Panther Prowling Read online

  As I entered the temple, once again the similarity to an opulent palace struck me. A pale light illuminated the room. Evenly spaced pillars lined the chamber, and a cathedral-like dome arched overhead. Curtains shaded the walls, brilliant shades of yellow and red and pink and ivory. Embroidered in fine detail, the patterns were of trees and vines, and swirls depicting the moon and the stars.

  The raised dais against the back wall was littered with pillows of varying sizes, and tables around the room were covered with bowls laden with fruit, and platters of bread and meat and cheese. Benches offered the chance to sit, to take a break and rest or eat in comfort.

  One side of the great hall was set up as a weapons training area, and there, the Death Maidens sparred together, practicing their techniques. I had never been invited to take part—not on a regular basis—and I had the feeling the training mats were reserved for all of my sisters in the temple who were actually dead. I was the only living Death Maiden.

  Tonight only a few of the maidens were here. The others were probably off in their rooms or doing . . . well . . . whatever they did while I wasn’t around. Eloise was practicing her rolls on the mats—she was a tall, dark-skinned woman who had been a warrior during her life. And Mizuki, a Japanese girl, was playing a violin in the corner, her eyes closed as she guided the bow across the strings in a trill of fluttering notes. Fiona, as redheaded as Menolly, was playing a game of solitaire at a small table. All three of them jumped up when I came in.

  “Delilah! Greta said you would be visiting tonight.” Mizuki set down her instrument and lightly ran over to embrace me, the others right on her heels.

  I laughed and gave them each a hug. We’d come a long way from the first awkward meeting. I let them draw me over to the dais, where we dropped onto the pillows. Here they lived, and here they served the Autumn Lord, who came to them as lover and liege. Each, in her death, had been marked like I was—with the crescent sickle tattoo on her forehead, and the black and orange leaves tattooed up her forearms. When I died, I’d come to Haseofon, too, to serve with my sisters in the temple.

  “So how is the outer world? We heard about your trials in Otherworld.” Mizuki always seemed the most interested in what went on over Earthside and beyond. She was, I believed, the newest to be brought into the temple.

  “The war rages on. It’s horrible. Our father was killed. I had to guide the Elfin Queen through the veils.” As I quickly caught them up on what was happening—I had learned how to dish efficiently—Greta appeared from a door to the side. She motioned for me to stand.

  “We are always happy to see you, Delilah.” She slipped her arm through mine. “You must be wondering why I’ve summoned you here.”

  I let out a long sigh. “Honestly? I hope it’s not an assignment. I’m tired, Greta, and I really am not up to taking on anything I don’t have to.” I seldom was so blunt with my trainer, but Greta would know something was wrong. And truth was, I just wanted a break.

  “Rest your mind. No, tonight you will speak with your sister Arial. There are things you must discuss. Things that have come into their time.” She began to walk me down the hall and, at the sighs of dismay from the other Death Maidens, held up her hand. “Delilah will return soon enough for a coffee klatch. But now she needs to visit Arial. Come, girls, go back to your pursuits.”

  Greta led me down the hall leading to the bedrooms, then stopped in front of Arial’s room. “I will return when it’s time for you to leave.”

  Wondering what could be so important but not involve my trainer, I pushed open the door to Arial’s bedroom. My twin, she had died at birth and been brought to Haseofon. None of us had even heard of her till a few years back. And our father refused to discuss her or why our parents had kept her secret. Now he was dead and we’d never know why they kept her existence secreted.

  I wished that Camille and Menolly could meet her. One day, I was told I might bring Camille with me for a brief visit, but we hadn’t had that chance yet. But Menolly wasn’t allowed to set foot in the temple because she was a vampire. And outside the temple, Arial could only appear in her spirit form as her Were self—a beautiful ghostly leopard.

  I peeked around the corner of the door.

  Arial was sitting on the bed. We were almost identical, and from a distance it might be hard to tell the difference. But Arial’s hair coiled in long, brunette waves to her lower back. We were the same height, though she was thin and willowy where I was lean and muscled. But Arial didn’t bear the tattoos of the Autumn Lord, and she wasn’t a Death Maiden. Yet here she lived, serving the others by helping out where they needed her.

  She jumped off the bed when she saw me, the smile on her face exploding into joy. “Delilah! You came!”

  “Of course.” I laughed as she whirled me around in a bear hug. She smelled like cinnamon and cranberries, and I kissed her cheek, as happy to see her as she was to see me.

  “But why am I here?” I walked her back over to the bed and sat down. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m thrilled to see you, but what’s going on? Greta said you had something to tell me?”

  Arial closed the door and joined me. Her room was pink. Bubblegum pink. Arial liked ruffles and bows, and anything girlish that she could get her hands on.

  She nodded, her eyes wide and solemn. She reached out and took my hand. “Yes, Himself has given me permission to tell you.” She called the Autumn Lord Himself a lot. I wasn’t sure where she’d picked it up.

  “What then?” I settled myself down, waiting. Something was up or she wouldn’t be this tense. “Are you all right?” On the surface, my question made no sense, but considering things could—and did—happen to spirits, it really wasn’t so unusual.

  She took a deep breath. “I’ve been wanting to tell you this since we met, but Himself told me no, that it must wait until after . . .”

  “After what?” Now I was getting really worried. What the hell was going on, and since when had Hi’ran been whispering secrets to my sister? What did she know that I didn’t?

  “Until after I passed.” The familiar voice boomed through the air, low and deep. I whirled to find myself facing Sephreh—my father. His form wasn’t substantial, like Arial, but surrounded in a veil of mist. That meant he didn’t belong here at Haseofon. It wasn’t his home.

  “Father!” I jumped up and started to run to him, but then he held up his hand, a wan smile on his face, and I stopped in my tracks. “Father?”

  “Delilah, yes, I am here, but only for a brief time. I will join your mother in the Land of the Silver Falls soon, but I could not rest until I settled unfinished business.” He ducked his head, and his eyes sparkled in a way they hadn’t since Mother died.

  I inched back to Arial’s bed, fumbling to sit down. My mind was churning with questions and things I wanted to say, but I wasn’t sure if I should. So many things had been left unfinished with his death. Camille and he had barely begun to mend their relationship. He had only skimmed the surface of repairing his relationship with Menolly. And me? Well, Father hadn’t betrayed my love like he had theirs, but his belligerence to Menolly and Camille had definitely affected how I felt about him. When he’d been killed in the fall of Elqaneve, it left us all in a tailspin, not knowing how to feel.

  Sephreh turned to Arial, then me. “I ask you to relay a message to Camille and Menolly. Please, tell them I’m sorry. I failed them, and I can’t ever make it right, but I truly regret the way I acted. I ask for their forgiveness.”

  His voice, though faint, cracked with emotion and the shimmer of tears shone in his eyes. Father had been a soldier first and foremost. Before his marriage, before his children, he belonged to the Court and Crown. But now he was baring himself, stripping away the pride that had intervened between his calling and his family.

  “I wish they could be here, to hear you out.”

  “I wish so, too, but there are reasons I can’t journey
to them Earthside. So many things, I wish I could say, but the Hags of Fate stay my tongue, and destiny will play itself out as it needs to.”

  I wanted to cry. I wanted to shake him by the shoulders and ask what he was talking about. Instead, I turned to Arial. “Is this what you wanted me to know?”

  She shook her head. “There is far more. Father and Himself gave me leave to tell you. It’s easier for me to speak than for Father.”

  Glancing over at Sephreh’s spirit—he didn’t seem in a hurry to go anywhere—I bit my lip, then turned back to Arial. “Tell me.”

  “You asked him several times why he and Mother never told you and our sisters about me, about the fact that you had a twin.”

  Arial seemed so substantial compared to Father’s spirit, that I had to remind myself that she was also dead. But when we dug down to the core, given all the different realms and dimensions, did words like death and life really matter? Death was only in relation to the physical world. Father still existed; he was still here, just in another form. Unless one was obliterated—unless the soul was snuffed out for good, which only the gods and the Death Maidens could do—the essence lived on, transformed but still existing.

  I stared at Arial, and she gazed steadily back at me. “Yes, we all wondered. We had a sister and they never told us. I had a twin, and I never knew. Why keep it a secret? What good did it do?”

  She bit her lip, then shrugged. “When Mother was pregnant with us, she became very ill. She could have died. The healers were at a loss to figure out what was wrong. So Father did the only thing he could think to do. He called on the Autumn Lord—the only Harvestman he had ever encountered.”

  Father had summoned the Autumn Lord? I whirled around, and Sephreh gave me a soft nod, his face solemn. “You met the Autumn Lord?”

  He let out a long sigh. “Long ago when I was young and in danger for my life during a battle, the Autumn Lord came to me. He could have taken my soul then, but he gave me a choice. I could either repay him one day, when he chose, and he would let me live. Or I could go with him then. The payment wasn’t stipulated, and so I chose life, never imagining what the cost would be.”

  Arial continued. “When Father summoned the Autumn Lord, Himself told him that he would spare Mother’s life. He would make certain we were taken care of. One of us would die at birth, but forever live in comfort in his land. The other, she would be bound to him as a Death Maiden. If Father hadn’t agreed, all three of us would die in childbirth. The Hags of Fate had sealed Mother’s early death in her tapestry. The threads were woven. While this would only give her more time, not break her Fate, it would also give one of us—you or me—a fighting chance at life.”

  I stood very still. So both Arial and I had been handed over to Hi’ran at birth. Only Arial had actually died then. I had lived. And Mother—well, she had gained a few more years. Long enough to have Menolly, at least.

  After a moment, I turned to Father. “So you faced the Lady and the Tiger. Either give Arial and me to Hi’ran, one of our lives forfeit at the moment, or lose all three of us.”

  The thought crossed my mind that, if Hi’ran had promised Mother’s life for both Arial’s and my death, Father still would have paid up. I didn’t want to go there but I couldn’t shake the fear.

  Father reached out, stopping short before he touched my arm. “I know what you’re thinking. I know you think I would have sacrificed you and your sister for your mother’s life alone. That if I’d had the choice of only her in exchange for your lives, that I would have given you over like that. Admit it: You believe I would have struck a bargain.”

  I sucked in a deep breath. “Yes, I do. And in an awful way, I understand.”

  Sephreh straightened and looked more like the father I remembered when we did something wrong, when he was about to punish us.

  “Delilah te Maria, know this. Your mother was my light, but I would never have given you and your sister over to spare her life. On my honor as a guardsman. There would never have been a question. The only way I could save any of you, was to bind the two of you to Hi’ran. Otherwise, you would all have died right there, that day.” As he spoke, the truth of his words rang through the room. He meant it. He would have let Mother die to save us.

  I swallowed my doubt. “So we were marked from birth. And Arial . . .”

  “Himself made the choice who would die at birth, and who would bear the duty of Death Maiden. And in many ways, I do not envy you.” Arial smiled then. “My life here is pleasant. I come and go as I please, and I can leave in my leopard form to walk the earth. On the other hand, you have to fight demons and face death daily. I already passed through the veil—I will never have to face that fear.”

  I stared at her, thinking carefully. There was so much to mull over that it would take me weeks to sort out my feelings. “But why didn’t you tell us?” I turned back to Father.

  “I was bound to silence. The Autumn Lord refused to allow me to tell you until I crossed through the veils. He said it would upset the threads of fate, and the Hags of Fate would have been mightily pissed with him. He sealed my tongue so I couldn’t speak about it, and your mother’s, too.”

  “She knew, then?” I wondered what she had thought. It couldn’t have been easy knowing that her life had been spared thanks to Arial’s death.

  “He told her after the fact.” Father pressed his lips together and I had a feeling that was the only response we would ever get regarding Mother’s part in the matter.

  Leaning back on the bed, propping myself on my hands, I closed my eyes. What did this all mean? I wasn’t even sure how I felt, let alone figuring out how this was going to affect matters in my life.

  “And Shade? Was he part of this, even back then?”

  Sephreh moved a little closer, gliding over the floor like a true ghost. “Shade . . . I have no clue how he was brought into your life. Whatever dealings the Autumn Lord might have made with him, it was not part of my covenant. No, I only begged him for help to save your mother, and this is the result.”

  “But it was more than your plea.” Arial’s light voice trailed over his. “Don’t you see, this was part of destiny? The Hags of Fate decreed that Mother die early. Father saved her, for a time, but she still died young. When she crossed the veils, Himself allowed her to visit, to say hello to me, before she moved on to the Land of Silver Falls so she could get to know me. We had a lovely talk.”

  A shy smile flashed across her face. “I would have enjoyed growing up with her. I would have loved to grow up beside you and Camille and Menolly, but it would have changed our lives, and in doing so, it would have changed destiny. Things would not be as they are now—and right now, you are needed Earthside, to fight the demonic war. You would not have been sent there if I’d lived. All things in their own time. I was never meant to live a physical life, so don’t feel sorry for me. I love being here, and I have friends, and a purpose, and so it continues on.”

  Sephreh smiled then, the first time in ages I’d seen him appear so warm and happy. “I am so proud of all of you. I made mistakes—there’s no denying that, but you girls, you persevered in spite of my foolishness. You are the true warriors here. For all my talk of duty, I was a coward when it came to facing my personal life. I paid for it . . . and I will always regret it.”

  He began to walk toward the door.

  “Wait!” I jumped up, panicking. I couldn’t let him go—couldn’t watch him walk out of my life forever. Even though I had seen his body, he was here, now. And I wanted him to stay.

  He paused, turning. “Yes, my sweet Kitten?”

  “You can’t go just yet.” I had no clue what to say; there were so many things, but most of them seemed insignificant. I just wanted to keep him there a little bit longer, to talk to him just a little bit more.

  “Your mother is waiting for me, and I’ve said my piece. I’ve told you what you need to know.�
� But his smile was kind, and his voice comforting. “I love you, my Kitten. And I love your sisters, too. Please, tell them for me—and Trillian, too—I deeply regret how I treated him. Please, make them understand. I hope they can forgive me as time goes on. I never meant to hurt any of you, but I did, and I am so incredibly sorry.”

  I walked over to him. I wanted to hug him, to kiss him, but it would be like embracing vapor. Instead, I reached out, my fingers inches away from him. He rested his hand over mine, the weight of his misty touch almost unnoticeable.

  “I understand. Whatever anger I felt, I forgive you. So will they. We all love you, Father. And we miss you.”

  “That means everything in the world to me, girl. Then we have said all there is to say. I will give your mother your love. She and I will be waiting for you and your sisters, though I pray that day be long, long in the future.” He turned to Arial. “Arial . . . my love to you, too. And when you are ready to join us, when the Autumn Lord frees you, we await you with joy.”

  Before Arial or I could speak, he turned and vanished.

  I stared at the spot where he’d been, uncertain what to do. “How long have you known all this?” I asked, before turning around.

  Arial cleared her throat. “I knew from the time I was little. I wanted to tell you when we first met, but . . .”

  “But you couldn’t.” And I did understand. Both she and Father had been proscribed from speaking about it. Just like I couldn’t utter the name Hi’ran aloud—my mouth simply wouldn’t say the word—neither could they speak until they had been given leave.

  Feeling like my world had just been shaken to the four corners, I returned to Arial and sat beside her. And yet . . . what did it really change?

  “I don’t know how to feel about this.”

  “Just let the information settle. It will sort itself out in your heart. The only thing different now is you know the reason behind what’s happened with us. And you also know that Father regrets his actions. That has to be of some comfort.” She wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close. It was uncanny. Separated from me by worlds, by death itself, yet she was still able to comfort me.