Queens Rise: Immortal Brotherhood (Edge Book 6)

  “Not for a warrior.”

  Dagen offered a shallow nod but never bothered to answer the original question.

  “Very well,” Brosia said calmly. “I’m feeling generous tonight, Adair. I shall let you bring another friend along. Bring forth the fire soul who was stolen from me as well.”

  Instantly, Adair and Scorpio were before Ambrosia.

  Adair looked back the shore to see Shade holding Judge back. Adair let her stare say it all. I love you. I will be back. Adair would be damned if she ever let Jade’s prediction come true—her forsaking Judge and being at peace with it.

  Ambrosia’s hand rested on Adair’s arm, then a whirl of fire surrounded them all.

  The very next thing Adair saw was a vast kingdom. It wasn’t a place she would have assumed death or hell would look like. It was more so a beach resort, completely surrounded with water. The buildings were all open, hearths of fire were everywhere, and beautiful flowers dangled above every doorway.

  Adair looked to her side at Ambrosia trying to stifle the awe in her expression. “What did you want to talk about?”

  Ambrosia was still staring at her kingdom with marked appreciation in her gaze. Her queenly leer faded. “You are unimpressed.”

  “I’m not materialistic.”

  Ambrosia slightly leaned away as if Adair had spoken an insult.

  Both Dagen and Scorpio gave the pair of them guarded space. Servants rushed to offer them anything they would want or need, from wine to women.

  “The witch has you in her grasp,” Ambrosia stated to Adair. “Such foul, twisted creatures.”

  “I am a witch.”

  Ambrosia waved her hand. “A phase. We can break you of such.”

  “I don’t want to be broken from my gifts,” Adair spat.

  “They came from the vessel, not your father nor me.”

  “I don’t care who dished out the DNA, it’s mine.”

  Appalled, Brosia circled Adair. “Why do you see me as evil?”

  “Really?” Adair asked with a sarcastic lift of her lip. “I’ve had all but twenty-four hours to know you even exist. I have yet to form an opinion on the matter, and I doubt I will have time to do so any time soon. I am fighting a curse at the moment.”

  Brosia’s expression hardened. “He didn’t speak of me, your father? He allowed her to raise you as her own!”

  “Who? Reveca? No. I didn’t live with Talon. I knew him. I respected and loved him. But I found out who he was to me about hour before I figured out who you were.”

  “Why did he deny you,” she asked, pulling her shoulders back. “You are made in his image!”

  “Out of protection, I’m sure. There are many evils who hunt him and me.”

  “Which is why you will send your father to me, and you will return when your task is complete.”

  “My task?”

  Her gaze moved away. “There were many things needed for your conception. Things I didn’t have. Barters were set in place.”

  “What did you do?” Adair asked as she prowled closer.

  “So much like him,” Brosia said with a sigh. She turned and crossed her arms, facing her kingdom. “A witch came to me, one who knew of my troubles. How your father would cry out to me every two hundred years without fail. How invariably I’d hear his cry between those set points. They said a child would bind my family, and they could set forth such a gift only if I allowed my daughter’s flesh to be a passageway. I refused. Then I was told the child of my child would be a legacy, untouchable by any death. Undefeatable, for it would have the fire of its father and my supremacy.”

  “You fucking whored me out?”

  Ambrosia looked down, shame weighing heavy in her expression. “The promise was beautifully spoken. I was charmed.” Her eyes welled. “However, I grew impatient. I did not want to wait for this timing, so I sought the witch out, and I saw an evil that my dearest comrades have yet to think of.” She paused. “I was trapped in my contract. Powerless,” she spat with a heavy disgust. She looked right at Adair. “A Voyager approached me that very night and cast another barter at my feet. The dark Gods of emotion were demolishing their bloodline, for the Voyagers were the ones who could undo all their evil plots if they wished to. The Voyagers had been cursed and needed a spark—one birth to restore the power in their realm, begin again.”

  “So you whored me out twice over because no matter how many barters you place on top of one another, they all hold,” Adair seethed. Not even the calm looks from Dagen could ease her at that point.

  “As they said,” Brosia began, slowly looking over Adair. “Choice. I was told if you were a child born of the flesh of a Voyager, you would have a chance to override the past, change your fate. It was the only way. The righteous sinner’s blameless impossibility. They said it was a cure.”

  Ambrosia nodded to the open air before them. “You see whisks of light, the current.”

  Adair focused her mortal eyes, and when she did, she was sure she saw hues of light in the air—faint, floating rainbows.

  “The Voyagers have safe passage here. This is how they travel in and out of death now, for we have an alliance.”

  “Those words belong to a spell, Ambrosia. And I don’t know how to use it, but I know a good man was cursed by evil, and I need to cure him.”

  “The risen dead. Yes. There will be more. The witch made a barter with another Lord of death—one that allowed ruling the living as well.”

  “Are you serious?” Adair asked as her gut twitched.

  “I am.”

  “How can you be so reserved about this? Do you even understand what this means?” Adair questioned as her frantic stare flipped to Dagen and Scorpio, who were both tracking every word, every expression of the exchange between the two women.

  “I do. And I realize you only have one chance. The chance given as a reward for my barter with the Voyagers.”

  “You want me to thank you for this? A chance? One! The only reason I exist—that there is an issue in the first fucking place—is because of a girlish whim. You were crushing hard on Talon and didn’t care who stood in your way. Including a child. A blameless child!”

  Ambrosia’s face became an unreadable mask. “The cure always lies in the first to be inflicted. You cure your dead, and they will have the supremacy over any dead who breach your realm. They will be the only ones who can dispatch them.” Ambrosia lifted her chin. “I am not a fool, daughter. Your existence was predestined. Set your childish blames aside and find the cure you need. Use what was given to you.”

  Adair swayed her head in utter defeat.

  “Payment of the original barter is due with the next moonrise,” Ambrosia warned. “Either way, it will be over soon. This is your home. Your end.”

  Adair stepped back. “I have a home.”

  “You will not come here?” Every word dripped with disgust.

  “I need time.”

  Ambrosia dropped her head, then turned. At length, she spoke. “For some time, it was only you and I…no servants no other souls. We laughed and we played. We had adventures.”

  Adair swallowed tensely. “All I remember was a crazy grandmother.”

  “Regrettable of course, but I had to give you to your father. The barter with the witch stated as much. You had to cry out, so he could hear you.”

  “I don’t cry, but I managed just fine, thank you.”

  “I see…must have been another child who stopped a warrior of his and asked for help.”

  Adair tensed, remembering how lost she was when she reached out for help. Right then, she realized her version of crying out and her mother’s was not one in the same. The woman before her maybe obsessive, but she was longsighted. She knew the pain Adair was living through with her grandmother was temporary. To Adair, it felt infinite. She could only hope her current hell was just as temporary in the long run.

  Brosia glanced over Adair as one of the rainbows fluttered into the room. Both Scorpio and Dagen were at Adair’s back i
nstantly.

  “I only offer gifts of knowledge,” Brosia said quietly to the warriors.

  The rainbow came about them. In the haze, there was a soft light, and through the light, Adair was sure she could see worlds and worlds. Without warning, the space narrowed in on darkness.

  Scorpio clenched the back of Adair’s arm, pulling her close to him once he realized they had moved—traveled. To where and when was anyone’s guess.

  Dagen kept his distance, surveying the land, breathing in.

  “I will show the witch,” Brosia stated calmly, “the vile things I saw him do.”

  “Where are we,” Adair asked as she flinched at the sound of a cannon.

  “Judge’s nightmare,” Scorpio said, looking in the opposite direction. Dagen vanished like a hound on a trail searching for something.

  Brosia moved them through the night to a heavily wooded area. Gunfire, men screaming, cannons were heard in the echo of the darkness.

  In the woods, something far more horrific was seen.

  “Who are they?” Adair asked as she watched a beaten man crawl away from another, only for the dominant man to use magic to draw the beaten one back, breaking his bones as he did. The beaten man was elevated then. The witch circled him, chanting as the victim yelled, “I will not. For the father’s will is in me.”

  “Zale,” Scorpio growled, having to stop himself from charging.

  Brosia smiled at him adoringly. “Reveca always steals the best from me,” she said, reaching to run the back of her hand down his scruffy cheek. He jerked away.

  “Get her out of here,” Scorpio ordered, remembering this night all too well.

  “What’s going on—who is that? Who is being torturing?” Adair demanded.

  “Chalice. We need to leave. You do not need to see this,” Scorpio urged.

  Unbothered, Brosia watched the distant aggression. “Voyagers are particular, we can not leave until the wind carries us back. Look away if you must, but this space and time is ours now.”

  Chalice, as massive as he was, was nothing more than a ragdoll dangling in the air as Zale chanted above him.

  Ambrosia translated. “This seed is strong and true, innocence births darkness. Everlasting malevolent power.” She glanced to Adair. “When I witnessed this…I knew he was evil. That accepting the barter he laid at my feet was a tragic mistake.” She looked away as every bone in Chalice’s body was shattered at once, and he fell the ground.

  “He’s killing him,” Scorpio raged.

  “He’s attempting to, but cannot for he did not raise him from the dead. This is one of his many fails at understanding a magic that was so dark and demented that even the vilest of the current evils will not touch it. Some laws should not be broken…”

  Ambrosia turned and led Scorpio and Adair in another direction.

  “He just lies there?” Adair protested as if this was not a past but a future she could and would change.

  “You know he doesn’t,” Scorpio said coldly. “He rises with evil…his actions will haunt Judge for lifetimes to come.”

  Their trek took them to the main road. Horses and soldiers headed one way, carriages the other.

  “There she is,” Ambrosia pointed out, nodding to a carriage.

  It was being searched, and when the men circled the back of the carriage, Adair lost her ability to breathe, one of them was Judge. Though he looked the same, beyond the shorter hair he had now, his eyes were youthful, full of light and joy, even in this war zone, even with worry strapped across his face. She saw the difference and understood what ages of life and wars had done to him.

  He hesitated and looked deeply into the little girl’s eyes that were peering out the carriage window. Her hair fell in long blonde ringlets; her cheeks were round and blushed.

  “That is your bloodline,” Brosia informed. “In time, when the girl is of age…I merge with her and create you with you father.”

  Looking at the little girl, it was hard for Adair to loath who she would become, an evil guardian who tortured Adair for years.

  The irony that Judge seemed to feel something when he looked at her only assured Adair more so that what was between her and Judge was predestined. He felt Adair coming long before it was possible for her to do so.

  Judge gave the father of the little girl a bag of coins and pointed out a path for them to take then ran to the next carriage searching, with Scorpio at his side.

  The present-day Scorpio kept staring at himself as if silently urging his past self to go, to get to the house before Chalice did.

  Ambrosia led Adair and Scorpio to Judge’s family home. Just before they arrived, Chalice was seen staggering forward, he’d pause then turn, only to turn again, clearly being dragged by an invisible pull.

  “Mother fucker,” Scorpio spat, charging up to the house, clearly hoping that there was some way to warn Judge’s family—change the past.

  Once inside, they saw Judge’s mother tossing supplies into a trap door that was hidden under a rug in the front room. The girls were frightened, clinging to their dolls.

  “Where is da?” the littlest one asked.

  As if on cue, he came into the room with weapons in hand, telling his wife the carriage was stolen and the armies were marching no less than a mile away.

  Right as the woman reached for the girls to put them below, Chalice appeared. He grasped the man’s head and, with one swift turn, snapped his neck.

  “Run,” Chalice commanded the woman as he staggered forward, fighting a force yet to be seen.

  She didn’t, she lunged for him and ran right into his blade.

  He told the girls to run too, but they refused. They were frozen in fear.

  Chalice reached for the youngest. He laid her across the floor then, finding some strength, flung himself away right as the unthinkable was to occur.

  When the dark force flung him back, he fought it, chanting a prayer as loudly as he could…then one slice of his trembling hand took her life.

  Adair screamed as she charged forward only to run right through him. Scorpio caught her and held her as tightly as he could against him.

  The same happened with the other sisters, Chalice fought with the force that was telling him to steal their innocence but lost and took their lives.

  Then Chalice backed away, chanting a prayer, and fell to his knees, holding the cross at his neck that was stained with all their blood.

  “Watch child,” Ambrosia ordered, carefully drawing back as if to make way.

  All at once, it looked as if the stars had fallen into the room. The tiniest lights hovered, the scent of blood was masked with roses, and the fear stinging the room was washed away with peace.

  Then, they all saw them: each of the girls, the mother, the father, their very souls rose from the floor and found each other.

  Their smiles made no sense to Adair, but the father gathered them all close and they rose, vanishing with the light.

  “An unchangeable moment, they were born of the light and returned,” Brosia explained.

  “What do you mean?” Adair asked, still sick with grief. Their souls may have been gone, but the gore was still at her feet.

  Chalice bowed his head in thanks then rose and disappeared in the shadows.

  “You will have to ask your Voyager friends, I only know that light such as this is divine, protected from all evil. Their souls were risen above any plane I’ve ever known.”

  Right then, Judge and the Scorpio of the past burst in the door. Adair witnessed firsthand the death of part of Judge’s soul. Watching him hold their blood-soaked, lifeless bodies ripped her in two. She moved to comfort him more than once, but stopped herself knowing she couldn’t.

  “I’m following him,” Scorpio told Adair as he moved to the door he knew Chalice was going to run toward. “They never found him, not again until Latour’s. I need to know where that fucker went—how he escaped us.”

  Adair went with him even though Ambrosia warned their time in the past was
waning.

  Chalice had staggered outside crying, full of agony.

  Zale was right there waiting on him, pissed as ever. He flung a spell around them, hiding them from the view of the Sons as they rushed past.

  “You have forsaken me,” Zale bit out.

  “I honored my God,” Chalice responded as he fell to his knees.

  Zale ripped the cross necklace from Chalice’s neck. “I am your God, and you will obey me. This will not end. Over and over, we will strike. I’m beginning to think you adore the slaughter.”

  “I do not.”

  “Then you should have taken the first flesh I put before you instead of killing every mortal family of the Sons.”

  “I killed to save.”

  “I’m sure Reveca will completely understand,” Zale said with a sneer.

  Chalice crumbled to the ground. “End my misery.”

  Zale pulled him up. “No.” And then they both vanished.

  Dagen appeared right as the wind picked up, the current that would lead them all away from the time they were in.

  Adair thought to go back to the house, there was blood there, blood she might need if this spell made any sense. She wasn’t buying she could not undo this moment. She was damn sure going to try.

  Ambrosia appeared at her side and clenched Adair’s arm, her hold unforgiving.

  “Dagen, the necklace!” Adair shouted right as she felt the wind carry her away. She needed a foothold to this place, an artifact for her spell.

  Gasping, she found herself lying on the stone floor of the very room they had just left.

  “What the fuck is wrong with her,” Scorpio asked moving to Adair’s side.

  “She’s mortal,” Ambrosia said, kneeling down and placing her cool hand upon Adair’s brow. “The travel is not easy on them.” Her eyes, which mirrored Adair’s, searched deeply. “It was my wish to show you the beginning. The charm the witch had, how beautiful his promise was. I wanted to show you the first time I saw your father, when he saw me. I wanted to show it all to you, but it is not possible now, dear. Not in your mortal state. I fear the only reason I was able to reach as far back as we did was because Dagen was present. Escorts harbor masses of energy.”