Dark Ember Read online

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  For my son, Rowan.

  The boy who hung the moon.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Our eyes locked, and her grip tightened on the bowie knife's hilt. Her left eyebrow was split, her fair hair clogged with pine needles and sap, her tense posture revealing her indecision. Fight or flee? She stood twenty feet away, her face striking and wild and fierce, the embodiment of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Yet she glared at my cream cardigan and Levi jeans in the dying sunlight as if I was the savage.

  The coyote at my side bared his teeth at the faerie in a silent snarl. I patted his head. Easy, boy.

  Starvation had eaten away her breasts. Her patched, pleated skirt hung off doorknob hips, and a single blue bead was tied to the end of her bootlace. Pointed ears stuck out from hair which looked as if it had been hacked off. Which it probably had been. Fae hair fetched top dollar for rebels with empty pockets and no room for vanity. Still, she had a faerie's warm, svelte beauty, though history hardened her youthful face like amber.

  I stood on the granite outcropping at the cliff's edge, twirling a pink wildflower between my fingers. The rebel clenched the blade closer to her chest. A vast, woodland valley sprawled beneath us, a collage of treetops swallowed in shadows. She stared longingly at my brown, mid-back locks, and I wished I'd twisted my hair into a bun instead of a ponytail. It didn't help that using night magic tinted a faerie's eyes red unless they also used day magic to counter the effect. Her pale eyes kept flicking to my rusted irises.

  I lifted the wildflower in a wave. The rebel tensed, her gaze narrowed and focused, trying to discern the trick, the manipulation, the scheme. The dying light grayed. A raven cawed in the distance, informing the world of some grievance. Then, cautiously, she lifted two fingers from the hilt and wiggled them in return.

  I knew we might fight together. Tension built between the Realm and fae like a festering ulcer, a feverish infection stretching our skins. Our blood might stain the ferns red in the approaching weeks or freeze with winter's ice, but the when was irrelevant. The mystery was if we'd bleed in camaraderie or in a fight to kill the other first.

  The sun set. We tensed as light's magic weakened and the night's unfurled. Magic swelled inside me. Shadows rolled in from the trees to serve; my eyes rolled in euphoria. I breathed in the night and its malty taste. I welcomed its seductive embrace, but denied its purring demand to wield it, to let it entrap me. My body shivered, and when I opened my eyes I expected the rebel to have fled.

  She was closer. Only a foot or two, but closer. Her faerie-fever flew into me; my muscles tensed as it charged me like a battery. Her eyes widened and her lips parted, but she stayed.

  She's curious, not terrified, I realized. Excitement hummed within my chest. I have a chance with her. Possibly a friendship.

  Oh, please, my mother chipped inside my head. Why would she be friends with you? What can you—?

  I shook my head with a silent growl, mentally threw salt and waved smoking sage at the brain ghoul.

  "Hi. My name's Miriam," I said, forcing myself to appear blasé. "What's yours?"

  She wrinkled her nose. I didn't take it personally. A wall stood between us, built with bricks of propaganda, misguided truths, bigotry. Realm doctrine now taught them that darklings used lies to poison their victims' minds and suck them into the night. Changelings—with our folded ear-tips and our human upbringings—were corrupt and immoral. Total crap. But as long as she kept her bigotry (and her knife) to herself, I didn't mind. I was used to it. We changelings were outcasts through no fault of our own.

  I scratched the coyote's ears. He licked my hand, but his eyes never left the faerie. "Are you new to the rebels? Or did you come from another camp?"

  She didn't respond. Maybe that was good. Rebels never lasted long. Lost to murder or suicide or a shift in command. Often when their faces became familiar, I never saw them again.

  Like Orin.

  She studied me. The coyote whined deep in his throat. The rebel gaped at the shadows lapping against my feet. She squinted at the unnatural, dim light encompassing us. She shifted her magic—a warm, rippling feeling—learning how to prevent me from syphoning her body-heat. After ten minutes she formed a shield. I was impressed. It took me a week.

  I bounced my magic, making shadows twizzle like fan-blown ribbons. The rebel beamed and, for a moment, conjured sensations of cut grass and cutoff shorts, of plump strawberries dipped in freshly whipped cream. I glimpsed the woman she'd been, her smile echoing an old, carefree jubilance. I could almost see her pirouetting to a music box's plucking melody.

  A dusk wind sighed through evergreen needles. The music box snapped shut. Her gaze darkened and her sunken cheeks flushed, as if revealing a moment of joy was equivalent to me peeking up her skirt. How did she wake up to the Realm's lies and corruption? I wondered. Did clarity creep through hairline cracks? Or did a sledgehammer smash her reality?

  The rebel inhaled a deep breath and her knife relaxed. Her attention returned to my shadows, but she never leaked strawberries or music boxes again. Self-preservation mortared those breaks, leaving hardened amber and sharpened steel.

  If you think my magic is impressive, wait until you see the territory's real darkling, I thought.

  My brow furrowed. Where was Delano, anyway? We were supposed to meet here at nightfall to continue our lessons. I watched the rebel woman study the shadows coiling around my ankles. Maybe it was good he was late. He probably couldn't resist toying with her and making her believe he was every bit the badass the Realm portrayed.

  "Vina."

  Her voice startled me. My eyes widened. Holy smokes! She told me her name! I wanted to dance and whoop, sing and toss flowers like confetti. My toes wiggled inside my hiking boots. The coyote spun a tight circle at my side, his hackles raised.

  "Hi, Vina."

  A bird in the manzanita made the sound of a child's imaginary gun. Pew! Pew! Pew! Maybe I wasn't wasting my time on hopes and impossibilities. She looked fresh from the Realm, but already breaking through her programming, accepting a new reality. Maybe accepting me. We watched each other, surrounded in straight pines and crooked oaks. I thumbed a burr tangled
in the coyote's scruff. Maybe the rebels were stronger and more accepting than I expected. I might never know the faerie family I was born to, but I might find a shard of that lost connection through others.

  "Shh-Show me? More?"

  I tilted my head. "Night magic, you mean?"

  Vina gasped and tightened her grip on the hilt, glancing over her shoulder. I then understood. The Realm deemed associating with dark magic an instant flogging; a whip across a faerie's wings branded them a criminal and doomed them to lifelong labor. If the sniffers caught a faerie wielding night magic they executed them instantly. No judge, no trial.

  I bit my lip, debating. If I wielded too much night or cold magic, the darkshine would ensnare me forever. Some faeries called the darkshine an unescapable curse which destroyed fertility and banished its victims from warmth and daylight. Others declared the darkshine a changeling's birthright or a faerie's responsibility, an honor to wield and protect the Earth's dark and cold forces. Personally, I hated how the darkshine bound you to a territory-partner with death as the only means of divorce. Marriage brought pain, and I finally escaped mine a few months ago. The last thing I wanted was another.

  Plus, the idea of never enjoying sunshine again was depressing.

  I groaned, wishing I hadn't wasted the day on daydreams instead of intaking light magic to counter the night's. I should show her heavier night magic, I reasoned. Maybe I can prove it isn't evil. Maybe I could convince her I was an ally, so when Delano did show, she wouldn't dash off screaming. Hope filled my chest as I convinced myself I could bridge darklings and rebels, better the relations and protect ourselves from the Realm.

  I hailed night's magic to me. My muscles flexed; my veins bulged. Vina's eyes widened as the twilight dimmed and flowed into my body. Her shield wavered and I resisted the craving to gobble her warmth like chocolate. For a split moment I felt euphoric and free. Powerful. I embraced my birthright and my calling as my energy strove for a waiting, seductive refuge.

  Then the night screeched, my mind snapping like overloaded high-tension cables. Icicles jabbed my heart and tornadoes tore through my joints as I collapsed to my knees, wailing.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I clenched my chest; night's magic clenched tighter. Greasy, crushing waves rolled in from the south, as if trying to drown me in motor oil. The coyote yipped and pawed my shoulder. Vina gaped, her huge eyes on me—the growling, writhing, shadowy, hybrid-freak of the Sierra Nevada.

  Wait! I can explain, I tried to say, but managed a gurgling squeak, destroying my chance for a connection, and reinforcing the Realm's lie that darklings were demons.

  Vina fled, shuddering. Her shirt dipped low, but I didn't recognize the career-design of the wings which tattooed her back in linked swirls and ellipses. I did acknowledge, however, she'd been liked, possibly revered. Only one flogging scar slashed her wings, thickly scabbed. Two lashings were typical. Three meant the faerie seriously pissed off a sniffer.

  I curled in the dirt and the pinecones, gasping, my chest empty yet stabbing. I couldn't tell where I ended and magic began. We were two edgeless entities, mixing like blood and water. Night's energy normally whispered, a bewitching, seductive hum which tingled nerves and caressed emotions. Tonight, its voice gutturally gasped like a war widow's wails, shattering my heart and shredding my guts.

  Darkling murders had increased exponentially since January. Their deaths transmitted energetic ripples as the Earth redistributed dark and cold magic through the living darklings, who acted like conduits. Delano and I were powerless to stop it, and felt joyless gratitude they'd occurred on distant territories, worldwide. This new death didn't cast ripples, however. It launched a tsunami. The darkling murder was nearby.

  My eyes snapped open. My blood ran colder than the magic inside me. Delano.

  My mind raced as I scanned the darkness. We were supposed to meet at sundown for lessons. But if a sniffer ambushed him, he—

  No! I shoved the thought away. Delano was too smart, too stealthy. He slept in, I reasoned. So what if sunset usually jolted him awake? He'd been exhausted lately. Nightmares and the Realm's aggressive weather-dickering kept him awake well into the day.

  I hurried the two miles to the abandoned gold mine, trying to summon air to fly, but darkness kept weaseling into my control. I pushed away its seduction and jogged the last mile, the coyote trotting at my side. A planked door blocked the mine's low entrance, hidden behind manzanita. Ten feet beyond the wooden door, the ceiling raised and I used my key to open a steel gate. It locked when it groaned shut behind me.

  Magic's night vision allowed me to race through the tunnels without light. I hurried down a stony path, along antique railway tracks, past branching tunnels I never ventured. I hopped over the dip in the earth which had routinely tripped me my first month here. The mine's borders expanded and shrank where man-made mining met natural caverns, creating the sensation of a snoring ribcage, the perfect backdrop for fairytale monsters.

  On the surface, flowers bloomed and robins sang, but down here always felt like autumn leaves and cozy sweaters. When I arrived in January, the mine held an air of wine cellars and secret societies, curiosities tucked inside knotholes and fissures. Now, familiarity replaced mystery. Walls had eavesdropped on months of lengthy conversations, holding them like memories in beams and stone.

  "Del?" I called.

  The narrow tunnel yawned into a large cavern, deep enough in the mountain to keep the darkshine away, allowing Delano to physically roam down here during daylight hours. For comfort, I clicked on the battery-powered Christmas lights Delano had strung along the wall. The living room (which I titled the music cavern) was shaped like a twenty-five-foot-tall V on its back. Books and puzzles crammed oak shelves covering the far wall. Music crammed the other, spanning generations. Records, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, a laptop loaded with mp3s. Music is life was painted along the lowest shelf's edge, which held the players connected to overhead speakers. The mine's acoustics were spectacular, but the current silence sunk my heart.

  I swallowed hard. "Del?"

  Water pipped, slow and steady onto stone. Pip … pip … pip …

  His earbuds are in, I reasoned. He can't hear me.

  I entered the cubbyhole-kitchen. Coffee didn't steam in chipped mugs. Bacon didn't sizzle on the one-burner stove. I tucked the wildflower into the vase on the tiny table beneath the mobile of antique keys and locks, then hurried to his bedroom. A lump didn't snore beneath the quilts. Nobody scribbled at the roll top desk. Bathroom? The curtain-door was open. Water didn't patter. No razor tapped against the porcelain sink. Storage room? Shadows were static. Boxes didn't rustle. His active vein? No plinking chisel. No tink of gold falling into glass. Desperately, I checked my bedroom, a cranny carved into the wall behind his. The mine sighed from phantom lungs, curling stale air around the empty twin bed and the dresser sticking out into the hall.

  "You deserve more than this," Delano had told me months ago as his hand caressed my shoulder.

  "It's more than I need," I'd replied and pulled away.

  I knew he wanted us tangled beneath the blankets, knew he desired more than a roommate or a coworker in managing the world's cold and dark magics. And I knew I couldn't handle that emotional mess. Not now. Maybe never.

  Pip … pip … pip …

  I smoothed out my hair, forced a deep breath. We missed each other. He traveled to the surface via shadow while I descended. Convinced, I raced the quarter-mile to the surface on foot. Darkling magic allowed Delano to fold darkness like an accordion and step through, jumping him through the mine. Merely traveling with him required most of my magic to maintain consciousness.

  The coyote jumped to its feet when I secured the planked gate. The night was full dark; starlight gleamed in the cloudless sky.

  "Delano?"

  The scent of cedar-pine wafted from the woodlands. A mourning world wept.

  I skittered to our meeting spot, past conifers and granite and chaparral, seeing corpses in
every shadow. I had traveled this path countless times, yet felt chaotic and lost. My mouth tasted sour. I feared I'd trip over Delano's body or find him stabbed and bleeding. Dead.

  My furry chaperone sniffed the air when we arrived, then relaxed. No faeries were near. No Delano, either. Night's silent, shredding scream reduced to a thready jerk, as if the world hyperventilated. I wanted to sprint, frantic, exert my body to match my racing pulse. Should I remain here? Let Delano find me? I whimpered. Staying still made my heart want to explode.

  Our one cellphone was in my pocket, and I had no other way to call Delano. Unless … I gnawed my underlip. If I pulled in a lot of night magic I could possibly locate him. Darklings maintained a constant connection, but being outside the darkshine meant I needed to manipulate the energies to achieve a similar, and much weaker, effect. But my body's glut of night magic made me jittery, and I didn't know how much more I could take before the darkshine stole me away.

  That was, if a darkling lived on the territory to connect to.

  I felt a ping inside my brain. I groaned as a moth landed on my shoulder. Ping, ping. It plucked magic's frequencies, begging for a conversation. Although, moths didn't technically talk or hear. Not like people or Realm chickadees and corvids did, anyway. Insects and arachnids used a rudimentary telepathy which magic interpreted, and the power needed to hear them was null. (Mammals, however, required hefty amounts of magic to understand. Much more than I possessed.) Moths spoke with a sighing childishness, and their vocabulary drastically lacked. Delano found their airy singsongs endearing, but I ascribed that to him living isolated and underground for thirty-one years. Frankly, the moths creeped me out.

  Three moths circled my head. I grimaced, then chuckled at myself. Of course! Del told them where he went.

  I opened my magic. "Where's Delano?"

  "G-o-o-one," the moths singsonged. "Gone. Gooone. Gone."

  I tensed. "What do you mean gone?"

  "Gone. Delanooo … Gone! Gaaahn."

  Delano insisted different pitches had different meanings, but, to me, everything sounded ghostly. "Do you mean away or—" I licked my lip. "Or do you mean dead."