The Seeker

by Elizabeth Hunter

  Rhys threw up. The vomit splashed into a flower bed and turned black, eating at the verdant green plants that had been blooming only minutes before and spreading toward the singer closest to him.

  Rhys’s eyes went wide. What was this? What had the angel put in him?

  “It’s not real!” Damien yelled.

  All around him, singers and scribes were vomiting and crying. Staring at the ground or at their brothers and sisters in horror. The constant assault had stopped and Rhys heard crying in the background.

  “He’s making you see things,” Damien yelled again over the sound of Bozidar’s magic. “Wake up!”

  Rhys clamped down on the feeling of terror and pushed it to the edges of his mind. He looked down. The vomit was only vomit. The plants weren’t eaten away. The oily black stain was gone.

  Rhys felt Meera reaching out, felt her touch the edge of his magic, searching for him. He resisted the connection. What if she felt the angel’s influence in her mind? Everything would fall apart. If she could feel the angel, would the angel feel her?

  “Bozidar!” A commanding shout cut through the air. “What dog enters the territory of the Wolf? I am the killer of Nalu, greatest of the archangels.” Ata walked through smoke, the glowing fire of the fields at her back. “Have you come to beg for his scraps?”

  The angel stopped chanting and lunged toward Ata. The warrior drew her sword, flipped head over heels, and launched herself at Bozidar’s head.

  Rhys searched the smoke, but he saw no sign of Meera. Where was she? Ata’s job was to guard the singers as they built the spell. Only she knew when it would be ready. Only she knew what needed to happen. Now the scarred warrior was flinging herself into battle against an archangel of unspeakable power, and she had no mate to guard her back.

  Heaven above. Rhys remembered too late. “She wants to die.”

  Meera closed her eyes, ignoring the chaos outside the house, focusing only on the building magic in her breast. She could feel it growing like a black hole inside her. Dark magic. Blood magic. It drilled into her soul like a sickness. Every dreadful thought, every antagonism, every negative energy built and built, rolling over and over like an avalanche thundering down a mountainside.

  “When?” Patiala said. “We’re holding him off and shielding her presence, but we can’t wait forever.”

  Ata’s right hand, the Koconah Citlal woman, knelt between Sari and Meera, her face and arms covered in Grigori blood. “I was there when Nalu died and Akune was slain. They will know when it is time.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The woman didn’t say another word, and Patiala pressed her mouth shut and nodded.

  “I can feel him,” Sari said. “He’s angry.”

  “Damien?”

  “Bozidar.” Her eyes were closed and she was in pain. “He’s attacking their minds, creating horrors.”

  The little ones wailed at his feet, their eyes gone, nothing left but bloody sockets they covered with tiny, soft hands. “Tatá, tatá!” they sobbed. “Why did you leave us?”

  The fear ripped through Damien’s chest. Lies. All lies. But the little hands reached for his ankles and he could feel them, feel their terror and pain. He saw the fingers missing. The stumps where feet had been. They crawled in the mud, and the ground beneath them was pooled in blood.

  “Tatá, why did you leave?”

  Damien nearly lost himself to rage. The only thing holding him back was the tug of Sari’s magic in his mind and the mating mark over his heart.

  Here, her magic whispered. My love, I am here.

  “I can’t feel Rhys,” Meera said, tears dripping down her cheeks. “I’m completely blocked.”

  Sha ne’ev reshon, what are you doing?

  Rhys rocked on the battlefield, holding Meera’s lifeless body in his arms. The cut ran from her breast down to her belly. Blood was everywhere and her eyes stared up at him, lifeless and accusing. Rain poured over them, drenching the ground in her endless blood.

  You didn’t protect me. Why didn’t you protect me?

  “No!” he screamed in rage. “Meera!”

  Rhys.

  He wept and clutched her to his chest, soaking his shirt with blood.

  Rhys.

  Her gentle voice accused him.

  “I’m sorry,” he cried. “Meera, I’m sorry.”

  Look up, my love.

  He looked up and he was not on an empty field. It was not raining. No lifeless body was in his arms.

  He lies.

  Rhys narrowed his eyes on Bozidar who was whirling around, trying to swat Ata off his back as if she were an annoying bug. Through all that, he’d still managed to send all the singers and scribes around him into wailing horrors.

  “Wake up!” he screamed. “It’s not real. It’s not real!”

  “I have him,” Meera said. “The field is in chaos. Bozidar is sending visions to everyone.”

  “That’s different than Nalu’s power,” the Koconah warrior said. “Can we use that?”

  Of course they could. “We throw it back on him. They need to let it take them over,” Meera said. “Tell Damien and Rhys they need to lower their guard. Let Bozidar bring their fears to life.”

  “No.” Sari’s face was pale. “Damien will go mad.”

  “Not if we pull them out in time,” Meera said.

  “You don’t understand what he’s seen,” Sari said with a protective snarl. “He will go mad.”

  Meera turned to her mother. “Then it has to be Rhys.”

  Patiala turned and ran out the door.

  Rhys thought he was imagining Patiala running through the smoke. He’d just banished the vision of Meera dying in his arms and was forcing himself to focus on the fight in front of him. The last remaining Grigori had reached the oak alley and gone after the scribes and singers Bozidar held in his grasp. The youngest members of the haven seemed the most immune to the horrors and were doing their best to fight them off. Ata and Damien were attacking the angel, striking each time they were able, only to be thrown off, batted back, or otherwise neutralized.

  He’s playing with them.

  The giant had a smirk on his face watching the writhing Irin around him, but he scanned the grounds, still looking for the memory keeper.

  “Rhys!” Patiala ran to him, her bow still clutched in her hand. “You have to give in to the visions.”

  He thought he was hearing things. “Are you a vision?” He reached out and grabbed her shoulder. She felt solid enough. “What lie is this?”

  “No lie.” Patiala grasped his hand. “Meera says you have to give in. Let the nightmare take you. She’ll pull you out in time. You have to trust her.”

  Nausea spread in his belly. “No.” It was one thing to have a vision of horrors attacking him. It was quite another to walk into it.

  “It’s the only way,” she said. “If we can let the horrors build, then they can fling Bozidar’s visions back on him. Turn the nightmares against him.”

  It was completely logical. Of course it was. It was a good plan.

  All it needed was Rhys’s complete surrender to a monster.

  Do you trust me?

  Falling to his knees, Rhys let his defenses fall.

  He was walking through the great library of Glast, but there was no one inside. The stacks had been torn down and blood splattered everywhere. Gold dust layered the floor.

  “You left.”

  He turned and Angharad stood at the end of the room. Blood ran down from her cut throat.

  “You left.”

  “Mam!”

  The floor fell away. He splashed in the sea. Unfurled scrolls and lifeless bodies sank with him. You left.

  * * *

  He woke in his room in Istanbul. Rising from his bed, he stepped into the garden. Matti and Geron were playing near the roses, giggling while they told each other secrets.

  Rhys smiled. “What mischief are you two making?”

  Matti turned and raised a hand. “We’re playi
ng.”

  Rhys froze. “What are you doing?”

  Matti began to whisper, and Rhys realized he was truly paralyzed. Locked within his own body by the baby he’d fed and cared for.

  “We’re playing,” Geron said. He walked over and held his hands up. Bloody wounds rose on Rhys’s skin. “Don’t you think this is fun, Uncle Rhys?”

  Their eyes had turned from warm gold and grey to pitch-black.

  “No,” Rhys whispered.

  “Fallen blood,” Matti sang. “Fallen magic.”

  “Blood will tell.” Geron ran in circles around him. “Blood will tell.”

  “No.” Rhys sank to his knees. “No!”

  As he fell, he saw the rose vines twining around the familiar forms of Ava and Malachi. The vines twisted and squeezed, choking off their breath until they both disappeared in a cloud of gold dust.

  “NO!”

  * * *

  He looked away from the roses and saw Meera lying on the edge of a shell mound, surrounded by a forest flooded with blood. Her body was broken and the light in her eyes was extinguished. She turned her face to Rhys.

  “You didn’t love me.”

  “I did.”

  “If you loved me, why did you let me die?”

  “I didn’t.” He began to cry. “You’re not dead. You’re not dead.”

  “I am.”

  “No,” he sobbed. “Meera, no.”

  He felt his soul rip in two. This was the agony they sang of in laments. This was the true rending. Rhys fell on her, tried to straighten her broken limbs, and cried onto her bloody breast as bugs crawled out of the swamp and swarmed over his lover, hiding her from his sight.

  “No!” He tried swatting them away. “Get away!”

  It didn’t matter what he did. He crushed them under his hand, but more came. They covered him. Covered his reshon. Covered the mound. The insects swarmed over everything before they began to eat Rhys alive. He screamed but he did not let go. They crawled into his eyes and mouth, devouring him from within.

  Meera opened her eyes. “NOW!”

  She gripped Sari’s hand and ran to the front porch. Bozidar saw her and looked up.

  “Somasikara.” He grinned.

  Meera and Sari shouted the final lines of the spell.

  “Ya kaza pure anán

  Atam sukha misran.”

  Return the rage given, bind darkness within. Meera ripped the vision of horror from the mind of her mate and flung it toward the fallen angel.

  “Ya kidin ruta a briya

  Vash livah a suf ó silaam.”

  Yoke pride to the soul and bring on the end. She arrowed her magic directly into Bozidar’s heart, using the black hole she’d woken in herself to tunnel into the light of his being. He was a star, but even stars could be swallowed.

  “Zimya dawan, Bozidar!” she cried. “Da’anamé!”

  She didn’t plead for his submission, Meera demanded it.

  Bozidar’s eyes went wide. The arrogant grin fell from his face. He dropped Damien and Ata, who were both struggling to use their swords, and his shoulders hunched inward.

  “What have you done?” His glorious countenance turned grey.

  “Do you need to ask?” Meera watched in fascination and horror as a black mark bloomed on his chest and spread. It traced the lines of his talesm and slowly covered his body. Bozidar’s eyes lost their focus and turned inward. The angel began to groan. Then he began to keen.

  “Get away from him,” Ata yelled.

  Damien and Ata dragged away any singer or scribe near the angel. Rhys was on the ground, and he wasn’t moving. Patiala knelt next to him. She looked up at Meera with tears in her eyes.

  “He’s not dead,” Meera whispered. “He is not.”

  Now was not the time for fear. She opened her mouth and sang a song of victory as Bozidar fell to the earth. He writhed on the ground, curling into himself and wailing like a wounded animal. He gnashed his teeth and snapped at them, but he could not move.

  “No!” he wailed. “What have you done?”

  Damien limped up the stairs to Sari. “What do the Fallen dream of,” he asked, “when they are locked in their own nightmares?”

  “Whatever it is,” Ata said, “they fear it.”

  Meera kept singing even when her father appeared behind her. Maarut laid a hand on her shoulder, and Meera reached up and squeezed his fingers, realizing too late he was missing one of them.

  “Don’t stop singing,” he whispered. “I’ll get Rhys.”

  Maarut walked down the stairs to his mate. With the gentle hands of a father, he lifted Rhys as Patiala held his head. They brought her mate up the stairs and disappeared into the house.

  Bozidar lay curled and twisted on the ground. Meera descended the steps of the old house and walked over to the monster. Ata, Damien, and Sari walked with her.

  His face was inhuman. Ugly and twisted. Frozen in nightmares. He didn’t taunt or mock them. Black veins marked his skin, and his eyes stared into nothing.

  Meera turned to the bloody warrior at her side. “Ata?”

  “You can kill him with your voice, but not without killing your mate. That was the sacrifice Akune and I didn’t know that heaven demanded. Even knowing that, Akune wouldn’t have hesitated,” Ata said. “Not if it meant killing the Fallen and freeing their children. He believed, even when I didn’t. That was how we found peace, Somasikara. We made the Fallen fear humanity. Even the humanity of their own children.”

  “So how do we finish him?” Damien asked.

  The Wolf reached into her belt and pulled out a small black blade. “The French did steal it. I just stole it back.” She handed it to Damien. “A singer cannot wield a black blade.”

  “No, but she can ruin an angel with her voice.” Damien looked at Meera. “Well done, sister.”

  Meera felt bruised all over. She felt sick. She wanted to vomit. Wanted fresh, clean water in her stomach. She wanted to lay next to Rhys and sleep. Wanted to wake next to him and banish his nightmares.

  “Finish it.”

  Damien plunged the knife into the back of Bozidar’s neck. The earth rocked beneath them and the angel rose to heaven, dissolving to dust in the air.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Rhys knelt in the burned cane field; the bitter smoke stung his eyes and nose. The ground was muddy beneath him, and black ruin stretched to the horizon.

  “Gone.”

  It was all gone. Hope. The future. He’d grasped for beauty beyond his reach, and it had been taken from him. His pride had led to this. His greed. His dishonor.

  A soft hand touched his shoulder. “It’s not gone.”

  His shoulders began to shake. “I’m dreaming.”

  “Yes.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and the sweet scent of her skin brought a flood of new tears. “You’re dream-walking. With me.”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “For what?”

  “For letting you die.” The wound bled fresh. Every night would be this way. Every night he would relive her life. Her death. It was what he deserved. He’d known hope wasn’t for him. He’d known it wasn’t what he deserved.

  “Reshon, wake up.”

  “No.” He clutched her arm. Reliving her loss was worth it if he remained in her presence for even a few more moments. “Stay with me.”

  “I’m here.” She bent to his cheek and kissed it. “Do you understand?” She sang in his ear, and green shoots speared through the mud. She sang and the sun rose over the horizon. “The nightmare cannot have you,” she whispered, “because you are mine.”

  Soft grass grew beneath his knees. He bent down and touched his lips to the earth. The stink of death was gone and the air smelled sweet.

  “Open your eyes, my love.”

  Rhys opened his eyes, and Meera was lying next to him. Her cheek was stained with ash and her eyes were bloodshot, but she was there.

  She was alive.

  A hoarse groan ripped from h
is throat. He reached for her and clutched her to his chest. Raw cries ripped his chest. He coughed and wept, holding her and touching every part of her.

  Her arms. Her precious hands and fingers. He kissed her knuckles and felt down her body. Her legs were strong and whole. No gash marked her belly. No blood stained her skin.

  He kissed every inch of her face and rocked her back and forth.

  Alive. Alive. Alive.

  The terror hadn’t been real. The visions were lies.

  “My mother?” he asked roughly. “My father? Your parents?”

  “Safe. They’re all safe and mostly whole.”

  “We need to call Istanbul and check on the children.”

  She nodded. “We can do that.”

  “Damien and Sari?”

  “Alive and conscious. You were the one who bore the brunt of Bozidar’s attack.” She was crying too, wiping the tears from his face. “You were the one who let him in.”

  “He’s dead.” The angel must be dead, or his courageous mate would still be fighting.

  “He’s dust,” Meera said. “Facing judgment before the Creator now.”

  It was over.

  Rhys coughed and looked around the room, not recognizing where they were. “What is this?”

  “My old room at the house. Unfortunately, our tent and most of the outbuildings were burned. The house is okay though.”

  Rhys tried to sort through his muddled memories of the battle. “What started the fire?”

  “Sabine.” Meera pulled away, and her expression was stricken. “The Grigori killed a girl. Sabine saw them, lost control, and…”

  “Is everything gone?” He pulled Meera back to his chest; even a little distance between them felt unbearable.

  “Of course not.” She wrapped her arms around him. “We’re here. We lost five of our people, and many more were injured, but far more survived. We killed an archangel. We protected our home.”