by Kate Keir
I was tired now. I just wanted to wake up in my warm bed back at the castle. I couldn’t go until Sluag let me, though.
“I wonder how you will feel when you are inevitably betrayed by one of your Dion, Soul Keeper? My money is on Finlay. I think he’s the weakest link, the chink in your armour, the one who will be your downfall.”
As he spoke his pacing brought him closer and closer to me, until he was standing just a few feet away. His eyes were lit with grim humour. “It will be so very sad to see your fearless protector fall from grace, after all these years by your side.”
I hated the fact he was picking on Finlay. I also hated the way he knew we were going through a rough time. I didn’t want this monster to know the ins and outs of my personal life.
“Finlay will never betray me, Sluag. He will always be my best friend, and he will always have my back. He spent years protecting me from you and your Draugur when I didn’t even know you existed. He’s never failed me, and I know he never will.” I stepped closer to Sluag as I spoke, determined to show him he couldn’t hurt me with his lies.
“If not Finlay, then I wonder who will be your ultimate undoing, Flora?” He tapped his index finger against his lips thoughtfully. “Lyall is over-confident, Freya is jealous, and Mara and Artair are very self-focused. Perhaps you might even be responsible for your own destruction. Or maybe the lovely Penthesilea will fail you as terribly as she failed her husband.”
He was so close now I could smell the aroma of death and decay oozing from his scaly body. Swallowing back the bile that the smell of him caused to rise in my throat, I stepped even closer to him and glared into his fire-pit eyes.
“To be honest, Sluag, I am bored of your lies and your attempts to turn me against my Dion. They are all on my side, and I trust them, even though I’ve only known most of them for such a short time. You’re not gonna win. You’re not getting out of your little hell-cage on my watch, so can I suggest you quit this crap and let me get some real sleep?”
He stared back at me for what felt like forever, his expression giving away nothing of what he was thinking. Then suddenly, he broke off his gaze, stepping back into a sweeping, theatrical bow.
“As you wish, Flora. You may return to your slumbers.”
The Endwood started to shimmer and disappear as Sluag released his grip on my mind. I breathed out a huge sigh, relieved to be returning to my bed.
“Do me one favour, Little Dreamer?” Sluag’s disembodied voice floated through the greyness of my vision as I moved between worlds.
I didn’t reply to him, but he continued anyway. “Say hello to Finlay for me?”
I could still hear his gleeful laughter echoing inside my head as my eyes settled on the now familiar surroundings of my room in the castle. Looking at the gilded clock on the fireplace mantel, I saw it was quarter past one in the morning. I sighed deeply, knowing I probably wouldn’t get any more sleep for the rest of the night.
Instead of trying to sleep, I lay in bed and ran through different ways that I could make sure Finlay and I sorted things out in the morning. I was certain everything Sluag had told me was lies, and now I was more determined than ever to get things back on an even keel with my best friend.
Chapter Sixteen
I did manage to eventually fall back to sleep, just as the sun was starting to flood through my window. When my alarm went off at eight, I groaned and hit snooze, burrowing beneath the covers for a little while longer.
After another ten minutes of warm dozing, I reached over to grab my phone and wrote a text to Lyall. We were supposed to be working on shifting today, but after my latest visit from Sluag I was determined I needed to spend time with Finlay. It was time to make amends.
I hit send on my message and then typed out a second one for Finlay.
Hey, can we meet up and train at the Everwood today? F xx
I lay back in bed and watched my phone, waiting for a response. When it beeped with the message tone, I sat up quickly to read it.
K. See you at the clearing at nine? F xx
I breathed out in relief and leapt from the bed to get ready, I didn’t have long to get a shower and grab a snack on my way out the door.
At five to nine, I stood in the clearing, munching on a piece of toast that dripped warm butter down my fingers. I looked calm and relaxed on the outside, but inside I was so nervous, which made me sad because I never used to feel anything but comfortable around Finlay.
I watched him enter the clearing and saunter across the grass in my direction. I really wanted to meet him halfway and let him envelop me in a huge hug, but something inside me made me stop before I could move my feet. Internally, I questioned why I didn’t go to him and all I could think of was what Sluag had said to me the night before:
My money is on Finlay. I think he’s the weakest link, the chink in your armour, the one who will be your downfall.
I shuddered despite the sunshine. I couldn’t let Sluag ruin today. It was exactly what he wanted and if there was one thing I knew for sure it was that Finlay and I needed to get back to how we used to be. I gave him a warm smile as he reached me.
“Hey. How are you?” I was praying he wouldn’t bite my head off. It would be a lot more difficult to come back from a terrible start to the morning.
“Hey, Flor. I’m good. You ready to go?” He stopped in front of me and ruffled his hand though his pale hair. He looked exactly like what would probably come up on your computer screen if you Googled really cute guy.
“Let’s do it.” I smiled.
Willing myself to the Everwood was like second nature now. I no longer closed my eyes or even really thought about it. All I had to do was imagine I wanted to be there, and it would happen. It made me smile a little to notice I got there a split second before Finlay did this time around. This was starting to feel like my kingdom now.
He acknowledged my early arrival with a quick nod of satisfaction. “Okay, Flor I think we should see how you do working with more than one soul at a time today.”
“Pure souls? Or rogue souls?” I asked.
“Probably both, but I think it makes sense to start with your little buddies.” He gestured as he spoke to a gathering of tiny lights hovering behind me.
As I turned, I smiled to see my pure souls waiting oh so patiently for me. The multicoloured balls of light danced through the air. Some seemed to be racing with each other, speeding through the trees neck and neck until they screeched to a stop at what appeared to be a mutually agreed upon finish line.
Others hovered sedately at head height, the miniature bolts of lightning inside them pulsing slowly as they waited for me to tell them their fate. It had become clear to me that pure souls tended to stick together in large groups, while rogues were more often found alone or sometimes in smaller congregations. I asked Finlay why.
“The souls recognise each other, Flor. The pure souls have a lot in common. I guess you could say they enjoy each other’s company. The rogue souls also know they are alike, but that makes them not so great company so they don’t tend to hang out together.”
“They make my job easy then. If I see a big group, then I’ll know it’s pure souls. If they’re alone, then I know they’re probably rogues.” I turned back to the gathering of lights, looking forward to communicating with them all at the same time.
“Whoa, not so fast, Flor. Rogues can be deceptive. They often try to hide themselves within a group of pure souls. That’s why it’s better for you to sort souls consciously rather than with your subconscious. When you’re sorting with just your mind, you can make mistakes. It’s unlikely you’ll get it wrong when you’re here in person.”
“But I’m not always here. So, does that mean I’m letting tons of impure souls escape back into the Everwood?” I frowned.
“Don’t stress over it, Flora. You’ll get it wrong sometimes, but you’ll catch most of the souls that slip through before they get a chance to reincarnate.”
“Most of them? What abou
t the evil that manages to slip back into the mortal world?” I panicked as a terrible thought sprang to my mind. “What if a murderer kills someone because of my screw up?”
“Stop doing that.” Finlay’s voice was hard. “You have to learn to let those thoughts go, Flora. If you don’t, they’ll destroy you. Those things may happen. That’s a part of who and what you are. Being a Soul Keeper isn’t easy, but you’re strong enough to do this. I know you are.”
Finlay’s voice had softened. As he finished speaking his beautiful blue eyes stared intently into mine. This was the boy I had grown up with, the man who had been everything to me for my whole life long. Finlay would never betray me. Sluag was so wrong about him.
“Finlay, I’ve missed you so much.”
He didn’t reply. Instead, he took a quick step forward and wrapped his thick arms tightly around my waist, pulling me against him. The tension drained from my body, and I relaxed into the warm comfort of the familiar bear hug.
We stayed that way for an endless amount of time. I didn’t want to pull away; I didn’t want to feel the loss of him. It was only when I started to feel a strange tugging feeling inside my head that I leaned back from Finlay and looked around me. I felt as though I was waking from a dream.
We were surrounded by tiny lights dancing in the air around us. While we had been distracted by each other, the souls had obviously grown tired of waiting, and so they had taken matters into their own hands. I now recognised the tugging feeling inside my head, as their way of trying to communicate with me, letting me know they wanted me to tell them what their future held.
Finlay took a step back from me and turned in a three-sixty circle, staring in awe at the souls surrounding him. He wasn’t used to having them so close. “I think they want you to do your job, Soul Keeper.” He laughed.
“All of them? At the same time?” I had no idea how I was going to try and communicate with them all at the same time. There must have been three-hundred tiny lightning balls waiting for my attention.
“Yep, all at the same time. I’m kinda guiding you blind here, Flor. To be honest, Mara would have been a better choice to help you out with this part.”
My voice was firm as I replied, “I want you here.”
“Okay, boss.” He winked at me. “So, what you need to do is imagine you are casting a net out with your mind. Every single one of these little guys is linked to you, so they should be easy to round up.”
Concentrating on his instruction, I imagined a sparkling silver net inside my head. Next, I focused on the lights dancing in the air around me. They almost shook with excitement when they felt my attention fall on them, allowing the fine silver strands to gently cover them. I began pulling them in toward me.
“Great work, Flor.” Finlay’s words made me lose my concentration for a brief moment, and the net shimmered and disappeared. “Oh, no you don’t. Keep concentrating. Keep them in the net and check that you don’t have any rogues hiding inside there.”
Once again taking Finlay’s instruction on board, I brought the net back to life and mentally reached out to try and communicate with the little souls. As my gaze swept over each light, they bobbed excitedly up and down. I repeated the process again just to be sure I hadn’t missed any of them, but after the second sweep, I was completely confident there were only pure souls inside my net.
I considered asking Finlay what to do next, but my own intuition nudged me in the right direction. I communicated with the lights in the same way I had done with individual souls previously, but this time I imagined my internal voice echoing through the net, enabling each and every one to hear me.
You are all pure, and you will all stay here in the Everwood until you live again.
Almost before I finished, the silver net burst into a thousand sparkling strands. The lights spilled from their temporary confinement, and in a flurry of delight and excitement, they melted into the woodland surrounding us. One or two came flying past my face first, just touching my cheek on their way past as they thanked me, before following their friends through the trees.
“Well done, Flor. That was textbook perfect. You are amazingly talented at this.” The approval was obvious in Finlay’s voice.
“Thanks. It wasn’t too difficult. Although my head was starting to feel a little crowded with all of them chattering away in there.” At one point, it had been quite overwhelming to have a few hundred voices competing for my attention inside my head.
“That’s why we started with pure souls for your first attempt at communicating with a group. If you found those guys noisy, then you can imagine what it will feel like to have a gang of rogues inside your mind. Especially when they are trying to bully you into letting them stay.” Finlay had sat down on the grass with his legs stretched out in front of him.
I sat down next to him, but crossed my legs under me. “I don’t think it’ll be much fun dealing with rogues in the same way. I guess it’s a good thing they don’t hang out in such big groups.”
We spent the next few minutes in a companionable silence. I was grateful the day had gone so well, but I was still nervous about speaking to him about how strained our relationship had been over the last week.
He beat me to it. “Flor?”
My stomach flipped as the words, Don’t screw this up, Flora ran repeatedly through my head.
“Yep,” I replied in a strained voice that was trying to be too casual.
“I want to apologise for my behaviour. It was wrong of me to expect so much from you. I had no right. I was jealous and stupid and more than a little bit arrogant actually. I don’t blame you for being so angry with me.” He gave me a sheepish smile.
“Finlay, I’m sorry too. We’ve been friends forever, and I should have understood how hard it must be for you to share my friendship with the others after I found out about everything.”
“I missed you, Flor. Even if you can be a nightmare sometimes.” He laughed.
Giving his arm a friendly punch, I laughed out loud. “Hey, I wasn’t the one who had a tantrum over nothing. But seriously, I missed you too. A lot.”
Clutching his arm in mock agony, Finlay fell onto his back against the wet grass. “I think you broke my arm.” He chuckled.
“I’ll do the other one if you don’t quit the melodrama.” I laughed as I lay back in the grass next to him so I could watch the white fluffy clouds slowly wend their way through the Everwood’s sky.
I thought back to last night and my time in the Endwood with Sluag, and I smiled to myself.
“What’s making you so happy?” Finlay took a break from his own cloud studies in time to turn and see my smirk.
“Well, last night Sluag hijacked my dreams again. Only this time he was really heavy on telling me that I was going to lose you. He said that you’d betray me. I’m just laughing because I swore to myself I’d make things right with you today, and now I have. So Sluag can go and suck it.”
Finlay sat up with a jolt. “He told you I’d betray you? What else did he say?”
I followed his lead and sat up too, slightly taken aback by his apparent anger. Although I understood it mustn’t have felt great to have someone accuse you of being a traitor.
I tried my best to dismiss what Sluag had said.
“Not much really. Just that you’d betray me—oh and he said you’d been to see him by choice. Can you believe the crap he tries to use to mess with my head?” My laughter died in my throat as I took in the look of fury on Finlay’s face.
“He told you I went to him? Flora, you don’t believe him do you. I mean that’s bull, you know that, right?”
“Finlay, calm down. Of course, I know he was lying to me. Jesus, I wouldn’t be here doing my best to make things right with us if I believed his lies. I can’t wait to tell him how wrong he was now we’ve sorted things out.”
He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and leaned across to give the top of my head a quick kiss before he stood up and offered me his hand. “Okay, good. C’mon let
’s go and get something to eat. I’m starving.”
I took his hand and followed him out of the Everwood, but for the rest of the day, I found it tough to shake the nagging feeling that Finlay hadn’t been entirely honest with me.
Chapter Seventeen
A knock at my bedroom door drew me out of the depths of my thoughts. I had been thinking about the things Sluag had said to me, but mostly I had been thinking about Finlay’s reaction when I had told him about them.
Shaking off my worries, I crossed the room and opened the door to see Mara and Freya standing in the hallway with huge grins on their faces.
“Err, hi?” I questioned suspiciously.
“You have been deemed far too miserable these last few days. You are not permitted to stay in your room any longer, Miss Bast.” Mara giggled.
“So, you have no choice but to be taken for lunch in Inverness and maybe for some retail therapy afterward.” Freya nodded toward my bag and boots which I had casually discarded in a heap on my bedroom floor, indicating I should put them on.
Realising resistance was futile, I started to pull on my boots while the two girls hovered in my doorway. Once I was ready to go, I crossed the room to my bed and scratched a very sleepy Achilles behind his ear. Grabbing my phone from the end of the bed, I headed out into the hallway.
As we made our way down the stairs, Mara and Freya were talking animatedly about where we should eat, and before very long, I was caught up in their enthusiasm too. We eventually decided on a restaurant we knew that did great pizza.
As we were crossing the threshold of the castle, I heard a male voice call my name. I turned toward the sound, seeing Lyall crossing the entrance hall toward me.
“Give me two minutes?” I asked the girls before walking back to meet Lyall halfway across the floor.
“Hey, what’s up?” I asked.
“You guys heading out anywhere nice?” He gave me his best wolfish smile.
“Just for some lunch in town, then maybe some shopping. They think I need cheering up.”
