The Mirror of the Moon (Revenant Wyrd Book 2)

by Travis Simmons

  “Draw on it,” the voice of wisdom told her.

  “But I can’t. This is my family; I can’t steal it from them.”

  “But it isn’t,” the voice of wisdom told her. “This is not the wyrd of those you love; and besides, even if it was, you would not be drawing enough to harm them. Draw on it.” But there was something in his insistence that troubled Joya. “This is the way to protect your interests, and that of your family. DRAW!”

  “But I don’t know how!” Joya protested on the verge of tears.

  “Maybe I was wrong about you,” the voice of wisdom admitted, and she could feel his presence leaving her, his voice becoming distant. But before he left, she heard a soft echo: “Maybe you are too weak to ever learn to master yourself, and therefore are too weak to save your family from what you saw in the flames.”

  “If you leave,” Joya cried out through tears, “how will I find my way back?”

  “That is something I am not concerned with. You are too weak to be my pupil and therefore I have little concern for how you return to yourself. It would change, though, if you would give in to the drawing. You know how; you are just afraid, and your fear is what makes you turn from me, forcing me to turn from you. All of this would change if you would just take the wyrd around you. You must conquer your fear to grow, Joya. Now draw on it.”

  “But my family …” she sobbed.

  “WILL NOT BE HURT!” The voice’s shout nearly knocked Joya from her feet. “I am trying to help you save your family. I do not want them to end like the fire showed you just as much as you don’t want them to meet the same fate. However, I must admit that I think you would rather it happen, and that is why you hesitate. Is that the truth, Joya? Is that what you truly want? I am afraid it is, and I cannot work with Chaos such as you.”

  She felt the weight of his eyes, his skeptical glare upon her. Her head bowed as tears wracked her short body. She was in such torment.

  “It would all end if you would just take that which is offered. Grace spoke to you of accepting what you are, and that can never be done by denying how your power works. If you fail to go down this route, Joya, not only will your family be faced with the vision in the fire, but you may well be destroyed by your very own wyrd. Do you want that?”

  “No,” she whispered hoarsely as silent tears streaked down her careworn face.

  “But then I am not so sure. Your words lack the conviction a truthful person would have.” He made a clucking noise of disappointment and shook his head. “The daughter of the powerful Sylvie LaFaye is afraid of her own wyrd; what would your mother think? What would Amber think? What about Jovian and Angelica, or Grace and your father? What would all of them say if they found out you could not do this and left them to the fiery designs? You will fail them all, Joya LaFaye … if you are still worthy of such a powerful name.” Leaning down to her, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and soothed her as she cried. “I do these things only to help you grow. I don’t wish to harm you, but sometimes the best way to overcome fear is through pain and truth. Teaching is not always an act of love; we must show our students the darkness within them for them to face it and overcome.”

  He rubbed her back, his cool hands sending tremors through her flesh. Then into the somberness he said the one thing that made all the difference: “After all, if you are not going to learn to protect them, you might as well kill them yourself.”

  He fell back as she stood abruptly. The voice of wisdom slowly pushed himself to his feet watching his student.

  Her sobs stopped suddenly and she lashed out in anger, hovering over the brightest wyrd in the clearing, the one with the strongest glow—yellow like the sun and shining nearly as brightly, mirrored by one off a ways beside the silver wyrd.

  “Don’t draw in anger, Joya,” he cautioned, but it was too late … if she had been paying attention she would have noticed the sneer on his face …

  “So what about you?” Jovian asked, shrugging off the air that suddenly seemed denser than before. “You are a mixture of a lot of things: votary, arms master, monster connoisseur. Why all the vocations, Maeven Beggets?”

  “My interests are varied, and I feel the best way to serve the Goddess, other than ministering to the populace, is by freeing it of dalua,” he answered simply, setting his mug of cooling tea between his feet.

  “So all that you are interested in is serving others?” Jovian questioned.

  “No, it just so happens that my interests happen to help others. I do not follow the path of the votary just to help others; I do it to get closer to the Creator. My deeper link with her helps others in need.” He smiled at Jovian and rubbed his arms from the chill of the night.

  “I am not sure I would like that much,” Jovian answered truthfully, tossing out the rest of his cool tea and setting the mug on the ground.

  “And why not?”

  “I’m not much of a people person.”

  Maeven seemed taken aback slightly. “But you are so good with crowds. You seem to like everyone and get wrapped up in their concerns and lives.”

  “I do, and that is a fault of mine. I don’t like people but I am sympathetic to them, if that makes any sense. I would much prefer a simple life of my own, free of others. They’re bothersome and needy, and I don’t like that. I don’t think I would be cut out for helping others like you do.”

  “Like farming it is not a calling for all, but I think you lie, Jovian. I think the truth is that you wish you could not like people. I think underlying all that you really care, you genuinely want to help, but you just get frustrated with those that can’t help themselves and become too dependent on help from others.”

  Jovian had nothing to say; so he didn’t say anything. He sat there for a time listening to the night around them, feeling the closeness that had come between him and Maeven within the last few days, the bond that they were even now sharing in the chill, summer night

  He felt the wyrd in the air as well, heavy and unknowable. He shifted slightly as he, for the first time, realized that he could feel wyrd, that he could feel it in others around him. The wyrd didn’t feel pleasant. Instead it was very uncomfortable, like he was being watched, and as Maeven had just left to relieve himself of the effects of the tea, Jovian knew that he was not being watched … with physical eyes at least.

  Goose bumps ran up his arms, and he turned to look behind him toward camp, only to see a twisting Angelica, held deep in the grips of some nightmare. Shrugging, he turned back to find Maeven walking back toward him, fastening the ties of his black trousers.

  In the darkness of her mind Angelica dreamed of sweet things. The summer’s first yield of honey and the way it tasted on Ashell’s freshly baked biscuits. A crisp, chilled dandelion wine seasoned for years, freshly opened and taken on the porch overlooking a serene sunset painting the sky in beautiful relief above a golden sea of hay, shifting in a lazy breeze. She dreamed of yellows and greens, and how they blended together like a tapestry over the fields of wheat and corn that were her families crest and wealth.

  She dreamed of her family and holy days together with feast and drink, laughter and communion. All this she dreamed, and all this she loved. So realistic was the dream that she thought for a moment it was other than a dream, that it was real, her father’s hand in hers as they strode the fields on High Summer’s Day following the procession led by Candalyn as he made devotions to the Goddess, blessing the field. She could almost feel the grain dolly in her hand as she shook it, a symbol of releasing the Goddess’s blessing and protection on this year’s crop.

  She dreamt of nights with Jovian, sitting up and talking for hours when they should be fast asleep. Curled up on her bed with a book, laughing with her best friend as the cold of winter seeped through the glass panes of her window, chilling the quilt even as it warmed her … she thought of how the barren chill of winter could make one long for romantic summer nights.

  Then her dreams flashed to scenes of death and blood, and the fields tur
ned irrevocably black without the help of fire or blight. The skies darkened and the lands were battered by a Chaotic storm.

  A pair of eyes stared at her as Angelica stood on the porch, staring out across the dead, barren fields, the lashing wind and biting rain tearing at her yellow silk gown. Grey-blue eyes watched her in the distance, impossibly large and cold, not like the person that normally housed those eyes. Watching her from within the clouds, the eyes were transparent but unmistakably there, gazing at her, as if weighing her worth in wyrd.

  Her breath caught in her throat as she watched those eyes, both as large as the moon, which was not in attendance. She held cold, numb fingers to her chapped lips and moaned, tears coming to her eyes: hot, mingled with the freezing of the rain.

  And the wine turned like vinegar in her throat, and heaviness came to her chest as if her heart were beating much too swiftly. She tried to suck in breath against the weight, against the power looming down on her from those eyes, but she could not.

  Frantically Angelica clung to her chest and felt there something compressing her, sitting on her chest, constricting her of the one thing she desired most in the world: air. The eyes loomed closer and she felt herself weakening—her life, her wyrd leaving her in a sardonic, painful tug that continued and continued.

  Don’t draw in anger, she heard a voice caution from somewhere, and she looked around her as those eyes loomed brighter, angrier, and hungrier than ever before. She wondered where the hypnotically beautiful yet deviously Chaotic voice came from, but it was only a fleeting thought. Her need for air suppressing all other sensations.

  She was soon on her knees, beating weakly at the stone porch, trying to draw in oxygen that seemed as elusive to her as the will of the Goddess.

  The high-pitched buzzing came to his ears again, this time more prominent, more urgently than it had come before, completely drowning out the words Maeven was speaking. Jovian watched Maeven’s mouth moving, though he could not make out any words he was speaking. One thought came to him, and that was that Angelica was in danger, being the only person that ever gave him this vertigo and buzzing in his head.

  He stood quickly, nearly turning himself back onto the ground, and looked around.

  The noxious green eyes were not hard to see as they faded back into the darkness beyond a seething Angelica. In panic, Jovian sprinted on unsteady feet back to his sister, knocking into Joya’s prone figure in his dizziness.

  Grey-blue eyes opened as Joya sat bolt upright, and Angelica finally sat straight up gasping for air that had been obviously deprived her. She looked around frantically, clutching at her chest as she inhaled and exhaled laboriously.

  “What happened?” Jovian asked as he knelt beside her, Grace coming to her side as well. Maeven caught up, his sword drawn and his stance taught and ready for battle. “I saw green eyes just over there,” Jovian told him as he pointed in the distance. Maeven frowned and nodded that he had seen them as well and left the huddled group to investigate.

  Angelica was plied with a mug of water, and after she had drank nearly all of it, she brushed her sweat-matted hair out of her face with a quivering hand. As Maeven came back shaking his head that he had not found anything, she seemed ready to talk.

  “I couldn’t breathe,” she said simply while scanning the area, fear in her eyes telling them much more than she was verbally willing to share. “I don’t remember what I was dreaming, only something about home. I was happy, and then frightened, and then there was this great weight on my chest, drawing at my energy. That is when I couldn’t breathe. I tried battering the beast off me, but it would not move. It actually felt like something was sitting on me, and it was hungry, angry, it wanted to harm me; that was evident.”

  “A hag,” Maeven said looking around again, and standing once more.

  “Come now, Maeven, if it really were a hag she was obviously riding the night, and steel will do little to ward her off,” Grace scoffed.

  “And you said that she had nothing to do with the wind that decimated your home,” Maeven accused.

  “Who?” Grace asked. “Baba Yaga?”

  “Yes, we were talking of her tonight,” Jovian said. “Maeven was convinced that she was the one responsible for destroying our livelihood, and I disagreed with him.”

  “Hmm,” was the response that came from Grace, and she studied his face as if she knew something that he did not. “But for some reason you do not seem to share that sentiment?” Grace asked, which was more an accusation than it was a question.

  “I don’t know,” Jovian said shifting uncomfortably.

  “Ah, but you do know, Jovian LaFaye, and you will tell me.”

  He bristled at that remark and sat up a little straighter. Jovian did not like being ordered to do anything. “If I’d something to tell, I most certainly wouldn’t tell you!”

  That dangerous glint came into Grace’s eyes again, and Jovian knew that he was treading on very thin ice with her.

  “Oh, I think you will.” The fierceness in her voice reminded him of the old Grace he feared so much at the plantation; but that was a long time ago, and much growing had happened since then.

  Jovian opened his mouth to speak when a dizzying touch halted his words. Angelica’s voice was accompanied by the buzzing that drowned out the noise of the crackling fire.

  Save face, Jovian. Things are already tense enough around here without picking a fight with her. We knew we would have to tell her something eventually; she knew already when she tested the wheat just at the edge of our property. She knows that something is happening and she should know. After all, she might be able to make more of it than we can. Angelica’s voice conjured up images of that long ago dream in which they found themselves before the rotating house and the bone-wood forest. Almost as if fog were lifting from his mind, Jovian could see the blue-fire torches lining the way to her abode, and he nodded slightly.

  And so they told them of their visit with Baba Yaga and what had happened then.

  “And you never told us?” Joya asked, more than anger making her voice cold steel in the dark night. “You never told us of what could help Amber. Why?”

  “There was no need at the time. We had decided the way to go was toward the Mirror of the Moon, and we gave little reason as to why we should go there. Honestly, we thought you’d think us queer if we told you, and now, looking at your face, despite all we’ve been through, I can see you still think we’re odd.”

  “I don’t think you are odd for what you’ve seen and experienced. I think you’re daft for keeping something like this from us when it could save Amber!” Joya nearly shouted, and stormed off into the darkness toward where Jovian had seen the green eyes vanish moments before.

  “You did a very stupid thing,” Grace scolded and then sighed. “However, my curiosity outweighs my anger, and I have questions.”

  “Questions we probably can’t answer.” The reality of the here and now chased away his visions of the past. The details of the experience had become a fog in his memory, and even as he forced his mind to the past, her words grew dim. “There were many things she did not tell us, and the few things she did tell us we can easily point out now.”

  “The vessel, for instance,” Angelica said.

  “Is Astanel,” Maeven said quietly nodding.

  “And the Mask is Porillon,” Grace contributed.

  Angelica and Jovian nodded to both. “We didn’t have as much contact with Astanel as you, Maeven, but after having been to Meedesville, we’d agree with you.”

  “But who’re the Two?” Jovian asked. The question as to who or what the Two were nettled him now as much as it had then. “That’s something I never understood. Baba Yaga mentioned them as if they’re people, and then she said they were forces that we would meet along the way.”

  “It could be Joya and Amber,” Maeven suggested not believing it himself.

  “I tend to side with the concept that it is not someone they already know, Maeven the wise,” Grace taunte
d, all traces of good humor gone from her now. Just when she was starting to treat them like adults, not they had to go and mess it up. “I would have suggested the Two being Sylvie and Pharoh, but I do not think it would be them either. The truth is the concept of the Two is not something that I have much considered; I never before thought they would be forces as they would be people.”

  “Why would a prophecy mention the Two if they were not something important?” Maeven asked.

  “I am not one bit happy with either of you, and do not think that my gratitude for finally hearing of your visit with Baba Yaga overshadows my anger at being left out of this much needed information.” She looked behind her to where Joya stood, her back to them all. “I will not storm off as Joya did, but I can side with her anger. You should have told me of this before; your tied tongue could have gotten Amber killed. At least now we know for certain where we are going.” She sighed and looked around. “It is nearly time for second watch; Maeven and Jovian you had better get some rest.”

  The two of them found their beds with little complaint.

  Evening came upon them once again on the last leg of the Wyrd Holdings. The Ravine of Aaridnay stood like a huge canyon of glass that caught and reflected the light of the dying sun in a brilliant rainbow display of color that played across the ground before them like the Sky Lights that were said to illuminate the winter in the Realm of Earth.

  Despite their current dislike of one another, none of them could help but stare in awe at the display before them, thinking of the woman whom the ravine had been named for, and how she had taken her very life within it.

  Instinctively Jovian knew they would come to the end of the Holy Realm and the Wyrd Holdings, and soon enter the Realm of Air.

  Though nothing was said as camp was set and chores taken, Jovian did not resist feeling content with where they were, staring into the blazing lights of the Ravine of Aaridnay that still shone even after the sun had set.