by Maya Rodale
If threatening, intimidating, or shoving him off his damn ferry would get her there faster, she would have done it. But Charon didn’t scare easily. In fact, she wasn’t sure he felt anything . . . ever. He was just a cold, transparent, expressionless being that almost . . . almost . . . evoked her pity.
Having no other choice but to bear the slow journey, she focused on the distant cave and turned her thoughts toward Jordan Faye and the strange mark on her breast. Only three of those marks had been branded in the last ten-thousand years. Two others were out there. Perhaps safely Below. Perhaps discarded like all the other meaningless humans littering the mortal roads. Only time would tell.
When the boat docked, she snarled at the ferryman before stepping onto the rocky beach. Dark water licked her boots, but no tide touched the path leading to the stone chamber in front of her.
Kyana heard the faint sobbing before she made out the shadowed silhouettes of the three women huddled at the end of the cave. Their forms hunched over a smoking cauldron, the scent of which stirred within her a fresh hunger. She’d never learned what, exactly, the contents of that cauldron were. The scent seemed to change depending on the person smelling it, becoming intoxicating, reminding them of something they desperately wanted but usually couldn’t name.
For Kyana, the longing made her woozy and slightly sad. For what, she didn’t know. Desperately trying to place the desire kept her occupied as she made her way down the passage, but she couldn’t remember a time, living or undead, when she’d been as melancholy as the nostalgic sensation that aroma evoked in her now.
As she approached the women, they stepped away from the cauldron and lifted their hoods in greeting. The middle woman wiped a tear from her cheek, her shaky smile not quite genuine.
“Kyana,” she whispered. “You’ve come unannounced.”
Much lovelier than Shakespeare’s interpretation of them as the Wyrd Sisters, the Moerae, also known as the three Fates, peered at Kyana with youthful eyes. Their entire beings glimmered with golden dust, though that dust was nowhere near as bright as it had once been.
Kyana nodded in greeting. The beacon she refused to wear burned in her pocket. She was being summoned by an Ancient. More than likely, Artemis. But the Goddess of the Hunt would have to wait. Kyana wanted answers before she went anywhere. “I’ll only need a minute.”
Clotho adjusted her long golden braid over her shoulder and fixed Kyana with a cold stare. Vamps were still considered outsiders, even those who’d proven their allegiance over and over as Kyana had. She prided herself on her ability to stare others down, to intimidate them with the quickest of glances, but Clotho’s penetrating blue eyes forced Kyana to avert her gaze.
“Speak quickly, Kyana,” Clotho said. “It takes us far longer to tend our souls these days.”
“I would think your tending wouldn’t be so tiresome, given the lack of human life Above. So many are dead.”
Tears welled in the Fate’s eyes. “We don’t need a Vampyre to remind us of our failures. We are faced with them every day.”
At least she hadn’t called Kyana Dark Breed.
Uncomfortable with the tears, Kyana blurted out, “I found Jordan Faye.”
“We know.” Atropos, the eldest of the three sisters and by far the most menacing, tossed something green into the cauldron and gave it a quick stir.
For a blessed moment, that taunting, mysterious scent vanished and all Kyana could smell were the rotting waters of the River Styx.
“Of course you do.” If Jordan had died, Atropos would have known before anyone else. She was, after all, in charge of death and guided those newly deceased to the River where they’d await their eternal fate.
“I want to know about the mark on her breast.”
Scowling, Atropos raised a black brow. “You demand answers from us?”
“Not demanding. Asking.” Kyana softened her tone. “Is she one of you?”
The sisters looked to one another. The middle sister, Lachesis, began weeping again. Atropos and Clotho wrapped their arms around the beautiful redhead in quiet comfort. Again, the scent rose from the cauldron and twisted Kyana’s belly. What the hell was it?
“You think we enjoy knowing we are to be replaced?” Atropos hissed. “That we are to hand over the duties we’ve been charged with for ten-thousand years?”
The very walls shook with their combined anger. Kyana held her ground and remained silent. No one wanted to be replaced, but the Fates couldn’t deny that their time had come. For more than two centuries now, Oracles had been professing that the power of the gods would soon wane. Since then, the Fates had been marking Chosen, making certain strong bodies were born on Earth, capable of absorbing the enormous powers of the gods when the time came to transfer them into newer souls.
That demons and other Dark Breeds now walked the earth was proof that the power of the Fates and the gods no longer held the strength they once had. Their era of reigning was over and hope rested on the shoulders of their replacements.
Time stood still as the Sisters whispered comforts to each other. Kyana strained to hear the hushed conversation but her head was full of the powerful scent, the unknown ache, the wanting. The heat of the beacon seared her thigh, pulling her mind back from the hypnotic effects of the cauldron’s aroma. Artemis impatience over Kyana not arriving at the god’s temple Below was burning a hole in her leather.
“Are answers the only thing you came for, Kyana?”
She flinched. Her skin itched. She needed to get out of here. Needed to clear her head. “Yes. No. I want to protect her if my suspicions are right.”
The Fates studied her, then one another, as though sharing a conversation she could not hear.
Lachesis, the weaver of destiny and the keeper of truths, dried her eyes with a lock of her fiery hair and addressed her sisters. “She is honest. Though I suspect her offer is not completely unselfish, she means no harm.”
To Kyana, she said, “You are correct. Jordan Faye is one of us. When the time is right, she will take my place. With her and the others like her, the Order will have a chance of winning the war you fight Above. But not until the time is right.”
Kyana shook her head. “And when will that be? The Order is outnumbered. We’re getting—”
Clotho fingered her golden braid. “She must learn her way. Learn of who she is. Of what she is.”
“Who will teach her?”
“That is not your concern.”
“Then what is my concern? To follow orders? To fight battles we can’t win? To save those you deem important, then sit on my hands and do nothing?”
Atropos’s black gaze silenced her. “You will do your duty, Dark Breed.” A twisted smile contorted her face. “No, not Dark Breed. You’re even more vile, are you not, Kyana? You’re a foul Half-Breed who forgets her place.”
“Enough!” Clotho pressed a hand to her sister’s chest, lightly pushing Atropos backward, out of Kyana’s reach.
“It’s all right, Clotho. I know your sister disdains my kind.” Kyana narrowed her gaze on Atropos. “Both of my kinds. Yes, Half-Breed suits me well, but it is both breeds within me that make me Artemis’s best tracer. Without my Lychen half, I would be forced to wait until dusk to hunt like all your other Vamps. I go where they can’t, when they can’t, faster than they can. So we play nice with each other, don’t we, Atropos? Whether we like one another or not, because we’re both vital to saving your beloved humans.”
Atropos swung her gaze away, but her pinched face was proof that Kyana had struck a nerve. Even more than Atropos hated Vamps, she loathed Lychen. And since Kyana was both, the two of them would never get along. Kyana was the last Half-Breed of her particular kind, and the Order couldn’t afford to lose her. That gave Atropos even more reason to hate Kyana. Aside from breaking a major Order Commandment, there was nothing Kyana could do that would allow Atropos to get rid of her.
Check mate.
Looking to the more reasonable, less bigoted sisters, K
yana pulled the conversation back to the task at hand. “What will become of Jordan Faye?”
Clotho sighed, weariness etched in the pocketed shadows of her eyes. “She and the others on our lists will be protected at all costs.”
“They should have been brought in when they were born,” Kyana grumbled. “We could have kept them safe until the time of the exchange.”
Atropos narrowed her dark gaze, the shadows of the cave making her look momentarily haggard and worn. “If they have not lived amongst humans and learned the importance of humanity, than they would never become fair and just to those who worship them. Humanity. Humility. They are foreign concepts to you, Kyana. I do not expect you to understand, but I do expect that you do not question our ways.”
Thinking very little about either concept, Kyana rolled her eyes. “I want Jordan Faye’s guardianship.”
“We have another task for you,” Lachesis said, digging noisily through a golden chest behind her as Kyana turned a murderous stare to the other sisters.
“No way. I found the one that everyone else had given up on. It’s my right to be her guardian.”
“Because you think such a post will give you power?”
“No. Because she is my responsibility.”
“Liar,” Atropos hissed. “You’re as power hungry now as you were when you first came to the Order.”
Lachesis turned back to the group. In her hands, she held a golden chain with a flat, square hunk of obsidian the size of Kyana’s hand dangling from the end of it. Lachesis turned the block of glossy ebony so that Kyana could see a roughly cut pentagram-shaped hole in the center.
“Sisters, I think the choice belongs to our tracer.” Lachesis held out the stone pendant, her lips curving into a sly smile. “You found our Chosen, and you may guard her if you wish.”
Satisfied, Kyana started to nod in acceptance, but the gleam in Lachesis’s eyes stopped her. “What’s the catch?”
Lachesis looked to her sisters before turning back to Kyana. “You may play guardian to Jordan Faye or you may take up a more important job.”
Her curiosity peaked, Kyana reached out and touched the sharp edges of the cut stone. “What job?”
Lachesis slipped the chain around Kyana’s neck. The thing weighed as much as a small hippo.
“A simple task, Kyana.” A smile lit Lachesis’ tear-stained cheeks. “We want you to save the world.”
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A TALE OF TWO LOVERS. Copyright © 2011 by Maya Rodale. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition May 2011 ISBN: 9780062087775
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