“We managed to follow the group for a couple of miles. It may not bring you much comfort, but you should know that the six affected shifters went with them, and protected them from the Destroyers. We saw them kill several before disappearing into the woods, going farther east,” Mairi replied. “I’m inclined to believe, or at least hold out hope, that they survived, thanks to those shifters.”
“It does bring me an ounce of comfort, thank you, Mairi. So you said Draven headed east as well?”
“Yes, Mistress Jasmine.”
“He must have found something on the east coast. There’s nothing of use on that side of Antara, besides the shore and the derelict harbors…”
Her voice trailed off as her expression brightened, the corner of her mouth twitching.
“I know where they went,” she mumbled. “I know what he’s doing! All these trips to Mount Inon, the River Pyros, now the east…”
The succubi were quiet, but all four lifted their heads to look at her. She placed her hands on her hips, nodding with newfound satisfaction.
“He’s building an alliance,” she said. “He’s reaching out to the Dearghs, the Lamias, the Red Tribe. And now he’s headed east.”
“Three of his group took indigo horses toward the northwest, during the diversion. There was a Mara with them” Mairi added.
“The Tritones, I’m guessing, and they must have been riding toward White City. The Maras are clearly on board.” Jasmine grinned.
“What about the east, Mistress Jasmine? What’s there?”
“Stonewall, my darlings.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Before he passed away, my brother was kind enough to help resettle a pack of Bajangs in Stonewall, hidden beneath a cloaking spell like ours. My guess is that Draven finally decided to reach out to them. Surely Almus must have told him about the citadel. This is it!”
She paced the terrace from left to right several times, rubbing her chin with one hand as she processed the information. I still couldn’t believe she’d been here all along, watching Draven without ever reaching out to him. What had she been doing?
“This is it, my darlings,” Jasmine finally repeated, looking at the succubi. “The war we’ve all been waiting for is finally coming. Draven, son of Almus and Genevieve, is bringing the free nations together. My guess is they’re organizing some kind of meeting at Stonewall. It’s secluded enough to hold such an event.”
“What do we do, then, Mistress Jasmine?” Mairi asked.
“Send one scout to Stonewall. Just one. You want her to be as inconspicuous as possible. Have her keep watch, as they’re all bound to meet over the next few days. Now that the mansion is revealed and the Oracles are no longer hidden, Azazel will be making a move. Once she has gathered enough information, I will make a decision and inform you all. In the meantime, get a group ready, there’s valuable information in that mansion and Azazel will want it. Draven’s identity must be protected for as long as possible. You know what you have to do…”
Mairi gave her a firm nod and whistled to several succubi behind her.
“Oh, come on, you know about us too?!” I finally burst, though no one could hear me.
What else did she know?
I wanted to stick around, but, as usual, my vision ended arbitrarily. Darkness enveloped me, and I cursed under my breath, bracing myself for the third one.
As the image before me clarified into the black marble and limestone platform on top of Azazel’s castle, my chest constricted.
“Oh, crap,” I muttered, nervously looking around.
The three Oracles were still there, trapped in their glass bubbles. Abrille was the only one conscious. The other two had their eyes closed, looking pale, almost lifeless.
Night had fallen over Luceria as well, the indigo sky above sprinkled with millions of stars, a round moon casting its milky light over the land. It made the liquid in Abrille’s glass sphere glimmer slightly in a peculiar green, as she floated with her white eyes open and runes flitting across her skin.
Patrik emerged from below, occasionally looking over his shoulder. I had a feeling he’d snuck up without anyone knowing. He stopped in front of Abrille, placing his hand on the glass.
“Abrille, are you awake?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
The Nevertide Oracle moved her head slightly, as if reacting to his presence.
“Can you look into the present and tell me if Kyana is safe?” Patrik continued, biting into his lower lip.
Abrille shrugged before she looked away. Patrik sighed and took a step back.
“Silly of me to try,” he mumbled.
I felt sorry for him. He was obviously worried about his love. I figured then that I could very well reach out to Vita and let her know I’d seen Kyana alive and well, so she could soothe his concern.
I then turned around, and the blood instantly left my body. I yelped as I took a step back, ice shards shooting down my spine. Azazel stood in front of me, a grin slitting his face and the snake pendant quietly moving against his chest, its ruby eyes sparkling in the night. He had his hands behind his back, and he was watching me with childish delight.
Patrik sensed his presence and turned, unable to hide his surprise.
“Azazel,” he muttered.
“How are you, my darling?” Azazel asked me, sneering.
“Wake up, wake up,” I whispered to myself, my heart thumping.
The image before me began to fade, but Azazel snapped his fingers and it all came back into focus. I couldn’t wake up.
“Oh, come on!” I growled, balling my fists.
I hated the helplessness that came over me in his presence. I moved farther back instead.
“Not so fast, little one,” he hissed. “So nice of you to come visit! It’s been a while. I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.”
“What person in their right mind wouldn’t want to avoid you? Have you looked at yourself in a mirror lately?” I shot back, my blood boiling through my veins.
“Milord, I wasn’t… Little one?” Patrik mumbled, visibly confused. He couldn’t see or hear me, so it probably looked like Azazel was addressing him in the strangest of terms.
He raised a hand to silence Patrik, who bowed his head respectfully.
“It’s a pleasure to feel you and the other one still out there,” Azazel said. “I’ll be coming for you both soon enough, my darling.”
“I don’t know why you’re still gloating, you disgusting piece of trash,” I replied through gritted teeth. “You know you’re going to die. And I’ll be there to make sure you die a slow and painful death.”
Azazel chuckled, his fingers instinctively touching the pendant in a reassuring gesture. I’d definitely hit a nerve, since Vita had told him he’d fail.
“Whatever the future shows, it can be prevented,” he hissed. “I will simply have to go to greater lengths to secure my dominion, that is all.”
“You’re delusional, Azazel. We’ll tear it all down, brick by brick. And I’ll have the honor of nailing your coffin.”
“Worry not, little one, I will come for you soon. I will come for the both of you. I’ve got your suites all ready.” He grinned again, and pointed at three empty glass bubbles hung beneath an archway behind Abrille. “Let the others know I will not tolerate defiance and mutiny. Their heads will fall.”
His eyes flickered green as he snapped his fingers, and I suddenly felt a bone-crushing weight removed from my chest. My body felt light as darkness once again enveloped me. He’d set me free, but not without a message for us all.
He was coming for us.
Phoenix
My room felt very small. It wasn’t, but as the hours passed and I settled into a temporary state of comfort, the events of the past twenty-four hours finally started to crash into me. I felt the walls closing in as I lay in bed, trying to fall asleep.
My breathing was ragged, my chest felt heavy, and my mind couldn’t tear itself away from Viola. She’d been taken from me, and my heart hadn??
?t stopped bleeding since. I’d been in survival mode until I entered Stonewall. But as soon as the tension seeped out of my body, the anxiety began to bubble beneath the surface.
The image of her was seared into my memory, with her long, silky, reddish pink hair and violet eyes, her tender lips, and her sweet, innocent soul. I couldn’t feel her anymore, and I wanted to crawl into a dark hole and wither away.
But I wasn’t one to endure this kind of torture for too long. I always looked at a solution, and the absence of the Daughter expedited every process in my brain—all I could think of was how to get her back. I needed, desperately needed, to feel her in my arms again, to hear her soft breathing and listen to her voice as she whispered in my ear, her skin on mine, her taste on my lips.
Maybe I could reach out to the Daughters. Maybe I could reach some sort of agreement with them. Surely they could be reasoned with. The bond that Viola and I shared was deep on such a profound level, they couldn’t overlook it. They had to take me into account, whether they wanted to or not.
I sat up, exhaling sharply. My stomach churned and my entire ribcage ached, like she’d been cradled in there and someone had simply scooped her out and left an empty and painfully raw hole behind. I paced around my room for a while, thinking of ways to reach out to the Daughters. I had to speak to them. I had to try.
I thought of the Druid, then, and the first time we’d seen the Daughters. Maybe he could help.
I left my room and went looking for Draven throughout the living quarters. I used my True Sight, scanning each chamber until I found him at the far end, alone, perched on a window ledge. I knocked on the door, but he didn’t answer. I went in anyway. I wasn’t going to let common courtesy stop me from getting what I wanted, what I needed the most.
He looked at me with an eyebrow raised, but didn’t say anything. He waited for me to speak, and he didn’t bother to hide his emotions. I couldn’t tap into his mind like Serena, but I could still feel the dread, the anger, and the helplessness that simmered inside him. I couldn’t blame him.
I even got a whiff of guilt when our eyes met. I assumed it had to do with Vita’s vision of him killing me and the Daughter. I’d set that whole notion aside from the very beginning. I was already dealing with the loss of Viola; I had neither patience nor willingness to worry about a possible future. The only thing I knew for sure was that I was ready to do anything to protect the Daughter, including ending his life. I acknowledged it rather matter-of-factly and left it as such in the back of my head. I needed to get Viola back first.
“I need your help,” I said.
A shadow passed over his face before he looked away, focusing on the nightscape outside.
“You’ve reached out to the Daughters before. You’ve been rummaging through Druid spells here in Stonewall for days now. Can you help me get in touch with them? I need to get Viola back,” I continued. “I need to talk to them.”
A minute passed in utter silence before I opened my mouth to speak again.
“I would never put you through such an ordeal,” Draven answered before I could say anything. “There are other ways through which one could reach out to the Daughters. But they all involve a sacrifice of some kind. You saw yourself what price I paid after our first encounter with them. They are mean; they are cold, selfish, and capricious. I can’t put you through that, Phoenix. I am sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it,” I burst out, no longer able to control my broiling emotions. “I need to get her back. You don’t understand—it’s like torture without her. I can’t…”
My voice trailed off as Draven let out a long sigh and looked at me with a pained expression.
“No, you don’t understand, Phoenix,” he replied. “You’re extremely important to me, to Serena, to all of us. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you. They wouldn’t kill you, of course, but they could do other, terrible things to you. Or worse, they could come after Serena just to teach you a lesson, if you manage to irritate them in any way. We can’t risk it.”
I couldn’t respond. Everything he said made perfect sense, but it contradicted my feelings. It didn’t stifle the dread, it didn’t swat my fears away, and it didn’t stop the walls from closing in on me, nearly suffocating me.
“Think about it this way, for now,” he said then, watching me carefully. “Wherever Viola may be right now, she’s with her sisters. They’re teaching her to control her powers, but she won’t be able to stay away from you for too long. Chances are she will come to you once they deem her ready and no longer a liability. You two share an incredibly powerful bond that even her sisters can’t break. You know as well as I do that they would’ve severed it already, if they could.”
Once more, what the Druid said made sense. But it didn’t stop the knives from puncturing my heart, twisting and stabbing viciously whenever the thought of her popped into my head—and that was every other second now.
My head felt heavy, and my shoulders sagged. I nodded, defeated and finally exhausted.
Without another word, I retreated to my room.
I lay in my bed again, feeling cold and empty on the inside, as the walls continued to slowly close in on me. It didn’t seem like I had another choice. I had to find a way to tough it out instead. My sister needed me. My friends needed me. The whole of Eritopia needed me, and so did Viola.
I’d find my way back to her sooner rather than later, but in the meantime, I had to hold on.
I had to get used to spaces feeling smaller in her absence.
For now.
Serena
My eyes were starting to burn, as it was well past midnight and I was still rummaging through a forbidden Druid spell book, looking for something that could help us conceal Aida and Phoenix from Azazel. My heart was a blob of lead, hanging heavily in my chest, as I thought of Draven and what he was going through. The guilt was going to eat away at him in the end, and I figured I’d at least try to keep the Oracles safe until the alliance meeting—hoping it would remove some of the pressure keeping Draven down.
I was determined to counteract anything that the future threw at us, and protecting my friends and brother was the first and best action I could take, given the circumstances.
I’d gone through a dozen spells already, most of them as terrible and as deadly as the ones Draven had found in another volume. They spoke of horrific diseases, torture methods, and deadly curses. But then my fingers brushed over the word “hidden” on one of the last pages.
I stilled, rereading that page from top to bottom. Notes had been made in the margin in dark green ink, drawing arrows from specific words—ingredients for a spell—and suggesting they be replaced with other herbs and powders to increase efficiency and achieve the ultimate concealment.
“Oh, boy,” I gasped, as I realized what I was looking at.
After all the hours spent searching, I’d finally come across something that could be useful, but I needed Draven to look at it and confirm whether we’d found the right spell or not.
I jumped out of my chair, clutching the book and holding it tight against my chest as I rushed out of the archive hall and into Draven’s room, without even bothering to knock.
“Sorry, Draven, but I need to—”
I stilled, unable to take my eyes off him. He’d removed his shirt and boots, leaving only his dark brown calfskin trousers on. He sat by the window, brooding, his sand-colored hair falling loosely on both sides of his face and brushing against his shoulders. There was something so heartbreaking and yet so beautiful about him in that state; it sent my senses galloping as blood rushed to my head.
He looked at me through hooded eyes, and I could feel sadness pouring out of him.
“I need to show you something,” I said, willing myself to take a few steps forward. I reached him and handed him the spell book, opening it for him to read the formula I’d just found.
“What is this?” he asked before looking at it.
“Just read it. Tell me what you
think.”
He sighed, then skimmed the text. His emotions shifted from their originally dark and gloomy state to something brighter, more energetic. Whatever it was I’d found, it seemed to have instilled some sense of hope in him.
His gray eyes met mine, a familiar twinkle confirming my initial assumptions. I was onto something good.
“Well?” I asked.
“This was taken out of a Seventieth Circle spell book. It was deemed too unstable in its current formula, and it was moved to a forbidden tome,” he said slowly. “It’s a concealment spell. It was meant to provide its wearer with invisibility, but one of the ingredients was thought to have severe side effects when combined with the others.”
“Okay, what about the notes in the margin, then?”
“That’s the interesting part,” he replied. “Someone reviewed the spell and suggested replacing certain ingredients with different herbs and powders, for it to be more effective. But it no longer acts as an invisibility spell. Rather, it conceals an individual from anyone trying to trace them, through blood rituals or otherwise. They’re visible, sure, but they can’t be pinpointed on a map.”
We stared at each other for a few moments, his gaze softening.
“Think it’ll work for Phoenix, Aida, and Vita?” I asked, my heart skipping a beat.
“There’s a cabinet at the far end of the archive hall,” Draven said. “There are herbs and powders and crystals there, kept as specimens for Druid practice sessions. We might find everything we need in there to see if it works or not.”
Without saying another word, we both went back into the archive hall and raided the cabinet he’d mentioned. We used the book for guidance and found everything there: red clay dust, black orchid stems, crystal powders, and yellow cobra oil, along with other herbs.
We brought the ingredients to the large table in the middle of the hall, and prepared the spell according to the instructions in the margin. The result was an orange-colored paste with a heavy, musky smell. The crystal powders in its composition glimmered gently under the candlelight.