“I’m sorry that it is unpleasant,” she said out loud. She rolled her Rs as she spoke, and from this close, Alexander could see that her eyes were bluer than the Farren ocean and equally tempestuous. “The Tahjiik are not of this world. They merely felt it a suitable prison for Erebus. They may have been honourable once, but whatever honour they had is gone. Few remain here, and they’ve been working with Randin. It was the Tahjiik that helped him here in the first place.”
Okwata. Ona had asked if they knew why the scientist was exiled. Would he have been the one to let Randin through? But it didn’t explain why she and the other two Tahjiik at the gate were so hostile unless they simply were as dishonourable as Evina said. “What do they stand to gain from helping Randin?” Alexander asked.
Evina pushed aside a white braid that fell across her eyes. “The Tahjiik are travellers, taking what they need from the worlds they visit until they grow tired of them. They are powerful, with advancements unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and they use it to their advantage. They must have struck up some agreement with Randin, but what, I cannot say. Last I knew, five remained here. You spoke of three. I assume you killed them?” She didn’t show any remorse that they were gone.
Alexander nodded.
“None will mourn them.” She was quiet for a moment, her eyes seeming to search his face. “Fia cares deeply for your world. Let us accompany you, we’ll find Fia and Lorn. I’m certain Erebus has them together on Ohinyan.”
“And you would leave your world in Randin’s hands? To come to Ohinyan?”
The queen’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment Alexander thought he saw a great ocean storm rolling within them. “I will go with you to save your world so that I can return to save mine. But make no mistake, Alexander. I intend to find Erebus, no matter what.”
Alexander looked to the shadows swirling around them, to the darker patches where he knew his friends were standing, to Evina’s side, where Jax and Rainn stood, even though they couldn’t see them. “Are your angels to accompany you?”
“The three that are with me—they are the only ones I’ve managed to break free from Randin’s grip—the only ones who know the truth. No other angels can pass through the wards at the gate. But they are the only angels I would trust with my life. With my powers returned to me, I can free the rest of them from Randin’s grasp and put an end to a war they have no wish to be a part of. Thousands have died at their hands, because of Randin. Because of Erebus.”
Alexander pieced together everything she explained with the broken messages he’d received from Fia. Fia had seemed to trust Evina, but that didn’t mean she was truly trustworthy, did it? “And did you tell Fia the truth?”
“I did. Right before Erebus took her. I’d have told her sooner but… trust is a difficult quality to come by these days. Then your witch friend found us, and we made our way here. You have unusual companions. I’ve never met land-dwelling shifters before, they are rare here in Deganis.”
Land-dwelling shifters. That wasn’t strictly true, but she’d have only seen the land-dwelling ones that had accompanied them. How she knew they could shift, when she hadn’t seen them do it, Alexander couldn’t comprehend. “The Nords. You have their kind here?”
“Only my kind. The Sorren.”
The same creatures that had caught Fia when she fell into the Great Ocean, on their way to Mizune. It felt like a lifetime ago. But Evina shared no features with those strange things. “Forgive me, you don’t look like the Sorren I am familiar with.” Alexander noted the silver jewellery Evina wore; the way it moved like threads of liquid silver around her arms and at her waist.
“My ancestors were lost to Ohinyan many years ago, and to Erebus’s whispers. I am trapped in this body without my voice.” Evina raised a hand to her throat. She never broke contact with Alexander, but he knew their communication would be over the moment she did.
As much as he wanted to ask more questions, there wasn’t time to stand around discussing the past. It could already be too late for Fia—for Ohinyan. “Erebus must be stopped; this has gone on for too long, for both our worlds. Perhaps you can tell us anything else that might help us on our way to the gate.”
“Rainn will answer any questions you might have. He is my first in command.” Evina looked away for a moment, to the dark shadows beside him. “Your friends are getting concerned. Be careful, Alexander, your bird is a snake.”
Chapter Twenty–Two
Lorn
S he’s near. That’s all he’d said before he’d disappeared. Lorn kicked at the dirt beneath her boots. Erebus had stopped evanescing, or whatever he called it, because they were still in the same stain of a world he’d brought her and Fia to, only a few moments after they’d left the shadow of the king’s city.
This time he’d left her in another forest. Lorn was sick of forests. Sick of angels. Sick of Fia. She loathed all of it. But here she was, waiting for him to return so she could leave Deganis for good.
She considered going back to the city to meet the king, to strike her own bargain with him. But that would have to wait. She couldn’t miss her chance on Ohinyan; her moment for all to see her for who she truly was. It was her birthright, after all. A new dawn would rain down upon her world, and she would be the one to deliver it. To shape Ohinyan into what it always should have been—something better. Starting with the angels’ exile. Perhaps she’d even give them as a gift to this king, if she felt generous enough.
Lorn looked up to get her bearings. The moonlight cast shadows through the canopy and more of those wretched petal creatures floated towards her. The breath of spirits, indeed. Why people always felt the urge to shove emotion into such things, she never understood. They were tiny, insignificant creatures, and yet someone had tried to give them more value by assigning them a soul. It was too disgusting. The creatures, abelinas, Aura had called them, gravitated towards Lorn, and she tried to swat them away.
“You will never be enough,” one whispered in her ear. She snatched it away, turning it to ash before she even had time to open her palm and look at it. The others departed like a flock of birds, all of them at once drifting back up to the canopy, and Lorn resisted the urge to send jets of flames after them all.
“I am more than enough,” she muttered, spinning around at the sound of leaves and twigs crunching underfoot.
“Get off me,” the girl shrieked. Fia. Lorn rolled her eyes. Erebus released his hold on her and she stumbled backwards into the dirt. Good. “What’s the matter, too much of a bloody coward to face me as a man?”
The girl had a point. Erebus remained ethereal, a swarm of dark shadows that every now and then could have been mistaken for the shape of an angel, but then dispersed into nothing solid as soon as Lorn registered the shape.
Erebus laughed dryly. “And let both of you wound me? Your blue flame is impressive, Fia. You’ve been practising.”
Impressive. The girl said nothing, if she cared for the compliment, she didn’t show it.
“We’re going to need to learn to trust one another if we’re all to get what we want,” Erebus said.
Lorn took a few steps closer to his shadows, considering how much effort it might take for her to damage them. At the corner of her vision, Fia was dragging herself to her feet and brushing herself off and then she was swinging around and suddenly Lorn was face down in the dirt, Erebus’s unnatural laugh the only sound accompanying the roaring in her ears.
“That was for scarring him,” Fia said. “The minute we find out which one of us is the fire mother, it’ll be blue flame rather than dirt and leaves that flood your vision.”
Lorn got to her feet, ready to strike back at the girl, but Erebus pinned her arms behind her back. She considered burning through his grasp but didn’t want to give away that little trick just yet. So she let the girl have her stupid moment of victory. “I take it you’ve seen Alexander.”
“I was an idiot for ever believing you. I won’t make that mistake again. You don’t care a
bout a single life you take, a single thing you destroy. You’re just like him. If you truly are the fire mother, the two of you deserve each other.” Fia’s chest was heaving, her fingertips sparking with blue. A feral look flashed across her face, and for the first time, Lorn saw a glimpse of what Fia could be if she’d had a Makya’s training. But she didn’t. You did.
“I bet you knew about Randin, too, didn’t you? Did you know about Evina? Did you help him take it from her?” Fia circled her, and still Erebus held her in his grip.
There was only one Randin Lorn knew of, the old King of Himera who’d disappeared after his war had allegedly been brought to a close by a woman. It hadn’t surprised Lorn. She’d met him when she was a girl, and even then, he’d seemed like an ego-ridden husk of a man. Any self-respecting woman could have brought him to his knees.
“Are you going to hold me every minute until the sun dies?” Lorn asked the shadows swarming around her, ignoring Fia’s outburst as she tore her way through her thoughts. Perhaps she’d been right, and Erebus had used Randin to weaken the wards on his prison. It made sense that he’d enlist the help of someone from Ohinyan, someone hungry for power, for more. But whatever that had to do with Evina, Lorn was certain she was about to find out.
“That depends on whether you’re going to destroy each other or not,” Erebus said dryly.
“It doesn’t matter,” Fia huffed. “None of it matters. My friends are coming for me. And Evina’s coming for you. And together, we’re going to put an end to this. They’ll probably be back in Ohinyan before we are.”
“Do not kill each other whilst I’m gone,” Erebus said.
“Wait, where are you—” Fia began, but Erebus had already left them alone in the forest.
Lorn laughed. “Foolish girl. He’ll be going to stop them. Your friends will be dead. Evina too, whatever she is to you.”
“She’s the queen, Lorn. The true queen. Erebus and Randin worked together to steal the throne from her.” Fia’s fists clenched at her sides, and Lorn almost wished the girl would try to strike out again, just for an excuse to fight.
“If she was weak enough to allow it to be taken then Randin is the more worthy ruler,” Lorn said. It was true. Only a fool would allow their throne to be taken from them. Evina was too weak to rule.
But Lorn didn’t care about any of that, the politics of this world were of no interest to her. Evina was of no interest to her. What was of interest, however, was Randin’s army. It was a well-known fact that none of Ohinyan’s armies had disbanded after the war. Randin’s would have been no different; those loyal to him would still be loyal, all these years later. She’d had enough experience with their kind to know. And until Par, Randin had been allied with the Makya. Lorn still had many allies of her own she could call upon. Together, they would make a sizeable force.
A roar tore her from her thoughts. Followed by another, and another. More of those wretched beasts were not far away in the shadows of the forest.
“Don’t attack,” Fia said, “they’re loyal to Evina, we can tell them we’re friends.”
Friends. The closest thing Lorn had ever had to a friend was Rada. Everyone will be a disappointment in the end. As the first of the creatures burst through the trees towards them, Lorn let herself ignite.
“Lorn!” Fia called out over the roar of the beasts as they stopped before them. “A dragoun’s bite is venomous.” No blue flame sparked to life between her hands. Foolish girl. “Please,” Fia continued, this time directing her attention to the riders. “We mean no harm.”
“It doesn’t look like it,” a woman said in the common tongue, her spear raised and ready to throw as she sat astride one of the beasts.
Lorn wasn’t in the mood for negotiating. “Well, don’t say we didn’t warn you.” She hurled a fireball at the feet of the woman’s steed, and it drew back its lipless mouth to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth, and what was undoubtedly venomous saliva dripping between them.
“Please!” Fia tried again, and Lorn couldn’t help but roll her eyes.
“The time for talking is over, Fia,” Lorn hissed. The riders staring down at them seemed inclined to agree. Five stood before them, but they’d heard far more dragouns roar from the depths of the forest. The woman threw her spear, and Lorn spun out of the way, launching another ball of flames at the woman’s face. No point trying to dance around it, these riders intended to wound and so did she. The woman fell screaming to the floor, and the other riders urged their creatures forwards, jaws snapping and tails swinging wildly.
Blue flame hissed as it landed against one of the creature’s scaled flanks. Finally, the girl was fighting back. “We’re friends of Queen Evina’s,” Fia called out, but was answered with a spear at her feet. Lorn didn’t have time to keep an eye on her, two riders advanced, and Lorn turned her full attention to them, wondering whether to drag out their deaths or make it quick. The beasts lurched forwards in unison, and Lorn made her decision.
First, she dealt with the dragouns. She was already alight from head to toe, and she sent a ribbon of flames from each hand into the faces of the beasts. My flames wounded an ancient darkness. Venomous creatures are nothing. She laughed as the riders leapt away from their flaming steeds, weapons raised and glistening in the light of Lorn’s inferno. One raised an axe overhead. “Fools!”
Poorly trained Makya soldiers always let themselves become ethereal, sending themselves into brawls as balls of flame. But Lorn knew better. No matter how much that move might take an opponent by surprise, it left them without total sight and sound for a few moments before they fell back into their bodies. Instead, she summoned a blade of flames into each hand, as sharp and as deadly as any metal, and swung for the two riders. They barely lasted moments. These were no soldiers. They were young and inadequately trained. They fell to the ground, motionless, before her blades even finished their swing. Lorn didn’t stop to check if they could get back up again.
Instead, she whirled around to a mass of blue flames and Fia incinerating her opponent. Lorn fought back the urge to cheer for the girl, but she noticed with a small bit of satisfaction that Fia didn’t seem to be draining herself this time around. Just as well, because more of the creatures stepped forwards from the shadows—too many to count.
A dragoun with no rider leapt for Lorn, but she swung her blade and landed a blow to the side of its head. It let out a vicious roar, and Lorn took a step back to ready another swing, but her back brushed the trunk of a tree. A jet of blue hit the beast in its side and it fell, a shriek escaping it as Fia’s flames burned through scales and flesh.
Lorn spun around to offer a nod of thanks, just as a dragoun snapped at Fia’s ankles and pulled the girl to the ground. Lorn considered helping. There was still a small chance Fia was the fire mother, but it was too small for Lorn to risk her own life trying to save her. She’d said it herself, anyway, the dragoun’s bite was venomous.
The beast shook its head and Fia cried out in pain as she fell like a doll from its grasp. The beast approached, and Fia hadn’t looked up. She was about to meet the most pathetic end. Lorn had just decided to intervene, because it was too pathetic to watch, when a swarm of darkness descended over Fia, swallowing the girl whole. Lorn blinked, and before she realised what had happened, Erebus came for her too.
Chapter Twenty–Three
Fia
M ore of Erebus’s sick visions danced before her eyes. Fia was looking down at him, her hair falling around them both, his eyes perfect pools of liquid silver, all trace of storm clouds gone. She’d never seen him so happy. He cupped her face in his hand and she caught his wrist, placing a soft kiss at the end of his white tattoo.
And then pain seared through her, and Erebus leaned over her. He looked more like himself, only blood was smeared across his chest. “Fia, hold on,” he breathed. A door slammed shut somewhere behind him, and Fia tried to focus on the feeling of her fingers digging into a wooden bed frame, to tell herself that this was real, the pain roll
ing through her and escaping into a scream that burned her throat was reality, not the twisted vision Erebus had given her.
“Stop,” she said, but the word came out wrong, scratched and broken. “Get out of my head.” Pain rolled through her again and her words became ash on her tongue. Her thoughts became a muddy pool of colour as she fell back into another vision, helpless.
Erebus was kneeling beside her. Blood coated his hands, and when Fia looked down, blood coated hers too. A young boy lay between them, and together they worked to heal him, the flow of blood halting, the flesh fusing back together at the wound over his heart as she and Erebus poured their healing magic into him. The boy coughed, and Fia helped him sit up, all the while aware of Erebus’s burning gaze on her, of the heat rising in her leg, a blistering heat like a thousand blades slicing up her skin until another scream tore through her.
She was back in the room with Erebus, wherever the room was, her fingers scraping at the wood to anchor her to what was real. This pain. This agony. She tried to piece together what she could remember. The forest with Lorn. The attack. Memories melted into each other. Lorn’s flame wrapped together with the blue of her own. More of those young riders had advanced from the shadows of the forest, and Fia had killed all that had approached her. One by one they’d fallen, ash and dust on the forest floor. But then the beast had caught her ankle, its teeth sinking right through to bone, and Fia wondered if she looked down if she’d still have a foot.
Her back arched as another wave of pain hit her, and she twisted under Erebus’s touch where his hands held her legs. He was trying to heal her, some distant part of her mind told her, but she didn’t want to feel his hands on her, didn’t want his fingers to brush her skin.
“Get away from me.” She meant for it to come out with vitriol, but instead, the words escaped her in a whimper as more knives seemed to slice their way up her leg. She clawed at her skin, but there was nothing, only the shreds of her imagination and the pain surging through her. Somehow, she escaped his grasp and tumbled to the floor, instantly aware of how slick she was with sweat, of the cold air hitting her back where it had been pressed against a mattress moments before.
The First Dawn (Daughter of the Phoenix Book Three) Page 16
