Arach went inside first; gripping the window sill with his massive talons as he shifted back to his man-form. He leapt upward as he transformed; flowing into the room with a smooth movement that was utterly graceful. There was an art to the maneuver that I was still getting the hang of—literally. Most of the time—including this one—I ended up dangling out the window by my fingertips; waiting for Arach to help me in.
Arach chuckled as he lifted me into the room as if I weighed nothing more than a feather pillow and then slipped a heavy robe over my shoulders. When he turned to grab his own robe, I smacked his butt for laughing at me. Arach paused to cast an intrigued look over his shoulder at me. I ignored him in favor of hugging my boys.
“Why didn't you take us with you?” Rian asked petulantly.
“Because I wanted to fly with Daddy,” I said as I gave Rian's bright red hair a pat.
Rian's silky, baby tresses were starting to darken to match Arach's shade, but his eyes would always be a unique green; not quite ivy and not quite moss. Somewhere between that was sharper and fiercer. Rian was a rare Verdure; a green dragon. A fact that made Arach endlessly proud.
Brevyn's hair was darkening too—going from pale blond to antique gold—but his eyes weren't unique; they were exact replicas of Ull's. Ull had once been Thor's son, but when he died, I gave him what he'd been wishing for; a fresh start. I put his soul in Brevyn and now, he was my son. There was something strange and amazing about that.
Along with his god soul, Brevyn had acquired some god magic; magic that was tempered by his human soul. Yes; both of my sons are dual-souled beings. Rian is Fey/Human and Brevyn is God/Human. Brevyn's tempered magic is an ability to borrow other people's magic; not taking it as I do, but copying it and using it for as long as he wished. His human soul added a powerful twist; he could borrow both god and fey magic. You know how parents tell their children they can be anyone they want to be? My son literally could, and I didn't have to tell him; he knew it. In fact, he knew a lot of things; courtesy of his other magic. To help him decide what magic to borrow, Brevyn had been given the gift of sight; a gift that had helped us numerous times but which I still resented.
I hated prophecies, and that made what happened next even more difficult.
“Mother,” Brevyn held his hand out to me.
He'd only started calling me “Mother” within the last month, and Rian had—of course—followed his example. It made the twins sound older, and that hurt my heart a little, but it was also adorable; especially when Brevyn said it with such a serious expression. Except I knew what his serious expression meant this time. Brevyn had seen something in a vision and wanted to share it with me. That bit wasn't new; Brevyn had been sharing his visions with me since he was a baby. It made me feel a little better that I could be there with him—that he didn't have to face the future alone—but it also scared the bejesus out of me.
“Is it bad?” I asked my son as if he were the parent.
“Yes,” Brevyn said grimly.
At least he was honest.
I glanced up at Arach and saw him scowling with anger and anxiety. I had no idea who he was angry at, or if even he knew. Perhaps he was simply upset that our lives never seemed to flow forward peacefully but had to be tossed over rocks in a violent storm.
“Okay.” I held out my hand to Brevyn. “Show me.”
Brevyn put his little hand in mine and instantly, the bedroom disappeared. I was walking with Brevyn down an uneven road; so uneven that my steps wobbled with it. It felt strange too; sort of squishy. In the way of dreams and visions, I knew it was Brevyn beside me even though it didn't look like him. He was a fully grown man with dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes; the complete opposite of who he was. Except when Brevyn turned those alien eyes toward me, their dark depths flashed with his true blue.
“Brevyn?” I asked.
“This isn't us, Mother,” he said grimly. “This is another mother and son, and they are not good people. Look.” He waved his hand around us, and I instantly recognized the landscape. “And here.”
Brevyn motioned beneath us, and my eyes widened. We were on the road to Hell; the very same one I had walked with Luke and Azrael. The joke I made then came back to haunt me. The road to Hell wasn't lined with dead puppies or diamonds; it was lined with dead demons. Our walk was wonky because we strode over dead bodies; demon bodies sprinkled with snow and ice. I started to tremble when I strode over Cid in his demonic form; his dead, frozen eyes staring up at the burnt sky of Hell in accusation—as if the Devil himself had done this to him.
“Keep walking, Mother,” Brevyn said.
And so we did. We strode forward resolutely. The demon dead dwindled to a few scattered corpses; arms outstretched toward Luke's abandoned mansion. No bats flew overhead and no gargoyles perched on the roof. The snow had drifted up to and over the house; covering it in a blanket that should have made it look softer, more welcoming. Instead, it just looked cold. Empty. I knew as we opened the front door that neither Holly or Luke would be there. I would have been thankful for that, except that I knew the reason for their absence.
The King
