The Turquoise Tower (Revenant Wyrd Book 6)

by Travis Simmons

  When he looked up again his face had changed. The dirt was gone, and his skin was creamy, like caramel, and just as smooth. His eyes sparkled like a river in the depths of his sockets.

  “What are you?” Angelica asked. But she knew. She didn’t need to ask what he was.

  “Come,” he stepped forward, putting his arms around their shoulders. “It’s time you see who is there, on the dais.”

  Though they hadn’t felt it, and they didn’t move their feet, they were suddenly standing in the altar room, staring down at the three figures on the floor, their hands fused together.

  “Oh no,” Jovian said, sinking to his knees.

  “But how is this possible?” Angelica asked, staring down at her own prone figure, her hands interlinked with Jovian’s and Amber’s.

  “No, no, no,” Jovian whispered over and over, rocking back and forth on his heels. Even as he did so, his clothes melted away, drifting like water across the floor of the dais, merging with the purelight rushing out of the tower, to be replaced with a white robe.

  Angelica didn’t need to look down to know the same change was coming over her.

  “Russel, what’s going on?”

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered to her. Behind him three beings grew out of the air. They were beings of light, and all three familiar, even if Jovian couldn’t see them yet. “This is your darkest hour.”

  “Death?” Angelica said. And the moment she said it, she knew it was true.

  The figures behind him emerged from their cocoons of light.

  Amber stepped forth, more radiant than they ever remembered her being. Hair like sunlight flowed down between her folded white wings. A robe, pristine and seemingly made of light, cascaded around her lithe form.

  She smiled at Angelica, and reached for Jovian.

  “You two were so brave,” she whispered. Angelica took her sister’s hand, and Jovian followed suit. He was weak still, tears streaming form his face. “To face such odds, just to save me. It was all in vain, however. I would have told you if I could. I’d been dead for some time. In that Arael was right.”

  And then a vision overcame them. They watched Amber running through the Sacred Forest, casting her gaze back the way she came. There was fear in their heart, and they knew it was the fear their sister had felt. Fear that Porillon would find her, or worse, that she would find the medallion she had left in the Lunimara for her siblings.

  For a moment she had slipped through the bonds Arael held over her body. He was still trying to cast her out. She had taken over her form once more, and needed to get as far away from the Mirror of the Moon as possible. She had to get away, she had to make it home before the darkness inside of her could rear its ugly head once more. She knew what it was, had known what was inside of her since she’d sensed him during her elemental trials. It had always been with her, it was the other half of her soul, the part that corrupted her and at times, drove her to do things she normally wouldn’t have done before.

  The force was Arael.

  As if thinking his name called him forth, Amber stumbled to the ground, losing strength.

  From out of the forest before her there came a hideous cackle that Jovian recognized at once. Before the green orbs appeared, he knew what it was. Black shuck.

  The dalua dog stepped out of the forest before his sister. She looked up into its ape face, studying the tusks that framed either side of its head, and screamed. The black shuck laughed once, and lunged at her. But it didn’t attack. Instead, it burst into wyrd and surrounded her, seeking entry to her body through whatever orifice it could find. As it sank into her, it called forth the power of the Beast inside of her.

  She railed against the intrusion, the trees feeling the might of her wyrd, but it was to no avail. As the ground tore under her with her wyrded struggle, and the trees splintered apart, Arael took her. He rode her body, driving out every ounce of what had made her Amber, and infused himself into every part of her.

  “See,” Sylvie said, drawing them back to the present. “There was a fatal flaw in what I had done. I had killed Arael in hatred. And in hatred his power lies.”

  They remembered her saying something of the sort before.

  “Through my hatred he gained entry into my body, waiting for the day I would become pregnant. For some reason he knew that I would. I never fully realized that he was inside of me until the night I gave birth to you, my children. At the time I knew he had won, he had found entry to the body of my firstborn, Amber. But not only that, through the exchange he had deadened a part of my body, killed two of the adversaries he would’ve had to face once he came to power.”

  Sylvie reached out to Angelica and Jovian, her hands cupping their faces, her dazzling wings treading the air without thought.

  “The two of you were born dead. And I knew why. I knew that Joya couldn’t face this alone, that one lone survivor wouldn’t be able to stand against him. But there was no way I could give her any kind of power, for she was marked for something more: Realm Guardian. Even then the Shadow Realm brewed within her. I couldn’t slip in.

  “So it was you, my poor, dead children, whom I sought to infuse with the power needed to face the threat that would become of Amber. I only had strength to pray to the Goddess, work that one bit of wyrd that every mother has: love. I gave myself over to you, imbuing you with the strength you would need, and unfortunately cursing you to a fate similar to my own.”

  “And I knew none of this,” Dauin said, and they all laughed. “My task was simple: to love you and raise you as best as I could. If I had known Arael lived once more, I would have raised you differently, given you different gifts.”

  “You raised us the best you could,” Angelica said.

  “And we would have had it no other way,” Jovian said. “You gave us something to fight for. You taught us what love was, and gave us the power to drive us forward, to protect where we could, and to defend our family until our dying breath.” Jovian had to stop talking then, because his voice cracked.

  They all embraced.

  “So we are dead?” Jovian asked, pulling away from his parents.

  “What is death, really?” Russel asked, stepping forward. “The Goddess told me to watch over you, and bring you home to her when the time came. But these words came with her message: nothing is ever truly destroyed, nor is it created. It changes form. It becomes what it was always meant to be.”

  “This isn’t a death,” Sylvie said, letting her children go. “This is a birth.”

  Russel stepped forward, clasped Jovian behind the head, and slanted his mouth over Jovian’s. In that embrace Jovian felt all the love he had ever felt for Maeven, all of the worry and grief of leaving the other man behind, melt away as a sea of tranquility washed over him from Russel’s lips.

  Death breathed a new life into him. In that breath Jovian smelled the potential for the future, the promise of his soul. And then Russel was gone.

  Jovian opened his eyes and gazed out on a field dappled with millions of flowers, all different colors, all different kinds. There was a tree in that field, though he knew it wasn’t his tree to call home. Behind the field, over the peaks of mountains, rose a towering city of radiant light.

  He felt a presence at his side, and Angelica came to stand beside him.

  “So that’s Her Kingdom?” Angelica asked, her voice filled with awe.

  “That’s the Ever After,” Amber said, stepping between her brother and sister. “Come, they’re expecting you.”

  “Who?” Jovian asked. His hand found solace in Amber’s. It was great to have found her once more. Though there was grief in his heart for Maeven, he was filled with the knowledge that before he could truly blink, Maeven would be with him once more.

  “Everyone,” Amber told him.

  “What happened?” Joya asked once the vibration in the earth ended. The tower stood in two halves, about half a mile apart, and in the center, sunk slightly in the dirt, was the altar room.

  When
the vibrations started, the black-winged angels had fled.

  “I can only imagine it means we won?” Joya asked again, but Cianna wasn’t answering her. Her cousin stared off into space, horror etched on the planes of her face.

  “What is it?” Joya asked. She didn’t need to ask. She could feel it nearly as strongly as Cianna could. Though she wasn’t a necromancer, something stronger bound her to her family: blood.

  “But. . . ” her voice cracked, and she crumpled to her knees. “How?”

  Cianna crouched beside her and gathered Joya into her arms as her younger cousin cried over the loss of her brother and sisters.

  There was a flash of light, and when Joya raised her head to look, a figure that could have been herself strode across the bloodied ground toward her.

  “Joya,” the raven-haired figure said, kneeling beside her. “My dear, sweet niece. I’m so sorry.”

  Joya choked back her tears, dashed them from her eyes, and stood.

  “Pharoh,” Joya said, settling her wings about her.

  Her aunt reached for her, but Joya wouldn’t take her hands. She stepped away from her aunt. She was a sorceress, and after all, the greatness of her power was purchased with the death of those around her. Surviving while those she loved withered and died around her. At least now they wouldn’t wither.

  A wave of grief swam up to consume her. With a force of will, Joya pushed it back down.

  “What happened?” Joya asked her.

  Pharoh explained everything she had learned from her sister, Sylvie, at the moment of Angelica and Jovian’s death. Joya remembered the vision on the glass they had seen in Vorustum-Apaleer. When Sylvie had killed Arael, he’d turned to smoke, and that smoke had gathered up around their mother. That must have been when he slipped in.

  Joya felt sick to her stomach.

  “And I blame you.” Joya said. Pharoh wouldn’t look up to meet her niece’s eyes. Power rippled from Joya, and for a moment she wished her aunt would look up at her, argue with her, because Joya would have liked nothing more than to lash out at Pharoh. “You were the weak one. You were the one who gave in to Arael in the first place. You paved the way for all of this to happen. I blame you for their deaths. Don’t ever visit me again, Pharoh LaFaye. You aren’t welcome here.”

  Joya turned from her aunt, unfolding her white wings.

  “Joya,” Cianna said. “Where are you going?”

  “I have a duty,” Joya said, steeling her resolve.

  “Joya,” Cianna said, her voice weaker this time. “They were also my family.”

  Despite her resolve, a sob broke free. Tears washed over her face again, and she stumbled.

  Cianna grasped her cousin tight, easing her to the ground. She rocked her, whispering comforting words into her ear.

  In time Maeven found his way to them, having already surveyed the wreckage of the tower. His eyes were red, his nose running. He stood over Joya, grinding his teeth against the pain he felt swelling through his heart. His arms were clasped tight around his chest, as if he would hold that pain inside, clinging to it, holding that last part of Jovian to his heart.

  Joya reached for him, taking his cold, bloodied hand in her own. He pulled her up to him and held her tight. There was something inside of him still that she recognized. Jovian. Her brother had loved this man, had given his heart to him, and had promised the wyrd of his future. In that Joya could feel her brother, and she took solace in Maeven.

  She reached behind her and sought Cianna’s hand. This was her family now. Her cousin, and the man her brother had sworn his heart to.

  “He loved you,” Joya said, running a hand through Maeven’s hair. “With every fiber of his being.”

  Fresh tears coursed over Maeven’s face, and he looked away from her, unwilling to let her see him cry.

  “For what it’s worth, Maeven Beggets, you will always be my brother. It’s what Jovian wanted.”

  Maeven nodded, his jaws bunching as his teeth ground harder.

  “I would be honored to call you sister.” His voice was thick, his words nearly incomprehensible.

  “Where will you go from here?” Cianna asked him.

  “I don’t know. Rosalee might need me.”

  “You are always welcome in the Spire of Night,” Joya told him. She unfolded her wings, and stepped away from Maeven. “Rest there with me for a time?”

  “I think I would like that,” Maeven agreed.

  As the Realm of Water came to life that evening, the sun restored to its splendor and finally sinking into the western horizon, people looked skyward to see a procession of angels and one golden eagle soaring through the air to the Holy Realm.

  The pyre was built in the ruins of Lytoria. Upon the stack of wood had been laid Caldamron, Clara, the High Votary, Annbell, and Astanel. On a separate pyre rested Angelica and Jovian, their wings wrapped around their bodies like shrouds against the pallor of death.

  Joya surveyed the bodies of their dead, laid out on piles of oak, lilac flowers like pillows under their heads. She choked back the tears she had felt growing ever since she had come to Lytoria and seen Grace once more. She had embraced the old woman, and had allowed herself time to grieve. But grieving was over. She was a different person now. She was the Guardian of Shadows, and there would be time, when doors were closed, that she could let down her defenses.

  “We commit to smoke this day the bodies of warriors who pushed back the tide of darkness from our lands. Brave people who gave their lives so that we could live. . .”

  Joya’s mind went blank with the words. The votary didn’t truly know these people; he was only saying what he thought others needed to hear. But that wasn’t good enough. Not for Angelica and Jovian.

  Joya let her hand slip out of Grace’s and stepped forward. The votary fell silent and stepped aside, the Carloso clasped close to his chest. Everyone watched Joya as she bent first over Angelica, resting her lips against the cold waxy lips of her sister. Tears sparkled in her eyes. She moved to Jovian, brushing aside stray locks of his golden hair, and laid lips to his cheek.

  She moved to where the votary had been and laced her hands behind her back, settling her white wings behind her as deftly as shrugging tense shoulders.

  “Today we don’t just commit to smoke brave warriors. Today we lay to rest people who lived, and who loved. We put to rest those we have loved who were brave enough, who loved enough, to know that when darkness threatened to sweep us all asunder, there was no option but to answer with force and drive it back.

  “But more than that, we put to rest family. We put to rest people who have touched all of our lives in so many ways. To say that I knew completely who Angelica and Jovian were would be a lie. I shared holidays with them, I shared jokes with them, and even classes that we hated. I also shared a journey, a hope to find my sister Amber alive and well. But to say I knew them completely isn’t true. You see, Angelica and Jovian shared many things with many people. We could ask anyone what they remembered of them, and they would all have different stories, different parts of these people they carried with them.

  “Each of these people will live on in us. They will remain steadfast in the realms, alive in our hearts. We will take them into every moment of happiness, and every moment of sorrow. We will be their faces, we will be the people that carry them to new heights and new experiences.”

  Joya swallowed heavily and looked deep into Maeven’s red-rimmed eyes.

  “But you can’t remember a hero for their bravery alone. Angelica and Jovian weren’t always brave. They were afraid a lot of their journey. They were afraid of failing, they were afraid of losing their sister, and losing their family. All of which is now gone, buried in the pages of history. They faced sorrow beyond compare, and finally, they gave their lives so that others wouldn’t have to face what they had to face.

  “What makes a hero?” Joya asked, her eyes drifting back to Angelica and Jovian’s gray bodies, listless in a way she’d never seen them, never wanted t
o see them. She bit back a sob and cleared her throat before continuing. “What makes a hero is what’s in the heart. What makes a hero is for one single person to say ‘enough,’ and stand against what they know in the very fiber of their being to be wrong. A hero is fashioned out of love, because a true hero knows their life is meaningless if they lose all they love to preserve their own safety.”

  Joya stepped away then, merging once more with the crowd between Cianna and Grace. They both took her hands in theirs as the holy red copal was lit upon the smoldering coal. Red smoke drifted up into the winter air. The procession of votaries began their ritual censing of the area, and Joya let her mind wander to those she had loved, and lost.

  Her mind drifted to that night, sitting in the room she shared with Angelica, studying the herbal book her father had given her and trying to figure out why the page for Aconite had been so worn. Angelica had rested on her bed, reading through the book on philosophy, their first introduction to the prophecy of the Mask. Jovian had been poring over the book of sorcery, as if he could really read anything it said.

  She let the peace and tranquility of the moment sweep over her. That was the last innocent moment they had all shared. Before Amber had been abducted, before they realized the reason for the book of sorcery, for the reason Aconite was so important to their mother. It was the last true moment of childhood, nestled in the safety of their home surrounded by the peace and the love they thought would last forever.

  As the flames of the pyre were kindled, Joya let the fire also eat away those memories, raise them up to a place where nothing could ever harm them again. She watched the clouds race overhead, and thought of Angelica and Jovian.

  “I like that your wyrd lives inside of you now,” Rosalee said, directing Grace to a part of the apothecary, indicating she should set the herbs starting with the letter C in a certain spot for easy unloading. “I can use you like a pack mule.”