The Turquoise Tower (Revenant Wyrd Book 6) (37 page)

If sorcerers come in contact with a mortal death too often, it will age them.
And here was Clara, steeped in the constant plague of human death. It was just amazing that she wasn’t already turning to ash.

But she couldn’t believe it. Pi reached out with shaky hands and gripped the woman’s shoulder. The old lady turned to her and peered into her eyes.

“Clara?” Pi said, her voice cracking. She stared back into those red-rimmed eyes and saw the same woman she’d come to love so quickly after they’d met. But this was something else. It was like Clara wasn’t even there any longer.

The woman didn’t recognize her. But the wyrd was Clara’s. She was dead. Clara was one of the undead.

Pi felt the wyrd welling up inside her faster than she could hold it back, and when it blasted out of her in a scream, time momentarily stood still.

For a moment time froze the fallen in place around Mag. Everywhere she looked around the city, it was the same thing. Fallen wheeling through the sky, frozen in place, hanging like ornaments from the clouds.

But she didn’t have a mind for it. The killing went on, but all she could see was the head of Astanel, frozen in its falling through the thickened air. Sadness welled up inside of her.
He could have been John,
she thought of her eldest son. Astanel was much like him, seemingly lost in the enormity of the world, not sure where to turn, victim to whatever force could take control of him. It wasn’t right, he deserved better. She should have
done
better.

And part of him reminded her of herself when she had been younger. Ensnared by the lure of a grigori, used as a pawn against the forces of light. The sadness was replaced by pain. She looked up at the blonde angel who had taken Astanel’s head, her face a mask of mockery. She had taken delight in it, and there was no doubt to Mag’s mind that the angel had been coming for her next.

In the few moments time was frozen, Mag let her emotions take over, and they blasted out of her in an orb of darklight, swirling around her in a maelstrom of grief and vanishing the fallen that had gathered around her.

When time resumed moments later, Mag ran toward the wyrders in the center of the roof.

“Mag, how did you get out?” Devenstar asked, slicing through fallen as they started to come back to themselves.

Mag darted into the protection of the wyrded shield one sorceress was holding around the fighting group on the roof. She didn’t answer Devenstar, and instead started lancing out once more with her darklight.

But then a trumpeting sound came on the western horizon, and filled her soul with hope she hadn’t thought was possible moments before. The legion looked toward the blackened sun to see the sight they feared most.

Wings of pure white feathers were gathering in the darkened sky, and where their swords swung, fallen angels died.

Grace saw the white wings in the sky, and she knew the tide had turned. The fallen that had taken to the ground around her once more took to the skies. There was no chance they were going to get past Laphrael and his pulse of holy light, so they took the advantage where they could, and attacked the host that drew near.

Once more Grace lifted her arms into the air, joined them together, and let the white luminescence of the Crone wash over the Holy Basilica, strengthening the host and chasing away the legion.

“Let them clear up the stragglers,” Grace said to Laphrael as troves of angels chased the fallen away from Lytoria. Laphrael frowned, and she knew that more than anything he longed to take wing as well. With the threat gone, Grace relinquished her hold on the orb of holy light. As her arms drifted down to her side, the light winked out and they were plunged back into the chaotic twilight.

“Grace,” Laphrael said. “What is going to happen to Lytoria?”

“Today we rest. Tomorrow is early enough to start thinking about the clean-up.” Grace looked around her at the ruin of Lytoria. Most of the buildings outside of the knoll were no longer in existence, transported beyond the Black Gate by darklight. What did remain was mostly in ruin, like broken teeth sticking out of the ground. “It’s likely going to take a while to rebuild,” Grace mused.

“Indeed,” Aladestra said. “For the time being, we will move whatever survivors there are to the Ivory City. When a new High Votary is elected, we will station him there as well, until we can rebuild here.” She looked up into the sky, gazing at the sun. “But I think we should hold off on all of that.”

“Yes,” Grace said, following her gaze as all gathered around the Moonchild did. “For now, it would be wise not to make any plans, and see what happens in the west.”

You had better not die,
Grace thought to the group that traveled to the tower, a tightness in her chest.
Or I swear to the Goddess I will hunt you through the afterlife.
But her heart was heavy. There was no telling what was happening with the group, what dangers they were facing, and how they would pull through it.

Grace wasn’t even certain they were still alive.

The sun had been extinguished. That was Joya’s first thought when the groo finally set her down for the last time and she opened her eyes. It was nighttime, looking down from the mountains on the bloodstained battlefield below.

But it wasn’t nighttime. Not really. The sun hung frozen in its descent toward the western horizon, covered in a shadowy film like black wool, blocking out all but the faintest of red lights.

“How long has it been like that?” Angelica asked, coming to rest beside Joya.

“At least a day,” Maeven said, joining them. “I haven’t been able to rest much.”

Joya nodded. She hadn’t been able to brave the cold wind of their passing on her face, nor was she able to watch the ground and the trees rush by. She had buried her face in the fur of the groo for the better part of their trip, only coming out of hiding when they took breaks, which wasn’t often.

She had been going crazy with the monotony of travel; days held tight by the formidable creatures as they traveled with nothing more to keep her company than her troubled thoughts. She wished for an end to the travel, which had come eventually. But now that the travel was over and she stood staring down at the battlefield and the Turquoise Tower, all the worries she had been plagued with before came rushing back to her.

We’re here,
Joya thought. This was an ending to their journey, but how big of an ending, she didn’t want to contemplate.
I’ll see Amber!
she thought. But even that thought didn’t comfort her against the prospect of what they faced.

Arael.

Even from this distance she could feel him inside the tower, reaching out across the battlefield, searching and waiting. She knew he was looking for them, and he would know the moment they set foot on the ruined earth below.

The tower was as beautiful as it was terrible, and Joya felt a tremor cascade up her spine just looking at the building. It was her human side that feared the tower, not her angel side. Finally, to just have it all done with.

She turned away from the tower and looked out across the lands beyond. The Realm of Water, and just east of this realm stood the Holy Realm, where her home had been, and the Shadow Realm, where her new home was.

Joya felt selfish knowing that she craved an ending to this, to just have it over with so she could go back to her regular life. It was selfish to think of herself when there was so much loss in the world. At least she had a place to return to.

Then her eyes settled on where she thought the plantation had once stood, though she couldn’t be certain she was actually looking in the right direction. She remembered their birthday, the fireworks, the strange gifts they had been given, and how far she had come since then. She had seen nearly every realm there was, and she had been through so many adventures and so much danger. How Joya longed to share the tales with Amber, with her father. She smiled, imagining what the homecoming would have been like. Ashell would have likely made a large meal, and they would have sat around the table for hours, polishing off both dinner and dessert and no doubt copious amounts of ale.

But there would be no homecoming. Joya’s smile faded as she remembered the ruination of their plantation, how they hadn’t even found their father’s body, though it was likely in there somewhere, most of the bodies looking alike with their distinguishing features charred off.

In the verax-acis-induced vision Dauin had blamed it all on Amber. Joya shook her head. Now when she thought of home she had to fight away the vision the beast had granted her, rather than the happy memories that so easily swam to mind before.

Just another
gift
Arael has bestowed upon me.

Angelica’s mind was full of the same thoughts. Lately she had tried not to think about the past, because if she thought about the past, it made her sad to imagine who she was months ago, and how she now felt like maybe ‘Angelica’ wasn’t even a person to begin with, that maybe she had just been one aspect of the larger whole that Sylvie made up in her body.

She looked down at the tower, refusing to turn back to the lands beyond as her sister was doing. If she was to face her doom, it would be without backward glances. She would face it bravely, and she would face it completely. But there was part of Angelica that worried that when she stepped into the embrace of the tower’s light, all thoughts and quirks that made her Angelica would cease to be, and Sylvie would swim to the surface, reborn once more in the terrible holy light that blasted forth.

Russel placed an arm around her waist, and she leaned into his embrace, letting his scent carry her thoughts briefly away from what she was about to face, to languish in the press of his body.

Jovian rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the scar that the grigori had left him. He felt hollow, without fear and without hope. He knew that he stood at the brink of that shadowy doom he had been feeling loom up before him. In fact, it felt like one foot was already inside the shadows, and the darkness was just waiting for the rest of him to join.

“What’s on your mind?” Maeven asked, stepping up behind Jovian and wrapping his arms tightly around him.

Jovian shook his head, but when Maeven touched him there was a flare of something inside the hollowness that was becoming of his mind. Worry that he would never again feel Maeven’s touch. Jovian wrapped his hands around Maeven’s arms, feeling the warmth therein, feeling the strength and the power.

Maeven kissed his neck, and reluctantly pulled away. The groo had already left them, and there they stood, looking down at the end of their journey.