The Mirror of the Moon (Revenant Wyrd Book 2) Read online

  So why was she trying to kill him?

  It was that simple question that broke the wyrd of the siren’s song.

  Maeven swung at her, his blow heavy and lethal but at the same time slow and clumsy in the grip of the Siren’s song. For a moment Joya wondered what it must have been like to have such complete control over one’s life as the siren did when she sang, for her melody had created the thread of their battle together.

  Steel slashed at her face, and Joya stumbled backward, the twitch coming to her body again as it had not within the power of the siren’s song. She knew that he could not kill her, not unless his sword connected with her neck, but that was not what the siren had in mind. Instead the siren meant for Joya to kill Maeven, for he was largely unneeded in Porillon’s grand scheme of things.

  A blast of air wyrd blew Maeven away from her crashing into the far wall as his sword clattered to the ground

  Maeven finally stood, and when he did it was with a killing rage in his eyes, and he charged at her, his sword swinging. She stood still, except for the now constant nervous twitching in her body, waiting for him to come within range.

  When he did, decimating flower beds as his boots threw dirt every which way, she did something the siren had not intended.

  The wyrd came to her like it had many times before, yet this time it was at her bidding and not at the request of some outside force. The power quickly bloomed at the base of her spine and spread like wildfire up her back to the base of her neck. She tossed her head back, breathing in the night air even as the motions around her seemed to slow to a snail’s pace.

  There was only now, there was only her and what she had to do. She was no pawn in someone else’s game and she would show them precisely how well she played. She was sick of being used. She would now prove that never would she be used again. Joya LaFaye was better than any siren, and she would display her power now.

  It was a simple change, one that barely caused as much as a ripple of air in the switch. She saw Maeven charging at her slowly in her heightened state of mind. Behind her she was aware of the siren, smug, standing resolutely, her head turned to the sky, her gaping maw opened wide with song issuing forth.

  It was all within her desire. A simple change really. What she needed was someone, only one person to be other than where they were. She could do it to herself, make the siren come forth to take her spot, but that wouldn’t work for it would be too difficult to move a form that channeled its own wyrd. She could move herself, but that would not work that well, for by the time Maeven charged far enough to reach the siren she would notice that Joya had moved and that she was in danger now.

  No, she chose instead to move Maeven.

  Once her mind was made, the wyrd blasted out to do her bidding, leaving her nearly void of energy, falling to her knees on the ground, gasping for air that stung her throat and chest. In her current state of distress, Joya barely had time to turn and see Maeven charging at the Siren from behind. His sword slashed once, decorating the surrounding flowers in black, corrosive blood that disintegrated the delicate foliage as the head tumbled from the Siren’s shoulders, the music stopping as abruptly as her life had ended, as swiftly as the gore had come.

  As the body fell in seeming slow motion it began immediately decaying so that when it finally landed on the soft earth it was little more than a smoking lump of black gunk.

  As the threat of the Siren passed, Joya was aware of another presence just at the edge of her awareness. She watched Maeven long enough to see that he was now coming out of his song induced stupor before she turned to where the woman was forming in the doorway.

  “Come, Joya,” the image of her Aunt Pharoh said. “Angelica and Jovian are in danger, and it is time that you recover my body from where your sister left it.”

  The room was in chaos.

  Angelica and Jovian, now being more their separate selves than they had been moments before, were able to think more like themselves, and they reasoned that maybe pissing Porillon off was not the wisest thing they could have done.

  Since she had stood back up, their role had taken the defensive as they dodged her attacks around the room, barely escaping the wrath of her anger, which was more than they could say for the décor singed around them. It smoldered from the wyrded fire, lightning, and various other catastrophes set upon them by the Alarist, catastrophes they had narrowly escaped.

  Why were they on the defensive? Angelica’s thought was fleeting as she remembered who it was that they were fleeing from. It was within that thought that the other consciousness gripping them laid, and no sooner had Angelica thought that one thing than that other force took control and she stood, a spray of fire coming directly from Porillon to consume her.

  The flames licked around her body, feeding off the clothing that refused to burn, consuming hair that refused to char, trying to dry moisture that refused to yield.

  Angelica held her hands out; manipulating the very wyrd that Porillon had cast at her. The sorceress stared at her, shock on every glowing line of her face as the flames coalesced around Angelica, writhing from the floor in a whisk all the way up her legs, her waist, and her arms to form in two giant orbs in each hand.

  To an outsider it would have appeared as though Angelica had extinguished the flames and conjured her own, but instead she had used what was already present, bending the wyrd Porillon had cast at her to her own will. Angelica had called it from all around her, forcing it to gather in two central spots.

  The stigmata in each of her palms hummed.

  This time Porillon was the one frightened, and for good reason, for Angelica unleashed upon the dalua her very own version of the Otherworld.

  The fire was all consuming, as it had not been when Porillon first fired it. It spread as quickly as wildfire, and destroyed with a heat ten times hotter than that same fire. Metal brackets were twisted, melted in the obscene heat. Draping turned instantly to ash. The stone of the floor blackened with only a moment’s touch of the wyrd.

  Porillon made it to the basin at the Goddess’ feet before the fire reached her. Dipping one hand into the water, she gripped it like one would the folds of a gown, lifting it like it was not separate particles but instead like it was a cloak.

  Instead of wrapping herself in the water, she threw it straight toward the white hot fire, creating before her a wall of water wyrded into position, wyrded to protect against the heat.

  Soon the fire was out, and Jovian was on his feet charging for Porillon, his Shin-Buto raised, but she would have none of that. She flicked a hand and Jovian crashed into one wall, a flick of the other hand saw Angelica pinned to the opposite wall.

  “Now it is my turn!” Porillon scorned, her voice not betraying the rage they could feel as her raw wyrd flared through them, bringing a scream to both of their lips.

  Outside of the room Joya heard the scream, and reached for the door.

  “No, not yet,” her aunt’s voice said behind her. “There is a stone right there.” She pointed to the right hand side of the door. “It sticks out slightly further than the other stones.”

  Joya nodded and wasted no time pulling the jagged rock from the wall. It was humorous that Amber would have used a place so obvious to hide something so hazardous. The ploy had been affective, however, as Porillon had not yet found it.

  The golden medallion tumbled out of the crevice and into her waiting, eager palm. The metal was cool to her touch, heavy in her hands as she had never remembered it being before.

  “Now put it on; you may need my help,” Pharoh instructed, and when Joya turned her aunt was no longer in her wake. Quickly she did as she was told and she felt her aunt’s presence with her again. Her aunt was no longer behind her, but she was with her just as she imagined it would feel when Grace told them of the medallion and what it housed.

  I am with you, Pharoh assured. Now, your brother and sister need your help.

  The wyrd she tapped into was stronger than anything she had ever felt before,
so strong that she thought she would lose her mind within it. Her Aunt Pharoh, she realized, was as all consuming, if not more, than the voice of wisdom had been, or the touch of the being she had faced back at the plantation. Pharoh was like a drug to her senses, and for a moment she understood the wyrd her aunt had controlled, the wyrd her aunt had unleashed. Though it was powerful and deadly, Pharoh had used it to teach, she had used it to such peaceful ends that one could almost think that her aunt had had little wyrd instead of the vast stores she now gave to Joya.

  She gasped as the power of her aunt flooded through her, causing every nerve to stand on end, tantalizing her very flesh, and causing the hair to stand up straight along her arms. The air she breathed was sweeter than ever before, yet seemingly like ice to her lungs.

  If it had not been fore Maeven’s insistent hand on her back, she would have stayed there the rest of her days, basking in the presence of her aunt’s wyrd.

  “We have to help them,” he said. His voice, and the sounds from the room beyond, brought Joya back to herself. She nodded.

  “We are going to do this right, Maeven,” she said, a mischievous smile spreading over her face. “When we breach the room, get them to safety and leave this place. I will be close behind you.”

  He only nodded. Really that was all he had time to do before the doors splinted in a loud pop. It wasn’t so much that the door blasted apart, but instead it had spider-webbed like glass. The door still hung where it had been fastened, largely held together by Joya’s wyrd. It was a display of power, and Maeven could tell that instantly.

  In the room beyond the screaming had died when the pop sounded, and that seemed to be the cue Joya was waiting for.

  She took one step forward, as if she intended to step through the door, but instead the splinters blasted inward, reverberating through the room. The action startled Porillon so much that she lost her grip on her wyrd. At that moment Jovian and Angelica slid limply to the floor. Angelica’s hand quickly found her mace.

  “You!” Porillon spat, rage lighting a fire in her eyes that matched the rage of the glowing blue lines on her face.

  “Me,” Joya said with a smirk. “Maeven now,” Joya commanded.

  Porillon did not see the other man, for now all her attention was focused on Joya and what she wore around her neck. “I will have that necklace.” she said dangerously.

  “Now, now,” Joya tsked, holding up her hand, “manners, you will find, Porillon, go a long way with me.”

  “I don’t care about your manners, or your worthless emotions. I care about what is around your neck.”

  “That much is obvious,” Joya said, trying to buy time for Maeven to get Angelica and Jovian out. Thankfully Porillon had not seriously wounded them, and all it took was his insistence to get them up and moving, away from the battle and the foe they so desperately wanted to annihilate.

  “Have you come to their rescue, Joya?” Porillon asked as she walked toward her. “I thought it was to be the other way around. It seems, however, that your brother and sister cannot take care of things as well as previously thought.”

  “It matters not. They have come, and in a sense they have rescued me for they caused the necessary distractions for me to act,” Joya said as the last of her company filed past her and out the doorway.

  “It doesn’t matter where you issue them to. I will have them!” Porillon screamed and as the last of her words faded fire sprang from her mouth straight at Joya, reminding her of tales of wyrms from distant lands.

  A force spread through Joya from the medallion, and she instinctively threw up her hands to ward off the fire. The fire was absorbed into Joya.

  See it? This time her aunt’s voice came to her instead of the form.

  Joya looked around, not sure what Pharoh spoke of. “That light?” She asked, though she didn’t get an answer, only a feeling of certainty. Above Porillon there were two threads of power trickling down from the ceiling. Joya reached up her physical hands, and she could feel their silky cold energy (though they were nearly twenty feet from her) like cold ropes gripped in her hands.

  PULL! Pharoh urged, and Joya gave a tug. The energy was rooted there, and the ceiling trembled a bit. AGAIN! HARDER! She pulled again, but obviously could not do what her aunt wanted her to. AGAIN! SEE IT FALL. Joya closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  Joya was now confident that she had a firm grip on the power her aunt was showing her. PULL NOW! Pharoh yelled in her head.

  Joya opened her eyes, and looked deep into Porillon’s, and with a great yank the ceiling trembled, and then a loud crack like thunder was heard, and the floor gave a violent shake.

  The ceiling above Porillon gave way, and she looked up, raising her arms as if to shield herself. It was no use, and soon she was knocked to the floor, pinned beneath a pile of debris and large stones.

  Joya turned and, grabbing the other three, she raced them down the dark hall as the ceiling closed the entrance to the altar room behind them.

  “Quick, follow me,” Joya instructed, and they raced through the halls, heading for the entrance of the Lunimara. Almost as soon as their battle with Porillon had started, it had also ended. They knew she was not dead, but at least now they had bought themselves some time.

  “The medallion!” Angelica yelled, stopping abruptly. If ever they hoped to defeat Porillon they would need to learn as much about themselves, their past, and their wyrd as they could and that medallion was their path. It was their tutor in the Wyrding Ways. “We have to find it.”

  “I have it,” Joya told her, pulling the pendant from the bodice of her torn dress. She held it up for them all to see. Tucking it back into her garments, she urged them all forward, and soon they were stepping out into the balmy night air.

  When all was said and done the only thing left standing was the statue of the Goddess. Her arms resolutely spread out before her, no longer welcoming her children into her embrace, but instead as if showing to the world what her children accomplished.

  The torches of Naolyn Oil remained lit at her feet, shedding light on the devastation as well as the Goddess who stood triumphantly, conqueror of the dalua and Chaos.

  Grace watched from a distance, seeing the four of them running from the temple moments after the thunderous boom woke her from her partial sleep. She watched them with longing, with mourning. Despite her confidence at camp before she parted company with the others, Grace didn’t know if she would ever see them again, but she hoped she would.

  Moments later, after the four youths disappeared into the foggy twilight between night and day, Porillon stepped from the Mirror of the Moon as well. It took her a moment of looking and scanning the grounds lit silver by the light of the structure. Grace could feel the Alarist scanning the dark with her wyrd, searching for a trace of them, of the medallion. Grace had little need to worry that she would be sensed, for her wyrd was not that strong at the present time, and being made of earth it wouldn’t be out of place here anyway.

  Porillon seemed to find what she was looking for, and in moments she was off.

  Grace watched her and stood; her hand went for her silver dagger.

  She could not watch Porillon kill the children she had raised as her own.

  “Oh do put that retched thing down,” she heard a vacant voice behind her. “Always reaching for your blade when things could be solved much more civilly.”

  Grace only smiled at Rosalee’s voice behind her.

  “Yes, and it will take three to do what I have been enlisted to help with. I would hate for Porillon to kill you now before you could aid us.” Tears welled up in Grace’s eyes at the sound of Dalah’s voice.

  She looked back to see the two of them, the tall redhead dressed in flowing green robes as she had been the day Grace had seen her last in the botanical shop. Dalah wore the style of dress she normally donned – lilac, in observance of the work they now did for the Goddess. Though they had traveled a long way, and doubtlessly had come upon many horrors, they loo
ked like nothing more than two ladies out for a night of drink and merriment. She smiled lovingly at them and gripped their hands in her own.

  Hand in hand they walked to the Mirror of the Moon, the place that had seen many seasons of their lives.

  As Grace turned to close the door, she caught sight of a large black dog and a grand white owl sitting at the edge of the clearing the light of the Mirror of the Moon bathing them as if they sat in a pool of moonlight.

  “I am sorry, girls,” the old lady said, a smile on her face despite the sick feeling the Well of Wyrding brought to her stomach. “But you will have to wait,” and with that she closed the door.

  “Where are we going?” Tegaris asked, plummeting out of the night sky to land on Angelica’s shoulder. She thought he had gone for good, but now she realized he was their guide until they were out of the Sacred Forest.

  “Home,” Joya cast a glance behind her, knowing that Porillon followed.

  “Yes, I feel her too,” Maeven said. They found their horses tethered where they had left them and quickly mounted. On the back of their beasts they would outpace Porillon better than without.

  “We have a little time, but not much.” He turned his focus to Angelica and Jovian. “How are the two of you feeling?”

  They felt different now, and there were many reasons why. The feeling of unity had faded once Joya had blasted down the door, as if what fused them together, the consciousness that consumed them had passed and they were once more Angelica and Jovian, two separate beings now only linked through that which they possessed before entering that altar room with Porillon.

  “Better,” Jovian said to Maeven, rubbing the other man’s shoulder affectionately. He knew that in time they would have to learn how to master their gifts, how to do more than react to a situation. In order to act, however, they would have to learn all about what they were, and what they could do for the world.

  Porillon had alerted them to many things that night, one being that there was information to glean about themselves somewhere, most likely in a text. And if they wanted to learn about themselves, the best way to do that would start with the Twin Guardians of the Realm of Earth, and all the books their keep reputedly housed.