Forged, p.1
Forged, page 1
part #4 of The Grey Gates Series
FORGED
The Grey Gates – Book 4
Vanessa Nelson
Copyright © 2023 Vanessa Nelson
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction.
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Reproduction in whole or in part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.
Find out more information about Vanessa Nelson and her books please visit: https://www.taellaneth.com/
With grateful thanks to my fabulous beta reader, Maia,
whose insights have improved all of my books – thank you for your patience and unfailing good humour.
Contents
1. CHAPTER ONE
2. CHAPTER TWO
3. CHAPTER THREE
4. CHAPTER FOUR
5. CHAPTER FIVE
6. CHAPTER SIX
7. CHAPTER SEVEN
8. CHAPTER EIGHT
9. CHAPTER NINE
10. CHAPTER TEN
11. CHAPTER ELEVEN
12. CHAPTER TWELVE
13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
15. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
16. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
17. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
18. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
19. CHAPTER NINETEEN
20. CHAPTER TWENTY
21. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
22. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
23. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
24. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
25. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
26. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
27. CHAPTER TWENTY-
THANK YOU
CHARACTER LIST
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chapter one
Abitter wind cut through Max’s sweatshirt and loose-fitting, lightweight trousers, reminding her that winter was on the way. She should have put an outdoor coat on, but it hadn’t seemed worth the effort of struggling to get a narrow sleeve over the finger-to-elbow cast that held her dominant hand and wrist immobile. She hadn’t intended to be out in the garden for this long, and hadn’t even bothered with socks, shoving her feet into unlaced, calf-length boots.
The small altar in her garden now gleamed, thanks to her little bit of outdoor work. The leaves that had covered the shallow metal dish had been removed and the old, clouded water replaced so that the beaten surface of the vessel shone in the morning light.
Even though she was cold from her uncovered head to her toes, it still felt good to be outdoors, with fresh air against her face. She paused for a moment, staring down at the altar and feeling some calm seep into her. The altar was simple. Nothing more than the metal dish sitting on top of an old wooden stool. The local birds liked to use it as a bath from time to time. Max was reasonably certain that the Lady wouldn’t mind. The Lady was supposed to love all creatures, no matter how small or humble. Max had never been quite sure about the extent of the Lady’s affection, but she could use some of Her peace just now.
She turned back to the house, boot laces flapping as she walked.
A pair of giant dogs ran past her as she headed for the kitchen door, caught up in some game that only they knew the rules to. Max smiled, watching her shadow-hounds play. Cas and Pol were in their everyday forms, short coats gleaming in the weak sunlight. They seemed to be taking it in turns to chase each other, making a full circuit around the house before Max had reached the door.
As she pushed the door open, the dogs barked. She stopped at once, turning to look for them. The barks had been sharp, calling for her attention. Something had interrupted their play. They were all business as they ran back around the corner of the house, attention going along the drive, past her battered pick-up and to the road.
It didn’t take long to spot what had alerted her dogs. A small convoy of vehicles pulled to a stop outside her gates. Three cars, sleek and dark and bristling with magic.
She stayed where she was, dismay turning her stomach. She recognised that magic, and its presence here was not a good thing.
A twinge of pain in her arm reminded her that the bones were still healing. It had only been two days since she’d woken up in hospital, still healing from a hard fight with a demon and a descendant of the dark lord who had been intent on performing some kind of dark magic ritual. She’d managed to stop them - with help - but had needed not only conventional medical treatment but a healing magician.
One of the first things she’d seen on waking up in the hospital bed had been a flower arrangement and a card sent by the High Priestess, letting Max know that the Order was expecting her back. Max had ignored the command. The High Priestess might be in charge of the Lady’s temples and all Her workers across the city, but she wasn’t in charge of Max. Not anymore. And the Order of the Lady of the Light had no claim on her, either. Eight years before, Max had closed the Grey Gates, sealing the dark lord into His realm. Her reward for her efforts had been for the head of the Order to dismiss her, call her a liar, and send her out into the world with nothing.
So Max had not followed the High Priestess’ command. She’d left the hospital and come back to her own home. She still needed time to heal, for her broken bones to finish knitting back together. Then she could get back to work. The work she had determined for herself. There was plenty to be done, including tracking down a demon on the loose in the city, but none of the tasks she’d set for herself involved meekly going back to the Order.
And yet, the three vehicles pulling up outside her gate all bore the familiar trace of Order magic.
For a moment, Max was tempted to turn around and go back inside the house. Pretend that she wasn’t home. But her pick-up was in front of the house, and anyone in the vehicles would have already seen her and her hounds. She did take a moment to grab a blanket from a hook on the back of the kitchen door, draping it around her shoulders, gathering it to her as she headed along the driveway towards the gates. It wasn’t elegant, but she didn’t care, and she tried not to care that she was still in yesterday’s clothes. The Order might be here to see her, but she didn’t need to invite them onto her property or look pretty for them. They could talk to her at the gates, and she needed the extra layer for warmth.
The doors of all three vehicles began to open, and Max halted in surprise. It wasn’t the Order that had come to visit her. Not precisely. Although pairs of Order warriors got out of each of the vehicles, the other occupants were priests and priestesses, including one very familiar figure. A tall woman with long dark hair held back from her face in a simple clasp and a stern expression got out of the middle vehicle, the ornate stitching on her grey robes reflecting the daylight. The High Priestess herself. There was nothing mundane like a winter coat or heavier boots for the Lady’s servants. Instead, Max was almost certain that the priesthood wove magic into their robes to keep them comfortable no matter what the temperature was. It allowed them to wear the simple robes year-round.
Max was again tempted to turn around and go back into the house. The High Priestess was near the top of the list of people that Max did not want to deal with right now. She held her ground. After Max had disobeyed the High Priestess, ignoring her command to return to the Order, Emmeline had chosen to come here rather than try to summon Max to one of the city temples or, worse, send her underlings to gather Max up like troublesome baggage. There had to be a reason for the personal visit, rather than another summons.
The High Priestess paused after she got out of the car, her eyes going past the line of vehicles. Max’s house was outside the city, far beyond where most people wanted to live. Barely half a mile away from the border to the Wild, the border clearly visible in the line of giant trees and tangled plant life, and anyone with magic sensitivity would be able to feel the heady magic of the Wild.
With the Wild so close to her home, Max had almost grown used to it. Like a giant, sleepy predator just outside her gates. She never forgot it was there, but she had learned to live with it. With a start, she realised that this might be the closest the High Priestess had ever been to the Wild. Emmeline had spent her entire life in the city, one way or the other. She would know about the Wild. Everyone did. But, like most city residents, she might never have seen it up close. Inside the city, particularly in its heart with its wide streets and beautifully crafted buildings, it was possible to pretend that the Wild didn’t exist, or it was just some far-distant thing that didn’t matter day-to-day. Out here, outside the edges of the networks of buildings and roads, it was impossible to ignore.
“How do you live with it so close to you?” the High Priestess asked. She had wrapped her arms around her middle, the first sign of vulnerability that Max could ever recall seeing from her. It made her seem almost human, almost ordinary. Just another city dweller awed by their first real sight of the Wild. And yet, Max knew that hint of vulnerability was not a sign of weakness, studying Emmeline while the High Priestess’s attention was elsewhere. She had skin as pale as Max’s own, untouched by sun, no grey showing in her dark hair. The High Priestess could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty, the fine lines around her eyes and mouth suggesting a higher age, but it was impossible to tell.
“You get used to it,” Max answered. She hesitated, then opened one of the gates, letting it swing wide, and took a step outside the fence. Her property was bounded by magical wards, but they were designed to deter supernatural predators, not people. The shadow-hounds that had come with her were far more effective against any people who might venture this far out of the city.
“Aren’t you worried about what happens when the Wild expands again?” Emmeline asked, turning to face Max.
Since it seemed a genuine question, Max took a moment to consider. “Yes and no. I don’t want to lose my house, but there’s nothing I can do about the Wild. If it expands, it expands.”
“We can’t afford to lose more ground,” the other woman said, her eyes back on the Wild. Her tone was soft, reflective, and Max stayed quiet. She’d heard that view expressed by a lot of different people over the years, particularly those who had been displaced or chosen to move following the last expansion of the Wild about ten years before. The great, sprawling city with its many districts and farms and green spaces covered almost all the land that its residents had left to work with, trapped between the coastline with the ever-present fog and the Wild. Even with the limited area, there was still a broad swathe of land between the city and the Wild that was almost uninhabited. A very few people - like Max - were prepared to make their homes there. Max couldn’t speak for the other outliers, but she valued the quiet and solitude far more than the press of people in the city. The constant reminder of the Wild was a small price to pay.
Max shifted her feet. She wasn’t as concerned about the expansion of the Wild’s effect on her house as she was about the effect on the city’s food production. The land set aside for farming was already working at full capacity. Losing any of that area would mean having to look for alternative places to grow food, or alternative means of production. The city had more than enough to feed its population just now, but if anything happened to the existing farms and greenhouses, there was a real risk that people would starve. Barely two weeks before, the city had been close to running out of fuel, the council forced to issue rationing orders. The protests had been widespread and ugly. Max didn’t want to find out what would happen if the food supply was interrupted.
“You look tired,” Emmeline said, catching Max’s attention. The woman seemed to have put aside her sadness and was frowning at Max.
“I’m still healing,” Max said, biting back a spike of irritation at the woman’s words. On the surface, there was nothing wrong with what the High Priestess had said. From some people, it would have been an expression of concern. But Max’s history with Emmeline was full of the older woman’s bitter disappointment and criticism. So she did not believe for one moment that Emmeline was expressing concern. Max knew she looked tired. She’d seen it for herself in the mirror that morning. The fine trace of scars across her skin had been more visible than usual, the planes and angles of her face looking more pronounced surrounded by the tangle of her reddish-brown hair. There had also been heavy purple shadows underneath her eyes. It was true that she was still healing, but she hadn’t slept well in the hospital. Too many machines beeping, too many people around, and too many memories threatening to surge into her mind if she let her attention drift for a moment.
“Walk with me. We need to talk,” the High Priestess said. She waved a hand, ordering her retinue to stay where they were, and moved forward, away from the vehicles and further towards the Wild. There wasn’t much more road to explore before the dark grey surface gave way to long grass and ground-hugging shrubs that gradually grew taller and denser towards the Wild.
Surprised both at the direction Emmeline had chosen, and the wish to talk, Max followed. Cas and Pol moved with her, heading out to either side, watchful as ever. There were magical barriers in place all along the frontier of the Wild, but they were not perfect, and the occasional supernatural creature slipped through. Max trusted her hounds to spot any danger long before she did.
The High Priestess walked in silence for long minutes, putting distance between them and the warriors, priests and priestesses gathered around the vehicles. Long enough for Max to regret not putting socks on with her boots earlier, or stopping to see if she could, in fact, fit her heavy coat over the cast on her arm. The cold seemed to grow as they moved away from the vehicles. They were almost at the end of the road when the High Priestess stopped, turning to face Max. She had folded her hands together in the sleeves of her robes, a favourite pose of many of the Lady’s priesthood, and was watching Max with an expression that she couldn’t read. Max gathered her blanket around her more closely, seeking a little bit of warmth.
“You haven’t gone to the Order,” Emmeline said. Rather than the sharp tone Max was used to, and had been bracing for, she sounded almost regretful.
“I told you. I did what was asked of me. And I was dismissed,” Max said, pushing down another wave of irritation. “The Order has no further claim on me.”
“We do have need of you, though.”
“That cannot possibly be true,” Max said, a disbelieving laugh escaping her. “The Order has plenty of far more powerful and capable magicians.”
“But none of them are you,” Emmeline said simply.
“There is nothing remarkable or special about me,” Max said. The words were out before she had time to think and she clamped her mouth shut before she could say anything else. She’d always believed that to be true. At least until recently. Even now, she knew that she was an unqualified magician by the standards of magic the Order used. She had never been able to master the complicated formulas and calculations that underpinned their spells. And yet, in the last few weeks she had managed to call powerful magic - light magic - more than once using her own anger and instincts. She’d been introduced to the idea that there were other ways of using magic, and come to the realisation that she might not be incompetent after all. There had been no time to practice it since her release from hospital. She had been thinking about it all the same, wondering what else she might be able to do if she didn’t have to perform complex calculations to use magic.
“You were graced by our Lady Herself,” Emmeline said, a frown gathered between her brows. “And She does not grant Her favour lightly.”
“I don’t believe you,” Max said, more bluntly than she had intended.
“You think I am lying to you?” the High Priestess seemed astonished by the idea, her voice higher than it had been.
“You may believe it,” Max conceded. “But I don’t.”
“Your very life is a gift from Her,” Emmeline said. Her face was in a tight expression that was familiar to Max. The High Priestess was both disappointed and angry.
“According to the temple’s teachings, all life is a gift from Her,” Max countered, her ears echoing with familiar refrains from her childhood in the orphanage. All the orphans had been cared for in that their basic needs for clothing, food and shelter had been met. If anyone had complained about the plainness of their clothing, or the lack of more than basic comfort, and some had from time to time, they were told in no uncertain terms that everything they had was a gift from the Lady Herself, and they should not complain about their good fortune. Even as a child, Max had been able to see that many of the teachers and workers in the orphanage had believed that. They believed in Her grace and kindness, and their duty to fulfil Her wishes in this world. Then there were others, like Emmeline, where Max had never been entirely sure if they truly believed in the words they said and the teachings they repeated. The Lady’s teachings offered hope to a population that badly needed it, with the constant pressure on resources and the ever-present threat of the Wild.
“You are ungrateful for the gift of your life? For all the effort and thought that went into your creation?” Emmeline asked, a hard edge to her voice.
Max’s brows lifted. This was new. Not the part about being ungrateful. She’d heard that before, along with lazy and stupid. But the idea that any effort or thought had gone into her creation was something she’d never heard before. The High Priestess’s words tugged at an open question in Max’s mind. All she had ever been told was that she had been given into the orphanage’s care as a newborn, her parents not wanting to raise her. Nothing more. She had asked questions, growing up. Everyone around her who had been abandoned as babies had asked questions. All of them had, at one time or another, held a fanciful idea that their true families would reveal themselves. No one’s ever had. Those given to the orphanage as babies were rare, though. Most of the orphans had come into the Lady’s care as slightly older children and were grateful for the shelter and safety of the orphanage. As Max had grown up, she’d come to understand why. More than one child was there because one or both of their parents had died by violence, or there had been violence towards the children, or because one or both of their parents were addicted to some narcotic or another and had no attention or energy left over to care for their children. Those older children in particular had valued the order and routine of the orphanages and the Lady’s temples.
