He didn’t mean to, but Jovian slept through most of the day, only waking when the groo stopped for breaks. That night Caldamron and Shelara joined Jovian and Maeven in the hunt for their dinner, while Joya, Angelica, and Russel stayed back to make camp.
There was no telling where they were now, though they were still in the mountains. Jovian couldn’t tell if they were in the Realm of Earth still, or if they had crossed into the Realm of Water by now. The mountains were pretty nondescript like that. All he knew was there was a carpet of snow beneath his feet, and an endless velveteen blanket of stars above.
Josephine knew that she was nearing the Turquoise Tower. She could feel it in her blood, tickling across her skin, toying with her mind. Since she’d started traveling to the tower, she’d stopped dreaming about it, but always she felt the seductive lure of the structure, calling her on, promising to reunite her with her father, Russel, whom she had thought dead for so many years now.
More than the pull of the tower, she wished to rejoin her father. That’s what truly pulled her on. But there was terror in her bones as well. She knew inside that everything was about to change, nothing would ever be the same after this, and the very realms themselves would suffer.
Josephine had come across other travelers along the way. She had felt the need to hide from them, not to let them know where she was going, though she could tell where they were going. She would take the time to lag behind, allowing them to get farther ahead than her, and often she would forsake way stations, even cutting wide around camp fires so that she wouldn’t be spied. She wasn’t sure why she felt the need for secrecy, but something inside of her warned of being spied, and so she kept to herself.
It made travel slow and arduous, but finally she made it into the Barrier Mountains. Days before she came upon the tower, she knew she was close. Josephine could feel it in her mind, like a thousand voices crying out in triumph to the light of a rising sun. Sure enough, the following afternoon she reached the tower, just as a giant earthquake rocked the ground beneath her.
Josephine hadn’t felt an earthquake in these parts in years, so she wasn’t sure what to do. She was in the mountains, and all kinds of loose stones and boulders tumbled her way. Sheer luck kept her out of the way of their crushing might.
As the earth trembled, the air went still, silent, like something menacing was coming. A dark power was growing on the air, and Josephine could feel an answering mourning in her soul. Something wasn’t right at all, and it saddened her and terrified her at the same time.
Her mind was filled with dark musings, as if another entity was implanting them into her mind. She could see the rivers of the Great Realms running red with blood. The fertile fields churned under cloven hooves, burning, smoldering, dead and barren. The empires of man became edifices of madness and terror before her mind’s eye.
Josephine came to herself, on her knees, retching onto the wet ground beneath her. She wiped her mouth, straightened herself, and tried to brush the mud and vomit from her knees. She scowled. Josephine was nervous about entering the field with all the angels as it was, but showing up in the state she found in herself now. . .
But then, into the silence of the air, swelled a cacophony of voices. They hooted, they jeered, and they thundered their triumph into the sky. Then she was deafened by the sound of hundreds of enormous wings taking flight.
Josephine sought refuge behind a fallen boulder, and watched as thousands of black wings spread up into the sky, arcing to the east, heading toward a point she didn’t know. Hours later, when the last of the wings faded into the eastern horizon, Josephine pushed to her feet, and made her way the last leg to her destination.
She was just in time to see another army of wings take flight, these ones white. They sped along after the black wings, and in time, she was alone, standing before the battlefield, red with blood, rife with dead angels of the legion and the host.
Her eyes followed an unsullied path up to the Turquoise Tower, sitting quiet and menacing in the distance. It glowed with a light of its own, pulsing out toward her. Now that she was standing before it in the flesh, she could feel the sheer terror that the dream didn’t capture. She knew the dream had spoken to her angel half, but the fear was played out in the part of her that was still human.
The tower was her death, the death of her human side. She quivered before the structure. It was beautiful beyond words, truly an alien structure, but it also flooded terror into every fiber of her being.
Behind her stones of fire began to rain from the sky, but they didn’t touch her here, and she couldn’t pull her attention away from the entrancing light of the Turquoise Tower.
The first wave of light that flashed from the tower took her in the stomach, or at least that was where she felt it. Josephine crumbled to the ground, feeling the bones and muscles in her back reforming, spreading apart, and making way. She remembered this process from her dreams, and so she tore at the back of her dress, making way for the wings that were about to tear their way free.
Another pulse of light, and she cried out as blinding white pain crippled her senses, her mouth frozen in a scream. Where was her father? Where was Russel? She wanted to look around for him, but another pulse of light tossed aside all thought of her father.
The skin along her back bulged wide, mounded up, roiled as her wings grew beneath the surface of her skin. And then, in a squelching noise she couldn’t hear, but felt all the same, the skin ripped wide open. Rivers of blood sluiced down her sides, mingling with the quantity of blood on the ground beneath her.
Large wings snapped open from her back, thin, transparent. The veins pumping blood across the surface shone like spider webs in the light of the setting sun. Quickly feathers grew, poking out of the skin and lengthening until her wings were covered in white.
What seemed like an eternity later, though it was really just a few minutes, the pain abated as the light ebbed back toward the tower. Josephine stood, her wings rippling out. She opened them wide, sunning them in the last, furtive rays of daylight.
In her reverie Josephine didn’t notice the terrible power growing in the tower until the earth trembled again. She opened her eyes, and like giant black wings, a shadow rose out of the tower, twisting and turning, and headed straight for the sun. There came a sudden halt to the earth, like time stood still, though Josephine knew it hadn’t because birds were still flying and she was still breathing. All the same, the air seemed to hang against her skin like a forgotten memory.
The darkness swarmed up out of the tower and coalesced around the red sun. She watched the shadows thicken, feeling the light robbed from the world. And there it stopped. The shadows hung like a veil of black sackcloth over the sun, stealing away the light, damning the realms to darkness.
When the transition was done, Josephine knew true terror.
Cianna had been traveling for a day. She was aware of the setting of a sun, and the rising of another. All the while the fallen flew, and all the while he held her tight. Her weapons were still with her; likely he didn’t think they were much harm to him, or that she wouldn’t be able to reach them. Even if she was able to draw her blade or crossbow, Cianna was miles above the ground, and hadn’t yet mastered the art of flying. She didn’t desire to die just yet.
She was aware of the point when they approached the Turquoise Tower, and not just because the fallen banked to the left and spiraled down toward the field of the previous angelic battle.
The other indication came in a pulse of light from below. In her dreams Cianna remembered the pulse rippling out to claim her. She never realized it shot up as well.
Daughter, welcome home, a voice said to her. It wasn’t the voice of her mother, yet it was decidedly female. Cianna’s body went stiff, but there wasn’t the searing pain her cousins had spoken of, for there was no humanity to burn off from her, only the illusion of humanity to crumble.
There was a shift in her awareness, like something else was forcing itself in, shrugging out
from some repository in her mind, and unfurling through every bit of her skull. It was like an awakening, and for a moment she saw light surrounding every object she could see.
When the light cleared, Cianna saw things more vividly than she had before. Colors stood out to her eyes in ways she hadn’t even thought possible. In fact, everything seemed to glow with color, rather than just having color.
The ruby of the bloodied ground danced up to her as the fallen set her down. Cianna could see the color like light, like sound, wavering to meet her feet.
There was pressure in her back, and Cianna rolled her shoulders to relieve it. Great mounds burst forth from her back, and she bit back a gasp. That hurt, she thought, surprised. But that was the only pain she felt with the coming of her wings.
Another pulse of light came from the tower, and when she looked up, a figure emerged from it. She knew that it was her father, though she couldn’t tell precisely how, since every inch of his figure was swathed in shadows.
But the figure stopped at the edge of the stairs to the tower, not coming any closer.
“Master, I’ve brought your daughter,” the male fallen said, stepping closer. Arael made a motion, and the fallen angel stepped back, bowing low in supplication.
Bring me the medallion, Cianna heard in her mind, and her feet obeyed. But she stopped as a force of pure white light slid across her awareness.
Do not do it, Cianna, she heard the voice of Pharoh speak in her mind. Then she understood. Arael hadn’t needed the medallion, he had wanted it. He had intended on killing Pharoh all this time, and destroying the medallion would achieve this end.
Cianna backed further away from the figure at the tower.
You think you have the will to disobey? Her father said again. You are weaker than me.
“But I’m more than you. I’m half of you, and half of Pharoh,” Cianna said.
“Right now there’s nothing of Pharoh left in you,” the fallen angel said. He reached up and plucked a feather from her wings. When he held it up to her face, Cianna stumbled back.
A black feather.
“No,” Cianna said.
“Fallen, like me,” the voice of her father drifted with ease over the great expanse. “Pharoh has no power over your soul, just as she has no power here. You will give that medallion up, even if I have to take it from you with force.”
Cianna stepped back further, but a ripple of power went through her, a dark force, and whatever reason she knew was swept away. She recognized the power of Arael, and her spirit answered. Cianna dropped to her knees, bowing in supplication to her father.
“Bring her to me,” he said.
The fallen stepped forward, but again that pure force swept over Cianna. She thumped her wings to help her stand and skipped backwards away from the angel, drawing her blade.
The fallen laughed at her, but Arael didn’t. Somehow Cianna thought he had planned this, and he was watching to see what would happen. But when the fallen spoke again, the thought left her.
“You think blades can hurt me?” he asked.
“Obviously you’ve never met my blades,” Cianna said.
The fallen came for her, and as she skirted out of his way, buffeting him with her wings, she made a shallow jab into his knee.
He stopped, gripped his knee and pulled away fingers tinted with blood. He looked up at her, his resolve shaken. Disbelieving what had happened, that Cianna had injured him, the fallen looked to Arael for instruction. While he was distracted Cianna darted forward, jamming the rapier deep into his head.
And then a force inside of her welled up, and she let it loose. Power thrummed down the blade like a crackle of lightning, vanquishing the fallen where he stood. He turned to dust, his remains drifting to the bloodied ground.
There, at the tip of her blade, floated a pin prick of light, his essence. She reached for it, feeling the power of the legion coursing through her body. The necromancy called to the point of light, and it responded to her call, floating to her hand.
Cianna gripped the essence, feeling the intelligence of the angel she had smote within the light. She could feel his warmth, she could feel his power. And when she placed it on her tongue, she could feel the sustenance his death brought to her body.
She closed her eyes. Such power, she thought.
When she opened them again the world was cast in shadowed light through the veil of blackness that covered her eyes.
There was another here, one of the host, and Cianna would feast on her light as well.
Behind her there was a gasp, and Cianna turned eyes that were now only globes of blackness on the blonde behind her. White wings lifted into the air behind the angel and she beat at the air, rising off the ground. She turned to retreat, but Cianna wouldn’t let her go.
She flicked the blood off her rapier, and took flight after the blonde.
“Please don’t,” she cried. “I only came here looking for my father!”
The cries for help fueled a hunger deep inside Cianna, and she savagely tore through the air after the angel. Though the angel seemed weak, there was an agility to her flight that gave Cianna the slip several times. But finally she met with her, crashing straight into the angel’s body. Cianna pounded her black wings hard, driving them both to the ground.
“Stop!” the blonde held up her hands, and there was a bright flash, repelling Cianna. The ghost of white power came back over Cianna, shaking the darkness that gripped her mind. She savagely brushed it aside.
The blonde angel looked at her hands incredulously, but as Cianna charged her, she held her hands out and the white light blasted at Cianna again in a tendril of power.
Cianna held up her hand, and darklight responded, connecting to the beam of white light and driving it away. The angel was stronger than Cianna thought; several times she gave ground to her. But there was a shimmer of fear in the girl, and Cianna worked on that.
She unleashed the might of her necromancy into the bolt, and instead of fighting it any longer, Cianna drank in the power, pulling on the white light. The pure power pulsing down the bolt didn’t effect Cianna, because she was consuming the essence of the angel.
Before long the angel faltered, her energy drained to the point of exhaustion. Cianna fluttered her wings and glided the distance to the angel.
When the blonde slid off the tip of Cianna’s rapier it was in a puff of dust, leaving behind only a pin point of light.
Cianna gripped the light, pulling it toward her. This one was warmer than the last, and there was a familiar hum to it. As Cianna placed the light on her tongue, she tasted the essence of Josephine, and a name burst into Cianna’s mind: Russel.
Deep inside the recesses of her mind, Cianna recognized the name.
Grace existed in darkness.
The pain in her broken body allowed her spirit to transcend to a place where pain couldn’t reach, to a place where thought and needs were irrelevant. She stood on a white shale road. To her right came the whispers and sighs of an ebbing and flowing ocean. To her left, off in the darkness, there existed a white glow, indistinct, like ethereal fog over a cemetery.
There was no sign of the moon. The moon was dark. It was her moon. The moon that called to the Crone aspect that she, the Moonchild, existed in.
The white shale road stretched before her into oblivion. Behind her there was nothing but a wall of shadows. Grace let her feet carry her over the shifting road, on into the night that wasn’t night. It was power. It was her power.
In time her feet carried her to a crossroads, and as she neared it, she felt her power grow.
At the center of the crossroads, where normally there would be a town marker giving direction, instead sat an iron-framed mirror. As she approached, her heart quickened. She knew within the mirror existed her truth, the way out of this darkness of the land between life and death.
But the creature that lived within the mirror wasn’t Grace. It certainly looked like Grace, with a startling black robe that made her
skin appear paper thin, waxy, and dead. Her eyes were painted in scarlet, her hair combed back, like a silver lake flowing over her shoulders.
The figure studied Grace. Upon the reflection’s shoulder sat a raven. In her hand the other Grace held a scale.
The figure didn’t speak, but when it had pleased itself with its study, she motioned for Grace to follow. The reflection turned away from her and walked further into the nothingness that existed beyond the surface of the mirror.
As if knowing precisely what the figure wanted, Grace stepped into the mirror. The surface broke over her like cool water, refreshing her, enlivening her.
Once again Grace knew pain. Crippling, mind-numbing pain. But only for a moment, before her body shifted, turned liquid. Then, with the feeling of her bones pulling through her skin, Grace was lifting up, drifting and shifting around shapes that bound her.
There was a thrum of death in the air, and it called to her spirit.
Once more Grace knew physicality, her body taking shape. Only after she was fully formed did Grace open her eyes and see the ruination of Lytoria. Her eyes studied the fallen buildings, the smoldering ruin of houses under fallen stones that glowed with an angry fire. Another power called to her then, shifting her awareness from the fallen bodies and onto something worse — the march of the dead. The noise of the dying and the dead came to her ears in a rush of sound that nearly deafened her.
She stood atop the rubble that had become of the High Basilica, looking down as an army of madness swept through the streets.
Burning flesh wafted to her nose, harrowing her spirit.
She called out to the death before her with the power of the dark moon that hammered in time with her heart. The army of the dead stopped their progression and turned to her. The humans continued fighting.
The Turquoise Tower (Revenant Wyrd Book 6) Page 21
