“With faith,” Goddess said. She took one hand away from her belly and placed it on Grace’s chest. There she felt a whisper of power, a hum of something more than love, something akin to reverence. “Joya was able to kill her fallen because she realized one thing: if she didn’t protect the keep and those within, they would die. Those are holy attributes, protecting against evil. When she merely wanted to save herself, she couldn’t harm the fallen. But when she put her faith in me, and trusted, and thought of the greater good, then she was able to defeat the fallen.”
“So, in faith we are able to harm them?” Grace asked. “It changes our wyrd?”
Goddess nodded. “It changes everything. They are also operating from a place of faith. Their faith hasn’t been shaken. They know Iblis to be their true God, and that’s where their power lies.”
Grace looked to the shifting expanse of flowers behind the Goddess. Off in the distance, over the tops of snowcapped mountains, there wasn’t sky, but violet light. The lands of Goddess were there, her Kingdom, the Ever After.
There was something she was missing in what the Goddess said.
“But if the fallen are attacking Lytoria to shake our faith in you, then we can shake their faith in the Beast,” Grace said.
Goddess nodded.
“And if Joya found power in you, and was able to defeat her fallen, then we can strike at Arael, and shake their faith, rendering their attacks powerless?”
“Maybe not completely powerless,” Goddess said. “But certainly it would make you much stronger.”
Grace kept her gaze on the violet horizon as the words sank in.
“Then someone will have to travel to the Turquoise Tower and defeat him.”
Goddess nodded. “He cannot remain in the realms. His ilk will have to be slain. Moonchild, war is coming in the realms, of the angelic kind. First they will fight their war in the realms, and then in the Ever After.”
“Why hasn’t he done that yet?” Grace asked. “Why hasn’t he gone to the Ever After yet? He has found the Turquoise Tower, he has gained what he sought, he has his angelic form once more.”
“But,” Goddess said, holding up a finger. “He needs faith backing him. Just as Joya had power when she had faith, so too do angels and Gods receive power from those that believe in them.”
“So the more people who hold faith in him, the more powerful he is?”
“Precisely. He needs to gather his followers before he ever has a chance of striking at the Ever After and overthrowing me.” The Goddess looked off the way Grace had come. Grace looked behind her shoulder and saw a mist rolling in, crowding at the edges of the field. White, foggy fingers slunk into the meadow, reaching out toward Grace. In their reach she felt the stirring of her sleeping mind, pulling her dream form back to wakefulness.
“Time grows short,” Goddess said. “You will wake soon. Victory is at hand, and you must lead this next leg. Moonchild, don’t expect people to believe you and to follow you. Don’t try to argue what I’ve told you with people who won’t believe you. There are allies, though, and you can muster a formidable guard for Lytoria. There you will make your final stand, and hope that your emissaries to the Turquoise Tower are successful. For now, I need to give you something you’ve been too long without.”
Goddess walked to the great oak, running her hand along the girth, slipping her fingers over the blackened bark until she found a knothole. She slipped her hand within, and when she did, a subtle green glow burst forth from the hole. She drew her hand back out, pulling a silver dagger from the depths of the tree.
“My dhast!” Grace said. She stepped closer to Goddess. “But it was blooded; it is ruined, and so is my wyrd.”
“But as my sacred warrior, I can grant the power of the dhast back to my dhasturin at any time.” Goddess smiled and held the blade up so it glinted in the light of the full moon. As it shimmered, it changed form, melting and folding in on itself until Goddess pulled back an orb of quicksilver power. “Moonchild, hold your arms out, and welcome my holy gift.”
Grace tilted her head back, opened her arms, and stared up at the cloudless sky. The Goddess reached toward her disciple and pressed the orb to the old woman’s chest. Grace felt a pulse of energy beneath her, in the roots of the ancient oak, and within her body she felt the power of the dhast respond, like the echo of a heartbeat.
Grace came to with a gasp. Around her lay the sickbeds and soldiers moaning in pain from the recent skirmish.
Just a dream, Grace thought. But the name, Moonchild, seemed to fill her with power, and she felt the strength of the earth in her bones once more.
When she stood, Grace felt no resistance from her bones and joints. She wanted badly to test her wyrd, but the lady’s toes hadn’t finished working through her system, so she didn’t try it. But she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the earth wyrd was strong in her body once more.
Deftly her fingers sought out the sheath at her side, where she still kept the powerless dhast even though it had been blooded. But it was gone. Thinking maybe she had taken it off before she went to rest, which was not like her at all, Grace checked all around the cot, and even the stand that stood between her cot and the cot that Rosalee slept on during her shifts of rest.
The dagger wasn’t there.
She sat on the edge of her cot and stuffed a pipe full of weed. Lighting it with a taper, Grace took a deep inhale of the intoxicating smoke. She let her mind drift on the billows of smoke wafting through her lungs and throat. She remembered the meeting with Goddess, and it sent a shiver through her. There was no doubt in Grace’s mind that it had been real. She felt the presence of the oak in the back of her mind now, huge and reassuring, like a friend who had been with her through her entire life, and she only now realized. Then her memory drifted to what happened under the boughs of the oak, and she recalled the Star-eyed. The Goddess had pulled a silver dhast out of the tree, and then reformed it in energy. Energy she had coaxed into Grace.
The moment she thought that, Grace felt the thrill of earthen power deep inside of her, as if answering an unasked question.
Her dhast now lived within her.
“And we have noticed what, exactly?” Sara asked Mag.
“They are unloading a rather large contraption off a wagon, into the center of the field of battle,” Mag told her. “It hums with wyrd.”
“It’s not familiar?” Sara asked.
Mag shook her head. The entire war council was assembled in Sara’s office and were looking at the two of them. Sara crossed to her chair, the rhythmic thump of her cane the only sound in the room. She eased into her chair with a groan and surveyed the people around them.
“Maeven, has Annbell communed with you about the giants?” Sara asked him. He seemed to shake himself out of his near trance, wondering, as they all were, what the dwarves could be up to now.
“She thinks they are to make their way down the mountain passes in the coming days. I’m to meet them later, scout the way ahead, and help them make haste.”
Sara nodded. “Before you go, I’d like you to go see what this is the dwarves have. I would go myself, but my second shape would surely be noticed by them.”
Maeven nodded.
“Joya, how far off is your army?”
“I was hoping to talk to you today and figure that out.” Joya eased forward in her chair, clasping her hands in her lap.
“Right, get with me after the meeting and we’ll check. Flora, see if you can make room in the keep for half of the soldiers. I have a feeling that before long the rest of the wall won’t hold, and we’ll need to retreat. Mag, hold off on moving them just yet, I want to make sure I’m right. In the meantime, get some more archers and wyrders on the ramparts. Have them attack whatever’s in range. We need to end this fast; I’m tiring of this already.”
Sara stepped up to the window in her room; the one that faced out toward the realm, not toward the mountains. Her legs ached from the work she had put them through, but she p
ressed on, leaning heavily on her cane.
Joya stood in front of the window looking out, surveying the wall below and the spot where the mixed wyrd held the breach closed.
“Are you ready?” Sara asked, and Joya jumped.
“What’s Grace doing?” Joya asked.
She looked down and saw the silvery head of her older sister crossing the courtyard to the wall. “Goddess only knows with her. She has a mind of her own, and when she sets it to something, there’s no stopping her.” She studied Grace further, and then saw the other two women following her. “And there are Rosalee and Dalah, too. Probably up to some kind of trouble.”
Joya smiled a toothy grin, and Sara smiled back at her.
“I haven’t known many people to talk about Grace like that and not fear punishment,” Joya joked.
“Oh, we’ve had our go rounds when I was younger, but I don’t fear her any longer. I think she realizes now that she isn’t the only smart one in the bunch, and we rely on one another.”
“You don’t really seem much like sisters,” Joya said.
“I won’t go into all of it now, it’s not my place, but when our sister Tori died, Grace became somewhat of a vagabond, traveling the realms like a gypsy, living life, sowing her wild oats, drinking her share of ale and spirits. Annbell and I worried about her. She left soon after Tori died, wouldn’t listen to reason, and we couldn’t follow; we’d just been selected as Realm Guardians. Tori’s death kind of created a rift between us: Grace pulled away, probably in fear that she would lose one of us as well, and since then we’ve been more acquaintances than family.” Sara sighed.
“I’m sorry,” Joya said, her face cast in shadows. Sara wondered if Joya expected her family to go the same way. Sara felt for the girl; they’d gone through so much already. They were the last living three of Sylvie’s family. But they’d stuck together, their bond was still strong. “Was Grace very close to Tori?” Joya wondered.
“Inseparable,” Sara said. “Tori was like a mother to her, when our mother wanted nothing to do with us.”
Sara could see the thoughts running rampant across Joya’s face. She laid a hand on the younger sorceress’s shoulder.
“I’m sure it’s nothing you have to fear. If you’re worried you’ll turn out like Grace if something happens to Amber, I’m sure you won’t. If you fear something will happen, it likely won’t, because you’re already prepared for it.”
Joya attempted a smile, but it was forced, and Sara knew it. She couldn’t blame her; it was a scary situation they were in.
“Now,” Sara said, pulling Joya back to the task at hand. “Have you ever made a message orb?”
Joya nodded.
“Good, form the orb,” Sara told her. Joya cupped her hands before her face, and Sara found a spot to rest. She sank into the high-backed chair, her legs screaming with the motion. An audible sigh escaped her lips once her weight was off her legs. It would be so much easier if she just used the wyrd to strengthen her legs, but Sara feared then she would always have to use wyrd on her legs. She needed to strengthen the muscles, and that wouldn’t happen with wyrd.
When Joya opened her eyes there was a pink orb bobbing happily in front of her face.
“Good,” Sara nodded, her hands kneading her legs to relax them. “Now, instead of putting your voice into the orb, put your will, your focus. You’ve used your stone, right? The one I’ve heard is like the Orb of Aldaras?”
“Yes,” Joya nodded. “The Shiv of Beatrice.”
Catchy name, Sara thought. “Alright, it’s very similar to that, just instead of letting the orb pull your mind in, like the stone does, you have to push your mind in.”
“Alright,” Joya said, a look of confusion on her face.
“Don’t worry, it’s much easier than it sounds,” Sara said. “You might want to open the window first, because after you put your intention into it, the orb will go off on its way.”
Joya nodded, unlatched the window, and swung it open. A blast of cold air wafted into the room, and Sara moved her chair closer to the crackling fire. She thought about going to get a blanket, but decided she’d rather be cold than put weight on her legs again.
The orb floated out the window, and with it went Joya’s mind.
She had never flown before, and it was unsteadying. Joya still felt as though she was comprised of a physical body, and her mind reeled even as she tried to find her footing in the air. She tried to cartwheel her arms, but she was, truly, without form. Sickness rose in her as the air whizzed by.
Joya tried to close her eyes, but again, she didn’t have any eyes to speak of, and so she had to witness the courtyard, the wall, Grace climbing the stairs, the dwarven army, and the endless expanse of snow far below her as the orb descended from the mountains and continued its path along the wide plains beyond.
An endless scream sounded in her head as she whizzed over the land.
I’m going to die, I’m going to die! The mantra ran on endlessly in her mind. At any moment she felt she would plunge out of the orb, and into the snow below. Of course that wouldn’t kill her, the rational part of her mind said, but it would maim her. Great, that’s a better option, really! she thought snidely.
When Joya was finally able to calm her racing heart and her panicked brain enough, she realized that her vision was covered in a pink haze, a miasma of wyrd that encased her within the orb.
Joya heard the approach of the army before she saw them. The mechanical wagons the frement used rumbled across the snow, and what she’d thought was a storm front rising up before her was nothing more than the snow being churned up from their wheels.
The machines went first, cutting a path through the endless drifts and banks of snow for the ooslebed on their white hecklin behind. Their thin swords rested in scabbards, their bows slung along their backs. Their skin was a deep blue, and blushes of green alighted on their surface, calmly, almost resolute, like the dark elves knew what they were going toward, and they were not afraid.
And then, behind them, was an army of the darkest forms Joya had ever seen. She thought for a moment that they were shadows from the Shadow Realm, following in the wake of the races she had called, but on closer inspection she saw some similarities between these figures and the dryads she had met in the Realm of Earth. These ones, however, looked much more human than the dryads she was used to. Deep in the black wooden sea she saw the white poplar bark of Uthia.
There was a feeling coming from the ebonwood dryads that she couldn’t resist, a desire to feed. They craved blood, just as she imagined the rephaim would. The thought startled her. She gasped, and felt the wyrded orb burst.
There was a dizzying moment as her mind slammed back into her body. Joya slumped to the floor, and Sara pushed up from her chair, leaning heavily on her cane, a worried look on her face. She closed the window and came to Joya. Sara held a hand down for Joya, but she shook her head.
“You’re too weak,” Joya said. “I would pull you down on top of me.”
Sara withdrew her hand with a sheepish smile. “True.”
Joya felt a headache blossom in her head, screaming through her brain, making the floor shift painfully.
“What did you see?” Sara asked her, sitting down on her bed.
Joya pushed to her feet, her green woolen dress settling around her legs, making her skin itch. She had a love-hate relationship with the fabric. She loved how it kept her warm, but it made her break out and itch all over. She sat down in the chair that Sara had abandoned.
“They aren’t far. Maybe two days’ travel,” Joya told her.
“They come fast,” Sara remarked.
“They have machines,” Joya said.
Sara looked at her, confused, like she didn’t know what Joya meant.
“They have these metal wagons, with large metal wheels. They run on steam, they say. They move much faster than horses.”
“And all of your people come this way?” Sara asked.
“The dryads are
walking, though they seem to keep pace with the rest. The dark elves are riding their hecklin.” Her head ached so much she nearly missed the worried look on Sara’s face. The other Guardian schooled her expression, and looked out the window, as if she could see them from here.
“I didn’t know you had dryads,” Sara said.
“They live in part of the Sacred Forest that goes into the Shadow Realm, called the Haunted Forest there. They aren’t what you would expect,” Joya told her. “They are almost chaotic, more human-looking than your dryads, and I fear they feed on blood.”
“What?” Sara asked, her head snapping around to face Joya.
“They’ve been ordered not to harm anyone, and told they can feast all they want on the enemy army,” Joya said. “They have agreed.”
Sara nodded. “Hecklin are dangerous too.”
“The dark elves have them trained as mounts,” Joya said.
Sara gave a bark of laughter Joya wasn’t expecting. “Who would think,” Sara said, once her laughter had calmed. “That after all we’ve feared them, the most dangerous of chaos hounds are nothing more than lapdogs for your elves.”
Joya smiled, and laughed, but it hurt her head. She groaned.
“Yes,” Sara said, standing once more with a pained expression. “You should go rest. You snapped out of the orb — I could hear the force of it, it trembled along my wyrd. You need to rest, or you will have a wyrded hangover for days.”
Joya stood and sought the shelter of her own rooms.
Maeven stood in Jovian’s room, naked, scanning the scene past the window. He had to make the shift, but he hated it. It wasn’t the form he hated, but the process of changing. It hurt having his muscles reform, his bones snap and take new shape. He shuddered with the thought and heard the door open behind him.
It shut quickly.
“Well hello, Maeven’s butt,” Jovian said, and Maeven smiled.
He wiggled his butt a little. “Enjoy the view — your carpet is about to be littered with golden feathers.”
On Wings of Chaos (Revenant Wyrd Book 5) Page 20
