A Battle of Blood and Stone (Chronicles of the Stone Veil 4)

“So,” Myles drawls as he leans forward and rests his arms on the table. His attention is solely on Carrick. “If I understand you, the Blood Stone is necessary for Kymaris to pull off her ritual to take the veil down and we want to get it before she does.”

“Correct,” Carrick says.

Myles gives a side-eyed glance at Lucien before continuing. “There is a Light Fae stuck inside the stone, so not only do we want to steal it, but we need to do so in a way that protects her so she can be freed?”

“Exactly,” Carrick agrees.

“Then you’re going to have to fool Micah in some way, because the minute he knows your real reason for being there, he’s going to either protect the Blood Stone through vicious means, or, worst-case scenario, he’s going to kill Charmeine to spite Lucien.”

“That’s our dilemma,” I pipe in, and all heads turn my way. “We’re going to have to take it by force, but we need to go in subtly.”

“Maybe it would help if we knew more about the realm,” Myles suggests, giving his full attention to Lucien. “Think you can describe the details to us?”

“I can grab the easel and a large pad of paper for you to draw it out for us,” Rainey suggests helpfully.

Lucien straightens in his chair. “No need to draw it. I can show you in a different way.”

I know demi-gods are powerful and that they are holders of great magic, but Carrick doesn’t use his often, so it’s a shock when Lucien does a short wave of his hand before him and what looks like a 3D holographic image appears before him. It’s a mountainous region bordered by an ocean the lightest blue I’d ever seen.

Lucien pushes his hand forward, and the image floats to the middle of the table so we can all see it. He begins to talk and as he does, it rotates slowly so those on both sides of the table can get a good view. As I watch it, I realize it’s actually a large island.

“This is the realm that Micah and Charmeine created not long after the meteor came to earth,” he says in a low voice, and I can tell by his tone that he hates telling this story. He memorialized it once and it endured through time, but I suppose telling a group of people, some who are strangers, can’t be easy. “They didn’t name it as they couldn’t agree on anything that did justice to its beauty. They modeled it after the area of the Earth realm where they were living at the time called Thera, which is now known as Santorini in Greece. They did invite others to come live with them, giving no prejudice to whether they were fae, daemon, or human. They created their realm to resemble Earth as closely as possible, and they lived there harmoniously for thousands of years. Their magics were powered by two meteor-stone objects they were in possession of—a black jeweled rock that was set in a gold necklace and a rough-cut chalice made from a large piece of the stone.”

“It’s beautiful,” Rainey breathes out as she watches the island rotate, and I’m sure no one at the table disagrees.

In a flat voice, Lucien succinctly describes his visit to the realm and how he and Charmeine fell in love with each other. He doesn’t go into the details, but skips straight to Micah’s rage and how the realm was destroyed.

With a wave of his hand, the beautiful island changes. The ocean dries up to nothing but black sand. The flora and fauna wither away and the mountains break apart into craggy, jutting pieces. The skies darken but on the distant horizon of where the ocean waters had once been, a river of lava meanders closer to the shore. It hisses and steams as it cuts a swath through the black sand where it runs up to the base of the center mountain and starts to flow upward. The mountain cracks, pulls apart, and the lava disappears inside it. Ice forms at the tops of the rocky mountain peaks, and you can hear the wind whistling shrilly across the deadened land.

I can’t stop myself from imagining how cold that desolate realm is now, despite the river of lava that flows to it.

“Micah destroyed the beautiful realm he and Charmeine created, killing every inhabitant except Charmeine. He gave her one chance to forsake me and when she didn’t, he trapped her in the black jewel and sealed her in it by dipping it in the lava—known as the Crimson River—that had been pulled forth from the Underworld. The jewel turned blood red, and he affixed it to the chalice. It was no longer two objects but one, and was simply known as the Blood Stone. Some legends called the chalice itself the Holy Grail, but, to me, it is the object where Charmeine is held prisoner. I was cast out of the realm not long after.”