by Faith Hunter
Hayyel chuckled. “I have nothing planned for you, Dalonige’ i Digadoli. This choice is yours, to live or to die, as it has always been. To serve as queen or to slip into the next world.” He stretched out his arms, wrapped his fingers around one knee, pulling that leg up. He rocked back against the support, shoulders straining the fabric of his tunic, wings gone again. “I am merely here as an interested observer as you choose your next pathway.”
“I let go and got sucked into the water. I either went to another world in the rift or I’m drowning. Oh. And I have Dudley cancer. And the shadow’s talons in my body. And I’ve bled to death. Kinda out of my control.”
“Or you bubbled time and are ready to be healed.”
“That’s what got me in trouble and gave me Dudley in the first place.”
Hayyel shrugged. “Live or die.” He smiled. “However. You already braided the powers and magics together. It seems a shame to waste them. And you do have the scale . . .”
I sat up straight and reached into the belt wrapped around my waist. In its folds I found the Glob, the Anzu feather, and the arcenciel scale. Once upon a time I had used it as a mirror and untangled some of the mess that was my DNA. “Humph. How about that?”
I looked at my middle, seeing the tangled, twisted, shredded, knotted, doubled, broken DNA. And all that magic from too many species, too many sources. “It would take forever to get that all fixed.”
“Magic broke you. Perhaps magic can fix you.”
“Or . . . giving up magic.” I lifted the Glob in my other hand and held the two magical items close together. In my mind, I found the coil of braided magics in my belly and wrapped them all about the Glob and the scale. It was a messy tangle, much like a present wrapped by a kid. I added le breloque and the medicine bags containing the DNA from my five-year-old self into the mix. “If I’m going to do this, I can’t do it alone. I need power other than timewalking. I need the power of the beloved woman, the warrior who makes peace. I need—”
Heat shot through me as if Dudley had caught fire. A blistering pain, as if a red-hot branding iron had been dipped into my middle and boiled my juices. It stole my breath, stopped my heart. I tumbled back, off the warm rock to the cold stone floor, and landed hard. Smacking my head. Stars swam in my vision and through me, joining with the star magics in my middle. Whirling and spinning. The Glob sucked up the magic, ripping the spinning energy out of me. It drew in all the magics, all the broken bits of power and shredded DNA. Taking with it the pain. Stealing the tumor, sweeping Dudley into the maelstrom. A tornado of power and intent and purpose.
I took a deep, pain-free breath and sighed it out. The scale and the tail of my braided magics floated inside me. Together they began to unravel the mess that was my DNA. The extra strands disappeared. The shredded strands mended before my eyes. The scale spun and danced along with my own skinwalker magic, and the tail of the braided energies joined in.
Time passed. I had a feeling it was a lot of time. Days. Maybe weeks. I slept. I dreamed. I felt the passage of the moon and the tides and the movement of winds.
I came to slowly, first my hearing, then my sense of smell. I could tell by the ambient sounds and the wet-cave and old-fire scents that I was still in my soul home. I opened my eyes, focusing on the dome of the cave-roof overhead. Tilting my head, I looked down my body, inside myself, studying the energies in my middle.
Dudley was gone. The scarlet mote, the dark taint of blood-witch magics, the black mote left in me by Bethany when she tried to kill me, were all gone. As if they had never been.
I was healed. I sat up slowly, the muscles of my abdomen pulling hard, to find Hayyel sitting on the rock beside me. The fire was out. The cavern of my soul home was cool and dark. Beast sat across from me, her eyes glowing gold. Alive. Thank God, alive.
“Go home, Dalonige’ i Digadoli,” Hayyel said. “It is not your time. You have much work to do.”
Instantly I was sucked into a frigid stream of water and pulled along through the current.
* * *
* * *
I followed the current, warm against my skin, swimming leisurely up through the heated water. I broke the surface, cooler air on my skin. I thought, Beast?
I am here. We are Beast.
I opened my eyes. The light was bright after the darkness.
I was at the rift. I was alone. Well, unless you counted the arcenciel in human form, sitting on a rock, her feet in the water. Her silvery-lavender hair had a single lose purple strand over her left ear, the rest was twisted up in a chignon, her diaphanous dark purple gown weighted down by moisture. She had been here a while or was working to give that impression. Having no idea who she was, or if she planned to eat me, I was uncertain what to do next. I looked down to see if I was dressed, and I was. Sorta. It was mostly rags but it covered the important bits. Oddly, I was in my half-form, the shape I had been in when I went into the water, pelt, knobby joints, tiny waist, not my human form, but I could deal with that later.
I floated, watching the arcenciel, keeping my toes out of the current I had dropped into and, seemingly, swum back up through, my body still beneath the surface. After a while, I figured if she intended to eat me she would have tried, so I pulled myself out of the water and sat as she did, clawed feet in the warmth. My hair was loose, wet, and hanging plastered to my shoulders in a long black veil. The smell of mineral water was strong on the air.
I patted my clothes and found the Glob in the belt I had been wearing in my vision quest and, even more weirdly, was still wearing here. The traditional scarf/tie/belt was green like fir trees and was the only thing I wore that wasn’t ragged. The new Anzu feather gifted by Gee was gone. Le breloque was tied to the ends of the belt, but when I touched it, I could tell the crown was different. Not exactly inert. Not quite empty of magic. But more than just a hunk of shaped gold. I had tied le breloque to the Glob with magic. Now it was a timewalking, storm-bringing crown bound to an energy-eating weapon made out of the Blood Diamond, a sliver of the true cross, a bit of the iron of Golgotha, witch sacrifices, witch magics, lightning, and my body. Ducky. Another thing to deal with.
I pulled out the neckline of my shirt and looked at myself. I was skinny as a rail, no boobs to speak of, but no pelt on the boobs I did have, so that was good. I ran my hand over my belly to feel only smooth skin and good muscle tone. I was mostly the size I had been when I was eighteen, when I first discovered my skinwalking gift, before I became Enforcer and the Dark Queen. Before . . . Before Dudley. I retraced my belly.
No magical star in my middle.
No Dudley.
No Dudley.
Excitement pattered through me on tiny paws, pricking my skin into goose bumps. I ran my hand over myself again and there was no pain. I was . . . healed? When I shifted to human again would I be myself again? My heart raced, my breathing sped, as I considered the way I felt. Energetic. Normal. Like my pre-Dudley half-form. I felt healed.
A breeze blew across me. It smelled of warmth and the end of winter. I reached up and didn’t encounter the medicine bags. Just my doubled gold necklace and its usual focals—the gold nugget and the mountain lion tooth.
The breeze touched my flesh, drying my clothes, drying me. From somewhere I heard birds singing, chirping, the notes sharp, intense, and raucous. Heard water dripping and falling. I smelled the mineral rift water, the wet of stone and the green of bracken and moss. I smelled the magic of the arcenciel. I breathed through my mouth, flehmen response, and tasted pollen, the hairy sensation of squirrel and rat, downy baby birds, delicate flowers of springtime.
My mind and my body felt raw and hypersensitive and very in tune with the world. Healed . . .
But what had happened to the others?
I had a lot of questions for the arcenciel, but when I opened my mouth, the words wouldn’t come. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about Bruiser yet. Or how long I had
been gone. Or what happened to the Flayer of Mithrans. All that was too scary to ask aloud when I felt so sensitive, so peculiar.
I blinked at the arcenciel. She hadn’t moved. Suddenly, I wasn’t certain if I was alive or if this was a new vision. Or some kind of dream state.
The air felt warmer than before I fell into the rift, maybe in the midsixties. The breeze smelled different. My body felt stronger, with a denser muscle mass. And healed. I could feel the grit of sand beneath my fingers, the frayed ends of my pants on my pelted legs.
If this was reality, then I was different. And I had been gone awhile. The unknown rainbow dragon and I studied each other to the accompaniment of nature plinking and dripping around us. Reality or a vision?
Eventually, the arcenciel must have decided I wasn’t going to speak because she said, “You make strange decisions for such a bloody creature.”
“Oh?” That seemed as good as any other reply I could give.
“You freed her from her restraints. You gave her access to the rift. She is free.”
Several breaths later I figured it out and guessed, “Soul?”
“As you call her. She is not called that by us now. In your pitiful language, she is called She Who Claims the Rift. She is called She Who Seeks Peace. She is revered.” The arcenciel didn’t seem happy about that.
“Okay.”
“But she is still hated and feared by a few of us.” Meaning her. Got it. She leaned in to me, watching my face as she said, “I don’t like her.” The arcenciel sounded young and petulant. Maybe not quite stable. Kinda like Soul when she had been trapped in human and mer-form.
I didn’t see a silver anklet on this one, but there might be one elsewhere. Or maybe she was just rude. “Okay.”
The arcenciel scowled at me. “I have been assigned by She Who Seeks Peace as emissary to your court. I have been told that your man and your brothers and your court are waiting for you.” She pointed a finger beyond me. “They left you that.”
Glancing away for all of a single heartbeat, I took in the open area of the crevasse to see a ring of blackened stones and ash, the remains of a fire that had burned a long time. Hanging above it was my large gobag. The arcenciel hadn’t attacked, so I pulled my feet from the water, stood, and lifted skinny, pelted arms up, taking down the gobag and setting it at my bare paws.
I opened the bag to find the contents were in large zippered plastic bags. There was a change of clothes and a lightweight jacket in one. Water bottles in another. A dozen chocolate bars and protein bars and turkey jerky were packed tightly in another.
There was a cell phone and a charger in another baggie. Not that I had a signal down here. In another baggie was a brand-new medicine bag. I touched my chest and felt a pang of grief. Both were really gone, my father’s and my own. This part felt more real, less visiony.
I hesitated. Beast?
She didn’t answer this time and my heart beat funny. My fingers went cold and tingly.
Beast is here. Jane chose well.
Relief whooshed through me and I nearly fell, suddenly dizzy. I caught my balance and managed, Yeah. Beast is best hunter. Jane and Puma concolor are always the best hunter, right?
Yes. Best ambush hunter. But Jane/Beast is skinny. Jane must eat much cow and gain much weight and muscle.
Second thing on my personal to-do list is eat.
Eat dead cow?
Yeppers, I thought. A big honking steak.
Steak does not honk. Gooses honk.
I didn’t smile. She had a point.
I opened the medicine bag and the scent whooshed out. I could smell Eli on the leather. He had made it for me. I hung the bag around my neck with my gold necklace. I opened the plastic bag holding clothes. I stripped out of the rags and dressed in tight, thick yoga pants, a stretchy, tight tank, and two loose, long-sleeved tops, all in shades of dark blue. I retied the green scarf around my waist and braided my damp hair, fingers moving fast. There were three elastics in the baggie and I tied off my plait with the blue one. There was a pair of rock-gripping climbing shoes in another plastic bag, but they wouldn’t fit my pawed feet.
In the bottom of the bag, I found weapons and strapped on the vamp-killer. Left the handguns and the stakes in the bottom of the bag. Caught a fleeting memory of the soul-home vision and wondered how I was supposed to be the warrior who brings peace. I would figure it out. Hopefully. I was tired of winging things. I needed to learn to plan things.
Beast chuffed at that. I ignored her.
In the side pocket of the gobag was an envelope. I opened it and smelled Bruiser’s citrusy Onorio scent. Tears flooded my eyes and I gave a single, harsh sob as I realized that the arcenciel had been telling the truth when she said my man had survived. His note read:
My darling Jane,
I don’t know if you will ever come back to me, or if you even yet live. I hope you climb from the pool that stole you away, read this, rush to the top of the crevasse, and call me. I hope you still love me as I love you, and I will love you with all of my heart and soul, forever. I miss you more than I would miss the sun if it was taken from me.
But you are Jane and I know you are impatient for news. I come here, to the rift, two times each week, and leave new supplies and a new note, so this one is less than four days old when you read it.
I smiled, and my skin and pelt felt tight and shriveled, my mouth moving in a way that was not-Jane, not-half-form, but something strange and new. I wondered what I looked like, lifted a hand and ran it over my face and head. My jaw was humanish but square and with a cleft. My skin was tight, plastered across my skull. I had Jane hair but was pelted on the back of my neck and shoulders, but not my throat or chest. I had rounded Puma ears. Again I ran my hand over my ribs and skinny belly. No Dudley. No cancer. No tumor. Was I healed in my Jane form? I went back to Bruiser’s note.
The Flayer of Mithrans was not eaten by Brute. We burned the body of the last Son of Darkness over the fire, until even the bones were ash. Then Evan and Eli brought in bags of concrete, mixed the concrete with water from the rift, and stirred the ashes into it while Evan wove a music spell. Trueblood magically bound the ash into the dried concrete at the cellular level. If you noticed the fire pit, it has a cement bottom. The Flayer is gone.
I looked at the pit and a creepy feeling came over me, the feeling described by childhood acquaintances as someone walking on my grave. I planned to never spend the night at the rift. I figured I’d have night terrors. His letter continued:
We are all healed. EJ is well, with no memory of the events at the hands of the Flayer. Tex and Shiloh are with us here, and we found Roland, who has returned to his anamcharas in New Orleans. Derek is well and human, though as angry as usual. The Everhart-Truebloods, with the exception of Liz, have left the winery, to see how much is left of their homes. Edmund has returned to Europe as the emperor, where he and Grégoire, the Dark Queen’s Warlord, are fighting for control of all European lands. Though they know you have no desire to rule, they hold the land in the name of the Dark Queen, and await your return.
We have gained a new pet. A strange creature that looks like a striped, foot-long, flying, scarlet-winged lizard. Gee says his name is Longfellow, and for now, he sleeps beside Brute and Pea. I have provided a photo on your cell phone. It is quite adorable.
I stopped, turned on the cell, and checked the stored pics. The photo was of the sleeping white werewolf, a neon green grindylow lying on his shoulders, and a scarlet-winged lizard asleep between his front legs, curled under his chin. It looked bigger than I remembered, but yeah. Adorable. I went back to the note.
There is one bit of good news. Jodi Richoux and Wrassler are to be married in the fall and have asked that the ceremony take place in the ballroom of the Council Chambers in New Orleans. On your behalf I approved their request. We are expected to attend. Formal attire i
s required. I look forward to seeing our friends happy and you on my arm, in a beautiful gown.
I will be at the vineyard with the Younger brothers, raising vines and preparing for this year’s crop. We’ll harvest our first grapes late this summer. We have branded the wine Yellowrock Clan, and the first pressings will be a mixed-grape white, and a mixed-grape red, both table wines.
Come home to me. Please.
Yours forever,
Bruiser
I folded the note and stuffed it back in its envelope. Then tucked it down my tank top, next to my heart.
Looking at the arcenciel, who fortunately hadn’t attacked me while I was occupied, I said, “What do you want to be called?”
“I am Storm.”
“Of course you are.” I sighed. “Why couldn’t I get a Breeze or a Rose or something peaceful? No. I got a Storm for my court.” I tossed her a protein bar and a package of turkey jerky. “I’m heading out of here. You can come if you want.”
Shouldering the bag, I began the hike up the chasm, watching for the climbing gear that would be hanging down in place, at some point. I was going home.
Keep reading for an excerpt from the first book in the Soulwood series
BLOOD OF THE EARTH
Available now!
Edgy and not sure why, I carried the basket of laundry off the back porch. I hung my T-shirts and overalls on the front line of my old-fashioned solar clothes dryer, two long skirts on the outer line, and what my mama called my intimate attire on the line between, where no one could see them from the driveway. I didn’t want another visit by Brother Ephraim or Elder Ebenezer about my wanton ways. Or even another courting attempt from Joshua Purdy. Or worse, a visit from Ernest Jackson Jr., the preacher. So far I’d kept him out of my house, but there would come a time when he’d bring help and try to force his way in. It was getting tiresome having to chase churchmen off my land at the business end of a shotgun, and at some point God’s Cloud of Glory Church would bring enough reinforcements that I couldn’t stand against them. It was a battle I was preparing for, one I knew I’d likely lose, but I would go down fighting, one way or another.