50. TWELVE YEARS AGO
50
TWELVE YEARS AGO
Graysen
W e were traveling home from Ascendria. My mother, myself, and Ferne. My baby sister, harnessed into her car seat, slept with a rag-doll clasped to her chest with chubby three-year-old hands.
I ran my palms up and down my thighs, staring out the window of the limousine at the black winter night.
What am I going to do?
My thoughts were as dark as the countryside blurring past. Worry and guilt and confusion at what I’d learned, what I should do, swirled around in my head. Those all-consuming thoughts were so loud that I hadn’t heard my mother ask the first couple of times until my body rocked when she shook my shoulder with a slender hand. “What is it, Gray?”
My mother had golden hair like wheat and grassy-green eyes. A ray of sunshine in the dark looks of the Crowthers. Years ago, when I’d asked where I’d gotten my black eyes, she’d said, a little wistfully— Not from me . She’d wished at least one of us would look like her—a blond child with bright green eyes. But my black eyes came from the Crowther ancestors, Wyrm Tamers, she’d said. Every so often, black would appear amongst the violet.
I plucked at a stray fiber along the outside seam of my jeans. “I was just…”— shit, am I really going to do this?— “… thinking about Nelle.”
My mother smiled. “Oh, I like Nelle a lot,” she said, doing a little shimmy with her shoulders. “She’s so fiery and full of mischief.”
I snorted. “She’s fucking weird.”
My mother snapped out with a hand to clip my ear. I yowled, frowning back at her as she glared and waved a pointed finger in front of my face. “Graysen Crowther, you know I don’t like that language.”
“Well, she is.” I crossed my arms across my chest, sinking sullenly against the leather seat. I grumbled, “You should hear her. She cusses worse than Ennio Battagli, and she’s only seven.”
My mother huffed a delighted laugh. “She’s a magpie, Nelle, alright. Marissa and Byron have their hands full with that one.”
Nelle was so different from her sisters. Evelene and Annalise were Wychthorn princesses, prim and proper with their pretty dresses and glossy hair and perfect manners. Nelle was a ball of furious energy in too-big dresses and bare feet. Running everywhere, climbing trees, her hair long and loose and wild, with intense gray eyes. Staring at anyone she felt like for way too long—including me.
“I’ve seen how you look at her,” my mother said.
“Ugh, gods, mom!” I was thirteen and she was seven. Far too young. And a girl. A GIRL!
Okay, I was starting to notice girls, like my older brother Kenton had for some time. And my stomach did some kind of weird fluttery backflip thing whenever I encountered Alison Troelsen at a House Gathering. She was a little older than me, and so pretty with her sweet smiles.
“That’s not what I meant,” my mother replied, rolling her eyes.
I scowled back, wondering what the hells she did mean.
My mother broke out into a wide toothy smile, her head ducked low, to whisper, “Nelle doesn’t know it, but you’re always watching out to make sure she’s kept safe.” She straightened and fixed me with a sharp look. “I saw you taking that bully Battagli boy aside before he hit her in the back of the head, and threaten him to keep away from her.”
My eyes went wide. “You saw that?” Shit, I thought I’d been stealthy. It had also been one of those rare times Nelle and I had spoken at a gathering of families.
“A mother sees everything, don’t you know?”
“Yeah, well, that guy’s an ass—”
I yowled again as her hand swiped my ear. Shit, shit, shit—fuuuck that hurt!
“Gray,” my mother warned with one of her don’t-you-dare-cross-me glares. “One more time and I’ll hand Aunt Valarie the soap to wash your mouth out.”
“ Okay, mom, ” I drawled while rubbing my throbbing ear. But she’d make good on her promise. There was no way I wanted Aunt Valarie dishing out my punishment. She wouldn’t hold back like my mother would. She’d really soap my mouth up and make it sting.
“She stares at me all the fu —all the time,” I quickly corrected, tensing, wondering if I was going to get another clip around the ears. “She freaks me out.”
“Still.” My mother’s lips twitched with amusement. “That doesn’t stop you from staring at her too when she’s not looking. It doesn’t stop you from keeping an eye out for her, either.”
Godsdammit, mom really does have eyes on the back of her head.
“She doesn’t exactly help herself,” I grouched. “Someone needs to look out for her.” Last month, the Houses had gathered at the Battagli estate. Nelle had climbed an oak, perched on a thick branch like a fledgling sparrow, and thrown acorns at Ennio Battagli’s son for making some smart-ass crack at her sisters.
I couldn’t help the grin spreading my mouth wide. Nelle had superb aim, and she’d peppered that stocky asswipe with a barrage of acorns, hard enough to bruise.
Wychthorn or not, the Battagli prick was going to thump her back. Later on, he’d snuck up on Nelle, about to sucker-punch her in the back of the head, until I got my hands on him and warned him off with a blow to the guts.
But as much as I didn’t want to agree with my mother, she was right.
I did look out for her. I couldn’t help it.
I’d figured out Nelle’s secret long ago. Despite that, even now, I couldn’t make sense of the incessant curiosity—what it was about me and her. Whenever we were in the same space, which wasn’t often—she rarely attended House gatherings—I found myself drawn to her presence. All. The. Fucking. Time.
I shot a quick covert glance at my mother. She was leaning forward, readjusting Ferne’s woolen blanket to cover her tiny feet. Thank Zrenyth my mom couldn’t read minds, or else I’d permanently have liquid soap pumped into my mouth.
“She’s annoying,” I said, toeing my weapons bag that sat on the floor of the limousine.
“And you can’t keep your eyes off her,” she teased, leaning back into her seat.
“ Mom! ” I crossed my arms, glaring, jutting my chin out. “I don’t like her in that way.” Gods, this kind of talk with your mother, em-fucking-barrassing.
“You know it’s our way, Gray. As soon as you were born, we were considering other Houses and marriage alignments, just like every other House does.”
It was true, and I hated it. All my brothers did. Kenton was shitting himself over the thought that our parents were going to consider Carola Pellan. Not that we really had a chance in all Nine Hells aligning with an Upper House. But none of us wanted to be stuck with one of those creepy Pellans.
“Shame,” my mother sighed lightly. She propped her elbow on the car window, resting her face in her palm. She gave me a sly sidelong look. “Because Marissa and I have decided one of you boys will marry Nelle. And we decided it would be you.”
I think my heart stopped beating. No. Fucking. Way.
My mother’s laughter peeled into the shadowed car. “Kidding, Gray, kidding.”
I let out a sigh of relief, sinking back into my seat and pressing a hand across my heart, pounding wildly in my chest. Thank gods, she was kidding. Hells, I was far too young to think about things like marriage even though I knew deep down that it was inevitable.
“Mark my words, Gray, that girl, when she grows up and sets her sight on who she wants, they’ve got no chance.”
Ferne murmured in her sleep, squiggling a little in her car seat, which displaced her knitted blanket. My mother pulled it back up, tucking the edges around my baby sister’s sides.
My mother had obviously been somewhere important before she was called in to pick me up, as she had her hair swept up stylishly and wore an elegant dress. The dress’s dark color and simple cut made her jewelry stand out. A necklace of yellow diamonds, a special gift from my father, sparkled around her neck in the gloom of the limousine.
She turned back to me, the lightness in her expression dimming as she took me in.
I was still worried about Nelle, and I chewed on my thumbnail, wondering what to do.
My mother remained young at forty-four, but she looked decades younger. She would never look any older than twenty-five, no matter how many years passed. She’d begun experimenting with mortal cosmetics, like make-up artists on film sets, adding fine lines around her eyes and mouth. Using glamour wouldn’t work if someone had truesight and could see past the magic.
“What’s wrong, Gray?” She smoothed back my hair. It was longer and needed cutting, and she could tuck that defiant hank behind my ear.
“It’s Nelle. I’m worried about her.”
I’d spent the day with my father at the estate of Yoran Novak. I was young, reaching the age where, like Kenton, I was brought into the fold of what our family did to serve the Horned Gods as enforcers for Upper House Novak. So today had been a kind of bring-your-kid-to-the-office day.
While my father had an impromptu meeting with Yoran and Master Sirro, I sat outside Yoran’s office. The door was shut, but that was nothing to a Crowther.
For a while, boredom caused me to mess with my phone and play with the small blades I carried, seeing how fast I could whirl them around or toss them like a juggler. But then I caught a name, and every sense honed on in that meeting held behind closed doors.
My mother picked me up from my father since the end of his day had transformed into something quite different. Something that a young boy at this point shouldn’t be part of.
“I overheard something.” That was me—always listening when I shouldn’t. “About the Wychthorns. About Nelle.”
My mother stiffened, instantly worried at what I was going to reveal. Marissa Wychthorn would come to visit her at our home. She was beautiful and funny. Really funny. She and my mother would tease one another mercilessly, and there was nothing better on a summer day to lounge on our lawn and bask in their easy banter—the kind two people who’d been best friends since childhood had.
“What about Nelle, Gray?”
“We’ve got to warn her.”
“What from?”
“The Horned Gods are going to move on the Wychthorns tonight. They think she’s other .”
My mother’s words were carefully spoken. “Do you think she’s other? ”
I ran my hands up and down my thighs. I’d never told a soul, never spilled Nelle’s secret to anyone.
I drew in a deep breath and nodded.
I’d sensed it the moment I’d first met her as a tiny child. There was something that shimmered and shifted and sparked around us both, no matter how much I tried to deny it, and pretend it didn’t exist. I wasn’t other , but I knew she was.
My mother slid her phone from her handbag, her hands fumbling for the screen. The tinny sound of ringing filled the darkness in the limousine.
A moment later, Marissa answered. “ Tabitha? ”
My mother hurriedly whispered, “The Horned Gods, they’re coming for Nelle. Tonight. You need to get her out. You need to run, Marissa.”
“How…? How did they find out?”
My mother’s gaze darted to me. I shrugged, as that part hadn’t been revealed within the meeting my father had with Sirro and Yoran. My mother answered, “I don’t know. I’ve only just found out.”
“What about you? Are they looking for you, too?”
“I’m fine. No one knows about me. No one suspects. Don’t worry about me.”
They both whispered their goodbyes before hanging up. My mother let the phone drop to her lap, and she swiped at her wet cheeks, wiping away her tears.
The way my mother had spoken to Marissa had my brows nudging together. “You knew about Nelle?” But why wouldn’t she? Marissa was her best friend.
My mother’s gaze was on her lap. She laced her hands together and twisted her fingers back and forth. “Yes, I’ve always known about Nelle,” she said quietly. “I-I’ve never told anyone. Not even your father.”
That surprised me. But then, it was safer for my father not to know.
She lifted her head and smoothed a hand over her golden hair as she considered me thoughtfully, her eyes still glistening with unshed tears.
“What is she?” My mother often could sense the power in others, what kind they were.
“I don’t know, exactly.” She sniffed, dabbing at her lashes with the back of her wrist before straightening and turning to face me fully. She cleared her throat before saying, “Whatever is inside her has been growing with her. Maturing with her age.”
I blinked. Growing with her? Maturing? My forehead creased, perplexed. It was as if my mother thought there was something inside her, a separate entity, yet a part of her. And that was completely unheard of within our world.
“I have this feeling she’s going to be something we’ve never seen before. Someone unique. Someone who could rival the Horned Gods themselves.”
I let that sink in. Tried to process it.
Holy shit, that kind of power—it wasn’t something I could fully comprehend.
A moment later, my mother squeezed my hand and gave me a watery smile. “It’s a good thing what you did, Gray. I’m proud of you.”
I wasn’t so sure. I was betraying the Horned Gods. But I also couldn’t bear the thought of Nelle being in their hands.
As we traveled down quiet country roads, I was nervous and worried for Nelle, but also felt a profound sense of relief settle over me that my mother had warned Marissa in time.
But less than an hour later, the limousine suddenly spun sideways—
Flipping—
Rolling over and over and over—
The noise of crunching metal almost drowned out the sound of roaring wind and thunder, and Ferne’s shrill screams. The violent crash threw me around the backseat. My world turned upside down, tossed this way and that. Metal and buckling glass cracked against my head and body.
And then I was thrown.
I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious, only that when coming to my head was spinning and cold, dirty water lapped at my skin, soaking my clothes and chilling my bones.
Blinking away the confusion, I discovered I lay in a ditch. I pushed upright and swayed, huffing out pained breaths between gritted teeth. My right arm dangled uselessly by my side and I woozily shifted my weight to my good leg. My nerve endings screamed in agony as my mother’s bloodline, her gift from her to us, knitted the splintered bones back together. Sagging, I shuddered in relief as the ferocious pain subsided.
Blood dripped down my forehead and seeped into my eyelashes. Using my forearm, I wiped the stickiness away before clambering up the steep incline to the roadside. Moonlight glanced off the clouds of swirling smoke, a sinister light in the darkness.
My sister and mother—where were they?
A choking scream sliced through the air.
Ferne!
I bolted, following the shrill screams of my sister.
Wreckage littered the long stretch of deserted country road. The acrid stench of burned rubber and scorched metal irritated my nostrils. Brutal skid marks cut across the asphalt leading right to the crumpled limousine flipped upside down on the road. My mother had gotten herself and Ferne out and was trying to pull her bodyguard, Wes, who often acted as her driver, free from the wreck. Ferne remained buckled into the car seat, which leaned against the limousine’s crushed side. She wailed and shrieked, her limbs flailing.
“Mom!” I cried, relief slightly calming my frantic heartbeat.
“Gray?!” My mother rose and staggered toward me. I fell into her, hugging her tight. Pulling away, she cupped my cheeks with shaky fingers as she scanned my face. “You’re okay? Thank gods.” She dropped her hands to my shoulders and squeezed, determination furrowing her brow. “Wes, he’s hurt. I need your help!”
While my mother spun around, I rushed over to the limousine and kneeled by the shattered window. Carefully, I pulled Wes out. A twisted piece of metal had punctured his chest. He was a sickly, pale color, cold and clammy, shivering as he gulped down ragged breaths. We needed to stabilize Wes’s wounds and stop the flow of blood loss until help arrived. A kit filled with modern-day medicine blended with magic would be in the limousine’s trunk.
My mother was already running behind the crumpled vehicle. I heard her frantic wail of “Oh no, no, no,” before she spoke to me. “The trunks smashed apart. It’s not there!” The clatter of her high heels cracked against the asphalt as she dashed partway up the road where the wreckage was strewn, desperate to find the medical kit. When she found it, only to discover all the glass vials containing healing tonics and painkillers shattered, she stamped a foot while barking out a string of curses. It was perhaps the only time I’d ever witnessed my mother swear.
My mind was whirling with all the first aid lessons our physician had run my family through to prepare for an event like this. Granted, we’d mostly thought it would be when we were engaged in warfare with mutinous crime syndicates. “Mom!” I yelled, tearing off my jacket. “We can do this. Grab the gauze!”
I tore the jacket in half, right down the middle, and rolled up each part into a cylinder shape. My mother rushed back, dumping the medical kit by my feet. I handed her the bulky cylinders. “Butt these up against the metal. Be careful.”
She nodded, doing as I asked. “Here, Wes,” she whispered. “Keep this pressed in place.” Wes’s hands shook as he helped my mother keep the impaled metal stabilized while I snatched Ferne’s blanket from her thrashing body.
Wes’s angular eyes squeezed shut with pain. “T-Tabitha, y-you need to go.” He hacked a cough. Droplets of blood sprayed across my mother’s cheek and soaked into her hair.
She didn’t stop to wipe the blood away. Instead, she brushed her hand over his. “Wes Zhang, you fought by my husband’s side against Jurgana.”
“I-I think that night the l-lightning d-did more damage than us.” He tried to grin, but it was more of a pained grimace.
“Maybe,” my mother shot back with a startled laugh and a tremulous smile. She patted his hand, speaking softly. “Not only then, Wes, but countless times after, the pair of you looked out for the other. You think I’m going to come home to Varen without you?”
I split Ferne’s blanket in half, rolling the fabric up as I’d done to my jacket. With my mother’s help, we arranged these two atop the first, but in the opposite direction. I wrapped the gauze carefully around Wes’s torso and over the bulky dressings, alternating the siding of each pass to secure the twisted metal.
My mother grabbed my arm and tugged to get my attention. “I need a rock, Gray.”
Yes. Shit, yes, she did .
Rising and spinning around, I ran, a whir of frantic speed, over to the side of the road and down the slope to the ditch, to race along the tree line, searching amongst the forest litter until I found what she needed—a good-sized rock, bigger than my hand. I knew what she was going to do. Why she needed the rock for it to work.
After scrambling back up to the roadside, my footfall smacked loudly as I dashed for my mother, slamming to a halt with heaving breath, and handed her the dirty rock.
She cradled the pitted stone in her hands as she kneeled beside Wes. Her torn dress was blood-splattered and greased with oil. Holding the rock in one palm, she raised her arm above her head and spread her other hand across Wes’s chest. Squeezing her eyes shut, she concentrated hard.
My fingers fumbled as I unbuckled Ferne from her car seat. Her chubby cheeks were slick with tears and bright crimson from all the screaming and hollering. She flung herself at me, clinging like a limpet. “ G-Gray, ” she warbled on a sob.
While I brushed sweat-damp hair from her forehead, her beautiful big eyes stared at me, swimming with tears and wide with terror. “ Shhh Ferne , I got you… I got you… ” I murmured as I crouched down a safe distance away from my mother and shifted Ferne onto one hip. She sniffled, her tiny fingers digging into my shirt.
My mother was a quieter kind of other . She could steal pain and absorb it into her own body, but it would consume her if she didn’t channel it out. She was the conduit, and with direction, the pain would flow through her into the rock.
Filaments of magic weaved around her body, illuminating her in a wondrous golden glow as her power coursed to the rock held in her hand. The rock vibrated, dancing between her clenched fingertips as she channeled Wes’s pain into stone. While her chest rose and fell in quick shallow breaths, Wes’s breathing eased and slowly calmed.
Has my mother called for help?
I didn’t know if she had, so I dug around in the back pocket of my jeans and fished out my cell phone. The screen was cracked—
And it abruptly occurred to me we were alone.
I frowned, rising and scanning the road. We always traveled with a convoy of guards. But when I knew there should be two shiny black SUVs somewhere nearby, I found the road oddly deserted. Had they crashed into the forest? Other than our skid marks, there were no additional tire marks on the road.
And then, as if in answer—
I realized the wild sound rushing in my ears wasn’t my panicked heartbeat at all.
Craning my neck back, I stared into the night sky, a mess of shadowed wind as if a tornado had formed and was held above the earth with misty fingers.
A whistling sound as if something large and heavy was plummeting.—
Two SUVs broke through the mist and fell from the sky—
Metal slammed into asphalt right in front of me. The jarring noise of collision exploded in my ears—
The horrific impact boomed along the quake-thrust ground and rocked my balance.
Ferne shrieked, plastering her hands over her ears, as screaming, pain-ridden screaming, burst from the vehicles.
The guards inside the wrecked SUVs were a few of my older cousins and friends of mine. I ran to help, completely forgetting I had Ferne propped on my hip—
And skidded to a halt as something wet exploded inside the cars that cut the screaming short.
Scarlet soaked the cracked spider-webbed windshields. So much of it, I couldn’t see inside.
Blood…it was blood and gore, sliding down the glass, drizzling down the crumpled doors to drip onto the asphalt.
I staggered back in disbelief, spinning back to my mother, just in time to see the rock held above her head shatter—
Turn to dust—
And blanket her in a dirty coating of gray.
My mother cried out, startled—
Then screamed in agony—
Her whole body spasmed and shook as Wes’s pain slammed into her with nowhere else to go.
“Mom!” My heart hammered against my ribcage as I sprinted back and fell to my knees, unmindful of my bones cracking against unyielding stone. Wes spluttered and slumped, loosening a long, whistling breath. Ferne ducked under my arm and clambered around to cling to my back like a monkey, as I cradled our mother across my lap. In my arms, my mother trembled. Her grimy, crimson-speckled face was white, lips bloodless.
“Mom! Oh my gods, Mom!”
Ferne started bawling.
My mother’s lashes fluttered wide as she drew in a ragged breath. “Gray,” her voice was hoarse, as if she’d been screaming. “What happened?” She tried to sit up and pitched sideways. I helped right her balance and eased her back to lean against the buckled car, before tucking the dusty hair that had fallen across her eyes behind an ear. Ferne climbed down from my back and fell into her arms. “Hush baby, Mommy’s here. I’m all right.” She looked at me with apprehension.
I went to shake my head and open my mouth to explain. I had no idea who. But I knew what.
All the fine hair on my body prickled—
A shiver ran down my spine and the blood in my veins turned icy—
The winter night, velvety black and pricked with starlight, grew heavier, thicker with malevolent power. Its might skated across my chilled skin, promising insidious cruelty.
Something shifted and shimmered in the periphery of my vision—mist and shadow and wind descended from the sky in a long streak, then collected in an elongated ball, buzzing like a hive of bees. A dark blot formed in its center. A vaguely humanoid form—a Horned God. And I knew this creature had ended our guards and blasted the rock to smithereens in my mother’s hand.
I turned to face it, and in the corner of my eye, I saw a child, a girl, perhaps a few years younger than myself, step around the car wreckage. I knew her. We all did. Mistress Lyressa.
But it was the echoing sound of footfall that had my head swiveling, my body following, back to the road, where our limousine’s smoking wreckage was strewn across its width and length.
A figure approached, walking along the painted lines, heading directly for me.
A woman. A Horned God.
The soles of her black high heels clacked hollowly on the asphalt as she drew nearer with leisurely steps, as if she had all the time in the world.
My breath caught tight in my throat.
She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
Long red hair, a vibrant unnatural red, coiled in silky waves over her shoulders and cascaded right down to the swelling of her breasts. High cheekbones and wide-set golden eyes graced a pale complexion that was snow white, as if she’d never tasted sunlight on her skin.
Sashaying forward, she reached us and her blood-red lips pulled into a smile. One that seemed small and unassuming. She opened her mouth, and shock rattled through me when I glimpsed needle-sharp teeth. A thin, forked tongue sliced out to taste the air with a flick .
The Horned God stared down at my mother and said in a husky voice, her tone sweetly betraying her intent, “Tabitha Crowther, you’ve been hiding from us. And you know how we feel about that.”
My stomach fell away.
They’d kill my mother because she was other . That’s why they’d come—for her.
But for me, my sister, my entire family, and House, our fate was sealed as well. All of us would be murdered for hiding her from them.
The sound of my name drew my attention away. Ferne huddling in my mother’s arms, peeped up at me below a thick mane of messy black hair, and squeaked once more, “Gray?” She blinked. The color of her irises was so unique they rivaled a sunrise.
Someone spoke behind me—female. “My, what pretty eyes you have.”
My mother gasped.
Anger chewed its way through my veins with toxic teeth.
I managed to lock it down, before crouching beside Ferne, pressing two fingertips to my mouth before pressing them against her lips. “Turn away, Sis, don’t watch this,” and I smiled softly, giving her a wink.
Ferne buried her face in my mother’s chest.
I rose—
Bloodlust exploded—
My heart raced, injected with adrenaline—
No one was going to touch my family. No one would dare threaten my baby sister and fucking live. Not even the Horned Gods!
NO! FUCKING! WAY!
Twisting around, I surged forward before my mother could stop me. I lunged inside the limousine, snatching my weapons bag from the wrecked car, and unzipped it with furious fingers.
“Gray, no!” my mother cried, pushing herself upright.
But I was spinning away.
My blade sang as I unsheathed it in a graceful arc. It held a sweeter note than singing metal.
The boned blade, razor sharp and slightly curved with Ukkenskrit etched down the fuller, caught pale moonlight and shone brightly in the dark night.
I faced the Horned Gods, swinging my sword one-handed in a figure eight. The loops sliced lazily through the freezing air, dangerously near each side of my body as I whirled it, faster and faster, making the blade whine and hum. My Fuck You Challeng e ! —to them .
I tuned out everything. My sister’s soft whimpers. My mother’s frantic cries begging me to stop, begging the Horned Gods to spare my life.
Wind spilling over from the creature of mist and shadow blustered my hair. My quickened breaths briefly clouded in front of my face before being whipped away. I stared the three Horned Gods down. Fury and blood rage rushed in my ears and flowed through my veins. I braced my stance, both hands gripping the knotted hilt as I arced the sword above my head.
My sword was ancient.
The Blacksmith had forged it from a femur bone belonging to the greatest wyrm that ever lived—Draxxon. A few years back, my father had gifted me Draxxon’s sword when I’d proved myself worthy of the blade.
Not my brothers. Me.
My black eyes gave me the right to wield the blade.
I was Graysen Crowther, from the only surviving family of the Final War.
My ancestors were ancient and ruthless, and we’d held the mantle of Great House long ago.
And I—I was a Tamer of Wyrms.
But tonight—I’d be the Ender of Horned Gods!