Hearts of Shadow (Deadglass #2)

by Kira Brady

  His ancient slit eyes gave her one last look, then he turned to the fog and roared. He breathed fire at it, and the fog rose up. Thunderbolts on one side, Leif’s fire on the other, Kingu used all his strength to materialize into his dragon form. Three heads, three tails, three sets of jagged teeth, black scales and burning red eyes. Mad and merciless and heartless.

  Grace took the Tablet of Destiny and grabbed hold of the lid to the iron box inside her. Finding the peace at her center, she released Tiamat’s rage. The Heart’s power shot out in crystal-blue flame. It burned through her vocal chords and tendons, shooting out of her fingertips into the blistered soil. Overwhelming, all-consuming pain and a mad thirst for power. Her hand crunched the mistletoe, and the spiked leaves drew her back. Life and death, she had to walk the balance beam. She would not let a crazed goddess take her over.

  She stopped fighting the Heart and herded it instead, shaping it, directing it, to burn through the runes on her body. The marks caught fire and the ink vaporized. Her skin shed color. She was free. No magic trapped the Heart in her body, just her indomitable will.

  “Kingu!” she called. “Kingu, take your Heart!”

  The dragon Leif charged into the fog just as Kingu charged her. Kingu’s wraith swept through Leif and into Grace. The frozen cold shocked her. For a moment she couldn’t move as Kingu consumed her mind and body.

  Images flashed before her eyes. Images of her using the Tablet to rewrite the destinies of the universe. To rewrite her own destiny, Leif’s, Oscar’s, her parents’. Kingu was sifting through her memories with no sense of the past or future. Things she once had wanted drove crazily across her mind. A pink canopy bed. A sharper knife. A new ukulele. Norgard, beheaded. A cozy gingerbread house with white curtains and glowing wards over the door. Leif, chained to an iron bed. Naked.

  Gasping, she tore herself from the vision and clamped down on her iron walls. “Obey me!” She harnessed the Heart’s blue flame to burn Uruz, the binding, through the pulse point at each wrist. A drop of blood dripped from her nose. She sent the flame to burn Raidho into her forehead. “Journey with me.”

  Inside her breast, Kingu shrieked. She felt him writhing inside her, like graveyard worms, but she forced more power through the newly burnt runes.

  Blue flame danced along her skin. The power of the Heart blazed from her eyes. Each word sent sparks into the air.

  She squeezed the Tablet shard and carved Thurisaz, the gateway, across her chest. Blood dripped from her skin. Pain lacerated every nerve. “Be banished,” she whispered, pouring every last drop of her power into that command. With a last thought for Leif, she plunged the Tablet into her own heart.

  With a burst of power, Tiamat’s Heart surged out of her body and into the Tablet of Destiny. The stone heated to scalding, and Grace was ripped from her body out into the rain-drenched night. Kingu shook at his cage, but the runes bound him. Aether poured through the runes and caught up his spirit in a roaring river of light. Thrashing, he sailed helplessly out of Grace’s body and straight through the Gates to the Land of the Dead.

  Chapter 25

  Grace watched her body collapse into the blood-splattered mud. The Tablet went flying from her hand to scatter beneath the blackberries on the water’s edge. The night sparkled. Her vision was twice as clear as the Deadglass now. Currents of Aether eddied over the field and flowed across the sky. She was weightless. She could join that sparkling water and be carried to the stars and through the Gate. Peace. Freedom. New adventures. Who knew what secrets the land beyond hid? Aether twirled around her spirit, soft as moonbeams and starlight, nudging her to release her feet from the ground and take flight.

  “No. Grace! Please don’t leave me. You are my everything. Please, Ishtar! Gods!”

  She paused, one foot in the air, at the grief in the familiar deep voice. Leif cradled her bruised and broken body in one arm as he tried to feed blood into her mouth from a gash in his wrist.

  “Don’t you leave me, Grace! That’s . . . that’s an order.” His voice cracked. “Please. Gods, take me with you.”

  Grace felt phantom tears on her phantom cheeks. He was so dear to her. Her heart shouldn’t hurt this much; ghosts couldn’t feel. But she felt like her heart was torn in two. Go on and live, she whispered to him. I died for you. She couldn’t imagine a world without him in it. The Aether shimmered around her, calling her home through the Gate. She saw it sparkle out of the corner of her eye. It offered peace and safety after so much violence, a chance to leave her worldly cares behind, her aching body, her scarred soul. No more pain or suffering. Just peace. But she couldn’t leave him here crying over her poor corpse.

  “Gods damn me, Grace. Why would you give me this taste of heaven and then leave me in hell? I don’t want to live without you. You are my light, my Grace.” Hot tears blurred his green eyes. His hands pumped her still chest as if he could force her heart to beat again.

  She drifted nearer and slid her phantom hand over his disheveled hair. Gods, she loved him. How could doing the right thing be so hard? Would the world always give her good things only to tear them away? She kissed his head and knelt to wrap her arms around him. The hair on his neck rose, but he couldn’t feel her. Her arms slipped through his physical shape. I love you, she said. The Gate shimmered. Insistent. She felt its pull. One moment more, and then she would go.

  “Don’t leave me,” he cried.

  I want to stay.

  “Take me with you. Please—”

  Let me stay with him, please.

  She closed her eyes against the hurt. The Aether nudged her, but she couldn’t leave him in pain. She didn’t want to leave him, not ever. If only she could bind her soul to his. Take it, take all of me, she said. You have all my heart, my soul, now and forever. I love you.

  A bolt of light shot out of her ghostly chest. It arched straight through his, and shot down to her still body, connecting them. She felt when it took root. The light intensified. It burned to her fingertips, and she felt herself being sucked forward, pulled by that brilliant light back into her body, tied with an unbreakable bond to the man next to her.

  When she opened her eyes, the world spun around her, but all she saw were those beloved emerald eyes staring into hers in wonder.

  “Grace.” He leaned in and kissed her. His hands checked her body, smoothing every line. “Gods, Grace. You came back.”

  “I couldn’t leave you,” she said. She kissed him, touched him, couldn’t get enough feel of his body and mouth. “I’ll never leave you.”

  “I won’t let you. I was so scared I’d lost you.”

  “I can feel you. Inside me, part of me.”

  “Always. You have always owned part of me. The best part.”

  “Kingu was sent back through the Gate, but I lost the Heart.”

  “I don’t care. I just want you.” He paused a moment and held up his hands. He turned them over as if seeing them for the first time. “Do I glow? I feel your light brilliant inside me like a jack-o’-lantern. It’s so warm. I thought my fire was hot, but—gods, Grace. You bound yourself to me. You know what this means. Are you sure?”

  She grabbed his shirtfront and pulled him down. She answered him with a forceful kiss. The living world was full of uncertainty, but in this she had no doubts: Her heart belonged to Leif and Leif alone until the end of time.

  A roaring fire curled in his belly. For the first time in Leif’s long existence, the darkness held no sway. Grace’s soul lit up every corner of his body with its brilliant divinity. Through the bond he could feel her heart beating in time with his own, and he knew that if one stopped, both would. They were bound together for eternity. She had chosen to bind herself again, to bind herself to him, and this time there would be no turning back.

  “There is no blood debt to work off,” he said. “No hope of freedom.”

  Her black jacket hung in shreds from her thin shoulders, the cotton saturated with blood. Mud caked her boots and hair. Dirt and more blood across her
cheeks. But her eyes were clear. Her coral lips softened. He rocked her in one arm and ran his other hand over her body, assuring himself that she was whole.

  “Loving you is freedom,” she said. “I’ve given myself permission to have what I want, and I want you. I’m not afraid anymore.”

  “And how do you feel?”

  “Glorious.” She grabbed a handful of his hair and brought his mouth down to her. Her tongue tangled with his. Soft and wet and wanting. Finally he tasted heaven, and knew that as long as he lived, whatever his destiny held, he would never be cold again. Her soul banished the shadows inside him. Her love chased the pain from his heart.

  Knowing the battle wasn’t over yet, he broke the kiss. “Let’s finish this.”

  The Kivati and the remaining Drekar had turned their attention to Ishtar’s army, which still fought for meat on the hillside. The medic tent overflowed with injured humans. The towers of the Gas Works lay on their sides for some museum of history and industry to take an interest in. Forgotten, abandoned remnants of a civilized age.

  Leif paid them no mind. Someday he would return to the lighting project, but he had a lot of rubbish removal to get through first. He helped run the wraiths from the field. Without their leader they deteriorated into selfish spirits again. Their organization dissolved.

  Leif lost some of his fearlessness in battle. He had always been careful, but not afraid. Now he had a human soul, and the added burden that his death would put on Grace. Wherever one went, the other followed. The thought of eternity with her stretched out in a golden glowing path. He didn’t fear the other side, as long as he had her.

  But that didn’t mean he wanted them to pass through the Gate together anytime soon.

  “You’re smothering me,” Grace complained.

  They would just have to work something out.

  “And the Heart is for sure not inside you anymore? Not asleep.”

  “Look, I told you a hundred times already. She’s gone.”

  “Good.” He kissed her again with the Thunderbirds and Drekar looking on. “Three’s a crowd.”

  “What about Zetian?”

  “She’ll be dealt with whenever she crawls out of the hole she’s hiding in. Treason is the highest offense. She taught me that. We’ll see how she likes some of her own punishments.”

  It took another hour to break up the surviving aptrgangr.

  Crows descended on the battlefield. They used their talons and beaks to peck out the aptrgangr’s eyes. Without sight, the aptrgangr lost their sense of direction, and they were herded into the pump house for safe removal. Many wraiths escaped. Grace found her powers diminished. It took more energy to banish the wraiths and draw Aether through the runes. She had to concentrate harder, but she could still do it. The Shadow Walker in her had had the power before Tiamat’s Heart had possessed her. Her fingers slipped on the branding iron.

  “Let me.” Leif took it from her tired fingers and put it in his pocket. “That’s enough for today.”

  “But the wraiths will escape—” she protested.

  “They’ll be back. We’ll train civilians to do the banishments. It will take more than one reaper to tackle all the wraiths in Seattle even if that woman is a goddess.”

  “The Heart escaped.”

  “You are a goddess, Grace. Never forget that.” He picked her up from the floor where she knelt and carried her in his arms outside. Torches lit the night sky. Men and women searched the battlefield for injured among the dead, ministering Drekar blood to those still living and collecting those already passed on for the funeral pyre. Flames from the bonfire on top of Kite Hill streaked the sky red and orange. The dead were laid to rest with a prayer to the Stone Giants to bring their souls safely across the Waters of Death, and to Ereshkigal, the Babylonian goddess of death, to welcome them home. Marks had resisted the Drekar blood. He presided over the funeral fire with his arm and head bandaged. He sat on a wooden stool from the medic tent and read passages from his snakeskin Bible. On the other side, Birgitta’s witches sang of Valhalla and burned mistletoe.

  He didn’t care which deity they worshipped. In the end all souls passed beyond the Gate. Those wraiths that stayed would see their demise at the end of Grace’s running iron. He would help her keep the city safe. Once the streets were free of aptrgangr, maybe her parents’ ghosts could be laid to rest too.

  Chapter 26

  The new Drekar Hall rose up from the cliff edge like a bird of prey nesting on a rocky outcrop. The side facing Puget Sound was made of stone. The side facing east curled around a central courtyard where the Althing was in full swing around a large bonfire. A dragon-sized arch ran through the center of the building providing a peekaboo view of the Olympic Mountains in the distance. Below the arch, two jewel-encrusted thrones sat on a raised dais. Both were gilt over dragon bone. One had jeweled pommels with hidden swords. The other—a new artistic creation by the Drekar glass artist Brand—had iron spikes along the top and branding irons hidden in the armrests.

  Dragons from all over had come to see the coronation. They lurked at the edges with their flocks in the center, each one craning his neck to see the human woman who had brought a dragon to his knees. The woman who, rumor had it, had broken his curse.

  Leif watched from a window in the north tower. “I’ve never seen so many Drekar in one place.”

  “Gee, thanks.” Grace ran her hands through her long blue-black hair. Her dress hugged her slim body like a sheen of liquid silver. Emerald-green jewels had been embroidered through the silk. They caught the light and sparkled like scales.

  “I’m not trying to make you nervous.”

  “Who, me? I’m not scared of a few giant lizards. I know exactly how to make one fall.” Her lips quirked up.

  He turned from the window. Perhaps he didn’t need to tell her that there were well over a hundred. In the months since defeating Kingu, he’d sent Drekar to scout over the Cascades and down into northern California. There were more surviving cities than he’d previously thought. Every Drekar had resisted his initial attempts to contact them. Not one had refused his invitation to see the woman who had given him a soul.

  She was resplendent. The sheaf of silk accentuated her curves and pushed up her pale breasts. Two silver clips held her hair back from her face. They brought out her eyes. Fathomless eyes. Siren eyes that would sing a man to drown.

  “I know that look,” she said. A little frown marred her forehead. “You know I just got into this dress. We have to go down any minute.”

  He took a step toward her. He raised one eyebrow. “And you think they might leave if we keep them waiting?”

  “Maybe.” Her eyes darted to the bed, where her cat slept in the center of the maroon featherbed. The iron posts were thick enough to take even a supernatural beating. They held firm and solid as if they grew from the roots of the earth. They wouldn’t break.

  He’d tried.

  His fingers removed his cuff links. He dropped them on the thick green carpet. The buttons of his shirt popped off one by one.

  “Your steward is about to call us down,” she said. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. The attention made her nervous. He knew exactly how to distract her. He knew precisely how to wind her up and calm her down.

  He’d made an intensive study of it.

  It was always a good idea to repeat an experiment. One never knew when the outcome might be different. If this time he put his fingers there, and his tongue over there . . .

  She bit her lower lip. The silk of the dress left little to the imagination. He could see her thighs squeezing together and smell her feminine arousal growing in the small tower room. He let his own scent mingle with hers, not to trick her, not to bind her to his own desire, but simply because he couldn’t help himself. Even soul bright, she brought out the truest part of him. He couldn’t hide anything from her.

  Her eyes slid down to the erection tenting the front of his trousers. Her lips parted. Her tongue snaked out to wet them.<
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  “Ye gods, Grace.” His voice rumbled in his throat. Pulling his shirt out of his pants, he tore it off. Her gaze stripped him like a sunburn. He wanted to bathe in it. “Let them wait. I think you’ve forgotten who I am. Let me remind you.”

  “The Regent—”

  “That’s right.” He picked her up by her waist and threw her on the bed. She bounced. Her wicked smile urged him on. The cat complained and bolted. “Alone at last. I thought he’d never leave.”

  “He’s only under the bed.”

  “As Regent, I order you to take off your dress.” He watched as she slowly, too slowly, dragged the clinging silk up over her thighs. He thought his heart would stop when she paused, only for an instant, at the crux of her. “You are so beautiful. Go faster.”

  She moved slower. The silk protested as she slid it over her hips, tightening its hold to her luscious skin like a jealous lover. She wore no panties.

  His cock hardened to stone.

  “I order you to never wear panties again.” He couldn’t help himself. He followed her onto the bed, crouching over her with his knees between her thighs. As the silk left her breasts he replaced it with his tongue. She wore no bra either. Ishtar be praised. He licked the soft globes and drew a slow spiral around and up her peaked nipples. He pulled one into his mouth, sucking on the tip. She moaned. He replaced his mouth with his warm hand and moved to attend the other peak. “I order you to let me love you like this until you are old and grey and waiting for the Stone Giants to ferry you across the Aether into the otherworld.”

  A little laugh escaped her moan. “And then? What then will you order me to do? Arrogant man.”

  He brought the silk dress over her head and twisted it to trap her arms above her. “You have bound yourself to me for all eternity. Just like this.” He kissed her mouth and let his body settle heavily over hers, sinking into her warm curves, letting his hands massage down her body to coax her thighs. “And then, when we have passed together through the Gate, some say the Aether will return us to our prime. I will start all over and love you like this again.” He unbuckled his pants and released his cock. His thumb massaged her clit in small, soft circles, until he felt her body relax beneath him, and the tension begin to spiral from her core. “And again.”