Child Of Mist: Dark Days (Child Of Mist, Book 2): Child Of Mist, #2

By Lola StVil

There is evil everywhere Rayne turns. How will she know whom to trust as they undergo their new mission? And now that they are facing the wrath of the dark Fae world, is their any hope of them surviving? With darkness lurking In every shadow one thing is clear: not everyone will make it out alive..

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lola StVil
• Release date: Apr 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393688570

Lola StVil

Lola StVil was seven when she first came to the US from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She attended Columbia College in Chicago, where her main focus was creative writing. She is the author of the best-selling Guardians series and the Noru series.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

DARIUS SPEAKS

I brought my daughter back from the dead three times. But I’m no hero. I’ve let her down more times than I care to remember. Certainly, more times than I’ve saved her. But I won’t let her down this time. The rules say as king of the underworld, I am not to interfere with mortal business. I’m not even to leave the underworld. Well fuck the rules. I’ve followed them for too long, and now I’m going to interfere. I’m going to Harbor Bay and closing that damn portal once and for all; I have to make sure Rayne is safe. I won’t lose her. I can’t. Not again.

Are you sure this is a good idea, Darius? Eden asks from my side as we walk toward the bridge to the portal that will take us out of the underworld.

You’re not going soft on me, are you? I smile.

Eden raises an eyebrow and doesn’t return my smile, and I sigh.

Seriously, Eden, think about it. Yeah, I’m breaking the rules, but what is the council going to do about it? Do you really think they’re going to exile me and let a kid with no real idea of how to control her powers take over the underworld? I say.

No, she says. I was thinking more about what would happen if you get yourself killed.

I nudge her with my elbow and grin at her.

Aw, I didn’t know you cared, I say with a wink.

I’m not kidding around here. If you get yourself killed, you know what will happen, she says. The council won’t have any choice but to make Rayne take over the underworld. Whether she’s ready or not. And they won’t be happy with you for keeping her a secret from them for so long. She’s had no training at all.

I’m not planning on getting myself killed, I say, aiming to both reassure her and keep the tone light. I can’t go into a battle feeling cautious. I have to go in prepared to fight like I mean it, and that means taking risks. Risks I won’t be able to force myself to take if I think for too long on what will happen to Rayne if I am killed. Why do you think I’m bringing you along?

Well you do stand a much better chance of surviving with me by your side, Eden replies, finally smiling.

But on a serious note, I risk being killed by some rogue dark fae every day in the underworld. This isn’t any different. And I’m done standing by and watching my only daughter’s life be put in danger.

We reach the portal and we stand for a moment before we step through it. Eden looks at me, her face, her real face, betraying her inner torment.

Yet again Rayne is in danger because of me. And yet again you have to be the one to step in and save her, Eden sighs.

Hey, I say. Come on. Rayne’s life is in danger because of the dark fae who would use her against you, against me. That’s not on you, it’s on them. And I’ll always be there to help to save her. Just because it’s too dangerous for her to be around me doesn’t mean I don’t love her. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about her.

I know that feeling, Eden says. She takes a deep breath and when she breathes out, her face changes, becoming a mask to hide her real identity. Let’s go kick some dark fae’s ass.

I have no doubt in my mind that we’re walking into something big. While that portal in Harbor Bay remains open, Eden’s protection charm is broken, and I know the dark fae will be hanging around, hoping to prevent anyone from closing it again. My hope is that the dark fae who wants to find Ray and use her to take over the Hellions will have only left level ones, and maybe a few level twos, to guard the portal. If that’s the case, Eden and I will make short work of them. The guy is dangerous, more dangerous than anyone I’ve faced, but he’s also arrogant. He continues to underestimate us and I’m almost sure his guards won’t be too much to handle.

Eden and I step through the portal and I find myself in a small chamber. There are no windows, but a few electric lights burn, allowing me to see what we’re walking into. The portal itself sits in the center of the chamber, glowing purple. The chamber seems to be empty, but I am on high alert. There is no way this is going to be this easy. Eden stands back-to-back with me as we turn in a circle, surveying the chamber, looking for danger.

A second later, the first dark fae runs into the chamber. He stops when he sees me and Eden and his face visibly pales. Eden wastes no time. She blinks, and instantly, she’s holding a white spear in one hand, a silver sword in the other. She’s swift and merciless as she cuts through the fae. He drops to the ground, twitching as he dies.

I open my mouth to tell Eden to hurry up and close the portal with one of the hag stones she always carries, but before I can speak, the wall behind me crashes away and we’re engulfed in a rush of dark fae.

Eden jumps into action, her sword and spear taking down the attackers. I see some of the attackers turning on each other as she uses her mesmer powers to control them and force them to fight each other instead of us. I have a split second to decide how I will handle this.

I could offer some sort of immunity in exchange for the lower-tier fae joining forces with us, but I did that during the breakout and these dark fae refused my offer then. That was their second chance. None of them deserve a third chance. Besides, after they refused my offer the first time, I wouldn’t trust them not to betray us. The fae who had truly seen the error of their ways and wanted to atone for what they had done joined forces with us at the first chance they got, and true to my word, I released them all after the battle.

Knowing I am not willing to try and have some of these fae switch sides leaves me with only two real options. I can call up an army of dark fae souls to destroy these dark fae, or I can call up an army of light fae souls to destroy them. There’s a common misconception amongst non fae when it comes to necromancers. They seem to think that a necromancer such as myself can reanimate a life at any time. That’s just not true. For me to be able to essentially bring someone back from the dead permanently, I have to be in close contact with their body, and their death has to be recent enough that their body is still viable.

I can however call up souls temporarily and use them to do my bidding. Essentially, I can create an army of the dead to fight alongside me. I can choose which souls I use—good souls who fight beside me willingly or bad souls I must force to fight against their will.

Using the good souls take a whole lot less energy, but there is a risk to the souls. If they are killed again in the battle, then it condemns them to a fae purgatory, an eternal nothingness that they can never be freed from. This is a fate I wouldn’t wish on any good soul, but using the bad souls to fight with me has its own risks.

To combat the enemy here, I will need at least twenty soldiers, and controlling that many dark souls at once will be damn hard. And if I lose control of them, then they will revert to their true nature and fight with the dark fae rather than against them.

I know I have to make the call if Eden and I are to have any chance of surviving this. The fae here are like I predicted, mostly level ones and a few level twos, but there are so many of them that we’d be overwhelmed in seconds, and they aren’t just fighting for their cause at this point. They are fighting for their lives, and that makes even the level ones dangerous.

I choose the dark souls. I won’t risk good souls being permanently damned just to make my battle easier. I throw my head back and raise my arms. I feel heat building inside me and white light floods out of my eyes and from the palms of my hands. Before my eyes, twenty souls appear. They form human shapes, but they are made not of flesh and blood but of shadows and mist; light souls are made from white mist, but these dark souls are made from black swirling mist.

Instantly, I feel the souls pulling against my hold, fighting me, but I grit my teeth and force them to act on my behalf. I move them into place, commanding them from inside of my head, and they surround Eden and me and go to war on our behalf. Eden and I stand back-to-back, watching for any dark fae who manage to break through the ranks, ready to take them down.

I watch as the army of dark souls begins to take on the attackers. Weapons strike each other with loud clanging sounds, and fire and sparks of light fill the air as various fae powers clash. I can hear screams, moans. The air is heavy with the smell of coppery blood.

I feel an itch in the back of my head and I know one of the soldiers is on the verge of pulling away from me. I clamp my jaw tight shut, gritting my teeth, and rein him back in. I can feel my powers starting to weaken—controlling so many dark souls, each of whom are fighting me, is taking its toll, but I keep pushing them on.

Eden springs away from me and I glance back over my shoulder at her. A wolf shifter has broken through the ranks, and it springs into the air. Eden bares her teeth, in anger as much an animal as the wolf she’s facing. She holds her spear up and the wolf impales itself on the sharp point. It whimpers and then the whimper cuts out as it dies. Eden kicks it from the end of her spear and turns to me. She gasps when she sees me.

Your nose is bleeding, she says. I reach up and wipe away the blood I didn’t notice was coming from my nose. You have to stop this, Darius. It’s too much.

I shake my head, but I know she’s right. I am losing control of the dark souls and if they turn on us and we have to fight them as well as the remaining living dark fae, then we’re dead for sure.

Darius, let go! There’s only a few dark fae left. We can take them on our own, Eden insists.

I have to trust that she’s right, because if I keep this up for much longer, it’s going to kill me. I would accept that to save Rayne’s life, but my death would seal her fate and I can’t risk that. I nod to Eden, and with a final blast of power, I scatter the remaining souls back to the underworld. Eden spins around and we stand back-to-back again.

We are surrounded by dark fae, and at a quick estimate, I would say there are around twenty of them left. Ten each. We can handle this. For a moment, the dark fae stand back a little, watching us warily, then on some unseen command, they jump into action, all of them pressing in on us at once.

I pull a dagger from my back pocket and begin slashing out as dark fae rush at me. I cut the throat of a shifter as she’s midway through turning and then I spin around and take out an elemental who was in the process of gathering a ball of fire. As he goes down, the fireball flies from his hands and takes down a dark fae, setting his clothes on fire. In seconds, the smell of singed hair and roasting meat joins the smell of blood in the chamber.

I feel pain in my head and I spin around to see a fury behind me. As I turn, her eyes lock on mine and the pain in my head gets worse. I shake my head, breaking eye contact, and I slam my fist into her face. Her knees buckle and she goes down. She’s likely not dead, so I bend down quickly and run my blade across her throat, finishing her off.

I straighten back up. Dead fae litter the ground and several have fled, seeing that they’re not going to be able to stop us. I am left facing off with a huge brute of a man. He runs at me, moving his hands. Wind whips around me, flattening my clothes against my body. I feel my feet starting to leave the ground as the wind forms a twister. I throw my dagger, and it embeds itself in the man’s chest. The wind around me dies down and I slam to the ground, just managing to keep on my feet. I run to the fallen body of the man and retrieve my dagger and then I spin around to see how Eden is faring in her battle.

She is facing off against the one remaining dark fae, and between the two of us, we could make short work of her, but there’s a problem. I feel my heart sink. The remaining fae is a mimic, and right now, she is a carbon copy of Eden. I have no idea which woman is the real Eden and I can’t risk making a mistake and killing the wrong one. I will just have to wait it out and trust Eden to take her.

The two women circle each other, thrusting out with their swords and their spears. Of course only Eden’s sword is a real Valkyrie sword, but the mimic’s sword is an exact replica, and on sight, it’s impossible to tell them apart. It’s dizzying to watch the two women—as they spin, they both stream through a series of identities almost simultaneously.

Finally, when my nerves are so shot I can barely take it anymore, one of the women leaps into the air and brings her sword down on the other one, chopping her head clean in half. She turns to face me and grins.

I guess we did it. She smiles.

I hold my dagger out in front of me. I have no idea if this is the real Eden or the imposter.

Show me your true face, I demand.

She rolls her eyes and then her features change, melting into the face of the real Eden. There’s no way one of the dark fae could know that’s what she really looks like. They could never get her eyes that exact, the way they mirror Rayne’s so perfectly. I relax and lower my blade.

Close the portal before the cowards come back, I say.

Eden nods and turns away from me. She kneels down beside the portal and begins placing the hag stones back over the portal, finally adding one from her pocket. A purple light flashes brightly, blinding me. I blink and then the light is gone, the portal deactivated.

Eden straightens back up and dusts off her hands down her clothes.

There, she says. This should keep those bastards out once I put the stones back in the four cardinal corners. How about cleaning up this mess?

She grins at me as she gestures around us at the bodies of the dark fae and the broken-down wall. I raise my hands and throw my head back, summoning the white light once more. Within seconds, the wall knits itself back together and all of the bodies disappear.

Perfect. Eden smiles. The last thing we need is Rayne or the others coming down here to check on the portal and seeing evidence of a battle.

I nod my head, and then, on a whim, I move over to Eden and pull her close to me. She lets me hold her for a moment and then she backs away and gives me a quizzical smile. I shrug my shoulders, feeling embarrassed by my display of affection.

For a second there, I thought I lost you, I admit.

Eden snorts.

A copy of a Valkyrie sword is no match for the real thing, she says. That mimic was toast the second she came near me.

I smile, but I know it wasn’t quite that cut and dry. The battle could have gone either way and we both know it. It seems that the dark fae are getting stronger every time. Even the level ones are putting up a decent fight these days.

I don’t voice my concerns. Eden has enough to worry about here on Earth without me telling her about the darkness that seems to be infiltrating the underworld.

So what now? she asks.

I’m going back to the underworld, I tell her. I’ll be dealing with this new round of intakes personally, and they’re going to rue the day they chose the wrong side in this battle.

Eden nods approvingly.

Good. Make sure they suffer. And make sure the whole fae world knows it. If we can discourage those on the fence from wanting anything to do with the Hellions while we try to find the level-four fae, it’ll make keeping Rayne safe a lot easier.

I nod in agreement.

Speaking of keeping Rayne safe, are you going to recast your protection charm? I ask.

Yup, Eden says. And then I’m going on a mission to find every one of those bastards who thinks they can use my daughter to buy them a ticket into leadership.

She is fierce, and when she tells me her plan, she practically spits the words out. I am damn glad this woman is on my side, because she means business now, and whoever crosses her is going to seriously wish they hadn’t been born.

At the same time, Eden and I pull out bronze keys and wave them in the air, both opening portals. I glance back at Eden before I step into mine and go back to the underworld.

Give them hell, Eden. I smile.

I will. You too, she says.

I step through the portal and come out at the bone bridge. I stride purposefully towards the entrance to the underworld. Heads are going to fucking roll when I get back in there. No one threatens my fucking daughter and gets away with it. No one.

CHAPTER ONE: PORTAL OF DREAMS

RAY SPEAKS

I wake up and for a moment, I have no idea where I am. I blink a few times and look around and I realize I am in the beach hut. Kace and Leti’s place. As soon as I get orientated, everything else comes rushing back in. Luna’s revelation about Darius, the king of the underworld, being my father and what exactly that means for me, Leti running from the hut after confessing she had known this all along and Kace accusing her of working with the dark fae, and more strongly than anything, Grey’s visit and what he showed me.

I sit up and push the comforter off me. Was Grey really here or was it all a dream? It must have been a dream. There’s no way I could have seen something like that and then just casually lain here and drifted off to sleep. I would have jumped up and sounded the alarm. But it felt so real.

I try to tell myself it was only a dream, my subconscious playing tricks on me, but I don’t really believe that. I do believe Grey came to me while I slept, but I don’t believe for a second that was any normal dream. I know instinctively that it was Grey warning me that, once more, Harbor Bay is in danger from the dark fae.

I dress quickly and go to the bathroom and brush my teeth. I go downstairs and find Deja and Xander sitting on the couch, deep in conversation. They stop talking the moment I step into the room. Were they talking about me? Probably. I tell myself I’m being paranoid; of course they weren’t talking about me.

Hey, Deja says with an embarrassed smile. We were just talking about you.

So, I’m not paranoid after all. I raise an eyebrow and Xander jumps in.

We were just saying what a shock it must have been for you, hearing that Darius is your father, he explains.

I’ve had better surprises, I say. But that’s not important right now. Where’s everyone else?

Still sleeping I assume, Deja says.

Can you grab everyone while I get some coffee? I have something I need to discuss with everyone, I say.

Is everything okay? Deja asks, getting to her feet.

Maybe. I shrug. But maybe not. I really don’t want to go over this twice.

Deja nods and hurries from the room. I move into the kitchen and Xander follows me.

How are you really, Ray? he asks.