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One that had a weird, eerie feel to it—and a bunch of black stains.
As she headed off to see if Lash had had anything to do with whatever had happened there, she sent that burrito on its final mission.
At least she was smiling a little as she dematerialized.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
How magical this realm is.”
As Rahvyn spoke up, her eyes did another circle around the serene landscape, with its lush grass and brightly colored tulips, its elegant temples and arching trees. Indeed, the mystical plane Lassiter had brought her to was somewhat similar to where she had stashed the Book, safe and insulated from invasion, thanks to a forest ring that she instinctively knew was a metaphysical boundary.
“It is nice, isn’t it?”
Lassiter walked forward, and though he was big and tall, his footfalls left no marks in the springy bed of the lawn. Likewise, she had the sense that nothing grew out of alignment in the foliage, everything forever cresting the apex of its growth cycle, the odd, milky sky feeding whatever energy needs were required.
“Things weren’t always like this.” He stopped and looked toward a temple with an open-air facade and what appeared to be living spaces inside. “When the Scribe Virgin was active and the Chosen were here, everything was just white. And I gather the layout and architecture were changed a little, too, after Phury took over.”
She attempted to imagine a monochromatic wash over the verdant, the rainbow-bright, the vivid. “This is much better.”
“I agree. So does Phury.” Lassiter resumed his slow-go wander. “When he took over as the Primale, he freed the Chosen of their lives of service, and then redecorated the place. Boom! Crayola all over everything.”
“Truly, I cannot believe I am here,” she murmured. “The Scribe Virgin’s Sanctuary…”
Raised in a traditional family, she had been brought up to revere and pray unto the creator of the vampire race, that figure in black robes who, on occasion, someone would say they had seen, and no one would believe they had. She had known, too, of the Chosen, the sacred order of females who served the Scribe Virgin in worship and as recorders of the lives of the vampire race—every event, of every soul’s journey on earth.
And now she was here… with an angel who refused to acknowledge his own true power or role in it all. Lassiter merely ambled along at her side as they had explored a pool that shimmered with water so pure it was as liquid glass, and shrines with columned loggias, and the Treasury with its wealth of gems and precious items.
She would never forget pushing her hands into the hip-high baskets of sapphires, emeralds, and rubies.
“And now this is all yours?” Rahvyn asked as they approached the largest temple complex.
She mostly kept the awe out of her voice. Or perhaps… not.
“I don’t think anyone owns the Sanctuary.” He stopped at the foot of the grand entrance. “I think we all just pass through here for a while, mortal and immortal, sometimes for a short time, sometimes a long one, only the stories recorded in the volumes of lives left behind. And speaking of recording, here we are at the Temple of the Sequestered Scribes. Come on, I’ll show you the inside.”
As he walked up the steps to the formal, columned entry, it was with no particular regard—like the stones he placed his feet upon were just incremental pavers, the purpose of which was to secure an ascent to an entryway of no particular import. And then he opened the ornate door with no pomp, no flourish.
Just a portal into a building.
For a moment, all she could do was stare up at him—and she had the strangest revelation as she did.
Now she knew how the villagers had felt about her.
Back in her timeline, in the Old Country, she could remember people regarding her with wonder and a bit of fear. After word had gotten out in her little village that she had resuscitated a prized horse, and then located a missing young who had become lost in the wood, the males and females she had grown up around had started to hold her in some reverence. At first, it had made her anxious. Over time, it had begun to irritate her.
In truth, she had no greater understanding of the origins of her abilities or her purpose in possessing them than they had, and their elevation of her had made her own lack of foundational knowledge all the more resonant. Surely, if someone had been “gifted” as she was, the Scribe Virgin would have provided some tutelage into, if not the hows, at least the whys, of it all.
“Rahvyn?”
As the angel said her name, she took in the whole of him, from the fall of his blond-and-black hair, to the boxy, blue, loose top and pants he’d put on—“scrubs” as he’d referred to the set of clothing. He was beautiful, in a masculine manner… and different in a way she could sense clear as the physical presence of his.
