Memoria Lost: Zodiac Assassins, #11

By Artemis Crow

***She had plans. The Goddess laughed***

 

Thirteen Zodiac Assassins

Forged in the Darkness of the InBetween,
Ruled by the Shadow Side of their Stars,
The Only Hope for the Light of Humanity.

 

What Would You Sacrifice For Vengeance?
 

A Rejected Princess

The life of a Memoria is exacting, restrained, and against the very heart of Regina's nature. As the queen's only child, she's expected to be more than she's proven to be, so she forces herself to conform, to repress who she is so she can one day rule. Until her mother ends that dream.

 

A Murder Mystery To Unravel

When the princess is found standing over the dead body of a Soul Keeper, the murder weapon in her hand, the queen names her the prime suspect. With her best friend Columba, Regina must uncover the identity of the killer to prevent the loss of more Keepers, stop the theft of the paranorm souls they devote their lives to protecting, and, for her, avoid a life sentence in the dungeon.

A Conspiracy To Destroy Her World

 
When their search reveals a plot threatening the existence of Chaosterra and the billions of lives who inhabit it, Regina must find a way to unblock the powers that have been sealed away from her since infancy. Will her awakening be enough to stop the destruction, or will her desire for vengeance doom them all?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Artemis Crow
• Release date: Dec 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798986026145

Book preview

Memoria Lost

ZODIAC ASSASSINS BOOK 11

ARTEMIS CROW

Memoria Lost

Copyright © 2022 by Leslie Bird Nuccio

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2022

Print Book ISBN 979-8-9860261-3-8

Cover Art by DAZED Designs

OTHER BOOKS BY ARTEMIS CROW

Zodiac Assassins series

Lyon’s Roar Book 1

Leona’s Descent Book 2

Libra’s Limbo Book 3

Leona’s Cage Book 4

Gemini Asunder Book 5

Abella All In Book 6

Cancer’s Moon Book 7

Bryn’s Flight Book 8

Aries On Fire Book 9

Thea’s Truth Book 10

Dedication

For those who find their passion, their purpose, later in life.

Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

Acknowledgements

1

Regina ran down the long hall connecting the main palace with the queen’s castle, ignoring the startled glances of the guards and counselors and sycophants all waiting to be heard. She resisted the urge to stop and apologize to the telepathy-gifted Memoria who flinched away from her unsettled mind; it wouldn’t help anyway, and she didn’t want to be late.

The arched openings flashed by like a flip book, revealing the heavy, black clouds blanketing the sky and the rain pounding the great mountains and autumn-colored trees of Chaosterra—home of the Memoria and the Light and Dark Fae—but the tempestuous weather was nothing compared to her roiling, conflicted emotions.

Her mother, the queen, had called for her and it wasn’t her birthday. She bit the inside of her cheek to repress the smile itching to be set free.

The fate she’d fought had somehow become the only choice she wanted. Today it would be hers.

Regina, a soft voice said, rising just above the murmurs around her.

Regina’s arms pinwheeled as she slid to a stop on the stone floor and turned to her best and only friend. Columba, I don’t have time to talk.

Columba walked quickly, her pale pink, floor-length gown and mauve robe swirling around her legs, a departure from the perpetually calm snail’s pace that embodied all a Memoria Soul Keeper should be: wise, tranquil of soul, and mind-numbingly neutral.

Everything that edgy, scattered, twitchy me is not.

Regina pulled her tangled length of black hair over one shoulder and finger combed it to still herself, to keep from chiding Columba for still managing to be slow. The woman was so even-tempered—another trait Regina lacked, as her mother always reminded her—any complaint she made would roll off Columba like raindrops off the feathers of her pet Dodo bird.

Finally, after what seemed to be an entire fall season, Columba reached Regina’s side.

I heard your mother called for you, Columba whispered, her tone flat save for the barest twinge of excitement. It’s not your birthday, so…

Regina struggled not to twirl and squeal. The staid politicians occupying the hall would no doubt report the ill-mannered behavior to her mother, and she couldn’t afford another black mark added to the lengthy list she’d accrued over her twenty-five years. The damn things had weighed her down like a lodestone until she’d thought she’d never be called to the throne room for anything other than a reprimand.

Not this time, though. She’d kept her head down for months now, her irrepressible nature entirely repressed—no small feat, and one that had nearly undone her every night. The only way she’d been able to survive the rigor of Memoria life had been to stifle herself at all times while in public and twirl and squeal like hell at night when she was alone, and the castle was quiet.

That and the books she’d begged for, books some of the Memoria Soul Keepers had brought her from the world of the paranorms and the humans after they’d completed their most sacred of duties—shepherding the souls of the departed paranorms to be with the souls of their family members. Books about science and mathematics and the gods and goddesses. Books written by humans with made-up species and worlds that paled in comparison to the reality humans couldn’t see in their own world, never mind the parallel worlds like Chaosterra.

The urge to celebrate cooled and Regina blinked, her excitement leaching away as she thought about what the summons could mean. Yes, she called for me. No, it’s not my birthday.

Do you think—?

That I’ve been accepted for Soul Keeper training? What else could it be? Regina asked, though her gut clenched as she considered the question.

After so many years of the queen evaluating her, after all the failures to satisfy the woman had resulted in fewer and fewer summons until they only fell on her birthday, the reason behind this call grew suspect.

Regina forced her trepidation down and reached out for Columba, squeezing her friend’s forearm. I have been careful to be more like you for months. I’ll go mad if that’s not enough.

Columba smiled gently and covered Regina’s hand. I know this is your time. You’ve worked so hard, though it saddens me to witness the loss of your exuberance.

Regina clamped her jaw shut to keep it from dropping open. Really? You constantly fussed at me about it.

Columba leaned closer, her long, blonde hair falling forward and swaying like a curtain being released.

I’ve longed to twirl and squeal just once, she whispered.

Regina’s lips twitched but this was not the time to belt out a laugh.

Maybe one day, she whispered back. But not today.

Yes, go. Find me when you’re done so we can celebrate.

With meditation?

Columba closed one eye, almost a wink. And maybe a little wine.

Regina’s eyes widened, and her jaw did drop open this time. Sacrilege.

I learned it all from you. Columba released Regina. Go, get your mother’s approval. I can’t wait to have you join us in training.

Regina backed up a couple steps before turning away and resuming her trip down the hallway, this time at a more dignified pace. Stolid, if you ask me, but expected of the queen’s only daughter and heir to the throne.

She glanced back once more before leaving the hall and steadied when she saw Columba where she’d left her, the slight crease of her gentle friend’s mouth her version of a smile.

Columba nodded once.

Here goes everything, Regina said under her breath.

A blinding flash of light filled the hall followed by an almost immediate explosion of thunder. Even Regina flinched—okay, ducked down—at the rare violence of the storm. The whispers of the Memoria started up again as they quickly shifted away from the opening, huddling closer together in the middle of the space.

Regina looked toward her destination. The hallway exposed to the four seasons ended at a pair of heavy doors, the wood and iron signaling the beginning of the queen’s castle. She opened one door and stepped inside the narrower passage, pausing at the entrance. The passage to the queen’s throne room felt tight, confined, compared to the walkway she’d left, but its arched, stained-glass windows were a blessing in the chill days of fall and the cold of winter.

Lightning flashed again, illuminating in harsh detail the tall, stone pedestals lining the passage, each topped with the bust of a Memoria queen going back to the beginning of time. The time when Chaos had created the Memoria and charged them with collecting the paranorm souls and protecting them until the day she returned to her people. The time of Chaos, before she’d abandoned her creations to God and his ilk, choosing to hide out on Jupiter and not lift a finger to help them.

Despite Chaos’s absence, the Memoria had devoted themselves to the task the goddess had set for them. Generations of Soul Keepers had been trained, their telepathy honed, their ability to open a portal to Earth taught, their fighting skills drilled so they could defend the souls they carried. Once deemed ready, they were assigned to one of the thousands of paranorm family bloodlines, appearing when one of their charges died, shepherding the butterfly-shaped soul to her crown of butterflies so the family could remain together as one, and protecting the souls with her life until the last of the family bloodline had died.

The queens had ruled over it all, waiting for the return of the goddess who had yet to come.

Regina backed up with the closing door then moved forward, her pace slow and steady, her gaze brushing over the faces of the women who’d preceded her mother, the women Regina had tried to emulate—still tried, truth be told—but failed. Comportment? She was too twitchy. Diplomacy? She couldn’t lie to save her life, and again, twitchy. Political savvy? Her thinking was too linear, and she found the machinations too tedious. Strong enough to carry the weight of a queen’s responsibility? She had grown to seriously doubt it. Of all her shortcomings, that one hurt the most.

Regina hoped her mother didn’t see that about her, didn’t know her doubts about her ability to rule, but she feared her doubts were, in fact, her reality. Worse still, as the years had gone by, she’d begun to suspect she wasn’t going to be the queen she was born to be. Not that she knew what else there was for her.

She was torn, had been since she was a child, but what else could she do? Be in the Memoria guard? Fight the Fae? No heir had ever fallen so low; she couldn’t be the first.

The lightning continued to flash, each flare of light highlighting the cuts in the stone, the angles that made the monarchs’ faces look skeletal. Regina had seen these faces all her life and this was the first time she was afraid of what the stone seemed to be saying, what the lightning laid bare.

Alone in the hallway, chilled by the gothic spectacle, she sped up rather than linger and suffer further torment until she reached the wide door leading to the secondary throne room. She paused to swallow her trepidation, to push her thoughts to the back of her mind. She pasted a placid expression on her face and opened the door.

The flurry of activity washed over her; the pulses of energy froze her in place. Never had she seen such a frenzy, felt this much fear. She stepped inside and shut the door, fighting the impulse to leave, to return later.

Instead, she studied the large room and its furnishings to steady herself while she waited for the queen to acknowledge her presence.

Medieval. That’s how humans would describe the castle and its furnishings, the Memoria and their clothing, their way of life. Chaosterra and Earth were twin planets, two of a number of planets Chaos had created that were reputed to be the same—not that Regina had ever seen Earth or any planet other than her own.

Chaosterra might seem backward to humans, but what the Memoria and Fae lacked in technology—or, rather, chose not to embrace save for a few things like indoor plumbing—their planet made up for in a diversity of species and plant life. The pollution Earth suffered didn’t exist on Chaosterra. The thousands of animals that had gone extinct on Earth still thrived here.

And magic. The moment human technology had surpassed magic, magic had been lost, pushed down, figuratively and literally in the case of the paranorms’ subterranean world called the InBetween. As much as Regina longed to see Earth for herself, she could never live there, could never leave behind the beauty that gave her such joy.

Regina glanced around the large room. The queen’s throne, a smaller version of the throne in the main castle, sat empty. Instead, her mother was seated at a desk, reading, a mountain of papers to her right, a knot of advisors to her left, both anomalies worrying.

More worrying was her mother’s flushed face, its sheen, the sweat rolling down it, the constant shifting under her skin. The souls the queen carried were agitated, responding to her mood. Considering her mother had taken thousands of ascended Soul Keeper and paranorm souls inside her body, the pain had to be immense.

Regina was standing still, unsure what to do, when her mother glanced up, singled her out of the crowd, and called her over with a single jerk of a hand.

Uh oh.

Regina took a deep breath, steadied herself, and glided over, a skill she’d practiced for so many months her head felt permanently dented from the weight of the stacks of books Columba had insisted she balance.

You called for me, mother?

The queen passed sealed papers to two of the women standing at attention around her. Take these.

They bowed and left the room.

One of the remaining women, a hulking member of the guard, held out her hand and the queen placed another rolled and sealed parchment in it. Do not give this to anyone other than the Light Fae queen. She must answer me without the influence of the Dark.

The guard bowed her head.

Go. May Chaos protect you.

The guard placed her right fist over her heart. And you, my queen.

She backed away several steps before turning around and striding out.

The queen scanned the room.

Leave us, she called out to the remaining crowd of women and the sprinkling of men.

Regina studied her mother’s face as the room cleared, trying to see her thoughts, but the woman was a master of restraint, the flush and sheen and sweat aside.

Finally, they were alone.

Her mother looked up, holding Regina’s gaze as she rose before walking past her. Come with me.

They entered the antechamber just off the throne room. The queen sagged into a chair and stared out of the closest window, grimacing when thunder rolled.

Terrible storm, Regina offered. I’ve never seen clouds so black or felt lightning so savage.

Indeed. The queen turned away from the window and looked at Regina, her expression neutral as she folded her hands into her lap. Pour us some wine.

Regina did as she asked, her concern for her mother mounting. This was so unlike the woman she knew. Keeping her counsel, she placed a glass of wine before her mother before taking a seat and a sip.

Steady up.

Her mother took a deep draw of her favorite red and sighed. The work of the queen is never done, and these days it’s never enough.

Can I help?

Her mother’s pained grin alarmed Regina more than anger could have.

Please just listen. She took another drink and set her glass down. I have watched you work to moderate your impulses, to quell this boundless energy you must have gotten from your father. Goddess knows, he was an energetic man.

The queen looked past her as if remembering the man Regina had never met, whose name she didn’t know.

"I am proud that you’ve worked so hard to earn your place as the next queen," her mother continued.

Regina’s heart sank. But it’s not enough.

Those would be her mother’s next words.

Her mother closed her eyes.

Regina braced herself.

You remind me so much of Queen Aelia.

Regina’s heart thudded in her chest. I didn’t expect that.

My great grandmother?

The queen’s laugh was short, harsh. No, her namesake, our very first queen.

I know we’re long-lived, but…

I speak of what the texts say about her, impertinent child, the queen said, one eyebrow rising.

Regina settled into her chair and sipped deeply.

Aelia was strong and impetuous, her courage only matched by her power, her will. You look like her, too, black hair, pale green eyes, and ridiculous height. She was a great beauty, as are you.

Any beauty I have came from you, Regina offered, even though they couldn’t be more opposite in coloring and form.

You’d make a great diplomat, if you weren’t such an abysmal liar.

Regina winced. I’ve been working on that…just in case.

The queen extended her arms across the table, her palms up. Give me your hands.

Regina sat very still, this second anomaly startling her. It’s not my birthday.

The queen remained silent, her darkening expression saying all that she did not speak. Regina raised her cold hands and settled her palms on her mother’s. The queen closed her eyes.

Regina waited, trying to ignore the tickle of her mother’s psychic exploration, her concern, and no small amount of nausea, rising.

Minutes passed before the queen slid her hands out from under Regina’s. I understand your friend, Columba, has been visiting you until late in the evening.

Regina wanted to cry. She wanted to beg her mother to stop this and just tell her what she saw in her. Or didn’t see.

Instead, she lifted her glass and studied the wine. We’re lifelong friends.

She’s coaching you, isn’t she? Teaching you what she’s learning to prepare to become a Soul Keeper.

Columba shares her day with me, as I do with her. That’s what friends do, Regina answered carefully.

The Memoria as a society loved their secrets, none more than the Soul Keepers. She couldn’t allow Columba to be punished for being a friend.

The queen cocked her head and studied Regina for a long moment. Columba has great potential.

Columba is great in general.

The queen sighed and looked away. That she is, while you…are my greatest disappointment.

Regina’s heart must have stopped. That was the only explanation for the stabbing in her chest, the pain jetting out from that arrested organ and freezing the rest of her. There was nothing her mother could have said to hurt her more.

She carefully set her wine glass down, the need to drink to soothe her suddenly dry mouth warring with the heaving of her stomach. Heat radiated through her, yet a chill made her shiver. Goosebumps rose on her skin.

I’m sorry you feel that way, Regina said, her voice a hoarse whisper.

The truth needs to be said, now, before my people lose faith in my judgement. You have great potential for telepathic ability and so much more, but something is blocking you, has blocked you since you were a wee child. I hoped you would outgrow this, come into your abilities, but you are an adult. Without telepathy you can never be a Soul Keeper, and thus you can never be queen.

Regina slowly stood, though she had no clue how her legs supported her. She certainly couldn’t feel them, nor any other part of her body. The only thing she did feel was the desperate desire to run. She clenched her fists, needing to get the rest of this conversation done so she could stagger away.

If I’m not to be a Soul Keeper and the next queen, what use am I to the Memoria? What would you have me do?

The queen drained her glass, set it down, and rose. She returned to the throne room, Regina following her automatically, seeing nothing of her surroundings, only her mother’s stiff back.

The queen pulled a cord, the signal for her aides to rejoin her. She sat at the desk again and shuffled papers, not looking at Regina. You have been assigned to the guard, starting tomorrow. At least there your strength and restless nature can be put to good use.

The guard.

Regina fought to keep from falling to her knees. The men and women of the guard were