Rise of Souls: A Prophecy of the Sisters Novella (2 page)

Una smiled at the memory of Lia when she had first come to the island, its ways unfamiliar to her. Yet she had seemed at home almost immediately, the expectations and customs hitting a chord of truth in Lia that had been sleeping in the world outside, a world of carriages and social calls and a long list of things required to call oneself a lady.

Una shuddered at the thought. She would like nothing less than to stuff herself into the rigid underclothes and elaborate gowns that Louisa—and even Una’s own sister-in-law, Brigid—arrived in when she came to stay on the island. It seemed ludicrous that Lia had once thought such things were a measure of her place in society.

Una turned her attention back to Connall, his eyes half-closed, his mouth opened slightly as he drifted toward sleep.

“And so it was that Lia traveled many miles, seeking the missing page to an ancient book, risking her very life to save those of her people, of all people.” She spoke softly, touching a finger to Connall’s silken cheek. “And to stay alive so that she might bring into the world two very demanding and very beautiful little boys, after which she lived happily ever after—with them and with her prince.”

Connall’s eyes were closed, the breath leaving his body in a soft exhale. She gazed at him a moment more, wondering if she would someday feel the weight of her own child in her arms. She pushed the thought aside almost as soon as it came to mind. She was not sure if being a wife and mother was what she wanted, and she was happy to belong to a society that did not expect it. She did not know if she would remain on the island like the Sisters with whom she resided. She did not know if she would marry one of the island’s Brothers or anyone at all. In fact, she knew very little about her future save for the fact that she would never deign to live in a society that required her to marry and wear a proper dress instead of the silken robes that were everyday attire on Altus.

She would make her own way, wherever the path took her.

She crossed the room and laid Connall back in the cradle next to his brother, careful not to wake either baby. Then she pulled the blanket up around the child’s shoulders and quietly left the room.

Time was not ruled by clocks on Altus, but she knew from the slant of the moon and the slightly lightening sky that it was almost time to meet Fenris. The thought sent a flutter of butterflies through her stomach, and she made her way from the Sanctuary, her sandaled feet carrying her along one of the many paths that wound around Altus.

The island was silent, the Sisters, Brothers, and members of the Grigori who resided there sleeping or otherwise quietly engaged. Torches were lit along the path, spaced far enough apart that Una fell into shadow every few feet, nothing but the moon to light her way. She breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of the sea, at peace in the silence.

She continued over the hill and down the other side of the island, the silk of her robe brushing against her bare legs. The sound of the ocean was like a homing beacon. She had lived on the island since her mother’s death, when she was four years old. Altus had been mother, sister, friend ever since, the sound of waves crashing against cliffs the only lullaby she had ever needed.

By the time she reached the grassy hill leading to the beach, the sky was a dusky lavender. She hoped Fenris had not been waiting long, though Gods knew it would do the arrogant rogue good.

She stepped off the path, making her way through the tall grass toward the rocky beach below. When she stepped onto the sand, she turned around in a circle, looking for Fenris as the wind blew her robe and hair this way and that. She pulled a strand away from her face, peering into the shadows.

Was there someone there? The silhouette of a figure, hiding in the shadows cast by the big rocks at the bottom of the cliff?

“Hello? Fenris?” she called out, her heart beating swiftly in her chest. “Is that you?”

The figure moved, taking three long strides toward her in a decidedly aggressive approach that forced the blood to move more quickly through her veins as her body prepared to fight or run.

“And here I thought I was the only one with whom you were engaging in late-night rendezvous,” Fenris said, a wicked smile playing on his face as he stepped into the moonlight. “Clearly, there is more than one possible suitor lurking on the island.”

She slugged his shoulder, not bothering to be careful. “Ugh! How could you? You scared me half to death!”

He rubbed his arm where she’d hit him. “I was only being playful.” He reached down, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her so close she could smell the cloves on his breath. “I thought you liked playful.”

She sucked in her breath, forcing her mind to clear, to come out of the fog induced by his nearness.

This was Fenris, after all.

“I do,” she said, “when I’m not fearing for my life.”

He leaned closer. “There is nothing to fear here, Una,” he said softly.

She wondered if she was imagining the tenderness in his voice. Tenderness was not one of Fenris’s aims except where it would gain him favor with whichever Sister he happened to be wooing this week. That he had been wooing her considerably longer, that she had heard no tales of his exploits with the young Sisters of the island in some time, did little to lower her guard. She had no intention of treating Fenris as more than an entertaining distraction. To do so would be the worst kind of denial, regardless of his assertions to the contrary.

“Of course there isn’t,” she said, lifting her chin. “Now that I know it’s you, I’m not afraid at all.”

He chuckled, and the vibration of it rang against her chest, sending tendrils of desire across her skin, bare beneath her robe.

“I wish I could say I am surprised.” He lowered his head, his lips only inches from hers, his green eyes flashing with desire. “But I would expect nothing else from you, Una Whelan.”

She braced herself against his kiss, reminding herself that time spent with Fenris could only be for the pleasure of his company. No attachments. No expectations. It was the only way to protect the carefully walled fortress of her heart against a blackguard like him, someone who would break down the walls only to pillage the village and flee with its riches without so much as a glance behind him.

His lips had just touched hers, the familiar heat spreading like brushfire through her veins, when she heard the cry near the rocks.

She pulled back. “What was that?”

Fenris was still looking at her like a wolf preparing to devour its prey. “What was what?” he asked distractedly.

Una heard the muffled cry again, and all at once, Fenris’s body snapped to attention, shoulders straightening, body poised for action as he scanned the beach. He turned around, shielding her with his body.

“Who is it?” he called out. “Who’s there?”

Silence. And then, a rasp and a cough from the rocks to their right.

Fenris turned to look at Una. “Stay here.”

She was quick on his heels as he made for the water.

He stopped, looking back at her. “I thought I told you to stay.”

“And I thought you knew I’m not a pet to be ordered to and fro,” she snapped.

His eyes were conflicted, his gaze torn from her to the sound of another cough near the water. Finally, he sighed, moving forward without another word, the desire to find out who lurked in the shadows greater than his need to argue the point.

She stayed near his side, her eyes combing the beach, instinct on high alert to possible danger, though she could not have said what she feared. As they approached the waterline, she heard a whimper, closer now, and she followed the sound to a craggy boulder near the base of the cliff.

Someone was there, sprawled out in the sand, the water rushing over the person’s lower body each time a wave came in, revealing more each time it went back out to sea.

Una rushed forward. “Here!” she called to Fenris.

He came to her side, and they half dragged, half carried the person to dry sand. It was a woman, her dark hair fanned out like ropes of seaweed around her head.

“We have to turn her over,” Una said, grabbing hold of the woman’s side. “Help me!”

They turned her onto her back, and Una saw that it wasn’t a woman at all, not a full-grown one, anyway. Her face was ghostly white, her lips a pale blue. She could not have been more than seventeen years old.

Una’s gaze swept over the girl’s body, taking in the sandals on her feet, the robe, its violet silk stained dark purple with seawater. She looked vaguely familiar, and Una thought she had been steering the ferry when Una had met her brother, Gareth, at the pier the last time he had come to Altus.

Una raised her eyes to Fenris. “She’s a Sister!” she cried. “A guide, I think.”

“What is she doing in the water?” Fenris asked.

Una shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Fenris tipped the girl onto her side. She sputtered, a cough sounding from the depths of her lungs, water spraying the sand at her side.

“That’s right,” Fenris said. “Cough. Get it all out.”

The girl let out a string of wet hacks, as if Fenris’s instructions had given her the permission she needed to rid her body of seawater.

Una pulled the girl’s hair back, already thinking ahead, to the time when they would need help. When they would need to get the girl to the Sanctuary and warm her with blankets to stave off hypothermia.

But the girl surprised her by slapping Fenris’s arms away from her own. “Stop,” she heaved, rolling onto her back. “You must tell them.”

Una shook her head, wondering if she had heard the girl correctly. “Tell who?” she asked. “What?”

The girl grabbed Una’s hand, her eyes, haunted and sunken, burning as with fever. “Lady Amalia, the Sisters…the Brothers…all of them,” she rasped.

“She’s delirious,” Fenris said. “In shock. We need to get her back to the Sanctuary.”

“Listen!” The girl’s voice came out in a hoarse shout. “You have to warn everyone. They’re coming!”

Una leaned down, bringing her face close to the girl’s. “Who is coming?”

“The Souls,” the girl said, her head dropping back to the sand. “Samael’s Guard.”

Una ran as fast as her feet would carry her. At first, she had made the argument that Fenris should be the one to warn the others. He was undoubtedly faster.

But Fenris had argued that without his help, Una would not be able to get the girl off the beach to safety. It made more sense that he carry the girl to the infirmary while Una ran ahead. She would tell the Lady of Altus and Brother Dimitri, and they would issue the orders thereafter. “When the warning has been sounded,” Fenris said, looking into her eyes with an expression she had never seen before, one she could not define, “meet me in the gazebo on the hill.”

She hesitated, wishing there were more time. Time to say that she was worried for him. That, despite the casual nature of their affair, she would not like anything to happen to him. That perhaps he was more important to her than she had allowed herself to believe.

She turned to go and was stopped by his hand on her arm.

“Una?”

“Yes?”

“Stay off the path,” he said. “And be vigilant. If what she says is true, they could be all over the island by now.”

A knot of dread formed in the pit of her stomach as she nodded. Then she ran.

She hurried away from the beach, staying off the path, as Fenris had instructed. The boulders that dotted the hill stood like faceless guardians in the early morning light. She maneuvered around them as quickly as she could, all the while watching for movement around her, half expecting the Guard to appear at any moment.

She was out of breath when she reached the top, and she paused to survey the path leading to the Sanctuary and the other main buildings that housed the Sisterhood, the Grigori, and their business. It was empty, the torches not yet extinguished. She wondered what time it was, if the torches were normally extinguished by now or if the Souls had already breached the compound.

But no. Had the Souls made their presence known, the island would not be a vision of quietude but one of chaos. Which meant she was not too late.

She took off at a run, staying to the shadows at the side of the path. Her sandals slapped noisily against her feet. Finally, she stopped to remove them, casting them aside before continuing toward the Sanctuary.

The ground was cool. She only dimly registered the rocks biting into the soles of her feet. She pictured Brennus and Connall, bodies nestled together in the cradle, eyes closed, tiny arms flung out at their sides. She had to get to them. Had to warn Lia and Dimitri. If what the girl said was true, the island would soon be under attack—was under attack already, though the serenity of the grounds seemed to defy the possibility.

And that was not all that defied it. Logic itself refuted it. The Gate was closed. Lia had closed it herself with the sacrifice of her sister, Alice. Samael would never reunite with those Souls who had been amassing for centuries in the physical world, awaiting his leadership.

Yet…what of the Souls who had been abandoned in the physical world? The ones who had crossed through previous Gates, appropriating the bodies of mortal men? Would they slink into the shadows? Sample the pleasure of this world only to die without flourish, like simple men?

Or was this an overthrow of their own? An attempt to take what Samael had promised them, though the archdemon himself would be trapped forever in the Otherworlds?

It was a question that had long nagged her. At first, she had assumed security procedures would remain the same on the island. That guards would still be posted at celebrations and guides would continue to ferry only those visitors who had been vetted at the highest levels of the Sisterhood.

But little by little, the people of Altus had begun to feel safe. Guards were more likely to participate in celebrations than stand watch over them. Guides were given orders to ferry visitors by any number of people in the Grigori, the Sisterhood, even some of the higher-ranking Brothers.

And the guides complied, for who would seek passage to a mystical island shrouded in fog? One that sat between the physical world and the others, unknown to virtually every mortal alive? One that had little to offer in the way of mortal riches?