by Kate Keir
Freya stood up with a loud snort of laughter. “Friends? Is this girl for real?” she asked Mara. “He doesn’t want to be your friend, you little idiot, and you don’t even see it do you?”
Snatching up her sunglasses and a bottle of juice, Freya began to make her way back up the hill toward the castle.
“Wow, she hates me,” I said miserably.
“No, she doesn’t,” Mara soothed. “She’s envious of you because you’re the most important one of us, and because Finlay is in love with you and not her.”
I nearly choked on my juice. “What? Finlay doesn’t love me. We’re nineteen years old, we don’t even have time for love yet—and that’s before we even talk about me being the Soul Keeper and him being a Dion.”
I took a breath and narrowed my eyes, fully realising what Mara had said. “She’s jealous because Finlay doesn’t love her? Why? Does she want him to?” I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t think she’s his type.”
Mara threw back her head and laughed. It was a beautiful sound, so pure and full of life. Artair clearly heard his girlfriend’s mirth; he was smiling broadly as he paused half-way up the trunk that Finlay had just leapt from and turned his head to watch her.
When she managed to stop laughing, Mara raised her eyebrows at me. “So, you don’t think he loves you, but you get cranky when I talk about the possibility of him liking anyone else. Interesting, Flora.”
I could feel the heat in my face. I was blushing furiously. I needed to change the topic and so I did, quickly. “You and Artair seem like a match made in heaven. How long have you been together?”
“Well, we first met eight years ago when I was eleven and Artair was thirteen. I don’t think Penthesilea explained to you that we are all orphans. Our calling isn’t something you can really hide from ordinary parents, so our families are pre-ordained to die when we’re kids.”
“That’s horrible.”
“It’s the way it has to be. It was the same for you too, Flora. You lost your parents so that Penthesilea and Finlay could place themselves in your life and protect you.”
That made me angry. It was as though Mara was saying it was my fault my parents were dead, and it cut me to the core. “My parents were best placed to protect me, Mara. That’s what parents do. So, who decided that they should be taken away from me?”
Mara sighed sadly. “Fate did. The same as fate decided to take our families and make us your Dion. That was how Artair and I came to live here. Finlay has been at Castle Dion for as long as he can remember, and Freya was even younger than us when she came here. She was only two when her parents died. She has been with Penthesilea ever since. I guess that’s why we all give her a free pass for being so angry all the time.”
I felt tears start to prickle my eyes. I was hurting because I missed my parents, and I felt guilty. I was also hurting because I envied the bond the Dion had forged with each other while I was I was oblivious to this whole other life. I doubted Freya would ever accept me, even if the others might. In that moment, I felt extremely lonely.
“Oh, Flora.” Mara threw her arms around me. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I wanted to try and help you understand us a little better.”
“I want to understand you, Mara. All of you.” My traitorous eyes flickered in the direction of Lyall again. “Tell me about you and Artair? I’m sorry I got upset.”
“There’s not really very much else to tell. Artair and me became friends almost straight away. As we grew up here and learned more about ourselves, we became closer and closer. When I was seventeen, he told me he loved me, and I said it right back. He’s a part of me. I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it.”
“You are both so obviously made for each other.” I grinned at her.
“It’s expected that you will be bonded in the same way, to one of your Dion eventually.” She changed the subject deftly.
“I have a bond with Finlay. We’re best friends, and although we’re not romantically together, I do love him,” I argued.
“That’s not the same thing and you know it, Flora. I’m not saying that it must be Finlay. Lyall obviously finds you attractive—it’s not like he hides it.” She laughed.
The blush was back now, and it felt a lot deeper red than before. “Lyall is terrifying. He’s so…” I trailed off.
“Handsome? Charming? Intense?” She nudged my arm with every word.
“Wolf-like,” I murmured.
Mara gave me an odd look. “It will happen. It always does according to Penthesilea. You will fall for one of your Dion. It’s a Soul Keeper survival instinct. You are never safer than when you have a Dion in your company. Don’t worry about it though. There’s plenty of time for you to make your mind up.”
I pulled my legs from underneath me and drew them up so I could wrap my arms around my legs and rest my chin on my knees. Finlay and Lyall had grown tired of swimming and were making their way toward us, dripping with water and laughing together as they jogged up the bank.
I studied them both as they approached us. Finlay was so familiar to me, and there was no question he was a great-looking guy. All of the girls at work adored him and had always been fighting for his attention. His almost white hair and bright blue eyes were so unusual and yet so beautifully matched. But he was my best friend, my only friend in truth; although I was sure Mara would be a firm friend of mine very soon. I had never thought of Finlay in any other way before, and I didn’t think I ever would.
Shifting my eyes to Lyall, I was once again struck by how stunning he was. His dark brown hair feathered across his pale forehead, stopping just above his liquid eyes. The amber colour made his eyes look as though they were burning, and when he lifted his gaze and fixed his eyes on mine, it felt as though I were burning with them.
He reminded me of Damon Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries, which obviously made me completely weak at the knees. But that also made him quite scary. He was way out of reach for someone as ordinary as me.
In the instant before the still soaking-wet guys arrived at our camp, Mara broke through my thoughts with a final word. “Don’t get too hung up on it, Flora. Fate will take you wherever you’re meant to be.”
Chapter Six
The next morning Finlay knocked at my door to collect me for training at the Everwood. We grabbed some food from the breakfast table and headed back toward the same clearing in the gardens we had used the day before.
“Close your eyes and imagine the wood again, Flor,” Finlay instructed as he stood opposite me with his hands by his sides—in what I had come to think of as his “relaxed” stance.
It took less than ten seconds for me to close my eyes and feel the already-so-familiar atmosphere of the Everwood wrap around me. I kept my eyes closed for a moment longer while I relished the feel of my environment. I listened hard for any sounds, but there were none, save the sound of Finlay walking closer to me.
As I felt the gentle touch of his fingertips against my cheek, I opened my eyes and focussed on his face, which was only inches from mine. “You are awesome at that, Flor. You should be proud.”
My face flushed and I took a tiny step back. “Thanks. I guess I am.”
The look of hurt was only on his face for a fleeting second, but it was there long enough for me to see it. He started to walk toward the trees, and I knew he wanted me to follow him, even though he didn’t ask me to.
We walked in a silence that was slightly strained, but I was soon distracted by the tiny multicoloured lights that had begun to hover in the distance. They danced between the trees, weaving their way through the blue flowered branches. I knew they were keeping their distance for a reason. They were all pure souls, and they knew the rogue soul had hurt me yesterday. They were asking permission to approach me in case they hurt me too.
Finlay must have known it too. “Today we’ll try calling one individual soul to you at a time. You need to learn how to do this so that you don’t get overwhelmed by them all.”
“They don
’t seem to want to overwhelm me,” I objected as I took a step toward the little orbs.
“They’re all pure souls, Flora. They will play by the rules. But you should have learned your lesson yesterday; rogue souls don’t do what’s expected of them. Practising keeping pure souls at a distance will hopefully enable you to be able to do the same with rogues too.”
“So, it works the same for both?” I tried not to show my surprise at Finlay’s use of my full name.
“Kind of.” His voice sounded a little softer now. “You will just have to be a lot more forceful with the rogues than you are with the pure souls. If you’re too harsh with these little guys, they’ll get upset.”
“Oh.” The last thing I wanted was to upset these patient little beings, waiting for me to let them know their fate.
Finlay chose a patch of long grass inside a clearing in the woods and sat himself down on it cross-legged. He looked over to me and patted the grass next to him. “Come and sit.”
It wasn’t a request. This new strict Finlay was going to take some getting used to. I walked over and sat next to my friend, crossing my legs in the same way as him.
“Okay, Flor. Pick one soul and concentrate on it. If any others try to get into your line of sight, I want you to imagine a shield that will only let the single soul you have chosen inside its boundaries.”
Taking a deep breath, I looked around until I found a little green light that hovered respectfully on the edge of the woods. It seemed so sweet and inoffensive I felt a strong urge to talk to this one above all of the others.
“You got one?” Finlay followed my gaze with his eyes.
“Yes. Now what?”
“Talk to it, the same way you did with the pure soul yesterday.”
I fixed my gaze on the green orb and mentally reached out to it. Come here, little one?
I didn’t know what to expect, but the rush of utter joy that emanated from the tiny ball was so strong it almost brought tears to my eyes. The little soul dipped toward the floor and performed three loop-the-loops in quick succession before firing itself across the grassy clearing toward me.
When it reached the air in front of my eyes, it screeched to a stop and hovered about eight inches away from my face. The soul didn’t speak to me in the conventional way of talking. I couldn’t even hear its words inside my head. But I could somehow sense them, and I understood what it was saying to me.
“It just told me it loves me.” I laughed aloud.
“Of course it loves you. You’re its only hope of having another shot at existence in the mortal world. To that soul, you are everything.”
Concentrating hard, I answered the glowing orb. I love you too and you will stay here in the Everwood, until you are reborn. Be good, little one.
The soul flew toward my face and gently grazed itself along my cheek. The feeling of its touch was like an electric shock. It made me feel more alive than I had ever felt in my life. It whispered inside my mind. Thank you, Flora, before it disappeared between the trees.
“I think that went quite well.” I turned to Finlay and smiled.
“Like I said before, Flor, you’re a natural at this. Being here suits you.” He gave me an affectionate smile.
“How did I get here, Finlay? I mean how was I chosen to be the Soul Keeper, and who was the Soul Keeper before me?”
“Yours is one of only two souls that don’t need to be chosen. You have always had a free pass back into the world, Flor. Your soul has existed since humanity began. The only soul on this Earth older than yours is Mara’s, because animals existed way before humanity. Just like you, Mara’s soul will always come back too.”
“But I don’t have any memories of living before?”
“None of us do. We keep our memories for a very short time after we die. That’s why Mara said you can sense fear or sadness from people who died badly. Those memories fade for everyone, including you, so you need to be reminded of what you are by your Dion.”
“So, was Pen a Dion for the last Soul Keeper?” It suddenly occurred to me that Pen was at least fifty. Old enough to have been around a long time before I was born. She must have known the person who came before me.
“Penthesilea is the last living Dion of the Soul Keeper who came before you. All of the other Dion and the previous Soul Keeper were lost to her. She has never told any of us the full story of how that happened. We’ve just kind of worked most of it out, because she must have been alone until Freya and I came here, and she started to rebuild your inheritance through each of us. Otherwise there would be more Dion than just us.”
I shuddered; something told me the story of how Pen lost her Soul Keeper and the other Dion wouldn’t be a happy one. A morbid part of me was also desperately curious to know how the last Soul Keeper died. I wondered if Sluag had had a hand in it.
“So, after the last Soul Keeper died, my soul was reborn as me? How did I sort souls when I was a baby?” It was confusing and more than a bit strange to think that my soul didn’t really just belong to me. My soul was something that I had always taken for granted. To find out I had shared ownership of it made me feel possessive. Quite understandably, I thought.
“It’s like we told you on the first night here, Flor. Your soul has been working in the background over the years. Even when you were a baby, your soul was mature and was able to keep sorting the good from the bad. You don’t need to come to the Everwood in full body format to do your job. Given time, you will be able to learn how to separate your own soul from your body.”
“That sounds painful. Why would I want to do it?”
“There are reasons.” Finlay’s cryptic answer was matched by an equally cryptic smirk.
“But on the downside, now that I’m consciously doing my job, Sluag can find me and try to kill me, right?”
“That’s exactly why we hid you for as long as we could, Flor. It was easier for us and you. But once that Draugur found you, it was game over anyway. I guess it doesn’t feel great having to catch up with everything right now, though.”
I sighed and dropped my head sideways to rest it on Finlay’s shoulder in the easy way I had done so many times over the years. “If I didn’t have the familiarity of you in my life right now, then I don’t think I’d be dealing with this quite so well, Finlay.”
“I’ve always thought the world of you, Flor, and I’ve always been prepared to die to protect you. I’m going to make this all as easy to wrap your head around as possible.” He gently rested his head against mine as he spoke.
“Don’t die for me, Finlay. I don’t think I could live through that,” I murmured.
We sat like that, inside the Everwood, for what felt like hours, and I was entirely at peace. Being there felt as though I had everything I could ever need. I’m not sure either of us would have ever moved again if it wasn’t for a bitter voice that suddenly spoke up behind us.
“Jesus, you two have been here for like six hours, and you’ve managed to address the sum total of one soul? What have you been doing? As if I need to ask.”
I jumped guiltily and stood up, even though we had done nothing wrong, but Freya just had a way of getting under my skin.
Finlay stood up alongside me, and his face glowered with anger. “Flora is familiarising herself with the Everwood, Freya.”
“Ha, is that all she’s familiarising herself with, Finlay?” Freya stood with her arms folded over her chest and a mocking look on her annoyingly beautiful face.
There it was again. There was no doubt this time that I heard Finlay full-on growl at Freya as he bit back. “I’m getting sick of your attitude, Freya. Everyone is getting sick of it. We’re a unit and unity is what will keep each of us alive. It’s time you started behaving like you’re a part of a team.”
For a brief moment, Freya looked almost as though she might cry. Her face lost its cold mask, instead her lower lip jutted out, and her blue eyes shone with the faintest hint of salt water. Finlay had shocked her I was sure.
I was just about to step forward and check Freya was okay when she laughed. It was a harsh cackle, which sounded more like a caw from a crow, and it made me stop in my advance. My eyes grew wide as Freya’s whole body started to swim in front of my eyes. It was like she had turned into smoke, her features and the colours of her clothes all broke apart and swirled together until they created a single colour. Black.
I looked at Finlay, wondering if this was something to do with Sluag. I was terrified we were about to start seeing Draugur coming for us. Finlay was obviously furious, but he wasn’t scared, and that comforted me a little.
I turned back to what was left of Freya just in time to see the black colour weave into a tight-knit ball about the size of a melon before it burst apart into a mass of black feathers. A massive shrieking raven rose into the air. Fixing its ice blue eyes on us, it gave one final indignant cry before it winged its way deftly through the trees followed by a stream of souls I recognised as rogues.
I turned to Finlay, about to ask him what the hell had just happened, but he was already yelling after the raven. “Way to go, Freya. One step at a time, Penthesilea said. Don’t tell her too much at once, or it’ll be too much for her. You’re not fit to be a Dion.”
I touched him gently on the shoulder, pulling him out of his angry tirade. “Finlay, did Freya just become a bird?”
He looked uncomfortable and almost as though he might not answer me, but he did. “Yeah. When Freya escorts the rogue souls to the Endwood, she takes the shape of a raven. It’s the logical form to take to lead souls that fly, I guess.”
“I—is it just Freya who can do that? Become a raven I mean?” I asked.
He sighed heavily. “All of the Dion can shape-shift. We have different forms than Freya, though. Your protectors have strong animal alters to enable them to fight. Lyall becomes a wolf and Artair becomes an eagle.”
