The breeze rustled his grey wings as he gazed at the city again. “The king and I struck a bargain. He got what he wanted, and I got what I wanted.” He turned something over in his fingertips. It looked like a necklace, but he shoved it back into his trouser pocket before Lorn could question it.
How long was he down here? Fia had asked when they’d followed Evina through Erebus’s prison. Long enough for him to figure out how to whisper to us. And those gouge marks in the rock; he’d have made them in his shadow form then, somehow, desperate to escape. Well, Lorn would not feel pity for him. He had succeeded in his task. He had turned many to his side. Even she had done his bidding. Yet now that he stood before her, he seemed as weak as the other angels. Now she had injured him. He might have been old, but he had a vulnerability to him, as if he couldn’t bear to be alone. Perhaps existing in his shadow form for so long had shattered his mind, and if that were the case, it would only make Lorn’s job easier.
Others will make you weak, Lorn. The fire mother relies only on herself.
“Very well,” she finally said. “Let’s go take what we want from Ohinyan.”
Chapter Nineteen
Fia
“ They’re gone,” Fia said, helping Evina to her feet. “But he’ll be back for me soon.” Waves seemed to crash in Evina’s eyes, and she held Fia’s hand in hers. “Are you going to tell me what that was about? What you’ve been hiding from us?” She was still trying to shake away the feeling of Erebus’s touch against her skin, the strange thoughts that lingered behind her eyes.
Fia blinked and they were back inside whatever place it was Evina took them to every time they spoke. Her thoughts? An illusion like Noor’s? Fia wasn’t sure, but the black clouds swirled around them as Evina stepped closer.
“My throne was stolen from me, thanks to Erebus. I would see it returned to me.” My throne. Evina held her head up as she spoke, and Fia saw it now; the way she held herself, the way she moved like she was water. She was a queen. And she didn’t wait for Fia to reply. “My ancestors found a way to Ohinyan many years ago.” A slight frown creased her brow, and she shook her head slightly. “Seven years ago, my sister went to investigate through the gate that connects our waters.”
Fia’s breath caught, the hairs on her arms standing on edge.
Evina continued. “It was an arduous journey, and she washed up on the shores of a strange land where a man came to her aid. And as all stories go, they fell in love.”
Fia thought it strange that the gate would be under water, and how someone might travel through it, but she didn’t interrupt Evina’s story.
“Randin was a power-hungry king and had unleashed a great war upon his world. As soon as my sister found out what kind of man he truly was, she tried to stop him.” Evina paused then, and Fia already knew where the story was headed. She willed herself to stay still, to not let the air disappear from her lungs. So much death. The shadows swirled around them, some of them turning into trees and branches, mimicking the forest outside the space Evina had brought them to.
Evina looked away for a moment, to something in the eddying shadows before she continued. “He killed her, but not before she’d foiled his plans. She put an end to the war.” She cleared her throat. “Niara’s death was not enough for Randin, and Erebus saw an opportunity for a bargain to be struck. He needed power to break the wards containing him within his prison, so he used Randin to steal the power for him.”
“From you?”
“Yes.” Evina reached a hand to her throat. “My voice, and with it my power—well, most of it—the parts that matter. I’m stuck in this form without it,” she said, waving the hand at her body.
“In this form… you can shift?” Fia thought of the way Evina had gazed in awe at the statues of the mermaids, but not in awe, she now realised. In longing. “The statues?”
“Yes.”
“You’re one of them, a mermaid.” There was a time when she wouldn’t have believed it, but now it didn’t surprise Fia that every myth and legend on Earth had trickled through from the worlds beyond it.
“A Sorren,” Evina replied.
Fia’s breath snagged. Sorren. “I know what happened to your people. I’m sorry Evina, Erebus reached them too.” She squeezed Evina’s hand as she thought of the strange creatures that had lashed out at her beneath the waves of Ohinyan, of how rotten and decayed they were. They were nothing like the mermaids from stories on Earth, more like a nightmare of one. And Erebus had done that to them.
“We suspected as much. His whispers were far reaching for many years.”
Evina began to pull away, to break the connection, but Fia wanted more answers. “And the king, he came here, from Ohinyan?” Would Alexander have known him? Or his father?
“Yes. Erebus promised him a new throne. Randin tricked me with word of my sister and did as Erebus instructed. Then he left me behind in that prison, believing I only had a little of my evanescing abilities remaining, enough to see you and Lorn fed and watered.”
Fia thought of how it wasn’t enough for Erebus to take everything from Evina, but to force her, a queen, to be a servant for others too. Only someone so utterly dripping with ego could come up with such an idea. “He tricked you; seems only fair for you to trick him back,” she said, the smile already fading from her lips. “I know what it is to lose a sister. But to be deceived with news of her and to have so much taken from you—”
“I appreciate your kindness, Fia, but I do not need your sympathy. I need your help to get to Erebus. He holds my voice captive. Once it is returned to me, I can remove Randin from the throne and stop the wars spreading across my lands, return to my family in the water. I’m sorry for lying to you, but I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
Fia felt a fool for having missed it now. Everything about the way Evina moved, the way she spoke, it all marked her as different. But that didn’t change what needed to be done. The sun was still dying, and Fia had to return, to try and help. “I need to get back to Ohinyan. He’ll follow me wherever I go. You can come with me and we can get your voice back together, but I can’t stay here. I’m sorry.” How long before the sun died? Fia wouldn’t be the cause of any more deaths. She wouldn’t be the reason an entire world fell.
“The fault is mine. Once you told us of the fate of Ohinyan, I knew I had made a mistake in deceiving you. We will still escort you to the gate and see you returned to Ohinyan. I will see my powers restored, and I’ll come back to deal with Randin myself.”
A few white braids fell across one of those dazzling eyes, and Fia wondered if they truly were waves crashing over each other inside them. But then her focus snapped back to the conversation and she asked, “We? You mean the angels; they knew all along?”
“They did.”
That explained why everything had been so easy, why their protests had been so thin. They were all in on it together. Even Rainn’s attentiveness made sense now. How long had they been waiting for Evina in the Wastes? Fia still had so many questions. As if on cue, Evina dropped her hands, the forest returning to them, and Rainn, Aura and Jax joined them.
Seeing the way their wings flickered behind them as they walked never got any easier. Every moment with them made her think of Alexander, made her wonder if she’d ever see him again. She thought of that thread Alexander’s sister had talked of, and whether it truly did connect them to each other.
To trace a hand along his jaw. To breathe him in. Those were the thoughts that held her resolve, that made her believe in a connection between them, because she’d never felt this kind of pull to anyone before. She had to believe they’d find each other, no matter what. Ohinyan was her home now, too. The possibility of a life together danced before her like a star out of reach.
She schooled her expression as Lorn had told her to, any hint of her emotions washed away. “You missed Erebus,” Fia told the angels before her. “Where were you?” The forest was almost pitch black, save for a little moonlight that filtered through
the trees. Abelinas drifted down beyond the angels like delicate snowflakes, or dandelion seeds, Fia thought, and a memory of building funeral pyres with Noor struck her—took her right back to that freezing cold snow and the quiet aftermath of battle. You have given part of yourself to Ohinyan, and in return, it has given part of itself to you.
She patted a hand against the witch stones at her chest. Still there. It seemed almost silly to keep carrying them but she’d never taken them off when she was back on Earth. Along with Alexander’s cuff, and she glanced down at her wrist, bare without it. The witch stones and the dagger were all she had left of Ohinyan—like Sophie’s bracelet was all she had left of Earth. They were reminders, anchors, and as simple as it was, they brought her comfort.
Rainn didn’t answer her question until the angels were right in front of them, his voice low as he said, “Chasing shadows. Her—Evina evanesced so fast we couldn’t keep up with her.” His brow creased almost imperceptibly at his mistake.
Fia rolled her eyes. “It’s fine, I know who she is.”
Evina merely nodded beside her. Now that Evina had dropped her hands, their connection was broken, and Evina was silent once more.
“What I don’t understand is,” Fia asked, “why didn’t you just evanesce to Ohinyan when you knew he’d returned?”
Evina placed a hand on Fia’s arm, returning them to Evina’s private world. “I cannot evanesce between worlds as he can,” the queen said. “That requires a tremendous amount of power.”
“The rocks you moved in the prison. This. Your shield. That seems like a fair amount of magic to me.” Fia waved a hand about them, gesturing to the shadow trees, the absence of the three angels that she knew were still standing right beside them.
“What power he has left me with is a shadow of what I once possessed.” Evina looked away suddenly, and her hand fell from Fia’s arm, breaking the connection.
Power and magic. It seemed like a living, breathing thing to Fia. Something that could be nurtured and grown. She didn’t understand how it could be taken away. But Erebus was powerful, and he’d have had years to plan this, to scheme and manipulate others. In the sickening visions he’d been sending her he’d seemed gentle, kind. Did he think that by showing her these things she’d somehow develop feelings for him? That she’d forget all of his cruel deeds and everything she felt for Alexander? It turned her stomach.
“Erebus has taken Lorn,” she said to the angels, but also to herself, because the realisation of how easy it had been for him made her wonder why he hadn’t come back for them sooner.
Rainn reached out for Evina. “We shouldn’t stay here, Majesty, it isn’t safe.”
Evina shot him a glare, placing a hand on Fia’s forearm before she could interject. “It’s fine, he’s right. Rainn has been in my service for many years, I trust him with my life. Ask him any questions you might have.”
“And the others?” Fia asked, flicking her chin back in the direction of where the angels would have been standing.
“The others are trustworthy too. I lied to you once, I will not lie again. You have my word,” Evina said, and the shadows fell away from them again.
“So I’m guessing you do understand the common tongue?” Fia said out loud to Evina. Evina nodded in response. “Of course you do, you’re a queen.” Fia turned her attention to the angels. “She says I can ask you questions. I want to know more about the king, and the angels’ situation.”
“At the next camp. We won’t be coming back to this one, we’re leaving. Jax and Aura have our things.” Rainn inclined his head towards the two angels, and they both carried soldiers’ supply bags.
An idea struck Fia, something that had been nagging at her, but she wasn’t even sure she understood it.
“We need to move, Fia,” Rainn snapped.
He grabbed her hand before she could argue, and as the world spiralled, Fia thought of a dozen foul words she wanted to yell at him, but they were Earth words, and the impact would have been completely lost on him.
She saw Erebus again. This time he was lying on his side with his head on his arms, his smile bright as he laughed at something. She was lying beside him, so close she’d barely have to move to touch him. He reached to brush a hand over her hair, just as he fell away with the scene into spirals of colour.
Her feet hit the dirt, but she didn’t let Erebus’s tricks distract her. She focused on whatever was ahead of her the moment Rainn stopped evanescing—a tree up ahead. She blinked, and when she opened her eyes, she was beside it. It worked. She hadn’t figured out how, exactly. Not yet.
“Fia, how did you—” Rainn called out, just as a shadow passed overhead.
The angels reached for their swords as Fia summoned blue sparks to her fingers. A tall figure stepped down before them, hidden by the silhouette of its glider. In one swift motion, its owner sheathed it and placed it on her back.
“Noor!” Fia ran to greet her friend, throwing her arms around the witch’s waist. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re all looking for you, Fia.”
“Alexander?”
“He’s here. Nothing would have kept him away,” the witch said with a bright smile as she looked down at Fia. Fia fought back the tears that pressed at the corners of her eyes. He’s here. He’s alive.
“And you are?” Jax asked in the common tongue. The angels had moved defensively around Evina, although Fia had no doubt the queen could defend herself, even with her limited powers.
“A trusted friend,” Fia said. “This is the Lady Noor. From Ohinyan.” Noor inclined her head at the others but said nothing as Fia made the remaining introductions. “This is Rainn, Aura and Jax,” Fia said, waving a hand at the angels. “And this is Evina,” Fia paused, wondering what she should say until Evina nodded at her as if granting permission. “Their queen,” Fia added.
Noor gave nothing away; her expression was schooled into neutrality. “Your Highness. I’m surprised to see you with angels, my understanding was that the angels of this world serve the king.” Fia wasn’t surprised Noor knew as much. Spying was what the witch did best, after all.
“Not by choice,” Rainn growled. “We are bound to the king by more of his tricks.”
Noor was silent, but Fia could see the thoughts working themselves over behind the witch’s eyes. “Come.” Noor reached out a hand to Fia. “We have much to tell each other.” She looked at Rainn. “We’re in the camp at the base of the mountain, can you transport another, or shall I meet you there?”
Noor was fast and Fia hoped the others would give her credit for it. She must have seen them appear, must have been tracking them somehow, and observed enough to know it was magic.
Rainn didn’t seem as impressed. “Jax will take you.” And with that, he reached for Aura and Evina, and they were gone. A heartbeat later, Jax reached out for her and Noor and they followed.
There were no intrusive thoughts from Erebus this time, and no desire from Fia to test her suspicions as Jax finished evanescing. The world stopped spinning, and Noor cleared her throat.
“That was… unusual,” the witch said. “Our tents are here, on the outskirts of the camp.”
Noor waved a hand to the cluster of tents below them, smoke from campfires billowing beyond them.
“Who else came with you?” Fia asked. Anything to stop herself from sprinting down into the camp and tearing open every tent. Her breaths felt too shallow, her heartbeat too heavy against her chest.
“Maab, Osara, and a few of the Nords,” Noor finally said as they stopped a few metres away from the closest tent. She held a palm up to the others to stop them, motioning Fia towards the canvas. “Here. There’s someone inside for you.”
Fia didn’t wait to hear her out. She ran towards the tent and pushed aside the canvas flap as her stomach skittered over itself and her heartbeat rang loud in her ears.
Her eyes adjusted to the dim light and dazzling blue eyes met hers. His hair was a little longer than the last time sh
e’d seen him but just as tousled and wavy, the ends still flicking up behind his ears. He was on his feet the moment he saw her, his pristine white wings beating as he closed the gap between them.
“Fia,” Alexander whispered.
Chapter Twenty
Fia
T he world slowed. Fia wasn’t sure she was breathing. He was here. He was alive. Alexander flexed his fingers through hers, those crystal blue eyes looking down at her, through her. “Your hands are rougher than the last time I saw you,” was all she could think to say.
A smile tugged at his mouth. “So are yours.” She’d never thought she’d hear his voice again, deep and gentle. It felt like that first time, when she’d awoken in Altair’s tent and Alexander was sitting beside her. He brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face, never breaking her gaze.
Her fingers ran along his, across his hands, to his wrists, exploring. “What’s this?” She looked down at the black hair elastic around his wrist.
“From your home,” he said softly. “So I could carry something of yours with me.”
Fia tried to control her breathing. Tears pressed at her eyes and she nodded, tracing her hands up his arms and across his shoulders. Her gaze fell to the scar on his chest, right across his heart and her breath snagged. She brushed her fingers against it and Alexander closed his eyes. “Who did this to you?” she said softly.
He held his hand over hers, and she felt a tremble—not one of emotion, but a surge of power. His power. “Lorn.” He was looking at her again, so intently she felt he could see the magic inside her, the way she could feel his.
She couldn’t find the words she wanted to say about the scar—how badly Lorn must have wounded him for it to scar so severely. She tucked the information away for the next time she saw the Makya woman and continued her exploration of him, her fingers brushing against his collar bone, along the muscles of his neck. He will never love you like this. Lorn had said she’d looked like a Makya, and Fia couldn’t bear the thought of reminding Alexander of someone who’d murdered his father. “You have magic. I feel it.”
The First Dawn (Daughter of the Phoenix Book Three) Page 14
