A Step into Darkscape (The Legacy Novels Book 2) Page 11

  “Then came the first shudder, a rumbling beneath us. The city shivered and Sentries grasped at one another, frightened perhaps for the first time. I looked about, hearing the crunch of buildings as they shifted and cracked. The air was thick with fear, the unsettled crowd now beginning to panic; chaos ensued. There were so many of us that more than half of us fell beneath the other, thousands of us scattering and scampering en masse. I was shunted back and forth, pushed front and centre until I was almost face to face with the strange arches and the symbol of the infinite. It was then that the world broke.

  “There was a tinkling sound as the symbol cracked like a mirror from side to side, and then a terrible ripping that filled the whole world and silenced one and all. All eyes were on the archway.

  “Then there was a scream, a scream that started with one and was echoed then by a hundred, a thousand. My hands clapped over my ears as the earth itself joined the one, high-pitched note—then there was no more symbol, no more crack. The figure ‘8’ shattered, revealing a yawning mouth of darkness that sucked a howling gale through it. The world around us began to shatter, the meadow so many crystal fragments, a billion icicles falling under foot; buildings toppled and the trees of the woodland fell as holes were torn in reality, blue light flittering all around. The air was sucked from our lungs and blown out into the cosmos, and we were flying, here, there, hitting bodies of all those gathered, the entire population of existence. Stone, wood, animal alike, thrown, tossed—chaos I cannot truly convey.” Yet Ami saw it, the utter destruction, confusion and panic. How quickly it had all happened. She would have been terrified. Then the terror multiplied by thousands, hundreds of thousands, as all minds connected for one universal ‘?’ that hung above a chasm of nothing. “There was one of me, and then three, each facing the other, screaming in terror as the sky broke and the world just ceased to be. Now it wasn’t buildings that fell but reality itself, shivering, splitting, the power of each Sentry exposed and exploited, exploding from each in desperation. The three of me were birds and trees, flowers flying from my own outstretched hand, petals disappearing into a void; then there was six of me and I saw ghosts of everything, saw everything from everywhere. I saw the world entire from a great height where the stars themselves had changed or departed, and the earth—now in a million pieces—reflected a million of me a million times.

  “Then I fell and kept falling, though I remained somehow on the meadow, alone and yet surrounded. Then I was many, I was all, and the surrounding bodies that weren’t there were all me. Words cannot describe.” She gave a brief smile, her finger stroking the symbol upon the sword. “The world divided at that point, as did I, as did all, and through empty eyes I saw that all had been reduced to dust, remade…remade infinite.

  “I was thrown in all directions and scattered, knowing only that my final fall snapped branches and trunks, landing me on the earth with such force that a crater formed. I was cast out. Cast out.”

  Ami shifted in her seat, hearing the last words repeated as a whisper in her mind. Cast out. The light in the room seemed to dim with the emotion, with the silence of the moment.

  “Confusion became order, and an eternity of darkness awaited. I was naked and cold, and the cold calmed me, comforted me like a blanket. I had never known death, yet the concept occurred to me then, in that time; the end of everything, the end of life, the incomplete and sudden stop.”

  Ami shivered and rubbed her arms lightly. The fire was burning hot, yet she felt the lonely cold the woman described. The innocence had been broken, shattered. She had a small idea of the shock, as her own life had been broken and remade—but this was much, much different.

  Romany caressed the symbols upon the blade and hilt of the sword, her touch thoughtful, her eyes filled with a venomous heat. She pulled her hand away.

  “Everything I had ever known was now different, and when I opened my eyes to the darkness, I knew I was different, too. My body had changed. I cannot truly tell you how, but only that it was not the same, as if it was missing something, though all limbs were accounted for. I had a power still, though I also felt the absence of power, and when I looked around me properly, I knew I truly lacked company. I was alone.

  “The darkness was not complete though, but only a night, and I had fallen beneath the boughs of a large tree. The ground was earthy, and small animals crawled over my skin. I brushed them off and felt the change in myself again, how familiar it felt, yet how different at the same time. Pulling myself up from the ground I ventured from my crater, through the trees and out into a clearing.

  “All around me were hills in the dead of night; hills, valleys, patches of woodland. There was a moon, a glowing orb of brilliance that I’d never seen before, and it shone pale upon the land, showing enough to be able to say for certain that I recognised none of it, that I was no longer in Celestial. Everything had changed.”

  She sat back then and stared at Ami, her hands placed within her lap. “That is who I am, where I am from.”

  “But, what happened next?” Ami asked.

  “Perhaps you would like to start your own story now, Assassin Princess? Who are you, and where do you come from?”

  Knowledge is power, true power. Do not give her more than you can afford.

  Ami began.

  *

  They’d come to a stop beneath a canopy of trees, and there, shaded from the moonlight and the lightening sky, they’d set up camp. A small peak between low-laying branches showed the palace tower, and before them, the side-rise of the hill and all its silent homes, cut at its base by the still, dead river.

  Hero lifted Raven from Florina’s back and lay him on the grass, pulling his hood from his head and smoothing his hair, remembering all too well the death of Kane, their brother in the Guard, their friend. He’d failed to save him…but this was not then. Raven was weak, but alive, his breathing little more than coughs grating against his throat. Florina lowered her muzzle and pushed him onto his side where coughs became fluid barks, and a lungful of black water left him. Once rid, Raven seemed to settle and slipped back into sleep.

  Hero looked to Florina, but she’d already trotted into the foliage, emerging a moment later the fresh young woman once more. Her hair fell in streams down her shoulders and she flicked it, kneeling now beside them, slowly moving Raven to his back.

  “Is there anything you can do for him?” he asked, watching pale shadows slip across her face, the sky beyond the shade shifting clouds against the rising sun and paling moon.

  “I’m not sure. See here?” She ran her fingers across Raven’s skin. They came away oily and dark. “There’s something in the water, something unnatural. Have you noticed it doesn’t flow?”

  Hero nodded, giving a glance to the silent stream.

  “Whatever this stuff is, it sucked him under. I struggled to grasp him. It wasn’t pleasant.” She undid the front of his robes and pulled them open, stroking over his chest. “Dry here. I think he’ll be okay.”

  A wind travelled down the side of the hill and crossed the river, blowing through the branches, howling light and low, a whisper of warning. Hero stood to face it, surveying the land. All was quiet now, but for the wind, the creak of wood, the movement of life in the dark disturbed. The rise of the sun, slow but close, gave him a sense of hope. It was barely enough to tinge a sea-bearing cloud violet-grey, but it was enough. The night had been too long.

  “He was calling out for Ami,” Florence said, bringing him back. “Perhaps he’d found her, or maybe re-found her?”

  “Perhaps.” Hero knelt back down, using his own robe to wipe the oil from Raven’s skin, a thin layer of jelly. “Can you feel anything? Anything wrong with Raven?”

  “I feel nothing wrong, just exhaustion.” She paused, looking down at him. His face had slackened, relaxed. “You don’t think… Would she have deserted him?”

  “No,” Hero said. “Why would she do that?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time. We don’t really know h
er, Hero.”

  “Do I really know you?”

  She sighed. “You’re being defensive. Listen. You know what happened to her, the twisted power Adam gave her. It’s never going to go away. She’ll always be on the knife-edge of dangerous.”

  “Her heart is pure—”

  “I have no doubt of that,” Florence continued, “but it’s a heart that’s been corrupted before, and could be corrupted again. Wherever she is, she wasn’t with Raven, she didn’t come to his aid. If we hadn’t have been there, then he’d be dead now. This is on her, this—”

  “Silence,” Hero whispered. “If it is on her, then it’s on me, too. I sent him to find her instead of going myself. But instead of blaming blindly, let’s put our efforts into finding Ami and the cause of the storms, the disruption between the layers. Raven is alive. Let us be thankful for that.”

  Florence remained silent, her eyes dropping to Raven, her hand on his cheek. Hero walked to the edge of their scant shelter, looking once more to the sky. Eventually, she joined him.

  “This place is unstable, this whole town, this whole world. What I saw within the Solancra and Planrus forests, what I saw coming from the ground before the Mortrus Lands was terrifying. It’s all linked, and Ami’s absence is a bad omen.”

  His hand gripped the hilt of his sword, a habit he lapsed into more and more. “We need to be cautious of this, of these events and of the magic deep within Ami.”

  Florence knelt back down to Raven’s side and began loosening his scabbard. “He’s lost his sword.”

  Hero looked over and frowned. “Lost? He wouldn’t have lost it. A Guard isn’t careless. Taken perhaps?” A thought occurred to him then. “What if Ami’s sword had been taken? What if Ami has been taken also?”

  “She’s too strong, too powerful to be jumped by rogues or thieves.”

  Hero pointed back to the palace. “I have no doubt. She wasn’t taken by thieves, but that man that attacked Raven?” Hero paced, his heavy boots crushing the brambles that reached to snag him. He looked to the tower, tall and dark against the now pale grey, rubbing at his stubbled chin. “They would discard Raven, but they would keep Ami. For her and her sword. She must be inside.”

  “How do we know it hasn’t been Ami the whole time? All that power, the falling stars?”

  “I don’t want to think that of her. No. The Shadow Princess—”

  “Is Ami. We must consider it.”

  Hero looked down at Raven, knowing that if he were awake, he’d help to fill in the blanks. His eyes fell then on something that poked from beneath his robes. It was small, barely discernible in shadow, a sharp corner crossing his chest. He knelt and plucked the object.

  “What is that?” Florence asked.

  “It’s a small book.” He scanned the cover but it was blank. Flicking through the pages revealed text too small to read. He adjusted his stance to the light, but it was no use. “The writing is so tiny.”

  “He will have been carrying it for a reason.” Florence took the book from him and scanned it quickly, stopping upon a random page. There, between the lines, was a hand drawn picture. “So much detail on such a small scale. Someone had fantastic eyesight. I’ll keep it safe.”

  She slipped it into her robes.

  “I wonder what Raven was doing with it?”

  “We can’t know until he’s recovered,” she said, touching her hand upon the man’s forehead. There was a light glow beneath her palm, a white light of warmth. “He needs a little more time. He’s been through a lot.”

  As the first full ray of sun filtered through the branches, it touched Raven’s robes, stained scarlet.

  Oh, Ami, he thought, I hope it’s not your blood.

  *

  He’d been interrupted, and the man lived.

  Something that shouldn’t have happened, couldn’t have happened, happened. A creature had appeared, full of power, full of magic. A unicorn. The existence of magical horned horses was absurd, and yet tonight he’d seen one. The bumbling man that had arrived with it was nothing, but… “Where did the unicorn come from?”

  He looked down from the window and across the town. The men and unicorn had fled long ago, and the sun now began to rise over the hill. It touched his skin, warming it. Trubus told him only moments ago of Madam Romany’s warning—but something bigger was happening here. She was not angry. If she were, she would’ve found him herself and punished him. She was slipping, but not through carelessness. No, to think her careless would be a mistake. She was powerful, wise, a goddess; but all had changed with the capture of the girl, of the sword. Instead he felt… “Neglected,” he whispered to no one.

  He turned now, leaving the room and walking through the torch-lit corridors toward the library. He would take her sustenance to show his regrets for not being on hand, he would offer apology and tell her the truth, that he was dealing with the male stranger that had attempted to cross the bridge after curfew. But should he tell her of the startling discovery of a unicorn within the land?

  His pace quickened, his heart thumping inside his narrow, old chest. What was truly going on? Madam Romany was a goddess, no question of that, and yet she’d been releasing her rain of power more and more frequently, causing the earth to tremble, and it was getting worse. He was awake.

  Things were changing too fast.

  Jonus poured wine into two goblets and placed them on a silver tray, taking them the short journey to the library. His approach was cautious as he looked about him constantly; no one was around. The library doors were shut, sealed against him, against them, The Order, the only other occupants of the palace.

  He placed his ear against the seal and listened.

  “…left the Mortrus Lands. Adam had gone, and I was free once more.”

  “The Mortrus Lands, do they still exist? Is the power still—wait.”

  Jonus jumped back from the doors, but not quick enough to abate the suspicion upon Madam Romany’s face as she appeared at the jamb, her eyes burning red.

  The goblets toppled, and wine spilt as pain wracked his wretched body. He felt his age suddenly, felt all the years crushing him from all sides. His bones were breaking, splinters of ice pressing through his skin. His sight failed him.

  The doors slammed shut against a goblet that spun across the floor. The pain left soon afterward, replaced by cold wine against his cheek that stained his beard red.

  Bones mended within him, knitting back together as they always did. His chest puffed as the muscles strengthened, but Jonus remained on the floor. Even when he heard the patter of feet, he did not rise. His breath returned in short, sharp gasps, and the voices of his brothers surrounded him, but however much he blinked, Jonus could no longer see.

  Chapter Nine

  The doors swung shut, the latch snapping as Romany took to her seat once more. Her dress whispered as she crossed her legs, the anger exhibited only moments ago lost within the smooth contours of expression. It would’ve been easier to believe that nothing had happened, that the distant sound of shuffling and rasped voices beyond the doors weren’t there. But Ami had glimpsed the emptiness beyond the beauty, and whether caused by abandonment or power, Ami could only wonder. What she was now sure of was that Romany was a monster. She’d almost failed to fear her as her memories gave voice to secrets she’d shared with no one else; now, though, she remembered her shadow’s warnings and understood their meaning.

  The woman leant forward to stroke the blade, one arm resting on her knee, her chin cupped in her palm—her eyes were an Egyptian dark, a soft shield hiding cruelty and malice. What she’d just seen unpicked woven words, and yet despite herself, Ami felt the spell begin to take hold once more. Her thoughts strayed to Adam and how easily she’d fallen beneath his shadow, and she vowed not to let the same happen here.

  “You have told me much,” Romany said, “but you have yet to tell me of this blade. I’ve seen weapons, but this is marked as Sentry; there were no such blades in our ancient land.” Her eyes fell
on Ami. “So, it was passed to you through your brother, and before him, your father, and his father before him, but from where did it come from?”

  Ami hadn’t thought it wise to speak of the power of the sword or its origins, for it was the one thing that she was so desperate to know. Play the game, she thought, dance the dance.

  Time passed.

  How long had they been there, how long had she listened, spoken? Hours could have been days, or perhaps only minutes and not yet an hour? It was not so easy to say. There were no windows that she could see, no way to tell the time of day. Perhaps it was midday? Or the next evening? Hunger had not arrived, thirst had not come calling, and the human need to defecate and urinate had disappeared entirely. The wood cracked and fizzled in the fireplace, the smell of old leather and warm pages comforting in the quiet. It was all calculated, all a setup, though she’d been slow to realise it. The library, the fire, all subtle magic to lure and to lull her; a soft interrogation.

  Battle lines were being drawn here, and so Ami kept her silence, letting time tick by in flame-licked snaps and pops.

  After a moment, Romany relented and her gaze returned to the fire. Her dress whispered again as she uncrossed and re-crossed her legs. “Very well,” she said, “tit for tat. I will tell you more. It may yet illuminate.

  “The land remained dark, with no sunrise nor sunset, only a moon that lit the path my feet might travel; and travel they did. I walked a desolate place for a time unknown, mounting each hill and crossing each stream. All sentient life seemed extinct. There were no birds, no deer, no horses; there were no fish in any water; there were no men or Sentries. I continued to look for any sign of my people nevertheless, for what else was I to do?