light but swallowed it up, biting into her. Stealing pieces of her spirit.

  She pressed her eyes closed until they emerged into a brighter, noticeably warmer passage. Stone gave way to marble, then to wood, and eventually carpeting. Her captor set her in a comfortable chair in front of a lifeless fire, and removed the gag from her mouth with surprising gentleness. The others continued out of the high-ceilinged room through a side door, Astrid and Kean’s unconscious bodies draped over their shoulders like trader’s pelts.

  “No!” Bri struggled in her binds and tried to shift her weight and swing to her feet.

  Her personal Hohlwen guard pushed her down by the shoulder and brushed his knuckle across her cheek. Her eyelids drooped in response to the accompanying drain on her energy.

  “Please.” She didn’t have the strength to make it sound anything more than pathetic.

  “Quiet, love,” he said, turning away from her. “There’s nothing you can do to help your friends. Don’t make me regret giving you the use of your mouth.”

  Bri’s head lolled on her shoulders. “But I…can’t face him alone.”

  “Drink this,” he answered in a disinterested tone. His voice, too, was eerily possessing. When he touched a glass to her lips she found she had no will to resist his order. Potent whiskey spilled down her chin and soaked her shirt. The rest burned down her throat. She coughed, but snapped her head up and her eyes open. The ice in her veins slowly melted to sludge.

  “That’s better. Bit of a mess though.” The Hohlwen spoke with a trite British accent that sounded too carefully executed to be authentic. He pulled a footstool forward and squatted on it, grasping her jaw in one hand. When she tried to scowl at him, she realized she had a cut on her forehead from head-butting Gawain, along with a big fat lump. She winced when his fingers grazed her wound, but the Hohlwen just turned her face one way, then the other as he wiped her off with a whiskey-doused napkin.

  “Why am I here?” The details of the last hour were hazy, blending with her nightmare and the waking nightmare before that. She knew Gawain had ratted them out, but not why, or what for. She hadn’t been in the vicinity of reason when it all happened.

  “I’m sure you’ve done something wicked.” The Hohlwen gave her a smirk that curled Bri’s toes reflexively, yet never warmed his obsidian gaze.

  “What are you going to do to me?”

  He sighed and leaned away to inspect his wiping job. “Me? Nothing, sadly. I’m just supposed to keep you quiet until the Council sends for you.”

  “The Council? But I haven’t done anything wrong—”

  “It makes no difference to me, love.” He patted her knee. “Mortal squabbles got excruciatingly boring sometime around the twelfth century.” He laughed at his own joke, a sound like chips of ice hitting an empty glass. “You, on the other hand, might make this day not quite as forgettable as all the rest.”

  He leaned in, close enough that his hair draped against her shoulder. “Now that we’re alone I can tell you, I’ve never drawn so deeply of a Zyne and not pulled them under.” He inhaled slowly as if savoring the scent, and continued in a low, sultry whisper. “Perhaps I’ll have another taste, to be sure it wasn’t a fluke.”

  His tease held a hint of malice that made her hands shake, even as her cheeks flushed.

  “Ryder!” a voice barked from the doorway.

  Bri’s aching muscles liquefied with relief when she saw her father standing there.

  “If you lay so much as a finger on her again, I’ll have you sealed.” His words rang high and clear, a sanctuary bell to Bri’s ears.

  The Hohlwen gave her a calculating smile. “I’m afraid I’d have to put much more than a finger on her, Councilor.”

  Aldric stared into the Hohlwen’s face for a long, silent moment. His was a mask of authority. Bri didn’t understand the dynamic, but her father’s unquestioning confidence told her that even the Hohlwen’s draining touch wasn’t enough to shift the balance of power in his favor.

  Ryder eventually dropped his empty black gaze to the floor. Slowly, as if it physically pained him to do so, he bowed.

  “Your attendance will be required when the Council convenes. Go there now. I will see to my daughter.”

  The Hohlwen bowed again, this time with flourish. On the way up, he gave Briana a long, speaking look. She’d intrigued him, it said. She could imagine that for an immortal that didn’t happen often. And in no way could it be a good thing.

  “Until we meet again, love.” He slid into the shadows at the corner of the room, melted into to them, and then he was gone. His absence made the air feel three degrees warmer. Some of the feeling came back to her limbs.

  “Please forgive the Council’s methods, Briana. They were told to bring you here unharmed and to subdue you if you were uncooperative. Unfortunately, the Hohlwen can choose to take a very loose translation of their orders. Are you hurt?”

  She hissed when he un-cuffed her hands, but shook her head, rubbing her raw wrists. She attempted to stand and somehow stayed on her feet. “I’m okay. I have to get to Kean and Astrid.”

  Aldric stood in front of her and pulled her under the billowing sleeve of his black robe. “I assure you they will not be mistreated, but due to the charges leveled against you, the three of you must be separated. They are very serious allegations, Briana.”

  “I don’t care. I have to see them.”

&nb
sp; Her father smoothed her hair. “The Council wants to question you first.”

  “You’re not listening to me.” Bri ducked out from under his arm.

  “No, you must listen to me, Briana Celene Spurrier: blood has been spilled. Blood that is on your hands.” He stopped her from walking away and lifted her russet stained hands up to the light. “The Synod requires answers.”

  “Whose side are you on?” She let him drag her down another vertigo-inducing hallway.

  “Yours, of course. I’ve come to warn you. They cannot discover that you guard a Legacy relic.”

  Though the same thought was screaming through her head, she asked, “Why not?”

  “Because they will remove it from your keeping and you will never see your coven mates again.”

  “They can’t. It’s mine by destiny.”

  “That matters little. They will find a way.”

  “Why are you talking like you’re not one of them?” Bri shook her head, which was still fuzzy. She was missing something. She cupped a hand over the goose egg on her forehead. Thinking made it throb harder. The same feeling she’d had on that crumbling cliff echoed in her body. Only one thing mattered: getting back to Kean and Astrid. Her father was no different than any other roadblock. She needed to shake him off.

  “In this matter, I am acting as your father. I do not want see your magic and memory stripped.”

  “They can’t—” Bri started to say, but he pulled her to a halt in front of gleaming mahogany doors carved with intricate runic patterns, which opened from the inside with perfect timing.

  The Council in full force wiped all plans of escape or rebellion from Bri’s mind. It was nothing like the impromptu majority meeting that had convened on their coven license. Before her sprawled an enormous circular chamber with a high, domed glass roof. Black granite gleamed from every visible surface. Under the low light from hundreds of candle sconces, flecks of gold winked like stars in the night sky. The room had been built much like a performance hall, terraced, with bench seating on all sides, carved balconies overhead, and flawless acoustics. Though the crowd bustled from floor to rafters, the Council gathering at the very center of the bowl had to speak in hushed voices not to be heard over the din.