Darkness Rising

by Keri Arthur

  I hesitated. I couldn’t help it. Lucian’s warning returned to haunt me and, for the briefest of moments, I wondered what the hell I was doing—and why I trusted Azriel so damn much.

  Then I thought of the Raziq, and the danger they represented—not just to me, but to the people I loved. People like Ilianna and Tao, who were putting their lives on the line to help me. If bonding with the sword could help mitigate that danger, then I had no other choice.

  I tightened my grip on the sword hilt and drove it into my flesh.

  For several heartbeats, nothing happened. The blade carved through skin and muscle as easily as if they were air, until the sword broke out the other side and I was standing there skewered by a blade that was little more than shadows itself.

  Then the power surged all around me, becoming a tornado that tore at my skin, my hair, my body, until it felt as if it were stripping me of all that I was, making me as shadowy as the sword.

  Then it exploded, the pain hit, and all I could do was scream. Scream and scream and scream as the sword became a part of me.

  And then there was nothing. No shadows, no power tearing me apart, just a deep pit of unconsciousness that I fell into gratefully.

  Of course, my life being what it was of late, I didn’t get to remain in that peaceful void for long.

  As consciousness returned, it became apparent that I was no longer standing. I lay on my back, stretched out on the carpet, my head resting against thighs that were as hard as steel and as hot as a furnace. Gentle fingers brushed sweaty strands of hair from my face.

  “Don’t try to speak,” Azriel said softly. “Your throat will be raw.”

  From the screaming, no doubt. God, what would the customers think? And why wasn’t a squadron of cops beating down our door right now?

  “The magic that binds also contains. The only person who heard your screams was me.”

  There was an odd edge to his voice, and I opened my eyes and looked up at him. There was concern and regret in his expression, and maybe even a hint of censure. But at himself rather than me, I suspected.

  “You are correct,” he confirmed. “I did not think the binding would affect you that way. It doesn’t us.”

  I licked dry lips and somehow croaked, “I’m not Mijai. I’m a half-breed nonhuman.”

  A slight smile touched his lips—an echo of warmth that curled through my being, chasing away the chill. “But a very brave one.”

  I snorted softly. “Okay, who are you? The Azriel I know wouldn’t be saying shit like that.”

  He paused. “Why is it that many humans—or in your case nonhumans—are reluctant to accept a compliment when it is given?”

  “I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, I don’t deserve the compliment. I was scared shitless.”

  “My point exactly.”

  I grimaced and pushed upright, needing to get away not only from the heat of him, but from the gentle caress of his fingers. I glanced down at my body. There was no blood on my shirt, no dark stain on the carpet. I was whole. It was as if the shadowed sword had never been a part of me.

  And yet she was.

  I could feel her. She was a distant hiss of static that was almost a heartbeat and lingered at the edges of thought, coiled and ready to be unleashed at the slightest notice.

  I shivered and rubbed my arms. There was darkness and danger in that static—for me, and for those who opposed me.

  “Amaya has accepted you,” Azriel said. I glanced around as he pushed to his feet, the movement economical yet somehow graceful. “You will feel her presence everywhere you go, in everything you do. Learn her song. She is more than just a blade.”

  He offered me his hand. I clasped it and he pulled me up lightly. “I’m not Mijai. I can barely understand you, let alone a bloody sword.”

  “You understand me more than you might wish to let on,” he countered. “And Amaya’s voice will become clearer as you grow used to each other.”

  Maybe. Maybe not. While the sword might have accepted me, it didn’t necessarily follow that we would ever understand each other. After all, according to him, I shouldn’t have felt the pain that I did during the binding. So heaven only knew what else would differ.

  “So where is she now?” I said, looking at the floor but not seeing the shadow-wrapped weapon.

  “She’s where she always will be, unless you purposefully remove her. In her sheath at your back.”

  If I was wearing a sword, then I couldn’t feel it. I reached back and felt the coldness of steel. Damn. I wrapped my fingers around the hilt and slowly drew the sword free. While she was little more than shadows, she was far from light, though her weight rested comfortably in my hand. At my touch, her whispering grew stronger, filled with an eagerness to rend and tear. Another shiver ran through me. I swung her back and forth, watching the lilac fire that caressed her sharp edges spray across the floor, and wondered if—like Valdis—she’d scream when she sliced into flesh. Somehow, I suspected not.

  Then I placed her back into her sheath, only briefly feeling the weight of her across my back.

  “Are you sure no one can see or feel her? I really don’t need to get arrested for carrying a weapon right now.”

  Footsteps clattered up the stairs. Tao and Ilianna returning.

  “No one will see her except those whose life you are about to extinguish,” Azriel said.

  “Whoa,” Ilianna said, her gaze widening as she came into the room. “Where the hell did that sword come from?”

  I raised an eyebrow at Azriel. A smiled touched his lips and lightly crinkled the corners of his eyes, and my pulse did its usual stupid dance. “Well, no one except someone like Ilianna.”

  Tao came up behind her, his gaze swinging from me to Azriel before frowning down at Ilianna. “What sword?”

  I smiled and waved a hand. “Long story. You two ready to go?”

  Ilianna hefted the large canvas bag she was carrying. “All manner of magical whatnot present and accounted for.”

  I grabbed my purse and swung it over my shoulder. It settled into place easily, as if there weren’t a shadowy sword strapped to my back. I shivered again, then said, “Then let’s get this show on the road.”

  Before the inner voice whispering dark warnings of trouble ahead became too loud to ignore.

  We arrived at Mount Macedon an hour before dawn. In the glow of the four-wheel drive’s lights, the old metal gates seemed even older and stronger than they had the other morning—a barrier that seemed to forbid passage.

  Ilianna leaned her forearms on the steering wheel, her gaze sweeping the gate and the fence to either side of it. “The magic in this place feels ancient.”

  “According to Kiandra, it is.” I opened the SUV’s door and climbed out. “It seemed almost sentient to me.”

  “I don’t think I’d go as far as that,” Ilianna said, frowning as she walked to the front of the vehicle, “but there’s certainly a great power residing here, and there is a level of awareness within it.”

  “There’s also some sort of fire burning,” Tao commented, his hands on his hips as he stopped beside us. “I can feel its heat.”

  I swore softly. “The fire elementals must be still present.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Fire elementals? As in, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings fire elementals?”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “You know, that creature Gandalf battled when he was in the pits of Moria?”

  “Wasn’t that a Balrog? They’re demons, not elementals.”

  “But it was associated with fire—”

  “Enough,” Azriel cut in, as he appeared in front of us. His expression was impatient. “The elementals remain near the fire that gave them life. If Ilianna creates the void just inside the gates, we should be able to retrieve and read the book before they become a problem.”

  “Should being the operative word.” I’d learned the hard way not to rely on shoulds.

  His gaze met mine. “We have l
ittle other choice.”

  That was certainly true enough. I sighed. “Go get the book. I’ll meet you on the gray fields.”

  He nodded and winked out of existence. I glanced at Ilianna. “Time to go see if the ancient power will accept your magic.”

  I strode forward, Ilianna and Tao a step behind me. The gates were still locked, but as we approached, the lock fell away and the gates slid silently open.

  “I think that’s your answer,” Ilianna said softly. She walked past me, her expression awed. “I can feel it. Around me. In me.”

  I shivered and rubbed my arms. I knew all about feeling magic inside of you—Amaya was a dark heat that stirred restlessly on the outer edges of my consciousness. Something about this place seemed to be making her uneasy—or was I transferring my own unease and trepidation onto her?

  “The fire elementals are on the move,” Tao murmured as we followed Ilianna off the path and into the trees. “They must have sensed our presence.”

  Or the magic of this place was hedging its bets—welcoming us, but at the same time opposing. I met Tao’s gaze grimly. “Will you be able to cope with them?”

  He shrugged. “Do we have any other choice?”

  “No, but—”

  “Ris,” he said, gently squeezing my arm, “I’ll keep Ilianna safe. I’ll keep me safe. Just do what you have to as fast as you can.”

  I nodded. There was nothing else I could do. Nothing else I could say. I knew what the elementals were capable of, but Tao was a fire-starter. If anyone had a hope of containing those things, it was him.

  We hit a clearing. Ilianna stopped in the middle of it and said, “We can do it here.”

  “What do you need us to do?”

  She glanced at me, her gaze still glowing with an almost otherworldly luminescence. “You need to stand here. I will create the protection circle and containment void, then invite you in.”

  I frowned. “But you can’t be in the circle. It’s too dangerous, Ilianna.” We didn’t know if there were other spells woven into the fabric of the book, and had no idea what would happen once I opened it. The containment spell was aimed at protecting them as much as the void was meant to stop the Aedh from sensing what I was up to.

  “I won’t be,” she said. “Once the circle and void are in place, I’ll create a doorway. As long as we use only that doorway to enter and exit, then the circle will remain active.”

  “If there’s a door, then other things might be able to get in.” Or out.

  “They won’t. It’s a modified spell that will be attuned to our resonance alone. Nothing else will be able to get in or out.” The odd glow in her eyes died suddenly and she smiled. “It’ll be fine. Stop worrying.”

  How? They were risking their lives for me, in a place filled with magic, not to mention walking bonfires. I took a deep breath that did nothing to alleviate the fear twisting my guts, then glanced at Tao, who gave me a brief thumbs-up as I walked across to Ilianna. But his gaze had already moved on, scanning the trees, his expression touched with concern. I bit my lip and wondered just how close the elementals actually were.

  “When everything is ready,” Ilianna said, making me jump a little. “I’ll say, How do you enter the circle, Risa Jones? Your response should be, In complete trust of the powers that reside and protect within.”

  When I nodded, she returned to her bag of tricks and withdrew her athame, four candles, and a box of matches. She placed these on the ground, then marked a large circle in the dirt around them. Next she picked up the candles and placed them at four points—the green one to the north, yellow to the east, red in the south, and blue in the west. I knew from past experiences that these points represented the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water.

  With that done, she raised her arms and made a sweeping motion. “Let this space be cleared of all negativity and inappropriate energies, and may any lost souls inhabiting it be returned where they need to be.”

  Air stirred and became imbued with warmth. I clenched my fingers but otherwise remained still.

  Ilianna bent to light the first candle. “Guardians of the east, I call upon you to watch over this circle and guard the two allowed to enter. Powers of knowledge and wisdom, guided by air, keep watch over us and let no others enter by body or deed.”

  Then she moved to the red candle and lit it. “Guardians of the south, I call upon you to watch over this circle and guard the two allowed to enter. Powers of energy and will, guided by fire, keep watch over us and let no force or ill intent enter.”

  She moved on. The blue candle was next, then finally, the green. “Guardians of the north, I call upon you to watch over this circle and guard the actions of the two allowed to enter. Powers of endurance and strength, guided by earth, we ask that you protect us against deeds of strength and might.”

  When the last of the ritual words had been spoken, she picked up her athame and said, “The circle has been cast. How do you enter the circle, Risa Jones?”

  I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “In complete trust in the powers that reside and protect within.”

  She slashed her athame across a small section of the circle, first to the right, then to the left. “Enter.”

  I did. She caught my fingers in hers as I stopped beside her and squeezed lightly. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  Then she stepped out of the circle and made that slashing motion with her athame again, effectively closing the circle.

  I blew out a breath, then sat down, legs crossed. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. As I slowly released it, I released awareness of everything and everyone else around me, concentrating on nothing more than the slowing beat of my heart. The world around me began to fade as the gray fields gathered close. Warmth throbbed at my neck—Ilianna’s magic at work, protecting me as my psyche, my soul, or whatever else people liked to call it, pulled away from the constraints of my flesh and stepped gently into the gray fields that were neither life nor death.

  But on the gray fields, the invisible became visible. The real world might fade to be little more than shadows, but those things not sighted on the living plane gained substance when viewed from here.

  The Dušan was one of those things. She exploded from my arm, her energy flowing through me, around me, as her lilac form gained flesh and shape, until she looked so solid and real that I wanted to reach out and touch her. She swirled around me, the wind of her body buffeting mine as her sharp ebony gaze scanned the fields around us, looking for trouble. I wondered if she was actually sensing it, or if she merely reacted to the knot of fear growing in the pit of my stomach.

  I saw Azriel before I felt him—he was a blaze of sunlight in this ghostly otherworld, a force whose very presence seemed to throb through my body. As if he, like the Dušan and Amaya, were a part of me. And I guess in many respects he was, given he was attuned to my Chi.

  He stopped in front of me, his energy so fierce and bright that I winced. He gave me the book and, like everything else in this place, it appeared ghostly. Yet it felt heavier here than it had on earth.

  The second I touched it an odd twist of power seemed to shudder across the fields, then sparks exploded from the book. But these were no ordinary sparks flying high then dying. These sparks converged into several separate masses, each one dancing around the other, growing bigger with each movement, gaining flesh in much the same manner as the Dušan had.

  Only these things weren’t dragons—winged or otherwise—but rather snakes. Fat, ugly snakes with bodies as thick as my torso and fangs longer than my arm.

  The Raziq had spelled the book all right—just not in the way we’d expected.

  “Go,” Azriel commanded, drawing his sword. Valdis burned with blue fire, her scream echoing across the silence of the fields. It was a scream that found an echo as his Dušan exploded from his back—a winged black dragon who spat blue fire. “Read the book and find the keys’ location.”

  “But I can’t leave you—�
�

  “Go!” he shouted, then raised his sword as the first of the serpents coiled in.

  I swore softly but clasped the book tightly to my chest and closed my eyes. Valdis’s scream echoed through my body as my soul stepped briefly back into my flesh. I placed the book on the ground and opened it. I was vaguely aware of heat and noise and shouting, and wasn’t sure if it was coming from this place or the gray fields. Then I thrust it all aside as the pages began to flip on their own accord. The movement stopped several pages past the one that had held my Dušan, but there was no writing on it. No pictures.

  Because the words can only be read while I’m on the grey fields. Fuck.

  I closed my eyes and pulled free of my body once more. The moment I stepped onto the gray fields, my Dušan appeared again, but this time she screamed, her fire burning all around me as something fat and sleek lunged in my direction. The fire hit it head-on, exploding in a rush of air that rocked me sideways but seemed to do little more than push the serpent aside.

  I shivered, knowing I was in trouble, my fingers itching to reach for Amaya. Her song was a hiss of anger that burned through me. She wanted out. She wanted to taste serpentine flesh and blood.

  I licked my lips, ignoring her, ignoring the shadowy, sinewy shapes that twisted and turned just beyond reach. I had a book to read. The sooner I did that, the better.

  I stepped forward, closer to the edge of the fields, until there was only the thinnest of veils between this world and my own. Viewed from here, the book— like everything else—was a shadow without substance or weight, but the words unseen on Earth glowed like fire when viewed from the gray fields.

  The keys wear the veils of an ax, a dagger, and a shield, respectively. The first was sent to the west of Melbourne, to where the wild—

  Something hit me hard, knocking me sideways, away from the book. I staggered, trying to regain my balance, vaguely aware of screaming—high, harsh screaming. I twisted around and saw the Dušan and a serpent coiling around each other, each creature’s teeth tearing into the flesh of the other. Then another serpent appeared, coiling past my Dušan to lunge at me. I threw myself sideways and drew Amaya. She didn’t scream, but she spluttered and hissed, the sound so ferocious it reverberated through the shadows of the gray fields.