Page 8 of The Stone Survival
My scalp pricked because I remembered Carter and Lionel telling me about a curse. One that gave the guardians the power to fight the gray at the costs of their souls. The shedim must have been the powerful force they’d mentioned, but did Carter and Lionel know that? That the shedim were the force. All Carter had said was that it was classified information.
“But a curse can only be activated if something terrible is done,” Ivor said. “It was agreed, by all a parties, that the sigma leader of the gargoyle army would be the one to activate this curse. He was bound by magic to his battalion so that the curse would strip his entire battalion of their souls, leaving their bodies free for the shedim. But to activate it, this sigma was forced to sacrifice his mate.”
“Sacrifice?” Shar said. “How?”
“He killed her.” Ivor blinked slowly. “She agreed to the sacrifice, knowing it was the only way to save her world and keep her son safe. They had one last night together, and during their lovemaking, he thrust a blade into her heart.” Gasps filled the room, and my eyes heated with the threat of tears. Ivor quickly continued. “It was a blessing that the curse took the sigma immediately too, stripping his soul from his body and allowing him to reunite with his mate in the afterlife. Their sacrifice allowed the shedim to claim the battalion.”
“They became the graynites,” Curi said softly.
“Yes. Five graynites were chosen from five bloodlines and tasked to carry the energy of a mystical detonator to the rift. The covens sacrificed their strongest witches to create the implosion device. With a battalion to pave the way, they were able to use it to implode the rift and seal it. They gave their lives, and their sacrifice blessed their bloodlines with the ability to end the graynite who’d sparked the curse. The alpha…”
Which meant… “You’re the alpha, so…you’re a sigma, the one who killed his mate?”
He was also Lionel’s father, so…Was that why Lionel hated him? For killing his mother? Did he understand the truth of what had happened? Of course not. The truth wasn’t something we were told. It had been altered over the years. The narrative changed.
Ivor watched me process before speaking. “Yes, I am the alpha, but I amnotthe sigma who killed his mate. I am the shedim who claimed that sigma’s body.”
“Fuck…of course,” Levi said.
So what did that make me? Was I shedim, goyle, or graynite?
“The curse created by the witches had an unexpected effect,” Ivor continued. “It attached itself toeverysigma in existence and all that have been born since. But the sigma gargoyles weren’t the only ones affected by the events. Creating the implosion device killed not only the thirteen witches taking part in its creation but hundreds more. In the days and weeks that followed, witches dropped dead. There are only a handful of their kind left now. The covens gone. The power all but dead.”
“So what happened then?” Shar asked. “Once the rift was closed?”
“The five gargoyles from the bloodlines that closed the rift were supposed to kill me, thus freeing all the shedim. My people hoped to be free of these bodies and find a new home, but those plans changed once we’d seen the rift up close. Therewas evidence to suggest it was not natural, that someone, or something, had opened it from this side, and until we knew who, until we could be sure it wouldn’t happen again, it was agreed that we would remain. The relics my people guard cannot fall into the wrong hands. We had to ensure the rift stayed closed.”
“It was agreed?” Levi said. “By who? The council?”
“Yes. Your gargoyle council agreed that we would remain. But…over the decades, something changed. There were attacks on humans, and the council blamed us. And then…then we discovered the existence of other graynites. We knew it had to be related to the opening of the rift. Over the years, we tried to impress this on the council, but they refused to believe us. We are not of this world. Alien to them, and they chose to believe the worst of us. But the faction is real. And it seems that they’ve discovered a way to create graynites using sigmas, and there is no doubt in my mind that the people responsible are integrated into the highest positions in your gargoyle government.”
“You think the faction wants to reopen the rift?” Serath said.
“Yes. Five graynites closed it. Graynites fromspecificbloodlines, and from what we’ve learned, they have five graynites from those bloodlines too…at least they did until earlier today.” He looked at Serath. “We’ve slowed them down, but they won’t stop. They’ll either come for you or they’ll find another Halle sigma.”
“There are no others,” Serath said. “Not that I know of.”
But that didn’t mean much. “No one knew Romi was a sigma.”
Silence fell for several beats.
“Are you saying that the thing inside me was a shedim?” Serath asked.
“No.” Ivor sighed. “The shedim aren’t the only inhabitants of my old world. We have been at loggerheads with the infernals for centuries. These higher beings are travelers of worlds. Theyconsider themselves above us, better than us because they’ve created civilizations and left their mark in many realities. They believe they should be the relic keepers. Several must have been pulled through into this world when the rift was opened, but whereas we found the witches and offered to help close the rift, the infernals…well, I believe they may have allied with the faction who opened the rift.”
“You think they want to open the rift and take the relics,” Serath said.
“Yes. I believe so.”
So the faction was replacing gargoyle souls with infernal ones, using the curse to do it. “What do we do now? We can’t let them open the rift.”
“When the curse was created, there was an anchor. Me. This body.” He lightly touched his chest. “If the faction is planning to reopen the rift, if they’re making graynites using infernals, then they too will have an anchor, one that must have been created when the witches were abundant.” His gaze settled on each of us. “Your elite team will need to findtheiralpha and kill him.”
“Or her,” Shar pointed out.
Ivor inclined his head. “Or her.”
Silence fell as we all processed what he’d told us. But something niggled at me. Something he’d mentioned but then dropped. Oh, yes… “You mentioned a queen? The shedim queen?”
