I was the kid who was destined to die, the one person whom fate deemed useless and unnecessary. And Luca James latched onto that like grim death. As though my life wasn’t hard enough, with a crappy father and a looming end to worry about, Luca made it his personal mission to make every day I had left unimaginably horrid.
He ridiculed me mercilessly. He made a fool of me in public, and worst of all; he never let me forget what was coming.
“Hey Dead Boy,” he always said. He even said it now, standing over me, cracking his knuckles and tapping his foot. Suddenly, I was a kid again. I was defenseless and afraid. I was staring at death and, in my darkest hours, I was hoping for it.
I hadn’t seen him in years, since the day I left for my training. He was huge now; all muscles and hate. His eyes were the same, so brown that they were black holes in his head.
“I said hey Dead Boy!” he repeated, causing me to shiver. “Did you miss me?”
Chant was right. I hated him then, and looking up from the ground, it was painfully clear that I still hated him.
“L-Leave me alone, Luca!” I said, stammering like a scared boy lost in the woods at night.
“Same old Dead Boy,” he looked over at Chant and chuckled. “Pissing his pants at the first sign of trouble and you think he’s going to be the Dragon.” He looked at me again, nostrils flared. “You’re nobody Dead Boy. Even now, you’re useless, nothing but a walking corpse.” He reared back and kicked me in the gut. Pain shot through my body and I wretched hard. “You’re pathetic. I don’t even have to fight you. You’re the same as always. You’re just gonna let them die, you piss ant.”
That’s right. My family, they were still trapped, still burning. He kicked me again, and I jerked. But I didn’t wretch this time, and I didn’t crumple. I wasn’t the kid Luca imagined me as. I wasn’t the scared boy so concerned with death that he was afraid of life. I was a man now. I had been through hell and back, and came out stronger than I ever imagined. I was the Dragon, dammit. And Luca was about to find out what that meant.
He reared back to kick me again. I grabbed his foot and pulled hard. He went winding when I took the other foot out from under him. His muscles and arrogance were useless as he tumbled to the ground. I jumped to my feet, but he caught me with his leg, knocking me backward.
He was up by the time I got my bearings, running toward me all bared teeth and black eyes. I ducked, ramming his chest with my shoulder and knocking him backward. I followed that with two punches; one to the face and the other to the abdomen. Neither of them seemed to do much good, and he lunged toward me; butting my head hard with his own.
Blood rushed down my forehead and into my eyes. Staggering backward, I swung. Though, because of the blood coloring my vision, my punches flew wild and useless.
Force pushed into my already sore gut, and I realized Luca had kicked me again. I stumbled, but wouldn’t allow myself to fall.
“You always were a creampuff, Dead Boy.” His chuckle cut through the air and he kicked again. Heat mixed in with the pain and I felt the fire, the fire that was burning up my home and family, tugging at my insides. Hate, real true hate, rushed through my body and, as much as I hated the idea of it, Chant was right. The hate strengthened me. It steeled my insides and what was more; it helped me tap into a power I still didn’t know how to control.
I threw my hand up and, through my blood soaked eyes, I felt the fire. It was mine to control mine to move and manipulate. And move it, I did.
Wiping my eyes, I saw Luca again. He looked so much older than I remembered him, so much more daunting. But he wasn’t daunting. He was a bully, a scared little boy who still hadn’t grown up enough. He hated me because he hated himself, but I’d be damned if I cared about that now.
With a shift of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on; I doubted the flames that soaked my house. It was a heap of ash and rubble now, and perhaps my family’s bodies were among the debris. But I couldn’t think about that, not while my head swam in rage, not while the anger was so thick and real that it left my fingers twitching and my heart racing. If my family was dead, then it was at least partially Luca’s fault. I was going to make him pay for that; for that and for everything he had put me through.
Whatever it was that shifted before shifted again and the fire from my house appeared before me now. It ran a burning circle around Luca, encompassing him and trapping him where he stood.
“Who’s the dead boy now, Luca?” I asked, barely recognizing my own voice.
His eyes grew wide, filling with something that looked a lot like fear. He obviously hadn’t expected this, for me to beat him, for the idea of me leaving him here to die. I certainly had never imagined that myself. But I was so angry. I was hurt and destroyed. I was lost, and Cresta wasn’t here to guide me back to myself. Maybe this was what they wanted. Maybe Chant brought Luca here, the one person I hated, so that I would kill him, so that I’d cement myself as the Dragon; prove to everyone that I had this sort of thing in me. And the worst part was, at that moment, I didn’t care about any of that. Let the Council be right, let the prophecies be right. All I wanted was to make him pay, to make someone pay for all I had been through; for all that the people I loved had been through.
“You don’t get to win,” I told him through clenched teeth. But Luca just stood there. He had apparently accepted his fate and, as only a Breaker could do, made peace with it instantly. He would serve a purpose. He would be the Dragon’s first taste of blood; a sacrificial offering on the altar of saving the world. He would die fulfilled that way. He would die happy.
And as much as I wanted to hurt him, as much as I wanted to make him pay for what he had done to me, I couldn’t stand the idea of making him happy.
“You don’t get to win,” I repeated, though this time it meant something completely different. That mysterious switch flipped inside of me and the flames receded, disappearing into nothingness.
We just stood there now, Luca and me, huffing and glaring at each other. For the first time in my life, the sight of him didn’t fill me with dread. I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. There was a fire in me now. Maybe I should be afraid of myself.
Chant began a mocking slow clap and inched toward me. “Now wasn’t that exhilarating?” He exclaimed with something like triumph in his eyes. And why shouldn’t there be? He had won. The Council always won. “I knew you had it in you. The Dragon must learn to bite if he’s meant to devour.”
The prophecy flashed through my mind again.
The Dragon will devour the Blood Moon.
I couldn’t do that, though. Even if I had just been seconds away from killing Luca, I could never hurt Cresta. She was my heart, the reason I was alive.
“This has been an honor, Your Excellency,” Luca motioned meekly toward Chant. It was the first hint of humility I think I had ever seen him show. It didn’t suit him.
“Be gone,” Chant answered, without even bothering to look in Luca’s direction. Your worth has expired.”
A flash of deep hurt passed through Luca’s eyes, but it was fast. He steeled it off as quickly as it came. Stifling what I was sure was another huff; he moved passed me, knocking my shoulder hard with his. As he proceeded, he muttered, “I’ll be seeing you, Dead Boy.”
“You better hope not,” I answered, and felt a rush of heat surge back through me.
“You were quite wonderful today, Mr. Lightfoot,” Chant said, already ignoring Luca, even though he was well within earshot.
“You think I give a damn about that?!” I shouted in a tone that, even a year ago, I’d have sooner cut my toes off than use with a Council member. “My family might be dead!”
“True,” he answered casually. “But sacrifices must be made for the greater good. If your family was to be that sacrifice then fate has surely smiled upon their bloodline.”
“I want to see them!” I screamed, tears pooling in my eyes. “I did what you asked! I want to see my family right now!”
“Carefu
l,” Chant grinned, nodding to the ground. Looking down, I saw that leaves lining the earth were simmering and smoking. “Fate’s hand, you are glorious.”
“My family!” I screamed again.
“Certainly,” he nodded. “I am a man of my word. You’ve performed admirably today.” He nodded at me. “So let’s go see the Lightfoots.”
*******
The minutes it took for me to get from the woods surrounding the main area of the Hourglass (where my training took place) to my childhood home dragged on painfully. I had half expected Chant to make the journey with me; which would have been a painstaking ordeal, not only because of his stature and motivation, but because his advanced age meant he would have slowed me down.
Luckily, he didn’t come along, opting instead to outfit me with a pair of muscle-bound guards. They huffed trying to keep up with me, but were otherwise silent, not that I would have provided much in the way of conversation. My mind was soaked with dread. Thinking of my family, of the way our house had been engulfed in flames, made it feel like my heart would explode. I couldn’t walk, not with this on my mind.
In the outside world, I could have taken my car or hopped a bus or something. But those methods of transportation were outlawed within the Hourglass. Even horse and buggy was too much for these people. So I was left with running as fast as I could, hoping against hope that my family had made it out of that inferno in time.
Halfway up the hill that separated the Main Square from the rural lands where the farmhouse sat, I began to envy Royce his motorcycle. Of course, that wasn’t the only thing I envied about Royce right about now, but I had to put that aside. I couldn’t think about Cresta. I couldn’t think about the fact that he was with her and I never would be again. That would be punishing myself, and why do that when there were so many people willing to do it for me?
Topping the hill, I saw the rubble that used to be my house. I had seen it before, after I’d dealt with Luca in the woods. But there was something about looking at it here, with my own eyes that really hit home. Tears ran down my face and, for a minute, I was ashamed. What would Father say about this? Even if he was dead, even if they were all dead, he wouldn’t want me to react this way. He’d want me to be strong, to be unaffected. He’d expect me to consider it fate’s plan, like a Breaker would. But maybe I didn’t think like a Breaker anymore.
I felt the guards settle beside me before I took off again, a renewed fervor moving my legs. Residual heat from the fire met my face as I neared the rubble. Smoke, the smoke that just might have suffocated my mother, filled my nostrils and made my stomach churn nervously.
I skid to a stop in front of the amount of debris and ash. This was where I grow up. It was where I learned to walk, where I learned to talk. It was where I told my baby brother stories to help him sleep when the dreams got to be too much. As much hurt as there had been in my life, as much as Father and fate had put me through here, I loved this place. And even if my family wasn’t dead, a part of me would be missing now that it was gone.
My breath came hard and heavy; chest rising and falling so high and fast that I became lightheaded looking at it. There was nothing here, nothing except ash, and dust, and death. No one could have survived this.
“Are we to dig through the rubble?” The guard’s voice shook me from my self-pity. A strange thought occurred to me then. I figured Chant sent them with me to keep tabs on me, to make I didn’t bolt and look for Cresta or something. But they were waiting for a command, as though they were sent with me, for me.
“No,” I answered, my voice cracking. “They didn’t make it.”
“Brother…” The voice, as familiar and uplifting as a favorite song, bypassed my eardrums and shot straight for my heart. Turning, I saw them, all of them. Sevie stood ahead of our parents, his hands clasped humbly behind his back and a smile dancing across his face.
Mother was equally happy but Father, as always, was harder to read. No matter. I rushed toward Sevie, scooping him up the way he had with me on my first day back in the Hourglass. He was heavier than I remembered, bulkier, but he had the same internal lightness, the same inherent innocence that was very Sevie.
the feeble dam I had set up inside myself burst wide open as tears streamed wet and heavy down my face.
“I thought you were dead,” I said giving him a bear hug and sitting him back down. It was then that I noticed the state they were in. They weren’t hurt. They weren’t messy. They weren’t even disheveled. But how could that be? The sun was three-quarters down the sky. I knew my family well enough to know they’d be inside the house at this time of day. And besides, Chant had practically ensured it.
“You didn’t-How did you get out?” I asked, wiping my face instinctively once I saw Father’s hard expression.
“Out?” Mother asked, her eyes narrowing. “We were never in. Why would we go into the house when we knew it would be set on fire?”
“What?” I asked, shaking my head. “How did you know that?”
Sevie stepped forward, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Because she told us.” He motioned to the left and, following his hand, I saw the crone sitting on a rock at the edge of the field.
“Hey there Blue Eyes,” she smiled, brushing strands of hair out of her face. “We have a lot to talk about.”
Chapter 13
Three Questions
The crone sat leisurely, almost lounging as she stared at me, something like daggers and playfulness in her eyes. Her purple dress flowed well past her feet. It was an ornate thing; perfect for someone of the crone’s stature, but it looked out of place out here in the common areas, where plain colored shirts and pants were the norm.
“Bet I was the last person you thought you’d see here,” she chuckled, standing. She was taller than I remembered. Though how was I to know? I had only seen her twice in my life, and she had been sitting both times. She was right. I never imagined I’d see the crone, any crone, outside of a seer’s temple. Times were different now, though. I had seen so many things I never thought I would. I had watched the end of the world start up before my very eyes, witnessed age old laws be shattered. Hell, I broke more than a few of them myself. This, seeing the crone so far from where she was supposed to be, should have shocked me. But it seemed to fit somehow.
My guards however, they had different reactions.
“This-this is unheard of,” one of the, until now, completely silent guards said.
“I need to talk to you,” the crone said to me, ignoring the guard’s outburst.
“I said this is-”
The crone waved her hand in the air. Whatever she did silenced the guard again. Both their bodies went ridged and they stared off into space, like they were asleep with their eyes open.
“They didn’t seem like much fun,” the crone shrugged. “Wanna take a walk?”
“I want to see my family,” I answered, finally allowing my heart to slow down a little.
“That’s the crone, Owen,” Father said sternly. “You’re not to decline her offers, regardless of how out of place they might seem.”
“You could have died,” I protested.
“And she saved us,” Father answered. “And even if she hadn’t. You will indulge her.”
“We’ll be here when you get back,” Mother said, nodding at me, as if to give me permission to leave them.
I took one last glance at Sevie and then followed the crone. She walked into the fields, into the lines and lines of corn whose upkeep had been a Lightfoot family obligation since before the advent of electricity. The stalks were tall, shooting up into the sky the way they only did when there had been just enough rain. It didn’t take us long to get lost in them.
“The corn, really?” I asked, keeping pace with her and spying the way the bottom of her dress pooled at her feet.
“Is that a question?” the crone asked chirpily.
“It’s an observation. I didn’t peg you as a ‘hands in the dirt’ type girl.”
“I’m n
ot sure I’ve ever been any type of girl before, so I’m not sure how I’m supposed to know whether or not you’re right.” She smiled. “Though I read somewhere that Angelina Jolie found gardening soothing.” She looked around at the crop. “This is as close as I’m ever going to get.”
“You don’t know that,” I said instinctively.
“Don’t forget who you’re talking to Blue Eyes,” she grinned, putting an index finger against her temple. “I most certainly do know that.”
“Did Sevie come to me in that dream?” I asked, remembering how scared he had been, how desperate.
“That’s not the right question. That’ll answer itself pretty quickly, and you only have time to ask me three questions before it happens.”
“Before what happens?” I asked.
“That’s not the right question either. Come on Blue Eyes; ask me the thing that you really want to know.”
“Where’s Cresta?” I asked, knowing without a doubt that’s what the crone meant. Even know, with all that was going on, that was the only thing that really mattered to me.
“She’s halfway to where she’s supposed to be, but not near close enough given the hour,” the crone said.
Okay, so that was useless.
“I just want to know if she’s safe,” I said.
“None of us are safe, Blue Eyes. It’s the end of the world, or hadn’t you heard.” There was darkness to the crone now, a weight that I hadn’t noticed before. “You’ve got two questions left. Better make ‘em count.”
“The thing you told me about Sevie,” I started, and my voice splintered into a really girlie treble. “About how he-“
“Has a part in all of this,” she finished. She was being deliberately vague, but maybe that was for the best. She had seen the way I reacted when she told me her prediction for him, how I freaked out all over her. It wouldn’t do either of us any good to hear it again. Still, it didn’t stop the words from vibrating in my head again.
The Breakers Ultimatum (YA Urban Fantasy) (Fixed Points Book 3) Page 11
