On Wings of Chaos (Revenant Wyrd Book 5)

by Travis Simmons

  Joya gasped in pain, and when she exhaled, bile flooded past her lips, painting the floor of her tower suite.

  Distantly she was aware of another flash of light from the horizon, but the pain quickly pushed all other thoughts aside. Joya’s back lurched again, the skin rippling as bones and sinew repositioned themselves under her muscles. And then, with blinding pain, the skin tore and blood splashed over the floor, mingling with her bile. Chunks of flesh sloughed from her body.

  Panicked, Joya tried standing, but the pain was too much, her knees too weak, and she fell face-first back into the gore on the floor. She tried to breathe through the pain, but it didn’t work. In time the agony went away, or else she got used to it, she wasn’t sure. But then she was aware of something else, a growth along her back that she could feel like any other appendage.

  She pushed to her knees, slipping in her bile and blood. Steadying herself, Joya stood and looked at the glass door of her suite. Staring back at her was her reflection: white dress soaked with yellow and crimson, her black hair tangled about her shoulders. And there, arching above her head, were large, sinewy wings, still growing their membrane and flesh. With a prickling sensation she watched feathers blossom to the surface like morning glories coming to wake in the morning sun.

  She heard a gasp to her right, and she turned to look as Cianna stood.

  “Joya,” Cianna said. “Your wings!”

  “And yours,” Joya said, but she wasn’t excited, because where her voluminous wings were white, Cianna’s were black as night. Revulsion swam in her stomach, but she shook the thought away.

  “Look at the horizon,” Cianna told her, coming to stand beside her. Through their reflections Joya could see a tower molded of turquoise stone. It was ancient, yet spoke of a time far more advanced than her own. Alien almost, like something she would see from a land other than the Great Realms, one where the frement technology had blossomed for hundreds of years.

  It shimmered with a light of its own, and when the light flickered, Joya almost thought she could hear a voice.

  Come and see, it whispered.

  “What is that?” Cianna asked, drawing Joya’s attention down to the field in front of the tower. To her right was an endless expanse of white wings; to her left, a mirror image, but with wings of black. In the center, on a trampled path, stood two white-winged angels. One of them gazed over the field of white wings while the other looked across the expanse of black wings. A hissing noise, like water on hot coals, drifted up to the tower window. Joya flung open the window and listened. As the hissing rose to a near roar, singing blossomed as well. One terrifying, the other glorious.

  And then a figure in black was walking to the people in the center, and Joya drifted out of the dream.

  Angelica felt the call in her blood: a pulling beneath her breast, tugging her even in slumber to a point far from where she slept. She pushed the feeling away. She knew what it was, and she didn't want to see what was gathering in the west. She had seen it enough. Though she struggled, Angelica knew the call of her angelic blood would win out over her human desire to stay away from the dream.

  With a shift that felt like falling, the mists of her dreams parted, and Angelica saw herself standing in a swamp. Green water oozed along cracks in parched earth; a courtyard she should know, that she almost recognized. A little ways ahead of her the cracked, dying earth gave way to dirty, faded tiles, laid in a geometric pattern.

  Her eyes followed the pattern, and when she looked up, Angelica nearly stumbled as she realized where the green, tepid water soaking into her boots came from. Before her, nearly crumbled to dust, was the once-magnificent Well of Wyrding. One side was caved out, spilling the thick air like wyrd over the ground, choking out grass and leaving the once-beautiful courtyard laid to waste — the tiles stained with the wyrd, the well crumbling in disrepair.

  Fearfully, Angelica looked up at the Evyndelle. Now it was a husk of the tree it had once been. The bark was sloughed off and the pulp beneath the protective layering was cracked, splintered from lack of nutrients. The leaves and needles of various kinds of trees, both living and extinct, had fallen away some time ago, creating a carpet of death around the rubble of the well. Branches drooped like stooped old men, touching the courtyard, and others had split off completely, knocking more bricks and mortar loose from the well where they had come to lay.

  Before the well, clasping hands, knelt three skeletons. Their skulls drooped on their chests, as if asleep. Their arms hung loose to their sides. It would take just a swift wind, or a tentative touch, to break the hold their fingers had on one another. On their bones clung fragments of gray fabric, robes of a sort not customary in the Great Realms. Angelica's breath caught, and on shaky legs she stepped forward. On the fringes of her mind, she felt a second personality gather. Angelica sighed with relief, trying to let the fear of what she was seeing leave her body.

  "Jove," Angelica whispered, feeling him step up beside her rather than seeing him. "What happened?"

  "Us," Jovian said. He watched the wyrd on the ground swirl around their feet, reacting to their presence. Angelica looked down and saw the wyrd slowly gathering at their boots, and then running in rivers up their trousers, soaking into the material like inky water, seeking to be one with their bodies.

  Angelica shook her leg, as if she could shake loose the creeping wyrd and be rid of it. When that didn't work, she looked to the three skeletons, kneeling, clasping one another's hands, heads bowed as if in prayer.

  "The Norns?" Angelica asked.

  "I think so," Jovian told her.

  "We have to stop this," Angelica said.

  "We have time," Jovian said. "This is a future event." He shook his head, furrowing his eyebrows. "But how do we do it?"

  "The Norns seemed to think only our death would stop it. If we aren't in the world to interact with, then we can't effect the well, right?"

  Jovian nodded. "Do you think it has to do with Mother? How she didn't go through the normal reincarnation?"

  "Apparently that's the only thing making us different from everyone else." Angelica looked to Jovian.

  "So if she had died naturally, and been reincarnated into another body, this wouldn't happen?"

  "But could she have been? She’s an angel, don't they just go back to Goddess?"

  Jovian shrugged. "I guess that would be a question for Cianna. But we have time. This is a ways off."

  Angelica couldn't tear her eyes away from the Norns, the fates that documented all things that were happening, had happened, and that were yet to come. One of them was the fate of the future. For her, this was already her reality — she lived the future, and to her, this was happening now. The thought made Angelica’s skin crawl, imagining what it must be like to live a life, seeing at every turn what was to happen to you and the place you called home. Would she have been able to live knowing all the while she traveled what was to become of her plantation home and her father?

  Angelica was about to voice her concern when a light bloomed in the skull of the Norns. Through the eye socket of one looking toward her, Angelica could see the light growing brighter. It chased across the ground, blocking out the visage of the tree and the well, the tiles, and then the parched earth. Eventually there was nothing remaining in the temporal folds of the dream but Angelica's consciousness, and Jovian beside her. Even their bodies were lost in the light.

  And then the light faded from their eyes, drifting away from them and across the ground like a tide washing back out to sea. In its wake it left the image of a field, trampled by thousands of boots.

  Angelica and Jovian stood back to back, great white wings spread out above their heads, sunlight filtering through the feathers, dappling their faces in warmth. Angelica looked above herself, staring at the glowing, pristine white of each feather. She had seen feathers like this before, when they were in the Mountains of Nependier, and the nependier had healed Jovian. But even then the feathers hadn't been this pure, this ethereal. They h
ad been earthly wings, illuminated by some inner wyrd of the creature. These wings were as alien to Angelica as the tower that hummed with illumination to her right.

  They stood in the center of the field, the center of a battle that was about to happen. Directly before Angelica stood half-breeds like herself, the humanity burned from them in the blazing light of the Turquoise Tower. Black wings, as dark as Angelica's were white, arched menacingly above their heads, poised as if they were another weapon they could use to cleave their opposition.

  Seeing Angelica and the white wings that unfurled in the air above her, the black-winged angels hissed. The noise was picked up by each and every one of the creatures before her, until the half-breeds were a writhing sea of wings and bodies. Contempt bubbled from them, almost a palpable heat she could feel scouring the ground, churning the air before her face, and raising goose flesh along her arms.

  Behind Angelica she heard an equally powerful, if completely opposite, noise of humming. The noise was like the most sincere prayer she had ever heard, billowing from behind her, carrying with it the scent of sacred copal and lilac. The music carried her to summer fields, where the darkness of the army poised before her couldn't penetrate.

  Where the hissing was fearful and pestilent, the humming was numinous, invoking an ambient protection that Angelica could almost sink into and wear like an aegis against the coming dark.

  To her right, the tower flashed again, calming the hissing, but not the humming. When the light retreated, a dark-shrouded figure moved toward Angelica. The newcomer’s feet seemingly trod the air above the ground, rather than stepping on the dirt.

  In previous dreams the garb had looked terrible; now it looked like a religious robe, gathered around the lithe figure in folds, held up from its sculpted feet by delicate hands as white as the wings sprouting from Angelica's back.

  As she watched, wings as inky black as a moonless night unfolded from the figure's back, and as if summoned, a bone-white horse galloped up beside it.

  The figure stopped and dropped the folds of the robe held clutched in its hands. The half-breeds before Angelica knelt down in reverence. The white-winged figures at her back, standing in front of Jovian, began to hum louder, some breaking into song.

  The figure took no notice of Angelica and Jovian, or the armies of angels to either side.

  Come and see, Angelica and Jovian heard in their minds. It called to more than their ears, the summons repeated in their blood, less a call of invitation and more a command that their angelic side had to respond to, no matter how much their human side resisted.

  As Angelica arose from the dream, she saw a glint of gold light flash from within the shadows of the figure's hood.

  Jovian woke in the early hours of the morning, alerted to something in his room other than himself. Sweat soaked his sheets and matted his golden locks to his forehead. His breath came in ragged gasps, and his heart beat double-time.

  He tried to speak, to call out to whoever might be there, but his voice caught in his throat behind a dry lump his words couldn't get past. He grabbed water from his nightstand and took several deep pulls until he felt his throat loosen and moisten.

  "Hello?" he called into the dark, his voice hoarse. Through the filtered light from outside, Jovian could see something skirting the walls out of the corner of his eye. When he turned to look directly at it, the thing faded into the shadows of the room.

  Again he turned away, allowing his attention to draw out the corner of his eye, and to study what was in the room with him.

  On the edge of his sight was a shadow, human-shaped, but small, indistinct, like smoke on water, ever shifting, ever wavering. From the shadow came a strange energy, seeking, inquisitive, like it didn't understand what Jovian was or why he was there. Jovian let his mind wander a little further. Since Joya had taught them how to harness their wyrd and use it more, Jovian had been working on sensing things with wyrd. He found accessing his wyrd and getting a general feel for it helped when he wasn't specifically able to cast.

  As he tapped into his wyrd, he felt something sifting through it. The only thing he could compare it to was the feeling dirt must have when bugs skitter through it, burrowing deep. This energy, this presence, was examining his wyrd, trying to understand what Jovian was.

  Good luck, Jovian thought. It took us a long time to figure that out, and I'm still not sure precisely what we are.

  Wyr. That's what the Norns called him. Sylvie, that's what Cianna called him.

  Jovian. That's what he used to call himself. Now he just wasn't sure any longer. What was Jovian, really? Even his flesh came from the union of his mother and father. Now he’d learned that his lives, his spirit, didn't come from the ether of all life, but instead from the very body that gave him birth, moments after he was born dead.

  A knock came to his window, and Jovian jumped. The shadow in his peripheral vision vanished. Heart racing once more, Jovian looked out the window to the falling snow beyond. At first he didn't see anything past the heavy green drapes, iron inlay, and glass panes. But when he looked again, he saw the most magnificent golden eagle he had ever seen, silhouetted against the light of the barracks’ campfires below.

  Jovian stood, and on bare feet crossed the granite floor to crouch naked before the window. The chill of the air made him shiver, even if it felt good against his fevered flesh. He would need to start the fire up higher before going back to bed, but it would be hard to sleep now that his sheets were wet.

  With a sigh he sat before the window. There was something about the eagle that he recognized, though he had rarely seen golden eagles. Something about the eyes looked intelligent, almost human.

  Jovian found himself reaching for the handle of the window before he could stop himself. Unlatching the window, he pulled open one side. A gust of wind intruded on the dark room, showering him in cold and snow.

  He stepped back as the eagle hopped into the room. Now that it was in the room with him, Jovian felt silly for having opened the window at all. Looking at the magnificent bird’s claws, Jovian began to realize he could very well be hunted by this creature as any rabbit would be.

  He took a step back, but before he could move far, the eagle hunkered down on the carpet and started to shiver. The sound of bones popping filled the air, and in disgust, Jovian watched the bird ripple like water, its form lengthening with every pop of bone and snap of sinew. As the figure elongated, feathers retracted into skin and wings formed into arms, tipped with hands and then strong fingers. The talons of the feet snapped into toes and the legs lengthened, growing dark hair. The face cracked and popped until it looked like a mound of concaved mud, and then it took shape again, into the face of a human.

  When it was done, a very naked, very cold Maeven Beggets laid on the floor before Jovian, shivering amidst the snow.

  "What in the realms were you thinking?" Jovian said, shutting the window tight and gathering a blanket off his bed to throw over the other man.

  "I wanted to see you," Maeven said through chattering teeth. "Grace wouldn't let me near you while you were out of it, and I needed to know if you were safe."

  Jovian gathered Maeven in his arms, helped him to stand, and then repositioned him before the fire, which he set about building back up. He set a pot of water in front of the flames and then came back to Maeven.

  "Where did you get the water?" Maeven asked.

  "Supposed to be for my bath in the morning; it's safe to drink," Jovian said.

  "Your face," Maeven said, trailing shivering fingers down the length of Jovian's face, tracing the scar that ran from his eyebrow, down across his nose, and over the opposite cheek. Jovian relaxed into the touch until Maeven's hands were cupping his injured cheek. He breathed Maeven’s scent deeply: like a pine forest after a summer's rain. He felt muscles relax that he hadn’t realized were tense.

  "Father was killed," Jovian said in a hushed voice. "This was a token from the grigori who did it."

  "What happened to the
grigori?" Maeven asked.

  "Astanel was there. Apparently he was being used by the fallen angel, and he used some kind of dark wyrd to banish the grigori past the Black Gates," Jovian told him. Maeven rubbed Jovian's cheek.

  He pulled Jovian closer to him, opening up his blankets so Jovian could crawl in with him, then folding them back over him.

  "I've missed you," Maeven whispered to him, pulling Jovian closer.

  Jovian sighed deeply, allowing himself to relax into the warmth of the other man. "I'm sorry about Fairview Heights," Jovian told him.

  "What's to be sorry for?" Maeven asked, and then laughed.

  "Treating you like you weren't important, using you for. . ."

  "Oh, well, I didn't really mind being used for that," Maeven said wryly. "You needed to discover yourself."

  "And in the mean time I discovered a lot of you." Jovian smirked, and he felt Maeven laugh behind him.

  "You're a bird now," Jovian said after some time.

  "Apparently that's a side effect of my shaman ways," Maeven told him. "You're a wyrder now."

  "How could you tell?" Jovian wondered.

  "Apparently all wyrders can sense energy. Yours is different."

  "I think my wyrd is a side effect of my being part angel and all," Jovian told him.

  "Have you accepted that yet?" Maeven asked.

  Jovian shrugged.

  "Your wyrd isn't like all others," Maeven said. "It's more pure. Almost holy."

  "I guess it doesn't come from the well. It's because of what we are," Jovian said.

  "Angel?" Maeven asked.

  "Sylvie LaFaye," Jovian said. Maeven waited for him to explain. Jovian told him what Cianna had told Angelica and him.

  "So, because of that, you’re different?" Maeven asked. He sounded bewildered.

  "I guess," Jovian said. "I'm not sure how that would affect us so much, but it's the only thing that's different between us and Joya and Amber, so it has to be the answer."

  "It has to do with the love your mother put into the act," Maeven told him.