“Dr…” I was about to say his name, but I couldn’t. I had to turn around and wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. Tendrils of mist snaked their way between streets and alleys a world below me. Turning my eyes up slightly, I saw the rest of New York rolling away into the distance. Billions of lights as far as the eye could see.
I finally managed to work my throat free of the lump that had been stuck there and turned around. I licked my lips. “Are you saying you want my forgiveness?”
A pause. “More than anything in the world…”
“Draven, I… you weren’t the person who swung the sword. I believe you when you say you didn’t expect that would happen, that you thought I’d just be interrogated and then held for ransom. I believe it because I feel like deep down, you’re a good person who just got swept up into an awful mess.”
“Don’t make excuses for me.”
“I’m not, I’m being honest.” I shut my eyes. “I remember what it’s like to have wings, now. It’s like I can feel them at my back, always, but they aren’t really there. They’re ghosts. It hurts more than I thought possible… I almost wish I could go back to being ignorant, to not knowing. But they say you have to wear your scars with pride.” I turned my eyes on him again. “I can’t wear them with pride unless I forgive you and let go of the hate I feel.”
“Do you hate me?”
I took a deep, deep breath, and exhaled. “I hate what you were. I hate that you were lied to and used. I don’t hate the man in front of me. I don’t hate what you’ve become… but I’ll never fly again… I don’t know if I can forgive you. I haven’t had time to think.”
Draven went to take a step toward me, but again I stuck my hand out and stopped him. He angled his head to the side, frowning.
“Not yet,” I said. “I have a lot of thinking to do, Draven. I don’t even know if I’m ready to go back to the Order, or if I even want to.”
“You’re not coming back?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do… and I feel like you need to respect that.”
Draven paused, took a deep breath of his own, and nodded. “I can respect that.”
“Good.” I looked at the stone glowing on my arm. Valoel was still out there, and he needed to be dealt with, but I couldn’t go back to the fortress right now. I couldn’t go back to my life like nothing had happened. Everything had happened. Everything was different.
“Valoel…” Draven said, as if he’d been thinking the same thoughts I’d been.
“He has two stones…” I said. “I don’t know what the other is or where he got it, but he never had any intention of giving it to a mage. He was lying to them just like he was lying to the Serakon. How are your people so good at lying?”
“It’s a benefit of the deal we made with the Gods. A benefit and a curse.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to deal with him if he already has two stones. I don’t even really know what the stones do.”
“You’ll remember. Somewhere inside of you is the answer to that question, and the way to beat Valoel no matter how many stones he has.”
“It doesn’t work like that. The stones are incredibly powerful. The more he has, the harder it will be to kill him. I need to find the other two before he does. It’s the only way to tip the scale.”
“Then let me help you.”
I shook my head. “Valoel said something to me… he said the stones want me to find them. It’s my duty to go after them, and if I do, then hopefully they’ll show themselves to me. I can’t do that if I’m a gold prospect and under your Order’s rules.”
“Then consider yourself a member of the Order.”
“What?”
“If you want it, you have it.”
“Just like that?”
He clicked his fingers. “Just like that.”
“That’s generous, but I still don’t think I’m going back to the fortress.”
“Then don’t come back. Do whatever you have to do, but know that if you do come back, you come back as a member.”
It was funny. This was what I’d wanted from the very beginning, to be a member of the Obsidian Order. To be someone who had authority, the power to make changes, decisions. To be someone that couldn’t be pushed around. But there was nothing satisfying about this moment because I couldn’t go back to the fortress.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to take the thought of seeing him every day. I needed to distance myself from him and from everyone else and focus entirely on the stones, on Valoel—on fixing the problem.
Movement across Draven’s shoulder caught my eye. I stiffened and pulled my hand up, palm out. The stone attached to my armlet glowed bright gold, its energy ready to discharge. Draven spun around on the spot, the feathers on his wings ruffling with the wind, his sword readied and in his hand.
Whoever it was standing there had landed ahead of us on massive wings, the ends of which were tipped with sharp talons. I didn’t know if I was ready for a fight, not after all that had just happened, but I prepared myself anyway, willing my golden wings to appear behind me in a blaze of light. The shadowy form in front of us moved through the darkness until, finally, Six emerged.
“Six?” I asked, my eyes wide. “What are you doing up here?”
“I followed you,” she said.
“Do you know what happened to any of the others? Are they alright?”
“They’re fine. No deaths, plenty of injured, but it’s being handled.
“Thank the Gods. Why did you follow us?”
“I needed to talk to you right away.”
“Talk to me? About what?”
She looked over at Draven, then at me. “I think it’s better if I show you. Come with me.”
Six eventually guided us to a rooftop of a neighborhood I at first almost didn’t recognize. It only took a moment, though, to spot the cracked and broken rooftop where Draven and I had fought Scythe. We were back in her neighborhood, the place where we’d found her. I walked over to the edge of the roof and looked down toward the street below.
It was quiet. Deathly quiet. No cars, people, or animals stalked around the place. I turned around to face Six. Her wings had entirely disappeared, making her look slight and almost too thin again. She walked over to the edge of the rooftop and pointed at a building about a block away.
It was in the opposite direction from the one we’d found her in, across the cracked artificial creek. Dark, broken, boarded up. Foreboding. I didn’t know of a single person who would want to go into a place like that one except to find shelter from rain, and only as a last resort.
That had been you a few years ago, Seline. Don’t forget that.
“There,” she said.
“There, what?” Draven asked.
“Follow me.”
Six headed quickly for the ladder on the side of the building and climbed all the way down to ground level. Draven and I followed her as she made her way through the narrow tangle of streets, each street almost identical to the last. It was like walking through a labyrinth, and even though I had a little experience doing that, I’d still have gotten totally lost in here without Six.
At the end of our run, we reached a metal door with a chain running through it. “Break it,” she said. “Quickly.”
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
“You’ll find out inside.”
Frowning at her, I aimed the palm of my hand at the lock keeping the chain in place and concentrated. “Veshrim,” I said, and a beam of light shot out of my hand and struck the lock, shattering it into two pieces.
The chain slid to the floor like a dead snake, limp and inert. Without the chain to hold it in place, the door swung open on its own just a little; enough to give me a glimpse inside. Pitch black. Great, another dark place for me to go venturing into.
“I’ll go first,” she said, pulling the door open. “Follow me.”
Draven looked over at me as if to ask me to go first. I nodded and stepped through. Right aw
ay, a chilling breath of air pushed against me. The air wasn’t just cold, it was wet, too, and it stank of rat crap. Guarding my nose, I followed Six as she slowly stalked inside. I could barely see a thing until my hair started to glow and fought the darkness away.
A battered old reception desk, several busted chairs—all bolted down—and a broken coffee table covered in faded, old magazines surrounded me. Water leaked from the ceiling onto the pages, making the people on the covers look fat and bloated. This looked like some kind of waiting room, probably for a clinic, though I didn’t know what kind.
“This way,” Six said.
“I don’t like the look of this place,” Draven said.
“Where the hell are we, Six?” I asked.
“This is the place where some of us were kept captive,” Six said. Her voice bounced off the broken, old walls. If there was anyone inside the building, they’d know we were there. “I was questioned, and beaten when I wouldn’t answer those questions. Others weren’t so lucky. They were just executed.”
“My Gods… why did they do that to you? You’re one of them.”
“I am, but I’m also different. I am a Serakon with no markings, with no ties to the God of Ashes. My skin is pure and untouched by the hatred our God instils in us.”
“Why is that?”
“Because my mother made it so. She didn’t want me to suffer the same fate she suffered. She didn’t want me to become a vicious murderess. My mother wanted me to have a good life, free from the chains my people gave themselves long ago.”
“I don’t understand…” Draven said, “You lost me at Serakon.”
“I should probably have filled you in,” I said, “Sorry… everything else got in the way. What does it mean to be untouched by your God?”
“It means I’m only half-cursed. The sun’s rays won’t hurt me as much as they hurt other Serakon. When Scythe found me, it was near dawn. The sun was rising and he was losing the will to chase me, but more Serakon came to join him in the hunt and they were able to pin me down.”
We walked through a door into another long, quiet hallway. Rats scurried to get away from us as we entered, sliding into holes in the walls they’d made with their own claws and teeth.
“While the sun made their skin crack and break,” Six continued, “It didn’t do the same to mine, yet I was like them. I had their wings, their eyes, their blood ran through my veins. They locked me up because they believed they could break their curse, but they kept me close to their temple because they believed I was a gift from their God.”
“A gift that they beat?”
“Their God would not have disapproved of that.”
A pause. “Well… are you?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never asked their God before.”
“Why are you telling us all this?” Draven asked.
“Because I didn’t know if I could trust you until now. I still don’t know if I can trust you. But I know I can trust her.”
Six had stopped in front of a door in the middle of the hallway. I could smell… not smoke, but char. There’d been a fire here maybe. At some point, something had been burning. Probably not too long ago.
She walked over to me. “Your stone… I know of another like it.”
I stared at the armlet around my wrist, and the stone socketed into it. “You’ve seen more stones like this one before?”
“I have. They’re powerful, aren’t they?”
“Yeah… they are. Very powerful. And very dangerous. I don’t know why, but for some reason I’m the only person who can handle them without seriously suffering. Well, me and Valoel, I guess. Where have you heard of another stone like mine?”
“When Valoel came to the Serakon here, he was looking for a stone. He knew Scythe had one, and he wanted to barter for it at first. Scythe refused, so Valoel tried to use his stone to break Scythe’s mind. That didn’t work either, so Valoel left with whatever Serakon he’d been able to control. I had never heard of it before, had never seen it before, but when Scythe started talking about it, I heard him tell someone else they needed to double up defenses at the temple.”
“What temple?”
Six opened the door to a small room where the charred smell was a lot stronger. If the building was once a clinic, then the room in front of me would’ve been an exam room; only this one had been turned into some kind of chapel.
The walls were covered in artwork—not graffiti, but artwork. Incredible artwork. It was hard to see some of it because of the darkness, but what I did see, I was blown away by. Volcanic vistas dominated the walls. Thick clouds hovering low above volcanos spewing magma into the skies. Vibrant oranges and reds contrasted the greys and blacks in an almost mesmerizing way.
Then there were the Serakon. They looked like demons, all of them. Some of them had black skin, others had grey. Some had horns, others didn’t. They all had those swirling red marks on their skin, all of them were wielding weapons or launching claws into the throats of their enemies. All of them were being carried by massive, leathery wings.
I noticed one Serakon standing larger than the others. He was on a hill, with a spear in his hand raised toward the heavens. A single shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds to touch his skin, and it seemed to be burning him, making his skin sizzle. But he was roaring in defiance of the pain, in defiance of the sun.
In defiance of us.
“Here,” Six said, breaking me out of the thought. She was pointing at a shrine at the end of the room where a box sat on an altar flanked by candles. Hundreds of candles. Candles, upon candles, upon candles. Dry, cold wax coils drooped in long, oozing lines all the way to the floor where they collected in small mounds. I walked closer to the altar, and that was when I saw the box.
My heart was pounding, my hands trembling, because I had a feeling I knew what was in that box, even if I didn’t believe it.
“I didn’t know about your stone until I saw it tonight,” Six said, “And even when I saw it, I didn’t know if I should have told you what I knew… I know the stones are powerful, and dangerous. I also know many are looking for them. I hope you can understand why I was hesitant.”
“You needed to know I wasn’t like Valoel… you needed to be sure I wasn’t going to try and dominate the whole world with them.”
Six nodded, then slowly, she unclipped the catch on the box and opened it.
Soft, blue light poured out from inside. It was like staring at the sky on a sunny day. Draven turned away and grimaced, covering his ears with his hands. I turned around to look at him, my instinct to check if he was okay was pretty strong. I didn’t ask. He could hear it, I knew. Some of the stones sang, others screamed, and even if I couldn’t hear them, other people could.
“It’s… beautiful…” I said, my words trailing off.
“Do you think it’ll help us defeat Valoel?”
I looked at her. “Us? Does that mean you’ll help me?”
“I have nowhere else to go, and you saved my life. Where you go, I go. I am only sorry I did not tell you about this sooner. Maybe tonight would have gone differently.”
I shook my head. “You did what you thought was right, and I respect that.” I looked at the stone again, that tiny blue gem burning brightly in the heart of the box. I went to reach for it, but Draven held my arm.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“We have no idea what touching that stone is going to do to you… especially considering you’ve already got one on your arm.”
“I know… but of the three of us I’m probably the least likely to get seriously hurt if I touch it.”
“You’re assuming… I don’t like that. We should take it back to the fortress and analyze it.”
“You’re assuming that I’m going back. I’ve already told you, I don’t know what I’m going to do about my place in the Order. I do know I’m going to grab this stone. You can either stand with me and watc
h, or you can leave.”
Draven’s jaw clenched tightly. He nodded. “Very well.”
I took a deep breath and stared at the stone. I thought of my family, my home. I thought about Fate, Ness, Felice—even Six. I wanted to keep good memories in my mind, I wanted to use those thoughts as a shield against whatever was about to happen. Counting to three in my head, I stretched out my arm and reached for the stone.
As soon as I touched it, it was like my nerves went into overdrive. All at once my body filled with warmth, and then cold. An electric current zipped up and along my arm, sparks of power flurrying around my armlet and the golden stone locked into it. This thing’s power was immense, but I didn’t feel any pain, I didn’t feel overwhelmed by it.
In fact, I found this blue stone a lot easier to control than the golden one.
Slowly, as the seconds passed, my body returned to something like normal again. I could still feel the stone’s power working through me, filling me, turning any anxiety I’d felt at the thought of touching it into something like… comfort. It was like wrapping yourself in a blanket at the end of a long day. Like looking out of a window at a cloudy, grey sky and seeing a ray of sunlight poking through the clouds.
I took a deep breath, shut my eyes, and wrapped my whole fist around the stone. I then pulled it out of the box and held it tightly in my hand. A moment of silence passed, then another, and another. All I could do was breathe. Breathe calmly. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. When I opened my eyes again, everything looked a little brighter. The air smelled a little cleaner.
“Are you alright?” Six asked. She’d moved away from me. Draven had, too.
“I think I’m okay…” I said, “I’m still alive, right?” I pinched my own cheek. “Yeah. I’m alive.”
A pause. “How does that stone feel?” Draven ventured, almost a little carefully.
I didn’t have to think about it.
“Hope.”
WINGS OF FIRE
The Obsidian Order
Book Four
The Obsidian Order Boxed Set Page 58