The Chosen Soul (11 page)

hissed in pain and withdrew from her.

She watched him just long enough to notice that the liquid pouring from his wounds

was clear, not red, and then she dropped beside her brother, covered him with her body

and called out, with every fiber of her being.

“
Father!
”

In the next instant, the air shimmered around them. She gripped Loki’s unconscious

form tightly, shutting her eyes against the vertigo that came with the shift in time and

space. There was a tugging sensation, a starry sparkling beneath her lids, and then all

movement ceased. The air had cooled significantly. Sound had faded into hollow silence,

and all she could hear was her own ragged breathing.

There was stillness. And a presence. She could feel it,
him
, there before her, waiting patiently.

Raven moaned deep in her throat and faced the inevitable.

Slowly, she opened her eyes.

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Heather Killough-Walden

The Chosen Soul – Chapter Eight

Summer’s breaths came hard and fast, her chest rising and falling in quick

succession, so much so that she felt she would faint dead away at any second. She could

not believe what she had just witnessed. Nor could she come to grips with what she was

witnessing right now.

The Elf Prince stared for a moment more at the space where Raven and Loki had

been only seconds before. His expression was unreadable. He then turned his ice blue

eyes upon Summer, and her knees gave out. She dropped, unceremoniously, into her

chair and stared, slack-jawed at the second most powerful man in Kriver.

Astriel eyed her unrelentingly. Then, with a composed grace completely unbecoming

of one who possessed four deep, oozing furrows in his chest, the prince righted a chair

that had been knocked over, and lowered himself into it. With a nonchalant air, he began

to peel off his soft leather gloves, one finger at a time.

Summer whimpered low in her throat, unaware that she had done so. She trembled in

the presence of this man and his guards, knowing deep inside that nothing good could

come of his attentions at that moment.

Just when she was sure she would pass out from fear and dreadful anticipation, the

fey prince spoke.

“Tell me what you know of your two friends, Summer.” He ordered softly, without

looking at her.

She answered immediately. “I don’t know anything, really! I swear I don’t. I only

met them this morning. They came out of the forest at our farm, said they had traveled

from…” She stumbled over her speech then, trying desperately to remember where they

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had told her they’d come from. She searched her recollection with the ferocity of one

searching for an important, lost artifact amongst old, unimportant possessions. Finally,

she remembered. “They came from Aster Hollow! They said it only took them a few

days. Then my father asked them to accompany me into the city. They didn’t know

anything about Trimontium. I told them what I thought they needed to know. Then Jax

saw Raven and…” She trailed off, suddenly embarrassed. She’d been about to divulge

how she had warned Raven and Loki about the Prince and his father. Her cheeks burned

hotly and, as she stared down at the table top, she finally felt the weight of the Prince’s gaze upon her cowering form.

She closed her eyes, terrified of what he would do with her.

The silence stretched uncomfortably.

“So you presumed to hide them here.” His voice was so soft, so calm, it sent horrible

chills up Summer’s spine. She gritted her teeth and nodded her head.

There was another long, silent pause.

“I see.”

Summer began to cry. She sniffled, the sound loud in the silent-fallen room. A tear

splashed to the rapidly defrosting floor boards.

“Thank you for your help, Summer. Give your father my regards.”

The Prince then stood and turned to leave. Summer did not dare look up. She would

not move. She would not breathe. He was going to leave her be. She would do nothing to

draw his attention back to her, lest he change his mind.

Astriel’s tall black boots sounded hollowly on the wooden planks beneath him as he

moved across the tavern room to the waiting guards. One guard, a more elite insignia on

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his chest, glanced down at his prince’s chest and then met his gaze. Neither of them said

anything. Astriel pushed through the front door and was gone. The guards followed

silently after him.

*****

The first thing Raven noticed was the vastness of the chamber she was in. She

glanced up to find herself staring at a giant archway, carved of pure bluish ice, which was reproduced several times, in a circle around her. Beyond each archway was a hallway so

long that it disappeared into darkness, despite the bluish light shed by blazing torches

lining each wall.

She followed the arches around the room with her eyes until they came to a stop

behind a massive ice-hewn throne twenty feet tall.

Upon it rested a man. He was at least eight feet tall from his horn-crowned head to

the tips of his large black boots. The skin over his immense, heavily muscled body was

nearly as blue as the ice palace around him. The tips of his fingers ended in black, claw-

like nails and white glistening fangs rested, menacingly, upon his pale lower lip. He wore

armored clothing of some magical iridescent-scaled beast, and bracers forged of a

glimmering alloy that looked as if it had been melted and re-hardened around tiny,

shattered stars.

Raven drew her gaze over his form, not able to help herself as she took in each

detail, memorized it unwittingly. He was terrifying. He was beautiful. He was the Lord of

Caina, the second-most powerful devil in Abaddon. He was Lord Malphas – her father.

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And then she looked up into his eyes. They burned an eerie tri-colored hue, blue,

gold and silver-white, like an ice-cold fire, and as she gazed into them, she felt positive they would singe a path straight to her core.

There were a thousand things she wanted to say, to ask, but no sound would emit

from her lips. She could barely bring herself to resume breathing.

The giant man peered down at her, the corners of his mouth turning upward into a

slight smile.

“
Welcome to Caina, daughter
.” His voice was thunder, rumbling across a vast

expanse of ice. He rose, and Raven could only watch as his indomitable figure towered

over her, appearing to dwarf everything in the cavernous room. He slowly strode toward

her, his boots resounding loudly on the floor of smooth, carved ice. Raven glanced down

at that ice and wondered, for a fraction of an instant, why she was not simply freezing to

death in this frozen world. And then she wondered whether her brother actually was.

“
He will not be harmed, child. However, I think it best he remain sleeping for

the time being
.”

Raven glanced back up at the arch devil and swallowed. He was probably right. Loki

would most likely have a heart attack if he were to awaken in the throne room of the

palace belonging to Haledon’s sworn enemy.

No, it was best he slept.

Malphas came to stand before her, then knelt and offered her his hand. She stared

down at that massive taloned hand and then she laid her own hand, so small compared to

his, atop of his palm, and his fingers gently closed over it.

He helped her rise. “
It is time, Winter
.”

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“Time?” It did not register as strange to her that he called her ‘Winter’. It seemed

perfectly normal, as if that had been her true name all along.

“
I have brought you home so that you may accept your soul’s true form
.”

Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

“
You suffer the undesired affections of others because your outward beauty

reflects the beauty of your spirit. You are the most ancient, the most powerful soul

ever offered up by the Spring of Souls. Hence, the perfection of your physical form.

However, you are also my daughter
.” He raised her hand before her, and her fingernails extended to their full, razor-sharp iron lengths, or their own accord. She stared at her

hand. Malphas then placed his own palm against hers, and the similarity between the two

was unmistakable.

“
I made certain, as I placed your soul inside of your mother’s womb, that you

would also retain a piece of me. You are my one chosen child, the heir of Caina. As

such, you possess a true form, one native to your home realm. It is time for you to

find this… and accept it
.” He smiled at her then, and released her hand. “
It will give
you power against your enemies, and protect you from those who would harm you
.”

She fell silent, pondering his words. Then she glanced at her brother’s form where it

lay curled on the ice several feet away. “I do not wish to be anyone other than who I am,”

she said quietly.

“
And you shall remain so. You can call upon your true form when you need it
.”

He placed his fingers beneath her chin and turned her so that she was looking up at him

once again. “
This body you possess at present will always remain. I am simply giving

you what has been your birthright since the moment I took you from the Spring.

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You shall have two forms, daughter. One is Raven
,” he stepped back and slowly let his eyes trail over her tall lissome form. “
The other is Winter
.”

She quietly mulled over what he was telling her. “I will still be me?”

He nodded slowly.

“But I will be able to defend myself,” she turned to look at her brother again, “and

those I love?”

Again, he nodded.

She closed her eyes and swallowed, searching within herself. What did her soul tell

her to do? She felt something uncoiling deep inside. It was like a shining, golden rope of

power, a magical knot that had been tied up, useless and quiescent in its anchored state. It wanted to unwind, to expand, to be free.

She opened her eyes and met the fiery, eerie orbs of his commanding gaze.

She took a deep breath. She was trembling as she said, “Very well. I’m ready.”

His eyes sparked with something akin to victory, but Raven had no time to ponder

the source of his triumph, as he then came forward once again and slowly,

ceremoniously, placed the palm of his hand against her chest.

The world exploded around her. She cried out, arching her body, throwing her head

back as unbearable heat, followed by a cold so frigid it burned like fire, surged through

her body. It was relentless, cascading over the rift that was her sanity, dragging her along with it into the depths of the unknown.

Malphas encircled his daughter in his well-muscled arms and held her against his

massive chest. She was so tiny, so fragile. And yet, as he held her, he could feel the dark stirring of immense power that she’d locked up so deep within herself. And as he

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watched, she let her barriers fall one by one, allowing that darkness to climb up within

her and take shape.

Wings of the finest raven down emerged from her back and then spread to a glorious

wingspan. His eyes grew wide with surprise, for no one else in the Nine Circles of

Abaddon had wings such as these. He watched, fascinated, as her hair became

unbelievably soft to his touch, long and lustrous, fading to the color of spun arctic ice. He felt her grow taller in his grasp, stronger, and he looked on as her skin turned dark as a

northern winter’s midnight.

And when tiny fangs pressed against her full, red lower lip, he couldn’t tear his eyes

away from her mouth, luscious and tempting.

Her first change washed over her like an ocean, and he knew she felt as if she were

drowning beneath the weight of it. He held her tight, lending her as much strength as he

could without stalling her transformation.

Eventually, the intensity of the change waned, and she moaned low in her throat.

Malphas’s eyes were focused on the iridescent sheen of her extraordinary wings as she

slowly came to and opened her eyes.

He found himself reluctantly letting her go so that she could stand before him in all

of her glory. From her gorgeous wings to her web-spun, waist-length hair, to the smooth

dusk of her perfect skin, she was pure flawlessness. But it was her eyes he loved the

most. They were reflections of his own, having changed from solid blue-black to a tri-

colored fire and ice that glowed hotly beneath impossibly long, thick lashes.

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She was extraordinary. His only daughter was more beautiful than any she-devil he’d

ever laid eyes upon. And she was his, a powerful piece of his soul, combined with the

eldest soul in existence, made flesh.

She stood before him naked, her own clothes having torn in the conversion that made

her taller and stronger. She blinked at him. She looked down at herself, and then she

stretched her arms out, her eyes taking in the darkened tone of her skin, the curves of her strong musculature, the fine spun silver of her snow-white hair.