Shadow Rising (The Shadow World Book 7)

by Dianne Sylvan

  It was quiet and dark aside from the fireplace, and only he, Ashera, and two other Acolytes were there. He couldn’t come up with their names, but it didn’t matter just now; they were here to tend to him as Acolytes had done for their High Priests and Hallowed for centuries.

  He was on the floor, and pieces of the room came together: A bedroom, most likely adjacent to the temple room. At some point they’d brought him in here.

  “What…” His voice was hoarse.

  “You fell,” Ashera said simply. “As soon as She departed, you collapsed. We knew what to do.”

  Yes, they would have; Xara would have been exhausted after an invocation ritual too, though probably not to this extent. He thought far, far back to his own days in the Cloister; the Acolytes had done the same for Eladra, taking her somewhere dark and peaceful, making sure she fed and rested while the rest of the Cloister spent the night celebrating.

  Fed…

  Deven looked around, confused—he had killed, he knew he had, but whom—

  He remembered the voice even as his eyes fell on the body beside him.

  “Siobhan,” he said softly. “Oh, no.”

  Ashera touched the human’s too-still face; her eyes were already closed, her hands folded on her belly. Her expression wasn’t the slack blankness he was used to seeing on the dead. She looked completely serene.

  “She said she had offered herself,” Ashera told him, staring down at the woman, smiling a little. “She said she was ready.”

  “Ready—”

  He barely got the word out before Siobhan’s body shuddered, and she gasped, a cry escaping her. Her eyes flew open, and her arms flew out, madly groping for something to hold onto.

  Deven stared, bewildered. Ashera let Siobhan grab hold of her and held her close, murmuring to her gently, telling her she was safe.

  Siobhan’s wide, wild eyes fixed on Deven, and he recognized the look. Siobhan worked a hand free of Ashera’s arms and reached out to him, panicking as her body reacted to dying and waking in the space of minutes…just a pale imitation of what she was about to face.

  He took her hand. “Be at peace, child,” he told her, staying as calm as he could though his heart and mind were racing. “She’s still with you. Close your eyes. Breathe.”

  She did as she was told, and slowly got herself under control. He gripped her hand tightly, and Ashera held onto her, and gradually her shaking and gasping stopped.

  “Remember the Affirmation,” Ashera said to her. “Say it with me.”

  Siobhan whispered harshly, but the words came. “The Raven Mother brought me forth…She dwells within me, as me, all around me. Her hands are my hands, Her voice is my voice, Her heart is my heart. The Raven Mother brought me forth…”

  Deven remembered those words. They were given to every novice who came to the Order to use as a mantra; some Cloisters also had beads they held while repeating it, like a rosary. Over time there were dozens more prayers added to their repertoire, along with chants, songs, and poetry, but there was always the Affirmation to return to. Hearing the words made his eyes burn with memory…and with something like joy, like coming home.

  He leaned his forehead against Siobhan’s and spoke along with her for a moment, his free hand taking Ashera’s. He could feel the transformation beginning in Siobhan’s body; would she sleep, he wondered, or suffer? He’d never been privy to the mysteries of the Blood-Bound…but now they were his mysteries too.

  Hang the mysteries; he wasn’t going to let her hurt if he could help it. “Sleep, little one,” he told her softly. “Rest in Her arms while you change and come back to us when you’re ready.”

  Her fear was fading, and so was her consciousness; before long, as he’d hoped, she was out.

  Ashera gestured to the other two Acolytes, who came and picked Siobhan up and carried her over to the bed.

  Deven’s head was spinning. He wasn’t drained like before, but he was still physically exhausted as if he’d been fighting for his life.

  “Are you well, Hallowed One?” Ashera asked.

  He nodded. It wasn’t really a lie; he would be fine. “How are the others?”

  She smiled. “Rejoicing,” she said. “I wish you could have seen them all, when She had gone and we were all waking up. I have never seen such happiness in so many people at once. Some wept, some laughed. Some needed solitude but most have started a party in the temple.”

  “What about the Elf?”

  “Dalhenna,” Ashera said, nodding. “She went back to her people but plans to return. They are hard to read at the best of times but I believe whatever she was seeking, she found it.”

  “There will be more,” he said, knowing it was true. “And the Enclave will be outraged.”

  Ashera chuckled. “I invite them to express their outrage however they see fit.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh at the wryness in her voice. He was seized with an intense wave of gratitude for her, and the other Acolytes whose names he didn’t even know…yet.

  “I can only do this once a month, at the New Moon,” he said. “I hope they won’t all be too disappointed.”

  “Disappointed?” This time her laugh was bright. “My Lord, you need not worry. Just the thought of being able to feel that again, even once in my life, would sustain me through the worst day I’ve ever endured.”

  He smiled and very slowly and carefully—with her help—stood up. “I need to go to bed,” he said, “But I think I’ll sleep better with my Consort beside me. Besides, I need to tell the others what I’ve discovered tonight.”

  “Of course, Hallowed One. Do you need assistance walking?”

  There had been a time…well, a very long time…when he would rather have crawled over broken glass than admit needing help, but tonight, he actually thought about it before saying, “No, I’ve got it. But thank you, Ashera. You honor me.”

  “It is we who are honored.” She bowed.

  As he was about to leave, he heard a whisper from the bed. “Hallowed One…”

  Deven went to where they had bundled Siobhan up in the blankets, surprised she was awake. “Yes?”

  Her eyes were already glazed with fever and pain, but also with determination. “Will you bless me?”

  Smiling, he leaned down and kissed her forehead, lips, and throat. “May the Raven Mother, whose wings encircle creation, whose blood sustains all that dwells in the darkness, be with you tonight and always, Siobhan.”

  She smiled back, sighed, and closed her eyes.

  Moving slowly but with gradually increasing strength, Deven left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. He could hear music coming from the temple, along with singing and laughing. The atmosphere throughout the Cloister’s wing of the Haven was one of unreserved celebration.

  I did that.

  “Ha!” he muttered, startling one of the wing guards he passed, who stared at him—everyone seemed to stare these days, though whether it was the hair and ears or the fact that he probably looked like absolute hell startling them, he couldn’t say at the moment. And now he was talking to himself.

  “Ego check,” he said to the guard, who pretended to understand the way people often humored the mad.

  He was in a watery sort of bliss-bubble himself—nothing ostentatious, just a feeling of satisfaction and, dare he think it, contentment, that he didn’t bother questioning. There would be time to go back over the night’s events with the rest of the Tetrad and discuss their implications after he’d slept for about twenty hours.

  But the farther he got from the Cloister, the more something began to bother him…nothing concrete at first, but…something… something wasn’t right, he could feel it. Now that the emotions of the revelers were no longer interfering, he could sense something gravely amiss, and he remembered what he’d said to Nico earlier that very night, when Miranda left the Haven…

  Then a panicked, desperate voice broke through his daze and into his mind, a
nd despite his exhaustion, he was running before its origin even registered.

  “HELP ME!”

  *****

  Building a permanent Gate, it turned out, wasn’t all that much harder than building the regular kind…twenty times in a row…standing on one foot…while building a house of cards…that were on fire.

  The first attempt was a total failure, but Nico figured out his error pretty quickly. One thing he’d always appreciated about Weaving was that he could step back, look at what he’d made, and examine it like a physical thing. In this case he was essentially creating a strand that linked two other locations in the Web, and when that strand was activated by a Signet, it would allow someone to cross the intervening space. But every strand in the Web had to be counterbalanced, anchored, and supplied with energy from somewhere; some spells required siphoning off energy from surrounding threads, and some required the energy of the Weaver.

  This one would power itself using the Signets and their bearers; that would help ensure no one else could use it. Nico couldn’t imagine anyone of ill intent getting into the Haven undetected, but Miranda had told him about her early days here and how David’s enemies had infiltrated the Elite, and even with security an order of magnitude tighter than it had been then Nico wasn’t about to risk the other Havens or the future Elven settlement and Cloister on the assumption that any system was foolproof.

  Right now he was working to establish the Gate to California, since it was the only location of the three he planned to create that he’d already set foot in. Before he could build Gates to the others he would have to physically visit them and find a place to create the Gate’s other end somewhere in the New York and Prague Havens, which would require discussion with the rest of the Circle.

  This one he could manage by himself since he had studied the plans for the new structure. He’d considered building the terminus at the cliff base, which would make moving the Elves easier, but he had to think long-term, and that meant a location accessible for a vampire day or night. It made more sense to use someplace in the Cloister since that was where Dev would go most often. So he found a room on the site blueprints that was earmarked for storage, right down the hall from the Hallowed One’s private residence.

  Right now that room was only a foundation since the focus had been on the cliff base and getting the Elves to their new home as quickly as possible. The Cloister vampires were perfectly comfortable here in the Haven for now.

  Nico spent several hours experimenting with the Gate strand, shoring it up in different ways, using the Codex spell as a starting point; whoever had designed it had been a powerful mage, but not an Elven Weaver, so he was able to fine-tune it in ways they could not. But the process was frustrating and tiring, and after the fourth failed attempt at opening the Gate, he decided to stop for the night.

  He sat down on the floor for a while with pencil and sketch pad and drew out the variations he’d tried, making notes about their advantages and detriments, both for his own memory and so he could show them to David later. The Prime would almost certainly have useful suggestions. He understood enough about Weaving, mostly due to his understanding of circuitry, that they could sit down and brainstorm productively—perhaps even tonight, if David was back from town yet.

  Yawning, he dropped his pencil and stretched. Right on cue, Astela bounced up from the pillow he’d brought for her and came over, bumping her head against his, demanding attention.

  He laughed and spent a while scratching her neck, rubbing her ears, and her belly while she yipped happily and wriggled in his arms.

  She didn’t speak, of course, but he could sense her emotions, and she his. She had a puppy’s boundless excitement for everything, but beneath that he could already tell she was going to make a marvelous companion—she was whip-smart and attentive, and when he wanted her to be still and serious, she came to attention like a seasoned soldier, shedding her youth in seconds.

  “You’re named after a remarkable woman,” Nico told Astela. “I wish you could have met her. Cats were her first love, but she adored all animals and always wanted to stop and meet the dogs we saw in town.” He felt his heart squeeze, thinking of Stella, the loss still so new he didn’t know what to do with it. He’d spent most of his life in the same company, day in and day out, with little changing; and here in a couple of years he had loved and lost more than in three hundred. “I wish you could have met her…I wish she was here.”

  Astela scooted closer, tilting her head in a way that was unmistakably an offer of her shoulder. Nico smiled through his sadness and put his arms around the dog.

  “You are remarkable too,” he said. “Be proud of your name, little star.”

  She grrfed in his ear, earning a smile.

  “Let’s go see if our Lord and Master is home,” Nico said, gathering his notes and standing. “Maybe he’ll have an hour to give me.”

  He locked the door to the soon-to-be-Gate room, and Astela fell into step beside him down the hall to the Signet suite. His head was pounding from overexerting his gifts; hopefully there wouldn’t be any emergencies that demanded magic in the next couple of hours, and he would be fine. He’d be even better if he could convince David to snuggle up with him in the bed, poring over his notes and talking about magical technology, the Prime’s scent and solidity a balm for even the most frazzled nerves.

  Luck wasn’t with him; the suite was empty, and he was too tired to extend his senses through the Haven to see if David was even back from town. Still, the couch was nearly as comfortable as the bed, and no one would mind if he waited here and had a catnap. Miranda would roll her eyes at finding him on the couch rather than the bed, but in his mind, this was still the Pair’s space, and he would only take the bed when invited. He’d observed enough polyamorous relationships to know that boundaries were all-important.

  He’d just started to doze off when he heard the door open and shut, and he could sense it was David. He smiled to himself, keeping his eyes closed so he could listen to the familiar footfalls, the sound of a coat being taken off and hung up…

  …but something didn’t seem quite right. David was moving strangely, almost gracelessly, which wasn’t like him. He seemed to be off-balance.

  Nico opened his eyes, but didn’t have time to form a visual impression of the room before a mouth had latched onto his, hungry and wanting.

  He kissed back even though he was far too weary for any real passion, then said, “As much as I hate to deny such a delightful welcome, I’m afraid I’m too tired.”

  David didn’t seem to hear him…no, something was off, beginning with how forcefully David’s tongue thrust into his mouth, and how tightly the Prime’s fingers gripped his arms.

  Nico started to pull back and ask what was wrong, but could only grunt in surprise as he was hauled off the couch and onto the floor. His back hit the rug and knocked the breath out of him, and he couldn’t get it back—David had him pinned to the floor so solidly he could barely move.

  The hands on Nico’s body were possessive and rough, with none of the finely-honed skill the Prime had always displayed in his touch. Kisses turned into bites, David’s teeth pressing harder and harder into Nico’s lower lip until it hurt—then bled.

  “What’s gotten into you?” Nico demanded, wrenching his head to the side to get a breath. “I said I was too tired—”

  “I didn’t ask,” David snapped. As Nico watched, his confusion turning into genuine alarm, David’s eyes began to blacken.

  David seized him by the shoulders and flipped him onto his stomach—again, the impact with the floor was painful, but not nearly as painful as when David bit his neck hard, latching on with both sets of his fangs, holding Nico underneath him like a falcon with its talons in a mouse.

  Nico heard a low, animal growl at his ear, and there was nothing he recognized as his lover in that sound. Fear gripped his belly and he started to struggle, instinct taking over where logic could find no purchase in the s
ituation.

  “Let go!” Nico panted. “Whatever you’re doing, stop!”

  The growl came again, this time turning into a hiss. David finally spoke again, but it was a cold, hollow whisper that sent Nico into a near panic. “You’re mine.”

  David latched back onto Nico’s throat, drinking forcefully, the pain as terrifying as the feeling of the Prime’s body holding him down, arousal hard against Nico’s hip that finally made the Elf understand what was happening. The idea of fighting David off physically was laughable, and Nico groped for the power to paralyze or knock him out, something, anything, oh Goddess please don’t let this happen no no no—

  With one free hand, David took hold of Nico’s belt and tore it downward, and in among the primal, mindless need to take what he wanted, there was also a rage there, a compulsion to destroy, to kill, to drain the Elf until he shriveled, to bathe in the sweetness of his death no matter what the cost.

  Blindly panicked, Nico did the only thing he could do—he called with every ounce of strength he still had, reaching down the bond and every connection he could touch, all but screaming into the Web:

  “HELP ME!”

  He felt the room’s suddenly-cold air on his bare back and the searing pain of another bite on his neck seconds before something heavy slammed into them sideways, knocking David off of him and rolling with the Prime into the bed. Nico heard wood splintering, but didn’t look back to see what had happened until he had scrambled away toward the fireplace, blood running down from his throat and making him slip as he tried to get up.

  The sounds he heard were terrifying—it was like two wild animals tearing into each other, snarling and growling, nothing human in it at all. He caught a flash of white in the tumble of limbs, then a cry of exertion as David flew back across the room again, this time into the coffee table.

  Deven rolled to his feet, eyes black as hellfire, blood soaking his shirt where the Prime’s teeth must have gotten past his defenses.

  There was no talking. Deven didn’t try to reason with him or figure out what was going on—there was only one thing that mattered, and it wasn’t David’s welfare.