The Mirror of the Moon (Revenant Wyrd Book 2) (42 page)

She gasped as the power of her aunt flooded through her, causing every nerve to stand on end, tantalizing her very flesh, and causing the hair to stand up straight along her arms. The air she breathed was sweeter than ever before, yet seemingly like ice to her lungs.

If it had not been fore Maeven’s insistent hand on her back, she would have stayed there the rest of her days, basking in the presence of her aunt’s wyrd.

“We have to help them,” he said. His voice, and the sounds from the room beyond, brought Joya back to herself. She nodded.

“We are going to do this right, Maeven,” she said, a mischievous smile spreading over her face. “When we breach the room, get them to safety and leave this place. I will be close behind you.”

He only nodded. Really that was all he had time to do before the doors splinted in a loud pop. It wasn’t so much that the door blasted apart, but instead it had spider-webbed like glass. The door still hung where it had been fastened, largely held together by Joya’s wyrd. It was a display of power, and Maeven could tell that instantly.

In the room beyond the screaming had died when the pop sounded, and that seemed to be the cue Joya was waiting for.

She took one step forward, as if she intended to step through the door, but instead the splinters blasted inward, reverberating through the room. The action startled Porillon so much that she lost her grip on her wyrd. At that moment Jovian and Angelica slid limply to the floor. Angelica’s hand quickly found her mace.

“You!” Porillon spat, rage lighting a fire in her eyes that matched the rage of the glowing blue lines on her face.

“Me,” Joya said with a smirk. “Maeven now,” Joya commanded.

Porillon did not see the other man, for now all her attention was focused on Joya and what she wore around her neck. “I will have that necklace.” she said dangerously.

“Now, now,” Joya tsked, holding up her hand, “manners, you will find, Porillon, go a long way with me.”

“I don’t care about your manners, or your worthless emotions. I care about what is around your neck.”

“That much is obvious,” Joya said, trying to buy time for Maeven to get Angelica and Jovian out. Thankfully Porillon had not seriously wounded them, and all it took was his insistence to get them up and moving, away from the battle and the foe they so desperately wanted to annihilate.

“Have you come to their rescue, Joya?” Porillon asked as she walked toward her. “I thought it was to be the other way around. It seems, however, that your brother and sister cannot take care of things as well as previously thought.”

“It matters not. They have come, and in a sense they have rescued me for they caused the necessary distractions for me to act,” Joya said as the last of her company filed past her and out the doorway.

“It doesn’t matter where you issue them to. I will have them!” Porillon screamed and as the last of her words faded fire sprang from her mouth straight at Joya, reminding her of tales of wyrms from distant lands.

A force spread through Joya from the medallion, and she instinctively threw up her hands to ward off the fire. The fire was absorbed into Joya.

See it?
This time her aunt’s voice came to her instead of the form. 

Joya looked around, not sure what Pharoh spoke of. “That light?” She asked, though she didn’t get an answer, only a feeling of certainty. Above Porillon there were two threads of power trickling down from the ceiling. Joya reached up her physical hands, and she could feel their silky cold energy (though they were nearly twenty feet from her) like cold ropes gripped in her hands.

PULL!
 Pharoh urged, and Joya gave a tug. The energy was rooted there, and the ceiling trembled a bit.
AGAIN! HARDER!
She pulled again, but obviously could not do what her aunt wanted her to. 
AGAIN! SEE IT FALL.
Joya closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Joya was now confident that she had a firm grip on the power her aunt was showing her.
PULL NOW!
Pharoh yelled in her head.

Joya opened her eyes, and looked deep into Porillon’s, and with a great yank the ceiling trembled, and then a loud crack like thunder was heard, and the floor gave a violent shake.

The ceiling above Porillon gave way, and she looked up, raising her arms as if to shield herself. It was no use, and soon she was knocked to the floor, pinned beneath a pile of debris and large stones.

Joya turned and, grabbing the other three, she raced them down the dark hall as the ceiling closed the entrance to the altar room behind them.

“Quick, follow me,” Joya instructed, and they raced through the halls, heading for the entrance of the Lunimara. Almost as soon as their battle with Porillon had started, it had also ended. They knew she was not dead, but at least now they had bought themselves some time.

“The medallion!” Angelica yelled, stopping abruptly. If ever they hoped to defeat Porillon they would need to learn as much about themselves, their past, and their wyrd as they could and that medallion was their path. It was their tutor in the Wyrding Ways. “We have to find it.”

“I have it,” Joya told her, pulling the pendant from the bodice of her torn dress. She held it up for them all to see. Tucking it back into her garments, she urged them all forward, and soon they were stepping out into the balmy night air.

When all was said and done the only thing left standing was the statue of the Goddess. Her arms resolutely spread out before her, no longer welcoming her children into her embrace, but instead as if showing to the world what her children accomplished.

The torches of Naolyn Oil remained lit at her feet, shedding light on the devastation as well as the Goddess who stood triumphantly, conqueror of the dalua and Chaos.

G
race watched from a distance, seeing the four of them running from the temple moments after the thunderous boom woke her from her partial sleep. She watched them with longing, with mourning. Despite her confidence at camp before she parted company with the others, Grace didn’t know if she would ever see them again, but she hoped she would.

Moments later, after the four youths disappeared into the foggy twilight between night and day, Porillon stepped from the Mirror of the Moon as well. It took her a moment of looking and scanning the grounds lit silver by the light of the structure. Grace could feel the Alarist scanning the dark with her wyrd, searching for a trace of them, of the medallion. Grace had little need to worry that she would be sensed, for her wyrd was not that strong at the present time, and being made of earth it wouldn’t be out of place here anyway.

Porillon seemed to find what she was looking for, and in moments she was off.

Grace watched her and stood; her hand went for her silver dagger.

She could not watch Porillon kill the children she had raised as her own.

“Oh do put that retched thing down,” she heard a vacant voice behind her. “Always reaching for your blade when things could be solved much more civilly.”

Grace only smiled at Rosalee’s voice behind her.

“Yes, and it will take three to do what I have been enlisted to help with. I would hate for Porillon to kill you now before you could aid us.” Tears welled up in Grace’s eyes at the sound of Dalah’s voice.

She looked back to see the two of them, the tall redhead dressed in flowing green robes as she had been the day Grace had seen her last in the botanical shop. Dalah wore the style of dress she normally donned – lilac, in observance of the work they now did for the Goddess. Though they had traveled a long way, and doubtlessly had come upon many horrors, they looked like nothing more than two ladies out for a night of drink and merriment. She smiled lovingly at them and gripped their hands in her own.

Hand in hand they walked to the Mirror of the Moon, the place that had seen many seasons of their lives.

As Grace turned to close the door, she caught sight of a large black dog and a grand white owl sitting at the edge of the clearing the light of the Mirror of the Moon bathing them as if they sat in a pool of moonlight.

“I am sorry, girls,” the old lady said, a smile on her face despite the sick feeling the Well of Wyrding brought to her stomach. “But you will have to wait,” and with that she closed the door.

“Where are we going?” Tegaris asked, plummeting out of the night sky to land on Angelica’s shoulder. She thought he had gone for good, but now she realized he was their guide until they were out of the Sacred Forest.

“Home,” Joya cast a glance behind her, knowing that Porillon followed.

“Yes, I feel her too,” Maeven said. They found their horses tethered where they had left them and quickly mounted. On the back of their beasts they would outpace Porillon better than without.

“We have a little time, but not much.” He turned his focus to Angelica and Jovian. “How are the two of you feeling?”

They felt different now, and there were many reasons why. The feeling of unity had faded once Joya had blasted down the door, as if what fused them together, the consciousness that consumed them had passed and they were once more Angelica and Jovian, two separate beings now only linked through that which they possessed before entering that altar room with Porillon.

“Better,” Jovian said to Maeven, rubbing the other man’s shoulder affectionately. He knew that in time they would have to learn how to master their gifts, how to do more than react to a situation. In order to act, however, they would have to learn all about what they were, and what they could do for the world.

Porillon had alerted them to many things that night, one being that there was information to glean about themselves somewhere, most likely in a text. And if they wanted to learn about themselves, the best way to do that would start with the Twin Guardians of the Realm of Earth, and all the books their keep reputedly housed.

Another thing they had learned from her tonight, whether she had wanted them to learn it or not, was that among them, throughout the realms, there were other dalua working with her, trying to achieve the same end. Perhaps Alarists still existed in greater numbers than previously thought?

Then there was the troubling knowledge that something she had told them, something that seemed to fit within the weaving of her tale had been a lie. Something crucial they could be using to achieve their own ends was fabricated and untrue.

“Yes, we are stellar,” Angelica giggled, kicking Jesse into motion despite all the questions they had and all that was still left to do before they could actually be safe.