On Wings of Chaos (Revenant Wyrd Book 5) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  What now?

  Sneak Peak of The Turquoise Tower

  About Travis

  Copyright © June, 2014 by Travis Simmons

  The Revenant Wyrd Saga Book Five:

  On Wings of Chaos

  Published by: Wyrding Ways Press

  Cover Design by: Najla Qamber Designs

  Formatting by: Wyrding Ways Press

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means – by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual places, events, and people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The candle flickered, weak and insubstantial against the raging storm outside. Shadows gathered in the corners of the small stone chamber like pools of ink — dalua perhaps, coming to watch the birth of the four children Sylvie LaFaye carried in her belly.

  Anakim. Half-breeds. Those beings with angel and human blood mixed, granting them power far beyond that of mere mortals.

  Sylvie shivered, pushing aside the thoughts of dalua. Dauin misinterpreted the tremor and grasped her hand tightly, nodding encouragement to her. He was nearly as tired as she was, his blue eyes dull and wreathed in shadows, but she knew there would be more tired nights ahead of him, after she was finally able to rest.

  Between contractions, Sylvie’s eyes fell on the nervous slip of a girl in the corner, shuffling her feet. She was the midwife’s apprentice, and scared stiff. Sylvie tried to smile at the teenager, to allay some of her fears, but she couldn’t catch her eye, and didn’t have the energy to try.

  Sylvie didn't need Clarence, the midwife now crouched between her legs, to tell her what was so painfully obvious. Days ago she had felt four consciousnesses stirring in her belly, as she had since her children came to reside in her womb. But today it was different. One of them had grown stronger — the first to be birthed. With the child’s gathering strength, the two smallest, one boy and one girl, had slipped away, and were now nothing more than husks of the children they should have been.

  Sylvie closed her eyes against the tears and pushed her brown locks away from her wet face. The children were close to being born. She needed to focus now, and not give in to the sorrow she felt coming to claim her.

  Clarence looked up at her, and Sylvie nodded at the unspoken instruction. She pushed with all the strength her slight frame could muster. She shuddered, a scream tearing from her throat as she felt skin give way in her lower regions. Flesh tore and blood painted the floor, mingling with the feces and urine from her previous struggles.

  In a ripple of thunder, the door burst open, sending candle flames around the room dancing on their wicks. An older lady stepped in, still wet from the storm outside. She took her cloak off, shook it a few times, and hung it on a peg beside the door.

  "Grace," Dauin said, relief heavy in his voice.

  "I came as soon as I heard," she said, coming to stand beside Sylvie. "The litter will be born tonight." It wasn't a question. Grace knew.

  Sylvie nodded, taking the old lady's hand and squeezing it affectionately. Another contraction hit her body and she tried breathing through it, but it was a strong one. She cried out in pain, and then pushed again when the midwife nodded in her direction.

  Human births were so painful. How could they go through with it?

  Her skin tore more.

  "Keep pushing. I can see the head of the first one," the midwife told her.

  Sylvie pushed through the pain, took a deep breath and pushed again, her arms shaking, her grip tight enough to break bones in the hands she held. Before she knew it, a cry filled the air, rising higher than the tumultuous rumble of thunder outside the window.

  "A girl," the midwife said. A deluge of rain peppered the thatched roof and shuttered windows. Lightning flashed, casting staccato shadows about the room as if welcoming the child into the world. It was an ill omen that Grace recognized as much as Sylvie did, though neither made comment on it.

  Grace shook her hand free of Sylvie's grip and gathered the baby to her. The midwife snipped the umbilical cord, and Grace carried the child to the basin of water, rinsing her clean. She gave the child the five-point sign of the Goddess, blessing her with a long and safe life free of sickness. It was little more than ritual, to be honest. All gathered, except the midwife and her assistant, knew that the children were half angel, and therefore above most banes and illnesses that plagued children.

  "Alright," Clarence said. "Are you ready for the next one?"

  "Do I have a choice?" Sylvie tried a feeble smile.

  "No," the midwife said, the joke obviously lost on her.

  Sylvie nodded.

  "Alright, push."

  Sylvie pushed.

  An hour later, the next child was born.

  "Another girl," Clarence told them, handing the black-haired child off to Grace, who repeated the actions she’d taken with the first one. "No time to rest, the next one is right on her heels.”

  Sylvie tried to smile, but she knew that was where the happy tidings ended. The next two children were dead.

  One more daughter, and one son. The midwife tried to act like nothing was wrong, bolstering Sylvie's spirits until all the children were out. In her profession, she’d learned giving bad news during delivery would often harm the will to continue.

  "And the last. A girl," Clarence said, handing the last, still form off to Grace, who looked at the child with sad eyes, but smiled encouragingly to Sylvie. In the old lady's eyes, Sylvie could see that Grace already knew that she knew her last two children were dead.

  Clarence nodded to her assistant, who knelt between Sylvie's legs and started the process of sewing up the split skin. Sylvie thought the process would hurt more than it did, but if it wasn’t for the fact she could see the assistant moving, Sylvie wouldn’t have even known she was being patched up.

  As the apprentice finished her chore, the light-haired midwife came back to the bedside, drying her hands on a new, clean apron.

  She rested a hand on Sylvie's shoulder and kneeled down beside the bed. "There's no easy way to tell you this," she started, her voice quiet, as if that would soften the news she was about to give them. "But the last two children are dead."

  Dauin's hand went slack in Sylvie's grip, but she tightened her hold on her husband’s hand and pulled him closer. She pressed her lips to the back of his knuckles and kissed them. Even though Sylvie had known they were dead, it didn’t make the words any easier to hear. After a few moments of letting the reality sink in, she nodded to the midwife.

  "Can I see them please?" Sylvie asked.

  "Of course," Clarence answered.

 
; As the midwife stepped away, Sylvie pulled Dauin close. He pushed the bedding aside and lay down beside her, pulling her head into his chest. Tears leaked from her eyes.

  "Will the Goddess take them into her arms?" Dauin asked quietly.

  Sylvie nodded.

  "Then they are where they need to be." The pain in his voice was unmistakable. He was trying to make it easier for Sylvie, when she needed to make it easier for him; when she should be making what was to come easier for him.

  It wouldn't be easy.

  Grace and Clarence brought the children back to them. The babies were swaddled in soft blankets against the draft of the room, as if that mattered now. Sylvie knew it was all a front to help comfort her mind, ease her suffering.

  In the background the other two children mewled, as if lamenting the loss of their brother and sister.

  The babes were laid in her arms, heavy in death. Their eyes had been closed, their mouths hanging slack, as if waiting for the first nursing that would never come.

  Tears blurred her vision as she gathered the two children into her arms, and Dauin's body rocked with the first of many tears he would shed over the coming days.

  As Sylvie gathered the children to her breast, she released her hold on the spirit within her physical confines. She was so close to eternal sleep as it was; the human shell that contained her angelic form had gone through more than it could bear that night. She had cried out to the Goddess to keep her alive long enough to birth these children. But that was over now. Her body was too injured, and had lost the will to continue.

  Now she changed her prayer to the Goddess.

  Please, she whispered in her mind. Glorious Pantasyl, she named the mother aspect of the Goddess, using the name known only by the heavenly host. Let these children live.

  In answer she felt her body weaken.

  "What are their names?" Dauin asked, his voice thick and broken.

  "I like Angelica," Sylvie whispered, the strength ebbing from her voice.

  "And Jovian." Dauin nodded in agreement.

  "Lovely," Sylvie whispered, feeling the strength of her spirit split. She closed her eyes and felt the energy move from her body, and with the strength of the love she felt for the children, Sylvie willed her energy into Angelica and Jovian so that they might once more live.

  As Sylvie lost consciousness and slipped into death, the babes in her arms let out their first broken screams. Air gasped into lungs that were previously thought dead, and eyes opened to their new, shared life.

  "How do we do this again?" Astanel asked Mag.

  "It's all there in the book," the short-haired sorceress told him, looking up from where she stood beside Sara's bed. There was a shuffling of papers as Astanel opened the bulky tome he could barely carry and looked over the words. The sun filtering through the large window in Sara’s bedchamber glowed off the boy’s golden hair in a halo of light.

  "How do you read this?" he asked, clearing a lock of blond hair from his eyes. He needed a haircut, but there just hadn’t been time with everything that was happening. Mag realized just how young Astanel was, and that her role in training him would be partially as parent, as well as mentor. She needed to take more time with him, but she just didn’t have it, or the patience.

  Mag sighed and closed her eyes. Goddess, give me strength.

  "You can't yet. The workings are far beyond what you’re currently capable of. In time you will be able to read more and more, but for now, that passage is hidden from you."

  "So, how are you going to do this?" Astanel asked again.

  "Preferably in silence." Mag leveled her gray eyes at the teenager, and he shrank away. She frowned at the guilt his actions brought to her. He had been used to abuse by one he looked up to before, when he was in the thrall of the grigori, before being rescued by Angelica, Jovian, and Joya. She shouldn't be so harsh with him, especially since she was to train him.

  "Look, Astanel," Mag started, sinking into a chair at the head of Sara's bed. The red velvet robes of her new position as defense counsel whispered around her. She felt the cold of the granite floor through her silk slippers; they would have to get the room much warmer before bringing Sara out of her slumber. "I know this is all a lot to take in, and I know that I am to train you."

  "But why? No one has even told me that yet," Astanel said. It wasn't whining; he was just as frustrated as Mag was.

  "I am a lot like you," she told him. "Of course, where you were serving the grigori, and became an alarist through that bond, I was one by choice. Because of our former ties to Arael our wyrd is different, and we have different ways of controlling our powers. There is a divide in our abilities. I’ve given myself back to Goddess, as I am sure you have. For that reason, we have both light and dark sides of wyrd within us. In order to control our powers, we need to have a balance — we need to understand both. I'm the only person equipped to help you with that."

  "But I know how to control my wyrd," Astanel argued.

  "Alright, then." Mag stood, snapping her fingers at Astanel. "Read the first page of that book to me."

  He balked, shuffling his feet for a moment, and then turned blue eyes back up to her, defeat written plainly in them.

  "What's the matter? I thought you had all this control?"

  Astanel scuffed the toe of his shoe on the floor.

  "You were able to control your power through the grigori's link to you. You were being used, filled with his power and his will. He accessed your wyrd — don't think for a moment that you actually did any of those workings." Mag sighed. "Now, pile more wood on the fire, and start it up for me."

  Given something to do, Astanel was able to hide his embarrassment, and went to piling wood on the coals as Mag inspected Sara more closely.

  “And don’t do it like a human,” Mag mumbled over her ministrations when she heard Astanel trying to strike a spark. He sighed, and she felt the swell of wyrd through the room as he bent his focus into conjuring a flame with which to kindle the logs.

  Over the last few days the Realm Guardian had been showing signs of improvement, color returning to her cheeks, her hair taking on a healthier sheen, even if she hadn't put back on any of the weight she’d lost in her sickness.

  Mag shook her head in dismay. Sorcerers could become nearly skin and bone, with no muscle to support their frame, and still the wyrd coursing through them would keep them alive. As long as their head remained, they would survive.

  Mag had thought, until recently, that the only way to kill a sorcerer was to take their head, but Sara had come very close to dying from the tea she’d been fed. Tea spiked with the fragments of the stone called Wyrders’ Bane.

  Mag straightened, closed her eyes, and held her hands over the inert form of her Realm Guardian. She pushed aside her thoughts of the soldiers gathering in the barracks outside and what she would do with them, how she would fight what was to come. All that mattered now was Sara, and getting her Guardian better.

  Mag drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, relaxing into the flow of her wyrd.

  "The fire is ready," Astanel said, shattering the trance Mag was nearly in.

  "Perfect, now be very silent," she said, restraining herself from silencing the boy with wyrd. Again, she followed the steps, relaxing herself and opening the channel to her wyrd. It was easier this time, the wyrd washing up around her like a cool lake welcoming her in the heat of summer. Slowly she opened her lids and looked down at Sara with new eyes, eyes infused with wyrd. This way, Mag was able to see maladies of wyrd.

  Sara's wyrd was still blocked, still corrupt. Where most sorcerers maintained a constant link with the Well of Wyrding, it appeared Wyrders’ Bane had blocked that link in Sara, establishing a new link with itself. Mag could see the blackened, corrupt wyrd still coursing through Sara's body, but the stone wasn't anywhere around, so there was no link any longer. It had severed the link to the Well of Wyrding, but once the stone had been removed, there was nothing for Sara to link to any longer, nothing
for her to draw power from. Could that be why the Realm Guardian was so close to death? She wasn’t being fed a constant stream of wyrd, and wasn’t the wyrd they channeled what made a sorcerer immortal?

  But what would have happened if she had continued drawing from the stone? Mag wondered.

  Mag's stomach shifted painfully, and when the pain came to her stomach, she saw the corrupt wyrd inside Sara pulse brighter, as if welcoming something. From the corner of her eye Mag saw a shadow take shape in the corner. No sooner had Mag taken notice of the shadow than it vanished in a puff of smoke, which she could feel tremble along the threads of her wyrd.

  Mag shook her head, sweat blooming on her upper lip. The pain had been like the pain she felt the day she sensed a problem with Sara's tea. Mag cleared her throat.

  This had to be a rare case, she was convinced of that. Maybe because Sara had been consuming parts of the stone, instead of just having it close by.

  Mag wiped away sweat from her brow. What was happening to her? Why was she feeling sick suddenly?

  Focus, she scolded herself. It doesn’t matter. What matters is getting Sara better. She owed the Guardian that much. After Mag had left her alarist past behind her, Sara and Annbell were the only ones who would give her a second chance, granting her amnesty and setting her up under their protection in Montaria, where she quickly became a senator. No, she needed to make sure Sara lived. Her own discomfort could wait.

  The book said that the afflicted sorcerer, in this case Sara, had to be tethered to one who had wyrd flowing through their body. The transfusion would access the link the healthy sorcerer had with the Well of Wyrding, bleeding out the bad energy and welcoming in the new, until the corrupt wyrd was gone. At that point, the well should re-establish the link with Sara.

  That's where Astanel came in. Mag hated the thought of using the boy, given everything he’d been through, but everyone in the keep had too much on their plates right now to spare even a few hours for such a thing, let alone however long it would take to restore Sara.

  Mag pulled the chair closer and motioned for Astanel to sit beside Sara.