A Guardian of Shadows (Revenant Wyrd Book 4) (32 page)

Rosalee and Dalah added their attacks to Grace's, lightning arching from all three of them, smashing into the shield. Sparks flew, and the energy of the shields glowed.

“They are getting ready to come down,” Joya said.

“What can we do?” Angelica asked.

“More wyrd!” Jovian said.

“No, that won't help, they’re too strong!” Joya said.

Children, listen to me,
Aunt Pharoh spoke to them then from the medallion.
Angelica, Jovian, you have to stop them somehow, Joya and I will keep you safe while you work. But hurry. Joya, do exactly as I say; there's no time for questions, just obey.

They saw Joya nod.

Now, Jovian and Angelica, drop your shields. Joya and I will take it from here.

“What do we do?” Jovian yelled to Angelica over the cacophony of the wyrded battle.

“We have to save them somehow. This is up to us.”

Angelica and Jovian dropped their shields. Joya's shield shattered just then, but another force took its place. A large blue bubble sprang from Joya's hand, and they could feel their aunt's wyrd on the air, and knew that she was giving strength to them. The orb sprang up all around them, and when the lightning met it, it was reflected back at the Norns, forcing them to protect themselves from their own wyrd.

Grace, Dalah, and Rosalee stopped their attack and tilted their heads, like they were investigating what was before them, considering the best way to attack. In the sudden silence, Jovian’s ears rang.

The three older ladies split and started milling around the protective orb. Occasionally one of them would toss out a bolt, or a fireball, but when their wyrd was reflected back on them, they quickly stopped.

“You won't find any weak spots,” Joya told the Norns. “This is Pharoh's wyrd.”

“You can't hold it forever,” Dalah said, and the three old ladies sat down on the ground, waiting.

“We aren't any threat to you,” Jovian said. “We don't want the Well of Wyrding, or the Evyndelle.”

“That's not your choice,” Rosalee said.

“You being alive is enough to end the well,” Dalah said.

“I don't understand how,” Jovian said.

“Your wyrd is like none on the realms, you are much more than wyrders,” Grace said.

“Through the unnatural birth, you are able to influence fate,” Dalah said.

“You are able to control another's wyrd,” Rosalee concluded.

Jovian remembered taking Alhamar’s life. He remembered seeing the other man charge his sisters. But then time had slowed, almost stood completely still. Jovian had seen the tree, the Evyndelle, and had been taken down the trunk to the roots. His mind knew what he was looking for, and when he found Alhamar’s root, Jovian had simply
ended
it. He had watched it grow dark, the end shriveled as if burned. Above him, in that vision, the tree groaned a protest. He remembered looking up at the tree, but that simple movement had brought him crashing back to his body, where Jovian found himself standing over Joya and the now-dead Alhamar, his hand poised above his childhood friend, who had died inexplicably while Jovian had been away. He shook his head.
I didn't do that, I just saw it happen!

But then he remembered the incident in the Ravine of Aaridnay, when Angelica had stopped a wyrded storm brought on by a sorcerer they called the Tall Stranger. Hadn’t she stolen his wyrd so completely that he was no longer even marked as a sorcerer? Jovian looked at Angelica, and his horror was mirrored on her face. He knew her thoughts traveled the same paths his did.

“But you did do it,” Grace said. “You ended his fate.”

“How do you know?” Jovian asked, shooting a glance at her.

“We could see his wyrd, and then a blank spot where the name of who killed him should have been. Angels aren't recognized by the tree,” Dalah said.

“You need to die,” Grace said.

“We don't!” Jovian held up his hands. “We will stop…”

“Living?” Dalah asked. “As long as you live, you weaken the tree. In essence, you
are
the Well of Wyrding, and there can't be two of the same force alive in the world.”

Jovian and Angelica shared a thought then: the dream made sense now. The wyrd absorbing into them, the well crumbling, the tree dying as if in a permanent autumn. The well was transferring its power to them, putting itself into their bodies.

Jovian shook his head.

“We will figure out a way,” he told them. “Angelica and I will figure out a way to stop it.”

“There's only one way,” Grace said. “And we've figured it out.”

“The Otherworld you have!” Angelica said. Jovian felt the anger swelling up inside of her then. Too many people were taking advantage of them, too many people dictating how they were to live. “If this is how you want to do it, so be it.”

Angelica had enough of being pushed around, taken advantage of, and being at the whims of other forces. The three people before her were no longer the ones she knew. Grace was just a husk of the woman she once was; who knew if there was anything left in her body of the tutor they remembered.

Angelica connected with the local earth energy and established a channel. The power throbbed through her intensely, drowning out all fear and worries and filling her with the power she needed to be free of the pestilence before them.

She lashed out with her mind, giving no warning to the Norns. She let the wyrd blast from her, taking their attackers by storm. Angelica saw with wyrd-filled vision the power of the Norns ripple out of the bodies. She saw the images of the gray women from her dream burst out of Grace, Dalah, and Rosalee as her wyrd washed through them, carrying away all energies that didn’t belong. The three older ladies collapsed, and the Norns tried to retaliate, but Jovian was ready for that. As had happened with Alhamar, he turned his attention to the tree, to the roots. Time slowed and he was suspended in the silvery wyrd of the well, gazing at the knotwork of roots before him.

Jovian raised his arms, and with a mental pull, he started drawing the fates of the roots toward him, dragging them away from the tree. He could feel the roots start to shrivel, he could feel the people attached to the roots begin to weaken, as their lives were drawn from the tree, pulled from their bodies.

He was the Pale Horse. He could feel death coming to all of those in the small knot of roots he affected. But before the life could slip from a single person, Jovian opened his eyes, and released his grip on the Evyndelle. The roots that had been reaching for him, withering with his might, slackened, hung naturally in the wyrd once more, and took on the look and feel of life again.

The tree groaned in a thankful way, and Jovian felt in a strange manner that the tree was truly grateful that he hadn’t stolen those fates from it.

He came back to himself, and time sped up. The Norns were confused, worried, and without another thought other than the tree and the fates Jovian was trying to rob from it. Once he was back, however, they turned their hatred and attention back to him.

But before the Norns could get their bearings, another force recognized they didn't belong on the human plane. With nothing to tether them to the physical world, the Norns were dragged back to the Well of Wyrding, and whatever fate might await them there.

"Get ready," Grace told Dalah and Rosalee where they watched in some distant place that was both of their minds, and outside their minds at the same time. "Something is about to happen, I can feel the wyrd."

When the attack came it was like a gale force wind blowing through their minds, carrying away the pollution of the Norns that had plagued them. Grace slipped back into her form like slipping into a comfortable pair of trousers. She felt at home, welcomed, and at peace once more.

She owed her life to Angelica, Jovian, and Joya. She had put them in danger, but it was the only way she knew how to save Dalah, Rosalee, and herself. Logic said if the Norns feared them, there was reason to believe they could defeat the fates.

Grace came to with a gasp. She had been aware of fates as they passed over the minds of the Norns. She had seen what had become of Dauin. Grace had even tried to spy what had happened to Amber, but because Amber was of angelic blood, her fate was hidden from the Norns.

A moan went up from the lips of the three women, and they sank to their knees. There was a force then that escaped them, flying from their bodies like wythes on the wind to a distance north and east of where they stood.

When next Grace looked up at the youths, it was with the watery blue eyes of the tutor they had known all their lives.

“Children,” she said, tears slipping down her cheeks. “I'm so sorry about your father.”

Morning in the mountains was different than morning on the ground. It came earlier, and so much brighter than normal. The clouds were low that day, and Cianna was actually above them, so when she looked down toward the rest of the Realms, all she saw was a blanket of cloud coverage.

She had to dress warmly, covered with nearly everything she had in her pack, which made her traveling hard. The air was lighter, which meant she had to take frequent breaks, because she easily lost her breath. But when the morning came, it made it all worth it. The sun rose, bright and glorious in the night sky, far to the east, and she rose early to watch the bend of the horizon as the sun rose brilliantly.

Cianna thought, if she listened close enough, she might be able to hear the moment when the sun rose through the gray stillness of pre-dawn quiet. The whisper of the dead near at hand drew her back from her morning ritual. Cianna turned her attention to the dead, and the news they brought. They told her of the attacks in the Realm of Fire, and though they were bad, she had seen some of them firsthand, and didn't need to know about them. What she had wanted to know was about the attacks on the Realm of Earth, and after finding out the Wyrder’s Academy was the only place they knew of that had been attacked with malignant wyrd, Cianna relaxed. At least nothing had befallen the Guardian's Keep other than Sara’s sickness.

Cianna sent a prayer up to the Goddess that Sara would get better.

The dead had told her of Greenwood as well, but that hadn't been destroyed by malignant wyrd; some kind of battle had taken place there. The dead murmured that it had the feel of angels, and Cianna wondered if it was her cousins, or some other angel roaming the area.

Are there other angels?
she wondered.

But now the dead returned again, with news of another sort. This time she had sent them far west, where the darkness was growing.

The spirit of a young boy kneeled before her, whispering news of the kind she wanted. He reached out his hand to her, his dead wyrd rising like smoke from the silhouette of his body.

When he touched her forehead images bloomed to the surface. A figure, cloaked in black, walked alone across the field toward a giant tower made of turquoise. It rose out of the ground, as if grown from the very gem that lent it color. One main tower stretched up, with two smaller ones like flames, or wings, curving high above the center tower.

Cianna watched the figure climb the stairs, and the doors open to admit them.

The tower glowed brighter, as if hit with the sun. When the light cleared, there was a miasma of darkness which hung like curtains around the tower.

Cianna blinked, and in that moment of darkness hundreds of bowed bodies manifested on the planes surrounding the tower, bowing and chanting a cacophonous noise towards it, supplicating themselves.