Chapter 27

T he council chamber walls and floor are lined with white marble shot through with golden veins; the very apex of the ceiling is a skylight, admitting natural sunlight to flood the room, which is enormous, a hundred feet to a side. The center is an open floor, empty for a raised dais in the middle. Running the perimeter of the room is a balcony raised some six feet above the floor with stairs bisecting each of the walls to allow those sitting in each section—men on one side, women on the other, I imagine—to access the floor to give speeches or whatever; a single wide, darkened doorway frames the middle of each of the triangular room's walls, through which the members of each race have their private quarters.

Zirae stands on the dais in the middle of the floor, his back to the doorway, hands clasped behind his back. He says nothing as I enter, doesn't even move or in any way react.

Caleb stands in the open doorway, crosses his huge arms over his chest, and glares stonily at Zirae's back.

I enter further in, warily. Stop about thirty feet away from him. Wait in silence for him to acknowledge me.

He pivots slowly, and his white-glowing eyes find me, a small creepy grin creasing his mouth. "Miss Sparrow. Welcome."

I remain silent. I have nothing to say to him.

He arches a thin eyebrow. "Cat got your tongue?" He shrugs. "No matter. Down to business. I accept your surrender. Because I am gracious and merciful, I shall allow everyone but you to go free. You, and your…siblings, I suppose, they are, of a sort, though I trust you are aware you are not actually related."

Rage at his arrogant, careless demeanor burns in my veins. "Funny," I say. "And here I am, ready to accept your surrender."

His eyes twinkle with humor. "You amuse me, child. You mistake potential ability for realized power. You think because you broke a few paltry little wards and a couple of larger ones you can stand against the likes of me ? You think I haven't foreseen this very moment?"

"And you mistake age for wisdom. You think yourself infallible. You think yourself inevitable."

"I am inevitable. I am infallible."

"Bullshit. You're a scared little old man desperately clinging to a few little scraps of power. You're nothing. You're no one. You cannot stop the change that is happening, Zirae. That is what is inevitable."

His eyes blaze brighter and electricity crackles at his fingertips. "Enough. Last chance to save those you love, Miss Sparrow. Surrender or die."

I ready a glamour—a thick shield.

Silence strains, ripe with tension.

He snaps his fingers and the room is plunged into the thick black oily darkness that choked the halls. I let instinct have the reins, throwing up the shield into a globular shell around myself, hurling my body backward at the same time, skidding on my back along the marble floor.

A jagged fork of lightning sizzles through the blackness where I was, momentarily slicing the shadows in two like scissors through a sheet of paper.

I grip the thread holding my shield in place in one hand and slash the air with the other, wielding raw prana like a blade to shear through the ley lines of Zirae's shadow glamour.

The darkness boils and dissolves, seeping back into the corners of the room, revealing Zirae still standing on the dais.

"Nicely done, Miss Sparrow. Shall we test your shield?"

He flicks all five fingers of one hand toward me as if sprinkling water. Superheated bolts of blue-white energy fly toward me, blasting against my shield, which flares golden-white and flickers. I open the stream of prana and reinforce it as I rise to my feet.

Zirae nods as if impressed. "Very good."

Worry forms in the back of my mind—he's toying with me.

He peers at me, clasping his hands behind his back once more. There's not so much as a twitch of an eyebrow, and then the air itself ignites, pillars of blue fire sweeping around the room—one, two, three of them spinning in concentric circles, each ring rotating in opposite directions. I dodge one, and then the other, forced forward into the center of the room, closer to Zirae.

I go with it, conjuring the long, curved dagger from memory and leaping at him, swiping at his belly. He doesn't even bother dodging; his hand sweeps up to block and my knife hand cracks against his wrist with concussive force, the knife flying free of my hand and tumbling to the floor before it winks out of existence.

Zirae slaps his palm against my chest, lightning flashes, and I'm hit by a sledgehammer. Darkness washes over my eyes and then my spine hits something hard with a crunch and crumble of marble.

But, I've learned something: blades can harm him. If they couldn't, he wouldn't have bothered blocking.

I blink the dregs of shadows out of my eyes and work to my feet, trying to come up with an attack.

I flex my fingers and drop the shield, hesitate, and then feint to the right, sending a fireball of my own his way.

He takes the bait, conjuring a shield in an eyeblink. I send roots bursting up through the marble, up from the roots of the mountains itself, thigh-thick and coiling around him so fast he has no chance to react.

The roots constrict, crush—I hear bones snap. He grunts in pain. I send a gout of soil surging upward around him, enclosing him in choking black loam.

The moment his form is occluded by roots and dirt, I wrap the column of soil in prana and change it to stone, the dirt hardening and calcifying. The strain of holding three different glamours at once rips at my skull until it pounds, and I grit my teeth and growl, telling the roots to tighten and tighten and tighten, telling the stone to harden, and then adding heat—turning the stone orange and then red and then white.

I hear Zirae's muffled howl of agony, and feel a moment of jubilation: he can be hurt.

A blast shudders the room, rocking me off my feet, and I'm peppered with sharp hot shards of stone and slicing bits of root; when the smoke clears, Zirae is on his hands and knees, his pristine white robe burned away, leaving him naked, his flesh scorched and blackened in places, pink and seeping in others. He gasps, hair hanging in smoldering strings around his face.

"That…wasn't…very…nice," he hisses through gritted teeth, between pants for breath.

No mercy. No quarter. I recall the Coil of Undying Death, and the agony of the forced abortion, and a scream of rage rips out of my throat.

I make a violent shoving motion with both hands and shoot a solid beam of raw, undiluted prana at Zirae, and then the moment it touches him I ignite it.

Angelfire.

The room is washed clean by a light so white and so hot and so blinding my whole body recoils, the light searing my eyes even as I cover my face.

Zirae screams, a bloodcurdling shriek of agony that echoes and shivers, and the ceiling shudders and my bones quake.

I cut off the stream of prana before I burn through every last drop, blinking away the dancing spots.

Zirae sags against the side of the dais, hair smoldering and flickering, blood oozing from every inch of his flesh—oozing from his eyes, his ears and nose and mouth.

Hate blazes on his face and turns his eyes into bloody, white-glowing orbs of raging fury. "Die, once-mortal bitch ."

Invisible hands grip my body, lift me off the ground, and fling me across the room to smash into the wall, crushing the marble and breaking ribs.

Zirase lurches to his feet, growling like an animal through gritted molars. His skin sizzles and the blood boils and evaporates. The invisible hands keep me pinned to the wall, and I can't breathe—even if I could expand my lungs, the agony of my broken ribs would make it hurt like a demon. Zirae staggers toward me, bone showing through seared flesh and scorched muscle, his teeth winking through a gaping, ragged hole in his cheek.

"When I'm done with you, child, you'll beg for death," he hisses, his words slurred and wet. "I'll keep your little mates captive in the Coil of undying Death, and I'll make them watch me fuck your deathless corpse for all of eternity."

My lungs scream—but I am a vampire, and I do not need breath. Pain sears through me, but I know pain.

I let Zirae approach, shuffling closer. Caleb watches, eyes glowing amber as he waits to pounce.

Not yet, I whisper to him. N ot Yet.

I summon prana from the dim, shallow pool within.

Zirae ascends the steps, hateful eyes fixed on me, blood drooling from the hole in his face, his left leg dragging behind him, burned into a mangled, charred ruin.

"You gave me a run for my money," he slurs, spitting bloody saliva. "But now, child…now…you fucking die , once and for all."

The invisible fist squeezes harder, and a scream rips out of me, blood spurting from my nose and ears.

I hold Caleb's eyes. Not yet. You'll know when.

He just snarls impatiently, now pacing back and forth in the doorway—a caged wolf.

Zirae shuffle-limps to where I'm pinned ten feet above the floor in a deep pit in the marble made by the impact of my body.

I let my prana build and turn my eyes to Zirae. Wait for the moment.

He spits blood, and a tooth goes with it, rattling across the marble. He clenches and releases his fist in a flourishing gesture, and a long, S-curved black dagger materializes in his hand, a ruby glittering in the pommel.

"I see you, wolf," Zirae says without turning. "Move an inch toward me and make her death immeasurably worse."

I see the glamour he's cast to keep me pinned here. A simple thing. Solidified air. A neat, vicious trick that uses little prana to great effect.

I feel Mother's Spirit stirring within me. Whispering secrets to my soul. Caressing me with love.

I let Zirae close, the hate in his eyes so fierce and so potent it's almost its own kind of magic.

"I should thank you. Now I know who's loyal to me, and who isn't. When I'm done with you and your little ragtag bunch of weaklings and Secundus freaks, I'll purge the lot of them. Hang them on crosses all over the Alps. You've never seen anyone crucified, have you? Wicked, wicked way to die. Brutal, those Romans, and so clever in their brutality."

Closer.

My prana is pooled in my belly like a serpent coiled to strike. He just has to touch me.

He pushes his hand through the thick, jellied cocoon of hyper-dense air crushing my bones and lungs as if I were at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, his middle and index finger reaching for my forehead.

The Coil of Undying Death. I swallow hard, bracing myself.

Do nothing , I tell Caleb. You'll know when.

Kill the bastard, already. Your pain is turning me feral. I cannot wait much longer.

I feel it in him—an edge of misery, a desperate need to protect me burning in him so fiercely it becomes painful to deny.

You must hold out, I tell him. What comes next will be the worst of it.

Maeve, don't—

Shadows wash over me. Pull me down. A moment of disorientation, and then the shadows dissolve and I'm strapped to a table, spread eagle, naked. Zirae crouches on top of me, his wrinkled, erect manhood brushing my belly, his long white hair stained scarlet with blood and curtained around my face.

"I'm tempted to fuck you, like this just to teach you a lesson. But, best be wary." He flourishes his hand, and that black knife appears. "So, I'll just carve your flesh away one little strip at a time."

He drags the tip of the knife gently down my flesh from the base of my neck, down between my breasts, and to my navel. A hot line of burning pain accompanies the movement of the knife, and I let myself scream.

Not yet.

"I can torture you like this forever, you know." He is whole here. Undamaged. Powerful. A god. "I can carve you up like a Thanksgiving turkey, again…and again…and again…"

With each repetition of again, he slices the knife into my skin perpendicularly across the vertical line, creating a ladder of cuts.

Not yet. Touch me with your hands, you fucking monster.

Please.

"Sounds…like…fun," I gasp, very real tears of pain trickling down my cheeks.

He grins. "Tough girl, aren't you?"

He licks his lips and runs his tongue against the inside of his cheek—telling me he feels the pain in the real world, or whatever applies in this situation. Something tells me this is a form of The Dreaming.

A technical detail not worth considering right now.

His eyes track over my body, a lecherous leer twisting his face. "Maybe I'll keep you alive," he whispers, trailing the blade over my skin so it cuts shallowly over my breastbone, across my ribcage, down my thigh. "Maybe I'll keep you for myself. Enjoy this…" he licks his lips again, his shriveled old cock hardening, "tight little body…over, and over, and over."

He pinches my nipple in his fingers, pulls it away, stretching it. I whimper in pain, but inside, I'm grinning.

He drags his knife against my breast, preparing to slice my nipple off—

But he's touching me.

Here, and out there.

I lash out with my magic, sending it through my skin and bones and into him—through his fingers.

Ignite.

I burst into flames, but I am vampire and I can survive the fire. My blood boils and my skin roasts, and I scream and scream and scream.

But so does Zirae.

NOW! I scream across the link, hoping and gambling that he can hear me.

Shadows and light tangle and blister and distort, and Zirae's screams echo weirdly in my skull and in my ears and then the invisible fist releases me and I hit the ground with a jarring thud that breaks more ribs and an arm. Zirae is writhing on the ground in front of me, white fire consuming him, his prana sending gold flames licking at the ceiling.

Caleb is airborne, a naked male flying through the air, and then amber light flares and his huge tawny wolf soars and soars to land on the dais and leap again, clearing sixty feet in an eyeblink.

Teeth and claws shred flesh and Zirae screams and I see a hand flop down a step, disembodied—

A deafening crack shudders the mountain, and a black line of shadows carves a hole in reality beside Zirae's thrashing, burning body. Lightning flashes and Caleb yelps, hurtling back across the room to smash against a wall. Theris is airborne, a horse-sized leopard soaring toward Zirae; Aquilia as well is ripping at the air with enormous wings, talons reaching for Zirae, a deafening screech making my ears ring.

Zirae lurches to his feet, one white eye fixed on me. "You…will… suffer ," he seethes, and then topples backward into the ragged black hole in reality, through which shadows boil and burn. Theris's claws miss him by inches, as do Aquilia's talons.

The shadows become prowling monsters, all black oily flesh and red eyes and poison-dripping jaws and talons that gouge grooves in the marble.

There's another deafening crack, this one accompanied by a weird, shrieking scream that sends shivering shudders scraping down the knobs of my spine like icy fingers scratching at the bone.

The portal to whatever hell Zirae chose closes, snapping shut around the smoke-flowing form of a nightmare creature from the void, a writhing serpent of shadows with crystalline fangs dripping red venom and eyes burning with baleful hate. Its wriggling, writhing front half flops the marble and curls and coils in my direction, jaws snapping and clicking.

A wolf's jaws rip it to shreds, and then the whole pack plus Sorren and several others from the Tribunal are in the chamber and the nightmare creatures are shrieking with otherworldly voices, each cawing, hissing howl scraping sharp fingers down my spine.

I hear a yelp, and whimper, and a thud, and I feel a bolt of agony shear through my belly.

Caleb roars, a sound of rage so deafening my ears ring, and then darkness is shredded like paper, and the shrieks redouble, and then there's silence.

Every inch of me aches and burns and throbs with agony, but I have no thought for that, only for Caleb. I hobble to my feet and scramble for the stairs, slipping in blood and rolling down them, coming to a rest face-to-face with Connor.

Human.

Eyes wide and staring sightlessly at me.

Hands find me, help me up, but I shake free. "Connor. Connor, no ." A jagged, gaping hole rips open his chest, the edges stained black, the blood seeping out hissing and steaming as inky black shadows devour the blood.

Caleb is behind me, pulling me away. "He's gone, love. You cannot help him." His voice is hoarse.

"Wh-what…" my knees give out, and he catches me, holds me up. "What were they?"

"The creatures that live in The Dreaming. Predators. They have no shape, there. He tore a hole into The Dreaming, and they came through and took the forms you saw."

Callahan, Sierra, Saige, Colin, and Channing are all crowded around us in human form, clinging to each other, weeping Freely, even Sierra.

"Wraiths," I say.

Caleb shakes his head. "A wraith is different. A wraith is a human turned into one of those things. Those things were…" he shakes his head, his arms tightening around me. "Nothing I've ever seen or heard of—not in The Waking, at least. "

I scan the faces of the pack. "I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm sorry."

"That thing …" Sierra hisses, shoving out of the group and stomping toward me. "It was coming for you . He died for you !" She shakes all over, eyes welling and streaming with tears, hate in her eyes and on her face. "Why you? Why couldn't you have died? You don't deserve his sacrifice, you filthy little half-blood cunt !"

Caleb moves faster than light, his hand around Sierra's throat, lifting her clear off the ground so her feet dangle. "That—is—my— MATE !" He bellows in her face, spittle flecking her cheek. "Speak to her like that again and I'll tear your fucking throat out with my bare hands." He sets her down, putting his face nose-to-nose with her; she collapses to her knees. "Do—you— UNDERSTAND ?" His voice crackles with authority so dense and powerful I nearly hit my knees.

"Y-y-yes…Alpha," Sierra whispers, her voice a hoarse hiss.

"Beg forgiveness of your queen." Caleb's tone brooks no quarter.

She shuffles to me on her knees.

"Caleb, no." I drop to my knees and catch Sierra's face in my hands. Turn her face to mine. "You're right, Sierra. I don't deserve his sacrifice. He shouldn't have died. Not for me."

She stares at me, confused. "If you think—"

I cut her off. "I gave no command, Sierra. He chose his fate. Would you take away the nobility of his decision?"

She stammers. "I…I…"

I hold her eyes. "I wouldn't. He gave his life for me. That is a sacrifice I will remember all my life. I swear it. On the pack-bond between us, Sierra, I vow his sacrifice will not be in vain. Zirae will die by my hand for this. I swear it."

Electricity sizzles across my skin, arcing from me to Sierra, and her eyes blaze and then subside.

"A vow?" she breathes. "You vowed by the pack?"

I nod. "I did. I do."

"It is binding. Break it, and die a death more agonizing than you can ever imagine."

"I know."

She frowns. Shakes her head. For a moment, I think I've won her, but then she shoots to her feet and glares down at me. "This changes nothing ."

And then she's gone.

And at that moment, I feel the presence of ancients among us.

The Tribunal has come.