The Hierophant (Book 1 in The Arcana Series) (18 page)

— 39 —

I once read in a book by Ray Bradbury that
3 a.m. is the soul’s midnight
, and I never really understood what that meant. I still try to piece it together any time I’m awake at that hour—even now, when I’m waking up because I’m certain there is something standing in my doorway, watching me.

When I open my eyes, they fall first on my alarm clock where the time burns itself into my retinas, and then to the ceiling where glow-in-the-dark stick-on stars barely make themselves known, ghosts of childhood lingering in the dark. I don’t see my doorway when the knowledge comes to me—I just feel it, like I felt it when it tugged me from my dreams.

I try to convince myself I’m making it up. I’ve done protection circles around our house countless times, so it couldn’t be Sura, and I’ve never sensed ghosts in our house, and my father or Trebor would never be so creepy as to stand there in the middle of the night and watch me sleep. So, either there really is a creep who has broken into our house and is currently standing in my doorway watching me lie here while I try to muster up the courage to sit up and look—or I’m just imagining it.

So. Nothing to do but sit up and look.

I sit up fast, applying the band-aid method to my fear, only to breathe a sigh of relief. Apparently I was imagining it, because my bedroom door is closed.

“Hello, Anastasia.”

I jump, heart climbing into my throat. I scramble back, up against the headboard, searching the dark of my room for a shape, a man, something to go with the low, sultry voice that curled its breath around my name and gave it life.

The lamp on my desk flashes to life. When my eyes blink away the sharp sting of sudden illumination, I see there is a man sitting in my desk chair.

Well, not a man, exactly.

“Sorry to wake you,” he says. “Although, if it makes it any better, you’re not actually awake at all right now.”

Whoever he is, he’s older—perhaps my father’s age—and dressed all in black: a black tuxedo, to be precise, with black patent leather shoes. His hair is also black, slicked back from his face, paler than the moon. Electric blue eyes bite through the shadows and weak lamp light, shining of their own accord. He is offensively handsome in a chiseled, predatory way, as if someone took great care and great pride in perfectly sculpting his face. But there is nothing about him that is pretty, not even the huge, glossy black wings folded against his back.

“Who are you?” I ask, pulling my blanket up to my chest. “What do you want? How are you—is this—” I don’t even know what to ask.

“I have many names, in many tongues,” he tells me, lacing his fingers together. He leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees and pins me with his gaze, wide eyes never moving from my face. “You may know me as the Morning Star.”

My eyes can’t grow any wider without straining out of my sockets.

“Or perhaps the Adversary. The
Spoiler
.” He snickers. “Some call me Shataan, Lucifer, The Devil, King Nick.” He smiles, and it would have made me shiver if it didn’t surprise me by making me profoundly sad, first. “None of them are correct.”

I’m not sure if I should feel relieved.

He bows his head slightly. “You may ignore everything you think you know about me, and call me Nikolai.”

“That might be kind of hard to do,” I admit, struggling to keep my voice from wavering. “Isn’t another one of your names the
Father of Lies
?”

He sighs and rises to his feet—his full height is impossible, perhaps two feet taller than me, though his form is proportionate: his hands are bigger, shoulders wider, limbs thicker. I can’t tell if it’s a trick or some kind of magic he’s using to intimidate me, but it’s working.

“I suppose you’ll just have to take my word for it, as unhelpful as that sounds.” He cocks his head and looks at me, thoughtfully. “But I
am
here to help you, little Ouros, just as I helped your mother when she was a few years older than yourself.”

My throat tightens. “What?”

“Of course, no one in their right mind would ever tell their daughter that the Devil is responsible for their happiness. It just sounds…wrong.”

“You’re lying.”

“What would I have to gain from that lie?”

“Clearly, you want something from me.”

“I want to
help you
.”

“Why?”

Nikolai cants his head to the other side and takes a step towards me, and another, and it’s all I can do not to shrink away from him as he comes closer. He kneels before me, still tall enough, huge enough, to feel like a threat. Finally, he holds his hands out, palms up, and shrugs. “Because if I don’t help you, no one will.”

I shake my head. “I have help. I don’t need yours.”

He blinks eyes much bigger than my own, and it occurs to me that it’s the first time he’s blinked since the lamp came on. “Trebor has no idea what lies in store for you.”

A shudder moves through me, and when he reaches for me I can’t help it—I flinch, roll to the other side of the bed and onto my feet, spinning to keep him in my sight, but he’s gone—

Because now he’s at my side.

I yelp and jump back, but he holds a hand out to stop me, freezing me in place with some kind of magic. It only lasts a moment. He closes his fist, and autonomy returns to my body.

“Do not fear me, Anastasia,” he says, eyebrows raised. “
I
am not what you should be afraid of.” The raised fist turns over and his fingers uncurl, alabaster palm up, waiting. Some part of me knows that he holds terrible truths in that hand, and I will carry terrible truths with me for the rest of my life if I take it.

“Then what
should
I fear?” My voice quavers.

His eyes narrow. “Fate.”

I shake my head. “I don’t believe in Fate.”

“Ah, is that so?” He chuckles, and even though his voice is easy, gentle, calm, his laughter rings sinister in my ears. “Well, my dear, I hate to sound cliché, but Fate does not care whether you believe in it or not. Fate makes puppets of us all.”

“Even you?”

He smiles, slowly. “Even me, I suppose.”

“Then what help could you possibly be if Fate controls you, too?”

“As one who sees the web of Fate, I can ease the journey. And believe me: for you, it will be a hard journey without my help.”

I stare at him, fear quickening my breath, my blood. I’m afraid of this being, more than any Sura I have ever encountered. Is it his presence? His stature? His mystique?

Or is it because I believe him?

“How did you help my mother?” I ask, hoping for a grain of evidence for or against the veracity of his words.

He does not waver, does not blink. “She was the lone survivor of your clan, little Ouros. Her escape was not coincidental.”

I surprise myself by gasping. “Do you know who killed them?”

He nods. “I do. And you will not like the answer.”

“Tell me, please.”

Nikolai’s eyes blaze and dull in an instant, hot rage clouded by immediate sadness. He stands taller for his torment. “The Malakiim.”

Blood drains from my face to pool inside my belly. My throat tightens; my heart grows heavy. Even though I wondered it myself, to hear it said plainly makes me sick with disbelief, with anger. “No,” I whisper, shaking my head, clutching my shirt over my stomach. “Why would they do that?”

Nikolai’s eye become hooded. “You are a smart girl. You already know the answer.”

And then guilt joins the terrible concoction in my gut, stabbing its finger at me. I was right about everything. “Me. Because of me. Whatever I am.”

“Whatever your fate is, you mean. And I can help you with that.” He shoves his hand forward, waiting for mine. “I will show you what awaits you if you should choose to ignore my offer of help.”

My stomach churns. What horrific thing am I meant to be that the angels themselves would order my death and destruction, even at the cost of so many other lives? But, if I do have some kind of destiny, knowing what it is might be the only way to avoid fulfilling it.

Quickly, before I can second-guess my decision, I lay my hand on top of Nikolai’s. His fingers engulf mine, a cage of cool flesh and bone.

And then my world falls apart.

There is panic, hot and bright, like a red slash across my mind. I see horror, and loss—unfathomable loss. There is so much blood—so much regret—

a mark on my face, blazing white

veins of black under my skin

unholy power flashing in my eyes

a river of dead in my wake…

And then there is a memory of the future, the place where everything changes—where the cruelest vision of humanity comes barreling at my life in the body of a man, unwell and unhinged, but utterly human. He burns a furious path of carnage into my life, aiming for my destruction, taking out one of the last lives I hold dear in this world.

This is when I break apart.

This is when I Fall.

The last thing I see is his blood—her blood—the blood of all the world, dripping from my fingertips.

I say nothing when the vision ends, but release a shaking breath and yank my hand away from Nikolai, turning, curling in on myself. With a trembling hand I steady myself on my bed, blinking back tears, trying to breathe away the horror of loss and accountability tightening its hold around my lungs.

“
Why
,” is all I can manage through the tremors that worm through my body, hold me hostage, make it impossible to breathe.

“Because you were born to be a weapon of war,” Nikolai says softly. “And every weapon must be forged.”

I gasp, everything inside of me wanting to cry out against him, against his words, against the vision still lingering behind my eyes. But in my heart there is a long forgotten fracture, and the winds of truth howl through the cracks.

“And how would you help me?” I finally muster the strength to ask, pushing myself upright. I force myself to look at him, even though he terrifies me now, more than ever. His face is open, but expressionless.

Then it lapses into something soulful and intimate, something I don’t feel comfortable being the recipient of. “Come with me,” he urges. “And I will make you stronger than even Fate can imagine.”

When I turn away, he steps closer, leaning down to whisper. “You don’t have to lose anyone. I can protect you from him.”

“Who?”

“The one in your vision.”

My spine tingles. I clench my fists, hateful of a man I don’t even know exists. “Go with you to Sheol? And let you shape me into a weapon?”

“I will make you
strong
,” he says, curling his hand into a fist much like my own.

“You’re asking me to
Fall
.”

“I’m asking you to
trust me
.”

I almost laugh, but I’m too horrified. I shake my head instead. “No. I can’t.”

He leans back. “You would rather come to us the hard way then?”

I look him in the eye, summoning every scrap of courage I can find just to hold his gaze. “I would rather never come to you at all.”

Nikolai gives me a cool look, squinting at me with narrowed eyes. “That, my dear, is not an option. Fate is a destination.
You
only get to choose which road you take to get there.”

The cracks in my heart breathe cold air into my veins, and I shiver. “There’s nothing I can do? You’re telling me my fate is to Fall?”

Nikolai blinks slowly, and smiles. “Your fate is to destroy the barriers that determine whether one Falls, or Ascends.”

I don’t like the sound of that. Destroying barriers sounds an awful lot like unlocking doors—an awful lot like calling me a
key
.

“No.” I shake my head. “No. I can’t. I won’t. Even if fate does exist, I won’t just lay down my weapons and let it have its way with me. I’ll fight it. I’m my own person. Fate can’t control me.” I set my jaw, and frown, and I imagine I look like an impetuous child to this immortal being.

Nikolai cocks his head. “Really. And you don’t think fate has anything to do with your ability to see the Sura? How about your Irin friend? How about the fact that your hearts beat as one, and your souls are linked so as to feel each other’s pain?
You don’t think that’s fate
?”

I swallow, shocked that he knows about Trebor and me, about the impossible link we share. “I don’t know
what
that is.”

“Do you think it’s under your determination that the two of you even
met
?” His eyes go wide for a moment, like a mad man, and his huge, black wings flex, suddenly blocking out everything behind him.

I flinch and struggle to keep my eyes on his face, hating him, hating how much I’m afraid of him and the words coming out of his mouth; hating the tears surfacing at the corners of my eyes, the heat flushing my face.