Court of Nightfall (The Nightfall Chronicles #1)(13)

We drove onto Vianney Bridge, a drawbridge, currently open. It was the only way into the castle, which was surrounded by a moat and various rivers separating it from Manhattan and Queens. We passed through the giant open gates, covered in engravings of knights. The grey stone fa?ade of the castle gleamed in the moonlight with chips of obsidian, giving it a beautifully ominous feel. It stood in a square with four towers, one at each corner, rising high into the sky.

At the end of the moat, two guards stood to either side of the castle entrance, dressed in light armor with a "V" crest on the right side of their chest and a Celtic cross on the left. Jax held out his hand and showed them his ring, something I hadn't noticed him slip on but that had the crest of Teutonic Knights, wings in red and black. They nodded and he ushered me into the castle courtyard.

A gentle breeze blew the hair off my face, cooling my fevered skin as we walked down a path surrounded by trees and gardens. "This is where many students come to walk, hang out, read or study," he said. We only saw two students this late at night. Both had on black cloaks with the V crest embossed in gold and silver thread on their chests and their back. "Those are Initiates," he said. "Once they are accepted to one of the Four Orders they'll receive the uniforms for their Order during their training."

"The Four Orders… Teutonic, Inquisition, Hospitaller and Templar, right?" I asked, recalling what I'd learned from the news. They used to be secret, but in our modern world it was hard to keep secret societies, so the Orders had 'come out of the closet' in a manner of speaking, and owned up to their role in the government. However, just about everything they did remained shrouded in shadows and mystery. Knowing they existed was one thing, knowing what they did under the cover of their Order was another thing all together.

"Exactly," Jax said. "The Inquisition ferret out rule breakers and enforce the rules. Hospitaller is the Order for healers and medical research. Teutons, my Order, are the soldiers, the guardians and protectors of the innocent. The last and most difficult to join are the Templars." He looked at me, his eyes holding deep sadness. "Your parents were Templars."

I knew this, or had suspected this, hadn't I? But hearing him confirm it shook me to my core. Templars were said to be dead, killed off hundreds of years ago, and most believed that true. But there were a few who remained over the ages, living lives in hiding until they could rebuild what they'd lost. They were the protectors and keepers of secrets, the inner circle that knew things no one else did.

It was these secrets that killed my family. It was these secrets I had to unravel.

Jax led me into the castle, with high ceilings and walls covered in ancient paintings and tapestries depicting great battles. Torches lit the hallways, but rather than fire, they contained a different kind of light, something that didn't make smoke and glowed blue rather than red—Angel light. Old and new. Ancient and modern. The past and the future.

My body ached. I felt tired and hungry, though when I thought of food nothing sounded remotely appetizing. A deep thirst dug a hole in my gut, but I ignored it. I studied my hands, still cut, still bloody, but nowhere near as destroyed as they had been. I remembered seeing my own bone protrude through the gashes. Now, though they were deep enough to show flesh, they would heal. They were healing.

We wound through passages in the castle and stopped in front of a tapestry. Jax moved it to the side and took out a key that looked as old as the stones. He pushed it into a lock in the wall, unlocking a secret door.

I hesitated, not sure I wanted to explore the bowels of the castle in the middle of the night. Jax held out his hand to me, his eyes begging me to trust him. "I know I lied to you, Scarlett. I know you don't trust me right now, and that's okay. But please know that our relationship has never been a lie. My feelings for you, even the ones I… I haven't been able to express, they have never been a lie. I won't let anything happen to you. I swear it on my life."

I took his hand. What choice did I have? I had to believe that the boy I grew up with was somewhere inside the soldier I didn't know. I had to believe that something in my life had been real. I couldn't deal with the alternative.

It hurt to hold his hand, but I didn't pull away and neither did he as we wound down a spiral staircase to what felt like hell.

In reality, we found ourselves in a large room with a raised platform to one end with five great stone seats forming a semi-circle above us.

In the middle seat sat an old man with a long grey beard and grey hair. He wore silver glasses and carried a carved walking stick with a crystal globe on the top. His black robes hung from sharp shoulders and had the V symbol on one side of his chest and a red cross, the Templar symbol, on the other.

Jax pointed to the woman to his right. "She's the Head of Hospitaller."

The woman looked to be in her early forties, Spanish, with cold, calculating dark eyes. Her A-line dark, straight hair framed her face sharply.

Next to her sat a man with a hawk nose, dark, squinty eyes, and a smile that made my skin crawl. "That's the Head of the Inquisition," Jax whispered. "Stay away from him if you can."

He didn't need to tell me twice.

To the left sat the Head of the Teutons, a young-looking blonde woman who held a sword and wore armor similar to the men at the drawbridge.

"Next to her is the Second Templar. The Chancellor in the middle is actually the Head of Templar, but there must be five council members always, so his second acts as the fifth."