As they made it to the top of a ridge, Charlotte tripped over a rock and flapped her arms like a bird to catch her balance. Nora took a deep breath.
I’m relying on these people to save me.
Henry pointed down the rocky slope before he slipped and fell. He groaned from the ground. “Tobin's cabin is just beyond those trees.”
“This Tobin. Was he exiled, too?” She asked, hoping he was nothing like Charlotte and Henry.
“Uh…no. He left,” Charlotte replied, negotiating her way down the rocky slope.
Left? Something sparked in her mind—a detail she couldn’t quite make out, but she was sure it was there. There had to be more to it than that. “Why?”
Henry glanced over his shoulder at Charlotte, who kept her back to Nora as they walked, concealing her expression. “There was… a disagreement.”
“A disagreement? Like the one that led to my exile?”
Henry turned and smiled brightly. “Yes, actually.”
He meant that to be cryptic; they were keeping something from her. He continued on, and she bored holes through his fluffy curls—nearly the same color as her own hair. Could they really be related?
Charlotte shook her head. “I’m still not sure Tobin will help us.”
After a pause, Henry replied, “You didn’t know him the way I did. We're here.”
A thick wall of trees soaked up the remaining dim, blue light, but the scent of burning wood drifted in the air.
It wasn’t long before a small clearing appeared where a tiny, weathered wood cabin stood. Dust and grime clouded the windows. The uneven stairs left a sizable gap between the top step and the door. The roof struggled to support a thick bed of fallen leaves. Except for a small, pale plume of smoke rising from the back, everything was dark, still, and silent.
Tobin lived here? It looked like a scene from a horror movie. She crept into the clearing, unable to pull her gaze from the dilapidated structure, and collided with Charlotte.
Charlotte wrung her hands as she searched their surroundings. “I think it's best if you stay back here for a while.”
Nora glanced at the tree line. What were they keeping from her this time? “You drag me through the woods to meet this guy, and now you want me to hide?”
“It's him.” Henry nodded in the direction of a distant rustling.
Charlotte gasped and smoothed the front of her now-filthy dress. “Nora, hide!”
Part of her wanted to stay right there to let their plan explode in their faces. Maybe then, the whole truth would come out.
Charlotte lifted her chin and pasted that fake smile Nora had seen at her house while Henry searched the ground, occasionally nodding and shrugging as if he were rehearsing lines from a play in his head. The last time they’d been this nervous was moments before the Tavians had blown her door off.
Hiding it is.
She stalked away and crouched behind a shrub while Henry and Charlotte fidgeted in the center of the clearing.
A painful minute passed, and the rustling grew louder. Finally, a shadow moved through the trees, and a bear of a man emerged with a dead elk draped over his shoulders.
He wasn't just big, he had a foot on Nora and his biceps were bigger than her thighs. His dark hair curled around his neck and ears, and while he appeared to be close to Nora's age, a week's worth of facial hair made it hard to tell. His size, the way he moved, that hair, those eyes—she’d never seen anyone like him before.
Tobin raised his eyebrows at Charlotte and Henry, his only visible reaction as he trekked past them without a word.
“Hello, Tobin,” Charlotte said, grinning brightly. “May we speak with you for a moment?”
Nora rolled her eyes. It sounded like she was here to talk to him about email etiquette.
“I thought I wasn't supposed to have any contact with any of you anymore,” Tobin replied as he lumbered toward the cabin.
Charlotte folded her hands in front of her. “I'm sure, given the circumstances, our rules can be bent a bit.”
Tobin smirked, slid the elk off his shoulders, and it landed heavily on the ground. “Your rules? I thought that was a perk for me. I don't have anything to say to you.”
Charlotte stuttered as if her words had been stolen from her, and Nora smiled.
I like him already.
“Now if you'll excuse me.” His tone was dripping with sarcasm as he pointed to the elk with a huge hand. “I'm a little busy right now.”
Charlotte turned a sickly shade of green. “Is that a...” She motioned toward the elk. “Are you going to eat that?”
“That is an elk.” Tobin grinned widely. “And, yes. It's delicious.”
I really like him.
He retrieved a knife and knelt over his kill while Charlotte took frantic, shallow breaths.
Henry stepped forward. “It's about Leonora.”
Tobin paused, his hand frozen in midair. His expression darkened before he rose and faced Henry.
Nora crouched lower. They were right. Hiding was necessary.
“What about Leonora?” Tobin growled.
“The things she said before. They're happening. The Seers are dead.”
Seconds ticked by in an unbearable silence before Tobin sneered. “Well, that'll be fun to sort out. Not my problem anymore.”
Nora's shoulders slumped. He wouldn’t help.
Henry and Charlotte exchanged desperate glances as Tobin leaned over the elk. A moment before his knife plunged into it, he paused, tensing every muscle.
“Who's with you?” He sprang to his feet, searching the ground as he strode toward the tree line.
Henry and Charlotte froze. Nora held her breath.
“There are three sets of footprints here. Who is with you?”
Charlotte pursed her lips. Henry searched the treetops. “Well…Circumstances being what they were…”
Tobin's eyes widened. “You brought her here?”
Nora couldn’t get any closer to the ground. This had been a bad idea.
Tobin's hands closed into fists as he glared at Charlotte and Henry. They looked like they might run, screaming into the forest. If they did, Nora would join them.
“Where is she?” he asked, the words rumbling through clenched teeth.
“We didn't have any other choice!” Henry flailed his arms, looking at Charlotte for support. “The Tavians were already there when we got to her house. We can’t bring her to Nios yet, and we couldn’t just leave her there!”
“Where. Is. She?”
“She's... well, she's...” Charlotte glanced at Nora's hiding place.
No!
He turned in her direction and waited with slow, deep breaths raising his shoulders.
It wasn’t like she could run. She stood slowly and emerged from the brush.
His deep-brown eyes flashed, giving her goosebumps. He lowered his head but remained silent.
She folded her arms and looked anywhere but directly at him. In all their ramblings, Henry and Charlotte had never thought to mention Tobin carried a burning hatred for her? How did Henry think Tobin would ever help?
“You can leave the way you came,” he replied in an even voice, the undertones of anger still evident.
It was over. Hopefully, Henry had a plan C. She shifted on her feet at the tree line, waiting for direction, but something about Tobin stung her. He really wouldn’t help? He knew about the SWAT mutants and their white guns, and he didn’t care.
Charlotte scowled at him, balling her dainty hands before pulling them to her chest and thrusting them down. “That can't be your answer!”
He stood tall, his eyes electrified. “You think you have any right to preach the moral high ground? You set this in motion. Now you have to live with it!”
A blue flash split through the sky over them like a lightning strike hurtling to the forest below. Nora frowned, ignoring the argument. There wasn’t a cloud for miles.
“What are you looking at?” Tobin shouted at her.
/> Nora jumped. Regardless of what had happened five years ago, there was no need to yell at her that way. She wanted to yell back, but he was far too intimidating. Instead, she rambled like an idiot. “I—I'm sorry. I…I saw some lightning, but there aren't any clouds...”
Tobin exchanged a knowing glance with Charlotte and Henry. “They followed you.”
“How could we have known they would be at her house?” Henry’s curls shook. “We left just in time, but they knew we teleported.”
Charlotte huffed. “Even if we had extracted her without incident, they would have checked here, given—”
“Enough!” Tobin roared. Birds spooked from the neighboring trees. “Leave now, or the Tavians following you won't be your biggest concern.”
Nora gaped at him.
What kind of person would say that?
Charlotte’s mouth hung open, and she wilted as she turned to Henry. “We should hurry.”
He didn't move. His blue eyes remained fixed on Tobin.
“They'll kill her,” he said quietly. “You know Charlotte and I can't keep her safe forever. They will find her, and we won't be able to stop them.”
Nora studied her dusty, scuffed shoes. Henry was wasting his breath. Tobin would never help, but how long could she run?
Charlotte grabbed Henry’s arm. “We've got to try to get Nora out of here.” From their downcast expressions, Nora guessed there wasn’t a plan C.
“Wait.” Tobin shut his eyes. His jaw tensed as he ran a hand through his dark, curly hair and took a deep breath through his nose. When he opened his eyes again, they settled squarely on Nora. The anger there was as fierce as ever, but there was more—much more.
It raised the hair on her arms, but she ignored it and met his gaze with as much composure as she could. Maybe he couldn’t stop the Tavians by himself, but there wasn’t any concern about it, either. This was the man who didn’t care if they hunted and killed her. She would not look weak in front of someone like that.
He looked away and cleared his throat. “Get inside. They'll be here soon.”
Chapter 5
Annabel pulled her eyes open with effort, but they slid closed again and again. The stark-white walls of the tiny, austere room barely came into focus. The coarse sheets of her bed rubbed along her legs as she shivered from a chill.
“Annabel?” a male voice whispered nearby, startling her. She peered in its direction, unable to place it.
“Where am I?” she demanded. “What’s happened to me?”
“You're in the medical facility. You've just come out of a procedure.”
“Commander Bishop?” She squinted at the unmistakable shadow of his dark hair. What was he doing here?
“We’ve known each other a long time,” he said with a slight laugh. “Call me Jasper.”
His face came into focus, and she searched for any trace of the person who had befriended her three years ago. His jawline had developed stronger angles. Impenetrable onyx had replaced the soft eyes she remembered. No, she couldn’t think of him as Jasper anymore. They hadn’t known each other for a long time. They’d been close once, but that had all changed.
She lifted her chin, forcing the pain away. She’d promised herself a long time ago that she’d never let him see how much it hurt. “What procedure? I—”
The atrium. Inarus. The sharp prick of the needle in her neck. She tensed her muscles, balling her fists so tightly her fingernails pressed into her palms.
Cyrus.
His giddy smile as he’d told her she would be a Seer. The way she had begged herself to fight as her muscles fell limp. Seers weren’t made through genetic alterations. They were bred, propagated from the perfect genetic matching of parents. Everyone knew that. Cyrus had risked her life to cement his role as ruler, and it would all be for nothing.
Her whole body trembled. He’d gone too far this time. There had always been moves and countermoves between them. This was different. He’d tried to alter her genetic profile. She could have died, turned into an entirely different person, maybe even developed some strange genetic disease.
He didn’t care.
She stretched her legs and splayed her fingers. No pain or weakness. She seemed fine—for now. The most she could hope for would be for nothing to happen at all. It was an experimental procedure; maybe nothing would change.
She knew better than to hope she’d become a Seer. That would make her a slave to Cyrus, and all of Octavius would support it. He’d make an announcement met with praise and fanfare: Annabel is now a Seer. Our drought has ended, and the Seer has come from the Renaud family bloodline. The Tavians would be able to compete with the Niotians, and not even the Sacarros could challenge him again.
Meanwhile, she’d become a prisoner. He’d demand more and more. She’d get less and less. And if she ever got anything wrong—
She shuddered.
Regardless of what would happen, it didn’t change the truth. Cyrus saw her—his sister—as nothing more than a prop to reinforce his rule. An unsteady breath forced its way out. She didn't know how, but she would make him regret this.
Commander Bishop leaned forward in his chair beside her bed. “Try to remain calm.”
“You don't understand.” Her voice was raw and uneven. Her throat burned, so dry she couldn’t even swallow. “My brother...”
“Yes.” He rested his elbows on his knees. “At the command of your brother, Doctor Fry performed a number of procedures. It's unclear whether they were successful, although...”
“Although what?” Her jaw ached from the rigid pressure. She’d do anything to avoid becoming a Seer.
He stared at her, cryptic as ever. “Your eyes.”
Her hand flew to her face and groped for clues. The skin felt tender and a little puffy to the touch, but it was otherwise smooth and woundless. “What about my eyes?”
He shifted in his chair. “They—they're now blue.”
“My eyes are blue?” she shouted. “Get me a mirror!”
Commander Bishop produced a mirror from the small table next to her bed, and she snatched it away from him. Just as he’d said, a set of crystal-blue eyes peered out from her pale features.
The mirror dropped from her trembling hand, and her gaze locked on the white wall ahead. It was the only thing worse than becoming a Seer. Blue eyes made her a Variant like Uncle Tiberius—and Cyrus had killed him to rid their family of imperfection.
The Elite Families had used Tiberius’s dark hair to sow seeds of distrust throughout Octavius. Questions circulated about whether a family with a Variant would have the desire to fully pursue the ideal genetic profile, which could have explained all the research setbacks. Ridiculous, of course. Her family had done everything they could, so she’d ignored the questions right up until the moment Mother and Father had been killed.
They’d been able to fend off the Elites last time, but she knew they lay in wait, watching and waiting for another chance.
Her blue eyes would be that chance.
This changed everything. Now the best she could hope for was to become a Seer. It might be the only thing that would save her life. She hissed from her nose as if she were letting off pressure.
Cyrus has to pay.
She ripped the covers from her legs and sprang from the bed.
Commander Bishop held out a cautionary hand. “Annabel.”
She glared at him, silently warning him not to trifle with her. He rose, too, his arm still extended toward her.
“Let me pass,” she ordered, storming to the door. “I have business with my brother.”
Three steps later, her knees buckled.
“Easy.” He caught her before she tumbled to the ground. “I think your business will have to wait.”
He held her while her legs flopped clumsily.
“No. This can't wait,” she insisted, struggling to regain her freedom and make it to the door, but he barely strained to hold her.
Her resolve waned as the room started to spin
. A slick layer of cold sweat coated her face, and her eyes glazed.
He gently placed her back in bed. Her stomach churned, commanding her full attention as it threatened to give up its contents. Her hair stuck to the back of her neck, and the white sheets beneath her dampened with sweat. She hung her head and took slow, deep breaths.
He took his seat next to her and waited with all his usual composure until the feeling passed.
She wouldn’t be Cyrus’s Seer. There had to be another option. The Guard was loyal to him, so an overthrow wouldn’t be possible, but there had to be something she could do. The walls in the tiny room felt like they were closing in on her.
“How long will I be here?” she asked.
He tilted his head. “Obviously your eyes have presented some unanticipated challenges. The other families can’t know about this. Cyrus would like you to return to the safety of your suite as soon as possible. The fewer people who know about your eyes, the better until we know whether the procedures were successful.”
She scowled. “I’m a prisoner now?”
He met her glare. “I don’t see it that way.”
She scoffed. “Of course not. You work for Cyrus, and you brought me to the procedure yourself. What happens to me doesn’t matter to you.”
The muscles along his shoulders tightened under his shirt, and his eyes hardened, but it dissipated quickly, replaced by the cold, unfeeling expression she’d grown accustomed to seeing in him. Her Jasper was gone.
A lump rose in her throat. She hadn’t felt this broken and vulnerable since Mother and Father had died, and she was really alone this time. No one could protect her from Cyrus. If he wanted her dead—even if it was because of something he’d done to her—he’d kill her.
She peeked up at Commander Bishop. He’d at least tell her if the worst was about to happen, right?
“Please, give me something. How long do I have before…?” She couldn’t say it, but she didn’t have to. The Head of the Guard would be the first to know when Cyrus wanted her dead.
“He won’t harm you.” There was an edge to his words, a departure from his usual measured tone. He cleared his throat and rubbed a hand over his face. “There’s no treatment plan for this, no prognosis. It’s unclear how long it may take you to develop Seeing abilities, but the medical team is optimistic that you’ll be the first Tavian Seer since the war. That makes you valuable. Cyrus will always need you.”
The Seers Page 4
