Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) (10 page)

All too soon the image before me began
to waver and I felt a tug of anguish in my heart. Distress flared
across her features and it seemed as if she was about to speak. Her
lips did not move but I heard words spoken directly into my
mind.

Wait for me.

Those three simple words changed
everything for me.

I wanted to speak, ask a million
questions, but I could not utter a word. Her gaze was one of
compassion, sorrow gathered behind it.

Wait for me.

It was all she said and then the noise
of the woodland surged all around me and the ripe stench of the
cadavers filled my nostrils. Moonlight beat away the fading
sunlight in the chapel and the clearing came flooding back in a
swirl of emerald green and smoky blacks.

A hand with sharp nails dug into my
shoulder and I was wrenched fully back into the clearing. I was
thrown back against one of the trees and Auria’s snarling face
filled my vision.

“
What was that?” she
hissed.

“
You saw her?”

“
Yes! What did you
do?”

“
You were there with me?”
A tentative joy filled me at the knowledge that the woman had not
been some kind of delusion.

“
No, you idiot! I saw what
you saw.”

“
What now?” Onyx had
sauntered over to us, Emory not far behind her. She appeared bored,
but her expression quickly changed to one of anxiety, as did
Emory’s.

“
There was something
here,” Auria said, releasing me and facing the other
two.

“
What was it?” Emory
asked.

“
I don’t know. Search the
area, find whatever that was and bring it to me.”

“
But there can’t be
anything here,” Onyx replied, although she was looking into the
trees. “We would know if—”

“
I said search the
area!”

Emory stared at Auria for a few
moments and then vanished. After a long, malicious stare directed
at me, Onyx did the same, leaving me with Auria.

When Auria faced me, I began to
understand why the other two had appeared to be so anxious. It was
because whatever I had seen had scared Auria. I could see it now, a
paralysing fear casting shadows of self-doubt through her mind. It
was the first time either of them had seen her afraid of anyone or
anything. She reached over and grasped me by the
shirtfront.

“
Whatever she is, we’ll
find her. And if you did
anything
to—”

“
I did not do anything,
you know that. I do not know where the vision, or whatever she was,
came from.”

She stared at me for a long, bleak
moment, searching my thoughts and seeing the truth of my words. She
let go of my shirt.

“
Get inside the chapel and
stay there!”

Not daring to argue, I walked away. As
I reached the chapel, I turned back to see her staring at me, fear
and uncertainty clear in her eyes. I disappeared into the
chapel.

I spent the last few hours of that
night sitting on my own in the chapel. And as those hours dwindled
toward dawn, I began to feel an ache in my bones that seemed to
radiate to every single part of me. And I welcomed that pain, for
it appeared to be penance for letting Julia die.

Onyx entered as the first few rays of
sunlight pushed against the gloom in the chapel. With only a snort
in my direction, she disappeared into the underground chamber.
Emory’s voice reached me in the chapel. He was talking to
Auria.

“
Why send me?” he asked.
There was a decidedly whiny tone in his voice. “You know he
despises everything to do with you—especially me. He will kill me
if—”

“
It will be a mercy
compared to what
I
will do to you if you come back without having spoken to
him,” she snapped.

She was talking about her son, whom
she had turned into a vampire when he was a mere child. I gathered
from her thoughts that he had never forgiven her for it.

She let the silence gather for a few
moments. “He will know what it was that came to him, or at least
know how to find out.” Her tone softened. “Emory, I would prefer to
have you here, but Onyx is the strongest among us now. I need her
here in case it comes again, but in the flesh this time.” It seemed
as if he was about to depart, but she stopped him. “Hurry back. We
will not start the ceremony without you.”

I sat there as the gloom in the chapel
was farther pushed back by the weak light of dawn, wallowing in my
misery. I did not realise immediately that Auria was standing
behind me.

When I turned around, she was watching
me, her gaze similar to that of a slaveholder assessing a slave
they had just purchased.

She smiled then, not the cold, glacial
smiles I had seen so far, but one that held a hint of tenderness. A
low chuckle escaped her, a deep, velvety rumble.

“
Yes, perhaps my gaze is
detached and a little bit cold. But I see your suffering, guilt and
inner turmoil and I cannot empathise. It has been so long since I
was troubled with trivial emotions such as those. But slaveholder?”
She laughed again. “No. We are beyond them, far beyond any human.
We are celestial beings in comparison. I see you do not agree with
that. But we no longer exist within society. And the boundaries
they have created for their race do not exist for us.” She sighed,
her gaze growing more intense and her smile almost completely
tender as she reached out a hand to brush back my hair. “Such
beauty,” she mused, seemingly lost in her thoughts.

But she was brought sharply back when
I cringed from her touch, almost like a dog fearing a kick from a
violent master.

The smile lost all tenderness and
hardened so it was as brittle as a chunk of ice. Her eyes were like
the surface of a frozen lake. Then she was kneeling before me, her
hand clasping my chin, her sharp nails digging into my flesh. Her
face reflected all her inner viciousness so that there was hardly
any hint of the beautiful woman.

“
Your beauty may be
mesmerising, Avery, but be careful. For it will not be enough to
save you if you displease me.”

She was on her feet again, her gaze
merciless as it bore down on me.

“
Stay here if you wish and
suffer the effects of the sun. But get that girl...” She sneered at
the word “girl,” but I was beginning to get used to reading her
thoughts and I saw fear and unease flicker through her mind as well
as her eyes. “...or whatever it is you saw, out of your head.”
Again that heartless smile slowly curled around her mouth. “You
belong to me now. No one and nothing can save you. Not that
creature you saw and not your God!”

The air around her puckered and
shimmered, and then I was alone. But the sound of her laughter
reached me from the depths of the chapel. It seemed as if it was a
long time before it died away.

Alone as the sun wreaked its revenge
on my unnatural body, the anger lurking at the edge of my grief
slunk out of the shadows like a vengeful wraith. I replayed the
events of the last couple of nights, letting the rage uncurl and
grow until it was all I saw. I hated them—not just the beasts below
in the underground room, I hated the Fosters and every single slave
on that plantation who had watched Julia and me being led to our
destruction like lambs to the slaughter.

I remained there as the hours wore on
and the pain made my limbs feel heavy, my thoughts sluggish, but I
couldn’t bear the thought of being closeted in that dark, dank
space with them. So I knelt by the altar, allowing myself some
respite from the soul-destroying anger by letting my thoughts
return to the vision of the girl kneeling alone in the ghostly,
skeletal remains of this chapel.

As I sat there thinking about her, an
idea, a glimmer of hope, began to form. For the woman to appear to
me like that, it had to mean that there was hope, especially since
she had engendered such a fierce anxiety in Auria. It was something
for me to focus on in this valley I had been cast into. And it was
what gave me the idea to start the fire. She had been in this
chapel, but the chapel had been a burnt ruin and it didn’t look as
if it had been a recent fire, either. Was what I had seen a vision
of the past? Perhaps the chapel had suffered a fire and been
restored. But I remembered Auria’s shock and consternation, not
only at the vision of the girl, but at the ruins of the chapel.
Auria was the one who’d had this chapel built, and she would have
known if what I had seen was of the past. So perhaps it was a
glimpse of the future.

Or maybe I had lost my sanity along
with my soul.

I crouched by the altar in the exact
spot where she had been kneeling, offering up a prayer. Oh, how I
would have given anything to have had a few more seconds with
her.

Then I grew angry at myself. My wife,
my loyal, devoted wife’s carcass was lying outside, and yet my
thoughts were suffused with images of the darky girl I had seen.
Even as I reprimanded myself, my thoughts kept returning to those
beautiful eyes and the way they had filled with compassion as they
gazed up into mine. Compassion and...and...

I rose to my feet, not allowing myself
to believe what I thought I had seen in her eyes. I was a fiend, a
devil. Even if what I thought was possible, I didn’t deserve
it.

Clearing my mind, I listened. I could
hear birds twittering in the woods and the slaves singing a
mournful hymn as they toiled in the field. If I listened deeply I
could hear as far away as the mansion. Alden and his father were
arguing. Even the sound of their voices made my stomach curl in
rage. But from the underground chamber, I heard only the flickering
of the torches hung on the walls, nothing of life, not even a stray
breath, from the two animals slumbering below. The day had already
lengthened and afternoon would give way to twilight in less than an
hour. The idea to burn the chapel had taken root; all I had to do
was act on it.

The barrels of whisky were still
outside.

I retrieved one of the
barrels, being careful to make as little noise as possible, and
brought it into the chapel. I proceeded to pour it along the floor
and the pews. I lit a piece of linen cloth with a flint and steel,
worried the sound would wake them. But all was quiet in the
underground chamber. Then I ignited the whisky, watching the flames
leap into life with a
whoosh
and curl its way down the aisle to the pews. I
did not have much time left.

I gathered the dark power to me and
shimmered into the underground chamber. I was unsure of what to do
until I saw the gold staff. With it held tightly in my hand, I
approached the coffin and opened the one nearest to me. Auria lay
as still as a corpse, her dark hair wound around her, her sluggish
incoherent dreams reaching me. The sconces lit her in a hellish,
fiery light as I raised the staff.

I faltered for a moment and my courage
almost deserted me when her eyelids began to flicker. Picturing
Julia as helpless as a lamb in Onyx’s grasp, I drove the staff into
Auria’s stomach.

She awoke with a screech that sent
fear thrilling through me and I froze for a few precious seconds.
The lid of the second coffin was flung off with a crash as Onyx
awoke and sat up. Her features contorted into a mask of rage when
she took in the scene of the staff in Auria’s stomach as Auria
screamed and screamed, seemingly paralysed by pain. I pulled out
the staff and was about to strike Onyx with it, but she was already
half out of the coffin when she vanished. The staff was wrenched
out of my hand from behind and I was lifted off my feet and thrown
across the room. I hit the wall with enough force to make the whole
building shudder, and for the first time since the making of this
new body, I felt excruciating pain along my back and head. The pain
was already starting to recede as I opened my eyes.

Auria was still screaming. Onyx stood
a few feet away from her, anguish lining her face as she listened
to those screams. She appeared to be torn between going to Auria
and attacking me. But then she fixed that hateful glare on me,
fangs bared, and I knew she had made her choice. Looking like
something that resided in the deepest depths of hell, she rushed
toward me.

I do not think I ever believed I would
come away from this alive, so I couldn’t move as she descended. She
was just moments from me when the flames from the sconces on either
side of me flared violently. Onyx stopped short, looking at the
ground in bewilderment when the earth by my feet erupted into
flames. She squealed as those flames reared up like a fiery cobra
and rushed toward her. Her skirt caught alight first, and then the
rest of her was lit in an orange fireball. Her screams drowned out
Auria’s as she whirled fruitlessly, trying to extinguish the flames
whilst I looked on in shock. And I could have sworn I heard another
less distinct scream join those of Onyx and Auria’s.

That third scream had the queerest
effect on me, like a hook in my gut. Wrenched out of my trance by
it, I leapt past the screaming fireball Onyx had become, and ran
for the stairs, gathering the dark force to me until the
underground chamber disappeared and I was outside the chapel. I
could still hear their screams amidst the roar of the fire that
raged within the chapel as the sun began to set and the first few
drops of rain splattered against my face.