“I did not lie to you.”
Mia reached the door, “Well you sure as hell didn’t tell me the truth.”
“I told you what ye needed to hear.” There was no emotion to be found in his voice. It only made her angrier.
“You told me I could go home!” Mia slammed her hand against the door hard enough for it to sting. “You knew what I’m going up against-” she thought about Breahn’s story, and a shiver of fear trickled down her back-“and you still let me believe I had a chance.” Silence greeted her from the hall. “Why would you do that?” Her hand slid down the door, calluses rasping against the wood. Mia’s shoulders sagged and turned inward. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” She murmured.
“You would not allow me to.” Mia lifted her chin to argue, but then she remembered; he was right. That morning in the barn with Seinfeld Orden had tried to say more, but Mia hadn’t let him. Stupid. So stupid of her. “You were content to believe what you wanted instead of wondering what it was you were training for.”
Mia hadn’t asked. Hadn’t wanted to. The sliver of hope he’d given her that day was so small, so fragile. It was all she’d had to sustain her through the endless training, through the pain and boiling anger. That tiny hope that she would one day get back home. Mia hadn’t asked because she hadn’t wanted to shatter that hope with the reality of what she may need to face. Deep down, Mia suspected, she’d known all along.
Her hand closed around the small brass knob. Mia hesitated. The handle creaked as she turned it, opening the door a crack. Orden stood in the hall with his hands hanging slack by his sides. “You still should have told me.” Mia said. Their eyes met and held. The sunlight pouring in from the window down the hall set Orden’s eyes ablaze. She’d never noticed the small black spots that now stood out in sharp relief against the strange greyish green, color of his irises.
“I know.”
Mia watched him, one hand braced on the door, the other wrapped around the doorknob. “And I should have asked sooner.” Mia left the door open and retreated back into the room. When she looked over her shoulder, Orden had taken a single step into her bedroom. He stood in the doorway looking massive and out of place with his thick arms crossed over his chest. His brows rose when he saw the books scattered on the floor. “I needed answers,” Mia said, perching herself on the corner of the trunk at the foot of the bed. She looked from the mess she’d made to Orden.
“And did ye find what you were looking for?” Orden leaned against the doorframe, a casual stance but there was a stiffness to it, in his shoulders and in the lines around his mouth.
“No.” Mia hadn’t been able to find anything about Kairos in the long list of names and scale descriptions. The Great Sacrifice eluded her as well.
“What is it you are hoping to find exactly?”
Mia snorted, “Like I know.” She resisted the urge to cross her arms as they stared at one another. Mia bit the inside of her cheek and shifted her attention to the books lying open, their dry pages beckoning. She made a small, derisive sound in the back of her throat. “I want to know who this Kairos person is and I want to know more about the Great Sacrifice. I can’t find anything in these-” she gestured toward the books with a hand.
“And you won’t.” Mia shot him a foul look. “There is no recording of that event or any leading up to it. The acolytes responsible for keeping the histories were pre-occupied.” With their imminent death. He didn’t say it, but Mia could put two and two together. “As for Kairos,” Orden continued in a subdued voice, “ye must not have looked well enough. His name, like mine, is written in one of those.” She followed his gaze and found the large leather-bound books she’d discarded at the edge of her messy circle. The only ones she’d bothered to close.
“But I-” The words died on her tongue. Mia turned a face frozen in disbelief to where Orden still stood in the doorway of the room. His name was written in one of those- His name? “But you’re-”
“Olu.” His face remained expressionless as he crossed the room at his leisure, arms unfolding to hang by his sides. Mia gaped at him, mouth opening and closing but no words on their way. Olu? As in the Olu, children of Oluan and humans? That kind of Olu? “My mother was Oluan,” Orden didn’t look at her as he crouched beside one of the books, “my father was mortal.” All Mia could do was watch stupidly as he scooped the volume into a large hand, rising to his full height. Jeez, he was absolutely massive.
Proud head bent, Orden opened the book he held so gently within his hands. Its pages rustled like dry leaves in a stiff breeze as he flipped through them, grey eyes scanning the blue ink. The dull thwack of his finger tapping the page made Mia shut her mouth which- to her embarrassment- had been hanging open that whole time. Orden dragged his index finger down the long list of names Mia knew were on the page. Did Breahn know about Orden’s heritage or had she purposely withheld that small detail.
Orden grunted, finding the name he was looking for. “Here,” He turned the book in his hands and held it level with her face. There, beneath the dirt caked nail of his finger, Mia saw it: Kairos.
A chill went through her.
Orden’s finger shifted down the page, and Mia followed the movement, leaning closer to the page. And there it was, Orden’s name. On the same page no less. “How did I miss that?” She said under her breath.
“The eyes cannot do their work-”
“If they are not given proper time.” Mia finished with a roll of her eyes. “Ya ya.” It was one of his favorite chants he liked to taunt her with when they sparred. Mia hated it.
A twitch of his beard and Orden closed the book. Without a word, he stepped over the books littering the floor and carefully settled himself onto the trunk beside her- well, not exactly beside her, a good foot of distance remained between them- the wood groaning loudly beneath his weight.
Orden ran a large hand over his head with the dry sound of skin on skin. “I never knew my father,” Mia didn’t know where to look so she fixed her gaze on the hand holding the book in his lap with a grip too strong to be casual. “And my mother passed from this world bringing me into it.” There were scars across his knuckles and the back of his hands. Dirt and a sprinkling of greying hair did a good job of hiding them, but in the light pouring in from the window Mia picked out a variety of white crescents and crisscrossing lines. “As is- was, custom,” Orden corrected gruffly, “for Olu and Oluan such as me, I was dedicated to the Pure.” Orphans. Mia swallowed.
Breahn had said Orden grew up in Perilea, that he’d lived among the Oluan, but he hadn’t just lived with them. He was one of them. And when the Great Sacrifice had happened- He hadn’t just lost the people he cared about, loved, he had lost his entire race. Mia couldn’t wrap her head around it, the enormity of that kind of loss. What could it have been like? What had Orden felt in the silence after the event Breahn had described, knowing what he’d lost?
Her own hands shook in her lap. “How- how did you survive it?” She whispered past numb lips.
Orden’s breath rasped. “I didn’t.” Mia lifted her face to his and found him looking at her with an expression of such sadness it knocked the air out of her lungs with a small sound. “For a long time, I could not believe it had happened at all.” A far off look entered his eyes, and Orden turned his face away. The corner of his mouth lifted in a heartbreaking smile. “And then Aida hatched and it ceased to matter.”
“Aida.” Mia murmured, testing the name for herself, I-da.
“She was the first to hatch,” Orden explained, his words echoing Mia’s own thoughts.
In the silence that stretched and filled the room Mia struggled. She needed information, information only Orden could give her but- she hesitated, reluctant to ask. Mia rubbed the pad of her thumb over the knuckle of the other, pressing harder with each stroke. It would be unfair of Mia to ask him to relive the kind of pain she didn’t dare face.
Orden saved her from making the decision with a dry, humorless laugh. “Ask your quest
ions girl.”
“Are you sure?” Mia peered up at him, brows raised. She had so many.
He looked at her. “Ask.”
Okay. Mia sucked air through her teeth, eyes drifting to the books on the ground as she began sifting through the hundreds of questions whipping around in her head. What did she want to know? No. It would take a month to get through all the things she wanted to ask, a month, Mia suspected, they didn’t have. What do I need to know?
Mia dared to face him head on, her eyes unflinching and direct as she looked at the old man who sat still as a statue beside her on the chest she kept the ragged remains of her tattered dress and stockings in. “Tell me what the books can’t.” Orden didn’t so much as blink. “No bullshit no lies. Tell me everything.”
He’d told her what to expect. Mia was ready for it, or so she’d thought moments before Orden’s mind brushed lightly against hers. It felt like the time Mia had accidentally shocked herself as a kid when she’d stuck her finger into the open light socket of a lamp. Every hair on her body stood on end at the first passing touch against the protective barrier between her mind and his. Mia rubbed her hands over the pebbled skin of her arms.
“I need your permission,” Orden said, his voice, pitched barely above a whisper, alarmingly loud in the space between them. Mia opened her eyes.
Permission. Right. Permission to enter her mind, to share his memories because telling her wasn’t enough. Too much information had been his excuse. The only thing was, Mia wasn’t altogether sure she wanted to give him access to her inner thoughts and emotions. What was to stop him from rooting around in her mind once she let him in? Orden laughed when she voiced her concern.
“When you give permission, you control what you share.” Mia narrowed her eyes at him. Orden shrugged. “I could dig deeper,” he admitted, “but it would cost me more than I am willing to pay. I can see ye are not convinced,” Mia shook her head, and Orden sighed. “If I swear not to, will you give me your permission then?”
“Maybe.”
He actually rolled his eyes at her. “Very well then. I, Orden Metrosson hereby swear on my life and the life of the Guardians that I will not venture further into your mind than strictly necessary.” He raised peppered brows at her as if to ask, good enough? Mia nodded reluctantly. Orden gave an exasperated shake of his head. “Close your eyes.” He told her, whatever patience he’d had before now used up.
Uncertainty still ate at her as Mia closed her eyes, every muscle tensed and ready for the alien contact between their minds. Orden’s consciousness bumped against hers for the second time, and Mia knew this was one sensation she would never get used to. Her skin shivered and pebbled, every inch of it covered in goosebumps. It felt like someone had blown a cool breath against the back of her neck and Mia did her best not to cringe away from it.
“Let the barrier down.”
“How?”
“You need to see it, like a wall around your mind.”
“Okay...” Mia focused on that single spot where Orden’s presence lingered on the other side of some invisible thing. It was as if simply thinking of that empty space made the barrier between their minds appear. Where there had been nothing but darkness before, a wall of pure light now stood, impenetrable and shining. “I see it,” Mia said, her words floating out of her on a breath. Beautiful, this wall of shining gold and fire.
“Good.” Was it surprise she heard in Orden’s voice? No, it couldn’t be. He was never surprised, only ever disappointed or pleasantly unimpressed. “Now imagine an opening of some kind, a gap or doorway that will allow me to pass through.”
Mia’s brows scrunched together. She sucked her lower lip between her teeth and set to worrying at it as she tried to figure out how exactly to do that. An opening… An opening. What about a door? As if conjured by her thoughts, a black door appeared in the wall before her. A ripple shivered outward from the door and traveled through the shimmering barrier of gold that enveloped her mind. Mia averted her gaze as she reached for the familiar, curving handle, refusing to linger too long on the brass 5 screwed into the door at eye level. Mia pressed down with her thumb, and the handle clicked, the sound loud in the quiet. She pushed the door open, her heart hammering within her chest but it was only Orden- looking exactly as Orden did- who stood on the other side of the door, nothing but swirling blackness behind him.
Mia stepped back to let him in, her eyes pinned to the toes of her boots as she tried to hide the haunted look on her face. But as Orden stepped over the threshold of her mind Mia’s head shot up and her entire body jerked as a wave of pure him hit her right in the face. His smell, horse and tilled earth, assaulted her nose, her every sense, and with it came an overwhelming presence of power. It was like Orden himself was a living vacuum, sucking everything toward him, an irresistible pull that threatened to swallow everything she was and ever would be.
Orden’s mouth didn’t move as he said, “Do not be afraid.” His voice resounded through her, the deep timbre rattling the very marrow of her bones. Mia wanted to hide, but something told her that there was nowhere- even in her own mind- that she could go where he would not be able to follow. When you give permission, you control what you share. His words from earlier echoed within her head, a reminder, a promise. Mia let out a shaky breath. If she felt threatened it wasn’t his intention. He had sworn not to take from her what she wasn’t willing to give, and she believed him... it would cost me more than I am willing to pay.
“What’s the cost you were talking about earlier?”
The look he gave her was calculating. How much to tell her now and what to share later. “All Power has a cost. A physical toll taken upon the wielder.” Mia’s brows crumpled. “You willingly allowed me into your mind, but if I had wanted to, I could have used my Power to break through your barrier and take complete control of you.” Like a puppeteer and his marionette.
“Sounds like a good way to beat an enemy.”
“Yes.” Orden’s face was somber, “Or bend someone to your every will.” He waited for the seriousness of that to sink in before continuing, “It is why Eldhor forbade it and made the cost of such an act a pain more excruciating than you can imagine.”
Okay then.
“I warn you now.” Orden took a step toward Mia, the outlines of his body blurring and reforming before she could look more closely. “When you are within my memories you will not be able to speak or move of your own volition. If you fight that, if you try to look deeper than what I choose to show you, you will experience for yourself that pain. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Orden nodded, a rare smile gracing his lips one moment and then it was gone, his face serious once again. “Let’s begin.”
Chapter 41
Darkness. Darkness, unlike any Mia, had never known and warmth.
Mia twisted about, looking, searching for anything in the inky dark. Something had gone wrong, that was her first and most immediate thought. Something had gone wrong, and now she was stuck here in the space between. Alone. Before panic could completely swallow her, a voice interrupted the quiet.
“Hello, little one.”
Nothing answered. No one. There was no one but Mia and the voice, a woman’s voice. Soft and sad. A memory. This was a memory.
The rushing of air filled Mia’s ears. When it stopped, the darkness was gone and in its place...
The room was dim and smoky, the air smelling strongly of incense and metal. Iron. Blood. Two women rushed about the small, cramped space edging around the medium sized bed taking up a significant portion of the floor. A third woman bent over the edge of the bed, two pale shins spread on either side of her. A scream had Mia wishing she had hands to press to her ears. She didn’t seem to have a body at all. More screaming and then the unmistakable wailing of a newborn baby.
Mia watched, horror struck as the woman kneeling between those painfully thin legs rose to her feet and passed the bundled child into the waiting arms of one of the other wh
ite-clad women. And then she looked to the bed. To the shell of a young woman lying propped up against the headboard amongst mounds of blood-stained linen.
Hair, the color of dried blood, was plastered against a face so pale the veins and arteries were visible through the paper-thin skin. Hollow eyes, a blue so dark they might as well be black stared ahead as the two women hurried to her side. The woman on the bed made no response as the others spoke to her, as they touched her face, as they shook her in earnest. Too much blood. She had lost too much blood. In the background, a baby wailed, its cries punctuated by the sound of fists beating against a hollow chest.
Rushing wind and then the scene changed again. Gone was the tiny room that had seen better days, gone were the blood-soaked sheets and Orden’s dead mother with them. Everywhere Mia looked, she saw white stone; precious marble streaked through with black giving the illusion of deep cracks in the perfect face of the rock. It covered the floor, the proud pillars, even the walls reaching so high that if she’d had a neck Mia would have had to crane her neck all the way back to see the elegant arches of the domed ceiling far above. Natural light poured in from the windows set high in the walls. Footsteps on the marble, two sets. Mia tore her eyes from her surroundings with some effort.
A thin looking boy with a shock of red hair walked between the evenly spaced pillars on either side of the vast hall, his posture as stiff as the beautiful young woman who walked beside him, bald head held high and proud. Both the boy- Orden- and the woman wore simple white robes, the prior drowning in his. The color made a stark contrast to the woman’s ebony skin.
The oddly matched pair stopped and sank to their knees a few feet from the base of what Mia could only describe as a throne that seemingly flowed from the temple floor. Because this could only be the temple of the Pure in the city of Perilea. And the woman sitting on the throne, golden eyes glowing with an ethereal light from above sweeping cheekbones, could only be Ithrielle. The Pure. One of the seven Oluanvi, first of their entire race. She reminded Mia of a goddess from mythology. Regal. Powerful. Dangerous. She sat on the throne, long olive legs crossed at the ankle, feet bare. Bangles of silver adorned finely muscled arms, rings of the same precious metal were stacked on delicate fingers that curled over the edge of marble armrests.
Chosen (The Last Guardians Book 1) Page 23
