Etheria (The Halo Series Book 1)

by Melody Robinette

  “I guess I’m going to go wash off all your blood and demon poison,” Aurora said as they stood awkwardly outside of the elevator without bothering to press the button to call it.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “Hey, how did you know I could transfer energy to you? You said you read it in a book?”

  “Yeah.” Gray dug in his pants’ pocket for the small, blue Stellar book, and handed it over for her to examine. “Sev gave it to me. It’s about Stellars.”

  Aurora brushed her fingers across the intricately decorated cover and shook her head. “Can you imagine what would have happened if you hadn’t read this?”

  “Surely you would have grabbed my dying hand eventually,” Gray teased.

  “Maybe." Aurora gave a half-hearted chuckle. "Can I read this?”

  Gray frowned. “Well, I’m not finished with it yet, but I’m not sure you want to read it. You won’t like some of the things in there.”

  Aurora’s brows met in the middle. “Like what?” When Gray remained silent, she pushed further, “What is it? Tell me.”

  Biting his lip and looking over his shoulder, he said, “Maybe we should talk about it some other—”

  “Oh my God, Gray. Did you not just hear my story? I can handle whatever it is. Just tell me.”

  Gray sighed. “Well, right after the part about transferring energy and health, it talks about what happens if one of us dies.”

  Aurora went quiet a moment. Gray could practically see her brain gears whirring.

  “What happens?”

  “If one of us dies…we both do.”

  Thirty

  AURORA

  Gray had been right. She didn’t like what the Stellar book had to say. Not one bit. It was one thing to be connected in such a way that they could heal one another just by touching. But being indirectly responsible for the other’s life? She couldn't say she cared for that kind of obligation. Now, not only did she have to worry about keeping herself alive for the sake of her mother and Daniel, but she had to worry about keeping Gray alive too? Not that she wouldn’t worry about that either way, but the pressure to keep herself alive had just doubled within the last minute.

  “Well. That’s…awesome,” was the extent of her thoughts’ vocalization.

  “Yeah,” Gray agreed. “But, I mean, it doesn’t change things. I’m still going to fight just as hard to live and to keep you from dying. It’s not like we wouldn’t have before. At least, I wouldn’t.”

  “I suppose so.” Aurora frowned. “You need to finish that damned book so I can read it. Or you can just tell me the other little surprises we have to look forward to.”

  “On it.”

  They then separated to get ready for dinner. Aurora bypassed Brielle who had already showered and was now beginning the meticulous process of straightening her long hair, applying makeup much too thick for someone with such perfect skin, and squeezing into dresses a little too revealing for an angel in Aurora’s judgmental opinion.

  The blow dryer was on, frying Brielle’s hair, so luckily Aurora didn’t have to speak to her as she stepped into the bathroom and turned on the water. She was reminded of the painful past she’d recounted to Gray—only part of the entire story. She didn’t think he was ready for the other parts. And she wasn’t ready to tell it.

  Standing beneath the shower head, which was more like a waterfall than the regular harsh spray she was used to back home, Aurora wished she could drown her memories. Most of them had faded with time. She could only see flashes and highlights of her past. Except for David. She could see all of him, all the time.

  Regret crept across her skin as she recounted what she’d told Gray and how he’d reacted. He wasn't disgusted or revolted by her like she feared he might. He seemed to feel for her and had clearly been angry about what David had done. But, for some reason, she regretted telling him. That story had been her little secret. Always her secret. She felt vulnerable and exposed now, which she did not like feeling. She needed to build up her defenses again but wasn’t sure how.

  After an eerily quiet dinner, there was a vigil honoring the Halos who had died in the battle. Halos and angels each held a small candle that magically stayed lit, even in the sea breeze. A handful of Powers sang the most beautiful a cappella songs Aurora had ever heard, and then everyone released their candles, which drifted through the air and landed on the waves below, floating like thousands of glowing fish visiting the surface. It was beautiful and tragic.

  In the following days, the Powers pushed the remaining Halos even harder. They trained for longer hours and somehow fit more and more into each session. Aurora both loved and hated training. On the one hand, it made her feel invincible and strong. She was a decent fighter and much more agile than she’d realized. On the other hand, it was exhausting work, and the relaxing, enchanting cruise she’d initially experienced was gone. The angels still brought back the carnival attractions every night—the carousel, the water slides, the Ferris wheel, the food—but most of the Halos were too tired and sore to travel back up to the top deck to enjoy it.

  One night after dinner, though, following a particularly grueling day of weapon training, Chord said, “I say we just get over our tired selves and go up to the top deck and pretend we’re normal people again. Well, maybe not normal, but people. Let’s ride rides and eat crap—even though we just ate a whole meal—and drink alcohol and be normal again. Plus, it will be less crowded than usual because everyone else is going to go to sleep like we probably should. Whaddaya say?”

  Sev frowned, surely thinking of all the books he had planned to read that night. Brielle regarded Chord as she always did—with dislike and disdain. Gray appeared mildly on board, and Aurora’s body was so tired it was tingling, but what Chord had said about being normal sounded more appealing to her than a soft bed.

  She downed the rest of her second glass of wine and slammed it on the table in a dramatic fashion. “I’m in.”

  The others reluctantly agreed, though Samuel no longer joined them for dinner, and the five of them vacated the table before dessert, knowing all too well they would have their fill of sugarclouds, chocolate, and cider on the top deck.

  “I can’t decide if I want to eat more and likely hurl, or ride the roller coaster…and definitely hurl,” Chord said.

  “Go hard or go home,” Aurora stated. “Roller coaster.”

  “Okay. Are you coming with me?”

  Aurora laughed. “Are you kidding? I would throw up.”

  “You just said ‘go hard or go home!’” Chord protested.

  “I am going to go hard. All over those sugarclouds over there.” Aurora pointed to the stand with the revolving pink clouds floating, unsuspended, in the air.

  “Fatty,” Chord said dismissively. “Gray? Sev?”

  Gray was already shaking his head as they climbed the stairs to the top deck. “I don’t go hard.”

  “You’re a fireman,” said Chord.

  “I don’t go hard on my time off. I go lazy.”

  Chord sighed dramatically, either from their lack of cooperation or because the stairs were making him tired. Then he grumbled, “You guys are a bunch of—”

  Sev interrupted him. “I’ll go with you.”

  Chord turned wide eyes on Sev, his brows moving upwards. “Really?”

  “Yes. My books and I go hard every day,” Sev said, putting air quotes around the words go hard.

  Aurora, Chord, and Gray burst out laughing. When they reached the top deck, Sev and Chord parted from the group, stepping in the direction of the roller coaster, leaving Aurora alone with Gray and Brielle.

  “I still haven’t gone on the carousel,” Brielle said, rocking forward and back like a little kid and looking suggestively over at Gray.

  “You should join her,” Aurora told him with a sly smile, which Gray returned with a slow glower.

  “And I suppose you won’t be joining us?” Gray said to Aurora.

  “Nope. I’m eating sugarclouds,” Auror
a stated with finality. “Y’all have fun!”

  Gray shot her an exasperated glance, and Brielle seemed oblivious to Aurora’s subtle mocking. The two of them left for the carousel, and Aurora migrated to the sugarcloud stand, piling her plate full before proceeding to the chocolate fountain. She figured, after days of training and burning billions of calories, she deserved some cavities. The sugarclouds melted in her mouth and the chocolate remained behind, coating her tongue in creamy sin.

  She looked around at the few Halos who had decided to travel up to the top deck, rather than down to their pillowy beds, which was really what they all should have done. But Aurora had a feeling these were the Halos that did things they knew they shouldn’t. Just for the rush.

  Scanning the attractions, she tried to find one that wouldn’t make her regurgitate her sugarclouds. Most of them were rides—slow or not, she didn’t think those were a safe idea.

  Then her gaze fixed on a purple and silver tent that shone in the moonlight, sparkling and shimmering like freshly fallen snow. The wooden sign above the entrance read, “The Mystical Madame Mauve.” The fortuneteller. Strange, Aurora thought, for angels to have such a thing on their ship. Wasn’t fortune considered a sin? After speaking with Samuel on a handful of recent occasions, she wasn’t even sure if angels went by the same guidelines as humans thought they did.

  Depositing her empty dessert plate, she ambled towards the purple and silver tent, not quite sure what she was doing. She didn’t want to know about her future, did she? But she’d done so many non-Aurora things in the past week. She wasn’t sure she even knew what she wanted anymore. So, she walked onward, beneath the sign and through the tent opening. Twinkling strings of beads plunked her unexpectedly in the face.

  She grumbled, batting the beads aside.

  “Sorry about that,” trilled a golden voice.

  Aurora turned in surprise to see a rather large woman decked in shawls, scarves, and beads, sitting on a plush purple, cloud-like chair.

  “I’ve been meaning to move those,” the woman said, nodding towards the curtain of beads. “Either that or open the tent skirts a bit more. But then you can see in, which takes away from my whole illusion, you know?”

  Aurora glanced over her shoulder at the now-closed tent curtain then turned back to the heavyset woman. “Are you Madame Mauve?”

  The fortune teller let out a loud, throaty laugh—opposite of how Aurora thought a psychic should sound. “What gave me away?” Aurora pursed her lips and the woman added, “Sorry, dear. I know you don’t like humor unless it’s at someone else’s expense.”

  Aurora’s mouth went wide. “How do you—”

  “What’re you in for? Palm reading? Seraph cards?”

  “Umm.” Aurora wasn’t sure she wanted this woman to be touching her hands for any length of time, much less examining her lifeline closely.

  “Seraph cards it is then,” Madame Mauve said, effectively tripping Aurora out for the third time while the woman reached her short arm into a basket to her left and pulled out a tattered deck of hand-painted cards. “Have a seat.”

  Aurora sank into the puffy silver chair situated across from the Mystic. Without warning, the lights grew dimmer, and Aurora wrapped her arms more tightly around herself. Madame Mauve took a deep breath, closing her eyes, her eyelashes fluttering. When she opened them again, they were a bright glowing violet, and Aurora officially regretted ever having stepped foot in this tent.

  “We will now begin.” Her voice, which had been enthusiastic and almost frog-like before, was now hushed and dreamy.

  Madame Mauve shuffled the cards in her deck and placed them in a stack on the table, drawing three and arranging them facedown before Aurora. She turned the first one over, and her face changed from impassive to surprised.

  “Ah. The broken wall.”

  Aurora peered down at the picture painted on the card. It was just an archaic, crumbling stone wall. Nothing more, nothing less.

  “And that means what?”

  “That could mean many things. Usually, it symbolizes the act of letting someone or something in. Someone you’ve been trying to keep out.”

  “Is that good or bad?” It sounded bad to Aurora.

  “You tell me.”

  “Well, I’ve worked pretty hard at keeping people out, so if that’s what it means, then I guess it could be bad. For me, at least.”

  “The card could also symbolize a physical invasion. However, because the figurative invasion is in the forefront of your mind, we will go with that. In that case, it could mean you will invite a person into your life who you trust and have chosen to let in, or it could be someone forcing their way in without your permission or even your knowledge.”

  Aurora leaned forward now, her eyes narrowed. “How could someone do that? I mean, how are they going to force their way in? And who?”

  “That I cannot answer.”

  Aurora bit back her frustrated retort.

  “No, dear, I’m afraid I’m not all knowing,” Madame Mauve said in response to Aurora’s unspoken comment. “I am merely a messenger. Would you like to see the next one?”

  Shifting uncomfortably in her seat, Aurora peered warily at the two downturned cards. Did she? It wasn’t like the first one had been all that enlightening. But, if she didn’t, she might drive herself mad wondering what the other two would have been. Taking a deep breath and letting it out in a gust of wind, she said, “Okay.”

  Madame Mauve nodded curtly and turned the second card. Painted on this one in detailed strokes was the image of a woman dressed in a trailing red cloak. She was looking over her shoulder, an expression of shock and horror upon her face. Aurora wasn’t sure she wanted to know what this card was now.

  “The Ghosts of the Past,” Madame Mauve said, nodding knowingly. “This could mean—”

  “Let me guess,” Aurora interrupted. “It means something or someone from my past is going to come back to haunt me.”

  Madame Mauve’s tightly puckered mouth turned up into a small smile. “Perhaps. Or it could come back to bless you.”

  “Look at the girl’s face.” Aurora reached out to tap on the card with the terrified looking woman. “She looks like she’s being chased by something that wants to kill her. How could that be a blessing?”

  “Sometimes the things that scare us most are the things that have the potential to change our lives forever…for the better.”

  Looking at her lap, Aurora couldn’t help but think of David and how impossible it was that he could change anything for the better. He was a nightmare. “Let me see the last one.”

  Madame Mauve’s wrinkled hand hovered above the final card as if to give Aurora the chance to change her mind. Then with the flick of a wrist, the card was turned over to reveal the most horrifying image of an angel with the skinless face of a skeleton, hollow eye sockets, head rolled sickeningly to the side. The angel hung suspended in mid-air, its wings graying and sparsely feathered. To top it all off, a sword had been run through the angel’s torso.

  “The Angel of Death,” Madame Mauve said in a haunting voice.

  Aurora frowned down at the card. “I take it that’s not good…”

  “Not typically," the psychic recognized. "And this card doesn’t represent an easy death. The suspended angel corpse, run through with a sword suggests a violent, forced death.”

  “Who is the angel?”

  “One can’t be certain. But, because it was your card, I would say it would be someone close to you. Either angel or Halo, given that Halos are made up of angel blood. It could also mean…” Madame Mauve trailed off.

  Aurora’s eyes flashed up to look at the woman’s glowing violet gaze. “It could also mean what?” Her hands trembled, and she clasped them tightly in her lap.

  “It could also mean your untimely death.”

  Thirty-One

  CHORD

  Sev had a surprisingly nice ass. Chord knew this because he’d insisted on letting Sev climb the stairs leadin
g to the roller coaster first.

  “You know, you’re a super badass fighter, Sev.”

  “You say that with an undertone of astonishment,” Sev said in his proper British accent, which Chord initially thought made him that much nerdier, but now found incredibly attractive.

  “What do you expect? You’re a British dinosaur lover who is also a virgin.”

  “Why would that matter?”

  “Virgins aren’t usually known for their mad fighting skills. Especially not virgins as old as you. Though, most virgins aren’t as attractive as you either.”

  This must have surprised Sev because he stumbled on a step, catching himself on the railing and Chord’s shoulder. He righted himself and said, “You think I’m attractive?”

  When they first met, Chord thought Sev was annoyingly proper and nerdy. Not the cute kind of nerdy either. But after the battle, his mind had been changed. As it turned out, once Sev removed his dinner jacket, he was not gangly after all. Not in the slightest. And his shoulder length hair, which had originally reminded Chord of a gross, old wizard, now reminded him of a knight or a warrior or something. Like Thor—a lean Thor.

  "I do now," Chord admitted.

  Sev appeared unable to respond as they arrived at the empty roller coaster with no worker in sight. Chord approached the coaster, looking left and right down the tracks. “Do we just sit down? Aren’t there supposed to be, like, guys pressing buttons and checking our seats?”

  Sev shrugged. “I suppose if they trust us with the fate of the world as we know it, they trust we will be able to maneuver a self-driving roller coaster.”

  “Point.”

  “Front or back?” Sev asked, letting Chord decide.

  Chord smirked at this. “I usually like it in the back.”