The Turquoise Tower (Revenant Wyrd Book 6) (42 page)

“This isn’t a death,” Sylvie said, letting her children go. “This is a birth.”

Russel stepped forward, clasped Jovian behind the head, and slanted his mouth over Jovian’s. In that embrace Jovian felt all the love he had ever felt for Maeven, all of the worry and grief of leaving the other man behind, melt away as a sea of tranquility washed over him from Russel’s lips.

Death breathed a new life into him. In that breath Jovian smelled the potential for the future, the promise of his soul. And then Russel was gone.

Jovian opened his eyes and gazed out on a field dappled with millions of flowers, all different colors, all different kinds. There was a tree in that field, though he knew it wasn’t his tree to call home. Behind the field, over the peaks of mountains, rose a towering city of radiant light.

He felt a presence at his side, and Angelica came to stand beside him.

“So that’s Her Kingdom?” Angelica asked, her voice filled with awe.

“That’s the Ever After,” Amber said, stepping between her brother and sister. “Come, they’re expecting you.”

“Who?” Jovian asked. His hand found solace in Amber’s. It was great to have found her once more. Though there was grief in his heart for Maeven, he was filled with the knowledge that before he could truly blink, Maeven would be with him once more.

“Everyone,” Amber told him.

“What happened?” Joya asked once the vibration in the earth ended. The tower stood in two halves, about half a mile apart, and in the center, sunk slightly in the dirt, was the altar room.

When the vibrations started, the black-winged angels had fled.

“I can only imagine it means we won?” Joya asked again, but Cianna wasn’t answering her. Her cousin stared off into space, horror etched on the planes of her face.

“What is it?” Joya asked. She didn’t need to ask. She could feel it nearly as strongly as Cianna could. Though she wasn’t a necromancer, something stronger bound her to her family: blood.

“But. . . ” her voice cracked, and she crumpled to her knees. “How?”

Cianna crouched beside her and gathered Joya into her arms as her younger cousin cried over the loss of her brother and sisters.

There was a flash of light, and when Joya raised her head to look, a figure that could have been herself strode across the bloodied ground toward her.

“Joya,” the raven-haired figure said, kneeling beside her. “My dear, sweet niece. I’m so sorry.”

Joya choked back her tears, dashed them from her eyes, and stood.

“Pharoh,” Joya said, settling her wings about her.

Her aunt reached for her, but Joya wouldn’t take her hands. She stepped away from her aunt. She was a sorceress, and after all, the greatness of her power was purchased with the death of those around her. Surviving while those she loved withered and died around her. At least now they wouldn’t wither.

A wave of grief swam up to consume her. With a force of will, Joya pushed it back down.

“What happened?” Joya asked her.

Pharoh explained everything she had learned from her sister, Sylvie, at the moment of Angelica and Jovian’s death. Joya remembered the vision on the glass they had seen in Vorustum-Apaleer. When Sylvie had killed Arael, he’d turned to smoke, and that smoke had gathered up around their mother. That must have been when he slipped in.

Joya felt sick to her stomach.

“And I blame you.” Joya said. Pharoh wouldn’t look up to meet her niece’s eyes. Power rippled from Joya, and for a moment she wished her aunt would look up at her, argue with her, because Joya would have liked nothing more than to lash out at Pharoh. “You were the weak one. You were the one who gave in to Arael in the first place. You paved the way for all of this to happen. I blame you for their deaths. Don’t ever visit me again, Pharoh LaFaye. You aren’t welcome here.”

Joya turned from her aunt, unfolding her white wings.

“Joya,” Cianna said. “Where are you going?”

“I have a duty,” Joya said, steeling her resolve.

“Joya,” Cianna said, her voice weaker this time. “They were also my family.”

Despite her resolve, a sob broke free. Tears washed over her face again, and she stumbled.

Cianna grasped her cousin tight, easing her to the ground. She rocked her, whispering comforting words into her ear.

In time Maeven found his way to them, having already surveyed the wreckage of the tower. His eyes were red, his nose running. He stood over Joya, grinding his teeth against the pain he felt swelling through his heart. His arms were clasped tight around his chest, as if he would hold that pain inside, clinging to it, holding that last part of Jovian to his heart.

Joya reached for him, taking his cold, bloodied hand in her own. He pulled her up to him and held her tight. There was something inside of him still that she recognized. Jovian. Her brother had loved this man, had given his heart to him, and had promised the wyrd of his future. In that Joya could feel her brother, and she took solace in Maeven.

She reached behind her and sought Cianna’s hand. This was her family now. Her cousin, and the man her brother had sworn his heart to.

“He loved you,” Joya said, running a hand through Maeven’s hair. “With every fiber of his being.”

Fresh tears coursed over Maeven’s face, and he looked away from her, unwilling to let her see him cry.

“For what it’s worth, Maeven Beggets, you will always be my brother. It’s what Jovian wanted.”

Maeven nodded, his jaws bunching as his teeth ground harder.

“I would be honored to call you sister.” His voice was thick, his words nearly incomprehensible.

“Where will you go from here?” Cianna asked him.

“I don’t know. Rosalee might need me.”

“You are always welcome in the Spire of Night,” Joya told him. She unfolded her wings, and stepped away from Maeven. “Rest there with me for a time?”

“I think I would like that,” Maeven agreed.

As the Realm of Water came to life that evening, the sun restored to its splendor and finally sinking into the western horizon, people looked skyward to see a procession of angels and one golden eagle soaring through the air to the Holy Realm.

The pyre was built in the ruins of Lytoria. Upon the stack of wood had been laid Caldamron, Clara, the High Votary, Annbell, and Astanel. On a separate pyre rested Angelica and Jovian, their wings wrapped around their bodies like shrouds against the pallor of death.

Joya surveyed the bodies of their dead, laid out on piles of oak, lilac flowers like pillows under their heads. She choked back the tears she had felt growing ever since she had come to Lytoria and seen Grace once more. She had embraced the old woman, and had allowed herself time to grieve. But grieving was over. She was a different person now. She was the Guardian of Shadows, and there would be time, when doors were closed, that she could let down her defenses.

“We commit to smoke this day the bodies of warriors who pushed back the tide of darkness from our lands. Brave people who gave their lives so that we could live. . .”

Joya’s mind went blank with the words. The votary didn’t truly know these people; he was only saying what he thought others needed to hear. But that wasn’t good enough. Not for Angelica and Jovian.

Joya let her hand slip out of Grace’s and stepped forward. The votary fell silent and stepped aside, the Carloso clasped close to his chest. Everyone watched Joya as she bent first over Angelica, resting her lips against the cold waxy lips of her sister. Tears sparkled in her eyes. She moved to Jovian, brushing aside stray locks of his golden hair, and laid lips to his cheek.

She moved to where the votary had been and laced her hands behind her back, settling her white wings behind her as deftly as shrugging tense shoulders.

“Today we don’t just commit to smoke brave warriors. Today we lay to rest people who lived, and who loved. We put to rest those we have loved who were brave enough, who loved enough, to know that when darkness threatened to sweep us all asunder, there was no option but to answer with force and drive it back.

“But more than that, we put to rest family. We put to rest people who have touched all of our lives in so many ways. To say that I knew completely who Angelica and Jovian were would be a lie. I shared holidays with them, I shared jokes with them, and even classes that we hated. I also shared a journey, a hope to find my sister Amber alive and well. But to say I knew them completely isn’t true. You see, Angelica and Jovian shared many things with many people. We could ask anyone what they remembered of them, and they would all have different stories, different parts of these people they carried with them.

“Each of these people will live on in us. They will remain steadfast in the realms, alive in our hearts. We will take them into every moment of happiness, and every moment of sorrow. We will be their faces, we will be the people that carry them to new heights and new experiences.”

Joya swallowed heavily and looked deep into Maeven’s red-rimmed eyes.

“But you can’t remember a hero for their bravery alone. Angelica and Jovian weren’t always brave. They were afraid a lot of their journey. They were afraid of failing, they were afraid of losing their sister, and losing their family. All of which is now gone, buried in the pages of history. They faced sorrow beyond compare, and finally, they gave their lives so that others wouldn’t have to face what they had to face.

“What makes a hero?” Joya asked, her eyes drifting back to Angelica and Jovian’s gray bodies, listless in a way she’d never seen them, never
wanted
to see them. She bit back a sob and cleared her throat before continuing. “What makes a hero is what’s in the heart. What makes a hero is for one single person to say ‘enough,’ and stand against what they know in the very fiber of their being to be wrong. A hero is fashioned out of love, because a true hero knows their life is meaningless if they lose all they love to preserve their own safety.”

Joya stepped away then, merging once more with the crowd between Cianna and Grace. They both took her hands in theirs as the holy red copal was lit upon the smoldering coal. Red smoke drifted up into the winter air. The procession of votaries began their ritual censing of the area, and Joya let her mind wander to those she had loved, and lost.

Her mind drifted to that night, sitting in the room she shared with Angelica, studying the herbal book her father had given her and trying to figure out why the page for Aconite had been so worn. Angelica had rested on her bed, reading through the book on philosophy, their first introduction to the prophecy of the Mask. Jovian had been poring over the book of sorcery, as if he could really read anything it said.