Edge of Pathos (Book 4 of The Conjurors Series)

Chapter 1

Valerie and Henry walked together to Babylon, not saying a word. She carried an urn with the ashes of the fallen flowers from her father's garden, since they couldn't bury his body. 

Henry's mind had been shut tightly against her in the three weeks since Oberon had died, but now, for the first time, some of his emotions leaked out. At the taste of his grief, Valerie couldn't repress a little sob. Henry gripped her hand.

"He's with Mom, in the ether," Valerie said when she was sure her voice wouldn't shake.

"If you believe in that stuff," Henry said.

Valerie didn't reply, but she did believe. She had been at her father's side when a burst of power had been released into the universe at his death. He was somewhere, or everywhere, and that thought was the only thing that kept her grief from crippling her on some days.

Henry pulled aside a screen of vines, and they stepped into the most stunning spot in the universe. But its beauty was the painful kind, a reminder of times too sweet to last, like when their father had locked this place away from the world so it could be his private Eden with their mother.

They walked up the tiers of flowers and stopped at the top, where the view overlooked a huge lake. Valerie opened the urn, and the ashes drifted out.

"He might not have been perfect, but he was ours. He tried," Henry said, pressing his lips together as if that would stop a deep, unnamed emotion within him from escaping.

"Goodbye, Daddy," Valerie whispered, not bothering to wipe her tears.

Then she let herself sob for the first time since Oberon's death a few days ago. Henry held her as her body curled in on itself. He shook with tears of his own, and through their connection, Valerie knew that he was reliving the loss of his dad on Earth, Joe.

Finally, their tears dried up. Valerie was hollowed out, but drained of the poisonous grief that sucked all of the joy out of her soul.

"We'll have time to grieve again," Henry said. "When all this is over."

Valerie couldn't meet his eyes as she replied. "Maybe, if we survive. But for now, back to war."

Valerie's life was barely recognizable from what it had looked like even a month before, when she'd been strategizing and preparing for battle. Now, there was no time for planning, only fighting. Not that she was complaining.

Fighting was easy, numbing, even with Earth's rules binding her magic. Lucky for her, there was no shortage of opportunities to wear herself out hitting and slashing through the legions of Fractus who had emerged like cockroaches since the barrier between Earth and the Globe had been shattered, and travel between the two worlds was as easy as breathing, for those who knew how.

Today, she was in a remote town in Chile, leading a small team of soldiers from her army, the Fist, in a standoff with about a dozen Fractus. Cyrus was by her side, as well, and they fought back-to-back.

Valerie punched a Fractus in the gut with the speed and grace of a leopard. He fell, smacking his head into the hard asphalt of the road on which they fought, but as he did, he slashed at her leg with a broken piece of glass, and blood ran down her shin. Before he could get another thrust in, she jammed her heel into a sensitive spot in his neck, and he was instantly unconscious.

Blood ran down her leg into her shoe, and the pain was too sharp to ignore. She could keep going, but she wouldn't bet her soldiers' lives on it.

"Fall back!" she called, struggling to her feet.