The Turquoise Tower (Revenant Wyrd Book 6) (19 page)

She raced to the crib, but he was gone, vanished into the darkness of the ruined room. She gripped the edge of the crib and peered over, as if afraid of what she would see. Laying there was her, as a baby. Already her hair was thick and curly, and she was dressed in a gossamer kind of black dress. In her pudgy hands was gripped the medallion, purple and silver energy dancing around its surface.

As she watched the energy join with the golden medallion, Cianna could feel the presence of her mother inside it.

What did he have me do?
Cianna wondered.
Why did he make me do it?
Her fingers found the medallion that she wore, and she tried to plunge her mind into its depths, but there was no response. She had thought all along that it was the will of her mother, placing herself in the medallion. Had she been wrong? Had Cianna been working for her father? Was it really the will of Arael to trap Pharoh in the medallion, and if so, for what purpose?

Cianna sank to the floor as the ground beneath her shifted sideways again. Her hand clasped tight to the medallion, willing it to speak, though it remained silent.

Joya knew the difference between what she was seeing and what was real. She had experienced the touch of a verax-acis for so long that she was surprised there hadn’t been any mental damage from it. As it was her muscles had twitched uncontrollably for long enough that she thought it might become permanent. Having gone through what she had, Joya knew what she was seeing was the product of the verax-acis.

Her mind swayed annoyingly, and she felt like the ground was going to give way beneath her. Underneath the veneer of the placid, healthy plantation she had lived on and loved, Joya could see the reality. It was like two images merged together. As she pushed with her mind, she could see the scene before her become translucent, as if the vision was thinning over her sight enough for her to see through it. Underneath, she could see the verax-acis in the center of Vorustum-Apaleer, talking with something else.

As if he knew that she wasn’t fully under, he turned and looked at her. His lips were stained red against his white, wrinkled face, and his teeth poked out menacingly, like broken glass, just in sight beyond his lips. When his eyes fixed on her, Joya’s mind shifted in a sickening way, and the plantation came back into focus, along with the man striding through the fields toward her.

“Joya,” Dauin said, holding out his arms to her. Joya studied his face, trying to find something about him that was slightly different. In her experience the verax-acis couldn’t create exact copies of things in your mind, they had to alter it a little, make a lie of it, just enough that they could trick you, bend your mind to their way of thinking, make you doubt yourself.

But there her father stood. He wore a beard now, as sometimes happened in the fall and winter. It was the same golden blond she remembered, and his hair the mirror of Jovian’s: tousled, curly, though not as messy as her brother’s. A smile lit his face and wrinkled the skin around his eyes as he came to her. A soft breeze rustled the hay, bringing the woodsy scent of her father to her nose.

As much as she wanted to doubt that it was really Dauin, she found herself falling into his embrace, and sobbing like she couldn’t remember ever crying before. She wound her arms around her father and squeezed with every ounce of her being, taking in the feel of his arms holding her protectively, cradling the back of her head against his coarse shirt. The embrace of her father wasn’t anything she would ever forget, and after thinking he was dead, this was like a sheltering island in the stormy sea of her life.

“I never thought I would see you again,” Dauin said, rubbing her back, soothing away the tears.

“Neither did I,” Joya said.

Joya’s head hurt, and it was only then she remembered the verax-acis, and that this might only be a dream. But did it matter? No matter how she had come here, Joya was happy for it. She was reunited with her father. Honestly, she could have died then and not cared. She hadn’t realized how hard life had become, and how numb she had grown to it with all the death. But here, looking up into the stormy blue eyes of her father, Joya felt what she used to be. She felt like a daughter again, and not a sorceress, not an angel, not a Guardian. Here, she was Joya Neferis, and this human man was her father.

“After Amber came and destroyed the plantation, I thought all of my children had it out for me,” Dauin said, and Joya’s blood ran cold with his words.

“What do you mean, Amber?” Joya asked pulling away from him long enough to look into his eyes.

Dauin nodded, and held her out at arm’s length. “But look at you, here you are. My little girl, a Realm Guardian. My, how you’re growing up.”

There was a feeling inside of Joya that washed away all the happiness. The tears dried on her cheeks, creating a chill that Dauin’s words mirrored in her soul. She was grateful for the moment she had felt normal, because now all those feelings of being different, of being something other than just Joya, were back. The danger of their mission was weighing down on her. She felt her breath catching in her chest, which was tight, like it was being squeezed by giant hands.

She sat down in the hay, and Dauin didn’t stop her. She felt as if he knew precisely what his words had done to her. He stood over her, and she was cast in his shadow. She felt his shadow was menacing, somehow, and when she had fully caught her breath, she looked up at Dauin, though most of his face was plunged in darkness form the setting sun and the onset of night.

“What did you mean, Amber destroyed the plantation?” Joya asked. Her head swam.

“Why did you come back?” Dauin asked. His voice was no longer happy to see her. “To finish the job?”

As he spoke a plume of smoke drifted toward them, smothering the sight of her father and bringing to her nose the scent of burning flesh. Screams drifted on the smoke, and Joya stood in a rush.

“What is the
powerful
sorceress going to do?” Dauin asked, his stance menacing. “You weren’t strong enough to save us when we needed you! You killed Ashell and would have killed Alhamar if Jovian hadn’t finished the job for you. Those are the actions of a really
compassionate
being. The angel side getting the better of you? Already you’re losing your humanity?” Dauin started to circle Joya, and she wanted nothing more than to sink back to the ground and give in to the tears his words conjured.

Instead she stiffened her spine. In the distance the flames engulfing the plantation lit the night, and she could feel the heat even from where she stood. Joya folded her hands in front of her, willing away the pain her father’s words brought to her.

“This isn’t real,” she told herself.

“Isn’t it?” Dauin asked, coming to stand beside her, looking at the plantation. “This is how it happened. Right here Amber stood, admiring her handiwork, and that damned black shuck she rode in on stood beside her. She was like Arael come back to life. As long as I can remember, I will never forget the hatred in her golden eyes, the hunger in them, how they had turned more feral than any wolf I’d ever seen. She fed on all of this death like some damned rephaim.”

“This isn’t real,” Joya said again, closing her eyes.

“Oh, yes it is. Verax-acis, you think. Sometimes the best lie is the complete truth. Did you ever think of that? Sometimes the best way to fool a person is by telling them the honest truth.” Dauin stopped talking and in the night air the insects and bugs stopped their incessant chatter. Joya opened her eyes to see if he was still there, and he was, but different.

She saw her father standing beside her, lit like a torch. Flames kindled his hair and his clothes like the driest of tinder. The skin on his face blistered, burst forth fat and blood which quickly caught flame as sheets of skin sloughed off his form.

“Soon Angelica and Jovian will face the mask,” he said. “And it will wear a
very
familiar face. I hope you are happy with your new life, Joya — it was bought with the blood of your past.”

“I never wanted this life!” Joya screamed at him, but everything was gone, and Joya stood in the center of a void. There was nothing around her except her own body, but even that was questionable. She wasn’t sure if she even existed physically here.

But before she could give it any further thought, a light bloomed in the darkness. The silvery-blue light reminded her of the light she had seen in the center of Vorustum-Apaleer.

Maybe it’s a way out?
she wondered. Without hesitation, Joya stepped into the brightness of the light, and out of the darkness of her vision. But still, her father’s words haunted her. Was he right? Was he telling the truth, or was it just another way for the verax-acis to mess with her mind?

Maeven stood on the edge of the battlefield. Around him rained fire, blood, ice. Through the air fluttered feathers both black and white, drifting toward ruined ground like snow. Jovian had told him to stay here, to the edge of the battle, and Maeven hadn’t argued. Before, when he was thinking of this moment, of this fight, he’d wanted to join in, but when he saw the angels fighting on the ground as well as in the air, arcing through the sky like birds, he had stayed back without argument.

He felt ashamed, like a coward. He had allowed his boyfriend and his other companions to waltz onto the field without an objection. Maeven found now that Jovian had been right; this was no place for him. So he stayed behind, hidden behind a boulder, watching as angelic bodies fell from the heavens and broke upon the churned earth of the battlefield. And then, like stars raining out of a night sky, angels with both black and white wings started to plummet from the sky and to the ground.

Lightning arced through the air, down from the heavens, striking angels here and there, smiting them on the smoldering ground. Maeven looked up, trying to find where the attack was coming from, but he saw no source. It was natural, though it didn’t feel natural. Maeven wondered if the Goddess was attacking the angels as she had those who dared go too close to the Ever After, but there was no indication.

The lightning continued to flash, and in one loud crack the ground began to shudder. As he watched, the two twisting halves of the Turquoise Tower drifted apart. All that remained in its place was a disk, the floor of the temple.

Inside there were three figures, each of them clasping hands. There was a bright flash of light, and when it cleared the figures lay prone on the floor, crumpled, though still holding hands.

With his heart in his throat, Maeven stood and darted for the temple, around the falling bodies of the angels. The ground was slick with the rain, the blood, and the ice, all churned up in a muddy mess. He slipped and fell, his arms sinking up to the elbows in the deluge. Struggling, Maeven pulled himself out of the mud that seemed intent on swallowing him whole.

All he could think about was getting to Jovian. He feared the worst. None of the three had tried to move yet, that he could tell. He climbed the steps of the temple, his feet betraying him and casting him to his knees time and again, but finally he made it . . . and didn’t want to step any closer.

This was a place of angels, like Vorustum-Apaleer. This wasn’t a place for humans, and he felt almost unwelcome here, like there was an energy inside that would rather see him die than allow him to enter. It was a terrible force, but Maeven pressed on. He couldn’t worry about his safety any longer. He had done what Jovian had asked of him and stayed out of the battle, but he couldn’t do nothing when Jovian needed his help.

Maeven drew closer, circling the three bodies that lay in the center of the altar room, waiting for one of them to move. When they didn’t, Maeven stopped, and looked for visible signs of life.