Shatter (The Children of Man)

by Elizabeth C. Mock

  “Why do I even bother?” Eve asked no one taking both of their mugs to the sinks where she left them to be cleaned later. “You don’t even try to understand.”

  “Oh, c’mon, Eve,” Sheridan said hugging her sister from behind, “you know, I’m just playing around with you. I know you’re bonded to Kimiko.”

  “I think you’re just jealous of my affection,” Eve suggested with a smile.

  Sheridan kissed Eve on the cheek with a loud smack. “Of course I am. Now let’s get going. I’d like to get the heavy lifting done sooner rather than later.”

  Sheridan offered Eve her arm, which she took and they walked side by side to the stables where Ossi and Kimiko waited for them. Each animal had an array of packs and bags slung across their backs. Disengaging her arm, Eve stroked Kimiko’s forehead and the horse whuffled blowing warm air onto her neck. At their approach Ossi sauntered toward Sheridan and started sniffing at her pockets.

  Pushing back the llama’s head, Sheridan scratched behind his ears in way of apology. “Sorry, boy, I bring you no offerings.” Eve had her head resting against Kimiko’s with her eyes closed, when Sheridan said, “We’ll start light with Ossi first.”

  “Did you just imply that I’m fatter than your smelly pack animal?” Eve asked without opening her eyes.

  “Absolutely,” Sheridan agreed with a laugh as she stepped to Ossi’s side and placed her hands on his neck and back. Her eyes glowed indigo and the light enveloped both her and the animal. With a pop that felt like the release of intense pressure, they disappeared.

  Kimiko sidestepped shying away from the spot where Sheridan had stood. Smoothing down her mane, Eve whispered encouragements into her ear. Kimiko’s large brown eyes looked at her in accusation as if she knew what was about to happen. With another pop, Sheridan returned.

  “One down,” Sheridan said her face already glistening with a sheen of sweat. “No chance that Kimiko will go without you this time?” Sheridan looked hopeful.

  As if she had understood Sheridan’s question, Kimiko bucked with a sharp whinny and bumped her head into Eve’s shoulder.

  “Stubborn, co-dependent beast,” Sheridan said with an exasperated sigh. “You know, one day I might just pop you to the ice-filled tundra in the south and leave you.”

  “And you wonder why she doesn’t trust you,” Eve said turning her face as it rested against Kimiko’s forehead.

  “I wouldn’t actually do it,” Sheridan said with a slight whine. “If I pass out, you better catch me. I do not want this uniform getting dirty. I just had Tanner press it last night.”

  “You know my reflexes are faster than yours, Sheridan,” Eve said with a little smirk. “You won’t even scuff your boots.”

  “I better not,” Sheridan grumbled as she placed her palms on Kimiko’s flank and Eve’s shoulders.

  With a descending pressure and a pop of purple light, the red brick courtyard replaced the carved stone stables of Wickcester. Kimiko danced in place shaking her mane in protest and just as Sheridan predicted she wobbled losing her balance. Eve slid her arm under her sister’s shoulder just as she slumped sideways lacking the strength to hold her own weight.

  Spotting several adolescents standing in the courtyard staring at them, Eve said her voice straining, “I could use a hand here. In your own time, gentlemen.”

  One of the taller boys in a seeker’s orange tunic ran over and supported Sheridan’s other side. “Apologies, Sister. We didn’t expect Sister Sheridan back so quickly. She said she was hauling a lot from Wickcester, so we thought she’d pace herself.”

  “Sheridan’s never been one to pace herself,” she said with a laugh as they stepped sideways through the door that led into the temple. “What’s your name, seeker?”

  “Wiley, Sister,” he said with a sheepish grin. “We’ve been expecting your arrival. We received word from Finalaran day before yesterday.”

  “It seems you knew we were coming before we did, Wiley.” Eve repositioned her hold on Sheridan as they entered the personal quarters of the temple.

  Unlike Wickcester, Montdell had seekers in their last years of training with the Daniyelans before their journeyman year, which both increased the number of rooms as well as their occupancy. A few heads peeked out from doorways at their arrival and Wiley steered her into an empty room.

  Furnished in a similar fashion to the room they had just vacated in Wickcester, they deposited Sheridan into the bed closest to the door. With some effort, Eve pulled her boots off and covered her with the quilt folded at the foot of the bed to keep her from losing any more body heat.

  “Could you get a cup of peppermint willowbark tea from the kitchens please, Wiley?” Eve asked as she sat on the edge of the bed. “And a couple grain-and-berry honey bars if they have some.”

  “Right away, Sister.” Wiley left the room and she heard hushed and hurried voices as the other seekers questioned him about the newest arrivals as he walked down the hall, even amongst the Daniyelans someone gifted with purple magic was rare.

  Her face shiny and pale, Sheridan’s eyes fluttered open and she winced in pain. “We all made it in one piece?”

  “We did,” Eve said keeping her voice low, but it still wasn’t low enough.

  Sheridan pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. “Is there any tea?”

  “Not yet. I just sent Wiley to get some, but I think his fellows waylaid him as soon as he left the room. I don’t know how long it’ll be before he gets back. How much time do you need to rest before we can seek out the magistrate?”

  “A week?” Sheridan suggested with a thin, but hopeful voice.

  “Well, it’s good to know that you’re feeling good enough to jest,” Eve said as she brushed Sheridan’s hair back from her forehead. “Do you want me to check in with the magistrate while you recover?”

  “No, I just need to eat something and get my head to stop pounding and we can go together.”

  Eve squeezed Sheridan’s arm and stood. “I’ll go rescue Wiley from his interrogators.”

  Sheridan murmured something unintelligible and pulled the quilt over her head. Poking her head out into the hallway, Eve saw Wiley balancing a nearly overflowing plate and two ceramic mugs as he walked as quickly as possible without spilling any of their contents. Eve met him part way and took the mugs. Thanking her, Wiley stabilized the plate and they reentered the room.

  Setting down her mugs on the side table, Eve took the plate from the boy. “Could you let Silvia know that we’ve arrived, Wiley?” Eve prodded Sheridan with a finger and pulled off the quilt as she handed her sister one of the mugs. Sheridan sat up and scooted back against the headboard.

  “I sent a seeker to notify her when I fetched the tea, Sister. But I’ll go check on her progress,” Wiley answered, but before he left he addressed Sheridan who sipped her tea. “Feeling better?”

  “Thanks to you,” Sheridan said with a little smile as she lifted the mug. The color had started to slowly return to her lips. “Now, go tell Silvia to get her creaky old bones down here already.”

  Wiley raised an eyebrow at Sheridan’s familiar manner of address, bordering on disrespect, in her references to the chief Daniyelan representative in Montdell. “Not in so many words, Sister, but I’ll deliver your request.”

  “Oh, you use my exact words, Wiley,” Sheridan said in a cranky tone after she rested the mug against her leg. “If only for the chance to beat me bloody, she’ll get here faster, the old bat.”

  Looking at Eve for either an explanation or a means of escape, Wiley stood unsure of what to do. Before Eve could explain her sister’s demented sense of humor, a raspy voice interrupted. “You are a spoiled, insolent child, Sheridan. Don’t think these bones are too creaky to knock you silly.”

  “Sister Silvia,” Wiley said his adolescent voice cracking as he jumped as if caught sneaking back in after curfew. “I was just coming to see you.”

  “Silvia, m’love,” Sheridan said with a wide and infectious grin, “
I missed you. You look ravishing as always. Is that new leg cherry? The carving is lovely.”

  “Oh, don’t you try to sweet talk me, you viper,” Silvia said leaning her weight on her walking cane. “You may have completed your journeyman circuit six years ago, but that doesn’t mean I won’t have you back out there mucking the stalls with the rest of the seekers.”

  “You know how I hate to disappoint you,” Sheridan said with a resigned sigh, “but Tomas was fairly insistent on us getting to work as soon as possible.”

  At the mention of Tomas and their assignment, Silvia’s brown eyes dropped and lost their hard edge. When she looked back up, she addressed the boy. “Wiley, go and see that Eve’s horse is being taken care of properly. She always needs to be calmed down after being popped and I won’t be calling in a Tereskan to take care of those wool-brained compatriots of yours if they get their skulls kicked in.”

  Sheridan and Eve shared a quick look at Silvia’s unspoken reaction and her dismissal of the seeker, but said nothing. With a nod to each woman, Wiley excused himself and left the room to attend to his tasks. Silvia hobbled over to the door and shut it before turning back to the twins.

  Though in her sixties, Silvia’s auburn hair had only recently begun to gray within the last few years. She had a strong, square jaw and had retained her athletic build despite her handicap. The loss of her right leg wasn’t the only testament to a lifetime of service as a Daniyelan Sister that she bore. She carried the weight of her experiences in her unyielding brown eyes.

  Leaning against the door for support for a moment, Silvia turned back to the other women with a momentary look of regret and pain. “I missed you, girls,” she said with a genuine smile as she pulled a chair next to the bed and sat down. “But, I can’t let the seekers think anyone can get away with back talking me. Not even you, Sheridan. I have a reputation to protect and I worked hard to convince everyone I’m a heartless, old battle axe.”

  “But you are, Silvia,” Sheridan said widening her eyes innocently. “At least that’s what I keep telling everyone.”

  “You’re lucky you just popped or I’d cuff your ears, you guttersnipe,” Silvia said waving her cane within inches of Sheridan’s face.

  “I know.” Sheridan smiled wickedly as she drained the last of her tea. “You’ll just have to take comfort in the fact that I already feel like my head’s trying to break apart without your help.”

  Eve had sat on the edge of Sheridan’s bed when Silvia had shut the door. As she watched the older woman joking with her sister, the tension Silvia masked with the banter was clear. “Silvia, what’s the matter?”

  Silvia twisted her grip on the smooth, polished wood of her cane as she laid it across her lap. When she raised her gaze, the sympathy laid bare in her eyes startled Eve.

  “Darkness,” Sheridan breathed, seeing the same thing she grabbed Silvia’s wrist, “Silvia, what happened?”

  “Girls, when we all took our vows to the Orders, we knew that we may be called upon to do difficult, sometimes impossible things, to sacrifice ourselves a hundred different ways in the service of the Orders. But I cannot fathom why Tomas would ask this of you. I can’t understand why he didn’t send someone else — darkness, anyone else.”

  “By all that walks in the Light, Silvia, tell us what happened,” Sheridan pleaded as Eve sat motionless barely breathing.

  “By order of our Scion,” Silvia said her voice harsher than normal, “you have been sent here to investigate the murder of Nessa Reid of House Fireglen and to bring her murderer to justice.”

  Though several hours had past since Silvia had left, Sheridan still sat curled up in the corner of her bed, her cheeks still moist with tears. Her fingers moved along the ridges and creases the quilt made, concentrating on the erratic patterns. Eve paced in front of the door, her back rigid. Her brown eyes simmered with a murderous gleam.

  “You know, you’re going to have to talk about it sometime,” Sheridan said without looking up from the quilt.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Right. That’s why you haven’t stood still since Silvia told us that Nessa-”

  “We have a job to do, Sheridan,” Eve interrupted. “I shouldn’t have to remind you of that. You heard Silvia, we knew we’d have to make sacrifices when we took our vows. We have a job to do.”

  Sheridan nodded as she watched her sister’s endless pacing.

  “What we know so far is that neither Daniyelan has been seen since the victim’s body-”

  “Nessa's,” Sheridan stated firmly, but without anger.

  “-was discovered, but some of the border guards confirmed that Brother Hawthorn left the night before the body was found and no one has seen him since. Additionally, no one knows why he left. Why would a Daniyelan on the council leave the city without informing someone? I don’t like this. His departure the same night the victim was killed does not speak well for his innocence.”

  “His fiancé, Evelyn,” Sheridan said with steel in her voice. “You heard what Silvia said. He made her an offer last month. She was our cousin and we’ve known him since we entered the Orders. He's the closest thing we have to a brother. Stop treating this like they’re strangers.”

  Sheridan was cut off by the sound of someone knocking on their door.

  “Enter,” Eve called without turning to face her twin.

  The wooden door creaked open and Silvia entered. “The arrangements have been made. Are you ready to see her body? It can always wait until tomorrow, if you would like to visit your aunt and uncle tonight.”

  Eve strode to Silvia’s side. Easily half a head taller than the older woman, she met her gaze without any emotion. “Like you said, we have a job to do.”

  Sunlight spilled through the high, glazed window and pooled around the wheat-colored hair on the pillow. The young woman’s face looked pale like a porcelain doll and her delicate hands lay folded on her chest. The absolute stillness of that chest was the only indication that she would never wake.

  “She looks like she’s sleeping,” Sheridan said under her breath.

  “We had the city’s Tereskan, Martel, put the body in stasis, to keep it from deteriorating before we transported it to the temple,” Silvia explained as she examined the two women standing with her. Sheridan’s red-rimmed eyes clearly showed her grief, but Eve stood with her joints locked and a blank expression.

  Sheridan walked over to the bed holding the woman and knelt beside her. Standing back, Eve crossed her arms and loosely gripped the sides of her torso, saying nothing. As Sheridan’s eyes closed, a red mist covered them. Resting the palm of her hand on Nessa’s forehead, Sheridan crouched motionless for several minutes. Her statuesque pose broke as she raised her hand a fraction above the woman’s skin and began moving down her face. Her hand stopped its downward descent over her chest, and she flinched, jerking her hand away as if she had been scalded.

  “Where was she originally found, Silvia?” The red lines faded from Sheridan's palm.

  “The reports from her family said that her maid found her in her bed when she came to wake Nessa. But the odd thing was that there was barely any blood in her bed at all. After his examination, Martel determined she had been killed the night before.”

  Sheridan nodded and stood. “So, she was killed elsewhere and the body brought back to her rooms. That’s troubling.”

  “It means that her murderer had access to and familiarity with her family’s townhouse,” Eve said her fingernails digging into the fleshy sides of her stomach to keep herself from shouting who she thought the guilty party was. Sheridan needed to concentrate and Eve’s accusations would destroy any hope she had of focusing on the task at hand.

  Cracking her neck, Sheridan inhaled and rubbed her hands together, as the red tattoo reappeared on her palm and her eyes disappeared beneath a red haze. Placing both hands back over the spot that had caused her to recoil, she peeled back Nessa’s blouse. Though the decomposition of the flesh had been arrested, the charred wound swirl
ed with violent, warped energies.

  At the shock of the contact, Sheridan reeled back and wretched on the stone floor. Although the sight had been hideous, she had seen and treated far worse as a young battlefield healer during the war. What had disoriented her though were the malevolent, twisted energies writhing within the wound, grasping at her, trying to consume her, as it had her cousin.

  Eve rushed to her twin’s side and, in an absent-minded gesture, brushed away some stray hairs that clung to her face with bits of vomit. “What did you see?”

  Sheridan shook her head, her braids swinging. Eve put her arms around her sister’s shoulders and helped her stand. Leaning on Eve for support, she took hold of a red vial from under her shirt. She plunged her free hand back into the angry, tangled energy of the charred gash.

  The desire to empty her stomach rose within her again. Restraining the reaction, she clenched her teeth and reached through the barrier toward her goal. As she pressed against this unseen wall, the energies that Sheridan touched flared and dissipated.

  After what seemed like hours, and yet only a few heartbeats, Sheridan reached it – Nessa’s blood. Her fingers grazed the tepid liquid. Flashes of images assaulted Sheridan’s mind, moving too fast for her to process. Yet, one final image seared itself into Sheridan’s heart.

  The world was tilted on its side and she could taste blood and smell burnt flesh. Moving away from her was a thin-faced man in Daniyelan battle dress. His dark amber eyes were empty, save for a sociopathic rage as he turned and ran up the cellar stairs.

  Dragging her twin to the floor with her, Sheridan collapsed unable to support her own weight. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she whispered a name, “Kaedman.”

  Eve’s fingers dug into Sheridan’s shoulders at the name. “Did he?”

  Sheridan interrupted by shaking her head, unable to speak. The cost of the information had nearly robbed her of consciousness. After a few moments, she answered. “I don't think so. But, he was the last,” Sheridan breathed in slowly, “the last thing that Nessa saw.”