Victor (The Eden East Novels Book 2)

by Sacha Black

  “Minor error,” he says, coughing, “he’s about five miles south-west of his home castle. But it’s a complete wasteland. There’s nothing there apart from valleys and minor hills. I can’t see why he would be there, and it’s going to take you days to search that area.”

  “Then you’d better get some coffee, and start working on improving that program,” Trey says, standing up to steal more food from the tray Hermia put aside.

  “We’re going to head north. Send us more detailed coordinates when you have them, and send Titus those details now. He can figure out what station in the North we need to go to. I’ve asked Titus to liaise with Arden, Bo, and The Six,” I say.

  “Okay, I will,” Kato says, his face furrowing, “look after Bo, won’t you?”

  “Of course, although I think she’s more equipped to take care of us.”

  Kato smiles, pulling his shoulders back as his face fills with pride.

  “Wait a second,” Hermia says, fidgeting in her seat as if she’s trying to figure something out. Her eyes scan the projections.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “It’s just that… We haven’t stopped to ask why he’s taken Nyx, and I think I just figured out why.”

  Kato, Trey, and I all stop what we are doing. But it's Trey that speaks first, "Go on…"

  “Remember the library? We said Victor was looking for the lock and key to the Door of Fates?”

  "Yes…" I say, my stomach coiling at the thought of how Nyx could be involved. I was so concerned with finding her and killing Victor for good this time, I hadn't stopped to think about why he took her in the first place.

  “Hang on,” I say, remembering Victor’s appearance in the library. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but Victor actually appeared in the library.”

  “Pardon?” Trey says, a flash of anger creasing his face.

  "Don't start, Trey; you were cross with me."

  His jaw stiffens, then he says, “Fine. What happened?”

  "Well, he told me the vein thing on his temple is how the Last Fallon is controlling him. But the weird part was that he said he needed my help and that I had to bring Karva Arigenza back from Obex. Why would he ask for help and then take Nyx when he knows how important she is to me?"

  "Forget that, come here," Hermia says, waving us over and sitting up straighter. She taps out something on the supersized CogTracker, and several files shoot across the screen.

  “Well talk about Victor later,” Trey growls in my ear.

  Nyx’s face appears, bright and smiling, with her vertical green cat-eyes. Next to it is a series of photos of faces that are familiar and a string of file information. When Hermia brings the photos next to each other, I realize why I recognize them. It’s her mother and grandmother; I saw their faces in the photo at Titus’ place.

  “Did she ever talk to you about her birthmark?” Hermia says, zooming in and cropping each of the women’s photos.

  “No, but I did notice the fact that it was hereditary,” I say.

  “What’s this about?” Kato interrupts, shoveling a hunk of bread into his mouth and pushing the empty cup of froth away.

  "I don't think it's just a birthmark. One of the benefits of my continued service to the First Fallon is overhearing conversations and seeing documents that would otherwise be hidden. I heard her talking of a lock once after Trey had compelled her, and she was all confused. She was lost in a memory and ranting about her sister and how she would never be able to open the boundary between our worlds because she'd designed the lock to change continually."

  “Continually change?” I say, scrunching my face up. “Change to what?”

  "Well, that's the thing. She said it was such an ingenious idea because it wasn't a ‘what’ but a ‘who.’ She wove the lock into the genetics of a family. The First Fallon said that her sister would never be able to find the lock because as each new child was born, the lock keeper would change. I never knew which family, and I didn't ask because I knew she wouldn't tell me anyway. But look at the birthmarks on each of their cheeks; they're all identical in size and shape," she says, pointing at the zoomed-in images. "What if Nyx is the lock?"

  There's an exchange of looks between us as each of us peers closer at the images. Hermia is right; the birthmarks are identical. Nyx is the lock, and Victor has her.

  Twenty-One

  If it’s rebels you seek,

  find us where the woods and mountains meet.

  A sign you must leave,

  for us to retrieve.

  Freedom. Balance. Justice.

  Is all you need to trust us.

  And our arms and doors will part,

  if you can show us what is in your heart.

  Rebel whispers

  Before we leave Hermia's shop, she affixes locating devices to both of our CogTrackers. Kato hacks the software so he can control them remotely and connect them to his new program.

  As we leave, Hermia sees us to the door and waves as she flips the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’ and draws the blind over the door.

  Trey and I sprint through the streets, toward Light Street station. By the time we arrive, Titus is already waiting for us.

  We clamber on board the first train carriage we get to, which happens to be a supply carriage. I press the intercom to let Titus know we're aboard and the train jolts forward. The carriage is rammed full of equipment: food; sleeping bags; locators; and various anti-magic Faraday devices, which prevent magic from being used. We leave the supply carriage and step through the gangway into my private passenger carriage.

  We take a seat on the comfiest sofa. Trey swings his arm around my shoulder and pulls me in, giving me one long slow kiss.

  "She's going to be okay, isn't she?" I ask, leaning into his chest. My eyes close as I catch a whiff of his perfume - frankincense and summer on warm skin.

  He stays quiet. As he always does when he knows I don’t want to hear the answer. I squeeze my eyes shut harder to block out the worry. Sometimes I wonder whether it would be better if he lied to me and told me everything was going to be okay.

  We travel through the night, skirting around the outside of Element City, through the western part of the desert, and into the Ancient Forest. By morning, Kato’s sent documents and files to our CogTrackers. Half of them from Bo. She’s gathered a dozen folders full of photos, ancient scripture, spells, and rituals Victor might use to open the door. Kato also transferred the series of photos Hermia found of Nyx’s family as well as all the history they could find of her.

  We pull to a stop in White Willow, the forest’s Northern station. When we disembark the train, Bo and The Six are already there. There's only a short wait before Arden's sleek royal green and gold train pulls up on the platform opposite. Arden clambers off the train with a dozen senior Guild Sorcerers. I raise an eyebrow. They might be powerful Sorcerers, but two of them are walking with canes, a third is more wrinkled than a shriveled prune, and I think the Sorcerer standing next to him might be asleep.

  They move to our huddle and Arden raises his green-robed hands to quieten the group. He's in tighter fitting sorcery robes today; a harness style belt hangs from his waist under his belly, which holds his wand, some silvery balls, three pouches of herbs, and a variety of other magical devices only some of which I recognize, and I wonder what the Guild has created this time.

  Further up the platform, Titus steps down from the engine cabin. He hangs back, chewing a nail. Even though he’s not supposed to come, I won't be stopping him, and I doubt Arden will either. I notice Israel and Maddison standing apart from the group, both of them scowling. I'm surprised Arden agreed to let them come. But by the distance they're keeping from the main group, they must have been given strict orders not to overstep the mark.

  "Thank you all for volunteering for this mission," Arden says when we're quiet. "The First Fallon has agreed that it is vital we capture and contain Victor Dark." His eyes cross to Israel and Maddison, and he adds, "Alive." Which garner
s a nod from the pair of them. "The First Fallon herself wants to question him. Therefore, proceed with caution at all times."

  Maddison stiffens at this, but Arden continues.

  "I will take the Guild Sorcerers as the scouting party. Eden, Trey, Bo, and The Six will follow behind. Titus, Israel, and Maddison will bring up the rear with Olivius who will enchant the kit and equipment. We need to break ground in the Eris valley before nightfall. Kato has sent coordinates for a camping spot about ten miles north from here. Any questions?"

  Maddison raises her arm, but he ignores it, which makes her scowl practically violent.

  “Good. Let’s move.”

  Muted light breaks through the forest canopy, tossing the occasional beam of light into the undergrowth. After a short walk, we near the edge of the forest. The trees grow sparse, scattering as if they’re running away from the mountains. Arden’s group have disappeared; I'm guessing they've broken the forest line already.

  The closer we get to the border between the Ancient Forest and the North, the sharper the air is. The floral aroma from the forest’s bushes and flowers dissipates, replaced with the promise of snow.

  As we pass the final tree in the forest's perimeter, the State border appears; a line of green grass distinguishes the muddy undergrowth of the forest from the beginnings of the Northern mountains. The grass stretches over a series of fields farmed by Shifters. But as the fields swell into mounds, hills, and eventually gray rocky mountains, the luscious greens and yellows drain from the landscape. Once across any border, the terrain changes so fast I've always wondered if the States were having some kind of territorial war none of us knew about.

  I pull to a stop just after the border and frown. “Something feels wrong,” I say to Trey and Bo, dropping back behind The Six who march on. This is the North. I know we’re only just across the border but still. Shouldn’t the temperature have dropped?”

  “I don’t know, it’s pretty chilly,” Trey says, pulling the fur cape we were issued around his shoulders. “But I suppose you’ve got a point. It isn’t as cold as it should be.”

  “And we care about this why?” Bo asks, brushing down her uniform and adjusting cogs on her leg while we pause.

  “Because the weather is the only thing that doesn’t change,” I say, glaring at her because she should know better.

  We continue, leaving the forest behind us and trudging through the field on the same path Arden took. Trey stops and kneels in a long patch of grass to examine something on the ground. His shoulders stiffen.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  He stands, holding something between the palms of his hands, his eyes wide and skirting between Bo and me.

  “It’s dead,” he says, opening his palms, “the plants are dying.”

  In the middle of his hand is a shriveled skeleton that looks like it used to be a flower. Its once bulbous head is mud brown, and the petals are dissolving into the air with every tiny hand movement.

  "That's not possible," I say, looking back at the distance between the forest and us. It's less than a hundred meters. "Plants don't die in the forest."

  "I know. I mean, technically we're not in the forest, and this land is farmed on a cyclical basis, but…This isn't like seasonal plant death. Look," Trey says, stepping aside to show us.

  A circular patch of field about a foot wide has blackened, like the remains of a fire; only there's no evidence of fire or ash. Just sooty earth and a handful of dead plants. I look from Trey to Bo, the color draining from all three of us.

  “We need Arden or, what’s his name? The herbalist Sorcerer from the Guild, the younger one. Jacobs?”

  A shift in the atmosphere catches my attention. Cold whips around us, and something in the forest makes the air change; it rustles, like the crumpling of paper. I tense, my fists balling up ready to attack.

  “Something’s watching us,” I breathe.

  Bo’s body crumples and appears by my heel, in her wolf form, sniffing the ground.

  “Go,” Trey says, leaning in to kiss me. “Make sure it’s just a stray deer and meet me back here. I’ll find Arden.” He touches his forehead to mine, making me smile, then he kisses my lips and whispers, “Be careful.” He sets off at a sprint, running into the ankle height grass and off into the valleys after the lead group.

  With Bo at my side, her nose firm against the ground, we track back, retracing our steps into the gloomy forest.

  Her wolf body is slender. Like Cassian, her fur is thick and white. She's a little unsteady on her feet; I remember that she said while the prosthetic limb Titus and Lance created for her is enchanted to shift with her body, she takes the form of so many different creatures that finding stability on her legs is a learning process in each new form.

  She darts from tree trunk to bush to tree trunk. Then freezes, her tail out straight, her fur hackles raised. She’s found our intruder’s scent.

  "Go," I say, and she bolts. Powering over shrubbery and stray logs, I sprint after her, jumping and ducking to keep up. Her body disappears into a dense patch of trees.

  A girl's voice cries out, "Don't hurt me."

  "Rita?" Bo asks as I duck under a branch and into their view.

  “Rita? What are you doing all the way out here?” I say.

  She’s a mess. Her clothes are torn, and her luscious black hair is ratty and full of dirt. But what concerns me most is that her eye socket is black, her cheek purple, and her lip split.

  "What the hell happened to you?" I ask, reaching out to touch her shoulder. She flinches and steps back.

  “It’s fine,” she says, her limp hair falling in front of her face.

  “It’s quite blatantly not fine, Rita,” Bo says, putting her hand on her hip. “Who did this to you?”

  Her eyes shut, making the bags hanging under her eyes even more pronounced.

  “You’re safe,” I say.

  “We’ll protect you, from whoever did this. But you need to tell us what happened,” Bo says.

  “You already know,” she says, taking a deep breath and sliding down the nearest tree trunk, “you wouldn’t have sent me that message before the induction if you didn’t.”

  “Trat,” I say, sitting down on a fallen tree stump next to her.

  She nods. “I don’t love him,” she says, pushing her hair behind her ear. Her shoulders slump, a couple of tears plopping onto the stained fabric of her pants. “I’m never going to love him. It should have been Tiron. It was always meant to be Tiron.”

  Bo looks at me, her mouth pinching as she swallows down the worry.

  “It didn’t work, did it?” I say, shuffling closer so I can put my arm around her shoulder.

  “At first, I thought it would be okay. He is handsome, so I figured I'd fall in love with him eventually. But we're not compatible. And I didn't feel any different. We're supposed to feel something. Aren't we? It's supposed to change our essence, make us stronger, more stable?"

  She looks up at Bo, a ray of hope curving her eyes. Bo hesitates. I do too. I'm not sure what the right answer is. Bo and I do feel different. But if we admit that, will it crush Rita? Or affirm her decision to run?

  Bo looks at me and shrugs, so I take a deep breath and make the decision for both of us. "Yes, it feels different. There's a wholeness inside me now like I'm finally complete. Before there was a tiny hole, something missing, not from my life so much as my soul, my energy. Like a tiny piece of me was born inside him and a piece of him in me."

  Rita’s nods. She pushes herself upright, tears still glistening on her lids. “Thank you,” she says, “thank you for being honest. I knew things weren’t right. And so did he.” Her fingers move to her lip.

  “Did he hit you?”

  She doesn’t respond, but she doesn’t have to. My muscles tighten, heat flushing my neck. I should have stopped it in Stratera foyer.

  “He won’t get away with this,” I spit, and a small flame floats out of my mouth and drops to the forest floor burning a dried le
af that I have to stamp on to put out.

  “He already has. It started a week after we were Bound when I admitted I wasn’t in love with him. He exploded. The fact he didn’t love me either, didn’t seem to be the point. He avoided my face until a couple of days ago. That’s when I ran.” She hitches up her top, showing a rainbow of bruising across her ribs.

  My hand ignites in flames; the vault rumbles threatening to open.

  “Eden,” Bo growls.

  I heed her warning and bury the darkness in my unconsciousness. After several breaths, I calm down and push the vault away.

  “I’ll get his father struck off The Six for this,” Bo says.

  Rita smiles, "Don't," she says, and for the first time color floods her cheeks, a rosy glint burning in her eyes. "He isn't going to get away with it. I have a plan."

  “What are you going to do?” I ask.

  “First I need to make it into the valleys.”

  “The valleys? There’s nothing in the valleys other than grass and hills.”

  “I heard there’s a rebel group.”

  “You can’t. They’re an underground group,” Bo says, panic in her voice. “They attacked the Council.”

  I avert my gaze, a strange cocktail of emotions swirling around my body. I've not told Bo what I know about the rebels yet, or the things Sheridan's told me. For Bo, the Libra oath is the only way to fight this war. But I still haven't decided, and part of me wants to know more about the rebels.

  “I know it’s dangerous,” Rita says, “but I’m not going back. Not until I’m strong enough to make him pay. It’s not like the distance will affect our Binding or our strength.” She raises her Binding scar arm, “This is useless. Besides, they’ll believe me. The rebels are meant to be broken like me… I want to be with people like me. You have to let me go.”

  I glance at Bo, neither of us happy about letting her go alone. “You’re not broken,” I say, and as I say it, everything that happened over the summer comes back: even though it’s fixed now, I witnessed the same looks of shame and fear Rita will experience if she stays at Stratera. When you’ve been cast out of a group once, I’m not sure you should ever go back. Maybe that’s why I’m not sure where I belong.