But Angelica knew Jovian and Joya were only holding onto a hope they knew was lost the moment they smelled the smoke.
Angelica dried her mouth and with the help of Joya's wyrd they sped around the corner in Voyager's Pass and saw the wreckage of their home before them.
At first Angelica couldn't see anything that looked like the plantation she had left. It was nothing but gore and smoke. Bodies of farmhands she remembered were pegged to trees by broken boards or other debris, or strung up in branches like some macabre ornaments of chaos. Her mind couldn't make sense of what she was seeing.
She stumbled to the front gate, or where the front gate had been, but now hung off its hinges, smashed and smeared with blood and soot. On shaky legs Angelica made her way up the crushed stone path. Parts of the house she remembered poked out of the teeth of its ruin.
It looked like the plantation had exploded from the inside out; a ruin of blocks and wood and gore lay around the yard at varying distances from the house. At times Angelica had to pick her way around debris in the walkway — or she should have, but since she was looking frantically for their father, instead she tripped over obstacles.
Angelica imagined that she would see Dauin at any moment. Maybe the smoke would clear and she would see him kneeling there, strong, stained in the blood of his enemies, talking softly to a worker as their life slipped from him.
But that didn't happen.
She could see the basin of the sink in the upstairs bathroom, and the smoke that curled out of her bedroom window. The entryway was open to the elements, the front door smashed to bits, splinters of its former splendor scattered over the bloodied ground.
She couldn't look at the mess of bodies, entrails, and severed heads. Even though she wanted nothing more than to find her father, she didn't want to see him there.
“Dad!” Joya yelled out, jogging past Angelica. “Dad, where are you?”
Joya drew to a stop, and looked around. Angelica knew what her sister was feeling. It was completely hopeless. Dauin could be any number of the ruined lumps in the yard that had once been a person.
“What ha—” Joya tried to say, but her voice cracked.
It finally sank in to Angelica what had truly happened, and she slumped to her knees. Confusion lay over her like a blanket. She had remembered playing with Jovian under that lilac tree where Candalyn now hung, impaled on a broken branch. Over there, to her right, was the field where their birthday parties had always been held, but now was only a smoldering mound of what she hoped was wood, but knew from the stench was bodies.
A bellow came from Jovian, and in his cry of torment the ground shook. He fell silent, and so did the ground, trembling into stillness, now only a memory like the home they once knew.
Shelara, Ulga, and Caldamron stood back at the gate, letting the Neferis youths have their moment.
“He can't be dead,” Jovian whispered.
“But he is,” they heard a familiar voice. Angelica looked up to see their cook, Ashell, pick her way out of the ruined entryway. The wind toyed with her brown hair and rustled the smoke-stained skirts around her stout frame. She held a rolling pin in her hand, and she looked more deranged than Angelica ever thought another person could.
“He said you would be coming back,” Ashell told them.
“Father?” Joya asked, turning around.
Ashell snickered, then outright laughed. She laughed so hysterically to herself, clutching at the burned-out doorway with a hand dried with blood.
“No — Dauin died before he could even form a thought!” The idea of it must have delighted Ashell, because she started laughing harder. “You should have seen him when he saw her!”
“Saw who?” Joya asked.
Porillon, Angelica thought, and hatred seethed in her. Porillon, the woman who killed Jovian, who was behind Amber’s abduction, and now the sacking of their home. She would kill that woman!
But Ashell wasn't listening. She looked up, a hand to her throat, and brandished the rolling pin as if it were a sword. She was mimicking their father in his death throes, they could tell. A look of love came over her face, so completely in character with their father they could almost see him in her actions, pressed against the wall, reaching out to someone he knew, someone he loved.
Then she broke form and started laughing. Ashell pushed herself from the door.
“So pathetic,” she said, calming now from her laughter. “Her henchmen swooped in and rearranged a little bit, a welcome home gift for you all.”
Hatred surged through Angelica, she stood, a growl forming in her throat, her hands clenched at her side. She drew on the wyrd of the land all around her without realizing she was doing so, and when she loosed her vengeance it was swift and just.
Dark purple lightning arched out of the clear sky directly toward Angelica and she reached up for it. Harnessing the bolt, she threw it at Ashell and it hit right where she stood. The ground lurched with the force of the bolt, tossing dust and dirt up around the yard. When their heads cleared from the resounding boom, there was nothing left of Ashell but a smoking black space where she had stood.
“NO!” a scream tore from the barn. Angelica had no time to respond before the dark form was on her, pegging her to the ground. His first hit knocked her unconscious.
Joya turned at the sound of the scream. If Ashell had looked deranged, Alhamar was worse. He was on Angelica before Joya had time to react. She saw him swing, and she saw Angelica go limp.
Joya unhooked her dinner knife from her belt and charged at Alhamar. She knocked him to the side, and went sprawling beside him. He rolled over, and a perfectly aimed elbow took Joya in the back, landing her face-first in a puddle of water and blood.
He stood and kicked her, but then his body went still. He fell to his knees, and then toppled over her. Joya scrambled away, readying her knife and channeling her wyrd, ready to attack Alhamar if he were to come at her again. But his eyes were glassy orbs, staring sightlessly up at the sky. He was dead.
Joya looked up and saw Jovian, weapons still sheathed, but his hand held ominously at the fallen body of his former best friend, Alhamar.
“Jove,” Joya said, struggling through the bloodied mud of the yard toward her brother. “I'm so sorry.”
He shook his head and turned back to the house.
“It's over, then,” his voice was thick with emotions. “Amber is gone, we have no idea where she is. Porillon destroyed our home, we have no place to go. No home. All we wanted was to bring her home, safe, and keep our family together. And that's never going to happen.”
Joya didn't know what to say, because it was precisely what she was feeling right then as well. She walked up behind her brother and rubbed his shoulders.
She sent a tendril of wyrd toward Angelica, waking her from her sleep. She came to with a gasp.
Angelica came to with a start and looked around. Memories came rushing back to her. For a moment she didn't want to believe what had happened, but the proof of their once happy life lay in ruins around her. She saw the dismembered form of Alhamar and sobbed once before she could bite back the anguish.
She struggled to her feet, and then went to stand beside Joya and Jovian, staring at the rubble of the plantation. Without speaking, they all split apart, working their way around the dead, searching for their father. They didn’t find him.
“We should lay them to rest,” Joya said, when they had all come back to stand before the wreckage of their home. “There’s no way we can clean this up, but we should do our best.”
A blond boy in a black robe stumbled out of the rubble of the chapel. He reached out for them, his face weary, his eyes tired. He looked older than he was, aged by some terrible event that had happened to him.
"Help me," he whispered, tears coming to his eyes. No sooner had the words made it past his lips then he fell to the ground, clutching at his throat. Joya went to his side, alarmed that a stranger was in their home, and wondering if this was the one who destroyed th
eir place. But he was just a child.
She saw the snake twisted around his neck, tightening, cutting the flow of oxygen. She reached for it. The snake sensed her presence, and its head arched into sight, recoiling from the boy’s neck. It hissed, and its eyes pulsed a sulfurous green.
Joya recoiled from the snake. A vision the night Amber had been taken came to her mind, a vision of a stone snake, crumbling in her hands. That was the same night she was attacked by the albino entity in the hallway, and the sorcery book had saved her.
She pushed away as the snake loosened its grip on the boy's neck. Weakened, the boy slumped to the ground and the snake slithered down his arm. When it reached the ground, there was a dazzling flare of light. Joya wanted to cover her eyes, but also knew that something was coming out of that light, and if she blocked her sight, she might not see it attack.
The light receded into a new figure created in the flash. There stood the opalescent man from the night in the hall right after Amber had been abducted. Joya remembered him well, the feel of his chaotic wyrd, the way he had attacked her after she had the vision of Amber’s abductor. There had been a great battle, and Joya had barely bested him, no doubt with aid from the book of sorcery. His body looked chiseled out of marble, and his hair hung in moonlit waves down his back. Joya was at once drawn to his beauty and repelled by his power.
"I've seen you before," Joya said. The memory brought her wyrd to hand before she knew she had drawn on it.
"Samazahd," he introduced himself with a flourish. "Nice to make your acquaintance."
"I'm stronger now," Joya said. "And not as easily taken by fancy."
"Perfect; this will be more enjoyable." And then he smirked.
“As I recall, last time I overpowered you,” she said, letting the wyrd build in a wreath of pink around her hands as she talked.
“As I remember it, you had the book,” he wagged a finger, correcting her. His mouth split into a heavenly grin. “But where is it now?” He looked around as if he would spy it among the rubble. “Maybe under that pile of viscera?”
“I don't need it any longer,” Joya said. She blasted out a force of pure, pink wyrd. It collided with the man, sending showers of pink light around the ruin. It reflected off his skin in a myriad of colors, painting the gore all over the yard in rainbow hues.
Samazahd only laughed.
But Joya’s attack was enough to spur the rest of her group to action.
Elvish arrows whizzed by Joya faster than she could count, almost as if there were many archers behind her, rather than just Shelara. There was a loud roar of machinery, and metallic pellets sunk into the fallen angel's flesh from the weapon called a gun, which Caldamron carried. Green blood rose to the surface as the bullets hit home.
Peppered with arrows and bullets, Samazahd stumbled back. He wiped at the blood, and just as he was about to say something, Joya hit him full on with a blast of pink lightning.
The lightning danced and sizzled over his skin like an electric storm on wet cobblestone. Whatever Caldamron and Shelara had done to him, it was working.
“No fair!” he shouted over the maelstrom. “You have help!”
He waved his hand, and the cat-man and the dark elf were blasted back. Shelara landed lightly on her feet, but Caldamron smacked into a pile of rubble and didn't stand again. Joya had a moment to witness the dark elf checking the frement before Samazahd hit Joya with a wave of force that raised her into the air.
Still her lightning flowed, but it was obvious it wasn't helping.
Then other wyrd joined the attack. A sphere of red fire surrounded the fallen angel, and quickly it deteriorated into a swarm of red wasps, stinging him and slithering into the holes made by the bullets. It was enough of a distraction that Samazahd dropped Joya, who landed heavily among a pile of gore.
The grigori turned his attention toward Jovian and lashed out at him with wyrd none of them could see, but which was as sharp as a blade, tearing a diagonal cut through Jovian’s face. Blood splashed across the ground from the wound the angel had inflicted.
Angelica stepped between Joya and Samazahd, and from her fingers blasted purple fire, consuming the angel even as Jovian's wasps nettled him.
While he was distracted with the attack, Joya saw Uthia sidle up behind the angel. She swung her sword at his neck. With a deafening noise Cataresh rebounded, and in the shock Uthia cried out and crumbled to her knees.
Samazahd kicked her heavily out of the way, seething.
Joya made her way to Angelica and Jovian, and let her lightning fly once more.
But as Jovian and Angelica combined their attacks with their sister's against the grigori, a bolt of lightning like the blackness of night split the day. It was lightning without sound. In fact, the lightning drank in all sounds of the battle, leaving their struggle mute.
It was the same kind of dark power they had witnessed from the alarist during the attack on the Spire of Night.
The lightning originated from a point behind the grigori and continued, lancing arcs of black threads of power around the fallen angel. When it stopped, there was no sign of the grigori any longer.
The boy collapsed from his attack, pain written in the lines of his face and tears flooding over his cheeks. Shelara and Caldamron joined the group, the dark elf supporting the cat-man as he still looked dazed.
Joya rushed to Jovian, inspecting the wound. Pain throbbed through Jovian’s face where the wyrd had cut deep. “You’re lucky he was distracted,” Joya said, inspecting the severity of his wound. “He sliced to bone. If he had his full intent behind the attack. . .”
“Can you heal it?” Jovian asked, reaching for his face to clear away the rivers of blood leaking over his right eye and his mouth.
“I can’t,” Joya told him with a shake of her head. “But I have some herbs and bandages, for what it’s worth. I can get you patched up.”
She went for her pack, distracted from the wreckage of their home with the purpose of helping Jovian.
"He said he loved me," the boy gasped. "And then made me do these awful things!"
The pain in his voice made Joya's heart break. She grabbed her bag and neared Jovian once more. Jovian snarled at the boy and pulled back his arm. As he started gathering his wyrd, his hand glowed red with angry power. But Joya put a restraining hand on her brother's arm.
"What are you doing?" Joya asked, concern creasing her face.
"He destroyed our home," Jovian said through clenched teeth.
Joya shook her head. "You don't know that."
"But he is the only one here, and you heard him, he did awful things."
"He was made to do awful things," Angelica corrected him. "That doesn't mean he did them here."
"Remember when I was an unbearable bitch in the Ravine of Aaridnay?" Joya asked, and Jovian stopped channeling his wyrd. He nodded. "I was being controlled by a grigori, I believe, one that masked his name as the Voice of Wisdom. I didn't want to do some of the things I did, but he made me."
She observed the boy, crumpled on the ground. Caldamron comforted him as best he could, but the boy looked inconsolable. The dark elf was beside Uthia, trying to get through to her, but the dryad’s gaze was miles away.
"I understand what he is going through," she finished. “Now, sit so I can look at your face,” Joya instructed, and Jovian did as she commanded with a nod of his head. She bent over his face, applying numbing herbs so she could stitch up the wound.
"What happened to the grigori?" Jovian asked, trying to relax under his sister’s ministrations. When Joya was convinced the wound was numb enough, she used some water from the canteen to flush it. Jovian closed his eyes, allowing the water to wash the wound clean.
"Alarist power," Shelara said. "That sent Samazahd past the Black Gate."
"It wasn't mere lightning," Caldamron agreed. "It didn't kill him, just took him from this plane directly to the Otherworld."
"Good," Angelica nodded.
“Alright,” Joya sa
id threading her needle. “Now don’t talk, and try not to think about what is happening; this might still sting a little.”
If it hurt, Jovian didn’t give any indication. Joya stitched up the jagged wound that ran from his forehead to his chin, grateful that it hadn’t been worse than what it was. When she was finished, she smeared it with a generous dose of healing salve and pressed bandages to the wound. His face wouldn’t look the same again, and she wondered how much damage would really come from the wound. Already she could tell it would leave a wide and deep scar.
Jovian dropped his pack to the ground and started sifting through it, looking for something. Tears stained his cheeks, and he ground his teeth, refusing to let his emotions show, even though he was clearly losing it. He found what he looked for, and he held the statue of the wolf up, brushing at it as if the soot that hung over everything had smeared its surface.
“I imagine this is what mother looked like,” he said through a tight throat. His voice was slightly nasal now, like he had a stuffy nose. “I bought it for Father, I thought he would like it.” Jovian set the wolf tentatively on the front steps, as if he was placing it there to guard the dead that would never find peace.
They spent several days there cleaning up and burying their dead. It was a grisly job gathering pieces of bodies, and lowering corpses from trees, but none of them would have imagined leaving people they had lived with, and cared for, resting forever like that.
They could easily have used wyrd to dig the graves, but it was unsaid amongst them that these people deserved the labor involved with tending to their final rites. It was their final farewell to a life they would never have again. A kind of working meditation on what had been here, and what might come again, given time.
They chose the field where their birthday celebration had been held, and now it was a miniature graveyard to their past, a pyre that would burn for days to come. The smoke of the wood and the bodies would carry those restless spirits skyward, where they could find rest in the arms of the Goddess.
A Guardian of Shadows (Revenant Wyrd Book 4) Page 20
