Chapter 28 – Jordon #2
Norbert raises a hand to silence us. His gaze goes to our shade. “May we speak privately? You have nothing to fear from me.”
She smiles, and it’s a brilliant smile. “Of course. And you have nothing to fear from me either, as long as you don’t say anything bad about my gargoyles.”
I feel a wave of pride and want to touch her. To kiss her. But there will time for that.
Later.
Before, I wasn’t entirely sure what I needed to be happy, but I’m sure now. I want her. With us. Taking this next journey in our lives together.
“We’ll be just outside,” Elliot says.
I know all of us want to stay and protect her from whatever bullshit Norbert has planned, but we also have enough confidence in our shade to know she’ll be okay. She might be innocent to our world, but she has a kind of strength we could only hope to have.
“I’ll see you soon,” she tells us, winking.
Her confidence lends us the strength to turn and walk out the door, followed by the half a dozen Elites. Outside, we’re drawn to the small crowd in the center of the lawn in the middle of our town, and the instant we spot them I know something’s wrong.
My heart races.
Orion stands in the midst of them, a giant even among gargoyles. He doesn’t look nearly as wild as he has in the past, but he still holds the head of a monster, gripping it by the hair, out before the crowd like a prize. As we move toward him, the crowd parts, likely for the Elites behind us.
When we get close enough, Orion tosses the head toward us like a challenge. It rolls on the ground and lands feet in front of me. And I grimace, looking away from the ogre.
The giant man says nothing, just stares at all of us, a challenge in his gaze.
At his side is the phoenix who has angered the Elites so much.
I heard just a short time ago that Orion had brought this phoenix to our sanctuary, claiming him to be the brother that none of us could be for him.
The phoenix had sworn to help him bring his twin brother back from the dead, an impossible feat that everyone else dismissed without hesitation.
But the Elites didn’t care that Orion was so desperate to have his brother back that he’d done something unforgivable…
he’d created a bond with a phoenix and shown the phoenix our sanctuary.
In the eyes of our people, he was helping the enemy.
The phoenixes could now use their knowledge of our home to attack us.
Since the day he’d arrived with this phoenix, patrols had increased as had our sense of unease. And yet, the phoenix stood at Orion’s side, grinning like a fool. Like he didn’t give a damn about the trouble he’d caused. Which was just like a phoenix.
The arrogant bastards.
“What do you want, Orion?”
The giant’s piercing green eyes stare back at Gary, unrelentingly. “I’ve killed yet another monster.”
“So,” Gary said the word with an equal measure of arrogance.
“I want the library’s knowledge of how to reach the Underworld.”
“No.”
Orion’s hands curl into fists, and he takes a step closer, dwarfing Gary. “Edgar said if I killed enough—“
“It hasn’t been enough.”
“When will it be?” Orion shouts. “I will kill and kill, but will you ever give me what I ask?”
“That knowledge is dangerous. If one of us goes parading around the Underworld, it’ll bring Hades’s wrath down on us all.”
Orion’s entire face froze. “You don’t plan to ever give me the information, do you?”
Suddenly, the phoenix is in front of him, placing a hand on the other man’s chest. The phoenix’s fragile wings glow with flames, and he looks strangely small and delicate compared to the giant, although he’s nearly my size. His dark eyes gentle as he looks at Orion.
“We’ll find another way.”
“You used me! Tricked me!” Orion roars.
Gary has the sense to flinch. “Your brother is dead. Accept it.”
If the phoenix wasn’t standing between the two men, I have no doubt that Orion would tear Gary to shreds.
But somehow, I can’t seem to blame him for it.
Orion and his twin brother Andros came to the sanctuary together, the last of their Brotherhood, and never chose to bond with other members.
When Andros died, Orion couldn’t accept it.
He wouldn’t even bury his brother’s body.
He was convinced that he could still feel him alive, somewhere, and that it explained why his body was preserved.
But everyone else just thought he’d gone mad with the loss.
I could understand that kind of madness. If I lost my brothers, I don’t know what I would do. I don’t know how I’d keep going.
“Leave,” Gary says, no kindness in his voice. “You left this place. You left our ways. And you became a traitor. There is nothing left here for you.”
Orion reaches for the sword at his back, and gasps go up from the crowd. “I will not leave. Not this time. Not without answers.”
“Orion…” the phoenix begins.
“Blaise, I have to do this,” Orion says, his voice gentling as his eyes sweep over all of us.
The phoenix sighs and removes his much smaller sword from a sheath at his belt. “I guess I’ve lived long enough.”
I look to my brothers. We can’t just walk away as our people are massacred, nor can we just let Orion and the phoenix die. But what can we do?