Spirit Ascendancy (12 page)

“’When Keeper and Protector shall unite

And forth from this forbidden union shall be spawned

Two as one from single womb, and Keepers both,

Then shall the greatest of battles commence.

For One shall be Caller with powers unmatched

To reverse the Gates, and call forth the Hordes

To bend to her will and that of our foes,

And One will have to make the choice

Twixt blood and calling, twixt kindred and kin

For she will have the power of sacrifice to end it all

And leave the world until the end of days

To the Darkness or the Light.’

“As I say, we have studied the prophecy with great care. What do you know of your father, child?”

“Nothing. My mother would never talk about him, and the Durupinen have never been able to discover his identity.”

“She would have wanted to keep it a secret, if he was a Guardian,” Ileana said, scratching thoughtfully at a mole on her chin. “The Caller, you say, is your twin sister?”

“Yes,” I said. “She is… very powerful.”

“I don’t doubt that, if the Necromancers have taken this much interest in her,” Ileana said with another cackle. “And you can bet they’ll be testing just how powerful, now that they’ve got their claws in her.”

Milo made an angry feline sound, but Ileana continued before he lost it in another outburst.

“The Northern Clans have only ever focused on the possible destruction foretold in the prophecy, but the prophecy could very well mean the salvation of all we hold dear. The key to our survival seems to be in your hands, that you will have the “power of sacrifice to end it all.”

I swallowed hard. “Yes. I’m sorry, but I still don’t know what that part of it is supposed to mean. It’s not that I’m not willing to make some kind of sacrifice to help us get out of this, but I don’t know what that sacrifice is supposed to be. I don’t know how I’m supposed to be able to help.”

“We believe that we do,” she said baldly.

My stomach lurched, as though I’d missed a step going down stairs. “You do?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what is it?” I blurted out, more loudly than I’d intended. I feared for a moment that Ileana might mistake my fear for disrespect, but she did not flinch in the slightest.

She went on, “Before I tell you, there is something you need to understand about how the Gateways work, which may have already been explained to you. The energy is only meant to flow in one direction. It is the natural flow of the universe that our life energy travels beyond the Aether when we die. If your sister manages to reverse it, not only will the effects be devastating, but they will be irreversible from this side of the Aether. There will be nothing anyone here can do to stop it.”

Her words dropped into me like a stone. “So what can I possibly do?”

“The Gateway could be closed again, but only from the other side of the Aether.”

“But then, how could I be the one to close it? How can I get to the other side to do it, unless…”

Ileana just gazed at me, waiting for the terrible truth to close over me, like dark, dark water.

The power of sacrifice. The other side of the Aether. Oh my God.

“I…are you telling me… would I need to be…
dead
?”

Milo gasped. Finn stiffened beside me. Savvy and Annabelle both started forward with cries of protest, but quieted at once at a single quelling look from Ileana. She surveyed the room imperiously, to make sure there would be no more interruption, before continuing.

“A logical question, but a complicated one as well. The answer is both yes and no.”

“How can that be?” I asked, my voice rising in my panic. “How can a person be alive and dead at the same time? There is no in between.”

“For the average person, this is true. But for the Durupinen, there is a way. It is dangerous, and even taboo, but in this circumstance, it is the only way you could possibly do what you must and still survive. You must become a Walker.”

No one reacted because no one knew what the hell she was talking about. I glanced over at Annabelle, but she looked as clueless as I felt. I waited for Ileana to expand upon her pronouncement, but it seemed that she wouldn’t without a direct request, which I could barely get the breath to formulate.

“What does that mean, to be become a Walker?”

“A Walker is one who can leave her body and travel the earth in spirit form,” Ileana explained. “While separated from the spirit, the body remains in a state of suspended animation, neither living nor dead, but simply waiting for the return of its soul. The Durupinen who can take this form is also capable of reentering her body and rejoining the spiritual and the physical without any lasting implications.”

My heart was thudding so wildly in my chest, I felt sure Ileana could have looked down and seen it twitching beneath my shirt. It was the only sound in the room, that and the quiet whisper of Savannah behind me.

“Bloody hell.”

Ileana seemed not to hear her, and went on, “I should tell you, that very few Durupinen are capable of Walking. It takes a particularly strong will to resist the urge to remain in spirit form. You must remember that our souls are protected by our gift. We spend so much time in close proximity to the Gateways, that our bodies must protect our souls from escaping to answer the powerful call of the other side. So when a Walker leaves her body, her will must be stronger than her spirit’s desire to cross. There is no way to know if this will be the case until the body and soul have parted company. And then, of course, it is too late.”

I licked my lips, which had suddenly gone dry. “And how do you know that I can become a Walker?”

“I don’t.”

Right. Well, then.

“So I’m supposed to just… try it and see what happens?”

“Yes.”

Finn stepped forward, chest heaving. “I cannot allow that.”

Ileana raised one perfectly arched black eyebrow. “It is not for you, Guardian, to allow or disallow anything. This is a decision for the Durupinen to make.”

“It is my duty to protect her, and I will not stand aside and let her—”

“Your duty is to the Gateway, not to this girl,” Ileana snapped.

It was my turn to bristle. “I have a name, and if you are expecting me to risk my life to save your precious order, you better start using it!”

I heard Annabelle’s sharp intake of breath behind me. She thought I’d gone too far, but I held my ground. I was not a nameless pawn in this power struggle, and I would not be used like one.

It was clear from her sour expression that Ileana was biting back a scathing response. She swallowed it like something bitter and replied, more calmly than I could have hoped, “You are correct, Jessica. You must forgive me. Your existence has been purely theoretical for so long that I have not considered the very human elements at play. This decision will be your own, and it will be a difficult one. However, I must tell you that the prophecy makes every indication that you will be able to Walk. It states that you have the power of sacrifice.”

“Sure, but it doesn’t say how big of a sacrifice I would be making. I mean, throwing myself off the nearest clifftop would be a pretty big sacrifice, but not one I’m willing to make,” I said.

“Is there a sacrifice too great, to save the spirits of the world from the perverse desires of the Necromancers, or to preserve the Durupinen from destruction?” Ileana asked.

“What kind of rubbish question is that?” Savvy shouted.

“Savvy, don’t—”

“No, it’s not right, Jess!” she cried, pushing forward to stand next to me. The Caomhnóir on either side of Ileana stepped swiftly forward, but Ileana waved them back with a grunt, as though disgusted that they thought Savvy a real threat. Savvy looked like she would have swung at them if they’d gotten any closer, and I didn’t doubt she’d have done some damage. “You’ve got some nerve, asking this girl to sacrifice herself for your bloody order.”

“Tread carefully, Savannah, or you will be asked to leave,” Anca said.

“No, she’s right,” I said, my own ire ignited by a spark from Savannah’s. “The Durupinen have done almost nothing for me but ruin my life. This so-called gift has been much more curse than blessing. I’ve lost my mother. My grandfather has been completely destroyed. My sister has spent her entire life poked and prodded by doctors who think she’s lost her mind. And since we were finally clued in to what’s been going on, we’ve been ostracized and demonized, made to feel like freaks and outcasts because of decisions we had no part in. We only narrowly escaped being thrown into a dungeon, and maybe even worse. And now my sister has been captured, having God-knows-what done to to her at this very moment while we stand around trying to figure out what the hell, if anything, I have to do with this ancient prophecy. So you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t exactly have all kinds of warm and fuzzy feelings toward the Durupinen at the moment. I’m nowhere near ready to sacrifice my life just to preserve the sanctity of your little club.”

“It is your ‘little club’, too, lest you forget,” Ileana said calmly. It seemed she was above letting my temper phase her. In fact, judging by the smirk on her face, my anger amused her.

“Yeah, I withdrew my membership when they started talking about imprisoning me,” I snapped.

“We both know you can’t withdraw your membership,” Ileana said. “And because of this, the rise of the Necromancers will impact you greatly, as you well know.”

“I’m pretty sure dying would affect me just a bit more, don’t you?” I snarled, opening and closing my fists at my sides.

“Perhaps, and perhaps not. The reversal of the Gateways will not only affect the Durupinen, but the entire world. The influx of spirit activity will hardly go unnoticed, but an increase in the ghostly sightings will be the least of our problems. What do you know of the Wraiths?”

I was pulled up short. I glanced at Finn, but he was looking puzzled as well.

“The what?”

“Nothing, then,” Ileana said, sounding almost satisfied. “You were telling the truth when you said they have not kept you well informed. The reversal of the Gateway will unleash a horror we understand only from myth and legend. We do not know of any spirit in living memory that has been pulled from beyond the Gateway, but there are legends and written historical accounts by our ancestors of such beings. When a spirit is pulled back to earth after crossing over, it is no longer a spirit as we have come to know them. The humanity, the part of the spirit that remembers who it was in life, has been stripped away; it remains behind on the other side, unable to return. All that remains when it arrives again among the living is a hollow shell of spirit energy. It retains the form and appearance of its human self, but the soul is gone.”

So, it was basically a ghost zombie. I shuddered at the thought.

Ileana continued, “A Wraith is nothing more than a hollow force of nature that can be controlled, manipulated, and twisted to the will of those who have brought it back to earth. In this form, they can be used to wreak all manner of havoc upon the world. If even one were to return, it would be a terrible thing for whomever it may encounter. But for hordes and hordes of them to return, and to be wielded as a spirit army?”

She let the question hang, tantalizing in the air, begging an answer. But she didn’t need to answer it. I’d seen what would happen if the Wraiths were unleashed in the world. I’d scrawled it, with raw and bleeding hands, all over the walls of the entrance hall at Fairhaven. Destruction. Chaos. A scene reminiscent of Doomsday lore.

“And so we do not ask you to Walk only for the fate of the Durupinen. We hope that you will consider it for the good of humanity at large. If the Wraiths return and the Necromancers are left to control them, there is no limit to the damage they could inflict on the world of the living.”

“Oh, okay, so you are actually asking me to save the world. No pressure there,” I said weakly.

Ileana said nothing in response, which only gave her earlier words more time and space to sink in.

I chanced another glance at Finn. He was staring at Ileana with the same dumbfounded expression I must surely be wearing. She was staring at me as though expecting an answer imminently. To stall for time, I asked another question.

“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I decided to do this—to become a Walker. Is there someone who can show me how to do it? Are there at least instructions or some kind of incantation that I can follow? Or am I on my own?”

“There are those who could instruct you, should you choose to move forward,” Ileana said, who, for all her lofty indifference, betrayed a definite tone of relief that I was at least discussing the possibility.

“You mean there are Walkers here in the camp?” I asked, surprised.

I could have been mistaken, but I thought she hesitated. Her eyes definitely flicked in Anca’s direction before she said firmly, “No. But there are those who have studied the practice extensively, and can tell you all we know of how it is done.”

“Right. Okay, here’s another hypothetical question. If I do actually manage to Walk, and to make it to the other side of the Gateway to close the door, how do I get back to this side? Or are you sending me on some kind of suicide mission?” I wouldn’t have put it past any member of the Durupinen at this point in the game.

“You would not be able to manage it on your own,” Ileana admitted readily enough. “But your sister, as the most powerful Caller the world has ever seen, should be able to Call you back from the other side. The connection between you will leave you tethered to the living while she remains here, and her gift will be your salvation. That is why it must be you, and no one else.”

“Aren’t we forgetting something kind of important here?” Milo said after about five seconds of loaded silence.

“What is that, Spirit Guide?” Ileana asked, pulling a sunflower seed from the folds of her skirt and poking it through the bars to her raven’s eager mouth.

“Hannah!” he cried, throwing his hands up in the air. “All of this can be avoided if we can just find her and get her back from the Necromancers before they force her to open the Gateway!”