Umbra, p.23
Umbra, page 23
Jess found herself opening her gait as she rooted herself in the moment. With every move, she found herself having to be more alert. As she attempted to study Astra’s posture and stance, it took her back to when she’d sparred with Matteo in the Cathedral of Silva; the way she’d mirrored his fighting posture, sturdy yet agile, as he’d borne down on her with the fae spear. At the thought of Matteo, worry sliced through her.
Gods, I hope he and my dad are okay.
Imaginings of finding them safely at Skiron’s house soothed her though. Yet her idle musings were all the distraction Astra required. The fae’s next blow knocked her to the ground. Sprawled on her ass, Jess wiped the sweat from her brow on the back of her sleeve. She felt it pooling in the back of her shirt, too.
“You’ve got a good stance, I mean when you’re vertical, but you need to stand straighter,” Astra assessed, offering Jess her hand.
Jess only grunted as the fae hauled her off of her bruised backside. She felt the burn in her arms and shoulders, too, as she collapsed against the cavern wall.
Astra leaned beside her, looking infuriatingly fresh. “How’re you feeling?”
Jess knew she wasn’t asking about the burn in her arms from sparring. She considered evading her again but knew the fae would take it as an excuse to kick her ass again.
“I feel like the maelstrom’s roaring through me,” Jess answered honestly as the echo of her and Rune’s exchange still seemed to scrape her insides, abrading and pulling her in a thousand directions. “I thought…”
Self-consciousness prickled over her and her gaze trailed to Sunny and Skiron. They seemed immersed in their tasks. At the back of the cave here, there was at least the semblance of privacy. She continued, “Despite everything I did to screw things up between us, I really thought everything would come out well in the end… That we were meant to be… together…”
“To be fair, you’re Alba and Silva, albeit the reborn gods. Alba and Silva 2.0. I can see why you’d think you guys were a sure thing,” Astra said.
Jess only nodded, still feeling so alone. So raw. Her voice was low as she confessed, “I just don’t see how I’ll ever be able to put myself back together after this.” To her chagrin, Astra only snorted.
“You’re already doing it, Dumbass,” Astra said dryly. “You can’t help it. It’s who you are. You’re Silva, the creative force, who rebirthed herself and created a whole new para race while you were at it.
“Besides, you have family and friends who love you enough to make you.” The fae’s russet stare was fixed on her with a no-nonsense look that threatened she’d happily try to knock some sense into her again.
Despite everything, Jess cracked a smile. Maddeningly the fae against all odds had managed to, somehow, make her feel like things might actually, one day, be okay again. “I’ll have you know the correct address is My Lady, not Dumbass,” Jess quipped.
“Bite me,” Astra retorted.
Jess tried to waggle her eyebrows in an Astra-esque way but only succeeded in making her friend crack up at the terrible attempt.
Amidst their laughing, a sound caught Jess’s ear. Her heart tripped.
Is that… wingbeats?
Astra straightened beside her, too.
Rune?
But anxiety climbed. Rune said he’d be gone hours. It likely hadn’t even been an hour yet. Besides, there were too many wingbeats. Jess’s thoughts tumbled with nervousness.
What if our noise brought a portal patrol here?
In the center of the cavern, Skiron unsheathed his cloidem. Sunny stood, alert, too. Astra strode towards the campfire, battle-ready. Dread pooled in Jess’s stomach as she joined them.
“Seelie are peace-loving at heart. Aim to wound, not kill,” Skiron warned, throwing a weighty look at Sunny, then at Jess.
To be fair, I deserve that.
Guilt thrummed through Jess as she thought of the innocent Storm-born she and her pack had killed when first entering Umbra. But soon there was only room in Jess for fear. It multiplied as the strike of wingbeats grew in volume.
The first fae appeared in the cavern’s doorway. Horror slammed into Jess as she caught sight of the faes’ black wings.
Unseelie.
Fae after fae swooped through the entranceway, their skin almost the same gray purply hue as the stone walls of the cavern and their wings midnight-black. The hilts of their cloidem gleamed in the glow of the ignes that some of the unit held. Jess counted eight. Her stomach somersaulted. They were outnumbered. It had taken fifty of her wolves to fight a force of twenty riders. Even then, there’d been casualties.
“Get to the Storm-born!” Sunny shouted to Jess.
Understanding crashed through her: the exit was insurmountable to her and Sunny without their steed. The exit was perhaps twenty feet above them. Clearly, Sunny deemed their odds of successfully defeating the Unseelie as bad as she did. Jess’s gaze darted to the Storm-born.
But too quickly the Unseelie bore down on them all. The clash of iron rang out. Jess drew both her scian as she was faced by two Unseelie fae. Grimly, she rebuked herself for complaining about Astra’s ass-kicking. She’d take her friend any day over these two merciless warriors. The faes’ strikes drove her ruthlessly back… Away from the Storm-born…
“Get to the Storm-born!” Sunny bellowed again as he dodged one fae and crossed swords with another.
I’m trying.
Frustration somersaulted through her. Jess grimaced, only managing to block the blows of her opponents and now almost at the back of the cavern.
Both Skiron and Astra had their hands full too, their own opponents keeping them busy. Desperateness beat through Jess. What she wouldn’t give for Rune to appear now. She imagined Rune restored with Alba’s power, bearing down on these fae with divine wrath. Instead, only the cold clang of iron striking iron rang through the cavern.
Neither the light of the campfire nor the ignes that the Unseelie unit carried penetrated the gloom here at the back of the cavern. That’s when Jess felt something else. Goosebumps prickled over her skin. The hairs on the backs of her arms stood on end. Dread pooled in her stomach—one she recognized.
It’s not the fae that are most dangerous. It’s what’s with them.
Both what Astra and Rune had said about the Unseelie aerial units struck her. “They wield their own iron-tinged sluagh.” Yes, eight Unseelie fae had entered the cavern. Most of them were fighting the others, while the two at the back here continued to fight her. No, she realized with a chill. Her two fae opponents had stopped. But something else was dangerously close to her. Here in the shadows.
Jess’s mind raced with the horrible terror that she’d once felt before. In the Triodia. In her cell. Panic assaulted her as her gaze searched the gloom and traced the dark silhouettes upon the air.
Iron-tinged sluagh.
She scrambled back. Her mind rushed to when she’d been locked in a cell with only two of these things. But now there were so many, closing in around her. The Unseelie fae within the cavern must have sent all of the iron-tinged they wielded to attack her. A growl rose in Jess’s throat as her wolf prickled under her skin. Nightmarish shapes darkened the air all around her. Panic pummeled through her. How many were there? Her lupine instinct took over. Casting away her human form, her white wolf clawed at the things that reached for her. Her iron scabbards scattered the silhouettes like ash.
Jess snarled at the circle of iron-tinged now arcing inwards.
There are too many.
That same cold that she knew all too well touched her left hindquarter. She snarled, her claws dispatching the offending being. But the darkness seemed to groan with the presence of all the figures lumbering towards her.
She tried to edge out into the space of the main cavern. But the eerie figures hemmed her in. Her wintery eyes darted over their insubstantial features. Her heart drummed in her chest as if she were running over the plains, not taking the slow retreating steps she was.
Jess’s rear hit the wall. Her flews pulled back fully as she snarled up at the silhouette nearest, swiping its vague form and sending it into oblivion. But more ice crawled down her front leg, shivering down her spine as the shadows swarmed around her. She tried to lie lower against the floor, to compact herself.
“Jess!” Astra’s voice cried.
But Jess couldn’t get up—ice flooded her veins, and numbness pervaded her. Her vision tunneled. She whined. Her mind slowed. Cold darkness blistered her insides and the last thing she heard before she was carried into nothingness was the echo of Astra’s cry.
24
THE FETCH
The blood bond was gone. Rune felt the ringing stillness through his being like never before. Alba’s consciousness, which had so often felt like an overwhelming entity, spread itself over his own like the lightest of dustings on the Album Cornu, towards which he now flew.
That quiet sense of purpose that had grown ever since hearing Astra’s truth about the faded seemed to crystallize into a solid purpose. The merciless winds enveloped Rune and the ebony Storm-born as they climbed higher into the night. But he didn’t care; the outer abrasion of his exposed skin was nothing compared to the pangs of sorrow that continued to lance through him.
He’d resolved to make for the White Horn. There, he’d have the highest point from which to survey the mountains. Perhaps from that vantage, he’d be graced with a glimmer of the white mists he sought. To be graced with more truths, he thought sardonically.
Oh, how I could do with more illumination.
Bitterness wove across his features for his own blindness. The truth was he’d known deep down, since entering Umbra this time that something wasn’t right with Jess’s being here. He’d fooled himself into believing that it was the threat of the Eventide prophecy still hanging over them. That he was worried about her safety. That he feared her death at Sunny’s hands. Or Mara’s. Or the Sidhe’s taking her life’s blood again.
But the reason for the creeping sense of disquiet had been right in front of him. If he’d only been brave enough to examine it. A dawning sense of Jess’s rightness as Rem Alpha had pervaded him almost as soon as he’d seen her leading her clan across the Umbran plain. And then, all too quickly, her disquiet concerning the Shadowlands had swept down their bond. An unease she’d tried to explain to him, which he’d failed to listen to, even as it increased the deeper they journeyed into Umbra.
Yes, the resentment that he’d harbored towards her for using the blood bond against him had partly held him back from addressing it. But a lot of that pig-headedness was because all these intuitions, as well as his growing sense of surety in the Shadowlands, pointed to how things between him and Jess were coming to a close.
The ache that they were no more pierced him again. And the knowledge that, unbelievably, he’d been the one to shut the door on them threatened to make him turn around, to rush back to the cavern, and take every word he’d said back. But he forced himself to keep the Storm-born straight, to head into the wind.
But he knew it, deep in his bones, just as Jess had known the Sidhe was part of her, long before the faded revealed it true, that he was traveling the path he must. Hanging onto her any longer, hanging onto them any longer, would be deceiving both of them.
As the story of the faded prickled through his head, both sides of him, Alba and Rune experienced the full flood of grief at losing Silva—Jess. All those millennia ago, Silva had been torn apart by their enemy, just as Alba had been. But, miraculously, she’d created her wolf creatures in her final moments, sowing the seeds of her rebirth into their forms. And still, even with bringing about their restoration, Silva had, in a way, been lost. She’d been changed from the Umbran being she’d been.
Rune thought of all the conquered cultures he’d witnessed over the centuries on Earth, who had taken on the gods of their invaders until they’d become a part of their culture. Until the belief in these foreign gods was utterly ingrained in their society. In the same way, Silva had been transplanted to Earth and become an Earthen goddess. He thought of the way that the Triodians and Roms held her as their own, praying to her, dedicating their sacred spaces to her. But it was even more than a belief that made Silva an Earthen goddess. In her very being now, in everything Jess was, she was through and through Earthen.
The night air of the mountain filled his senses. Crisp and icy, the winds seemed to fight him and the Storm-born as if trying to keep them away from the White Horn. But little by little, the formidable mountain grew, its thick white cap thrusting itself into the night.
Rune reined in his thoughts, reminding himself that he didn’t need to worry about Jess. She was the strongest person he knew. Her insight and determination had led them here. She’d been the bridge by which he’d had some vitality restored to him. Now, it was his turn to claim the full vitality that had been stolen from them by the Fomors. When he’d reclaimed that, he and Jess would be able to face Queen Mara together. And they would free Jess’s shadow self.
Rune brushed the neck of the Storm-born as he promised, “And we’ll restore you and your people to their full selves, too, I swear it.”
He and Jess would once more be two leaders, capable of defending both the Shadowlands and Earth from the destructive forces trying to claim them.
As the Storm-born’s wingbeats carried them towards the summit of the horn, anticipation crashed through Rune. The Storm-born tried to veer wider, out of the rush of the northern wind, but he urged the being straight and true. Rune found himself speaking to the being once again, “This is the last leg, my friend. Thank you for all you’ve done for us. Soon, it’ll be down to me. I have to be as brave as Jess in the Netherworld; I have to face myself.”
Shadows and all.
The Storm-born descended in a graceful arc, cantering to a halt in a scramble of churned-up snow and ice. Rune dismounted, shielding his face from the howling winds. He squinted out at the night, only the white slopes of this peak pushing through the darkness. Repeating his scan around him, he saw nothing but snow flashing from the murk. The wind bit at his face, and he glowered at the currents that seemed determined to snatch away any hope of seeing the distant ridges.
The Storm-born whinnied behind him, trying to pull back, her wings twitching as if threatening to take off. Losing his mode of flight wouldn’t be fun on the tallest peak; Rune knew from experience that some of the ridges were only scalable with climbing equipment, even for a vamp with preternatural speed. Hating himself for thinking it, he wished that he had the halter to rein the being again but he hadn’t had the heart to fasten it back on before he’d left; it was difficult to keep the Storm-born with him, with nothing but her neck to encircle. With a sigh, he led the Storm-born lower down, compromising that if they got out of the wind a little, the being might be calmer. Climbing down the slope, he resolved to seek a little shelter from the prevailing northerly wind. He could still try to survey the ridges to the south and west.
Rune sped down the mountain with the Storm-born at an easy trot. The being seemed happier to be moving. Rune admitted, even with his preternaturally cold skin and having not eaten for two days, the force of the gale made even him feel as if he were carved of ice. A stab of forlornness struck him as he thought of the heat that had washed through him earlier when Jess had been in his arms. Even the memory of her seemed to bathe him with lingering warmth.
Then he saw it. Curling up from the lower slope just feet ahead. The mist twisted up off of the powdery snow. It climbed higher, its blanket growing and unfolding.
He let up a silent prayer to Jess, knowing deep in his bones that the thought of her, that sense of vitality that she gave him, had conjured the mist. Had conjured the missing part of him.
Thank you. You saved me. You led me here. You brought me to myself.
Rune’s heart lurched into life as he watched the slinking cloud proceeding up the slope towards him. How many times had he called himself soulless over the years? He remembered hammering home to Jess that there was nothing within vamps. But the plains of his soul were no longer barren. He could feel the landscape within him bathed with life. Worry pulsed through him as he wondered what truth the vapor would conjure. Then he remembered that he’d already been confronted with the harshest truth to face: he and Jess weren’t meant to be together anymore. Whatever other truths he needed to confront to claim his shadow self couldn’t be any worse.
No more hesitating.
He strode towards the mingling cloud.
The crunching rubble punctured the air. His skin prickled with recognition at the sound. Screams and shouts erupted from it as it rushed at him. At the same moment, the Storm-born behind him reared up, wrenching her neck out from under Rune’s arm before tearing off down the slope. Rune only blinked as her shape disappeared into the mist as he was engulfed by the scene of fae swarming the mountainside. Hundreds and hundreds of fae fought…and fell in front of Rune. Both aerial and those mounted upon Storm-born.
The Unseelie and Seelie unleashed their terror upon one another. Iron hacked off limbs. The white snow was drenched blue as bodies were pierced and their insides splayed open. Rune stumbled through the warriors, his stomach roiling as the dying and the dead seemed to stare at him with accusation. It was as if each mark that he witnessed severed his flesh and bone. And as blood rained down, splattering the ground, he felt as if it were his that flowed.
Guilt swarmed him as he drank in the bloody battle that could be any of the hundreds that had been waged over the centuries. This was his fault. The din of violence that sounded in the clashing weapons, in the war cries, and shrieks of agony. They pressed in upon him. He and Silva had entered Earth to get the iron weapon, only to have it reap this destruction upon their world for hundreds of years. All this death and destruction, he’d caused…
Rune stilled, refusing to let the desolation claim him. Neither he nor Silva had sought to bring this death and division. They’d wanted the iron to defeat the Fomors, the enemy who had done this. Rune’s attention swung from the Unseelie to Seelie. Brother fighting brother. This was the shape of the enemy. Division. Strife.
