Gathering Storm (The Salvation of Tempestria Book 2) by Gary Stringer (howl and other poems .txt) 📕

“Shall we seal it with magic, then?” Dreya asked.

“Absolutely,” Cat agreed.

The word had barely left her lips before Dreya stepped forward and kissed them. Catriona returned the kiss, tenderly at first, then with increasing passion.

Cat thought back to the first time they had done this. The night she lost Mandalee. She had been devastated, inconsolable. It was all her fault.

*****

Dreya was a revelation. Cat’s feelings had already started to surface, and she’d begun to realise how Dreya felt, too. The way she expressed it was unconventional and not everyone would understand, but that didn’t matter. That night, once Cat began to calm down and recover, they had shared something special, sharing not just their magic, but their bodies, too. That was the first time Catriona had seen the Faery woman beneath the robes, and a million things about her suddenly made sense.

There on her back, were a pair of tiny, vestigial wings.

Growing up with the Faery, Catriona knew that prejudice was not a uniquely human trait. Faery such as Dreya always took great pains to hide their wings – literally, because strapping them down was painful. Most modern Faery claimed to consider it barbaric, but still, if anyone ever found out, such individuals were often the object of scorn, bullying and discrimination. Therefore, they might well choose the pain of the strapping over the pain of rejection.

While Dreya never talked about her childhood, Cat could guess how it must have been. The stares, the comments, perhaps even violence. All of which the child Dreya had been powerless to stop. It was beyond her control. But the child had magic, and as the child grew up, she swore she would never be powerless again. She would be the Greatest Mage Who Ever Lived, and she would be in control of her life. Always.

“You are beautiful, Dreya,” Cat had told her. “All of you, everything about you is absolutely beautiful.”

“Flesh is fleeting,” Dreya insisted, “magic is all.”

“No, it’s not,” Cat disagreed. “Actually, I think a balance of the two is just about perfect.”

“With you here, I think you might be right,” Dreya accepted.

*****

That night was beyond anything either woman had ever experienced before. And after what they had agreed today, it would likely be some time before they experienced it again. This kiss would just have to sustain them both until then.

But this kiss wasn’t just a kiss. It was a kiss that sealed the binding magic, ensuring the promise could not be broken, except with another kiss to release her from it. From this moment, Cat would find ways to hide any hint of their relationship. Until they could meet again.

After a moment, the magic subsided, and they broke the kiss.

“How was that for you?” Dreya inquired.

“Magical!”

“And how did mine compare to the other one?”

Cat made a dismissive noise. “Pfft! The other one? That was just an essence transfer. It meant nothing.”

With one last, brief embrace, Cat took off towards Michael’s Tomb, and Dreya teleported back to the Black Tower.

Chapter 7

The ancient crypt lay on a rocky outcrop of the northernmost tip of Elvaria. Below, the ocean swelled and churned, while above the winds swirled and howled. The whole place looked ready to fall into the water with the very next gust of wind, the next raindrop, the next breath, yet it had stood unmoving for many hundreds of years. Some even said thousands, but that was surely impossible.

From her memory of seeing Michael on the Day of the Angel, his tomb seemed the perfect match for the Champion of the Gods himself. Made as he was, from all skin and bone, seemingly devoid of flesh and muscle, one would think he would be a fragile creature, ready to collapse at any moment. Yet, he was an imposing figure. Next to the shadow warriors, he was the most powerful being in the world and had endured longer than any other on Tempestria.

Catriona walked up to the large iron gates that served as the entrance, saying, “I, Catriona Redfletching, have come to free you from the bonds of death. I come here to break the rune seal that binds you to your prison.”

With a short wave of her hand, the gates and the mighty doors beyond them began to grind loudly open. Dust and debris flittered out from the now-gaping orifice. Silence rose to greet and envelop Catriona as she stepped inside.

She began to walk up the long staircase. Daelen had been very clear on this point: she must ignore the stairs leading downward to ‘The Wishing Well’ and instead climb upward, following the illuminated sign that read, ‘The Tower of Dreams.’

“I wonder if he does,” Cat murmured to herself. She’d never thought about it before.

Catriona did not dream. Not that she knew of, anyway. Her whole life, she had never once woken up with even the slightest impression of anything since she settled down to sleep. Cat didn’t value dreams the way others seemed to, so she didn’t feel she was missing anything. Still, if her life were like Michael’s – waking only to help Daelen tip the scales in his favour, in his recurring battles, and Fated to die at the end – it would surely be a mercy to at least dream of a life.

Or would that be even more cruel, she reconsidered? To dream of a life one could never have. Surely, that would make his real life a waking nightmare.

She made a mental note to discuss none of this with Michael when he woke, because either way, she didn’t think she could bear the answer.

The spiral staircase wound so high, the top was shrouded in darkness. Assuming it had a top.

“What if it’s like a bottomless pit,” Cat wondered, “only in reverse?”

She dismissed the idea. This wasn’t the time for flights of fancy. Thinking of which, flying seemed a much preferable option to all those steps, so she shifted to Tawny owl form, the better for