Promise of Shadows

by Ireland, Justina

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM the internet on tallon’s phone we discover that the Point is actually the name of the park. Point State Park in Pittsburgh.

  “It looks like we’re about an hour away,” Tallon says. He sits in the front seat next to Blue, playing navigator for a change. From Alora’s posture she isn’t happy to be stuck in the backseat with me, and I share the feeling. I have some things I want to say to Tallon, but unless I want to share them with the entire car, they’re going to have to wait.

  So as we drive, I stare out the window and fume.

  Why didn’t Tallon tell me that his plan was to pretend to give me up to Ramun Sol? If I was a little more prepared, maybe I wouldn’t have freaked out so much.

  But more important is the fact that Hera is Tallon’s grandmother. How does that work? Especially since he’s working just as hard as the rest of us to see her fail.

  We stop for gas and all pile out to go to the bathroom. We don’t know what waits for us in Pittsburgh, but if I’m going to die I want to make sure I don’t end up wetting my pants in the process.

  In the ladies’ room I corner Alora, who looks at me with startled violet eyes. “Don’t hurt me,” she says. The lime scent of her fear is no competition for the funk of the bathroom.

  “Pffft, I’m not going to hit you,” I say.

  “Yeah, but that’s the same look you had on your face last time. Sorry if I’m a little unconvinced.”

  I get a glimpse of myself in the mirror and sigh. My hair sticks out in all directions like a crazy woman’s, the blue curls looking unkempt. My silver eyes are too wide, and darkness leaks from the corners of them. I close my eyes and reopen them, and the darkness disappears. I force what I hope is a reassuring grin.

  “Sorry, just a little on edge. Look, I wanted to ask you what you know about Tallon’s father.”

  Alora looks away. “We don’t talk about that.”

  I cross my arms. “Well, we’re talking about that. I want to know how his mom ended up getting pregnant by T—” Alora clamps her hand across my mouth and looks around.

  “Don’t say his name. I’m serious. If you do, he’ll be able to find Tallon.” I nod, but Alora doesn’t remove her hand. “Promise you won’t say his name.”

  “Mmmpphhhff,” I say.

  Alora removes her hand and sighs. She begins talking, her words coming fast and hard. “Tallon’s father is one of the lowest of the dark lords, the monster-that-will-come-when-called. Janda, Tallon’s mom, was carried off by him in the middle of a mission. She used to work with our moms a lot on missions. Like Tallon, she could trip the Rift.”

  I frown. “Tallon’s mom was a Harpy?”

  Alora shakes her head. “No. She was a minor Æthereal. Not strong enough to be Exalted, and too weak to survive in the Æthereal Realm. She’s my mom’s half sister, and she’s the one who convinced Mom to move to Ulysses’s Glen when the Aerie threw her out.” The Aerie threw out Nanda? I suspect there’s a story there, but it’ll have to wait for another time. I don’t want to interrupt Alora.

  Her eyes get a faraway look. “By the time our moms found Janda she was pregnant and convinced she was in love with the creature. No one really knows how Tallon was conceived; it should’ve been impossible.”

  She swallows hard and continues. “Most of the healers thought that he would die in the womb. His mother was pregnant with him for over a year. One of my cousins says that when he was born, his eyes were all black, no white at all, and his teeth were pointed.” Sadness crosses Alora’s face and she shrugs. “A lot of the family still won’t talk to him. They just refer to him as ‘that dark one.’ Janda sent him to live in the Æthereal Realm with one of her sisters when he was little. She wasn’t very strong, and she was scared of him.”

  I shake my head. How did I not know any of this? “But what about when you guys came to visit? I can’t remember a time when Tallon wasn’t there.”

  Alora shrugs. “He would run away a lot as a kid. Every time, he would show up at our house and stay with us until someone came for him. I don’t think my mom ever told yours who Tallon was, and when she finally did, they stopped talking.”

  I nod. That would’ve been the day my mom saw Tallon use the erebos. My mother wasn’t a kind woman, but she was shrewd. It wouldn’t have been hard for her to figure out that Tallon wasn’t the poor orphan vættir she thought he was.

  Alora adjusts her hair in the mirror and continues. “When Janda died, Blue and Owen moved in with us, and Tallon did too. No one came to take him back to the Æthereal Realm. I think they knew that he didn’t belong there. I mean, Tallon is strange. Not only can he use the Paths like a Hecate, but he can cross the Rift. And he wields erebos like one of the lords of the Underworld. Who knows what else he can do? It’s not many Æthereals that have that much power without being an Exalted.”

  Alora’s words freeze my brain. Tallon is an Æthereal. Not a vættir. It’s difficult to breathe, and not just because of the funky bathroom air. Why didn’t I put that together before now? Did I just not want to see the truth? Tallon’s ability to trip the Rift, to use both the æther and the erebos. Tallon is an Æthereal. Anything I feel for him is “forbidden,” just like Whisper and Hermes.

  And I don’t care.

  My shock must show on my face, because Alora’s gaze meets mine. The sadness is gone, and all that remains is a fierceness. “I’ve seen the way you look at him. I was always jealous of how close the two of you were when we were little, but now I think you could be really good for him. Tallon needs someone who won’t fear his darkness.”

  “Oh,” I say. That’s not something I ever expected to hear from Alora. Maybe I’ve misjudged her.

  Alora sighs and pats my arm. The darkness there rises up to stroke her, and she yanks her hand back with a nervous laugh. “Power like Tallon’s makes others jealous, and mean. I know you think Tallon’s cold and distant, but he has good reason. Life really hasn’t given him a lot to smile about. Hopefully you can change that.”

  I stare at Alora as she walks out of the rest room. Is that why Tallon freaked out on me in the hotel room? Did he think that he was somehow going to ruin me because he’s really a god? If so, then he’s an idiot. I’m not going to let some archaic law stop me from being happy.

  I hope I have a chance to set Tallon straight.

  I leave the bathroom, confused and on edge. Back at the car, everyone is waiting for me, and I get in without a word. As we drive the last few miles to where Hera and her Acolytes wait for us, I’m not thinking of my impending doom or the army waiting to kill us.

  I’m thinking of the boy in the front seat, and wondering if I make him feel as conflicted as he makes me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  WE PULL INTO THE PARKING lot of the deserted point state park. Signs warned us that the park closed at dusk and that violators would be prosecuted, but we continued on. I think we all figure that preventing genocide justifies a little trespassing.

  We get out of the car and sort of look around. It’s warm out, even with the breeze coming in off the water. Trees edge along either side of the park, which is in the shape of a giant triangle. At the tip a fountain shoots water up into the air. We all look to Tallon for direction, since he has the phone with the Internet connection.

  “It looks like this is definitely the place. This website says French settlers built a fort here back in the day. Fort Duquesne. The foundation is the only thing left.”

  Alora’s gaze gets distant and she nods. “Oh yeah, the Strands are really tangled around this place. Lots of lives passed through here.”

  I want to point out that we’re smack-dab in the middle of a major city, and that maybe the Node has nothing to do with the Strands. But Alora was nice enough when I asked her about Tallon. So I keep my mouth shut.

  I look out across the grass, but there’s no sign of anything except maybe some rocks far off. “You think they knew it was a Node?”

  Blu
e shrugs. “A lot of the first settlers were vættir trying to escape persecution in Europe. It makes sense that they would’ve chosen a Node along one of the Paths. That way they could return home if they needed to.”

  I nod and swallow a sigh. Nerves make my hands shake, and my stomach is sick. I want to be anywhere but here, but I need to see this through. I have to set Cass and Whisper free, if nothing else.

  Tallon looks back at the rest of us. “You guys stay hidden while I check it out. Hera’s expecting me, but if she sees the rest of you, she’ll know something is up.”

  “She’s Æthereal, Tallon. Won’t she know something is up anyway?” Tallon gives me a look that screams, Shut up. I throw my hands up in the air. “Fine. Never mind.”

  “Wait,” Alora says, putting her hand on Tallon’s arm. “Let me check the Strands first.” Alora’s gaze focuses on something far away. I shift from foot to foot, anxious for something. Maybe she’ll tell us we were wrong. Maybe this has all been a huge misunderstanding. I cross my fingers and hope that I won’t have to die.

  But I’m not that lucky. After a long moment Alora finally sighs and shrugs. “I can’t see anything. The Strands are too jumbled.”

  I swallow hard, my fear souring my stomach. I’m trying very hard not to be sick. “Is that a good thing?”

  She purses her lips. “It isn’t a bad thing. For now we should probably just go along with Tallon’s plan.”

  We duck into the trees while Tallon walks toward the fountain and the remains of the fort. As he walks across the open area, the tiny hairs on my arms stand up straight. He’s so exposed. If Hera were to attack right now, there wouldn’t be anything to protect him. The erebos crawls under my skin, trying to reassure me. I rub my arms, but the sensation doesn’t go away. Blue bumps his shoulder into mine.

  “What’s wrong?” he whispers.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re jumpy as hell. More than usual, in fact. You’re making me nervous.”

  “Sorry. I just feel . . .” I grab Blue’s arm as something runs toward Tallon. “Do you see that?”

  Blue squints toward the field, shaking his head. “See what?”

  “There! The kobalos running toward Tallon.”

  He looks at me like I’m crazy. “That’s a kobalos? Are you sure? It looks like a monkey.”

  “Blue, why would a monkey be running around a park in Pittsburgh?”

  His lips tighten. “We have to warn him.”

  The longer I watch the kobalos run across the grass the more I see Cass’s last few moments. The memory is too much, and the erebos urges me to action. I break cover and sprint toward the kobalos loping toward Tallon.

  I run full out, my arms swinging and a stitch forming in my side. It’s not a large distance, but the kobalos is much closer to Tallon than it is to me. If I don’t hurry, it will attack him from behind.

  “Tallon, watch out!” I scream. I will the darkness to attack the demon spirit, and it happily obliges. Strands of darkness shoot from my hands, wrapping around the kobalos and snuffing out the æther of its life force. The thing disappears before my eyes, and as I draw even with Tallon, he turns to glare at me.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “The kobalos, didn’t you see it?” I gasp, my hands braced on my knees as I fight to catch my breath.

  Tallon sighs. “I didn’t see anything.” He looks around, his hands on his hips. “It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing here. Hera tricked us.”

  “Oh, I did, but not in the manner you think.” Hera stands behind me in the middle of the ruins of Fort Duquesne. Her white outfit glows in the low light, and the darkness inside of me jumps in anticipation.

  The dark is much more anxious to get at her than I am.

  Tallon shoves me behind him, and his twin swords flash into existence in his hands. “Where are the shades?”

  Hera’s lips twist into a slow smile. “And why would I tell you that?”

  Tallon grins, the expression cold. “Good. So you do have them. I wasn’t sure about that.”

  Hera’s smug expression twists into one of rage. “I should have killed you while you were still in your mother’s womb,” she says. She points a single finger in my direction. “But I will settle for destroying your girlfriend.”

  Hera moves, faster than either of us could have ever imagined. She’s a blur of white as she knocks Tallon to the side and grabs me by the throat. My feet dangle in the air. Tallon jumps to his feet, but some kind of invisible barrier keeps him from me and Hera. Far off, Alora and Blue come running out of the woods, a golden wave of kobaloi bearing down on them. I want to warn Tallon, to make him turn to help them. But I have my own problems.

  I gasp and struggle, and the bitch smiles at me, like I just told a joke. “Where is it?” she asks, her voice a singsong. “Show me your darkness, little Nyx.” As though she called for it, the darkness leaps off my arms, swirling around us.

  I pry at Hera’s cold fingers as my shadows rise up, trying to attack her. Æther leaks from her eyes, shining and bright, and she laughs. The darkness seeks out a weakness in her defenses, more and more of the erebos swelling forth in response to her æther. The erebos should be devouring the æther, but the more dark I summon the more the bright blinds me.

  Hera is too strong. Spots begin to appear in front of my eyes. My blood pounds in my ears as the dark rises up, undisciplined and unruly. I think about Cass and Whisper. I’ve failed them.

  Beyond Hera the kobaloi climb all over Blue and Alora, burying them in an angry golden sea. Too late Tallon sees the danger and runs to help. My friends are outnumbered a hundred to one. They’re no match for the angry spirits. And I’m in this cloud of æther, slowly dying, the darkness swirling around me without purpose.

  I’ve failed everyone.

  I’m not the Nyx.

  My eyes meet Hera’s, and she grins at me. It’s a smile of triumph. “I thought you would be stronger.”

  Her words cut through me, unleashing something red and hot and angry. Her ridicule mingles with so many others’, and the bitterness from a lifetime of failing to live up to expectations rises within me.

  I will show them all.

  I failed their Trials, but it means nothing. Because no matter what they say, I know who I am.

  I am the Nyx. But first and foremost, I am a Harpy.

  I extend my talons and dig them into Hera’s wrist. Then, before she has a chance to react, I move my hands quickly outward. She screams as I sever the tendons in her wrist, dropping me and taking a few steps back. I gasp for air and drag myself to my feet, calling the darkness back to me. I don’t know what Hera’s up to, but she wants the darkness. My darkness.

  She’s not getting it.

  The darkness comes quickly, swirling around me anxiously before settling around my head and shoulders like a hooded cloak. Hera’s hand repairs itself, and she laughs.

  “So, the little bird’s beak is sharper than it looks. Excellent. I worried your death would be boring.” She holds out her hand and the æther swirling around us coalesces into a giant sword. I swallow hard.

  “Oh, it’s that kind of party.” I jump backward as she swings the thing at me.

  “It is, indeed, that type of party.” She twirls the sword faster and faster, chasing me around the inside of the barrier. If I don’t do anything, I’m going to be very dead, very quickly. I move out of the way a split second too late, and she opens a line on my chest. The æther burns, and it’s all I can do not to scream in agony as I dance backward.

  Hera pauses to laugh at me. “See? Even heroes bleed.”

  I’m going to be a dead hero in about two seconds. I need some sort of weapon, I think. The darkness answers, and I jerk as a couple of throwing axes appear in my hands. Throwing axes? I would’ve preferred infinity knives, but now is not the time to be picky.

  I duck out of the way of Hera’s next swing and respond by throwing one of the axes at her. Her body shimmers for a second, a
nd the ax flies right through her. She then resolves back into a solid form. “Throwing axes. How quaint.”

  I don’t say anything, because I can see what she can’t. The first throwing ax has lodged into the barrier separating me from my friends. Dark energy crackles along the invisible wall. I throw the second ax just as Hera parries with her silver sword. The ax lands next to its twin, the dark energy radiating across the bright nothing until the barrier shatters with a scream.

  “No!” Hera screams. The dark’s response is immediate. It shoots out from me, seeking out the kobaloi and devouring their brightness. A few of the creatures try to run, but the darkness is fast and hungry.

  I run away from Hera and into the crowd of kobaloi, wading through the quickly disappearing creatures and trying to find my friends. I know they’re somewhere beneath the golden, writhing bodies. I’ve just gotten a glimpse of Tallon when Hera grabs me by the back of my neck.

  “I am tired of this game, little bird. Now it ends.” A sharp coldness rips through my middle, and I look down. The pain is too much for me to do anything but gasp. The silver sword glimmers at me, my blood streaking it gaily. I wrap my hands around the blade jutting out from my stomach. I’m not quite sure it’s really there.

  “No!” The shout draws my attention toward the field of retreating kobaloi. Alora lies on the ground, dead or unconscious. Blue has gone dragon, his giant jaws snapping up what few fleeing kobaloi he can grab. Tallon sprints toward me and Hera, his dark hair streaking out like a comet’s tail. Behind me, Hera laughs.

  “You are too late. Her blood shall unlock the Paths. She will do what I have been working toward for centuries.” She pulls the sword out, and the pain is excruciating. I scream and clutch at the blade. A few weak shadows lash out, but I’m no match for Hera now. The darkness tries to repair the damage to my middle, but there are some things that even vættir healing cannot fix.