Born of Ashes

“You’re supposed to be dead, Braulio. I fucking watched you die. Hell, I held you in my arms. I thought I laid you on the funeral pyre myself. So what was it I burned up? Whose ashes did I spread over Lake Tanganyika Two? What was that, some sort of fucking clone?”

He shrugged.

He was reclining on her bed and he had the audacity to just offer a shrug, the raising of one shoulder, so not even a full shrug, but a half shrug.

“Something like that,” he said. “Hey, I thought you’d be glad to see me.”

“Fuck off.”

“Aw, babe, don’t be like that.”

She turned back to her closet and pulled a purple gown from its hanger. She was pissed off. Royally. Aw, babe. Aw, babe. Shit, shit, shit, shit.

She waved a hand and a split second later the sleeveless gown covered her, with the exception that her head stuck out of one of the armholes. Yeah, she was that pissed off.

She let out a cry of frustration and waved her hand again.

This time the gown went where it was supposed to go.

She lifted her arm and folded straight into her holiest of holies, the small sanctuary in which she engaged in her darkening work. No one could fold in there except, of course, fucking Sixth ascenders.

A movement of air told her what she needed to know.

She ignored the presence of the most formidable Warrior of the Blood to have ever lived, who had also been her former love-slave. She stretched out on her chaise-longue, clasped her hands over her stomach, and prepared to launch into nether-space. Then she felt a hand on top of her hands.

She opened one eye. “Get away from me, Braulio. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m not especially thrilled to see you right now.”

“I thought we might fuck, take some sting out of the situation here.”

“In your dreams, asshole.”

“I have some new moves.” He waggled his thick black brows and rippled his abs. “I’ve learned a thing or two in the last three thousand years.”

“Have you learned to fuck yourself, because right now that’s all the action I see you getting.”

He laughed. “You haven’t changed.”

“And you’re still an arrogant prick. So let me make this easy for you. You can’t have me again, Braulio, so if you haven’t come to help out with our sucky little war, then I suggest you take yourself and that bulge in your pants anywhere but here.”

She closed her eyes.

“Aw, babe,” he whined.

She opened her eyes, pressed her lips together, then rose up off her couch to face him. “Aw, babe? What are you, sixteen?”

“I can be, if that’s what you want.”

“You are so full of shit.”

“Aw babe.”

Okay, he’d fucking done it one too many times. So with all the preternatural speed she could muster, she threw a right hook that blurred with the best of them.

But she found that the only thing she hit was his hand, which then closed around her fist.

“That would’ve hurt, Endelle.”

She was way too close to him. He had a nice scent, something familiar, like sandalwood or a really fresh cologne. He had full sensual lips but like hell she was going to just throw herself at one of the biggest players the northern tribes had ever produced.

She took her fist back then turned away from him. “All right, let’s have it. Why are you here? Why did you come to me tonight?”

“To keep you from making a mistake.”

She looked back at him, and he held a phone in his hand, her phone, her Droid. “What the fuck?”

“I need you to call Owen Stannett and make a deal with him about Marguerite.”

So he knew all about that shit. “I can’t and I won’t. I’ve already made that decision. I won’t hurt Thorne.”

“Your loyalty is touching, but make the goddam call.”

At that, she narrowed her eyes at him. “Why? Why should I? Why should Thorne be denied his woman? For what?”

“You know why. You’ve got to get access to the future streams … now.” He squeezed his eyes shut like he was suddenly in pain. “Shit. Time’s up.”

He didn’t lift his arm, he just fucking vanished, and at the same time her phone dropped to the marble floor.

She let a few more expletives fall from her lips.

She picked the phone up, surprised it hadn’t shattered on impact. She rolled her eyes. She tapped the screen.

When Owen’s voice came on the line she said, “All right, you motherfucker, let’s make a deal. Just how bad do you want Marguerite?”

* * *

In the way-too-early hours of the morning, during that gray part of dawn, Marguerite stood before Sister Quena.

She had been awakened from a deep sleep and her first thought had been, Thorne—that perhaps he’d come back and how glad she was. She needed a good tumble after the day she’d had.

But Thorne hadn’t come to the room and thank God she’d had enough sense to keep her mouth shut. The last thing she wanted in this situation was to get Thorne in trouble.

As it was, she had the worst feeling that the thing she had feared the most had finally come upon her.

In a hundred years, she’d never been summoned from her bed by a group of senior devotiates and marched in formal style all the way to Sister Quena’s office.

Now, as she faced the High Administrator of the Exalted Order of Religious Bullshit, she slid her hands deep into the opposing sleeves of her Seers robe in order to hide her trembling hands.

Sister Quena rose from her massive burlwood desk. She had deep permanent grooves on her forehead as though she bore responsibilities no one else could possibly comprehend.

“You know how strenuously we have strived to train you for your most blessed service as a Preeminent Seer of Second Earth. Well, apparently the heavens have smiled upon you. Your gifts have become known to Higher Powers.” She smiled.

Damn. Sister actually smiled.

Then this couldn’t be about Thorne.

And what was all this bullshit about Higher Powers?

Oh, God.

Oh, shit.

A sense of doom swept over her. Just as any good Seer would do, she opened her mind, and the images of her impending future swept through her: of being locked away in the Seer domicile in the middle of the Superstitions, ostracized from society, forced to keep strict schedules and vows of silence, and chained to a grinding routine of constantly looking into the future for the sake of Mortal and Second Earths.

Sister Quena continued, “She Who Would Live herself is having you transferred to the Seers Fortress in Thunder God Mountain. Indeed, such an honor! I cannot even conceive of it.” Vermillion bloomed on each pallid cheek. “I had always hoped, of course.”

Marguerite heard what amounted to a death sentence and shook her head. She kept shaking her head and didn’t stop.

“I see you are overwhelmed by the magnitude of the blessing that has been conferred upon you. I understand. You do not believe yourself worthy and indeed, given your general lack of enthusiasm during rituals, prayers, and study, I am not surprised. But your present silence does you honor and I am fully persuaded that whatever your past errors, whatever the deep unassailable flaws you possess, you will rise to the occasion.”

“No.” She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to do this. I won’t go. I won’t. You can’t make me.”

“Calm down, Sister Marguerite. Your duty always takes supremacy over desire. You know that. Besides, your parents have already approved the transfer. I spoke with them not five minutes ago. They are very proud of this accomplishment. I have ordered the honoring bells, documents, and ribbons. They will take part in a ceremony to be viewed by all of Second Society throughout the entire world. You seem to have no real understanding of the magnitude of this accolade. You should be happy. To be of service in this manner is all that a woman of your ability should ever desire.”

She continued to shake her head. “No. No. No. I won’t go. No. You can’t make me. No one can make me. I’d rather eat dirt. I’d rather drink Darian’s blood.”

Sister Quena recoiled in horror. “Sister Marguerite! Desist from such vulgarities.”

But Marguerite continued wildly, “No. No. I won’t work with a bunch of old farts in permanent cloister. You can’t make me. You’ll have to kill me first.”

Sister Quena began to flutter around her desk. She levitated. She called out loud incomprehensible things. The room filled with red robes that rushed toward Marguerite and restrained her. She felt hands on her head forcing her back, back, back.

Sister Quena laid a hand over Marguerite’s forehead.

The paralysis came swiftly.

Even her tongue proved immobile. Thorne, she screamed mentally. Nothing returned to her. How could it? She’d never shared her blood with him or the depths of her mind, only her body. He would never be able to find her or hear her or know what she was going through. She was on her own again, alone. She couldn’t bear it.

But there was another who might be able to help. Fiona! she screamed. Help! Fiona, I’m in serious shit! Fiona, you have to help me!

She couldn’t catch her breath. She couldn’t even feel her lungs rise and fall.

“She’s convulsing.”

* * *

Fiona awoke flat on her back, staring up at an emerging dawn, a heavy weight on her chest. The air was cool, even chilly on her face and her shoulders.

She blinked and looked down. Jean-Pierre’s arm was across her. She pushed his arm away, trying to think what had awakened her.

She sat up.

“What is the matter, chérie?”

She glanced at him. He leaned up on one elbow and rubbed his eyes. He rattled off something in French.

“I’m sorry?” she queried.

“Oh. Sometimes when I awaken, French is in my mind. I said, it is dawn already. The warriors would be almost done fighting. Why are you troubled? Did you not sleep well?”

She smoothed the comforter over her lap. “I slept really well, thank you, but I woke up feeling that something was very wrong. I just don’t know what.”