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  Antonus suppressed a grin as he imagined reporting to Lucien the unrivaled success of their scheme. Turning the saudad girl over to his lord would benefit them both in the end. Lucien could absorb her magic as he had the other druids’, and Antonus’s son would be freed from her enchantments.

  Chapter 14

  “THE SACRIFICE OF VERDIGRIS”

  As Cassandra taught us, the worlds originated in darkness, and from this darkness, a spark of light. Out of the first division, two sisters emerged—Pandora and Llewellyn, separate and together. “You take the light,” Pandora said to her shimmering sister, “and I will be infinite.”

  Llewellyn consented, not then understanding the breadth or implications of the words her sister spoke. Though she kept her later wonderings secret, she did question—what if, from the beginning, they had chosen togetherness and not division?

  But such a path was not to be.

  The Light divided herself into aspects, separating out fire and nature, water from earth, light from air. The Darkness made fewer concessions. She wove together the bindings of darkness and space, sending her ebbing waves ever further out along the horizons of existence.

  As these elements came to be, the sisters’ powers deepened. They wove together the worlds, creating the titans and the first deities from the energetic contrast of their opposite natures. As the light grew taller, it grew brighter. Pandora’s darkness plunged ever further into the depths.

  Llewellyn hid away inside her twisted feelings about her sister’s expanding power. She did not name them, and she did not look. The lock clicked into place, and the prime goddess of light turned back to the care and sparks of life that enveloped her days.

  The prime goddess of darkness knew better.

  Pandora made no secret of her expansive ambitions. She bid her creations to grow in their own power, to spread their influence and their abilities, and to craft new corners of the worlds.

  But in Pandora’s heart, the love for her sister still survived. Each evening, she remembered their time spent together, just the two, hand in hand, in moments that, at the time, had comprised the entirety of the universe.

  It was Pandora’s discerning eye that saw the rotting corruption inside her sister, the root of jealousy grown deep. She smirked and called to Llewellyn. Her dark violet hand wrapped around her sister’s golden arm, and she pulled her nearer. “Inner darkness grows more powerful away from the light,” she said softly. “I made a deliberate choice, those many years ago. The answer to ‘why’ will always be multiple.” Her brows contracted as she squeezed her sister’s hand. “You would do well to accept the same.”

  Llewellyn heard her sister’s words, but it was already too late. The shadows inside her had grown long. Their tendrils wrapped around the corners of her eyes. This blindness made her miss the spark of light within Pandora—the sign of unison between the two as they’d had in the first days of the worlds.

  Over time, their separation grew, and the division of the first goddesses multiplied across their created realms.

  All would have been lost were it not for Izadra and Verdigris.

  The titan of nature, Verdigris, perceived the rising smoke between the two powers, the tempers that receded but seemed, nonetheless, only to gather strength for their retreat. She watched as Llewellyn struggled to assimilate the darkness inside herself. The goddess blamed her sister for her corruption. She saw a stain and not unity.

  By then, many years had passed since Verdigris had first witnessed a flare of light within darkness, inside the deepest recesses of Izadra, the titan of space. The two fell in love, and in this, they found their way.

  They spent hours together on the Plane of Nature, Verdigris’s peridot arms wrapped around the nighttime splendor of Izadra’s skin. Clear waters trickled by, enlivened by the babbling brook of the two titans’ joy in one another. This, the air around them seemed to whisper, this is what togetherness means. This is how the world ought to be.

  The tension between the two prime goddesses grew. They clashed at their meeting places between the planes, their enmity dividing the fae and giving rise to fiends and angels. The titans, perceiving what their creators could not, created the guardians to stand in the balance, to stem the tide of forces raging between the light and the dark.

  As tempers rose, it became harder for Verdigris and Izadra to spend time together. Division sparked between the first creations of the prime goddesses, Ilona and Nyx, the titans of light and darkness cast in the picture of themselves. “We must do something,” Izadra said. Her gaze burned as she stared into Verdigris’s eyes—Izadra and Nyx alone among the titans knew the breadth of Pandora’s power. However noble Llewellyn thought her own cause, it could not withstand the might of the forces of darkness.

  Verdigris’s own love of darkness allowed her to perceive its snaring thorns in Llewellyn’s core. “You are right,” the titan of nature said. She pulled Izadra’s amethyst lips to hers, savoring the final kiss in their nymph forms. “We will have to show them, my love.” She placed her fingers against Izadra’s mouth, stemming the tide of her protest. “You and I have learned to reconcile the two.” A salty tear carved an emerald path down her cheek. “We will have to do it together. I am not strong enough on my own.”

  As the forces of the prime goddesses gathered for a battle that would have destroyed the vast stretches of the universe, Izadra took Verdigris into her arms for the last time. She buried her face in her lover’s neck, and the two transformed back into their bodies that contained entire worlds.

  The vastness of space divided nature into three—three lands, three expressions, separated from one another but held in the close grasp of the black, starry sea.

  Izadra’s cry pierced the front lines of the gathered forces, driving both sides back and away. Llewellyn called out for Verdigris . . . but she received no answer.

  Pandora bowed her head. Slowly, she parted the sea of her servants. She placed a kiss upon Izadra’s forehead. And then the prime goddess of darkness walked away.

  These divisions are what make our world so beautiful, why nature herself is more complex than we can ever express. The heart of a titan burns inside of her, a titan desperately in love with the intricacies of space—a space that has fully surrounded her in her tight embrace.

  What at first seemed like division turned out to be love. In her separation into multiple expressions of herself, Verdigris showed us the way. She saw the brightness and the shadow, and she found the meeting ground between them.

  Izadra held her together as she accepted these three separate parts of herself and bound them to one another. The starry planes capture our souls when we pass on, they guide us on our way between Brightlands and Shadow, between the prime plane and her two borders.

  Like Verdigris, from whose sacrifice we came to life, each of us are three in nature, we who walk the plane of life. Mind and soul, light and shadow, with our body between, joining the two.

  There is always more and always multiple, as the prime goddess Pandora would say. Nurture that which grows within—we are creatures of the Light and the Dark, of Nature and the Stars.

  Chapter 15

  Apollo paced back and forth, his wings trailing the ground. “Where is Juliet?” he growled. He peered through the mists that separated the planes, Persephonie’s form a glowing shadow in the center of his domain.

  The reflection spell allowed him to perceive what the young saudad could not. Beyond the tavern walls, werewolves approached Persephonie’s temporary home, and her vulpine protector was nowhere to be found.

  His spirit-servants whined to one another in reply. The vulpine did not know.

  Apollo’s jaw clenched as Persephonie emerged into the darkness of the street, unaware of the dangers that lurked in the shadows. Was Lucien watching the same scene unfold from his umbral-cloaked lair? The guardian roared, his cry echoing around his domain. Whatever it took, he would not allow her to fall into the lich’s clutches. He would keep her safe from Senat
or Ignatius and his foul master, even if it meant revealing his hand in the ever-recurring game.

  He should have encouraged Aylin to attack the werewolves before the apex of the Hunt. But how could he have known that Cassandra would send Persephonie into the heart of the growing conflict? Why had the goddess sent warning visions that would usher her toward danger rather than away?

  Apollo shook aside Yvayne’s warning at the impracticalities of his attachment. The weave of fate, Cassandra’s blessings, glowed all about Persephonie. Yvayne could see it as clearly as he. For those who lived on through the ages, such remarkable magic could not be ignored or resisted. The young saudad would have a special role to play in the events fated to unfurl in the months ahead. Persephonie would need a powerful entity watching over her.

  If Juliet didn’t appear soon, he would journey to Andel-ce Hevra himself. Apollo’s shoulders seized. By then, it might already be too late.

  The guardian tightened his fists. He murmured the spell that would split the planes.

  Juliet darted from the shadows and leapt to Persephonie’s aid. Apollo expelled the breath from his chest. Thank the goddess. His most daring vulpine slashed at the werewolf guards, protecting his charge.

  But she did not fight alone.

  The shadows at the end of the alley stirred once more. Apollo frowned. The russet-haired guard from the fountain returned to her side. Moonlight clung to the silver of his sword as he slew his brethren, freeing Persephonie from their claws.

  Apollo turned away from the look in Persephonie’s eyes as she stared up at the mortal man. This pain he had felt before and, so long as they succeeded, he would feel again. That was not the problem. Something about the guard was familiar, a reflection of someone he had known before, or a spirit he had seen. There was more that drifted beneath the surface of this particular mortal heart.

  And try as he might, Apollo could not discern the depths of the man’s intentions.

  Chapter 16

  Rennear had been young, eight perhaps. His mother had died a few months before. He still missed her almost every moment of the day.

  “It is time to put this behind you, Rennear Ignatius,” his father said. “You must step into your future. Come.”

  Father turned on his heel and marched out of the room. Rennear’s caretaker, a kind, elderly woman, bit her lip to stop its tremble, tears brimming in her eyes. “Run along, little master,” she said. “Do as your father says.”

  Several months would pass before he saw her again, after the change.

  Rennear sprinted down the hall, his breath shallow in his chest. If he had already lost sight of Father . . . he sighed. The long black cloak swished around the corner ahead. He picked up his pace and soon was hurrying along at his father’s side.

  His thoughts whirled as they walked—where were they headed? Were they going to visit Mother’s grave again? His breath caught. He’d left the flowers he’d picked for her back in his room. “Father, I—”

  “Now is the time for listening, son. A great deal of work has gone into what you are about to witness.” They wound down into the lower floors of the house. Four armed guards stood before a large wooden door. They bowed at his father’s approach. A few moments passed as they unbarred the door. Two followed after him and Father as they marched down a dark stone hall.

  Rennear wished he could hold his mother’s hand. The darkness had taken her away from him. He’d awakened in the middle of the night, gripped by a terrible dream, and run to her room. But he was too late. The sickness, brought on by the dark, had already claimed her.

  He clenched his small hands into fists. Father wouldn’t understand. He would be disappointed and tell Rennear that future senators were not afraid of the dark.

  Yelps and screams echoed up from below. Rennear gasped and clutched his father’s cloak. To his surprise, Father placed a hand on his back. “Come along, son.”

  Torchlight gleamed in the tunnel ahead. They passed empty cells reinforced with doors of iron, and the frightening sounds grew louder. Beneath the cries, the gnashing and growls of wolves surrounded Rennear.

  One of the guards came to stand beside him as they stopped. His father glared down at Rennear, but the kind guard next to him reached down for his hand. “There’s a good lad. These beasts won’t hurt you.”

  Rennear gripped the man’s hand, and they continued on.

  The tunnel opened onto a sunken arena, brightly lit with glowing torches all around.

  Along the sandy floor, armed guards stood with bloody pikes, shoving chained lines of men forward. The captives shook, and many shut their eyes, the dirt on their faces streaked with dried blood and meandering paths of tears.

  Rennear cried out in fright, and the guard scooped him up, carrying him forward. On the opposite side of the arena, a pack of werewolves gathered, hunched and snarling. A man clad in thick furs, the hide of a gray wolf, stood tall at the center of their pack. He carried a crooked wooden staff and nothing more.

  At his nod, the guards in the arena shoved the next pair of prisoners forward. The men fell to their knees, and two werewolves darted toward them, shoulder muscles bulging, and sank their teeth into the base of the men’s necks. They screamed in pain. A second nod, and another group of werewolves loped forward, dragging the men off with jaws clamped tight around thighs and feet.

  They pulled the stricken men to the edges of the arena where tunnels led off into darkness in a system that stretched across the depths of the city. But even before they reached the passages, their cries had given way to a shaking illness that racked their bodies. Their eyes rolled back in their heads. And then the darkness claimed them.

  “This is my life’s work, Rennear,” Father said, gazing down at the arena. “Too many members of the council are weak, unwilling to embrace the greatness of Andel-ce Hevra’s destiny. But not I. The Pantheon Supreme smiles down on House Ignatius, my son. You and I will rise to heights of which my father and his father could have hardly dreamt.”

  The fur-clad man in the arena looked up at them then. He barked a command, and the werewolves stilled. They rested on their back haunches, large shoulders turned in, bodies erect, almost like a line of Father’s soldiers. “Senator Ignatius,” the large man growled. He clapped his arm to his chest and bowed his head. The pack of werewolves dipped their snouts, rising with the man. “The hunt is strong, my friend.”

  Father smiled. “And growing stronger, Talax.”

  The large man called one of the werewolves forward, and the creature rapidly transformed. The werewolf lifted a fur covering from a pile to the side and draped it around his bare waist. Talax handed him the staff and strode across the center of the arena. He climbed a narrow stone ladder and vaulted over the wall at the top. Talax bowed a second time and gestured for Father to lead the way.

  Below, the transformation ritual resumed.

  Senator Ignatius guided the guards, Rennear, and Talax through a second set of winding tunnels. Flat, glowing eyes shone out from the depths of the prison cells that lined the sides. Every now and again, a trapped werewolf lunged at the iron bars. Rennear clung tighter to the guard who carried him.

  The passageway opened onto a smaller arena with only one iron door embedded in the stone wall of its base. Father inclined his head toward the arena door. “Go get her.” Talax and the second guard banged their arms against their chests and climbed down into the arena.

  With a look from his father, the guard carrying Rennear set him down. Father bent his knee onto the stone floor and placed his hands on Rennear’s shoulders. “A powerful servant of the Pantheon Supreme has warned me of a great evil that will soon come into being on the other side of the world, much like the evil empress who once subjugated our citizens. The city looks to men like us to protect them. We must begin to prepare now to keep our people safe from this looming threat.”

  Rennear nodded. “And that’s why you have the werewolves here, Father? Are they going to help us? I thought they hurt people.” He
shuddered at the echoes of the screams still ringing in his ears.

  Father shook his head. “Some werewolves, ones in the wild, do hurt people. But I have forged an alliance with Talax and his pack. They will be our allies and do as I bid. Would I let them hurt people who didn’t deserve it?”

  He scrunched his face at this question. “N-no, Father. You wouldn’t.” What had the men in chains done to be sentenced to being turned into werewolves? It must have been very evil. He had always heard that werewolves were dangerous and cruel, but if Father said they were their friends . . . And Talax had behaved like many of the other soldiers did toward his father. Maybe Rennear had misunderstood.

  A girl’s scream tore through the chamber. Rennear gasped and looked around. The fierceness of her cry said that she was in trouble.

  “Rennear.” Father gripped his shoulders tighter. “It is time for you to be brave now.”

  What was Father saying? “I don’t—”

  “Like all forms of power, alliances come with a cost. Talax and I forged an arrangement between the city and his pack. He also follows the servant of the Pantheon Supreme who aids my work in the council. Wolves, and werewolves, follow an alpha. The old alpha of his pack was evil. I slew him myself.” Father rolled his shoulders back, a smirk tugging at his lip. “This left Talax in charge of the werewolves, much like a captain of the guard. Like Captain Gustaf here.” Father gestured to the man who had carried Rennear through the tunnels. “Don’t you want to be like him?”

  Rennear nodded. “Yes, Father.” He smiled up at the captain. He wanted to be brave and helpful.

  The man gave a grim nod in return. His brows were knit; they hadn’t been before.

  Another cry from the girl reached Rennear. He turned, but Father seized his chin. “I knew you did, Rennear. Now, I need you to do something for me. And for your mother’s memory.”