The Chosen Soul (19 page)

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Loki cocked his head to one side and studied her carefully. “Are you going to

disappear on me again?”

“I’ll try my best not to.”

“You’ve been through so much, though. The village council… Brayden and Selby…

the elf prince, and then Talon and your father.” He took her hand in his and squeezed it

gently. “Raven, you
must
be overwhelmed. Are you thinking clearly? Is Adonides truly to be trusted? He’s a devil, after all, and devils can’t be…”

Raven pulled her hand from his and leaned back against the headboard. It was

entirely natural for someone like Loki to feel the way he felt about devils, and

particularly Malphas and his minions. She closed her eyes. She wouldn’t blame him if he

never truly came to accept that she held a piece of the Dark Lord’s soul inside her own.

She was as much a devil as Adonides, if not more so. She wondered, as her stomach

knotted and she forced herself to relax, what Loki would think when he saw her drink

blood. It was sure to happen, and sooner rather than later.

Raven sighed then and opened her eyes. She silently congratulated herself for the

fact that they were dry.

“I understand your fears, Loki. I have them too. But I can’t change the past. I can’t

help who and what I am.”

“I know,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”

“And this is all a bit overwhelming, Loki,” she continued, as if he’d said nothing.

“You have to believe me when I tell you that things are even more complicated and more

frightening than you know.” She shook her head then. “But, as I’ve said, I can do nothing

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to change it. I can only learn to live with it and prepare myself for whatever it is I feel –

what
I know
– is coming.”

Loki watched her silently for several moments. Then he nodded, stood up and made

his way to the door.

“I’ll go to the kitchen and get you some breakfast.”

Before she could reply, he shut the door behind him and she was alone.

The singing outside had stopped and all was still. She glanced at the windows. They

were shut tight, the curtains still and undisturbed. She felt no breeze, but she was cold.

She shivered and pulled the blankets to her chin.

Despite Loki’s insistence to the contrary, she knew now that something was not right

– that something was going to happen. And it had everything to do with her. She needed

to gain control of her powers.

She needed to see Adonides.

She pushed her covers back and stood. Then she pulled on her clothes and, after

tying her long thick hair back, she moved to the writing desk, where she penned a quick

note to her brother. She knew where she was headed and hoped her written directions

would suffice should he need to reach her quickly.

Then she moved to the giant windows and pulled the curtains aside. A field of

sunflowers spread over several acres, coming to rest at the edge of a dense forest beyond.

The tall yellow and orange blooms swayed and bobbed in the peaceful summer’s breeze.

There was no one in sight. The acolytes had apparently retired for the morning.

With one last glance at the closed door, she unlatched the locks on the windows and

swung them open. She climbed over the sill and landed softly in the ploughed earth

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below. She pulled the panes shut behind her and peeked out from behind the bushes,

making certain no one was within sight.

When she was sure the coast was clear, she quickly made her way to the trail leading

from the temple, then ducked into the sunflowers and made her way to the forest’s edge.

Retracing her steps from the previous night, she managed to find her way back to the

small field of wild grass where Adonides had shown her several spells.

Raven entered the field alone. She paused at the entrance to the clearing, listening

and looking. Not a soul was within sight or sound. She wasn’t surprised. Adonides had

said he would meet her in the afternoon. She had a few hours to waste.

She walked into the clearing, toward a group of boulders at its center. Then she

sighed and climbed up on top of the largest rock, enjoying the mild warmth before the

true heat of the summer’s day set in.

She closed her eyes and laid back. The flat stone was long enough to support her

entire body and she relaxed against its smooth surface, her mind spinning with the events

of the past week.

The sound of grass and twigs crunching beneath hooves pulled her from her

thoughts. Her eyes flew open and she sat up. Three dark figures stood at the opposite end

of the small field.

She gasped and jumped to her feet, instinctively moving behind the boulder to put its

girth between them. Three figures on horseback stared down at her. Two of the riders

wore leather armor, studs and spikes dotting the breast plate and shoulder guards of their

battle garb. Their twisted, red-skinned faces were lined with nicks and scars and their

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eyes blazed a bright, eerie green. They were clearly not human. Raven had never before

seen creatures of their ilk. A shiver of terror raced down her spine.

The third rider, whose tall, strong form sat upon a giant black steed between the

others, wore pitch black robes and was cloaked in darkness, from head to toe. Still, Raven

could feel the rider’s eyes searing into her.

Panic rose in her belly. A thousand horrible thoughts chased themselves across her

consciousness. She tried, frantically, to recall something –
anything
– that Adonides had shown her. But she hadn’t actually tried any of the spells herself. She’d only watched

him, and now fear drove even those memories out of her mind.

In desperation, she willed herself to change.

Just as she began to feel her limbs lengthen, her wings spring forth from her back,

and her body grow stronger, the figure in black robes waved a gloved hand, and an

incantation rang out across the field, his voice resounding against the forest line like an evil echo.

And Raven felt her power being sapped, being drained. Her change into Winter

halted and she once again became Raven. “No!” she yelled, frustrated and frightened to

the point that her heart slammed painfully hard against her rib cage.

And then the robed rider stirred. Slowly, he pulled back his black cowl, and Raven

could not move. Locks of straight jet-black hair fell beyond his shoulders, a gray goatee

covered his chin and a wicked scar ran the length of one side of his face. Piercing pale

blue eyes gazed out at her from a striking visage both handsome and terrifying. His ears,

long and pointed, marked him as an elf.

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For several long moments, he simply stared at her, those blue eyes taking in every

detail, as she could only remain frozen in place, coherent thoughts of escape just out of

her reach.

And then he spurred his stallion into quick forward motion, and suddenly the three

riders were charging at full gallop across the small field. Raven came out of her stupor as if lightning had struck her. She screamed and spun on her heel, then broke into as fast a

run as her long legs could manage, heading directly for the forest line. The sound of

thundering hooves rose behind her. Terror sent her heart into her throat and she could not

breathe.

In mere seconds, she felt the hot breath of the horses at her back, and a strong arm

snaked down from beside her, scooping her up into a steel-lined embrace. She screamed

and a gloved hand clamped down over her mouth. She was roughly repositioned upon the

stallion’s saddle, her back pressed tight against her captor’s chest.

She pulled at the arm over her mouth with both of her hands. If she could only speak,

she could try a spell –
any
spell – it didn’t matter at this point. She would make one up if she had to.

The horses continued at their relentless gallop and, somewhere in the back of her

mind, she wondered where they were going.

“If you say a single word,” came a voice, hissing in her ear, “I will kill your brother.”

Raven’s heart skipped a beat. Blood rushed through her eardrums. Who
was
he?

How did he know about her? What did he want?

“I want
you
, Raven. I want all of you. I want your soul, and you are going to give it to me, freely, of your own will.” His voice carried clearly to her over the sound of the

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horses’ hooves thundering over the ground. It was a voice laced with powerful magic, she

could hear it, recognize it in every word, feeding every intonation. She had the horrible

feeling that he could do anything he wanted. And she feared for her life as she never had

before.

She lashed out then, letting go of the strong arm he had over her mouth and driving

both elbows back into his chest. It was a mistake. They connected with his body as if he

were made of metal. She knew it was a spell of protection, even as the magical armor

rang against her bone, she cried out with pain and her fingers went completely numb.

He removed his hand from her mouth then, as if he had not even noticed that she’d

lashed out. “Not a word.”

She couldn’t help the whimper that rose from her throat as she fought not to at least

ask him where they were going – or what, exactly, they were going to do with her.

The riders thundered across the field until they were at the forest line. They never

slowed, entering the thick underbrush at break-neck speed. Their horses galloped easily

over vines and boulders, as if they knew exactly where to place their hooves. None of

them spoke. She could hear the sable material of her captor’s robes whipping about in the

wind.

And then, just as despair was beginning to set in, something black moved to her left,

just ahead of the riders. Before she could determine what it had been, the object blurred

and was slamming into both her and her captor, knocking them violently from the back of

the horse.

She cried out as they fell and her captor pulled her tightly to him, turning with her in

the air so that he landed on his back, she on top of him. The wind rushed from her lungs

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at the collision of her body against his, but he had absorbed most of the impact, and she

was only slightly disoriented upon landing. Almost immediately, she began to try to

scramble away from him, but his arm held her tight.

In a few short moments, her captor was speaking in a strange language to the other

two riders. She felt her body being shoved quickly to the side. Strong arms pulled her up,

yanking her off of her feet and spinning her around.

She was being held between the two red-skinned creatures, their taloned fingers

digging tiny furrows into the flesh of her arms. A few feet away, the robed elf stood and

turned to face whatever it was that had knocked them from his horse.

A man in full black leather armor stood on the opposite side of the trail. He was taller

than the elf by several inches and his build was monumentally stronger. Upon his back

rested a long two-handed sword in a sheath of black leather that matched the rest of his

armor and upon his chest was an emblem composed of three black-on-black symbols; an

eye, a hand, and a rope.

Raven found her gaze drawn to him. He was incredibly handsome. His complexion

was swarthy, his eyes like molten silver, piercing and stark against the dark tan of his

skin. He’d come up in a fighter’s stance, strong and steady, his weight evenly distributed

upon both legs. His eyes bored into his opponent’s, who had turned to stare at him,

obviously sizing him up.

The elf smiled then, a horrible gleaming white smile, and began to cast a spell. In the

split second before he released it, the stranger glanced from him to Raven, and their gazes caught and held.

Cast your own spell!

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A voice exploded inside her mind, and Raven’s eyes widened.

Then the elf in black robes released his magic and white-hot bolts of energy went

racing from his outstretched palms into the stranger’s tall form.

Raven wanted to close her eyes, unwilling to watch. However, the stranger’s gaze

held her steady and she was unable to breathe, much less move.

The elf’s power crashed into his tall opponent, but instead of rendering him

unconscious or frying him like lightning, the magic simply cascaded around the

stranger’s body, sizzling out of existence like a dying fire.

The elf’s blue-eyed gaze narrowed.

The man in black leather had not looked away from Raven, even as the elf’s magic

had poured over him. Raven’s heart had utterly stopped beating. Time seemed to slow,

and the silence stretched.

Then, ever so slowly, dauntingly, the stranger turned his gaze away from Raven and

looked once more upon the elf in black robes.

“Cruor.” He bowed his head toward the elf, as if in greeting and deference. Then he

smiled, white teeth flashing in a grin that brought Raven’s breath up short. “Your magic

can not harm me, mage.”

The Death Mage’s gaze narrowed, his brow vaguely furrowed.