Feudlings in Sight
By Wendy Knight
Published by Astraea Press
www.astraeapress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
FEUDLINGS IN SIGHT
Copyright © 2013 WENDY KNIGHT
ISBN 978-1-62135-195-5
Cover Art Designed by AM DESIGN STUDIOS
To Crystal, for loving Feudlings enough to give me the courage to write more.
Chapter One
Charity Delyle didn’t have to be a seer to know that the love of her life had no idea she was even a girl. It didn’t matter what she wore, what she said, how she did her hair, Hunter would always think of her as Shane’s little cousin. Emphasis on little, since Hunter was so big.
Charity thought about punching him. Maybe that would wake him up. Instead, she said softly, “Hunter.”
“Yeah, Char?” He half-tipped his head toward her, but his eyes never left the TV. She should have known better than to bother him when he was watching the NFL draft.
“Never mind.” She got up and wandered away. Shane squeezed her shoulder gently as she passed him. He knew. Of course he knew. Shane could read her better than anyone on the planet. He wasn’t just a cousin, he was more like a brother, and her best friend.
“We’re starting at the new boarding school tomorrow. Lots of new Normals to make friends with. That’ll be fun, right?” Shane asked. It was his attempt to distract her, she could tell.
She gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “Yeah, that will be fun.”
“Come on, Char. Let’s go practice that little gift of yours.”
She wanted to argue with him — she had no talent, she was a worthless seer. Everyone said so. But Shane, her ever-optimistic Prodigy cousin, refused to admit it. One of the thousands of reasons she loved him so much. She straightened her spine and pushed her white-blond hair over her shoulder.
“Okay.” Maybe this time, she could do it.
Neither of them could drive yet. Shane would be fifteen in a few weeks, but she still had months and months until her birthday. And they weren’t allowed to leave Council headquarters until they were shipped off to their new school.
She hid a smile as she followed Shane right off the property and down the several blocks to the mall. Shane had never been one to do what he was told. “Hunter’s going to skin you alive,” she said when they were nearly a mile away.
“He’d have to catch me first. He might be big, but I’m fast.” Shane grinned over at her. She could point out that Hunter was his Guard — his sole purpose in life was to protect Shane from their Edren enemies — but she knew Shane wouldn’t care. Somehow, the fact that he was being hunted by an unseen nemesis had never scared Shane.
Not like it scared her.
“Anyway, you need to practice. And Hunter’s busy. Plus,” he paused, his metallic blue eyes sparkling, “what Edren in their right mind would be this close to the Carules Council’s headquarters?”
“The Prodigy, that’s who. He’s not afraid of the Council. Or anything else, for that matter.”
One of the few things that could dim the bright light in Shane’s eyes — the mention of the Edren Prodigy. The one who had hunted him since the day he was born. Shane, as a Carules with blue flames, didn’t fight in the magical war that had claimed thousands of lives. The Council didn’t allow him to, saying they were watching, learning, waiting until the right time.
But the Edren Prodigy, with his red flames, did. And he was terrifying. He was unstoppable. A hundred Carules warriors could attack, and the only one left standing would be the Prodigy. Charity couldn’t see him; no seer could, and for that she was glad. She had nightmares just watching the videos they had of the Prodigy fighting. In her nightmares, Shane never came out the victor. And they couldn’t even hunt the Prodigy because he was always shrouded and cloaked. Not invisible, but not clear enough to see, either.
And Shane was supposed to kill him. Or be killed by him.
“Stop it.” Shane took her elbow and led her inside the big double doors, dodging groups of teenagers who must have thought the entrance was a fun place to hang out. “We’re not here to worry. We’re here for you to practice.”
“And for you to watch for hot girls.” Charity lifted an eyebrow at him, and he laughed, his dark hair tumbling across his forehead. “You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?”
He grinned and winked at her.
The mall was packed, everyone doing last minute school shopping. They had uniforms at their new boarding school, so shopping hadn’t been fun for Charity at all. The members of the Council who raised her, Shane, and Hunter, had their staff order all their clothes online. Charity was a little creeped out that they all knew her size without having to ask.
She paused, watching mothers hurrying from store to store with their daughters, looking harried, frazzled, whatever the word was, but they knew their daughters were alive. They knew their daughters existed — what their favorite color was, what size of shirt they wore. Charity’s mother didn’t know anything about her. Her parents had given her up to the Council when she was a baby with no magical ability — only the gift of sight, and not even a strong gift at that. She hadn’t seen them since.
“How about here?” Shane, sensing her mood, tried to distract her. He led her to a bench in a corner, where he could protect her and block her glowing silver eyes from the rest of the world.
“I don’t know. Can you see all the girls from here?” she teased, but sat on the bench. She hesitated, watching as people scurried from one store to another.
Reading her fear, Shane crouched next to her, taking her hand. “You got this, Charity. Ain’t no thing.” His face broke into a grin again before he fought it down, sobering. “You aren’t what they say you are. You’re so much more.”
She took a deep breath, nodding. Peering around Shane, she zeroed in on the first person she saw: an older woman with a little dog in her purse. Closing her eyes, she focused all her attention on the woman, and then tried to find the two ends of her sight. One was in her mind. It was pretty easy to find. Just a little sliver of warmth, waiting for her to grab. The other was in her heart, and it was way harder to find, hidden under all that emotion. Pain, love, happiness, fear, indecision. It took her too long to find it, and the woman with the dog got too far away. With a frustrated sigh, Charity sat back, opening her eyes. Shane watched her quietly. “Try again.”
This time she chose a younger girl, closer to their own age. She closed her eyes tightly and dug faster, looking for the two strands. Ah ha! There it is! She grabbed them with invisible hands and pulled them together. The vision snapped to life before her, and she felt her silver eyes begin to glow. She let them fall closed — keeping them open took too much work and she couldn’t see with them anyway.
If he thinks he’s going to ask her out before the first day of school, he’s so wrong. The girl’s memories flooded across Charity’s sight. He’s supposed to be with me, and he will — the girl’s thoughts stopped dead and Charity almost opened her eyes to see what was wrong, but then the girl’s thoughts exploded, Oh my gosh that guy is hot. Who is that he’s sitting with? Is it his girlfriend? Get his attention!
Charity smiled. Ah, the girl had seen Shane. She was used to this
reaction to her cousin. “She wants you to talk to her.” She motioned toward the girl who was frantically finger-combing her dark brown hair and batting her eyelashes like she had something stuck in her eye.
Shane snickered, turning his back on her. “Not my type.”
Shane was tall, just over five-ten and still growing. He was lanky and looked like a cover model with his high cheekbones and long eyelashes. And the metallic blue eyes that no one could seem to forget — eyes that were the exact color of his Carules flames.
Girls did not approach Hunter like they did Shane, or fawn over him or bat their eyelashes like insane cartoon characters. He was as tall as Shane but broader. Wide shoulders, thick neck, and always brooding. He was gorgeous, yes, with his golden eyes and dark blond hair. But very few beyond Charity and Shane knew how kind he was, how protective.
Shane’s phone buzzed. It sounded like an angry bee, and Charity knew without using her gift that Hunter was on the other end. And he’d just noticed they were gone. “You’re in trouble.”
“We’re in this together, little cousin.” Shane helped her stand, dropping his arm across her shoulders as he answered the phone with his other hand. “Hey.”
Charity couldn’t hear Hunter’s words, but the dangerous growl came through the phone line clearly. She snickered.
“I was just helping Charity practice. We’ll head back right now, oh angry one.” Shane laughed. Hunter was big and terrifying and dangerous. At least to most people, he was.
But Shane was more dangerous.
He was the Carules Prodigy. One of two of the most powerful sorcerers in the history of the world. He was unstoppable. Nothing could kill him. Except the Edren Prodigy.
Charity forced that thought from her mind. Shane would practice. He would be ready. She’d feel a whole lot better about things if the Council would start his training, though. But Lewis, one of the more… outspoken members, refused to let Shane be taught. They’d been given no reason, only that what Lewis said was law. Odd, since he’s not even the head Council member.
“Come on. His hulkship is yelling. Up for a little jog?” Shane hung up and stuffed his phone in his pocket, glancing at Charity sheepishly.
“Sure, why not?” They raced home, and Shane even let her win, despite the fact that his legs were much longer than hers and she had to take two steps to his one. The fact that she could even pretend to keep up with his sorcerer-fueled speed made her more than a little proud of herself and her non-magical sprinting.
Hunter met them at the door, looking far more like an angry bull than a teenage boy. “What were you thinking? You didn’t even tell me where you were going!”
“I was thinking that Charity needed to practice,” Shane said easily, sliding past Hunter and into the building. “And if we would have told you, you wouldn’t have let us go.”
Charity followed him, panting. She could feel her skin tingle where she brushed Hunter’s arm.
“And you dragged Charity out into danger, too. She can’t fight, Shane! What if you had been attacked? She could have been hurt.”
Sucking in a breath, because her lungs still ached from their run, she laid a hand on Hunter’s broad chest, ignoring the way her blood seemed to boil at the contact with the muscles under his t-shirt. “Hunter, if you’re so worried, maybe you two need to practice. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” She kept her voice level, meeting his eyes. He searched her face, as if trying to reassure himself that she was indeed in one uninjured piece.
He took the hand still pressed against his chest, running his thumb across the soft skin. “Yeah, okay. We’ll practice,” he said gruffly.
“This is like, school for the magical day.” Shane grinned. For as long as Charity could remember, Shane had loved being a Carules. He loved the spells. He was literally the best healer in the world, and even though he was hunted every day of his life, he wouldn’t give up the magic. Lewis had offered once to find a way, if Shane was willing. Shane had said no. And then he’d sworn at him.
To practice, they had to do it far away from the Council. But they couldn’t just go to the mall, like Charity did, because if Normals saw them throwing magical flames, it might raise some eyebrows. While they could do a shroud spell to hide themselves, it wouldn’t hide the fiery attacks they threw at each other. To Normals, shroud spells made them invisible. To other sorcerers, it made them blurry and unidentifiable. Neither of which was helpful at all when they wanted to practice. Charity wondered idly why no one had invented a spell to hide the spells. Now that would be handy to have around.
Charity brought a notebook with her, and the book of spells she’d smuggled from the Council library several years ago. They snuck out of the building, which wasn’t easy with Hunter being as big as he was, and crossed the parking lot. From the outside, Council headquarters looked like any other office building — a nondescript square with lots of windows. Old red brick, boring gray doors. No one passing from the outside would realize the inside housed eight of the most powerful sorcerers in Carules’ history.
They slipped past the parking lot, only pausing while Hunter checked on his giant black truck, or what would be his giant black truck the day he turned sixteen. Until then, he only snuck the keys and drove it when no one was watching. He paused, buffing the chrome with his sleeve. “Your baby is fine, dude.” Shane rolled his eyes and Charity laughed.
On the other side of the parking lot was an abandoned warehouse. Beyond that, a long-neglected field that stretched between a square of other empty buildings. The economy had left the area practically a ghost town, which was exactly what the Council wanted. It worked well for Shane and Hunter, too, because there was little chance that Normals would happen to run into them while they practiced. Because that would be awkward.
Charity chose her usual mangled piece of metal to sit on. Shane and Hunter stood away from her a few paces, but close enough that they could hear her without making her yell. Shane was usually laid back and he definitely enjoyed having a good time, but in this, he was serious, his face solemn, his eyes dark in concentration.
Hunter was always intense. She didn’t let her eyes linger any longer than necessary. If he ever knew how she felt… and didn’t feel the same way… well, it just couldn’t happen. That was all.
She cleared her throat. “Okay, do you want to practice the ones we learned last week or just start new ones?” She had carefully color-coded the spell book with sticky tabs — spells they had mastered, spells they had practiced, spells that would come in handy one day — she was very organized. And if the Council ever found out she put sticky tabs in a book that was over three hundred years old, they would kill her completely dead.
“Learn as much as you can, Shane. Gonna be hard to find a place to practice in the mountains of Utah, surrounded by Normals.” Hunter idly traced spells in the air, letting them fizzle and die without igniting them.
“Well, alright.” Charity flipped to the red section — spells that would come in handy one day. She started at the top. “This one is called an Al-able.” The odd word rolled awkwardly off her tongue. “It’s like… it looks like it’s sort of a flat triangle of flames.”
Hunter and Shane both walked over, studying the spell in the book before tracing it slowly into the air. The spell wouldn’t actually ignite until they lit it with the flames roiling through their blood, but they both wanted to make sure they could do it correctly so as not to explode them all to pieces or something.
“No, no, Hunter. Less harsh lines. Softer.” Charity glanced down at the page and then up at Hunter’s disaster of an attempt. Sighing she laid the book on the metal next to her and pushed herself to her feet. She took Hunter’s hand, trying hard to ignore the way her own blood seemed to explode into flames. There’s no magic there, she told herself harshly. “Like this.” She led his hand through the spell until the air smoked and the image burned in front of them. She looked up, got caught in his gold eyes. He watched her, an unreadable look on his face.
Before he could say anything she dropped his hand. “Now try it on your own. I can’t do everything for you, you know.” Charity grinned playfully, dodging out of the way as he tried to push her over. She rescued the book from the twisted metal and perched, watching them expectantly. “Go. Do something.”
Shane rolled his eyes. “Give the girl a book and she’s suddenly the boss.” He moved away several feet so he wouldn’t accidentally ignite her. He’d done it before, and Charity didn’t relish the idea of it happening again.
After Shane had healed her, Hunter had about killed him.
She watched them practice the spells for an hour, first just trying to get it right and then igniting it and pushing it away from them. The fire spread out like a flat flame-thrower. “That is cool,” Hunter said. “Nice job, Charity. We’ll definitely use that one day.”
Charity suddenly felt the two strands — from her heart and her mind, tangling around each other, frantically trying to grab the vision that appeared, uncalled for.
A girl, tall, warrior-like, with black boots and red and black hair. She was… protecting Charity. No, not exactly. She was fighting to get to Charity, screaming like a banshee. The field was buried in smoke and ash and dead bodies. Charity hurt. Her arm hurt, and she looked down to see it hanging at an awkward angle at her side. She was surrounded by Carules warriors, but somehow she sensed that they were the bad guys, and the girl, the majestic warrior who threw Edren flames, was trying to save her. Charity tried to step back, to see more of the landscape without losing the vision. She’d never done this before, and her invisible hands holding the threads shook with effort. The girl held Shane’s hand, and together they traced the spell — alable, throwing bright purple flames. Hunter fought like a demon behind them, with another boy who bore a strong family resemblance to the girl.
“Charity! Look out!” Charity’s eyes snapped open in time to see Hunter diving at her, red Edren flames shooting past her face. Her scream was cut short as he tackled her, cradling her head in his big hands as they rolled over and over through the dirt. She felt old metal cut her back and her legs, heard Shane swearing and yelling, and then Hunter pulled her to her feet. “Run!” he bellowed.
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