With that, she ran ahead of him, toward the cottages. John could already feel himself bracing for the coming confrontation with Briac. He watched Quin go, her dark hair swinging, her body graceful—but not the slow grace of the Young Dread. Quin was full of life.
Quin glanced back at John as she ran from the woods and through the high grass of the commons. He was still standing where she’d left him at the edge of the meadow, in the shadow of a large elm tree. His eyes were following her, but his gaze had retreated within himself, as though he were thinking about something entirely other than her as he watched her go.
John’s eyes were deep. That was how Quin had always thought of them. When he was with her, they would flash with humor and love, but at other times they were desolate and hungry, as though searching for something far away and out of reach.
It was his eyes that had first drawn her to him. Though John had only been twelve when he’d come to the estate, Briac had made him stay in a separate cottage out in the woods, all alone. Quin and Shinobu would visit him there often, intrigued by having another child on the estate, especially one so worldly, who lived in London and had been to many other places besides.
John had seemed wary of their company at first, and his look warned them away. He’d spoken very little of anything personal, but eventually, Quin had decided the storms in his blue eyes were not anger or fear of betrayal, as she’d at first thought, but simple loneliness. They’d begun to spend more time with each other, and she’d seen his look slowly change to something almost like happiness.
Now, moving across the commons, she could still feel the press of his lips on hers, his arms at the small of her back. She stole a final look as she neared her cottage, but he was gone.
A few minutes later she’d climbed through a window in the back wall of her parents’ house. Crouching inside the pantry, which shared a wall with the cottage sitting room, she could hear the visitor from the aircar deep in conversation with Briac.
“There can be a disappearance,” Briac was saying. “In which case, searches may go on indefinitely. That can be good and it can be bad.”
Silently Quin pressed her ear against the narrow pantry door, which allowed her to hear better and see a small slice of the room through a crack between the door and the jamb.
Her father was sitting in the old leather armchair, beneath the rows of ancient crossbows strung along the ceiling, and next to the display chest decorated with carvings of rams—the symbol of Quin’s family—and filled with knives. He was speaking to the visitor, a man in his twenties, who was warming his hands by a cheerful fire in the hearth.
The visitor wore clothes that appeared expensive, though Quin knew she was not a good judge of clothing styles. In her fifteen years of life, she’d spent almost no time off the estate.
“There can also be a clear-cut finish with no trail to follow,” Briac continued, one hand running through the dark hair that Quin had inherited from him. Her father’s head was still untouched by gray. He was not yet forty years old, as trim and strong as he’d been as a young man, though to Quin he’d always been an ageless, all-powerful presence, like the sky or the land. “It depends on what you need,” he was telling the visitor. “We create a circumstance to serve your purpose. Do you know what you need?”
Briac was doing his best to appear friendly and polite to this visitor. Quin found the effect unsettling. She was used to her father’s face and words being hard. He often frightened her. She accepted his demeanor as a necessity of her training: he was preparing her for a life that would be harsh, but it was harsh in service of something good. To be a Seeker was to be one of the chosen few who could step between and change things.
The visitor began to respond to Briac’s question, speaking so softly that Quin could not make out the words. The man was very intent, but he seemed almost shy of speaking aloud. She pressed her ear more firmly to the pantry door.
Briac held up a hand. “Wait, if you would,” he said. “I’d prefer if we continued this discussion outside.”
The young man nodded, and the two of them rose to leave. When the visitor’s back was turned, Briac took three steps across the room and gave the pantry door a hard shove, driving it into the side of Quin’s head. She was sent sprawling to the floor.
She got slowly to her feet and staggered out of the pantry and into the kitchen, rubbing her head. In the other room, the cottage’s front door opened and shut, and through a window, she saw Briac and the visitor walking together into the meadow. Apparently, Briac wanted privacy.
“Quin. What were you doing in there?”
Fiona Kincaid, Quin’s mother, was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of something in front of her. Quin caught a whiff of alcohol and knew her mother was drinking the strong cider of which she’d become so fond in recent years. On the stove, a stew was cooking for dinner, and there was bread in the oven, filling the cottage with delicious smells. These kitchen aromas were the background of her childhood, along with the scent of the tall grass that covered the commons and the rich earth beneath the trees of the forest. Only the faint trace of alcohol in the air took away from the sudden surge of happiness Quin felt. John would be successful. She and Shinobu would be successful. It was meant to be, and her life with John would be as she had always imagined.
“Were you eavesdropping?” her mother asked.
“I thought maybe it had something to do with tonight,” Quin explained, dropping into a seat across from Fiona and drawing her knees up against her chest. Her mother’s dark red hair was back in a tidy braid, and her face was blank.
Even without a smile, her mother had a beautiful face. Everyone said so. She was looking out the window now, at Briac and the visitor as they walked away. Then she turned back to her mug of cider, her expression growing serious.
“What did you hear?” her mother asked.
“Nothing,” Quin answered. Then an unpleasant thought came. “You’re not trying to marry me off, are you?”
This caught Fiona by surprise, and the hint of a smile formed on her lips. “Marry you off ? Why, did you find the young man good-looking?”
“I—I don’t know. I’m not really used to…” Her sentence died in embarrassment.
“Of course we’re not marrying you off,” her mother said with a gentle smile.
“Don’t say ‘of course,’ ” Quin responded. “That’s what happened to you, isn’t it?” In fact, her mother had never said that exactly, but this was the impression Quin had gathered from Fiona’s description of her courtship and marriage to Briac Kincaid. She never spoke of falling in love so much as she spoke of her parents “making a match.”
“Well, we’re not marrying you to him,” Fiona said, teasing her.
“I know how it used to be done,” Quin went on. “Protect the bloodlines. Keep control.”
In truth, she understood the value in being matched by her parents. Marrying someone her father trusted would help keep their knowledge and weapons under Briac’s direct control. Briac and Alistair were, she had always been told, the last of the Seekers, and she and Shinobu must carry on this tradition in an unbroken line—and John, of course, but his line had already been broken, because his family had almost died out. In theory, she would be happy to marry someone who pleased her parents—but in reality she very much hoped that their choice agreed with her own.
Her mother took a long sip from her mug and shook her head. “We’re not marrying you to someone, Quin. Even if your father might like the idea. Enough of your life has been planned out for you already, I think. You should choose your own mate.”
Quin looked out across the meadow to where she and John had just been walking. The feeling of happiness was upon her again, and she decided to take a leap. She was only hours away from taking her oath. Soon she would be an adult in their eyes. “Mum, you know I’ve already chosen him, don’t you?”
Her mother followed her gaze out the window, but there was nothing visible except grass and trees.<
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Slowly Fiona asked, “And is he?”
“Is he what?”
“Is John Hart your mate?”
Quin felt her cheeks flush hotly. “Ma.”
“I believe you’ve been sneaking off together for a long while. Have the two of you…”
“No!” The conversation had taken a very fast and drastic turn. “Wait. What are you asking me?”
“Have you kissed each other?”
“Oh…Yes.” Quin found herself smiling despite the embarrassment. “Yes, we have done that.”
“And…” Fiona prompted.
“And what?” Quin was thinking of the way John had laid her on the ground, those lonely eyes of his focused completely on her…She looked down at her hands and said, “There’s been kissing. A somewhat large amount. Don’t you know already, Ma? You usually know these things without me saying.”
“Sometimes I do, but not this time. Are you sure that’s all?”
“I’m not an idiot. Briac’s hard enough on him as it is. I don’t want him chasing John around with a shotgun.”
Fiona really did smile at that, her face lighting up as it rarely did. For a moment, Quin saw her mother’s beauty at its full force, like a warm spring sun coming out from behind heavy clouds.
“Mum,” Quin said, deciding that she was already so embarrassed, she might as well press on, “do you think Father will mind?”
“Mind what?”
“If I marry John?”
Quin held her breath as she said it, worried about her mother’s reaction. But why shouldn’t she speak about marriage? John was the perfect partner. He was from an old family like her own, wasn’t he? Like her, he wanted to use his training to do good things in the world. Maybe they would live together here on the estate, or maybe she would live with him somewhere more exotic, but either way, they would work together, fight together, to help the world. Tyrants and evildoers beware…And of course, she loved him deeply. Surely her parents could see that.
Quin’s eyes followed her mother, waiting for an answer as Fiona got up to tend the stewpot. It was a mystery to Quin what needed to be tended. It was stew, after all. You could cook it for days if you felt like it.
Her back to Quin, Fiona asked, “Has he asked you to marry him?”
“Well, no, not yet. But we understand it, I think.”
“You’re very young,” Fiona said softly. “I’ve never known— I’m still a bit surprised it’s John you’re choosing.”
Quin wasn’t sure what her mother meant by that. Who should she choose, some stranger she’d never met? Some older man her father picked out? But she went on quickly anyway: “I don’t mean now. Someday. Do you think Father will mind?”
Fiona turned to her, wiping her hands on her apron, her eyes looking anywhere but at Quin’s face. “I think your father will have strong opinions on the topic, yes. And a lot has yet to happen between now and the time when you’re ready to get married.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
“But, Quin,” Fiona went on, as though Quin hadn’t spoken, as though she had to say the words immediately or they would disappear, “it doesn’t matter what he thinks. Your life is yours.”
Mildly astonished, Quin looked closely at her mother’s expression, which had a nervous edge to it. Briac was, well, Briac. His absolute authority was part of the strange and privileged life into which she had been born.
“Ma…”
“Your life is yours,” Fiona said again, almost urgently, taking a seat next to her. She glanced toward the window, then back. “If you…if you wanted to go to John right now…if you wanted to leave the estate with him…have a different sort of life together, right now. I would understand.”
It was such a strange thing to say, she decided her mother must be more drunk than she looked.
“I’m not drunk, Quin.”
“I didn’t say that! But…now that you mention it, I do smell something in your mug.”
“I’m not drunk,” Fiona repeated.
“I never said you were.”
“You did.”
It was pointless to argue about whether or not she’d said those words, so she didn’t bother. “I’m going to take my oath tonight, Ma. Didn’t Briac tell you? I can’t leave the estate.”
“He did tell me.” Fiona put a hand on top of her daughter’s hand and held it there firmly. “But I am telling you this: you take your oath only if that’s truly what you want to do.”
Quin was momentarily speechless. Finally she managed, “What—what have I been doing here my whole life? Of course it’s what I want to do. I—I know how lucky I am.”
“Are you sure?”
Quin smiled as she would at a child with an irrational fear. Her mother had never taken the oath. Fiona taught them languages, math, and history, subjects with no direct ties to Seeker-hood. Though her mother did not like to speak of it, Quin had gathered, from comments made by Briac, that Fiona had completed all the training, but something had prevented her from becoming a sworn Seeker. Sometimes apprentices did not make it, and this had, to some extent, ruined her mother’s life, perhaps even caused her fondness for alcohol. Quin loved her, though, and didn’t want her mother to be sad on this particular day.
She clasped Fiona’s hands gently. “I’m sure,” she told her. “And I’ll make you very proud of me. I mean to do great things.”
Her words did not have the desired effect. Her mother’s eyes searched hers for a moment, quite urgently. Then her gaze dropped back to the table, and she nodded to herself.
“Of course you will,” she said, moving her lips into a smile. “And I wish you every happiness in your life, my darling girl.”
Fiona got back to her feet and turned to the stove. Quickly, so quickly that Quin could not be sure it had happened, her mother wiped her eyes. Quin whisked Fiona’s mug off the table, sniffed the remaining cider inside, and dumped it down the sink before her mother could drink any more.
Quin could hear the aircar taking off outside, and she gave her mother a kiss on the cheek, then ran to the front door. From there she watched the car ascend in slow circles above the meadow, until it disappeared across the sky. It headed south, to somewhere far from Quin’s life, Edinburgh, perhaps, or London, or somewhere even farther away. Perhaps she would be going to those places soon too. Once she had gone There, she might go anywhere. And then the world would be open to her and she would be a player on its enormous stage, fulfilling her destiny.
She walked toward the woods, thinking she’d meet up with John again, tell him she’d learned nothing about the visitor to the estate. Halfway across the commons, she saw him. John and Briac were walking together. Briac’s hand was on John’s shoulder, and John’s face was turned toward the ground. She could almost feel the heaviness of John’s steps, as though her father were leading him to his execution.
I know he won’t do the wrong thing, John, she thought. You’ll stay on the estate and finish your training. Everything will be all right.
It was the last time she would ever think so.
Briac’s hand was resting on John’s shoulder as they walked along the commons. This made John uneasy. It was like having a battle-axe resting on your shoulder, just as hard and unforgiving. They’d been walking in silence, but eventually John couldn’t tolerate the quiet anymore.
“I failed my mental control,” he said. “I won’t deny it. But it’s only when you have the disruptor—”
Briac snorted, cutting him off, then walked a full twenty paces in silence. John was trying to decide whether he should simply repeat what he had said or come up with something new, when he felt Briac’s hand squeeze harder on his shoulder. A pair of metal pincers would have been more comfortable.
“You’ve always thought this was owed to you, John Hart,” Briac told him. His voice was soft, which was frightening. Nothing about Briac was naturally soft.
“My training was—”
“Not just your training,” Briac interru
pted, his voice dropping even lower, and his hand twisting into the flesh at John’s shoulder. “All this.” He made a short gesture with his free hand, which seemed meant to encompass the whole of the two-thousand-acre estate around them.
“I have never wanted your land, sir.” John kept his voice steady, but he could feel anger rising from the pit of his stomach. He worked hard every day to stay friendly around Briac, but it wasn’t easy.
“Really?” Briac asked. “And you’ve made my daughter love you for pure and unselfish reasons?”
“Maybe she just loves me,” John snapped. Quin’s love was the one absolutely true thing in his life, and Briac had no right to take that from him.
Briac’s fingers were digging into John’s neck, but John refused to pull away. With Quin’s father, fighting back only made the punishment worse and John’s goals harder to reach. When I get back what was taken, I will not be at your mercy anymore, Briac. And neither will Quin.
“She doesn’t belong to you, John.”
“She doesn’t belong to you either, sir.”
Briac shoved John ahead of him, releasing his grip.
“It all belongs to me,” he responded. “Haven’t you realized that by now?”
They were walking near the edge of the woods on the river side of the commons. The sun had just dipped behind the hills, leaving the estate in twilight. To John’s left, between the meadow and the distant river, lay a broad strip of forest. And at the edge, almost touching the meadow, were the three cottages of the Dreads. In all his years on the estate, they had lain empty, until the arrival of the Young and Big Dreads a few months ago. The third cottage was as dark as it had always been. John wondered if there was a third Dread somewhere, waiting.
The whole estate was much emptier now than it had been in years past. He’d heard from his own mother about there being several apprentices in training when she was a girl. And further back than her time, there had been dozens, filling the stone cottages hidden deep in the forest, which now stood empty. The current population of the estate consisted only of the three apprentices, Quin’s parents, Shinobu’s father, a few farmhands to help with the cows and sheep, and now the two Dreads.
The Young Dread Page 6
