Blake
Moonlight plays over Marianna’s naked skin. She’s like a painting–flawless, almost airbrushed. Ethereal and all-consuming even at rest. The moon is full and high in the sky as I trace my fingertips over the curve of her breasts and down to her navel, then lower, where I flatten my hand between her hips, closing my eyes against the anguish soaring through my body, through my wolf. Even the stars go silent, giving me space to grieve the life I tried and failed to give her–them. Marianna, Skye, and… the two boys currently nestled deep in her womb. Boys she won’t know about for weeks still.
Maybe this knowledge is a gift from the Goddess, a little snippet of the lives that will move on without me if I fail. I’ve made promises I’m not sure I can keep. I’ve sworn vows in silence, betting my life on an outcome that I already know is out of reach, but I have no choice but to try to save my family and my kingdom from a war we would never recover from.
I was too young to remember my great-grandmother’s face. Her voice has been lost to time. But I remember her story. I know she laid her life at the Goddess’s altar in exchange for ours–for mine. She used her powers to save a kingdom.
Now, I have to use mine.
I press a kiss to Marianna’s stomach and whisper a silent apology. I dress in the dark–black pants and a black shirt along with my favorite black cloak and boots. The city is quiet and calm, the air just starting to cool after another incredibly hot day. The temple rises above me, light pouring from windows where shadows drift as priestesses and mystics get ready for bed, but…
Calliope is already waiting for me in the grand foyer of the temple, flanked by a dozen mystics in their masks and white robes. They know. They would have seen it, sensed it in the murky fabric their powers can’t quite pass through.
I pull the hood of my cloak down and scan the bodies shrouded in white and command, “Evacuate the temple and all of its buildings. No one remains. Just me.” I look down the line. No one moves; no one so much as breathes. I continue, “Bring every sphere into the Orrery. Every single one. You have thirty minutes.”
The mystics move, disappearing in every direction. I remain in the foyer, closing my eyes as rapid footsteps and murmurs of confusion fill my head, mingling with the incessant chatter of the stars. I only open my eyes again when the temple falls into complete silence. Calliope is the only person remaining. She turns to me, standing in front of the door leading out to the city, and bows her head ever so slightly.
I lower my head as well, and when I rise back to my full height, she’s gone, and Moonrise is still sleeping beyond the rolling front garden of the temple.
I spend the next hour moving from room to room making sure everyone made it out. I open every door, pull every mirror from the walls and carry them deep into the recesses of the temple, where the Orrery expands around me, gears moving on their own accord. I arrange the mirrors along the walls, leaning them against the stone. Moonstone spheres cover the floor–every single one, just like I commanded.
Everything is in place.
I pick up one of the spheres and walk to a table where mystics in training–acolytes–would normally take notes about the prophecies the orrery gave them. I hold the sphere between my hands and dig deep, letting specific memories flow into the crystal orb until it’s full of light and images from my head.
Marianna and I in her old living room in that shitty little apartment. Me, smiling up at her as she plays her violin so aggressively that the strings snap and she laughs. Marianna, pregnant, her eyes full of tears as I grip her hand and pull her close, embracing her, grounding her, the last time we’d touch like that for over seven years.
The moment Skye came into the world. The tears of joy in Marianna’s eyes. The moment I held my daughter for the first time and saw the powers brewing behind her milky, newborn gaze already, just moments after she entered the world.
Recent memories. Waking up slowly with Marianna in the morning a few days ago, tracing her skin, drinking in her scent like it’s my life’s blood. The night Skye snuck into our bed, and I saw myself mirrored in her tired eyes.
I bleed my hope for their future into the sphere. My girls and the boys that will follow. A warm, inviting home. Solstice celebrations. School graduations. Weddings to their mates–fated, of course. Grandchildren I may never meet. Seeing my mate as an old woman, gray, and beautiful still.
But there’s so little I can do to manipulate the future, which is hazy at the moment. It’s in my hands–those fine threads with no beginning and no end. I have the power to weave them to my will but… at what cost?
I already know the answer to that question as I rise, letting my powers flow into every sphere. The mirrors reflect the violet light beginning to glow beneath my skin, mingling with the silver glow of the full moon. My wolf is restless. Little does he know that we’re about to go on the adventure of a lifetime.
Because I will not return until Hannibal, his king, and all the fae that would threaten us–the shifters–are dead.
By my hand or… hers.
I close my eyes, raising my hands to the ceiling. The orrery creaks painfully as it begins to move faster than it ever has before. I’m not a witch. I know no spells. There’s nothing I can say to protect myself as I let my powers surge further than they ever have before.
For the first time in my life, I let my shields down. I let the voices in–let them take full control. I allow myself to feel. Every emotion. Everything beautiful, painful, and heart-wrenching.
The only words I utter are simple. Concise.
“Show me what you want me to see.”
Pain like I’ve never felt before tears me to shreds. The mirrors shatter. A deep vibration rattles through the orrery as the spheres splinter, and the voices in my head begin to scream.
And then I… pull apart at the seams. The pain is immense. I let the darkness I’ve been so afraid of sweep in, consuming me.
A roar explodes all around me. My scream of pain shatters through the sound of the orrery breaking into slivers of hot metal and the glass dome above my head shattering, and then… quiet.
The dead kind.
***
Marianna
Skye’s rapid footsteps sprinting through the suite wake me up with a start. I reach for Blake, startled into alertness, but dread washes over me when I feel nothing but the chilled sheets where we’d fallen asleep together only hours ago.
“MAMA!” Skye screams, her voice ragged with fear and despair. I pull the sheet around me and leap out of bed, colliding with my daughter as she drags me to my knees, tears streaming down her cheeks while her eyes light from within with violet power.
“What’s wrong?” I plead, panicked. “What–”
A roaring echo funnels over the castle, replaced by an eerie stillness that makes every fine, downy hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I feel like the world is moving in slow motion as I slowly turn toward the windows over the bed, where a bright light stretches to the sky.
“What is that?” I whisper, but the words turn to a rough, rattling scream when a shockwave hits the castle, strong enough to break through the magical shields Maeve keeps around the fortress.
Skye screams, and my eardrums nearly burst from the impact. Glass showers over us. I drag her to the ground, covering her with my body. The room fills with light for several seconds before the darkness returns, but I can’t catch my breath. My body is locked tight around Skye, and I’m trembling so badly my teeth clank together.
That feeling of dread returns, drowning me, pulling me into its current. I blink past tears and dust hanging in the air all around us, trying to clear my vision. Cracks creep along the walls of the room as sirens blare in the distance. The door to the bedroom was blown off its hinges, and the shadow rushing into the room isn’t the man I want right now. Not even close.
Soren scoops us up like we weigh nothing, rushing us into the living area of the suite just outside the bedroom. The windows are nothing more than shards of glass shimmering in the moonlight, and beyond the tattered window frames, Maeve’s powers dance through the sky like ribbons of crimson.
“What happened?” I cry out, but I can’t hear Soren over the wailing of sirens and shouts of alarm rising from the streets several stories below.
“Are you all right?” he shouts over the chaos, setting me down on a spot of carpet not covered in glass, but holds tight to Skye, who has her trembling arms wrapped tightly around his neck.
“Where’s Blake?” I bellow, but the look Soren gives me answers for him. “No. No–where is he? He couldn’t have–he was just with me–”
“We have to go now,” Soren says steadily, calmly, but his eyes betray his tone. There’s pain there–something heavy and damning, like he knew this was coming in one way or another. Blake was his friend. He’s the only true friend I think Blake has ever had. He knew. He had to have known.
“What did he do? Where is he? Soren, where is Blake?!” I can barely get the words out between sobs. I can’t breathe. My body refuses to function.
“You and Skye are going to Veiled Valley, right now. Please, we need to move,” he says, yanking me into the hallway outside of the suite, which is so thick with dust I can’t see more than the darting shadows of the workers and maids trying to take stock of each other and the castle at large.
Soren brings us to the sixth floor–the private floor he inhabits with Maeve and Fallon. I drag him to a stop, trying to pull out of his grasp. “My–my mom! I have to get my mom!”
“I already sent warriors to find her–”
I free myself from his touch and race down the hallway away from him, making a beeline to a set of doors that opens to a narrow balcony that overlooks the city.
I’m not prepared for what I see.
I gasp–a guttural sound full of despair and confusion–as Moonrise comes into view. A city of dust and moonlight.
The temple, that grand, opulent building that once stood in the center of the city, is gone. Nothing but a black void remains, smoldering with embers.
“No.” It’s the only sound I can make as my heart shatters in my chest.
“He evacuated everyone from the temple.”
I flinch, clutching the railing as Maeve’s tired, stunned voice reaches me. She’s standing only a foot behind me, Fallon squirming against her chest. Maeve’s eyes are burning crimson with her powers as she looks over her city, tears welling along her lower lashes. “He got everyone out before he went.”
“Went where?” I sob, and her eyes slowly meet mine.