Death's Primordial Kiss (The Silvered Moon Diaries Book 1)

by Romarin Demetri

  “My mentor had a difficult time with me too, but with time I learn how to best communicate with people, and it becomes natural. Don’t think that this is a weakness of mine,” he warned. “I wouldn’t be your mentor if I wasn’t bloody good at my element. You may be the perfect candidate for fire, but I’m the perfect one for spirit.”

  Maybe that was the controlled aggression he was talking about earlier coming out.

  “I promise not to think of it as a weakness,” I told him. “Do you mind me asking who your mentor was?”

  “Onyx,” he said. “They made an exception to bring him in because he’d already been my mentor for a long time. He raised me. He’s like a father to me.”

  I remembered something suddenly, visiting Buckingham Palace to see Onyx and his new sheepdog when I was seven years old. For a moment, I thought I remembered Stan. No, I did remember Stan.

  “I know who you are. I’ve met you before.”

  “Who am I then?”

  “Well you’re name’s not Stanley. Maddi just calls you that.”

  “Correct,” Stan said.

  “You’re one of the Princes. Of England. And since I remember your brother, Edward, that makes you Athlestan, no doubt, named by Talia Whitham herself.”

  “They always call her by her maiden name for some reason,” he said, and then his mouth actually formed into a real smile.

  Information about Athlestan suddenly entered my mind as if it were a song I hadn’t heard in a long time but could suddenly hum along to the guitar solo in the middle of it. I had met him on a few occasions as a child, but neither Helaine or I had seen him since we were about twelve.

  “So your gift is to hide well-known information?” I asked. “Rumor!”

  “Congratulations, Avereis. You have completed your first trial and unlocked your first attainment as a member of the London Coven. I choose the power of rumor when I was initiated. I also know autobiographical information without trying. I didn’t actually need your file. I prefer to keep my own autobiographical information hidden and like to stay out of sight when I can. There’s also something else I want to share with you.”

  “Something appropriate to our relationship I hope.”

  Stan cracked a smile. Alright, it was a handsome sneer, but his lips were still upturned with some semblance of satisfaction.

  “Of course. Onyx told me about the prophecy, and I think you should tell the others, on your own time. If something massive is about to happen, everyone should know.”

  “Understood,” I said. “You’re not going to tell them?”

  “It has absolutely nothing to do with me, Avereis. It’s yours to tell.”

  I nodded, thankful for just a moment that he understood what it was like to want to hide something.

  “So your nickname… did it have to do with your status? As a royal I mean.”

  “It did…”

  “Prince Spice?” I asked with a grin.

  “No,” he said, and I heard him laugh for the first time in my life. “But that’s a good one.”

  “The Spare?” I asked, hoping it wouldn’t offend him.

  “No. Fair, but no. I’ll give you a hint. I can see the dead.”

  “King of Zombies?”

  “No,” he chuckled again, but I could tell I was getting closer.

  I then remembered his symbol, the astronomical symbol for Pluto hidden around his neck under his hoodie, the symbol that fit his powers perfectly, and not just the hidden information, but the domain over the dead. I was thinking along the lines of his Greek counterpart.

  “Hades.”

  Stan nodded.

  “Does it bother you?”

  “Not anymore,” he admitted. “But still, I prefer to stay out of the limelight. We’re not looking for any compensation in the Coven, just to protect the city.”

  “And you protect the city because of what happened.”

  “I don’t think me and Eddy should be alive. We were a room over from our parents when they were murdered. This is the best place to look for whoever did it, but… there’s no way I’m putting your lives on the line to do it. I’ll figure it out myself.”

  “They say that if Spirit turns against his Coven then he dies.”

  “That is correct, Avereis. It is impossible to corrupt us or bribe us because we take an oath, a spell that would kill us if that happened. It’s common knowledge that we can’t be used for anyone else’s bidding. Can you answer my question about auditions?”

  I looked at him blankly. He had cracked two smiles, so what, did that mean we were friends now?

  “I’m not asking you how it made any specific part of your body feel—wait, forget I said that—I’m asking you about strategy because that’s what we discuss.”

  “Yes, I used ‘passion’ to create the fire as a last resort. It worked, and I’m surprised it didn’t burn down the auditorium because I didn’t know if I would be able to control it. Goddess, is my face still red?”

  “It is, and I apologize and will come up with a… more appropriate… vocabulary.”

  Damn straight if you don’t want a sexual harassment issue, I thought.

  “I am very respectful of women. It’s you who is too inexperienced to talk about her element and takes the intent of my comments to be inappropriate.”

  I stopped then, knowing my next words would have to be chosen carefully. I had to stand up for myself or my mentor would view me as a child.

  “Well, Stan, I guess that’s why I’m an initiate for three months after all, isn’t it?” He nodded, but I felt that I had to continue. “Perhaps there is someone I am interested in, and perhaps I stole his emotions towards me at auditions, but it doesn’t matter because I can’t leave this house and recharge my power. Witches have been wielding fire without being empaths for years—in fact, I’m the first empath in the Coven. I took a shortcut because I was faced with a challenge and I rightfully won my place.”

  “Taking on energy you don’t know how to control is always a risk,” Stan said.

  “I can control it fine.”

  “A minute ago you said, ‘It worked, and I’m surprised it didn’t burn down the auditorium honestly, because I didn’t know if I would be able to control it.’”

  “How did you—”

  “I have an eidetic memory. If you can control it fine, then how did you get rid of it after you used your fire?”’

  “I didn’t. I let time pass and I meditated, and it completely dispersed a day later. I don’t know how to get rid of all that energy so suddenly.”

  “That’s easy if you just—er—I think it’s time to talk about my element, yeah?”

  “Okay…” I trailed, trying to figure out the conversation that just transpired. I defended myself and talked maturely about it, and he goes and changes the subject.

  “Spirit links all five elements together. I can see ghosts as well as the astral plane, just as real as you’re seeing the room around us now.”

  “That’s um…”

  “Creepy? Yes, but someone has to do it. Being a witch is sometimes about information, not just pure strength.”

  “Spoken like a true pacifist,” I said.

  “You spend half of martial arts learning when not to fight. Am I correct?”

  “Yes, Stan, you are,” I admitted.

  “You’ll do fine.”

  I bought half of what he said, knowing that I was still playing with fire in the most literal sense. He told me he had faith in my abilities, but I didn’t completely buy the confidence he had in me. I meant what I had told Stan on my second day. If I was going down, I was taking him all the way to hell with me.

  On second thought, he’d probably be comfortable there.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Bad News

  Helaine

  Even though I was dying to get my hands dirty with elemental magic, spells (and even elixirs) my friendship rituals were still the most important part of my routine. I was on my way down from my room to me
et Rose for our nightly lavender tea in the conservatory, when I heard Maddi and Stan talking in the living room. I paused at the top of the stairs.

  “But I can’t talk about it here,” Stan said to her.

  “Why—ugh Stanley, step into my office.”

  I shrunk into the wall of the third floor, where Stan and Rose’s rooms were. Most likely, Maddi’s “office” was her room on the second floor. It was the room everyone always wanted because it was the most private with its own separate landing. Only I’d want the blooming attic. I cleared my thoughts, looking at the beige wall in front of me.

  I heard them go around the corner to Maddi’s floor, and I knew I had to listen in.

  I crept down from my hiding place, and inched closer to Maddi’s room, putting my ear against the shut door. The small landing also had a door to a lavatory, but no windows. It was like a flat inside of a flat.

  “This is just all wrong,” I heard Stan say.

  “I miss Rudy and Treya too, but life goes on, Stanley. We can’t help what happens.”

  “No, no, I’ve resolved that issue in therapy. My charge is all wrong for the element. The cons outweigh the pros.”

  I didn’t know if Stan could hear me or not, so I tried extra hard at being a fly on the wall and not a peanut gallery of thoughts. I owed it to Rose to contain myself.

  “We all picked her. She got the attainment about your gift power, didn’t she?”

  “Yes…but…”

  “I can tell you’re trying hard to say the right thing. Since this conversation is in confidence, I’ll be okay if you tell me what exactly is on your mind. In an appropriate context, you know you can say anything to me.”

  “It’s hopeless to teach a charge who has no interest in the driving forces of her element. She can’t talk about it without her face turning tomato red. Undoubtedly she knows nothing about her own body and probably wouldn’t even know where to stick it if she had help.”

  I was fuming at that point, but it was thoughts, not emotions that Stan could hear, and I could probably hold my thoughts back for five more minutes. Maddi had told him to be honest, but he was still coming off as a prick.

  I could hear Maddi breathe out, even through the door.

  “This happens every time you ask me to be honest, and I would expect you to be well-acquainted with my bluntness at this point. I know you see the problem here.”

  “I do, but Stanley, that was a little harsh.”

  “She’s probably never even snogged anyone,” he continued in a rant. I imagined him pacing. “A child stuck in the body of a fully developed woman with a perfectly functioning reproductive system. She has no interest in men—which I gather is her orientation from our conversation today.”

  “Every young woman is interested in meeting someone,” argued Maddi. “One wouldn’t think that there is a serious lack of eligible bachelors in such a huge city—but I’ll tell you now that there is—and teenage boys? They’re just run by hormones, and you can’t stand there and tell me I’m wrong. AND, you know how being an initiate is. There is probably no guy that is going to like her for the next two years anyway.”

  “It doesn’t mean that they don’t want to f—”

  “No!” Maddi bellowed. “Just no. You sound positively horrible right now.”

  “I do? That’s just the word everybody thinks.”

  “There are words and phrases you should not be using with her, and whatever you do, don’t suggest recreational sex.”

  “I thought it would have been worth a shot.”

  “Stanley,” Maddi lectured.

  “And I’m not coming on to her. I can’t. She’s an initiate.”

  “At least you understand that.”

  I heard something that sounded like Maddi’s palm hit her forehead.

  “Rules are easy. Teenage charges who pretend they don’t have urges are not.”

  “Goddess, Stanley, you’re twenty. She’ll come into her own on her own time, but for now, step off. She’s got enough to deal with, and you know what, she can do it. Oh… the origin of her powers. She passed auditions using passion, didn’t she?”

  “Yes. That’s the way she originally manifested her powers, and she’ll forever get the best results tapping into that source alone. She’s powerful and can’t control it.”

  “Lead up to it then and focus on justice or drive,” Maddi suggested. “Not that I’m telling you how to mentor, but you have to do things differently. Don’t force it, and don’t try and find her a boyfriend or anything because I know that’s what you’ll try next.”

  “I was going to.”

  Maddi laughed softly.

  “Passion is the most important energy for fire witches, but don’t bring it up again until she’s comfortable. Wait a few months. There is a season for everything, and you know what? She reminds me of myself when I joined.”

  I had heard enough. I traipsed my anger quietly down the stairs to the living room, growing more fond of Maddi from eavesdropping, but Stan, my goddess. I couldn’t talk to Rose about it even if she brought it up. Maddi was right; Stan’s graphic retelling of his judgment was positively horrible. I didn’t know if I could look at him the same now, with the esteem either of his positions demanded.

  One thing I did know was that it was Stan’s season to be a raging prick.

  Rose and I met for lavender tea every morning at three o’clock before we went to sleep. She had forced me to join her sleep schedule, and I much preferred staying up late anyway. If it was raining, we’d meet in the conservatory. If not, we were outside in the garden. We always invited the others, but they politely declined, knowing it was our time to talk about being initiates.

  She already had my tea waiting for me in the garden. I added extra sugar.

  “How did mysterious Stan history go?” I asked Rose. I felt awful she was having such a hard time with her mentor while Onyx and I already knew each other and he was friends with my mum and dad—oh, and her parents too. I sat down across from her at the patio table.

  “Kind of creepy,” Rose said. “A rough start with the word ‘sex’ being thrown around. The verb.”

  “What the bloody hell were you two talking about?” I knew though, that she had conjured sexual energy at auditions, and I supposed it was fair game as a topic.

  “It was a lesson about powers and the root of fire, and that’s my mentor, remember? I don’t find authority figures all that appealing.”

  “You find more traits unappealing than you do appealing,” I said. “I’m guessing good old Bathory and her sadistic tendencies and aggression had to do with this?”

  “Precisely. Turns out desire isn’t just a motivating source for Bathorys, it’s also a motivating source for fire. It’s innate. Something we all deal with.”

  “I bet you took that the wrong way when he first brought it up,” I said with a laugh.

  “Absofriggingloutely,” she said. “He called me inexperienced, and you know what, I am.”

  “Rose…”

  “I’m not like other people. I don’t view people as conquests or instruments and all of a sudden that interferes with my career? And now my mentor views me as an immature child who can’t overcome this obstacle. He’ll never take me seriously. Do people expect fire elements to be goddamn princesses waiting for someone to come kiss them—or whatever—in order to unlock their full potential? Am I not complete enough on my own?”

  “Just stop.” I wasn’t the wise one, and I wasn’t the calm one, but I had one moment to become who she had been for me, and knew I had better speak fast. “The Coven chose you. Not Teddy, not any other fire initiate. YOU. You’ve always been more mature than anyone our age. I doubt Stan is second guessing you are responsible enough to take this on. That’s what bothers you more than anything, and it’s not even an issue.”

  “Well not exactly. Sometimes I feel like I’m a late bloomer and behind the rest of you.”

  “Don’t worry your pretty little blue head about it,” I a
ssured her, hoping she didn’t miss something she never had. “I know there is a fire witch in there. You’ve always valued quality over quantity in friendship. Why should it be any different concerning a boyfriend?”

  “I guess you’re right. I told Stan I used passion to create the fire, and then he dropped the subject when I told him I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of the energy.”

  I sniggered uncontrollably.

  “What?”

  “You see, Rose,” I laughed again, this time with an awkward trill. “When people have passionate fiery feelings and get really excited there is a way to release that tension…” I gave a curt nod, waiting for her to catch on, and then scratched my neck, even though it wasn’t itchy.

  “No…” Her face turned as red as my hair. “I did not sign on for that kind of magic.”

  “Oh,” I said. Great choice of a word. We had never really talked about this in depth. Rose didn’t currently need advice or pointers. On second thought, maybe she did.

  “Anyway. He just processes emotions differently so I can’t change his as easily as others. At least he’s constructive when he tells things how they are. When did you figure it out?”

  “When I fake-bowed to Onyx I started to put it together,” I divulged. “Stan received the same threats I did, which means that his family’s important. We have more in common than I thought.”

  “Yeah, Stan wasn’t putting up a wall. He was giving me the opportunity to get my first attainment.”

  “Stan is a teensy bit right though,” I egged her. “Rose Avereis is not only the prophesied witch but also the perfect daughter. I’m sure my parents gave up on me when I started liking Jared,” I paused dramatically, “Bodyguard.” Rose let out a tired giggle. “What I’m saying is that you need to let a little passion into your life. You don’t have to go all out. You can learn to deflect energy by redirecting it into something else you’re passionate about.”

  “You want me to call Teddy?” she asked with a smirk.

  “Goddess, no, and he probably hates you now for initiating under fire.”