Soul of Shadows

Three Weeks Later…

Cain

A servant ducked around me, quietly replacing the burnt-out candles that surrounded my desk, apologising for disturbing me from my work. Shaking my head, I studied the ledger in front of me- a detailed report on the monthly expenses for the city, many of them waiting for approval before payments were taken out of the vault that sat at the bottom of my Palace- asurring, “You’re fine.” Once this report was done, I had thirty-seven more to go, each one requiring careful, detailed reading, and then about a dozen of my signatures before they would be sealed in an envelope, closed with a wax seal of my crest, and sent off.

With a curtsey, she exited the room, ducking out of the way as my wife entered, her skirts swishing with her footsteps, her hair down in curls around her face. There was a shawl around her shoulders, a silver tray in her hands with two bowls and cups balancing precariously. One bowl smelt like fruit, freshly sliced and mixed in a bowl, the other smelt like melted chocolate, my stomach growling. One of the cups held blood, either fresh or heated up over a fire, while Adelia’s cup smelt like wine.

Placing the tray down on my table, brushing the ledgers aside, she kissed my cheek, slender hands massaging my shoulders, easing the tension from them in smooth, strong movements, my wife curling over my back and whispering in my ear, “The High King of The Borderlands, a renowned General who can fight his way off any battlefield, gets tired sitting at a desk signing things?” I didn’t have the energy to tell her I had been here the last seven hours, or that I finally understood my cousin’s aversion to paperwork.

I hadn’t done much of it in the Manor, Destiny and I’s agreement being that I was to sit out in the wastelands of Caliem, freezing my balls off to train her army, while she maintained the court-side of our lives, which included completing my paperwork, so now that I was forced to do most of it, I understood why she whined every time she had to. I had foolishly thought her lazy. Only the freezing wind drifting in through the open window, the curtains whipped by the wintery scene outside, kept my head from slamming onto the desk.

“Destiny’s birthday is tomorrow,” I groaned, dropping my head into my hands at the mound of paperwork before me, “And instead of properly planning it, I am stuck overseeing…” Leaning over the desk, a nearby flame on a candle dancing at the movement, I examined the ledgers in front of me, the numbers swirling, mixing themselves together in my exhaustion, “Taxes.”

“Come to bed,” my wife pleaded, fluttering her eyelashes, “I haven’t gotten to see you a lot recently.” Desire curled in her voice, her scent flooding with it, my hands wrapping around her waist, tugging her onto my lap and kissing her, grumbling, “I have to finish these ledgers, and then finalise everything for tomorrow. Otherwise, I certainly would.” She was right, of course. The last three weeks since Lilith had left my Palace were a foggy memory of rushing around, interrogating soldiers, and fighting the ocassional battle on Lazarus’ behalf. More and more soldiers had been killed, sometimes dozens at a time, always whenever Destiny was summoned to the war camp. Every single death was arranged in a scene from her past, something dark and gory and better left forgotten on Earth, the bodies often left standing, stiff and dripping with blood, suspended in place by something we could not yet identify. My cousin was beginning to grow irked, coming back angry and cursing instead of quiet and crying, the shock worn off and replaced with a shade of annoyance as she attempted to hunt down her attacker. Which was why I wanted to give her a decent party, because I knew for a fact that it had been thousands of years since she’d had one worth remembering, and even longer since she had been allowed to properly relax. Tomorrow, her calendar had been wiped, all of her duties divided between the Royals who had volunteered to help, she had been gifted new clothes and jewellery by Tarlien for various events that were planned for her, and the night would end with a celebration for her birthday, and the beginning of her Immortality.

“I already finalised everything,” my wife whispered back, her words more tantalising than anything else she could have said, “Your cousin is going to be very happy.”

Slumping over her, kissing her face over and over, I mumbled tiredly, “Thank you, Tallila.”

She snickered, teasing, “You can repay me by coming to bed and getting some sleep. Leave the ledgers for tomorrow, I will handle them.”

“No, I’ll get them done tonight. I’m not that tired.”

Tapping her finger against my nose, she rose from my lap, striding around the room, extinguishing the candles as she went, plunging the room into darkness, singing, “Considering you just called me by our daughter’s name instead of mine, I would stand to say you are very tired, Cain. Come to bed. That’s an order.”

Hell, it was tempting- too tempting. My head was beginning to feel heavier than the bodies of the soldiers I killed, my hand and wrist cramping from writing. Rising from my chair, the bones in my legs cracking loudly, Adelia swept my papers into one neat pile that she placed in the top drawer of our desk, waving me out into the hallway, my back sliding down the wall, the world going dark…

“Thank you, boys,” Adelia said quietly, her soft voice waking me from my sleep, Merry and Seth dumping me onto my bed, the both of them laughing, “It’s no problem, Adelia.”

They hurried out of the room, closing the door behind them, the noise of Adelia removing her dress filling the room, her drawer sliding open as she searched for a nightgown to wear.

Giving up, she opened mine instead, plucking out one of my shirts, which she tugged over herself, pulling her hair back into a loose ponytail and peeling the sheets back, leaving her clothes where she had dropped them.

Curling against me, she sighed in contentment, closing her eyes… Tallila’s piercing cry shot through the Palace hallway, my wife sighing, rubbing her eyes and moving to get out of bed.

Grabbing her wrist, I pulled her back, murmuring, “I’ll handle it. You go back to sleep.”

“There’s a bottle in the kitchen for her,” Adelia mumbled, rolling over in bed, pulling the blanket up around her body.

The hallway beyond our bedroom was silent except for Tallila’s cries, although light escaped from underneath the door to Seth and Destiny’s room, the wards for silence flaring, and Guards stood posted at all the entrances and exits, including windows, their backs straight and their eyes staring ahead. Sitting at the start of the landing, Emmett and Merry were playing cards, Adriel and Mira painting their nails, a scattering of gold coins and bottles of alcohol surrounding them in a sea of metal and glass. Downstairs, I could hear music playing in one of the sitting rooms, Tatiana playing the piano while Venali practiced how to spread his wings with Lucifer, their peals of laughter and soft voices echoing up the stairs. For whatever reason, they were yet to return to their own Palace in Tarvenia, their soldiers stationed throughout the city in whatever inns were available.

I entered Tallila’s room first, Fae lights strung around the room, glowing with magic that were a gift from the Sun Palace Royals, illuminating my daughter in her crib. Adelia had dressed her in a light pink and white onesie, her face red from screaming, her bracelets from Destiny and I clasped around one wrist. Reaching into the crib, I lifted her out, rocking her back and forth, humming an old nursery rhyme I used to sing to Des when she had been little. She let out a little hiccup, staring up at me, her tears halting enough for her to mumble, “D- Dadd-”

Brushing her wisps of hair back from her face, I pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

From the doorway, Destiny rapped her knuckles quietly on the frame, smiling.

“I never pictured you as the dad type,” she admitted, smoothing her hands down the nightgown she wore, clicking her fingers. A bottle appeared in her hands, which she handed to me, wiggling her fingers over her niece, sparkles of her power popping and disappearing, my daughter squealing in delight. Her smile widening, my cousin waved her hand, creating a small stuffed animal of a dog, placing it down in her crib as I replied, “Neither did I, but I find I quite enjoy it.”

“How many kids do you plan to have?” She asked me, Tallila quieting now that she had a bottle in her hands. Grinning, I revealed, “Adelia wants four, maybe five. She had a large family growing up. She wants the same for Tallila.”

Destiny’s eyes widened at that, before she sighed, “You’re going to have your hands full.”

“What about you? How many do you and Seth want?” It felt surreal, discussing children with Destiny; discussing a future at all felt strange. I had spent centuries believing the closest I would get to a family was Destiny and her Guardians in Caliem. Never, in those thousands of years, had I expected to grow so much. Caliem really had stunted us. It was foolish of me to believe I had finished growing as a person centuries ago.

Plucking up a sketched photo of Tallila from the dressing table, her other hand drifting to her abdomen, she mumbled, “Two. Three at the very most, since we have Dane already.”

“You think you’ll have another child with Seth?”

“I think so… Not for a while, but eventually. Reni wasn’t planned.” She seemed distracted tonight, her mind elsewhere. Rocking Tallila, I simply waited, knowing Destiny would speak when she was ready.

Placing the sketch back on the dresser, she moved over to the window, watching the snow falling outside for a moment, tapping her hip in thought. When she next spoke, her voice was a whisper, her power appearing around her for a second, her face pinched in worry.

“I feel like something bad is going to happen tonight.”

Shuddering, I held Tallila a little closer, questioning, “Why do you think that?”

“It’s been too easy, Cain. I’m Immortal tomorrow. That makes me almost unstoppable, and nobody has made a move to stop that from happening. Why?”

“The Manor considers you an Heir, so they won’t attack you, and Lazarus is married to you.”

“What about Nazareth? The Angels? Where the Hell is everyone? I feel like they’re waiting for us to let our guard down.” I understood her concern. I’d felt the same at first, as I came to the realisation that nobody was coming for me, or waiting in the shadows to plant a dagger in my back. We had spent so long being on guard that being safe felt… wrong. Now that Destiny was truly going to be safe, she felt off-balance, like her position in the world had shifted. Placing my daughter down in her crib, I reached for my cousin, her arms so cold compared to my hands, urging, “I know it feels weird, but we’re finally safe. We’re free, Des.”

“No…” She mumbled, still staring out the window, “We aren’t.” Meeting my gaze, she tapped her hip again.

“I think Nazareth is going to kill me tonight.”

*

Destiny’s words grated on me enough that I increased the Guards around the Palace again, Merry and Emmett pausing in their drinking so they could keep an eye on the hallway.

Dragging myself into bed half an hour later, Adelia sound asleep, I stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep once more. Was Destiny right, or were her concerns just paranoia?

I could see where her panic came from- it was suspicious, how quiet the Manor and the war camp had been, with her birthday and her immortality approaching, but was believing it was an attack waiting to happen just tempting fate? None of the other cities had reported anything suspicious when I had asked, all of them assuring that nothing was out of the ordinary. No soldiers had gone missing, and there were no signs of an invasion, covert or otherwise.

In fact, tonight, everything was peaceful.

Promising myself that it was just nerves for her birthday that had my cousin riled up, I rolled over in the bed, pulling Adelia close to me, and tried to get some rest…