I bit the inside of my lip. His words were yet again so smooth, so well-spoken that they could have been cultured lies, yet the truth in them resonated through me.
“Swear to me you aren’t trying to kill Lark,” I said.
He frowned. “Pamela, I love her. She is not my sister, not really, though we were raised as siblings.”
“Love. Love?” I frowned at him, thinking about how weird it would be to love an adoptive sibling that way. It couldn’t be what he meant.
He laughed softly. “Yes, love, love. You do strange things for love, would you not say that?”
I lowered the sword and let the tip touch the ground as a shudder raced through me. “Yes, I would say that.”
And then the strangest thing happened. He stepped toward me and slid his arms around me, pulling me tightly to his chest.
Stranger yet, I hugged him back.
CHAPTER 20
WE SNUCK OUT of the Eyrie that night, and Raven was right. The whole thing was relatively easy. Of course, the Sylphs on guard were watching for people—Raven in particular—sneaking in, not sneaking out. Oka wrapped herself over the back of my neck and hung like a fur shawl, keeping me warm in the sudden burst of cold that hit us as we left the gilded gates of the city.
When we were far enough away that Raven slid his cloak from his head I finally asked the question that had been burning in the back of my mouth. “Why would they leave the gates open if they thought you would be coming back to finish things?”
“Pride.” Oka and Raven spoke at the same time. He shot a funny look at the cat. She shrugged. “I paid attention to my studies, Raven. Sylphs are known for their pride almost above their ability to bend the air.”
He gave her a quick nod. “And that is why the gate is open. They think they could take me.”
“And could they?” I couldn’t help that question.
He shrugged. “Possibly, if there were enough of them. Again, pride would be their downfall because they believe it would only take one or at best two. As you’ve seen from what they send after me.”
He was right, the assassins that had been sent to take him down had been cocky to say the least, even with the gargoyles. We slogged through the snow, and Oka jumped down to race ahead of us, her tail straight in the air as she zigged and zagged, chasing imaginary creatures. She made me smile, and in this world, that was worth so much.
I stumbled on an unseen rock and Raven’s hand shot out, catching me at the elbow. No words, just catching me.
I bit my lower lip as tears suddenly threatened. “Why did you never come for me before? Why would you leave me with those trolls, with parents who didn’t understand? Why did you let me suffer?”
He stopped, his hand still on my elbow. For a second, I thought he would close his eyes, but he didn’t. “For the same reason I am putting Lark through this. I didn’t want you to suffer, Pam. I wanted you to be strong. I’ve known for years what is coming for this world. I knew you would need to have the heart of a dragon to face it. It is the same reason I did not save your mother. She would have made you into something you are not.”
As he spoke, the sound of jets came from overhead, racing this way and that, the distant rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire. His eyes flicked to the night sky. “This world is dissolving. And if I had protected you as I wanted,” his hand softened on my arm and a tear slid down his cheek, “if I had protected Lark as I wanted,” his eyes did close then and a tremor slipped through him, “all would be lost. There would be no after, there would be no coming back.”
I couldn’t stop the tears that raced down my cheeks even though they quickly froze on my bare skin. “What could be so bad as all that? We have faced the demon hordes.”
“Oh, Pamela,” he whispered, “that was just the beginning.”
CHAPTER 21
SILENCE FELL AS light as the snowflakes that drifted around us on that mountain pass outside the Eyrie. I couldn’t take my eyes off Raven. I didn’t understand what he meant. How could the demon hordes be something he saw as . . . “Just the beginning?”
He looked away. “I have said too much. I only ask that you trust me a little longer.”
Letting go of my arm, he turned away and walked ahead of me. I stood and watched him go, unable to make my feet move for fear of which way they would take me. I didn’t like his answers, but it wasn’t because I thought he was lying. Quite the opposite. I knew he couldn’t manipulate me with Spirit.
And I could tell when he was lying and when he wasn’t. This wasn’t one of those times. Which meant he spoke a truth that was hard, that was terrifying.
Forcing my feet to get moving, I followed him to a narrow path that curled around the mountain. The same one we’d come down. “Won’t the Sylphs see us this high up?”
I turned and looked over my shoulder just as two figures flew up from the gates far below.
“Yes, but we are almost there.” Raven broke into a run, and I followed him.
“Oka?”
Where was she? I stopped and whipped around. The orange cat was nowhere to be seen. How was that possible? “Oka?” I called louder, and I thought for a moment I heard a soft meow, as if muffled by . . . snow.
I raced back the way we’d come, looking for her prints. There they were, where she’d been bounding and leaping and then . . . I slid to a stop over a hole that shot through the snow, only big enough for a kitten to fall. I went to my knees. “Oka!”
“Pamela! I can’t get out!” Her voice was still muffled but not quite as much as before. I dug at the snow with my hands, using my connection with fire to heat them.
“No, you’ll collapse it!” Raven was suddenly there, on his knees beside me, helping me dig. “Just stay with her, I’ll keep them at bay.”
I didn’t dare look up. My hands were cold, icy, and the skin tore as I dug at the chunks of frozen snow. It didn’t matter, I had to get her out. I caught a flash of orange when I was about six feet down and I reached in. “Oka, jump!”
She leapt up and her razor-like claws dug into my palm. I didn’t care. I pulled her up with me, scrambling to get back out of the hole I’d created. How much time had passed? I turned and there were no Sylphs in the air.
Raven strode across the snow, his cloak flaring out behind him. “We have to hurry. They raised the alarm before they came after us.”
“So they are learning.” I clutched Oka to me. As Raven passed, he touched her on the head, gently.
“Yes, it would seem, much to my displeasure.” He held a hand out to me and I took it. Oka shivered and trembled.
“It is my fault if we don’t make it,” she whispered. Her eyes were pinched shut. “I am going to be the death of you.”
“Well, if we’re going to assign blame, then it was the mountain’s fault for making a soft spot for you to fall in,” I pointed out. “And you aren’t going to be the death of me.”
Raven grunted. “We are almost there.”
We crested the ridge, out of breath, with Sylphs flying at us at a speed that told me all I needed. This was going to be close. We ran across a flat section of an ice field. Raven could have gone faster without me, his longer legs easier to navigate the slippery snow. But he clung to my hand, pulling me along even as he looked over his shoulder. We were losing ground, but he didn’t let me go.
I glanced back. The Sylphs were maybe twenty feet behind. I could see their eyes and it was only then I realized what was slowing us down. It wasn’t the snow and the ice.
It was the wind blowing against us, dragging us back to them.
I didn’t even think, just reacted. A shot of power left me and raced through the earth. They were close to the ground in their efforts to gain on us and the explosion of ice and rock sent them reeling.
The pressure of the wind in our faces was gone and we were suddenly there, on the other side of the invisible line. I started to call on Spirit, to ride it on my own.
“Don’t fight me!” Raven called and I let him take control, le
t him take us where he thought was best. The brilliant white of the mountain snow under the full moon, under the stars was gone, and I didn’t close my eyes. It was just gone and we were standing on the hard barren earth of a place I knew all too well.
Brown, dusty and packed hard, the wind blew here, too, constantly. The never-ending wind of North Dakota.
I slowly turned, letting go of Raven’s hand. “Why are we here?”
“Where is here?” Oka asked.
“The badlands of North Dakota,” Raven answered. We weren’t far from the mine shaft that had been the center of so many adventures. I let out a breath and slowly the wild rate of my heart eased.
“Why are we here?” I repeated my question as I turned back to Raven.
“Because this place holds much magic. Both elemental, supernatural, and . . . other things even I cannot define. If you truly want to bring back someone you love, then this is as good a place as any to do it.” He put his hand to his back and pulled not a weapon out, but a few sheets of paper.
I leaned forward. “What is that?”
“The pages we need to do what it is I promised you we would do.” There was a note of sadness in his voice I didn’t like. I swallowed hard.
“This is part of my testing, isn’t it?”
Pain shot over his features, as if I’d punched him in the gut. “I am your father, Pamela, and I have done all I can to protect you and teach you in the time we have been together. And yet I am going to let you face this, too, and I know . . . I know it is beyond dangerous.”
I stared at him. “Could I die?”
“Yes,” he whispered the word.
“Will it save those I love?”
He drew a breath and then let it out slowly, a shudder rippling through him. “It will set the stage for the final steps that will save this world. Yet, you will be as outcast as I when your friends realize what you have done.”
His words sent chills down my spine. “What do you mean? Why would they hate me for bringing back someone we all love?”
“Because in bringing him back, it will break the Veil, leaving it ripe for complete destruction.” His eyes locked on mine.
“The demons?” That was the last thing I wanted, and I wasn’t sure I could do this if it meant Orion would be loosed on the world again. Not even for love could I do this.
“They could come through. But I don’t think they will. No one else will realize that. It will look as though you are setting them free.”
I bit my lower lip and looked down at my feet, uncertainty pulling me back and forth. “And you’re sure it needs to be done, breaking the Veil that is?”
He reached out and slid his fingers through a lock of my hair. His eyes were tired around the edges and he was no longer that laughing smiling man I’d first met. “Absolutely. If Lark is to have any chance at success, this must happen.” There was such sorrow in his voice that it pulled at my heart.
“Will they know . . . eventually that what I did was for them?” I had to swallow hard to get those words out.
His jaw twitched and slowly he shook his head. “I do not know. It is what I live with every day. That there may never be a moment of recompense or forgiveness.”
I bit my lower lip and looked at Oka. “I trust you and you are here to guide me. What do you say, Oka? Do I do this thing, or do I walk away?”
Her eyes widened and then she seemed to find the words she sought. “There was a philosopher within the Pit that said this: ‘It is not for us to divine the paths our feet tread, but to go boldly knowing that each step is fate coming home to rest. That even though we be cast out from the places of comfort as we defy convention, that we lose our homes and our families . . . we must be strong and go on.’”
“Well said.” Raven reached out and touched her on the head. “You are a brave one.”
Her eyes shot to him and then back to me. “I will always be here, Pamela. You won’t lose me.” And for the first time I believed her; I felt it in my soul that she would be with me as long as I lived.
Those words of hers echoed around us. The setting sun had set up a glorious swath of color to the west and it highlighted the world around me. I could feel something coming, not a monster, not the dark even, but something else.
Loss . . . I would be asked to give up something for another. I would be asked to cast all I was on the flames to watch the one I loved the most come home and no one else would understand why I did it. Raven had his reasons, and I believed him despite who he was. He’d called himself the bad guy. The villain. And I knew he was that to Lark.
But I also understood that actions didn’t always look to another for what they truly were.
“Pamela.”
I looked at him, his blue eyes mirroring mine. “If you are wrong—”
“I’m not, little witch. I promise you I am not.” His voice was steady, a strength that I wanted to hang onto.
I stared at the ground, feeling the seconds tick by as I went back and forth. Everything I’d learned, all the history that had been unearthed, the demon Ajax that I’d met and found nice, Oka, the sword in my hand, my family, the mother goddess.
The mother goddess. I took a few steps back. “I need a minute alone. Can you give me that?”
Raven held up his hands and was gone, right before my very eyes. I dropped to the ground and dug my fingers into the earth, and pushed all my energy into my words. “Mother goddess, I have been asked to do something terrible. To help break the Veil by bringing home a loved one.”
Yes, I know. The voice was powerful here, the inflection of tones brighter and clearer than any other time.
The dirt was cold and dry under my fingers. There had never been a moment where more fear had wracked me. Oka’s words were not enough. Raven’s were not enough. My own belief was not enough. “What do I do? This is not a mistake I can fix if it is indeed a mistake.”
Child . . . there is a time and a season for everything. The Veil has served its purpose for generations. You have my blessing now in doing this.
Relief, sweet, blessed relief coursed through me. “You would love me still?” Those words were whispered into the dirt, puffing up bits and pieces.
I am with you always, daughter of the elements. Daughter of mine.
The tears came then, dampening the earth below me. “Thank you.”
The voice was gone and I knew Raven would return soon. I drew a breath and pushed to my feet. Oka’s eyes were on mine, but no words were needed. I could feel her love for me through our bond, as I hoped she could feel mine.
Raven reappeared and his eyes narrowed immediately. “Have you decided?”
Shaking, my whole body aflame with fear and trepidation despite the mother goddess’s reassurance, I nodded.
“I will do this. And if my name is cast out of Rylee’s world as the one to be spat on, I will do it still, if it means I protect my family in the end.”
Raven tugged me into his arms, hugged me tightly to his chest. I clung to him, only the second real hug between father and daughter. “I am proud of you, Pamela. You are a warrior amongst the women of this world.”
We were both shaking as he set me back from him. “Pull the sword. And let’s bring your loved one home.”
CHAPTER 22
“WAIT,” OKA SAID, stopping both Raven and me from taking the next step in the spell. We stood out in the badlands outside Bismarck where so much had happened already. The mother goddess had given me permission to do what no other supernatural would or could do. I was ready, right?
“Why Pamela?” Oka asked. “Why can you not do this thing that is so horrific that it brings you to fear for your daughter?” Her question stopped me as nothing else could, a question I should have asked long ago.
Oka leapt from my shoulder and stalked toward Raven, her fur bristled and her tail stiff. Raven glanced at her and then held out the papers from the book. “Read the requirements, familiar. Tell me what they say.”
Oka stood on her back legs a
nd then she slumped. “To be performed by a witch who has mastered the five elements.”
Her head dropped and Raven went to a knee beside her, he bent his head and whispered something in her ear. Slowly she nodded. “You don’t have to ask. I would protect her to the ends of the earth, to the loss of my own life.”
He stood and read from the papers he’d torn from the book. His eyes were on mine, holding me steady. “On the flat of your sword pour the tears of the ghost.”
I pulled the small vial from inside my shirt and held it over the sword. I hesitated, not because I was afraid so much, but because I knew this was likely the only shot I’d get. And no longer was it just about the one that I wanted to rescue. This was about doing what I had to do no matter what.
And maybe that was the core of my hesitation. There would be no going back after this, no forgiveness from Rylee, no homecoming to her arms. The scene of Meghan and Bonnie would be lost to me forever.
“How do you . . . live with knowing those you love hate you?” I stared at Raven. Stared at him and knew there was no one else who could answer that question.
He stared back. “Easily. I know if I didn’t do these things, they would all die. There are things we all must do, Pamela, that we do not like. But for those I love? I would cast my soul into the deepest pits of hell.”
His words echoed my own from what seemed like years ago. What would I do, what was I willing to sacrifice to make sure my family had a chance? That those I loved would survive whatever was coming?
Anything.
I pushed the cork off the vial and poured the tears over the blade.
“Speak this incantation after me,” Raven said and the words flowed from his mouth to mine, blending into one voice as if I knew the words already. They were so simple, not even Latin or some strange language I didn’t recognize.
Pamela (The Rylee Adamson Epilogues, Book 3) Page 16
