by Peach, Hanna
Still twisting in the air, Alyx turned her head to see where Pegasus had gone. She had to snap her head back to avoid the oncoming light. This gave Pegasus the chance he needed. Alyx felt a sharp pain in her ribs and a rough hand grabbing at her belt. She kicked back, managing to dislodge Pegasus from her side before he could touch her marker. She flew up out of the light and landed on top of the lighthouse.
Pegasus spun in the air. Finding her above him, he launched himself at her again. Alyx ducked at the last minute. Grabbing him by his shirt, she used his momentum to throw him over her and tip him headfirst down to the other side of the lighthouse just as the light swept around. He screamed. Alyx let go of him.
“My eyes!” Pegasus hovered in the air, hands to his face. “I’m blind! I’ll get you, you unsanctioned little...” he launched into a tirade of curse words.
Alyx took off from the lighthouse saying nothing back, ignoring the rush of anger that those words brought up in her. Alyx thought back to Symon, the seraph who raised her and trained her. Any fool can start a fight. It takes real courage to walk away from one.
“Here’s me walking away, Symon,” she said to the wind as she flew back along the cliffs.
Her best “revenge” would be to win. She would cross the finish line before Pegasus’s eyes had a chance to recover.
* * *
Alyx threw her pouch of winnings at the RaceKeeper’s feet. “Start talking.”
The RaceKeeper made no move towards the pouch. “There are four great stones left that the Darkened have not already acquired,” the RaceKeeper began. “Each of them has been removed from where they originally fell, collected by the mortals. Although I highly doubt they realize the significance of the Black Stone, these mortals seem to be drawn to it.”
“So where are these last four now?”
“The first stone fell in the year 600. This Black Stone was set into the foundations of the Kaaba by Muhammad himself. The Kaaba is a cube that sits at the center of the Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām or The Sacred Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The mortals worship it with millions of pilgrims visiting it every year.”
An Islamic Mosque in Mecca.
The RaceKeeper continued, “There is a Black Stone meteor that fell over five hundred years ago in Peru, South America. It was worshiped by the Incas until the Spanish invaded and took it for themselves. It now stands in the Basilica Cathedral in Lima as the main crucifix at the altar.”
A cathedral in Lima.
“There was also a large piece of Black Stone that fell near Florence, Italy in the late 1400s. Have you heard of the mortal artist Michelangelo?”
“The artist who sculpted the marble statue of David?”
“The very one. He also did a lesser-known piece called the Three Archangels depicting Raphael, Michael and Gabriel. Not a very good likeness of any of them, may I add. That piece is made from Black Stone.”
“Where is it now?”
“In the Galleria dell’ Belle Arti in Florence, Italy.”
An art museum in Florence.
“And the last one?”
There was a pause; Alyx’s stomach began to fill with anxiety.
“The last one is the most secure. The most guarded of the four. I would not go after it if I were you.”
How could you get any more guarded than an art museum? “Where is it?”
The RaceKeeper sighed. “No. I didn’t think you’d listen to my warning. I have heard whispers that the largest piece of Black Stone to return to Earth sits somewhere in a monastery in the Hengduan Mountains of the Sichuan Province in China. That is all I know about that.”
A monastery in China. And that made four.
“Alyx,” the RaceKeeper called out as she turned to leave, “the monks are not to be trifled with.”
Chapter 22
The blond waif of a Darkened appeared at the door where Passar was waiting. Adere, her name was. She seemed to be a favorite of Samyara’s. She always seemed to be with him.
“The master will see you now,” she said.
Passar stepped through the door that she held open, taking care not to touch her flesh made green to his eyes by the scaly skin underneath.
Pretty girl. Too bad about the demon. Gotta cut out that demon. The voice in his head hissed at him. The voice that had been whispering since he allowed Adere to mark him with bloodink. Not that he had a choice.
The skin on Adere’s face began to split along the cheek and jaw as if an invisible knife was cutting her. Passar swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, her face was back to normal. Well, as normal as a girl looked with a demon face showing from underneath. It had just been another hallucination.
This bloodink that cursed his skin, wherever the demons had acquired it, was not distilled. The hallucinations were proof. He didn’t want to think about where or how they had acquired the blood. He had heard whispers of a black market for bloodink out here. His heart dropped. What had happened to the Seraphim whose blood he wore? No. He couldn’t think about it. He had made his decisions. He couldn’t go back.
Passar took two steps into the room. Adere brushed past him as she made her way back to where Samyara was reclined across a chaise. Passar flinched and Adere gave him a wink over her shoulder. She lowered herself onto a cushion by Samyara’s feet.
Passar could feel Samyara staring at him, studying him. It was irritating, like sand in his eyes. Samyara’s eyebrow flicked up in what appeared to be amusement.
“I like what you’ve done with your face,” Samyara sneered at him. Passar felt his neck flush. “Learn anything useful this time?”
Passar nodded. “Alyx just raced for The RaceKeeper under her old racing name, Bullet. She took on two competitors in a last minute race-change. It was highly unusual. She beat them, of course. Then she entered the RaceKeeper’s tent, stayed there for a while and left without her winnings.”
Samyara spun so that his legs flicked off the settee and landed on the floor. He leaned forward with his hands on his knees. “Really?”
“She must have arrived not long after you left. What a pity... if only you had stayed another ten minutes...” Passar couldn’t help this little bit of goading. He was tied to this demon, but he didn’t have to like it.
“What was she doing there, I wonder? Did you think to find out?” Samyara narrowed his eyes at Passar as if daring him to return without finding out.
Passar nodded. “I visited the RaceKeeper after Alyx left.”
“And? Did he tell you what she was after?”
“We both know that the RaceKeeper’s only loyalty is to currency. I paid him enough and he talked.” Passar couldn’t help a curl of disgust to sour his expression. The RaceKeeper would sell his own child if the money was right. “Alyx was asking about Black Stone. She seemed to know that you had been there asking about it, and she wanted to know exactly what the RaceKeeper had told you.”
“Interesting.” Samyara tilted sideways to lean against the arm of the chaise. “So we know about the last four stones... and they know that we know. But they don’t know that we know that they know.”
“What do we do now?” Adere said, her eyes widening and focusing up at Samyara like a small child would at a parent.
“Excellent question, my dear,” said Samyara. He lifted his eyes up to Passar. Passar looked away and stared vacantly at the walnut side table at Samyara’s arm. “What do we do now?”
Passar’s gaze jolted back onto Samyara’s face. “You’re asking me?”
“You know the Guardian best. What would she do with the information she has acquired?”
Passar shifted. He felt the blood rising to his head. Somehow exposing Alyx’s character to Samyara seemed like a real betrayal to him. As if, despite what he had done, he hadn’t quite crossed the line... yet.
Samyara stared at him, expectant. “Well?”
“Well...” No turning back, remember? “She would act on it. She wouldn’t wait for you to make the first move. She would
probably try to preempt it. She would try to steal the stones before you could.”
“Then we must steal them first,” Adere cried.
“No,” Samyara said, and a smile began to creep its way across his face. It chilled Passar down to his bones. “I have a better idea.”
* * *
Passar opened the door to his room. His left arm burned a little from the bloodink. Thankfully there wasn’t much left. He moved across the room towards the bed. His whole body, nay, his entire soul felt tired. Drained.
Without meaning to, he caught a glimpse of himself in the oval full-length mirror framed by engraved cherry wood in the corner. Even though Passar knew what he would see, the sight of his face still startled him.
Passar moved slowly towards the mirror. There, staring back at him, were the soft lines, the plump top lip and the clear blue eyes of Elijah.
Elijah seemed to stare accusingly back at him. What have you done?
“I’m doing this for you,” Passar whispered to the mirror. “Everything is for you, my love.”
In the mirror Elijah’s lips moved in time with Passar’s words, but in the depths of his eyes, Passar could see the sadness and disappointment. A wave of rage escaped his carefully controlled lake of emotions. “How dare you be disappointed?”
Before he knew what he was doing, Passar’s arm shot out and smashed against the mirror, shattering the reflection of Elijah’s face into fragments. The fragments now showed multiple pairs of blue eyes, all staring back at him in shock at what he had done. But what was worse, those eyes carried enough disappointment to crush him.
Chapter 23
As soon as she returned to Aradale, Alyx sent word to Tobias to make sure that everyone would be in his office in half an hour. She had news about the Black Stone. In the meantime, she took to the shower to wash the salt and the smell of shisha off her skin.
Alyx had just enough time to check in on Mini. She was pleased to find Mini sitting comfortably on her single bed in her new room with Ky. Ky was chattering away at her, telling her wild stories punctuated with even wilder arm motions. Thankfully, the girl didn’t seem to realize she was a prisoner in her new room.
Alyx felt a small sliver of guilt that she had barely any time for Mini lately. At least Ky had taken to her and was keeping her company for most of the day. It seemed that Ky was keeping the girl from retreating within herself.
Alyx realized that she had barely seen any other younglings while she had been here at Aradale. Ky must have had a lonely life before Mini came along.
Feeling somewhat whole again, Alyx headed to Tobias’s office and found the door was already open. Alyx moved into the doorway and froze. There on one side of the room were Israel and Vix, standing very close to each other. Very close to each other. Vix laughed a light laugh, and her hand went to Israel’s arm. Alyx’s blood began to boil. She began to entertain visions of slicing Vix’s hand off.
But worse, Israel was doing nothing to stop her. Her mouth went dry when Israel laughed as well and leaned his face in closer to her. A stab of pain shot through her gut. They seemed even closer than before Israel had learned that Alyx had been keeping secrets from him.
Was this her fault? Did she drive Israel away with her secrets so that he was now turning to Vix? Was Israel doing this to pay her back for keeping secrets from him?
What about you with Jordan, huh? A voice inside her accused. She pushed this away.
“You gonna stand there all day or you gonna let the rest of us in?” Marin’s gruff voice from behind her reminded her that she was still frozen in the doorway, gawking. Israel and Vix both looked over.
Don’t let him see that you care. Alyx held her face like stone and strode into the room, picking a chair as far away from them as possible. She refused to look at either of them. She ignored Dianne’s glare as she entered after Marin.
Jordan was the last to arrive, sitting in the empty chair next to Alyx, greeting her with, “Hello, beauty.”
At least there was someone here who was happy to see her. In her periphery Alyx could see that Israel had stiffened in his chair. Good. A thought flashed across Alyx’s mind. Two can play at that game. Alyx gave Jordan the biggest smile that she could, even though her cheeks strained from the effort. She placed her hand over Jordan’s. Jordan smiled back at her and twisted his fingers through hers.
Guilt began to worm its way through her defiant cloud. Jordan really likes you. You shouldn’t be doing this.
Alyx could feel her smile beginning to falter. But she didn’t have the time to think about this right now as Tobias handed the meeting over to her.
Alyx cleared her throat and pulled her hand from Jordan’s. “The stones that have been stolen so far have been child’s play. There are four Black Stones left and they’re big. I discovered the location of them. Unfortunately, Samyara has as well.”
Alyx outlined everything that the RaceKeeper had told her about the four Black Stones.
“The RaceKeeper just told you all this?” Marin said. “Out of the goodness of his heart.” Apparently the RaceKeeper’s reputation was well known in Aradale, too.
“Well, no…” Alyx hesitated. She wasn’t sure how the Aradale Rogues felt about the night-races. But they would just have to put their prejudices aside. “I had to race for the information.”
There was a gasp and a few grumbles around the room.
“What the hell, Alyx?” she heard Jordan say under his breath. Israel was the only one around the table who didn’t look shocked.
Alyx frowned. “Can we stop focusing on how I got the information and start talking about what we’re going to do about it?”
“Obviously, we need to get to it before the Darkened,” Israel said.
“So… we steal the Black Stone pieces first?” asked Alyx.
“Hell yes,” cried Marin. “Finally, a real plan.” He looked like he was ready to leap out of his seat and start kicking down doors that very minute.
“But… stealing?” said Dianne.
Alyx frowned, remembering how she and Israel had argued about stealing when she had caught him stealing food in the el Souq markets of Saint Joseph.
Now… what choice did they have? They couldn’t let the Darkened steal the remainder of the Black Stone and make weapons out of them.
“Would you feel better if you didn’t think of it as ‘stealing’ but as ‘borrowing’?” Israel said, directing this to Dianne. “We would just be relocating the Black Stones until it was safe to return them.”
“But…”
“Israel’s right. We have to relocate them before the Darkened steal them,” Alyx said. She noticed that her agreement seemed to take Israel by surprise. But his features hardened when they locked eyes.
“Is this something we can agree on?” asked Tobias. “All in favor raise their hands.”
Everyone around the room raised their hands with varying speeds. Dianne acquiesced, raising hers last.
“So how do we do this?” asked Vix.
It was Jordan who spoke first. “First, we’ll need to undertake some sort of reconnaissance on these four places. We need to see what we’re dealing with. See what the layout of the places are, who is guarding them, what times of the day are quietest. That kind of thing.”
“We’ll split up,” said Tobias. “Does anyone have a preference for location?”
Vix spoke up, “I’m best to take the China location. I used to live in that area.”
Tobias nodded. “It’s just a reconnaissance mission, Vix. Don’t approach the monks there, especially not after what the RaceKeeper said. Not until we know what we’re dealing with.”
Was it Alyx’s imagination or did Vix turn a shade paler than usual?
Tobias continued, “That goes for everyone else as well. Got it? Okay then. Lukas you take Saudi Arabia. Marin, you take Lima. Jordan you go to Florence with Alyx. I’ll send a swallow on ahead to the closest FreeThinker communities in Florence, Lima and Saudi Arabia and see if they can prov
ide a guide. We’ll meet back here as soon as we can.”
Tobias was met with nods around the table.
“What do I do?” said Israel. “I can’t just sit here doing nothing.”
“You can’t come with us. You can’t fly. You’d only be weighing us down,” said Jordan. His voice was matter-of-fact, but Alyx detected a challenge in his eyes. Alyx could see Israel’s eyebrows pull into hard angry lines. Israel opened his mouth, no doubt to respond in anger. But then he closed it and sank back into his chair with his arms crossed.
Tobias nodded. “Check in with me as soon as you get back. Good luck. Remember the Darkened may already be canvassing the locations as well. So be careful.”
The room rumbled with noise as everyone started to get up and leave. Alyx was anxious to get out of this room without having to deal with either Israel or Dianne. But Jordan grabbed her arm, holding her in place. He bent his head down to her, a look of annoyance on his face. “That was stupid of you to go off on your own, especially to a night-race. Why didn’t you get me?”
Alyx bristled and snatched her arm out of Jordan’s grasp. “I don’t have to get your permission to do anything.”
Israel snorted as he passed them both, having evidently heard their exchange. “Now you know how I feel.”
When Alyx raised her eyes to Israel, she found his gaze fierce and cold, eyes like two hazel stones. He didn’t slow down as he strode from the room, leaving Alyx’s heart in her throat and feeling that she had destroyed everything between them beyond repair.
Alyx pushed Israel from her mind and turned to Jordan again. “I took the opportunity when it arose, okay? Everything turned out fine. Better than fine. I got the locations of the Black Stone, didn’t I?”
Jordan rolled his eyes. “That’s not the point, Alyx. It was an unnecessary risk that could have turned out horribly for you.”
Alyx sighed. “Please. Do we have to argue about this? What’s done is done.”
Jordan’s face softened. “No, you’re right. I just worry about you, that’s all. Are you ready to go?”
