But then, once the thought was gone, another intruded.
The dream of the Turquoise Tower.
She shifted uncomfortably on the stool and reached for Clara’s hand. Cianna listened to the whispers of the nurses and hospital staff, the shifting of humans on their cots, and the prickly rustle of the wool blankets. In the distance she even heard someone relieving themselves into a bedpan.
All human things, her heart told her. Not anything she would ever have to worry about when she got her wings. No more sickness, no more death, just life as a pure angelic being.
But that was a joke. Hadn’t the dream shown her something else? Hadn’t the dream given her black wings? And didn’t that mean chaos? She didn’t like to think that was true, but Cianna couldn’t hide from the fact that the dream distinctly showed black wings as being on the side of chaos, and white wings being the soldiers of Goddess.
She closed her eyes and saw her reflection in the tower room of her dream, standing beside Joya. She had felt the revulsion for her shorter cousin almost instantly when she saw her pristine white wings. She had pushed the feeling aside, but hadn’t there been a trace of loathing on Joya’s face as well, when she glimpsed Cianna’s black wings?
No, Cianna thought. It was just a dream, and while it was a summons to the tower, it isn’t completely prophetic. But there was a nagging feeling inside of her. She might not be anakim and able to decipher the future like Angelica and Jovian, but she was able to tell that this was something that was going to come to pass.
Did that mean she was chaotic? After all this time fighting against one half of her heritage, was it going to win out after all? She’d tried for so long to forget who her father was, to deny what he had done and embrace the only blood in her veins she was proud of: Pharoh’s. But try as she might, Cianna couldn’t deny that she had felt her father’s presence to the west when Azra Akeed had mentioned it.
Cianna knew she was pure angel, even if she didn’t have her wings. She was full blood, not half-blood like the others she saw in the dream. But to remember that was to remember that more than Pharoh’s blood coursed through her veins.
It was something Cianna never thought she would have to face: her true lineage.
Even now she could feel him, and all she was doing was thinking of the tower. The tension of her thoughts built up in her neck, and her head began to hurt. Cianna rolled her shoulders soothingly, trying to work out the kinks.
“Hello dear,” she heard a whimsical voice behind her. Cianna jumped when a light hand touched her shoulder. She turned to see the glazed green eyes of Rosalee. A miasma of unruly red hair wreathed the woman’s face like an angry cloud. “She’s been given tainted water, and so she needs some tea as well.”
“Won’t that make her wet the bed?” Cianna asked her.
Rosalee nodded. “We’ll place a bedpan under her. It will need to be changed now and then.”
Cianna’s nose wrinkled.
“Don’t worry, that’s not your chore,” Grace said, coming up to the next cot, where Pi slept. “I’m making Rose do that.”
“I have experience with pissy people,” Rose told Cianna, and leveled a telling look at Grace, who frowned in response.
“She’s resting for the first time in days,” Cianna told the silver-haired lady. “Can I have her drink it when she wakes up?”
Grace put the tea on the stand between Clara and Pi’s cots. “Have her drink it all.”
“And now for you,” Rosalee said, pressing a cool cup into Cianna’s hands. It was barely more than a couple of gulps. Cianna tossed it back like it was whiskey. She handed the empty wooden mug back to Rosalee. “In about twenty minutes you’ll want to find a reliable toilet and stay near it.”
“Or a place outside to squat,” Grace grumbled.
“What about the two of you?” Cianna asked.
“There’s no need to worry about us, the water doesn’t have any effect on us,” Rosalee said.
Cianna looked imploringly at Grace, but the older lady averted her eyes and wouldn’t meet Cianna’s gaze. She knew for a fact that Grace had wyrd, so why didn’t she need to drink the tea also?
Grace busied herself with administering more tea to people on the other side of the aisle, placing herself behind Cianna so she wouldn’t have to look at her.
“Did she lose her wyrd?” Cianna whispered to Rosalee. She knew they were best friends, and if something had happened to Grace, Rose would certainly know about it. The red-head acted as though she hadn’t heard Cianna, though, and went to the next row of cots, taking with her a mug from the cart they pushed along with them.
Cianna cleared her thoughts of Grace, though it was hard not to be worried for the old lady. She had been one of the last dhasturin, people who could control certain elements with the use of a silver dagger. It was rumored that the dhasturin only lived as long as they had wyrd. When their wyrd failed it meant they had met their goal in life, the one thing they were born for, and would then die.
Cianna lifted the mug to Clara’s mouth and sluiced some of the cool tea in. The woman swallowed.
If that was the case, did that mean Grace was dying? Cianna turned to watch the old lady. Now that she knew something was wrong, she could see the way Grace favored her right hip, limping slightly. When she thought no one was watching her, she would stop and rub her back, easing some cramp there. It was apparent that her age was afflicting her more now than it had before. The only difference that Cianna could think of was that now Grace didn’t have any wyrd.
Sadness welled up inside of her chest, and she tried not to think about it. But Cianna worried that if something had happened to Grace, soon she would be one of the countless wythes that hung around Cianna all the time, like a welcoming party that would never leave her be.
Jovian looked down at the tea resting beside the basin in his bathroom. Angelica had taken hers a while back, and she had remained in her bathroom for the last few hours. Jovian didn’t want to think of staying in the bathroom indefinitely, but he had to cleanse his body.
He checked that he had enough snow water with him. A full bucket. That should last a while. He looked at the mug and sat on the edge of the bathtub, cradling the cup in his hands.
Was this the only way? He heard the shouts of people outside and the bustle of activity. He should really be out there lending a hand, not in here pissing his time away . . . literally.
Jovian sat the mug down and closed his eyes. Baba Yaga of the mountains told them the tea alone wouldn’t stop Wyrders’ Bane. Would they have to kill it? Jovian didn’t even know how one would go about killing an egrigor; they never covered that in arms classes. All they learned about egrigor was that they were more powerful versions of thought forms, created with the will and wyrd of their maker, but they had never covered how one would go about killing one.
He felt the presence of Wyrders’ Bane join him, feeling him, touching his wyrd like a lover might caress bare flesh. Jovian shivered at the touch, which felt like bugs skittering over his skin. There was nothing he could do but let the egrigor violate him. To use his wyrd on it was bad, as he had seen with the wyrders on the battlements. If he had part of the stone in him still, and used wyrd on the egrigor, then he would be right where Angelica and he had ended up before, on the couch. But hadn’t Baba Yaga told him Wyrders’ Bane wouldn’t affect them?
Jovian lifted his head out of his hands and observed the shadow in the corner. Now that he was aware and alert, the feeling of the shadow touching his wyrd abated. The sense of Wyrders’ Bane’s power retreated to the corner as well.
We hadn’t gotten sick like everyone else when we drank the water, Jovian thought. In fact, they hadn’t gotten sick until Angelica hit her head, and then it might have been nothing more than Baba Yaga using the moment to snatch them from the waking world to bring them to her and give them the knowledge of that which must be done.
As Jovian thought about the effervescent liquid he had swallowed, the fire he had felt wh
en drinking it rose up his throat once more. He felt the power inside of him. The knowledge that there was something more he needed to do.
The realization that he would soon have to leave for the Turquoise Tower plagued him waking and sleeping. He would have to leave this all behind and go join an army of angels. The thought of it was preposterous. He knew they were different, but having lived so long among humans, where talk of angels was nothing more than memories of the past, it was impossible to think of himself as one of their brood.
But the power Baba Yaga of the mountains had given him burned in his blood, and he knew that part of that which must be done was at the Turquoise Tower. Even if he didn’t want to go, he knew that his angelic blood would eventually win out, and he would have to follow the call.
Jovian’s gaze lingered on the cup. He couldn’t drink that. He needed to act. Jovian needed to help. With one fluid motion, before he could stop himself, Jovian stood, grabbed the cup, and emptied the contents down the tub.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and hoped it hadn’t been the wrong decision.
Wyrders’ Bane flickered behind him. He could feel the wavering of the creature in his mind, like a twinge of muscle.
He opened his eyes, and glimpsed the egrigor for the first time in the mirror. It was an alien form, one he had never seen before, but something very similar to the Mikak’e, the star gods of the mountain elves.
What are you? It seemed to ask.
Jovian narrowed his eyes at it, and the shadow flitted out the door.
Jovian followed.
He stepped into the yellow sitting room that combined all their rooms into a suite. The sun was breaking through the drapes, which someone had thrown back. It lit the room up as if he was standing right in the middle of a sun-bathed field. It was hard to believe that outside lay a sea of snow from the avalanche.
The shadow slipped out the door, and Jovian scrambled to catch up. He stepped out into the dark hall and closed the door behind him. He searched with his peripheral vision along the mahogany and scarlet hall, to see the shadow slipping through the darkness to his right. It darted here and there, avoiding the pools of lamplight on the floor from high-hanging lamps.
Jovian drifted to his right and took up a position behind the shadow. He stared at his feet, watching out of the tops of his eyes as the shadow cut left and up a set of stairs Jovian would have missed if he hadn’t been paying attention.
It was a shallow, narrow staircase of dusty wood, and the steps creaked each time he stepped.
Upwards they went, with nothing more than Jovian’s questing feet along the stairway to keep him going. There was no light to speak of, and the going was slow. His feet barely fit on the steps, they were that shallow, and more than once he stumbled, grappling with the smooth wall. There was no railing for him to hang on to, and Jovian had visions of falling flat on his face and sliding back down the steps, banging his forehead on each stair until he spilled out into the hall below.
That didn’t happen, and before long filtered sunlight greeted him from a distance ahead. He knew he was still going the right way, because he could now see the shadow of the egrigor again.
Gasping, Jovian reached the top of the stairs and stood before a dusty old door that looked like it hadn’t been used in ages except for the clean knob indicating recent use. The shadow slipped under the door and into the room.
Jovian turned the handle and opened the door. It slipped open soundlessly, and he stood staring at a cavernous room filled with chairs, armoires, dressers, and other indistinguishable furniture covered with sheets all around what was clearly a storage room.
There were several windows, all lining the opposite wall, letting in a yellowed light through their dirty glass. Jovian stepped in. The floor creaked loudly under his booted feet, shifting in a frightening way that made him think it wasn’t stable, and he might fall through the floor at any moment into some room beneath him. Maybe he would just keep falling through each floor until he landed in the entrance hall below.
Don’t be absurd, he thought, but he stepped lightly, putting one foot tentatively before the other and pressing down slowly to test the safety of the floor.
Don’t fall, don’t fall, he repeated like a mantra, until he saw the shadow crouching over a wooden box on the floor. It seemed interested in the box, and for a fleeting moment he felt like the egrigor wanted to show him what was inside the box.
Jovian crept over to it and slowly knelt on the floor. Once he sat down completely, Jovian felt relief. He hadn’t fallen through after all.
The box was made out of cherry wood, and was embossed with great carvings, as though vines and flowers had grown from the bottom of the box, around the sides, and come to rest on the top. An open circle in the center was engraved with the five-pointed star of the Goddess. It gave the impression that the vines made the star, or that maybe they came from the star.
Jovian worked the simple hook latch on the box and pulled it open.
Inside rested a large opalescent orb, swirling with an internal mist. He thought he saw the glint of gold within it. He rubbed at the surface, as if the swirling mists inside were dust he could scrub away. Somehow it helped clear the image, until he saw that the flickering of gold inside was a pair of golden eyes staring back out at him.
The face of his sister Amber stared back out at him. She was youthful once more, not haggard as she had been when he saw her at the Foothills of Nependier. Her face radiated calm like an internal light, and her flaxen hair spilled around her face like a river of honey. Her golden eyes glittered as if in laughter.
Jovian found himself smiling at her reflection.
“Amber,” he whispered, and tears bloomed to his eyes. “Where are you?” He blinked away the tears and scrubbed at his face, the scar feeling strange along the lines and planes of his forehead. It had been too long since he had seen his sister; the feelings and worries that she might be dead rushed to the surface. Until that moment, Jovian hadn’t truly realized he harbored those fears.
She tilted her head as he spoke.
“Where are you?” he asked, reaching for the orb, his voice thick with anguish. As his hands touched the surface, his back arched, and his mouth opened in a silent scream. He felt himself pulled into the orb, like a foot violently ripped from the mud.
He stood in the center of the sea of wings. The heavenly host lay before him, and he knew that the dark brood writhed at his back. The black-robed figure stood to his left, and Jovian watched the figure approach with the Pale Horse beside it.
His eyes were drawn to the tower, though, and not to the figure. He felt the call in his blood, the pull of his angelic half.
“Curse this!” His mind slammed back into his body. “Always this damned tower! I’m more than my angel half,” he yelled at the orb. “I’m not a pawn you can order around!” He didn’t know what he yelled at — perhaps the black-robed figure — but the frustrations boiled out of him. “I’m not my angel half. I’m Jovian LaFaye.”
He waited for some kind of response from within, maybe even another image of Amber’s face. When nothing came, he let out a disgusted breath and slammed the lid closed on the box once more.
“But why would it show that to me?” Jovian asked Angelica through the door of her bathroom. He stood in her lavender room, staring at the spot by the fireplace where he had found Angelica just the day before. There was still a bloodstain on the carpet. Thankfully it looked like the rug was old and needed changing anyway.
“I don’t know,” she responded. He could hear her peeing in the toilet and rolled his eyes. “I really hate this tea!” she complained.
“Angelica, the orb?” he asked.
“We should investigate it more,” she told him, her voice echoing out at him. “Once I can get off this toilet. Likely the shadow is just trying to get rid of us. For some reason I get the impression that we make it uncomfortable, like it doesn’t know us, and it’s nervous that we’re here.”
&nb
sp; “Yeah, I feel like it asked me what I was today,” he said incredulously.
“You too?” Angelica asked, the tinkling sound of water drawing to an end.
“So what do we do about the orb?”
“What exactly did you see?” Angelica asked.
“The face of Amber.”
“That’s it?” Angelica asked.
“Just a feeling that it knows where she is, but when I touched it, all it showed me was the Turquoise Tower again,” He tossed his hands in the air. “It’s always that tower. Whenever I sleep, eat, look in the mirror, all I see is that damn tower!”
“I know,” Angelica said. “Maybe we should investigate it together.”
Jovian huffed and leaned his back against the door. “Are you ever going to be able to get off that toilet?”
Angelica laughed. “That’s the plan. It’s slowing down. I think I can make it out soon.”
Jovian smiled. The sound of water falling into the toilet came again. Angelica growled.
“Is there a toilet up there by any chance?” Angelica asked.
Jovian laughed. “Not that I saw, but maybe an abandoned bowl we can let you crouch over.”
“Alright,” Jovian said, standing in the red-carpeted hall, the mahogany paneling shining dully in the lamplight. There were no windows in the hall; they were all occupied by the rooms that took up the outer wall. The hall twisted around the center of the second floor. The mash of colors was so dark that the lamplight did little to illuminate it. One wrong move and it would be easy to trip. “You going to make it?”
It had been another hour and a half before Angelica thought all of the stone had passed out of her — or rather, all of the tea. She nodded her head. “If not, there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
Jovian frowned, but shrugged. “These stairs are really tricky; there’s no light, and no hand railing.” He looked back at Angelica, but she only shrugged and shook her head as if he was being silly.
On Wings of Chaos (Revenant Wyrd Book 5) Page 14
