Moonshadow

by J. D. Gregory

  “Edea!” exclaimed a lady’s voice to their side and Diana’s lip instinctively quivered with irritation. “I’m so happy to see you; it’s been far too long.” She’d know that shrill of fawning and feigned excitement anywhere. Just when Diana thought the evening couldn’t get any more complicated, Tylvanna Skywhisper had to show up.

  As Tylvanna neared them, Diana’s heart sank even further to see her on the arm of her twin, Knight-Inquisitor Turion. Hopefully, the combination of her makeup and the beguile ring’s magic would be enough for the Skywhisper siblings not to recognize Diana.

  As expected, Tylvanna wore a fabulous white gown with golden trimmings that looked to have been designed for a goddess to wear. Her long white hair had been put up into two high round buns, held together by golden plates with round ruby jewels in the center. Her chosen ensemble perfectly matched Turion, who wore a more formal, less armored, version of his white and gold Knight-Inquisitor’s uniform. As the white-haired Tylvanna came to stand next to raven-haired Edea in her black gown, Diana couldn’t help but notice how the two women seemed the exact opposite of each other.

  “Lady Edea,” Turion began with a bowed head and the first smile Diana had ever seen on the man’s face. “It’s a pleasure to see you under less official circumstances. Perhaps you would save me a dance?”

  Edea’s lip twitched slightly—just as Diana’s had moments ago—at Turion’s request and Diana found the exchange rather amusing. It appeared the Inquisitor fancied Edea, and much like Darien with Tylvanna, the Lady Raven did not return the affection.

  “Of course, Turion,” Edea replied with forced enthusiasm. “After I delight in a few more moments with my brother and his betrothed.”

  At Edea’s words, the expressions on the faces of both Skywhisper siblings contorted with shock, though Tylvanna’s much more so.

  “Betrothed?” she asked, astounded. “Endymion, after all the time we spent together along the journey, why did you not tell me?” Her accusing gaze landed on Diana and Tylvanna narrowed her eyes, studying the sudden rival. “Who is this lucky woman who would be Lady Stoneheart? She seems dreadfully familiar.”

  Diana stood frozen, unable to meet the gaze of any of the four Naphalei standing around her, wishing she could be anywhere else. Fooling Edea had been hard enough, but an Ardeqai Inquisitor? It was impossible.

  Knowing that she couldn’t just stare at the floor, Diana lifted her head only to meet Turion’s piercing scrutiny. In moments, the Inquisitor’s eyes lit up with recognition and Diana felt the blood immediately drain from her face.

  “Lady Stoneheart, indeed,” Turion said with an amused chuckle. “It’s just your favorite Tanar, Dina’ssia. I must admit, Endymion, you’ve made considerable improvements to the girl since last I saw her.”

  “Really, Endymion,” Tylvanna said with condescending disapproval. “Must you bring your pet everywhere with you?”

  A long, agonizing, moment passed before Edea’s eyes went wide with surprise, and then began to burn with an indignant anger that made Diana want to cower in fear.

  Edea’s gaze quickly shifted to Diana’s hand before she swiftly grabbed a hold of it to pry the beguile ring from Diana’s finger. Once removed, the spell ended with a sudden snap and wave to the air, and Diana knew that she looked human again.

  Under the damning eyes of Darien’s twin, Diana felt naked and exposed.

  After fully gazing on Diana’s abject humanity, Edea turned her cold gaze onto Darien.

  “What is the meaning of this, Endymion?” she demanded to know, still holding Diana’s wrist in her tight grip. “What in the Dark Depths would possess you to not only bring this creature to our most hallowed celebration, but to place our mother’s necklace around her neck?”

  “My business is my own, sister,” Darien replied with force, taking Diana’s hand from his sister’s grasp. “And I would ask that you treat my guest with the decency mother taught you to have for all Elberon’s children.”

  Tylvanna’s nose curled up with disgust at Darien’s request to his sister, but she held her peace.

  Edea, however, seemed to grow even angrier at the mention of her late mother. “The Raven Throne commands you,” she replied with stern resolve. “State your business here with the human.” At the command, Tylvanna raised her perfect white eyebrows in surprised amusement and Turion placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to enforce the decree of the Raven Throne should the need arise.

  “As the Lady Raven commands,” Darien coldly replied to his sister. “I seek the Chalice of the Moon and have reason to believe that it is hidden somewhere within Silvermoon Palace, or had been at one time.”

  “Again with this fool quest of yours!” Edea threw her arms up in frustration. She had the demeanor of a schoolteacher who was extremely frustrated with a troubled student that just wouldn’t listen to reason. “The Chalice of the Moon is a metaphor—nothing more.”

  “If that is true, then I will find the evidence to prove it.” The Stoneheart siblings looked to have had this particular debate quite often.

  “What is her part in all of this?” Edea demanded to know, gesturing to Diana.

  “Her name, is Diana, and she is my new retainer. I procured her services so I can use human information technology to aid in my research.”

  Edea glanced at Diana briefly, with narrowed eyes, then turned back to Darien. They simply stared at each other, having an intimate exchange without words, as only two beings as close as twins could. Diana might not be privy to much of their relationship, but she could tell by the look on Edea’s face that she knew more was going on than Darien let on. His face, by contrast, was stone resolve.

  “I pray Elberon guides your search,” Edea said, not once changing her stern expression. “I suggest you and your companion get on with your business and leave. You wouldn’t want to draw more attention to yourselves.”

  Edea held out her hand to Diana, offering the beguile ring back. Diana took it and quickly slipped it back on. Darien must have been at the ready to apply the magic—the effects began as soon as it was around her finger. Diana felt much more secure in her elven disguise.

  Darien was still staring, intently and silently, at his sister and Diana wished that she could be inside of their minds, having the conversation along with them.

  “If we may have your leave, Lady Raven,” Darien finally said with a tone of stressed politeness. “My companion and I will be on our way,”

  “Leave given, Lord Stoneheart,” Edea replied with her own forced tone.

  “Turion. Lady Tylvanna,” Darien said to each with a polite nod. “A pleasure, as always.”

  And with that, Darien took Diana’s hand and led her out of the courtyard and into a dark corridor which led deeper into the palace ruins.

  “Well that was a pleasant experience,” Diana said with sarcasm. “At least she didn’t make a complete scene in front of everyone.”

  “No, Edea cares for me and the honor of clan Stoneheart far too much to shame me in front of the entirety of Naphalei nobility.”

  Diana stole one last glance into the courtyard to see Darien’s sister having a stern conversation with Tylvanna and Inquisitor Turion, her gaze transfixed on Diana as she spoke.

  “We must leave quickly,” Darien continued. “Edea is most likely ordering Turion to execute you, and he’ll do anything my sister asks of him—including being quiet about all of this.”

  As he said it, Diana knew it was true, and it grieved her heart to know it. I guess it was too much to ask. If Edea was so quick to have Diana killed, there was absolutely no hope that Darien’s twin would ever be accepting of their love for each other. So much for having a heart-sister.

  After several minutes of running through dark hallways and ruined corridors, hoping Turion wasn’t too close behind, Diana and Darien found themselves deep in the bowels of the palace ruins where no lights had been lit. If not for the small flame in Darien’s hand, they’d be stumbling around in the darkness
, blind to whatever pitfalls lay before them.

  Taking a moment to allow Diana to catch her breath, Darien picked an old torch up off the ground, lit it with his flame, and handed it to Diana to give them extra light.

  Shining the torch about the area, Diana took in the destroyed majesty of the crumbling corridor in which kings and queens had once walked in ages past. Unlike the wide, open, hallways of the rooms above, the deep places of Silvermoon Palace felt much more confined, like cold stone corridors of a hidden tomb, untouched by visitors for centuries.

  “Do you have any idea where we are?” Diana asked, her growing alarm present in her voice. “I’d like my head to stay on my shoulders for a while longer, and there’s no way to know how long it will take Turion to find us.”

  “If I’m not mistaken, I believe we’re near the former palace archives,” Darien replied, taking in familiar aspects of the area. “I came here once with Keeper Jerek, years ago, in the early days of my apprenticeship. I was young, and not apt to pay close attention to the Keeper, so I ran off to explore and came across something quite interesting.”

  “What was it?” Diana asked as Darien started feeling about a stone carving of an owl resting in a niche of the wall.

  “This.” After pressing some sort of trigger in the owl’s eye, a portion of the stone wall next to it moved back and to the side, causing small bits of stone and dust to fall and fill corridor. The dust cloud caused Diana to have a coughing fit. “I believe it was the royal family’s private passage into the sepulchers in the lowest levels of the Temple.”

  “Hopefully no one knows about it,” Diana said, trying to reassure herself.

  When she heard the sound of fast-paced footsteps quickly approaching from whence they had come, the sense of security that the secret passageway had brought was swiftly shattered.

  “They do now.” Darien pushed the small of Diana’s back, urging her into the dark passageway. Diana glanced behind to see Inquisitor Turion step into the corridor that they had just left, a torch in one hand and sword drawn with lethal intent in the other.

  “Endymion, you needn’t be punished for this transgression,” the Inquisitor said as if this sort of execution happened all the time. “Simply let me put the human to the sword and be done with it. The Lady Raven would not see you shamed.”

  From the way Turion had phrased his words, Diana was fairly certain Darien wasn’t the first Naphalei noble to have had a tryst with a human. The notion made her wonder how many innocent humans had been murdered so that the scandal could be “swept under the rug” to avoid the Naphalei being sentenced to the Nightmare. Is that all Diana’s life was to Edea—a scandalous inconvenience to be swept away?

  Darien continued to urge Diana into the passageway. “Go! I will be right behind you.”

  Diana started run, but couldn’t make herself move but a few steps before she turned around. No matter the danger, she just couldn’t bear to leave Darien while he fought for her life.

  Darien took a defensive stance, similar to when he’d fought Terra, and Diana soon felt him drew upon the powers of the Veil. In seconds, a portion of the stone wall that had moved to allow them access to the passageway lifted from where it stood, and in a blast of power, shattered in a controlled explosion. With force, Darien sent the debris flying across the room towards Turion.

  The Inquisitor appeared to be ready for such an attack, and braced himself for what was being thrown at him. In moments a type of forward energy barrier, that Diana could barely see shimmering in the light of the torches, manifested as a shield in front of him. What he wasn’t prepared for, was Darien causing the stones to shift at the last minute, and then envelope the Inquisitor in a prison of rocks.

  Darien turned around quickly, grabbed Diana by the wrist, and then pulled her down the dark passageway along with him. “I thought I told you to run,” he said, not sounding all that surprised that Diana hadn’t obeyed him. “That won’t hold him for long, but it should buy us some time.”

  “What about when we get to the Temple?” Diana asked, shaken. “Won’t they immediately notice we aren’t supposed to be in there and alert the Ardeqai?”

  Though he looked worried, Diana could feel Darien’s profound disappointment and irritation overshadowing his fear of danger. He seemed much more discouraged to be leaving the ruins of the palace. They’d been forced to flee before ever finding the evidence they had come to Qir’Aflonas to search for in the first place. Diana had yet to see him so irritated and angry.

  “We won’t have long,” Darien replied, considering his own words. “Hopefully, we can find what we are looking for and make our escape before anyone notices we’re inside.”

  “Do you even know what we’re looking for?” Diana demanded to know. Her agitation was feeding off of Darien’s, making her even more upset. “I thought you said the Chalice probably isn’t in the temple.”

  “It probably isn’t—but we no longer have the luxury of time, do we? So we’re forced to employ a more unorthodox form of investigation.”

  “What are you babbling about?” Diana asked, confused and distressed. “What are we going to do?”

  “Consult someone who might know where the Chalice is.”

  “And who in the world might that be?”

  “Who said anything about this world?” Darien said with a reassuring smirk that hid the growing sense of trepidation that she could feel inside him—it only made Diana more uneasy.

  “I’m not sure I like where this is going,” she declared, expressing a strong sense of caution.

  Reaching the end of the flat corridor, they ascended a great many steps before finding themselves blocked by another stone wall.

  Darien placed his palms onto the stone and then closed his eyes a moment in concentration.

  “The room on the other side is empty,” he assured Diana. “Unless someone is levitating.”

  “Oh, well I guess that’s possible,” Diana said with sarcasm as Darien used his abilities to move the stone wall enough for them to walk into the room. When they were both inside, he placed the wall back where it had been like it had never been moved.

  Diana waved the torch around, taking in the sight of the room by the glow of the flames. From the brooms and other cleaning tools, they appeared to be in some sort of large storage closet.

  Taking a step further in, Diana began to shiver uncontrollably as an overwhelming dread overshadowed any other intense feelings she’d been having over the course of the evening. Even though Diana was exceptionally awake, the Veil was calling to her.

  “Can we not linger here?” she pleaded. “I don’t particularly want the Kratari to come after me.”

  “We shouldn’t be long,” Darien replied before taking a look outside the room and down the corridor. “The lower levels of the Temple of the Fallen are a mystery to most everyone outside the highest ranks of the Almar and the Ardeqai, but I’ve studied maps of how the temple is laid out. If I’m correct, the chamber we seek should be just down the hall and then a small flight of stairs to the right.”

  Though she desperately wanted to know where they were going, Diana was too afraid to ask. She simply nodded and followed Darien out into the hall. Walking down the corridor, the torch’s fire did not bring Diana much comfort. Rather than illuminate the darkness before them, the shadows seemed to have a physical density to them that the light couldn’t penetrate, much like a thick fog.

  After descending the staircase Darien had described, the stone corridors became exceedingly less spacious and only large enough for one person to move along comfortably. With the ceiling only a few inches above Darien’s head, Diana was beginning to feel trapped as she fumbled along in the palpable darkness, her hand grasping at the jagged stone walls for a sense of comfort. This section of the temple can’t be visited often. The thought didn’t bring her much relief.

  When Darien finally stopped they stood before a large wooden door, inlaid with a silver crescent moon, which looked considerably ancient
. Like the doors in the palace, its ornate golden handle was in the shape of a snake coiled around an apple.

  “Here we are,” Darien declared.

  “And where exactly are we?” Diana asked, pained by her own question.

  “The tomb of Morgana,” Darien answered as he pushed open the door. “The last ruler of Qir’Aflonas.”

  The questions that immediately came to Diana’s mind were quelled instantly by the sight of what lay behind the door. Unlike the pitch black corridor that they had just walked through, the tomb was well lit with several enchanted luminaries lining the stone walls. With its five branches, the layout was similar in appearance to Charlotte’s final resting place, although it was nowhere near the rough cut cave under a country home. This tomb had been perfectly crafted into the shape of a star by accomplished artists of elven crypt-making. Several majestic statues of ancient kings and queens lined the walls as well, along with exquisitely woven tapestries that showed scenes from the life of the deceased.

  Unlike Charlotte’s tomb, Diana could gaze into each of the five branches from the central chamber and see what was held within them. Where her aunt’s burial cave had housed a small burnt out candle, a bowl of water, a withered tree, and a skull, Morgana’s branches held much grander symbols for the pillars of magic. The Primal chamber was home to a pillar of flame that magically burned with no wood or kindling beneath it, and from the freezing temperature of the room, Diana guessed that it didn’t give off heat, either. In the Spirit chamber, a waterfall flowed from a large spout in the stone ceiling and into a gaping hole in the floor that gave way to a dark abyss. Diana tried to listen for the sound of the water spilling into a pool below, but heard only the profound silence of the tomb. The Death chamber was lined with several skeletons, many of which still had weapons lodged into the places where they had been mortally wounded at the end of their days. The Life chamber was the most striking of all, and home to a full grown apple tree magically filled with ripe red apples.

  Although the magnificent tomb looked fit for a queen of Fae, being inside filled Diana with a strong sense of trepidation. When Darien closed the large wooden door, sealing them both inside, Diana finally found her words.