by Lindsay Nall
Waiting until he took a breather to approach him she called his name quietly. “Come out to get some practice in too?” She shook her head. “What’s up then?” He seemed normal as he talked as if there were no reason for her to even be out there but here she was with the feeling she was about to stick her foot in something she had no right to step in.
“I just, okay this might sound odd but after you left the dining hall and all I just…” She trailed off when she noticed he was shaking his head at her.
“You really do try to fix everything don’t you?” She shrugged picking at one of her fingernails. “I’m fine no matter what Ella picked up on.” So he knew why she was out here after all.
“Vander… I don’t want you to be uncomfortable around us.” He threw his weapon down next to one of the decapitated heads of the practice dummies and sat down in the grass.
“I’m not.” She took a seat on the grass across from him picking at the blades as he spoke. “At least I don’t think I am, I don’t know.” He sighed leaning back on his palms to look at the sky. The sun hadn’t quite set yet casting a warm orange glow over everything on the ground. “Maybe I am a bit jealous but can you blame me? I’ve seen everything you two have gone through, watched you two grow into what you are now. Maybe I just want to find a bit of that for myself.” She could understand how he felt if she had watched him grow into a relationship the way she and Nyght had she might be a little jealous too. “Still I guess I acted a little bit like a child just storming out like that.” He gave a quiet laugh.
“Ella said I should just leave you alone.”
“But?”
“How did you know there was a but?” The look he gave her out of the tops of his eyes spoke volumes, he knew her too well. “She said the loneliness gets to you guys sometimes.” He looked back to the sky watching the clouds roll out for a long time before he said anything to her.
“It does but it’s not like you think. I am surrounded day in and day out by people I care about and by people who care about me but every once in awhile when I’m by myself or even when I’m with all of you there’s this nagging feeling I get. Its kind of like this little voice lives in the back of my head and every once in a while it pops up to remind me without my comrades I am alone.” She’d heard that voice before when she lived in the east district after her and Bart’s falling out. There was always this feeling in the back of her head that would make her feel like she was going to be isolated for the rest of her life. “I guess today it just got worse with the whole Whittiker thing. I had never asked Marinique about my parents, as far as I was concerned he was my father but now I want to know why I was in an orphanage. I mean were they killed? Did they just not want me?” He shook his head at the thoughts trying to keep any more of them from spilling out. Why was it always so easy to talk to her? Even when he didn’t want to or need to she could make him spill every thought in his head with just a few simple questions.
“I’m sorry.” He tilted his head down to look at her but she was staring at a piece of grass she was playing with between her fingers. “It’s technically my fault that you found out about all of that but someday we’ll get into that town and get all of those answers for you.”
“Thanks, Mari.” She looked up then and gave him one of her rare genuine smiles. It probably wasn’t fair to call them rare anymore, not with the way Nyght treated her. The two sat out there going back and forth with ideas on how to advance their training as Karter had suggested until the moon and stars were all shining brightly.
“Hey, Vander?” He made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat from where he was now laying in the grass with his hands behind his head. “Have you ever told Uncle Rayne how you feel about him? I mean, how you view him?” He shook his head. “Maybe the time while we’re grounded you should.” He looked over to where she was lying next to him in the same position. Was she crazy?
“I’m pretty sure he’d punch me.”
“I doubt it. A lot of people don’t know it but he has a soft spot for you.” Propping himself up on his elbows he looked at her confused. “He carries a picture of the two of you from when you were a little boy, he spoke about you a lot when I first met him.”
“First met him?”
“He wasn’t around until a couple of years ago. I’m pretty sure it’s because he hated my father.”
“You think he waited until your father was dead to meet you just because he didn’t like him?” She shrugged as she stood up. “That seems a little crass even for him.”
“Who knows, he hides a lot more than I do.” Vander wondered about that but then again Marinique had never even told him he had a sister or a niece. “It’s getting late.”
“Nyght will be wondering where you are.”
“I’m sure Nyght is just fine without me.”
“Yeah but in whose room?”
“Vander!” He laughed as he ran from her, he knew she was just fooling around and wouldn’t hurt him even if she caught him. It was a fleeting moment where that voice in his head was quiet and he could just enjoy the company of his friend even if she was threatening to geld him with a spoon.
When Mari got back to her room she was glad to find, despite Vander’s mocking, that her room was void of Nyght. She needed to sleep and knew if he were in here she would have been up for quite a while longer. As she crawled into bed almost relieved to know she didn’t have to get up early to travel she thought of Saran. Maybe he could give her answers where no one else could or would.
It was the same dream, that inverted beach, and balmy night air but she had started this time on the black sands where the stillness hung heavy in the air. “Odd.” She thought to herself making her way to the same bench she had always sat on before. She could see the line through the world, still see the white shimmering sands where the waves lapped and the sea air blew her hair but she had not started there. Everything seemed the same, the stillness, the quiet, the black lacquered bench and wrought iron lamp post but something felt odd here. Almost as if she didn’t belong here. “Saran?”
“I am here child.” A sigh of relief seemed to escape her as she walked the rest of the way to the bench only to find Saran sitting there as he had before. One ankle crossed over his knee, elbows on the back of the bench, sitting open and relaxed. “You have had a busy time since the last you called on me.” She nodded.
“You sound like you already know everything that’s going on.” He shook his head then shrugged. “Well, that’s subtle.” He gave a soft chuckle.
“I am sorry. Please, tell me what has happened.” She did. Everything from her uncle trying to kill Nyght to the discovery of Alfred’s journal and what they had found in it. Saran was quiet for a long time when she was done recounting the events since their last meeting though she left out the activities she and Nyght had engaged in.
“Do you remember the last time we spoke when I told you there was much more to the prophecy you and your comrades were to complete?” She nodded then froze.
“It’s a prophecy? Well, that throws it into a whole new perspective.” She gnawed on her lip as she thought about the words they had discovered as a prophecy but still couldn’t make heads or tails of it. “Wait…” If it was a prophecy and Alfred didn’t get it until after he had been visited by Saran then…
“Yes, I am the one who told Alfred the prophecy.”
“Why couldn’t you have just told it to me then?”
“It was not my place.” She was so angry with him. She swore he was just making her go in circles because he could. Dropping little bits of information here and there but never giving her enough. Waiting until she figured it out on her own just to tell her he knew all of the answers all along. “I know you are angry with me.”
“Damn straight.”
“I have told you before I have no control over what I can and cannot tell you.” She sighed, he had and she knew that but she still didn’t like it.
“Can you tell me why we’ve all been grounde
d for wanting to go to Whittiker?” He shook his head. “You can’t or you won’t?”
“Won’t.” So he knew the answer. “It is not my place to tell that piece of history, you have done well learning on your own continue to do so. I look forward to seeing where you go from here.”
“Would it be wrong to say I want to break out of headquarters and go back to those tears?” He laughed as he stood shaking his head in response.
“Nothing less would be expected of a Shadow.”
She woke with a start as if ripped from her dream but nothing had woken her. Maybe Saran had kicked her out of the dream? Could he even do that? Shaking her head she stood trying to straighten out her rumpled clothes. She needed to take a closer look at that prophecy, at least now that she knew it was a prophecy, and the only way to do that was to wake up Nyght.
The line of obscenities from the other side of Nyght’s door made her have to bite her lip to keep from laughing out loud. Opening the door slowly he blinked at her in the bright hallway lights. “And you complained about my potty mouth, yeesh.”
“Mari? What time is it?”
“I don’t know I had another dream…” Nyght grabbed her and pulled her into his room quickly shutting the door behind her.
“What did he say?” He was awake now.
“It’s not a poem or a nursery rhyme, it’s a prophecy, something to do with
The Fourteen.” He rubbed a hand over his face trying to get himself to focus, he had been having the first goodnights sleep of his life but this was far more important.
“A prophecy?” his sleep-addled brain couldn’t make sense of what was going on as she dug through his coat pockets until she pulled out his journal. Making herself at home on his bed she rifled through the pages stopping on the one she wanted. He couldn’t help the smile that played around his lips as he watched her so at home in his room gnawing on her lip like she did any time she was focused.
“What if we break it down? Maybe that will help it…what?” She looked up in the middle of her sentence finding Nyght just standing by the door staring at her.
“Nothing.” He shook his head and joined her on the bed to look at the words he had written earlier. “Break it down line by line or…?” She shrugged. Her excitement had worn off now giving her exhaustion its place. “How about we do this in the morning?” She shook her head trying to get the pull of sleep to leave her alone. “In the morning.”
“Alright.” He took the journal from her setting it on the nightstand next to him. “Sorry to wake you.” As she rose from the bed he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her up against him. “Seriously?”
“I’m not thinking about anything but the sleep we both need.” He wrapped the blanket around them pulling her close to him as they laid down.
“I can sleep in my own bed you know.”
“You want to get up be my guest.” She didn’t, she wanted to stay right there pressed against him listening to the sound of his heart as she drifted off.
“You’re a pain you know that?” A grunt was all she got before he started snoring. If this was going to be a regular thing they were going to have to do something about that.
“How is this happening?!” Mari and Nyght had woken in the morning to find that the journal Nyght had left on the nightstand was now missing. They had searched the entire room, ripped the bed apart and moved every piece of furniture but it was nowhere to be found. Nyght was losing his mind over the journal being gone not because of the information they had written in it the day before but because it had all of his documentation in it from the last three months.
“How in the hell did it just vanish?!” He sat down on the now stripped bed with a thud.
“I don’t think it vanished, I think someone stole it.” He nodded agreeing with her.
“But who? Who could have snuck into my room and not only known where to find it but do so without waking either of us up?!” He had been a light sleeper even when they had been traveling so honestly, she had no answer for him. It was odd.
As she was thinking over everyone who knew about the journal Nyght stood and slammed the door open. He was halfway down the hallway when she caught up to him.
“Where are you going?” His jaw was clenched along with his fists and he had a destination in mind with how long his strides were.
“The only person who was upset that we found out about the prophecy was Karter…”
“Nyght you can’t possibly think…”
“Oh I can and I do.” She followed him reluctantly through the rest of the building to Karter’s office where he pounded on the door with such force she was afraid he would break it. When no one answered Nyght threw the door open only to find no one was inside. After a lap around the office to make sure Karter wasn’t hiding anywhere Nyght made his way to the dining hall and then Karter’s room but still didn’t find him. “Dammit, where the hell is he!”
Mari gave up on following him around and instead made her way down to the library. If she was right in her suspicions, there would no longer be a hidden journal in the Deus library.
As she reached the door to the Deus log room she heard voices coming from inside and slowed her step. The door was partially cracked making it easier to hear everything being said.
“How could you be so foolish!?” It was Karter but he sounded so angry. She had never heard him like that and immediately wondered who he was yelling at. “How could you let her know the prophecy?! If she goes to Whittiker, if she finds out the truth about her parents…”
“I did not know of the prophecy in that book.” That voice was Alto’s but why was Karter so mad at him and who were they talking about? “However if the prophecy is true as you say it is it will end this war correct?” There was no response. “She is an adult, when are you all going to start treating her as such?”
“It’s bad enough she’s taken up with Nyght I don’t need your input on how we handle this.” They were talking about her, they were talking about her parents too, what didn’t she know about them?
“He is just as much a part of that prophecy as she is!” Alto’s voice rose quickly to defend his grandson, she had never heard him angry either.
“You will destroy this journal, you will forget this prophecy and you will find a way to get them away from each other.”
“He was willing to renounce his place in the clan to be with her. Do you think there is anything I can do to sever the tie they have?” There was another long silence. “I thought not. I have done your dirty work before Karter, I will not do it again. Maybe you and Bartholomew should try telling her the truth for once in her life instead of all of these lies.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I’m not asking anything but soon she will and I don’t believe your petty lies will hold water for much longer. Tell me what is it you all are so afraid of if she finds out the truth?” What truth? Dammit just say whatever this truth was about her so she could leave.
“It would be the end of all of this! Everything in the Silhouette will cease to exist! Man will go back to being stupid and challenging and history will repeat. Could you handle bringing about another cleansing?” Cleansing? What cleansing?
“God would not allow that to happen again, I’m sure he’s learned from his mistakes.”
“But man has not. I will destroy this.” The conversation was coming to a close but she couldn’t move. How many lies had she been fed? Why were she and Nyght special to this prophecy? Why was Karter trying to stop it from happening? And most importantly was he talking about destroying the only copy of the prophecy they had left?
As the door began to open Mari found her strength running full force down the hall, around several bookcases, and out the doors into the common grounds where she emptied everything from her stomach vehemently.
Twenty-one
Nyght had seen Mari go running out the library doors just as he turned the corner on the steps that led down to the level it was on. “Wha
t the?” He watched through a window as she stopped ten feet from the door and threw up. Running down the hall to the doors to the courtyard he got to her as quickly as he could. “Mari?” She was doubled over with her hands on her knees shaking with the after tremors that came with vomiting. “What the hell happened?”
“I found Karter, he’s in the log room, he’s going to destroy the prophecy.” He left her standing out there to run for the hidden room of the library. If she was right he had mere seconds to try and stop Karter.
“Where is he?!” Throwing open the door to the room Nyght found his grandfather but no one else there.
“Where is who?”
“Karter! And where’s Alfred’s journal?” Alto gave a heavy sigh as he shook his head and looked to the nearby wood-burning furnace. Nyght followed his gaze realizing what it meant quickly. “No.” He ran to it throwing open its small metal door but inside there was nothing but ashes and smoke. Standing he turned back to his grandfather with a glare. “How could you let him do that? And what did he say to Mari?” A look of confusion passed over Alto’s face.
“I wouldn’t know; she was never in here.” Nyght thought about that for a long moment. If she wasn’t in the room than how had she known that Karter had been in here and what he had done? “She must have heard you two.”
“If she did she must have many questions.”
“I do.” Mari’s voice cracked as she spoke but a cough and a shake of her head seemed to clear it. She seemed paler than normal to Nyght but then again she had just woofed her cookies. “I have a lot starting with what the hell just happened in here.” Alto shook his head then pulled one of the chairs from the lone small table in the room to sit in. “What is going on in this place?”
