by Ward, Tracey
I’m in total darkness.
I’m in a grave.
The world explodes.
I can hear it when the sky implodes above me, but I can’t feel it. Not anymore, not entrenched here in the thick mud several feet below the surface. I can breathe but just barely. I don’t know how long my small pocket of oxygen will last but I hope it’s long enough for the Ila to let me go. If it does intend to let me go.
Time passes endlessly in the dark and silence that follows. I don’t know how much time. It can only be measured in my lack of air and the fading of my consciousness. Finally, I begin to rise. The mud moves past me in sickening sounds that drip in my ear, in my starving mouth, over my blinded eyes. When I break the surface, I gag, spitting up earth, water and ale.
“Roarke,” I hear Patrick call weakly. “Are you alive?”
I emerge entirely from the muck to find myself on my hands and knees, gulping in large breaths of air. I have to run my forearm over my eyes to clear them, but even then I don’t see right. I can’t be seeing right. The grass, trees, leaves – everything is gone. Burned away to nothing but black stains. Even the outside of the crypt is marred with black and smoldering in the cooling air. It’s then that I notice how calm the world is. How silent. How still. No wind, no waves crashing. Only peace.
“I think so,” I groan, sitting up. “You?”
“One can never be sure.”
“What about the Priest?”
“Dead.”
“His Majesty?”
“Still alive,” Frederick moans. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“Can’t have everything,” I mutter.
“The Sylph?” Patrick asks. “What happened to him?”
“I did.”
We all scramble to face the voice. It’s coming from the base of the hill, down near the smaller crypt. There’s no one there, no one human. The blue light that made up the core of the fireball glows steadily, making its way toward us. I can feel the heat and power rolling relentlessly off of it. As it draws closer, we all cringe against the heat. Thankfully it stops.
“Roarke, what is that?” Patrick asks, slowly falling back toward me. Frederick follows his lead.
I stare in amazement at the pulsing light, glowing and fading. Growing and shimmering.
“Idris,” I whisper.
“Yes,” a voice says from beside me.
I turn quickly to find Anna’s father, Charles, standing beside me. I want to kill him the second I see him. I want to wind my hands around his neck and squeeze until the life leaks out of him and neither heaven nor hell wants him. But I stop myself. I slow my ready hands. I remind myself it can’t be him.
“Ila,” I say as evenly as I can manage.
He nods to me with a faint grin. “It is better this time, no?”
“Your choice of costume? A little. I would recommend not choosing dead people in the future.”
He shakes his head in annoyance. “I appeared to Anna as this man,” he points at Patrick who freezes, unsure how to respond to that, “and she didn’t care for that either. Is he not alive?”
“I am,” Patrick says cautiously, “and I’d like to stay that way, thank you.”
“Perhaps I should wear a mask, like the boy,” he says, eyeing Frederick.
“No,” I tell him. “That’s the last thing you should do.”
“So that’s the Fire?” Patrick asks, coming to stand beside me looking down the hill at the blue light. It’s moving across the ground, seeming lost. “It’s lovely. Mesmerizing.”
“As it was in life,” the Ila muses.
“What?” I ask, turning sharply toward him. “What do you mean by that?”
He cocks his head at me quizzically. “Do you not know? How could you not? How would you not recognize her?”
I look down at the light, watching it hover over the ground, growing and fading. The core is blue, but the edges are a burning flame. Shimmers of red, orange and yellow. Golden.
“Anna,” I breathe.
“Indeed.”
“That’s Annabel?” Patrick asks incredulously. “Our Annabel?”
“Yes,” the Ila answers patiently. “She was bound to me, gifted with my strength. My power. She had only to die to possess it. But I needed something from her in return. I needed her to draw the Sylph out for me. He needed to be destroyed, as did his minions in the sea. I couldn’t do it alone. Even if I’d made her the Idris immediately, we could not have defeated him. He had grown too powerful.”
“You needed us to kill him in his human form to weaken him,” I surmise, “and you needed Anna to draw him out in that form.”
The Ila nodded sagely. “He did not take the form of the Priest often. Even when he did, he rarely left your castle. Hardly ever did he set foot on my soil. He’d only done it once recently, I believe to taunt me. It was at the girl’s mother’s funeral. He stood directly beside her, whispering in her ear, hovering over his newest desire. But I did not have her yet. She was not bound to me, so I could not use her to help me defeat him.”
“But I thought when he was in human form he could be killed. Didn’t Frederick kill him?”
“He destroyed the seat of his power; the body he possessed. That left him weakened, disoriented, but it did not kill him. I needed her help for that. I could not defeat him and all of the Undines alone. She made quick work of those below.”
“The black ghosts in the sea?” Frederick asks.
The Ila nods.
“Thank you, Annabel,” Frederick says heartily.
“Can she hear us?” I ask, staring down at her.
“Yes. She can speak to you as well,” the Ila tells me. “You heard her voice.”
“She only said one word.”
“It’s all she could manage at the moment. Taking human form, it takes practice. Centuries to perfect it. Even then, apparently one fails sometimes.”
I step forward, toward the terrible heat. Toward the heart of the flames.
“Anna, can you hear me?”
The blue core pulls into itself, a hushing sound emitting from its edges. Eventually it rises, standing just under my height. The core goes from blue to teal to green. The perfect emerald green of her eyes. It takes time and imagination on my part, but eventually I see her standing in front of me. She’s a roiling heat, quivering with color like oil in the sunshine, but her eyes are there. Her hair yellow and golden, full of flames.
“Do I look right?” she asks hesitantly.
I can’t help but laugh. It’s crazy and chaotic, sounding insane as it bursts from me, but it’s real. It’s relief.
The voice – it’s all Anna.
“You look beautiful,” I tell her shakily. “Are you alright?”
“I feel alright,” she says softly. She flares out for a second, her eyes turning a brilliant blue and her hair exploding in snaps and crackles of sparks. Then she rights herself, seeming to breathe deep and even. “If not a little wild.”
“I image that’s normal.”
“I can’t control it. That’s worrisome.” As if to prove her point, flames drip from her fingertips, singing the already charred earth at her feet. She looks down at it with dismay. “He’s going to love that.”
“Are you afraid of him?” I ask quietly, knowing it’s useless. The Ila could hear us even if he weren’t standing ten feet away.
She looks at me and snorts.
And just like that, my world isn’t ending.
“Ro, for the first time in my life, I’m not afraid of anyone.”
“You shouldn’t be. You’re a force, Anna.” I step closer, feeling the heat increase as the distance shrinks.
She smiles sadly, seeing my pained expression. Watching me reach my limits and knowing I’m still so far away. She looks so unreal. It’s different than the Ila. He’s calm and menacing in a way. Anna is churning energy. She’s power personified.
“I don’t frighten you?” she asks quietly.
I shrug, smiling. “You’re a little
terrifying.”
When she laughs, she glows. The heat intensifies until I have to take a step back to keep from being burned.
She quiets, sighing sadly. “I told you, I can’t control it. I’m dangerous like this.”
“But you’re still you.”
“Yes. But I can’t do this for much longer,” she whispers. “It’s not easy. Not yet.”
“That’s alright. Take a rest. You’ve, uh,” I look around at the scorched earth surrounding me, “you’ve been busy.”
“I have. And I’m not done yet.”
“Anna, you killed the Sylph and all of the Undines. What more is there for you to do?”
“Not all of the Undines. Some are hiding from me.” Her edges crackle, sparks flicking every direction. “They won’t be for long.”
I smile at her fierceness. “Be careful.”
She chuckles lightly, glowing golden. “You too.”
“Will I ever see you again?”
She frowns, her entire demeanor changing. The heat dulls, the flames receding fast.
“Would you want to?”
“Anna,” I say, coming toward her. She stares at me with her strange burning eyes. “You’re my wife.”
“Still?” she whispers. “Even like this?”
“Forever. Remember, I’m bound to you.”
“Have you thought about that?”
“About being with you forever? That was always the plan.”
“No, I mean have you thought about the binding you did. You’re bound to me, an Elemental, just as I was bound to the Ila.”
“And when you died he took you into himself. He gave you his strength. Then he released you.”
“I could do the same for you, if that’s what you wanted.” She smiles wickedly. “We’ve recently had a vacancy.”
“Will you do it now?”
“No,” she says firmly, her smile disappearing. “Not now. Years from now, when you’re old and gray.”
I shake my head. “What am I supposed to do without you until then?”
She grins. “I’ll be around. Always.”
“Promise me.”
Her form disappears, snatching my heart from my chest, pulling the breath from my lungs. But then I hear her voice in my ear as though she were standing beside me.
“The tomb is the seat of my power. You can always find me there. You need only call my name.”
“Anna,” I whisper.
But she’s gone.
Epilogue
There are ships on the horizon. Three of them. Tall, proud masts waving in the wind as they course through the ocean toward us. I’ve never seen a ship before. My people were once known for their skill in making them, famous the world over for the speed and agility of the vessels we created, and here I stand, a member of the Royal bloodline and I’ve never even seen a boat before. It’s the curse of this island.
A curse that appears to be lifting.
Frederick has taken command of the kingdom. His father’s council has been disbanded, replaced with Duke Walburton, three members of the Tem Aedha and several other’s from within the city surrounding the kingdom. I heard there’s a blacksmith in there. A lowly worker brought up to join the King’s Council and be a voice for the people. They loved that. But not nearly as much as they love their new Queen.
I was as shocked as anyone else when His Royal High Majesty announced he would marry Elaine. Personally, I think she could do better. But if I know anything, it’s that you don’t choose who you love. Love chooses you and you’re a fool if you ignore it. You can’t outsmart your heart. Don’t even try. The marriage was a good move for Frederick (because he could not have done better, not a chance), good for Elaine, good for the people because they adore her, but most of all, it was good for the church.
Frederick talked about tearing the entire thing to the ground – structure, ideology and all. He wanted nothing of it to remain, but Elaine was the voice of reason, warning him that the people could never know. They would never be able to accept what had happened. Who the High Priest truly was, or what he was, and that their entire lives filled with devotion had been based on lies. So instead, they took it from the hands of The High Priest and gave the religion back to the people. The huge cathedral built in the center of the city was demolished, it’s bricks used to build smaller churches throughout the city and out into the farmlands. There was to be no High Priest ever again. This edict was given by the High Priest himself, straight from his lips to the people. His passing would end the chain of succession.
He died the next day.
The Ila had never been so pleased with a form taken.
The Shallows are still a dangerous place, though not nearly what they once were. From what I understand, there is only one Undine left to this island and I have it on good authority that he is an angry little thing. Angry, but kept well in check. The shroud that lay around the island has been lifted. The outside world is now once again a threat or a promise, depending on how you look at it. Once the waters were cleared and we were able to build docks on the shore, my people began talking about building boats. About leaving. About going home.
I would love to see our island. To find the homeland we fled from a hundred years ago. It was on the brink of war, our people at the cusp of total inhalation, so we left. A group of our people, a Princess of the isle included, boarded a ship and sailed away in the hopes of saving our race from extinction. But we landed here where we were trapped and hidden. Who knows what happened back home? Maybe those aboard these three approaching ships know. Maybe they’re the ones who wiped us out.
But no matter what comes, no matter how much I want to see my homeland, I won’t ever go. I’m bound to this island. Not by shackles, curses or devils, but by choice. By love. By the beat of my heart and the hum in my arm. The song being sung in the ink in my skin. I hear it every moment of every day. And every night as the burning lights of the stars fill the sky, I see her. The moon brings me dreams of her where we walk through the maze, never seeking and never finding, never wanting beyond the feel of each other’s skin, the sound of our voices, the music in our bond. And so I wait. I wait for the gray hairs to come, for the wrinkles to form, for my body to slow. I live and I laugh, but inside I’m always waiting. Always singing. Always humming her name.
Keep reading for a peek at Chapter One from
Tracey Ward’s upcoming novel, The Seventh Hour,
an apocalypse romantic adventure coming this fall.
When the Earth's rotation slowed to a crawl, mankind was plunged into a harsh world of burning hot days and endless, arctic nights. But it survived. In small pockets across the globe, humanity lives on. Some on the land who hide from the heat and the cold underground or inside the mountains. Others on the seas, sailing forever in the perfect dusk between the night and the day. A place known as the Seventh Hour.
Vi has lived her entire life on one of these ships. She's never seen the night, never known true cold and even though she feels trapped by her oppressive father and overbearing mother, she's never known real struggle.
Until now.
When a storm destroys the ship she calls home, Vi is washed ashore. On land for the first time in her life, she's alone and near death but her troubles are only just beginning. The night is coming and with it comes a myriad of dangers Vi has never dreamed of. Not even in her worst nightmares.
Her chance at survival is Grayson, a boy brought up living in the mountains. He can save her, hide her. Protect her. But their vast differences make them uneasy allies and they'll both have to look past their prejudices to make this work.
To survive the longest night.
Chapter One
“I can’t tell if you’re brave or stupid.”
I smile. “Maybe I’m both.”
“Well, you are a lot like father,” Gabriel mumbles.
I glare down at him from my perch, the peace of the moment quickly dissolving. “Now you’re being mean. Take it back or I’ll never forgive yo
u.”
He smirks, not taking my threat at all seriously. He’s right not to. I don’t mean it. My big brother is the light of my life. I’d forgive him anything and the smug little shit knows it too.
“You should come down from there before he sees you,” Gabriel warns.
I shake my head, my long brown hair whipping behind me as the air rushes at my face. “I’m never coming down. He’ll have to come get me. Besides, he’s on the other ship. He can’t even see me.”
“Not with his own eyes…”
I sigh, understanding the implication. As a member of the tribal council, my father has eyes and ears everywhere. Even though he’s not on this ship with us today, he’s on one of the others sailing nearby and he no doubt left someone behind to watch his family. I’ve probably already been spotted up here on the bowsprit, hovering over the water rushing beneath me as our ship cuts cleanly through the sea. I shouldn’t be here. No on in their right mind should be out on this thing, but it’s the only place I feel really alone on the ship. Unconfined and untouchable. I won’t even come down for my mother, which is why she sent Gabriel. I’d do anything for Gabriel.
“I’m coming down,” I grumble reluctantly.
I spin deftly around, swinging my legs up and over the large wooden beam until I’m sitting on it sideways. My hair is now blinding me, whipping in my face with the wind. I ignore it. I could do this blindfolded and right now, I practically am. I stand up slowly, taking my time to make sure my balance is just right. That I’m working with the wind and carefully bending my knees to give myself cushion as the boat rises and falls gently with the waves.
“Vi, be careful,” Gabriel says, his voice both anxious and annoyed.
I smile. “Talking to me while I’m concentrating isn’t the brightest idea, Gabe.”
“Alright, but just—mmm.”
My smile widens as he bites his tongue, his eyes heavy on me as I make my way meticulously back toward safety. I’m nearly there. Just a few more steps and…