These people were in cells. There were no bars and the doors seemed to open freely from either side, but they were still cells. Each squared-off room held a single bed and nothing else. There were no niceties, nothing that told these people their service would be appreciated.
Anger flooded through me, but I tried to tamp it down. I would have enough trouble hiding from the empath once he found out the rocks I’d thrown weren’t a person. There was no need to go radiating fury like some tense signal flair.
None of the people seemed to be standing up. Each of them were fast asleep, which made sense given the hour. Still, something inside me said if it were me about to be sacrificed, I would be wide awake and treasuring every second I had left.
I was sure Karr would feel the same way, so when I saw a person moving about in the cell, it didn’t surprise me that it turned out to be him.
He ran fingers through his hair as he paced back and forth through his empty room. I wanted to stand there, to stare at him and drink in the perfect nature of his being. But I couldn’t. We didn’t have time for things like that, and I needed to be quick.
Pushing through the door, I made a single exception to my spell and allowed him to see me. I could tell from the slow way the spell edited itself that I was running on the latter end of my energy. The rush was on, yet I still had to make concise decisions.
By the time Karr could see me, I was already completely inside the room. The spell stopped him from being able to perceive the door opening and closing. Because of that, he was more than a little startled when I appeared in front of him in all my frantic glory.
“Mystics and men,” he cursed, jerking backward and shaking his head. Instantly composing himself, he walked to me and spoke in a very faint voice. “Are you really here, Lara? Please, for everything sacred in the faction, tell me you’re not stupid enough to actually break into this place?”
He grabbed my hand, frowning down at my atern meter. Swallowing, he pressed his atern to mine, giving me a bit of his magic to bring me up to half a bar. It was enough to buy me more time, but I wasn’t sure how much.
“You’re using outlawed magic?” he continued. “Do you have any idea what the punishment for that would be?”
“Not nearly as bad as the punishment they’re about to give to you,” I answered.
“I’m not being punished, Lara. You know that,” he answered, staring at me with unblinking eyes. “What’s happening to me… well, it’s just my destiny, that’s all.”
“Don’t,” I answered bitterly, my voice as loud as I pleased since the spell cloaked it. “Don’t you dare give me some speech about destiny or duty. We used to make fun of people who said those things, Karr.”
“When we were children,” he said pointedly. “We made fun of them when we were children, when none of it mattered. We’re not children anymore, Lara. The truth is that we do have duties to our faction. We have responsibilities we have to adhere to. Whether we like it or not, we’re not always in control of things, and we have to make our peace with that.”
My face twisted painfully as I stepped away from him. “Who are you?” I asked, letting the pain inside of me lay heavy and bare in my voice. “I don’t even recognize this person. This isn’t what you’ve always said. It’s not what you said even this morning.”
Karr took a deep breath. “That’s because this morning, I was hoping it wouldn’t matter.” His hands dropped limply at his sides. “But it does now, and I have to be okay with it. I don’t have any other choice.”
I was about to tell him that he did have a choice, that I had come here to give him one, but he smiled that smile that took my breath away and kept on speaking.
“Though I did expect to be treated a little better on my last night,” he admitted.
“No grand feast?” I asked, blinking hard as I stared at him and trying not to let the fact he used the words ‘my last night’ register in my brain.
“Not unless you count roasted elk and common wine as a feast,” he muttered. “Although, they did send me a woman.”
“A woman?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
He looked at me uneasily. “They said no man should have to go into battle without ever… you know.”
I stared at him for another long moment before the truth of what he’d said smacked into me like an errant tree branch to the face.
“Oh…” I muttered. “Oh!”
“I-I sent her away,” he stammered in a tone that sounded like it was meant to reassure me.
“Why?” I asked, breathing heavily and trying to keep the blush out of my face. “Was she not attractive enough for you?”
“No. She was beautiful,” he said, and the words cut into my heart like daggers. “I just didn’t want things to be that way. If I’m going away, and I am going away, I didn’t want one of my last acts to be taking advantage of some poor woman who thinks she’s doing her faction-given duty by sleeping with me.” He cleared his throat. “I’d want… I’d want her to want me.”
I moved closer. His eyes were on the floor now, almost ashamed. Though, for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine why. He was the most thoughtful and caring person I’d ever met. There wouldn’t be a soul in the entirety of the faction that wouldn’t want him, if given the choice. I knew that as well as I knew my own name.
“The truth is,” he said as I settled in front of him, “it was all I ever wanted. Someone to want me, I mean. It didn’t need to be…” He let his words drop off. “It could have just been a kiss from someone who really meant something to me, and I’d have been okay. I’d have been ready to go.”
He looked at me, his eyes filled with tears and his lips parted in the most inviting way imaginable.
“I don’t want you to go,” I said firmly.
“I know,” he said, leaning into me. “I know that.”
Rising on my tiptoes, I pressed my lips to his. It was natural, almost like a reflexive gesture. I had barely thought about it before I found myself kissing him. To my shock, he returned the favor, pressing into me and wrapping his arms around my waist. The heat of him seeped into my body, lighting me up and sending sparks down my spine. For all the hemming and hawing I’d done about telling him how I felt, for all the ways I’d been passive in my feelings, this moment felt like it couldn’t have been easier. It made me wonder what had taken me so long in the first place.
He pulled away, looking at me with those eyes that would have stripped the paint from the walls if aimed the right way. I didn’t stand a chance against them, against him. I never had.
“I wish you hadn’t done that,” he said in a whisper, and my heart sank.
“I’m sorry,” I answered, pushing him away from me just as reflexively as I’d pulled him to me. “I thought you—”
“I do,” he said, blinking hard and holding a hand out for me to take. “I always have, ever since we were kids. I just… I never thought you did.” He shook his head. “I thought it would make it easier. Thought having a kiss from you might give me something to hold onto. Instead, it just gives me something to miss. Knowing you feel the same way… all I can think about now is how I want to kiss you again.”
When the meaning behind his words seeped past my shocked brain, I slammed into him, brushing my lips against his with enough hunger to swallow him whole if it was possible. I would have given anything for this to have happened just a day ago. Now, it just seemed even more tragic.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said, my lips mere centimeters from his. “We can leave. We can go somewhere and start over.”
“Go where?” He shook his head. “This is it, Lara. It’s happening. There’s nowhere to run. Even if there were, I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“To me?” I balked.
“Do you have any idea what sort of life you would have if we ran away? It would take your entire future away.”
“I would have you,” I contested.
“It would make you a criminal.”
“But we would
be together,” I pressed.
“It would destroy you, and I won’t have it. You could change the faction, Lo. You could do anything you set your mind to. You’re that special. If I left, if I ran away like some coward, it would steal you from the faction, and they deserve better than to be without you.”
“What about what you deserve?” I asked, tightening my grip around his neck. “What about what we deserve?”
“I can’t afford to think about that,” he said. “The truth is, even if it wouldn’t destroy you, I couldn’t stay here. There are things happening, things at play. The reasons I thought we had to go into the Box in the first place were all wrong. I didn’t realize the truth. But now that I do, I can’t just run away.”
“What are you talking about?’ I asked, my entire body shaking with worry. “They don’t care about you. You’re just a cog in a machine to them, Karr. You don’t serve a purpose other than to stroke their ego and put others in their place. The purpose of the Box is just a fairy tale. You know that.”
There was desperation in my voice, but I didn’t bother trying to hide it. He needed to hear it. Karr needed to know how I really felt. Maybe it would help him change his mind.
“I’m sorry, Lo,” he answered. “But you’re wrong. And I won’t tell you how, so don’t ask me. You shouldn’t have to live with that burden. Just know I’m doing what I think is right. I’m doing it for you as much as I am for this faction. If I… if I never see you again… you were the best thing that ever happened to me. You know that, right?”
“No,” I lied, pushing away from him. “No, I don’t know that, and the only way I’m going to know is if you stay here and prove it to me.”
A shudder of energy ran through me, and I flickered. My heart sank. The magic was waning. I hadn’t factored in that I’d need time to convince Karr to leave with me, and the boost he’d given me wasn’t sufficient to extend my magic that long, either.
“You need to go,” Karr said. He rushed to me, pushing me toward the door. “You need to get out of here. Now. I won’t have you punished for this.”
“I don’t care about that,” I shouted, and it was more than true. “I don’t care about anything if you’re not here!”
“Well, I do!” he answered, his tone more hushed than my own since he wasn’t protected by magic. “I care about the faction, about our little world, and about you and your future far more than I can explain. I’m going into that damn Box tomorrow, and nothing you can say is going to change that. But what you can change, what you can do for me to make this horrible weight easier to bear, is to do what I’m asking you to, Lo. Get out of here, and don’t look back. Live a good life knowing I want nothing but the best for you.”
Another pulse of energy shot through me. The spell had almost completely evaporated.
“Please,” he said, fervor in his tone. “For me, Lo. Please, just go.”
And, because I could never refuse him anything, I did.
I turned and bolted toward the door, brushing tears invisible to everyone but him off my cheeks.
The instant I was out of his sight, I collapsed. The spell could wear off at any time, but I couldn’t run anymore, not right now, not when I knew I’d never see him again.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re asking of me, Elion,” a stern voice said from behind me.
Startled, I slid my body around to see I was standing at the door of what looked to be a meeting room. Where the rest of the Sphere was without decoration, this room was full of curtains, fringes, bobbles, and beads. It practically shone, and the men inside it—men I recognized as the Council—were dressed equally as lavish.
“What I’m saying,” the man I presumed to be Elion said, “is that things are taking a more radical turn than we thought. Things are moving at a rapid rate. We don’t have the time we thought we did.”
“Impossible,” the other man said. “Our best mystics are on the job.”
“And I’m telling you, their efforts are in vain. Nothing in the faction can help. Why do you think I’m suggesting a second Harvest?”
A second Harvest? The words cut through me like a knife. A second Harvest meant I wasn’t safe. It meant Arbor wasn’t safe. But what else did it mean for the faction as a whole?
“We need to discuss this in a more official capacity,” the other man said.
“We don’t have time for that, I’m afraid. Another few months like the ones we’ve had, and there won’t be a—”
“Excuse me.” A third man came rushing in right past me. “Forgive me for intruding, but the empathic guard at the gate sensed some strange activity. I’m going to have to ask that you adjourn for the night. Protocol and all.”
Panic shot through me. Remembering how close I was to being found out, I stood again and darted toward the door. This time, I didn’t stop running until I arrived home.
I was so numb that I wasn’t sure when the magic wore off. Once I flopped down in bed, one look at my atern revealed that the last thing Karr had given me was gone, too. There was nothing left but that thread of magic I’d had left before arriving in his cell.
The next day, I watched the person I loved get thrown into that damn Box, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I’d lost him.
And if there really was to be another Harvest, I might lose my best friend and myself as well.
Chapter 5
Albion, my new boss of a few weeks, sneered at me through the double-paned glass where he sat in his protected little area.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” he asked, his voice nearly a growl.
This was the third time I had messed up in as many hours, and I could tell he was getting tired of me. For his part, Albion probably dealt with this a lot. After all, he was in the energy-weaving business, which was pretty much the first stop for Auxs looking to make a quick coin or two before they decided what they wanted to do with their lives.
The energy within the faction came from nature. However, it was a finite source, and without a human world to drain more energy from, that meant our only other source was trading with people who were in possession of the existing energy or hoping to harvest expended energy from nature before another witch or fae collected it first.
However, in Faction One, energy and magic weren’t quite the same thing. All harvested energy needed to be cultivated into magic before our bands would process the energy as atern.
That was where I came in. As a magic weaver, I was responsible for harvesting energy from objects and cultivating it into magic. From there, we transferred the energy as magic into our clients’ atern bands. For a commission, of course.
Anyone who managed to find energy while out and about tended to come rushing to us as, in many cases, their aterns had them on the brink of death.
It was how I got the job myself.
I’d been down to a thread of atern on my band when I stumbled across some that had attached itself to a stone near a stream Karr and I used to stroll by often as children. I’d wanted to stay and bask in remembrance of him, but when I’d seen that stone, I quickly tucked it where no one could see it and ran to the shop to have the energy harvested and cultivated.
Albion had been there. When he’d gone to put the magic into my atern band, he’d listen to me speak and realized I was a magic weaver, too. He’d offered me the job, promising me ten percent of the shop’s commissions, and I’d agreed.
I didn’t care much that people viewed magic weavers as no better than pawn shops. In my own way, I was saving lives, the way Albion had saved mine. So what if we took a commission for doing so? Magic wasn’t going to weave itself, and we needed to survive, too. Everyone else was paid for their magical gifts, and I refused to feel bad about being paid for mine.
At the same time, I did feel a little guilty when I saw the atern levels of the people coming in compared to my own. My band was almost always full, and Albion had two bands. It was against the law, but he kept one hidden, and I wa
sn’t about to let him know I knew about it. I needed this job.
To ease the guilt, I would sometimes sneak some of my own atern to the people coming in, knowing I could replenish mine soon enough.
Albion crossed the room to where I was working and planted his hands on the table in from of me. “I’m going to decrease your commission if you don’t get it together. You’re still doing it wrong! If you don’t cultivate the energy correctly, it decreases in value. That last object was worth at least three atern bars, but you only got two out of it!”
“I’m sorry,” I said as demurely as I could muster. “I suppose my mind is somewhere it shouldn’t be.”
Albion sneered at me, giving me a look that said he’d heard that kind of thing before and was none too pleased. “If I can give you a little bit of advice, girlie, it would be to make sure your mind stays as closely focused on your job as possible. This job is your lifeline, and you won’t find better with the skills you have.”
My hands were taut with strain as I pulled the energy from a branch and transported it into the large cauldron-like container before me. “I’m not like that,” I assured him. “I know.”
It was all I could say. I couldn’t argue with him. Not if I wanted to keep this job. And he was right—this job was my lifeline. In more ways than one. It was what kept me busy enough to not think about Karr every second of the day, to not feel the pain that came along with those memories.
He scoffed. “That’s not what your demeanor says, princess.”
I wasn’t sure why I wanted to be so open with this guy. Albion was at least twice my age and had a personality that could fade paint in record time, but he was downtrodden. He had obviously been through the rough end of things and lived to tell about it. Something about that made me hopeful. Like, if he could do it, then so could I. Perhaps because of that, I found myself telling him things I probably should have kept to myself.
Harvest: Faction 1: (The Isa Fae Collection) Page 3
