Petra wanted to touch him then, to put her hand reassuringly on his shoulder, but the sizzle between them stopped her. It would look too intimate. At least to her. So she kept her hands in her lap. ‘Spit it out, McGuire,’ she said, knowing she had to be strong. What he was going to say was bad.
‘The world is going to end,’ he said. ‘Most people will die.’
Petra frowned. ‘My grandma has been telling me that since I was five. It’s in the Book of Revelation.’
‘Not some time in the future. Now. Soon.’
She looked out at the overgrown vegetable patch and the tired rope swing drifting in the breeze. It was so ordinary. Too ordinary a place to be hearing things like this. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said.
He was silent and Petra knew she should probably apologise. She’d virtually called him a liar. But she couldn’t. If she said sorry it would mean she believed him. And she didn’t want to do that. Not now. Not ever.
‘I hate having to tell you this, Petra,’ he said. ‘But I can’t be the only one any more. It’s too big a burden. Mum won’t talk …’
Petra hated his mother then. She should stop drinking and look after her son. Listen to him. Because Petra didn’t want to right now. Only, she knew she would. She had to know.
‘How soon?’ she asked.
‘Months. Maybe years if we’re lucky,’ he said softly.
‘But not a decade?’
‘No.’
‘Not long enough for my mum to be a grandma.’ Petra looked up at the sky and saw the evening star, felt a lump in her throat. ‘She’ll be sad about that.’
He turned back to her. ‘You believe me,’ he said.
Petra shrugged. ‘If I believe the other things — the powers — I have to believe that. And you fixed my arm. So it must be true.’
‘It is,’ Vandal said. ‘And it makes me wonder if I should go. To Ennae.’
Petra felt sick every time he mentioned the otherworld where his father and sister had disappeared to. It was too incredible to imagine it existed, let alone that she might lose Vandal there. But he wasn’t a liar. So she had to stop pretending these scary things weren’t happening. ‘Do you even know what would happen if you managed to get there?’ she asked. ‘Maybe the food would make you sick. And how would anyone understand you?’
‘The Sacred Pool,’ he said. ‘The portal you go through. Apparently it alters your body and your mind. That’s why my dad could understand my mum when he got here, and why the food didn’t make him sick, although he could never bring himself to eat meat.’
Petra frowned the question.
‘No animals or insects on Ennae,’ Vandal explained. ‘He thought killing animals for food was barbaric.’
‘No wonder he had trouble fitting in here.’ A vegetarian in the middle of cattle country. ‘So you won’t get sick if you go?’
‘Maybe for a couple of hours. Then I’d be fine,’ he said. ‘But there’s this time issue.’
Petra wanted to close her ears and make it all go away, but instead she nodded for him to go on.
‘Ennae moves five times more slowly than we do. Here it’s been three months since Dad left, but on Ennae less than twenty days have passed.’
Petra took a moment to grasp that. ‘If you go, I’ll grow old while you stay young.’
‘You won’t get the chance to grow old,’ he said gently.
Petra nodded, her emotions battered. ‘The big storm.’
‘Maelstrom.’
‘Right.’ It sounded so biblical.
‘Glimmer is going to control it. She’s The Catalyst and she has powers …’ He shrugged. ‘More than me.’
‘Oh. Okay.’ Anything else she should know? ‘I always thought she was … odd.’ Actually, odd was a polite description. Creepy might he better. Glimmer had been clever and beautiful and talented at everything in school, but her manner had been so impersonal Petra had often wondered if she was taking the mickey.
The complete opposite of Vandal. Not only because she was blonde and pale in contrast to his olive skin and black hair. Glimmer had always been enveloped in the sort of calm serenity Petra only ever dreamt of. Nothing had flustered her. Ever. Vandal, of course, who Petra considered to be much more sensitive, had been constantly reacting to provocation from those around him. She’d ached for him sometimes and had wished he had some of his sister’s tranquillity. Now that she knew they were both aliens, albeit that Vandal was only half an alien, it made more sense.
‘So this storm she’s controlling,’ Petra asked, ‘will she stop people dying? Will she stop the end of the world?’
He shook his head. ‘Our planet’s toast. Can’t stop that,’ he said. ‘But some of us are definitely supposed to live. She’s supposed to make a new world out of the ruins.’ He paused to frown. ‘Assuming she doesn’t stuff it up.’
‘Can she do it alone?’ Petra asked. ‘Or does she need help?’ No reply was forthcoming so Petra added, ‘I know you didn’t get on with her, but —’
‘I hate her,’ he said, and there was awkward silence for a couple of seconds. ‘I know you don’t want me to, but I can’t help it. I’ve always hated her.’
Petra nodded. ‘Sometimes I feel like I hate my cousins,’ she said, wishing yet again that she had a brother or sister to be close to, ‘but if one of them needed me, I’d be there for them.’
‘The Mabindi code,’ Vandal said with a wry smile.
‘Damn right,’ she said. ‘My dad would beat my backside if I didn’t. We’re family. Like you and Glimmer.’
‘She’s not my stepsister. Not blood related at all,’ Vandal argued, but Petra was already shaking her head.
‘It’s not blood, it’s family. I want you to love her, to help her, like your mother wants you to.’ Petra had no right to tell Vandal to do anything, but she felt passionate about this. If he couldn’t feel the same way, maybe he wasn’t the person she believed he was. A tiny empty space opened up inside her at this thought.
Vandal’s eyes were distant. ‘She’s never needed my help.’
‘She’s never tried to control a Maelstrom before,’ Petra countered, looking up to the sky, trying to imagine powers that could control the weather.
‘It will be hard enough to get there and find my dad.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘But if you think I should help her —’
‘I’ll go with you,’ Petra said impulsively, and didn’t feel the rush of terror she might have expected. Obviously her fear of losing Vandal was greater than her fear of the unknown.
She saw his head tilt towards her but she kept her attention on the sky.
‘Why?’ he asked.
‘I’ve saved your life twice,’ she said, forcing herself to smile. ‘I’m your good luck charm.’
‘Petra.’
This was the moment. She heard it in his voice. Petra swallowed down nervous excitement, and despite all her practice she completely forgot to lick her lips as she turned towards him. He took off her glasses, slowly, carefully, and put them on the step above. Petra started to tremble.
‘I want to fix your eyes today,’ he said, gazing deeply into them.
Petra was so caught up in the moment, his words didn’t register immediately. Then, ‘My eyes.’ Disappointment swirled with the built-up excitement, high in her chest. What about her lips? Why couldn’t he —?
Petra didn’t let herself think. Instead she snatched two handfuls of shirt and pulled him down to meet her upturned face. Their lips bumped awkwardly but he didn’t pull back, and though it hadn’t been his idea, Vandal quickly took control of the kiss, his hands rising to hold her shoulders, as if he was scared she’d think better of the idea and run off. His mouth moved against hers and his tongue brushed the outside of her lips.
Petra felt as if her heart would beat out of her chest, but her body was filled with a strange melting limpness that made her sigh into him, letting go of his shirt, her fingers opening to spread across his chest. It was like hot chocolate in winter a
nd a scary roller-coaster ride mixed into one, and she just breathed through it, feeling the incredible sensations reach down from her lips to wake every part of her tingling body.
At last, reluctantly, he pulled away from her and Petra felt as though she was opening her eyes on a new night. The air around her sparkled with clarity and the freshness of the coming winter. She felt as though she was seeing through the pores of her skin.
Vandal was looking at her intently, his dimples trying to show. She smiled at him and managed to say, ‘Wow. I can’t believe I did that.’
He nodded. Relieved? ‘Wow in triplicate,’ he agreed, his gaze dropping to her lips again.
The kiss had made Petra bold. She raised her hand and touched his hair, knowing she could now, and it was just as silky as she’d imagined: smooth, cool. He was growing it so he’d look like his father when he arrived in Ennae, so he wouldn’t stand out. It brushed his shoulders and she let her hand do the same, her fingers landing on the firm curve that led down to his biceps. Even through his T-shirt she could feel the hard muscles. The fluttering in her chest swirled and moved deeper into her body, lower, and she felt a moment’s panic. She let his arm go and put both hands in her lap, astonished at herself that she’d had the courage to touch him so boldly. But that kiss had changed things. He was no longer an untouchable god. He was now officially her boyfriend.
‘Petra.’
Or was he? Something hesitant in his voice? She couldn’t look.
‘About that kiss …’
‘It was wonderful,’ she said quickly, knowing no one could take that away from her — her first kiss, and it had been everything she’d ever dreamt of. Well, except that her head hadn’t exploded. But that was a good thing.
‘It was better than wonderful,’ he said, then hesitated. ‘I just don’t want …’ he trailed off, but before Petra could begin to worry that he was dumping her, he blurted, ‘I still want us to be friends.’
She turned to face him. ‘Of course we’ll be friends. Friends and more.’
But he was still frowning. ‘It’s just … sometimes sex stuffs up a good relationship.’ He took one look at Petra’s raised eyebrows and raced on. ‘Not that I’m expecting we’ll … well not yet, or soon … I meant sex in general. Kissing.’ He closed his eyes for a moment and Petra could swear he was praying for guidance. ‘What I mean is,’ he went on, now gazing down at his hands, ‘sometimes people have a wonderful friendship and because they get … more involved — whether they have sex or not — their great friendship gets lost in jealousies about other people or one of them pushing the other to go further than … you know.’
‘I know.’
‘I don’t want that to happen to us.’
‘Is that why you haven’t kissed me before now?’
He nodded, searching her eyes, so endearingly worried that she wanted to kiss him again.
‘Did you want to?’ she asked.
His breath came out in a gust. ‘Only about as much as I want to breathe,’ he told her. ‘Of course I wanted to.’ He looked away, then looked back at her, obviously astonished that she could even ask. ‘That first day at your house —’
‘When you healed my arm?’
‘I lay awake all that night thinking about you sitting on the lounge across from me with your arm thrust out, as if you didn’t want me close to you. I tortured myself. I even imagined you having accidents so I could heal you again. So I could touch you.’
Petra smiled. She reached across and took his large hand in both of hers. ‘I dreamt that when you kissed me, my head exploded.’
He smiled. ‘My dreams had other sorts of explosions,’ he said, and they both laughed. Then he looked at her seriously. ‘Can you promise me that this won’t change anything?’
She shook her head. ‘It will change things between us.’ Then before he could worry she added, ‘But I will always be your friend. No matter what.’ He looked unconvinced until she said, ‘I promise. And you know a Mabindi never goes back on their word.’
‘The code,’ he teased, then they both smiled. ‘So can I kiss you again?’ he asked.
Petra nodded, but instead of leaning close, he stood and pulled on her hand.
‘Here,’ he said, and led her down to the bottom of the stairs. ‘You stand here,’ on the bottom step, while Vandal went one step further and stood on the ground. They were almost on a level. She still had to look up into his eyes, but she liked that. Around them the yard was dark and still, and only the faintest light spilled down onto them from the verandah. Petra felt as though she’d travelled to another universe. The universe where Vandal wanted to kiss her. So close to heaven the difference didn’t matter.
‘Ready?’ he whispered, and she heard the tension in his voice, the excitement, the insecurity. Her own doubts dissolved.
She reached up to touch his chest with a tentative hand. ‘Kiss me,’ she said.
And he did.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Khatrene sat quietly in her old room in the Volcastle, trying to recapture the sense of security she’d felt here when she’d first returned from her exile in Magoria. She’d been an adult, returning to a childhood home she hadn’t remembered, coming from a culture of Internet and icecream to a world of castles and kingdoms. Shock had been her predominant response, but this room had felt familiar, the one place she’d been able to relax. Now that she had her childhood memories back, that familiarity was deepened.
The large sitting room was warmed by a fire and swamped in vases of yellow fat-leaved ahroce blossoms, the flowers her mother had loved which smelt like cut grass and honeycomb combined. The charcoal sketches she’d done as a child still adorned the walls, and the heavy timber furniture reassured her with its solid immutable presence. All was exactly as it had been before she’d married Djahr and travelled to Be’uccdha, before she had borne Glimmer.
Glimmer, who was dead.
She shook her head, her teeth clenching in denial. It didn’t matter how many times she had been told this ‘truth’, it wouldn’t stick. A mother’s instinct? Or blind maternal love? Whatever, she could not make herself believe that Glimmer was dead. It didn’t feel true.
But if her daughter was alive, where was she? In Atheyre? That would be just Khatrene’s luck to finally escape the boring confines of the Airworld, only to find that the child she had longed to meet had ended up there. Or perhaps Mihale’s information was wrong and Glimmer was still on Ennae, just not in the royal Volcastle. And if that was the case, how were they going to find her?
Khatrene had spent much time pondering the sequence of events that had led to her daughter’s disappearance, Khatrene’s preferred term. Glimmer had apparently tried to stop Kert Sh’hale from falling into the Volcastle mouth, and Khatrene could only assume that Kert had a part to play in the future of the Four Worlds if his life was worth so great a risk. They had disappeared together in a shower of firesparks and Pagan had reported no hissing or stink of burnt flesh such as had followed poor little Lenid’s death. So it was possible, and quite likely according to Breehan, that Glimmer had transported herself and Kert to a safer place.
Perhaps to Kert’s fortress which, though still occupied by Northmen, had apparently shown her hospitality when she had constructed an anchor there. Word had come recently from Verdan and no mention of her there. Castle Be’uccdha?
Lae was intent on returning to Be’uccdha, and would be able to inform them, when she arrived, whether Glimmer was there. Khatrene dreaded the idea of going to Be’uccdha herself. The mere thought of Djahr’s dark forbidding castle overhanging the Everlasting Ocean brought a return of terror to her heart. Despite that her husband was dead, she still felt threatened by him, unsafe. Returning to Ennae had raised all her old fears: memories of how Djahr had tortured and hounded her across the kingdom, how he had tried to cut their child from her belly to steal it from her. Yet worse than those memories were the recollections of how Khatrene had been tricked into marrying him, how she had fallen into
his arms and found physical pleasures there, how she had foolishly thought to love him.
Her time spent with Talis and the experience of true love had taken the sharpest edges off her nightmares, but remembering how her innocence had been abused still had the power to wound her. She could not go to Be’uccdha, and only hoped that if her daughter was there, Lae would send her back to the Volcastle. For this reason Khatrene had requested an audience with Lae before she departed, to impress on her how important it was to search for Glimmer, and not to dismiss the whole matter as a bereaved mother’s whim.
But hours had passed since Khatrene had sent her messenger — it was near to midnight — and still Lae had not arrived. Could the girl she had once thought of as a friend be avoiding her? Mihale had given permission for Lae to leave in the morning and Khatrene struggled with her impatience as she waited for the knock on her door. Finally it came.
‘Enter,’ she called in relief, having sent her maids away so that she might talk to Lae in private.
Clad in her white robes of mourning, Lae limped into Khatrene’s chambers, dripping water all over the carpets. Her two sopping acolytes came in behind her, shoes squelching on the floor, hoods plastered onto their heads.
‘You’re drenched,’ Khatrene said, and in her shock she didn’t even look around for a towel or a blanket she could hand to Lae. She simply stared.
‘My Lady,’ Lae said and bowed to Khatrene, as did her assistants. Then she straightened and added, ‘You requested my presence.’ Khatrene searched her friend’s face for a clue to this uncharacteristic formality.
‘But you’re …’ Khatrene pointed to her gown. ‘Do you want to change?’
Lae merely gazed at her, then shook her head.
‘Very well.’ Khatrene tried to regather her thoughts. ‘I’d like to speak with you alone,’ she said, and glanced at the acolytes.
Lae raised a hand and they withdrew from the room, leaving the two women facing each other awkwardly. Which was crazy. Lae had helped Khatrene birth Glimmer, they had fled The Dark together, had each fallen in love with a Guardian. They had so much in common, but as they faced each other across the empty room Khatrene could not think of a thing to say.
Glimmer in the Maelstrom: Shadow Through Time 3 Page 14
