Halfblood Legacy

by Rheaume, Laura

  Two had moved into one of the least dilapidated homes and stayed there most of the time. Mercy found it too hard to be near the children as they perished, and the feral ones became extremely agitated when she came near. Her new husband Scythe had determined that it would be best for her to maintain a safe distance from them. However, they still made daily trips to the hospital to check on the four recovering children, Nivia and Edillian; they also made sure to interact with the rest of the family.

  For himself, it was heartwarming to be connecting with his children. It made him proud to see how well Ian and Lena had matured, much better than he had. He had to admit that it was unlikely that well over thirty years under Jaelyn’s thumb would have made for such healthy, compassionate adults. Her choice to send them away, ultimately, was the right one.

  “This is a very good meal,” Smoke said after the somber mood had hovered for too long. “Who may I thank?”

  “Today it was Enera and Will, I think,” Ian said. He looked down the table at Will, who had finished and was talking animatedly with two children, Cinder and Logan.

  Will answered, “Yeah. We all worked on it, though. Hey, Dad, can we go exploring again outside tomorrow?”

  “I think we’re taking a trip for groceries and other supplies in the morning, Will, but I can go with you in the afternoon. Oh, and we’ll be picking up a new set of books for all of you, so just get ready. Your studies start again day after tomorrow.”

  “But my study group is back home.”

  “We’ll make new study groups. Why don’t you be in charge of that?”

  “Okay! We’re done. Can we go?”

  “Yes. Give me your lists tomorrow before I leave.”

  “Okay.” He led a group of five toward the kitchen with their dishes. They made a ruckus with their stomping and yelling.

  Morgan observed, “There are children in the halls.”

  His announcement was received with smiles and a round of nods.

  -----------

  “Okay, now what is the big emergency?”

  Lena frowned at the beeping and the flashing box that had words she couldn’t read, leaned forward in the chair and punched the tiny square. It enlarged until it filled the screen, but larger was not better, it was just larger; she still couldn’t understand what it said.

  “That is your helpful link? A copy of the same text?”

  There was a small picture in the top corner that was wiggling, so she tapped it. Another box appeared, with what looked like a map of the city, but it was panned so far back that it encompassed the outer valley as well as the cavern system. Beyond the caverns, a star pulsed.

  Wasn’t that the entrance to the hidden city? She was pretty sure that the trucks were parked somewhere around there.

  But, what was the star for? She pressed it, but nothing happened.

  “So let’s put a star there and make it wiggle. But, that’s it. Doesn’t do anything. Just wiggles. That will ensure more sales, because people will get fed up and throw the computer. Those programming guys are geniuses.”

  She went back to the first screen and scrolled down to see if there was anything useful. There wasn’t. Finally, she stood up and left the room where she was on duty watching over the dangerously powerful and increasingly inventive sick children. In the hallway she looked around, hoping to find a messenger to send to Morgan, but there was no one.

  “Hello!” She yelled. “Need some help here.” She waited. She knew that someone would show up eventually. The lab wasn’t that far from the hospital and the living quarters where most of them had settled, and Kin hearing was excellent. She leaned on the doorway until she heard footsteps coming swiftly down the corridor.

  She grinned when she saw Smoke, Ian and Morgan jogging toward her. The grin grew into a smile when she saw the food Smoke carried for her. Such a good husband.

  “What is it, Lena? A problem?” Ian asked when they got to her.

  Smoke came to a halt and, without looking at Lena or acknowledging the hand she had put out for the food, he lifted up the fork and continued eating. Next to him, Ian smiled appreciatively.

  “You bastard!” she exclaimed.

  Smoke inquired innocently, “What?”

  “Augh!” she growled and turned her back on him. She stormed to the desk at the center of the room, explaining, “There’s some kind of jiggly thing here, Morgan. Can you check it?”

  “Let’s see,” Morgan said, looking down at the monitor.

  “No. It’s too late now, loser.” Lena said when Smoke laughingly offered her the plate.

  “Lena, my Heart…”

  “No. No hearts, unless I get to cut out yours...with that fork right there.”

  “This is a perimeter warning,” Morgan said, and they all lost their playful spirit and leaned forward to watch him pull up another program. After a few more keystrokes, a box appeared with a video feed. There they saw the car Scythe had driven into the mountains under Edillian’s control, and another car. Three people they recognized had spread out and were searching the area.

  “I can’t believe it. That’s Ben, Anora and Cord,” Lena said. “What are they doing here?”

  “More importantly, how did they find this place?” Morgan asked.

  “Let’s go find out,” Smoke said.

  -----------

  Edillian lay in the bed and focused most of his energy on rebuilding his body. Even as weak as he was, even with the long road that lay before him, he was still stronger and more optimistic than he had been in years. It felt so good.

  He loved the air and the feeling of chewing food. He loved to look around at everyone and talk to them, although he still had some trouble communicating. He loved it when his legs moved that little inch forward, because he knew that one inch was going to turn into two, and then into five and then eventually he’d be able to run.

  He loved something else, too, the one thing that it hurt him to love. But, he was clever and soon he was going to be very strong. He knew, as surely as he knew he would run, that he could pass that trial, too.

  Mostly, he loved that he was done waiting. Now it was his turn.

  -----------

  Scythe passed the doorway on the way to the living room and then stopped and backed up. He peered into the small room where his wife was filling up a large barrel they had scavenged from one of the barns. She had already spent a day cleaning out the decades of dirt as well as a number of plants that had somehow made it into the house and stubbornly survived. Now she was ripping out the wooden floorboards that had rotted away.

  The jeans and long sleeved sweatshirt she wore were covered in soil, dust and grunge. The cloth she had found from somewhere to tie across her forehead was equally stained and didn’t do much to protect her skin from more of the same. She looked up at him, holding the pry bar in place under the next plank.

  My wife, he thought again smugly. It still excited him to think it.

  She seemed to know what he was thinking, even though she hadn’t reached out with her power to speak to him, because she blushed.

  He put the box of tools down and went straight to her, kneeling on the ground, taking her shoulders in his hands and kissing her soundly.

  “You are a mess,” she said when he let her speak again.

  “Yes.” He looked worse than she did; he was covered head to foot with the thick, gooey mud-like substance that covered the roof of the house. He was working over the section of their home that they had moved into, although it was so damaged that it was almost not worth repairing. He was working hard on it anyway, trying to get it at least waterproof before it rained. So far they had been lucky, but he didn’t expect it to last long during this time of the year. Every now and then a member of their family would help out when they had a chance. That made the work go faster, but there was still much to do. For good reason it was taking longer than predicted.

  “You know, we’ll never finish if you keep interrupting me every time you go by.”

  �
��Why do you think I go by?” Finishing was way down on his list of priorities. Interrupting her, however, was in the top three. That was why he intentionally kept his materials in the living room, which was nowhere near where he was working.

  “You are…” She closed her eyes and a crease formed above them.

  She was suffering, he knew, because of the children, because of her mother’s death, and because of the things that had happened to her on her way home from school. She was suffering and he couldn’t stop it. What he could do was stay by her, night and day, and check in on her. He could hold her and let her cry when she needed it. He could make sure she saw her family, especially the children, and he could keep her very busy working on the house.

  “Yes, my Mercy?”

  “You are a good man,” she finished and opened her eyes. He watched her make an effort to put aside her sorrow and enjoy what they had at that moment.

  He was lost for a little while in the arms of his wife. Or rather, he was found.

  When he came back, they had company.

  Lena’s voice carried across the field when they were still a fair distance away. “Hey! Visitors incoming!” Then her voice was softer as she spoke to someone next to her, “What? They’re newlyweds. You need to announce when you’re coming if you’re going to visit newlyweds. I don’t want to walk in on anything.”

  Ian pleaded with her, “Lena, please have some respect for my sensitive nature.”

  “Why would I start now?”

  When Scythe stepped through the front door, he saw that Lena and Ian had brought with them an unexpected pair of guests: Cord and Anora. He stared at them in surprise. He couldn’t fathom how they could be walking across the overgrown lawn to his home in the mountains.

  “Welcome,” Scythe said as he stepped off the wobbly porch. “How did you get here?” Anora embraced him firmly and he returned it.

  “It is a long story but it ends well,” she said, smiling.

  “I would like to hear it.” Scythe looked over at Cord who had left a comfortable distance between himself and the rest of the group. “Who’s that?”

  “Oh, this is Cord and Mercy’s baby,” Lena said before Cord could speak. She spoke so fast that Scythe could tell that she had been dying to be the one to say it. They all stared at him, gauging his reaction, except for Cord, who rolled his eyes.

  “What?” Mercy asked from behind him. She had just stepped out of the house when she saw them. “Oh!” She jumped forward and practically flew down the precarious steps.

  Then she crashed into Cord, throwing her arms around him and pressing her face into the baby that was strapped to the front of his chest. “Jonah! Oh! Cord, thank you!”

  Scythe smiled, but Lena frowned. He could tell that she felt sorely cheated, because she complained, “Damn, you already knew?”

  He shrugged. “I made Mercy tell me everything, so I figured it had to be him, but what I don’t know is how he got here.”

  Ian said offhandedly, “Cord went to get him after he dropped off Mercy, then he came to find us. You know, the usual.” He was grinning broadly.

  Scythe didn’t know where to start asking questions to tackle the mountain of information required to make sense of that. “Come on inside. We have one good room where we can sit and talk. Watch your step, though.”

  “Good,” Ian said mischievously, “I want to have a look around, so I can see what my son-in-law has to offer to my daughter. So far I’m not impressed.”

  Lena, Anora and Ian climbed up the steps and went inside. Scythe went to stand by Mercy and Cord, who was unstrapping the harness and helping her pull the baby out. Mercy hugged the boy to herself, somehow both laughing and crying into his hair at the same time. Then she started kissing his face.

  Scythe looked at Cord, who shrugged. Then Scythe began, “Thank you. My Mercy…”

  “It wasn’t for her. It’s for him.”

  Ah. Scythe nodded respectfully.

  “Ohh, look, Scythe! Isn’t he beautiful?”

  “He is.” And she was too. It was the happiest he had seen her since he had awoken in that place. A deep respect and appreciation for Cord, who had given him that gift, welled up in him.

  “Oh, he wants to go to daddy,” she said, kissing him one more time. “I understand, I’m a little bit much right now aren’t I? That’s okay.” She held him out to Cord.

  The man blinked and then stepped back. “Oh, no. I brought him here for you.”

  “Well, he doesn’t want me. He loves you.”

  “What?”

  “He loves you, Cord,” she pushed Jonah into Cord’s arms and he reflexively took him. Scythe saw one of her ribbons wrap around Cord’s body, and she shared something with him that made him look like he had been struck by a lightning bolt. “You’re his father. But I want to visit him every day. I’ll be his Auntie Mercy.” She was still so excited that she had to do something with her arms, so Scythe welcomed her hug and nodded when she said, “I told you he was special.”

  “Welcome to our home. Please come in and tell us about your trip, Cord.”

  The End

  Excerpt from Father Willow's Daughter

  Enjoy this excerpt from Laura Rheaume's next fantasy novel, Father Willow's Daugher.

  Chapter 1

  Soft laughter called to her on the wind, but Linna didn’t hear it. The little ones playing before her had captured her attention and they hoarded it jealously. The party of leaf sprites scampered across the ground, rolling over each other, bumping and bumbling and piling up against Father Willow’s craggy old trunk.

  Linna laughed at their antics, letting her hand run gently along the crumpled bark of the tree as she stepped lightly to the side and out of the way and watching as the highest ones tumbled back down to land on top of their brothers. Those underneath crunched in protest and tried to wiggle free while the top ones spread out as wide and flat as they could and smiled as their brown and orange bodies were jostled up and down.

  Another gust lifted them up, twirled them around Father’s ankles and whisked them away, except for the one who snuck the pointy tip of his thin, leafy form under Linna’s foot and held on tightly.

  She reached down, plucked the rebellious little scamp and gave him a mock-stern look with the thought, Off, now. Go on, or you’ll be left behind.

  He couldn’t hear her thoughts, but he could easily read her intent. In the next moment, energy pulsed through her fingers and she pushed him on his way. Sprites were very sensitive to the emotions that flowed in the energy of fae folk and those, like herself, who weren’t touched by Faerie but had developed a limited knack for a few of their tricks. Because of that, Linna got along very well with them, and the leaf sprites were favorite companions during her silent nights.

  She tossed him in the right direction and he quickly caught the wind and chased after the others. She watched them whirl away, marveling at the ease with which they rode the air currents: curving up to the left slowly and then sharply arcing down to the right, sliding an edge along a protruding root or dipping it into a sea of grass to make a trail of quivering green, flipping over and riding upside down, twisting head over tail and then turning until they were righted again. Their movements were dancing poetry that made her wish she could shrink down to the size of her hand, take the unreasonably thin form of a leaf sprite, jump onto a wind-wave and ride with them.

  In the quiet before the next distraction sprang forward to keep her safely occupied, the enchanting laughter snuck into the meadow again and made an untidy mess of well-laid plans.

  This time, the wind brushed up against her cheek and blew past her ear and that which dwelt in its feathery voice finally made itself heard. Tilting her head slightly, she turned her face into the breeze and pulled in its rich flavor. A lock of her dark black hair blew over a shoulder, fluttered in the breeze for a moment and then floated down to lay with the rest of its kind against her back. Her lids drooped as she savored the sensation that spread enticingly under her
skin. It was prickly and tingly, but somehow warm, too. Slowly, her lids opened to reveal a pair of deep brown eyes that sparkled with the same playful spirit that made her lips spread into a smile.

  Nana had taught her that it wasn’t wise to listen to strange voices, especially ones that called to her. The voice from under the stove and the one that she sometimes heard calling through the rain when it fell particularly hard were brimming with anger. They sounded like they had slid past sharp teeth and cracked lips on their way to her ears. She didn’t need to be told to stay away from them. In her forest, there were many things that called the unwary to an early end, but it had been a long time since they were something for her to fret over. Even the harmless wisps that sparkled prettily on foggy evenings had a certain itchy feel to them that Linna knew instinctively to avoid.

  However, the tinkling sound floating on the wind rung in a pure, sunny tone that stirred her heart, and she moved a step toward it before realizing what she had done. She would have taken another, but the tips of two fingers became snagged in Father Willow’s wrinkly old trunk. She was jerked to a stop and a startled “What?” slipped out and sent her flying into darkness.

  Linna opened her eyes before the tiny word had even finished leaving her lips. She blinked and stared up at the wooden rafters above her bed, quickly coming back to herself while the treacherous “What” ran off into the night, leaving her alone in the room. She could tell from the depth of the shadows that crouched in every corner that it was still late in the human world where she lived. Her eyes grabbed onto and then followed a wooden beam to the little window that crouched just under the roof's peak.

  A thin sliver of the night’s rich, blue sky peeked between shutters and tried to tempt her to a favorite perch: the narrow strip of oak that jutted out from the wall just below the windowsill. To the casual observer, it wasn't anything to take notice of, just a section of the wall built with a piece of wood that was a handful of inches wider than the rest. Years ago, a mischievous Linna had climbed up and, as easy as pie, balanced herself on the rough wood and pried the window open, grinning madly at her achievement. Then she had gone still, in awe of what she had discovered: a place to look over the forest that was nearly as high as one of her best climbing trees. Since then, she often sat there on nights just like this one and looked down at their small garden or across the trees that spread out from their house and extended far into the distance. The sky would be bursting with stars until Lady Moon took her evening stroll, smiling and nodding her head graciously when her twinkling courtiers backed away with a bow and lowered their shiny faces.