A Step into Darkscape (The Legacy Novels Book 2) Page 22

  “Looks like a ghost,” she said, and though the other two didn’t laugh in the same way, they were still amused by their sister. How quickly the tears dried, the fears forgotten.

  Ami smiled, and remembering her precarious part, asked, “Has it stopped?”

  Thomas nodded, looking out of the window. “For now, hopefully forever.” He turned back to her, frowning. “Who are you, and why are you here?”

  The guard back up, young Jay was swept into his arms, elder sister closing ranks behind.

  “My name is Ami. I saw you at the window and I hoped you could tell me why the sky falls, and why everyone hides.”

  “It’s not the sky falling,” he scolded, though his expression was doubtful. “Isn’t it obvious why we hide?”

  “It’s because of him,” the small girl said.

  “Who’s he?” she asked.

  “It’s… It’s nothing, really, a story.”

  “Not a story,” Jay said, picking at her fingers with great interest. “It’s troof.”

  “Shh,” came again.

  “It’s just a story,” Thomas said, his eyes flashing on Ami. “It’s said that—”

  “I’m going to take Jade upstairs,” the elder girl said, her gaze shifting between them.

  Thomas nodded and watched them leave before turning back to Ami. “It’s said that when the night comes, the Dragø will rise… It’s a whole story, but it’s just childish stuff.”

  Ami shuffled, the name Dragø thumping in her mind. The books from the palace library, Dragø Maġġï, Dragø Katra, Dragø Hişŧ, all books relating to this thing.

  “Sometimes,” she said, carefully wrapped the sheet around her shoulders, “stories mean something deeper than they seem to on the surface.”

  “Maybe,” he said, looking to the fire, “but it’s a myth that’s been around forever. It’s only when the quakes happen that anyone talks about the Dragø.”

  “Tell me about them. I’m a stranger here.”

  He shook his head and looked back at her, orange tongues flashing in his eyes. “Yes, you are.”

  “I’m no threat, and everything out there,” she said, pointing to the night, “scares me, but I may be able to stop it. All of it.”

  “You?”

  Ami bit her lip and thought to the bookshop, to Britanus and the book he’d given her. He’d tried to make her legend… “Have you ever heard of the Assassin Princess?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Raven watched Romany through the bars. She stood magnificent and terrifying, her face framed by a halo she didn’t deserve, the swollen power in her grasp lighting all the shadows and making them dance. Even the torches were shamed, their flames shivering in near extinction, in fear and awe. Raven was in awe, and in fear, but it was desperate fury that truly raged within him now. This woman was no longer the young girl he’d felt a fancy for in the darkened house, but a fierce creature, the evil goddess of the text.

  Her call to Ami echoed around the chamber and fell heavy like iron, though no reply came.

  Ami wasn’t there.

  The princess wasn’t coming.

  He remembered the day that he’d first heard the rumour, the whisper that had flown swiftly from mouth to ear, on the lips of every man, woman and child in Legacy: an heir was coming, the long lost heir of Legacy had been found. It was an excited murmur repeated in the streets, in taverns, in shops and parks, and most heavily in the bowels of the castle where the Guard made its base. A girl, they said. A daughter of Lord Graeme, they said. She doesn’t know, they said; and within a day the castle was in a frenzy, speculating about this daughter of Legacy. When Hero pulled him into the silence of a small antechamber to ask that he help escort the princess back to the city, it had been with great trepidation and excitement that he’d taken to the task. He’d been commanded to choose one other, though Hero had known as well as he who he would choose, and despite all his cynicism, Kane had taken to the mission with almost as much vigour. The princess was coming, roll out the banners and drop the colours, the princess was coming, and Legacy would be at peace. It hadn’t been that easy. And where was Princess Ami now?

  He’d felt defeated, crawling from beneath the fallen building, feeling Ami near and close and yet seeing her do nothing to stop the woman. Perhaps it hadn’t been safe to do so, perhaps she’d been unable to; perhaps witnessing Romany’s malice had been too much to bear, cut too close to the bone; perhaps Adam’s venom fought within her and she no longer cared for the ones who’d call her friend. Whatever the reason for her no show, the hope inside him had begun to wane, and when the stand was taken and Ami did not appear, Raven felt the last of his strength leave him. He was swept up, his body crushed against those of his captain and Florence, and it was with a mild sense of wonder that he’d watched the ground disappearing far, far beneath him. It was a dream of silence and colour, an orange flare rising then gone in a blur of streets and houses, a model set upon a dark mound.

  But that was then, and this wasn’t a dream…

  Raven searched for Florina’s eyes, now in a blaze of red flame. In them he saw the sadness and acceptance within.

  “Florence, no!”

  His words were lost beneath Romany’s scream as she lifted the sphere of power high above her head and hurled it to the orb at Florina’s feet. It exploded, throwing him back against the stone alcove, his head splitting painfully, a wound that would surely be a bleed. Falling forward once more, Raven caught the bars and managed to hold himself up long enough to peer through the gaps into the pandemonium of lashing white light and pain.

  The unicorn’s baying screams were that of a horse and woman combined, Florina’s body twisting, sinking into the turbulent stone, now the lunar force he’d met before. The four old men who’d gathered around suddenly burst into flame and crumpled to the ground, leaving Florina on her own at the centre.

  He could do nothing but reach his arm through the bars, the heat of the flames burning his fingertips.

  From the centre of the lunar Florina’s power swelled and gathered, reaching up from the simple stones in a pulsing beacon; a moment later it shot from the gallery and into the night, rising high above the town in an arc before making a swift descent to the land.

  Romany clapped her hands and laughed, her lithe figure dancing a shadow dance across the walls, heels clacking as she skipped. “Yes, yes, yes. At last—watch, just watch!”

  Oh, where are you, Ami?

  Florina screamed, sinking further, her horn sparking and sputtering, extinguishing flames. Don’t die, he wished, her head just above the raging waters of fire and ice and light, please don’t. He could do nothing to save her.

  The ground shook as the ribbon of her power hit its target and the palace around them began to break up.

  Raven fell, his prison painted scarlet, his wounds emptying. Before him the cold iron grappled for his grip, and Florina’s last struggle became a blur.

  *

  The boy had known a little more than just the name, it’d seemed.

  “And this was all written down? You read all of this?” The boy nodded.

  It was a strange thing indeed to have her own experiences recited back to as if they’d happened long ago, in a land far, far away, but forgiving some details, marred or skewed, or events told mildly out of sequence, it’d been a pretty accurate account.

  “It’s a local legend,” Thomas said, “only a story.” Ami was pretty sure where the story had come from though. Adam had been central in everything that had happened. Somehow the memory of her had stayed with him in the shadows of his mind as he’d entered his new life, given to him by the Sentries, and then also in his dual-life, split by Romany. The difference in time she couldn’t quite figure out, but she was at least certain that Britanus’s alien memories had been Adam’s.

  The boy was looking at her with weary interest. “You think you’re the Assassin Princess, don’t you?”

  She smiled. “What do you think?” Slowly, she slid her swo
rd from her side and held it out to him, blade first.

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” he scoffed. “You could have gotten that made—”

  The blade ran a purple flame along its edge that danced and sparked, soon joined by a thread of green. The boy gasped, his eyes reflecting the eerie glow. The katana then pulsed and faded in shape and colour, growing smaller and tapered, morphing into the spiral crystal horn of the first unicorn killed, the prize forcibly taken, and the true founder of the land of Legacy.

  “That’s just not—” His words were barely a whisper beneath the soft fort of imagination. “That’s just not possible. They’re only stories.”

  “Some stories are just stories,” she said, watching the crystal horn flicker and pulse with white, purple and green light. It was beautiful, the spiral peaking at a sharp tip, the base a jagged and broken legacy of man’s ignorance and fear. “Other stories are true. I am the Assassin Princess. Your long ago legends are my recent past, and I’m sure I’m here to stop what’s happening, to stop Romany, and to save my friends. She has them. So please, Thomas, tell me your story, the story of Dragø.”

  The horn glowed and lengthened, turning back into the katana it’d been. The power dimmed and the blade was steel, dull and in shadow once more. The boy now looked from it to her, eyes wide and scared, full of questions.

  Outside something exploded, the window lighting bright behind the curtains, the house trembling with the shock. They both started, their breath catching as everything lit unnaturally bright and the townsfolk beyond their fort screamed and scampered for safety. Ripples of whatever had just hit were felt in the very floorboards, and as the quake took hold and increased, the house began to crumble. The picture she’d hung fell again, and upstairs the small girl screamed; shelves emptied of their knickknacks, the fort itself failing in their hour of need. Ami looked to Thomas who was poised to make a break for it, to run upstairs to protect his sisters; but she couldn’t let him go. Pans knocked and clanged as plates smashed, and the fort finally fell. In a moment of indecision she grabbed him, lifting him to her by his nightshirt.

  “Please,” she said, her tone a loud whisper against the sound of cracking earth and stone, the land giving beneath the town. “Please. Tell me what you know. Tell me of the Dragø. What is it, and where is it? I am the Assassin Princess, and I’m meant to stop it.” As the words left her mouth, they felt true, for why else was she here if not to stop the triumph of evil over good? She could think of no better quest.

  He looked around, eyes frantic, his world falling down around his ears. She shook him, knowing her eyes now burned a fiery green. “Please. Tell me.”

  *

  “It’s said that the goddess awoke him. Madam Romany had visited the Well and had prayed to her people, to her fellow gods, lost through time; but they refused to answer her, and so she’d gone to join them. They rejected her and threw her to the ocean where she stayed for seven days and seven nights, learning secrets that only the gods could learn. Upon her return she approached the Well once more, only this time to reach deep down into it. The goddess pulled hard and day turned into night. A town appeared as if grown from the ground, trees and people alike sprouting into life. The world shook for the first time and the small settlement flourished into a mighty town. There was a palace for the goddess and hills and rocks that had never been before. It was a gift, she’d said, a gift for Madam Romany. She claimed that the other gods had blessed her and had blessed us. However, something much more terrifying had also appeared. From the river that had once been the vein of life came a great quake that split banks, spilling the water. It had split so deep that it had opened to the realm of demons. The gods had said that Madam Romany could rule her new lands, but only if she could defeat the Dragø.

  “The waters darkened and the people fled, the banks flooded and cracked; a roar sounded out, felt in the air for miles, and from beneath the valley rose a monster, clawing its way to the surface, its talons caked with dripping mud, its black scales slick with slime. Its body slithered as if a snake, yet its terrible wings were so large they blanked out the stars. Its teeth were deadly white, and they gnashed as it threw itself upon the town, destroying houses, killing all it came across. It’s eyes, when opened, were fiery red, burning with hatred and hunger, and from its mouth came a breath of flame that reached far, sought life, and snatched at those who’d fled. It’s screaming fodder begged and wailed, but one by one were silenced, and blackened, and discarded, the life drained from them as the Dragø fed. It slunk back to the waters, towing hundreds of the dead in its tail, the river bubbling black in its wake.

  “Each night it returned, and each night it would reap.

  “The town lay at its mercy. Buildings burned, and the hill was left scarred and pitted. Everyone was scared. They hid in their homes, barring the doors and windows with all they had, hiding in cellars, dug down deep into the earth, covering themselves and hoping to avoid the flaming red eyes, the prying claws, the sucking snorts of the demon.

  “Madam Romany accepted the god’s challenge though, for she was the only one who could drive it back to the realm it’d come from.

  “She waited for it to arrive once more, rising from the river, its tail swiping and breaking the palace walls; she waited for it to snare its latest prey, to suck the life from their bodies, turning them black in its talons; she waited until it was spent and filled, ready to return—and then she faced it.

  “The goddess overpowered it with her magic. Its tail was too slow to trip her, its claws too clumsy to clasp her or clip her, and as she wielded a whip of light and power, it released a roar of fire that took after her. But its flames parted as a diverging stream, leaving the goddess unharmed. She flew at it, sending streaks of lightning to strike its armoured body over and over, its black scales cracking and bursting from it, leaving a patch, bald and tender. There she attacked, driving the beast back, slow and full from its last meal.

  “The demon retreated to the river, Madam Romany thrashing it from side to side, beating it back, the townsfolk cheering in her wake. With one last roar the beast turned to chomp its teeth, flaming the whole town before sinking back into the water.

  “The goddess sealed the rift with her power, and there the creature sleeps, remaining dormant below our lands.

  “That’s why we hide when the sun goes down, why we shake when the earth does. Its him, the Dragø, turning to scratch in its sleep. That’s why Jay screams the way she does. She’s terrified that the story is true, that the Dragø is rising again and will kill us, leaving us dead and black like all the others.” Thomas was in tears as he looked about, jumping as bricks fell from above in a sudden tumble.

  Ami pulled him to her, throwing a glance out of the window and seeing what looked like a ribbon in the sky beyond the curtain. There was no doubt in her mind that the story had truth, though the heroics of the goddess left a sour taste in her mouth.

  Jay wailed for Thomas and he stumbled up, though Ami pulled him back down before he could leave.

  “She’s my sister, she needs me.”

  “I pray you’ll keep them safe,” she said, feigning a smile, “but not up high. Below, just like in the story. Find low ground, a bunker, a shelter.” The sword in her hand lit between them, reminding him even through his panic of the possibilities before him. “Keep them safe, Tom, and thank you.”

  She let him go and watched him flee through the darkened house to his family, the building shifting, the walls crumbling. She hoped it had a basement, a cellar beneath, and she hoped it would be enough as it had been for her not so long before; but Ami couldn’t stay. The time was now, and she headed across the room and out into the street.

  The ribbon was a channel of power, cutting the sky in two, and she now knew where it led: to the Dragø, a beast from another layer, to be brought forward to end all layers.

  The wet stones beneath her were coming loose, rising up as the land shook. She could hear the sea far away, wild and roiling, and
there at the cliff point, somewhere beneath the tower, lay the all-powerful Sentry portal that connected those layers. Tracing the white ribbon of light across the sky she followed its arc and dip down beneath the street to a far off point of the river. She tracked its course back to the palace where Romany was waiting for her.

  She needed Ami, and she was sure going to get her.

  *

  Birds took flight when the ground trembled, but Grammy stayed exactly where she was. There was no way she was going to let him decide her horizontals and verticals, no matter how menacing and big. No. She allowed all to pass, anchoring herself to an old trunk, waiting patiently for the man to come, as if waiting on a suitor.

  A wind shifted leaves at her feet, and the quake eventually died.

  “That’s better,” she said, and slowly took a few steps forward, hearing the crisp rustling, feeling the soft touch of the grass as she passed out onto the path.

  And there he was, luminous in her darkness, seated exactly where he ought to be.

  It’d been she who’d built the portal, along with all her counterparts throughout the layers, all but one of which were now lost to her, through time, through age, through the lack of want for any such ancient company who’d once been one’s self; and the portal belonged to the two of them now.

  Only with him did she sit, down at the small table, the plain little porch their shelter, its cracked wood and fields of corn a southern comfort. In fact, she’d been sitting down with him for at least a couple of hundreds of years, trading moves in an infinite battle of wits, the silver and gold pieces glinting in the never ending sunshine of the American South.

  In the years gone before, they’d hardly been aware of the humans growing up around them, fruitfully multiplying; and now they were everywhere, smart and curious and adventurous. Camouflaged as it was, and as camouflaged as it remained, all it took was a little curiosity, a stray from the path and bang, someone with a little power would be hooked in and led into the portal.