Chapter 4: Mathias

I thought it was a dream. I was so sure I was simply imagining what happened when I opened my eyes I expected to see the familiar gray beams overhead, the slats sagging slightly under the weight of the thin mattress of the bunk bed above my resting place.

Shock took hold when all I saw was black, shining stone, arching up into darkness, faint glints of light casting back sparkles from the surface. And the temperature was moderate, mild. I was almost cold here, so accustomed to the blazing heat of my current home in Texas.

Which meant I had to believe the truth-I was not home any longer. And though this was ultimately what I wanted, when I turned on my side with an anxious grunt and spotted the red skinned, horned and amber eyed devils staring back at me, these circumstances weren't what I had in mind for my escape from Father.

Father...! What happened? I gasped a breath, more out of the shock of memory than my current state of affairs. A small, ancient looking devil stepped closer toward me, her grey brows bristling as she spoke.

"Who are you?" Her harsh tone did nothing to put me at ease. Who was I? I struggled to my feet, shaking from shock.

He was right. Father was right. About devils and hell and how we of the First were under attack by those who would destroy us. Those like these evil things surrounding me now.

How could Father have been right? And did that mean I'd been fighting the truth all along?

No, I'd lost my mind. I was trapped in some mental hell I'd created for myself out of daring to face down Father. He'd struck me and I was in a coma, living the lies my guilt and fear had

built. Surely that must be it. I was in my bed, in the bunkhouse, likely with Mother hovering over me, crying softly so Father wouldn't hear, my sister and brother clinging to me.

Surely...

"Answer the question, child." She still stared and I realized I had as yet to speak.

"Mathias," I said, amazed my voice sounded calm. My hands shook so badly I had to clench them as I looked around for a sign this was a head-trauma induced delusion and only met with the harsh faces of the very real devils staring at me.

"You're drach." She waited, expectant. I had no idea what that meant so I shrugged, shaking my head. I had a million questions spinning in my mind, but she wasn't real, so why ask anything? "And you're human."

Um... "Who are you?" Fair enough to ask, I thought, though I knew already. The devils of my guilt and Father's fears.

"Raethnn of the Daeva," she answered, and might as well have been spewing gibberish. She seemed perplexed by me and I had to say I felt the same about her. But the panic that initially ruled me was fading, along with my fear. I could accept this wasn't real. I could embrace the fact I was dying, possibly close to death. I looked around for the girl, the one I saw first, but she was nowhere to be found. A representation of my own youth, perhaps? Of my innocence? And here, before me, stood who? The sum total of my experience?

"I had no former knowledge of a drach/human hybrid pairing," the devil said, like that should make sense to me. "In fact, I had thought such pairings long ago deemed ill advised."

I waited, silent and confused. If she was expecting my help in this, she'd be standing there a long time since I had no clue what she was talking about.

"Raethnn." He was ugly to me, with his curving black horns and bitter expression. Rounded belly protruding, soft and unkempt. And he felt wrong, off somehow. Wait a minute. How would I know how someone felt? It was only then the burning inside me grew again and I realized this wasn't a dream.

Dear Father.

"Not now, Phygon," the devil Raethnn said, but he wouldn't stop speaking.

"Call the drach and be done with it," he snarled. "We have Reena's fate to deal with." He sounded eager, evil. I knew that tone, the undercurrent of malice. I'd heard it from other women in the cult, aimed at my mother, the only one of them permitted to bear Father's children. Sure,

he took them to his bed. But not one of them had ever been pregnant by him, forced to couple with his most trusted advisors for that gift. And they hated Mother for it.

This devil had that same desperate hate for whoever this Reena was. I pitied her. It wasn't easy to live with the weight of such envy.

Raethnn scowled at him but shrugged. "So be it." She waved at me. "I shall summon the drach and they will deal with you. But not before they answer for your disruption."

Father talked to me like that, with that dismissive anger that made me feel tiny and unimportant. I knew he did it on purpose, just like she did. And I realized then how much I despised being talked to in that manner.

I really, really hated it.

Rainbow light flared around me, my hands tingling from it as the thing that woke inside me back home in the worship chamber again flared to active life. But this time a gap didn't open in the world. Instead, my body pulsed with it while the group before me fell back with a gasp. Were they afraid of me? That fact buoyed me, made me feel powerful. I'd never felt powerful before.

I saw them for who they were, then, through the light of the rainbow. The petty, nasty, despicable natures they buried under their red skin, behind their glowing amber eyes. She was the only one who seemed different, but I refused to feel anything but contempt for them.

Devils, maybe. But nothing to be afraid of. Just the same old small minded backstabbing I was already accustomed to.

This power, whatever it was I'd gained control of, it filled me with a song I hummed out of sheer joy, letting it flow through me. Pressure bore down on me. I knew the flames flickering on the edge of my vision had to come from them, from the devils. Maybe if I knew what I was doing I could counter them, but it wasn't long before I was on my knees, panting, the rainbow extinguished.

For now.

"You dare attack the Daeva council!" Phygon surged toward me and slapped me across the face. I snarled up at him. Worse had been done to me. Like someone so pathetic could make me afraid after what I'd lived. "The drach can find him on their own," he spun toward Raethnn. "I would demand his life, but I know you would never agree. But he must be cast out. Now!"

Boy, a voice said in my head as her amber eyes locked on mine, go. Return to your people.

Before he gains support.

Did she just...? I shook, entire body vibrating as I regained my feet, power encouraging me upward. It was certainly not my idea, anyway. I was turning, something blacking out my vision as I was pushed firmly from behind. I stumbled, cried out, confused and lost, shivering as cold rubber brushed past me. When I reached out to catch myself, falling again to my knees, I could see once again.

No longer the cold, black stone of wherever I'd been, but the dusty, amber rock I remembered from my initial arrival. The sky overhead, tinted faintly orange, loomed full with three suns and a handful of moons that seemed far too close for comfort. I gaped up at them all, at the towering black mountain ahead of me, the slick glass surface ending in a flat top that appeared sheared off as if by design.

Devils walked past me, some staring a moment, most hurrying by. The suns appeared to be disappearing, more moons showing their faces. It was getting darker by the moment. I dragged myself to my feet, looked around at a complete loss. Any and all emotion died inside me, the surprise taking over again.

I almost laughed, knowing it was a shock reaction, that I was likely in some kind of fugue state. The fact this was actual reality hit me like a hammer blow between my eyes and I stumbled to the sidewalk and into a darkening alley way.

The cool stone was a great place to rest my aching head. I slipped to the ground and hugged my knees, trembling easing at last as I breathed through my open mouth and wondered what I was going to do. Lost, alone in a city so alien to me it might as well be hell, without any idea how to get home.

No, not true. Something saved me, something that felt like rainbow light, burning inside me, awake as if it had slept my entire life. Even the tingling sensation on my hand where Viviana touched me felt like a birthright I'd lost access to somewhere along the line. Father's doing?

More than likely. Which meant this rainbow power inside me was mine. That knowledge made me feel a bit better. Except when I tried to call it up, tentative and hopeful the shimmering, burning feeling might rise at my command, it was nowhere to be found.

So it had abandoned me, then? Left me to die alone in the land of devils. Father would be pleased if he knew.

They staggered from the shadows, their amber eyes sparkling, fire flickering around them as they laughed. And stopped suddenly to stare. Grinned. And came toward me with purpose.

Ill purpose.

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