The Turquoise Tower (Revenant Wyrd Book 6) (28 page)

“What are you doing?” Pi asked, pulling Devenstar back away from the window.

“I can’t stay in here,” Deven said. “I can’t cower behind these walls and not fight what’s outside!”

“And what’s outside, Devenstar?” Clara said. She only used his full name when she was angry with him.

“The legion of fallen angels,” he said simply, strapping his sword to his back.

“And you’re going to take the entire legion on by yourself?” Clara asked.

“Unless you’re coming with, yes,” Devenstar said, slipping a leg out through his window.

Pi sighed, ran her hands through her hair, and looked to Clara for a solution.

“Go get our weapons,” Clara said.

“You’re serious?” Pi asked.

Clara only nodded.

Mag could feel the coming of the legion like a soothing ointment on sunburned skin. She sat on her cot with her head cradled in her hands. She’d been unable to sleep since they entered Lytoria. Whereas the calming vibration of the city would work its charm on any Goddess-loving individual, the alarist wyrd recently reawakened in her wouldn’t let her rest. Her head throbbed.

There was a part of her that rejoiced in the coming of the fallen, though she knew that was wrong. At least it put an end to the incessant humming of the walls around her. When the thrum of power drew to a halt, Mag sighed. The pressure of the alarist wyrd in her head abated, affording her some peace.

But that peace was quickly set aside with the realization of what was happening outside. Her peace of mind was being bought with the blood of people she’d come to know as friends.

A knock came to the door, and a guard stepped inside.

“He’s as safe in here as he is out there,” the guard said, ushering Astanel inside and closing the door behind him.

Astanel rushed to Mag, placing his hands around the shackles that held her.

“No,” Mag whispered, jerking away from him. “Not yet.”

“But you said you’d help,” the boy pleaded. There was fear in his eyes, and Mag felt for him. It was the first time he’d known this kind of danger. She wasn’t sure what he had been through before, but she did know that he was led there through the lie of love.

“Not yet; there will be another attack,” she said.

“Another?” Astanel quivered, his eyes darting back to the door as if fallen would burst through at any moment. Mag’s heart went out to the boy. It was a powerful fallen who had enslaved him before. She vowed not to let it happen again.

“Yes, another, and when that comes, you will come to me, and you will release me.” She placed a reassuring hand on his arm. The shackles clanged, reminding her just how powerless she was to protect him until they were off.

“There,” Atorva said, and Dalah could feel the thread of his prayer slip from her mind. But the orb she and Flora had made of it held true.

“Will that keep them out?” Flora asked.

“I can’t be sure,” Atorva said. “It’s not as though they can’t cross into Goddess energy, but I think it severely weakens them.”

“Well,” Dalah said, smoothing the front of her yellow robe. “At least now we’ll have a fighting chance.”

Atorva nodded, giving a tight, humorless smile. “Now, if you ladies would help me to the rooftop, I need to cast my blessing out to my people.”

Dalah didn’t like the idea of that. It was too risky, being on the roof, near the fallen, in plain sight. But it made the most sense. They needed some kind of visual for their wyrd to work, and she was certain they would be helping him spread his energy around. The memory of Rosalee, crushed beneath her under the bridge, strengthened her resolve. She nodded once.

“We should get Grace,” Dalah said to Flora.

“Grace isn’t here,” Atorva said, refusing to meet Dalah’s gaze.

“Where is she?” Dalah asked confused.

“She couldn’t sleep, and had gone to the basilica,” Atorva began, but before he could finish a dark feeling settled over Dalah. She moaned and shook her head, knowing that her friend had been smothered in the ruins of the basilica.

“Dear Goddess,” Flora whispered.

“What’s more, the Guardians were protecting her. They are all lost to us,” Atorva said. “Until we can get a team in there to clean up, we won’t recover them.”

“But they’re sorcerers,” Flora said. “They’ll survive.”

“Even so, we need to unearth them,” Atorva said. “I wouldn’t count on their being useful in this fight.”

Dalah’s hands were shaking when she stood. It was as if a cloud had settled over her emotions, and cotton had been wedged into her ears. If people were speaking, she couldn’t hear it. She was only dimly aware of helping Atorva stand, and taking him down the hall toward a staircase up to the roof.

Above, Dalah could see the destruction of the basilica all the clearer, but she turned her back to it. There was enough sorrow in her heart; she didn’t need the visual reminder as well. From somewhere near the basilica came sporadic flashes of white light, and a reverberation to the earth that would have panicked her if she hadn’t been lost in her own sorrow.

Grace wasn’t a sorceress, so she wasn’t immortal, despite her unnaturally long life. Her being crushed under all of that weight would be the same as Rosalee being crushed in the Ivory City. Memories of the past swam to the forefront of her mind in a dizzying array of images. Dalah could see the fallen at the other end of the bazaar, her wings unfolding, casting shadows across the ground and plaguing the mind with perverse power.

She shook her head and closed her eyes. When she opened them, the rest of her group was already a short distance from her.

Atorva indicated a spot near the center of the flat roof of the High Votary House, and he kneeled. Overhead, Dalah was aware of black wings carrying fallen bodies over the city. Darklight and purple fire abounded, cascading to the streets, vanishing houses and people, and setting monuments afire in an unnatural way. Those that burned didn’t give way to smoke, but melted in their place, the inferno caving the ground beneath them.

The stench was horrendous, and with the peaceful vibration gone, fear leaked in.

Atorva began his prayer in an ancient language Dalah didn’t have the mind to place. She slipped one hand into Atorva’s and the other into Flora’s grasp, and together they sent his prayer slipping over the city, finding refuge where it might, strengthening those that they could, giving aid to those wyrders fighting against the fallen.

When next Dalah opened her eyes, there was a definite change in the tide of battle.

“Deven, where are we going?” Pi whispered to the man’s broad back. She followed him, hanging as close to the wall as the low shrubs beside the building would allow.

He only shook his head. It was dark; despite being near dawn, the air was clouded with smoke and with screaming. The confusion of battle swarmed around Pi until she nearly lost all sense of where she was and which direction she was headed. But she followed Deven, ducking out of sight when several fallen wheeled about overhead, throwing purple fire, lighting trees and people with their wrath where they would burn and melt on the spot, leaving behind holes where they once stood.

Pi closed her eyes and would have taken Clara’s hand, but she needed both hands free. She just hoped Devenstar knew where he was going.

“And where are you going?” a voice cooed from behind them.

Pi turned, her blade raised. Behind them stood a red-headed fallen angel, with black eyes and wings arching wide above her slender body. The woman wore a green dress that left her arms bare. She stepped closer to them, her bare feet crunching on the snow.

Golden lightning exploded over Pi’s shoulder, deafening her and striking the fallen in the chest. The woman stumbled back, but flicked her wings to regain her footing. A hand on Pi’s shoulder dragged her around the corner of the house, where she could just see bursts of white light coming from around another corner near the ruined basilica.

“That
hurt!
” the fallen angel shrieked. Pi grabbed hold of Clara, pulling her along behind Deven, who was now sprinting to be away from the fallen. “Where are you going?” the red-headed angel asked again, blasting out at them with a bolt of darklight. Clara pulled Pi to the side, who in turn jerked Deven to the side with her hand still clasped in his. The ground where they had been standing churned and blackened, and a hole appeared.

“That’s where we’re going,” Deven said when another flash lit the air.

Pi stumbled to her feet, jerking Clara up as she did so. Clara stood with a huff and dashed along behind Pi. She cast a look behind her, watching the red-haired fallen angel ready another attack, but just then a peaceful, serene sensation oozed out of the house to their left, filling Pi with power and determination.

The fallen must have felt it too, because she cut short her attack, hissed at the building, and made to pull away. Quickly Pi yanked her hands free and blasted the fallen with the largest bolt of green lightning she could muster. This time the angel didn’t stumble back, but was instead blasted, her dress burning where the lightning struck.

When the angel fell, she didn’t get back up.

“The house—it strengthens our wyrd,” Pi said.

“Yeah, that’s good,” Deven said, pulling her along. “Not enough though, she’s getting back up.”

Pi looked, and sure enough, the angel was standing back up. Her dress gaped open, and underneath Pi could see that the angel’s alabaster skin was charred and black.

“How did that not kill her?” Pi asked, rounding the next corner behind Deven and seeing the source of the flashes of light.

Another angel stood under a lamp post near the corner of the basilica, a blue flaming sword in one hand, and great white wings folded behind his back. He attacked the approaching legion with the sword, but as they watched he was swarmed by them. Moments later a pulse of pure white light flared from the convergence, and the score of legion on top of him were vaporized. As their dust fell to the ground, something more remained: a pinpoint of light, pure and radiant like a star, which spiraled up and vanished into the sky.

“Get to him,” Devenstar said, turning back to the red-haired angel. “Let him instruct you.”

Pi dragged Clara behind her, down the knoll away from the basilica and to the street corner where the angel stood, slashing with his blade and bursting with light. In between bursts, Pi dove at the angel, pulling Clara behind her and into the embrace of his light. The dust of fallen angels cascaded around them like sand raining down on the cobbles, and the essence that was left of those that fell spiraled up into the sky.