Chapter 27 Volantia #2
She felt her jaw slacken.
“I don’t mean to alarm you, but I would put you on your guard.
” The dressmaker hesitated, as if worried she had said too much.
The woman pulled a leather necklace with a pea-sized black stone to show her, then slipped it back under her apron and dress.
“Many of us carry these trinkets. Don’t know if they actually work, but they are said to ward off evil spirits. ”
“Is it just here in Volantia?”
Please, gods, let it not be her demon.
“Everywhere. My friends in Silas and Oakwood say the same. I’m just mentioning it because you seem new in these parts. Woman to woman, you know? We must take care of ourselves, eh? Best make sure you travel with a friend, yes?” The older woman smiled and nodded encouragingly.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be careful.”
“Then get! And bring me that blue dress you mentioned next time you visit. I’m not saying I’ll for sure buy it, mind you, but I wouldn’t mind having a look.” The woman waved her off with a cheery grin.
Elizabeth stepped into the street and drew her hood up. Her steps were hurried, restless. Her eyes burned, and she blinked away the tears that threatened to fall.
She jutted out her chin stubbornly and refused to give one inch to the sick feeling coiling in her stomach. Clenching her jaw, she forced herself to grow angry instead.
They were monsters. All of them.
She felt a deep sense of self-loathing for growing to care for someone who was a terror to the kingdom. He had hurt people. For no good reason except to feed his hunger, he had hurt people. And she had kissed him and done … ugh.
She cringed, a pit of dread coiling in her stomach. She found Draugr and left the city, her thoughts on the women who had gone missing.
Once she was out of the city limits, she swung her leg over her horse and softly whispered to Draugr to go faster.
Draugr seemed to sense her urgency and took off, cantering down the dirt road. They slowed as the path sloped down, and as the forest road flattened out again, he galloped until they were both drenched in sweat.
After a time, Draugr slowed, and her thoughts began to drift.
Towards him.
Against her will, desire curled in her abdomen when she thought of his hands, his chest, and how his lips had felt against hers.
She closed her eyes, hating herself for thinking of him at all.
As much as she wanted to believe it was only a coincidence, the evidence was not on his side. She wondered what she would find if she explored the forbidden rooms in the castle.
More dead bodies? Killed like animals?
Something even worse?
Her mouth tightened.
She stayed in the same inn she had on the way to Volantia, brooding and silent.
She made good time, and made it back to the castle grounds by the next afternoon.
Not able to stand the idea of being inside a castle filled with demons just yet, she steered Draugr towards the mountain trails and headed to the glacier lake, wanting a moment of peace and calm before she went back.
She arrived at the vibrant turquoise lake, and dismounted, stretching her limbs, and meandering along the rocky shores. She sat down on a large rock and watched the water sprites dance across the surface of the lake.
Elizabeth practiced taking a pebble from the stream and levitating it. She had taken to practicing whenever no one was looking and could now hold a small stone in the air for up to a minute. Even if no one was there to see, she was proud of her progress.
She watched the stone with pride as it slowly rotated, suspended in mid-air. Sweat beaded down her back, and her neck prickled, but she didn’t become as exhausted as she had the first time.
She wondered if she should tell the witch she had succeeded in her little test, or if it would be best to keep it a secret.
She heard clapping behind her and spun around. The stone dropped to the ground.
“I see you’re learning fast,” Ambriel said, inclining his head towards her.
She flushed at the compliment. “Yes,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve been meaning to ask … what exactly it is that you did to me.” She paused. “The—er—you called it a ‘gift?’”
The ethereal angel walked closer to her. His figure was lithe and tall, his blond hair swept back by a light breeze.
It was then that she realized he was an immortal being, but she was not afraid of him. He drew near, and nothing made her shoulders tense, nor did unease coil in her gut. While Caspian prowled and his every action set her on edge, Ambriel simply walked like a normal man.
She felt safe around him in a way that she couldn’t put into words.
Her eyes lingered on his full lips as he answered her, “I awakened what was already inside you. It slumbered.”
Her eyes widened in alarm. “What do you mean?”
“You have magic, Elizabeth. And I think, in your lifetime, you will come across the ancient artefact we seek above all else.”
“Pardon?”
“I need you to master your powers so that you can retrieve it for me.”
“What?” She blinked in confusion. “But I don't know what you seek.”
“Has he not told you of it yet?” Ambriel asked, brows raised. “He will. They seek it too.”
She must have looked bewildered, because the angel sighed and explained, “It would banish the demons to the Underworld. Forever. Keep them away from you.”
A worthy cause.
“But what does that have to do with me? And what does any of that have to do with an artefact?”
“There was once a prophecy. I think he may have chosen you because you fit it.”
She gave a nervous laugh. “But I don’t know of any angel artefacts. That’s silly.”
“The prophecy calls for a young woman found in the land of the flowers and sea, with magic in her veins. Born in the eighth month of the year.” She started at that. How had he known her birthday?
Ambriel’s gaze was intense. He nodded several times, as if mentally checking items off on a list. “As her third decade dies, she will find the sacred object and will find a way to destroy the portals to the Underworld, once and for all. You are almost thirty.”
She looked away. “Twenty-six is a bit far off from thirty.”
“War is brewing. It may not come to pass for a couple of years,” Ambriel said with a smile.
She narrowed her gaze. “So, what is this prophecy? How do you know it’s even real?”
“It is the witch blood prophecy,” Ambriel said, his expression growing solemn.
“It was first uttered by a witch Seer forced into making a prophecy using dark magic, nearly fifty years ago. The witches hunt for the woman it describes, for she will be their salvation, and the demons seek her out, for it is thought that she will bring about their doom.”
Elizabeth’s jaw dropped.
“No, you must be mistaken.” There was no way a prophecy could be about her.
A prophecy from a witch about demons, artefacts, and doom could not mean her. She had left Briarton on a whim and had no other ties to their world. It would have been impossible for someone to predict she would become tangled in their world, much less predict it before she was even born.
It didn’t make any logical sense.
She bit her lip. But then, why had Caspian sought her out? He had appeared to her at the ball and showed up again in her home city. She recalled wondering if he had been following her. Had this been why their paths had kept crossing?
“He’s never brought it up,” she said weakly, not wanting to believe there could have been anything but random chance that had brought her here to Arboras.
“If he does not suspect you, I would be surprised. I have long followed his quests for mortal women, and I believe he may be choosing his conquests deliberately, hunting for the woman from the prophecy.”
Elizabeth cringed at the word “conquests.”
“Long have the demons coveted the artefact we seek.” Ambriel looked down at her. “The demon called Finnigan hunts through the land, searching for it, most desperately.”
Finnigan’s travels.
She recalled Finnigan’s words, and her blood ran cold. A rare and precious artefact. Something mortals need not concern themselves with. It is an item of immense power, sought by witches and demons alike for centuries.
“You’re saying both angels and demons are hunting for this woman?” Her voice came out as barely a whisper. “That they’re—looking for me?”
Ambriel’s gaze grew pitying. “I believe so.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, her voice lacking conviction. “I’ve never heard anything more ridiculous. You must be mistaken. It can’t mean me.” She paused, casting for an explanation that would absolve her of any responsibility to the prophecy. “I can hardly even do magic.”
But as she said it, she withered under Ambriel’s kind smile.
Softly, he said, “Yet here you stand, and now, fate has made your path cross with demons and alerted you to their evils. I have long searched for the answer to the prophecy’s riddle, and I believe it is you.”
She swallowed.
“You will find the artefact, and when you do, it will change the tide of our world.”
“How can I possibly find something when I don’t even know what it is?” Elizabeth whispered.
“I will show you. Close your eyes.”
Hesitantly, she did, and a vast consciousness brushed hers lightly in greeting. She felt a feather-light touch on the edge of her mind. Extend your awareness. It feels like an angel, buried in an object. I know you can find this for me.
His consciousness felt strange. Vast and powerful, like the minds of Caspian and the other demons at the castle, but where Caspian’s consciousness felt like a churning vortex of hate and darkness, Ambriel’s consciousness was cool as ice.
His mind was alien and complicated, giving her an impression of order and logic.
His consciousness stroked hers in silent invitation to return the gesture.
“You, Elizabeth, are the key to finding these—”
An image of two amulets of rough-hewn gold entered her mind. One had a deep purple gem in the center, and the other had a blue one. The edging was rough, looking like solidified waves of molten gold. The gems appeared to glow, and the surface was lightly scratched.
Elizabeth came to herself, throwing him out of her mind and retreating to the privacy of her own head, gasping for air as if she had just run.
“Very good. That’s a good way to deter people from entering your mind unannounced, but you don’t have to use it with me,” Ambriel lectured.
The truth was, she had thrown him out of her mind in a knee-jerk reaction when she had realized he was in danger of hearing her thoughts.
“W-what are those things?” she asked, feeling flustered.
“If you see either of the amulets, you let me know. They are very important to our cause. Particularly the one with the purple gem. We have a lead on the other, but the purple one has been lost for centuries.” His face turned serious.
“I shouldn’t have to remind you that the angels wish to protect the humans, and the demons seek to destroy all that you hold dear. ”
She had seen one of those amulets before, had held it, had known it intimately. And she knew who carried it.
She thought fast, her heart racing.
“I’ve never seen anything like those before,” Elizabeth lied.
She only happened upon it by accident, and at the time, she just assumed it was just a strange, gaudy necklace.
If the amulet was a part of a rare and mysterious prophecy, she didn’t want anyone to know she had seen it. Not until she knew more.
Ambriel paused, as if considering how much to tell her.
“We have reason to suspect the demons have one of the amulets, but the other—the one with the purple gem—remains a mystery and has been lost for several hundred years.”
She nodded, keeping her expression neutral.
Ambriel retreated. “I would like you to find the lost amulet for me. Do that, and I will be most pleased.”
She smiled and nodded in understanding.
He touched her cheek in farewell, and before she could say anything, Ambriel moved back, and his snowy white wings laboured to lift him into the skies.
She didn’t know what to make of it.
She had lied to an angel, and she wasn’t entirely sure what would happen if he found out.
The lost amulet—the one that was being hunted by demons and angels alike—was buried in a drawer in Charlotte’s house.