The Queen was the first to step forward, the first to kneel, and seven others followed her lead.
Chapter Eleven
Miranda came to on the floor of the ritual room, barely able to make sense of where she was before she forced herself up onto her knees and turned toward the altar, frantic.
It was Nico who first reached Stella. He was first to get up and go to her, to lift her body from where she had fallen across the altar as the last of her blood ran into the cauldron. She had slit both of her wrists and stood there bleeding to death as they made the journey across the Bridge that had been forged from her blood.
The Elf lowered her to the floor, tears streaming from his eyes, and tenderly straightened out her robe and her hair, folded her hands over her chest, and closed her sightless eyes.
He leaned his forehead to hers, shaking. Miranda could feel waves of grief over him, and she struggled to her feet to join them, dropping back to her knees on Stella’s other side to hold him, and the Witch, and weep.
A moment later she felt David’s arms around them, and Deven’s. She could feel the added love and strength of the others, but they kept their distance. They hadn’t known Stella, not like the Tetrad had.
“I have to call her father,” Miranda whispered. “What am I going to tell him? Oh, God, what will I say?”
“The truth,” David said softly. “What she told you to say.”
“She died for us…why does everyone we love have to die for us?” She wept even harder into her friend’s lifeless shoulder, bent over double with the pain.
Behind her, she heard a quiet noise of discomfort—not quite a moan, but nearly, and it broke through her grief. Miranda lifted her head. “Cora?”
The Queen looked embarrassed at interrupting. “I’m fine, my Lady. Just…a little dizzy.”
In truth, none of the others looked like they felt well, and Miranda realized why just a beat later than she should have.
“You all need to get to bed,” she said. “You’re about to change…hopefully you can go to sleep and not feel it. It wasn’t that bad for me, and Dev and Nico missed out entirely, thank God, but you’ll need rest if nothing else.”
They looked at each other in alarm. “Change…oh, God, David, I forgot all about that,” Olivia said. “I saw it happen to you. It was awful.” She looked genuinely frightened. “My first crossover I was totally unconscious.”
“We can get you drugs,” David said. “I’ll have Mo come to your suites and see if he can medicate all of you. It didn’t work for Nico because of his Elven blood, but for you it should. Like Miranda said, get to bed. I’ll have extra blood sent as well.”
Miranda lowered her eyes back to Stella’s face as she listened to the others leaving. Just before they left, though, she heard Deven speak up. “Cora…before you go…can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“You didn’t hesitate to take Persephone’s offer. What did she say to you two that made up your minds?”
Unable to deny her own curiosity Miranda looked up again in time to see Cora and Jacob exchange the strangest look she’d ever seen on either.
“Um…well…” Jacob began, but the Queen finished for him.
“It was not Persephone who persuaded us,” she said.
Deven’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh?”
Jacob nodded, looking at his Queen. “No, She…She didn’t come alone.”
“So you met Someone Else as well?”
Now, Jacob actually laughed, and there were tears in his eyes now that had nothing to do with pain, fear, or worry. He looked at Cora again, drew her close. “No, it was Someone we already knew.”
He didn’t elaborate, and Deven didn’t ask him to. Jacob and Cora were still hanging on to each other as they left.
Left alone, the Tetrad gathered around Stella again. “What should we do with her?” Deven asked softly. “It’s too late in the morning to take her anywhere and we can’t have the police come here.”
Just then there was a knock at the door, and she looked over to see two women standing in the doorway, both dressed in robes like Stella’s; Mo stood just behind them.
“Ashera,” Deven said. “Siobhan.”
“I am sorry, Hallowed One,” Ashera said, “but we were hoping we could take Stella to the temple and dress her properly—she’ll be safe there, and the others wish to pay their respects. We have a traditional blessing for those who have gone ahead…then Mo can take her to the infirmary. We’ve brought something to carry her on.”
Miranda noticed that Dev didn’t object to the title she gave him. He met Miranda’s eyes. “Is that all right with you?”
She nodded.
Ashera, Siobhan—who turned out to be one of the human Order members—and several others came in with a stretcher Miranda recognized from the clinic. Mo came in first to do a quick examination “for the record,” as he said. Human authorities cared about things like time and cause of death, and Detective Maguire certainly would.
Mo was as efficient as always, but she could see the sadness on his face as well. He’d been as fond of Stella as everyone in the Haven. It already felt like a light had gone out somewhere much more profound than this one room.
Miranda looked at the altar, at all the blood staining the cloths that covered it. She thought of Stella’s room…and Pywacket…and everything the Witch had left behind. She thought of the phone call waiting for her.
She was crying again, and David drew her close. “Come on,” he said gently. “They’ll take care of her. Let’s go make the call and get it over with…waiting won’t make it easier.”
“I’ll go with them,” Nico said. “I’ll stay with her.”
“I have something I have to do,” Deven said. “Then I’ll go wherever you need me.”
Miranda nodded. “Come to our suite,” she said. “If Nico doesn’t need you I will.”
She leaned on David, letting him be her support as he led her out of the room; behind them, the priestesses of Elysium were cleaning up the altar and seeing to Stella, who they carried between them with reverence, like a Queen.
*****
“Do you want to live, Deven?”
Nico’s face held an emotion he would never forget: Astonishment, spilling into fear…fear of him.
“What are you?” Nico whispered.
Confused, he looked down at himself.
A memory flashed: Miranda staring at the monitor, where the camera had captured only a blurry light instead of his actual shape.
Out beyond the clearing, the forest was filled with light…the same light that poured out of him now, as if he had no skin, no edges, just the watery glow of spirit barely held within the confines of a body. He held up one hand, able to see the outline of his fingers, but also right through them, to Nico who stood a few feet away.
He lifted his gaze to Persephone. He remembered Her now—She had come to him many times during those two years he’d suffered after Jonathan died. She had come to his dreams, held him, offered a shoulder when She could not give him the one thing he wanted above all else.
Death. He had wanted death.
It seemed he’d had it all along.
“Am I dead?” he asked. Even his voice was different here, as if the wind blew right through it as it did through him.
“In a way,” She replied, moving in a slow circle around him. “You know the truth, Deven. You have lived longer than any human-born creature should. Were it not for the intervention of your Tetrad you would have died, of course, but for a long time now you have been losing what held you to the Earthly plane. Nicolanai’s matrix of energy and the Signet bond are all that hold you there now. They bought you time…but that time is limited. Even a power that great cannot defeat time.”
“But if I die so will they.”
“That depends.”
He Misted to the temple, giving him a moment before the others arrived with Stella’s body. There wa
s no time to think about that, no time to let himself feel; he had to hurry, before the spell of those moments in the Forest of Spirits wore off and he had time to doubt.
“Do you want to live, Deven?”
He stared at Her. “What kind of question is that?”
“The one that matters, at present.” She came to stand in front of him again. Her gown whispered over the ground, and in Her footsteps the grass died, withered, and sprouted again, all in the space of seconds. “You have a choice.”
He laughed coldly, bitterly at the words. “No I don’t. I never have. If I die, the entire Tetrad comes with me, and the war is lost before we even truly join the battle. That’s not a choice. That’s extortion. Whoring myself out like always, just sucking a different dick.”
If She was offended by his words She gave no indication. “What if I told you that you could die, right now, walk into the Forest of Spirits and leave all the suffering of the world behind, knowing with no doubt whatsoever that those you love would survive without you?”
He stared at her without speaking, and She went on. “I am offering you peace,” She said. “A new life, perhaps, when you are ready—but for now at least, the rest you have craved for centuries. The others will live on, still bound to each other. They will grieve you, but they will not die from your loss. They will have as much help as I can give them to win the war. I give you My word that their chances will not suffer because of your death. And you know, as well as I, that they would wish you only love and peace knowing what you have been through in your life.”
The box was just where Ashera had placed it on the altar.
“What’s the catch?” he whispered, refusing to look at Nico. “This can’t be for free.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “If you choose death there is no price. Only the rest you have earned a hundred times over in your life. It is living that carries a price. You cannot remain as you are now—even with magic and bonds you will not last much longer, and even I cannot predict how long that might be. So if you return to the world of form, you will have to be changed, just as the others of the Circle who are not already Thirdborn must change. But you, child, must become something else…something new.”
At that, the light at Her throat flared, and the stone She wore—whatever it was—appeared to be something else. Labradorite.
“Hallowed,” he said. “It would mean something different for me than it did for the others.”
“It would. In taking up the Darkened Star you would become a being half of your world and half this one; anchored to the Earth by love and flesh but anchored to Me also. That balance would hold you to your life indefinitely. Serve Me, lead My children as you were called to do, and live, perhaps forever.”
“Forever…” He closed his eyes in pain at the prospect. He had seen enough of forever, lived long enough. Endless nights passed in his mind, the planet turning and turning and turning, standing so still, so still while everything turned to dust in his hands.
But to walk into the Forest…to close his eyes forever, to let it all go, lay down his sword once and for all…oh, his heart cried out for it, just to reach a little further, to step out of his body and let it crumble in the dirt.
But…
His fingers trembled as he fumbled the box open and took the Star from inside. He’d never really looked at it closely, but now he saw it—it wasn’t a pendant, at least, not on its own. It was a flat disc like the Stone of Awakening that Miranda wore, but with a stone cabochon instead of just metal. He turned it over and saw the same little hooks the Stone had. Xara must have worn it mounted to a setting, and they’d removed the setting after it spoke for him.
The first Circle had been made up of the first Signets, and one of them had founded the Order of Elysium. She had worn this, but her Signet had passed to someone else on her death, and the Darkened Star must have stayed with the Order.
Now, he looked at Nico.
The Elf’s eyes were full of tears, and they spilled over and ran silver down his face as he looked at his Prime, nodding, his voice a rough whisper. “It’s okay, i’lyren. I wouldn’t ask you to stay for me. You can go. It’s all right to go.”
Nico…oh, Nico, my love, I…
The words didn’t come in a voice anymore, they were only energy, emotion, drifting across the clearing, touching Nico as he watched his beloved fade into the shadows.
But…
He could feel himself dissolving, sweet darkness gently lifting his cells apart.
Nico…
Wait. WAIT!
He held onto himself by mere inches. He couldn’t let go yet. He needed time, there was so much to say. He wanted to hold Nico again, kiss him, feel those arms around him the way a disembodied soul could not.
And Miranda—he had to tell her goodbye. She had to know how much she had meant to him, how she had saved him over and over again just by being her. How much he admired and loved her. And David—there would never be enough time to say everything he wanted to say to David.
He would have to leave behind those nights in their suite, all four of them together, waking up just long enough to listen to everyone breathe, to feel their heartbeats all around him. He would have to leave behind Nico’s mouth on his, the shuddering desire that overtook him when they lay joined together in the dark, the heat of Nico’s breath at his throat. Hours by the fire talking about magic, literature, anything. David’s hands, dear God those hands, and the sound of Miranda’s voice as she gave new life to old songs.
The God of his humanity had abandoned him so long ago, but in a way he had made this life his new god; the taste of blood, the sweetness of long languid kisses, a quiet laugh in a firelit room. Reaching over to touch the stone in Nico’s Signet with one finger and watching its light, and the light in Nico’s eyes, dance.
He had told Jonathan, that night he’d found the sweater, that he was happy. He knew it was true even as he’d said the words, though just knowing that frightened him with its hugeness. He didn’t know how to be happy. Didn’t know how to love without constantly being afraid that love would be ripped from his hands. He didn’t know how to live without wanting to die.
But he wanted to learn.
“No,” he whispered. He could hear the words now. “Nico—Nico, take my hand.”
“Are you sure—”
“I don’t want to go. I want to stay here with you. With them. I want this, I want you. Help me.”
He felt the Elf’s joy as he felt his tears—for real, against his skin as the Elf’s arms closed around him. Nico held onto him almost too tightly for a moment, shaking, almost sobbing. They clung to each other tightly…so tightly. He felt Nico’s muscles and bones, his clothes, his breath…and he felt his own.
Not only that, but he felt Her pride as She watched him make the choice.
The Darkened Star snapped onto the back of his Signet with almost no pressure. It was as if it had been waiting for the chance to do exactly that.
He could still remember the feeling of being chosen as Prime, and the feeling of bonding to Jonathan—that surge of power, the tidal wave of strength and bliss as connections that had always existed within him flew open and filled, empty places now overfull.
That feeling was nothing to this. Now, not only was he bound to those who wore the Signets that linked to his, but to She who had made them all, whose love and strength were just beyond the edge of his vision, waiting, that darkness flooding everything he was or had ever been, cleansing the sorrow of his old life away and leaving behind something new, someone made up of every moment of his past but not bound by any of it.
In the darkness of his closed eyes he could See now what Miranda Saw, the Dark Web, reaching out all around in endless strands crossed and crisscrossed from one end of creation to the other. The rush of wings battered him from all sides, and he opened his arms to it, feeling those wings touch every inch of his skin, feather and bone merging with his.
He wasn’
t sure when exactly he hit the ground, but he knew that Ashera and the others found him on the floor in front of the altar, surrounded by a vortex of power that gradually sank into the ground and ebbed into the Web from whence it had come. He listened without moving as she calmly directed the others to place Stella on a draped table they had prepared as soon as they realized the Witch had died.
A moment later he felt warm hands on his shoulders. “My Lord…can you hear me?”
He managed a nod. Everything was swimming around him; he didn’t dare open his eyes yet.
Still, he knew the presence that appeared at the door as well as he knew his own soul. “Deven!”
Nico knelt beside him and, with Ashera’s help, uncurled him and helped him sit up. The solidity of their bodies and their energy was reassuring, and he let them move him about like a doll until he was reasonably upright.
“Are you all right?” Nico asked softly in his ear. “I felt…it. What do you need?”
Deven took a long, deep breath, feeling the strange new power in his skin settle around him like wings folding over his back. He wouldn’t be entirely surprised if that was a literal description now.
“I think I’m okay,” he said. Thankfully his voice sounded exactly like it should, if a little shaky. “But I might need a nap.”
Nico laughed weakly. “I wouldn’t say no to one either.”
Ashera was smiling at him, and she reached up to touch his face. “Welcome, Hallowed One,” she said.
He smiled back. “The hand of the Raven Mother be upon you,” he said automatically.
Her smile grew. “Can we help you up, my Lord?”
He nodded, and she and Nico helped him to his feet. He could feel the others staring, clustered around Stella, and when he turned to them, they knelt as one.
Shadow Rising (The Shadow World Book 7) Page 23