Eternal Day Page 3

  “Yes.”

  Talon shrugged. “Obviously, I’m not as superior as the icrathari. I can’t feel a thing.” He glanced at Yuri. “Can you? What do you use to navigate?”

  “The tip of my nose.” Yuri lifted it with supreme hauteur. She stiffened. Her head tilted. “Do you hear it?”

  Tera held up her hand for silence. “Water. It’s probably another underground river.”

  Yuri’s eyes narrowed. “Do we have to swim across it too?”

  Talon chuckled. “Are you afraid of getting your pretty little shoes wet?” he asked. “Oh, wait. I just remembered. You’re as graceful as a pigeon in water.”

  Tera was too weary of Talon’s endless banter to roll her eyes. “Talon, statements like that are why females kill males.”

  “Ooo…” He mocked a shudder. “I’m scared.”

  Tera glanced back sharply over her shoulder.

  Yuri and Talon coiled into battle crouches. Talon’s claws extended with a familiar spine-crawling slither of nails against flesh.

  Tera frowned. Had she only imagined that soft breath of air shifting above her?

  Nothing moved.

  Talon shot her a glance. The slant of his eyebrows confirmed that he, too, heard nothing and felt nothing.

  Tera jerked her head, an order to continue.

  The faint whisper of running water expanded into a roar as the tunnels opened into a vast underground cavern. A river—not a sedate stream, but white-capped rapids—sloshed and tumbled through the cave, smashing against rocks pounded smooth by impact and time.

  Yuri’s short lifespan—a little over two hundred and fifty years lived within Aeternae Noctis—had not included any such vistas. Both Talon and Tera, too, had not seen that much water for a long time. A thousand years earlier, the last human war and the apocalypse that followed had damaged the atmosphere, rendering the Earth unlivable. The only sanctuary was in eternal night. The city of Aeternae Noctis, carried aloft by massive engines, sheltered the icrathari, their vampire army, and the remnants of humanity.

  Yet, life had existed outside the dome. The daevas were proof of it. Within the cavern, Tera followed an old scent trail to clusters of rocks too symmetrically aligned to be accidental. Crude stone tools within the ruins marked it as another daeva habitation, yet none of those creatures were to be found.

  She frowned, her eyebrows drawing together. Tension unfurled and rippled her wings. She had once seen hordes of daevas block out the full moon. Where had they gone?

  Did they know she hunted them?

  Probably.

  She stiffened. There it was again. Not quite a breath of air, but something else—a tightening between her shoulder blades—a predator’s instinct that she was watched.

  Hunted.

  She turned, her gaze traveling over every shadowy cranny. I know you’re here, Erich. Come out. I’m ready for you.

  An unfamiliar sensation tugged at the corner of his mouth. Moments passed before his mind identified it as a smile—a half-smile, twisted and more than a little bitter.

  It had been a long time since Erich Dale had any occasion or reason to smile.

  He could not imagine why he would be smiling now. Tera moved among the rocks with light-footed grace, as if she were hovering instead of walking. Her slow turn could not have been more poised and elegant if she were dancing.

  Yet, she was a warrior and her body her weapon. With icrathari as with daevas, speed and strength grew with age, and Tera was thousands of years old. Few could match her in a one-on-one fight. Her wing tips, encased in steel, and the pointed metal studs on her leather clothes, boots, and fingerless gloves provided the only protection she needed.

  She walked almost directly under his hiding place and turned, as if she knew she was watched. Strands of silver hair had come loose from her braid to frame her heart-shaped face, softening her appearance. Her large gray eyes he had always thought out of place for a warlord—not hard, cold, and jaded as he had imagined they would be. Her beauty could have moved angels to tears of envy.

  Erich’s misshapen fingers twitched.

  He wanted to paint her, and once he had.

  That painting was nothing but dust; the paper—streaked with his blood—finally succumbing to the decay of time.

  The image, however, froze in his mind. Yet now, once again faced with Tera in person, he realized how much he had missed.

  The slow, downward sweep of her long eyelashes. The faint twitches of her perfectly shaped lips as she mulled over an abandoned daeva settlement. The slight tilt of her head as she listened for sounds that could not possibly have been audible over the amplified roar of the running water.

  If he only had pen and paper—

  He would immortalize her once more, and then kill her.

  He would spare the world the torment he had gone through—mistaking her angelic loveliness for kindness.

  As for her companions—

  Erich recognized the male, the vampire once held captive by the daevas. As for the female…

  Erich’s mind cast about for a name but found nothing in the fragments of his memories. His hellish transformation had been the pivotal point in his life. Everything prior to it—except Tera—had broken into pieces too small to gather up, shards too inconsequential to care about.

  Yet something about the female vampire seemed familiar. She was a head taller than Tera and wore both her hair and her armor in a similar style. Slavish imitation, he mocked.

  But then again, the icrathari had a way of inspiring affection, adulation, and even love. He, too, had once fallen under Tera’s spell.

  A guttural voice whispered in his ear, “Are you ready?”

  Tangled emotions gobbled his thoughts. I’ve been ready since the day I dug myself out of the grave she buried me in. He held up his hand, his fingers spread. Once she is dead, all this madness in me will go away, and I will finally be at peace.

  His mental voice quavered. It is what I want. It is what I have always wanted.

  His fingers snapped together into a closed fist. Behind him, the thunder of beating wings drowned out the roar of the underground river.

  Daevas—hundreds of them—crashed through the roof of the cave and rushed toward the three lone figures beneath.

  Chapter 3

  The air vibrated; the ground shook. Tera was already on the move when the roof of the cave crashed in. Fragments of rock splashed into the river, but the sound was scarcely audible over the thunderous pounding of wings against air. Talon and Yuri—both exquisitely trained—stood back-to-back in a corner of a cave to funnel their attackers into a narrow approach.

  Tera drew a deep breath and screamed. The first wave of daevas recoiled from her battle cry, buying her the precious few seconds she needed to reach Yuri and Talon. Her fingernails extended, curving into claws. Her incisors lengthened.

  The daevas, no taller or larger than she was, surged forward, but their wings were not metal-tipped nor were they free to maneuver as she was. She did not have to hold back for fear of hurting an aerial ally.

  Tera dove into the cluster of black wings and twisted into a spin. The slash of her metal wing tips into the dark, crepe-like skin of the daevas splattered golden blood on the ground. The flare of her wings cleared a wide space over the battlefield, protecting Yuri and Talon from immediate overhead attacks.

  Yuri fought with twin swords, and Talon with claws and fangs. Tera simply tore daevas from the air. The seemingly demonic creatures that had attacked en masse were young—no more than a few hundred years old—and no match for a four-thousand-year-old icrathari. With methodical ruthlessness and precision honed through thousands of years of training, she punched through their stomachs and ripped out their throats.

  It was the only way to kill the fae.

  Trailing intestines, the daevas plummeted from the sky, their bones shattering upon impact with the ground.

  Talon snarled as a daeva’s final death dive narrowly missed him. “Excuse me, I’m worki
ng down here.” He sidestepped another daeva’s leaping attack and seized it by the back of its scrawny throat. Sinking his claws into its stomach, he yanked out its contents before snapping its neck. Contemptuously, he let go. It was dead before it hit the ground.

  Beside him, Yuri wove through the choreographed steps of a deadly dance. Lunge. Parry. Parry. Then two horizontal slashes with her swords—one high across the throat, the other low across the stomach—in separate directions, like the tightening ties of a bag. Another daeva dropped, golden blood spilling from its slashed throat and stomach.

  In the air, Tera slaughtered a daeva and let it fall. Two others took its place. Her gaze swept across the spread of dark wings. Where was Erich?

  Two large figures flew from an opening in the cave roof. A third figure, taller than the first two, somersaulted through the air to land in a battle crouch.

  Erich.

  He was leaner than she remembered, his pale blond hair now a dirt-streaked brown. His clothes were poorly fitting rags, stolen from vampires slaughtered by the daevas. He was too far away for her to see his eyes, but she would have known him anywhere—his misshapen hands curled into fists as he straightened.

  She remembered her final glimpse of him before she covered him with dirt. His broken, bleeding hands clutched a paper on which he had drawn her image. For a moment, she had considered taking it from him—a memento should he not survive the excruciating transformation from human to elder vampire—but he held it to his heart as if it were the only thing that mattered.

  In the end, he needed it more than she did, for whatever good it did. His body had survived the transformation, but his mind had not. He had become an immortali—an elder vampire maddened by the questionable gift of immortality.

  He had not returned to Aeternae Noctis. He had not returned to her.

  Across the distance that separated them, Erich gestured to the two daevas hovering beside him. As they closed the distance to Tera, the other daevas fell back. Their yellow eyes narrowed in recognition. The scarcely perceptible nod of their heads was almost an acknowledgment.

  Tera stared at them, trying to align memories of the pale-skinned icrathari they had once been with the sun-darkened daevas they had become. “Daryun? Canya?”

  Canya nodded. Her lips twisted into a mocking sneer. Her gaze darted to Yuri and Talon, who were holding their own against the younger daevas.

  Canya dove toward them. Tera flashed down to intercept her. Their wings flurried the air into a whirlwind as they circled, slashing and evading. Tera’s steel-tipped wings tore through Canya’s sun-toughened skin. Rivulets of golden blood trailed through the air.

  Underneath, we’re not that different.

  Canya’s eyes glittered with hate. She snarled an Arcantan word.

  Tera had not used Arcanta, the ancient language of the fae, in thousands of years, not since humans became the dominant species on Earth, but her memory was not that rusty.

  “Apostate.”

  The word struck like a hurled spear. Tera and Canya had once been sisters-in-arms, warlords of a race that had tended toward intellectual and social pursuits. When the apocalypse evaporated the atmosphere, Tera had followed Ashra into Aeternae Noctis. Canya had not accompanied her.

  Tera’s huge wings bore down, keeping her aloft as she summoned words from a dead language. “We make choices. We live with the consequences.”

  “Foul betrayer.” A snarl accompanied Canya’s retort. “You betrayed all of us. Betrayed the Great Mother. Betrayed the lives we swore to protect.” She lunged at Tera.

  Tera twisted aside and slammed her wings forward, the steel tips striking Canya across her face.

  “Stop! Are you both mad?” Daryun swooped into the narrow space between Canya and Tera. “Haven’t enough of us died over decisions that cannot be unmade?”

  “They are still making those decisions!” Canya hissed. “Behold, the abominations! Vampires—neither human nor fae. They were never meant to be!” She darted under the cover of Daryun’s wings and plunged down toward Yuri, her talons extended like a predator prepared to strike.

  Her claws would have torn through Yuri’s back if Talon had not hurled through the air. His flying leap smashed into Canya. He wrapped his arms around Canya’s waist, his superior weight tackling her to the ground. “Sword!” he shouted.

  Yuri tossed her blade to him. Talon snatched it out of the air, and in a swift move, as precise as if they had planned it, he plunged the blade through Canya’s shoulder.

  “Another!” Talon shouted above Canya’s screech of agony.

  Yuri tossed Talon her second blade a split second before Erich’s blow smashed across her face. She staggered. Erich was on her before she could regain her balance, his claws slashing and tearing.

  Panic flicked across Talon’s face. He drove the sword into Canya’s other shoulder, then lunged at Erich. The elder vampire and the immortali tumbled over the dry ground. A dust cloud blurred their battle into snarls and howls. Blood, the color of a long-forgotten sunset, watered the dirt.

  It took Tera only a moment to separate the cadence of the battle cries into the ones that rang more with rage and the ones that rang more with pain.

  Talon was losing.

  To hell with the plea for peace in Daryun’s eyes. Tera owed her loyalty to the vampires and the elder vampires who fought and died to protect the humans in Aeternae Noctis. She tore away from Daryun and plunged into the dust cloud.

  Her icrathari vision made just enough sense of the mad tangle of limbs. She tore Erich off Talon, but before she could rip out Erich’s throat, he wrenched himself out of her grip and fled into the darkness.

  Tera spun around. Daryun, carrying an injured Canya, had also retreated, flanked by hordes of daevas. The sound of many wings faded into the silence. The air stopped trembling.

  Talon slowly pushed to his feet, his shoulders hunched against the deep tremors that shook his muscled body. His left leg bent awkwardly, fragments of his broken femur white against his torn flesh. He glared at Tera. “I’m not a fan of your plan to take these monsters alive.”

  Ignoring him, Tera knelt beside Yuri. The vampire’s green eyes briefly focused on Tera before glazing; her already pale complexion was ashen from blood loss. Tera yanked her fangs across her wrist and lowered the dripping vein to Yuri’s lips.

  Talon peered over her shoulder. “Is she going to be all right?”

  “At least she’s not fighting it this time.”

  “They always fight it the first time.”

  Not always. Erich had not fought her. Perhaps he should have. Perhaps she would have stopped before he consumed enough of her blood to transform him, to drive him mad. She looked up at Talon. “Do you need it?”

  He nodded slowly, the reluctant admission proof that he was badly injured. Talon, the firstborn among the elder vampires, was loath to admit weakness in any form. “But I can wait. She needs your blood more than I do.”

  Tera arched an eyebrow. Now that was an admission of love, if she had ever heard one. “There should be enough to go around.” Vampires and elder vampires needed blood only to heal, and under those circumstances, the more ancient the blood, the faster the healing. Her blood would more than adequately heal Yuri and Talon, but it would leave her drained and weakened for several days. Too dangerous. “We’re going back to Aeternae Noctis.”

  A muscle twitched in Talon’s jaw.

  Tera’s eyebrows arched. Was he seriously considering disagreeing with her?

  His gaze lingered on Yuri’s face, and he nodded. “You’re right.” Moving with care, he picked up Yuri’s twin blades and wiped off Canya’s golden blood. Remorse infused his voice. “I took away her only means of defending herself.”

  “Her weapons may not have made any difference against Erich,” Tera pointed out. “Insanity gives him strength.”

  “Why do the daevas put up with him?” Talon asked. “If he were insane, wouldn’t he be as much of a threat to them as he is to us?”r />
  “Who can say why they choose as they do?”

  “What did the daeva say to you?”

  Tera’s wings ruffled. “Nothing important.” She turned and held out her wrist to him. “It’s your turn.”

  Talon gave her a suspicious look, but said nothing more as he raised her bleeding wrist to his lips. Tera grimaced and braced herself as he drew her blood out of her. The sensation of her blood rushing through her veins was something she had not felt since—

  Since Erich. He had been the first and only human she had transformed.

  And look how it turned out.

  I created our worst enemy.

  Talon pulled his lips away from her wrist. The open wound closed rapidly, flesh knitting shut. The thin red line across her skin vanished within minutes.

  Tera drew a deep breath, bracing against the lightheadedness of a world teetering on the edge of vertigo.

  Talon eyed Tera critically even as he helped Yuri to her feet. The female vampire was still unsteady, but she could stand without support and her hands only trembled slightly as they grasped the handles of her blades. Talon, too, looked the worse for wear, but he no longer bled. Flesh layered quickly over his newly repaired femur.

  They could not afford to linger. They were in no position to fight off another attack like the last. Tera tapped on the implanted transmitter under her right ear and was gratified to feel the familiar buzzing, confirming that her signal to Aeternae Noctis had been received. “Let’s go,” she said.

  “Back to the surface?” Yuri asked. “Which way?”

  Talon chuckled, his smirk more grimace than grin. “Thataway.”

  Tera swept her wings forward, bracing against the icy wind screaming over the barren surface of the Earth. Mounds of ruined cities loomed like mountain ranges, twisted columns of steel jutting out of the ground like the antenna of giant insects.

  A thin sliver of light appeared on the horizon. The sun, an implacable death that burned the Earth from dawn to dusk, was close to rising.

  Anyone intelligent, anyone sane, would flee from the sun and take shelter underground—or wait, as she, Talon, and Yuri did, for the safety of Aeternae Noctis.