As the Fallen Rise, page 1
As the Fallen Rise
As the
Fallen Rise
SADIE HEWITT
Copyright © 2023 Sadie Hewitt
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Developmental Editing by Jamie Johns
Copy Edit and Proofreading by Mozelle Jordan
Cover art by Daniel Schmelling
Layout and Interior Graphics by Megan Katsanevakis
Paperback ISBN: 979-8-9876432-0-4
E-book ISBN: 979-8-9876432-1-1
To my husband,
who spent countless hours watching me write
and supplied me with love and coffee.
My sisters,
who ripped this book up one side and down the other.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
PROLOGUE
Agnes
Year 1635
To any passerby, the cottage in the middle of the clearing was just another ordinary home. The timber exterior was patched together with heaps of mud and the thatched, matted roof was threatening to disintegrate under the constant drizzle of April rain. The pathway leading up to the cottage was merely trodden, dead grass and the gardening boxes overflowing with weeds. Even the local peasants had snubbed their noses at the hovel and turned away, not bothering to give a second look. As unassuming and demure as the outside was, however, the interior was the exact opposite.
The glow from the hearth was warm and inviting against the fogged, glass windows. A cauldron simmered over the open flame, the smoke swirling lazily around the dried herbs tethered to the thick beams that made up the ceiling. And despite the appearance of the crumbling roof, there was not a single drop of water leaking onto the dirt floor. A small bed was pushed into the far corner of the cottage, heavy quilts draped over the hay-stuffed mattress. Books lined the shelves, only a few of them older than the woman who was perched on the edge of a chair, her arms folded tightly over her chest.
Agnes was young even when compared to the others seated in her cottage. But, at the very least, she was still too old to be seated at the crest of the semi-circle of six males and one female, each representing a faction of daemons created by the Princes of Samsara, listening to the beings argue with each other like schoolchildren. She unraveled her arms, rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands.
“Allow us access to your lands,” a silver-haired male growled to another, his fangs threatening to strike as he bared his teeth. He leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees, his wool tunic shifting with the movement. “We’re being slaughtered. These humans have been emboldened by the Paladin Society. We need a safe-haven.”
The counterpart, a lithe, auburn-haired Fae with dark, leathered wings, simply rolled his brown eyes. Fingers steepled in his lap, his back had stiffened with the vampyre’s sudden shift. “Even if you could make it to any Fae gateway by the next equinox, I struggle to see how this is a problem that needs to land on the shoulders of my people,” he replied, his voice undertoned with a calm chill. His hands parted, one reflexively inching toward his left hip, where a short sword was typically sheathed in a leather casing. That is, if Agnes had not demanded its removal. “If the vampyres were better at disguising themselves, maybe they wouldn’t be getting slaughtered. You need to teach your kind to not be so…obvious in their hunting patterns.”
The vampyre male flared his nostrils, rage broiling within his blue eyes. He leaned back, his arms crossing over his chest, as he took in a long, frustrated breath. “The problem, Adair,” he spat the name as if it were acid burning his tongue, “is that if the humans are coming after us, they will soon be after you as well. We should consider banding together. There is only so long before the Paladin Society comes knocking on the Fae gateways.”
Phorcys, the sea-dwelling triton with fins of midnight jutting from each forearm, was slowly nodding his head. He leaned over to mutter something into the ear of the dragon shifter, Fuzanglong. The dragon shifter chuckled under his breath, the deep rumbling stirring the large pearl embedded in the center of his chest, which glistened under the firelight. The ghoul, Urzuc, seated to the far right of Phorcys, made an attempt to join the conversation, but Phorcys shoved him away with a quick flick of his wrist, while covering his nose in a failed attempt to rid himself of the rancid stench of decay emitting from Urzuc. The ghoul sat back, glowering at the two through cloudy eyes.
The Fae male, Adair, snapped his gaze over to Agnes.
“And what does he have to say about all this?” Adair asked sharply, the tips of his leathery wings twitching with irritation. “Surely, he can come up with some way to keep these vampyres happy.”
Agnes sighed through her nose, surveying the company gathered in her home before she answered. “You’ve known for the entirety of my four hundred and eighty-six years, Adair, that my equal in Samsara is Eligos. I’ve never had contact with him. It would be suicide.”
Adair bristled from her response, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Then surely, Eligos—”
“Surely, Eligos has enough on his plate dealing with Samsara rather than weighing in on council affairs,” Agnes interjected, running a hand over her dark, braided hair. She leaned forward in her seat, placing an elbow on her knee and her chin on her fist. “And, surely, we have no interest in getting the princes involved.”
The daemons sat in silence, weighing her words carefully. They knew what it would mean to summon a prince without permission— instant death for them and everyone they loved.
A spark of satisfaction shot through Agnes’ body. As council emissary to Samsara, it was her duty to relay information back and forth between each faction and act as a moderator or protector when the time called for it. The Princes of Samsara had not been to Earth for thousands of years due to the work of the Mage. Agnes intended to keep it that way.
Agnes rose from her seat and wove her way toward the cauldron that threatened to bubble onto the open fire. She reached into the hearth, stirring the cauldron three times with an iron spoon, whispering an incantation over the liquid within. The daemons watched her apprehensively, and she appreciated the power she held over them. It was rare for a woman in 1635 to have that sense of control. She cleared her throat.
“Adair, if you won’t open your lands to the vampyres, I cannot force you,” she started. Adair sat up a fraction taller. “But, you can use your influence over the humans to incline behaviors in a different direction while you’re outside of the Court of Wind and Storm.”
Adair narrowed his eyes. “What would you have me do?”
Agnes reached above her, snapping a piece of dried garlic from the bushel. Her nimble fingers peeled the outer skin before tossing it into the cauldron. The potion hissed in response, a billow of steam unfurling into the cottage. “Tell them…” she paused momentarily to stir the potion once more. “Tell them vampyres cannot stand garlic.”
Ryrreia, a succubus and the second female in the cottage, let out a throaty cackle of a laugh. Her black hair slid across her shoulder as she arched her back, thrusting her breasts out to rub along the vampyre’s upper arm. “Do you hear that, Darragh? Garlic.” The words came out like a feline purr, her full lips pouting as she surveyed him through hooded eyes.
Darragh, ignoring Ryrreia completely, despite her hand running up his inner thigh, gaped at Agnes in disbelief. “You’ll bet the future of vampyres on summer asthma?”
It was Agnes’s turn to bristle. “Don’t be foolish, Darragh.” She reached into the hearth to stir the potion for a third time. “I’m seasoning them for you.” She looked over her shoulder to wink at the vampyre male who drew back a small smirk in return. “Besides, sophistry works wonders in protection against humans. Not everything requires a violent response.” She turned back to the cauldron, grabbed a glass bottle off the mantle, and pulled the cork from the rim. Slowly, she lifted the iron ladle and poured a portion of the contents into the bottle. The liquid was viscous, similar to honey, and smelled like a pot of beef stew that had cooked for too long.
“Here,” Agnes stated, shooing Ryrreia away from the vampyre and straightening her arm to hand the bottle to Darragh. He took it hesitantly, wrinkling his nose at the look of it before tilting his head back and downing the contents as if it were a pint of ale, shuddering softly.
“And that was?”
Agnes picked up another bottle, emptying a full ladle of potion into it before pushing the cork back in. “So you won’t burn during the daytime. I’ll bottle up as many as I can. Distribute them to vampyres you meet along the way. So long as my magic endures, whoever takes the potion will be safe from the sun. That should dissuade Paladin from hunting the ones immune, at the very least.”
Darragh looked at her in wonder. “How—how did you?”
She brushed him off. While most locals referred to her as a witch, she preferred the term, Mage. A Mage with magical abilities passed down from mother to daughter through her bloodline, thanks to the King of Samsara himself. Abilities to tap into the energy of the earth and use it to protect the daemons: devils and djinn, vampyres and shtriga, the fae, wolf shifters, sirens, dragons, ghouls, and succubi. There was only one Mage at a time—could only be one Mage at a time. Nature determined the rising after the previous one passed on. There had been a short twenty years between herself and her predecessor, though there was nearly two hundred years before that.
“His kind can go in the sun,” the wolf-shifter male, Gawin, growled with a thick finger pointed accusingly at Darragh, “but still nothing for the wolves? We want the ability to shift at any time, not just the equinox. You’ve known this for centuries now, Agnes.”
Agnes stilled. These creatures lived on the precipice of war at all times, mandating a balancing act that she learned to walk over the centuries. She had momentarily forgotten Gawin was in the room and would have never flaunted her ability in front of him had she remembered.
“Your kind,” Darragh shot back, swatting the man’s hand away, “isn’t being hunted to extinction. Your kind—” he paused for dramatic effect, “just needs to stop breeding like the rabid dogs you are.”
The shouting between the daemons started again, the cycle only broken for short bouts of time. Agnes let out an audible sigh, dropping the ladle into the cauldron with a clank and pocketing a glass bottle of potion. She had been hoping this cycle would last more than thirty minutes.
Agnes lifted her fingers to her mouth and let out a sharp whistle, one that she knew would be painful against the sensitive ears of the daemons. The room quieted instantly; all sets of eyes turning to look at her. “I think we all need to take a breath,” she announced, reaching for the door behind her and yanking it open with authority. “Each of you need to exit my cottage and keep fifty paces away from anyone else. Count to three hundred, then come back inside.” Her tone was sweet, yet firm. Children, indeed.
There was a pregnant pause before the daemons began to stand, one at a time, grumbling under their breath as they passed Agnes on their way over the threshold. Darragh and Adair exchanged shoves as they attempted to cross through the doorway at the same time.
Agnes managed to suppress her eye roll before she closed the wooden door with a snap behind them.
She could still hear the muffled arguing outside of the cottage, and she felt her teeth clench with impatience. She needed to open a window. She needed to take a breath of fresh air. She needed to remove the stench of Urzuc, the ghoul, from her cottage.
She wound her way through the empty chairs to the back door, that faced the forest. Her fingers clasped around the wooden handle as she pulled it open, feeling a rush of relief as the chilled air hit the exposed skin of her face and forearms. The sheen of sweat that had collected in a thin layer dried almost instantly, and her skin pebbled under the abrupt shift in temperature.
“I know you’re there,” she called into the darkness, her breath swirling in the cool mist in front of her, “May as well come out now.”
A moment passed by before she heard the crackle of dead leaves under feet and the rustle of branches being parted by hands. A tall, muscular man emerged from the thicket nearest the door. Agnes smiled at him as she leaned against the door frame; a smile that she knew he could still see even with the clouds covering the moonlight.
He walked toward her, a swagger in his step that she had become accustomed to over the past seventy-five years. He cocked his head at her as he approached, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his waistcoat.
“How did you know it was me?” He asked in his Irish brogue, with a grin that lit up his handsome features.
Agnes surveyed him, her gaze raking over his green eyes, his dark hair that was pulled into a short ponytail at the base of his neck.
She let out a snort of derision that any noble, human or otherwise, would have considered unladylike. “The first council meeting in thirty years? I knew you would be eavesdropping the moment it was announced.”
He feigned astonishment, placing a large hand on his chest. “How was I supposed to know there was a council meeting tonight? I haven’t been near another vampyre in three years.” He paused to look up at the sky, a few stars managing to peek between the break in the clouds. “What did our fearless leaders have to say for themselves this time?”
Agnes ignored him, fishing into the folds of her apron. She snapped her fingers to get his attention before pressing the glass bottle into his hand.
He pinched the bottle between his forefinger and thumb, bringing it up to eye level. He stared at it warily for a moment.
“Is this that sun potion you’ve been working on for the last few months?” he asked, his eyes narrowing as he continued his stare-down of the vial. “Because I’ve had about enough of your experiments. After that last one you gave me, I had blisters for weeks on my—”
“Yes, Cian,” Agnes interrupted, her arms crossed over her chest. “This is the sun potion I’ve been working on. And it will work, I promise.” Or she hoped it would work. She was sure she would hear from Darragh if it didn’t.
He tilted it toward her as a toast. “To your good health, then.” He tipped the glass back and Agnes watched as the thick liquid slid into his mouth. He gagged, his hand darting upward to cover his nose. “God, that taste is otherworldly.” He shuddered as he recovered, and pointed a finger toward Agnes. “If I get any more blisters, I’m coming after you.”
She sent him a sly smile, pushing herself off the door frame with a shrug of her shoulders. The raised voices around the corner of the cottage were only getting louder. It was time to intervene once again. “I look forward to seeing if you have those blisters or not, then.” She reached into the folds of her apron for a final time, pulling out a handful of vials she had prepared for this moment. She knew Cian would turn up. He was too nosy not to. “Hand these out to others you may come across. It should protect you from Paladin for the time being.” She looked toward the forest, the depths concealed between the thick tree line and the night sky. She had heard they were in the area, more than likely looking for her.
Cian raised his hand to his brow in a mock salute that made Agnes truly roll her eyes. “Until next time then, Mage.” He returned her expression with a darkened smirk of his own before slipping back into the thicket, disappearing into the black.
ONE
Greer
Present Day
Greer Myers stepped from her Jeep Wrangler, the gravel driveway crackling beneath the sandals donning her feet. The humid, summer heat was brutal under the mid-afternoon sun. It was only made bearable during her two-hour drive by the wind howling through the open windows. She desperately needed to repair the air conditioning in her vehicle, but was lacking the financial means to do it.
She would rather suffer the mid-summer consequences than admit to her mother that she needed the help.
Greer let the door snap shut behind her, adjusting the canvas bag she had pulled onto her shoulder before exiting the car. Perspiration trickled between her shoulders, soaking into the back of her tank top. She felt the sweat everywhere—the bridge of her nose where her sunglasses sat, the fringes of her hair that were plastered to her brow, the backs of her thighs beneath the knee-length, flowy skirt that was donned with flowers and greenery.
She pulled a claw clip from her bag and twisted her hair around her finger, securing it with the clip at the back of her head. Her neck felt immediately cooler with the removal of her wavy, brown locks.
