The Rise (The Alexa Montgomery Saga)

by Gordon, H. D.

It was Camillia. She strode into the room with the air of the Queen she was, glancing between me and Kayden as if she knew exactly what had been going on in here. I folded my arms over my chest, probably looking like a child having a temper tantrum in my oversized shirt. I could feel the heat in my cheeks, but I ignored it.

  “Look, Camillia,” I said. “This better be good—”

  “Oh, I would imagine so,” she said, cutting me short. Her eyes flicked between Kayden and me again, the ghost of her former smirk lifting her lips. Sadness was still written clearly in the lines of her face. I was just doing my best not to seem embarrassed or ashamed. I was an adult now, and with what was being asked of me, I felt entitled to do what I wished behind closed doors. Or at least, that’s what I kept telling myself as Camillia’s gray eyes studied me.

  “She was lying to you,” Camillia said, cutting into my thoughts.

  My brow furrowed. “What? Who was lying to me?”

  Camillia came over to the bed and flopped down beside me, then bounced back up, as if she’d touched something dirty. Now it was my turn to smirk. “Relax,” I said. “Nothing happened here.” Yet. I could feel the word hanging in the air, but pretended I didn’t notice.

  Camillia sat down again, gathering her bedclothes around her. “My sister,” she said. “She was lying when she told you that there is no Seer here. There is one.”

  I saw Kayden go tense again, just the slightest flex of his muscles that I don’t think anyone ever noticed but me. I studied Camillia for a moment, trying to decide whether or not I trusted her. The answer came quickly. I didn’t. “You lied to me,” I said. “You told me my Mother was dead. That you found her body ‘drained dry,’ if I remember correctly. And yet, I found her, didn’t I? And do you know where she was?”

  My temper hit the roof like an explosion, the way it always did when I got really upset. My jagged fingernails dug into the raw skin of my palms and I pushed my fists into the bed, leaning forward now. Camillia was leaning back, her face calm, but her fear betraying her in the grays of her eyes. “You must understand—”

  “What must I understand?” I growled, and Camillia’s hand flew up to her throat, as if she expected me to spring forward and tear open her neck. Actually, that idea didn’t sound half bad right now.

  Easy, Warrior. Easy now, my Monster crooned murderously in my head. She came here with information that might help Nelly. I don’t know about you, but I’d say the chance is worth hearing her out. If she’s lying, then we ‘tear her throat open. ’A laugh. Very eloquently put, but the way.

  The tension in the room seemed to me to be about as thick as cold honey, as if the air had stopped moving altogether. I forced myself to take a deep breath and rolled my shoulders. “Okay,” I said, half a growl still carrying my tone. It couldn’t be helped. “Tell me what you want to tell me.”

  Camillia took so long in answering that I wasn’t sure she was even going to. Just as my patience was wearing out, she said, “First, I want to tell you I’m sorry about your mother, Diana. I’m sure that means nothing coming from me, but I do mean it. I told you that she was dead because I was ordered to do so. I think you can guess by whom. Two Rivers has been under the King’s watch from the moment you arrived there. I did the things I did, told you the things I told you to protect you and your sister, though I don’t expect you to believe that.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I don’t.” I waved my hand. “But get on with it. What about this Seer?”

  Kayden had been so silent, leaning against the wall in the corner of the room, that I had almost forgotten he was there. Now he moved in that impossibly fast way of his to stand beside the bed, and was glaring down at Camillia. Whether it was because she knew that Kayden wouldn’t hit her, or that she was just genuinely more afraid of me, Camillia didn’t even flinch.

  “Yes, your Majesty,” he said, “What about a Seer?”

  Camillia met his gaze steadily, and some sort of silent message seemed to be passing between the two of them. My anger raised the roof again. “Seriously?” I said. “What the hell aren’t you telling me?” I looked at Kayden. “Why do you keep tensing all up every time someone says Seer?” My eyes flipped to Camillia. “And why do you have a look on your face that whatever he’s upset about you agree with?”

  I wasn’t even sure that made sense. If I couldn’t punch or kick something when I was angry, I usually ended up jumbling my words with frustration. But looking at them, I saw that they understood me perfectly, and that I was right.

  “Yes,” Kayden said. “Tell Alexa why going to a Seer for help is one of the worst decisions anyone—especially someone like her—can make.”

  Camillia sighed. “Oh, don’t act as though you think I wasn’t going to,” she said. “But she has the right to make the decision for herself.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah, thanks for finally hopping onto the same page as me. Now, tell me about the damn Seer.”

  Kayden had returned to his spot against the wall, his foot braced against it as he leaned back with his arms folded over his chest, golden eyes staring out of his lowered head. He was glowering like a giant-sized toddler. If the situation weren’t so serious, I might have laughed. Camillia just seemed to ignore him. “Seers don’t concern themselves with the matters of our world,” she said. “What they can do is considered Divine power. They are said to know the secrets of the universe, though because no Seer will ever reveal such things that is more an assumption than actual fact. They are blind and deaf and dumb, but they can move from place to place without ever entering a room. You ask of them an answer to any question, and if they do not want to share the solution to your problem, they don’t.”

  I sat silently, trying to take this all in, but Camillia continued. “There is one other thing.” She paused. “It’s a matter of superstition really, but then, most superstitions have some factual basis. Do you consider yourself superstitious, Alexa? Do you…believe in God?”

  That was an odd question, and I didn’t really like the way it made me feel. I had never given much thought to God, but then, I had never given too much thought to vampires or werewolves, either. I avoided the question with one of my own. “Why does it matter?”

  Camillia bit her lip the way one does when they are about to drop a bomb. I felt my stomach clench. “Well,” she said, “because Seers do not just give you the answers you seek, there is always a trade of some sort. They could ask you for anything, a lock of hair or the button from your shirt or your first born child, and if you refuse, you don’t get what you came for.”

  I sat back. “That all?” I asked.

  Camillia shook her head. “Not exactly. Some people believe that when you make a trade with a Seer you make a trade with the Powers Beyond.” She paused, letting this sink in. “Like selling your soul for all of eternity.”

  My eyebrows shot up and I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. “But that’s just what some people believe, right? It’s not necessarily true. I could at least go and see what the Seer would ask me for. That’s not so bad.” I looked to Kayden, who looked madder than a taunted bull, and back to Camillia.

  Her eyes flicked briefly to Kayden. “I wouldn’t imagine that that’s what has your Libra over there so upset,” she said, as if Kayden couldn’t hear us. “If you were just going to see what the Seer would ask of you, I don’t think he’d have a problem.”

  I looked at Kayden. “Then what’s the problem?”

  Camillia placed her dry, cold hand over mine, making me jump. Her eyes were full of sympathy when she spoke. “Because we all know that no matter what the Seer asks of you, you will agree to it if you think it will help you to save your sister. And I, on one hand, am willing to let you do that. I know firsthand how important Nelliana is. Wallace knows this too, but he, on the other hand, does not want you to do it.”

  Kayden’s expression confirmed this, and as I looked at him I could see that he was not simply angry, but afraid, for me. It made my heart hurt. His eyes seem
ed to beg me to say that what Camillia claimed wasn’t true, to tell him that I would be here with him forever, no matter what happened. But I couldn’t say those things. I couldn’t do those things. Camillia was right, and we all knew it. If I thought it would save Nelly, I would gladly sell my soul to the devil for the rest of eternity. That, if nothing else, was and has always been the one thing in my life that was of no question. Nelly came first.

  I pulled my eyes from Kayden and looked down at my small, scarred hands. “I want to see the Seer,” I said. “As soon as possible.”

  Camillia left after that. When I asked her when I was going to meet the Seer, she said, “You’ve said you wanted to see him. He is near enough to know about what you want. If he wants to make a trade, he will find you.”

  She shut the door behind her before I’d had time to argue. I turned around slowly, wishing that I could adjust the mood in the room as easily as I could adjust the temperature, which seemed to have dropped about ten degrees from the point it was at before Camillia had entered with her wonderful news. Suddenly, I felt very tired again, and all I wanted was to lie down and fall into the deep void of sleep.

  I went over to stand before Kayden where he leaned against the wall, and to my surprise, he drew me against him and wrapped his strong arms around me. I tilted my head back and looked up at him, wondering if it always hurt so much when you loved someone, if maybe that was the defining characteristic of what we call love. A small half-smile pulled up Kayden’s mouth, but his eagle-colored eyes betrayed his pain.

  Now, I felt like crying, but my eyes seemed to be as dry as my heart, and I gave Kayden a crooked smile of my own. “Will you come to bed with me?” I asked.

  He came. I fell asleep with my head on his chest and half of my heart in his pocket. The other half was with my sister. Always. Wherever the hell that was.

  Nelly

  I awoke in darkness, hunger pains stabbing through my midsection hard enough to make me curl in on myself. The ground beneath me was cold and hard, like frozen marble against the bare skin of my arms. Around me I could feel the black and red pulsing souls of the Accursed. Most of them were awake, and staring at me. I could sense their inky eyes regarding me in the silent darkness. I sat up.

  Something as cold and hard as the floor touched my hand, and I knew at once that a Lamia on my left side had placed her hand over mine. Her burning cold breath brushed up against my neck, stirring the hair there, but I didn’t shiver. Her voice, almost musical, but not quite, sounded in my head. Night has fallen, my Queen. What is it you wish us to do?

  I could feel the smile on my face, could feel my mind slowly unfurrowing, like tendrils of black smoke outward, beyond the walls of the mountain, over the hills and through the trees. Their energy sang out to me, beckoned me like the voices of angels. Something teased at the edge of some memory I couldn’t recall then, like a dream once upon a time, long gone and forgotten. I gripped the Lamia’s hand who had asked for my orders, and I stood, finding my feet in one fluid movement.

  My mind continued to roll outward, Searching for something to feed the beast that seemed to be howling in agonized hunger in my stomach. My throat burned with need as I found several human souls not too far in the distance, and when I breathed in I could almost smell the salty copper of their blood. I let my mind Search farther, and farther still, until it locked onto a soul that was as green as the earth itself, the blood running through its veins seeming like fresh rain water running under cool skin. I didn’t think I had ever Searched such a creature, and something inside of me seemed to jump in anticipation, like a dog begging for a promised piece of bacon. I judged the distance of the green soul. Not too far. Not too far at all.

  I’m hungry, I told my subjects silently, and was answered with hundreds of agreeing hisses. Another grin touched my lips. Their sounds filled the dark cavern so completely that the tiny hairs on my neck stood up on end. But I didn’t shiver.

  Lead us out of here. I will show you the way.

  The Lamia still holding my hand pulled me forward, and the others all around us parted like the Red Sea to let us pass, falling into step behind us, moving as silently as the night’s breeze. We crawled back through the tunnel I had come through to get here, its curves and sharp edges already familiar to me, like the placement of things in an old home. Soon I was emerging into the cool night air, finding my feet, the Lamia ahead of me taking my hand and leading me over to the cliff on the side of the mountain. Behind us Lamias were pouring out of the cave’s entrance like white beetles, taking spots beside me at the edge of the cliff.

  I tilted my head back, a breeze lifting my hair off my shoulders. Free from the mountain’s confines, the song of souls was so much clearer now, so strong that it stroked my skin in a gentle hum. Another sharp pain went through my stomach, and the tips of my feet at the edge of the rocks stumbled forward and found only air to cling to. What seemed like dozens of cold arms like stone snakes wrapped around me instantly and held me up. I looked to my left to see endless all-black eyes staring at me. I looked to my right. Same thing.

  My hand came up as if by its own volition and stroked one of the beautiful white faces that hovered so near me, the backs of my fingers sliding over her cold face like feathers brushed against pearls. Her name came to me then, as if it had been passed through my fingertips straight to my head.

  Carianna.

  My fingers lingered on her face, her fiery red hair blowing out behind her. Her mouth spread open in a wide grin, shark’s teeth springing up in jagged rows. She tilted her head into my touch, her eyes closing, dark lashes pressing down against smooth cheeks. Yes, my Queen, she told me. Carianna looked down over the cliff to the land that waited some fifty feet below. Do not be afraid. We glide on the night. It is ours. We will show you the way.

  She moved forward and stepped lightly off the cliff’s edge, falling through the air with speed and grace, hair billowing like a silky red flag behind her, disappearing into the tree tops. Others began to step off the cliff, sailing down in the same fearless, graceful manner of Carianna, who I could feel waiting for me in the distance below. For only a moment did I hesitate, but then I felt another hunger pain, more burning in my throat, the tug of the green soul in the distance, and I stepped forward into nothingness.

  I must have fallen very quickly, because I reached the ground in record time, but every detail of the descent was still clear to me – the way the air had lifted my hair along with my stomach, the brush of branches against my skin as I sailed down through the trees. My bare feet dug into the earth as I landed, my knees bending a little to soften the blow, though I wasn’t even sure that was necessary. The night air really had carried me, and had set me down as gently as its own child. Around me, Lamias poured down from the sky like milky rain.

  Then I was moving forward, quickly, quicker even than I had fallen from the mountain’s edge. My feet seemed not even to touch the earth but to glide over it, only skimming its surface every so often. My chest rose and fell as I moved faster, locking onto that interesting green soul in the distance, closer now. The scenery flipped by in blurs of light and vague shapes, clearly visible, but too many to take much account of. The burning in my throat turned into an aching throb. The beast inside my belly cried out in anticipation. My Lamias followed right on my heels.

  I came to a smooth stop and found myself standing atop a small hill, my subjects stopping with me. Below, accessed by a thin strip of road, backlit by the lights of some city, was a concrete structure that had flood lights surrounding it. From here I could hear loud music thumping inside, could smell the concentrated mass of warm bodies. Humans, mostly, about three hundred total. More than enough to satisfy the others. And that green soul was among them, rain water blood promising a sweet parchment of the burning in my throat, of the hunger in my soul.

  Come, I told them, and began my floating descent down the hill toward the entrance of the club. The Lamias followed in my wake, a sea of white death. There were people sta
nding in the parking lot, and I could feel the sharp stab of fear as the first few noticed us, and it send more tingling anticipation ablaze inside me. Without having to be told, a few Lamias darted forward, striking like human snakes, and sank fangs into the humans’ necks, cutting off any chance of any scream that could have been made. The rest of us continued to the building’s entrance like a silent cloud of smoke.

  The bouncer, a big burly man with tattoos trailing up his arms had been seized by Carianna, her white hand slapped over his mouth, blood streaming down his thick neck in scarlet rivers, his body jerking in her hold. The top of her fiery head was all I could see as she buried her fangs in his throat. Carianna moaned and hissed and slurped at the blood that sprang from his neck, and my stomach rumbled as loud as thunder in my ears.

  I pulled open the metal door of the club, and stepped inside. Bright, multi-colored flashing lights bounced off stone walls that were painted an aqua shade of blue. The music was deafening in here, a fast, pumping beat that rebounded annoyingly in my ears. On platforms behind cages scantily clothed dancers moved to the music. The warm, sweaty humans gyrated on the dance floor below them, holding colorful drinks in their hands that splashed out over their fingers. I took in the scene slowly, Searching for the thing I’d come for.