by Hanna Peach
“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?”
“This is my room.”
Alyx peers closer at Israel. She can almost see through his body stretched out over her bed. What is going on?
He is also studying her. “Is it’s really you?”
“Of course it’s really me. What else will I be?”
“An extremely real manifestation of one of my day dreams. Or perhaps I have fallen asleep and don’t know it. Pinch me.”
“What? Why?”
“Okay I’ll pinch myself. Ow. Okay so we know I’m awake. I wonder...” He reaches out a hand and pinches her arm.
“Ow.”
“I can feel you,” his eyes widen. “And you can feel me.”
Alyx rubs where he has pinched her. “Obviously.”
“So this isn’t some supernatural magic thing that you’re doing?”
“No. I don’t know how this is happening.”
“It’s so weird. I was just thinking about you.” He rolls onto his side so that he’s facing her. “Wishing I could see you again...”
Alyx looks away, not being able to hold his gaze. “So… what do we do now?”
“I don’t know. I guess we could just talk or something. Hang out until whatever this thing is stops? It’s been a while since I have had any real company.”
“I guess that would be okay.”
“But let’s not talk about demons or anything like that.”
A soft laugh comes from her. “Okay, deal. No demons.”
Alyx slowly drops to her elbows then eases herself to her pillow. She clasps her hands across her stomach. There is little space between them.
“You said you grew up with your aunt. What’s she like?”
“She liked to bake. When I was growing up the house was always filled with the smell of bread and cookies and biscuits. Soft spoken, kind-hearted. But she was always very lonely. I remember sometimes late at night, I would catch her crying at the kitchen counter. I would never let her see me. I think that’s why she settled with my stepfather.”
“You don’t like him?”
“I don’t think he’s good for her. He’s too dominant, too loud, likes everything too much his way. My aunt becomes... different around him.”
Alyx makes a small noise.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Israel continues, “it isn’t that he is a bad guy. I just think they’re just wrong for each other. It is like he makes her... less of herself.”
“That seems... strange. I didn’t think that’s what love is supposed to be like?”
“I don’t think it is. They fought about me all the time. He said she was being too easy on me, she said he was being too hard. It’s probably a good thing when I ran away.”
“Have you seen her since?”
Israel shakes his head. “It’s better if I don’t. I don’t want to lead them to her.”
Them. The demons.
“What about you?” he says. “Tell me about the man who raised you.”
Symon. Alyx feels tenderness and bitterness, weaved in a single thread.
As they talk time seems to distort around them. Neither of them notices the night slipping away as they share themselves to each other.
Chapter 30
“Please don’t turn me away. I don’t have anyone else left to turn too.” This tumbles out of Alyx’s mouth as soon as Mayrekk opened his door.
“What’s wrong?” His face pinches in concern.
“My visions. All these strange things... It’s all getting too much. I think I’m going mad. Like Raphael.”
“Settle down child. Speak slower.”
“The man from all my visions, I met him, and he’s mortal, and—.”
Mayrekk’s eyes widens so that she can see the whites all around his pupils. He grabs her arm and pulls her inside before she can continue.
He drags her over to a corner of his hut to a stand she has never noticed before amongst the chaos. The stand almost kisses the roof and is covered in animal furs. Mayrekk pulls a mound of fur from a hook, dusts it off and throws it to her. It is a strange fur cap with a trailing piece down the back like a cape.
“Put it on.”
“What is it?”
“I use them for hunting and... for when I want to be alone.”
Alyx stares at the cap, frowning.
“Animals see the world differently, more simply then we do. An animal can’t distinguish between another animal covered in fur or a human wearing fur.” Mayrekk gives her a meaningful look. “When you wear this, the animals around you see you as another animal. So it becomes a clever little disguise if you are hunting or if you are wanting to be overlooked by the animals of the forest...”
Alyx understands. The familias. The Elders are watching me.
“So we’re going somewhere?”
“Yes. This hut may not be completely… secure, anymore.”
Alyx feels an icy realization grip her insides. Whatever is happening, it is bigger than she imagined. And Mayrekk knows something if he knows to avoid the ears of the Elders.
The fur cap is too big for her. It spills from her head coating her shoulders and runs down her back. Mayrekk also places a fur cap on his head with fur so black that it shines blue, a thick white stripe down the centre. It barely touches his shoulders.
“Let’s go,” he says, ‘but not out the front. They may be watching.”
Mayrekk leads her to the back of his hut stopping in front of the rock face. He drops his hand down the top of his shirt, fishes the strands of a chain up and out until a long brassy bullet pops free. A keye, but it is bigger than any keye that Alyx has seen before.
Mayrekk steps forward to the rock face, mumbles something under his breath. The keye pulls out from his chest as if drawn by a magnet towards the wall, a soft misty glow emanating from it and drawing towards the rock face. The mist continues to swirl out and around like a small whirlpool, widening until it consumes the whole section of wall. The solid rock face starts to wash away into the mist like sand from the edge of a riverbank.
Alyx lets out a gasp. She can see the outlines and shadows of the space behind the once solid walls. There is a room behind the wall.
It is small, a thin space between two rows of shelves on either side. On the shelves are open metalwork baskets, intricate like lace. Rows of these baskets filled with different colored glass vials glowing with different colored liquids. Bloodink.
“You first,” he says.
Alyx steps into the room and her cuff gives off a curt crackle. She looks back at Mayrekk but he doesn’t seem to have noticed.
He follows her into the room, slips past her and steps forward to the far wall. The keye activates and a glow spreads across the wall. A tunnel appears.
“Follow me then,” he says.
She follows him through the dark tunnel until they reach the end. Another rock wall.
The keye activates again revealing a curtain of bushes which Mayrekk disappears through. Alyx pushes through green leaves behind him until she comes out into the sun. She blinks as her eyes adjust. They are standing at the foot of the mountain some way away from the hut.
As they wander through the forest Alyx starts to tell Mayrekk about Israel. “He’s the only one I see. Even when I practice inducing visions as you taught me, it’s always him. Him eating, him waking, him walking the streets of Saint Joseph. When he is sleeping I see him dreaming. And...” Alyx hesitates.
“Go on.”
“And now... I have started seeing him.”
“Seeing him?”
“I thought I saw him in the reflection of the lake. Then at training but no one else saw him. Then last night he appeared again. We spoke this time. He could see me too. And I could feel him. Or I thought I could feel him. But he was gone when I woke up. I don’t know anymore whether it was just a very vivid dream or if he was really there. And…” Alyx rubs her face.
“And?”
“I’m beginning to think that ever
yone’s after me. I don’t know who my friends are anymore. Mayrekk, am I going crazy? Is what happened to Raphael happening to me? It this because of the gift?”
Mayrekk takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I don’t believe that this is a gift.”
“Then what the hell is it?”
“I think you have been chosen to be this boy’s Guardian.”
“Guardian?”
“There hasn’t been a Guardian chosen since Before. A mortal would be selected for a great task, some destiny, and a Seraphim would be assigned to him. His Guardian. They would be drawn to each other and a Guardian-bond would be forged between their spirits. With the bond came certain... intimacies. Connections between the two would open up where there were none before. As a way of allowing the Guardian to better safeguard the bonded mortal, the Guardian could sense when he was in danger and could slip into his consciousness. The Guardian and the mortal could also appear to each other without anyone else seeing.”
“Israel’s Guardian.” A relief falls over Alyx. She isn’t going crazy. There is a reason for all this.
“A Guardian-bond is sacred, Alyx. You are responsible for this mortal’s life. You must protect him above everything.”
Above everything. Above her own life?
“What if… what if I don’t want to be his Guardian?”
“You have no choice. The Guardian-bond means your souls are tied together. If he dies, you die.”
Alyx sucks in a breath.
If he dies, I die.
“How am I supposed to protect him? I’m not even supposed to be talking to him. I’m suspended from patrole and I lose my lightwarrior status in less than a month. The Elders won’t let me even leave Michaelea to patrole let alone to protect a mortal.”
“The Elders can’t know about him.” Mayrekk pulls up mid-stride suddenly as if he came up against a wall. Alyx almost bumps into his back. “Let’s go this way,” Mayrekk says, and turns to his right. “Alyx, you must protect him.”
“But I don’t have any real gifts. I’m not the strongest warrior or the fiercest...”
“You would not have been chosen to be this boy’s Guardian if you are not up to the task.”
“But the Elders―.”
“Elders-smelders, they are not infallible despite what they will have us to believe.” Mayrekk turns to face Alyx, his face more serious than she has ever seen. “More than anything the path of destiny takes great courage, not the greatest gifts or skill. And you, my girl, already have more courage in your little finger than most of these gifted Seraphim I see come in and out of my hut every day. You are not afraid to take a different path than all the others. You are not afraid to think for yourself, to ask questions.”
“But why him? What’s his great destiny?”
“He is tied to the Blood Prophecies, I am sure of it. The Elders keep a Thread. It contains details of the Prophecies. I have seen it, once, briefly. If you can find it, it will contain some answers.”
Alyx thinks back to the Threads that Elder Michael and Elder Bezebel removed from the restricted section. One of them must contain the Blood Prophecies. It has to be in one of them. But where are these Threads now?
Only one place to start. Michael’s chambers.
Chapter 31
The Entwinement Ceremony is taking place at the Heart. The first in the Entwinement Moon-cycle, starting today and ending in twenty-eight days with Alyx and Daniel’s ceremony, the most prestigious Entwinement announced this year. Everyone from Michaelea is attending, faces covered by feathered masks except the promised pair, but especially Chief Elder Michael as he is to entwine them.
If Alyx is to ever attempt the unthinkable, today is the day.
Alyx is hiding in the trees near the Elder-dome, currently deserted. Elder Michael’s chambers, she remembers, is at the very centre. The very heart.
A storm is coming. The grey clouds in the sky feel like an oppressive omen. Alyx shivers when a cool wind shakes the leaves around her, sounding like an angry swarm of wasps. Alyx eyes the entrance, hesitates. It isn’t too late to turn around.
No. She needs to know more about this mortal. About the Blood Prophecies. And whatever else the Elders are trying to cover up.
She runs her fingers along her side where she can feel three slightly raised bumps under her singlet, as if to remind her that they are still there. These bloodink tattoos are the first that she has hidden. DreamWalker, AirWhisperer, WaterBearer. Hopefully she won’t need to use them.
Before she can change her mind, Alyx darts for the entrance.
Inside, Alyx presses herself along the ceiling of the building as she travels along the corridor, slipping under and around the rafters. The various Elders seem to stare at her accusingly from their paintings along the walls.
The corridor curls around as she goes deeper and deeper into the centre of the building. Further and further from the exit.
Peering around the last bend of the corridor she sees the entrance to Michael’s chambers, unguarded but shielded by magic. She moves towards it.
At the door she reaches out for the shield, Elijah’s pick around her wrist, her palms sweaty. The shield deactivates and the chamber is open to her.
Point of no return.
Inside the chambers, Alyx scans the room. Where to start? The Threadcases. They are also shielded but Elijah’s pick allows Alyx to bypass it. She skims the shelves, running her fingers over the Thread-titles. She isn’t sure what she is looking for but she is sure she will know when she finds it.
After her fingers touches the last Thread-title Alyx pulls her hand back in disappointment. City administration, inter-city contracts and governing policies. Nothing of interest.
Alyx turns to the drawers in Michael’s desk. After a few minutes of rummaging she closes the last drawer in frustration. There must be something here.
Alyx remembers Daniel’s secret drawer and wonders if Michael has the same. She runs her fingers under the desk probing for a break in the wood, something that will give away a hidden compartment. She almost cries out when her fingers feel a change in the wood grain. It runs along in a rectangular shape. A secret drawer. Alyx holds her breath and with the tips of her fingers she eases open the secret compartment.
The drawer is lined with red silk. Sitting within it is a silver cuff, its two halves opening out from its hinge like a clam, raised rune-like markings running along the curved insides. This can’t be the only thing in here. Alyx shifts the cuff out of the way. But there is nothing else. Alyx closes the drawer. There must be something here. There must be.
Alyx searches the rest of the desk, cluttered with open Threads. She runs her fingers over them. Irrelevant. Or empty.
She picks up a small tube makes out of light reed with a ribbon weaved through the middle. A carrying tube for correspondence Threads. Tikara and other familias carry such tubes between the three Seraphim cities. Alyx releases the stopper and pulls out the short scrap of Thread. She lays it on the desk and presses her palm to it.
Immediately flashes of a map start to flick through her head. A city. A Seraphim city, but not one she has never seen before. Then Thread-thoughts...
There have been seventeen births this moon-cycle.
A further fifty darkwarriors have been trained to their fullest capacity since the last report. Your army is growing as per your schedule.
A breeder tried to escape earlier this week. We were able to recapture her. She was punished in front of the other breeders to discourage them from following her behavior.
In the last four weeks we have sent out almost two dozen missions to various locations but have still not found the missing piece of the Amulet.
Alyx’s hand leaps off the Thread. What has she stumbled across? Darkwarriors? An army? What is Elder Michael planning?
“My father has his reasons,” she remembers Daniel saying on the night she caught him with Constantine. Daniel is a part of it too.
Another thought almost causes her t
o collapse. Who else is part of this? Symon? Jovanna? Who else has been lying to her? Are any of her friendships real?
Alyx feels her throat closing. She has to get out of here. If she is caught it will be more than just a suspension. She rolls the Thread up, slips it back into the tube, puts the tube back how she found it. She tears out of the chambers and down the corridor. She has to get out.
A noise meets her ears. Alyx jerks in the air as if electrocuted. Voices echoing down the corridor. No. Can the ceremony be finished already?
Alyx panics and throws herself in through the nearest door, closing it behind her. Alyx scans the room. She is in another Elders chamber. There are no other doorways or windows. The only way out is through the door she just came in. Trapped.
Alyx presses her ear to the door. The voices come closer, muffled by the wood and the drum of her heart in her ears.
She recognizes Elder Michael’s voice and another that she can’t quite make out. If Elder Michael has returned then the formal ceremony is over. This building will be crawling with Elders soon. She has to get out. Now.
The voices pass the other side of the door and continue down the corridor.
When Alyx can’t hear them anymore she opens the door a crack. There appears to be no one in the corridor. She flies from the room leaving the door open behind her. She speeds through the remaining meters of corridor towards the building exit. If she can just get outside, she’ll be okay.
Alyx can now see the daylight coming in from the exit. She is almost there.
More voices, from the outside. Alyx looks around for another open door, another chamber to hide in. She sees none. She flies up and presses up between the rafters of the corridor ceiling just as three Elders enter the building.
Alyx holds her breath as they float past, right underneath her. They seem to take forever as they travel down the corridor.
Only when they are out of sight does Alyx move. She has to hurry. More and more Elders will return and she will be caught.
Alyx flies along the ceiling towards the exit. Once there she peeks out. She can see no one approaching. This is her chance.
