Kelly Gay - Shadows Before the Sun

The following morning, I was tired and cranky as I sat at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal, not looking forward to starting yet another day of endless frustration and roadblocks. Soon Sachâth would come whether I used my power or not. I had to be prepared, had to face it on my own terms. I had to win.

The Creator didn’t account for everything.

I kept coming back to those words Sandra wrote in her letter. I felt certain she was telling me Sachâth wasn’t perfect. There was a flaw in the First One assassin, the flaw being, in my opinion, that it was only created to kill First Ones. Not other beings. Sure, the fail-safes were there, but had those other races been taken into account? They were only in their infancy, not even a blip on the radar during the time of the First Ones. Had the Creator taken into account that ages later those “blips” would become intelligent and powerful?

I was sure I was on the right track, but I hit a wall when it came to the Charbydon issue.

Emma flounced down the stairs, dropped her backpack in the middle of the kitchen floor, grabbed a bowl and spoon, and then slid into a chair at the table. She grabbed the cereal and milk from the middle of the table and poured. After her first bite, she said, “So?”

“So what?”

“Mom.” The expectant look she gave me was wan and no-nonsense, and very much like . . . me. “The problem. What is it, what’s bugging you? We only have fifteen minutes, so be quick.”

I returned her look, shaking my head, and deciding to play along. “Okay. Fine. Say you had a project where you had to draw on power. Not just any power, but the arcane energy from each world, really primal stuff. So three different sources. And you have Earth and Elysia covered, but not Charbydon.”

She chewed thoughtfully for less than ten seconds before she said, “Simple.”

I smiled. “Oh, is it?”

“Yeah.” She flipped her spoon until it was pointing to the ceiling. “You just take it from the darkness overhead. It’s all raw energy from Charbydon anyway.”

And just like that my twelve-year-old kid floored me. Floored . I dropped my spoon, clattering milk and cereal all over the table. My mouth hung open and she just looked at me, then around the room. “What?” she asked, cheeks full of cereal.

“Nothing. Nothing.” I grabbed the spoon and bowl, standing up, shaking. “You’re just . . . that’s just . . . genius. And right. It’s right.”

Her mouth split into a smile, and she continued chewing cheerfully, completely in bliss at being right. After she swallowed, she said in a very aristocratic tone, “I shall mark this day down in the annals of the Madigan Family Saga. The day Emma Riley Garrity, the Genius, was right. Right, I tell you! Right, I say! Right, right, right!” She punched her spoon into the air with each word.

Rex shuffled into the kitchen, all sleepy and grumbly. “Right. Whatever. Coffee. Emma. Stop being happy. It’s too early for happy.”

She laughed and resumed shoveling cereal into her mouth as I stood at the sink, rinsing my bowl out, amazed and embarrassed that I’d been so intent on the Charbydon races that I’d missed the obvious hovering right over my head.

And I didn’t need a Charbydon to use the darkness, just like Pen didn’t need to be human to draw out Earth’s energy. All one needed was strength, knowledge, and a shitload of power.

“Rex,” I said, turning to eye him. “I don’t suppose you know any jinn rituals for calling down or commanding the darkness, do you?”

He shut the fridge and gave me the blandest expression, like I was wasting breath even asking him such a ridiculous question. One that didn’t even warrant an answer.

Well, I had to give it a shot. But I was already well on my way to solving the problem because I knew another who had manipulated the darkness. Llyran, the level-ten felon who had stolen a tome from the Adonai’s Hall of Records, one that told him exactly how to command the darkness.

And guess who had that book? The Druid King.

I wiped the table, kissed Emma on the cheek. “Hurry up, we need to get going.”

After dropping Emma off at school, I placed a call to Hank, filling him in on Emma’s brilliance, then to Pen to let him know we were on our way.

As I parked by the curb near the 10th Street entrance of the Grove, Hank ducked out of his car and my belly went light. I ignored the feeling, turned off the engine, and got out.

Hank approached as I shoved one side of my hair behind my ear and locked my vehicle. I slipped my keys into my pocket. My mark grew warmer. The darkness overhead made me tingle. And my heart rate rose at the idea of facing Sachâth again. Ugh. Talk about edgy. And it was only going to get worse.

“Morning,” Hank’s rich voice broke the quiet.

I drew in a deep, steadying breath and turned. “Morning.” I continued, stepping past him and onto the sidewalk. “Sure you’re ready for this?”

His answer was a casual shrug as he fell in step beside me. “You call Leander yet?”

I stopped. Hank walked a few more steps before turning around with an eyebrow lifted in question. “Hank, are you really sure about this? Sachâth might be designed to kill First Ones, but it’ll attack anything if provoked.” And that meant Hank and Pen were as much a target as I’d be.

He took three long strides, coming to stand directly in front of me, so that I had to lift my chin to look him in the eye. “Were you sure when you left the city to find me?” Of course I was. I didn’t even need to think about it. I nodded. “It’s the same thing, Charlie. We defeated my demons, now we defeat yours.” He tossed a look over his shoulder toward the gate. “Come on.”

We fell in step again. Hank asked again if I’d called Leander. “Not yet. I want to make sure I can read the tome and do what Llyran did. If I can, then we’re all set and should do this as soon as possible. Pen’s meeting us at the henge.”

Sometimes, when it was sunny beyond the darkness, a little light would filter through, leaving the daytime looking like a dark, dark thunderstorm was approaching, but this morning it must’ve been cloudy and overcast because it was black as night outside.

The Grove had become a creepy place since the darkness had parked itself over the city, but now—knowing what I needed to do—it looked downright scary. The ever-present flashes of green snaked through the swirling mass overhead, and the city lights beyond the park bathed Oak Hill in light.

We veered off the main path and walked up the grassy hill to an exact replica of what Stonehenge looked like when it was completed in ancient times. The monoliths were colossal and seemed to grow higher as we went up the hill; they dwarfed us and everything around us.

Pen stood in the center of the henge, the tome spread out on the altar stone in front of him. As I stepped into the circle, a slight vibration of energy went through me. I came up next to the Druid and stared down at the ancient tome, one of the histories of Elysia.

The writing on the pages was a blending of early Elysian, a bridge between the language of the First Ones and the language of the Adonai, which then evolved into the modern Elysian language used by most of the races of that world today. In other words, a bitch to read. There weren’t many people who could.

But I tried to remain optimistic. Llyran had figured it out. And Pen had been in possession of the tome since the battle on Helios Tower. He’d been studying it, trying to decipher the language and the commands Llyran had used to control the darkness.

“Here,” Pen said, passing me an amulet. “I’ve been wearing this to aid in the translation. It should work for you, too. Try it.”