Praelia Nox

by T J Kelly

  I snapped my jaw shut as I turned to confront him. I had wanted to engage in a magic battle with that man for way too long. I grabbed a light crystal out of my vest pocket. It would turn into anything I wanted it to, and with a power beyond anything he would expect. I wanted to knock him down. Render him defenseless. And then vanquish him.

  "Lia," Peter shouted. Except it wasn't out loud - his voice had instead shattered the quiet of my mind. With my name came all sorts of information, the most important being that I needed to duck. So I did.

  A massive Smash-burst flew right over me. I turned on my side and saw Oberon had brought his older sons. If their spell had hit me, I would be dead.

  How dare they?

  They moved to engage with Peter, who was holding his own. Oberon moved from where I could get at him, sliding closer to the junior agents.

  "Vanesco," he said. It wasn't very loud, but I was close enough to hear. Then the disgusting sound of triumph and pleasure in his voice was washed away from my mind in the horror of watching three junior agents disappear in a violent rending of Dark and reality and the smallest sliver of Light. They had been shoved right out of existence. They weren't anywhere anymore.

  Vanished.

  Then Oberon transferred away. None of us chased him. Whatever had just happened was more important. There were dark members on the Council who would alibi his actions with some kind of lawful explanation, anyway. The remaining magicians we had been fighting also transported away.

  All that was left were Irregulars and a vibrating emptiness where three young men used to be.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Past is Present

  I recognized it. The darkness, the emptiness, the fury in the complete lack of everything. I once feared I would be lost to its grip.

  Three good men killed by the Dark.

  I shuddered. Wiping dust from my hands, I shifted a box out of my way and walked deeper into the storage building that held the contents of my father's office and the secret room that Peter and I had found at Rector House. We had spent days working through the battle, debriefing, using Recall, pulling every single second out of the memories of all the Irregulars on site when Oberon obliterated the junior agents. He attached a null spell to it, neutralizing their ability to transport away from danger even as he used a similar spell to make them disappear. We had yet to figure out how he did it. How to stop it from happening again. How we failed so badly.

  Gone.

  My stomach heaved. I clamped my teeth together and tensed against the nausea, body wracked with guilt and horror.

  "We'll figure it out," Peter assured me from behind the stack of folders he had laid out on the modern glass table. It sat near empty metal-and-glass bookshelves. Furniture from Donovan Rector's office. A style I loathed and had replaced when I took over.

  "It wasn't all that different from what I did," I ground out between clenched teeth. I was afraid I would throw up, despite skipping breakfast for the third day in a row. I couldn't imagine eating. Not now.

  "Because of your affinity for darkness. It was familiar - not the same. It was awful when the birds disappeared, Lia. Horrible. I know you still have nightmares about it. But your mistake, as bad as it was, never hurt another human being. It wasn't intentional. You're better than that, so stop worrying. We need to focus so we can figure out how to keep him from using that spell again."

  As Oberon destroyed three young men, his allies sabotaged several businesses owned by clans who supported the Irregulars. Our analysts were focused on that because the nebulous nature of the spell Oberon used didn't work with their skillset. That left the investigation up to the agents. And while we hadn't been assigned to the effort, Peter was convinced we could figure out a defense against the new vanishing spell.

  "I guess." I loosened my jaw and wiggled it around so it wouldn't be sore later. Then I shook myself. I had wallowed in self-pity long enough. Sliding back into despair wasn't going to help anyone. That was why we went to the storehouse to begin with. To make some progress on at least one battlefront.

  "Trust me. Lia, you were made to fight a spell like that. Oberon only used a tiny bit of his warped Light. That spell was mostly Dark, and you were born to conquer that."

  Hope filled me like the Light Peter shared with me. He was right. "Yeah, okay. I'll meditate on it." I grunted as I strained to grab a promising-looking box high on the shelves bolted to the walls. Before I could use the elements to draw it to me, Peter slipped behind me and reached above my head to pull it down. His chest touched my back as he leaned over and I shivered. I really needed the boost of Light that came with the brief contact.

  "Is this the only one you wanted?" he asked as he set the box on the table. I nodded and took a seat.

  "Yes. It holds my father's journals," I said. "I want to read about his work with crystals. But I especially want to see the ones we got from Rector House. I get the feeling those will have more interesting information than work stuff."

  Not that I didn't find the work of the Rector clan fascinating. I did. But we had an apocalypse to avoid, and I suspected that everything was connected. Not just the two-path distractions. But my parents and the car wreck. The mayor and his slimy back-handed dealings. The attacks on Rector Enterprises. And the work I was doing with Peony and Richard. The seer stuff. I could sense it. The links between them were almost easier to read than a trace.

  "That arrived last. It's probably closer to the front."

  "Good thinking," I said, and followed him down another walkway in between furniture and boxes, into a pool of deep darkness.

  "What the hell, Rector," Peter blurted with a laugh. "I'm blind."

  "It's the dark crystals," I said. "I used them to help control myself before. Siphoned off all that extra Dark and then sent them here. I wasn't sure what else to do with them."

  "Got it," he said. He had once obscured the radiating darkness with a kitchen towel so was perfectly aware the Dark was easy enough to block. Just like a light crystal could be hidden from view by the blanket I pulled over my head when I used them to read at night in my dorm room. A shuffle and a grunt, and then the darkness was snuffed out and the light crystals I had levitated above us to add to the fluorescent lighting were suddenly enough again.

  Peter had used an old tapestry that I had transferred from my bedroom at the manor house. He tossed it right over the pile of dark crystals. Whatever worked. They could be muffled because there wasn't anything active about the magic. They just radiated darkness because of their nature.

  "Here they are," I called. Peter walked to my side and grabbed two more boxes. We carried them back to the table so we could spread out. "I don't know what I'm looking for."

  "I know. I'll sort through them, lay them out by date and keep the ones by your mother separate from your father's. Then you can look and see if anything will give us a direction."

  "Sounds good."

  I pulled the lid off of the box I had carried and sorted through the papers. My mother wasn't nearly as prolific a writer as my father. By the time we finished digging through the boxes, there were only five journals. I started there. I had never read anything of hers before and since there were less of them, I could get through them quicker than the huge stack of my father's.

  "This one is from right before you were born," Peter said. It was the oldest of the journals and the dates etched into the cover and spine in silver foil indicated it covered my mother's last years at home and the first years of her marriage. It seemed like a personal time, but I picked it up and skimmed through it, anyway.

  After maybe ten minutes of silence, I found something interesting. Well, all of it was riveting - I was learning my mother's personality in a way I never had the chance to before - but the words had to do with me.

  "Listen to this," I said. Then I reread the short passage. "I found out I'm pregnant today. Donovan and I have been trying for so long, I didn't think it would ever happen. A moment of joy in these dark times. He's the las
t of his line and we're worried. Now there will be another, as promised. That damned prophecy!"

  "Whoa," Peter murmured. "What prophecy?"

  "You got me. She doesn't seem very happy about it. And what dark times?" How frustrating. My mother had written personal journals, used them as a way to get her thoughts out. Which was great. It helped ease her mind. But that meant she wasn't writing with the intention of her heirs reading her words and using them as a guide to family secrets and spells.

  "You should go back to the beginning and see if you can find anything about a prophecy. Or hey, put a trace on the word."

  "Good idea." I had used that technique to help identify important information before, usually while I was studying for a test. I held the journal in one hand and rested the palm of the other on the cover. I closed my eyes and set a trace on anything that had to do with prophecies.

  Three passages glowed. One was the passage I had just read, but there were two others. Promising.

  "Hey, look. It worked on the other ones, too," Peter said, pointing to the four journals still on the table. Light leaked from between the pages. She had written about a prophecy several times.

  I flipped the pages back to the beginning and skimmed a few sentences before the trace glow. "Donovan and I spent Eostre with Victor," the journal read, my mother using my uncle's family name. "Peony is such a sweet, beautiful woman. I'm glad he's found happiness. Their two boys are a delight. Her brother Ashe was charming, but he is a seer and spoke to me. Donovan was near enough to catch the words of the prophecy. We've been trying for years to have a child of our own. Now it seems the fate of the world depends on it."

  "But no pressure," Peter joked.

  I burst into laughter. I had been thinking about my life and how many times I had confronted the darkness. It was getting old. And scary. But Peter always knew how to make me feel better.

  "Right? Okay, so whatever Ashe said to her, my father heard. At least they would remember it that way. Do you see a journal in his stack from the same time period?"

  "There are three. But this one is glowing." Peter handed me a soft magenta journal with gold foil lettering on the cover.

  After a while, I found a small diagram with the Caorthann clan's Rowan tree coat of arms. Peony's clan. And Ashe. "A warning, a portent. The only comfort I take in Ashe's prophecy is the prediction that we shall someday have a child. Miranda has longed to be a mother. I imagine with joy the sound of tiny Rector feet crunching on the gravel paths my wife has created in her lovely garden. A beautiful place to raise a beloved child."

  My voice caught in my throat as tears filled my eyes. I sat frozen, trying to regain control. It was one thing to know my parents loved me. It was another thing entirely to see evidence of that love before I ever came into being. They had been wanting me for a very long time.

  "That's beautiful," Peter murmured. Then he stood and leaned over me, folding me into his embrace. "I'm glad you're here, too."

  His voice was tight. There was more to what he meant. It set off my seer's senses. He had not lied. He had omitted something. But that was okay. If he went any deeper, I would probably lose my battle against the tears and waste the rest of the day grieving the loss of my parents again.

  "But not helpful. I don't think they wanted to put the words on paper. It would only make it more real."

  "Yeah. But there are other passages. Let's take a look."

  I nodded and opened my mother's journal again to the last trace highlight. "Victor came by." I smiled. There was something so personal and close when she called Armageddon by his birth name. Even Peony called my uncle by his nickname, Ged. "Peony told him of my daughter's impending birth in a vision years ago. Now is the time of fruition. He came to warn me. To warn us. He is worried. Said he was busy, may not be on hand for her arrival. I told him distance viewing is enough. He only had a partial revelation. Victor doesn't know that if he is on hand, she won't make it."

  "Oh, man," Peter moaned. "This is too freaky."

  My mouth was dry. I pulled a couple of water bottles out of my backpack and handed one to Peter before taking a drink from my own. "All right. I guess the prophecy had to do with me being born. My uncle couldn't be there. That's fine. He wasn't. And something else, that neither of them talks about again. Not yet, anyway. Ashe had to tell them something about me and what I was going to do. Peony had a vision about me the day I was born," I added.

  "You mentioned that before. Something about fire and death. Super comforting."

  I snorted. "Yeah. It had to do with my ascension and my birthday. I basically had to fail. I know my uncle must have told them about it. So why did they try so hard to make sure I would ascend on that day?"

  "Maybe what they knew changed what Peony saw," he suggested. That was a great point. Not one I could confirm, but nothing in his words told me what he said was a lie. Which meant he had stumbled onto the truth. "Although it didn't work. You still didn't ascend."

  "Yeah. One of my finest moments." I groaned and then jumped up to pace in the small clearing near the table. "I have no idea if this is helping anything."

  "Learning about yourself is never bad," he responded.

  I stopped and turned back towards him. "You're right. I'm sorry I've been such a baby the last few days. And now. I'm not sure how you can stand it."

  Peter laughed, then tugged me to him. "Don't be an idiot. I promised I'll always be here for you. And this? Child's play. There's nothing difficult about it."

  "Okay," I said, my voice muffled and echoing against his chest. I kept my face buried there for a moment longer, then pushed back. "Let's finish going through these. Once we're done with the prophecy traces, I'll take them all back to my room and read through them line by line. When I have the time. Which I promise I'll make some. Somehow."

  "Sounds like a plan."

  ◆◆◆

  It wasn't until I saw him walking in the distance that it occurred to me that Mort would probably know all about the prophecies. He was my uncle's best friend and partner. Armageddon may be off castle grounds, but Mort was available.

  "Hey, I'll meet you back at the castle when you get done," I told Peter. He was on his way to another round with what I dubbed the Think Tank. We spent tons of time going over recent events with the analysts, making sure we weren't missing something vital amid all the other important things we were doing.

  "Sounds good." He gave me a quick kiss. There had been so many people around, it was putting a crimp on our special time together.

  I trotted over to the stables where Mort was feeding apples to the horses. "You'll spoil them," I called from the door of the barn.

  "These beauties are too regal to lose their heads over so humble a gift," he teased. He gave the mare in the last stall a pat and then turned to me. "I haven't had the chance to go riding in quite a while. There was a surprise gap in my schedule. Not long enough to do something about it, but time enough for a visit."

  I never knew he liked horses as much as I did. I loved to come down and spend a moment when I had the chance. But like Mort, I hadn't been riding in a long time. Sera had inherited her father's horses, and I made a point of checking on them regularly. Not that the stable workers didn't excel at their jobs. But it seemed like the right thing to do. It wasn't the same, though.

  "Sera's matched grays will foal soon," I said. "I can't wait to show her the 'baby horses.'"

  "I can imagine her delight." We slowly made our way back outside. "Something on your mind?"

  "Yeah. I just went through some of my mother's old journals. They talked about a prophecy. As always, it has to do with me."

  "It seems as if Fate has made you a particular favorite of hers," he replied with a smile. He turned to the side of the castle, taking a path that led to the back of the property. "There will be a time when this passes and you'll be longing for the exciting days of youth."

  "Really? Is that how you feel in your great old age?" I couldn't help myself. Mort had done a ton of stuff
in his life, and from what I saw, he hadn't slowed down.

  "Cheeky brat," he laughed. It was a wonderful sound. Our conversations tended to be deep and dripping in destiny. And things were about to take a serious turn again. But it was nice to have a moment of levity. "What have you come up with? I can see the gears turning in that head of yours."

  "I was poking around, trying to figure out what it said," I replied as I slipped onto a bench near a huge wisteria tree. Mort took a seat beside me. I felt guilty stealing what was left of his break but pressed on. "My parents didn't write out the actual prophecy. But they seemed so concerned."

  "You can check with your uncle of course, but neither of us could track what they were told." He sat almost motionless, except his eyes. Mort was always on the lookout for danger. Even at home. "You're correct to surmise that we were aware. Things changed after your mother spent time with Ashe. Ged spoke with me about it often throughout the years. He saw less and less of your parents until you were born. Then only once when you were a toddler."

  "Until my seventeenth birthday." My eyes lost focus, the golden bricks of Castle Laurus blurring as my thoughts turned inward. "Whatever was in that prophecy, they believed bad things would happen if he was around. So they kept him away. It's funny to think about how I felt back then. I mean, I knew nothing about my uncle except rumors and a vague memory. It's surreal how he looks from a distance."

  "Ah, yes. The great and mighty Armageddon. He wields an incredible amount of power. That inspires fear and jealousy. We use that to our advantage, but it can lead to a lonely life."

  "I thought he would be mad I released the ashes before he got there. Ridiculous to think about now that I know him."

  "You know, I respected and admired your parents," Mort replied, his smile the only response to my confession. "I made occasional, discreet inquires and kept an eye on you for Ged. Followed your progress in school. You did an outstanding job for a child who was moved every semester."