Shadow Rising (The Shadow World Book 7)

by Dianne Sylvan

  “No, you’re the one who’s so insanely damned beautiful,” Nico replied mildly, eyes sparkling. Their hands touched when Nico passed him one of the Hallowed Diaries that had ended up on the floor, and for a moment they just held each other’s gazes.

  “Not to mention I now have a whole new way to send you writhing into orbit,” Nico added, opening the Codex again and lowering his eyes to its pages. “You always had the advantage over me in that regard, but now, an ear for an ear.”

  Deven felt the ears in question growing warm at the thought. They’d always been sensitive, but now…good Lord. Just thinking about Nico’s tongue—

  Nico pretended not to notice him shifting in his seat. “So much to learn,” Nico noted, running his fingers along the lines of the Codex, pausing to slowly follow a hand-drawn spiral adornment with his index finger.

  “You bastard.”

  Nico laughed. “The fact that you have any energy at all after that is a little scary.”

  Deven opened the diary he’d been paging through before they’d pounced on each other and stared sightlessly at the words for a moment. “I don’t really know what to do with it all, to be honest.”

  He’d spent the last two days trying to get used to a body that was the same one he’d always known but still something else entirely; it felt like each cell had been copied exactly out of some new material. Everything still worked exactly like it should—his muscles responded with the same speed and agility they had before, and he had the same grace and coordination he’d gained from centuries of fight-training. Holding a pen or an Elf, every movement was what he remembered, but…

  He stared down at one hand, flexing and bending the fingers a few times. Just the same. But…

  “Was any of that…different?” he finally asked, almost afraid for the answer.

  Nico looked up at him. “Yes and no.”

  “I need more than that.”

  The Elf smiled softly. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “You’re still you, my love. Those are still your hands—they’ve taken life, and given life, and given so much to me. The way you touched me is the same. The weight of your body is the same. You shiver the same, grip my shoulders the same. You even moan the same words in Gaelic.”

  “Then what’s different?”

  “It’s hard to say,” Nico replied, lifting one eyebrow mischievously. “I’m afraid I’ll need more data.”

  Deven put his head in his hands, frustrated. “I’m serious, Nico.”

  “So am I. That was the first time since the Solstice, after all. We’ve both been too tired for much else, which is why I was so surprised when you jumped on me.”

  “I think it was a mutual jumping.”

  “Fair enough.” Nico reached over and took one hand, drawing it away from his face, ensuring Deven was looking at him. “You have changed, yes. But you are still you. The only analogy I can come up with at the moment is…” His eyes lit up a bit as it came to him. “In the Temple in Avilon there were four statues of Theia representing the seasons. They were carved centuries ago and have inspired our people with their beauty all those years. But once a year they were thoroughly scrubbed and polished. Layers of incense smoke and candle soot were removed, and they gleamed like new. Like you.”

  Deven considered that, eyes moving down to their joined hands. “Still me but I’ve had a bath.”

  “In a manner of speaking. You feel like you’ve been polished, renewed. And yes, it’s strange—look at how long you had to accumulate those layers of sadness and the dirt of living. They must have weighed a ton.”

  “They did.” He moved his gaze up his left forearm, to where there had been tattoos for decades but was now nothing…or, not nothing…a blank canvas.

  Nico’s arm wasn’t blank; it had the long, scrolling lines of the tattoos that curved along the entire side of his body.

  In his mind’s eye he saw lines forming on his own arm, an echo of Nico’s. Not exactly the same pattern but complementary.

  Nico saw his expression and grinned. “There you go.”

  Deven let out a breath he hadn’t meant to hold and nodded. “Thank you.”

  Again, their eyes met, moonlight for moonlight. Nico sent a pulse of love and understanding along their bond, and this time Deven’s sigh was much more relaxed. It was so like Nico to know what to say, and how to say it, to get through Deven’s centuries of issues and strike to the heart of him.

  He’d always had that talent. To think there had ever been a time Deven had denied loving him.

  “Back to work?” Nico asked.

  Deven smiled and nodded. “You were about to tell me about the Gate spell, I think.”

  Nico smiled sweetly back and turned the Codex around to face him. “Yes, of course. As I said, the first Circle along with their allies spread across the globe to create the Signet system and bring the Shadow World to order. The Circle was devoted to each other, however—some were lovers, all were close friends, and did not wish to be parted. There were no airplanes or internet back then…but they had this.”

  Deven scrutinized the diagram and its attached set of instructions. The diagram had always been there but until the Solstice, everything around the image had been basically the Elvish equivalent of lorem ipsum, so they’d had no idea what the diagram was for. “A permanent portal.”

  “Exactly. They created these in their Havens, keyed so that only those who were part of the Circle could use them. We can do the same—one end anchored here, one at the new Cloister or the new Elven settlement. Then you can divide your time between the Tetrad and the Cloister, and I can visit my mother whenever I want, in a matter of minutes. Also, if you look at this second diagram, I can build one that serves as a permanent endpoint for any Gate spell. I’d still have to create the portal each time but it could be anchored in that terminus, which would make it more stable and less draining for me.”

  Deven nodded again, pleased. “That does solve a lot of potential problems. And if you can get it up and running before we have to relocate the Elves it will make moving them far less traumatic.”

  “Exactly. It’ll take me a while to learn the spell well enough to try it. It’s based on the one I use already, but uses the Dark Web, and I haven’t worked with that enough to be confident in my anchoring. But I can do it.”

  “That’s fantastic. Definitely add that to the report.”

  The Circle was planning to meet for official Codex-related business the next night once Miranda had rested from her work with the possessed human tonight and the other two Pairs were feeling well recovered from their transition. Nico had volunteered to do the first read-through of the whole Codex now that it was decoded, and had been making a long list of important items to impart to the others—like the real history of the first Morningstar war, more information on the key players, and more about the Circle’s members.

  There was one in particular Deven knew had surprised Nico: the Hallowed he had mentioned—the woman who founded the Order of Elysium—as well as her Consort, who had founded the Swords of Elysium, were both what the Codex called Dark Elves.

  “They were like us,” Nico had said in a half-whisper. “Long before the Elves were massacred by humanity, they and the vampires were still allies. Some of Theia’s children felt called to Another’s touch and became vampires themselves. Back then they weren’t considered abominations, just different. There was even a Dark Temple in one of the earliest Sanctuaries.”

  “What happened to them all?” Deven had asked. “Why aren’t there any left in the Order?”

  “Once Persephone was imprisoned, Her influence grew weak over Her children. Vampires forgot the Order, their Creatrix, everything. When the Inquisition came around some of the human heretic-hunters hired vampires to help wipe out Elven clans. As the Elves fled to the Sanctuaries and sealed them away, any trace of the Dark Elves was driven out. Most would have been murdered by the Inquisition just like the other Elves. Perhaps a few surv
ived in the Cloisters for a while. Beyond that, I do not know.”

  “You mean your Enclave might have known about Dark Elves the entire time and excommunicated you anyway, without even telling you there had been others?” Anger, hot and fierce, ignited in Deven’s chest, thinking of the grief Nico had suffered because of his supposed people.

  “I imagine they didn’t want me to know,” Nico had replied, eyes bright. “I represented something that terrified them…and if the Codex is right they knew there would be a time when Dark Elves would appear once more. My coming meant more than just an immediate threat, it meant everything they knew was about to change forever.”

  “As opposed to the change Morningstar brought by destroying Avilon.” Disgusted, Deven had pushed his chair back from the table, wishing he could get his hands around the necks of the hidebound, frightened Elves who had treated Nico with such revulsion.

  “Dev,” Nico told him with a warm, if sad, smile, “It’s done and there’s no undoing it.”

  “That’s fine,” he all but snarled. “There’s plenty I’d like to do now. They think you’re scary? I’ll give them something to be scared of.”

  Now, the Elf actually chuckled, the smile turning loving, an odd response to a threat of violence, unless of course one was soul-bound to a vampire. “I fear you may be picking up some of my anger issues,” Nico told him.

  Deven breathed out slowly, grounding, acknowledging that the Elf might be right…but he’d never been the kind to let emotions control him before, and he certainly wasn’t going to be now. If there was one thing he knew how to do it was regain a shaken calm.

  At that point, Nico had decided to change the subject, and though his original idea for doing so was to discuss the Gate spell, one look led to another, and well, here they were.

  The story about the Circle did give him one idea, however, that might solve a different problem. When he had trained with the Swords of Elysium long ago, they had only been nominally connected to the Order, and had no religious allegiance. But the Hallowed was at least technically the boss of them too.

  What had once been sundered could be reconciled. He had essentially shut down the Red Shadow not long after Jonathan’s death, letting most Agents finish their missions and then go into inactive status while a few stayed on call. He had no need for the money the Shadow generated, and trying to train spies while running the Order and working with the Circle was more than even he could manage at once, but…if he disbanded the Shadow and offered Agents a chance to join the Swords of Elysium, brought the Swords back into the Order, and returned them to their original purpose as warriors for Persephone…he could do what he had always loved—teaching—and also offer protection to the Elves, who would be living close by and needed all the security they could get.

  “You look excited about something,” Nico observed.

  Deven grinned. “Plotting and scheming,” he said.

  “To overthrow a tyrannical government? Or topple a drug cartel?”

  A laugh. “Not this time. Not anymore. More along the lines of creating a new Elite for my Haven-turned-monastery.”

  Nico didn’t look surprised at all. “Once a Prime, always a Prime,” he noted, reaching over to take Deven’s hand again and kissing the back of it. “Whatever it takes to make your eyes light up like that, as often as possible…I am all for it.”

  “In that case I have an even better idea,” Deven said, and gripping Nico’s hand tighter, hauled him up on the table again, and into another kiss.

  “Wait just a minute,” Nico panted, pulling his mouth away for just a second. “We do have work to do—”

  “You’re quite right. And I don’t think this table can take any more punishment. Hold on.”

  Deven imagined that the room echoed behind them with Nico’s laughter and the sound of book pages flapping in an imaginary wind as they vanished into thin air. He also imagined Astela, still on her cushion, rolling her big dark eyes and resigning herself to an hour or more forgotten in the study, until a hand came out of nowhere and dragged her along into the Mist.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In her sleep, while her body lay safe and surrounded by her lovers and a surprising number of animals, Miranda’s mind wandered along a familiar path under the stars, her gaze searching the edge of the darkened wood for something…someone.

  She knew not to expect Luisa here. Luisa had been Catholic, and Persephone had intimated there was somewhere else for her…and if Cora and Jacob’s reactions were anything to go by, Someone Else there for her as well. Miranda wished her peace…however long peace lasted where she was. Was it different for them? Was there an eternal Heaven for those who believed in it? Was all of it real?

  She didn’t have to wrestle with such possibilities, however, in this place. She only had to keep walking, and keep looking.

  Faith had walked here once. So had Jonathan. They had taken this path and eventually stepped off, into the trees, into the sweet shadows. Their deaths had been horrifying, but at least at the end of all that pain, there was this, only quiet and the sense of belonging that called to her as well. This was where her soul was meant to go, one night, whether tomorrow or in a thousand years. Even the last Queen standing would walk here.

  In the dream she knew she had to keep looking, though she wasn’t thinking about for whom. She wasn’t afraid, or anxious; she wasn’t in a hurry. She had all day to linger here, to enjoy the beauty of the opalescent starlight shining on her skin, the wind through the trees that was so much like the music she knew. She wasn’t looking for the Raven Mother, that much she knew—she didn’t have to look for Her, only call, or be called.

  It wasn’t until she followed the path around a long, downward-sloping curve that she saw something…someone…huddled at the edge of the trees, curled up amid the roots of a great black oak.

  She started to run.

  It was a far greater distance than she’d thought. She ran for what felt like forever, until her legs burned and her lungs were full of knives. When she finally veered off the path and dropped to her knees beside the tree, she reached out to the figure…curled up on himself, shuddering, so cold and afraid and alone…

  …and he was gone.

  All that remained in his place was a single piece of sheet music.

  Miranda picked it up with trembling hands. She recognized the elegant, fine handwriting, the precise arrangements of notes; this was Elvish staff paper, as much a work of art as what it could produce.

  She stared at the sheet, trying to make sense of it. It was nonsense—the handwriting was his but it said nothing.

  She thought of the Codex. Was this, too, encoded? Or was her dreaming mind scrambling the letters?

  “What are you trying to tell me?” she whispered. “I’m here, I’m listening.”

  She held onto the sheet with both hands, concentrating, trying to reach through it and through the dream to the mind that had left it here. He had to be there; this gift, in this place, had to mean something.

  Slowly, as she stared at the notes, one of them seemed to tremble on its line. She kept reaching, hoping…

  The single note quivered once more…then the one next to it followed suit, and the one after that. Of course—if it was a message it wasn’t in words. A Bard would reach out to her in their common language.

  Miranda hummed the notes, following the melody that started simply but grew more and more complex with every measure. At first nothing extraordinary happened, but once she’d reached the end of the page, the first note trembled again, and taking the hint she started over.

  She recognized it. It was one of the songs Kai had taught her from his homeland, a hymn to Autumn whose arrangement he’d been updating for the Harvest. One of Kai’s favorite pastimes was bringing old, dusty Elvish songs from past centuries and modernizing them, which was why he’d been so drawn to her work in the beginning. He’d scandalized the Elders by bringing in a lot more percussion to sacred music,
and wanted to learn more about human harmonies to further unsettle the old and delight the young. He especially liked the songs with darker edges. This one…she thought back, trying to remember the lyrics, and one in particular leaped out in her mind:

  Follow the raven’s flight…

  What was the next one? Follow the raven’s flight…far and far from home, into the falling night…no, not “falling” night…”hungry” night. Was that it? No—she remembered now:

  Follow the raven’s flight

  Far and far from the warmth of home

  Into the hungry teeth of night

  As it falls—

  Miranda nodded, satisfied with her translation but not with the meaning—what was she supposed to learn from that?

  She looked at the sheet of paper again, and to her surprise the lyrics now appeared in front of her where the music had a moment ago; they were written in a familiar hand that made her heart ache with its swoops and swirls, but before she could lose focus, a line slashed through one of the words, then another, editorial marks suddenly showing up and changing the entire verse:

  Follow the raven’s flight of the Raven’s Son

  Far and far from the warmth of home

  He is Into the hungry teeth of night

  As it he falls

  The Hunger calls

  The Hunger calls

  As soon as her eyes hit the end of the last line, a memory shuddered into her, the sound of her husband’s voice, hollow and young and afraid:

  “I was so hungry.”

  Miranda gasped herself awake, sitting bolt upright, trying to grasp a sheet of paper that didn’t exist. In the second it took to realize there were only three people in the bed, she was out of it, bare feet on the floor and headed for the door.

  She heard the boys stirring behind her, making irritable noises at her sudden absence; she’d been on the edge of the bed when she woke, a vacancy beside her, so while she’d shaken the bed she hadn’t woken either Dev or Nico entirely.

  Miranda grabbed the doorknob and started to charge out of the suite, but drew up short with another gasp.