Pins and Needles (The Chosen Book 1)

by N. M. Santoski

  The Chosen

  Book I: Pins and Needles

  By N.M Santoski

  Text copyright © 2013 N. & M. Santoski

  All Rights Reserved

  To parents, siblings, and friends—all those who made this book possible.

  You know who you are.

  Table of Contents

  Part the First: John Aeron

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part the Second: Nolan Aeron

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Interlude 1: Wales

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Interlude 2: Michael

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Interlude 3: Rome

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Interlude 4: Alixandra

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Part the First

  John Aeron

  Chapter One

  Five minutes. To a seven-year-old, five minutes takes forever.

  Nolan bounced back and forth on his toes, unable to keep still on the porch like his grandfather told him. They almost never got to go outside—Grandpa was always warning him against letting other people see him. The bushes and trees were finally grown in enough to keep curious neighbors from peeking in, so today was the day!

  The day he got to play outside.

  He heard his grandfather’s firm footsteps echo on the kitchen tile and was ready when he came through the screen door.

  “Did you get them?” he cried.

  “Nolan,” Grandpa reprimanded, “not so loud. Remember our talk on indoor voices?”

  “But we’re outside!”

  Grandpa paused. “I know, but…today is still lesson day, Nolan. We are in class today, even though we’re outside. I need you to be a good boy and listen to me, okay?”

  “Okay!”

  “Good. Now, come along.” Grandpa led him down the few small steps from the porch to the stone walkway, then across to a long stretch of grass across the back of their land.

  “Nolan, what did we talk about last week in class?” he asked.

  “Power!” he responded promptly.

  “Very good. What did we talk about specifically?”

  Nolan seemed stumped for a moment, his tiny face scrunched up in concentration.

  “It’s dangerous…” his grandfather prompted.

  “Oh! It’s dangerous to use but it’s ettential—“

  “Essential.”

  “Essential that I learn because it will come out whether I like it or not so I’d better like it and use it when I can as long as I’m safe!” he finished in one breath, smiling triumphantly.

  “Precisely. Today is the first step toward making you safe.” He lifted the small bag in his hand for emphasis. “Nolan, you are a very special little boy. Like me, you are one of a long line of Aerons to be blessed with the ability to control electricity. It is a gift from the gods.”

  “Which god?”

  “Now, you should be able to tell me that! Which god likes to throw lightning bolts in that little book of yours?”

  “Jupiter!”

  “And Jupiter it is.” He ruffled the boy’s hair lightly and reached into the bag. Nolan’s face fell when he realized that it only contained a variety of small rubber balls.

  “Grandpa!” he complained. “How is that going to help?”

  “Everything is a lesson, Nolan. You will learn to hurl balls of plasma over great distances, but your little body isn’t ready to channel such forces yet. So we’ll work on the throwing.”

  Nolan pouted, but dutifully trotted down the yard a few feet.

  “Now, when you throw a ball of plasma, you have to remember…”

  John Aeron kept talking to his grandson, but his mind began to wander. The child was beginning to ask questions—questions he wasn’t ready for. This was the same lesson he’d given his own son when Trevor was first starting, so many years ago… before they had fought. Before he had to flee like a thief in the night. How had it all gone so wrong?

  Chapter Two

  Seven Years Earlier

  “I’m sick of listening to it!” Trevor roared at his father, his face red. “Everyone is always hounding me about you. This new crusade of yours is ridiculous, and I’m taking the brunt of it.”

  “Tell them the truth—that you are not Lord Fulmen, I am. Any problems they have, they can come to me, as always,” John Aeron answered calmly, watching his son pace the room.

  “It doesn’t matter. They know you won’t change your mind. If they only knew how little respect you have for me, they wouldn’t ask for my help.” Trevor paused. “Forcing the numen to leave Caer Anglia won’t fix anything.”

  “That’s your opinion.”

  “That’s a lot of people’s opinions, Dad. I just…” he sighed, running his hands over his face and through his hair. He suddenly looked much older than his twenty-three years. “Ever since Mom died last year, you’ve been different. You’ve made a lot of enemies.”

  “I can’t change who I am, Trevor. I am the Swordsmith and Lord Fulmen for life. I’ve been head of the Council for almost fifty years. Fifty years is a long time to make enemies, but I am sure I’m right in this. We need to stand united, the two of us. The Aerons must present a solid front to the other Families.”

  Trevor shook his head. “Dad, I can’t. I won’t vocally oppose you, but I can’t support you, either. When I’m the Swordsmith, I’ll have to go my own way.”

  John was silent for a moment. “I’m not so close to my grave that people should be flocking to you, Trevor. You’re not the Swordsmith yet. Have you been encouraging people in this?”

  “No!”

  “My sources say otherwise.”

  “Your spies, you mean.”

  He shrugged. “Whichever term you prefer.”

  “I’d prefer neither! Spying on your own son, Dad? That’s low.”

  “So is selling favors you can’t repay while I am still alive. You forget that it was only my 'extreme' ways that meant you, the heir of one of the Nine Families, could marry a nobody from the Sea.”

  Trevor stalked toward the door. “I don’t have to sit here and take this. I’m going into the Village for a drink.”

  “Very mature,” John shouted at his son’s back as the door slammed behind him.

  Trevor stormed down the hall to his personal suite of rooms, bursting through the door with a grunt to find his wife and his brother-in-law, deep in conversation.

  “Trevor? What’s wrong?” Mara asked, immediately trying to rise despite her heavily pregnant body. He hurried over to press her back into the chair, smiling.

  “Nothing, dearest. Just a little argument with my father… nothing for you to worry about.” He turned to Robert. “Want to join me in town for a drink or two? We’ll toast the new baby.”

  “The baby isn’t due for another month!” Mara protested, laughing. “Isn’t it a little early for the two of you to be celebrating?”

  “I need to take my mind off of my father’s lunacy. Robert?”

  “I’m game,” he said with a smile. He kissed his twin on the cheek. “I won’t keep him late, I promise.”

  “I’m supposed to go visit Lady Keopelani and Alan anyway,” she said, heaving herself to her feet with a grunt. She was grateful for Trevor’s guiding hand at her back, giving her that last push to set her upr
ight. “She’s had some concerns about him.”

  “I still don’t understand why we aren’t raising our own son,” Trevor griped.

  The two Aqua numen stared at him, clearly confused. “Trevor, it’s an honor for your son to be chosen as Lady Keopelani’s future son-in-law,” Robert said, brow furrowed. “He’ll be raised with the best of care alongside Lady Leiani, and after she goes through her rite of passage, they’ll be married. He’ll have the best of everything.”

  “But he’s an Aeron, not a K’Oliu,” he said helplessly, knowing it was useless.

  Mara patted his arm. “We’ll have your little heir,” she said with a smile, gesturing at her own belly. “This one’s definitely not an Aqua, I can tell you that much.”

  “How do you know?”

  “By this point, Alan was trying to control the placenta,” she said, making a face. “Very uncomfortable, I assure you. Not a peep from this one.”

  Trevor kissed his wife with a broad smile. “Now we have to celebrate! Come on, Robert, we’ll drop Mara off in her Ladyship’s rooms and head out from there.”

  When they arrived, Keopelani was waiting. “Mara, my darling!” she exclaimed, sweeping toward the trio as they entered and kissing the woman on both cheeks. “You’re blooming! How much longer?”

  “Just a few weeks. You said you were having some trouble with Alan?”

  “The sweetest child, of course, but he is feeling a bit ill. This is the first time he’s been this far from the Sea, as you know.”

  “We’ll be back, Mara,” Trevor interrupted, annoyed. Keopelani had a habit of acting as though he wasn’t there.

  “Yes, of course. Have fun, boys,” Mara said, already waddling toward the nursery with Keopelani.

  “I love you!” he hollered after them, waiting for her faint response before disappearing.

  “Hello, my baby,” Mara crooned as she scooped a fussy Alan into her arms, feeling him squirm against her. His baby fine hair was in transition from a brilliant teal to a dark brown—it was currently a muddy green that stuck up at all angles as he made faces and pushed against her chest.

  “He’s been like this with everyone,” Keopelani observed, lifting her own little girl into her arms. Even Leiani’s dark aqua curls were starting to turn black. “It's a shame their hair is starting to revert... being away from the Sea is never easy for numen like them.” Only the incredibly strong Water users ever connected to the Sea on such a level. Mara herself could only ever manage an odd, greenish brown cast to her hair, even after a decade at Beachhead—the Water Court’s home on the coast.

  “How has she been?”

  “Leiani fussed at first, but once she realized we still had bath time here, she settled in pretty quickly.”

  Mara laughed and cuddled Alan closer. “Baths aren’t helping the little man?”

  “Not a bit. It seems to be the Sea he misses. He’s always had a strong affinity for it.”

  “Perhaps we should try a bath with Epsom salts? To mimic the Sea?”

  “It’s a wonderful idea. I’m sorry they won’t be year-mates when they get to their teach year—Leiani missed the cut off date by only three days. They could have supported each other through their withdrawal.”

  Mara nodded. “Alan will go first, which will at least give Leiani an idea of what to expect.”

  “I’m sure they will—“ Keopelani caught a glimpse of the clock and gasped, tucking a still sleepy Leiani back into her crib with astonishing speed. “I have a Council meeting—will you watch the children?”

  “I’d be happy to.”

  “Excellent—the other girls are just down the hall if you need anything. Conway may be by to see his daughter, though he’s never here when he says he’ll be, so I wouldn’t worry about it. If he does come, let him take Leiani if he wishes. I’ll be back as soon as I can, but your father-in-law is notorious for keeping us as long as he feels necessary.” She kissed Marama on the cheek and fled, heels clicking down the hall as she hurried through the various corridors to the Council chambers.

  She reached the door in record time and paused in front of it, patting hair and dress back into place and calming her breathing. When she was completely composed, she pushed the door open to face a room full of chattering Council members.

  “Good evening, Lady Aqua,” John Aeron greeted her, disengaging from what appeared to be a heated discussion with Lady Terra. “We are all now present. Let the meeting begin.”

  They each took their places at a polished wooden table, a single piece of cross cut elm almost seven feet in circumference. The wood had been shaped into a perfect circle, but otherwise left unaltered, the rings glowing in the low light. Their order long established, they stood before their chairs and all looked to John.

  “This meeting of the Council of the Nine will now come to order,” John Aeron said, holding the Sword of the Nine parallel to the floor at shoulder height. He laid it gently in front of his place and took a seat, the other eight Council members following his example. They placed their hands on the table, renewing their connection to their seats. The table began to glow in each spot in the shape of their particular handprints, recognizing that there were no imposters among them. Beneath their hands, a record of every Council member since the Great Divide rested.

  John glanced around the table, officially marking the presence of each member. Satisfied, he placed his hand on the pommel of the Sword and summoned a bit of his numina, the Power by which he was recognized as Lord Fulmen and the Swordsmith. He then placed his hands on the table in front of his own seat, activating it.

  “I attest that all members are here, and we are able to commence with our business. Does anyone have old business to discuss?”

  “I do,” the man directly to his right said immediately.

  “Michael Warrington, Lord Artifex, you have the floor. Old business?”

  “I would like to reopen for discussion the decision to ban numen from Caer Anglia during the winter months.”

  John sighed. “Lord Artifex, we have discussed this matter at length. It is the majority opinion of this Council that the numen people as a whole—here in the United States, at least—are too far removed from the daily lives of their fully human brethren. Forcing numen to leave the isolation of Caer Anglia can only help that situation.”

  “I must, again, respectfully disagree! John, our problems stem from too much exposure to humans, not a lack thereof. We are forgetting our roots. We are the Chosen of the gods! How can we expect to maintain our mission to keep their legacy alive if we forget who we are and where we came from? The teach-year teenagers don’t even learn our history anymore!”

  “Michael, I understand your position—truly, I do. The history class will be reinstated, as promised, once some sort of standard can be set for what is taught in it. Still, I cannot believe that expanding our horizons to understand the world we inhabit now will hurt us in the long run. We cannot hide away forever. My time in Europe during World War II taught me that.”

  “While we all admire you for fighting in that war, John, you are missing the point. Your own son disagrees with you on this--!”

  John took several breaths, his jaw clenched. When he spoke, it was with outward calm, though all present knew he was beyond furious. “I believe that you are missing the point, Michael. The matter was voted on, and the motion passed with a majority: six for, three against. My son, beloved to me though he is, has no bearing on this discussion. He is not a Council member, nor can he be until after I am dead. Your misgivings are, as always, noted.”

  He turned away from Michael, effectively ending the debate. “Caer Anglia was always intended as a safe haven, never as a permanent dwelling. All American numen shall meet here on the first day of summer each year, to spend one month together on the grounds. The building will still be used by our eighteen-year-olds for their teach-year, as it is the safest place for our students to learn their boundaries. The Rite of Passage will be held on the evening of everyone’s return,
once the numen are settled in. Now—any other old business?”

  The Council was silent.

  “New business, then?”

  “I have some,” Lord Gravis said, his shaggy hair falling forward into his eyes as he leaned forward. John acknowledged him.

  “I have several of my people wondering if you’d reconsider your decision on Erick Jantzen.”

  John sighed. “Isn’t that technically old business?”

  “No, because the request is new. Listen, John, I understand your position, I do. You can’t just let people run around murdering other people, but the incident with Erick wasn’t that clean cut.”

  “It wasn’t? Because I seem to remember a duel of honor, which Erick won—and then once his opponent surrendered, he murdered him in cold blood in the front hall.”

  “That duel was a Pride matter. You know the shape shifters think completely differently from us. They’re not even fully human, much less fully numen. As far as Erick was concerned, the moment Dominic Kinnaird challenged his authority, only one of them was walking away alive.”

  “That is exactly the mindset we need to change!” John protested. “That case is the reason I’m pushing these new rules. When Nick surrendered, that should have been the end of it.”

  “It isn’t, though,” Michael interrupted, seeing a chance to press his case once more. “The lions have a very rigid hierarchy, and Nick knew what he was doing when he challenged his alpha. People die in the Rite of Passage all the time, but we never persecute the winner.”

  “That’s the problem with these male-dominated Prides,” Lady Terra said, sniffing. “They always want to be the leader of the pack. Real lions don’t suffer other males lightly. I’ve always thought it barbaric that we force them under one alpha instead of letting them split the territory. I was just saying to—“

  “Enough,” John interrupted with a sigh, rubbing his face with a weary hand. “Veronica, the lions have always had control over their subdivisions. We don’t force them to have a single alpha, and we never have. Michael, the Rite of Passage is completely different, and you know it. Granted, I didn’t expect quite so many of the lions to walk out the door with Erick when I asked him to go, but the request was still valid. We have small children here, and I don’t want them to have to worry about stumbling over a dead body.”