Текст книги "The Shadows"

Автор книги: J. R. Ward

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Текущая страница: 41 (всего у книги 42 страниц)

EIGHTY-TWO

The gems were cold and heavy.

As the Chief Astrologer draped Catra with mesh after mesh of platinum-set diamonds and sapphires and emeralds and rubies, she was less and less able to breathe right.

Although that was probably more because the enormity of what was happening was sinking in, rather than the weight of the ceremonial robes.

The final part of the Queen’s dress was a thin veil that drifted down over her face like a breeze.

“It is done,” the Astrologer said.

In ordinary circumstances, the garb would have been delivered to the Queen’s quarters and cleaned and prepared for the wearer by a fleet of maids. But this was not ordinary.

Was the Queen dead now?

How would the death happen?

As those questions played through her head over and over again, she—

“. . . has arrived! He has arrived!”

Out in the hall, the sound of voices shouting the same thing permeated the dense quiet of the chamber.

Frowning, she picked up the skirting and walked forth—only to remember she couldn’t activate the door to the corridor.

“Will you please open this up?”

“At once, Your Highness.”

The Chief Astrologer rushed forward, placed his palm on the wall, and the panel obligingly retracted.

“. . . Anointed One has arrived!”

It was mad chaos outside, people running and jumping with joy, a celebration breaking out. For a split second, she stood in the doorway, taking it all in—before remembering there was carnage in the circular room behind her.

“Come out here,” she hissed to the Astrologer.

Just as he walked through, the door shut automatically, her presence registered to the multitudes racing up and down the corridor.

Everyone stopped. Dropped to the floor. Prostrated themselves.

As the citizens began to murmur the required greeting to royalty, they clearly assumed she was the current Queen.

While that dawned on her, so did another thought. “Cleansing . . .” She wrenched around and forced herself to keep her voice down. “Oh, stars above, they’re going to cleanse him—quick, we must go unto the high priest!”

The Astrologer didn’t ask any questions. He just followed her as she ran through the palace. Fortunately for them, her presence carried with it a wave of genuflections, what would have been a congested trip freed up by the fact that everybody, from courtier to Primary to servant, hit the floor as soon as they saw her.

AnsLai’s sacred chamber was not far from the ceremonial hall, and when she came to it, she went to put her hand on the wall—but the Astrologer ducked in first and found the spot with his palm.

As the panel slid back, she got a look at a large naked male form stretched out on a black slab of marble, his arms down at his sides, his feet together.

AnsLai was across the way, standing before a fire pit, both palms up to the heavens as he whispered an incantation.

“Stop!” she said. “I command you to stop!”

The high priest wrenched around—and promptly dropped to his knees. “Your Highness, I thought you were still in the ritual room?”

Catra rushed over to the male who was lying with his eyes closed. “Tell me you haven’t cleansed him—”

“I have just administered the solution unto his veins—”

“Oh, no, no, no,” she said. “No!”

“Whate’er do you speak of, Your Highness?” the high priest said, straightening. “He has been on the outside for decades. He is impure to mate with your daughter—”

“He’s not the Anointed One.”

At that, the male they were discussing turned his head slowly toward her.

And that was how she finally met, after all those years, TrezLath.

“I’m so sorry,” she breathed to him, bending down and clasping his hand. “I didn’t make it in time—I’m so sorry. . . .”

* * *

As Trez lay on the table, he could feel a burning on the inside of his forearm from where they had injected him using a surprisingly modern, human-world needle.

He would have assumed, given how ancient the ritual was, that they would have preferred some kind of reed or hand-fashioned ancient metal syringe.

But no. It was actually precisely the same kind that his Selena had been injected with.

Instantly, he had felt the poison in his veins, and, rather like the venom of a snake’s bite, it wasted no time in spreading, multiplying, taking over.

Weakened as he was from grief and exertion, he realized there was a good chance he wouldn’t survive this.

And that made him focus on the ceiling above him. Funny, whenever he’d pictured this ritual, it had always been with him tied down.

Strange where you ended up. Now, he welcomed the coming pain—because it might just be his ticket back to Selena. Gossip held that you didn’t get into the Fade if you committed suicide, but if you were killed?

Not your fault.

There was, of course, an existential issue to be reconciled: namely how the pair of them, coming from different traditions, could in fact find each other on the other side of life. If there was another side.

But if faith had any power, he was going to believe they would.

He might as well go out on that note.

Gradually, he became aware of two other presences in the room with him and AnsLai. And one of them sparkled from head to foot in a rainbow of colors.

The Queen.

She began speaking to AnsLai after the high priest bowed down to her. And then AnsLai was straightening, talking, looking alarmed . . . then panicked.

The Queen approached Trez—and after a lifetime of hating the female, he thought idly of reaching up and trying to strangle her.

He didn’t have the strength, however. Especially not as the pain intensified even further.

He hadn’t intended to move, but he began to writhe, his body trying to escape the poison.

And then suddenly his entire suit of flesh was on fire on the inside.

The last thing he remembered was more people racing into the room, and they did not drop to the floor. They stared at the Queen in confusion.

And then the Chief Astrologer in his red robes addressed them all.

A moment later, they did hit the floor before the female.

Oh, what did it matter, Trez thought.

What did any of this, even the monumental pain, matter . . .

EIGHTY-THREE

That fallen angel got them to the Territory.

And as iAm re-formed, he realized it was a good thing that Lassiter had taken control of the flight. With his brother in the clutches of the Queen, he doubted he would have been able to concentrate enough to dematerialize.

“I’ll take it from here,” iAm said.

“Got your back.”

With a nod of gratitude, iAm strode over to the front entrance of the s’Hisbe. Among the things the Brotherhood had given him as parting gifts were a couple of pounds of C4 plastic explosive. All he had to do was set a serving or two of it up at the huge gates and—

As if the entrance to the s’Hisbe wanted to avoid bodily harm, the giant halves split and opened before the pair of them.

But it wasn’t a fortuitous departure of someone on the far side.

s’Ex stood tall and proud, the perfect guard to the Queen’s lands.

Except . . . something was all wrong. The male was wearing the kind of farshi servant dress he’d given to iAm before, and it was dripping with blood.

There was also a red-stained, serrated dagger in his hand that was as long as a male’s forearm.

“We don’t have a lot of time, come on,” the male said urgently.

Ordinarily, iAm would have thought twice about going anywhere with a Grim Reaper like that. But he’d already trusted the male once—and it was clear there was a coup in play.

Falling into a jog, he and Lassiter followed the executioner to the palace complex and entered the compound through a hidden door. Once inside, s’Ex led them through corridors that were utterly empty.

No servants. No courtiers.

And s’Ex had no apparent concern that they would be detained, questioned . . . threatened.

The male had either lost his mind or . . .

“What the hell is going on here?” iAm demanded.

“You’re the Anointed One, not your brother.”

iAm stopped so fast that Lassiter had jump to the side or mow him down. “What.”

“No time. Your brother’s being cleansed—he’s on death’s door. If you want to say good-bye to him, you’d better hurry up.”

As iAm just stood there, like someone had unplugged him, Lassiter and s’Ex grabbed him under the arms, jacked his feet off the ground, and carried him off.

A second later, he came to and forced his way out of their holds, taking control of his own feet. “It’s not possible,” he shouted over the pounding of their footfalls.

“The Queen forged the charts. You were the one all along—but you weren’t supposed to live for long after the birth. Trez was the better bet—for the Queen and for your parents.”

All at once, they burst into the main audience hall, and iAm found his feet faltering again.

Up on the dais . . . his maichen—the Princess—Christ, whoever the hell she was—was having the crown of the Territory placed upon her dark hair.

As about two thousand Shadows fell to their knees on woven silk mats, their heads bowing in supplication.

“She figured it out,” s’Ex said. “She figured it all out—even though it nearly cost her her life.”

“Where is the former Queen?”

“At the feet of the daughter.”

That was when he saw the severed head off to the side, black eyes staring out at the crowd, but seeing nothing.

“I believe in fate,” the executioner said. “I believe in the stars. This is the way it was meant to be.”

iAm shook himself. This was all really too much, and nothing that really concerned him. Trez, on the other hand. “My brother . . .”

“This way.”

* * *

When iAm finally burst into the room where Trez was, he lost his breath. His brother, his blood, was on a marble table, that big body twisted up in pain.

His first thought was that it reminded him of Selena, the way she had contorted.

iAm rushed over without acknowledging the other people who were standing around. Clasping Trez’s hand, he fell to his knees. “Trez . . . Trez . . . ?”

But there was no reaching his brother. He was gone, alive but transported somewhere else, as if his body had issued a temporary vacate order.

“No,” he heard himself say. “Not after all this . . . Trez, you’re free . . . you can stay with me, we’re free. . . .”

Well, sort of free if he himself was the Anointed One. But he couldn’t worry about that right now.

Fuck.

“Don’t leave me, my brother.”

“. . . antidote. We shall have to see.”

iAm looked up and saw AnsLai, the high priest, standing on the other side of the table. “What?”

“I gave him the antidote . . . as soon as I knew.” The male glanced at s’Ex. “But it may be too late. He was in a weakened state when he came here.”

iAm started talking, blathering about . . . shit, he didn’t know what.

It was all he could do.

As his brother twisted and turned, arms and legs sawing against a pain that iAm couldn’t even imagine, iAm was helpless. So helpless.

“. . . see you?” AnsLai asked him sometime later.

“What?” he said in a voice that was hoarse. Guess he hadn’t stopped talking.

“Your blooded parents. They have heard that you are both within the Territory—that you are rightfully the Anointed One, and they would like to—”

iAm bared his fangs and glared into the high priest’s worried eyes. “You tell those two that if they want to live they will never, ever approach me or my brother again. Do you understand? Tell them that the only thing that could distract me from Trez right now is murdering them both where they stand.”

The high priest blanched. “Yes. But of course.”

iAm refocused on his brother.

And resumed talking nonsense. Just as Trez had done to Selena as she was in the grips of passing.

Sometime later, he was dimly aware that a female came into the room. And he knew who it was by the echo of his own blood, but he did not acknowledge her.

He was too consumed by trying to keep Trez on the planet when, undoubtedly, the male was busy working to make his way to the far side.

EIGHTY-FOUR

Trez got his wish.

In the course of his dying from the cleansing, he learned that, in fact, there was a Fade. And yes, people of different traditions and faiths all went to the same place.

At some point, the pain became too much and his body gave out—and the abrupt lack of any sensation was a shock. Yet he welcomed the numbness.

And the sense of flight.

Soaring, he was soaring . . . until he found himself in a vast white landscape, a foggy landscape that, as he walked along, made him feel both weightless and grounded.

Soon enough, a door was presented to him. A door with a knob that he instinctively knew if he turned, would allow him to step into what was beyond and thereby never, ever go back to Earth.

And that was when he saw Selena.

Her face and form appeared to him not on the door, but in it, as if even closed, the panel contained three-dimensional space.

Instant. Joy. And it was the same for her, her smile radiating through the distance between them, their eye contact translating to a caress he felt throughout his body.

She was healthy. She was strong. She was whole.

“My queen!” he shouted, reaching for her.

But she put her palm out, stopping him. “Trez, you need to stay.”

He recoiled. “No. I need to be with you—this is the way it’s supposed to be—”

“No. You have more to do. You have things you need to do, people you have to meet. Your journey’s not done.”

“It sure as shit is.” Check him out with the cursing. Way to do the whole reunited-in-Heaven fantasy. “You’re dead and I want to be with you.”

“I’m going to be here, waiting for you.” She smiled again, and warmed him anew. “It’s wonderful where I am—I flew because of what you did, the way you freed me. I found flight and I am free and I am going to wait for you until your journey’s done.”

“No,” he moaned. “Don’t send me back.”

“I don’t have that power. But you do. Make the choice to stay down there—you have to take care of iAm. You need to pay him back for all the years he’s been there for you. It’s not fair for you to leave him alone. He will never be at peace, and he’s earned it.”

Well, hell. That was probably the only argument she could have made that had a chance of getting through to him.

Shit.

“What about us,” he moaned. Even though that was selfish. Childish. “What about me . . . I’m nothing without you.”

“I’ll come to you in the night sky. Look for me there.”

“Let me touch you—”

“Make the right choice, Trez. You have to make the right choice. You have a debt to repay to the one you have loved all your life.”

“But I love you,” he choked out, beginning to cry.

“And I love you, too—for eternity.” Her smile resonated through him. “Infinity and back, remember? I’ll be here waiting for you and for whoever else you love. That’s what the other side is. It’s just love.”

“Don’t leave. Oh, God, don’t leave me again—”

“I’m not. We’re separated, but not lost or truly apart. Do not mourn me, my love. I have not died. . . .”

* * *

“Selena!”

As iAm heard the shout, he jerked up from the base of the slab. Shit, some savior he was. He’d fallen a-fucking-sleep holding his brother’s—

“Trez?” he said, as he realized the guy had, by some miracle, almost twenty-four hours after the cleanse, come back to consciousness.

His brother was crying, tears spilling from his eyes, rolling down his cheeks.

“Trez? Are you back?” iAm jumped to his feet and leaned over the guy. “Trez?”

Those sunken black eyes shifted to his, and there was a long moment in which Trez seemed to struggle with what was or was not real.

“Trez?” iAm whispered, suddenly worried that the poison had eaten that brain up. “Are you—”

All at once those long, strong arms wrapped around him and jerked him off his feet.

And his brother was holding him.

And speaking.

“I’m here, I’m here, I’m here . . . for you, I am here. . . .”

At first the words didn’t register, but then . . .

“I’m not leaving you,” Trez said in a rough, scratchy voice. “I’m here and I’m not leaving you.”

Oh . . . shit.

They were the words iAm had said to the male in so many different variations throughout their lives together . . . words that had been represented by the deeds he had done, and days he had stayed up worrying, and years he had spent just praying they were going to make it through another night.

iAm collapsed on his brother’s now-scarred chest, his knees suddenly going out from under him.

In his fantasies, he had wondered what it would be like to be free of the curse of worrying about his brother.

He’d had a variety of iterations.

None came close to the real thing.

EIGHTY-FIVE

It was around noontime when Mary left the Brotherhood mansion . . . and the Shadow brothers returned.

Rhage had just sent his shellan off to Havers, after telling her that no, really, he was totally fine, when the security checkpoint at the main entrance went off.

Excusing himself from the restless cohort of his brothers in the billiard’s room, he beat Fritz to the monitor, and the instant he saw those two dark faces, he shouted.

“Who is it?” Butch asked.

“Who we’ve been waiting for!”

Releasing the locks, he positioned himself right at the inner doors—and there they were, looking like shit, both haggard and worn shadows of their former selves.

Har-har, hardy-har-har.

But they were alive. They were together. And the sight of them upright, walking and talking, relieved a little bit of the pressure that had been riding his chest for nights now.

“Hey, my man,” he said, embracing the nearest one, and then going to the other.

Trez’s voice was thin, but strong enough. “Hey, thanks for everything.”

“Thank you so much for—”

“Trez, buddy, good to see you—”

“Jesus Christ—what a story—”

“iAm, welcome back—”

And so it went, the Brotherhood filing out of the billiards room along with the females of the house, the greetings and exchanges like those of war survivors.

Or almost-war survivors . . .

“Oh, my God, you two made it back in time for Steve Wilkos!”

Everyone halted and looked at Lassiter, who was standing in the archway, naked to the waist in nothing but black leathers, that I’M HORNY baseball cap with its silver lamé protrusion sticking out the front of his head—and a pair of giant fuzzy slippers on his feet which, if you put them together, formed a complete Dalmatian.

The angel had returned twelve hours ago, saying that the pair of them were safe, but there was no telling whether Trez was going to make it. And for once, the asshat had seemed utterly and completely devastated by something. To the point where he’d been inconsolable.

In the silence following that happy TV announcement, Trez stared across the foyer . . . and then burst out laughing.

The poor bastard laughed so hard, he had to wrap his arms around his middle and wipe tears from his eyes.

As everybody joined in, the Shadow tilted his head up to the ceiling and said, “Thank you, my queen. I needed this.”

Then he walked over to the fallen angel and embraced the guy. Words were said, serious ones that made Lassiter duck his eyes.

Because he seemed to be tearing up.

But then the jackass broke rank and said, “Now take your hands off my ass. I’m not that kind of girl.”

And that struck the tone for the rest of the day. Rather like rolling a bandage over a wound, the community wrapped itself around the two Shadows, drawing them into the billiards room, offering them food and drink.

It was clear that, in spite of that moment of levity, Trez was hurting badly. He was wearing some kind of gray robe, and his skin was nearly the same color as the cloth. But he seemed determined to be present and participate.

iAm, on the other hand, appeared to have a serious case of vertigo. Like a guy who’d just stepped off a boat that had sustained heavy waves, he steadied himself on various things . . . the pool table, the sofa, the bar.

He declined the offer of booze. Took Coke instead.

Rhage was so damned happy they were home in one piece, but even so, he couldn’t man up for too much interaction. He told himself it was because of the raid on the Lessening Society they were going to do at that prep school with Assail and those two cousins.

It could well be a historic slaughter.

And then there was always the Band of Bastards on his mind. Even if he and his brothers killed off all the slayers and the Omega needed time to recoup the losses, there were still Xcor and his boys to worry about.

But the reality was, he still didn’t feel right.

And after a time, he became aware that he wasn’t the only one.

Layla was likewise standing on the periphery, one hand on her belly, her eyes straight ahead but not really focused on anything.

“You okay?” he asked as he went over to her. “You need Doc Jane or something?”

When she didn’t reply, he leaned in, “Layla?”

She jumped, and he reached out to calm her, as she mumbled, “I’m sorry, what?”

“Are you all right?”

“Oh. Yes.” She gave him the same sort of smile he’d given his Mary. “I’m fine.”

He was tempted to call her on the bullshit, but he wouldn’t have appreciated anyone doing that to him.

“You want me to call Qhuinn over?”

The male and Blay were talking with iAm, both of them nodding their heads . . . only to recoil in shock, as if they couldn’t believe the story that had, up until now, been delivered secondhand by Steve Wilko’s PR man over there with the phallic symbol on his forehead.

“Oh, no. No, thank you.”

As Rhage took in her affect, he thought, man, he really was as selfish as he thought he was. She had lost her blooded sister Selena just days ago.

Of course she would look like some version of Trez.

Standing next to her, Rhage wished he could help somehow. But he worried that he was as incapable of doing anything for her . . . as he was defining this seismic shift that had somehow occurred under his skin.

Ostensibly, everything was the same and all was well.

He just felt like a different male for no good reason.

And that . . .

 . . . that he found terrifying.

* * *

Across town, at Abalone’s Tudor mansion, Paradise was sitting up in her own bed, in her own room, staring at the wall across the way.

She supposed she should have been happy. According to her father, the threat from the s’Hisbe had been neutralized, and everyone was safe . . . but she was completely unsettled.

Of course, she’d moved back home.

In spite of all her independent-streak posturing, the reality of living away from her father in uncertain times was just too dangerous. And this was a step back from her autonomy.

At least she still had her job—

The knock on her door was quiet.

“Yes?” she said.

As the panels swung wide, her father appeared in between the jambs. He was in his navy-blue silk bathrobe, the one that had the family crest stitched into the breast and the tie that was as long as the hem.

“You’re still up?” she asked.

“I could not sleep.”

“So much going on.”

“Yes.” He hesitated, looking around her room as if he were renewing himself with its acquaintance. “May I come in?”

“Of course, it is your house.”

“Our home,” he corrected gently.

When he only got as far as the edge of that needlepoint rug that covered the floor, she frowned. “Are you not feeling well?”

He opened his mouth to speak. Closed it. Tried again.

Failed.

Moving her legs over, she sat up. “Father?”

Her father finally came all the way forward, and that was when she saw that he had something in his hand. A piece of paper.

In lieu of an answer, he offered whatever it was to her.

“What is this?” she said as she took the thing.

Looking down, she frowned.

“Oh . . . my God,” she breathed. “My God . . .”

It was the application to the Brotherhood’s training program. And he had filled all of it out, in his own hand.

For her.

“Father!” Leaping up, she threw her arms around him. “Thank you! Thank you!”

He held on to her. “It’s a safety issue,” he said roughly. “I just . . . you’re right. You need to learn how to fight. The idea that sometime you might be unprotected in some capacity . . .” He pulled back. “You’re right. You need to learn.”

He was clearly, in the words of Peyton, shitting Twinkies at the thought—but that was what made the gesture so grand. Even though he was scared . . . he was going to let her go anyway.

“Thank you,” she said, grabbing onto him. “I’ll be careful! I promise!”

Assuming she got in. Jeez, she’d better start working out if she was going to pass the physical-requirements test.

“I promise,” she vowed, “I’ll be careful.”

“I shall be praying for that,” he all but groaned. “Every single night.”

“I love you, Father!”

He closed his eyes as if he were on a roller-coaster ride he wasn’t sure he could handle. “And you, dearest Paradise, have my heart.”