Elysian (65 page)

Nevermore lets out a bloodcurdling cry. A snicker of laughter bubbles from behind, and I turn just enough to find Chloe eating up every word.

Crap.

“What do you mean guilty?” I race forward to the edge of the waterline. “If the Kraggers were following the proper imprisonment and torture techniques for Celestra then doesn’t stopping the enemy from hurting your people qualify as a legalized form of warfare?”

“On what planet?” she snipes back.

Chloe lets out a soft laugh, and a rage brews in me. My vision blurs from my newfound anger.

“On fucking,
Earth
,” I shout loud as a cannon blast.

Ahava stills. No one says a word.

My mother slits her lids in my direction. Her lips pull in a thin straight line.

“Ezrina MacHatter, please step forward.” She tips her head back as Ezrina hobbles a few steps closer. “I damn your form to eternal servitude to the Countenance because it was your desire to extinguish lives in direct defiance of your elders. Let this be an example to the nonconformist among you who reason it is a good idea to do the same. Heathcliff, your form shall remain as a bird. Should the hunter’s bow pierce you—you’ll cease to exist.” Her gavel goes off, and I jump a little. Things have gone to shit rather quickly, and there’s nowhere to point the finger but me. On the bright side, at least things didn’t get any worse for the two of them. “One more stipulation.” Knew it. “A binding spirit shall keep your forms apart creating a chasm that projects into all eternity.”

Ezrina falls to her knees. Her face drops into her chest. Nevermore jumps on her back and expands his wings across her shoulders as if he were giving her a hug, shielding her from my mother’s impending wrath.

I open my mouth to tell my “mother” a thing or two just as her attention reverts to me.

“As for you Skyla—”

“Wait.” Logan steps forward. His amber eyes glow a peculiar shade of yellow. “Please”—he gets down on his knees—“if there is any penance due let it all fall on my shoulders. Skyla was merely an unwilling passenger who was dragged along for the ride. She did nothing wrong. It was my idea, my initiation. Spare her. Settle the blame square on my shoulders. That’s where it truly belongs.”

Chloe rolls her eyes and sticks a finger down her throat. I’d like to stick something down her throat, the spirit sword to be exact.

The Justice Alliance talks amongst themselves—and perhaps it had worked and Logan had swayed them, but there is no way in hell I’m going to let him fall on his sword.

“May I?” My father politely clears his throat a moment.

“Of course, Nathan.” My mother rolls out her hand for him to continue.

“I don’t believe you’ll find either Logan or Skyla guilty of malfeasance as you’ve suggested.”

“Nathan,” my mother bleats with disappointment at his anemic effort to save us.

“Logan came to me in the past,” he continues. “We strategized how to best clip the enemy in an effort to undermine their efforts on the war before it officially began. I believe it was you, yourself Candace, who gave me the authority as tactician and within that authority I advised Logan to destroy the enemy by any means possible, even death.” He gives a little bow and steps back into me.

Way to go, Dad.

I marvel at him wide-eyed for a minute.

She seals a steely gaze over him as if he had challenged her in an offensive manner.

“Very well.” She concedes a dim smile. “Orders to kill by an elder for the faction you are fighting is valid, thus disrupting the very basis for this case. Logan, Skyla, your case is thereby dismissed.”

My heart dips into my stomach. I blink back tears as my entire person swims with relief. I latch onto my father and hold on like a hurricane was about to sweep through. From the corner of my eye, Nevermore catches my attention. He nuzzles his face in Ezrina’s neck and gives a weak squawk. Ezrina rises, and a strangled cry comes from deep in her throat.

I let go of my father and take a step back because I know what comes next.    

“Mine.” She hooks those terrible eyes over me. Her haggard frame scurries in my direction.

“No.” I latch onto my father’s waist as if it made any difference.

The nest of lightning quickens and churns high above the lake as all eyes feast on the spectacle taking place.

“Covenant,” she hisses. Ezrina turns to my mother. “Her body for mine—Logan’s for Heathcliff. Those are the terms delineated by your flesh, should the outcome for my love and I be anything but favorable.”

Figures. The one time Ezrina strings together more than three words and it’s to damn me.

“Very well.” My mother sounds her gavel and flicks a finger in the air as if bored by the entire scene.

“Very well?” I scoff. “You’re just going to stand there and watch as I transform into a hag that has to spend eternity submerging Counts in liquid Drano?”

“Yes, Skyla,” she balks. “These were your terms. The covenant has the seal of your word—of your
authority
,” she says that last part as if offering me a clue.

“Authority…” I whisper. I glance back at Logan and Gage, and they both give a knowing nod. Chloe and Holden stand side by side, and a brilliant idea surges in me. “Yes?” I bite down on a smile over at Logan and Gage.

“Yes.” Logan nods assuredly.

Holy shit. This is perfect! A wave of shock and surprise rockets through me. I’m going to do this. I’m going to right all the wrongs right here, right now, all by my fucking self, and I’m amazed at how beautiful it is. My body seizes, and I jump with excitement. I bound over to Logan and lock him in a heroic embrace before bouncing to Gage.

“Yes!” I give a victorious cry. “Don’t ever let Chloe Bishop die, Gage! You hear me?” I dig my fingers into his shoulders and shake him with excitement.

“I hear you, Skyla.” He presses in a sweet kiss right over my lips. “I promise, I’ll reveal this to myself in a vision—then to you.”

I pull him in and hold him a very long time. This was the vision, and now everything is clear.

“Skyla!” My mother whacks that overgrown ruby stone against an invisible counter like she was trying to kill a spider. “Do let the rest of us in on this supposed stroke of genius.”

I look to Chloe and Holden and lower my gaze a moment.

“I, as the overseer of the factions, would like to decree my first edict.”

Ezrina and Nev both turn to face me.

“I, Skyla Messenger, charge Chloe Bishop with the death of Logan Oliver.”

“What?” Chloe steps over and gives a bold laugh at my proclamation. “This was war, Skyla. It was my duty to kill him.”

“It was treason. Logan was one of your Countenance brothers, and you killed him.”

“He was a defector,” she fires back.

“So were
you
.” I stand firm in my judgment. “Holden”—I turn to face the sniveling coward—“I have evidence you’ve been supplicating your Count round table meetings by soliciting sexual favors from minors which is perfectly illegal in
any
realm, and I damn you for ever touching my sisters.”

“Dude.” He tosses his hands back. “I thought we were good.”

“We were until you started to align my own family against me. Don’t think for a minute you’ll ever get near one of them again.”

“It was her idea!” He points hard at Chloe. “She’s got this sick vendetta against your entire family.”

Chloe growls as if she were unraveling at the wicked seams. “Everything yours was supposed to be mine, Skyla.”

My mother gives a placid smile. “You were a ruse—an imposter to divert the enemy. As soon as you achieved your purpose, you were discarded.”

“How dare you.” Chloe spits the words in my mother’s face.

“How dare I?” My mother enlivens with fury. “Does not the potter have jurisdiction over the clay? To form one for noble purposes, and the other for ignoble? Who are you to speak to me that way? You could have diverted from evil. No one ushered you into wickedness but yourself. Once your work was through as the ruse, you were to assist Skyla with her work as the overseer, but you’ve disqualified yourself by betraying her countless times over—as well as initiating the death of my husband, Stella Landon, and in, an effort to thwart the plan of the Countenance to raise a powerful ruler within their faction, you killed her eldest child.” She glowers over at Chloe. “Wrong child by the way.”

I take in a breath. Drake is destined to be one of the Counts great rulers? Is that what I’m supposed to believe?

“It was a female heir.” My mother slips her gaze to me a moment as if to offer me a clue. Mystery?
Melissa
? Either one seems impossible. Although, I suppose the silver lining is that Count and Celestra relations will improve dramatically since we’ll literally be related. “She will be a thorn in your side, Skyla. But not yet, not for a time to come.” She offers a complacent smile. “As for now, do issue your edict. This entire ordeal is running a bit long for me.”

“Right.” I cut a glance to my father, and he offers me a solid thumbs up. “Chloe Bishop is to live out her days in the form of Ezrina MacHatter to appease the covenant in which I entered into with her. Same goes for Holden and Heathcliff—now switch,” I say it sharp, but nothing happens.

Chloe starts in on a low-lying laugh. She builds to an all-out cackle as if I were impotent and, well, apparently I am because jack shit happened.

“Is this to be your first ruling?” My mother tips her head back.

I glance over at Chloe as her face fills with fear.

“It is.” I expand my chest, proud and certain of what I’m about to do.

“No!” Chloe barks. “I gave you that damn pendant. You promised you’d spare my life—not turn me into some wicked old troll.”

“I lied.” I bleed a black smile.

My mother taps her gavel just enough to garner our attention. “The matter has concluded. Holden be prepared to have your spirit removed. The charges of sexual perversion while acting as an elder in your faction have been verified.”

The sand on the shoreline picks up and forms a dust devil, seven feet high. It zigzags its way over, washing through Holden, then Nevermore—then back again.

“Skyla!” Holden, well, I guess Heathcliff holds out his arms and admires his new fleshly home. “You’ve done it child. You’ve removed the curse.”

Chloe points hard at my mother. “You sentenced them!” She shouts with a visceral rage. “You can’t let Ezrina and Nev off the hook. They have to pay for their crimes, or your very word is null and void.” Chloe has the balls to wag her finger in my mother’s face.

“Skyla, inform Ms. Bishop of what my punishment detailed.” She gives a slow spreading smile into Chloe, never taking her crystal cut eyes from her.

“I believe the punishment was decreed to their
form
, never once mentioning the spirit that was detained in it.”

“Well done.” My mother tilts her head as though she were impressed. Honestly, it was the equivalent of a spiritual high five. My mother and I tag-teamed Chloe, and she never saw it coming. Well, neither did I, but that’s beside the point.

The sand rises again in a whirlwind and sways in Chloe’s direction.

Chloe glowers into me. Her entire being demands retribution.

“You are going to pay for this, Skyla.” Her chest heaves as she looks past me to Gage. “You will never be free of me. You will suffer greatly, the both of you. Mark this day. This is the beginning of the end of Skyla Messenger.” The tunnel of sand engulfs her. Chloe tips her head back as it dances its way to Ezrina and blows back to Chloe’s empty shell of a body.

The dust devil twirls its way to the shore and collapses as though the exchange, the horror and the glory, never happened.

“Ezrina?” I step into Chloe with caution.

“Child.” She throws her arms around me and offers a giant hug, but I keep my eyes open in the event it’s still Chloe, and she decides to thrust a spirit sword in my back.

“Well done, Skyla,” my mother chimes. “Let the edict stand.” She crushes her gavel against the firmament, and it dashes to pieces.

Chloe fumes in her newly haggard state. She turns to face me fully with her piecemealed face, her hair of fire, the dowager’s hump that is now forever hers.

“Skyla,” she gruffs. Then in a moment of curiosity she examines her hands, and they spring new, like that of a girl. Her back straightens while her eyes remain wide with wonder. “I am beautiful,” she whispers. “I am me.” Her body melts and restructures itself until she is every bit her old self again, and I take a step back toward the protective shelter of my father unsure of what the hell to make of the scene. Chloe’s hair lengthens to her waist, thick and beautiful, black as midnight. Her features sharpen. Her body grows altogether lovely, far more beautiful than she had ever been. She lets out a wild cackle as she takes me in.

Why does it feel like I’ve just been bested by Chloe Bishop?

“What’s going on?” I demand of my mother. Thankfully Holden is still locked in the body of that raven, but now I just think of him as Nevermore. And a sick part of me wishes Nevermore was still my bird.

“Simple.” My mother shrugs. “The original curse never detailed a creature of horror. Ezrina elected her haggard state.”

“What?” Nev steps into Ezrina while clothed in Pierce Kragger’s body, and I swallow hard, still trying to wrap my head around what’s happened. “I thought the punishment demanded you retract your beauty?”

Ezrina purses her lips. “I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone looking at me the way you did. Especially not the Counts,” she says through Chloe’s lips. “The only one I ever wanted to look at me that way was you.” She touches her fingers to his hair.

“Very well then,” my mother sings. “Be gone, the two of you.” She flicks her wrist at Chloe and Holden.

Chloe latches her eyes over mine. She’s memorizing this moment—funneling all of her hatred, all of her nefarious intentions in my direction. And then, like a ghost, she’s gone.

Holden lifts off his talons and suctions upward toward the nest of lightning until he, too, is no longer seen.

Chloe Bishop has come to an end.

Sort of.

“Court is convened,” my mother says without emotion as though we’ve just conducted the most banal of meetings. “We’ll see the rest of you on coronation day.”