Priestess Dreaming (An Otherworld Novel) (7 page)

“Lady . . . I knew you were due for a visit, but didn’t know when to expect you—”

“I come and go as the need arises. Do not worry yourself. Although I think the winter storm had a detrimental effect on your furnishings.” But she was grinning and I knew she was making a joke.

“Yes, Lady. It wasn’t exactly planned.” I wondered briefly if I could get some advice from her on our unexpected portal, but decided to shelve the question until I found out why she was here. Derisa didn’t usually make house calls. When I’d found out a few weeks ago that she needed to see me, I had been worried, but as the days went on, I started to think maybe it wasn’t all that important. Now, the butterflies were back.

“We must talk.” The way she said it made me nervous. For one thing, Derisa didn’t make small talk. For another, every time that phrase had been used on me, it had been attached to something I didn’t want to hear.

I started to ask if there was something wrong, but that would be about as helpful as a dull-bladed sword. Obviously, something was up, or she wouldn’t be here. “Do you need to speak to me alone, or can you talk in front of the others?”

Derisa glanced around the room. “They’ll know eventually, so we might as well talk here. I don’t fancy sitting in your living room at this moment.”

Morio grabbed a chair for her and motioned for her to sit down. Delilah brought over a plate of cookies—grabbing a couple before offering them to the priestess. And, anticipating trouble, I found a notepad and pen. Inevitably conversations like this led to the need for copious notes, and right now, I didn’t trust my memory.

“I didn’t expect to find you up at this hour—or rather, I did, but not so ill-rested.” Derisa repressed a grin, the corner of her lip curling up ever-so-slightly. “You obviously haven’t gone to bed yet.”

“We had . . . an incident of sorts. We were out shopping—oh, never mind. Long story, ending in the aftermath you witnessed in the living room. A mishap we still need to fix.” I returned to my seat with the notepad and pen, wishing only for bed. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to Derisa, but I was bone-weary. “What brings you Earthside? Trenyth said you wanted to talk to me.”

“First, I must reset the rogue portal on your land.”

For a moment, I thought she meant the ice portal—the one that had just opened up, but then I realized she knew nothing about that. No, she was talking about the random portal that had appeared out of nowhere in our backyard. It led to Otherworld, and we had to constantly have guards standing watch to keep out goblins and other creepy crawlies.

“Where are you going to direct it?” Delilah frowned, snatching another cookie off the plate.

“You’re not going to like this but, with Telazhar on the move, it’s safer to set every rogue portal that has appeared over Earthside to a different destination. We’re going to recalibrate it to point toward the realm of the Elder Fae.” She grinned as my jaw dropped wide. “I knew you’d feel that way—you don’t even have to say a word. Don’t bother arguing because there’s a secondary reason for my decision.”

I had been to the realm of the Elder Fae several times. In addition to being a massively huge place, it was also filled with powerful and dangerous creatures who thought nothing of eating people for lunch and their pets for dessert. The Elder Fae were a breed apart. They were the predecessors of OW and ES Fae, ancient and mostly unique. Seldom were there more than one of each type. They paid no attention to the laws of any land—be it human or Fae—and lived by their rules and their rules alone.

Regardless of how nervous it made me, Derisa was right. Having the Elder Fae as neighbors was far less dangerous than should Telazhar discover the portal and bring through the Demonkin and goblin hordes. But, that didn’t mean we would be able to let up our guard. In fact, if something decided to meander through, chances were the creature would be far more powerful, on an individual level, than anything from OW, but it wouldn’t necessarily be out to kill us.

“Lovely. How are you going to reset the destination point?”

“That’s one of my talents. I was trained over the past few years in how to adjust the magical settings of the vortexes. I’d show you how but I don’t think your magic would be well-suited for it.” She winked at me, and I finally managed a smile.

“Right. Well, then, do you want to go do that now? It’s nearing daylight.”

“Resetting the portal isn’t the only thing I came for—it is simply one facet of what we need to discuss. There is far more.” She regarded me silently for a moment and then, quietly, reached in one pocket and pulled out something. When she set it in front of me, I shivered.

A raven feather.

“No,” I whispered. “No . . . I hoped it was just my imagination.”

“I’m sorry, but no. I can feel your thoughts . . . what you saw was not an illusion.” Derisa shifted in her chair.

She knew. She knew about my vision.

“There’s a journey you must undertake, Camille. You must walk under the raven’s wing.” Derisa gave me a faint smile, and I knew there was no getting out of this one. When my High Priestess gave me orders, I obeyed without question, regardless of what they might be.

“Take me to the dragon,” I said, not even sure who I was talking to. My voice reverberated through the kitchen, coming to rest in silence.

All eyes were on us and the fear from my vision came sweeping through again as the image of the giant dragon roared to life in my mind. I slowly reached out, picked up the feather, falling into trance swiftly, as if I were being sucked down a deep well.

At first, I could hear the flutter of wings. Ravens, again. Then something came through, sweeping the air into great currents. The presence of an ancient force, rising out of the depths, filled my senses and I caught my breath as the stench of sulfur and molten stone engulfed me. Choking on the acrid fumes, I coughed, but fear froze the tickle in my throat as two giant eyes glowed out of the darkness at me—round and brilliant, black orbs in a field of white—sparkling with life and cunning.

“Who are you?” The voice echoed in my head. “Who are you . . . ?
What
are you?” And then, the voice became a questioning tendril, probing my thoughts, reaching out to test, to discover, to seek answers. “I smell the Raven on you, and the Black Beast.”

I pulled back, but didn’t break contact. I wanted to know what this was, and why we were connecting. Dragon he was, definitely, but like no dragon I’d met. This wasn’t a dragon from Smoky’s realm, from the Dragon Reaches, but something old and crafty, alien to the nature of dragons as I knew them. He swirled in an abyss, a creature of fire, clinging to what appeared to be some sort of orb. Obsidian, perhaps, or jet, or onyx.

I circled him, wary, trying to keep out of his peripheral vision. As I scoped out the creature, I sought for any tidbits of information I might be able to glean—for any clues that might come in handy when I . . . when I what?

“Cunning creature you are.” The dragon spoke again, interrupting my thoughts. “Bring the Raven to me and I might let you live.”

The feel of the raven feather in my fingers made me leery. The dragon wanted it too much. And where there was that much greed and lust, danger wouldn’t be far behind.

I let out a slow whistle of breath. No chance in hell would I get its name, dragons didn’t offer their names up without a fight. Hell, I
still
didn’t know Smoky’s real name. That he was called Iampaatar in the Dragon Reaches was common knowledge, but his true name? No one but he and his mother knew. So I didn’t expect to find out anything useful by asking. But if I could gain some sort of reference, then we might be able to trace its origins and discover what we were facing.

“Tell me who you are and I might tell you where I’m hiding the Raven.” I had no clue what the whole “hiding raven” thing was about, but I might as well use it to my advantage.

A pause, then a long, low chuckle. “
Ohhhh. I see now.
You are one of the Fae—though I smell human in the mix. And you are magical as well. And crafty and as ready with your false promises as I am. Girl, you know I would never give you my name, but you may call me Yvarr. Not that it will do you any good, but when I wake and escape this prison, we will meet. And girl . . . you will need a name to cry out when I devour you. Because unless you hand over the Raven to me, then I shall, indeed, eat you, skin and bones.”

I gazed at the piercing eyes, and my fear began to drain away. He was frightening, yes, and terribly powerful with a keen sense of magic, but his arrogance was strong. As I’d discovered before, ego often led to a downfall.

Another moment, and the abyss into which I’d tumbled vanished, along with the dragon and his fire. I opened my eyes, still clutching the raven feather, and inhaled sharply, letting out my breath in a slow stream. Derisa gazed at me, waiting.

“Fucking hell.” Shade was shaking. “I have
no
desire to be anywhere near his vicinity.”

“Neither do I.” Smoky paled. “I never thought we’d encounter one of them. Did you?”

Shade gave a quick shake of the head. “I knew they weren’t myth but . . . I thought they had all fallen into history, into sleep forever.”

“Well, obviously one of them has woken. I pray he never gets free from his prison. For all our sakes.” Smoky actually looked afraid—not a good sign.

So both Smoky and Shade knew what this was? And whatever the strange dragon was, it scared the hell out of both of them. That didn’t bode well. “Explain, please?”

“Allow me.” Derisa leaned back and crossed one leg over the other, a stark look on her face. “Well this pair should know what you are facing, given their backgrounds. An ancient power is waking in the depths, one the great Fae Lords thought they’d imprisoned long ago.” She seemed to be considering her words cautiously, as I did when I was trying to figure out how much to tell someone.

“This has nothing to do with Shadow Wing, does it? This is something different. Something indifferent to the Demon Lord.” Given the reaction of the two dragons and my own, I had the feeling I would rather have been facing a demon general.

Derisa nodded and pinched her brow, squinting as if she had a headache. “Correct. What you met—Yvarr—is an ancient wyrm—he’s a dragon, yes, but not of the Dragon Realms.” She glanced over at Smoky.

“The wyrms are our ancestors.” Smoky’s hair was coiling wildly. “They are the predecessors of the dragons. They lived before my race evolved from them. They are our Titans, so to speak.”

Fuck.
Titans were the fathers of the gods. We knew a demon who was half-Titan. There was no telling how much power he had—we were on his good side, but we all knew he was far more powerful than he let on. The dragons were incredibly strong and powerful. If
they
had their own Titans, then we were all in trouble.

“He seemed to be under the assumption that I am in league with the ‘Raven,’ and he wants me to hand her over. He also mentioned the Black Beast. And the other night, as I was about to head out to buy the turkey, I had a vision of an ancient dragon, and a flock of ravens . . .” I told them all about my prescience in the car. “I was hoping it was just the jitters from all that’s gone on, but apparently not.”

Derisa shook her head. “No, the wyrm is awake and attempting to break free from his prison. He was a danger in the times before the Great Divide, and he is a danger once more. Aeval contacted me and we agree. There is only one in existence who can wield the power to stop him should he escape.”

“There’s somebody still alive who knows how to combat him? I take it, then, it’s not just a matter of run in and hit hard.” Trillian leaned back in his chair. “We have plenty of ancient horrors in Otherworld but it’s far easier to evade them over there unless they are focused directly on you.”

“Yes, there is one who fought him long ago, before Yvarr was imprisoned and cast into sleep. Who still knows the one spell that can bring the wyrm under some semblance of control.” Derisa didn’t exactly fidget in her chair—she’d been High Priestess for so many years she probably wouldn’t even know how to fidget—but there was an evasive tone to her voice. She’d tell us when she was good and ready.

“Why is he waking up? Did we do something? Is our war against Shadow Wing bringing all these ancient critters to life? Don’t tell me Cthulhu is next.”

She smiled softly. “No, Lovecraft did visit Otherworld and saw plenty of creatures to base his books on, but Cthulhu himself is pure imagination. Well, at least the actual god. There are sleeping giants, and Yvarr was one of them till recently.”

Wanting her to just get to the point, I pressed. “What woke him up?”

Derisa bit her lip. “There are many factors, but among them: Aeval waking, woke him up. Titania coming out of her stupor woke him up. Bran crossing over to Earthside woke him up. Camille, you woke him up—killing the Black Unicorn stirred many sleeping cauldrons.”

Soberly, I put down my pen. Sacrificing the Black Unicorn had been an act that had forever changed my life, and one that I would never forget. I hadn’t wanted to do it, but the Black Unicorn himself had chosen me to be the instrument of his rebirth and when one of the Elementals invites you to play in their sandbox, you don’t decline the invitation.

“Aeval . . . Titania . . . Bran . . . and me. There’s a theme here but I’m not quite following it.” Or maybe I just didn’t want to follow it. I didn’t mind working with Aeval or Titania, but Bran gave me the creeps.