Echo (The Halo Series Book 2)

by Melody Robinette

  Squinting, Aurora thought she could make out a tiny black speck on the ground.

  “A mulciber stone,” she whispered, more to herself than to Soren. “I wonder if that’s how Samuel is going to get here…”

  “Clever guess,” a familiar voice said from behind them. “But not quite.”

  Whirling around, Aurora took in the sight of Samuel climbing off the back of a winged demon that looked like a mix between a Pegasus and a dragon: black, feathered wings, scaly skin, sharp teeth, and smoke furling from its nostrils.

  It was Samuel, though, that made Aurora’s eyes widen in shock. In the short time since she’d last seen him, his appearance had changed dramatically. His once golden skin was now as pale as paper, his eyes were sunken and cold, his teeth traced with black, as if he’d just sunk them into an apple made of oil.

  But the most shocking part of all was his pair of angel wings he’d released from their sheaths. Though, to call them wings was improper, because now they were nothing more than jagged stubs, blackened and torn. It was as if the Light had forcibly ripped them from Samuel’s back when he’d betrayed the angels. But he wore what was left of them proudly.

  Samuel tilted his head with a look of condescension, cerulean eyes moving from Soren to Aurora and back. “Well, well, well. Hello, little lambs. I hear you attacked my most loyal follower.” Samuel’s next words were directed at Soren alone. “Looks like you’re more like your father than I thought.”

  Soren’s back hunched in shame.

  “He’s nothing like his father,” Aurora spat at Samuel.

  Half smiling, half sneering, Samuel turned to look at her now. “And how would you know? Given that you’ve only known your son for a day or so?”

  Aurora’s cheeks burned with rage and loathing. “Because he had a choice. He could have chosen to fight with David and you, and the rest of Caducus’s followers. But he chose to fight for the Light. That’s how I know.”

  Samuel paced forward a few steps, and Aurora put her hand in front of her son, moving both of them back.

  “So very noble of you, young Soren,” Samuel said in a dangerously quiet voice. “Unfortunately, it would seem that you have elected to fight on the losing side.”

  He continued to pace, circling around them like a shark closing in on its prey, giving them a wide berth. Aurora and Soren kept their fronts to him, never letting him out of their sight.

  “Horns go about things differently than Halos, Soren,” Samuel continued in the same severely calm tone. “And you’ve been trained by a Horn. Molded by darkness. What would you do, for instance, if I were to grab your mom and put a knife to her throat?”

  Aurora felt herself being tugged backward, an invisible force binding her. An unseen instrument, sharp and cold, pressed up against the base of her neck.

  Soren stumbled as she was pulled away from him, hovering in the air with her hands pressed firmly to her sides. His dark blue eyes grew round, like a deer that belatedly realized it was in the path of a fast moving vehicle.

  Twisting around, Aurora saw that Samuel was still a great distance away, though his gaze—laser focused on her—made it clear he was indeed the one controlling the invisible force assaulting her.

  “Put her down!” Soren shouted, stringing an arrow through his bow and aiming it at Samuel’s heart.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Samuel’s warning was laced with humor rather than fear. His eyes shone as they grew narrow with a grin. “You shoot me; I kill her. And I can assure you only one of us will die. Well, no, that’s not exactly true.” Then his mouth broke into a full-blown smile. “Is it, Stellar? Have you told your son about your handsome soul partner?”

  Twisting a little, Aurora shot him a loathing glare. Then abruptly, she stopped as the cold, sharp object against her throat tightened until a stinging pain and the wetness of blood appeared at the base of her throat. Fear, not for herself, but for Gray rose up like bile trying to escape her stomach.

  “Soren,” she said urgently. Her son’s bright eyes, wide and fearful, went from Samuel to her. He registered the blood now trickling down her front, and his grip tightened on his bow. “Don’t shoot him,” she whispered.

  “But—”

  “Listen to her, little monster,” Samuel said, his voice saturated in condescension. “Mother knows best… Though, she didn’t know best when she gave you away, did she?”

  Aurora’s stomach sank, along with her heart. Soren’s tight grip loosened as he turned back to look at the angel gone bad. Samuel’s face was tugged up in amusement.

  “Rather kind of you to forgive her for what she did to you. After everything you’ve been through. Did you tell her what happened to your other oh-so-loving parents?”

  Biting his lip, Soren looked guiltily up at Aurora and then down at his feet, the tip of the arrow now pointing at the ground.

  “They were turned to beasts,” Aurora said to keep Soren from having to communicate with Samuel. “I know.”

  “Yes indeed, this most recent round of parents were turned to beasts.” Samuel leaned casually against the edge of the building now. “But what about the others? What about that first pair?”

  “The others?” Aurora shifted until she could see Soren’s downturned face. “What is he talking about, Soren?”

  “Tell her, little monster,” Samuel purred to Soren. “Tell her what you did.”

  Soren’s eyebrows turned up in sorrow and the lip he was biting trembled. “I didn’t mean to.” His voice was barely louder than a whisper, almost carried completely away by the frigid wind coming off the nearby water.

  Aurora’s heart pounded an irregular tattoo on the interior of her chest. The sky turned even darker as heavy drops of rain began to plummet from the clouds, landing in splashes on the roof.

  “Tell her.”

  Soren’s grip on his bow tightened as he raised the arrow again, fire burning in his eyes now. “No.”

  The sharp object against her throat pressed harder, and Aurora let out a small gasp as more blood poured from the wound. Soren blanched, his hand letting go of his bow completely.

  He muttered something inaudible to the ground.

  “Speak up,” Samuel said. “She can’t hear you.”

  Soren’s face tilted upwards, rain trailing down his face like tears.

  “I said I killed them.”

  Forty-Nine

  LUNA

  Luna trailed behind the others as they moved briskly after the stragglers of the demon parade.

  Guilt, jealousy, and anger had torn a burning hole through her stomach. She clutched at it from the outside, as if she could heal it somehow with just her touch.

  Gray walked side by side with the new Halo, Jax, who looked slightly out of place with the rest of them due to his size. He looked more like a Dominion, though there was no denying he was likely a good fighter.

  When Gray had introduced them earlier, stumbling over her name and not making eye contact, her fears had been confirmed. He blamed her for this. He blamed her for keeping him from Aurora for so long. And it was unlikely she would ever be forgiven.

  Even blinded by her anger and jealousy, Luna could still see Gray's beauty shining like a beacon in the dark weather, heavy rain falling from the sky like bullets.

  She couldn’t help but hope, if they made it through this, she could somehow win him back. She could show him she was worthy.

  Logan looked over her shoulder and slowed her own walk, leaving Brielle’s side until she fell into step with her twin. “Why are you walking alone back here?”

  “Why do you think?” Luna muttered.

  Logan shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Luna. Bigger things than your weird little love triangle are going on.”

  “Easy for you to say. You got what you wanted.”

  Pursing her lips to the side, Logan looked ahead to Brielle, the slightest tint of guilt entering her eyes before it faded away. “Even if I didn’t, I would still do my duty as a Halo. I wouldn
’t let something as trivial as—”

  “Why do people keep saying that love is trivial?” Luna stated in an impassioned whisper so the others couldn’t hear her. “Love is the least trivial thing in the world. Love is the reason we fight these battles.”

  “Love is. Not lust. Not infatuation.”

  “Just because he doesn’t love me back,” her voice cracked at this, “doesn’t mean I don’t love him. I am still capable of love even if no one is capable of loving me.”

  “I love you, Luna. I’m your sister. If you’re going to fight because of love, then fight because you love me. Not some boy who, I’m sorry, will always and forever break your heart. He has a Stellar. A soul mate. You can never compete with that.”

  Luna fell silent, pretending her sister’s words hadn’t cut her to the soul. They were approaching the mass of evil creatures now.

  Bright red letters that spelled out PUBLIC MARKET shone in the slowly darkening sky. The others craned their necks to see over the soldier-still group of people. Luna tried not to think about the fact that Gray was desperately looking for Aurora.

  But then it was she who spotted the golden-haired girl.

  Luna's gaze moved from the ground up to the tops of the buildings until she detected three figures on the roof of an old apartment complex. Two of the people she didn’t recognize. But the third—the one suspended in midair like a broken marionette—was Aurora.

  If Luna hadn’t known that Aurora and Gray’s souls were linked—if she hadn’t known that, if the golden girl died, Gray would die too—she would have gladly moved onward.

  But she did know.

  And she was going to use it to her advantage. Logan had been recaptured by Brielle, who was grasping her hand and whispering into her ear.

  The others were too busy to notice Luna slip away from them, skirting the edge of the crowd until she made it to the base of the apartment building, atop of which Aurora hovered.

  Putting her crux between her teeth, she began to scale the side of it, pretending she was just rock climbing with a harness. Her heart beat faster and harder as she neared the top, voices meeting her ears.

  “Speak up,” one of them said. “She can’t hear you.”

  Another, smaller voice that clearly belonged to a child rang out. “I said I killed them.”

  Then silence.

  Luna pulled herself up just enough to see the view on the top of the building. It was indeed Aurora who was suspended in the air like a spider’s prey, hanging by an invisible thread. Her chest and collarbone were bathed in blood, though nothing could be seen cutting her.

  A fair-haired young man stood coolly near the edge of the building, folding his arms and watching Aurora’s reaction to what the little boy had just said.

  She said nothing, but her eyes grew large, and she struggled against her invisible captor. The unseen knife cut her more deeply now, more blood pouring from her neck. Luna had learned enough in training to know that the carotid artery was located in the neck, and if it was cut, even just a little bit, the person would bleed out in seconds.

  No, Aurora, Luna thought. I’m not going to let you get Gray killed.

  She knew what she had to do.

  Clearly, the fair-haired young man was the one in control of the situation—he looked rather familiar now that she thought about it.

  But she didn’t have time to think about it.

  He was the one who needed to be taken down.

  Removing her crux from between her teeth, Luna inched slowly to the left moving ever so steadily closer to the man.

  In the back of her mind, she wondered who the little boy was and why he wasn’t helping Aurora. He held a bow and arrow loosely in his hands, arms at his sides.

  She wondered how they’d come to be in this position in the first place. And she wondered if Gray would think Luna was brave for saving his Stellar. Little did he know, she was really just saving him.

  Luna moved until she was directly behind the fair-haired man in the wine colored cloak. She gripped her crux tightly in her hand as she slowly moved her foot up to the next ridge in the brick. And then she slipped.

  Letting out a gasp and clawing at the edge of the building, Luna felt her crux slither from her grasp and fall to the ground far below her.

  “Luna!” she heard Aurora shout.

  Suddenly Luna was no longer hanging onto the side of the building, but being hoisted into the air by invisible claws. The unseen hand brought her up high and down hard onto the cement of the roof.

  She felt some of her bones break, but she wasn’t given enough time to scream as she was pulled up again. Shouts from Aurora could be heard somewhere in the swirling lights of the world, but Luna paid them no attention.

  All she could see was a flashing montage of her life.

  Images of her and Logan when they were both in diapers, sliding down the stairs on a slippery sleeping bag. Falling on an icy lake, seeing the cracks form and fearing she would be plunged into the water, disappearing forever.

  She’d been so scared.

  But Logan was strong and sure, grasping onto her gloved hands and pulling her slowly back to the snowy solid ground.

  More flashes of their awkward preteen years, their double dates to prom.

  Tears, laughter, love.

  Then Gray entered the picture. He was only in her life for a brief period of time, but he had consumed her.

  All of her.

  Burning through her blood, catching like a flame in a field of dry grass. And now she would die trying to save him.

  All of this happened in the few seconds it took the invisible hand to pick her up into the air and slam her down again.

  Then light turned into darkness.

  Fifty

  AURORA

  Aurora struggled against her invisible ties as Luna’s limp body was slammed with force into the hard cement of the roof.

  Ignoring the sharp pain at the base of her throat, she twisted around to see the crumpled, bloodied mass that was Luna.

  Soren stared at her in wide-eyed shock, specks of Luna’s blood painting his face in a morbid mask of red freckles.

  Luna’s body was completely still. Her side didn’t even rise and fall from breaths taken.

  Samuel laughed—a sick, malevolent sound. He looked up at Aurora then. “She was trying to save you, the poor, pathetic thing.”

  “Save me?” Aurora’s brow furrowed in surprise and confusion. She’d thought Luna hated her. Because of Gray. Because of their kiss. Then a sickening realization hit her. “She was trying to save me because I’m Gray’s Stellar.”

  “Precisely. Can’t you see how much trouble the two of you have caused? Can’t you see that the world would be so much better without you in it?”

  “We saved thousands of lives on Etheria.”

  The corner of Samuel’s mouth quirked up in mild amusement. “Yes…and how did you accomplish that exactly? Did you battle the beasts valiantly with your crux and your sword? Or was it, perhaps, something else?”

  Despite the danger of the situation and the burning pain accompanied by the wetness of blood on her neck, Aurora felt herself blush. “Why does it matter how we did it?”

  “Because you didn’t even intend to save them. I’ll admit, I underestimated your power together. Though, I also overestimated your awareness of it. You think you’ll just be able to kiss each other every time trouble comes? You think that will help you defeat Caducus?”

  “And you think following him will make you more powerful?” Aurora spat back at him. “He’s using you as his little play thing, Samuel. You’re just a servant to him. When you were a part of the Light, you were so much more than all of that. You could have done something for the world. You could have been good.”

  Samuel cackled. “Being good is so terribly dull. You used to think so yourself if I’m not at all mistaken. And if you believe the Light doesn’t use His people to do His dirty work, then you clearly haven’t been around the angels long enough
.”

  Samuel paced around Luna’s body as if it were nothing more than discarded trash. Soren stood stone still, his eyes locked onto Luna’s bloodied face. Aurora wished she could cover it up, turn her son away.

  Her eyes narrowed then, burning into Samuel, wishing she could cause him the kind of pain he’d just caused Luna. She cursed him in her mind. Every terrible, ugly word in her mental lexicon, she threw at him. Then he smiled…as if he knew what she was thinking.

  “You know, you embody many qualities the Darkness values, Aurora Coel. Stubborn, unfeeling, selfish, proud. If your soul wasn’t bound to someone so pure and good…I feel you already would have changed sides. You have fallen angel written all over you.”

  “And you have asshole written all over you.”

  Samuel actually laughed at this. “You are only cementing my point.”

  “Didn’t your mother teach you not to play with your food?” she growled at him, another wave of blood trickling down her chest. She wondered how much she had already lost. The edges of her vision were growing fuzzy, her skin tingling, her limbs weak. “Let me down and fight me yourself. Don’t just let me bleed slowly out. What fun is that?”

  “I’m waiting for our audience. They should be here any moment now. I’d prefer to fight your tragic counterpart. The one with the same goodness of a man I once knew. Infuriatingly good.”

  “Are you talking about—?”

  “We both know who I’m talking about. But, unfortunately, you won’t get the pleasure of gazing upon your Stellar’s beautiful face. Can’t have you using your eye contact to an unfair advantage, now can I?”

  With these words, Samuel produced a black cloth out of thin air, letting it float towards Aurora until it covered her eyes, tying itself tightly around her skull, bathing her world in darkness.

  And she soon knew why as a familiar, heart-wrenching voice rang out in the thick Seattle air.

  “Aurora!”

  GRAY