by Holly Evans
He smiled and wrapped his arms around my waist, holding me close.
“She gave me you.”
I kissed him tenderly.
I was never going to stop feeling butterflies whenever I looked into his eyes, or the warmth of happiness when he really smiled at me, the brilliant smile he saved for our private moments. It didn’t matter that the goddess had pushed us together, I couldn’t dream of a better, more beautiful man.
“I gave her centuries of my life. At times it felt like a cage, like I was nothing more than a puppet. I disagreed with some of her decisions, but I had no choice. She…”
I gave him all the time he needed.
“She could be cruel at times. The pain she inflicted was unlike anything I’ve suffered before or since.”
The gods weren’t perfect. They were flawed beings like the rest of us. The only difference being, they had far more power than the rest of us. I was beginning to feel like I’d been conned into joining a cult rather than chosen for something incredible.
Alasdair swallowed and ran his fingers through my hair.
“I think I’ll always wonder. If I did the right thing, if I should have denied her when she claimed me. But I’ll never question our bond. You are the most incredible man. I’m blessed to call you mine.”
The urge to run away bloomed, and Alasdair loosened his arms around me. I exhaled slowly and nestled against him, resting my head on his chest. I couldn’t run from him; he needed me. He needed me to be his anchor like he had been mine time and again.
22
“The plan’s simple. Get through the rift. The wolves and bears will take out the elves, we destroy the spirit in the bones. Walk away, heads held high,” Liam said.
The necromancers around him grinned. There were no silly flowing robes, just normal day clothes. They could have passed as perfectly normal people. I wondered how many humans had passed them on the street and had no idea they made zombies and played with the dead.
Spirits were high as we travelled to the site of the rift. It was a simple job, and the elves had shown they weren’t really the warrior types. If they were anything like they had been when we were there, then they might not even have anyone around the bones. Gray and Griff had an animated discussion about a band I wasn’t familiar with on the drive there.
“Come on, the first drummer was far superior, the new one, whatshisface, lacks the spirit and passion,” Griff said.
“George didn’t have the technical skill that Danny does,” Gray said.
I didn’t listen to music with the ear they apparently did. If it had a good beat and made me feel good, I liked it.
The site was a barren scrubby field with a couple of gnarled trees in the middle of it. The 4x4s and beaten up cheap cars (necromancy didn’t pay that well) all parked along the road.
Everyone gathered around Lydia, who had a soft glow around her.
“Remember, you have exactly thirty minutes from when you step through that rift.”
I didn’t think my sanity could stand being in that cream monstrosity another night. I was not going to get stuck there while Lydia recharged.
Everyone nodded in understanding, and she began moving her hands in a slow pulling motion. The glow around her intensified, and a shimmer formed in the air next to her.
“Age before beauty,” Griff said to Alasdair with a grin.
Alasdair smirked back and stepped through the rift. I was hot on his heels.
The elves were prepared. A small army of them were standing on the lawn and around the compound. So much for this being an easy in and out.
“We know what you are, Niko. Don’t fuck around with that toothpick you call a dagger. Burn ’em,” Griff said.
I looked down at my dagger, which was a perfectly reasonable size.
The elves started to advance on us. The bears took that as their cue. Griff let out a roar and started to shift. His face extended where his powerful bear jaw and teeth came through. Large sharp claws sprouted from his fingertips, and he somehow got even more broad and muscular. The bears charged at the elves and fought with ferocity that sent limbs flying.
I called my fire forward and felt it coursing through me as I strode up to the mayhem. A couple of younger elves looked at me warily before my hands became coated in fire. They tried blowing their darts at me, but I incinerated them in mid-air. Fear rolled off them. They looked back behind them and saw their brethren being torn limb from limb by the bears. The only way was forward, towards the fire.
Gray had set a couple of elves on fire. They were trying to continue fighting with long slender swords. Gray side-stepped, and a bear tackled them from the side. They were crushed beneath her bulk and didn’t make any attempts to stand again when she got back up.
The elves in front of me gained some bravery from somewhere and tried to circle around me with their own slender swords. I calmed my mind and kept a grasp on the fire. This was still very new, but needs must. I stepped around a clumsy rush, lunged and grabbed onto the elf’s arm. His clothes caught fire, and he screamed in pain. His friend tried to thrust his sword through my stomach. I twisted away and threw myself forward, grabbing onto his clothing as I did so. His eyes went wide as his skin started to char.
They died painful deaths, writhing on the floor. I remained back away from the worst of the carnage to watch over the necromancers, who were chanting in some guttural old language. They spoke as one as the deep thrum of magic vibrated in my bones and tugged at something deep within me. Liam held the small fingerbone up skyward, and the chanting became something more. I could feel the pounding of an old drum making the earth beneath my feet vibrate. Something roared and screamed. I looked around and saw a black smoke coming from the bones.
The chanting became more frenzied, and the elves screamed. The bones cracked and shattered, and the chanting stopped. Liam gave out a whoop of glee. The few remaining elves had murderous expressions on their faces. Alasdair emerged from the fray and wrapped his fingers around Taen’s throat. He squeezed hard before he snapped the elf’s neck and dropped his lifeless form at the feet of the remaining elves. There were two left, and they were surrounded by bears in the thrall of blood-lust.
They did the only thing they could. They ran.
We hopped back through the rift to find a look of horror on Lydia’s face.
“What the fuck did you do!?”
“That wasn’t the reaction we were expecting,” Liam said.
“You tore a huge hole in the veil!”
“Ah, fuck. It must have been a back-up plan by those bastard elves,” Griff said.
“You knew there was a possibility of this?” Lydia narrowed her eyes at him.
“There was a chance. Those elves are sneaky.”
“Is this fixable?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t heal the veil, and it’s too big for you. The witch who remade the ward stone might be able to, but she needed a sacrifice for the stone…”
Everyone looked at each other, wondering who was willing to sacrifice themselves.
“We’ll figure it out,” Griff said.
“Not like we have a choice,” Liam said.
So that could have gone better.
23
We headed back to the farmhouse. We filled the kitchen and living room, and that was after the lower-ranking bears returned to their camp.
“So just to sum this up. We have three councils who want our heads for killing the elves and opening a fucking great rift. We also have an elf prince and a pixie queen baying for our blood. Then on top of that, we have the political horseshit we brought down on everyone. Those who’re pro tearing the veil down are using this as a chance to gather in numbers and be even more ballsy in their attacks. Did I miss anything?” Griff said.
“The human news has started reporting weird sightings…” Liam added unhelpfully.
Everyone gave him a death glare that he shrank beneath.
“One thing at a time,” Alasdair said.
“We can ignore the councils for now. Glamours will stop them from getting too close. And they’ll be too wrapped up in their internal bullshit to send much after us. The same can be said for the fae. They’re all talk. There will be political ties holding them back. We focus on the rift and stopping more from forming.”
A quiet murmur of agreement went through the group.
“We will go back to our allies with strong ties to the Prague council. They will help us gauge the real scale of the situation. You need to keep your heads low and gather as many of your own allies as you can. This will be the beginning of a war. A war we cannot afford to lose.”
“Mom said we can crash with them for a few days while we figure out what to do next,” Gray said.
We’d put the glamours back on, and my mind wasn’t adjusting well to seeing Gray as Steele and Alasdair as Derek.
“Any news from them?” Alasdair asked.
“Nothing they wanted to risk saying over the phone.”
I wrinkled my nose. That meant we were in deep shit.
We passed through passport control without a hitch with our new IDs to match our glamours. I swore my glamour itched. It just felt wrong. It wasn’t a true itch, but I wanted to claw at it.
Alasdair entwined his fingers with mine. “Relax, Seth, you’re drawing attention with your fidgeting.”
I saw the airport guard looking at us a little too closely and exhaled to try and make myself relax.
We paid extortionate money for sandwiches with only a little filling near the edge that been showing in the package. My stomach growled and the exhaustion that came with the situation settled over me. Thankfully, the flight wasn’t too long, only three hours or so.
It took everything I had to try and pass as the same bored kind of tiredness that everyone else around us was suffering. The seats were hard and uncomfortable, people kept walking too close and making me tuck my feet under me. Then there were the people who insisted on having far too loud conversations.
Through it all, I kept wondering if we’d been conned. What if we were misunderstanding all of this and Saoirse and the goddess were the good guys? What if they weren’t, and we were the bad guys? How were we supposed to know who to trust in any of this? The world was crumbling around us, and I felt distinctly lost.
The flight was delayed. Then the cabin crew were snappy and sarcastic. I squeezed myself into the small middle seat and tried to think happy thoughts. Warm gooey brownies. Running through the forest with Alasdair at my side. Watching a really good movie.
I had never been so happy to see a pair of council members as I was when we finally emerged from the network of passages between exiting the plane and getting out into fresh air. Lysander and Evelyn stood waiting for us, looking like sentinels amidst the exhausted and lost tourists. They stood tall, both in leather jackets and jeans. Both of them put off a clear ‘don’t fuck with us’ aura that made people give them extra room. The flow of people moved around them much like a river around a rock.
Evelyn threw her arms around Gray and buried her face in his neck.
“Gods, it’s good to see you baby boy. I was getting worried.”
Lysander pulled Alasdair into a man hug, and I was alarmed to find myself pulled into one shortly after.
We were led out to a simple black car, and I slid into the comfortable leather seats with a happy sigh. Finally, I could relax.
“How did you know it was us?” Gray asked, gesturing at our glamours.
“The way you moved,” Lysander said.
“Don’t worry, no one else knows you well enough to pick up on something like that,” Evelyn said.
We continued the ride in a quiet silence as I watched the city grow up around us. Grey communist blocks gave way to more elegant cream buildings with Holy Roman touches. Angels stared out at us from the architecture and felt like they were accusing us.
Lysander parked the car in the small carpark behind the tall buildings, and they led us through the two security gates into the lift up to their flat. Things were more secure than I remembered.
“Times are changing. We’re taking more precautions,” Lysander said.
The moment we stepped over the wards just inside the doorway, I removed that cursed glamour and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Things are bad. Do you want a drink? Kadrix is bringing over food,” Lysander said.
“A drink would be great, thanks,” I said.
“How bad?” Gray asked.
“A number of the councils are now openly for the veil being pulled down. The alchemical guilds are pushing their members to find ways to enable this to happen more quickly. Some lycan packs are going rogue from the shift in magic around the rifts. The fae are torn, there are civil wars between the various territories.”
“And it’s our fault,” I said quietly.
“No. It’s the goddess’s,” a soft feminine voice said.
A vaguely familiar woman stepped out of the kitchen with mugs of steaming hot tea. Her waist-length white hair hung loose, and her dark blue eyes held a soft silver shimmer.
“Niko, this is Elise, my best friend and ex-moon priestess.”
A lump formed in my stomach. It took a lot for a priestess to abandon her post. Things must have been truly dire for her to do so.
I took the sweet-smelling tea from her and made myself comfortable on the couch next to Alasdair. Elise curled up in the lap of a dark-haired man who watched her with absolute adoration.
“I’m afraid that the goddess has become unbalanced and has become focused on her own power rather than the balance of this plane. We will we need to sever your ties with her as soon as possible.”
I took Alasdair’s hand and stroked my thumb over his palm, offering him what comfort I could. He had devoted centuries to her, and now it was all being torn away.
24
The witch that could break our bonds to the goddess lived in a small village some three hours outside of Prague. No one told us what Kadrix and Quin had traded for her to perform the required ritual. I entwined my fingers with Alasdair’s and kept him as close as I could while he stared out of the window. He hadn’t said a word all morning. I wished that I could offer him more.
Elise and Evelyn were the ones taking us out to the witch. Elise had the best understanding of what we were going through. She had devoted her life to the goddess as well, only to be betrayed. Some of her good friends had chosen to remain with the goddess on her new destructive path, and it opened great chasms within the community. Priestesses were turning on each other, and the gods were only encouraging it.
We got out of the car in front of the small wooden house surrounded by mature trees and long grass. A small lake could be seen between the gaps in the trees. I walked around the car and put my arm around Alasdair’s waist. We were in this together. He put his arm around me and gave me a small sad smile. I hated seeing him so quiet and deflated. He had been a terrifying force of nature when I’d first met him. I hated the goddess for stealing away his fire.
The witch was an older woman dressed in a long red skirt and a bright purple blouse.
“Come inside,” she said with a thick accent.
We followed her into the small house with two rooms on the bottom floor. Wooden paneling covered the walls, or perhaps was the walls. A little square table occupied the space beneath the windows looking out over the tall grass garden and the lake beyond. A wood stove sat against the closest wall with freshly chopped wood stacked in a wicker basket next to it. I didn’t see the usual dried herbs, bottles, and such.
“The ritual is painful. We will do it by the lake.”
“The water makes you closer to the goddess, so the ritual will be a little easier,” Elise explained.
The witch pulled a small silver vial from her skirt and tipped it up onto her finger. She dabbed Alasdair and me with the silver liquid, covering our foreheads
and collarbones.
“That is a potion formed of moonlight, moonstone, and so on,” Elise said.
The liquid began to itch against my skin. It felt like it was gnawing at the goddess markings.
“Come,” the witch said.
We followed her out through the long grass onto the pale grey sand beach of the lake.
“Stand.” She pointed a circle marked in the sand.
The itching from the liquid turned into a full-blown burning sensation the moment I stepped over the line of the circle. Alasdair’s face twisted with pain, but he said nothing. I took both of his hands in mine and faced him. We were doing this together.
The area around us became blurry. There was only a furious scream that rang out and cut through my mind like a sharp knife. I held Alasdair’s hands tighter as the burning where the goddess marks were grew more intense. Pain seared away any other thoughts. There was nothing but pain and the feeling of Alasdair’s hands in my mind.
The pain consumed me. It filled my mind and wracked the very essence of me as I felt something torn away from deep inside. I opened my eyes, gasping and panting for breath. Alasdair’s hands were still in mine, but he was kneeling, head bowed, sweat dripping from his brow. I released his hands and knelt in front of him, pulling him to me. I stroked his hair as we both recovered.
There was a hole within me. Something I hadn’t noticed was there was now gone. I looked down at my hands and saw them bare once more. It looked so wrong. I held Alasdair closer and hid his tears from the witch and Elise to preserve his dignity. When his breathing had settled and his tears had dried, I moved back and looked into his beautiful silver eyes. I ran my hands over his face and kissed him gently.
“I would be lost without you,” he whispered.
“Whatever may come, we stand side-by-side,” I whispered.
He smiled and nuzzled against my neck before the witch cleared her throat.
