by Aja James
Because suddenly, they crested over the top of Mount St. Helens, and the eagle warrior deposited all three of them into the middle of the ash-filled crater.
*** *** *** ***
Eveline felt like she was reliving a bizarre dream.
Yes, re-living, because she’d dreamed about this before, over the past few days. Ramses and another warrior, equally matched, on top of a mountain much like this, if not exactly the same one.
It had been nighttime in the dream, while this was daytime. The surrounding landscape was different too. One could see water on the horizon from the top of the dream mountain, while there were forests at the bottom of this one. But these were merely details.
Eveline’s more pressing concern was the fact that both mountains seemed rather angry if the restless rumbling and shaking were any indication.
The other noticeable difference was Ramses’ opponent.
Ramses himself looked much the same as he had in the dream, though slightly more “mature” if not physically “older.” Now, his face seemed harder, more implacable, more determined. His body radiated raw strength and power, but more controlled. And his eyes… His eyes showed his true age, the experience of thousands of years, many more millennia than Eveline. But she noted that there was something new in those mesmerizing obsidian orbs.
There was a new hope, as well as a new fear.
When she first met him, he looked like a male who seemed indifferent to everything and everyone around him, and perhaps, most of all, to himself. But Eveline saw that beneath the indifference was a deep, unknowable pain and frozen fury. Now, she glimpsed something fragile in his eyes—
Especially when he looked at her.
Ramses’ opponent, on the other hand, looked similar to the warrior in the dream, but noticeably different at the same time. So different, in fact, that Eveline hadn’t picked up on the resemblances until she saw Ramses and him together on this mountaintop. The build was exactly the same, but the coloring was different. The symbols embedded in his skin, his hair and eye color were all new.
But the biggest glaring difference between the two scenes—the dream she had and this present predicament—was the presence of Eveline herself.
She surreptitiously gave herself a hard pinch on the arm to see if she would wake up. Nope. No such luck. This current standoff was unfortunately very real, and Eveline was very much in the middle of it.
Literally, physically, in the middle of it.
“See here…” she began, her eyes shifting nervously between the two amped up, bloodied, terrifyingly aggressive warriors.
“Let’s talk about this like reasonable adults. No need for violence.”
Neither male looked at her when she spoke, each concentrated fully on the other. Except for the quick glance Ramses had thrown her way when they’d landed in the crater, he hadn’t acknowledged her presence again. It was as if she wasn’t even there.
If they were going to come to blows any second, she’d do everything in her power to intervene, because she really didn’t want Ramses to get wounded further, and she also didn’t want the stranger to get dead. (Her money was on Ramses for the win, because come on! He was muchisimo badass and if she was forced to pick sides, she’d definitely pick him).
But she also felt that the potential demise of the eagle-man would be a rotten shame. Her instincts told her that he wasn’t evil. He needed help. Most of all, she’d felt vicariously through her dreams that Ramses hadn’t wanted to kill him the first time. He regretted the outcome of the Challenge thousands of years ago. If, of course, this was indeed the same warrior.
The two males faced off with massive bodies tensed to engage. Ramses’ hands were clenched into fists at his sides, the loose rocks around his feet jumping to do his bidding. He could probably launch those like bullets at his opponent.
But the eagle-man’s massive wings would probably deflect the onslaught like a shield, because despite their fluffy appearance from afar, there was a hard, leathery quality to the outer feathers. Those wings were half-open now, looming over his shoulders like an impenetrable armor, ready to lash out if he chose to use them as weapons.
Eveline thought fast. Surely there was a reason for her to be here at this time, with these two males. She had a role to play. She needed to figure out what it was. And she needed to do it fast!
She edged herself in the direction of the eagle-man. She was much closer to him than to Ramses, probably by design when he’d released both of them upon landing. With a snap of his wings or arms, he could easily reach for and enfold her.
“Listen,” she began, trying to get his attention when she was a couple of feet in front of him.
But it was hard, because he was very tall, even taller than Ramses, maybe close to seven feet. And she was unfortunately very short. Irrelevantly, she thought of Ramses calling her “little sprite” and almost smiled. She wanted to hear more of those nicknames from him. She wanted to come up with more endearments to call him too.
Which bolstered her determination and stubbornness to find a way out of this mess without undue bloodshed.
“Down here, eagle-man,” she called up to him, taking the last step to close the distance between them and putting her hands on his chest to get his attention.
Immediately, though he was several yards away, she heard Ramses’ warning, territorial growl.
She chose to ignore him.
“Hey!” she persisted, jumping up a little and waving her hand in front of the eagle-man’s face.
Finally, his gaze shifted away from Ramses to look down at her, though his head was tilted in such a way that he knew exactly where Ramses was and could still track him out of the corner of his eye.
“You brought me—us—up here for a reason, didn’t you? Just tell me what it is. I’d like to help you if I can.”
“Eveline.”
She understood Ramses’ low command. He wanted her to go to him. He was livid with fury that she’d chosen to go to the Challenger instead.
The eagle-man understood too. In response, his wings extended and folded over both of them, though he didn’t touch her anywhere. It was clear from the move that he wasn’t going to let her simply walk away now that she was in his space.
So Eveline pretended she didn’t hear her Mate.
“Tell me,” Eveline whispered urgently.
As she did so, the symbols on the eagle-man’s left side glowed even brighter than before, as if they were written in flames.
“What does it mean?” Eveline asked, staring unblinkingly into those burning words, almost in a trance.
The warrior didn’t answer, continuing to look down at her.
“Is it because Beasts choose not to speak in human tongues? Is that why you won’t tell me?”
He gave no indication that he understood what she was saying, but his black, blank stare seemed to glint with something like awareness, a flicker of feeling that was there and gone.
Helplessly drawn to the now blazing symbols, Eveline didn’t even realize her hand was reaching out until her fingertips grazed the eagle-man’s left forearm right above the words—
She gasped at the shock of electricity that coursed through her at the contact. Distantly, she heard Ramses’ shout.
But the landscape around Eveline suddenly changed. Ramses was no longer there. Instead, she was standing on top of a furiously erupting volcano, explosions of lava shooting into the skies, rocks and debris falling everywhere. And the flames…
Everything was on fire. The heat was unlike anything she’d ever known. The surface of the sun might be the only comparison.
The good news was, though she was right there on the mountaintop, in the middle of the volcanic eruption, she didn’t feel the effects of it physically. It was as if she was in a waking dream, there but not really there.
She looked around her and could barely see for the fumes, ashes and scalding heat that liquified the air into wavy hallucinations.
Then, suddenly, she saw him
. A broken body on the jagged, crumbling ground.
It was the giant eagle that lost the Challenge to Ramses.
Somehow, despite the blazing flames and red-hot lava, he didn’t burn, though the fiery red in his feathers gradually turned black. At the same time, the eagle began to shift into a man, until only the humanoid form remained.
Moments later, though Eveline recognized that time in dreamland passed differently (it was probably hours or even days later in real time, back when it really happened), the mountain finally quieted. The lava flow slowed to a trickle, thin streams of orange-red that traveled through the crevices of the mountain like blood flowing through veins. Ashes floated through the air and coated the ground like dirty snow.
Eveline looked around for the eagle-man, but everything was buried under ashes and debris. If it weren’t for the faint glow beneath a thick layer of dirt that caught the corner of her eye, she would have missed him completely.
She followed the glow until her feet stood next to the back of an outstretched hand. Symbols throbbed on the blackened skin of that hand like dying embers.
Eveline crouched down and instinctively reached out to the hand. The moment she touched the symbols, the words made themselves known to her:
A King falls in flames
A winner loses in games
A Champion reborn
A King transformed…
And an old woman’s voice spoke directly in her ear.
Destiny is naught but the footprints of choices made. But sometimes, those of us who have the Gift, can’t help but interfere just a wee little bit.
Who? Who was talking to her? Eveline asked in her mind, but no answer was forthcoming, though the old woman carried on.
The young Elemental made his choice that day, and in doing so, set in motion not one, but many destinies. The Queen who conquered. The Slave who suffered. The King who fell. And the children…the children is another story.
What children? Eveline was so confused.
I enabled the Elemental to make this choice even though I knew which wheels it would set into motion. But it was his choice, and I could not stop him from making it. I did, however, bespell the warrior he fought as well.
The symbols glowed brighter on the back of the hand.
A spell to protect him from the fire’s burn. But it could not save him completely. The Eagle King died that day.
But he’s alive, Eveline thought.
Only by half, the old woman’s voice immediately corrected in Eveline’s mind, as if directly answering her.
His soul needs to be Awakened. His body needs to be transformed.
He needs to be reborn, Eveline thought at the same time the voice spoke the words in her ear.
Yes, child. You must help him. Only another fire witch can complete the spell. Only the Elemental can finish the cycle.
What do you mean?! I don’t know how! Eveline flailed.
But there were no more answers.
Suddenly, the blackened mountaintop in her waking dream receded, replaced by reality.
Eveline barely had time to draw in a breathless gasp before she was knocked to the ground by a massive, muscular boulder.
Eh? Could boulders be muscular?
It was Ramses, she saw, when she gathered enough wits to look up. He was already on his feet again and shouting something down at her.
Why had he knocked her to the ground? Why couldn’t she hear anything?
All at once, as Eveline lay disoriented in the dirt, sound exploded all around her.
The screeching whistle of jets overhead. Exploding rocks all around her, some aimed at the fighter jets that circled above like vultures, some blasted by the missiles—missiles!—that the jets shot down at them.
What in Goddess’ name…
Eveline blinked as realization dawned.
The resolution of the Challenge and Eveline’s disturbing vision would have to wait.
They were under attack.
“The Pure Ones were made not in the image of the Pure Goddess, as many would believe, but in honor of the Beast who loved the Goddess and died for his love. Too late, the capricious, selfish Goddess learned to care, to know remorse. It is a lesson and a punishment she instilled in all of her creations, for each carried her spark within them—the Pure Ones…”
—From the lost oral histories of the Zodiac Scrolls
Chapter Seventeen
One moment Eveline was touching the Eagle King’s arm, and Ramses was angled forward reflexively to break her away from him, and the next, explosions boomed all around them, blowing up rock and stone under a hail of missiles.
It happened all at once.
Ramses had been so concentrated on Eveline and the eagle warrior that the screech of stealth fighters reached him only a second before the missiles landed.
His first reaction was to throw himself on top of Eveline to protect her, while the eagle warrior immediately took to the skies with one strong boost from his muscular legs and a flap of those powerful wings.
In the back of Ramses’ mind, he ran through possible scenarios of who sent the fighter jets and how their enemies knew their location, while he shouted out loud to Eveline—
“Stay down!”
Leaving her looking after him with a wide-eyed paralyzed expression on her ashen face, he stood over her and spread his legs wide. If anything hit close to their location, it would have to go through him to get to her. With his body turned to stone, he could probably take a hit and survive. Though he’d never tested his ability to withstand modern air-to-ground missiles or machine gun fire.
No time like the present.
He opened his arms and clenched his fists, drawing upon his Element, making the boulders around him obey his will. Thanks to the explosions, there was a lot of loose rocks to play with, saving him the trouble of breaking them apart.
With a flex of his hands, he sent boulders of all sizes into the skies, immediately taking out one jet through the belly, making it explode mid-air, and sending another one into a tailspin.
The manipulation of such large, heavy objects quickly took a toll, however, especially since he needed supreme focus to direct them with precision rather than just fling up a bombardment and not care whether they hit any targets. Ramses knew that he couldn’t keep it up for long.
Fuck.
A new squadron of aircrafts were headed their way, like a flock of scavengers on the horizon, while three remaining jets still circled above.
He wasn’t alone in fighting against the sudden attack. The Eagle King was holding his own with the fighter jets. The warrior was far more agile than the piloted planes, like a bullfighter taunting a massive, fast, but stupid bull.
With deftness and accuracy, he evaded one plane at the last possible moment, grabbed onto its hatch and tore the entire thing off, leaving the pilot no choice but to eject himself. Then, he purposely placed himself in the crosshair of one jet, waited until there was missile-lock, let it chase him back toward the plane that fired it, and shot straight up when the missile hit the other jet instead.
But the eagle warrior wasn’t fast enough to avoid the afterburn of the explosion, injuring his wings in the process.
Ramses watched it all happen while he continued to deal with incoming jets. Again, he wondered why the Eagle King didn’t fully transform to Beast. A giant eagle was much faster than a winged-man. More impervious to injuries as well.
“You have to stop!”
He distantly heard Eveline’s voice beyond the deafening din of battle. Even though she was lying at his feet, she sounded miles away.
“Ramses, you’ve reopened all of your wounds. This is taking too much out of you. You won’t last much longer!”
He knew that. He could feel it in the quivers of his body. His blood was boiling too hotly from overexertion; a thin stream trickled out of his nose.
The Eagle King was injured too, barely able to stay in flight with badly damaged wings. They were sitting ducks on the ground, w
hile the jets didn’t exactly stay still for Ramses to hit them with boulders. There were too many of them. Ramses wouldn’t be able to hold them off much longer if he continued the current strategy.
“Alend!”
He felt Eveline’s hands on his legs, as she knelt at his feet, either trying to lend him strength or hold on to him for support. Likely both.
Where she touched him, he felt the sizzle and sparks that he always felt with her, even through his clothes. Her touch recharged him like a short burst of electricity, but it wouldn’t last long.
He closed his eyes and concentrated all of his strength and power lower in his body, closer to the ground, forcing his will into the rocks beneath his feet, into the mountain itself.
He’d lost his powers when he turned his back on Ashlu. He’d broken a Bond that wasn’t made to be broken. But he knew now that it was also a Bond that was never meant to be forged to begin with. In the process, he’d sacrificed the undiluted, raw purity of his power.
It had been easy to make the mountain obey him when he’d been a Pure Elemental. It had taken all of his strength to make it his weapon when he defeated the Eagle King as a Dark Elemental. Since then, even while he was still Mated to Ashlu, his powers, while prodigious and terrifying, had never been the same. Until ultimately, he lost it completely. And the most he could do was cheap parlor tricks like any other barely competent telekinetic.
But with Eveline’s hand on him, holding onto him, he felt the resurgence of his old strength. Like a shot of pure lightning through his veins.
And the mountain answered his call.
Distantly, he was aware of the Eagle King dispatching another fighter jet, but sustaining too many injuries to keep flight, crashing down to earth in a tangle of feathers and limbs.
Eveline clutched him tighter, shouting something to Ramses that he couldn’t hear.
He opened his eyes and looked down at her, into those clear, blue-gray gems that had captivated him from the first.
A multitude of emotions traveled across her lovely, fae-like features in a split second. He understood some of them—fear, regret, sadness, courage, stubbornness, pride…