He would do all in his power to keep Anna safe from what his dark gift yearned to do to her.
A hand patted his knee and Anna was suddenly leaning forward to peer around him and meet Meadow’s eyes.
“Shadowlight used to like music. I can’t imagine Obsidian has changed so much.” Anna’s shit-eating grin was firmly in place. “If he tries to chicken out, I’ll make sure he still puts in an appearance.”
Meadow likely didn’t know the meaning of ‘chicken out,’ but the answering smile that lit up her face transformed it from merely pretty into something warm and beautiful. Yet Meadow, lovely though she was, stirred nothing within him. Not knowing what else to do, he raised his goblet for a big drink.
When he looked up again, Anna was still grinning at him.
But a throat being cleared drew his attention back towards Master Maradryn. “Don’t worry. You’ll have lots of time to socialize later, but for now, the council has business that needs tending.”
Meadow and Truth came to their feet swifter than if one of their mentors barked an order. The bigger gargoyle prodded Oath in the ribs when he didn’t move fast enough.
Anna pushed on Obsidian’s wing until he lowered it enough she could look over the top and watch the approaching council of Elders. After noting their position, she leaned in close to his ear. “Meadow, she’s sweet. It’s obvious she likes you. If you two aren’t already a thing, you should be.”
He huffed in surprise at the pleasant sensation of Anna’s warm breath against his ear and where his mind flashed to in that moment.
No, Meadow didn’t stir him, but his Kyrsu just had.
Chapter 11
Anna didn’t have a freaking clue what had possessed her to add her two cents about Meadow. It wasn’t like she was any good at matchmaking, but there was something about Meadow—a wholesomeness tempered with an inner strength that just made Anna think the young dryad would be a good match for Obsidian.
Admit it, Mackenzie, Anna thought to herself. If he’s romantically involved with one of the dryads, then he becomes ‘safe’ and you like the sound of that a lot better than a bachelor Obsidian who might set his sights on his Kyrsu.
Time to put that whole can of worms out of her mind. She didn’t need further complications until she knew the inner workings of Haven. It had taken her weeks of careful observation to learn enough about the Battle Goddess’s domain to benefit. If she’d been a crier, she might have teared up at the knowledge she was now starting from scratch.
At least Obsidian had a thirteen-year head start. She planned to mine him for intel later. For now, she had a Council of Elders to win over.
The newly arrived council members—there were only three, two gargoyles and one dryad—joined them around Maradryn’s fire.
Banrook she remembered from before. Forgetting someone as big as him was hard. Obsidian was now the larger of the two, but Banrook was one of those types who sucked up all the oxygen in a room just by the magnitude of his personality.
“Anna, you may remember Master Verroc from when you crossed the time portal.” Obsidian pointed to the less muscular gargoyle.
Anna nodded respectfully to the elder.
She’d started picking out other little details that differentiated one gargoyle from another at a glance. Some, like Verroc, wore distinctive jewelry. At least she hoped the silver ear-stud with its pale blue stone was distinctive and there weren’t a hundred others just like it to confuse her.
“Don’t let Verroc’s smaller stature fool you.” Obsidian sent along their link. “He can and will hand you your own ass in the practice ring.”
“Speaking from personal experience?”
“Yes.”
“And this is Master Sumdara,” Obsidian said aloud like they hadn’t just been having a private conversation. “She’s one of our greatest dryad trackers.”
Sumdara lacked Maradryn’s Amazonian height, but she still possessed a warrior’s body, well-muscled and marred by more than a few scars.
Anna acknowledged this new dryad with the same respect she’d allotted the gargoyles.
Verroc cleared his throat. “Now it’s time to speak of things better not heard by others just yet.”
With that gruff utterance, he raised a hand above his head and summoned shadow magic. The darkness between the nearest trunks shivered and shook before pulling away from under the trees which had first cast the shade.
With another soft utterance, Verroc ordered the magic to form a dome over them all, sealing them behind a shimmering silver-grey substance that blocked out sound from the outside.
“There. Now we’ll have privacy. No one except this council knows the full extent of your power. They know you’re a human with magic, one altered by the Battle Goddess, but your gargoyle nature is still a secret. We’d like to keep it that way, at least until you’ve settled in and get to know Haven’s residents.”
“I thank you for that, but how haven’t they figured it out? That I was sleeping in stone seems like common knowledge.”
“Yes. But all think it was Lord Dray’s magic which accomplished the deed. We never corrected that erroneous notion.”
Dray. It was so strange that a being with such frightening powers and a title like ‘Lord of the Underworld’ was merely called Dray by his friends.
But Anna wasn’t given long to dwell on that thought for the Elders soon launched into what was apparently an interrogation. She answered them truthfully, holding nothing back—they’d sense any lie even if she’d wanted to keep something secret.
During a lull in the questioning, Anna reflected on that ability. An interrogator able to smell a lie, possess eyes sharp enough to catch the tiniest of tells, and even read surface thoughts?
Yep, back on Earth, that would be any intelligence agency’s wet dream. When all of this was over, maybe she could orchestrate a peaceful joint operation between gargoyles and a few of the acronym agencies. It never hurt to think about future career choices.
Obsidian touched her mind. “You’ll already have a career, a gargoyle war-leader.”
“Never hurts to diversify.”
But the council soon agreed on a line of questioning focused on her abilities. At first, she’d thought they looked for weaknesses to use against her. Then they talked about training. Ah. This interrogation wasn’t for devious purposes. It was for school.
Her time in the Battle Goddess’s kingdom had been more like a magical basic training package. This new training sounded a lot more academic.
Eventually, they finished grilling her and turned to discussing Obsidian’s training and how he was progressing.
“Well,” Banrook said as he gathered his feet under him, “I suppose we should release Obsidian and Anna, so they can enjoy the festival. Your training will resume the afternoon after the Spring Rites, but first, Lord Draydrak will want to see you both. Report to the temple that morning before your lessons.”
“We will be there.” Obsidian rose and then bowed his head at each of the Elders. Anna mimicked him.
“Besides,” Banrook added, “if we hold you up too much longer, some of our brothers and sisters might expire of curiosity. That Lord Draydrak has made it known he desires a human to share command of his army has generated rather a lot of speculation.”
“To put it mildly,” Master Verroc added in his dour tones.
Banrook gestured toward the surrounding shadow magic shield. A second later the dome misted away. “Go. Use the time before the hunt to introduce Anna to the others.”
“Would you prefer to sit the hunt out? The Elders will understand if you don’t feel up to it yet.” Obsidian asked after they’d left the council members.
She glanced over his shoulder to find those in the crowd nearest to their location staring with rapt attention. “Nope. I’m good. A hunt sounds perfect.”
Because, surely, not everyone at the gathering would come? The hunt would offer an escape from the scrutiny for a short time.
“Very we
ll.” Obsidian sounded distracted, and when she looked up, it was to see him staring back at the crowd of gargoyles and dryads gathered a short distance away. They were talking amongst themselves now but still stared openly. “I think we’ll still be required to ‘show you off’ to the legion first before we can escape on a hunt.”
“Oh, come on. I’m a human, not a rare and mystical unicorn. Hell, humans and dryads don’t even look that different.”
“True. But they are also curious about where you’re from—Earth. To them, Earth is far more mystical than a unicorn. And they know Lord Dray has seen something in you that makes you worthy to lead. They want to see if they can spot it too.”
“Great. If I’m going to be under a microscope, might as well get it out of the way.”
Obsidian agreed with a deep chuckle. “In that case, I think we should find a place to dig in and make them come to us.”
“Works for me.” Maybe some of them would be too busy to take time from their duties to gawk at the Earthling.
Chapter 12
As it turned out, no one at the gathering was too busy to meet Obsidian’s human Kyrsu. Anna had even grudgingly admitted it wasn’t as bad as she’d expected. But flying free was going to be much more enjoyable. The breeze blowing off the ocean flipped her thick ponytail from side to side. They weren’t even in the air yet and the wind was already working hard to loosen her hair. First chance she got she needed to put it back in rows.
“Here, take these.” He handed her a bow and a quiver full of arrows. That done, he dropped to all fours and bumped his muzzle under her hand in eagerness.
“Jeez, grow some patience,” Anna laughed. “I’m hurrying.”
Lifting his wing out of her way, he waited with a humorous glint in his eye again.
“Now who’s uncertain?”
“You’re impatient and delusional.” She swung a leg over his back and settled into place. While she waited for the rest of the dryads to mount up, she checked her quiver and harness.
Anna leaned forward to brace her hands on his shoulders and noted her nose was almost buried in his thick mane.
“Next time, we’re doing your hair in cornrows. By the end of this hunt, I will be so done with getting flogged in the face.”
“Stop whining!” Then he was flexing his powerful hindquarters and launching them off the cliff into empty space. “Enjoy the freedom of the day!”
Laughing, Anna spread her arms wide and embraced the sheer sense of freedom and belonging in this one perfect moment. Then the thunder of wings filled the sky as the hunting party took flight behind him.
It was at that exact moment she knew she would be all right; Shadowlight wasn’t really gone at all. He’d just changed his name and grown up a little. This life, strange as it might seem to her old self, was hers now. Now it was up to her to claim it.
Slowly, Anna’s wildly beating heart calmed, but she couldn’t wholly vanquish the childlike wonder of flying gargoyle-back above the bright blue waves.
The sun shone hot, but the wind was pleasantly cool. Below them, a pod of dolphins cut through the waves.
“The Magic Realm has dolphins?”
Obsidian had been looking ahead towards the mainland in the distance, but he tilted his head, scanning the ocean and swiftly spotted the pod.
He banked to the left, dropping lower suddenly. Anna’s stomach lodged itself in her throat for a moment.
“Some warning next time.”
“Is my Kyrsu whining? Is that what I hear?”
“Just wait. You haven’t experienced whining yet.”
“Look closer,” he said suddenly.
She did. There was a metallic greenish-silver streak dipping and darting between the dolphins. “Fuck me! A mermaid!”
Just then the mermaid leaped high above the waves, splashing one of the low-flying gargoyles. The leanly built male dipped closer to the water as his dryad rider cursed both her mount and the mermaid.
“That’s Breaker. He and the sirens are good friends and often hunt the shallows together.”
Anna’s eyebrow lodged itself nearly in her hairline. “Gargoyles are good swimmers?”
She’d never had the chance to try but figured the wings would be a problem.
“Most aren’t as good in the water as Breaker. The running joke is that he’s spent so much time with the sirens, they’ve been secretly adapting him to a life in water. He moves like one of those…” He hesitated, obviously not remembering a word. “One of those flightless, ocean-dwelling birds back on Earth.”
“Penguins,” she supplied.
“Yes. He uses his wings underwater like one.”
“Have you tried that?”
He grunted in answer. “Yes. Once. Think I nearly swallowed half the ocean.”
“I’ll give that a hard pass.”
Obsidian veered back higher into the sky and a moment later a second siren broke the surface in a graceful arc before disappearing back into the blue depths, her tail flick insufficient to spray them twenty feet above the waves.
If Anna had been paying attention earlier, she would have recognized other magic wielders. It was a sharp reminder she needed to remain alert and not get seduced by the warm sun, cool breeze, and blue waves. Danger was never more than a few steps away.
“Those sirens are our allies,” Obsidian informed her. “You need not fear them. They serve Lord Dray and patrol the waters around the island even as we patrol the sky.”
Anna furrowed her brows. “Sirens. Read about them before. When my team was attacked by the Riven, there was a siren involved in that mess. Never saw her in person. Too busy dying at that time, but I read the file afterward. She’d originally come to enslave Gregory and Lillian and wipe out a good chunk of humanity. Those are the same creatures swimming down there?”
“Yes. They take their duties seriously. The one in the report was trying to protect her ocean realm.”
“There are better ways than mass genocide.”
Obsidian just shrugged.
Seriously. A shrug?
Anna arched an eyebrow at the back of his head. “You sure the ones down there are friendly?”
“I did not say that.” He tilted his head to catch her eye. “I only said the sirens below serve Lord Dray and help protect our lands. If someone was to trespass and their intentions were not pure...”
“Mmm… Fish food. Got it. Don’t go swimming in the ocean.”
“You are safe from them.”
Anna wasn’t feeling particularly convinced. Humans didn’t seem to be a favorite race in the Magic Realm. ‘What’d we ever do to them?’
“You seem to forget we have that siren back on Earth to thank for our meeting,” Obsidian pointed out. “If she hadn’t helped us to destroy the Riven in the Mortal Realm, there would have been many more to clean up, delaying me from finding you until it was too late. If not for that siren, you might have been the first Riven I killed on my own. That thought upsets me.”
“I...” The thought of never meeting Shadowlight, being saved by the fiercest gargoyle cub ever born, made her soul take a chill. “I never thought of it like that. You’re right. Even though I don’t condone that siren’s methods, or what she was trying to do, I owe her my life.”
“And I likely owe her mine as well.” Strong emotion bled across the link. “I don’t know if I would have survived all that has happened without you there at my side.”
“I never intend to leave you again.” Anna patted his shoulder. “The past is behind us. It’s enough we survived it and our friendship was born. Now it’s time to look to the future. And our immediate future has a hunt in it.”
“Yes,” he agreed, his tone still abnormally subdued.
A distraction was in order. “I’m about to take part in a hunt, but I don’t even know what the prey will be.”
“We call them cliff jumpers. They’re a large cloven-hoofed beast that’s woolly like an Earth sheep but moves with the agility of a goat. Though, it’s
much larger than both. Good eating.”
“Sounds charming.”
“They’re so ugly, they’re almost cute,” Obsidian added. “We save them for feast days, so we don’t have to work so hard on our days off.”
“Like keeping a stocked pond.”
Obsidian shrugged again and nearly unseated her this time.
“Stop that!”
His ears pinned back with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just don’t do it again.”
Anna scanned ahead, studying the topography of the mainland growing larger by the wing beat. If she hadn’t been squinting, she might have missed the so-called cliff jumpers. Their coats were camouflaged to look like the cliff wall.
“What the heck needs camouflage perched precariously on the side of a cliff like that? What predator is dumb enough to risk killing itself for a mouthful of meat, no matter how tasty?”
“One with wings.” Obsidian laughed and then beat his wings harder.
The other gargoyles surged after them. When she spotted the other dryad’s drawing arrows from their quivers, Anna swiftly followed suit.
At least her time in the Battle Goddess’s domain had made her proficient with the bow. And the woolly, ugly goat-sheep-muskox beasts were as broad as a barn door.
Don’t miss, she told herself. No screwing up the first day.
Anna picked out her target as Obsidian streaked closer. When she judged they were in range, she released the arrow.
“Obsidian. Above you! Look out!” More than one voice cried the warning, but Anna was too busy tracking the danger. A vast black shadow arrowed from above. Time slowed in that strange way it did in the seconds before an accident. She could see everything.
Reaver was diving from higher up, his speed tremendous and his angle intersecting Obsidian’s path. Her gargoyle partner reared back, going vertical in the air to avoid a collision with the other gargoyle.
The fool missed them by inches, but as he slid past, his powerful tail smashed Obsidian in the chest, throwing him backward. They spun through the air in a wild arc. Their link flared to life instinctively.
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