“The Skykeepers and the Bloodkeepers worked together?”
“I knew nothing about this,” the Red Lady says, her voice subdued. When she looks at her brother, she seems older, disillusioned. “Amit, how could you? Don’t you realize what you’ve done?”
“The end is coming!” her brother cries, still kneeling on the floor. “Don’t you understand? If any of us are going to survive, we need to take control of the only remaining pure bloodline!”
But I’ve heard all I need to.
I turn around to look at the other judges. The White Lady is still kneeling on the floor, unable or unwilling to get up. The other three are sitting on their thrones as if frozen.
“Where are Ingrid and Gunn? I’m leaving now.”
“You can’t just leave,” the Green Lord says, as pompous as ever despite looking rather shaken. “This Court—”
“Is corrupt and has no authority over me.”
“That is not for you to decide!”
“Oh, shut up, Clark Kent,” I say. “You know you’re wrong, so suck it up, will you?”
He winces at my contempt, the shock on his face suggesting that he’s not used to being spoken this way. “I am Lord of all the Earthkeepers, and I will not—”
“I SAID SHUT UP.”
The Green Lord crouches in his chair, his arms around his head as if he’s shielding himself from a deadly attack. There are shouts in the distance, a rumbling commotion from the watchers in the hall. I peer into the half-light, trying to make out what’s happening, but I can’t quite see that far.
And suddenly I’ve had enough.
Of the darkness. The mystery. The candlelight.
All of it.
I look at the candles, at their tiny little flames. Then I send a wave of energy their way, willing them to burn brighter, and the fire obeys exactly like I knew it would. Suddenly the entire hall is flooded with light.
For the love of God.
We’re in a barn.
The walls have been painted black and the floor is covered with some kind of thick, dark material, but I’m a small-town girl and I know a barn when I see one.
Around the sides, people are sitting in groups. There are between fifty to a hundred of them, and they’re dressed in the colors of their clans: red, white, blue and green. Everyone is staring at me with their faces frozen in fear, as if I’ve suddenly changed into a two-headed monster ready to devour them.
In one corner there’s a strange metal structure.
Oh sweet Jesus.
It’s a cage.
An actual freaking cage, like the ones people use for shark diving.
There are people trapped inside and I know who they are even before I force the flames to provide more light. Gunn is sitting on the floor, his back leaning against the bars, exhausted and pale. He is holding Ingrid in his lap. She’s not moving.
The red tide of rage that washes over me is like nothing I’ve ever felt before, a river of molten fire that obliterates the last shards of control I still have left.
Deep inside me, something gives a long, slow, satisfied sigh of relief.
And oh—oh!—in the purifying flames of my anger, I finally remember who I really am.
I am honored and feared. Magnificent and terrible.
Invincible.
“Let them out,” I say, my voice so quiet it’s barely a whisper. But I see people shivering at the sound of it and looking at each other in terror.
“LET THEM OUT.”
The blistering power of my true voice rolls through the room and a couple of guards run closer, crying and shaking, one literally falling over his feet in his haste to remove the lock.
Nobody says a word as he struggles with the keys and swings open the gate.
The young man inside staggers out, dragging a broken figure behind him. When the door of the cage slams shut behind him, he lifts the figure up into his arms and stumbles toward me, his face exhausted but his eyes shining brightly into mine.
I look at the beautiful young man carrying my keeper’s still form in his arms. Then I look at the people against the walls, at those false judges sitting on their ridiculous chairs.
“HOW DARE YOU?” My voice vibrates with the blistering heat of my rage.
The blue man stands up, his face distressed and his hands in the air, as if he’s surrendering. “Jess, please you must understand …”
“You will not address me so informally again, Seakeeper!” I say, incensed. “And you will stay away from me and mine. You are nothing to me now.”
He does not even attempt to argue. Instead he hangs his head, his hands falling limply to his sides.
“I am so sorry for what happened here.” This time it’s the red woman who tries to soothe me. “We made terrible mistakes. Unforgivable mistakes. But you cannot turn your back on us now; we need each other.”
I laugh at her, allowing my deep disdain to show. “I do not need any of you and I never will. You are pathetic, a disgrace to your name.”
She flinches at my words, her eyes filling with tears.
The green man is the last to believe there’s still hope. “The Earthkeepers are willing to renegotiate terms with the Black Clan,” he says. “We will—”
“NOTHING!” I cut short his pitiful attempt. “The Earthkeepers will do nothing.”
“But surely we can—”
“You can kneel.”
He looks at me in confusion.
“KNEEL.”
All around me, people are falling to their knees in an ecstasy of surrender.
Only one remains upright: the beautiful young man who carries my keeper in his arms. I look at her unconscious, deathly white face, and I suddenly remember that this is a woman who loved me, once.
The only keeper to truly love me through all the centuries of my bondage.
The room darkens as my anger hardens into a decision. Tonight, I will show these self-righteous pretenders what true justice is. Tonight, they will pay with their lives for daring to hurt someone that belongs to me.
“KNEEL!”
My voice is not a voice any longer; it is a vessel of pure power and raw beauty. I look at the crowd as they cower before me. These spineless bystanders who came to witness my humiliation. How pathetic they are, clinging so desperately to their paltry store of second-hand magic.
“MY POWER IS GREATER THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE. KNEEL BEFORE ME NOW AND FOREVER.”
I turn to their so-called leaders, those insignificant bearers of a worthless authority. How dare such pitiful nobodies attempt to control me, who has always been their master in every way?
“YOU HAVE NO AUTHORITY OVER ME AND NEVER WILL. KNEEL BEFORE ME NOW BEFORE YOU DIE.”
The red woman is crying. The white woman is covering her ears, her face ashen. The man in blue is completely prostrate before me. The red man and the green man are on their knees, staring at me in horrified disbelief.
“MY KEEPERS ARE UNDER MY PROTECTION; THEIR BLOOD IS MY BLOOD. WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO THEM, YOU HAVE DONE TO ME.”
The whole room is nodding frantically, clutching at their ears, humble and desperate to appease me.
Should I destroy them all tonight, or only their leaders?
Perhaps it would be best to purge this corruption in its entirety. I have grown sick of their Order lately. These so-called “keepers” have become so trapped in the illusion of their individual being that they have forgotten for whom they keep their flames. It may be time to burn it all down.
I feel myself smiling.
Best to wipe them from the earth right now, to cleanse the world of their greed with the purity of my holy fire.
Best to let them burn.
With a flick of my will, I let the fire free.
There is a flash of energy, delicious and whole. And then everything is alight, blazing with the immeasurable power of my sacred force.
Burning, burning, burning.
I listen to the panicked screams that fill the air around me, delight in
the shrill sounds of agony, the smell of scorched earth and scorched flesh.
Ah, I remember this.
The exquisite joy of sacrificing the undeserving to my glory! Of watching screaming faces melt and blackened skin burst as the—
“Jess, no! Please!”
From among the cries, a single voice draws my attention.
A voice I almost recognize.
“You have to stop! Dude!”
Something about his cry pierces through my righteous certainty. I lift a hand to put out the flames—I cannot think with all these people wailing in agony.
“QUIET.”
The cries and the howls and the weeping stop abruptly.
I turn my head, searching for the one unwise enough to interrupt my holy sacrament.
It does not take me long to locate him.
In a corner, a mother and a son are huddled together on their knees, clinging to each other. The mother’s face is hidden. The boy’s eyes are scared and dark and…
Something tugs at me.
A feeling. A faint spark of memory. A flash of another life.
This boy means something to me. I have not forgotten that.
He has proven his loyalty beyond question.
The boy has been… a friend.
As the word crystalizes in my mind, it seems alien, almost ridiculous; the very concept inconceivable. In all these centuries, I cannot recall ever having had the need of it.
And yet.
I look at the kneeling boy. His eyes are scared and dark and… known.
Daniel.
There’s a painful wrench as something inside me remembers a name.
Oh. Oh!
The boy is named Daniel, and he is my friend.
The strange, impossible idea makes my head spin.
“Jess. Please. I beg you. Don’t do this.”
The boy quietly pleads with me, asking me to be merciful, and I am surprised to find that his impertinence does not enrage me. No, peculiarly enough, I find that I want to grant him his wish. That it is important for me to make him happy.
The feeling is unfamiliar but… not unpleasant.
I look at the boy. “Do you ask this of me as your friend?”
“Yes.”
“You are requesting that I save you from the flames?”
“No. I want you to save everyone.”
There is such a pure, untainted courage in his eyes that I feel some of my anger melt away.
Ah yes. Of course. At times, humans display such qualities too.
I have almost forgotten.
“There are those here who would harm you,” I tell the boy. “If they survive this day, your life would be in constant peril. Are you unaware of this?”
But it seems the boy cannot look at me anymore. “Jess. Please. I can’t do this much longer. You’re shining too brightly; I’m losing myself with every second. Just trust me. Please. You need to stop this now before it’s…”
He falls to his knees, unable to say more, blinded by my magnificent shine.
I consider his request.
Then I turn back to the leaders of this sorry little group.
“I WILL LET YOU LIVE TONIGHT, FOR THE SAKE OF MY FRIEND.”
Even as I wonder at the strange taste of that word on my tongue, the room fills with cries of praise as the people worship at my feet, overcome with gratitude at my magnanimousness.
“BEHOLD!” When every eye is upon me, I point my arm in the boy’s direction, the candle flames following in a river of light. “THIS FAMILY IS UNDER MY PROTECTION. THEIR BLOOD IS MY BLOOD.”
Everyone is nodding, on their knees, where they should be.
“BE NOT DECEIVED, HOWEVER. THE TRUST BETWEEN US IS BROKEN, FOREVER AND ALWAYS.”
They kneel before me in fear and horror.
A fear and horror they deeply deserve.
“I CLAIM MY SOVEREIGNTY AND DISMISS YOU FROM MY SERVICE.”
There are sounds of fear and distress, but nobody dares raise their heads.
I call the boy and his mother to the front, wait for them to join me. Then I lead them away, together with the beautiful young man who is carrying my keeper. As we leave, the light from the candles dies out completely as the wicks of flame, having burned too bright for too long, are drowned in wax. From the people left inside there are sounds of sobbing, and shock, and pain, and terror.
I turn my back.
I leave them kneeling in the darkness.
Epilogue
It took a long time before I felt like myself again, after that night. I slept six days away—out cold, like someone in a coma—and when I woke I felt… different.
Something within me had changed forever.
Afterwards, I was too freaked out to leave my room. I spent days staring at the ceiling, my door locked, my curtains closed, just lying in bed, trying not to think. Ingrid put trays of food outside my door but left me alone otherwise. There was no sight of Gunn or Daniel. Maggie came to visit a few times, but I asked Ingrid, through the locked door, to show her away. I didn’t check my phone and after a while the battery died. My laptop remained closed on my desk. The hours passed one after another, like soap bubbles bursting and then disappearing forever.
At night I dreamed of Miss Anderson’s dead blue eyes staring into nothing. I dreamed of flames and screams and nameless horrors. I dreamed of the Red Lord’s predatory smile. The White Lady’s hate-filled face. In my dreams I was forever hitting Jeffrey Black’s head against that step, trying to drown out his sad, fake laugh.
I did not feel remorse or pity in my dreams, but whenever I woke up, my face was wet with tears. It was a dark time and it passed slowly.
But I could not block out the real world forever.
The police launched an investigation into what had happened at school that night and, in a spectacular stroke of bad luck, security footage was found of the events in the library. Suddenly I was facing a whole new set of problems: endless questioning in airless rooms, a long line of serious, worried faces and the prospect of yet another trial—a real one this time.
Fortunately, I was eventually cleared of all wrong-doing, and Jeffrey’s death was ruled an accident. At the end of their inquiry (and after several meetings with Jack Pendragon) the head of the investigative team even congratulated me on my cool-headed response under pressure.
Throughout it all, the media’s response remained strangely muted. The main facts were made public, but details remained rather vague. This lack of interest seemed ominous to me, especially since we live in a district where a fender bender usually makes front page news. It only began to make sense after I attended a press conference one night, at Ingrid’s insistence.
Before the sheriff took questions from reporters, Jack Pendragon gave a statement on behalf of the parents of the school. He asked the media to remember that ours is a small, tight-knit community, which needed space and privacy to grieve our losses. He talked about the desperate actions of a lone, disturbed boy, the swift response of the emergency services, the futility of laying blame where no blame was due. His words were simple and heartfelt, and dripping with so much Enthrallment that even I left that meeting convinced it was time for the media to stop investigating a disturbed boy’s accidental death.
Jack Pendragon’s bloodmagic, I found out that night, was about a thousand times stronger than the Red Lord’s, and he’d used it to keep me out of the spotlight just as Jonathan had promised he would.
Ingrid didn’t like relying on his help, but privately admitted that we now needed the Pendragons’ protection more than ever. My actions after the trial had upset a great many people, and the White Lady in particular was howling for my blood.
Apparently, my actions had violated some ancient truce between the different clans, and Gunn was sent to Rome to try and broker a peace deal. We’re hoping that open war can still be averted, but we’re not banking on it.
The future looks bleak and uncertain.
Daniel and his family have had to g
o into hiding to escape the wrath of the White Lady, who didn’t take too long to figure out that he’d helped me that night. I miss him like crazy and I wish I could help him somehow, but to be honest there’s probably not too much I can do to keep him safe.
I am weak and tearful and powerless these days. My magic has left me, and I’m not at all sure I ever want it back. My recollections of that night when I made everyone kneel before me are vague and sketchy, and it all seems more and more unreal with every passing day. But I remember enough to feel sick to my stomach whenever I allow myself to think back on what happened.
At night I lie awake, haunted by the fear that I’m hiding something deep inside me. Something that is not me. Something that scares me and that I’m not sure I can control. Something I don’t understand, but that seems to understand me.
But in the morning, I push those fears away again and continue with my ordinary life.
One day, I hope, I will be strong enough to ask all the questions I know I need to ask, all the questions I’ve avoided so far. I will be brave and relentless in my search for the truth, and I will accept the answers unflinchingly.
I will face my true self, and I will not blink.
But not yet.
Please, dear God, not just yet.
* * *
Jess’s story continues in Fireborn. Click here to see what happens next!
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About the Author
Ripley Harper writes stories about young women who kick serious ass. She’s fascinated by myths and legends, old religions, ancient history and conspiracy theories. She’s also quite partial to a slow-burn romance, especially when it involves an (absolutely smoking hot) arch enemy.
Ripley loves hearing from her readers. Drop her a note at [email protected] or find her on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/ripley.harper.58] or Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/ripleyharper1/].
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Ordinary Girl (The Dark Dragon Chronicles Book 1) Page 31