The Hour of Dust and Ashes

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Authors: Kelly Gay
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, adventure, Fantasy, Contemporary
anyone. She’d want me to do this.”
    “Do what exactly?”
    Sian was still mourning the death of Daya Machanna. And Tennin had no idea his involvement with the Sons of Dawn and Llyran had resulted in the death of someone Sian had loved. Their relationshiphad been a secret: totally forbidden, since Sian was a jinn and Daya was an Elysian whose life force had been sucked dry and stored in Solomon’s Ring along with Aaron’s and those of the others Llyran had murdered. All to raise the Star, the First One …
    “I’m in the perfect position to keep an eye on my father.”
    I stopped chewing and considered her words.
    In the end, I didn’t think it was my place to deny her the opportunity to get some closure for Daya’s death, and if this was how she wanted to do it … “I wouldn’t want you to play spy. No riffling through his things or anything. But if you want to take a mental note of who comes and goes, keep your ears open, learn his routines … I think that would be okay. You’ll have to clear it with the chief.”
    “I’ll talk to him as soon as he comes in. I can tell you already that he’s the one who hired the Pig-Pens to go after you at the club last night. One came early this morning to report to him, and she mentioned the sidhé fae you asked me to research, but neither she nor my father seemed to know why they were in the club. They think the fae are also after the sarcophagus.
    “My father doesn’t believe it was destroyed. He’s convinced you know where it is. Is he right, Charlie? Was it destroyed? Did you see inside?”
    “Yes.” Because of the absolute necessity, this particular lie was easy to tell and I was exceptionally convincing. “There was a sword and a bunchof bones. But I didn’t destroy them. I’m not strong enough to do something like that. The Druid King is, and he did. It’s done. Your father needs to accept it and move on.”
    “He’ll never do that. He asks me to find out, to listen to what you say, to follow you sometimes. He is angry over the loss.”
    Again, not surprising. But I doubted even Tennin himself knew exactly what rested inside. It had taken Llyran calling down the darkness and uttering the language of the First Ones to open the sarcophagus lid, and Tennin had never made it across the rooftop during the battle to see inside before Pendaran went dragon on his ass and took him down. Literally. Six feet into the pavement below.
    Only Pen, Hank, and I knew what really rested within the thick agate. No bones. No remains. But a perfect, black-winged being at rest, in some kind of eternal stasis, but able to plead, to somehow fill my head with her sorrow and make me feel a connection with her. We couldn’t destroy her. So we hid her at the bottom of Clara Meer Lake under the protection of the Druid King.
    “Charlie.”
    I jerked. “Huh?”
    “I said he is thinking, always thinking of ways to find out, to make you tell him.”
    I resumed chewing my bite of bagel. “What ways? Has he said?”
    “Not anything that makes sense. It’s mostly grumblings,bits and pieces of his thoughts. My father is very careful, he will think of every angle, every outcome, every way his actions might affect him and his goals. He is only rash when there is no time to be anything else.” The corners of her lips turned down. “He is more of a beast to live with than usual. Maybe we can give him some kind of proof that the tomb was destroyed. Maybe that would put an end to his obsession.”
    I mulled the idea over. “Maybe,” I said quietly, dragging another bagel out of the bag. “What’s the latest on the
ash
victims?”
    “All the bodyguards reported in at noon. So far everyone is accounted for and safe.”
    “Good. Any luck on the exorcists?”
    “None. No one will come after the warning went out from the union.”
    I polished off the third bagel and pushed away from the desk, heading to the small corner kitchen for a bottled water. After a long drink, I leaned against

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