And they mounted their horses, and they turned from each other, and they each galloped off in a different direction.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Pestilence
Pestilence rode to the river and raised a bow, notched it with a poisoned arrow. She shot it into the flowing water, which turned from crystal clear to a murky green. Next, she shot an arrow to the sky and issued a pulse of power. The air grew thick and noxious and spread outward across the plains and over the mountains.
Poison and disease, the same she’d felt living inside her every day of her life. Different than the rest, treated like some sort of lesser being. Constantly degraded, until she had believed it herself. Now all could feel that selfsame torture.
She rode next to the train station, and as she galloped past the train stopped there, she fired an arrow into each cargo carriage. Then, with a jolt of magic, she sent the train moving down the tracks toward Denver.
Airships came next, she summoned them forth from their journeys across the sky and she infected each and every one of them, then sent them forth again to travel the land.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Famine
Famine rode from field to field, orchard to orchard. Fields of wheat and beans and berries. Orchards of apples and peaches and cherries. At each she paused, raised her scales of justice, and shriveled the green things that grew there, the things that brought nourishment and life.
She had known hunger, oh but had she known hunger. To want and want and want, and never receive. To feel an emptiness inside that could never be filled, a vast chasm, a darkness like the rips she left behind her as she rode. They would all feel the pain that she had felt, the desperate longing for fulfillment.
She ruined the soil, too, so that nothing could grow there again. Cast her magic far, felt it burrow through the earth, spreading from tree to tree. On and on and on until the world was as empty as she was.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Death
Death sat on her pale horse south of town and watched it all unfold.
All her life she’d thought she had control, had the upper hand. It had all been a lie. She’d been nothing but an object to them all, a pretty face and nothing more, a tool at their disposal. And now, as she watched it all crumble, she smiled.
Behind her, a mass of writhing skeletons stood, awaiting her command. Men, women, children. Those that had been white, and black, and native. Color didn’t matter when you were dead; we are all the same in the end. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, and more coming. Those who had fallen in the hundreds and thousands of years before. From sickness or battle or old age. And not just people, but animals, too. Bears and mountain lions and wolves and deer and eagles.
She heard it then, the call of something from another time, something ancient. Trapped beneath the earth, under layers and layers of sediment and rock. Death turned to the north and raised a hand, sent forth her dark magic. Cleared a path, increased the strength of her call.
Even from miles away, she could hear the top of the mountain explode. Her blood thrilled in her veins as it came toward her, closer and closer and closer.
It screamed as it flew over Hawk’s Hollow, a cry that shattered the sky, a sound that shivered the souls of everyone who heard it. It circled once over the town, and then the bone dragon landed at the feet of its mistress with a resounding boom.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The dragon acted as a beacon, and the four Riders gathered together and watched the chaos they had wrought.
“What next?” Famine asked, and they all looked to War.
“Next we do what we do best: we ride.” She was beautiful and terrifying to behold, lit from within by her fury. “This place is just the beginning.”
The air shimmered around them, then, and there came the sound of wings.
A host of angels stood before them, a couple dozen at least. At the center stood an angel with pale skin and golden wings. He smiled beatifically and spread his arms in a gesture of welcome.
“Well done, Riders,” said the angel, his words wrapping around them like velvet. “You are true warriors of Heaven. Here, today, you have initiated a vital cleansing of the earth. A cleansing of souls.”
The Riders looked at each other, and at the angels. They could share thoughts now, so they conversed without words.
“He’s not lying,” said Pestilence. “Our magic feels the same as their magic. We are from them.”
Confusion pulsed off of War. “From Heaven? From angels?” Something inside of her flickered, some emotion from the woman she had been.
“This is our purpose,” Death intoned. “The Apocalypse. A new beginning.”
Famine had gone still, her head cocked to the side. “Something isn’t right… I remember…”
But the angel spoke again before her mind could settle on the thought.
“I am Alinar,” he said, and his silver halo pulsed with a bright light.
“What would you have us do, Alinar?” asked War. Her flaming mount pawed one hoof at the ground beneath them.
The angel spread his arms wide to indicate the destruction around them. “You have already begun. Now you ride forth, in Heaven’s name.”
The four Riders eyed the angels. Famine startled as she recognized two of the angels as the thieves from her stable. Pestilence saw a beautiful, black-haired angel, the woman who had paid her entry at the rodeo. Death saw several faces familiar to her, though they looked completely transformed now, the men who had harassed her at the arena. And War recognized one in particular.
Eyes the blue of a river, hair of deepest night.
“Evolution is a messy business, I’m afraid,” Alinar continued. “We stand before you to congratulate you on your birth to a higher form. It was necessary to push you through darkness before you could reach the light.” He nodded to the angels on each side of him. “But now we can all join together in this battle for the souls of mankind.”
War ripped her eyes from the angel who had crushed her heart. “Mankind?” she echoed. “In Heaven’s name?”
A ripple of movement stirred the angels.
“Of course,” Alinar said, his halo pulsing again. “Heaven granted you these powers, so it is for Heaven you will use them.”
“I remember now,” Famine whispered in the minds of the other three.
She remembered the girl she had been, the girl who had suffered so, the girl who prayed dutifully every day and attended every church service without fail. And she remembered the winged being from the church, the words he had spoken. The being she had thought was an angel.
But he wasn’t here before them now.
The other Riders watched her thoughts, her memories, and together they listened to the words from the church that day.
“What I’m about to tell you will be vital in the coming days,” said the winged being. “But I’m afraid you won’t remember this conversation, not until you need to. Now hear my words…”
He paused.
“Heaven and Hell have been locked in battle for eternity, a battle for souls. The Apocalypse is Heaven’s way of tipping the scales in their favor. A reaping of souls. A cleansing, they will call it. Necessary for the survival of humanity, they’ll say.”
“But aren’t you an angel?” Felicity asked.
“What I am is not important.” The being shook his head. “What you must remember, when the time comes, is this: you have a choice. Heaven does not control you. No one controls you. Humanity, good and bad, messy and beautiful, terrible and wonderful, with all its flaws and imperfections, is worth saving.”
And then, with a sound of wings, the being was gone.
The Riders watched all of this inside Famine’s head in the blink of an eye.
Each of them remembered, for just the most fleeting of moments, their own humanity. Pestilence remembered her clan, a white wolf, sage smoke beneath the moon. Death remembered a cool breeze over her skin, patting her horse’s sweaty shoulder after a hard ride. War remembered the
wonder of the dragonflies in the gun shop, the whir of their wings and the tick-tick-tick as they counted time. And Famine remembered the feel of thick pages beneath her fingers, the smell of ink and hay and sunshine.
There was pain, too, and loss, and soul-splitting agony. But their choice was made.
“Are you ready, then?” Alinar said. “To continue the grand mission you have begun? To explore the full potential of your power?”
War stepped forward, flames flaring around her. “It seems to us that Heaven is only interested in using us, just as we’ve been used by everyone else in our lives.”
And everything froze. Quite literally.
Alinar, brow furrowed, arm raised in the air. The other angels, varying expressions of disbelief and anger on their faces. The town behind them, that moments before had been a writhing nest of chaos, smoke, and fire.
A new being materialized before them. Brown skin, silver hair, red wings. He gazed on them with golden eyes, and Famine gasped.
“You!”
The other Riders recognized him from her memory. The being from the church.
“I prayed that you would make this choice,” the being said, and he bowed his head to them. “I am only here because you did.”
Famine pointed at him. “But in the church that day, your wings were golden!”
“A necessary deceit,” he said apologetically.
“We’ve been seeing a lot of that lately,” War growled, and the earth rumbled beneath her feet.
“What exactly are you?” Pestilence said, raising her bow and pointing it at him.
Death gazed upon him stoically. “A demon, by the looks of it.”
“Exactly why I disguised the color of my wings that day,” the being said. “I am neither angel nor demon, or perhaps you could say I am both. I am Fallen.”
“Fallen?” Famine questioned.
“I reject the authority of both Heaven and Hell,” he said. “I am here because there are those of us who wish to save humanity, not cleanse it. You can call me Beziel.”
Chapter Forty
“So, Beziel,” Death said, “What is it the Fallen want from us?”
He fell silent for several moments. “Before I can answer that, you must know the history behind all of this. You know of the battle between Heaven and Hell, the battle that has raged for eternity.” The sadness in his eyes felt palpable. “They’ve tried to start this war before, with other Riders, Riders who come from Heaven itself. But this time they used humans. Because who better to destroy the earth than its own inhabitants? You, shall we say, know the territory?”
The Riders cast each other glances. “Go on,” said War.
“The angels, as is typical of their kind, bound you in a magical contract without telling you they were doing it,” Beziel said. “But a contract isn’t truly valid unless both parties agree to it.”
“Meaning, we can still say no,” Famine said.
“But what would happen if we do that?” Death asked.
Pestilence’s eyes flashed. “Would we have to give up this power?”
Their thoughts flickered and merged between them. They couldn’t go back. Not now. Not after everything they had been through. The earth began to shake beneath them as their anger surged.
Beziel raised his hands in a placating gesture. “That’s not actually what we want you to do.”
Four sets of eyes locked onto the Fallen, and even at his age, older than time itself, he felt the power behind that collective gaze, and it made him flinch deep inside.
“We want you to keep your powers,” Beziel said. “Need you to keep them. We just want you to use them for our side. To stop both Heaven and Hell. But without letting them know you’re working for us.” His eyes roved over each of them in turn. “Double agents.”
“Double agents?” Famine echoed.
The Riders each looked at each other, unspoken words passing between them.
“There are conditions,” War said.
“Of course,” Beziel said. “State them.”
“We don’t want to work for your side, or any side. Our time of being used by others is over. But,” and she gazed on him with flame-filled eyes, “It appears our goals may align at the moment. We don’t want to destroy everything.”
And that part of each of them that was now more than human flared. With the magic had come knowledge, a vast knowledge that spanned all of time. They knew so much. So much more than their short human lives. It was as if the magic was another being living inside them. They saw the span of human history pass before their eyes, and fury rose within them. Some suffering was due. Some vengeance. Many wrongs had been done, and justice had to be served.
“I can see your struggle,” Beziel said, his golden eyes glowing softly. “Your darkness. You possessed it as humans, as all humans do, and now it is so much more. You are so much more. But hope also lives within you. Joy. Love. You must battle to find a balance within, or the battle out there—” he waved his arm across the sky— “is already lost.”
The Riders thought on this. On their lives before. On their transformation. On the things they had already done. Reality was already unraveling beneath their fingertips…
“I don’t know how we can possibly undo this damage,” Pestilence said, and a shiver of horror ran through her.
“The Apocalypse has already begun,” Death said. “Can we even stop it now?”
“No,” Beziel said. “You can’t. Not yet, or else Heaven and Hell will realize you’ve changed sides.”
Famine cocked her head to the side. “You want us to… let the Apocalypse happen?”
The Fallen’s wings flared out behind him. “In order to win this war, once and for all, there’s only one thing that can be done. I’m not saying I want you to let the Apocalypse happen.”
He paused, pulled on the reserves of strength within him to utter the unspeakable.
“I’m saying you must first make the Apocalypse worse.”
The Riders stared at him.
“Now,” said Beziel, “Listen very carefully. Here’s what you need to do next.”
THE END
Read book two, A Death of Music
Acknowledgements
A huge thank you to Marsha Hartford Sapp, the most badass horsewoman I know. Thanks for being an awesome trainer and friend all these years. Max and I wouldn’t have made it this far without you. And for the fog machine!
I’m so grateful to Ash Mancuso, incredible horsewoman, filmmaker, and yoga instructor. I had no idea what a transformative creative journey making the book trailer would be, and you were a stellar guide and friend every step of the way.
For all the other women at Southern Oaks Equestrian Center. My horsewomen. My posse. You know who you are.
And of course for Max, the pale horse of my heart. A little piece of my soul goes into each book I create, but the biggest piece lives inside of this equine. Way too clever and handsome for his own good, and he knows it.
Books by A.A. Chamberlynn
The Four Horsewomen Series
A War of Daisies (Book 1)
A Death of Music (Book 2)
A Famine of Crows (Book 3)
A Pestilence of Pride (Book 4)
The Zyan Star Series
Martinis with the Devil (Book 1)
Whiskey and Angelfire (Book 2)
Vengeance and Vermouth (Book 3)
Black Magic and Mojitos (Prequel Novelette)
Sorcery and Sidecars (Origin Story Novella)
The Quinn Chronicles (A Zyan Star Spin-off Series)
Death and Dating (Book 1)
Death and Promises (Book 2)
Death and Eternity (Book 3)
The Timekeeper’s War Series
Huntress Found (Book 1)
Huntress Lost (Book 2)
Huntress at War (Book 3)
Other Books by A.A. Chamberlynn
Of Blood, Earth, and Magic
www.AlexiaChamberlynn.com
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A land ravished by magic, a circus of rebels, a girl with a deadly secret.
There was a time when the Tribes lived in harmony. Sun, Moon, even the fabled Shadow Tribe. That time is no longer. Now the land has become a wicked wasteland, plagued by strange creatures, enchanted storms, and bubbles of trapped time, remnants of the Shaman Wars. Magic has been outlawed by the Sun, the Moon have gone into seclusion, and the Shadow are all but annihilated.
For Elea, the idea of peace between the tribes is a nothing more than a legend from the history books. She works for a circus of outcasts who travel between the Sun cities. All she wants is freedom: from the circus, to perform her magic, to be herself. But she possesses a deadly secret that makes any chance of liberty impossible.
Ashe is heir to one of the seven Sun cities. He rebels against his overprotective father by competing in illegal fight dens. Like most Sun, he believes that science is the future, and he's never traveled outside the walls of his city due to the dangers that lie beyond.
When a new kind of evil begins to terrorize the land, Elea and Ashe find themselves thrown into the center of a coup that could destroy Iamar. To fight the enemy, the Sun and Moon must unite, something that hasn't been done in three hundred years. But first they must find the Moon Tribe, and that means crossing Iamar, which grows more and more unstable as the dark magic spreads. Dark magic which has everything to do with Elea and her terrible secret.
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A War of Daisies Page 16