The Hierophant (Book 1 in The Arcana Series)

by Madeline Claire Franklin

  No one saw us?

  “Hey, you okay?”

  “No. I'm still a magical amateur and whatever that was, even you didn't want to fight it. What am I going to do when you're gone? What if I can never learn to use magic to defend myself?”

  “Don't worry. We're so close, I can feel it.” He breathes deeply to catch his breath. “You'll be the Sura's worst nightmare soon. Just wait.” Trebor smiles, squeezes my hand for reassurance. “Listen, I wasn't running because I didn't think we could take that thing back there. But I have to keep you safe. That's my priority right now. But, that said—I need to get going to check it out.”

  “You're going back there?”

  “It's my job, Ana.” His smile falters for a moment. “I'll be fine.”

  I frown, and his hand slips out of mine as he starts to walk away. “Trebor, wait.”

  He stops, turns around.

  I shuffle my feet. “Can you be my date for the dance this weekend, or would that piss off the angels?”

  Trebor just looks at me for a moment, contemplating—making my head and heart hurt with every moment that passes—and then he smiles again, that roguish grin I love so much and see so rarely. “For you Ana? I would be glad to infuriate the entire host of heaven.”

  My cheeks warm at his sentiment, and I hope Trebor can’t see it in the dark. “Good. So, then, you have to come back from this investigation. Because I will be pissed if you stand me up.” I give him a crooked smile.

  He nods, once. “You have my word, damsel.”

  Then he turns, and vanishes into the night.

  — 38 —

  When I wake up, I see this on my phone:

  TREBOR: Ana, I’ve got to leave for a day or two. Try not to go out after dark while I’m gone, and don’t go anywhere alone. I promise I’ll be back in time for the dance! I’ll meet you there.

  TREBOR: Please try not to talk to anyone you don’t know while I’m gone.

  TREBOR: I’m sorry I have to do this. :(

  I swallow, because I know this must be bad news. Trebor wouldn’t leave me to fend for myself just yet, not unless he absolutely had to.

  Also, when did Trebor learn to use emoticons?

  School is a dreary, awkward mess. Kyla isn’t avoiding me anymore, but there’s a strain between us. She knows she shouldn’t be talking about whatever is going on with me, at least not in front of anyone else. And she knows that I want to tell her, and that something is going on. But I’m distracted and worried, hoping beyond hope that Trebor is okay, that the thing he went to investigate last night didn’t hurt him, or steal his phone and pretend to be him, or any other number of wild scenarios.

  My dad is worried when I come home from school and stay home, the first time in what seems like ages.

  “What’s going on?” he asks, looking up from the dishes he’s rinsing off. “You’re not going out tonight?” His bold blue eyes are striking as they cut across the dim evening light filtering through the kitchen.

  I’m seated at the breakfast counter, nursing a cup of tea. “Nah,” I say, trying to be casual.

  “Are you and Trebor fighting?”

  “Huh?” I ask. “What? Dad, we’re not dating.”

  “Sure. Then you’re awfully committed to studying for someone who’s failing chemistry.” He glances at an envelope on the counter—another present from Williamsville South High School.

  I sigh. “Look, Dad, I don’t need Chemistry to graduate.”

  “That’s not the point, Ana. Did you lie to me?”

  I think about it. “No, we didn’t lie. Trebor and I really have been studying. A lot.”

  “I don’t mean studying each other’s eyes,” he laughs to himself.

  “We’re not dating.” I slouch, then look strangely at him. “Why aren’t you more mad about me failing?”

  He shrugs. “Like you said, it won’t prevent you from graduating. God knows I hate Chemistry. I can barely cook, let alone understand chemical equations.” He smiles fondly at me. “I trust you to make wise decisions, Anastasia. You’re a mature, intelligent girl, and I have to trust you if I want to be sane and still be your father.”

  “Oh.” I swallow. “Thanks.”

  “So you’re not dating that Trebor kid? Because I kind of like him. He’s polite. And he doesn’t have any piercings or tattoos.” He chuckles to himself.

  I think about the times Trebor has been here, and try to remember if he’s ever worn a short-sleeved shirt—he definitely has. The tattoos come down his arms, lace down under his elbows. My father has seen his tattoos. Hasn’t he?

  My brow furrows.

  Unless not everyone can see them? Like the flashing eyes and dragon fly wings colored hair, and the subtle glow all around him?

  But Kyla definitely mentioned the tattoos. Weird.

  “Are you still going to the dance this weekend?” My father asks.

  I shake my head to clear my thoughts, putting them aside for now. “Yeah, I promised Kyla I would. I mean, if I’m not grounded or anything.”

  He shakes his head. “Not planning on grounding you if you’re not planning on getting into trouble. Do you have a dress?”

  I almost gasp. “No! Oh my god I completely forgot to get one! Crap, Kyla will kill me…”

  Abe laughs. “You’re the worse teenage girl I’ve ever met. No drama with boys, no interest in clothes. Well don’t worry about it. As frightening as this is going to sound, I actually have something in mind that I’ve been meaning to give to you for a while. I’ve got to pick it up from the drycleaner’s though, so it’ll be a surprise.”

  I stop myself from tugging my shirt collar or gulping cartoonishly. “Are you sure, Dad? I know I’m not the best teenage girl, but you might be even worse.”

  “Just trust me.” He smiles.

  I nod. “Okay.” Worst case scenario, I borrow something from Kyla, I think.

  He looks at the clock. “Ooh, I’ve gotta get ready.”

  “Working again?” I wonder, kind of wishing we could hang out and play a board game, or something besides have awkward moments in passing.

  He dries his hands and looks at me in his sad-happy way, and I know he’s thinking about how much I look like my mother. “No, not tonight. I’m meeting some of the guys out for a drink.” But it’s too quiet, and I know it’s a lie, or at least a half-truth.

  “Are you lying to me?” I say in a joking tone, testing the water.

  He looks down, and his smile falters. “Only a little.”

  My heart trips. My father never could tell a lie to me, or to my mother. “Who are you meeting?” I ask in the smallest voice I didn’t know I was capable of.

  “I am meeting some of the guys from work.” He crumbles slightly before he finishes the truth. “And a friend I met at the last fundraiser for the fire hall.”

  My eyebrows raise. “A woman, you mean.”

  He looks at me, doesn’t need to nod. He’s waiting for me to react. So am I. It’s happening, somewhere, smothered so far down inside that I’m not sure how it will come out when it does. I just know it’s not coming out at this moment.

  “Where are you guys going for drinks?” I ask instead.

  Abe hesitates. “Bleu. Ana, are you—”

  “The martini bar? Swanky, Dad. Sure the fire hall guys clean up well enough for that?” I laugh.

  “Ana,” he interrupts my fake laughter. “Stop being a bad teenage girl and be a little dramatic, please? I need to know how this makes you feel, sweetheart. We should discuss it.”

  My heart is climbing into my throat, making a nest there. I’m afraid if I speak I’ll get even more confused, even more scared and numb. “I don’t know,” I shrug. “I guess I’ve got to let it sink in. You go have a good time—but not too good—and we can talk about it another night.” There. How mature of me.

  Abe nods, brow furrowed. “Okay. You know I love you, sweetheart, right?”

  I nod. “Of course. I love you too, Dad.”

  — 39
—

  I once read in a book by Ray Bradbury that 3 a.m. is the soul’s midnight, and I never really understood what that meant. I still try to piece it together any time I’m awake at that hour—even now, when I’m waking up because I’m certain there is something standing in my doorway, watching me.

  When I open my eyes, they fall first on my alarm clock where the time burns itself into my retinas, and then to the ceiling where glow-in-the-dark stick-on stars barely make themselves known, ghosts of childhood lingering in the dark. I don’t see my doorway when the knowledge comes to me—I just feel it, like I felt it when it tugged me from my dreams.

  I try to convince myself I’m making it up. I’ve done protection circles around our house countless times, so it couldn’t be Sura, and I’ve never sensed ghosts in our house, and my father or Trebor would never be so creepy as to stand there in the middle of the night and watch me sleep. So, either there really is a creep who has broken into our house and is currently standing in my doorway watching me lie here while I try to muster up the courage to sit up and look—or I’m just imagining it.

  So. Nothing to do but sit up and look.

  I sit up fast, applying the band-aid method to my fear, only to breathe a sigh of relief. Apparently I was imagining it, because my bedroom door is closed.

  “Hello, Anastasia.”

  I jump, heart climbing into my throat. I scramble back, up against the headboard, searching the dark of my room for a shape, a man, something to go with the low, sultry voice that curled its breath around my name and gave it life.

  The lamp on my desk flashes to life. When my eyes blink away the sharp sting of sudden illumination, I see there is a man sitting in my desk chair.

  Well, not a man, exactly.

  “Sorry to wake you,” he says. “Although, if it makes it any better, you’re not actually awake at all right now.”

  Whoever he is, he’s older—perhaps my father’s age—and dressed all in black: a black tuxedo, to be precise, with black patent leather shoes. His hair is also black, slicked back from his face, paler than the moon. Electric blue eyes bite through the shadows and weak lamp light, shining of their own accord. He is offensively handsome in a chiseled, predatory way, as if someone took great care and great pride in perfectly sculpting his face. But there is nothing about him that is pretty, not even the huge, glossy black wings folded against his back.

  “Who are you?” I ask, pulling my blanket up to my chest. “What do you want? How are you—is this—” I don’t even know what to ask.

  “I have many names, in many tongues,” he tells me, lacing his fingers together. He leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees and pins me with his gaze, wide eyes never moving from my face. “You may know me as the Morning Star.”

  My eyes can’t grow any wider without straining out of my sockets.

  “Or perhaps the Adversary. The Spoiler.” He snickers. “Some call me Shataan, Lucifer, The Devil, King Nick.” He smiles, and it would have made me shiver if it didn’t surprise me by making me profoundly sad, first. “None of them are correct.”

  I’m not sure if I should feel relieved.

  He bows his head slightly. “You may ignore everything you think you know about me, and call me Nikolai.”

  “That might be kind of hard to do,” I admit, struggling to keep my voice from wavering. “Isn’t another one of your names the Father of Lies?”

  He sighs and rises to his feet—his full height is impossible, perhaps two feet taller than me, though his form is proportionate: his hands are bigger, shoulders wider, limbs thicker. I can’t tell if it’s a trick or some kind of magic he’s using to intimidate me, but it’s working.

  “I suppose you’ll just have to take my word for it, as unhelpful as that sounds.” He cocks his head and looks at me, thoughtfully. “But I am here to help you, little Ouros, just as I helped your mother when she was a few years older than yourself.”

  My throat tightens. “What?”

  “Of course, no one in their right mind would ever tell their daughter that the Devil is responsible for their happiness. It just sounds…wrong.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “What would I have to gain from that lie?”

  “Clearly, you want something from me.”

  “I want to help you.”

  “Why?”

  Nikolai cants his head to the other side and takes a step towards me, and another, and it’s all I can do not to shrink away from him as he comes closer. He kneels before me, still tall enough, huge enough, to feel like a threat. Finally, he holds his hands out, palms up, and shrugs. “Because if I don’t help you, no one will.”

  I shake my head. “I have help. I don’t need yours.”

  He blinks eyes much bigger than my own, and it occurs to me that it’s the first time he’s blinked since the lamp came on. “Trebor has no idea what lies in store for you.”

  A shudder moves through me, and when he reaches for me I can’t help it—I flinch, roll to the other side of the bed and onto my feet, spinning to keep him in my sight, but he’s gone—

  Because now he’s at my side.

  I yelp and jump back, but he holds a hand out to stop me, freezing me in place with some kind of magic. It only lasts a moment. He closes his fist, and autonomy returns to my body.

  “Do not fear me, Anastasia,” he says, eyebrows raised. “I am not what you should be afraid of.” The raised fist turns over and his fingers uncurl, alabaster palm up, waiting. Some part of me knows that he holds terrible truths in that hand, and I will carry terrible truths with me for the rest of my life if I take it.

  “Then what should I fear?” My voice quavers.

  His eyes narrow. “Fate.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t believe in Fate.”

  “Ah, is that so?” He chuckles, and even though his voice is easy, gentle, calm, his laughter rings sinister in my ears. “Well, my dear, I hate to sound cliché, but Fate does not care whether you believe in it or not. Fate makes puppets of us all.”

  “Even you?”

  He smiles, slowly. “Even me, I suppose.”

  “Then what help could you possibly be if Fate controls you, too?”

  “As one who sees the web of Fate, I can ease the journey. And believe me: for you, it will be a hard journey without my help.”

  I stare at him, fear quickening my breath, my blood. I’m afraid of this being, more than any Sura I have ever encountered. Is it his presence? His stature? His mystique?

  Or is it because I believe him?

  “How did you help my mother?” I ask, hoping for a grain of evidence for or against the veracity of his words.

  He does not waver, does not blink. “She was the lone survivor of your clan, little Ouros. Her escape was not coincidental.”

  I surprise myself by gasping. “Do you know who killed them?”

  He nods. “I do. And you will not like the answer.”

  “Tell me, please.”

  Nikolai’s eyes blaze and dull in an instant, hot rage clouded by immediate sadness. He stands taller for his torment. “The Malakiim.”

  Blood drains from my face to pool inside my belly. My throat tightens; my heart grows heavy. Even though I wondered it myself, to hear it said plainly makes me sick with disbelief, with anger. “No,” I whisper, shaking my head, clutching my shirt over my stomach. “Why would they do that?”

  Nikolai’s eye become hooded. “You are a smart girl. You already know the answer.”

  And then guilt joins the terrible concoction in my gut, stabbing its finger at me. I was right about everything. “Me. Because of me. Whatever I am.”

  “Whatever your fate is, you mean. And I can help you with that.” He shoves his hand forward, waiting for mine. “I will show you what awaits you if you should choose to ignore my offer of help.”

  My stomach churns. What horrific thing am I meant to be that the angels themselves would order my death and destruction, even at the cost of so many other lives? But,
if I do have some kind of destiny, knowing what it is might be the only way to avoid fulfilling it.

  Quickly, before I can second-guess my decision, I lay my hand on top of Nikolai’s. His fingers engulf mine, a cage of cool flesh and bone.

  And then my world falls apart.

  There is panic, hot and bright, like a red slash across my mind. I see horror, and loss—unfathomable loss. There is so much blood—so much regret—

  a mark on my face, blazing white

  veins of black under my skin

  unholy power flashing in my eyes

  a river of dead in my wake…

  And then there is a memory of the future, the place where everything changes—where the cruelest vision of humanity comes barreling at my life in the body of a man, unwell and unhinged, but utterly human. He burns a furious path of carnage into my life, aiming for my destruction, taking out one of the last lives I hold dear in this world.

  This is when I break apart.

  This is when I Fall.

  The last thing I see is his blood—her blood—the blood of all the world, dripping from my fingertips.

  I say nothing when the vision ends, but release a shaking breath and yank my hand away from Nikolai, turning, curling in on myself. With a trembling hand I steady myself on my bed, blinking back tears, trying to breathe away the horror of loss and accountability tightening its hold around my lungs.

  “Why,” is all I can manage through the tremors that worm through my body, hold me hostage, make it impossible to breathe.

  “Because you were born to be a weapon of war,” Nikolai says softly. “And every weapon must be forged.”

  I gasp, everything inside of me wanting to cry out against him, against his words, against the vision still lingering behind my eyes. But in my heart there is a long forgotten fracture, and the winds of truth howl through the cracks.

  “And how would you help me?” I finally muster the strength to ask, pushing myself upright. I force myself to look at him, even though he terrifies me now, more than ever. His face is open, but expressionless.