AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Where are we? Are we in the Court of Pride?” I whispered. Meredith nodded. I had assumed that Amon lived in some sort of hellscape, brimming with fire and brimstone. Not this lush natural oasis.
“Where is Amon? Now that I’m awake, is he… is he going to lock me up?” The threads flashed red in warning, and I began to shake again. I could not be locked up. I would literally slit my own -
“Shhhh, calm, be calm.” Meredith hushed and sent a cool tendril of her aura to help soothe mine. “I don’t have any reason to believe, after the last five days we have spent here, that the daemons intend to lock you up. They have been very… hospitable. Kasha, who should be here shortly with your calming potion, is lovely and has been a wonderful host while Amon and his associate have been away.”
“Away?”
“Yes. He left almost immediately after we crossed The Veil with Dossidian. That large daemon who came to help us fight Kieran and Ash Nevra’s army at the docks.” I remembered him. I had taken to calling him the Mountain.
“Kasha has done her best to fill us in on everything that had been happening on this side of The Veil while we were training with you in the human world. Apparently, Amon has always been loyal to Aleites and has been plotting against Ash Nevra for centuries. He has maintained appearances until now that she is his Queen, and his actions at the docks have obviously jeopardized that facade. He has gone to her court to try to do what he can to convince her that he is still loyal and that you are not a threat to her. To buy us time.”
He was loyal to the Origin? The all-powerful daemon who was frozen into stone and technically my father? I found that hard to believe. The Origin had been frozen into stone with his pregnant human queen a little over three hundred and fifty years ago. How Amon could possibly still be loyal to someone who had been gone for that long seemed unlikely to me.
I supposed there were more unlikely things that had proven to be true. Like the fact that I was the baby that had been trapped in Elvira’s womb, and somehow born to her statue hundreds of years later. Though Elvira was technically my biological mother, Clair, the only mother I had known and loved, had emancipated herself from a dark line of witches called the Nightshades nearly 18 years ago. The shockwave that was released with her emancipation had triggered my supernatural birth.
No one seemed to know how I had ended up in the human foster system, and then eventually adopted by Clair and Jeremy. When I asked about it, the general consensus was just ‘magick.’
All of this had been prophesied and was general knowledge to daemons, shifters and magick folk alike. I seemed to be the only person who hadn’t been aware.
Kieran had tricked us into thinking he was the Nightshade who had emancipated himself. He had told us he had come to help me get out of the life debt I owed to Amon and protect me from Ash Nevra. It turned out that he had been working for Ash Nevra all along.
“Considering recent events, you will have to forgive me if I am not feeling particularly trusting at the moment.’ I said, but there was no bite to it, no passion. I was so tired.
Kieran hadn’t been the only betrayal. The one that had hurt the most had been Rycon’s. Kieran had blocked our bond, and Rycon had jumped at the chance to be free of me. He captured me and took me directly to Kieran, hoping that in return Kieran would sever the bond completely. Kieran had lied and said he would, if Rycon brought him Clair. But I suppose it wasn’t common knowledge that you can’t lie to a shifter, because Rycon had sniffed the lie out of him and decided to flip sides again to save me. Well, really save himself. From what I had been told, if the daemon who bonds with a being dies, so do their bonded counterparts.
Looking back, I was a fool to think that Rycon had any loyalty to me outside of his own interest in self-preservation. Even though he did play a key role in saving me from the torture Kieran had subjected me too, it did not cancel out the fact that he was the reason I was in that situation to begin with. I shuddered and sidled deeper into my blankets at the thought of the torture. My hands ran up my arms, and I could feel the thin lines of scars embossed into my skin.
They curled over my arms, chest, and stomach like white tattoos. Intricate designs of all the things I loved, like coffee beans and sunflowers and snippets of text from my favorite books. They had been the result of a particularly violent opening spell that one of Kieran’s followers had used on me repeatedly. Trying to find my power, my daemon, who curled around my heart. Marcus had not been successful, and he had been the first person that I killed that day. The first person I had intentionally killed, ever. I had killed him by emptying the clip from Rycon’s gun into his skull.
This was what all of this was really about. My power. Ash Nevra wanted it, as it came from The Origin himself, and I was the only true threat to her throne. Amon wanted it, so he could overthrow Ash Nevra. It seemed I was the only person who didn’t want it. But, as usual, what I wanted didn't seem to matter at all.
4
“Hey, hey,” A blue-haired daemon quipped, rapping her knuckles on the inside of the open door with one hand, the other holding a large mug. “Can I come in?”
I flinched, but Meredith smiled and waved her forward. “Yes, yes please come in. Raven, this is Kasha. Kasha, Raven.”
“Hi Raven, great to meet you… well, I guess great to meet you now that you’re awake. You had us worried for a minute there that you weren’t going to wake up at all.” She chimed as she entered the room. I eyed her warily. I remembered her from the docks. She had been just as impressive as the Mountain, or Dossidian, I guess his name was.
One of the first things I had witnessed her do, was vaporize a dozen or so daemons from a cool hundred feet away. She was compact for someone with that much power at her fingertips, with a round face and large eyes, the color of warm brandy. Her aura… her aura was difficult to read. It was constantly changing, always moving, never sitting still. It was odd. Very different from any of the other auras I had been exposed to.
Her short blue hair was tucked into Dutch braids that ran in tight rows down each side of her head. The tiny tails poked out from either side of the back of her neck. It had been done in a similar style on the battlefield. Her outfit was much more relaxed than the close-fitting armor that was made out of the strange matte black metal she and Amon had been wearing that day. She wore loose black cotton pants tied with a drawstring around her navel and a cropped, long-sleeve black shirt that crisscrossed over her chest.
“Hi,” My short response didn’t seem to dissuade Kasha at all. She grabbed the remaining chair by the table on her way by and dragged it up next to Meredith, passing her the steaming mug as she sat down.
“How are you feeling?” She asked. I was about to say fine reflexively but stopped myself. I was not fine. I didn’t know if I would ever be fine again.
I sighed and sank into the pillows as Meredith ended the diagnostic spell and handed me the mug.
“I’m tired,” I said, and Kasha nodded in understanding.
“I can imagine. Hopefully, Meredith’s draught will help.” I nodded and took a sip of the warm potion. It tasted earthy and light. Not entirely unpleasant, but something about it read as ‘medicine’ and not ‘tea.’ The warm feeling continued down my throat into my veins, flushing through the rest of my body almost immediately. The shaking stopped and my muscles relaxed. Even my mind slowed down, and a sense of calm washed over me.
“There,” Meredith said, satisfied as I visibly relaxed. She took the mug back from me. “This will be a good temporary fix, but you cannot take this draught every day Raven, we must use it sparingly. You will quickly develop an immunity to its calming effect.
I nodded, not really listening. I felt like I was floating again, but this time, without the heavy weight of sadness. I just felt calm, warm, and safe. My eyes began to drift closed, and this time no violent visions plagued me. I fell asleep quickly and hoped that I would not wake back up again.
The next time I woke up it was light out. I didn’t know what time of day it was, nor did I care. There was pressure building in my abdomen, letting me know that my body needed to relieve itself. I stayed where I was in bed, staring at the clawed feet of that golden bathtub, unable to will myself to move.
