by Linsey Hall
“Yes, they targeted our mother. Her pregnancy advanced freakishly fast for mortals, but normal for soulceresses. They thought it made her a witch, so they were going to put her on trial. But mother wouldn’t let me help her escape. The mortals hadn’t targeted me, you see. She thought I would be safest if I stayed. The journey to the New World was so dangerous at the time.”
“What about our dad?”
“I doona even know if we share one. I never met him, and she never spoke of him. Gods know he dinna help us when the mortals came for our mother. But I had my vengeance.” Her voice and her eyes darkened.
“You took their souls.”
“No. I killed them. They deserved it for burning her. Then I went to Spain and stole Mythean souls because they’re more powerful. And it is awesome. Power. Unlimited power and you doona have to be near other Mytheans. Except that I was caught for breaking some rules.”
It did sound awesome. Esha shook herself. Bad! Of course it was bad. She’d seen how Warren had suffered without his soul. She couldn’t do that to someone. And she’d seen what it had done to Aurora. Her soul shadows still circled her, but she stayed calm.
Wanting a lighter subject to put Aurora in a good mood, Esha turned the conversation from their dark history to their lives and interests. She really liked her sister. They had a lot in common, if one ignored the fact that her sister was an unrepentant soul-thief being driven crazy by the power she so loved.
With Aurora and Warren in her life now, she had not only a friend in Ana, but a sister and a boyfriend. Which reminded her of her primary goal. As much as she loved chatting with Aurora, and despite the fact she’d started this journey hoping to learn more about her own kind and herself, she had a more important task now. She had to retrieve Warren’s soul and get Aurora off this island, and she was afraid she only had this one chance.
“Why do you need the power so badly now? The Burnings are over,” Esha asked.
“I canna leave this realm or I’ll get thrown back in that prison. I need the power to maintain my world. And even if I could go out and stock up like you do, I would no’. You know as well as I do that for a soulceress, strength is everything. Giving up my souls would be weak.” Her eyes darkened and her familiar raced over to snuggle up to her, which seemed to work. Aurora said, “Whether or no’ you’ve actually got any power, survival depends on other Mytheans being afraid of you. I’ve got to have titanium ovaries or no one will fear me. If no one is afraid of me, they’ll come after me again. Then I’ll end up back in that damned prison.”
“Not if you don’t do anything wrong!”
Aurora laughed and gave her a pitying look.
Esha’s face heated, knowing she was right. When other Mytheans were afraid of you, they wouldn’t wait for law or right on their side before they tried to screw you.
“So you would never consider leaving this island?” Esha asked.
“No way.”
“Come to the university with me. There’s plenty of power there. Hundreds of Mytheans, and the city is full of people. It’s the opposite of the aether. You’d love it.”
Aurora shook her head, then looked out at the darkness through the big windows over the counters. “This place is great. I’ve got everything I need, I control who can come and go. I’m no’ leaving.”
Esha stared at her sister, comprehension dawning. “You’re scared.”
“What? No!”
“Oh my gods, you are. You’re scared to go back to Scotland.” Of course it made sense. When Aurora had been free in the seventeenth century, she’d been hunted. Then she’d been locked up. There were only bad memories there. Here, she had complete control.
“Come on!” Esha cried. “You’re better than that. You’re a freaking soulceress! We aren’t afraid of anything.” Which was a lie, because she was afraid for Warren. But it was a lie that had gotten her through a lot of hard times in her life, times like those Aurora was going through.
Aurora suddenly looked smaller sitting next to her, and her heart clutched at the sight. For Aurora to let her see her like this, without her hard shell, meant Aurora really cared for her.
Aurora straightened. “I’m no’ afraid, I’m smart and wary. There’s a difference. I broke out of prison. They’ll throw me back in if I return to Scotland.”
“What if I can get you a pardon?” She’d need Warren’s help, and Aurora would definitely have to give up her souls. But she’d wait to mention that part.
“I’m no’ interested.”
“Yes, you are. You’ve got to be bored here. But you’re scared to leave. I could never really understand what your life has been like. But I understand being afraid of what I am because other people fear me. But I know you, Aurora. You’re like me. You’ll hate yourself for cowering here. This isn’t you. Prove me wrong. Come back with me.”
Aurora’s soul shadows were now vibrating. Were they becoming agitated? Should she be nervous? No. She was no longer afraid of her sister. Aurora was volatile, dark and light, with a serious ruthless bent. She was older and stronger. But it didn’t matter. Because Aurora wouldn’t fight her. She was her sister. Anyone else would be right to be afraid of her, but not Esha.
“Come on,” Esha said. “Come back with me. I’ll get you a pardon, and you can rub your power in the witches’ faces. You can even work with me at the university—there’s an awesome salary, by the way—and it will be great.”
“Great? Great to be back among people who hate me and want to toss me in jail? I suppose the price for their grudging tolerance is for me to give up my souls as well.” The soul shadows vibrated more quickly.
“Warren really needs his soul back. It makes him ill when you use it. If it goes on long enough, he’ll be worse than dead. Just give it back. You can get power the way I do, by borrowing it.”
“You care for him!” Aurora’s eyes blackened. “How could you? After what he did?”
“He tried his best to save her! It wasn’t his fault.” Esha had no doubt of it. He was too good to have let her mother die.
“No’ hard enough!” Aurora leapt off the counter and backed away. Her familiar ran to her, no doubt trying to calm her, but it did no good. Aurora’s short hair was now whipping around her head as her shadows writhed and swirled around her. “Our mother is dead because of him. And you want me to give up his soul? To become powerless?”
Esha flinched as the lights in the room flickered and thunder boomed outside. The Chairman hissed and arched his back.
“They’re making you crazy, Aurora! Soulceresses aren’t meant to possess so many souls. It’s driving you insane! Your eyes are black. And look at the house!” Esha waved her arm. The appliances were rattling on the counters, dancing with excess energy thrown off by Aurora’s rage. It was really starting to freak her out. “I’m just making suggestions, and you’re flipping out. It’s not normal!”
“We’re no’ normal! We’re soulceresses. I’m just doing what soulceresses are supposed to do!” She waved her arms in front of her and a blast of power sent the appliances off the counters and threw Esha against the wall. The Chairman howled.
Aurora grasped her head and shook it, as if she were trying to silence the voices inside. The floor shook, marble cracking beneath her feet. Glass shattered in the cabinets as the walls warped.
Oh, shit no. “Chairman, come here.”
He hurtled toward her, a black flying blur. As soon as he reached her, she envisioned their base in Iceland, and they disappeared.
When she opened her eyes in the main foyer of the house, she grabbed the Chairman and hugged him to her, soft and warm and alive. She set him away from her and stared hard at his furry little face, lit by the soft dawn glow through the windows. He looked disgruntled but uninjured.
What the hell had happened back there? Aurora had been overcome by her shadows. The sister she’d gotten to know had been completely consumed by her madness.
Esha had spoken too soon when she’d declared herself unafraid
of Aurora. Perhaps she’d been right—Aurora wouldn’t hurt her. But when she was overtaken by the madness from housing too many souls? She was an entirely different person.
That was the Mythean that Warren had warned her about. In that moment, when Aurora had been in the depths of her rage, she hadn’t been her sister. She hadn’t even been Aurora. She’d been a Mythean with unimaginable power who was completely unpredictable and totally under the influence of the madness of the souls she’d trapped.
Esha’s shoulders drooped. What would she do now? Convincing her would never work. Was killing her really the only way to get back Warren’s soul?
She shook the horrible thought away and ran up the stairs to the bedroom, only to pull up short when she saw the empty bed. A quick search of the house revealed that Warren was gone. Shit!
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
It felt like an eternity, but eventually Warren and the shade arrived at the square. His shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank you.”
The shade ignored him and drifted forward, up the steps to the temple. Warily, he followed, keeping his guard up for the shadows that had attacked them the first time. He made it up the stairs without incident and pushed open the heavy doors. The blade of his flashlight cut through the dark, cavernous space until it hit the platform at the other end where Esha had disappeared.
He gripped the dagger and headed straight for it. The shade appeared in front of him, blocking his way. He sidestepped, and it did too.
“What the hell?”
It was herding him toward the wall on the left. He could just step through it, though it would probably feel like shite, but the shade clearly wanted him to go left. It had led him correctly thus far, so he strode over to the wall. He’d give it one minute, then he was going through that portal.
“It’s just a wall.” It was made of gray stone blocks that rose forty feet above him. He stepped back toward the platform, but the shade blocked him again. Frustrated and ready to get to Esha, he tried to step through it, but was propelled back. “Damn it!”
The shade pushed him back farther, and he reached for his dagger. He didn’t want to hurt it if it had helped him, but it wasn’t giving him a lot of choice. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of great sweeps of color across the stone wall, illuminated by the glow of his flashlight.
This was what the shade wanted him to see. He hadn’t noticed before because of the dark. “Fine. I’ll look.”
He ran his light over the wall. It had been painted with figures in rows starting at the top. It was a story, or perhaps recorded history. He squinted and began to read from the top to the bottom. Some of the tales he couldn’t decipher, but the one about souls being trapped in the city made him frown. The shade hovered by the bottom portion of the tale, where the temple was destroyed and the souls were set free.
“You’re trapped, and you want to be freed,” he said.
Though it didn’t nod, he could almost feel its desire.
“But it says I have to destroy the temple. I canna—the portal to Aurora’s world is here. I need it to get to Esha.”
Frustration now vibrated from the soul, making his skin prickle.
“If I can get her back safely, and my soul from Aurora, I’ll do it. I’ll free you.”
He couldn’t tell what the soul felt now, but it advanced on him and he stepped back instinctively. It glided by him down the wall a few feet to another panel of paintings. It hovered near one and he stepped closer, his light and his gaze racing over the images.
“Oh, fuck,” he breathed. He raised the dagger in his hand and laid it against the wall next to the depiction of an identical one. These images, more detailed than even the story about the souls trapped in the city, showed the life of a soulceress who had stolen souls from others. Her crazed eyes gleamed with madness in one of the last panels, no doubt taken over by the pain and misery of the souls trapped within her body, trying to escape.
In the next panel, another soulceress stabbed her with the same dagger he now held and the trapped souls flew free. Finally, both soulceresses rose to their feet. The crazed one now had normal eyes and the wound in her belly had healed.
He gazed at the dagger in his hand. Could this really be the answer to his problems?
If he used this against Aurora and it worked as it had in the painting, she would live. Was he willing to risk that her madness and cruelty were due only to the souls, as Esha said?
Uncertain of the answer, he turned and strode toward the platform. The soul now let him pass, as if it had shown him the final painting as a reward for promised help.
He slowed when he reached the steps and climbed cautiously, his muscles tensed and ready for the appearance of the ice walls.
Nothing crashed down. A one-time spell, then. He prayed that the portal still worked. He hadn’t seen her enter, but it only made sense that it was the archway to the anteroom behind the great marble table.
He skirted the table and came to a stop before the archway. The sickness hit him without warning, the nausea and aching muscles nearly knocking him over.
Shite. In his fear for Esha, he’d forgotten to take the medicine.
With shaking hands, he struggled to search his pockets, praying that the vial was still there and hadn’t fallen out onto the floor of the bedroom. Finally, after an eternity of trembling and sweating, his hand closed over the tiny glass vial. It took several tries to get a drop on his tongue, but within seconds, his strength and steadiness surged back.
He shook himself, clearing his mind, then tucked the vial back in his pocket. With the dagger gripped tightly in his hand, he stepped through the archway and was sucked through the portal.
When he opened his eyes, he stood on a tropical beach at night. His gaze was drawn immediately to the brightly lit mansion that stood back from the beach. The windows were all broken and great crashing noises sounded from within.
Dread surged within him as he raced across the sand and up onto the marble patio. He stifled the desire to call out for Esha and pressed himself flat against the wall of the house. His only chance to stab Aurora would come with stealth, and he couldn’t blow it.
He peered through the broken glass door and saw only a living room, the marble floor cracked and the furniture upended. Noise crashed from the back. Heart in his throat, he crept silently through the living room, his back flat against the wall, and peered through an archway into the kitchen.
Shattered appliances littered every surface and Aurora stood within, her eyes wild and black, her short hair waving about her head. Her familiar, a sleek black cat, hissed at her from its perch on the counter.
Esha was nowhere to be seen, but pizza boxes and shattered beer bottles littered the countertops. She’d been here, because there was no way that Aurora could know about something as modern as carry-out pizza after being locked up for so long. Though that didn’t explain how Aurora had ended up in a place with all the conveniences of modern living. The thought flitted from his mind. He had more important things to be concerned with.
Aurora pulled at her hair as if voices echoed inside her head and Warren took his chance, sprinting across the kitchen and vaulting over the island. As he landed behind Aurora, he struck out with his dagger, aiming for her back.
She spun at the last moment, taking a slice to the arm before knocking his hand away. He saw his death flash in front of his eyes as she raised her arm and threw a blast of fire at him.
He flew back into the wall, his front blackened and steaming. Though he was burned to hell, he couldn’t feel it because of the potion the witches had given him. Thank gods, or he’d be incapacitated.
With a growl, he pushed himself off the wall and threw the dagger at Aurora, hoping to nail her in the chest. She disappeared as the blade came at her, too fast for it. But a second later, Warren appeared on the other side of the room, his hand gripped around the hilt of the dagger where it was sunk into the wall.
What the hell? He’d just aetherwalked using
the dagger. He shouldn’t be able to do that, but soulceress magic was strong. He flung it again at Aurora, and though she disappeared, he was transported across the room until his hand was wrapped around the dagger’s hilt again.
This was a trick he could work with. Another blast of fire hit him unawares, and he was thrown back into the wall. He blinked and shook his head, making out the raging form of Aurora across the kitchen.
This time when he threw the dagger, he didn’t aim for her, but rather for a spot several feet away. She didn’t aetherwalk because it wasn’t coming at her, so he yanked it free from the wall when he appeared next to it and lunged for her.
~~~
Esha appeared in Aurora’s kitchen in time to see Warren attempt to stab her sister in the back. Before Esha could throw off her shock, her sister spun and threw a bolt of power at Warren so strong it tossed him across the room.
“No!” she screamed as Warren’s back hit the counter and he crumpled.
He was on his feet a second later, charging Aurora. With predatory agility, he ducked under one blast of lightning and had nearly reached her when another knocked him off his feet and he crumpled in a pile of twisted limbs and burned flesh.
An electric shock of fear spiked in her blood. Aurora looked utterly insane, her black eyes rolling in her head and power glowing from her skin. The shadows that circled her writhed frantically, reaching out, then being sucked back in toward her form. When her familiar arched its back and hissed at her, shit was clearly about to roll way downhill.
Desperate to get Warren and herself out of there before Aurora imploded—and possibly took the enchanted island with her—Esha lunged across the kitchen and grabbed Warren’s prone body. The Chairman had hurtled behind her and when she felt his warmth against her legs, she envisioned the house and they disappeared.
“Oh shit,” Esha breathed when she opened her eyes to see Warren’s broken body. She crouched on the floor of the foyer, Warren in her arms. Midmorning sun shone through the windows and highlighted patches of his skin that were blackened and burned. His forearms were twisted at bad angles. The lightning that Aurora had thrown at him would have killed a lesser Mythean.
