Shadow Queen (25 page)

I learned from the guys that I’d alone taken the energy from Calum and Cord and sent it into the sword lacing it into Borgon’s body.  When Szar grabbed hold, he was receiving every jolt of electricity I programmed into my head.  He compared it to touching a cloud and expecting a cottony feel, but finding poison instead.  Oddly enough, the second he touched Borgon and the current hit him, all of our rings lit up.  Cas was the only one to see this.  His view of the whole things is the picture painted for all our heads.

              Szar was the Saiph, the right shoulder of all of us, and his letter revealed that he had no power shared with me but that of our Valkyrie and godlike strength.  He can handle all of our powers together and be the stronghold we need when all else fails like a shield to evil.  Because...each of them are affected by the powers they share with me and let it hinder them but Szar can harness all of it and let it bounce off of him to guide them in deepest trouble.

It fits, it just sounds crazy.

His face returned to its normal color with the exception of one scar from what I guess was the electric current I shot through him.  His hair was a mess, but lately it always stayed that way with its growing length. As it turns out, he was shielding himself from the pain within the effort of shielding us. Szar said he felt the pain, but it wasn’t life threatening from his standpoint.  It was more like a push and pull effort, not physical pain.  Analyzing it, we decided that it was his ultimate gift somehow.  He held back the sword
while
I projected the energy while in contact with Borgon, but not me.  I was underneath or beside them all.  Cas could still communicate for
that
reason.  It wasn’t about shielding us from him, it was shielding him from us.   It all sounded like a silly fairy tale when we told it aloud, so eventually it turned into just that…a story.

Borgon was already dead before he was staked by the Elf lord, the man just did it for my sake it seemed. 

Calum’s death was fortold, but I changed it.  It was scorpion who helps to save him, but he wasn’t the cause of his death like the legend said.  The destiny was fulfilled, but it was also altered meaning the visions told the future, but futures can be changed.  Free will still leads a person no matter how the descension.  I called for Cord to save Lee.  I learned later that was how the three of them were caught.  Cord heard me call and started to double back, none of them realizing when they woke up where I was dragged.  In the process, Cord stabbed Cas by accident therefore fulfilling another part of the mother’s dream prophecy storyline, just altered even more.  Calum wasn't there yet so the story changed.  I’d never read any of the mythology or destiny entwined stories. 

Lord Jetten joined us in the main hall of the Cross Manor two days later with the five faction lords all in one room.  After filling in any details that might have been missed from the torrid event, we made the decision to meet as a council monthly to stay aloft of each faction’s doings.  And we agreed to a solid discussion to involve the humans and how that could be done. 

Borgon was so enamored by the idea of the Godslayer he signed up for a large sum of money and agreed to find it for the Elves.  The Elves in power wanted it for greed’s sake and made a deal to help overtake the factions and rule.  Greed set in.  When it went awry, Borgon turned into a madman, as any man would be with his family murdered.  What started as a mission to put the lords into submission, turned into an all out war between us versus him.

My father spoke for the first time on the subject being released from his prison of fortune telling. “I think it’s time I revealed Lord Ryan’s origin.”

The room spilled to the left where my father stood.  We didn’t bother sitting since we didn’t think there was too much to discuss on the first go round.  We just wanted the initial start of an agreement to work in unity established.  But my father threw a kink in the mix.

“Part of Cord’s initial letter announced his ancestry from royalty,” he said to all of us and them just to Cord.  “Your father was a lieutenant within my guards, but my wife pointed out once that he was not born of our court.  I learned of it, but didn’t know till later what it would elapse into.  Your father wasn’t Valkyrie, but human.  He came from Mexico, founded the country we know now as Texican, formally known as Texas.  Though the upper half still exists, the lower half near the Mexican border is now ran by none other than Lord Jetten, the Elf lord.  He has seen to it that your parents legacy continued to bridge the gap between our supernatural world and the humans.”

“How long have you known this?” Cord asked bewildered but holding steady.

Sheepishly he answered, “I have visited the country on many occasions.”

Cord, who was conspicuously quiet through the declaration, pushed his feet closer to the middlemost of the room.  We were all in a circle to begin with, but it was tapering in the more we talked.

“Lord Jetten has already built terrific allies in the political world.  I was forced to keep it quiet allowing our world to iron out its differences before we could involve the humans.  My wife, a persistent one of the gods, has a way of making you do things that aren’t of this earth.”

The room held in a laugh at his implications, all of the implied ones that were political and not so political. 

“With Cord being human, we can retrace the lines that have fallen between our worlds.  When the time is right, we can reveal our natures to them.  They are not that different from us and many moons ago, were aligned in one accord.  The stars tell their stories as well as ours.  If we want to keep from destroying ourselves, we have to find a way to combine efforts.  It will be slow, the process long and painful, but we’ve already endured the greater side of it.  One step at a time.”

My father, not known for speeches, look jaded with the past.  I asked without thinking ahead, “Does this mean that you have shared every ounce of information that could be shared from Anat and that from this day on there isn’t a surprise that will exit your being as to what the future holds?”  It was formal and silly sounding, but it didn’t feel right saying,
“Hey dad, do you have anymore secrets from my dead goddess mother and can you still fortune tell what happens next?”

A laugh emerged from my tired father with his graying hair unknown to most Valkyrie, “No.  I am spent.  I leave the faction to my son.  I leave the supernatural hold to my daughter.  I have done all that was asked of me and now I consider myself retired.”

Both my shoulders and Szar’s visibly lifted and fell.  It was a nice feeling.

We discussed letting Cord meet with Lord Jetten and arranging a tour of Texican.  It was an odd topic, but Cord seemed to feel important and a sense of pride seemed to overwhelm his emotions making me think he needed this.  If it was a bridge to the humans, it would be a good thing.

Cord and I would be announced as the king and queen of the supernatural world.  It was an odd way of doing it to me even if that was the way of things before.  Lord Jetten felt it would give over a kind of respect to see that a Valkryie princess and Vampire lord united.  I guess my mother knew what she was doing after all.   It was the beginning of acceptance and relations between the races.  The humans just didn’t want to believe they were the only ones out there.

Lord Jetten explained the sword to my father and the five of us, the marked ones.  He said that my mother searched it out with the intentions of giving it to him in hopes of reinstating the Elf faction.  Drac, the very archaic Vampire who was around for more history than I want to admit, took it first.  It was the reason Lord Jetten returned.  Not safe in the earth, the sword called its owner.  Lord Jetten was the rightful owner of the Elf made sword with material that could only be created from the gods.  One specific goddess. My mother came to Lord Jetten rewarding him for his bravery in a battle once.  My mother was in my eyes, the biggest deceiver in the tale.  She caused the war hoping to end the crime she committed by creating me and stopping it.  It was a cruelty I didn’t care to spend much time on no matter the outcome.

Her only gift I would never give back, Cassius Cross.

There was no more hiding the “marked ones” from the factions.  We were announced and heroized as gods, funny enough.  The stories of what happened at the Hunter school when I was taken ranged from my death to my kidnapping by virtually every faction but my father’s at the time.  Our tattoos were sometimes most elaborate and superiorly decorative across unknown regions of the body.  As far as I knew, that wasn’t true.  I wouldn’t be the one to ask either.

And our powers, well, they were beyond the regular super hero.  Geez, we might as well put it in a book and write down as a great story for our kids.  At least the fairy tale ending part was true.

Returning the Godslayer to the Elves was the only way to get them on board and the mother knew it.  Lives were lost to save the majority.  Isn't that opposite of a fairy tale?  I admonished myself often over the last few days for formally being so happy at Dyer Lee's expense.

Borgon’s few Elves left, filled Lord Jetten in on the how’s of how they guiltily handed the sword over to the Hunter rogue in exchange for more control of the factions after stealing it back from Drac.   He found it hidden among the Elf treasures that without a leader has been unguarded. Elves protested at first, but his promises sounded better than the filth they’d been reduced to.  When he bound them to slavery if they didn’t comply with his demands, they killed his family giving him the leeway to unleash any means to win a war that he didn’t care about in the first place.  Why did the Elves just do what he said?  Because like all groups of people, they look to a leader.  They just didn’t see that they have always needed one. Or what qualities he should hold. 

Cleopatra.  Her story was fascinating to research.  It was much like my own.  It was the story of how the gods created one before me to solve a wrong except her downfall at fixing it all.  She was a Valkyrie princess known as the Pharaoh of Egypt who messed up by trying to stay in control and have dictatorship-like power.  She destroyed all those around her and therefore ended her own ability to reign.  With no allies or anyone to do her dirty work (should have been for the greater good) she ended herself in the end.  I was no Cleopatra, but I'd like to think I beat her a little. After all, she failed.

My father left the court altogether.  He, believe it or not, went to teach classes at the Hunter school.  I’ve spent a lot of time saying phrases like “you won’t believe what just happened” in the past year.  That particular phrase can’t hold merit anymore.  Valkyrie lords teaching Hunters was a major milestone.

And I went back to my home.  Cas.  Our lives could never be the same, but it will be what we make it. I don’t think we interpreted the marriage part of the prophecy just right, but I’m thankful for it nonetheless.  If the two suns become one made a difference by Cas and I being joined together, I’m grateful.  I’ve never felt as fulfilled as I am when we are together.

“Hi there, oh protected one.”  Cas’ warm breath tickled my neck.

I faced him in the light of the bulb located right above our heads being forced a few inches over to avoid it.  My pulse quickened telling Cas what affect he still had on me.  When his fingers guided gingerly over my cheeks and down to my neckline, I almost died when I realized he’d followed the line of my blush. 

“Take a breath, Kissa.”

Whoa. He spoke aloud.  That was the kind of thing he usually reserved for our privacy only.  I drew a tremulous breath obeying his command.

"
I like to see your reaction when something new crosses your path.”

I didn’t know if I could respond to that just yet.  Every single second of each day brings me “new paths” lately but the carefully created facade I’d created as Anastacia the badass was absent when Cas was focused on me like no one else existed in the world.  I was as soft as grape jelly.

“It’s time to meet the guys,” I heard him whisper.

Ugh!  I just wanted to stay here, alone.  That is why
he
locked us in the closet.

That requires getting out of a locked closet you hid us in. 

I didn’t mean to push into it.  It’s just that Claire wouldn’t stop talking and Szar and Calum were in the Sun room fighting over the television and which football game to watch.  I wanted alone time with my husband. 

Or we could go upstairs.

“Yeah, cuz’ they wouldn’t notice.”

Since when have you cared?
  He nuzzled my neck.

Nej!  Never.

Reluctantly, we joined the guys for a day of “fun” and nothing dangerous entering our conversations.  It was relaxing and just plain normal in the grand scheme of things.  The days were like that now. 

Szar made a stupid comment about my hair all mused up from our little escapade when we reentered the Sun room.  Cord made vulgar noises.

“Moron,” Calum and I spoke in unison and then smiled hugely.  That was the breath I was holding. Calum’s humor.  My brother’s approval.  Cord’s usual self.  They were who they were and not what a god or anyone else told them to be.

When Claire wheeled in a cart filled with everything chocolate under the sun, I was in heaven.

A mad dash was made for the cart from every abled body in the room.  That meant them all.  All the guys high fived the air in a scramble and yelled EPIC.  It was planned, but it was great.  Balanced like us as a whole.  In the end, I rolled my eyes and joined them.  They were right—

the life we have led and will lead, is EPICALLY proportioned to be everything we choose to be.