Rebecca Upton stood quietly at the head of the conference table, one hand loose along the top of her chair as the Council of Seven and their respective retinues filed into the room. She nodded to each councilmember in turn, and was greeted in kind.

Mutual respect earned over centuries of battle and kinship, centuries dominated by a blood feud with the Shadow and the loss of so much knowledge of their own origins. And now, they might truly be on the verge of rediscovering those origins and of having within their grasp a means of ending a never-ending war.

Hawthorne the Beheader, now the de facto head of the line of Bagda, gifted Rebecca with a rare smile as she took a spot near the middle of the table. Love had mended that one’s heart. Few deserved it more or had worked so hard to obtain it.

A thin slice of pain struck Rebecca’s heart. Robert, her own love, had been found only after a millennium of searching. Their life had never been perfect. No couple’s was, but it had been close, so damn close, and now, that near-perfect life was being threatened. Robert was hiding something from her. She knew him too well not to recognize the signs. She’d have to push him about that, later when he couldn’t bury himself in work or the ever demanding needs of their growing family.

And she’d have to tell him. About the vision given to her by the Woman with No Face, and of the Woman’s words. About the possibility that Rebecca’s long life might be drawing to a close, and with it, their marriage.

Robert would be philosophical. The disease eating away at his muscles lent him that calm, but Rebecca could find no peace in the possibility of living eternally at his side after their respective deaths. It wasn’t her nature. It wasn’t in her blood. The People were fighters. They had to be, and among them, the Blade was one of their greatest warriors.

Her hand tightened on the chair. Lukas Alexiou might be her doom, but damned if she’d go down without a fight.

Lydia Truthteller of the line of Kiya, eldest of the Seven Sisters, settled into a chair at the opposite end of the table, directly across from Rebecca. “Is it true? Has the Oracle been named?”

“Nala, the name given by our blood enemy.” Rebecca pulled out her chair and sat amid the concerned murmurs passed from one ear to the next around the room. “She responds only to the Shadow and only in a language so ancient, it has largely been forgotten by us all.”

“Or was never known to us.” Hawthorne’s gray eyes remained placid as she fixed her gaze unwaveringly on Rebecca. “How did Alexiou come by this language?”

“He will not say.” Or was waiting for the People to offer the appropriate price for such knowledge. Who could tell what game the Shadow Enemy’s leader played? Even the canny Alexiou seemed not to know. Rebecca delicately cleared her throat and continued. “Business called him home to New York. He has asked my leave to return and visit Nala again.”

Miriam of the Nine, an immortal Daughter of the line of Marnan, leaned forward and said, “You will allow this?”

Rebecca nodded. “Until we can find a way to communicate with the Oracle, I feel we must.”

“So be it,” Lydia said, her rich voice flat. “While he caters to the Oracle’s whims, we will use the time to learn everything we can of him and the Shadow.”

Eleanor Shadowfell, of the line of Ganenda, the next youngest of the Seven, placed her palms flat on the table, covering the bound agenda laid open in front of her. “Learn of him, yes, but caution must always be exercised when dealing with a man as dangerous and unpredictable as Lukas Alexiou.”

A shiver snaked down Rebecca’s spine, followed by cold dread as the Woman’s words whispered through her mind. The Shadow approaches and the Blade must yield. A vision of her sword’s blade shattering under the crushing weight of a formless shadow. Her death, foretold. Of everyone there, Rebecca knew without a doubt exactly how dangerous the Shadow could be.

“Is it true his hold on the Shadow is weakening?”

Rebecca focused on the speaker, her aunt Anya Bloodletter, the embodiment of Abragni, the youngest of the Seven, on the Council. “Unconfirmed rumors.”

Anya’s cornflower blue eyes crinkled at the corners in a half smile. “So that young buck Drew Martin didn’t beat the shit out of Marco Alexiou?”

“A just retaliation,” Rebecca countered. An unsanctioned retaliation, true, but a just one. The People couldn’t run around exacting Retribution Willie nilly, even if this one had been earned by Lukas’s younger brother. Marco and their uncle Pinico had captured Rebecca’s next youngest daughter Jerusha and tortured her for days while Drew, Jerusha’s lover, had tracked them down.

As soon as Jerusha was safely home, Drew had taken three men, a small army given their military training, and meted out revenge on Marco. Rumor had it he was recovering in hiding, but even in hiding, Lukas’s deranged younger brother could cause trouble.

Given the Oracle’s affinity for Lukas, now was the worst possible time for turmoil among the Shadow Enemy. As long as Lukas remained in control, as long as Nala favored him, he could be swayed to the People’s ends. They had no such hold over his younger brother. If Marco was indeed straining at the bit, the resulting upheaval could spell serious trouble for the People, right when the Prophecy of Light was on the verge of being fulfilled, allowing the People to conquer their blood enemy and forever after live in peace.

Rebecca sat back in her chair and allowed her gaze to touch on each of the seven women gathered around the table, there representing the descendants of each of the Seven Sisters, the progenitors of the People. “We now have control of three of the Bones of the Just. One set was found in a nightclub in Gainesville. My daughter Jerusha smuggled the second set of remains out of Turkey recently, and not long after, I sent a team to retrieve the third set from a museum in Boston.”

Lydia nodded and a small smile warmed her dark eyes. “And we search for the remaining four. What news?”

“I’ve assigned a team of IECS scientists to the task, led by Sigrid Glyvynsdatter.” Rebecca caught Anya’s satisfied nod out of the corner of her eye and a fraction of the burden weighting her down lifted. “She asked me to press each of you again to have every single member of your lines return the DNA tests she mailed to them. Each returned test adds to our knowledge and can help us identify the remaining Bones of the Just.”

Agreeing nods and softly voiced assents passed around the room. Rebecca held up one hand, halting the rising excitement. The Bones of the Just, the name given to the skeletal remains of the Seven Sisters, were important relics of the People. Having them gathered in one location after millennia of not knowing where they were would rally the People behind any cause. If ever such accord was needed, it was now.

“There’s more,” she continued. “We now believe the mention of the Bones of the Just within the Prophecy indicates that wherever they are gathered becomes the People’s ultimate Sanctuary.”

The tide of conversation rose over Rebecca’s remaining words. She sat back and yielded to it, and to the hope underlying each voice, a hope she clung to even as worry remained a stalwart beacon in her mind.

 

 

Sigrid sat at her desk studying a printout of DNA sequencing taken from a recent saliva swab. Thanks to the discovery of the first set of the Bones of the Just some months earlier, funding had been provided to expand the onsite lab facilities. She’d cleared out a room, ordered the necessary equipment, and recruited technicians to expedite processing the hundreds of samples flooding into her office.

Everyone was being tested and retested, Daughters mortal and immortal, Sons, and those having frequent contact with the People.

The printout of the sample she was studying contained mitochondrial DNA of the same haplogroup and pattern as the descendants of the Sisters. Sigrid flipped to the lead page of the report and checked the sample’s origins.

James Edward Terhune. Interesting.

She closed the report and stuck it in her outbox for filing, then selected another report and centered it on the calendar aligned precisely on the top of her desk. It wasn’t unusual to find a genetic commonality between an outsider and the People. The pre-agricultural human population had been small, and while genealogical and other records for that era didn’t exist, there were plenty of records from later time periods. Combined with lore, oral and written, such connections could be found, and often were.

Finding a direct maternal link to the Sisters among outsiders was far less common. Mitochondrial DNA was passed down only in the maternal line. Children born to Sons carried the mitochondrial DNA of their mother, and Sons didn’t always marry Daughters. Mortal descendants of the People were only tracked for a few generations before their lines were considered outside the People’s close kinship.

How far back would James Terhune’s maternal line need to be traced in order to pinpoint his exact relationship to the People?

A soft knock rapped on her door, drawing Sigrid’s attention to the entrance of her office. George Howe, her young, mortal assistant, stood in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot. His eyebrows were furrowed beneath a cap of golden hair, his mouth was turned down at the corners, and his clothes were wrinkled and ill-fitting.

She eyed him again from head to toe. Had his clothes always hung so loosely on his sturdy frame?

George shuffled half a foot inside her office, still frowning. “I’ve got the latest batch of test reports.”

Sigrid waited for him to continue. The reports weren’t urgent. She usually picked them up on her way through the building and scanned them during lulls in other work, as she’d been doing before George interrupted her.

When he simply stood there filling space she’d rather remain empty, she arched a single eyebrow.

He flushed and hunched his shoulders underneath the worn shoulders of an old sweater. “You’ve got some messages.”

“And?”

“Director Upton called and said she’d reminded the Council of Seven about the DNA tests.” He shifted his grip on the reports he was holding, fumbling them as his hands shook, and fished out a yellow post-it note. “Will Corbin called and said he might be a few minutes late. An emergency at the Omega?”

Sigrid folded her hands on the desk and willed her patience to hold. “You are not my secretary, Mr. Howe.”

He glance down at the floor, failing to hide the flush staining his cheeks. “No, ma’am.”

“You’re my assistant, and my assistant is not paid to ferry messages to me.”

“No, ma’am.”

His voice was quiet, cowed, and for a moment, anger spiked through Sigrid. Where was this boy’s spine? Where was his fortitude? No Son would ever bow under the gaze of another as this one did. No Son would whimper his fear, whether he felt it or not, and no Son would stand quivering in the face of her fury.

But George was not a Son.

Sigrid clamped down on her anger and ruthlessly quashed it. This young man was a brilliant geneticist. She’d handpicked him from among dozens of candidates. That he was timid and weak detracted not one whit from his genius, and though those characteristics annoyed her no end, George showed no signs of overcoming either.

After months of living among the People, shouldn’t he have?

She deliberately unclenched her fists and rested her hands flat on her desk. Losing her temper would do no one any good and would ruin the good mood Will had put her in earlier when he’d answered his door wearing only shorts over a body honed by years of disciplined exercise.

“Why are you here?” she asked, deliberately softening her voice.

George lifted his head, and for a moment, stark emotion filled his expression. Before Sigrid could pinpoint it, he shook his head and held up the stack of files and papers clasped in his hands. “We’ve finished testing the Boston skeletal remains.”

He scurried to her desk, dropped his burden in an untidy pile on one corner, and left without once looking her in the face again, nearly bumping into Will on his way through the door.

Will smiled at George and said, “Hey, man,” but George ignored him and walked rapidly away, each step a sharp staccato against the tiled hallway floor.

Will’s smile faded. He turned to her and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “What’s eating him?”

Sigrid refused to feel one iota of guilt. Young Howe needed to toughen up, else he’d never survive among the People, and she needed him here, needed his brilliant mind and keen insight.

She rose and retrieved her suit jacket from a hanger in the closet tucked away to the side of her office, adjacent a small bathroom. “Are you ready?”

Will gazed at her for a long moment, his green eyes far too shrewd for a man of his relative youth. After a moment, he nodded. “Sure. I’ll drive.”

Humor rose, erasing the lingering annoyance over George’s cowering attitude, and she graced Will with a grin. This one, now, he was a Son. Strong and sharp, confident and a touch arrogant. This man had earned her grace through the kisses he’d dared to steal from her, and so, she would afford him a simple boon.

“All right,” she said. “My car or yours?”

If she’d surprised him, it didn’t show. His expression remained open and calm, pleasing her all the more.

“Yours.” He stepped forward and took the jacket from her, then held it out and helped her put it on. His hands lingered on her shoulders, cupping them as he held her gently, her back to his front. “You smell like heaven.”

Pleasure rippled through her, tightening her muscles. His touch warmed her in a way no man’s had in decades. She leaned back ever so slightly into his heat, savoring it and the male closeness she’d forsaken for far too long. “Let me get my purse.”

He pressed a soft kiss to the side of her throat, a fleeting slide of his lips across her skin, and let her go, and she trembled under the simple touch. For a moment, fear flooded through her. Danger, it shouted, run, and she almost gave in to it, almost turned and fled from the man who’d captured her attention so thoroughly.

Immediately, she shook the feeling off. No Daughter ran from a man regardless of the circumstance. This man, with his piercing gaze and tempting heat, posed no threat to her. She would take what she wanted from him and, in accordance with the laws of the People, discard him when she was finished. After, she would remain cold and heartless, as all good Daughters were.