Emerald Darkness Page 4

  She sat in the middle of her four assailants, blocking each of their attacks with such precision, she didn’t waste an ounce of her own energy. It was effortless and beautiful to watch. Fire, ice, lightning. None of it could touch her. Instead of one large shield around her entire body, she sensed the attacks just before they landed, creating a tiny pinpoint light that absorbed the magic.

  Lately, she had even learned to not only absorb the magic, but to deflect it, sending it back toward her attacker.

  I had never seen someone so young have such control and focus.

  But there was a flaw in her defense that no one else seemed to see. It was obvious to me every time I watched them do this particular exercise, but in most of our training sessions, I opted to sit back and watch.

  Casting magic wasn’t something I was ready for yet, and I didn’t want to have to explain myself to anyone else.

  I could feel some of the others becoming impatient with me. My brother in particular. When we were shadowlings, we’d sparred together often, both with physical weapons and with magic. Back then, we were evenly matched, or so it seemed.

  As we grew older, he was being groomed to take over the Northern Kingdom someday at Lea’s side. He’d spent most of his days in a classroom, learning politics and history.

  I was being trained to take over command of the royal guard. Unlike Jackson, my classroom was constant battle and training in all forms of combat. I had a natural talent with the element of fire, but for some reason, I’d always been drawn to physical weaponry. Staffs, swords, and most of all, my axe.

  God, I missed my axe.

  It was this enormous silver battle-axe that took two hands to wield. Well, until I’d grown strong enough to lift it with just one arm. As my strength grew, so did my skill. Hell, I’d been graceful with that thing, when most demons who tried to so much as lift it got thrown off balance.

  There was just something about wrapping my fist around a great weapon and swinging it with all my might. Anyone could stand fifty feet away and throw a magical fireball at a target, but to swing a heavy axe like that took strength and agility and incredible skill. I’d spent more hours than I could count working with that axe until I’d mastered it.

  When I got kidnapped and brought to the human world, I had no control over my own form. I was trapped in shadow, but not even that. I was less than a shadow. I was a pool of energy and thought. A slave.

  For a hundred years, I had lived like that, with no ability to hold a weapon in my hand. Magic was all I had, and it was never my own to cast.

  Since I’d been freed, I just didn’t feel like it anymore. I longed for the feel of a solid weapon in my hand. I loved the way my muscles felt as they stretched and flexed.

  It was something everyone else in this room took for granted. They saw physical weapons as archaic. But watching them today, throwing every type of magic they could think of toward Zara without being able to so much as alter a hair on her head, I suddenly felt like it was time for me to show them the power of a physical weapon when you were battling against magical beings.

  No one noticed as I slid off the stool and reached for a small pebble that had chipped off a nearby brick. It was a tiny thing, barely two ounces in my palm.

  I gripped it between my thumb and forefinger, aimed, and sent it flying through the air toward Zara.

  The pebble hit her square on the nose. I suppressed a smile as her eyelids snapped open and her hand rose to rub the stinging part. She lost concentration and fell to the cement floor, one of Jackson’s icy spears barely missing her shoulder.

  Everyone stopped and turned toward me, their mouths open like they’d never seen someone throw a pebble before.

  I raised an eyebrow, shrugged, and turned back to my stool in the corner.

  Point made.

  Keep Your Eyes Open

  I left for Cypress right after school.

  It was a four-hour drive, so I called Eloise before I left to let her know to expect me late. She promised to have dinner waiting and told me to be careful.

  Sometimes the inability to use the doors inside the attic at Brighton Manor was frustrating, but we had no idea if the Order was still monitoring the Hall of Doorways. As far as I knew, the home of every Prima had a hallway like ours—a long corridor with doors lining both sides as far as the eye could see. The doors allowed members of the Order to travel across the world in just a few steps, going from a Prima’s house in Georgia all the way to one in Paris. All you had to do was know which door you were looking for.

  If I’d wanted to, I could have simply gone into the attic of my own house, found Eloise’s door in Cypress, and walked straight through. It would have taken less than five minutes.

  But if the Order was somehow watching our door and keeping track of who went where, my actions could put Eloise in danger. I couldn’t risk it.

  Of course, I wondered if our alliance with Cypress was even a secret at this point. Eloise and her two daughters, Meredith and Caroline, were dear friends of mine. During a visit to Peachville when I was still a cheerleader in training for the Order, Caroline was abducted by a group of crow-shifting witches. She was almost killed, and when I saved her, a piece of Cypress’s demon was transferred into me, giving me some of his abilities and powers.

  The connection I shared with them was deeper than could be explained.

  Eloise and her daughters had fought with us in the battle against Priestess Winter, and we had no way of knowing whether anyone involved in that fight had survived and told the Order about their betrayal. So far, no one had come to Eloise to ask her about the fight, and we were hoping our alliance was still unknown to the other priestesses.

  If an attack was coming, though, she needed to know about it.

  “Harper, I’m so happy you’re here,” Eloise said as she ushered me into her home a few hours later. She glanced around the quiet neighborhood. “Where’s your car?”

  “I parked a couple blocks over, just in case.” I shrugged out of my backpack and hoodie and slung them over my arm. I’d worn all black, covered my hair in a hoodie, and stuck to the shadows.

  Eloise stared at my clothes, a worried expression flashing in her eyes.

  “This isn’t just a friendly visit, is it?” she asked. “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing. Yet.” I tried to keep the fear out of my voice, but I couldn’t hide anything from her. Eloise had become like a mother to me, which was something I wasn’t used to since I never met my real mother. It was strange to feel so open with a woman her age. Life in the foster care system had caused me to distrust every adult who said they cared about me. Inevitably, they’d always abandoned me or abused me.

  But Eloise was one of the most giving, caring women I’d ever known.

  I needed her advice right now, but I was so scared that I was putting her in danger just by being here. If the emerald priestess was really the next sister to come after us, though, Eloise might already be in more trouble than any of us realized.

  “Come into the kitchen,” she said. “I’ve got dinner waiting.”

  “Are the girls here?” I asked, glancing up the stairs as we walked back toward the kitchen.

  “Meredith is at school until Thanksgiving break, but Caroline and Sophie are upstairs doing homework,” she said. “I know Caroline is dying to see you, but I told her to give us some time to talk first.”

  “Good,” I said. I sat down at the elegant table, and Eloise placed a plate of spaghetti in front of me. “Thank you. This looks delicious.”

  I twisted a few noodles on my fork and took a bite. I loved Eloise’s cooking. It was really nice to be having a quiet meal that I didn’t have to help cook for once. I loved my life at Brighton Manor, but sometimes it got a little loud and chaotic.

  “Why are you really here, Harper?” she asked, sitting down across from me with her own plate and a glass of wine. “I thought maybe you were here to share some good news of a more personal nature.”

  I looked
up at her and she smiled, one eyebrow raised.

  I couldn’t help but touch the golden locket I wore around my neck. “How did you know?” I asked, unable to suppress a smile of my own.

  “Jackson told me a few weeks ago what he was planning,” she said. “The girls and I really wanted to be there at your Halloween party, but I thought maybe it was best we stay away from Peachville for a while.”

  I bit my lower lip and set my fork back onto my plate. “Has something happened here?” I asked. “Something that would make you think it was bad to come to us?”

  She drew a long breath in and straightened her shoulders. “I didn’t want to worry you,” she said. “But yes, a few things have happened in the past week.”

  My stomach twisted. “Tell me.”

  “Someone came to the house,” she said. “It was a woman I’d never seen before, but she wore a necklace with a very large square emerald pendant. She introduced herself as Lauralei Welton, and said she had come on behalf of the priestess who had once controlled all the emerald demon gates. Power has shifted again, Harper, and the emerald priestess—Priestess Evers—is going to take back control of the emerald gates now that her sister is dead.”

  I closed my eyes and pressed my palms against the table to steady myself.

  “So now you’re directly under the rule of the emerald priestess?” I asked. It definitely didn’t seem like a coincidence.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ve never officially seen or met her, but she was the priestess in charge when my mother and grandmother were Prima here in Cypress. From what I’ve heard about her, she was not a very nice woman.”

  “None of them are,” I said. “How can they be when they do such horrible things?”

  “She’s also quite a bit more secretive,” Eloise said. “In my grandmother’s journals, she only mentions the emerald priestess visiting Cypress three times. Priestess Winter used to come here nearly once a month. Apparently, the emerald priestess has a daughter she’s incredibly fond of who usually comes in her place.”

  “What did she come for back then? Did your grandmother say?”

  Eloise swallowed and dabbed a napkin at her mouth. She avoided my eyes for a moment, and I got this terrible sick feeling inside.

  “She only came to visit when she wanted to punish someone,” she said. She stood and walked over to a desk built into the counter on the other side of the room. She opened the top drawer and took out a book with a green leather cover.

  “My grandmother Iris’s journal,” she said, sliding it across the table toward me. “You can take it with you. It might give you some insight into the emerald priestess. Back then, she was called Ashlynn Evers. I’m not sure what she goes by now.”

  “Her real name is Hazel,” I said, running a hand along the smooth leather surface of the journal. We learned the hard way that the five priestess sisters had figured out a way to cheat death, eating the souls of their oldest daughters to stay alive. “Thank you for this. Anything we can learn about her is incredibly important right now.”

  “I’ll help however I can. There’s still so much to learn about the Order,” she said. “Until you discovered the truth about Priestess Winter being one of the actual original founding members of the Order, none of us had any idea she was two hundred years old. She looked so young, and her appearance and name changed each time she pretended to switch from one life to the next. I still get chills every time I think about what that woman did to her own daughters.”

  I did, too.

  And I was pretty sure the other priestesses used the same practice.

  “Did any of the other Primas in your family keep a journal?” I asked. “Anyone from when the emerald priestess was in control of this gate?”

  “Not that I know of,” she said. “My mother gave me this one just before she died. I’ve never found any other journals in the house. So as far as I know, my grandmother was the only one.”

  I nodded and slipped the green journal into my backpack.

  “What else did the woman who came here have to say?” I asked. “You said her name was Lauralei?”

  “Yes. She didn’t say much else. Only that we were now expected to answer to Priestess Evers, and she would soon be coming to visit us.”

  I raised my head, my heart skipping a beat. “Did she say when?”

  Eloise shook her head.

  “If you find out when to expect her, and you can get a message to me, please let me know,” I said. “I have a terrible feeling something bad is about to happen. I’ve been having these dreams. A woman in a dark cloak keeps coming to me, trying to tell me something about the emerald priestess.”

  Eloise put her hand on mine. “Harper, maybe your fears are getting the best of you.”

  I shook my head. “It’s more than that, Eloise,” I said. “I think she’s been planning something for months. I know it’s just a dream, but it feels like so much more. I think it’s a warning. That’s why this visit from one of her witches scares me,” I said. “She’s taking back control over what she feels is rightfully hers—the emerald gates. Somehow, she’s planning to use that against us.”

  Eloise’s face grew pale. “Do you think she’s somehow found out about the alliance?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But we need to warn everyone who has joined our alliance to be careful. Can you find out if they’ve all received a similar visit from this Lauralei person?”

  She nodded.

  When we first defeated Priestess Winter, we decided to call ourselves the Demon Liberation Movement. We committed ourselves to defeating the Order and had all decided we would target the emerald priestess next. In order to defeat her, we knew it was in our best interest to convince as many emerald gates as possible to secretly join our cause.

  This had been a tough assignment. Many of the witches in the Order liked the power their demon slaves gave them, and they would do anything to protect their gates because of it. But there were others, like Eloise, who hated what the Order did to both demons and to young witches who were forced to join the Order without really knowing what that meant until it was too late.

  When a witch was initiated, she not only had to adjust to a demon living inside her body, but she was also given a specific mission for her life. Girls who had dreamed of going to college and becoming doctors were told they needed to be teachers instead. Girls who had boyfriends they loved were told to break off those relationships and convince another, more powerful man to fall in love with them.

  This was how the Order worked. In exchange for the power, beauty, and riches they offered, they also demanded your complete loyalty and lifelong service to their cause.

  If you disobeyed them, the consequences were often deadly.

  One of our missions over the past few months had been to seek out witches who were bound to the emerald gates who wanted out of the Order. This had meant sending some of our own into these communities to make friends and ask dangerous questions.

  So far, we had managed to bring a total of six emerald demon gates into our alliance, including Cypress. Not every witch in these demon gate towns knew about the alliance, but anyone the Prima felt could be trusted was in on it.

  It was a risky plan, but if it came to a war between us and the emerald priestess, we knew that having these gates on our side would be extremely valuable.

  “It’s possible someone in our alliance told the emerald priestess about us,” I said. “That could be why she’s planning some kind of attack. Until we know for sure, though, we need to make sure everyone knows to be on the lookout for anything strange. If they feel they’re in danger, they know what to do.”

  Eloise pulled a ruby stone from her pocket and set it on the table. It was small stone, the size of a pea. I had given one to her and to each of the Primas in our new alliance.

  “If something happens and you’re attacked, or you feel like the emerald priestess knows about the alliance, rub your thumb across the top of the stone three times and hold it in your
palm,” I reminded her. “When it begins to glow, that means I am holding my stone as well, and we can speak through it.”

  She gave me a small smile. “I still don’t understand exactly why the magic works, but it’s brilliant,” she said.

  “I just hope we never have to use it.”

  The ruby communication stones were something we had learned about during our stay in the Underground. The stones allowed us to speak with each other across long distances without being detected, but they could only be used once.

  I had given them to the six Primas in our alliance in case they needed our help. I had six matching stones that I carried with me at all times.

  “What else can I do to help?” she asked.

  “Just keep your eyes open,” I said. “And be careful. It might be awhile before I come back to see you. I don’t want to risk revealing our alliance if they don’t already know about it.”

  She nodded, brushing a tear away from her eye.

  “You said there were a couple of strange things going on?”

  “Oh, Harper. There’s been troubling news from one of my friends who went into hiding after the sapphire gates fell,” she said. “Her daughter was kidnapped. She said a lot of the sapphire gates’ trainees had been taken on Halloween night.”

  “Oh my God,” I said. I closed my eyes and let my head fall into my hands. “They have no idea who took them or why?”

  “No. They just disappeared without a trace,” she said. “Everyone’s terrified. Do you think there’s anything you can do?”

  “We’ll start looking into it, I promise.”

  Something deep in my stomach knotted up. The dreams. The visions. Now this. It was all adding up to something terrible.

  “I really should get going,” I said. “It’s late and it’s a long drive home.”

  “I wish you could stay longer, but I understand,” she said.