Praelia Nox

by T J Kelly

  The light coming from Armageddon was blinding. Then it intensified even as it flickered, the sky above splitting in two as lightning tore through the heavens above us, thunder deafening us. My uncle was using everything he had to defeat his enemy.

  I leaned forward, turning my back on the rest of the battle, trusting the people around us would protect me, too. Believing in them the way Armageddon did.

  Vanquishing a magician was the hardest thing any of us would ever do. Most didn't have the strength, and it rendered us helpless while we did it. That was the only way to tear magic out of somebody's soul.

  Or had been. The astrolabe had done it. But it was spent, over. All that was left was for us to face our enemies one on one.

  Well, two on one. Because I wouldn't let Oberon's secret destroy Armageddon.

  "I'm here to help you," I said, making sure my uncle knew it was me. There was no way he could see me in the center of all that magic. Then I reached through the swirling mass of power, my skin burning without my shield, until my hands touched my uncle's shoulders. I leaned in, gripping onto him.

  Then heaved.

  Everything inside of me, all my Light, and all my Dark, flowed through my hands and into Armageddon. The white light around him stopped flickering. Instead, it expanded, concentrated, darkened with something that was the opposite of light, yet somehow brightening it anyway. The nature of my magic, given to him.

  Our world froze, although the sounds of fighting continued, screams and shouts of desperation unable to deter us from our goal. Then the Light contracted, growing smaller and smaller, moving down through Armageddon and into Oberon's chest. My uncle curled his hands into fists, grabbing onto the core of Oberon Taine, the magician Domitorem Lux, and ripped his magic away forever.

  Thunder boomed again, ringing in my ears as a burst of extra power blasted from where my uncle knelt, knocking the rest of us to our knees. I moaned into the dirt, completely flattened. I had never felt so triumphant, and so weak at the same time.

  Peter crawled to me, collapsing beside me, reaching for my hand. Light flowed from him to me. I think he would always do that. Put me first. Save me.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  "Yeah." I pulled away. "Keep your strength. I don't have anything left in me to give back right now. I don't want you to get hurt because of me."

  "Come here," he said, pulling me against him again. "You aren't hurting me. And I need you."

  The urgency of the moment was over. The fight had gone out of the remaining Taines, their leader lost, their efforts failed. The ones who still had magic found those who didn't and transferred away, leaving those trapped in cages behind.

  I looked around as I climbed to my knees. The Anderssons and Reg were walking around, securing any enemies who were unconscious and not already in a cage. Further away, flickers of movement showed where the Irregulars were ensuring there weren't any nasty surprises.

  Peony and Armageddon were already back in action, directing the junior agents, cleaning up the battlefield.

  Joseph was transporting the prisoners to the dungeons at the castle. Until the Council knew we won, there was a possibility the dark members would free our enemies. We would maintain custody. The war may be over, but there were still battles to fight.

  We had won, but at what cost? I tried to push aside any further thoughts, to keep them from crushing me. It was the hardest thing I had ever done, to keep from drowning in reality as it came crashing down.

  We had won.

  But Mort was gone.

  He was gone.

  The noise of Irregulars calling for their partners and assigned units, checking the status of their fellow agents broke through my pain. There were other people to think about. We still had work to do. And Mort had trained me well. Leaning against Peter for one more second, I collected my thoughts, then shoved them into an imaginary box, separating them from the rest of me. Then we stood, the two of us joining the clean-up efforts.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The After

  "Can I come in?" Peter's voice was muffled by the door to my bedroom. I kept it locked. Nobody needed to see me, not when I couldn't stop crying.

  "Yeah," I answered, using my connection to Earth to flip the metal lock open. I hid my face in my pillow as the door creaked open.

  Peter climbed onto the bed and lay next to me, arm snaking over the covers to give me a hug. Light filtered through the comforter, warming me. "How did things go in Poland?"

  "All right. After the alchemists reclaimed their stuff, we rebuilt their labs. Metallum had an idea for some expansions and I implemented them while I was at it."

  Magical clean-up efforts went fast. It took less than an hour to recreate the building with changes. I was there for each stage of the reconstruction and handled the actual spells myself. I was the CEO, after all. And while I wanted to hide away forever to grieve the loss of Mort, I couldn't actually do that. My control didn't mean it hurt any less than when I lost my parents - Mort was family. Had been family. Always would be.

  Tears leaked down my cheeks. My hand slipped out from under the white comforter and snagged another tissue. I dabbed gently. My face hurt from all the crying.

  "When are you going to tell Sera?" he asked. There was a catch in his voice. He had cried probably as much as I had, but everyone dealt with grief differently. There were times his eyes were dry but had a hollow look on his face that hurt to see. So much pain in the loss of a man we all loved.

  "I can't," I ground out before heavy sobs overtook me. Peter held onto me, and finally I turned to him, shoving my blanket aside so I could hold him close. Tight. What if I had lost him, too? Panic rose from deep inside me, but I clamped down, pushing away, and regained a little of my control. "But I will. Soon. She's probably wondering where I am. I've never been away for this long. Poltens has updated me every evening, and she's okay, but she's already asking questions and I can't handle the thought of breaking her heart. Mort went to see her almost every day, too. He was wrapped around her little finger and after she lost her dad, how can I hurt her like that?"

  "Oberon is the one who caused the pain, not you," Peter said, rage still in his voice. He was furious, hating the man at least as much as I did. Maybe more. I was close to Mort, but I hadn't grown up with him in my life the way Peter had. The way all of them had. The castle was a place of mourning, white curtains lining all the windows, black bands on every Laurus and Rector ally's arm. I couldn't imagine what his law offices were like. He had been respected, admired, almost worshiped. Loved.

  "Yeah, he is." The only satisfaction I had was Oberon's loss was almost as great as my own. His magic was gone and there was nothing he could do about it. There was no restoration for him. Gone. Forever. "But I'm still the one who has to tell her."

  Peony had offered to do it, but I refused. It was my responsibility. And I was to the point where I knew I wouldn't be able to put it off any longer. Maybe I finally had the strength to tell her.

  Tomorrow.

  "You hungry at all?" he asked. They were all worried about me, and the guilt about stealing their attention when they were grieving the loss of a dear friend almost killed me. So I forced myself to get up every morning, shower and dress carefully, and go to work. I had the business of Rector Enterprises to handle, plus rectifying the damage to my manor house. Then there was the political fallout. The Council still hadn't met with my uncle. We had the resentment and anger of the Reeves to deal with thanks to the meddling of Oberon as one of his distractions.

  Tons to do, really. And then I would come home for lunch, force myself to choke down something. If I lost too much weight, my aunt would worry. She deserved better than that. After I ate, the stress and pain became too much and I made my way upstairs to cry in private. They all knew, but I needed some time alone. Or with Peter. I was worried about him, too.

  "I ate something before I came up here," I said. "But I think a walk would be nice. I could use some fresh air. Try to soak in a lit
tle of the autumn sun."

  It had been obscenely sunny every day since the battle. I almost wished it were cloudy, or pouring rain. It would better reflect my mood.

  Peter waited as I used the bathroom to pull myself together. I brushed my hair, which had frizzed everywhere from lying down with a bun still in, loose wisps pulling out as I cried into my pillow. Then I splashed cold water on my face. My eyes were red, but there wasn't anything I could do about that. There was no point trying to hide it, anyway. We all had red eyes.

  I changed out of my business attire when I got to my room earlier. The yoga pants and t-shirt I wore was fine for a walk, but I dragged out a fuzzy hoodie for comfort as much as protection against the chilly breezes creeping in with the changing season.

  "Don't forget your backpack," Peter said as we turned to leave. Good catch. I preferred to have it with me even when it was only for a walk on castle property. I was so distracted that every day I kept leaving things behind.

  "Thanks." We descended the stairs together. Nobody was around when we reached the ground floor. We slipped outside and continued to walk in silence for another few minutes. "How was your day?"

  "Fine. I was debriefing some of the junior agents," he said. That couldn't be easy, or fun. Especially since Clypeus was one of them. It wasn't his fault, but that didn't mean we could separate him from what happened to Mort. But Peter always did his duty. Even when his eyes were red and gritty, too. "They've been having confrontations with the Reeves."

  "It's still that bad? Haven't they figured out it was all a setup?" I kicked a pebble, sending it flying down an incline as we made our way towards the forest.

  "Maybe. But a lot of that resentment was there from before. Probably for forever. So it's hard going. I'm not sure we'll ever be back to the way we were. It's more like it had only been a temporary truce."

  "And the Council isn't any help," I said, the words leaving a sour taste in my mouth. The legal side of things was touch and go at the moment. Mort usually headed those efforts. He had good people, and they were working on it, but nothing could replace years of contacts, relationships, and connections. Nothing could replace Mortem Impii. "I wish something positive would happen for once."

  As we talked, my eyes followed the horizon before us. The forest of empty trees - silent of the birds that should have been preparing to fly south for the winter - felt as if they were mocking me. Damage I had caused that I wished beyond anything that I could repair.

  "I'm not looking forward to that. But the dark half needs to get their stories straight, and the light half is recovering. They have to replace the spies that had made up most of their staffs." Another thing the Taines had orchestrated, with the help of the dark magicians on the Council. "I'm sure they'll call us in soon enough."

  "Can't wait," I replied. We walked beneath the trees, the shadows lowering the temperature enough that I wished I had brought more than a hoodie.

  "You're shivering," Peter said. He wrapped his arm around me and I stopped walking. Leaning into his side, I shared Light with him for a silent moment.

  "I'm fine now. You know what? I think this was enough of a walk. There are some things I wanted to think about. Is that okay?"

  "Of course. I'll walk you back, but I need to go check on the storehouses, anyway. I told Peony I'd check in with Clarissa."

  "She's been a huge help," I said. It shocked me how kind she had been. She had also picked up the slack, sliding in and taking over most of Peony's regular duties with the bees and fields, prepping for winter, putting out compost and mulching the gardens.

  "Yeah. Chas, too." My ex-boyfriend and his Promised had moved into the castle. The blood oath tying Chas to his father had broken when Oberon was vanquished, and I already took care of the death curse on Clarissa. I was in a place where their presence was a comfort rather than painful.

  "I'm glad," I murmured. Chas was hurting over Mort, too, but he had the added guilt of his own father being the one who had done it. Not that any of us blamed him. But nobody could make him believe that. He would have to accept it on his own in time. Time. That reminded me. "Where's Joseph?"

  "He's been in and out but I think he's at the castle right now. Mundane relations are going well and David's a huge help."

  "Thanks." I gave Peter a kiss, and we parted as he took the trail over to the storage buildings. My mind was full of strange thoughts, things I had discussed with my boyfriend, a not-so-secret pain about the birds. And the timing of life.

  ◆◆◆

  "May I speak with you a moment?" I asked Joseph. He was in the sitting room where we often held meetings, although nobody else was there.

  "Certainly," he said. His black eyes were so soulful. Compassionate.

  I slipped into a chair on the other side of a small card table. He had been using spirit cards. "I'm sorry. Am I interrupting?"

  "I was only thinking," he replied. "Nothing so important I can't make time for a new friend. You are welcome to join me."

  He had gestured to the table. Only three cards remained upright, all of them birds. Sliding them back into the deck, he cleared the table and then waved his hand, causing a tea tray to appear.

  "Thank you," I said as he poured the tea. He was the guest, but at the moment, I was the one coming into his space. He had been paying attention - he added a boatload of cream and sugar and a dollop of vanilla to my mug. "I don't want to pry, but I was hoping you wouldn't mind clearing something up for me."

  "It would be my pleasure." There were subjects Joseph couldn't discuss. The words simply would never form. It was even hard for me to think about what I wanted around him. The magic of time was complicated and forbidden and secret.

  "When I learned to transport, there were tons of lessons. They really pounded them into my head, but the most confusing were the ones on the fourth dimension." I stumbled a little on the last two words. Even talking about time using scientific terms was hard to do around him. "You're an expert."

  He sipped his own tea, an herbal blend that smelled wonderful. I should ask what it was. "I shall endeavor to help, but this is a difficult subject."

  I wished we had more time together. I knew he would head back home soon, taking all the mystery with him. It was funny how much I liked him, since riddles I could never solve drove me nuts.

  The words weren't forming, so I dug out my current journal from my backpack and placed it on the table, opening it to the appropriate page, turning it to face him. "Can you look at that diagram for me and tell me if my calculations are correct?"

  Joseph leaned forward to study my drawings. I looked at the page, noting that I had picked up Peter's habit of doodling in the columns when I was thinking. The pages before me had little trees along the edges. Empty trees.

  "You have done amazing work. There is no prohibition on the spells you've included there. But the whole is something I cannot speak about with you."

  Okay. Okay. Good enough for me. "I appreciate you looking," I said. "If you don't mind, I have some more thinking to do."

  "Indeed." His eyes glittered, the corners of his mouth turning up into the smallest of smiles. "I look forward with interest to reading your report."

  "I'll make sure you get a copy," I promised as I rose to leave. He was a major leader in the organization, but not everyone got copies of everything. My conversations with him had helped more than he would ever know. I hadn't even realized where my casual questions would lead, but now, in the same way a seer's vision came to fruition, they coalesced into something more than thoughts locked away in my head.

  I clutched the journal tightly as I made my way upstairs.

  ◆◆◆

  "You've been in here the entire time?" Peter asked as he entered my workshop. I had been up to my eyeballs in calculations, but left the doors open for when he returned.

  "Almost, yeah." It was evening, the world dark, the moon hidden behind the clouds that filled the sky. "I had to get it all down before I forgot."

  Working with t
ime calculations tended to be like that. The moments slipped away as if they had never happened and took my thoughts with them. I honestly had no idea how people like Einstein did it.

  "This is it?" he asked as I slid him the pages I had worked out. I copied over my diagrams onto large sheets and filled in the rest with more spellwork. "Man, this is crazy. What are you up to?"

  "Okay, so you know how much I hate walking in the forest now? I mean, it's all right, but it also makes me feel bad so it's hard."

  "Yes, I am aware of your mixed feelings," he assured me. "I'm sorry we went that way this afternoon. I didn't mean to upset you."

  "Oh, man. No, that's not what I meant. It was fine - I wanted to go there. It didn't hurt me." It wasn't my best work at reassuring him, but my head was still full of diagrams and spells and math. "What I meant was, you once told me that maybe there was something I could do about it. And I've been mulling that over for a long time."

  "And this is what you came up with? I was thinking about introducing new birds into the area next spring." He slid onto the stool next to mine and studied my work.

  "Something like that. I did some Recall on the memory of the night I killed all those birds." For the first time since it had happened, guilt and pain didn't tear through me. The only thing I felt in that moment was hope. "The darkness wasn't just nothing. It was the between place. Like where I went during the battle when you pulled me back. And I think I can get them back, too."

  Peter's eyes jerked from the pages to my face. "Are you serious? How?"

  "Look at this part," I said, almost tripping over my words. All the spells were legal, but some still dealt with time and that was always tricky. Besides, I had twisted the legality to the very edges by coming up with a new angle nobody had tried before - that I knew about, anyway.

  My boyfriend studied the diagrams for what felt like forever. Then he looked over the rest of my work. And back. Seven long agonizing minutes passed before he said anything. "Damn. I think this will work."