Of the Abyss (37 page)

Cadmia wore a weapon now, as well. She had blanched when Alizarin had first presented the dagger to her—­the one forged of his own bone—­but he had insisted that she keep it, saying it would act as a warning to others who might try to harm her, as well as a weapon she could wield in her own defense.

“I'm fine,” Terre Verte replied, his eyes closed. “It's . . .” He stopped speaking for a few seconds, and then breathed,
“Here.”

The portal he opened was not black like those Alizarin made, but glistening silver. It came into existence with a whiff of sweet, smoky aroma, like incense.

Terre Verte stepped back from the portal and gestured for them to go ahead.

Umber moved forward first, and Hansa followed. He emerged with a shiver, brushing flakes of frost from his skin as the others stepped through behind him.

“Where are we?” he asked, looking around pointlessly. The light from the portal was just enough to give the impression of clutter and perhaps walls, but no other details of the room around them.

“Somewhere dark.” Cadmia sneezed, and added, “And dusty.”

Terre Verte emerged from the portal last. As it closed behind him, he lifted a hand and summoned an orb of silver-­white foxfire, which illuminated a vast, windowless room which had once been elegant but now showed years of disuse.

A long couch hugged one wall, which looked like it had been softly elegant long ago; now it was impossible to even tell what fabric upholstered it. Bookcases laden with texts made unreadable by time and grime filled another wall, and a round table at knee height that appeared to have been an altar dominated the center of the floor. It was draped with cloth and set with odds and ends that were hard to identify under the dust of ages, which coated every surface in the room and billowed when they moved.

Xaz started to move forward as if to examine the altar, then seemed to think better of it. She put a hand in front of her nose to keep from inhaling the musty particles that grew thicker in the air each time one of them took a step. “Is there a door?” she asked.

It was a reasonable question. The foxfire Terre Verte had summoned was bright enough to illuminate the entirety of the small room, but Hansa couldn't see any exit.

“Of course,” Terre Verte said before crossing and pressing a hand to an apparently blank wall.

Hansa blinked. If he hadn't seen so many doors appear and disappear at Naples' and Azo's estate, he might have thought he hadn't seen this one previously due to the tears in his irritated eyes. Instead of an empty arch, a sturdy-­looking door of slick, polished wood appeared.

“We
are
back in the human plane, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” Terre Verte answered. “But this was a hidden room, not meant for the eyes of anyone who might stumble across it.”

They all moved toward the doorway, anxious to get away from the stagnant air and now nearly blinding, billowing dust.

The moment they crossed the threshold, though, Hansa's breath hissed in with unwanted familiarity. Carved cherry wainscoting rose waist-­high on the walls, below horse-­hair lime plaster smoothed over old stone and painted soft, barely-­blue gray. Like most soldiers in Kavet, Hansa had spent his share of hours repointing and painting those damned walls, one of the many mind-­numbing tasks that could be assigned to young grunts without the authority to object or older soldiers being disciplined. Even the smell was familiar: spices of winter stews and familiar tea, ever available this time of year in the guards' mess.

All that meant they were in the last place they wanted to be.

“Shit,” he hissed, anxiously looking up and down the hallway. It was a miracle no one had seen them emerge from what should have been a blank wall. “We have to get out of here.”

“Where is
here
?” Cadmia asked, rubbing at her nose, probably to clear away the dust.

“We're in the Quinacridone,” Hansa said. “I don't know exactly where, which means probably one of the private halls, maybe where the monks live. I recognize the—­”

A figure turned the corner, one he wouldn't need to introduce.

President Winsor Indathrone was fifty-­three years old, dark-­haired and shrewd-­eyed. At that moment, he was wearing slacks and a shirt without vest or jacket; he was comfortably at home, which meant this hall was probably part of his personal residence. He frowned at them all, then focused his gaze on Hansa.

“Viridian? What is the meaning of this?”

Think!
“We . . .” Was there
any
excuse for this? Would President Indathrone recognize Xaz? Even if he didn't, how could Hansa explain even his own presence in the president's private wing of the Quin compound?

Instead of coming up with something clever to say, he couldn't help calculating how many guards would come running the instant His Eminence opened his mouth to summon them. How many guards would, based on what Hansa had seen when they had gone to arrest Xaz, be slaughtered as Alizarin moved to protect their group.

Or, if it was true that the Quinacridone Compound was protected from the Abyss and the Numen by its own human spells, how many guards would appear to execute everyone in their party on sight.

“Hansa?” Indathrone prompted, voice colder this time, warning that it wouldn't be long before he lost patience.

He skimmed their party, his eyes never fixing on Alizarin, reminding Hansa that on the mortal plane most humans couldn't see the Abyssi at all.

Terre Verte took charge, stepping past Hansa. “Winsor Indathrone, you are the very image of your grandmother.”

“My . . .” Indathrone frowned with confusion. “Who are you?”

Terre Verte extended a hand. “How rude of me not to introduce myself.” Indathrone offered his own hand, as one tends to do out of habit when offered such an engrained sign of courtesy. “I am Terre Verte. And I believe you have overstayed your welcome.”

The next movement was swift. Terre Verte accepted the hand Indathrone had lifted, but used it only to tug him forward before he reached up, bracing his Eminence's body with his own, and matter-­of-­factly broke the neck of the most powerful man in Kavet with a single, undramatic
crunch
.

“We invited that family to supper. Not to move in.”

Terre Verte released him, and Indathrone's body collapsed unremarkably to the ground. Hansa stared at it, waiting for it to . . . what? Echo? The death of such a man should resonate. It should shriek in a way that made bones quiver, like when Abyssi fought. His fallen form should flicker with escaping force.

But he was only a man, and his body was only meat, so he lay there unmoving.

Terre Verte turned around, brushing dust from his elegant clothing. “Now I think I'd like to walk about my city. It has been a long time.”

 

EPILOGUE

“I
thought
you said you could control your children,” the black Abyssi accused, his voice an angry purr. “ ‘All things serve the divine,' or so you say.”

“Mortals are
 . . . limited,” the Numini conceded. “They have unanticipated qualms, and choose to rebel at unpredictable moments.”

“Thousands of years of life,” the black Abyssi spat, “and
that
is your belief? Mortals are unpredictable? A newborn Abyssi could tell you that a mortal will choose survival first. Faced with death, they always run.”

“Not always,
” the Numini minced. “Though I suppose that is a newborn Abyssi's perspective, given it is your own. Your kind sees a few centuries at most before you are destroyed by your own folly. I have seen millennia.”

“You and your endless years got my mancer killed.”

“You were supposed to deal with the blue Abyssi before he reached the pit.”

“Antioch wasn't equal to the task.
”

“And the king of the Abyss couldn't send another?” the Numini scoffed. “Don't you have any power over your subjects?”

The black Abyssi did not rise to the challenge. “Abyssi do not jump to follow commands the way Numini do, especially when those commands may make an Abyssi
dead
. I have no wish to be sacrificed in the crystal caves just yet.”

“They have all returned to the mortal realm now,” the Numini said. “Let us wait and see what they do next. They may yet serve. If not, we both have other tools. If the worst comes to pass, these can be . . . discarded.”

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

AMELIA ATWATER-­RHODES started writing when she was thirteen, and has since then published seventeen young adult novels in the Den of Shadows, Kiesha'ra and Maeve'ra series. Several of her novels have been ALA Quick Picks for Young Adults, and Hawksong was 
The School Library Journal
 Best Book of the Year, and 
Voice of Youth Advocates
 Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Selection. In 2006, Amelia decided to take a break from YA and started writing the Mancer trilogy as part of National Novel Writing Month.
Of the Abyss 
is her first adult novel.

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Young Adult Novels by Amelia Atwater-­Rhodes

Den of Shadows

In the Forests of the Night

Demon in My View

Shattered Mirror

Midnight Predator

Persistence of Memory

Token of Darkness

All Just Glass

Poison Tree

Promises to Keep

The Kiesha'ra

Hawksong

Snakecharm

Falcondance

Wolfcry

Wyvernhail

The Maeve'ra

Bloodwitch

Bloodkin

Bloodtraitor

 

COPYRIGHT

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

OF THE ABYSS
. Copyright © 2016 by Amelia Atwater-­Rhodes. All rights reserved under International and Pan-­American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-­book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-­engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of Harper­Collins e-­books. For information, address Harper­Collins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.

EPub Edition SEPTEMBER 2016 ISBN: 9780062562135

Print Edition ISBN: 9780062562142

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