Aporia (Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (Wisteria Series)

by Leyton, Bisi

“Wait.” Yordi hurried after him. “This is not over.”

  “The Sen is not dead and you are here. You do not need me, and I do not want to be here.”

  “Of course we need you. You might not see it, but our father wants you here too.”

  “Oh yes, I can see he is overjoyed at seeing me here.”

  “Father does not know what he is saying. At one point, he was convinced your mother had returned from the dead to kill him and that our stepmother was secretly plotting against him.”

  “Maybe her ghost is furious because he married her sister,” Bach retorted. “I do not care what is going on in his twisted mind. I am going now.”

  “Do not return to the Moon Dessert. I will let Merce know you will not be back for a while. There are bigger issues at stake here.”

  “Yordi, I only came back to make sure you were all right.”

  “Bach, can you put aside your childishness for three seconds and listen to me? I do not think the attack on our father, and Lluc, were coincidences.”

  “So you are saying that the same people who did this to the Sen, also killed Lluc?” Bach shook his head. “The empirics confirmed the fire that killed him was an accident.”

  Yordi led him to the door. “The empirics suspect the fire was related to this attack on Aleix, so they are going to re-examine Lluc’s death.”

  “Is someone trying to kill us?”

  “I do not know.”

  *****

  Bach decided to spend that night in Lluc’s ancient apartment in Sable Mountain, as he was not keen to be under the same roof as his father.

  “Welcome, Eminent Bach,” Nideer, one of Lluc’s Thayns and his valet, greeted Bach at the front doors.

  Walking in to the atrium filled with trees, he saw the plants had shed their leaves months ago for the long winter, but all the leaves had been swept up. Examining the immaculate floor, it was clear his brother’s Thayns were taking care of his home after his death.

  Normally, when their liege died, Thayns went crazy and became almost suicidal, since the connection of their minds had ended. The only way to stop this was for someone else--ideally a blood relation--to renew the Thayns again. By the looks of things, Yordi had done it, as owning Thayns was not what Bach wanted, ever. Yordi seemed more comfortable minding Lluc’s business.

  “I am here to serve you. Do with me as you wish,” Nideer groveled.

  “Get up.” Bach had become increasingly uncomfortable around the Thayn. “Please.”

  “Are you all right, Eminent?” Nideer rose. “Do you need rest or food?”

  “I am fine.” Bach was not sure why he had come. Wandering through the hallway, he saw several of the Thayns peeking out at him.

  “Sen-Son Lluc?” someone muttered.

  Turning behind him he saw it was a Nia, a very pretty Thayn and one of his brother’s favorites.

  “No, it is Eminent Bach,” Nideer corrected.

  Dejected, the girl realized her mistake and curtsied.

  That was strange, because if Yordi had renewed them, Nia would not be eager to see her former liege. She would have been expecting Yordi, not Lluc.

  He followed Nia to a small garden where she joined Nizzar, another one of Lluc’s favorites, who was feeding the snake fish in the pond.

  “Eminent,” Nizzar approached.

  “No, stay where you are.”

  “Why did I think I would find you here?” Yordi strode out, startling Bach.

  “Prime Yordi,” the favorites chorused.

  “I am disappointed that you did not choose to stay in the castle—disappointed, but not surprised.”

  “So you are not here to ask me stay under the same roof as him?”

  “I understand your need to get away from our father. He has been difficult over the last few years. But do not desert him.” Of the three siblings, Yordi was the closest to their father.

  “Yes, almost not killing him was difficult. Listen, I am leaving at daybreak. I only came to make sure you were well. I have work to do.”

  “Being a messenger, emissary, or whatever? I still cannot believe you work with the Second Pillar.” His brother shook his head. “There is a proper position within the empirics for you. Didan has reiterated that his offer is still open and—”

  “I get it--Running errands for a three-hundred-year-old makes you and our father look bad, but why the d’cara would you think I could ever work with Didan?”

  “I understand how you feel.”

  “Do you? Because Didan did not stab you and laugh as you were dying on the floor.”

  “I was there, remember, so I know exactly how you feel.”

  “You saw it, but you do not know a thing about what it was like for me,” Bach choked. “The only reason I would ever work with Didan would be to cause him as much pain as he has caused me.”

  “Bach, you think I like him? But we have to move on—Go!” Snapping his fingers impatiently, Yordi gestured at Nia and Nizzar to leave.

  Nia swayed past him and nodded.

  “Lluc has always found the prettiest Thayns.” Yordi’s appreciative gaze followed the girl out of the room.

  “Well, they are yours now, to do with as you wish. Maybe you can trick her into becoming an empiric.”

  Yordi cocked his eyebrow. “You are giving me your favorites?”

  “My favorites? You know I will never—” Bach paused. “You did renew all Lluc’s Thayns?”

  “No, I did not. I came here weeks after his death to sort the Thayns out, but when I got here they were normal. I had assumed you did it.” Yordi stormed into the house and yelled, “Nideer! Nideer get over here.”

  Seconds later, Nideer appeared in the corridor. “Prime Yordi, what is the matter?”

  “Who is your Liege now?” Yordi demanded.

  “Prime, you are,” Nideer replied calmly. “You are the closest blood relation and his elder brother. That is the way it is done.”

  “That is impossible!” Yordi commented, taking Bach aside. “This does not make any sense.”

  The only way for the Thayns to still appear this calm was if Lluc was alive.

  “I will take this to Didan. We need to find out—”

  “No.” Bach was not having Didan look into the matters of his bloodline. “Wait.” He noticed Nia peaking through the tapestry at him. “Nia.” He signaled to her, but she didn’t move.

  “Get over here now!” Yordi ordered.

  Meekly, she edged forward.

  “Nia, where is your Liege?” Bach asked.

  “The—the fire on Terra, he was killed there,” the girl stuttered. “It was very—sad.”

  “Are you sure?” Bach inquired.

  Her large, honey-colored eyes looked up at him and she nodded. “He is gone.”

  “She does not know anything.”

  “She should know who told them to say you are their Liege.” Bach turned back to her. “Right, Nia?”

  Nervously, she shook her head.

  “Tell me now!” Yordi fumed.

  “I do not know anything.” She wept.

  “I will send for Didan. He will make her talk.” Yordi cursed.

  Bach turned back to his brother. “This is not helping. If Lluc made them keep a secret, she will not want to betray him.” Bach walked over to his brother. “You have seventeen Thayns; why is it that I am telling you this?”

  “Because, my stewards handle my Thayns,” he scoffed.

  Walking up to her, Bach placed a hand on her shoulder. He felt her trembling under his touch. “Nia, someone tried to kill my father and they might try to kill my brother, if you do not help him.”

  “I cannot help you,” she maintained.

  “Do you want someone to actually murder your Liege?”

  “No.” She shook her head violently.

  “If the empirics suspect he has run away, they will kill him,” Bach bluffed, knowing he was scaring her.

  If she was still under Lluc’s control, then she desired Lluc’s life above an
ything else he’d ask her to do. She would place his safety above her own.

  “I—?” She struggled to speak.

  It was at that moment Bach knew his brother was alive.

  “It was Nular,” she blurted out, then covered her mouth. “This was her fault.”

  “Who the hell is Nular?” Yordi shrugged.

  “One of Lluc’s favorites.” Bach scanned the empty hallway. “Where is she?”

  “Nular got very ill and Eminent Lluc became scared. He said it was his fault, but it had to be hers.” Her eyes filled with tears. “She never does what Lluc tells her; she always fights and argues with him and he lets her.”

  “Lluc would never let a Thayn talk—” Yordi started. “Wait, she is the broody one with the wild hair? The one who goes everywhere with him?”

  “She became too sick and fat to work and he was going to send her away, but then they fought again.”

  “Where is Nular?” Bach inquired.

  “What does she have to do with anything? D’cara,” Yordi swore, and his head dropped. “Get Nular here.”

  “She is not here.” Nia shook her hard while her eyes lit up with rage.

  “Did he send her away?”

  “He went with her. He was supposed to free her, but he did not come back. He promised he would come back for us. The selfish witch kept him for herself.”

  “Liar!” Yordi exploded.

  “It is true Prime Yordi.” She burst into tears.

  “Go, get out now!” Yordi commanded.

  Still crying, she fled from their sight.

  “You do not have to be so mean,” Bach told his brother. “This is not Nia’s fault.”

  “Our brother has run away with a Thayn and you are lecturing me about how I treat servants?” Running his hands through his hair, Yordi backed away. “What is wrong with my brothers?”

  What was Lluc trying to do? Bach tried to control his temper, but in moments he was piecing together the unusual closeness Nular and Lluc shared. Every glance, every lingering smile, Nular’s directness, the fact Lluc always travelled with her and the way he protected her. He remembered now seeing shana spots on Nular, the same way Wisteria had gotten his—by being in love and bonded. Had Lluc ever renewed her?

  Bach had been caught up in his own problems with Wisteria for so long he had been too self-absorbed to see what was happening. “The Vadda,” Bach cursed remembering how adamantly Lluc had been against Bach’s relationship with Wisteria. Hypocritically, Lluc had been unrelenting in pressuring Bach to end the relationship, while he was doing the very same with his favorite Thayn!

  “Exactly.” Yordi exhaled.

  Leaning against the dark corridor, Bach thought about what needed to happen next. “Didan remarked earlier that Lluc was missing. He probably knows a lot more about what is going on.”

  “D’cara, if Lluc has decided to commune with that Terran?” Yordi shuttered at the word. “Didan will destroy him.”

  “You think that now? Did you not tell me the Sen would never let me die? Let Lluc run; at the most, our father will just teach him another lesson,” Bach remarked coldly. “Our father enjoyed teaching me a lesson.”

  “It is different now. They might see him as an enemy of The Family because the Sen was almost murdered. This is not a time for—D’cara!” Infuriated, Yordi punched the stone wall. “What was he thinking?” He was literally shaking with rage. “One of us has to go to Terra and find him. With what happened to our father, we all need to be close.”

  “You trust me to go?”

  “No, but there is no one else I can send.” Yordi grimaced. “I have to believe your personal malfunction is behind you. I know you value Lluc and me enough not to betray us.”

  He was right; Bach would never turn against his brothers, so he would certainly return from Terra--it was not like he had anything that would keep him there. “I will go to Terra and find him,” Bach suggested. “If he is alive—with her--we do not want the empirics figuring it out. I will get him to come home.”

  “You cannot convince him to return. You need to kill the Thayn so he will come back by himself.”

  “I am not going to kill Nular.”

  “Take Enric with you. I know he will be able to do what is needed. I would say take someone more experienced, but if we did that, the others might suspect we were up to something.”

  “I will bring them both back on one condition. We do not discuss this with anyone. No one has to know Lluc ran off with that woman.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Faster, climb faster, Wisteria instructed her hands and feet as she climbed up the six-foot bookshelf, in the ShopNile.com warehouse, to get away from the ten biters on her heels.

  Biters were people infected with a sickness called Nero. It turned otherwise normal people into mindless flesh-eating beings. Wisteria had survived the first breakout, over five years ago, and since then, it seemed, the world was coming to an end. With the basic infrastructure failing, she and the other survivors who lived in the Isle of Smythe had to scavenge for whatever they couldn’t produce themselves, or get through trading with vicious pirates.

  The warehouse was compiled of endless rows of six-foot shelves with an expanse of conveyor belts overhead, which made it the perfect place for biters to hide. Initially, she’d had doubts about coming to the ShopNile.com warehouse in Luton. The flesh eaters staggering below convinced her she’d been right.

  “Hurry up.” Standing on the shelf above, Garfield shot an arrow at one of the biters behind her. “Wisteria, you’ve got to move faster!”

  “My backpack is full of medical books, so just keep them off me and shut up,” she panted. “And you were the one who had to test the Boris Bear.”

  “How was I supposed to know the thing still worked? I thought it’d be a great present for Beck’s birthday.”

  A singing teddy bear would be the perfect birthday present for her one-year-old, half-brother Beck, but not worth dying for. Major Coles decided that getting medical, engineering, and other science textbooks was worth risking their lives and that was why they were here.

  Growling, the biters rattled the shelves in a desperate need to feed on Wisteria and Garfield.

  They kids jumped across to the next row of shelves.

  “Coles said this place was safe.” Garfield landed beside her and caused the bookshelf to wobble.

  “Careful.” She steadied herself. “Well, do you want to be the one to tell him he was wrong?” Pulling out her rifle, Wisteria fired several cyanide darts at the biters below. Two biters dropped.

  “No, I’d much rather keep my head attached to my neck.” He hit another in the head with an arrow.

  “We should be able to cure whatever’s in here with our weapons. I suspect any employees of ShopNile.com were working here during the Nero outbreak.”

  The doors at the end of the warehouse opened and a crowd of teenage biters, dressed in bright green ShopNile.com shirts, shuffled in. The air became thick with their stench and there were way too many for Wisteria and Garfield to kill by themselves

  “I guess being wrong runs in your family,” Garfield muttered. “Maybe we should use the gas now.”

  “You aren’t helping.” She leapt to the next shelf. A biter grabbed her ankle and she fell, but managed to stop herself from rolling off of the shelf. Kicking herself free, she leapt to the next shelf.

  “You okay?” He came down next to her.

  There was a loud bang, and then a lot of dust. Glancing back, she saw the shelves behind them falling over, like dominios, and the six-foot dominos were falling in their direction. Eventually, the shelves they were on were going to fall, careening into the biters, or killing the two, if they were lucky. “We’re going to have to jump down.” Wisteria pointed to the aisles between the shelves. “Then we’ll try and outrun the biters.”

  “Jump? There are biters down there!” He hurdled himself from shelf to shelf.

  “Do it--or do you want to risk breaking your leg agai
n?”

  “Conveyor!” He pointed to a metal bridge overhead before bounding up. “Can we get up there?”

  Glancing back, she saw a shelf tip over behind her. Without thinking, she sprang up and grabbed onto the metal railing. She pulled herself up to the bridge that held the conveyor belt.

  A man who towered at over six feet tall stood in front of them, dressed in a blood-stained shirt. Rotten black ooze dripped from his lips, his crimson-red eyes fixed on them. He reached out to grab her.

  “Behind you,” Garfield whispered and pointed his crossbow at several biters who were marching up the metal stairs, twenty-yards away.

  Using the butt of the rife, she hit big flesher on the side of its head.

  He flinched, but kept advancing.

  Moving back, she swung at him again, realizing the running and jumping had sapped a lot of her energy.

  “Shoot him.” Her friend shot off another round of arrows at the swarm of teenage biters.

  “I can take him. I don’t want to waste darts.”

  “More than we need to live, Wisteria?”

  Dodging the filthy hands of the flesh eater, she hung the rifle over her shoulder and took out her wakizashi sword. She cried as the biter caught her by the hair and started to lift her from the ground. Spinning the sword around in her right hand, she sliced above her and then dropped back.

  The biter’s severed hand landed in her lap.

  Flinging the limb away, she bounced up and swung at the flesh eater, sending its head flying into the warehouse below.

  The biter’s massive headless figure slumped over.

  Garfield sped past her. “Run!”

  Now that the path was clear, they raced across the conveyor belt, away from the other biters. As they ran, the fire escape door at the end of the bridge opened.

  A man appeared in the doorway, holding a rifle. “You kids done here?” It was Major Elliot Coles, her stepfather. “Up and out.”

  Racing toward Coles, Wisteria tripped on a box and saw it contained an unopened Boris Bear. It was even blue, Beck’s favorite color.

  “Now, Wisteria!” Coles yelled.

  Grabbing the toy, she sped to the door as Coles held off the biters. Once through, he shut the fire escape door, bracing it with an iron bar.