Chapter 67

Anya, Trajan, and Aramis stood at the edge of the forest in the freezing morning mist. Anya had slept poorly, even wrapped in the warmth of Trajan"s arms and the glow inside of her from his confession. She had never felt so loved and safe, even with the threat of the breaking gates hanging over her head.

With any luck, the hike through the forest would wear her out and the nervous energy that was streaking through her veins.

"You have two hours, and then I"m coming after you," Trajan told Aramis firmly. His eyes were changing to full red when Anya squeezed his hand. Trajan turned and kissed her cold nose and her lips.

"Be safe," Trajan said softly.

"I will be. This forest is my home, and I"ll be back soon. Enjoy the peace and quiet," she joked. He smiled, but it didn"t reach his eyes.

"We"ll return soon, Trajan," Aramis promised.

"If anything happens to her, I"ll hold you responsible."

"We are leaving now," Anya said to stop another inevitable argument. She stood on tiptoes and kissed Trajan long and hard. Aramis cleared his throat loudly.

"Yeah, I"m coming." Anya let go of Trajan"s hand before following Aramis into the forest.

Anya didn"t realize how much she had missed her forest until they were under the heavy pine branches. She hadn"t explored this eastern side for a long time, and she had missed the berry picking season while she had been away. There wasn"t a cloudberry to be seen, and it made her feel sad and nostalgic for her childhood.

Eikki had spent a lot of time with her picking berries, mushrooms, and wildflowers. He named all the types of trees that they passed until Anya knew them by heart. Pine and birch, aspen, and rowan grew wild and thick.

Eikki would sometimes run a callused hand over them and greet them. "Hello, grandfather birch, grow strong old friend," he would say cheerfully. Anya thought this was normal practice until she said good morning to the aspen tree on her first day of school, and a boy had thrown a rock at her.

"Do you know your boyfriend is intense?" Aramis commented, breaking Anya out of the flood of memories. "If I didn"t know better, I would say he"s insecure."

Anya grinned. "Trajan"s not insecure. He just doesn"t like you. He"s also under the impression that you are going to try to kidnap me."

"Why would I want to kidnap you? You have to close the gates, remember?" Aramis held her hand as he helped her over a slippery tree trunk. Her magic rushed towards him and into him. He smiled a little but didn"t mention it.

"Trajan knows that. It"s what happens after that he"s concerned about," Anya replied and fought to rein her power in.

"One problem at a time, Anya." Aramis reached into his pocket, pulled out a small silver flask, and offered it to her. "Drink some of this. It will dull your magic down and help me shield you when the time comes."

Anya took the flask and sniffed it with a smile. "If these are drugs so you can kidnap me more easily, it won"t work."

"What makes you so sure?" Aramis teased.

Anya remembered what he"d said about no one being able to stop him if he wanted to take her, and goosebumps crept up her spine.

"When the Nehemoth took me, V?lundr gave me drugs to dull my magic down, and you know what happened? When I saw what they had done to Trajan, it burned straight out of my body."

"Then you really have nothing to fear, do you?" Aramis said, his teasing smile widening and his silver hair tangling in the wind.

He really does look like a silver fairytale knight.

Anya shoved that thought away and took a long swig to show that she wasn"t scared of him. It had a most unusual taste like some kind of sweet berry liquor. She tried to identify the flavor, but it kept changing and finally evaporated with a tingle on her tongue. The buzzing under her skin quietened quickly, the drumming in her head fading until it felt like it had never been there.

"Wow, that"s some amazing liquor. I wish you would"ve given me some of that a few days ago. It would have stopped me from hitting the vodka so hard." The absence of her warm flickering power made her feel unusually empty.

"It"s not given to humans because it becomes too addictive. Let"s keep going. It will wear off soon."

"I have a question," Anya said as they walked. "How are you going to shield our presences from the Darkness if they are hiding in here?"

"Like this," Aramis replied. His silvery magic pulsed between them as he waved his hand over his face and was gone. Anya saw a slight movement in the air, like a heatwave from a road on a hot day. She waved her hand through it and felt the fabric of his shirt. Fingers touched her face lightly, and Aramis materialized in front of her. She looked down at her feet, and they weren"t there.

"Don"t panic, you are just under the shield," he said quickly.

Anya did her best to unclench her death grip on his shirt. "It"s a shame you couldn"t make a car invisible, so we wouldn"t have to walk. It would give us a lot more time to find Ilya"s knife."

Aramis shook his head "Cars are too complex, and it would be dangerous to try. Just because they can"t see us doesn"t mean they can"t hear us. Is a thirty-minute walk through the forest with me such a trial?"

Anya didn"t know if he was teasing her or not. "I have to keep a close eye on you in case you try to kidnap me, remember? That"s exhausting."

Aramis"s smile slipped as he asked, "Have you thought about coming to the Illumination for training and guidance?"

"Sorry, Aramis, it sounds too much like school to me. That, and imprisonment. They would want the debt repaid in some way, and the price will always be too high."

Aramis grunted. "For someone who knows nothing about us, you are extremely perceptive."

"I might not know everything about the supernatural world and its politics, but I know how the human world works. Nothing is free. No one is going to have that kind of power over me," Anya replied.

"That"s true in many ways, but you could do with more training, and the Twins can only be with you for so long. You are Yanka"s granddaughter. The sky"s the limit for what you are capable of. She was one of the greatest Powers the world has ever seen."

"You say that like you knew her," Anya commented. Aramis hesitated and quickly covered it up. Anya grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back. "You did know her, didn"t you?"

"Anya, please lower your voice. Remember, they can hear us still."

"But you knew her."

"Yes. Now can we go?" Aramis asked.

"Will you tell me about her?" Anya pressed. Why didn"t he tell her about Yanka, to begin with?

"I will if you really want to know, but let"s focus on the task at hand first." He looked like he was a world away, lost in his memories, and none of them were pleasant.

"Will you at least tell me if she was terrifying? When I dream walked and saw her, she was kind of scarier than I imagined she would be. She made good blackberry vodka though. I could taste it for days," Anya said, stopping as Aramis took her arm.

"You dream walked and saw Yanka?" he demanded.

"I told you I did. I"m sure of it."

Aramis let her go, his face paling even more. "No, you said you had a dream about Yanka. Not that you dream walked with Yanka."

"It"s the same thing," Anya began and cut herself off. The Twins had taught her better than to assume that.

"It doesn"t matter. Yanka is dead. I saw her body." Aramis ran a hand over his face. "Let"s keep going before that potion wears off in you."

Anya bit her tongue down on all the new questions she had and followed him.

They walked to the edge of the forest and surveyed the open field stretching out before them. The black charcoal skeleton of the house and barn marred the otherwise perfect land. Anya"s chest grew tight at the familiar sight. Home.

"I can"t see anyone," she whispered.

"They are there. Look along the forest line, just beyond the house."

Anya squinted but couldn"t see anything. "I don"t have supernatural eyes, remember?" she said. He dug around in his pockets and handed her a rifle scope. She took it and rescanned the tree line. Men were walking about, and a few were definitely not human by the speed and grace when they moved.

"Can they see us?" Anya asked and handed him back the scope.

"No, but they might be able to sense us if we take too long."

Aramis drew a knife from the inside of his coat and kept it low. Its blade was thin and as long as Anya"s arm with a silver edge engraved in elegant swirling designs. "Are you going to need that?"

"You never know," he said.

Anya took a deep breath and stepped out into the open. There were no cries of alarm, so she strode across the familiar fields and toward the black rubble of the house.

"I"ll give you a minute," Aramis said gently.

Anya walked into the ruins of the house and tried to breathe through the sudden pain in her chest. Vasilli had done an extraordinary job of destroying the place.

If it weren"t for Yvan, she would have been in that fire. Dying out of sheer stupidity because she had thought Vasilli wasn"t going to hurt her.

She suddenly wished Yvan and the firebird were there with her to tell her it would be okay again. That he would be able to keep her safe from his brother"s wrath. Now it was the opposite with her wanting to protect him. Anya knew the only way to keep Yvan safe from Vasilli was to put the evil bastard in the ground.

Only the stone fireplace still stood, which surprised Anya the most. She remembered all the bizarre tokens of her family that had filled the home. Perhaps if she had known about her dormant magic, she could have seen the magical objects from the mundane.

"I can"t even remember seeing the knife, Aramis," she said finally.

"If it"s important to the ritual, it would have been hidden someplace where it would be safe from fire or anything else," Aramis reiterated.

"Then we are screwed because the house is wrecked. It could be at the hunting cabin, but I didn"t see it there either."

Anya walked around the wreckage, occasionally recognizing objects in their burned and mutilated form. What she had left of the family jewelry had melted in one giant blob. A silver locket with Ilya"s portrait painted in it was blackened and slightly bent but otherwise okay. She pocketed it as she thought about the vision she had of him.

Anya squatted down on the hearthstone of the fireplace and ran her fingers through the ash. The chimney had half-collapsed, but the mantelpiece was still intact. Her ashy fingers throbbed, and her dormant magic sparked in her veins and danced across the stone.

"What did you just do? I can feel your magic," Aramis asked in a terse whisper.

"I don"t know. There"s something here… I don"t know… It"s making it pulse." She got back to her feet and ran her hands along the top of the mantelpiece, magic tingling in her fingertips again.

Anya ran her hands over the fireplace until they stopped on a brick in the center of the mantel. The concrete seal around it was cracked and loose, so she grabbed at it with her fingers and pulled it out of place.

"I found something!" she said, and Aramis hurried to her side.

Anya lifted the brick the rest of the way out and flipped it over. It was hollowed out, and inside of it was a bundle wrapped in oiled leather.

"It would be the safest place if you wanted to keep something hidden. The protection spell was shielding it from me, but it must have recognized you through your magic," Aramis said, touching the mantle.

Anya unwrapped the leather, and Ilya"s knife tumbled into her hand. The snarling bear looked up at her expectantly. Even with her magic dulled down, it tingled in her hands with power. Anya swayed as the chant of voices rose up in her head and her mouth filled with ash.

"We need to go. Your magic is spiking again," Aramis said urgently as he steadied her. Anya wrapped the knife quickly and climbed out of the wreckage. Still holding her hand tightly, they ran across the fields towards the cover of the forest.

Anya reached the tree line and sagged over her knees. "Oh god, Aramis, the drums, the blood… It"s calling me." She stepped back towards the fields, but Aramis pulled her back and hung onto her until she stopped struggling.

"Fight it, Anya! The gate is trying to link with you. Touching the knife must have made it worse," he said, letting his power wash over her until she could think straight again. "We have to keep moving."

Aramis held tightly to her hand as they jogged through the forest. The gate called to her again, and Anya slid in the leaves to look behind her. Men in tactical gear moving through the trees thirty meters behind them.

"Aramis…"

"I know. I see them too. When they make their move, I want you to run as hard and as fast as you can. Get back to the tavern. I"ll hold them off."

"Why aren"t they shooting at us?" Anya asked.

"They need us alive, that"s why," he muttered and pulled out his long knife.

There were five of them, and they attacked from all sides. Aramis"s knife was moving at the same time, taking down one in the first sweep. He was mesmerizing as he ducked their blows, moving in the air around the bodies, slashing and lunging, dancing to some beautiful music only he could hear.

"Go, Anya!" he shouted, shocking her out of her freeze.

Anya only got a few meters when another man appeared in front of her.

"The witch," he spat, pointing a gun at her. "I don"t want to shoot you, girl, so do as I say and come quietly."

Anya"s magic surged, turning her blood to fire, and she gave herself over to it. The gun glowed bright red, and the man dropped it with a startled yelp. He swore angrily and went for her, hands outstretched like claws.

Anya lifted her hand, and black ash burst out of his mouth as he collapsed, crying out as his organs burned up inside of him. A shout behind her made her turn to where three men were attacking Aramis at once, the others already fallen to his blade. She raised her hand again, and Aramis spotted her.

"Anya! Don"t!" he shouted, but the men had already collapsed, screaming as ash burst from their mouths and withered their skin. Aramis looked from them to her, and back again. His face was white with shock.

"I told you to run," he growled, grabbing her hand and yanking her out of the power riding her.

"I"m sorry, but I"m done letting other people fight my battles," Anya snapped back, bile filling the back of her mouth even as she said it. "I just let my magic protect me…"

Anya looked down at her hands. All those men were dead, and letting her magic kill them in self-defense had been as easy and natural as breathing.

Like the men you set on fire in Paris, and the boys you almost drowned. Anya pushed down her horror at the thought.

"We can talk about it later, but we need to get out of here before more arrive," Aramis said, as he gripped her hand, and they ran.

Aramis saw Anya safe in Trajan"s arms before he went up to his bedroom. As the door shut behind him, he ran to the little bathroom and threw up in the toilet. She barely lifted a finger, and the men in the forest were dead. They hadn"t stood a fighting chance.

Aramis heaved again until he had nothing left in his stomach. He washed out his mouth and slumped down onto his bed.

"Killed them, just like that," he muttered to himself. "Too much like her."

Watching Anya kill those men was Yanka all over again. She had the same glow of vengeance in her green eyes, the darkness seething inside of her.

She"s not Yanka.He could still save Anya. He would wait until after the gates were shut, and then he would tell her everything, make her understand the danger she was in from her own power. He would explain what happened when she killed with magic, that it ate away at your soul.

Aramis"s cell phone was ringing again, and he knew what he was going to be asked to do. Aramis picked it up and crushed it, the plastic and glass shattering in his hand. He would have twenty-four hours at the most before they slapped the Rogue label and a bounty on him. After what he saw today, that didn"t matter anymore.

She"s not Yanka, he repeated to himself. You can keep the light in her alive.

In twenty-four hours, Aramis would have Anya far away, and if she didn"t close the gates, the Illumination would have a war on their hands and would be too busy to hunt him. If she did close them, then they would want him to take her back to England to force her to join them. His stomach turned, already knowing he wouldn"t be able to do that to her against her will.

Another thought occurred to him like a smack in the face. Anya had said she had tasted blackberry vodka for days after dreaming about Yanka.

Aramis reached for his bag and pulled out one of the burner phones the Illumination knew nothing about. He dialed a number and hoped it hadn"t changed.

"Bun? seara, Aramis. What are you doing calling me on a burner? And after such a long time, I might add."

"There are too many listeners on the others, Silvian. Besides, you know what would happen if I was caught talking to a Rogue," Aramis said with a smile.

"Then why are you talking to one?" Silvian asked with a bored tone.

"I need you to look into something for me."

There was a long silence at the end of the line. "Why come to me?"

"Because you are the best, Silvian, and because they won"t be able to trace you," Aramis said convincingly.

"You sure know how to kiss my ass when you need to. What do you need, Aramis? I owe you a favor, and you know I can"t turn you down."

"It"s about Yanka."

"Aramis, you can"t…"

"Shut up, Silvian. This is what I need. I want everything the Illumination has on her. Especially concerning how she died."

"You doubt what the Illumination told you?"

"I"m growing skeptical," Aramis admitted.

Silvian laughed, a deep, joyful sound. "My, my, it has taken you long enough. Do you really want to be digging around in the past? You know how long it took to get over it the first time. What was it? A hundred years? Tell me what has brought this on."

Aramis gripped the phone tighter. "Have you ever heard of someone who could dream walk into a dead person"s dream?"

"No, but I"m assuming you have."

"Yanka"s granddaughter has been walking with Yanka," Aramis admitted.

"Fuck."

"She has no idea what she has done. There was no preparation. She just...went to sleep."

Silvian swore again. "How much time do I have?"

"Not a lot. She has to close the family gates tomorrow. I have no doubt she will do it, and I need to keep the Illumination from taking her back to London," Aramis replied.

"Good idea. Keep her away from them, Aramis. You might like to play general, but deep down, you know what they do to someone if they think they will be a threat," Silvian said, a deep growl in his voice. He would know. He had been their assassin once after all. "If this girl is Yanka"s blood, there is no telling what she could do. I will dig deep, Aramis, and see what treasure they are hiding. Is this cell safe to call you back on?"

"Yes, of course."

"Leave it on, and I"ll contact you when I know something. One question before I go," Silvian said with a thoughtful pause. "What if what you are thinking is correct, and they have lied to you about what really happened? What will you do?"

"Then I"ll be joining you on the Rogue blacklist and killing whoever was responsible," Aramis replied and hung up. His mind was already moving to a dark, cold place in his past. The glamour on his skin shifted, and the álfr tattoos snaked up one arm and over his chest and face. They were a physical marking of the position he had once held among his people.

Silvian wasn"t the only one who had once been an assassin.