“Stay here,” Hilda told Justice, her hand resting protectively on his shoulder even as her eyes studied the creature outside. She unlocked the door and stepped out into the bitter air, pulling her house coat closer to her. The door thumped closed behind her.
Hilda looked up, but there were no more objects racing toward the apex where the others had met their end. There was also no more falling debris. Her feet took her ever closer to the twisted form that puffed black smoke into the still afternoon air.
Black feathers were the first thing she noticed. Black feathers and charred human flesh.
Hilda stumbled back as the shape of the figure became apparent. A blonde woman lay on the ground before her, her hair melted and tangled from fire, her wings nearly bare of the black feathers that had been scorched away from some attack high in the heavens. She looked to have been wearing a length of black cloth wrapped around her, but it was now mostly burned away.
She was broken and bloody, her body twisted in an odd way that couldn’t have happened if her bone structure was still intact. In her hand she held an ebon blade, and Hilda reached for it, before pulling her hand back. There was something perverse about that blade, something that twisted her mind petulantly.
The almost perfectly white skin was charred so badly in some places that Hilda, now close enough to discern the form better, could see splotches of blood and raw meat where the skin had cracked with heat.
With a hand to her throat, she turned. For a moment she could have sworn she saw one of the lumps on the ground move.
This can’t be happening, she thought, her eyes traveling over each of the numerous forms smoking on the ground around her small log cabin.
“Justice,” she called, racing back to the house. “Start packing your things!”
The door was open. Why was the door open? Hadn’t she closed it when she came out?
Hilda burst through the doorway at a full run, only to come to a sliding stop as the scene unfolded before her.
The table lay on the floor in ruin, Justice’s chair beside it. A massive black-winged figure took up most of the common room, his wide back to her, his bald head bent over something. Blood dribbled on the floor, creating a small puddle at the fallen’s bare feet.
Hilda skirted around the edge of the room, her destination the long sword that hung above the fireplace. The sword she never thought she would have to use, and indeed hadn’t used since Davin died.
But then the black-winged figure turned, and its coal eyes fell on her. Justice fell from the angel’s hands, crumpling to the floor, his eyes sightless, his face ashen. He looked at her with his dead, brown eyes, and she felt an accusation there. She should have been inside helping her son, not out there investigating.
A cry froze in her throat when she saw the twin puncture marks on Justice’s throat, and the spill of crimson blood that stained the top of his white tunic.
“Amazing what a little food can do for the system,” the fallen spoke. His voice was like something echoing out from beyond the Black Gates. Hilda fell to her knees, as if her body had lost all will to continue holding her up. “Already I feel stronger.”
The fallen held up his hand, and Hilda couldn’t help but look at him. Where his skin had been charred it was starting to look healthy, whole once more. In a symphony of squelches and pops his wings began reforming, looking less broken and tangled. As he arched his wings above his head, scraping the ceiling, Hilda could see long black feathers forming from the once bare skin of his wings.
“Almost complete . . . just need a little more.” The fallen smiled down at her as he drew closer.
The fallen stepped out of the house, dropping the dead form of Hilda unceremoniously at his feet. His eyes traveled up to the peaks of the Barrier Mountains. It was up there that his master thought they traveled.
More of the host, his mind thought. Even thinking about the heavenly host, and their cursed offspring, made his skin itch. What he wouldn’t give to drain their blood, gain the strength that only came from killing an angel.
While he wasn’t part of the sentry, he was so close already, it would be such a shame to let them slip through his fingers when he could turn this failure into praise from his master.
With a powerful beat of his wings, Asfrodium lifted off the ground and into the sky, headed for where the LaFayes traveled towards the Turquoise Tower.
Moonchild, the voice called into the darkness of Grace’s dream.
The pleasant dreams of the times before Arael came vanished in the blink of an eye, replaced by a serene vision of the field of flowers swaying in the fertile breeze. In the distance she could make out the twisted branches of her tree, and Grace meant to set her feet to the path, but something stopped her.
A hand on her arm turned her around, and before her was the starry-eyed Goddess, fat with child. She smiled at Grace, and Grace smiled back. Reverence filled the air, and Grace’s eyes were drawn to the silvery points of light that glittered like gems in the inky strands of the Goddess’s hair.
“You’ve lived before,” the Goddess told her. “And have worn many names.” She motioned to the path before her. Grace fell in step beside the barefooted Goddess. The Goddess carried herself with a poise that Grace thought she would never possess, no matter what incarnation she found herself in.
“Yes, I suspect many people have,” Grace told the Goddess. “It’s part of the teaching in the Carloso. ‘Many lives will man live.’”
“That is not what I speak of,” the Goddess told her, the hint of a smile toying with the corners of her lips. “You’ve lived through many ages and many disasters. You are what we call a Harbinger of Light. You are born in times when the Light needs a champion against the Dark.”
Grace’s breath caught in her throat. She had lived many ages in this body and never before had she heard of the Harbingers of Light.
“But what are they?” Grace asked. “Besides champions?”
“Defenders of humanity. They champion the Light in times when the Darkness seems on the brink of winning. They are born when they are needed most, and where they are needed most. They are the heroes of legend. They are powerful beyond compare, and granted power from the forces of Light. Each power is different, but each makes the Harbinger strong.”
“So you call them when you need them most?”
“It is not I that controls their birth; a greater force works through them. In ages past there were a great many of them, trained on another plane, and dispensed where necessary. And then a great catastrophe happened. The moon of the world they were trained on was swallowed, heralding the end of days. They were drowned out, destroyed, but their power lived on in the Light, to be created again when the time came.” The Goddess led her around a small bend in the road, and Grace marveled at how far the field of flowers stretched. As far as she could look to her right and in front of her the field faded into the haze of the distance.
“Controlling an elemental doesn’t seem to be that much of an advantage,” Grace pondered. “Many people can control elementals. In fact, my wyrd is weak compared to what sorcerers can do.”
“That’s not your power,” the Goddess told her.
“Then what is?” Grace wondered.
The Goddess turned to Grace. “It is easier for you to see, Moonchild, what your power is.” The Goddess placed her hands on either side of Grace’s belly, and in a heartbeat that shuddered through her body and quaked the air, Grace was transported to another time and place.
She stood in another form atop a pyramid of basalt, staring down at a sea of prostrate humans. She felt different than humans, more than humans, and the object of their reverence. She lifted her hands before her eyes, and saw they were covered in fur, paws, like she was part feline. Black fur covered her entire body, and while she had the figure of a human, somehow she knew her head was that of a cat. Upon her body she wore a toga, which flowed in cotton waves around her lithe frame.
In her hand she held a scepter with some kind
of loop atop the end. Directly under the loop rested a cross-piece. Though she’d never heard the word before in her life, she knew the name for this symbol was an ankh. The key to everlasting life.
She closed her eyes and bowed her head. Again thunder shivered the air, and she was transported once more.
It was her second form, the crow, with which she wheeled above battle, looking down at the bloodied earth. This was her domain. Death. She alighted atop a mountain and in the blink of an eye, much less painful than what her sisters endured when they shifted, she changed back to her human form. Along her back ran a cloak of raven feathers, into which her black hair disappeared, as well as a sword with which she had severed many strings of fate.
Again she looked down on the humans below as something other than human.
The last time the air shuddered around Grace, and she was in another place and time.
Nothing was unknown to her. She was mistress of the sky, sea, and earth. She was the woman of wisdom, the keeper of sorceries and necromancies. She was the hag in the night that ushered souls through the crossroads of death, and she was the keeper of the torch of knowledge, and the keys of life ever after.
In the other visions she’d had Grace knew she was physical, but this form wasn’t physical in the strictest sense. She knew she resided in some space and time, but it was different than the physical plane she now lived on.
Like ink clearing from her eyes, Grace came back to the present, her mind lulled by the sound of pollinating bees and the hush of the wind over the flowers.
“I’m chaotic?” Grace asked.
The Goddess shook her head, stardust floating around her form with the movement. “No, those are the other lives you’ve lived that mirror this form you take, Moonchild. If you are the child of the moon, then these visions you’ve seen represent your incarnations as the dark moon. You’ve been born many times, as a maiden and a mother.”
“But how were those forms helping humanity at all?” Grace wondered.
“In ways you can’t begin to understand. Your past is riddled with war and strife, as all Harbingers’ are. You were carrying out a duty, nothing more.”
Grace thought she was beginning to understand, but how in the Realms could she bring herself to believe what the Goddess was telling her? How was she to believe that what she was hearing was even real?
“In time,” the Goddess told her. “You will believe. Follow your instincts, Grace.”
And as she rose through the waves of sleep and into wakefulness, Grace heard a word that had been used by many people to describe her through the years: Crone.
Upon waking, Grace tried telling herself it was a dream, it was nothing more than a dream, but as she went about her morning routine, readying herself for her vigil at Rosalee’s side, Grace began to realize one thing.
There was a power inside of her, a power that she knew from times past, a power that reflected the incarnations of those merciless women she’d been shown in her dreams.
She shook her head to clear it of such thoughts, and tried to relax into the hum of the city outside her window.
Cleaned and dressed, she made her way to the base of the Ivory Tower, to the infirmary where Rosalee and Dalah were being kept.
To her delight Rosalee and Dalah were both awake when she pushed through the double doors and into the warm infirmary. They were sitting up on their cots, eating soup and chatting to one another. If Rosalee was fazed by the loss of her limb, Grace couldn’t tell.
But Grace was fazed by it. This changed her friend, handicapped her. Her heart went out to Rosalee and how she would have to learn the basic functions of life again, this time with a wooden leg.
There was joy in Rosalee’s eyes when she saw Grace, and she read the worry there accurately.
“It could have been worse,” Rose said. She reached for Grace’s hand, and clasped it tight to her chest. “I could have died. Dalah saved me.”
“Yes, all my cushioning stopped those rocks from squashing us,” Dalah joked. Rosalee laughed. Grace frowned.
“Oh, Grace,” Rosalee said. “You’ve never been the one to joke.”
“Not about matters that shouldn’t be joked about,” Grace said.
“Well, part of me really wanted to go. You know, when I was out I saw the Goddess?” Rosalee said.
Suddenly Grace’s ears perked up. “What did she say?”
“Nothing, it was all me. I told her ‘please let me die, I can’t stand to be around Grace a second longer.’ I don’t think it was the Goddess, though; she laughed as she sent me back into my body,” Rosalee said.
Grace rolled her eyes and jerked her hand away. “I don’t even know why I was so worried about you.”
“I think you hurt her feelings, Rose,” Dalah said.
“Nonsense, Grace doesn’t have feelings.”
Grace huffed.
“But in all seriousness, I won’t be able to go with you to Lytoria. We’ve heard that’s where you’re going, to stand against Arael’s forces.”
Grace nodded. She felt better that Rosalee would be here, most likely out of danger.
“When do we leave?” Dalah asked.
“Are you going?” Grace asked.
“Try to keep me away and see what happens.”
“I haven’t heard yet,” Grace said with a nod.
“It should be soon, from what that fallen said. . .” Rosalee leaned back on the bed and closed her eyes. “But this has been too exciting for me. I think I need some rest.”
As it turned out, and Grace discovered later in the day, they were leaving in the morning for Lytoria. Again, they would be traveling by rojo. The tower became a beacon of activity, and through the night messengers came and went, preparing an army that would take much longer to get to the Holy See than Grace’s group, since the battalion wasn’t teleporting there.
Russel had watched the objects in the sky without objection. He knew what they were. Deep down in his soul, he had known they were fallen angels ascending the heights of the physical world, seeking entry to the Ever After. He knew the LaFayes understood that too, even if they wouldn’t admit it to themselves.
And then the Goddess had smote them. The half-breeds turned angel weren’t powerful enough to enter the gates of the Ever After without the permission of the Goddess. Only one of full angel blood was strong enough to force entry without invitation.
And he traveled with one angel of such power.
Cianna, despite not fully understanding it, wasn’t a half-breed. Though her creation was purely human, she was still full angel, and if used properly, she could propel herself through the gates and into the Ever After just as surely as her father could.
“So tell me more about your daughter,” Angelica asked the second day after they had seen the fallen angels attempt their exit from this world and entry into the next.
“What would you like to know?” Russel wondered. He liked this one, the way her golden hair framed her face, and the way her blue eyes sparkled in the light of the morning sun. It made him sad for what he would have to eventually do to her.
“I don’t know, you make it sound like you were forced apart, like you didn’t know she was still alive, and vice versa.”
Russel smiled, and for several more yards he didn’t say anything, just listened to the wind along the mountains, and the hushed conversations of their companions.
“Kind of.”
So he told Angelica the story of how his wife, Jolyn, had died at an early age, and his daughter had been lost in a flood that year. He had searched for her everywhere he could, but when the Realm of Water decided that someone was to be lost to the marshes, they typically didn’t resurface.
“And so I wandered, traveled, selling my sword where I could to get by until I took up residence in the Realm of Earth. I wanted a change from what I had experienced before, a place that wasn’t deluged with water.”
“I’m sorry,” Angelica told him.
He only nodded and fell sile
nt. Russel hated having to lie to her. What am I to do? Tell her the truth? He nearly scoffed out loud at the thought. There’s no way she would understand and not fear him. Mythology had a lot of fear surrounding his kind, he couldn’t blame her if she didn’t understand what he was.
He didn’t realize he was staring at her until she smiled and asked, “What?”
Russel blushed and averted his eyes. “Nothing,” he said, and then smiled.
“What’s that?” Cianna asked, drawing to a stop, cutting off further conversation.
“Where?” Angelica wondered.
“Up there,” Maeven pointed, for he could see it too.
But whatever they were seeing was lost behind a wash of frozen moisture in the air. At times the frozen mist seemed to part, and at those times Russel could certainly see something behind it. At first he thought it was only light, a strange blue-silver light that dazzled the eyes and made him dizzy. But there was something to the light, something that called to a power inside of him. Along his back he felt his skin ripple. He hissed, slightly from the pain of something pressing against his skin, under his shoulder blades, and partially from the thrill the sensation sent through his being.
Inside he felt the two halves of him struggle together. He felt the human side completely captivated by the erratic light flickering from beyond the mist. The angel side seemed to draw power from it, and knew what it was seeing, even before his eyes could fully comprehend what was being revealed to him.
He reached for Angelica’s hand and grasped it in his own. He didn’t like the feeling of uncertainty that came through him. Russel understood and accepted what he was, but even then, even though he had far more knowledge of the angel he would become than the LaFayes did, feeling his other half basking in the light slithering across the snowy planes toward them quelled his spirit. He worried that when his human half was burned away at the Turquoise Tower, there would be little left of Russel.
His gaze flickered to Angelica, and he wondered if he would feel the same for her, when his wings unfurled from his back and he was remade in the image of the Goddess. Would he have such human emotions as love? He shook his head. Better not think of that.
The Turquoise Tower (Revenant Wyrd Book 6) Page 9
