The stillness that followed was leaden, lingering stubbornly. I stayed quiet because my words would only inflict bitter despair on those around me. The only hope left was the darkest sort—but I faced it, and turned to Azrael. His face was lifted high, as though he waited for the light to break again. I could see that he longed for it terribly—but I thought Heaven was done with this place. I wished I could say the same.
I pulled Azrael’s face toward my own, forcing him to meet my eyes. “Listen carefully,” I said. “I think I know what the angel was trying to tell me. There is still a chance, but I need you to get Grandmama and Phillippe out of here, and our forces as well. You must get everyone to another world entirely. I must face Death alone if I am to beat him.”
“You believe you can? Or are you just sacrificing yourself?” he challenged.
If it came to a sacrifice, I would. That was why I needed to evacuate the battlefield of those I cared about. My sacrifice would take far more than just me. But I could not tell Azrael this, or he would insist on staying at my side where he might be consumed.
I smiled with false confidence, and held my glowing ring behind my back, pouring desire into it for a storm of roses to come find me.
“I can do this. Trust me.”
He stared into my eyes as if to read my soul. I prayed that the depth of my intentions would not show. I did have a plan, but if it did not work, I would have to release the darkness within me, though it would certainly devour my soul. If that happened, Death might survive, but not his world.
And the souls of the dead?
Their fate would be left to Heaven.
Azrael said, “I will do as you say, and return as quickly as I can.”
“Good.” The timing would be troublesome, but I thought I could manage all that was needed during his absence. “Give me a signal when you hold everyone in your shadows and are about to leave.”
He nodded and vanished into his swirling cloak.
I remained ringed by reavers with nowhere to go.
Death stalked toward me, wearing his human face.
I stood still, with no sword to meet him.
He stopped a few feet away, eyes fully dark, but without the rage I expected. Still, he was coldly imperious, his attitude proud and demanding.
I lifted my head and spoke in defiance, “Are you ready to surrender?”
“You ask me that,” he thundered, “when even a weak wind will send you crashing like a storm-felled tree?”
I smiled through the pain, having accepted it in order to find a place beyond, where I could function.
Words were my weapons now. I used them to buy Azrael time, “I am nothing if not consistent.”
My grandfather took a step forward, holding his shadow-blade at his side in a loose grip. I wavered within striking range, yet he made no effort to cut me down. Was he savoring this moment, or did some vestige of chivalry tug at him since I was both unarmed and injured? Perhaps I had misjudged the darkness of his heart. After all, even estranged, Grandmama loved him. He therefore had to possess a few redeeming traits.
He bowed with formal courtesy. “Granddaughter, I will permit you to stay here, with your son. You need not die in the next moment. You are obviously blood of my blood. I owe you this much. Besides, I find myself growing oddly fond of your obstinacies. You have banished crushing boredom with an unrelenting vengeance most astounding. Pledge your sword to me, and take your rightful place in the family.”
I sighed. “Is it so hard for you to simply do what is right?”
“It is a matter of cosmic balance and of pride. I must ensure that there is always one of my line—a living soul—to contain and channel the energies of the expired. Abaddon can no longer fill that role, thanks to you.”
Thanks to his own evil. I decided not to press the point, taking up another argument instead. “How do you expect my son to benefit you without his body?”
“I will have it fetched here.”
“You will not find it.”
Death nodded to himself. “Then you must have taken it to Avalon. In that case, Phillippe’s body will age, but not die. And his soul in these courts will not become a true shade. I need not worry about putting him back together again for a long time to come.”
His smugness made me want to strangle him.
My thoughts flashed to Azrael. What was taking him so long? He needed to hurry!
There remained one compromise I could try. “If Phillippe accepts his destiny as your heir, can you not allow him to enjoy his natural life on Earth before he takes on this calling?”
“He is the last of my line, and Earth is full of sickness and violence. I will not risk losing the legacy of Death to another dragon line due to some sudden misadventure. Phillippe needs to stay where I can protect him.”
“I am heir before my son,” I said. “I will stand in his place.”
“No.” He refused my offer with a sad shake of his head. “The inheritance of Death has always moved through a male line, as the Office of the Rose moves through a female line. And one calling cannot be abandoned for the other. My darkness can never touch you.”
What! Then whose darkness was this inhabiting my soul? Where had the dark rose come from? Never mind, such speculations would have to wait for another time—if there was another time.
I sighed heavily. “Then you leave me no choice.”
I remembered how he had pulled out darkness from his own body to shape the sword he used. I was his granddaughter. If there were justice in the universe... My empty sword hand speared into his chest withdrew, dragging out a ribbon of shadow, hardened by my will. I now held a shadow sword of my own, one that stung my palm with burning cold, fusing my fingers with frost. I held the dark blade between us, trusting my arm to do what it must.
Instead of retreating in shock, Death jammed in, pressing the flat of my new sword hard against me, trapping it between us. I pulled in vain against his strength, and then pushed into him, but my shadow sword did not budge. It liquefied and drained back into him, leaving me with nothing.
Until Azrael’s voice reached me. “Celeste, now!”
At last!
Death quirked an eyebrow. “What are you up to?” He retreated from my silence, but the point of his sword approached my face as his arm straightened. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
“Look beyond your guards,” I suggested.
His eyes became green flame. His head turned to the reavers surrounding us. He peered into their ranks and beyond. Then his face turned back to me, its flesh dissolving to a grinning skull.
“So, you have taken what you wanted from me after all. That does not mean I will allow your actions to stand. I assure you that what one renegade reaver has taken, a legion can reclaim.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I said. “If there is no World of the Dead, then what use is there for Death, or an heir?”
He laughed. “I know you do not have that kind of power.”
The windows shattered. I smiled.
Reavers murmured in disquiet.
Then came the rustle of sliding vines.
“Are you so sure?” I asked my grandfather.
Death waved away the reavers. “Go find my grandson and return him to me.”
Above the heads of the dark angels, I saw rose vines spilling into the building through the broken windows, descending the walls, covering the shattered mirrors. My reinforcements had come!
The reavers vanished into their shadows, leaving Death with a clear view of a hall conquered by a surging sea of vines with a white froth of gleaming roses that were lit from within. We were surrounded now by the talismans of my office. The growth was wild and rapid, piling high and spreading into every nook and cranny. Even Death’s throne was swallowed whole. In moments, the only open space lay immediately around my grandfather and me.
“You question my power,” I said. “How much more of it do you need to see before you understand that victory will be far too costly for you?”
My elation thinned as the vines in that darkness withered and decayed, falling away as dust. Even now, it seemed, I remained only a minor inconvenience to my grandfather. He turned from surveying the dying vegetation to look at me proudly.
“You are ever surprising, my dear granddaughter, but I always win.”
“You are wrong,” I said. “Though it cost me everything, I will destroy all that you would force upon my son, that he may recover his life again.”
There remained but one card to play. I sang my need inwardly to the black rose, calling it like a childhood friend to come out and play. Within my spirit, black petals unfurled quickly without my willful opposition. I felt my heart slow, becoming a void. The black rose filled me with torrential darkness that was rife with violent currents and riptides. Sighing welcome, my soul drank the explosion of power thirstily.
The flower in my spirit drained the light of my hopes and dreams, all I treasured from life, in exchange for the destruction it would deliver in any case. Deep into shock, on the border of madness, I wept for the life I would never have with Azrael.
Grandfather saw the death of hope in my eyes. My broken surrender stirred him to offer an awkward comfort, as he assumed victory was his. “It won’t be that bad. You will see…”
My clutching hand reached by instinct for the compass necklace I wore, tearing it loose as the last of me slipped toward total eclipse. I collapsed to the floor, jarring my bad knee, but the darkness fed upon the pain, freeing me of it—a small mercy. The necklace fell from my nerveless hand.
My Darkness spoke to me: Everything is lost, so let everything be lost.
Becoming a living thing, my shadow grew as Death’s had, swallowing the ruined floor, the withered vines, speeding on to the far walls.
My grandfather stared down at me, incredulously. His voice emerged, a choked whisper, “How are you doing this?”
I turned, the hub of an infinite wheel. Sinking … my self dissolved in darkness. A shudder went through me. I am dying … of love and surrender ... alone.
“Stop this!” Death screamed.
His sword thrust deeply into me. I did not feel the weapon. I had become the coldest of all shadows. Death’s blade fractured, shattered by a cold greater than its own. The dark jagged pieces were sucked into my flesh, devoured.
My Darkness filled the rafters, consuming the damaged ceiling and the higher chambers. It would not be long before the palace, the Courts of Death, the surrounding cities, and finally the port city of the Necropolis were all unmade. Thought of so much annihilation failed to stir my concern. The dead cannot be bothered with anything.
Death plunged a hand of shadow into my chest. I think he sensed the dark rose and meant to tear it from my soul.
But the black rose found him tasty.
He screamed as if his arm were being gnawed to the bone, and finally tore himself away. Half his arm was gone, leaving a tattered stub around the elbow. But more shadow spilled from his shoulder. The arm lengthened, reformed, and became actual flesh once more.
Despite his dramatic recovery, Death backed away from me, his eyes full of the terror he usually inspired in others.
I gathered myself off the floor and smiled in joy, free at last—no longer Celeste. She was a small lost thing caught in the currents of my core, surviving as a trace element only because she did not fight the building pressure that demanded release. Furious winds streamed my hair across my eyes. The white strands had darkened to obsidian.
A midnight sun exploded in my chest. Ebon sheets of fire rolled off me, a wall of force that shoved Death contemptuously away. What was this small wyrm that I need concern myself with him any longer? Let him watch me shatter his world as he had shattered the lives of so many others.
Azrael appeared, looming in front of me.
“My love!” his whisper was a shocked thing, thick with dismay.
I smiled welcome, opening my arms in invitation. A vortex of black winds enclosed the throne room, working outward from there. The gale gave voice to the surging violence within me.
In the distance, Death picked himself up. He called to Azrael, “She is lost! Join me in striking her down while we can. The Veil has taken her!”
Azrael gripped my arms. He pulled me against him. “Celeste! Give me the Darkness and be spared!” His eyes blazed with painful intensity. He pressed his lips against mine in a final gentle kiss.
I melted against him, my hands clutched his back. Reduced to hunger, I crushed him against me and returned the kiss with savage intensity from a place where light was unwelcome. I felt his wrapping cloak, a smothering cocoon, and then we fell into infinity, exchanging Death’s realm for the emptiness of the veil.
To Celeste, this had ever been unrelieved darkness.
My reborn eyes distinguished between thousands of shades of black. The space was no longer uniform, for I saw form in the churning ether. It enclosed me with petals, layer after ephemeral layer. This was the true black rose; that part of me which wore Celeste’s flesh was only a small fraction of a greater entity. Here, resided my disembodied soul, trapped between realities since the birth of the cosmos.
The Dar’kyn had drawn on me through their Tree to empower their magic—until I tired of them. Celeste had become the more intriguing distraction. As for Azrael... I clung to his pleasant coldness, dragging my hands across his flesh in adoration.
A stiffness that I did not expect pressed into me. Once more, Abaddon was attempting to deceive me!
The faint trace of Celeste within me flared, leaking hatred that I copied.
“You bastard…!”
I pushed him back, then used my hand to strike a vicious blow across his face as we hung in nothingness.
His face moved away, then sought me, as though the blow had been a lover’s caress. “Celeste, it truly is me. When we walked into the light of Heaven’s Gate, certain … changes … were made. It seems God has a strange sense of humor.”
I stood on black ether, willing it to support me as I faced my lover. Celeste’s longing was a spur. Could it be true? Dare I believe him? I wanted to, badly, hungry to taste him, to devour his cold flesh, his passion … and his bright, celestial soul…
Azrael’s hand came out of his cloak, holding the rapier I had earlier lost. He thrust the blade into my heart. It sank silently into my flesh, piercing me.
“Forgive me,” he said, “and find peace if you can.”
I looked down at the hilt jutting from my breast, then met Azrael’s gaze. “Oh, well done! Such wondrous treachery! But I forgive you.” I extended my hand to him even as I weakened my stance, dipping toward the floor, as if my unnatural strength had failed.
Azrael leaped in to catch me with an arm behind my back. His hood fell back. His pale face was unveiled. Tears wet his cheeks.
I lifted myself, and thrust out a hand with long black nails. My claws dug furrows over his heart. His rent flesh welled with thick golden blood.
He gasped. His eyes were wide with pain and shock as he retreated.
But I stayed with him, licking angel blood from my talons, smiling with pleasure at the intoxicating taste. I wanted more! Pain and pleasure were a marvelous mix.
I summoned black fire and my clothes burned away. I grasped the rapier hilt and pulled the sword from my body, casting it away with disdain. My wounded flesh closed, healed like my knee by what the ignorant call dark magic.
“Come fill me,” I demanded. “Sheath yourself in my flesh. Let me drink your lust with your life!”
Mesmerized by my inviting stare, he stopped retreating. Azrael’s eyes pulsed with blinding force. “It is not lust I feel…”
My arms drew him into an embrace.
He continued, “But the love you have taught me. You are welcome to take it all.”
“In time, I will,” I assured him. I licked blood from his chest and clawed his back, opening new, luscious
wounds. “Oh, I will!”
21. THE SWORD OF THE ROSE
Darkness used my eyes, my body. The Spirit of the Veil had taken my inner places, and I lived only until she got around to plucking me forth, and crushing out the last of my awareness. My spirit occupied the eye of the storm, a tiny spot of peace in a maelstrom. This was my returning nightmare; the mask-shaped portal had opened to allow Darkness to sweep across a white infinity … except this was all too real and no dream at all.
I would not be awakening.
At least I had won my war—my son could return to Earth and obscurity, while Death picked up the many pieces of his existence. It might be decades before he sought Phillippe again. This was not the best victory I could have achieved, but I accepted it none-the-less.
My sharpest regret was the loss of Azrael. I would have given anything for a final kiss, a last caress… Huddled and hiding, I tortured myself with memories of his chiseled features, perfect smile, and tight gold curls. I imagined his voice calling to me even now…
“…the love you have taught me. You are welcome to take it all.”
It was not imagination. It was his voice! What could this mean?
I traced the voice to a massive black mask—my own face—the open gate through which Darkness had conquered. Beyond was a passage to another space. This was what the black rose had obscured at its heart until blooming. Here was the point where Emptiness and Hunger gained access to my soul, drawn by the dragon-blood I had inherited from Grandfather.
A piercing cry rent my heart. Azrael suffered.
I passed the open gate and found myself in the Veil, confronting my stolen body.
Azrael pressed against my spectral back. His touch comforted me though it lacked force, as though I were feeling him in some entirely new way. He slid down to my feet, breathing laboriously. I could not tend him—hovering as I was in the black-eyed stare of my possessed flesh. Seeing my body from the outside, I was shocked to see star-fire tinted hair turned black as the devil’s heart. Other changes included black nails that gave my hands a lethal, predatory look.
The Farthest Gate (The White Rose Book 1) Page 30
