“What is it? Did Brother—” one of them started.
He was not allowed to finish the question, for one of the approaching men strode toward him without hesitation, raising his sword and cutting him down without a word.
Una stood, frozen, as the men began to fight and the truth seeped into her shock-addled brain.
The Souls. The Souls had found them.
She watched in horror, unable to look away as the Souls raised their swords against Dimitri’s security detail. The Brothers fought back, the clang of metal almost deafening, drowning out even the crash of water against rock only feet away.
“Una!” Lia cried from the other boat. “Get in the boat! Now!”
She registered the words, but they did not quite make sense, did not cohere into an actionable order. She could only stand there, water swirling over her feet and around her legs as she realized that somehow the numbers of Dimitri’s guards had dwindled. Now there were only two.
Two to the Souls’ six.
The Brothers were outmatched in number and strength, fury and skill. Like everyone on the island, they had grown complacent since the closing of the Gate. Una tried to remember, her mind strangely numb to what was going on around her, when she had last seen them practice outdoors with the foil or saber—when Fenris had last mentioned the exercises that had once been part of daily life on the island.
She could not recall, but surely it had been some time.
Brennus squirmed in her arms, letting out a cry of protest as the second-to-last Brother fell at the hands of two of the attacking Souls. Una looked down at the baby, her mind slowly clearing. And now she heard Lia, screaming at her from the other boat, already moving away from shore, her guide rowing fervently.
“Get in the boat right now, Una.” Lia’s voice carried across the water. “I am your Lady, and I am ordering you to get in the boat for the good of the island, the security of our legacy. Do it now.”
Una stepped into the boat. The vessel rocked to one side with her weight. She clutched Brennus so tightly that he cried out in protest, and she loosened her grip as she turned to the guide.
“Get us away from here! Hurry!”
The guide used the oars to push off the ocean’s sandy bottom. For a moment, the boat wouldn’t move. It simply swayed, ever so slightly, with the ebb and flow of the waves. Then, all at once, it broke loose. The boat seemed to lift, and Una almost fell over with the sudden sense of weightlessness.
She turned to look at Lia, farther out on the water, wanting her to know that they had done it. They had ensured the survival of Lia’s sons.
The boat jerked as something stopped its forward motion. Una looked back and found herself gazing into the cold brown eyes of one of the Souls, one of Samael’s Guard.
He clamped a hand down on the arm that held Brennus and tried to shake the baby loose from her grip, seemingly unaware of the ebb and flow of the water, the current swirling around his knees.
She had heard of the Guard, had heard tales of the mark around their necks, a mark that signified their position as one of Samael’s elite.
Still, she was unprepared for the terror that swept over her as the serpent tattooed around the man’s neck came to life, hissing and striking out at her. She moved her body as much as she could, trying to shield the baby, to hold him as far as possible from the muscled, flinty-eyed Soul.
But his grip was like a vise, unmoving and unshakable, on her arm.
“Get us onto the open sea,” she screamed at the guide, hoping to force the Soul to release her. “Hurry!”
“I cannot!” the guide shouted over the wind. “His hold is too strong.”
In spite of the circumstances, Una felt a moment’s surprise. She had not expected the guide to answer. It was the first time she’d ever heard one of them speak while in service.
Una pulled as hard as she could, desperate to get away, to see Brennus to safety. The baby began to wail, tired of being tossed about in Una’s arms and held out over the water, the lesser of the evils at hand.
Yet even with all her struggle, the Soul hardly moved. He had chosen his mortal body well. His legs were massive tree stumps in the water, his muscled arms barely straining as they held her.
Finally, she gave one last ferocious heave, hoping and praying it would be enough.
It wasn’t, but there was something else.
She felt the cold metal of the letter opener, the one she’d picked up in the babies’ chambers when she’d first arrived to warn Lia and Dimitri, in the pocket of her robe. The weight of it had been lost to her in the initial stages of her struggle with the Soul, but her movement had caused it to slap against her thigh.
She had a moment’s indecision. She had only two hands, and they were both occupied; one holding Brennus, one fighting off the Soul who would stop her from seeing the baby to safety. She had been unsuccessful in her attempt to free her arm from the grip of the Soul, but if she used her other hand to retrieve the letter opener, the Soul would be free to attack her with both hands.
Which meant she would have to let go of the baby.
She glanced around, hoping for something soft in the bottom of the boat, something she could roll the baby onto and be assured of his survival. There was nothing.
The Soul was pulling now, pulling Una toward the side of the boat, dragging her closer and closer to the edge. If she didn’t do something soon, she and Brennus would go over the side and all would be lost.
She could not allow it to happen. Not when Lia had entrusted her to see Brennus to safety.
Bending as much as she could with her arm in the grip of the Soul, she leaned to the side, trying to get Brennus as close to the bottom of the boat as possible, to lessen the impact on him as he tumbled out of her arms.
Then she let go, hoping the thick swaddling would take the brunt of the fall.
The baby let out a surprised cry as he fell through the air. It was not far, no more than two feet, but it seemed to take forever for him to hit the bottom of the boat with a muffled thud. His wail sent a flood of relief through her veins.
He was alive.
She reached into the pocket of her robe, struggling for a moment against the fabric blowing about in the wind. Her hand closed around the silver hilt of the letter opener. She withdrew it, slashing through the air in front of her, desperate to be free of the Soul who still had her in his grip.
He leaned back, reaching toward her with his free hand, an angry growl emerging from his lips. For a moment, they both flailed against the open air, neither of them finding their target.
Then Una felt the blade of the letter opener connect with something soft.
It was rather like puncturing an orange to drink the juice, the initial push through firm skin, the soft release when one’s knife reached the flesh.
Then she was surprised to find that she was free, the Soul’s grip released from her arm. She staggered backward, reaching for one of the wooden seats in the boat to keep from stumbling and falling into the water. She could not take her eyes off the Soul.
He held a hand to his chest, blood mixing with water on his white shirt, a pink stain spreading from beneath his palm, the letter opener still protruding from his chest. He did not move, did not lunge for her as she half expected, nor turn to make an escape. He simply stood there in the water, the pink stain growing bigger with each passing second, his eyes wide with shock as the serpent around his neck writhed angrily.
He swayed on his feet, his eyes glazing over in the moment before he fell backward into the sea.
The boat was moving now, the guide rowing swiftly through the water, the beach getting smaller as they pushed farther out to sea. She bent down and picked up Brennus. He was squalling loudly, his face scrunched and red, tears sliding from his half-closed eyes toward the down fluff of hair near his temples.
“Shhhhh, little Brennus,” she said. “I’m sorry. It had to be done, and sometimes we must do what has to be done, whatever the consequences. All
is well now.” She sat down on the wooden seat, bouncing him. “All is well.”
The boat picked up speed, the guide rowing ferociously as if she, too, expected the Soul to rise out of the water. A few minutes later, she pulled the boat alongside the one holding Lia and Connall. Lia’s eyes were wild as she took in Brennus, wrapped safely in Una’s arms.
“Are you all right? Is Brennus all right?” she shouted across the water.
Una nodded. “I’m sorry…I’m so sorry. I did not know what else to do.”
Lia’s eyes met hers. “You did just the right thing, Una. I cannot thank you enough.”
“It was nothing. Are you and Connall all right?”
Lia looked down at the baby in her arms. “Yes, we were too far out when the Souls…” She hesitated, her eyes growing dark, and Una knew she was remembering the fallen Brothers who had escorted them to the beach. “When the Souls turned to the boats.”
Una scoured the lonely sea. “What do we do now?”
Lia took a deep breath, her gaze following Una’s. “Now we wait.”
For a time, they simply drifted. The fog swirled persistently around them, giving them no view of Altus.
And they did not need one to know what was happening. Not really.
They heard it all. The screech of swords, the screaming of women, shouting and crying. It carried across the water until Una wanted to cover her ears, to sing aloud, anything to stop the sounds of the island, her island, under attack.
They did not have a plan beyond this one. No one had ever believed the island would fall. The evacuation plans had only been put in place after the fire at a Beltane ritual had caught the unusually dry grass of a drought-filled spring. That the plans might also someday save them from an invasion of Souls was discussed, but they only went so far as to order the evacuation boats to wait offshore for the all-clear.
No one had ever wondered what would happen if it never came.
Lia peered anxiously through the mist, her eyes shadowed and worried. Una knew she thought not only of Dimitri but of her people. The Sisters and Brothers of the island. The Grigori who had enforced the rules of the Otherworlds since the beginning of time.
She was their Lady. Mistress of Altus itself.
The safety of the people and security of the island was her responsibility. Una knew that the breach would haunt Lia for many moons.
Finally, underneath the sounds of battle still raging across the water, Una heard something foreign. She tipped her head, listening, and realized it was water, lapping. Different from the now familiar sound of the current hitting the side of the boats, this was rhythmic and smooth.
A boat, coming toward them.
No, not one boat, Una realized. Many.
“Someone’s coming!” she said to Lia.
Lia’s eyes were watchful, her body very still, and Una realized Lia had heard it, too, probably even before Una.
She nodded, glancing at the guides. “Be ready to row,” she instructed softly.
The guides nodded, adjusting their grips on the oars.
Una could not be certain she had accurately pinpointed the direction of the sound. The water made it unreliable, causing it to bounce off overly large waves and the boats that drifted on its surface. But Lia was looking in the same direction, both of them staring into the fog.
A moment later, shadows appeared through the mist, gliding toward Lia and Una like apparitions. The boats were moving swiftly, and soon Una made out the smudge of bodies in the boats.
Many bodies.
If it was the Souls, Lia and Una were doomed, along with their precious cargo and the guides who sat at the helms of the boats.
Una held Brennus tighter, watching as the boats broke through the fog, the oars lifted out of the water as the vessels glided toward them.
“Lady Amalia?” someone called out. “Is that you?”
Una let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding. The boats were filled with other evacuees from the island. She watched as they appeared through the fog. When they finally stopped coming, twelve boats bobbed in the water beside Lia and Una, all filled with women and children. Una noticed with a start that even the elderly Brothers and members of the Grigori’s Council had remained on the island to fight.
She wondered about Fenris. Wondered if he was still alive. If she would ever see his face, have the chance to say the words she had held close to protect her pride, her heart.
“What do we do now, Lady Amalia?” Astrid, one of the Sisters, asked.
Despite the fact that the girl was only sixteen, Una had never seen her afraid. But she was afraid now, her face pale as she sat on one of the wooden seats next to her mother.
Lia looked out over the water. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I suppose we should wait a while longer. That’s what Dimitri—Brother Markov—instructed, what the evacuation plans demand.”
They remained in the boats, no one talking, each lost in her own thoughts as the sounds of battle slowly changed and diminished.
And then, through the fog, the acrid smell of smoke.
It was faint at first, easy for Una to deny. Easy to tell herself that it was her imagination, or perhaps a signal fire designed to call the evacuation boats back to shore.
But after a while, the scent became stronger, the strength and ferocity of it impossible to refute, even though the mist remained, an ever-present shroud over Altus. The clang of swords became less frequent, the shouting and crying finally ceasing completely.
Then, only the sound of silence remained, the boats rising and falling in the sea, the water lapping against the hulls.
About the Author
Michelle Zink lives in New York with her four children. Prophecy of the Sisters was her first novel, and was chosen as one of Booklist’s Top Ten Debut Novels of 2009 and as one of the Chicago Public Library’s Best Books for Young Readers. It has also been listed on the New York Public Library’s Stuff for the Teen Age and the Lone Star Reading List. Michelle invites you to visit her on Facebook and Twitter, and to listen to the Prophecy of the Sisters score by Kenneth Zink. Her newest novel, A Temptation of Angels, is out now.
Also by Michelle Zink
Prophecy of the Sisters Series:
Prophecy of the Sisters
Guardian of the Gate
Circle of Fire
Prophecy of the Sisters Novellas:
Whisper of Souls
Mistress of Souls
COPYRIGHT
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2012 by Michelle Zink
Cover design by Alison Impey. Cover copyright © 2012 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at
[email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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ISBN 978-0-316-22769-8
Table of Contents
Title page
Welc
ome page
Rise of Souls
About the Author
Also by Michelle Zink
Copyright
Michelle Zink, Rise of Souls
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