The Beast Below - Part Two

The country of Aramore, on the Northern end of the continent and great protector to the Sea, was a three week journey from Aetherill – or it would been if Bartholomew Threeves didn’t already have a standing invitation to the ruling seat. Portals between ruling houses were extremely uncommon, as the royal families rarely trusted each other enough to let them behind the walls of their cities without extensive planning and discussion. However, Threeves owed much to Morwin, High King of Aramore. It served both of them to be able to answer an immediate call.

Morwin’s estate sat in the hills overlooking Nivarin, the capital of Aramore – and from the towering walls, the King of Aramore could watch his country thrive. He rarely needed to leave the palace and had all affairs brought directly to him. Only Threeves, however, received an invitation to the inner parts of the house, where Morwin’s greatest treasures were kept: his wife, young son, and gardens of legend.

Threeves was normally a man of great composure. However, the summons had come as a surprise; he’d not heard from Morwin in months. When he arrived in Morwin’s private gardens, he schooled his features into something calm and waited patiently for his host. When he was not ruling his country, Morwin was known for his vast collection of plants, gathered from all the realms. Morwin cultivated and grew them with great pleasure, and one of these plants had put Threeves in his esteemed position now. He admired them but did not touch them – he knew more than anyone that Morwin only admired things that could kill.

“You have good instinct, Threeves. Most people would have already plucked that one.”

The voice snaked out of the shadows, smooth like a river stone. Threeves had been staring at a large, purple blossom, its shimmering petals nearly begging him to touch.

“I remember this one,” Threeves replied cooly. “I know what it does.”

Morwin appeared beside him, as though springing out of the dark. He was a tall male, thin but muscular, his dark hair long and neatly combed. He smelled faintly sweet, like the blossom in front of them.

“My subjects call it necrobloom,” Morwin said. “Flower of the Living Dead.”

“Fascinating. But I don’t believe you brought me here to look at your plants, so what do you want?”

Morwin chuckled, a sensual sound that rumbled through the floors. The plants shuddered, and for a moment Barty could have sworn that the vines and leaves reached for him.

Morwin began to walk, his hands brushing the tops of the plants as he passed. Threeves followed obediently behind. Morwin had always been a bit theatrical, but as he was also Threeves’ patron, that couldn’t be helped. The garden was massive, walled on all sides, but autumnal sunlight filtered through the trees and the vines overhead, and Morwin basked in it like a large jungle cat. When he looked at Threeves over his shoulder, his golden eyes sparkled with an expression that could have been either delight or malice. It was always difficult to tell.

“I invited you to my home, Threeves, because I heard a rather disturbing report from one of my operatives.” Morwin reached up and a tree overhead lowered a branch to him, ripe with deliciously-red fruit. Threeves couldn’t identify the fruit (and knew Morwin far too well) so he declined it when offered. Morwin only shrugged and took a bite of the fruit himself. “It appears that in the last week, an athrúbhán was spotted. In the human realm. With Fae operatives under your command.”

Morwin’s tone hadn’t changed, but something dangerous had slipped into the undercurrent of his voice. Threeves straightened. “That’s impossible. They’ve all died out.”

“That is what you told me, yes,” Morwin said. He took another bite of the fruit and they arrived in the garden’s center, to a courtyard. White marble stones sprawled over the ground, thick tufts of moss growing between. Stone benches flanked by flowers of every color made a circle, and in this circle sat a Fae female, a child beside her.

The female, Valeria, was Morwin’s wife. She was an elegant creature, if a little skittish, and when Threeves appeared she sat up and clutched the child to her, as though he might try and steal him away.

Dorian. That was the Fae-child’s name. He was a strong one, now – though Threeves remembered when he’d been born, weak, frail, and screaming. Morwin’s magic had saved him, though it had taken time, and his mother was fiercely protective of him ever since.

The child had thick, black curls, so dark that his hair looked nearly blue in the direct light. His skin was pale as parchment, his wide eyes bluer than the sea. He was an unforgettable child; the likes of which Threeves had never met anywhere else.

He hated him.

“Valeria, say good morning to our guest,” Morwin prompted, when all the female did was pull Dorian a little closer. She breathed rapidly, her chest rising and falling so quickly Threeves thought she might faint. But she gave a little nod and whispered, “My lord.”

Threeves nodded back to her.

Although Morwin did not indicate to do so, Valeria gathered up the child in her arms and fled the courtyard. Threeves watched the skirts of her long, white dress disappear around the corner and then found Morwin watching him with the same pensive stare.

“How is she doing?” Threeves asked, although he didn’t quite care. Valeria had never liked him, and he had never liked her. What she and Morwin saw in each other was anyone’s guess.

“Better,” Morwin obliged. He inclined his head to one of the stone benches. Threeves sat, but Morwin didn’t. A calculated move, Threeves realized only a little too late – as Morwin began to pace, inspecting his plants, in the same way Threeves himself liked to antagonize Jasper.

Now he knew how Jasper felt.

“How long can your little vendetta last you?” Morwin sighed. He bent to sniff a blossom in the bushes and closed his eyes to savor the scent.

Threeves asked stiffly, “Pardon?”

“My operative also reported a 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1, crashed in Denmark,” Morwin elaborated. “It appears the driver was intoxicated and…out of control. This is amusing, given that only a few months ago you assured me that your little experiment was going well. So I’m curious, how long is this vendetta going to last? Or is there something you’d like to tell me?”

When Morwin sat, opposite Threeves now, he held a single flower in his hand. This one was black as night, with tips that sparkled silver in the afternoon sun. He twirled the stem between his fingers, contemplating the beautiful, delicate thing.

Threeves couldn’t remember the flower’s name, but he knew what it was. Long ago – well over a decade, now – Morwin had explained to him the different plants he kept in this garden and their uses. Not many were more potent than the necroblossom, but that one…

Threeves swallowed. “Everything is under control.”

“Is it?” Golden eyes flicked up to meet his, and they danced with tightly restrained amusement. “Because I was under the impression that your little project was fired, stole a car, and then – “

“That’s incorrect.” Threeves squirmed in his seat.

Morwin’s mouth quirked into half a smile, but he didn’t speak.

“He’s been deployed,” Threeves elaborated when it was clear Morwin was listening. “He and his team have been sent to handle an undocumented rift in that area. There’s some kind of creature there, and they will take it out and set things right. As usual.”

“Which is naturally why you sent your operative into the field with a broken kneecap. And, of course, that’s why he crashed his car, which I happen to know is the only thing he cares about – ”

“The kneecap was an oversight. As for the car…”

But Morwin was chuckling again, and the sound worked its way through the stones and into Threeves’ feet. The trees rustled their approval overhead, and the greenery sprouted and began to grow over his polished, black boots.

“If you need my help, you need only ask for it.” Morwin crushed the blossom in his palm and its nectar spilled over his hand and onto the ground, where it began to burn holes into the rock. It didn’t hurt him – only Morwin seemed to be immune to the effects of the things in his garden. “But, Barty, if you insist on doing this yourself, then control your little pet. Before I am forced to intervene.”

There was no threat to his tone, at least on the surface. But all the amusement in his demeanor had gone, and Morwin’s attention was solely focused on the smoke rising from the stone at his feet.

Without looking at Threeves, he said, “you may go.”

Threeves stood, unsteady as he walked the way he’d come, restraining the urge to run.

---

For a brief moment, Jasper panicked. He’d be arrested for stealing the car. He’d be dragged back to the Order and thrown in prison, a dark place well below the city – deeper than the Gap – and put in a cell. He’d be clipped, barred, and robbed of his power and no one would hear from him again. Since the Fae were immortal, unless he managed to decapitate himself, he would spend an eternity there. No one who went into that place would ever come out again. He knew that firsthand – because many of the things he’d caught on his missions had ended up there on his account.

Then he stilled his breathing, forced his racing mind to focus, and realized the alternative: Orion and Zephyra still listened to him. They were a team. He could explain what he was doing here, and they would help. And with Aurora –

Aurora. She watched Jasper, not the door. While Rohan got up to see what the commotion was about, Aurora, who recognized the two Fae voices on the other side of the door, kept her piercing gaze fixed on him. Was he really about to do this? Betray them both, have them hauled away to prison, over a car?

Not just a car. The car. His car. The Mustang was all he had.

There was a banging on the door, and Rohan grabbed the butcher knife again. Zephyra’s voice rang from the other side, “Jasper? Are you in here? We saw your car.”

It was Aurora who spoke. “Let them in, Ro,” she said. Her face was calm but her voice betrayed her. “They’re friends.”

Friends. Not the term Jasper would use, but he nodded in agreement. “I know them. They’re here to help.”

Rohan scowled but opened the door wide. Although Jasper couldn’t yet see the other two, he heard Zephyra gasp at Rohan’s size, and Orion said, “Geez. You’re not Jasper.”

“No, I’m not,” Rohan growled. “What are you doing in my front yard?”

“We’re here under the authority of the Order – “

Rohan moved to shut the door in Zephyra’s face, but Aurora moved to stop him. “Zephyra,” she said, forcing a smile. “Orion. So glad you came. Jasper’s in bad shape – I’m sure he’d be so relieved to see you.”

Aurora forced Rohan out of the way, and two more bodies squeezed into the already cramped space. To Jasper’s immense surprise, Zephyra did look worried, and that harried expression only deepened when she saw Jasper with his leg propped up and splinted. Rohan slammed the door and then sulked in the far corner.

“Is it bad?” Zephyra asked, gesturing to the leg.

“Not any worse than it’s been before,” Jasper said. “It’ll be fine in a few days. You two okay?”

Orion, who looked much worse up close, shrugged. “Barty threw his tantrum. We’ll get over it.”

“Why are you here?” Rohan demanded again.

“We’re here to deal with the rift,” Zephyra said. “There’s an unmarked one nearby, and the Order got word of a monster terrorizing the village in the valley. Do you know anything about that?”

Jasper hadn’t heard of any monster, but the way Rohan and Aurora both paled told him they did.

“I’ve been tracking it for months,” Rohan said. “I haven’t found its lair or the rift. What makes you think that you can?”

“How would you know you haven’t found the rift?” Zephyra asked. Rohan shifted, and Jasper realized he’d said more than he meant to. Rohan was clearly hiding something, and it had something to do with his clipped and cauterized ears. If Jasper had to guess –

“Were you once part of it?” Jasper asked as the pieces clicked into place. He remembered how angry Rohan had been when he mentioned the ears. And if Rohan wasn’t startled by the car, he may have seen them before. “The Order?”

Rohan refused to answer. “There is a monster. It comes out at night. I assume it sleeps during the daytime, but I don’t know where.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Orion said. He’d lost his normal, rather peppy tone, and instead sounded tired. Jasper very nearly pitied him.

As he spoke, Zephyra fished around in her purple coat and took out a wrinkled note. To Jasper’s surprise, she handed it out to him. “In case anyone comes looking,” she explained, “Barty wanted you to have this. You forgot it – y’know, leaving in such a hurry.”

Jasper took the note. It was one of Barty’s dispatches, clearly labeled Denmark, 749AD. As though this had been any regular assignment. As though he hadn’t stolen a car, hadn’t crashed it into a tree, and hadn’t had his knee and ankle splintered by Bartholomew Threeves only hours before. Zephrya gave him a knowing look, one that said, we’ll talk later, but Jasper didn’t comment on the strange note. He put it in his pocket and tried not to think about it.

Did this mean that he was un-fired?

If so, why had Barty decided to change his mind?

“We have a few hours until dawn,” Zephyra was saying, over Jasper’s racing thoughts, and it took him a moment to realize that she was still talking. “That can give us time to scope out the area and see about the situation with this monster.”

Jasper moved to get up, but a hard wall of air pushed him back into his seat.

“Not you,” Zephyra snapped when Jasper tried to protest. “You’re injured and too much of a liability. If we run into it, we can’t waste our energy trying to keep it from eating you.”

Jasper scowled. She was right – he couldn’t move very well, and even with his shadows returning that still made him a burden on the team. He folded his arms and ground his teeth but didn’t argue.

Zephyra turned to Rohan. “You – by the authority given to me as a Knight of the Order, I am ordering you – “

Rohan bared his teeth. “None of that garbage,” he snarled. Zephyra drew back in surprise. “If you want me to show you what I’ve seen, I’ll do it. But I’ll not hear The Order evoked in my house.”

The vitriol in his tone clearly revealed that something had happened, and even if Rohan didn’t want to discuss details, everyone in the room could see the anger rising off of him in a palpable cloud. Zephyra cooled her temper, her hands folding into fists.

“Very well,” she said. Jasper caught that warning tone in her voice. He rarely heard it – she was usually so self-controlled – but when that note hit the air, he and Orion knew to duck for cover.

Rohan wasn’t so well informed. Perhaps Zephyra would duel him; knock him over with a blast of wind, or push him down the cliffside. That would rid them of one of their problems, and make dragging Aurora back to the Hall of the Order that much easier.

It was then decided by the group that Orion, Zephyra, and Rohan would go and search for this thing. No one was happy about the decision; least of all Jasper, who hated being bound to a chair, but he saw Zephyra’s reasoning. He couldn’t move, Aurora wasn’t strong enough to go out into the cold, and they needed as much magic as they could muster in case the monster decided to show itself. Despite his anger, a flicker of pride ignited in his chest at her keen sense of leadership. He had trained her well.

---

When Zephyra, Orion, and Rohan had left (with a healthy amount of grumbling and protest from Rohan, who didn’t want to leave Aurora alone with Jasper any more than Zephyra wanted to leave Jasper alone with her), the cabin fell into stillness. Jasper watched the door for several minutes after it had closed, so lost in thought that he nearly forgot Aurora was there until she moved, startling him so badly that he jumped. He disturbed the wounded leg and it woke, reminding him of the injury with fresh pain radiating up and down. Jasper hissed through his teeth and tried to pretend that he was anywhere else but here.

“Are you hungry?” Aurora asked. She gestured to the stew still sitting over the hearth.

She was thinner than he remembered, gaunt; as though she’d recently taken ill and only barely recovered. Despite himself, he wanted to ask her what was wrong.

As Jasper shook his head, he said, “What’s with your friend? He seems rather…unhappy about entertaining guests.”

Aurora gave him a small smile and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Don’t mind him. He’s just like that. It’s not that he doesn’t care…he just doesn’t always know how.”

“He’s not…he doesn’t scare you, does he?”

Why in the name of the Order did Jasper care? Certainly, if he saw a person living with someone who hurt them, he ought to do something – any conscientious person would – but she was a criminal, and one who was going to be in prison soon. It didn’t matter if her roommate (lover? For some reason that thought fell over him in a deeply unpleasant way) was unkind; she was going to be separated soon and thrown into prison.

Aurora shook her head. “No, not at all. If my appearance alarms you, I apologize. I get these…fits. They can last days, sometimes weeks. I’m afraid you arrived at a bad time, that’s all.”

“Are you unwell? Do you need a doctor?”

This line of questioning was going in the completely wrong direction, but Jasper couldn’t help himself. The last time he’d seen Aurora, she’d seemed fine. Cunning and crafty and up to no good, but fine. Healthy, even.

She chuckled ruefully. “No, Jasper. I’ve seen plenty of doctors. There’s nothing they can do.”

Aurora rested her chin on her knees and stared unblinkingly into the fire. Jasper was only more perplexed by this strange scene. Fae didn’t normally get sick – there weren’t very many things that stayed in their systems long enough to produce actual illnesses – and he couldn’t fathom any illness that would affect one like her.

“I’m sorry about your car,” she sighed. “I know it means a lot to you.”

Jasper wrenched himself out of yet another wandering thought. “Oh – thank you. I’m sure we’ll get it sorted. The Order has all kinds of ways of fixing them.”

Not the Impala though. He was never going to see that car again, as much as it grieved him.

“The amulet isn’t usually so wily,” she continued. “I guess I’ve never used it in a car, though. I just open the portal, picture where I want to be – oh, perhaps that’s it. I didn’t tell you where you’d be going. Maybe that’s why.”

No, she hadn’t. In fact, upon retrospection, Jasper didn’t know how he’d gotten here, other than holding the amulet and saying her name a thousand times while diving through the riftgate. He’d focused so hard on her that he’d forgotten to steer the car at all.

“I did wonder how it works,” Jasper said. “And…to be honest, Aurora, I’m a little confused about this whole situation. How is it that in tracking a shadow monster, you happen upon a diary that was written by this Elysande person? And how does it relate to Ravenscroft, and James – if that’s indeed Umbraxis?”

“It is,” she confirmed.

“But how do you know?”

“There’s more to the story than you were told,” she replied, slowly, as though measuring the weight of each word. “There’s so much more. I didn’t tell you because there were humans there, and I didn’t want to scare them or distract you from that moment. Umbraxis was haunting Ravenscroft, and it was a problem – and he’s gone, at least temporarily. But there’s so much more.”

“Are you able to tell me now?”

She paused. Jasper imagined she was weighing the consequences, too, of telling him what she knew. She was wise for that. He would, after all, report it all to Barty once she’d been locked away.

Aurora reached for the diary, discarded on the cot. “This is the diary of Elysande Eltheron,” she said slowly. “Guardian of the Night.”

Jasper frowned. “That can’t be. The guardians are…”

“Real,” Aurora said. “Very real. As real as we are. I’ve met a few of them. Elysande was kind and good while she was alive. And lonely. Very lonely. She was the one whom James saw walking the moors.”

“James saw…a Fae guardian.”

“And naturally fell in love with her. Think about it. He was lonely, locked away in his tower, and night after night, he saw her walking the moors. They fell in love, and when the separation became too much to bear, she stole him away into the Fae realm.”

“Hawthorne seemed to be very anxious about an illegitimate child,” Jasper supplied, trying to fit the various pieces together in his mind.

“He was right about that, too. James was punished for fathering an illegitimate child with Elysande. A half-human, half-fae child – “

“That’s impossible. Not only would it have been illegal for James to cross realms, but the biology of both species makes them extremely incompatible to breed. One can’t be half Fae and half human.”

“That’s a theory,” Aurora protested. “And not a very accurate one.”

“Have you met such a creature? And if so, what happened to the child?”

Aurora fell silent. He thought it was because she was stumped, but a moment later, she said, “What if I told you I did?”

This took Jasper completely by surprise. If there was a half-Fae, half-human child running around anywhere in the realms, Barty would know about it, and they’d most certainly have the child and both of its parents in custody, Guardian of the Night or no.

“Well, did you?” Jasper asked.

Aurora nodded. Tears filled her eyes, so suddenly that Jasper didn’t know what to make of the emotion.

“What happened,” she said through her teeth, “is that he was ostracized. And judged, very badly. And in the end…killed.”

Jasper stopped himself, watching the poor creature as she dragged herself onto the cot and threw herself down. He blanched, realizing that while he’d been discussing hypotheticals, Aurora had been trying to tell him (not very well, but if she was sick, he would give her grace for that) something deeply personal.

This is why you have no friends, a mean little voice whispered in the back of his mind.

Jasper didn’t quite know what to do. He was still stuck in his chair, his leg affording him very little mobility. Aurora’s body began to shake as she began to sob. He opened his mouth and closed it several times before he said, “I’m terribly sorry. I wasn’t trying to be insensitive. Did he mean a lot to you, this…person?”

She was delusional, he realized, even as Aurora nodded.

She choked out, “We were married.”

Jasper didn’t know what to say to that. There was not an entry in the Code that instructed one on how to deal with a hysterical female while stuck in a chair with one’s leg broken in two places, much less how to deal with a hysterical female while completely mobile. So he said, “My condolences.”

Aurora cried for several minutes before she started to recover herself. Jasper cast his eyes about the room and tried to look at anything interesting except her, affording her as much privacy as he could in such an intimate space. He waited for her to speak, not wishing to further endanger his well-being by saying something completely ill-informed.

“It’s alright,” she whispered. Now he understood the hoarseness in her voice. “It was…years and years ago. We weren’t married very long. It was doomed from the beginning.”

“Because he was a half-blood?” Jasper was infinitely curious about the physical presentation of such a creature – which Fae aspects had he inherited? Which human ones – but he didn’t want to ask. That sounded a little too intimate.

“No. Because his mother was high-born. Elysande was the daughter of King Elion. Before.”

That was when things began to spiral. If Jasper was already unbalanced by the discussion of Umbraxis’ identity, this was yet another revelation that had no place in his current understanding of the world.

King Elion had been the ruler of Elathor before the fall of the royal family, ten or so years ago. King Elion had also been one of the victims of the Great Coup that had happened to instill the ruling class they had now. Jasper had heard the stories and the theories, and knew the Order’s official stance on the topic: King Elion and his family had been betrayed by one of their own and assassinated one night.

“Elion didn’t have any daughters,” Jasper said, running the stories over in his head. The family trees in the Hall of the Order had only depicted sons – of which none were still alive.

“Also false,” Aurora argued, regaining some of her strength. “A convenient narrative, and one the Order benefits from immensely. After the previous Guardian was vanquished, Elysande was selected to be the Guardian of the Night. She was despondent about it, and because of this selection, she was erased from her family tree. And her offspring.”

Jasper had heard that the Guardians sometimes chose their replacements from the ruling families in the Fae realms, but had never heard of it happening in his time. Losing a Guardian was extremely rare.

“Anyway, the point remains that Umbraxis – James – was angry about the situation. His child and lover were always at stake. The Guardians wanted him gone, the ruling families were offended by his mere existence, and in the human world, he was a pariah. You saw what his own father did to him.”

Locked him in a tower. Like a princess in a human fairy tale; kept out of sight for eternity.

“But that doesn’t explain how he became Umbraxis.”

“Do you remember what I asked you, in the tower?” Aurora replied.

There had been a great many conversations between the two of them in Ravenscroft, but Jasper sorted through them until he found the one that sounded familiar.

“You wanted to know if a ghost could become something worse,” he said. “If they were angry enough, or sad enough – if they could become something more powerful.”

Something that could absorb light and time and Jasper’s powers – something dangerous and able to rip holes in the realms. He honestly didn’t know.

“Right.” She sat up a little and held up the diary. “This…makes me think that it’s possible. This is Elysande’s diary. She told us what happened with her, with James, with…”

With her son. Jasper didn’t push her to finish it, the pain still dark in her eyes and in the hallows of her cheeks. How had he never noticed it before?

“Why did you want my help?” Jasper asked, nodding to the diary. “That clearly knows more than I do. Where do I come into play? And don’t say it’s because I was hunting the Shadow Man – I know it’s more than that.”

Aurora chewed into her lip, thinking. Even in this haggard state, she was still beautiful, and he scolded himself for having the nerve to think that way about a grieving widow.

“You have a connection to him,” she said slowly. “I saw it at Ravenscroft. The way your powers disappear when he’s around.”

“It’s irritating. And, as Zephyra would say, a liability.”

“Doesn’t it intrigue you?” she asked. “Don’t you want to know why?”

Jasper stopped. He never asked why, not if he could help it. There were a great many things about his life that didn’t make sense, starting with the fact that, when one got down to it, he didn’t know who he was. Jasper knew he’d never get the answers to most of those questions, so instead of torturing himself night and day, he simply stayed in the present. There was no reason to ask why when the answers to that question, whether he knew them or not, wouldn’t change anything about his current situation.

“No,” he said, slowly. “No, I don’t.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I…want to go home,” he said. “In all honesty, my life was perfectly fine until you entered it, Aurora. Barty and I had our arguments, but my team and I were doing well. We were completing our assignments and moving up. And after you started getting involved, things spiraled out of control for me. I lost my place in the Order, and the car, and – “

He’d said too much. Aurora’s eyes went wide and she stood, pointing at his leg. “Was that because of me?”

Jasper swallowed. “No,” he lied, “it was because the whole situation at Ravenscroft got out of hand – “

Aurora began wobbling around the room on unsteady legs, grabbing fistfuls of her dark hair and pulling. “Gods – I didn’t mean it, I swear. I wasn’t trying to cause you any problems. I saw you and realized you knew about Umbraxis, and only thought…”

Her voice trailed off. She stopped pacing, her back to him, and suddenly said, “Wait a minute. You didn’t…you didn’t come to help me, did you, Jasper?”

Aurora turned. Her face had gone grey, her eyes cold.

Jasper sank into his chair. He thought about summoning his shadows, in case she lashed out at him, but then decided that might give him away.

“I…” he couldn’t finish.

“Did you come…to turn me in?”

He didn’t answer. They stared at each other in stunned silence, until something in Jasper’s pocket began to grow very, very warm.

Aurora startled and pulled out her own amulet. It was glowing red.

“Rohan,” she breathed. “He’s in trouble.”

---

Zephyra hated the cold. She’d visited many realms, many times, and many climates – and across all of them, she could definitively say that she hated the cold the most.

It was winter here, the ground frozen and covered with several feet of snow that seeped into her clothes. Rohan trudged ahead of them, making a path with his bulk, but she and Orion still had to take high, exhausting steps to clear the drifts and avoid falling in. Getting down to the village was taking a monumental effort.

“I still don’t see why we had to leave Jasper behind,” Orion said behind her. He was put out and wearing a scowl, but she knew it wasn’t because of the third member of their team. Orion had been in a bad way since Ravenscroft – since Jasper’s terrible decision had made him the central target for Barty’s rage.

It wasn’t the first time it had happened and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

“He’s a liability,” she repeated. “He wouldn’t get over these drifts, and there’s no way in any of the realms he’d let us carry him.”

He would try, too – and make an ass of himself doing it.

“He’s got his shadow-power-things, though,” Orion said. “He’s used them as a crutch before. Who’s to say he couldn’t do it now?”

“He can,” Rohan said, from up ahead. “I saw him do it.”

“He’s also our heaviest hitter,” Orion continued. “He can do things none of us can do. If we’re really in a bind – “

“That’s the problem,” Zephyra said. “He’s got incredible power and extremely limited self-control. I’m not letting him mess things up for us again. Barty barely let him off the hook this time.”

What she hadn’t told Jasper, what she hoped he understood in that solitary look between them, was that she had, once again, gone to considerable efforts to get Barty to change his mind. Even though Jasper had stolen the car, broken the code, and was insufferable, stubborn, and self-absorbed, she knew they needed him. Barty knew that, too. Zephyra had spent hours reminding Barty just how valuable Jasper was, flaws aside.

Not to mention that Barty was worried about something. She had seen that look on his face when Malcolm arrived, and although she hadn’t ascertained who had sent the letter, it had sent Barty over the edge.

Perfect timing – he’d made his decision hastily. If not for that note, they likely wouldn’t be here.

“Is it much farther?” she asked Rohan. They’d gone down a winding trail through trees and crumbling stone bridges. Her legs were aching, her pants were soaked, and she was tired – not exactly the best condition to face a monster that spent its time devouring villages.

“Just a bit,” Rohan answered.

Zephyra didn’t like this male, in the same way she didn’t trust Aurora. Besides being openly hostile (which was helpful – she liked knowing outright where the threat was) she had the distinct feeling that he was holding himself back, waiting to strike in a predatory way. She needed to focus on the monster in the village and the undocumented rift, but she worried that the moment she took her eyes off of him, Rohan would strike.

It wasn’t necessarily his demeanor. She knew plenty of males like him. It was, actually, his clipped ears. That was something done in the prisons of Aetherill – something to mark prisoners in case they escaped. Cutting and then cauterizing the tips of Fae ears was not only shameful but extremely obvious, and if he wandered the Fae realm without covering his head, he’d be instantly arrested.

Clipping of the ears, as well, was only done to prisoners with a life sentence. He’d done something unspeakable if that was the case, and yet Zephyra had never heard of him, or seen his face on any of the escaped prisoners' dispatches. The Knights of the Order were bound to capture those escapees, but she’d never seen his likeness before.

Rohan’s directions were true, however, and the trees let out to a village that lay silent in the dark. There were the faintest traces of dawn in the distance, and yet all the windows were covered, and no smoke rose from the fireplaces. There were about four dozen huts and other small buildings, and a little more than half of them had been condensed to rubble.

“What…” Orion’s mouth fell open at the scene. “This is worse than California.”

“Much worse,” Zephyra agreed. “Reminds me of the gorgons.”

Orion shuddered at the memory.

“The monster has been coming here, almost every night,” Rohan explained in a monotone. “It takes a few of the villagers, plays with them a bit, chews them up, and spits them out.”

Zephyra frowned. “It doesn’t eat them?”

“Not that I’m aware. There’s a pile of the bodies – they burn it every other day – but I don’t think you want to see that. It’s…horrible.”

Unfortunately, she needed to see it. As nauseating as it was, Zephyra needed to understand the type of creature she was dealing with, and if she could see its teeth marks there might be a clue.

First, she considered a lycanthrope. They were known to come out at night and were fairly intelligent, but she didn’t understand why it would play with its food. They were predatory by nature, but not usually cruel. They were simply trying to survive and reproduce in the only ways they knew.

Lycanthropes, however, could not usually break through doors and windows, and as Zephyra passed charred buildings she knew that it couldn’t be one of them. Lycanthropes also didn’t plan, and this creature was working its way through each of the houses, one at a time.

“Why didn’t it come out tonight?” she asked Rohan, who was watching her and not their surroundings.

“I assume something startled it away,” he said. Maybe the cars arriving, or the loud music. Things were certainly quiet out here.

“Where are the rest of the villagers?”

“In their houses. They won’t come out until full daylight.”

“A vampire, maybe?” Orion suggested. They stopped in front of what used to be a house. He lifted a crumbling plank with the toe of his boot, and it crumbled to ash underneath his feet.

“Vampires don’t do damage like this,” Zephyra said. “And they leave their victims drained, not dismembered. This has to be bigger.”

“Vampires also don’t scream,” Rohan offered. “This thing makes a sound unlike anything I’ve ever heard.”

They came to the burn pile, which was still smoking from the day before. The smell of it was enough to make her wheeze, and for his own sake, she was glad Jasper wasn’t here. Something about dismemberment always made him wretch.

Orion swore under his breath as they took in the growing pile of charred bodies. Arms, legs, torsos and unidentifiable parts –

“Where are the heads?” Zephyra asked.

Rohan squinted at the pile. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think the villagers kept them?”

“Unlikely. They’re of a Celtic disposition – they send their dead off in one piece. By boat, if they can help it.”

“So why the burn pile?”

“Not enough boats,” Orion said. For once, she thought, he might actually be correct.

The scene was puzzling, and not one she had expected. Zephyra turned around and around, looking for anything she may have missed.

“Any footprints?”

“A few, but they disappear.”

“Show me.”

At the command, Rohan turned and led them away from the burn pile. They walked somberly through the village, and nothing moved, as though the entire place was holding its breath.

They came to the footprints at the far end of the village. They were large and bird-like, with four long toes and talons that dug into the ground. She could tell that it walked on two legs, not four, but the talons threw her. Nothing in her memory fit that description.

They followed the loping trail of footprints away from the village and didn’t stop until the sun began to peek through the joyless, grey sky. The distance between each step suggested a creature of incredible height, perhaps even taller than their guide – and when they came to the end of its trail, the abruptness of its disappearance sent a shudder through her entire body.

They stopped at the shoreline of a large, frozen lake.

The ice was thick and white, undisturbed, it seemed, for the entirety of that winter. Not a bird chirped in the trees and nothing moved in the surrounding land. Despite her reservations about bringing Jasper with them, the stinging sensation in the back of her throat made Zephyra wish he’d come along, if only for this moment.

It had the same acrid air as Ravenscroft. The same taste, the same feel as something steeped in sorrow.

As something haunted.

“I’ve tried cracking the ice,” Rohan said, gesturing to where the footprints stopped. “I’m not against diving in there and finding it. But…nothing. I don’t have any tools that will cut ice that thick.”

Never mind any Fae abilities – although by now, Zephyra was certain he was hiding at least one magical talent, if not multiple. Clipped ears meant one thing; but unless he’d left the prison with a rod of iron still in his back, he likely could practice magic.

Unless, of course, he’d been in the human world too long, and had lost it.

“Have you gone out on the ice?” Zephyra asked Rohan.

Rohan’s eyebrow twitched. “Of course not.”

Zephyra wasted no time. “Stay here,” she said to Orion, with the unspoken command, watch Rohan. Orion nodded. She turned back to the lake, her stomach souring as she took a step onto the ice.

Nothing moved. Nothing cracked. It felt solid underneath her feet, and thanks to a fresh layer of powdery snow, she had traction as she crept farther out onto the lake. That sensation in her throat only made her more aware of the strangeness of the lake, the foulness in the air –

Crack.

Something beneath her shifted. The crack startled the other two on the shoreline, and Orion shouted, “Zephyra, come back before you fall in. I don’t like this one bit.”

He was right, but something caught Zephyra’s eye. A dark shape, moving beneath the surface of the water.

Crack.

Zephyra looked up just in time to see Orion’s mouth open in a scream, before the ice split beneath her, and something reached up to drag her into the lake.

---

In a dark place deep beneath the city of Aetherill, something stirred. A power that had lay dormant for one hundred years wakened at the summoning of its master, Bartholomew Threeves.

Ice thawed behind glass, the water spilling out into the floor in great torrents that startled the guards out of the cell. From the cavity in the ice stepped a figure, dressed in black, flexing muscles he hadn’t used in a century.

Threeves stood on the other side of the cell, staring in. The guards on either side of him trembled as the creature approached the bars.

“Good morning, Varek,” Threeves said to the Fae male. “I trust your beauty rest was productive.”

Varek Marshall stared back, eyes glowing green in the darkness. His skin was a fine ebony, and inked into his skin were elaborate tattoos of a shimmering, green ink. Threeves had always thought he was a handsome creature, if completely terrifying – but it was the first time in recent memory he had looked into those incredible eyes and seen something looking back.

Something intelligent.

Something angry.

“Why did you wake me?” Varek asked, his voice weak with disuse. It would come back, in time – and when it did, Jasper would be sorry he ever stole the car.

“I have a job for you.”

“I don’t do your bidding anymore.”

“True – being behind a cell would make that quite difficult. What if I could offer you a deal?”

Something important to know about Bartholomew Threeves was that a deal with the Head of the Order was almost always a trick. This was something Varek knew well, and the reason he preferred to stay encased in ice.

“We need your abilities to control a rather pesky operative,” Threeves continued. Varek hadn’t yet turned his back, so he was still listening. “You may remember a certain Fae called Jasper.”

Varek’s eyes flashed at the name. At the memory. Threeves smiled.

“It seems that Jasper has gone rather out of bounds this time,” Threeves said. “I need him back. In fact, I need him, his team, and the two Fae he is currently harboring. I need them in chains and alive.”

“Jasper would be easier to control without a head,” Varek pointed out.

“Yes, but I require him. You’ll have to compromise.”

“Or what?”

“Not or, Varek. And. You do this, and I’ll relinquish you from your bond, end your sentence, and erase your name from the record. How’s that for a deal?”

Varek considered it, tilting his head this way and that. He flexed his powerful arms and pulled his leg back in a hamstring stretch.

“How badly has Morwin threatened you to make you call on my abilities, Barty?” Varek asked.

Threeves quickly lost his smile. “This has nothing to do with Morwin. Only Jasper.”

But Varek was grinning, white fangs gleaming in the dim light.

“Do we have a deal?”

Varek blinked, slowly. “Yes,” he said. “We do. Where did you lose him this time, Barty?”

“That’s the best part.” Threeves took out a card and handed it to Varek through the bars. “He will come to you.”

---

Click here to continue to part three

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