He dragged me through the threshold by the elbow and kept right on dragging me through the house. Down into the bowels of the mansion we went—Raif silent and serious as ever, and me tripping on my own feet to keep up. “You should know that the Oracle left sometime after Tyler yesterday,” he said as we walked. “She slipped out when no one was watching, and we have no idea where she is.”
Wonderful. There wasn’t room for another thing on my plate. I couldn’t worry about Delilah right then. I had Azriel and my own neck to think about, and I had to assume she’d left of her own volition and on her own two feet. Maybe she’d called Tyler. Maybe she’d run far from this war that I wished I could run from as well. “I have something to tell you,” I said as I negotiated the stairs. “I killed a Sylph last night, and another came to visit me just before dawn.”
Raif grunted in response, and didn’t even turn to acknowledge me.
“She said—the one I killed, I mean—she said something to me. It was a riddle. When night becomes day and day becomes night, the nine will come to claim their right. When darkest soul meets lightest love, her blood will play creator’s role, and from stone release their souls. And then she said something about being a creator but no one’s maker. And something else about being marked and not having a mother or a father.”
Raif stopped dead in his tracks and I ran straight into his back. “What did you say?”
I repeated the Sylph’s strange prophecy, but Raif had already turned around and resumed dragging me down the long hallway to Xander’s council room with increased speed. “What do you think it means?” I asked.
“The plot thickens,” Raif said with a sarcastic edge as he stepped into the room.
Seated at Xander’s council table was a Lyhtan, and by the way it was bound, I had a distinct feeling it wasn’t an invited guest. The cords securing the creature to its chair looked strangely familiar, and I stuck a hand in my coat pocket, instinctively gripping the bottle of shadows. Black and inky, liquid in quality, the ropes marred the Lyhtan’s skin at its wrists and ankles. I had a sudden mental image of Raif blowing gently on our guest’s wrists, and shuddered. It thrashed about and spit at us as we entered, and I had to jump away to avoid being struck with a rather large gob of gooey, green spit.
After the dramatic display, the Lyhtan paused and looked me over from head to toe. It screeched and cackled wildly before saying, “You are marked! The Enphigmalé will see to the end of your kind!”
Lovely. That sentence must have been the equivalent of a Lyhtan secret handshake.
“We’ve been questioning him for the last few hours,” Raif said.
I wondered how Raif knew he was a he. Maybe he lifted the tuft of fur dangling from its belly and checked.
“What has he told you?” I asked.
Raif gave me the gravest of looks before pushing me back out the door.
“You are marked, Shaede! You will free them, and you will all die!”
The door closed, effectively blocking out the seething sound of the Lyhtan’s laughter and cackling proclamation. I wish I could have blocked it from my mind just as easily.
Raif led the way to a small office down the hall and slumped in one of the high-backed chairs. He looked me dead in the eye. I wasn’t going to like what was coming.
“I checked,” I said, trying to curb the path Raif’s mind had assuredly taken. “I looked over every inch of my body. No marks. He’s wrong.”
“No,” Raif said. “He’s not.”
Panic welled up in me, threatening to bubble right out of my mouth. I swallowed against the bile in my throat and focused on keeping a calm facade. Inside, I was screaming.
“No,” I said. “No marks. I swear. Raif . . .”
“I should have made the connection sooner.”
No. No, no, no, no, no. If I could think the word enough, I could make it true.
“Xander,” Raif sighed.
“What? Xander? What does he have to do with this?”
“He knew, I think. He’s known. For a while now.”
“Known what?” The panic I was trying to keep a handle on flew out of control. “Known what? Fuck, Raif. What the hell is going on?”
“You’d better sit down,” he said.
“No! Tell me. What’s going on?”
Raif took a deep breath. Not a good sign. “It doesn’t mean marked marked. It wouldn’t be visible.”
Gulp. My worst fears were about to be confirmed. “What does it mean?”
“You are marked, meaning ‘different. Unique.’ ”
I stared at Raif and he stared right back. I wasn’t unique in any sense of the word. I wasn’t even a Shaede by birthright. My human life had been stolen and I’d been cast into this new form. Others like me existed. Two, to be exact. So I could admit to being a rare breed, but not unique. “No.” The word barely issued from my lips.
“I’ve heard the whisperings of such things for years but never believed in them,” Raif said more to himself than to me. “The Lyhtan said the eclipse was the key.”
“It’s not true,” I protested with everything I was worth. “Azriel made me. He told me. The Sylph didn’t say anything about an eclipse. Maybe the Lyhtans are lying, trying to throw us off the trail.”
Raif gave me a pointed look, silently imploring me to stop lying to myself. Azriel’s words from the previous night floated through my mind; he’d kept the details of my existence a secret even from me.
“I always knew there was something . . .” Raif said to himself. “Why Azriel was so intent to return here. Xander couldn’t have kept him away. Nothing could have stopped him from coming back here for you.”
The gears clicking away in my brain came to a grinding halt. “What are you talking about?”
“And you . . .” Raif continued, nonplussed. “Something just not right, not like any of us. The way you smell things, the way you sense the energy of others . . .”
I didn’t wait for Raif to finish his train of thought. I rushed up the stairs, taking three at a time, crossed the first floor, and continued my flight to Xander’s suite. I didn’t knock, and I wasn’t about to simply let myself in. I kicked the damn door right off the hinges.
“You lying sonofabitch!” I screamed.
Xander looked up from the sheaf of papers he’d been studying and regarded me with mild curiosity. “Hello, Darian.”
I drew the katana, letting it sing as I ripped it free. Swinging it toward Xander’s head, I stopped short and leveled it at his throat. “I’m going to ask you a few questions, and you’re going to answer every last one,” I said. “And I dare you to lie to me again.”
It was right about that time that I felt cold steel poking into the back of my own head. Anya. What a bitch.
“Lower your blade, or you’re as good as dead,” she ordered in a self-satisfied tone. “I wouldn’t even think twice before ridding the world of you.”
I laughed. Serious, stomach-cramping, suffocating laughter. “What do you think, Xander? Should I take her threats to heart? The sun is about to set. Could she do it? Could she take my head off my shoulders before I take yours?”
“Anya, leave,” Xander said, no longer amused.
“B-but, Your Highness,” she stammered.
“Get out!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.
I turned to see Anya drop her blade to her side, cowering as she backed from the room and out of sight.
“Sit,” Xander said.
“No.” I was damn tired of being told to sit.
“I said, sit.” Xander’s tone was not in the least bit playful as he directed his finger in a downward stabbing motion. I perched on the edge of a chair and leveled the tip of the sword blade until it hovered in line with the hollow of his throat.