Drake of Tanith (Chosen Soul) (3 page)

But in the weeks since she’d been at the castle with him and his people, she’d taught him more about himself than he’d ever cared to learn. The soul that inhabited her body was so old and multi-faceted, it was like a diamond with countless faces. Each reflected something beautiful, and each was imperatively fragile.

She’d taught him depth in the different aspects of her spirit. She’d taught him patience in the way she continued to tell him no. She’d even taught him the strangely rewarding sensation of keeping a promise. After bringing her to the castle a month ago, Astriel had taken it upon himself to tend to the issue of her parents, as he’d sworn he would do. He transported to Aster Hollow under the cover of night to make certain that Alastair and Sarah Grey were alive and not suffering due to Loki and Raven’s escape weeks before.

It turned out that they were alive, but had indeed been rather shunned since Raven’s break from the town jail. One of the boys who had died in their altercation with Raven weeks earlier had been the son of a prominent businessman in Aster Hollow and because of Raven’s escape, the man had been squeezing the town. The townsfolk automatically took out their frustrations on Alastair and Sarah, citizens that had until then been very popular among the locals.

This was easy enough for Astriel to deal with. A simple spell developing new trade routes and another spell to ensure political and financial interest and the townspeople of Aster Hollow began making so much money, they forgot about their anger.

Raven wasn’t even aware of it yet. He had not told her. He hadn’t wanted to remind her of her parents… of her family, in general. But tending to the issue had given Astriel a strange sense of fulfillment which he wisely kept to himself. It wouldn’t be smart to let on to his father that he’d suddenly become sympathetic to humans in any way, shape or form.

Raven was turning his world upside down. She’d begun to touch upon something inside of himself that was… decidedly uncomfortable. He wanted to know more, and yet he didn’t. It hurt.

But whatever the consequences, he wasn’t willing to let her go. The thought of living at the castle, of handling its endless political tasks and responsibilities without Raven, was a thought he’d become increasingly unable to bear. He wasn’t accustomed to not getting what he wanted. In Raven, he saw the symbol of
everything
he wanted. She was strength and innocence and immense, untapped power. Keeping her here against her will, in fact, had been one of the most difficult feats he had ever accomplished. She was draining him as surely as he was her.

He had never had to try so hard for anything in his life. Yet, she eluded him. She fought him. She defied him and… she hated him.

And now, once again, she was slipping through his fingers.

Raven shoved him in the chest and Astriel took a single step back, absorbing the impact. She was so much smaller than he was, but she was no weakling. She was an Abaddonian and she was furious.

“You lied to me. I thought that at the very least, you would be a man of your word, but I was so very wrong,” she hissed, her dark eyes shooting sparks.

Astriel couldn’t help the surge of anger that rushed through him at her words. But he kept his face blank and his tone calm, desperately not wanting to make the situation worse than it had already become. “I never lied to you, Raven. I swore that you would be safe here. I promised to look after your parents. Has anything untoward happened to any of you?” he asked.

Raven seemed to pause. She blinked and drew back. He knew she was wondering now; remembering her parents, her family. She had no idea what had come of them, but he wasn’t going to give her time to get up to speed or retaliate.

“Your parents are well and if you would like, I can show you as much.” A scry spell would be easy, and it would keep her with him in the castle for that much longer. “And
you
are safe, Raven,” he went on. “Not a single entity has been able to pass through these walls to harm you.” He shook his head, allowing some of the steel in his blood to reach the blue of his eyes. He felt his gaze harden. “I never lied to you.”

Raven looked up at him in silence for several long moments. He could hear her heart beating rapidly. Elves had very good hearing.

Her heart rate sped up further and he knew that she wasn’t finished.

“Answer me prince,” she spat. “Did you cast a spell on me?”

“No,” he told her. There had been no spell involved. No incantation, no boiling cauldron of smelly liquid, no material components to light on fire or cast into the wind. He’d simply wanted to overwhelm her with his magic. And so he had.

“Lies!” she accused a mere half a second before she was reaching out for her own magic. She could feel it there now, he knew. Whatever her brother had cast outside of Eidolon’s walls was allowing Raven the clarity of mind that she needed to find her power.
All
of it.

Raven Grey was also Winter, daughter of Malphas – princess of Caina. A month ago, Lord Malphas had gifted his daughter a magical ring, the Ring of Halcyon, which possessed the power to aid Raven in using and channeling the magic inside of her. However, Astriel had taken the ring from her in sleep many moons ago, and his power over her insured that she not remember it.

Yet, now, it was clear that the Ring of Halcyon was obsolete. It was no longer needed – not by Raven Grey. Somewhere, somehow in the last month, the princess of Caina had come full circle, as her father had hoped she one day would. Raven was having no trouble finding her potentially immense and frightening magic all on her own, a fact she now proved as she raised her hand and a swirling mass of frigid energy spun and pooled in her upturned palm.

She was undeniably dangerous.

But Astriel was the prince of the elves, and the elves were the leaders of the Fae realm and people. He was the second most powerful being in countless worlds.

The princess was unquestionably livid, and things had not gone at all as he’d hoped, but there was no way in Abaddon he was going to stand there and allow his future bride to attempt to destroy him, possibly harming herself in the process.

Raven released the energy she’d amassed and Astriel braced himself, forming his own magic into an invisible shield before and around him. Raven’s cold blast slammed into the shield with the sound of a thunder clap. The walls shook and a tapestry several feet down slipped and fell from its hooks. The floor and walls iced over with thick inches of crackling rime. The air in the hall had turned to winter.

Raven’s eyes went eerily black. Her teeth were clenched, and her gaze was furious. Astriel dropped the shield and strode forward. But as he’d suspected she would, Raven pulled back, ready to hit him with another spell.

Astriel’s breath crystallized before him. He needed to subdue her but desperately did not want to harm her. The problem was…. Fae magic could be very nasty. If a victim resisted an elf’s charm, sleep spell, or weakening spell, then there wasn’t much left for an elf to do but get violent.

“Raven, I’ll warn you once,” he told her, thoroughly meaning it. He wasn’t going to allow her to destroy him. That was a given. And he wasn’t going to allow her to escape. If she didn’t calm down…. “And once only,” he continued. “Calm down and we’ll discuss this.”

“I’m through discussing things with you, Astriel,” she told him. He could feel her power building again, stronger than the first time. If she hit him with another blast, he would be fine. But she would take out half of the hall. “You’ve kept me here for… I don’t even know how long!”

She was furious. What he’d done was unforgivable in her eyes.

The second blast came with inhuman speed. She hadn’t raised her hand and no swirling ball of energy had pooled in her palm – she’d simply looked at him, her gaze had narrowed slightly, and the corridor was suddenly filled with the winds of Caina.

Astriel had a split second to react, no more. He spoke a single, arcane word and the cold blast trailed safely around him like fingers of lightning. He was untouched, but everything around him was about to enter into a deep freeze.

In the next split instant, a second voice rang out through the corridor, filling it with ancient Fae magic. The destructive magical cold dissipated, ebbing at once into nothingness before it could destroy half of the castle.

Astriel turned to see his father standing at the end of the hall. When he looked back, it was to find that during her attack, Raven Grey had become Winter, the devil princess. She was taller in this form, her skin was the blue-violet of deep twilight, and her once blue-black eyes now glowed three different, vivid colors. Her hair had gone from raven black to angel white, and massive raven-like wings spread magnificently from her back.

The sound of booted footfalls filled the hall as Oberon came nearer. Astriel watched Winter carefully. She fell to one knee and then shook her head as if to clear it. She fought to stand. It was amazing what she as doing. No mortal could withstand a Fae sleep spell, especially not when cast by the elf prince.

But Winter was far from mortal.

Lord Oberon came to stand beside his son, his attention on the she-devil now fighting for consciousness and control before them. Astriel didn’t need his father to tell him what he would have to do next. It was only that Astriel wanted to do it about as much as he wanted to slice off his own hand at the wrist.

But before he could utter the words of a spell that would knock the wind from Winter’s lungs and stun her painfully into submission, Oberon spoke once more.

Another sleep spell was layered relentlessly on top of the first that Astriel had cast. This one had the power of Oberon behind it, and within seconds, Winter’s body shimmered, once more becoming the smaller, more familiar form of Raven. She slumped against the far wall, her beautiful dark eyes blinking slowly shut. And then she slid onto her side and into unconsciousness.

Chapter Three

Lord Malphas was fond of the solitude his palace of ice normally afforded. The icy realm of Caina was so desolate and barren, few devils bothered to make the trek across it that would have been necessary to win his audience. It was something about who he was that demanded peace and quiet.

It was so for the ruler of Nisse, the Ninth Circle as well. The Palace of Nisse sat at the center of a realm of fire as harsh and unforgiving in its heat as Caina was in its eternal winter.

The two Lords of Abaddon had much in common.

It was that, specifically, that troubled Malphas now as he sat back in his throne and peered out over the frozen realm beyond the large open window before him. Lord Asmodeus had ruled Abaddon for eons. No amount of struggle amongst the other circles and their leaders had ever come close to subjugating that throne. In fact, such an idea was generally considered laughable and those who would still try had disappeared long ago.

However… times were changing. The Chosen Soul had been taken from the Spring. Cruor was dead. Haledon’s avatar had materialized on the Terran realm. And trouble was brewing in the nine circles of Abaddon.

Malphas considered the news he’d heard earlier that morning. According to his sources, attempts had been made on the lives of the rulers of two other circles. One had been successful, more or less. Luckily for Glasdon, the fat slug of a king who ruled over the third realm, he not only possessed a tremendous insulating layer of skin, but enough foresight to create a body double who sometimes appeared in court for him. It was the body double who was slain.

Unfortunately, the attempts most likely meant that someone in the realm was unsatisfied with his or her station and wanted to move up. The only way to “move up” in Abaddon was by claiming the thrones of other circles in the realm. And the only way to do that was to kill the current ruler. Killing a circle’s king and taking over as monarch insured the fealty of its inhabitants. Once you took over a circle of Abaddon, you had the power of that circle under our belt. That power could be used to take over the next circle – and the next.

Someone was starting a war. Nearly every single creature in the Nine layers of Abaddon was at risk, but the risk was ten-fold for Dark Royalty.

Such as Princess Winter Raven.

Lord Malphas had tried very hard to shield her existence from the prying eyes of Hell. She was not like other devils. Her blood was Abaddonian, not because she’d been conceived by one, but because she’d been stolen by one while in her purest form. Her soul was devil-touched and yet remained innocent. Such a thing was supposed to be impossible, to say nothing of rare.

She was unique from the inside out. The Dark Powers only knew what would become of her should others in Abaddon learn of her existence. She was living, breathing, untapped potential. And Hell was teeming with opportunists.

For the past month, the princess had been sequestered within the sheltering walls of Castle Eidolon, the seat of elven power for the Fae realm. Malphas was well aware of the elven prince’s interest in his daughter and that it was the reason behind Raven’s confinement – for it could only be called such: a confinement.

Prince Astriel had been forced to use a great deal of magic to ensure Raven’s cooperation over the last few weeks. Malphas had been keeping an eye on his only child, so he’d been privy to a firsthand view of some of the things the prince had had to do: Turn away scries, run off Raven’s twin brother, chase away a certain ork whose best friend had been sent to the Witherlands and who apparently wanted to speak with Raven for some unknown reason.

While Malphas wasn’t excited about the idea of someone using magic on his daughter, he had to admit that the prince was only doing what he needed to do. If left to her own devices, Raven would have left the castle long ago and probably taken out a few elves in the process.