by Gaja J. Kos
There were others running now, too. Three brown weres who had joined her maddening sprint, falling a few steps behind as she made herself go faster, to turn that corner before it was too late. But another wave of scents slammed into her then, the reek of blood so strong she knew the wounds could be nothing but fatal.
Claws scratching against the cracked asphalt until they chipped, she propelled herself into the street veering off the road to the right, then stopped dead in her tracks when the sight hit her with all its detail.
Red coated her vision. Her mind.
The Keeper was still preening over his kill when her teeth found home and sent them both rolling across the ground. She tore at his neck, his face, claws crushing the rib cage and shredding the fucker’s heart until nothing but a bloody pulp remained.
But not even the Keeper’s death now riding the air could bring back the werewolf who lay bleeding and broken just a few steps away.
She closed her eyes.
Frank.
Awareness slithered through her in a cascade of ripples, pulling out her individuality from the all-encompassing power she had become.
Slowly, like mist receding from the hills as the day grew, Rose separated herself from the two deities and stepped out of the field of energy that bided her to return. She ground her teeth to shake off the haze, the inky, yet silken ribbons of power still clinging to her skin, and when her surroundings finally snapped into place, she found herself staring into a pair of burning, bronze eyes.
“Sander?” she breathed.
The golden energy still flared around her, making the Koldun appear even more ethereal in the gleam of its light. As it did the redhead standing by his side.
Veles snarled at the interruption, a sound far more animal than man, but fell quiet the instant he saw the exact same thing that chilled the blood in her veins.
The tight set of the Koldun’s jaw. The shadows sharpening his features. The weariness and anger weighing down on his brow.
“We’re losing, aren’t we?” Morana asked.
Guilt lined her voice, and Rose knew—she knew the goddess was blaming herself for not being at full strength. She squeezed her hand, hating that Morana felt responsible when all three of them were walking the same unknown path, yet her attention never left Sander. Never wavered from the magic pulsating from his core like an explosion just waiting to happen.
And as their eyes met, as they finally looked at each other, not as a Koldun and a daughter of a Vedmak, but two vessels of power, Rose knew that this was it.
That this was the moment when it would all unfold.
The whispers brought to her by the higher knowledge. The vision of their future, their fate, she had kept to herself all this time, knowing it would come to pass, but unsure how.
Sander nodded in silent agreement. “We merge. We merge and we take the world.”
Veles opened his mouth while Morana shifted slightly by her side, but all Rose did was take a step forward, keeping her grip on both deities tight, just as Sander did with Serafina. They were barely an inch apart now, two beings born of opposing forces. Of light and darkness. One, carrying the strength beyond what belonged to his people, the other a deity who had defied the laws and odds. Rose didn’t break contact with those bronze eyes as she angled her head and leaned in.
She pressed her lips to Sander’s, then opened them—as he did his. Their breaths entwined, tastes coming together not in a kiss, but a bridge.
A bridge that would destroy reality and give birth to a new era.
A new realm.
A new Kolovrat.
Through the touch, their essences curled around one another in an intimate joining. The glowing, brimming spiral twisted and turned, flowing, individual threads slipping into one another until they became inseparable. Until they spread into Serafina’s being, into the power of the Trinity that had stepped into the background, dormant, waiting.
The pulse of spring, of life, of blinding light, and the deepest shadows scraped the inside of their cores, drawing out every inch of power they possessed until it was reborn as a magnetic, unstoppable force. It radiated from their bodies and rushed over the world like a tidal wave, touching soil and air alike. Touching the very fabric of reality and unlocking what lay hidden under the layers of intricate constructs they were tearing down, only to rebuild anew.
Rose felt Sander’s body tremble as their power swept across the land, burning away the diseased roots and poisoned veins until everything around them stilled, and they inhaled not the taint of the Upirs, but the soft fragrance of a new world.
A world, belonging to them.
Chapter 41
Bodies littered the rubble-filled streets as the pack stood in the very heart of the destroyed city, the rest of the survivors slowly filtering into the square from all sides. Murmurs of loss and relief saturated the air, blending with the wafting scent of excitement as friends found one another, rejoicing despite their ragged states.
It wasn’t a celebration. It was a march of gratitude. A silent well of emotions that bound people together, shattering any differences and distances that might have meant something before, but were now as meaningless as long-buried beliefs.
It was Ljubljana, breathing as one.
Only Rose eluded the gentle cover of camaraderie, her gaze resting on the two broken figures, lying on the cobblestones.
On her two friends.
Frank’s body was a mess. Limbs jutted out at unnatural angles and his beautiful brown coat stained dark with blood. She knelt beside him and tentatively trailed her fingers up the ridge of his muzzle, shivering at the cold touch of his flesh.
Gone.
No more late night chats over beers. No more carefree, melodic laughter she had always loved hearing.
Frank was gone, and he took a fragment of undiluted happiness from the world with him.
A single tear rolled down her cheek as she laid her palm across his empty-gazing eyes, closing them for eternity.
“May you find a thousand willing, wild souls in the underworld, my friend,” she whispered, voice coarse with emotions she barely kept in check.
She would merge with his spirit later, relive those final moments she hadn’t been by his side to see. Perhaps… Perhaps he would feel her, feel the loving touch of her presence even where he now rested, free from the constraints and pain of the world she still resided in.
Wiping away her tears, Rose took those dreaded steps to where Sebastian lay.
She looked down at the Kresnik, at the person who had been a constant presence since the moment her existence entered the world, the person who had been her protector, her friend—and who had lost so much when she had ascended.
But even with their unique connection whisked away by the force of a deity in the making, at least he had still had her. Not as a ward, but family. A bond chosen out of love, not fate.
She didn’t have even that much now.
Her shoulders shook as sorrow twisted her insides, making her double over and fight for breath. She battled the claws of loss and sought that final remnant connecting her with Sebastian. Gripping it with every last ounce of strength she still had, she used the ethereal presence to lift herself up and face one of the Kresniks who had come to fight for their side.
The immortal averted his gaze—in guilt, in fear—but Rose didn’t care for his own struggles.
“Have all of you gathered here?” she asked dryly.
Hazel eyes, burning as bright as the sun above, met her gaze. “Only those of us who stayed true to our path.”
Her nostrils flared. “Take me to the Palace.” The Kresnik’s eyes widened, but she cut off his silent question before it could form. “I know of your home. The knowledge of the higher circles gifted me with insight of your race.”
The voice that came out of her—it wasn’t one of a werewolf, of a soldier. Not even one of a friend.
It was the voice of a deity.
“I wondered why. Wondered why should I b
e privileged to such guarded information.” Her gaze fell on Sebastian’s shredded wings, on the blood that had caked on his face, masking the expression of agony lying beneath. “And now I know why.”
Just as she knew why Veles had given her the sword once wielded by Mokoš, even if the god himself had been driven by motivations of an entirely different kind.
“Take me to the Sun Palace,” she repeated.
It wasn’t a request. And the Kresnik’s translucent wings unfolded.
Mockingly beautiful. The Palace was mockingly beautiful, its shell masking the festering core that lay within. And Rose hated every inch of it. Florian, the hazel-eyed Kresnik, lowered his head as he set her down in the middle of the orchard, the apples of immortality glistening in the ever present caresses of the sun like the most exquisite gems.
She looked at Florian and dismissed him with a dip of her chin. “I will summon you when I’m done.”
And she could.
The Kresniks were protectors of life. The silent sentries who watched over the souls before they came to the gates she was guarding. The gates Morana embodied. And led to the soothing light of Veles’s realm.
It wasn’t merely her rise to power that had torn her from Sebastian’s care. It was his own, newly found status of one of her subjects. The Trinity’s subjects.
She released a breath, letting the sting behind her eyes evolve into tears.
Sebastian had been so worried, so shaken by the sudden change. And now he would never know.
He would never know that the loss he had felt had actually brought them closer.
A soft rustle alerted her that Florian had taken to the skies, reaching for that divide between the home of the Kresniks and the lands lying below. Reaching for safety.
As she gave him time, Rose called to her energy, willing the potent waves to wash over her until every inch of her flesh was dripping with power. Only then did she draw the sword of Mokoš from its sheath, gold fire lapping not only down the blade, but within the metal.
“I’m sorry, Sebastian,” she whispered. “For the time we’d lost. For the immortality we could have shared, protecting those in need. As well as one another.” A final tear trailed down her cheek. “I—I failed you, Seb. But I will not fail them.”
The tip of the blade pierced the soft soil.
“Let this be my gift to you.”
Golden light shot into the ground and saturated the air all at once, brighter than the Palace, brighter than the sun itself that beat down Rose’s skin but failed to scatter the chill she carried inside. As the power spread, she reached even deeper into her reserves, pushing farther than she had ever gone, and let her energy enter every atom of the Glass Mountain.
Let it overpower its structure and obliterate every last ounce of the taint that still remained.
Epilogue
“I’ve been wondering when you’d show up,” Rose said as wings rustled by her side, but her gaze continued to trail the healing landscape of Ljubljana from her perch atop the castle hill.
Two months. Two months had passed since the battle, since she and Sander, backed by the strength of Veles, Morana, and Serafina, unleashed a new kind of magic upon the world. They had snuffed out the flickers of chaos, of blood crazed-filled darkness, offering not only humanity, but the people as a whole a chance to start anew. And they had taken it.
Life bloomed on the destroyed streets, sweeping away the damage done to the town and its citizens alike. While the world at large had been affected by the change, not a single corner left untouched, it was Ljubljana that had been the one to suffer every lash of its whip, every landslide and earthquake, meant to raze it to the ground.
Rose knew the scars would remain. Indefinitely, perhaps. But she was proud, more than she could say, at how the people had refused to let themselves or the city succumb to injury.
The police force run by Katja and Tomo had done the brunt of the work, aided by the military unit Zarja had pulled together to keep the supernaturals, as well as humans, in line when the shock of the changes threatened to overcome rational thought. Those interventions had been indispensable in the early days, but when brute force was no longer needed on such a scale, the military retreated, maintaining their role of peace-keepers in extreme circumstances, while the daily dealings gradually fell into Tim’s hands.
The human-supe coalition, or HSC for short, the were had established not only acted as an intermediary for any issues that arose from this new state of coexistence, but also had people assigned to answer any questions individuals of both sides had. They eased people’s doubts, giving insight into the new world order to deflect the danger of ignorance or unfounded fears. Their success in Slovenia had led to offices popping up all across the globe, staffed with agreeable individuals of the higher circles, humans who had been aware of the supernatural long before the fall, as well as those representatives of all species who seemed adamant to make this new reality last.
Nathaniel and Nadia had extended their knowledge to the hospitals and private practices, offering free seminars on the medical aspect of the supernatural, as well as their help when it came to tending to the wounded. And while they healed the flesh, Mark devoted himself to healing the mind. He aided those who had difficulties accepting the loss of the old ways with as many hours of counselling as they required.
It wasn’t long before others from his field joined in, especially non-humans and sensitives, eager to ease the shock of such a drastic change. Between them, the clinic had helped hundreds, and acted as an inspiration for those specialists living abroad to do the same.
Everything the people had done was to make the transition as painless as possible.
But even with all the work the pack had put in, even with all the likeminded individuals they had drawn out and coincidentally put into action, there were still some who couldn’t bring themselves to accept the new state—or the ripples of the changes the magic that now infused the very essence of reality kept emitting with no end in sight.
The taint of the Upirs was gone for good, but in its brief reign, it had shifted something fundamental in the fabric of the world. And the merged power she, Sander, Serafina, Veles, and Morana had unleashed healed, but also amplified the divide between the old and new.
Rose was aware the world, their very future, would continue to evolve in unexpected ways. But at least they had a future. And for now, that was all that mattered.
She sighed, sweeping her gaze across Ljubljana one last time, then peered at the Gamayun now sitting idly by her side. If the creature was irked by her prolonged silence, she didn’t let it show.
Perhaps the Gamayun was just as stunned by the strength weaving from below as she was. Perhaps. But not likely…
“The knowledge of the higher circles,” Rose said into the light breeze. “It’s you. You’re their—our—leader.”
The creature inclined her head. “I was.”
Rose stared at her, not missing the Gamayun’s choice of words. “So what I felt… It’s true?”
No more higher circles. No more knowledge to mysteriously pop into the heads of those the Gamayun deemed worthy.
“The world is not fragmented any longer.” Pitch-black eyes met hers, as unreadable and impassive as ever. “And the deities have returned.”
That was it. That was all the Gamayun would say on the matter.
Rose shook her head in silent disbelief. “Just answer me this one thing. If you knew, if you knew all along, why let us fumble in the dark? You could have stopped this—we could have stopped this if you’d just told what was happening from the start instead of offering us fucking puzzles to solve without a single damned reference.” Her teeth elongated as memories of the Simargl, of Pia, Frank, and Sebastian rolled through her mind, carried on the phantom winds of the souls of all who had departed into the underworld since the wheels of change started spinning. Banniks, werewolves, humans, vampires… They had all lost their lives because the Gamayun had decided to keep vital informa
tion to herself.
Stingy bitch didn’t even begin to cover it.
Rose hissed out a breath, barely controlling the urge to sink her claws into those black feathers. But the Gamayun, aware of her struggle or not, merely gazed at her, revealing nothing.
“Why?” Rose asked in a strangled whisper. “Why sacrifice so much?”
“The world’s cycle was coming to an end. It needed to change. Or die, like Kolovrat did.”
“But that doesn’t answer—”
“Would you have unleashed your power upon these lands, Rose Markell? Would you have merged with the deities, with the Kolduny, if I had told you where to find the Upirs?”
A low growl slipped from her lips—frustration and admission in equal parts.
She would never have taken that step. Sander would never have taken that step.
And if the world hadn’t succumbed to the Upirs’ chaotic magic, if the pack had, indeed, taken the bastards out before it all began, the world would have found another way to devour itself. She could see it the inescapable promise of destruction lurking in the darkness of the Gamayun’s gaze as clearly as if it were unfolding before her.
Only it wasn’t.
And now, it never would.
“The deaths gave life,” the creature said, shifting slightly on her taloned feet. “And the path shaped leaders to guide this realm through its rebirth, as well as in the life that follows.” The full weight of the Gamayun’s dark gaze now fell on Rose, giving her an eerie feeling that the creature wasn’t looking merely at her, but seeing right down to the very core of who she was. “Protect these new roots, goddess. Protect the souls in your care. And flourish.”
“And you?”
She could have sworn a smile touched the Gamayun’s lips. “My existence is redundant. I will…rest. Until the world calls for me again.”
“So this change—it isn’t permanent?”
The Gamayun’s wings rustled as she shifted, preparing to take flight. “Nothing is.”