Flood and Fire Read online

  DEIRDRA EDEN

  Flood and Fire by Deirdra Eden

  Book 3 of The Watchers Series

  Copyright © 2008-2020 Deirdra Eden

  Published by Deirdra Eden

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  Cover Design by Eden Literary, LLC

  Special graphics AKaiser/Shutterstock.com

  Image copyright tanatat/Shutterstock.com and Vangelis76/Shutterstock.com

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

  retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

  photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author

  except in the case of brief quotations credited to the author.

  Flood and Fire / Deirdra Eden

  Text type was set in Garamond

  Book 1

  Knight of Light

  Book 2

  Hidden Fire

  Book 3

  Flood and Fire

  Book 4

  To Capture the Wind

  Book 5

  White Dragons

  Book 6

  The Silver Phoenix

  Book 7

  Night of Light

  Dedicated To:

  To my dear loving Leif, who has stood by me as we’ve face hell and came out triumphant.

  To the pirate captain of the Goddess’ Whim, who took me on great adventures and inspired many fun stories.

  Acknowledgments

  I am grateful to the many people and organizations who helped me complete this book.

  A few of them are:

  American Night Writers Association

  David and Sherrill Boyd

  Dad

  Laura Watkins

  Keani Gifford

  Mark F. Cheney

  Cheri Chesley

  Adelina V Priddis

  Ranee S. Clark

  Diana Reynolds

  Jill Kimball Heilman

  Melissa Wouden Miller

  Susan Peik

  And so many others who helped with reading, reviewing, and inspiring.

  Chapter One

  New Birth

  Dying wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, though I had hoped for a less dramatic death than being murdered. Even so, once it was done, I transitioned between life and death as though I’d fallen asleep in one bed and opened my eyes to a new place which was cleaner and brighter than I remember. Even though everything was new, I was still me. I still loved Azrael. I still had all my worries, doubts, and fears of inadequacy.

  When I had spoken with the King of Neviah, I thought I remembered choosing to return to Earth. But my time in the Kingdom of Neviah seemed more like a strange dream than reality. I walked on unsteady legs until someone found me. The motherly woman led me away from the fog to an ethereal palace with white and gold flags dancing around the spires. As soon as I left the sunlight I lost all my strength, but at least I was safe to sleep until fully restored.

  Dancing sunshine through a window woke me and my eyes bolted open. Hot energy filled me. My fingers searched the smooth skin over my ribcage, but there was no mark where the dagger had struck. I stared at the red and silver bed trimmings above me. I had no idea where I was. All my memories seemed like a dream as I tried to pick out what was real and what was a nightmare. Details evaded me. Who was I, what was I? What if the Shadow Legion, the war, the king and even Azrael weren’t real at all?

  Every breath burned the inside of my lungs with the icy chill of the air around me, but when I exhaled, hot breath trickled from my nostrils as if I were a fire-breathing dragon. Goosebumps rose all over my skin. Memories or old dreams of Oswestry washed over me. The linens reminded me of those in my bedroom at the duchess’ home.

  Sunlight beamed through a nearby window, warming my exposed skin. Energy and strength rushed through my veins like weightless water, making my fingers tingle. I clenched my hands to suppress it.

  The door of the room opened, and I turned to see a beautiful woman gliding through. I blinked several times to bring her features into focus. Chestnut brown hair framed her heart-shaped face. She had honey-beige skin, wide, turquoise eyes, dainty lips, and rosy cheeks.

  “Oh, Lady Auriella, you are awake.” Her voice lilted in a beautiful singsong way as she rushed across the room to my side, brushing back my hair in a maternal way. “I am Eva, Matron of the Northern Sanctuary. I brought you here to finish gathering your strength in safety.”

  “I’m at the Northern Sanctuary?” This was where Azrael had wanted to take me all along. I had hoped he would be beside me when I awoke. “Where is Azrael?” I asked, whirling my head from side to side as I searched for him, but there was only Eva.

  She took my hands. “Shh, querida. Your body is not ready for such anxiety.”

  I relaxed back into the pillows again, but still gripped her hands. “Does Azrael know where I am?”

  Her expression melted into a loving, pleased look. “This is your home. Tú amor, Azrael, built it for you before you were born."

  “Before I was born … But how?” It flattered me that he would build a home for me before I was even born, though knowing Azrael, I shouldn’t have been surprised.

  “When Azrael became Immortal, his memories of his life before, in the Kingdom of Neviah, returned, little by little. He remembered you and built this home especially for you.”

  My heart melted at such an explanation. “Home,” I said, taking a deep breath and relaxed deeper into the bed. It had been a long time since I had called any place home. I turned back to Eva. “You must be a Watcher too.”

  “Yes, I am a Watcher,” she confirmed. “Though not as young as you are.” She motioned to her skin, glazed with an iridescent gold sheen instead of an opal glitter. Eva’s smooth skin and lack of wrinkles had me guessing she was no older than thirty, but she must have been ancient for her child bearing years and Lifelight to have ended.

  “You are one of the Immortals,” I realized.

  She nodded. “I am.”

  I gazed at my arm where the sunlight from the window beamed in and made me sparkle like a crystal chandelier. My own Lifelight shone brighter than usual. This intense feminine lure wouldn’t help me re-enter the Neviahan society discreetly. The Lifelight was stronger than any pheromone and nearly paralyzed Neviahan men with hypnotic light.

  “Where is Azrael,” I asked again. There weren’t many Immortals on Earth. Perhaps Eva knew where Azrael was. “You must take me to him.” I managed to swing my legs off the bed and smooth out the simple white slip covering me. “I need to find him. He is one of the Immortal Guardians in Scotland. Surely, you know him.”

  Eva gently took hold of my arms and made me sit back down. “Do not move too quickly,” she warned. “Your body is still recovering. You are lucky you were able to return. If that dagger had struck any higher, it would have pierced your heart.”

  I covered my heart—the one place, if struck, could kill even an Immortal Watcher. My heart beat strong and steady, as though in defiance of the near miss. I remembered the precious artifact I’d carried with me. Frantically, I rifled through the linens around me, panic welling up inside me. How could I misplace something so precious?

  Eva must have known what I was looking for. “The king’s sword is safe.” She held up the Sword of Neviah for me to see and placed it in my arms.

  I fingered the hilt of the unearthly sword that had been entrusted to me by Azrael’s father. The blade, made from the ores of the governing star, Kolob, could cut through anything, even those intangible and elusive Shadow Spirits, followers of the Rebellion. This weapon would give us Watchers the advantage we needed against the Legion. Eva handed me an embroidered scarf, and I carefully wrapped up
the sword before setting it on the bed next to me.

  “We will find Azrael,” she assured me. Some of my anxiety calmed at her promise. I clutched the sheet around my body and stood on trembling legs. “Are you ready to walk?” she asked, putting one hand behind my back so I wouldn’t fall over.

  I nodded, but Eva still held my arm to steady me. “I’ll help you dress,” she said, opening a large, polished oak chest. She raised the lid and released her hold on me to lift a dress from within. She held the shimmering white dress to my shoulders. The fabric flowed like silk and glittered like diamond sand in the sunlight.

  “It’s perfect,” Eva said.

  I’d never seen any textile on earth so bright or beautiful. My first reaction was to decline, as if I would desecrate it somehow, but of course, I couldn’t run around wearing nothing but a sleeveless slip.

  The Neviahan dress and my skin glistened like the whole fairy kingdom. “How long have I been recovering?” I asked after the dress fell perfectly over me as if it was made just for me. Hopefully not too much time had passed while I was in survival sleep.

  Eva pressed her lips together, hesitating before answering, and avoided my gaze as she adjusted the dress over me. I braced myself, fearing how long it had been. “Fifty years.” she finally said.

  Shock slammed into my chest, knocking the breath from me. “Fifty years?” It was more than I’d been prepared for—far more. My knees buckled, and Eva had to hold me up. I took deep breaths, trying to calm myself enough to do the calculation in my head. “Its 1326.”

  “The year is 1327,” Eva corrected.

  All my mortal friends must have passed on, and I must be an old woman now.

  “I’m sixty-nine,” I muttered. No wonder my body felt stiff. I had grown old in the blink of an eye. It seemed like yesterday I was only nineteen, but of course all old people said that. “Azrael and I have lost so much time.” Sadness replaced the shock, washing over me in a wave. I had been robbed of my best years with him. He, an Immortal, would stay in his perfect, twenty-four year old body forever. People were sure to mistake me for his grandmother. Would Azrael recognize me? Would he still love me now that I was an old woman? Pain stabbed at my heart. The sadness over the loss of time rose. Confusion muddled my memories and dreams together. I struggled to stay calm as I tried to sort out what had happened to me. How had I changed during the last fifty years after I was resuscitated? I raked a thick lock of hair over my shoulder, inspecting it for streaks of grey. To my relief, it glistened in dark red waves and copper highlights.

  “Why wasn’t Azrael waiting for me?” If it were Azrael in survival sleep, I would have watched over him until he awoke. Had I changed too much for him to love anymore?

  “Oh, querida.” She sighed. Eva’s face remained calm, but her voice caught in sorrow. “Your Azrael is not at the sanctuary anymore.”

  “I don’t understand.” My heart raced. Was he dead? Perhaps he had seen how old I was becoming. Perhaps he’d decided to move on and find a younger woman to be his wife. I lowered my gaze and blinked fast to smother the tears forming in my eyes. Fifty years was a long time to be separated. What if he had moved on?

  “He has left the sanctuary … for personal reasons.” Eva frowned and looked at the floor.

  I swallowed and struggled to keep myself as calm as Eva seemed. “I see,” I replied in an even tone, although I didn’t see at all. “Is it some kind of mission? Are we going to meet him?”

  Eva shook her head, her perfect hair shimmering as it moved in the beams of sun from the window. “I don’t know when we will see Azrael again.” She studied me, her eyebrows creased in concern, before she looked away. She was hiding something. The knot tightened in my throat. Something terrible must have happened to Azrael, and Eva wasn’t going to surrender the details. After several moments in silence, Eva finally looked at me and smiled. It looked genuine, but it was too late for me to be comforted. “Perhaps I should show you around the home tú amor built for you.”

  We left the bedchamber, my thoughts churning over my future and the mission that had taken Azrael from me while I slept. I ran my fingers over the sparkling white stone as we passed through the hallways. Colourful carvings in lavender and soft green adorned the walls and the sun shimmered like diamonds through the oval windows.

  I paused along one of the walls, stepping forward to finger the intricate designs and colours of a mural carved directly into the wall. “How?” I whispered, unable to grasp how Azrael had created something so breathtaking.

  “Wind,” Eva said. “He used the sea winds to carve your new home seamlessly out of the stone mountainside.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Azrael had done this all for me before I was even born. Eva led me past two drawing rooms, a garden room, and many bedchambers, all of them crafted with inspiration and beauty, each and every nook decorated with attention to the smallest detail. I could easily get lost in the labyrinth of hallways.

  I glanced in a doorway covered with aqua beads. A white tub carved from the same stone as the fortress stood in the center of the room next to a white marble statue of a woman pouring water into the basin. It exuded elegance—almost like a church.

  “What is this room?” I asked, reverence in my voice.

  Eva’s lips quirked. “A personal bathing room.” She shrugged like this hardly mattered compared to the glory of the sanctuary. I felt out of place in such a luxurious building. Not even the King of England has such a bathing room.

  Azure blue rugs, with silver beads adorning the fringe, lay elegantly over the smooth marble floors we walked over as we continued our tour. There were no lit candles, no smell of food or lamp oil, no wear or sign of use. Shafts of sunbeams poured through the windows. The palace had been abandoned for decades, yet everything shone bright and clean. Someone had kept it up.

  “Azrael furnished most of the home with rugs, linens, and furniture from England. He thought it would help you feel more at home once you came to the sanctuary.”

  “Did he do the decorating too?” I asked, impressed. Nothing about Azrael would surprise me now.

  Eva hummed a laugh. “I helped a little with the decorating,” she said modestly.

  I noticed a mirror in the grand entryway of the castle. I walked quickly toward it. The mirror was larger and clearer than any I’d ever seen. Eva must have noticed my sudden interest as I veered toward it.

  “It was made here in the sanctuary,” she said motioning to the beautiful, filigreed designs of the frame and silver glass, “The glass was made using fire and sand.” As I stepped toward the mirror, I examined myself for the first time. I had imagined myself an old sparkling woman, weak from years without exercise.

  Instead I blinked in surprise at my reflection and touched my face in awe. My skin was smooth like porcelain and as hard as diamonds. My flesh had never been so clean. I leaned closer to the mirror. Not a blemish marked my clear, almost unearthly looking skin. How could this be? Not a hair of grey grew among the locks of scarlet waves that hung over my shoulders in perfect order as though I was ready to go to a ball.

  I leaned forward and pushed my eyelids back with my fingers. There were no red veins in the whites of my eyes. I stared at the beautiful stranger in the mirror then stepped back.

  “Eva, you did a good job healing me.”

  She smiled. “You can’t give me all the credit.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, wondering who else had helped resuscitate my human body.

  Eva came to stand beside me. I stared at our reflections side by side. Our bodies were beautiful, strong, and perfect—too perfect. “What do you remember after you were killed, Auriella?”

  Killed. Being in survival sleep for fifty years. An unblemished body. Having the King of Neviah’s sword. The confusion of waking up hadn’t allowed me to put all these impossible things together into the conclusion that danced on the edge of my memory, fuzzy and vague.

  I looked at Eva’s perfect skin and hair, then at my ow
n. “Auriella,” Eva said in a low, accented voice, softening and rolling over the Ls. “You’re one of the Immortals now.”

  “Immortal.” I whispered.

  “Sí. After you were killed, you returned as one of us.”

  I chose to return to earth. I was starting to remember. I pressed my hand against the cold mirror. I’d always thought immortality was the greatest curse. Immortals lived and watched everyone around them die. Now I realized it was also the greatest gift. I could accomplish so much more when death and time didn’t matter. I needed to learn what I was capable of. How far could I push my new immortal body?

  “Nothing can hurt me?” I asked. I wouldn’t endanger this body before I knew its limits, but I imagined battles with the Shadow Legion where I was always the victor. Excitement bounded through me, quickening my heartbeat and leaving my skin tingling.

  Eva pinched her eyebrows together. “What are you thinking about doing, Lady Auriella?”

  “Everything!” I said with exuberance. “If I could jump off the tallest mountain in the world and land on sharp jagged rocks without dying, think of the blows I could strike against the Rebellion.”

  Eva lips turned into a careful smile as she patted my hand. “No, querida, you wouldn’t die.”

  I caught my breath and remembered the day the slave master’s dagger sparked off Azrael’s perfect immortal body like tin hitting steel. “I can go into battle, face a thousand men, and live.” I rubbed my solid arms. “Their swords can’t pierce my skin.”

  Eva laughed a musical sound that filled the air. “You wouldn’t even break a fingernail.”

  Exhilaration flew through me. “Eva! I have to try this. Slice me with this sword!” I hurried over to another wall, which held two Scottish Claymore swords, crossed in decoration, and took one down before returning to her and holding it out.

  Eva’s eyes widened in horror and she held up her hands against taking the sword. “What are you thinking?” She pushed it back toward me. “There are a few things that can damage an Immortal Watcher and one of those things is another Immortal Watcher.”