On Wings of Chaos (Revenant Wyrd Book 5) (7 page)

Jovian stood, and on bare feet crossed the granite floor to crouch naked before the window. The chill of the air made him shiver, even if it felt good against his fevered flesh. He would need to start the fire up higher before going back to bed, but it would be hard to sleep now that his sheets were wet.

With a sigh he sat before the window. There was something about the eagle that he recognized, though he had rarely seen golden eagles. Something about the eyes looked intelligent, almost human.

Jovian found himself reaching for the handle of the window before he could stop himself. Unlatching the window, he pulled open one side. A gust of wind intruded on the dark room, showering him in cold and snow.

He stepped back as the eagle hopped into the room. Now that it was in the room with him, Jovian felt silly for having opened the window at all. Looking at the magnificent bird’s claws, Jovian began to realize he could very well be hunted by this creature as any rabbit would be.

He took a step back, but before he could move far, the eagle hunkered down on the carpet and started to shiver. The sound of bones popping filled the air, and in disgust, Jovian watched the bird ripple like water, its form lengthening with every pop of bone and snap of sinew. As the figure elongated, feathers retracted into skin and wings formed into arms, tipped with hands and then strong fingers. The talons of the feet snapped into toes and the legs lengthened, growing dark hair. The face cracked and popped until it looked like a mound of concaved mud, and then it took shape again, into the face of a human.

When it was done, a very naked, very cold Maeven Beggets laid on the floor before Jovian, shivering amidst the snow.

"What in the realms were you thinking?" Jovian said, shutting the window tight and gathering a blanket off his bed to throw over the other man.

"I wanted to see you," Maeven said through chattering teeth. "Grace wouldn't let me near you while you were out of it, and I needed to know if you were safe."

Jovian gathered Maeven in his arms, helped him to stand, and then repositioned him before the fire, which he set about building back up. He set a pot of water in front of the flames and then came back to Maeven.

"Where did you get the water?" Maeven asked.

"Supposed to be for my bath in the morning; it's safe to drink," Jovian said.

"Your face," Maeven said, trailing shivering fingers down the length of Jovian's face, tracing the scar that ran from his eyebrow, down across his nose, and over the opposite cheek. Jovian relaxed into the touch until Maeven's hands were cupping his injured cheek. He breathed Maeven’s scent deeply: like a pine forest after a summer's rain. He felt muscles relax that he hadn’t realized were tense.

"Father was killed," Jovian said in a hushed voice. "This was a token from the grigori who did it."

"What happened to the grigori?" Maeven asked.

"Astanel was there. Apparently he was being used by the fallen angel, and he used some kind of dark wyrd to banish the grigori past the Black Gates," Jovian told him. Maeven rubbed Jovian's cheek.

He pulled Jovian closer to him, opening up his blankets so Jovian could crawl in with him, then folding them back over him.

"I've missed you," Maeven whispered to him, pulling Jovian closer.

Jovian sighed deeply, allowing himself to relax into the warmth of the other man. "I'm sorry about Fairview Heights," Jovian told him.

"What's to be sorry for?" Maeven asked, and then laughed.

"Treating you like you weren't important, using you for. . ."

"Oh, well, I didn't really mind being used for that," Maeven said wryly. "You needed to discover yourself."

"And in the mean time I discovered a lot of you." Jovian smirked, and he felt Maeven laugh behind him.

"You're a bird now," Jovian said after some time.

"Apparently that's a side effect of my shaman ways," Maeven told him. "You're a wyrder now."

"How could you tell?" Jovian wondered.

"Apparently all wyrders can sense energy. Yours is different."

"I think my wyrd is a side effect of my being part angel and all," Jovian told him.

"Have you accepted that yet?" Maeven asked.

Jovian shrugged.

"Your wyrd isn't like all others," Maeven said. "It's more pure. Almost holy."

"I guess it doesn't come from the well. It's because of what we are," Jovian said.

"Angel?" Maeven asked.

"Sylvie LaFaye," Jovian said. Maeven waited for him to explain. Jovian told him what Cianna had told Angelica and him.

"So, because of that, you’re different?" Maeven asked. He sounded bewildered.

"I guess," Jovian said. "I'm not sure how that would affect us so much, but it's the only thing that's different between us and Joya and Amber, so it has to be the answer."

"It has to do with the love your mother put into the act," Maeven told him.

"You think so?"

"I kinda know," Maeven said sheepishly. "I can feel it. Your mother's emotions changed your wyrd, giving you more of a link with the Ever After."

"How do you know all of this?" Jovian asked.

"By reading your wyrd," Maeven said.

"So I'm like a book to you?" Jovian asked.

"Your wyrd has flavors and scents to it that the animal side of me can read and interpret."

Jovian shivered against Maeven. The kettle started to whistle. Jovian peeled himself out of the blankets and made a cup of chamomile tea for Maeven before climbing back into the warm cocoon with him.

"Does that weird you out?" Maeven asked.

"What?"

"The animal side of me?"

Jovian thought for a moment. "I guess it doesn't, not really. It’s shocking to see, but I can relate, given the dreams I've been having lately of growing wings of my own, and considering that in another life, I was an angel that could change into a wolf."

"Dreams of becoming an angel?" Maeven asked. "Is this anything to do with the darkness growing in the west?"

"You've heard about that?" Jovian asked, a little startled. "How many people know of this?"

"There's room for debate on if it’s something that's actually happening or not," Maeven explained. "You know who Azra Akeed is?"

Jovian nodded.

"Apparently she thinks there’s a rising power in the west, a darkness like some angelic storm that is threatening to sweep over the realms if it’s not stopped. She thinks that's the reason for the attacks that have happened of late."

Jovian remembered vividly the attack on Joya in the Spire of Night, and the attack on his home. But even before that, the attack of the old caustic lady the night that a possessed Grace showed up and fought Porillon in Greenwood.

"I think there's something to what Azra says," Jovian admitted. There was a part of him, the side that was his mother, he presumed, that knew more about this. She could feel the darkness, in a way. The part of him that was still connected to his mother knew there was truth in what Azra said.

"Would you care to explain?" Maeven asked, taking a drink of his tea.

"Angelica and I have been dreaming of the Turquoise Tower," Jovian told him.

"Angelica and you?" Maeven asked.

"Yeah, since we’re connected through our mother. It's the dreams we've had of turning into angels. The Pale Horse is there, and this strange robed figure."

Maeven tensed at the mention of the Pale Horse. Last time Jovian had talked about the Pale Horse, he’d died.

"I know," Jovian said, accurately reading the rigidity of Maeven's body. "They’re just dreams, though."

"What does Grace say?" Maeven asked.

Jovian sighed. "That the dreams Angelica and I have are normally prophetic."

Maeven took a deep breath and pulled Jovian closer to him, resting his prickly chin, thick with whiskers, on the younger man's shoulder. "I hope this one isn't."

"But the dream is strange; it's like all of these half-breed angels have come there to burn away their humanity, like they’re called there, and their angelic side overrides the desire of their human blood. In his last one we had it seems like there’s about to be a war."

"Anything else?" Maeven asked when Jovian grew silent.

"That figure, the dark one with black wings. The black-winged half-breeds seem to pay homage to it."

"Arael?" Maeven asked.

"It seems familiar, though. . ."

"Arael would seem familiar to your mother’s memories," Maeven said.

"But it seems too delicate to be a guy."

Maeven didn't answer.

"Who knows?" Jovian sighed. "Just because the theme of the dream might come true, doesn't mean every nuance of it will, right?"

"Let's hope not," Maeven whispered.

It was warm for a winter’s day, the kind of warm that made Aladestra long for spring. A balmy breeze fluttered the leaves and blossoms in the terracotta pots along the parapets of the Ivory Tower. When Smith Hudson had found her and insisted that they go over his harvest reports, since they hadn’t had time since the fall, she sighed with resignation and told him that she would only go along with listening to his report if he did so on a walk.

Aladestra loved the view from the upper reaches of the Ivory Tower. The noise of the busy city crested the top of the tower in ebbs and flows, like waves of human voices and city bustle. The gentle rise and fall of the ivory roofs rippled out from the center of the city, thinning to smaller homes the further they were from the Ivory Tower and the hub of business in the Ivory City.

To be completely honest, Aladestra wasn’t listening to Smith at all. He droned on about the yield of mead produced in Meedesville. Then he would go on about how much they had taken, and how much was available to sell. Then he would do that with every crop the Holy Realm farmed.

She’d already read the report. Aladestra knew that wheat would be down because of the wyrded storm that had plagued the Neferis plantation, which was one of their largest producers of wheat. Aladestra knew there would be little of that to sell, so they would have to look to other realms to supplement their stores. She knew about the boost in tobacco, that corn was the same as last year, and that. . .

She didn’t have time to listen to him — not when there was a nice winter day before her, and her mind was at ease for the first time in a while.

That was, if she could avoid thinking about what was happening in the Realm of Earth. She stopped, and Smith stopped with her, though his recitation of his reports didn’t. She pulled her white shawl closer around her midnight-blue dress and gazed toward the north. She would never be able to glimpse the Realm of Earth from here; the Mountains of Nependier got in the way. But she could imagine her view if she could see that far.

Overhead a crow called, breaking her concentration. She sighed and turned, pressing her back to the wall of the parapet, gazing at the waterfall behind the city.

The Ivory City was nestled in a sort of gully within the Mountains of Nependier. Behind the city was a scenic backdrop: towering mountains which were red and silver from the weeds that grew along their heights. But the most spectacular sight were the Falls of Nependier, which cascaded down the mountains and into a basin that had been altered by human hands. Rivers flowed out of that basin and created a moat around the city.

And what a city it was. Aladestra was happy she had been chosen as the Guardian of the Holy Realm, because her seat of power was in the center of the largest city in all the realms. Not only did it sport all of the largest buildings, but it was the center for the arts, the center for most of the government, and the center of education.

There wasn’t one realm that governed all the others, but there were general bodies of government that tended to oversee certain aspects of all governments through the Realms. The Realm of Earth was in charge of all of their own workings, but there were certain boards, like the board of education and the board of wyrding, that were central to all realms, and presided over those fields in all the realms. The seats of those boards resided in the Ivory City.

And when there was a meeting of the Realm Guardians, it often happened in the Ivory City.