Chapter 5
THE BLACK BEAST. A creature of myth and legend, come to life. A creature I had sent to his death at his own command, who was now returned in a new body, young and running free. He was the father of the Dahnsburg Unicorns, the only one of his kind. He was Raven Mother’s paramour, and together they had engendered Bran, who was forever a thorn in my side, but whom I had grudgingly come to trust and finally given in and made one of my Keraastar Knights when the seals demanded it.
The Black Unicorn trotted toward me, his silken black mane fluttering in the breeze. His horn was crystal, around a foot and a half long, and threads of gold, silver, and black ran through it. I knew it very well, because I had one of my own—from one of his former lives—hidden inside the inner pocket of my cloak, specifically designed to fit the eighteen-inch weapon. It had been a gift, along with a cloak made from his hide, and they were worth a king’s ransom.
I curtsied deeply, saying nothing. For what could I say? I had killed him, albeit at his request, and in that way we were forever linked. He had chosen me to be his assassin. Once every thousand years or so, the Black Unicorn shed his skin like a phoenix and was reborn anew.
“Rise,” his voice echoed in my head, and I knew everyone else was hearing it as well. “So, you are the Queen of Dusk and Twilight, now?”
“Yes, Lord of the Dahns,” I whispered, barely able to look him in the eye.
“You have journeyed far from where we first met. And now, you return to the world of your birth in order to make the next step of the journey.” He paused as Raven Mother slipped in beside him, rubbing his muzzle with her hand and kissing him lightly on the side of his cheek.
“Camille, Queen Camille, you stole my son, though not the way I fancied you might.” She glanced past me, gazing at Bran. “The Moon Mother steals my sparkles and you steal my blood. But it works out, works out it does, and all works for the better good. I do not begrudge you. Now my son takes his place among the heroes as well as the Elemental Lords.”
Raven Mother spoke in circles. She was an Elemental herself, cunning and dangerous, and she had taken an interest in me from the very beginning. She was tall and curvy, with a wasp waist and broad shoulders. She wore a plunging gown of black, her breasts crowning the top. Her cloak was made from feathers, and her eyes were painted like the mask of a raccoon. Her teeth, needle sharp, glistened as she smiled with ebony-stained lips. Raven Mother had been jealous of the Moon Mother as long as anybody could remember, coveting the brilliance of the moon. And she envied all that the Moon Mother owned, including her witches and priestesses. More than once, she had tried to lure me away to follow her.
I stared at the odd couple, thinking that they were two of the most dangerous spirits I had met who weren’t absolutely fucknut crazy and out for blood. Neither the Black Unicorn nor Raven Mother could be contained. They were all that was wild and feral, all that was primal, and they reveled in their chaos. In some ways, they personified love untamed by social mores.
“What should I do?” I prayed the answer was something easy enough. I had been through so many trials that I wasn’t sure how many more “transformations” I could handle.
“Bring your knights into the woods. Gather at Erastel’s End. And there, wait for the Guardian to join you.” And with that, both the Black Beast and Raven Mother turned and vanished back into the thicket.
Delilah tapped me on the arm. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m tired of riddles. I’m tired of puzzles. Just once, couldn’t somebody hand me a memo with a clear checklist of what I needed to do on it? I’m tired of following the trail of bread crumbs. I guess…I want to relax. I want to sit back and enjoy my life.” And then I said the words I never thought I’d hear myself say. “I’m tired of doing what I should. I just want to kick off my shoes, curl up on the sofa, and watch an old movie. And eat chocolate. And you know I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.”
Delilah wrapped her arm around me. “I’ll join you, if you do. We can leave now, if you want. Camille, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
I leaned against her shoulder, torn for just a fraction of a second, and then kissed her cheek, patting her arm as I straightened up. “It’s a lovely dream, but you know as well as I do that’s all it is. Come on, let’s get moving.” I paused, then added, “But thanks. Thank you for offering me the option. For not doing what I always do by playing the cheerleader.”
“You know I don’t look good in a short skirt and pompoms,” she said, laughing. “All right, here’s the deal: We get this over with and then you come over and spend the night and we watch TV all night and eat cookies. I won’t even make you watch Jerry Springer.”
“Agreed!” I let out a long breath, then, squaring my shoulders, turned back to Myrddin. “All right. You’re in charge, it seems. Where to now?”
He held his finger to his lips, nodding toward the canopy. “Remember, we’re being watched. Come, not far now.”
And off we went, into the early afternoon haze compounded by the drone of insects and the echoing calls of the birds.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, the forest thinned out as we entered a clearing. The meadow was round, about the size of a bowl-shaped football field. The grass was short here, unlike what it had been when we started. In fact, it wasn’t grass at all, but moss, short and plush against the ground. At the center was a pile of stones in varying shapes and sizes. I suspected the ruins had been a house at one time, but it was difficult to tell from the distance at which we were standing. In the distance, I saw a series of Barrow Mounds.
“What do we do now?” I looked around. We had until tomorrow night.
“For now, we prepare. Set up camp while we can. The area grows shrouded with mist at night and it will be difficult to see. Sleep as much as you can tonight, for you must begin the ritual near midnight tomorrow.” Myrddin gave me a long look.
“All right, so we set up camp.” I glanced around. “Is it all right to build a fire to cook over?”
“I don’t know what will happen, but go ahead and try. I’d suggest building a campfire ring, but bring stones from the forest. Whatever you do, don’t use any from the remains of the house.” He moved forward, to talk to the guards.
Feeling oddly out of the loop—I felt it should be me directing this show, but honestly, if I didn’t know what should happen, how could I be in charge? I contented myself with helping out.
Delilah and I raided the packs for food. We had hot dogs and buns, marshmallows and the fixings for s’mores, so I’d get my chocolate after all. There were apples, bread, peanut butter, jelly, potatoes and ham, and bags of chips. It wasn’t haute cuisine, but it was hearty and easy to fix. While Smoky and Shade carried stones from the edge of the clearing over for a fire pit, my knights hunted down wood for the fire at the edge of the treeline. Delilah and I prepared sticks to use for roasting hot dogs and marshmallows.
Then we set up the pup tents and rolled out bedrolls inside them. Two of the guards brought buckets of water from the river and set them on a makeshift table—a log that Smoky had rolled out and taken an axe to in order to level one side for a flat surface. Shade found a few other smaller logs and rolled them over to the camp to use as benches. Within two hours, we were set up and ready to go, and a merry fire was crackling.
I decided to take a look at the ruins, and Myrddin didn’t stop me.
When I reached them, I found the remains of a stone cottage. It had been about the size of a small bungalow—I estimated three decent-sized rooms’ worth of space. The roof was long gone, but I could make out the rough shape from how the stones had tumbled down in places. The foundation had been dirt, but oddly, no plants had overgrown the space. As I knelt by one of the moss-covered rocks and pressed my fingers to it, a tingle ran through me, as though I had plugged myself into a generator that was still just barely working. I touched the rock again and closed my eyes.
Flash.
I was standing at the center of the valley, staring up at a triple moon. One moon was blood-red, the second had a silver tinge to it, and the third, a luminous blue glow. Three moons, one for each world. Three moons from the same core, and yet each had its differences. Three moons, for three worlds driven apart by a magic so old and ancient, nothing could counter it.
I saw her, then—the Guardian from the cave in the Tygerian Mountains. The spirit from whom I had claimed the Keraastar diamond. Her wings were ephemeral, tattered feathers in bat shape. Her eyes were black with a swirl of snowflakes in them, and her skin, the color of burnt umber. She turned to me, a feral smile on her face.
“You have returned.” She cocked her head to one side.
I nodded. “I’ve come to finish the prophecy. To unite the Keraastar Knights.”
“Then look for the key. The doorway awaits.”
And then, as quickly as the vision had come, it vanished.
I SAID NOTHING as we lingered near the fire. But after my knights went to sleep, and Myrddin had also bedded down for the night, Shade, Delilah, and Smoky remained with me around the campfire. Shade was about to take his place at the edge of our encampment to keep watch. We stared into the flames, as overhead, the stars flared to life. Without electricity over here in Otherworld, on clear nights they spread out in an expanse that I had almost forgotten.
I had told them about the vision. “I wonder what sort of key I’m looking for.”
“I don’t know,” Delilah said. “But I think it’s important to think outside the box.”
“Good gods, I hate that expression. It’s so cliché.”
“Maybe because it’s true.” Delilah smirked.
I sighed. “You may have a point. What did you mean?”
“Not all keys are physical in nature. I’m not sure what I’m saying, but something tells me that the key you’re looking for may not fit on a keychain.” She shrugged.
I mulled over what Delilah had said. Surely, if there was a key lying around, by now somebody would have found it and made off with it. Erastel wouldn’t have been so shortsighted as to leave it around. But what could be the key?
Over to the right, where my knights were all sleeping, Venus made a noise that sounded like a strangled scream. Concerned, I hurried over to his side and gently knelt beside him. I knew better than to wake him up abruptly. He was a trained fighter as well as a shaman and I didn’t trust him not to wake with his fists out. I gently whispered his name.
“Venus? Venus, wake up. You’re having a bad dream.”
Blinking, the old shaman shook out of his night visions, slowly rolling to a sitting position. He squinted, staring at me, and then cleared his throat.
“Are you all right?”
He nodded, looking fuzzy. “I had a dream. I dreamt that we were gathered inside of the ruins, all of us—the knights, that is. You were there, and we joined hands, forming a circle. We were summoning something… Someone. I don’t know, but we were hand to hand, and the energy racing through us was so strong that it almost lifted me off my feet.”
A thought struck me. “Did it feel like a dream to you? I know that sounds odd, but—”
Venus cocked his head to the side. “No, not odd at all. I know what you’re asking. I’ve worked out on the astral far too many times for me not to understand a question like that. The answer is, both yes and no. I wasn’t actually participating in something, but it feels like… A premonition. Does that help?”
I nodded, standing. “Get some sleep. You’ll need it tomorrow night.”
As I headed back to the campfire, I knew what we needed to do. I glanced up at the sky. Tomorrow night would be the new moon. An energy from the diamond was flowing into me, and everything felt right.
Delilah and Smoky were waiting for me, looking expectantly.
“I know how to proceed,” I said. “We’d better get some sleep, because tomorrow is going to be a long day, and tomorrow night an even longer night.”
With Shade watching over us, we bedded down for the night near the fire. I wasn’t sure I could sleep, but the moment my head hit the pillow of my bedroll, I was out like a light and didn’t wake till morning.