“You pin him down!” I said, fighting the immense pain I was in to scramble across the garbage and wrap my hand around the pipe. I started to pull, but it wouldn’t budge. I had to dig around the pipe with my fingernails, pulling out rotten, rancid food, used diapers, and all manner of waste until I was able to unearth it. I had no idea what this pipe belonged to, but it was heavy, it was shaped like a T, and I had a feeling we could do some real damage with it if we used it right.
I turned my eyes up at Felice. “Found something,” I yelled.
She reached for me. “Throw it!” she said, but before I could toss it to her, she was struck in the back by a ball of crackling, black lightning that sent her staggering forward. Her eyes rolled up into her skull, then closed, and she fell onto the fiend who wrapped his arms and legs around her.
“That prey is ours!” came a loud, hissing voice from the water.
It was Abvat and the other two Naga; they were swimming along the Hudson at an incredible speed, but their bodies… their bodies didn’t look human from the waist down. They’d shed their jumpsuits, so from the waist up they were naked, but around their midriff their human skin faded into a scaly pattern that disappeared into the water. Though their entire torsos were above the waterline, I could tell there was much more of each of them underneath; snakelike tails propelling them through the water.
One of the other Naga prepared a ball of black, crackling energy and fired it off directly at me. I rolled to the side to avoid it, and it smashed into the side of the ship, sending huge chunks of trash in all directions and kicking up an even worse smell. Ignoring the Naga, I turned around and clambered to the top of the pile of garbage, where the fiend—whose skin was starting to burn, sizzle, and split apart—had grabbed of one of Felice’s wings and looked about ready to take a bite out of it with his enlarged canines.
Something inside of me snapped at the sight. Roaring, I slammed the lead pipe into the side of the fiend’s head, but the fiend hissed at me, seemingly unhurt by my attack. I turned the pipe on its side, aimed one of the protruding sections toward the fiend, and I hit it again, this time managing to wedge the side of the pipe into the fiend’s skull with a wet crack. The fiend’s eyes rolled into the back of his skull, and all of the strength in his grip fell away from him.
“Felice!” I yelled, falling to my knees beside her. “Felice, you have to get up, we need to get out of here!”
Felice was out cold, and the Naga were already starting to climb onto the ship, which incidentally was no longer holding a steady course. Whoops.
“Felice, wake up!” I said, shoving a handful of garbage against her nose.
Her eyes opened with a start, she turned to her side, spitting and rubbing at her face with her forearm. “What the hell did you do that for?” she said, scowling.
I pointed at Abvat, who was standing stark naked across from us in all of his slimy, oily, balding, unimpressive glory. “That!” I said.
“Ah, shit. They found us,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter, I killed the fiend, so we won. Hear that, fuckers? We won, so you can suck—”
Abvat tossed a ball of magic at us, so I grabbed Felice and pulled her down the other side of the garbage mound. Together we rolled, as energy ball after energy ball struck the mountain of garbage, kicking all manner of crap into the air where the seagulls were only happy to snatch it up.
“Into the water,” I said to Felice.
“Are you kidding? They’re Naga, they’ll catch us!”
“Better than staying here.”
Felice and I fought to get to our feet, then we rushed the last few steps until we were over the edge and splashing into the Hudson. The water felt blessedly cold on my tired, pained, and filthy body, and while I thought I’d never take the stink off my skin, I was glad at least to be away from the dead fiend. The Naga, however, did exactly as Felice had predicted. I watched them throw themselves into the Hudson one after the other, then their bodies lifted up and off the water, looking like swimming cobra-people, and they started speeding toward us, but they never made contact.
A vortex of sizzling and snapping blue light opened up between us and them, and before I knew it, I was being sucked through along with Felice. We landed on our backs on cold grass; wet, coughing, and probably still filthy. When I turned my head up, I was hoping to see Aaryn smiling down at us, about to congratulate us for a job well done. Instead, it was Crag; Draven’s huge, muscle-bound friend, and he didn’t look impressed.
“You,” he growled, “You’re coming with me.”
I flicked my wet hair over my head and sighed deeply. “Can I shower first?” I asked.
Crag shook his head. “Boss wants you. Just you. Now.”
Ah, crap.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I felt gross, I was sure I stank, and my shoulder blades were still killing me from before, but at Abvat and his goons were gone, and I’d watched Aaryn take Felice with her. We were at the Black Fortress, and we were safe… which felt odd to admit to myself, considering a few weeks ago, this place had looked very much like a prison I was being sent to for the crime of being different.
Crag led me through the dark, quiet hallways to a part of the fortress I’d never been to before. A door stood before us, covered in wavy runes and sigils that pulsed with silver light. Crag opened his mouth, said a few unintelligible words, and the door opened for him, revealing a spiral staircase. I’m being brought to one of the towers, I thought, my heart already pounding.
Without being told to, I walked ahead of Crag and took to the spiral staircase, following it until I reached a single door also covered in glowing runes. This time, Crag didn’t speak. The door opened from the other side, and there was Draven wearing a simple black shirt and pants. The room beyond him was dark, almost to the point where I wondered if there were any windows, or even lit candles.
“As you requested, boss,” Crag said.
“Good,” Draven said, “Leave us.”
Crag nodded, gave me a sidelong glance, and started down the stairs, leaving me alone with Draven and his dark chambers. He opened the door further, and without having to use the words, commanded me to step into the room. There were windows here, but they were all shut, not a sliver of sunlight made it through. A small handful of candles did their best to provide illumination, but seeing anything in here was a real struggle. Already I could feel that familiar panic start to descend upon me like a vulture, I didn’t like being in dark places like this, much less with someone who had already expressed his willingness to kill me at a moment’s notice.
“Do you know why you’re here?” Draven asked, shutting the door behind himself.
I shook my head. “Something to do with the trial?”
He stared at me from where he stood, his hands in his pockets, his eyes narrow. “Take off your clothes.”
I took a step back, my heart slamming against my chest. “What?”
“Take off your clothes,” he repeated. “You’re filthy.”
“Yeah, well, I did mention that to your little henchman, but he wouldn’t let me go for a shower first, so, not my fault. Also, I’m not getting naked in front of you. That’s a creep move.”
He walked over to me and I thought he was going to grab my neck and force me to do what he’d asked, but he crossed right past me, opened a door, and gestured me toward it. The walls inside were glowing with pearlescent light, there were candles spread out around the edges of the room, and set into the floor was a pool of bubbling, steaming water.
Draven circled around me to get to his bed, and then picked up a fresh set of clothes and a towel. He handed them to me. “Take off your clothes, give them to me, and I will burn them. But before you do, I want to see your shoulders.”
I arched my eyebrows. Was this a weird kink thing? “Okay, you’re gonna have to help me out here and tell me why you want me to do that.”
“Because I need to confirm my suspicions about you.”
“Suspicion?”
“What you are.”
My heart wasn’t just pounding anymore, it was fluttering like a woodpecker pecking at my ribcage. I swallowed hard, then pulled the front zipper on my jumpsuit down just a little, enough that I’d be able to wriggle my shoulders out without totally taking it off. Shutting my eyes, I turned around and let the jumpsuit fall even further down my back, making sure to keep my breasts covered but feeling completely exposed in front of him all the same.
He was staring at me. I could feel his eyes against my skin, and then—Gods—his fingertips. My whole body ignited at his touch, gentle ripples of delicate fire moved through me at the point where his skin touched mine, but the contact only lasted for a fleeting instant. As soon as he pulled his fingertips away, I shuffled my shoulders back into the filthy jumpsuit and turned around to look at him.
He wasn’t looking at me. In fact, he’d turned away and seemed to be plucking the buttons of his shirt off one by one. My lips parted, my breathing became suddenly short and quick, like I was panting. When he’d plucked all the buttons free, he slid his arms out of the shirt and let it fall to the floor at his back.
His muscles, Gods, they were tight and ropey, powerful. This guy worked out, he had to. His arms were big, his torso was incredibly well defined, and he looked like could support Crag’s entire body weight on his shoulders. In a word, Draven was exquisite.
“What do you see?” he asked.
“Nothing… just your back.”
He flexed his shoulders, and swirling patterns appeared on his back, lines of silvery light that swirled and interlocked—two groups of them, one on each of his shoulder blades. “And now?” he asked.
“What… are those?”
“Those are my kithe.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Why do I recognize that word?”
He spun around slowly, and now I got a look at the front of him. A breath escaped my lips, though I hadn’t intended it to. I shut my mouth and stared at him, taking in the sight of that impeccable body and the many bits of jewelry on him. Rings, bracelets, and that ruby necklace that almost seemed to glow despite the darkness. “Because it is an Aevian word,” he said, “It means wings.”
“Aevian? I’m not—”
“You have them also. I have seen the markings on your back, although…”
The pause dragged a little too long. “Although what?”
“The markings look like tattoos. Permanent. You cannot hide them as I do.”
“I’ve had these markings on my back for as long as I can remember. Are you telling me they’re wings?”
He took a deep breath. “I watched you fall from the side of that building. You should have died, but you didn’t. Why do you think this is?”
“Because I’m awesome?” I didn’t know what the answer was, but I thought I’d take a stab anyway.
Draven’s expression hardened. “At the dawn of their race, the Aevians made a pact with Sorus, God of the Wind. To him they pledged their allegiance, his words they would follow, his spirit they would carry. In return, Sorus granted the Aevian race a gift… the promise that an Aevian would never die from falling. The wind would always carry them safely to the ground.”
I wasn’t aware of it, but I was shaking my head. “Is that… how do you know that? I mean, how can you possibly know that? We all forget.”
“Ever since I fell through the rift, I have been fighting hard to regain my memories. Many of them I have, but there are still gaps, entire swathes of my own, personal history that elude me. It is no secret that through memory we gain power, and magic; through memory, our old gifts are restored.”
“So… what are you?”
His lips pressed together. “I am Aevian, like you. There are many of us here.”
“But, the light, I remember what it did to you that day, and being here right now in the dark just reminded me that I’ve never seen you out after dawn. You live in the dark. Why’s that?”
“Our race is vast, one Aevian is not like the other. In my memories, my people lived in the dark.”
“Like, in caves?” Images of the fiend and his cracked, grey skin came flashing into my mind. Was that him when the mask comes off? Was he one of them?
He shook his head. “Not in caves, but in grand, floating cities… my people lived and loved and laughed under the cover of darkness, choosing to sleep while the sun was high in the sky.”
“Why am I not affected by the light like that?” It wasn’t just that the light didn’t affect me the same way it did him; I didn’t even like the dark. I preferred brightly lit environments, clear summer days, I even slept with a light on when I could. Fate had given me plenty of shit for that over the years, comparing me to a toddler who was scared of monsters, but it really was a comfort thing.
“Once our people were unified under a single Kingdom—a single Principality. We were rulers of the skies, guardians of all we surveyed, but dissent brewed within the underbelly of our political structures, and there came the time of the fracturing, a time of war. Our Principality split into five Houses, each making new pacts with different Gods. I suspect you were born into a different house to mine. Your eyes… it is a trademark of your house, as are mine.”
“What house are you from?”
“The house of Night. You, I suspect, are a daughter of Dawn.”
“And Felice? Aaryn?”
“Dusk and Dawn respectively.”
“Dawn… so, Aaryn is like me…”
“Yes, I believe so. You have much you could learn from her, though any Aevian can teach you our magical gifts.”
“I hate to break it to you, but I’m about as magic as a doorknob.”
“You are one of us, which means you not only possess the gift of magic, your magic is powerful and pure.”
I took a deep breath. It was a lot to process. “You said there was a war… were our houses fighting?”
“Yes. Each house wanted to rule over the other. Though ours was a race of protectors and scientists, we all became soldiers; instruments of war”
“Soldiers…”
I couldn’t lie, some of this was starting to sound familiar, though it hadn’t triggered any memories yet. “Why are you telling me all this? More importantly, why couldn’t Felice? She’s Aevian, but she had no idea why I hadn’t died when I fell off that roof.”
“She knew. I suspect she was trying to find out if your memories had been triggered by the fall. Not very many of us know of our race’s pact with Sorus.”
“Really? Because back then I was sure she thought I’d been lying to her about a bunch of stuff.” I sighed, taking a deep breath. “Look, I know this is probably way out of line, but I don’t know anything about you, and you keep looking at… this.” I pulled the pendant out of my jumpsuit and held it in my hand. “Do you know what this is?”
Draven swallowed hard. “No,” he said, licking his lips. “I suspect it is a relic from beyond the rift?”
“It is… and, I don’t know, I guess I’m going crazy but I thought maybe you recognized it.”
“I don’t…”
Draven trailed off, and silence hung between us like a veil. “Well, thanks for the history lesson…,” I said, “For a moment I thought you were going to give me an earful for the mess I made in New York.”
His expression hardened, and my stomach sank. “You did indeed make a mess, and you let another prospect almost murder you.”
“Yeah, about that. Isn’t he gonna get into shit for it?”
“Prospects were told at the beginning of the trial that all rules had been suspended.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t tell me he’s off the hook? He tried to kill me, twice.”
“You would not have been the first to have died today.”
Those words struck me hard against the chest. “What are you talking about?”
“Three prospects were killed today. Two by the fiend, one by the Naga, Vishal.”
Hot anger burned its way into my chest,
words coated with bile threatening to spill out of my mouth. “And you’re just gonna let that slide?”
“Our rules are our rules.”
I tossed the clothes and the towel to the floor. “I’ve said this before, but your rules are bullshit. You’re going to just let a bunch of murderers walk around the fortress like that? You realize that you’re not only condoning murder, but you’re also encouraging internal conflict, right? We’re all supposed to be on the same team; how are we expected to fight a war when our own people are allowed to kill each other?”
He advanced on me, and I felt myself retreat from the size of him. “You listen to me,” he growled, “You are a prospect here, you are not yet a member of the Order, which means you have no voice with which to criticize the way we have done things for years. The trials are in place to weed out the unworthy. I warned you from the beginning, failure could mean death; everyone was warned of the same.”
“Sure, but you didn’t exactly give us an option to leave. You just told us what the rules were and made us train to beat your ridiculous trials. What kind of justice is it to the people who were killed today? They weren’t evil, they didn’t hurt anyone, but you’re going to ignore the people who did hurt others today and let them roam free?”
“You know nothing of the state of this world, or ours, but I’m going to give you another bit of information to chew on. You are right, we are at war. We were at war on the other side, and we are at war still. We need soldiers, people who will do what they must to get the jobs done, not weaklings who will fold at the first sign of an ethical dilemma. If you are not willing to do what it takes in order to survive and to complete your missions, you deserve to end up like the other dead prospects.”
I shook my head. “You’re heartless,” I snarled. “And I swear to all the Gods there are, if you let any harm come to Fate before I finish these fucking trials, I’m going to kill you myself. Do you hear me? I will come for you, and I will kill you.”
Draven stared at me and looked, for an instant, like he was considering making sure that prophecy never came to pass by snapping my neck right then and there, but he resisted the urge. Before he could command me to leave, I made a move toward the door and then kept going when he didn’t stop me.
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