Chosen (9781742844657)

by Morgansen, Shayla

  Emmanuelle thought of the students – particularly her four, the girls in her dorm group. Xanthe, Aristea, Hiroko and Sterling were just sweet children. They were powerful, with much potential, but, like all young people, they could very easily be led astray by someone like Lisandro. She shivered at the thought of strawberry-blonde Sterling being found dead in a field, or Hiroko’s body in a third-world side alley, or Aristea in a creek or Xanthe in an abandoned apartment. Lisandro had given Peter enough empty promises to drag him away from his oaths and his love for Emmanuelle – what would he need to promise a teenager for their loyalty and involvement? A vague, fifth-hand story about a friend’s cousin’s friend’s best friend being killed by Lisandro wouldn’t save a student from Peter’s fate.

  Seeing a coffin, seeing it surrounded by white flowers, seeing Emmanuelle struggle with her grief openly, knowing that Lisandro had done this…That might.

  ‘You must do what is best by the students,’ she had said finally, and after a few more words of comfort, Lord Gawain had excused himself and left her alone, which was exactly what she’d thought she wanted, all along.

  Now, she could hear the sounds of the early-rising students coming down the stairs and traipsing through the reception hall. She heard their chatter and their laughter. Their lives had not fallen apart at the seams – and hopefully, at Emmanuelle’s expense, they never would.

  Peter…

  He had loved her, all along, and said nothing. They had met as hopeful twenty-year-olds, brilliant and powerful and eager to take the place of the two White Elm councillors who had recently passed on within weeks of each other. There had been other applicants, too, but they had been so ordinary, too intimidated by Emmanuelle’s physical beauty to make real attempts at getting to know her. Peter had walked into the waiting room, seen the three spare seats, smiled and taken the one right beside Emmanuelle. She remembered thinking that nobody as nerdy-looking as Peter had ever dared to sit beside her.

  She had initiated conversation, and quickly came to adore his off-kilter sense of humour, sweet disposition and odd, quirky personality. She’d found herself inspired by his insatiable idealism and passionate desire to be part of positive change. She had been delighted when they had both been initiated into the council. They had remained close friends, telling each other everything, almost. He had never indicated that he was working with Lisandro to overturn the White Elm; he had never shared his true feelings for Emmanuelle. What else had remained hidden within Peter’s heart, and died along with him eighteen nights ago?

  She heard hesitant steps, and looked to the door. Aubrey and Teresa had entered the ballroom, and both looked extremely uncomfortable.

  ‘The service will start straight after breakfast,’ Aubrey explained, while Teresa hovered near the door. ‘It will be held in here. Lord Gawain suggested we be present in full uniform.’

  Emmanuelle nodded. By uniform, of course he meant the white robe. She followed the two younger councillors from the ballroom.

  Aubrey’s chestnut hair was shiny, worn straight and cut like a nineties’ boy-band star. His bangs hung into his eyes, just like the pop icons of the decade. He looked comfortable in his body; he was nothing like Peter. Did he know that he only had a job because Peter had left? Jadon and Teresa had been everybody’s first choices after the initial interviews. Aubrey was more like a wild card – a distant cousin of Emmanuelle’s, after all, had seemed a safe and reasonable choice.

  Were Aubrey, Jadon and Teresa close like Peter and Emmanuelle had been? Were they friends? Did they hold secrets from each other? Did Aubrey love Teresa?

  ‘Will you be alright?’ Teresa asked, and Emmanuelle realised that Aubrey was gone, and she was standing in front of the door to her own room in this house.

  ‘I think so,’ Emmanuelle said, fumbling for her key. Her hands were shaking. They hadn’t stopped shaking since Lord Gawain had said that Lisandro was Peter’s murderer.

  Teresa gently took the key from her trembly hands and opened up the room.

  Half an hour later, Emmanuelle was dressed appropriately and standing in the ballroom between Tian and Aubrey. This was her place in the White Elm, and it felt right to stand there. The students were seated in rows, all eyes glued to either the gleaming white coffin or to Lord Gawain, who spoke about Peter and how Lisandro had manipulated and destroyed him. Behind Lord Gawain, Lady Miranda and Renatus stood silently, like guardians.

  Life is constantly changing, like the path cut by a river. Only a year before, Lisandro had been a colleague and an ally, and his place had been Renatus’s. Emmanuelle’s place had been between Peter and Renatus, and the year before that, her place had been right at the end, where Jadon was now. Though Renatus was several years younger than her, she had once again become the council’s baby after his promotion – the last one in the line, until Aubrey, Teresa and Jadon had been initiated.

  Emmanuelle gazed over the students, seeking those four that she felt most responsible for. She spotted them, sitting all together in a row with a pair of twins. She was glad to see their saddened and alert faces; this affected them, and so they would learn from it.

  As her eyes moved along the row, Emmanuelle met Aristea’s gaze. The girl was looking right at her. Aristea’s eyes were wide, and she looked slightly frightened and ill.

  What was important, though, was that Aristea would never fall under the illusion that Lisandro mightn’t be so bad – today she had learned that he was a dangerous killer, capable of murdering even his allies and friends.

  Today, the students had learnt the capabilities of their enemy. Tomorrow, or next week, or in thirty years, whenever the true war started, would they be as eager to destroy that enemy as Emmanuelle was right at that moment?

  She lightly touched her fingertips to the dull, ward-protected ring around her thumb. The Elm Stone rarely chose female keepers, which might be the reason for its large size. On any of her other fingers, it would have slid straight off. As it was, it sat very loosely in its place, held mostly by her knuckle.

  Was it possible that Peter had given her this ring to destroy Lisandro? He was a Seer, after all. He would have known the likely repercussions of leaving her this immense power. Was she meant to take it and destroy his killer, like she wanted to? Would she be able to stop herself if an opportunity arose?

  Lord Gawain dismissed the students to their first class, which would be shortened due to this service. Emmanuelle had no class until that afternoon – she taught students how to create and structure protective wards. She had always been good with wards, but physical barriers were not enough to protect a heart from being broken.

  Those White Elm with classes filed out after the students. Emmanuelle stayed with the others, as Lord Gawain and Renatus approached the coffin. Lady Miranda touched her shoulder supportively as she left, and Anouk and Susannah moved so that they stood either side of Emmanuelle. Pillars.

  ‘Peter, your death is not unacknowledged,’ Lord Gawain said, loud enough for the others to hear. ‘What has happened to you will not be allowed to happen again…’

  He spoke about Peter’s good deeds and how much his former colleagues respected him still, despite his mistakes, but Emmanuelle wasn’t listening. Her eyes were on the coffin and her mind was on the man inside. She’d gathered from light brushes against her colleagues’ current thoughts more information about Peter’s death – Lisandro had drowned him in front of an audience of dark sorcerers, and then left his lifeless body afloat in the surf. After two and half weeks at sea, the body Glen and Elijah had brought back had not been in any condition to be viewed by a friend of the deceased.

  She was glad, now, that Renatus and Qasim had refused to let her see him. She didn’t want the sight of his battered and rotting body to mar her memories. The gleaming white coffin she could endure.

  Au revoir, Peter.

  Lord Gawain nodded once to Renatus, and they stood facing each other at either end of the casket. Together they raised
their hands to just above the coffin, and pale balls of flame burst to life in their palms. The little white-hot fires floated in space, even when the sorcerers took their hands away. Slowly, the balls expanded until the flames licked the white of the casket, and then the fires took hold, engulfing Peter’s coffin entirely. There was no smoke.

  Emmanuelle felt tears running down her cheeks, but she didn’t care. They were freeing themselves.

  Within a minute, there was nothing left but a disproportionate pile of ash. The enchanted fires burnt themselves out. No damage had been done to the beautiful ballroom floor.

  Lord Gawain took out his wand. He conjured an elegant but plain vase from the air and swept his wand through the air over the ash. In a swirl of magic, the remains of Peter floated upward and fell obediently through the neck of the vase. Lord Gawain sealed the top with a neat little lid.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he murmured. His sentiment was repeated by many of the others. He stepped forward and handed the urn to Emmanuelle. She took it and marvelled at how steady her hands were now.

  ‘Will you take this to Peter’s grandmother?’ he asked.

  ‘I will,’ she answered softly, and it felt like an oath. Peter’s grandmother was an elderly Scottish witch living alone just out of Glasgow. She would be happy to see Emmanuelle, and she would appreciate the urn and the truth.

  Lord Gawain left the ballroom. Anouk, Susannah and Renatus stayed back.

  Without speaking, Susannah laid a hand across the side of the plain vase. When she removed her hand, Emmanuelle saw what she had added – a silver plaque with Peter’s name engraved upon it. Anouk leaned forward and touched the vase in two places, either side of Susannah’s plaque. In the spots where she touched the ceramic, two baby-blue crystals appeared; the colour of Peter’s eyes.

  The two older women left through the double doors behind them, and Emmanuelle looked over at Renatus. He was still standing where he had been when he helped to light up the coffin. He was gazing out of the huge windows.

  Was he waiting back to talk to her? Her stomach clenched in embarrassment at the very thought of Renatus bringing up her indiscretion. She hadn’t meant it, after all – she wasn’t in love with him, and although obviously he was an attractive man, she felt no desire for him. Despite that he’d grown up, he was still too young in her mind. In many ways, she was still frightened of him. She had been since the day she had first met him.

  She and Peter had just been initiated into the White Elm, and Renatus then had been an incredibly intense seventeen-year-old. Lord Gawain’s informal apprentice in almost every way but by name, the boy had always been around a lot. His entire family was dead, she’d learned. They were dark sorcerers and their son had undoubtedly learnt a fair bit before they’d died and Lord Gawain had intervened. The boy was a mega-conduit, capable of magic others might never even consider. Even as a teenager, Renatus had scared the council.

  The only obvious path for Lord Gawain, if he wanted to calm the council’s fears and keep the orphan close enough to be watched, was to prepare Renatus for initiation onto the council. Everyone had been much happier with Renatus as an ally than with him running amuck, performing magic whenever and however he liked.

  After today, though, Emmanuelle found that the young Dark Keeper did not scare her as much as he once had. He’d held her hand, with the Elm Stone…and he hadn’t taken it. He’d given her the truth when those she trusted more would not. He’d offered her traitorous friend a place in his family’s graveyard, though it had killed him to do it, simply to be kind. She’d not seen this side of him before – well, she hadn’t really been looking. Eyes open, she could see now what Lord Gawain saw in him.

  She walked over so that she stood beside him.

  ‘Thank you for telling me the truth when nobody else would,’ she said. ‘I owe you a lot of respect and I think it is probably well overdue.’

  For several seconds, Renatus said nothing. Then he, too, laid a palm on the vase. When he took it away, she turned the urn to look at the image.

  He’d emblazoned a white tree, crossed through with a capital ‘W’, just above the plaque. It was the emblem of the White Elm, which Lord Gawain had originally omitted. Whenever a councillor died, the emblem was clearly marked in the urn or gravestone as a respectful tribute. Lord Gawain had chosen to leave it off Peter’s urn – which was understandable, because Peter had chosen to throw in Lord Gawain’s trust and his oaths to the council. But it would mean so much to one elderly witch to receive her grandson’s remains in an urn marked with the official symbol. Emmanuelle began to cry again. It meant something to her, too, and she knew Peter was smiling somewhere, grateful for Renatus’s gesture.

  ‘Because we all make mistakes,’ Renatus said, looking her in the eyes. His low voice was loaded with meanings. His fingertips lightly touched her wrist as he walked past her to leave.

  Emmanuelle closed her eyes and allowed herself to imagine, for just a moment, that the fingers belonged to Peter, and that the departing footsteps might be his, too.

  I had never collected my things for class so quickly. I was lined up outside Qasim’s classroom before most people had even reached their dorms.

  The short funeral service had been a shocking experience. Peter was real. He’d been murdered, by Lisandro. Emmanuelle had spent the majority of the service with her eyes glazed over, staring into space. She looked as though she’d not slept. Most of the council had looked in a similarly exhausted state.

  Before breakfast, I had described my dream to Hiroko in detail. I told her everything I’d seen and heard. I trusted her, and she’d been a fantastic listener.

  ‘I have never heard of such a thing,’ she’d said when I finished. ‘It could perhaps be a dream, as you say, but it seems unlikely. I have not yet had a dream here, nor has Sophia or Kendra.’

  That had struck me as odd, too, because until last night, I’d not dreamt a thing here, either.

  So now I stood at the scrying classroom’s door, wondering whether Qasim was inside. The council had left the service after the students, but I had gone to my dorm since then, so there was a chance he’d managed to get here by now. I tentatively knocked. It wasn’t very loud, so I knocked again, harder.

  ‘Aristea,’ Qasim called from behind me. I turned and watched him approach. ‘You’re here early.’

  ‘I think I’m going crazy,’ I blurted out. ‘I knew this was going to happen – today, the funeral.’

  Qasim unlocked the classroom door and let himself inside. I followed.

  ‘You foresaw a funeral?’ he asked, a little sceptically. I shook my head.

  ‘No, I heard it was going to happen…’ I trailed off, realising how stupid I sounded, and started again. ‘I’ve never even heard of Peter, but last night I had a dream – or, I thought I was dreaming – and I saw Renatus, and Emmanuelle came in, really upset, and she was going on about somebody called Peter. She said she had a right to know, and eventually Renatus told her that Peter died a little while ago and he’d known for about a week. He said Lisandro did it.’

  ‘Wait,’ Qasim said, closing the door behind me and looking at me closely. ‘Did you scry all of this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, because the possibility hadn’t occurred to me. It hadn’t been much like ordinary scrying, which was like watching a movie. ‘At first I thought I was just dreaming.’

  ‘And this was all in the office?’

  ‘Aye, all of it.’

  ‘What else happened?’ the Scrier asked, and it sounded like he was testing me, listening out for clues as to whether or not this had actually occurred.

  ‘Well, they argued a little bit before Renatus told her,’ I recounted. ‘And Emmanuelle was really upset. She said that Peter left a note in her garden asking for forgiveness. “Forgive me, love”, it said. I think Renatus said that he said, “I never told her I love her” when he died, so I guess that’s why.’

  Qasim’s sceptical look vanished,
and it was quickly replaced with one of curious wonder.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘They…’ I froze, remembering what happened next. Emmanuelle had kissed Renatus. It had happened, and for all I knew, it might have been something that was okay to talk about. I had told Hiroko about it – she had suggested I not tell Sterling. But something stopped me from saying it to Qasim. I remembered how it had felt to be standing in the room with Emmanuelle, feeling her sadness and the pain she was in.

  She hadn’t been herself. No one was meant to have seen. It was none of my business, and not my place to share it with her colleague.

  I felt my cheeks heating up as I remembered the scene, and felt Qasim’s eyes on my face. I wondered whether my entire face was flaming pink.

  ‘Um, they talked a while,’ I muttered, looking away. ‘Emmanuelle said she wanted Peter cremated, and Renatus said the funeral would be today. That’s how I knew.’

  ‘It’s impossible,’ Qasim said in wonderment, apparently not noticing my blush. ‘That office is scry-proof. It shouldn’t be possible. Even I can’t see into that study. Do you have any idea how many spells have been performed on that room over the ages?’

  I shook my head again.

  ‘Do you really think that I scried last night?’ I asked. ‘I’ve been practising heaps. Do you think while I was sleeping, it just…happened?’

  ‘It seems to be the only explanation, if you really saw what happened in there last night,’ Qasim mused, looking intensely at the door without seeing. ‘Your emotional blocks must have finished clearing. Did anyone else join them?’

  ‘You did,’ I stated. He looked back at me with something like pride – I had finally proved it. I had scried, and he was pleased with me. My heart swelled with pride, too. I even smiled. I had scried, and impressed the world’s most accomplished Scrier by scrying into a room that was spelled too tightly for even him to see into. ‘You said that Elijah and Glen were bringing back the body from a private beach. Is that what I scried on Tuesday?’