The Rise (The Alexa Montgomery Saga) (30 page)

I looked over at the Fae man. “Alexa,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

He chuckled, looking at me sideways. “Honored,” he said. “The last Sun Warrior left. I wasn’t sure I would ever see one of you again.”

We were passing through the trees now, heading in the direction of the lake that Tommy had taken me to earlier. “Did you know many of my kind?” I asked.

He nodded, and his silver hair rippled like mercury. “Oh, yes. I knew many. I even had the experience of bedding one once. That was before she’d found her Libra, you understand. And it was only once.” He sighed as if he were remembering something long, long ago. “But I will never forget it.”

That made me feel a little awkward, especially with the way he was looking at me and holding my hand so tightly. “Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“I told you, where you wish to go.”

“And where is that?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“And you answer too few,” I mumbled.

It turned out that the lake was exactly where we were going, and Arrol came to a stop as we reached the white sandy shore. The lake was still that shimmering blue, but darker now with the moon reflecting down on its surface in brilliant silver. A few Pixies skimmed over its surface, golden light trailing behind them in glittering trains that reflected in the water as well. I looked up at Arrol, who seemed to be lost in the beauty of the place, whereas the beauty of it was somehow lost on me.

“There’s nothing here,” I said.

Arrol smiled, not the hungry, almost-sexual grin he had been giving me the whole time, but a wistful, somehow peaceful smile. “Are you sure?” he whispered.

And then he seemed to be fading from my vision, first blurring slightly, and then disappearing all together, along with the lake and the moon and all else. My body felt a strong pulling sensation, as if I were being sucked up some enormous straw, flying through white space, falling almost, but not quite. When my vision came back to me, I was standing in a small white room, a white
box
really, with no windows or doors or decoration to break the monotony. No lights hung from the ceiling, but the room seemed almost blindly bright in its whiteness. There were no furnishings, no nothing. I felt a scream rising in my throat, but no sound came from my mouth when it opened.

“Do not be afraid, Child of the Sun,”
said a voice in my head, and I froze. It was not the voice of my Monster, whose presence seemed to be gone from me completely. I felt suddenly utterly alone. That voice spoke again, sweet and powerful and speaking a language I didn’t know but somehow understood.
“I believe you have come to make a trade, Sun Child. Is that so?”

Slowly, I spun around. And he was there. At least, I think it was a
he
, though neither his voice nor his shape favored either gender. He sat in front of one of the white walls, his back to me, a white, hooded cloak hiding every part of him except for his left hand, which was milky white and held an all-white, small paintbrush over the surface of the wall in front of him. His strokes were slow, meticulous. There was no paint can next to him, nothing but the paintbrush and his white robe and the white walls of the room. And me.

“Yes,” I said, but again, I heard no sound from my mouth. The silence was so complete. But I knew that somehow the Seer could hear me just the same.

“Then ask of me your question, Sun Child. Just one, and we shall make our trade.”

I didn’t have to think twice. “I want to know how to save her,” I said. “My sister.”

“It is extraordinary, is it not, that a Child of the Sun would come to me to save a Child of the Night? You two are not tied with blood, and yet you call her your sister. She is your natural enemy, and yet you are loyal to her beyond all else. Such a thing has never been so.”

Somehow, these words hurt me, twisted my gut in a way I’d never felt before. “You don’t understand,” I said, and my silent voice sounded younger, almost childlike in my head. “Nelly isn’t just my sister, she’s more than that. She’s my…
purpose.
”

“You haven’t the vaguest idea of your ‘purpose’, Sun Child. Do not speak to me of purpose.”

A rush of panic seized me, and now my voice sounded pleading. “You don’t understand, though. Nelly is
the only
thing that matters to me.”

“Oh, I believe I understand what you’re asking for quite well, young Sun Warrior. My question for you is how much are you willing to give to save her?”

Cold sweat ran down my back. My left eye twitched. My answer sounded in the voice of my monster now; cold, flat, but I felt it come from deep within the heart and soul we shared. I still couldn’t feel its presence inside me. It felt more like we had somehow become one. “Everything,” I said.

“That silver on your arm, has it reached your back?”

I just stared at the back of his hooded head, only his left hand visible, where it ran the paintbrush along the wall. Yes, the silver had reached my back. I had the feeling that he knew this, so I didn’t answer.

He turned for the first time, just his head, and underneath his hood I caught a glimpse of eyes like milky marbles, all white, for just a moment, and then his attention turned back to the wall.
 “I suppose it doesn’t matter either way then, does it?”

I said nothing. No, it didn’t matter. It never had. I would sell my soul for her, die for her and walk the Shadowlands for the rest of eternity, if that’s what it took. That had never been a question. During all the points in my life when I had been lost,
really
lost and terrified at the horrors that seemed to love to haunt me, my love for her had been the one thing that pushed me forward. She was my
purpose.
When I knew nothing else, I knew this.

The words fell from my lips as if they had always been there, just waiting for their moment to spill out. “Tell me how to save her,” I said, “and show me where to sign my name.”

Of course, I couldn’t see it, but something told me that the Seer was smiling behind that white hood.
“It is not your signature I want, Sun Child. It is much more than that.”

I gritted my teeth. I was growing tired of this game. “Name it.”

“Spill your blood for me, make the trade complete, and you will have your answer.”

I reached behind my back and snapped the stem that held my Gladius there. The blade slid out as I looked down at it. I took a deep breath and ran the silver blade along my forearm. A thick line of scarlet welled up in its wake, and I gritted my teeth. I clenched my left hand into a fist, forcing the blood out and watching it drip down my arm and fall to the floor, where the white seemed to be absorbing it instead of making red splotches, sucking it up like a sponge. I shivered.

“The deal is struck, and so you are bound, as you will be for the rest of eternity. The answer to your question is simple. If you wish to release the Night Child from her prison, you must go to her. And then you must let her drink from you, drink from you until your veins run dry and your tether to this world is forever broken. Only the blood of one completely willing, only the soul of one who knows true love can save her. Is that person you, Sun Child? Your soul is bound regardless, but are you going to sacrifice what time you have left in this life to buy the Night Child more for herself? If so, go now, the choice is yours. If your heart is willing and full of love, your path will lead you to her. You needn’t go searching.”

And then I was been pulled again, sucked up by that cosmic straw that made my physical body seem like nothing. All I saw was white and white and more white, and then I was staring up at the dark night sky, my head resting on something warm, my body shivering all over but dripping in cold sweat. A face hovered over me then, blocking out the stars, silver hair brushing my cheeks. Arrol’s velvety hand stroked the side of my face. I sat up.

Arrol smiled fiendishly when I scooted back a little, the sandy ground beneath me scratching my bare legs. I pulled my dress down and felt a flush in my cheeks when I saw Arrol staring at me. “How’d it go?” he asked, standing up and offering me his hand.

I took it and let him pull me to my feet. I still felt a little disoriented. “Fine,” I said, and it was good to actually
hear
my voice again.

Arrol nodded. “Can I ask you something?”

I shrugged, brushing sand from my silver dress, trying not to think too hard about what had just happened. I felt completely numb on the inside. It was almost worse than feeling empty. “You can ask, I won’t promise that I’ll answer.”

“Fair enough,” he said, and his black eyes regarded me carefully. “What did the Seer ask you for?”

I stiffened, and didn’t think I was going to answer, but the word fell from my mouth by its own volition. “Blood,” I said.

He nodded again and took my hand, leading me back the way we’d come. “Fitting,” he mumbled.

I tilted my head up to look at him. “Why is that?”

“Because you are part Vampire, and everything a Vampire receives, at least in part, is paid for in blood. I was just curious.”

I said nothing to that, and Arrol seemed to know that I wasn’t in the mood for talking, so we walked silently the rest of the way back to Silvia’s cottage. I glanced around me when we got there, noticing something that I should have noticed immediately. “What time is it?” I asked. The entire city, even the Pixies, seemed to have retired for the night, and now that I looked more closely at Arrol, I could just barely see the fatigue lining his beautiful face. “How long was I gone? How much time passed?”

“Hours,” he said. “It’s the middle of the morning, only about four hours before sunrise. How long did you feel like you were gone?”

My mouth had been hanging open. I snapped it shut now. “Um, seconds, a few minutes, maybe. I don’t know, but not
hours.
”

“Then you are lucky,” he said. “Some people have to wait what seems like a lifetime to them in the White World. Whatever the Seer took from you he must have really wanted.”

“What exactly
did
he take from me?”

Arrol looked down at me with an expression too close to pity for my liking. “I don’t know. I suppose you’ll find out eventually. I hope it was worth it.” Then he brought my hand to his mouth and kissed it gently. “It was good to know you, Alexa. I hope that our paths cross again someday.”

That felt as final as it sounded, and I found myself reaching up to touch the tattooed wings on his shoulder for a reason that was beyond me. I felt his skin shiver a little under my touch. “Thank you,” I said. “For taking me to the Seer…and for being kind to me after I was so mean to you.”

His soft hand came up and clutched my own. “You’re welcome, Alexa.” He looked down at his shoulder. “Would you like to see how these work?” he asked, referring to the black lines of his tattoo under my fingers.

I nodded. Arrol stepped back, a smile in his black eyes. Then he turned around, so that I had a full view of wings drawn into his strong back. As I watched him, the black wings shivered slightly, and then moved more freely, the lines of black detaching themselves from his skin and springing out gracefully into the air. The wings fluttered once, somehow not delicate looking at all despite the fact that they were very pretty, like the back of some deadly dragonfly. Arrol turned his head, a grin pulling up his lips. “I earned them when I was three, the youngest Fae in my family to earn wings.”