Divine Blood Read online

  Divine Blood

  Guardians of the Maiden

  Beck Michaels

  Contents

  The Seven Gates

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Epilogue

  Note From The Author

  Acknowledgments

  Pronounciation Guide

  About the Author

  DIVINE BLOOD – The Guardians of the Maiden

  Copyright © 2020 Beck Michaels

  Cover Design: Seventhstar Art

  Map Illustration: Vanessa Garland

  Edited by Black Quill & Hina Babar

  All rights reserved. No part of this book or any portion thereof may be reproduced, transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book is considered theft of the author’s intellectual property.

  ISBN 978-1-7347639-0-4

  First Edition June 2020

  PLUMA PRESS BOOKS

  www.beckmichaels.com

  The Seven Gates

  Each soul passes through the gates at their beginning and at their end

  HEAVEN’S GATE

  LIFE’S GATE

  SPATIAL GATE

  TIME GATE

  MORTAL GATE

  NETHERWORLD GATE

  DEATH’S GATE

  Prologue

  Dynalya

  The snowstorm howled and rattled the window, wailing a warning to run, hide, and pray to the Gods, but there was no hope of escaping what had arrived with the night. Dyna turned in place in her bedroom, this dreaded room she couldn’t escape.

  At the familiar creak of old wood, Dyna glanced at the nine-year-old version of herself sitting in the rocking chair by the fireplace. She held a bundle of blankets wrapped around her baby sister. Her wide green eyes stared out the window, watching the storm. The evergreen trees thrashed in the violent wind, threatening to snap in half and wrench free from the earth. In the moon’s gleam, snow whipped like diamond dust; its beauty lost to the darkness surrounding her family’s cottage.

  Dread crept up Dyna’s back.

  Her younger counterpart clutched baby Lyra as she rocked her, feet pushing off the floorboards in a nervous pace. She knew they both sensed something sinister hiding within the darkness. Instinct prickled Dyna’s skin in warning, tightening her limbs.

  The Shadow was watching.

  The thought came unbidden, a familiar call, a warning of what was to come.

  “Get up!” she shouted at her child-self. “Run!”

  Younger Dyna didn’t hear her.

  They both flinched at the spark of embers that burst from the logs in the fireplace. The fire struggled to heat the small space of the bedroom, smothered by the cold clinging to the air. The flames cast an array of disturbing shapes on the walls. They stretched and writhed, creeping toward the ceiling.

  Thane, her younger brother, slept in his small bed beneath the windowsill. His mouth was propped open in a slight pout from where his chubby cheeks were pressed against his pillow. Her heart ached. He was so small, and precious. She walked over to him, wishing she could brush back the curtain of red ringlets dangling over his forehead.

  The sound of her parents’ voices slipped through the crack beneath the door like a draft whispering secrets.

  “Cease to argue with me on this, Ayla. We are leaving. This instant.”

  She gasped at the sound of his voice, feeling her eyes well with tears. “Father!” Dyna rushed to the door, but it would not open. She could not reach them. She banged her fists against it, crying out to them. “Mother! Father!”

  A clatter of movement beyond the door followed a rustle of fabric. “Pack as many provisions as you can carry and dress warmly.”

  “The council deemed the village safe, Baden,” her mother insisted. “We needn’t leave.”

  “The council knows nothing. I’ve tried to tell them, but they refuse to listen. The winter solstice has arrived, and the Third Shadow Winter has come with it.”

  The definitive tone of his claim sent a chill down Dyna’s back. She glanced at her younger self, who also listened, her wide eyes on the door.

  “I don’t understand. Your father already defeated the Shadow at its last coming.”

  “Aye, as did my grandfather ten years before him. It always returns.”

  Trepidation skulked into the house, filling the heavy pause. Having been born two years after the Shadow’s last coming, Dyna’s younger self had only heard tales of the demon, dark tales of it swallowing children whole in the dead of night.

  She rose from the rocking chair and tip-toed to the door to peek out through the crack. Dyna peeked with her but the foyer limited their view of the apothecary. She could only see the small round dining table covered in glass bottles and dried herbs. Her parents were in the kitchen.

  She strained to push the door open. She needed to see them, to embrace them, to warn them.

  “I’ve made my decision, Ayla.”

  “You will have us leave in the middle of this storm? Where are we to go?”

  He sighed. “Belzev offered us shelter in Lykos Peak until winter’s end.”

  “God of Urn, are you mad? We can’t take the children there.”

  “It will be much safer than here. He has sent Zev to meet us.”

  Dyna closed her eyes at the mention of her cousin. He would arrive too late.

  “We need to leave the village,” her father continued. “Don’t you understand? It’s coming. Tonight.”

  “You think we will fare any better out there? To reach Lykos Peak, we must pass through the Forbidden Woods. Do you mean to take us to our death?”

  “Enough! I have spoken, and I’ll not suffer you to argue with me on this matter!” The booming command vibrated through their small cottage before settling with a dreadful silence. Soft weeping soon followed.

  Dyna’s younger self gasped, stunned. Father had always been a soft-spoken man.

  “Forgive me.”

  Her mother sniffled. “I’m frightened.”

  “As am I,” he admitted, his voice trembling in a way it never had before. “I watched, helpless, as the Shadow took my sister at its last coming.”

  “Oh, Baden.”

  “I don’t fear to die. I fear what may befall my family. I have been plagued by nightmares of that night for the past year. Now I fear my past will repeat itself, and that is a future I cannot bear.”

  Dyna looked over her shoulder at the window. The time had come. The Shadow was coming.

  She yelled at her younger self to move, to go to her parents, to do something. But she didn’
t. As a child, she knew better than to interrupt them when she should have been asleep.

  “Please, we must go,” her father begged.

  “I will follow you,” her mother said at last. He released a long exhale of relief. “But if what you say is true, then the Shadow must be out there.”

  “For that, I have prepared. I’ve made cloaking amulets for us all,” he said.

  Dyna heard a faint clink. She pictured him removing the lid from the ceramic bowl he kept on his cluttered desk among the dusty magic books.

  “Luna reeds. Where did you get these? They only grow in Magos.”

  “Aye, and they were difficult to acquire,” he said. “Here, take two. It masks everything but sound. As long as you’re quiet, you’ll be safe. Go for Leyla while I wake the children.”

  Her mother’s thudding footsteps ran out the front door, off to collect Grandmother Leyla. “No, we should not separate!” Dyna shouted. “Come back!”

  Her younger self backed away from the door and tucked baby Lyra in the woven shawl wrapped around her shoulders.

  The door swung open, and her father entered. Dyna inhaled a breath at the sight of him, stifling a sob. She reached out her shaking hands, calling him. “Father, see me. Hear me, please.”

  Dressed in furs and thick wool, he carried a large canvas pack strapped to his back. He brushed his unruly red hair aside, his face set with calm determination. Her father was not tall or strapping, but he was a man of repute in North Star, among the rare few who wielded magic. He would keep them safe. Her younger self had believed it so thoroughly she smiled.

  Foolish girl.

  “You need to run!” Her screams went unheard.

  His astute green eyes swept around the room as he accounted for all his children. “Dynalya, are you ready?” He smiled, but she read the urgency in his gaze.

  “Yes, Father.” Her younger self pointed at the two small travel bags packed and perched by the bedroom door.

  “Good lass.” He held up three necklaces of dried, white reeds. From each hung a circular pendant made of polished wood. “These are Waning Amulets infused with the magic of the moon. It will cloak you from the demon.”

  A foreign spell. One he must have found within his many magic books. The rune for concealment marked each amulet: a single line connected with an inverted triangle on both ends. It matched the one he already wore.

  He handed her two of them. “Be sure to wear it.”

  Young Dyna nodded, stroking the smooth grooves of the carving with her thumb. She placed the smaller amulet over Lyra’s head to rest on her chest.

  “Dress warm,” he ordered. “I’ll wake Thane.”

  Dyna backed up against the wall, knowing what was coming. Her father turned toward her brother when a frigid chill blasted through the room. It extinguished the fire, leaving behind mere wisps of smoke. Her rapid breaths shot visible puffs into the air as it grew frightfully cold.

  Silver moonlight slipped in through the window, stretching wide across the wooden floorboards. It offered a brief solace in the dark—until a shape moved into its place.

  Dyna was suddenly her younger self again, impossibly small, and terrified. “Father …” she whimpered. “The Shadow is coming.”

  “Quiet!” he whispered.

  They kept still, but she dragged her gaze to the window. A black form filled the frame, akin to a man’s but large and misshapen. Tendrils of smoke and shadow swelled around its translucent profile. From its shapeless face were two eyes glowing molten red, flickering with flame. The amulet slipped through her shaking fingers and clattered to the floor.

  The demon’s eyes found her. They cut into her with an enthrallment, freezing her limbs in place. She was stone, and she was ice, locked within the walls of her consciousness. The frozen air crushed her lungs, snuffing out her screams. She drowned in desperation to escape. The cold grasp on her mind squeezed tighter and tighter.

  Her father snatched up the fallen amulet and dropped it around her neck. Its magic cut through the trance and released her. She sucked in a deep breath, air searing down her throat.

  The Shadow’s furious roar shook the foundation of the house to her bones.

  Dyna shrieked, stumbling into the rocking chair in a panic to run away. Her father took her face in his calloused hands and made her focus on him. “Hush now, Dynalya, you are safe,” he faintly. “As long as you have the amulet, it cannot see you.”

  She shook her head. It was too late.

  “Papa?” Thane sat up on his bed, rubbing the sleep from his face.

  The demon’s molten eyes snapped to the boy left unprotected. Thane’s expression dulled, mouth slacking as he fell under the Shadow’s trance.

  “No!” Her father’s cry raised the hair on Dyna’s neck.

  Time paused. The events around her slowed into a cruel rendition out of her control. No matter how many times she had seen this moment, or how many times she willed another outcome nothing changed.

  She screamed Thane’s name as her father lunged to save him. But the window shattered—and the Shadow came.

  Chapter 1

  Dynalya

  Shrill screams tore through Dyna’s throat. The terror wrenched her racing heart, threatening to tear it out of her chest. Adrenaline spiked through her veins, and blood rushed in her roaring ears. Hands grabbed her, holding her down. She thrashed and fought against them, screaming and screaming.

  “Hush, hush, sister! It’s me! I’m here!” The familiar voice slipped through the manacles of Dyna’s nightmare, snicked into the lock, and broke her free. “I’m here,” the voice soothed. “You’re safe.”

  Small, gentle hands came over Dyna’s cheeks. She looked up at her little sister’s face, the delicate features etched in concern. Lyra’s presence banished all shadows the way the sun banished the night.

  But even the sun had to set by the end of the day.

  Dyna broke into gasping sobs. She clutched her sister in a crushing embrace but Lyra didn’t complain.

  If only she could stop time and keep Lyra safe where no putrid darkness could reach her. But wishing would not amount to anything—a lesson learned long ago.

  Dyna inhaled a deep, shaky breath when her cries eventually quieted. She loosened her grasp on her sister and let her numb arms drop onto their bed.

  “Are you all right?”

  Dyna nodded and rubbed her swollen eyes. Sweat-matted strands of hair stuck to her temples, mounds of blankets tangled around her legs.

  Lyra sat back on her heels. Her red tresses, braided in two coils on her head, were coming undone at the seams. She was every inch their mother, the same cluster of freckles adorning her cheeks, the same heart-shaped face and tawny brown eyes.

  Grief swelled in Dyna’s throat as she fought the urge to weep again. Her sister was all she had left of her mother. She held out her arms, and Lyra readily fell into them.

  Dyna held her as she surveyed their bedroom. It was the same one of her dreams, but the window was clear of any shadows that didn’t belong. Beyond it, the dark sky lightened as dawn kissed the skyline of the Zafiro Mountains. No fire burned in the fireplace, save for a few cindering logs. Several melted candles peppered the ledges in the room. Trails of wax hardened where they had pooled in candleholders, thick runnels leaking over the edge of shelves, end tables, and any available flat surface. Anything to keep the darkness and the past at bay.

  Not much had changed in her bedroom. A small empty bed remained under the windowsill.

  Dyna looked away, swallowing the wave of emotion dragging through her. She could never bring herself to get rid of the bed. On the days she was exhausted or distracted, a mirage of her little brother’s sleeping form appeared to fill its space. Sometimes Thane’s laughter echoed on the hills outside, his cheerful voice calling out to his friends. It always sounded so real.

  “Was it the dark that frightened you?” Lyra asked, her small voice too laden to belong to a child of nine.

  Dyna didn’t know wh
at frightened her more. The dark? The past? Or the future?

  Lyra slipped out of her tight hug and hopped off the bed. She hurried to the desk covered in a disarray of books and scrolls, where one lit candle remained. With it, she relit the others one at a time until the room filled with a warm hue. Lyra beamed in satisfaction. She was a small gangly thing, in a white chemise falling past her knees. At her sweet smile, Dyna offered a small one back.

  “‘And then there was light,’” Lyra said, quoting the archaic teachings of the Sacred Scrolls. A saying their grandmother used to tell Dyna when her fear of the dark first started.

  The light lifted something heavy off her, and she could breathe.

  “Thank you,” Dyna murmured. Eighteen was much too old to have such a childish fear, but whenever she found herself alone in the dark, those red eyes always found her.

  Lyra tilted her head. “Was it the same nightmare again? About Mother, Father, and Thane, of the night they died?”

  Shards of memories cut through Dyna’s eyes, mouth and ears gathering into a broken pile on her lap. “Yes.”