One
The old suspension bridge creaked under my weight. The sound echoed across the stillness, as sharp as a demon’s cackle. A thick fog hid the world from sight—not even the navigation lights were visible at the far end of King’s Island, and that was bad news for any ships or yachts navigating toward the main port. The island might be small, but she’d been the cause of many shipwrecks over the centuries, before the lights had been installed.
The silence was as thick as the fog. There was no birdsong, no sound of traffic, and absolutely no indication that a major town lay behind me. I could have been alone in this place. Should have been alone, given King’s Island was a place few ventured near these days.
But I wasn’t.
Someone was out there, watching from afar. While there was no immediate sense of danger, unease still crawled across my skin. Not only had there been reports of strange flashes of light in this area of late, but also of demonic activity. Then there were the disappearances … only three so far, which wasn’t much for a city the size of Ainslyn and might be nothing more than coincidence.
Still …
I scanned the swirling blanket of gray, my sense of responsibility warring with the need to play it safe. My grandmother wouldn’t, in any way, begrudge caution, but she was also a stickler when it came to duty. Though few these days remembered the Witch King’s true name or the reason his sword had been buried hilt-deep into stone on the island’s highest peak, the De Montfort line had long borne the task of looking after the memorial. For countless centuries, De Montfort women had made this same journey across the bridge on the first day of the new year. Mo—who hated being referred to as Gran—had been doing it for nigh on eighty years, but she’d recently taken a tumble down the stairs of our bookstore and fractured her leg, so the duty had fallen to me. She could have flown over, of course, but I rather suspected she’d taken one look at the weather this morning and decided I was more than capable of doing the blessing by myself this year. Which I was, of course, but it still felt odd not to have her by my side. Her absence, however, had nothing to do with the growing tide of uneasiness.
I flexed my fingers and did my best to ignore it. I was neither defenseless nor without means to quickly flee. Like Mo and those hundreds of other De Montfort women before us, I was a blackbird. The freedom and safety of the skies was mine to claim with little more than the flick of an internal switch. Of course, that same switch was somewhat faulty in my particular case; I might have inherited the gene that allowed us to shift shape, but I’d somehow totally skipped the aptitude for healing magic that should have come with it. The lack was made even more annoying by the fact that my twin brother, Max, had inherited Mom’s ability to manipulate the weather and had undergone full training at the Okoro Academy.
The old arch that signified the end of the footbridge loomed out of the fog. It was an ornate and beautiful structure despite the fact both time and the weather were taking a toll on the decorative metalwork that adorned the two stone pillars. At the very top of the arch, untouched by the rust tarnishing the rest of it, was a shield bearing a red cross and a white rose. It was said to be the Witch King’s, but I personally doubted it. It was far too small to be of any real use to a man who’d supposedly been seven feet tall.
I walked under the arch and headed up the long hill that led to the monument, glad to be on ground that didn’t bounce under every step. Trees loomed, their windswept forms ghostly and surreal in the fog. Despite the fact the island was a haven for wildlife, there was little movement in the undergrowth and no birdsong filling the predawn darkness. The pulse of unease grew stronger, and I warily scanned the area ahead. The fog clung to the branches of the old elms and oaks that dominated this part of the island, forming a ghostly veil that covered the entire path. There was absolutely no sign that anyone or anything had moved through here recently, so why did my innate inner sense of wrongness suggest that the fog lied? That someone had not only taken this path but was now waiting up ahead?
I didn’t know, but it was way past time I did something about it. I swung the backpack off, then opened it up and pulled out my daggers. While it was illegal for non-adepts to carry blessed blades, I’d gotten around the ruling on a technicality. I might not be able perform magic but I was immune to it—a rather weird anomaly considering the ability to shift shape was in itself a form of magic. It was the immunity rather than the shape shifting that allowed me to carry.
According to Mo, the two daggers—Vita and Nex, which meant, quite literally, life and death—had been handed to the firstborn female of each generation at puberty since medieval times. De Montforts might traditionally be healers, but we’d once also been warriors who could both give and take life. These daggers were the conduits through which that power had been channeled.
I might not have inherited all the De Montfort magic, but these blades at least gave me some access to the power that should have been my birthright. After generations of being the focus point for countless De Montfort warriors, the blades had gained a life and energy of their own. Demons were certainly wary of them—I knew that from experience.
I strapped on the sheaths, then swung the pack over my shoulders and quickly continued up the path. The veil parted before me, a wave of gray that did absolutely nothing to calm my nerves—especially given the crunch of stones under my feet seemed abnormally loud in the silence. Whoever—whatever—waited ahead had ample enough warning of my presence.
Though I suspected they didn’t really need it.
I finally came out onto open ground, and my gaze automatically moved to the right. On a good day you could see the entire city from this vantage point, but not even the aviation lights topping the office high-rises in the western sector beyond the old town’s walls were visible this morning. Which more than likely meant the airport was closed—a fact that wouldn’t please Max, given he was supposed to be headed to Paris for a week’s vacation today.
The monument was situated on what had become known as “the king’s knob”—a sharp projection of rock that jutted out at an angle on the highest point of the island. A wide field of flat gray stone ringed this outcrop and, despite the wildflowers that grew in abundance all over the peak in spring, it always remained empty of life. Not even weeds survived there. No one really knew why for sure, but Mo’s theory was that when the Witch King had thrust the blade into the stone, the last vestiges of the sword’s power had bled into the ground and forever sterilized it.
In the distance, something stirred—a shadow that looked man-shaped but could have been anything, including the stump of a tree briefly visible through the fog. I gripped Nex’s hilt, finding comfort in the soft pulse of the blade’s power.
More movement, and then light flashed. Blue light, sharp and intense against the curtain of gray. Energy shivered through the air, its force so strong the hairs at the back of my neck stood on end.
It wasn’t magic; it was something else. Something that spoke of violent storms and the ferocity of lightning.
Another pulse, brighter than before. Vita and Nex responded, emitting a light that bled past their scabbards and gave the fog a cobalt glow.
Unease sharpened into fear. In all the time the daggers had been mine, they’d never responded in such a manner to an exterior force, be it magic or something more elemental in nature. I had no idea what it meant; no idea if the force that lay up ahead was good or bad. It certainly didn’t feel foul, but that was no indicator of truth. Some of the most dangerous spells ever created were the ones that hid behind the screen of harmlessness.