Chapter 34

CHAPTER34

Ediye’s eyes swirl with darkness as she hits Florin with her blades of stars, trapping his shoulders to the wall. He cries out in frustration as much as pain. The illusion has slipped from his features too. His blond hair turns short and red, a spray of freckles appears across his nose. Bright blue, angry eyes dart from one person to the next. He’s beautiful. Angelically beautiful.

“Leander,” Cole whispers. His hands fold into tight fists at his sides. “So this is where you’ve been hiding.”

Leander huffs a derisive laugh, then turns his head and spits blood onto the carpet. “Not hiding. Creating. Saving. Ensuring the future of the Realm of Light.”

“By trying to start a war among realms,” Ashen says. “By handing the Living Realm to a pack of werewolves that has no business ruling anyone, and having them pay for it by destroying the Shadow Realm.”

“You say that as though your own Council has not been plotting for centuries to crush the Realm of Light. It’s why our elders sent him in the first place,” Leander replies, tossing a nod in Cole’s direction. “He was meant to flush out Eshkar and Imogen’s plans for war.”

Cole leans forward toward the fallen angel, smoke cascading from his shoulders. “I gave my wings to stop war, not to start it. You gave yours for poison.”

“Do you really think my purpose was not as noble as yours? We have too many souls in the Realm of Light as it is. Too many make it through. We must close our gates and protect the ancient ones we have, the ones that deserve a place among the anunnaki.”

“There are souls in the Shadow Realm that need protection too.”

Leander laughs like Cole has just said the most hilarious words ever spoken. He laughs and laughs until tears gather at the corners of his eyes. And honestly, I can’t blame him. I nearly cackle myself. The thought of the Shadow Realm protecting anyone is ludicrous. And it doesn’t take the power of a seer to anticipate everything Leander says in counterargument.

“Protection? In the Shadow Realm? You have seen how they treat their souls. The wreckage of humanity, drifting in anguish, filling the Bay of Souls until they can make it into your Black Sea to brave whatever horrors lurk in the lightless depths. The souls of immortals forced into servitude until they wear out their usefulness, running amok like wild animals, hunted for sport.” I feel Ashen stiffen behind me, and Leander catches it too, his gaze flicking between the Reapers. “Oh yes, I’ve heard of the games the Reapers play. The pits. The gauntlet. The hunts. Imogen does love a resurrection in the name of sport. Merciful Justice is not so merciful in the real world, is it. Do you really think the Shadow Realm deserves clemency for your barbarism?”

The breath catches in my lungs at the conjuring of horrors I haven’t even imagined.

Ashen’s always said there are worse things in the fog than what I could see. I never doubted it, but it’s not like I tried to imagine it either. Even trapped in their torture chambers, I somehow knew that there was more. More suffering. More injustice. More hopelessness and pain.

I swallow down a knot in my throat as I meet Ediye’s eyes. I know she must be thinking the same thing, that this is just a hint of what really goes on in the Shadow Realm. Our gazes unlock and I turn my attention back to the fallen angel.

“I have seen it, the barbarism of the Shadow Realm,” I say as I take a step toward Leander. His clear blue eyes fix onto mine. “I have lived it. I have suffered it. Survived it.”

“And you could stop it,” he whispers. “You could stop the Shadow Realm from ever harming another soul. All you have to do is finish what Semyon started. Become the best of the hybrids. Take down the Realm of the Reapers.”

I tilt my head, narrowing my eyes at him. My nostrils flare as I take in the scent of the blood seeping from his shoulders. “Don’t you think this is what the Nephilim want, for us to be at each other’s throats so they can take whatever it is they want from us while we’re busy with our short-sighted war?”

Leander scoffs. “Nephilim? They are nothing more than myth. There is only the merciless injustice of the Shadow Realm. There is only the Realm of Light that lets in too many for far too little. There is only the Living Realm that the humans don’t deserve. Let humankind shed their mortal souls under the rule of the immortals. Let them infest their own realm. Since they try so hard to kill their domain, let them fill it with their dead.”

I take another step toward him. My heart pounds in my throat. We stare at one another and I see the hope in his eyes, just as he sees the hate in mine. The hate for the way things are. For what is done to everyone caught beneath corrupted powers they can’t control. Powers most don’t even know exist.

I lean in close, our faces so near to one another’s that I smell his skin, that faint cinnamon scent of his former realm. “How does one of me take on all of them?” I whisper.

A hint of a smile passes over his lips. “Not one. Many, under Semyon’s leadership but your command. You have the knowledge of how to get there and where to go in their realm.”

Our eyes stay locked for a long moment. It might seem like there’s silence in the room, but there’s not. There are beating hearts and shallow breaths and muscle fibers that tense around bones. There’s the subtle crackle of Ediye’s magic, the clink of Eryx’s feathers as they shift behind him. There’s even the sound of sparks flaring and dying within wings of smoke.

I lean in until my lips are next to Leander’s ear. Sweet venom drips onto my tongue. “If I burn the Shadow Realm, it will be on my terms, by my control. Not Abdulov’s. Not yours. Mine.” I pull away just enough to meet his eyes and watch his smile falter. “Tell me where Valentina is.”

Leander’s lips thin as his jaw clamps tight. I back up a step, letting my gaze flow across the angles of his face, savoring every detail. The red gleam in my eyes reflects in the white surface of his.

“Fine. I’ll see for myself.”

I thrust my palm against his forehead and I violate his mind.

One blink and I’m in a windowless stone hallway. The ceiling is curved. There are utility lights along the wall. Electricity hums within the insulated cables that flow toward a door at the end of the hall. I know it’s locked with more than just iron. I can sense the magic from the other end of the corridor. The spells are like the ones at the doors of The Maqlu. Familial magic, shared among kin. Karras and the Sarnos.

I know that Valentina is there behind the door. Florin too. But something else. I try to walk toward the door but Leander holds me back. He may be human now, but his mind is still powerful, and I’m inexperienced and untrained with this new gift of seeing.

I grit my teeth and push. I push and push and manage a small step. I bend my knees and try to shoulder through the unseen force that holds me back. I take one more step and then I hit a force that flashes with bright light so strong that it throws me to the floor.

My head hits the dirt and I’m suddenly somewhere else.

I stand and face a golden wall. On the wall is a series of rings, one inside the next, with a round polished sphere of lapis lazuli in the center. Each line shifts in opposite directions, like some kind of lock or clockwork. Tick, tick, tick. The lines click along.

I take a step closer and letters flare to life in each ring, illuminated with golden light. But these glyphs are markings in a language I’ve never seen.

“Show me what this means,” I demand.

“No.” Leander’s voice seems to surround me, but I hear the struggle it takes for him to answer.

I try to look at each line and remember the shape and form of every symbol. I try to burn them into my memory. I know this is important and Leander doesn’t want me to see. I edge toward it, reaching my hand out for the stone of lapis lazuli. The ticking grows louder, and louder, and louder until finally my fingers graze the cool blue gem. A final tick reverberates so loudly in my head that I close my eyes and press my hands over my ears and scream.

The sound of a crack splits through my mind. For a moment I think my head has been cut wide open. My brain is surely leaking all over the floor.

“Lu,” Ediye says. I open my eyes and look at her. There’s worry and fear on her face and I blink, trying to clear the pain from my mind. My hand is still on Leander’s forehead and I take it away. The instant I do, his head bobs down and his body slumps against the shards of stars that hold him to the wall.

Blood drips from the corners of Leander’s open eyes in bright red tears. His pupils are dilated. The image of a crescent moon cradling an eight pointed star is carved into his forehead, black veins spidering away from the mark before they disappear beneath his skin.

I killed him.

I killed him with my mind. My touch. Nothing else.

…

…..

Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit.

Okay, don’t freak out. Do. Not. Freak. Out.

That was totally badass but also terrifying and oh my GOD don’t freak out.

“You’re freaking out,” Ediye says.

“I know! I know I know I know,” I say, flapping my hands as though magic might pour out of them. “I killed him!”

“You’re a vampire, you’ve killed lots of people. He deserved it too. Definitely a douchebag.”

“But not with my mind, Ediye.”

She shrugs. “Well, I mean, kind of. Singing, mind control, tomato, to-mah-to.”

“Fuuuuuck. Fuck shitting fuck. This is not good.”

“Are you kidding? This is awesome,” she says, laying a hand on my arm. I rip it away.

“No. Don’t touch me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Ediye laughs as though this is all totally normal. My eyes dart around to the others who all look wary, except for Ashen who just looks worried as fuck. I can feel it from him, humming beneath my skin.

“You hurt Leander because you wanted to,” Ediye says with a reassuring smile as she places her hand back on my arm and squeezes. “I know you don’t want to hurt me. I trust you, Lu.”

I open my mouth to tell her I that I don’t trust myself, but then I hear it. A sound in the distance. It’s so faint that I think I might have imagined it.

I scramble past the others, over to the window. I unlatch it and push the pane open as I look into the snowstorm, peering out toward the mountains and forests beyond the fortified wall of Valentina’s home. The sun is nothing more than a cold orb of muted yellow light looking down on me like an indifferent eye.

The wind batters the pane of glass in my hand. The flakes of snow whip at my face.

And then I hear it.

The howl of wolves in the woods.

I don’t bother shutting the window when I turn to the others and stride across the room.

“We need to get our weapons and find Valentina. She’s in the catacombs beneath the house,” I say, casting a final glance to the fallen angel impaled against the wall as I pass.

“The werewolves are already here.”