The Prophet Read online

  Mistress Jeshickah found him unsettling, ugly, and worst of all, useless. So much for her great experiment, which should have resulted in a powerful witch who would serve her loyally, but instead had created this pathetic thing.

  Watching Farrell try not to flick his eyes to the side, though, she decided the boy might be useful after all. Somehow these two pathetic creatures inspired this outlaw to stand straight and openly defy her. Far from angering her, the reaction made her smile. Anyone who could be needled into foolishness by the mere sight of two slaves could be manipulated into doing anything.

  “As it happens,” she said, “I believe your guild provides a valuable service by keeping the serpiente on their toes. I am willing to negotiate with you as—”

  “She will be queen.”

  The boy’s voice, clearer and more coherent than it had ever been, interrupted Jeshickah’s response. Farrell jumped as if he had been whipped, brazenly putting his back to Jeshickah as he turned all his attention to the slave-boy.

  Jeshickah herself quieted, watching the new development with curiosity. If it could speak, perhaps it had some value after all.

  “Someday, my sister, you will be queen,” the boy said. He lifted his head, and as his eyes focused on his birth mother, they shone blue. While it was possible the woman could be pregnant, Jeshickah had seen no signs so far. “When you and your king rule, you will bow to no one. And this place, this Midnight, will burn to ash.”

  Jeshickah quirked a brow, amused. Several races were known for soothsaying. Certainly the boy’s father had had the potential to tell the future, before incoherent visions had dragged him into madness that had eventually killed him. The falcon had prophesized many things, including his own release. Most of it had been nonsense and had never come true.

  What was fascinating was Farrell Obsidian’s reaction.

  His whole body tensed. His breathing sped up. He believed in prophecy—and the subject of his faith belonged to Jeshickah.

  Farrell didn’t know it, but she owned him now as surely as she did the boy. Absolutely and irrevocably.

  ***

  Malachi held his breath, unable to move. His words had created a fissure in fate itself, and now they were all balanced at the precipice, waiting to see if they would regain their footing or go tumbling into the abyss.

  “Well, that was…entertaining,” Mistress Jeshickah said dismissively. “And about as coherent as anything the boy ever says. Let’s move on, Farrell. We can discuss terms in my study.”

  She turned to go, as she had initially planned to do before Malachi had spoken. Farrell, however, did not follow. He stayed frozen where he was. Countless threads of the future coalesced around him, waiting for him to decide.

  “If he isn’t valuable to you,” Farrell said, “would you consider selling him to me?”

  Mistress Jeshickah paused on the threshold, then turned to look back. “You can’t possibly believe that silly prophecy, can you?”

  Farrell drew a breath, trying to find words that would not betray him further. He obviously believed the prophecy, but was still trying to pretend he wasn’t desperate to make this deal. Malachi could have told him that trying to manipulate or mislead Mistress Jeshickah was a wasted effort.

  “White vipers have a special significance to the Obsidian guild,” Farrell said, “because they are thought to be descended directly from Maeve herself. Even if these are obviously unrelated—a fluke of breeding, as you put it, like an albino horse—they would inspire my people. If you really believe we can be useful to you, as you have said, then anything that strengthens us would also benefit you.”

  “The boy isn’t the one you want.” Mistress Jeshickah spoke clearly, flatly. “You want the supposed sister. I have no reason to even believe the woman is carrying a child.”

  “I want the pureblood white viper,” Farrell said, holding his ground and trying to maintain his excuse. “So yes, I want the mother. But I would be willing to take the boy off your hands as well.”

  Jeshickah threw back her head and laughed.

  “Come, Farrell,” she ordered. “I feel no need to linger in these wretched cells. We can discuss this somewhere more comfortable and perhaps come to terms.”

  —

  The last of Maeve’s true kin were slain in Seville in 1491. When the serpiente made their alliance with the vampires and fled the assault of humankind, the Obsidian guild had been invited, but they had refused to travel the long, cold paths and take the crowded ships to supposedly open land. They had seen their future reflected in black vampiric eyes, and it was not a future in which they could stand freely.

  The last white viper was named Aza, which meant “prepared.” She was spared the rack and the flame, as were all of her guild, choosing death before torture and the inevitable betrayal of their loved ones. Humans who had harbored them, befriended them, and traded with them would not be sacrificed for the illusion of safety.

  So Maeve’s kin passed out of the world.

  More than three centuries went by before a man was born who recalled Maeve’s traditions and saw a need for their return. Though he himself had none of Maeve’s blood, he salvaged an idea from ancient times and claimed it as his own.

  When Farrell exhaled the name Obsidian for the first time, he changed his world. An infant, still swimming in her mother’s womb, breathed in Maeve’s spirit, her magic, for the first time in three centuries.

  That child began life in the depths of Midnight. Though born into slavery in a world with no sunlight and no hope of freedom, she was born white. She was Maeve’s kin, brought back into the world by the faith of a young man who had claimed the myths, dreams, and hopes of the ancient guild as his own.

  —

  Melissa of Obsidian waited anxiously for her mate to return from Midnight. As far as she knew, Farrell had not broken any of Midnight’s laws, which meant they shouldn’t have a reason to keep him. On the other hand, the same creatures that made the laws—the vampires—were responsible for translating and enforcing them. No one could stand against the immortals.

  Her head spun with relief when she finally saw Farrell through the trees, but then her brows drew together as she spotted the two ghosts in his wake. Both figures were colorless as the surrounding fog. One was a woman with a dazed expression and no warmth noticeable even by serpiente senses—another of their kind, then, though there was no emotion, no passion or life, rising from her. The other was a young child who radiated heat and rioting anxiety. His small hand was tucked into Farrell’s.

  Other children of Obsidian looked up with curiosity as Farrell approached. They trusted him as one of their kin…but no one ever really trusted a man or woman who had been in Midnight, even if only for a few hours.

  “What’s this?” Melissa asked. Neither the woman nor the child responded, though Farrell gave a self-conscious smile as he heard the censure in his mate’s tone.

  “The woman is named Eve,” he said. “She is a white viper. The boy, Malachi, is her son. His father was a falcon.”

  “Half falcon? Are you mad?” Melissa spat. “Boy!” She tried to get the child’s attention, but his gaze remained steady, focused on a spot deep in the forest instead of on the people around him. “Malachi, can you hear me?”

  Still no response.

  Farrell knelt in front of the boy. He looked into his colorless eyes and implored him, “Malachi, please. Tell her what you told me.”

  Nothing.

  “Malachi.” Melissa made a snort of impatience as Farrell continued to try to reach the boy. “He spoke to me,” he explained, looking up at her. “In Midnight, in the tiny cell where they kept him, he spoke to me, but it wasn’t a child’s voice. I may not have any of the ancient magics, but I can recognize a prophecy when I hear one.”

  “And just what did the addled prophet predict?” Melissa said. She wanted to trust her mate, and support him in his excitement, but no good ever came from Midnight, or from falcons.

  “His mother is preg
nant,” Farrell said. “Jeshickah says the father is probably one of her guards, because the falcon has been gone for years.”

  Choosing her words carefully and speaking around gritted teeth, Melissa said, “I applaud your desire to save a potential infant from slavery, but what are we supposed to do with these two? The boy is obviously disturbed, and there is no way to miss that the mother is long-broken. We have few enough resources as it is. We cannot support two slaves who are long past our ability to help.” Cold crept up her spine as she realized there was another, darker question she had not yet thought to ask.

  ***

  It was all so loud. Overwhelming. For a boy raised in a single gray cell, the forest was unbearably bright. During the day, gaps in the evergreen trees revealed an endless sky.

  At night, Malachi shuddered beneath the weight of wishes, thrown up to the stars to cascade down on his defenseless mind. The rise and fall of gods and heroes was written in constellations against the velvet darkness of space.

  From the ground seeped the ancient knowledge of fire and stone, mingling in the core of the earth, cooling on the surface, then colliding, grinding, battling, ages before there were trees here, much less people. Wyakins—spirit guides left behind when the nomadic Nimíipuu had been driven away by Midnight—whispered to Malachi when he tried to sleep.

  Occasionally, he knew that living-people spoke to him, but how could he possibly hear them over all the noise? How dared he respond? The last time he had spoken, in the cell, he had opened a hole in the universe. Through it, a countless number of futures swirled. Some that had been almost certain were now impossible; others that had barely been dreamed were now all but engraved in stone.

  How could so few words change so much?

  He curled up against his mother’s side, not to get comfort from her, but to feel the second life inside her.

  This is what I need to protect, he thought, this one life.

  He didn’t need to topple an empire, or claim leadership of a rebellious guild with ancient roots and glorious ideals. Unlike Melissa, who was loudly arguing with Farrell, Malachi didn’t worry about controlling his fate or changing the world.

  This heartbeat, too faint to hear without magic, was all that mattered. Not the forest. Not the stone cell where he had been born. And certainly not the horrified tone in Melissa’s voice as she whispered to her mate, “Midnight never gives anything for free. What did you pay them, Farrell? What did you pay?”

  Amelia Atwater-Rhodes wrote her first novel, In the Forests of the Night, when she was thirteen. Other books in the Den of Shadows series are Demon in My View, Shattered Mirror, Midnight Predator, Persistence of Memory, Token of Darkness, All Just Glass, Poison Tree, and Promises to Keep. She has also published the five-volume series The Kiesha’ra: Hawksong, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and a VOYA Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Selection; Snakecharm; Falcondance; Wolfcry, an IRA-CBC Young Adults’ Choice; and Wyvernhail. Her most recent novels are the Maeve’ra Trilogy: Bloodwitch, Bloodkin, and Bloodtraitor. Visit her online at AmeliaAtwaterRhodes.com.

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