Awakened

he had to, once again, placate Neferet.
    Kalona walked to the thick stone railing that was ornate as well as strong. He spread his huge, dark wings, but instead of leaping from the rooftop and tasting the night air, the immortal lay on the stone floor, closing his wings over him, cocoon-like.
    He ignored the coldness of the stone beneath him and felt only the strength of the limitless sky above and the ancient magicks that floated free and alluring within the night.
    Kalona closed his eyes and slowly … slowly … breathed in and then out. As the breath left him Kalona also released all thoughts of Neferet. When he drew in his next breath he pulled, within his lungs his body and his spirit, the invisible power that filled the night over which his immortal blood gave him authority. And then he drew to him thoughts of Zoey.
    Her eyes—the color of onyx.
    Her lush mouth.
    The strong stamp of her Cherokee foremothers that informed her features and so reminded him of that other maiden whose soul she shared and whose body had once captured and comforted him.
    “Find Zoey Redbird.” The fact that Kalona pitched his voice low made it no less commanding as he conjured from his blood and the night a power so ancient it made the world seem young. “Take my spirit to her. Follow our connection. If she is in the Realm of Dreams, she cannot hide from me. Our spirits know each other too well. Now go!”
    This leave-taking of his spirit was nothing like what had befallen him when Darkness, bidden by Neferet, had stolen his soul. This was a gentle lifting—a pleasurable sensation of flight that was familiar and enjoyable. It wasn’t sticky tentacles of Darkness he followed, but instead the swirling energy that hid in the folds between the currents of the sky.
    Kalona’s released spirit moved swiftly and with purpose to the east at a speed not comprehensible by the mortal mind.
    He hesitated briefly when he reached the Isle of Skye, surprised that the protective spell Sgiach had laid on the island so long ago could give even him pause. She was, indeed, a powerful vampyre. He thought what a pity it was that she had not answered his call instead of Neferet.
    Then he wasted no more time on idle thoughts and his spirit swatted away Sgiach’s barrier and let himself float down, slowly but resolutely, toward the vampyre queen’s castle.
    His spirit was given pause once more as it passed the grove that grew lush and deep and close to the castle of the Great Taker of Heads and her Guardians.
    The Goddess’s fingerprint was all over it. It made his soul quiver with a pain that transcended the physical realm. The grove didn’t stop him. It didn’t forbid him from passing. It simply caused him an agonizing moment of remembrance.
    So like Nyx’s grove that I will never again see …
    Kalona turned from the verdant proof of Nyx’s blessing on someone else and allowed his spirit to be drawn to Sgiach’s castle. He would find Zoey there. If she was sleeping, he would follow their connection and enter the mystical Realm of Dreams.
    As he passed over its grounds he glanced with approval at the human heads and the obvious battle-ready state of the ancient place. Sinking down through the thick gray stone that was speckled with the sparkling marble of the isle, Kalona considered how much he’d rather be living there instead of the gilded cage of the Mayo’s penthouse in Tulsa.
    He needed to complete this task and force Zoey back to the House of Night. Like moves in an intricate game of chess, this was just one more queen that had to be captured so that he could be free.
    His spirit sank lower and lower. Using his soul sight, the power through which his immortal blood made visible to him the layers of reality that lifted and shifted, roiled and surged all around the mortal world, he focused on the Realm of Dreams, that fantastical sliver of reality that wasn’t completely corporeal, nor was it only spirit, and pulled taut the thread of connection he’d been following, knowing that when the cacophony of colors shifting realities caused cleared, he would be joined to Zoey there.
    Kalona was relaxed and confident and therefore utterly unprepared for what happened next. He felt an unfamiliar tug, as if his spirit had become grains of sand being forced through the narrow funnel of an hourglass.
    Sight first, his senses began to stabilize. What he saw shocked him so badly he almost lost the thread of the spirit journey altogether and was