I sighed and leaned against the stone wall. At least they had placed us in adjoining cells. It could have been worse.
“When you live in captivity for a very long time, you learn to either accept your fate and resign yourself to hopelessness, or you find a way to hope,” he said, his hand on the bars between us.
“Which did you do?” I asked.
He leaned against his fist and thought for a moment. “I chose despair and hopelessness,” he said. “Especially after I saw Jackson come through and get bound to human form, his magic stripped away. Immortality sucks when you have nothing to live for. I don’t want to be that way anymore.”
His eyes met mine and I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry.
“Why did you leave?” I asked softly. “On our engagement day?”
Aerden didn’t take his eyes off mine for a long time. “I just had to go,” he said.
It wasn’t much of an answer, but I knew it was the only one I would get for now. I slid down the wall and rested my arms on my knees. How were we going to get out of here?
What would be left of our group when we finally did?
I think in that moment I understood a little of what made Harper such a bleeding heart. She loved her friends more than life, and she cared more about what happened to us than what happened to her. It was easy to forget how young she was sometimes. She carried the responsibility of two worlds on her shoulders.
I probably should have cut her some slack.
“They’re going to be okay,” Aerden said, crouching down to my level. “They’re strong. And Harper’s smarter than you give her credit for. No matter how much it hurts or how unfair it is, she loves my brother. She’ll give everything to save him, you know that. We have to believe, Lea, or there will be nothing left to fight for.”
“I just wish we were there,” I said. I cut my eyes toward him and half-smiled. “Besides, I would have loved to kick a little more Order ass.”
He laughed and leaned back against the bars. We sat that way for a long time, not saying a word.
I wanted to believe him. They would be fine.
But if that was true, why did I already feel such a strong sense of loss?
Risk Everything
I activated all of the communication stones, asking everyone to get to the castle as soon as possible. I asked Mary Anne and Essex to bring Rend. Even if he didn’t have a potion that could save Zara from turning into a hunter, he might still be able to help us.
Mordecai, Joost, Cristo, and Erick got there quickly, using their demon speed to travel in the dark of the endless night on earth. Mary Anne and the others arrived less than an hour later, traveling by demon door to Cypress and then flying the rest of the way.
When Rend appeared in the throne room, he had ten large men with him, their ruby eyes startling me at first.
“Vampires?” I asked, almost breathless. Vampire demons drank the blood of witches to gain power, and seeing them in my father’s castle was a shock, to say the least.
“Good vampires,” Rend said with a smile. “Mostly, anyway. They’re friends, and they know you helped us when we needed you. They’ll be loyal. Plus, I promised them they could finish off any of the witches on the evil side during the fight.”
I let my eyes wander over the eleven of them, my heart beating wildly. They were handsome and rugged and extremely powerful. Every witch’s worst nightmare. But I trusted Rend with my life and knew he would never do anything to hurt us.
Franki, his girlfriend, hugged me and promised she would do everything she could to help. A few more of their friends from Rend’s club, Venom, also joined us to fight. Azure, the bartender, and Marco, another of Rend’s close friends.
“Thank you for coming,” I said. “This isn’t going to be an easy fight.”
“Good,” a tall, muscular vampire said. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
“Calm down, Ryken, you’ll get your chance,” Rend said, patting his friend on the arm.
As I shared my plan with them, Gregory came through the doors and announced that the Resistance had arrived. I let out a sigh of relief, feeling some of the tension and worry in my shoulders give way.
Andros walked through the door and bowed at my feet. “Princess.”
I held my hand to him and helped him up. “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” I said. “I know I’m not your favorite person in the world.”
“You are a true warrior, and while I don’t always agree with your methods, I agree with your cause,” he said. “If this is truly another opportunity to put an end to one of the priestesses of the Order of Shadows, I will lay down my life, and the life of every one of my soldiers to get it done. I only wish Lea were here.”
“I couldn’t reach her on her communication stone,” I said. “She and Aerden are out searching for a hunter who attacked us a few days ago.”
“I’m sure they can handle themselves,” he said. “But their abilities would be useful in this fight. I’m sure they will be sad they weren’t here to see the end of the emerald priestess.”
“I’m sure,” I said with a smile.
His beautiful pixie of a wife, Ourelia, came forward and bowed her head. I pulled her into a hug. “Thanks, Ourelia,” I said. “I know it’s difficult to leave your daughter behind, but I promise my guards here in the castle will make her safety a priority.”
Their small shadowling daughter, Sasha, rushed forward and clung to her mother’s legs. I turned around and searched for my sister, and when our eyes met, I nodded to her. Ryder, a young boy Jackson and I had rescued from the Northern Kingdom months ago when we traveled to the south from the Underground, ran forward and took Sasha’s hand. Together, they followed Tuli to an area of the castle reserved for special guests. She had set up a room just for them where they could play games and have plenty of food and things to do.
“Now that everyone’s here, I’d like to go through my plan,” I said.
I outlined the basics, making sure everyone understood when to make their move. “Rend, do you think you can use the laboratory here to make these potions?” I asked. “I know I’m not giving you much time.”
“I’ll get to work on it right away,” he said. “I may have to pull some things from your gardens.”
“Anything you need,” I said.
He and Franki disappeared to go work on the three main potions I needed to make my plan work. The rest of us gathered weapons and dressed for battle.
An hour later, when everything was in place, I found Zara and pulled her to me. Her body was so frail and weak, it stunned me. She’d been full of life and joy just a few short days ago, and now her mother’s evil was reaching out from the grave to take her away from us.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” I asked.
She nodded, tears in her eyes.
“I love you, you know that,” I said, wanting to hold her tighter, but so scared I might hurt her. “Thank you for doing this. You have been a true friend since the day we met. You’ve given up everything you knew and loved to do what was right, and it’s not fair that this is happening to you. I swear I will not let you die in vain.”
We held each other for a long time, tears running down our cheeks.
“I’ve asked Andros to send for a powerful shaman who lives in the Underground,” I said. “Maybe she can help.”
“Harper,” Rend said softly.
I pulled away and wiped at my cheeks. “Do you have them?” I asked.
He nodded and handed me three small vials. The moment my hand touched them, my stomach tightened into knots. It was time.
“We’re almost ready,” I said. “I just need to do one more thing.”
I met Angela’s eyes and nodded. She whispered something to the guards and they all took off down the hallway.
I took Zara’s hand in mine and helped her walk with me to my father’s chambers. Angela, Sophie, and the guards joined us soon after.
I held one of the potions out to Zara. “Drink this,”
I said. “It will at least allow you to walk in there with some dignity.”
She nodded and drank the potion down quickly.
I handed out the other two potions and watched as they disappeared. I prayed my plan would save us all. Lea always accused me of taking unnecessary risks, and I had doubted myself every step of the way lately. But tonight, there was no playing it safe.
It was either lose everything I loved and allow the priestess to undo everything I’d worked to achieve, or risk everything for a chance at victory.
“We’re ready,” Angela said.
“I’ll catch up with you in a second.”
Angela escorted the others from the room, but before I joined them, I went back into my father’s bedroom and stared up at the gleaming sword on the wall.
I carefully removed it from its mount and gripped the shining hilt in my hands.
“Be with me now, Father,” I whispered to the sapphire stone that held a piece of his spirit.
The stone shimmered, and I felt his presence with me, making me stronger.
I’d been so scared to carry his weapon with me over the past few months, always feeling that I wasn’t worthy of his sacrifice. I was terrified I would never live up to what he wanted me to be.
But as I held it in my hands, I realized for the first time that all he’d ever expected was for me to be myself.
I’d always felt like a victim of my circumstances, brought into this fight at birth without a choice in the matter. I needed to stop letting this war be something that just happened to me. I may be young, but that didn’t make me weak.
I was capable of amazing things. I refused to let them beat me.
It was time to stop letting the Order call all the shots and show them how powerful you could be when you ruled with love instead of pain.
I secured the sword to a strap on my back and headed out to lead my army toward Winterhaven.
Not The Normal Way Of Things
Since Brighton Manor had burned to the ground, we had no demon door left to use in Peachville. The army I’d assembled made their way through the darkness to Cypress, one of the closest demon gates to us.
The others remained inside Eloise’s house, while Zara and I walked up to the pentagram-shaped room in the attic alone.
Her body trembled as I ushered her through the Hall of Doorways, searching for the one with the blue butterfly. When we found it, she hesitated, pulling back on my arm, but she was too weak to resist.
“It’ll all be over soon,” I whispered.
We stepped through the door to Winterhaven, where a woman in an emerald green cloak waited for us. She smiled as we entered.
“Priestess Evers will be happy to see you.”
“Let’s just make the trade so I can get my friends home safely,” I said.
“You’ll have to leave that sword here, I’m afraid,” she said.
I tensed my jaw and nodded, removing my father’s sword and laying it down on the floor. I hoped someone would be smart enough to bring it down with them when they came to wreck this place.
The woman laughed and held out her hand, motioning for us to walk down the narrow stairway to the second floor. I knew exactly which route to take. I’d been here more times than I’d ever wanted to, and each one had been a source of fear and horror.
I hoped when I left here tonight, it would be with a feeling of triumph.
The stairs near the kitchen creaked as we made our way down to the basement’s ritual room. I could hardly feel my hands, I was so nervous. They were numb and ice-cold. I searched the room as we entered, looking for any sign of Jackson.
“Harper, don’t,” he said. “You can’t do this.”
I turned toward his voice in the dark room and nearly wept with joy to see him alive. They had him in an iron cage in the corner. I moved toward him, but the woman in the green cloak placed her arm between us.
“You’ll get to cuddle your filthy demon when you’ve made the trade and the portal is reopened,” she said, her voice biting.
I lifted my head and straightened my shoulders. So, I was right. That’s all the emerald priestess ever wanted. This wasn’t about revenge. This was about her gaining more power than any of her sisters ever dreamed.
I couldn’t wait to introduce that witch to my father’s sword.
The ritual room was lit with dark green candles floating above our heads. At least two dozen witches in matching green cloaks surrounded the broken portal stone embedded in the floor, their hoods pulled over their heads to hide their faces.
I searched for Priestess Evers. I’d never seen her in person, but I knew her from her messages in the green stones.
She stood on the far corner of the pentagram carved into the stone floor. She wore a flowing black robe with emerald scarab beetles embroidered along the skirt. My heart jolted, remembering Sophie’s pendant.
I was right.
Priestess Evers lowered her hood as we came in, and her eyes were so startlingly green that I almost lost myself in them.
She looked young, just like her sister had. Considering the witch was more than two hundred years old, she was holding up pretty well on her diet of souls.
She had blazing red hair the color of autumn leaves, and she smiled at me as I entered. She glanced at the witch beside her and nodded. The woman curtsied and came over to me, taking my hand from Zara’s arm and escorting her to the center of the portal stone.
My stomach bubbled with nerves and my heart ached for what I was about to see. How had it all come to this so quickly? Just a few days ago, we were celebrating Halloween and an engagement. Everyone was happy, and Zara had looked like a sprite with her white-blonde hair and pale skin.
She was a shadow of herself now, dark and decaying, the life almost gone from her completely.
She struggled against the witch who held her as best she could, but she was too weak to resist. She stumbled as they brought her to stand on the ritual stone. Her frightened eyes pleaded with mine, and I looked away. She tried to speak, but her voice wouldn’t work.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am to finally meet the infamous Harper Brighton,” Priestess Evers said. “I’m sure this has been a rough few days for you, Princess, so I promise I’ll make this short and sweet. Trust me, this would have been a lot easier for all of us if my stupid hunters hadn’t attacked your city a few hours too early.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.
“They weren’t supposed to attack until after I’d frozen time here in the human world,” she said. “You were supposed to be locked in time just like all the rest of the miserable humans on earth. I planned to just waltz into your home and put an end to you. I was going to take your ring and kill your friends and be done with it. But the hunters attacked early, sending you and your friends to the Shadow World, where my spell wouldn’t affect you. It was an unintended series of events. That’s why I had to improvise and take all those witches you made friends with from my emerald gates. I needed the fuel to keep my spell going for as long as it took.”
“Eloise,” I said. “Is she alive?”
“Yes, yes, your darling Eloise and her two daughters are still alive. I can’t say the same for some of the witches in her coven, though, poor things,” she said. “It’s taken you so long to get here and give me what I want that twenty-six witches have had to die. That’s on your head, my dear.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes, praying those witches had not suffered long.
“Of course, simply casting the spell took the sacrifice of one hundred young witches,” she said.
My eyes snapped open and I stared at her, not believing it.
“What?”
“Trainees who fled their duties when the sapphire gates fell,” she said. “We hunted them down on Halloween and cut their throats one by one. They were expendable, really. Girls who were supposed to become members of the sapphire gate covens, but who went into hiding instead of turning themselves in to join another coven. Your
old friend Allison was one we searched for, but the little darling got away from us. Pity. She’s a powerful one.”
I placed my hand over my mouth. Allison had been a cheerleader in the same grade as me at Peachville High. She and her mother had disappeared shortly after Priestess Winter died, and I hadn’t heard from them since. Thank God she had managed to escape from the emerald priestess, but I felt sick thinking of all the girls who had died.
“So many have sacrificed so much to bring us here to this moment, and unless you want to see another of your allies sliced up to hold us through for another hour, I suggest you hand me that sapphire ring.”
I slid the sapphire ring from my finger and tossed it through the air toward the priestess. It landed at her feet with a clanging sound, and she raised an eyebrow at me.
“So much fire and passion,” she said. “You would have made a very good Prima, you know.”
She lifted her hand and the ring rose from the ground.
In order to reopen the gates, she would have to perform the original ceremony the sisters had used to open the five gates. She needed five items to complete it. A chalice. A dagger. A necklace. A ring. And a master stone.
Four of those items now sat on a small table at Priestess Evers’s side. I knew from experience that the master stone was inside her body, serving as her heart, and fueling her evil.
“We’re almost ready to begin,” she said. “All I need now is my daughter.”
“Your daughter?” I asked, looking around the room.
“Sophie, dear, can you come inside, please?”
I turned toward the door and the young girl I thought I’d saved from the ruins of a sapphire gate came walking down the steps and into the room.
At her breast, she wore the emerald scarab pin.
My fingers went numb, and I felt like I could hardly breathe.
She smiled at me and then walked to her mother. They clasped hands.
“One thing you learn when you rule over thousands of witches for two centuries is that the most valuable commodity is trust,” Priestess Evers said. “If you can get your enemy to trust someone close to you, then you can always betray them when the moment is right.”
Emerald Darkness Page 19