Shatter (The Children of Man)

by Elizabeth C. Mock

  Crushing her into a protective hug, Caleb rested his cheek on top of her hair. “Blessed Light, I was so worried, Ella.”

  Faela wrapped her hands around his waist and buried her face into his chest. Her voice muffled, she said, “I’m sorry, Caleb.”

  “Why didn’t you find me? I don’t care how bad it was, you know you can trust me. You know I would’ve taken care of it. Darkness, Ella, Nikolais has been out of his mind trying to find you. Ethan’s all but given you up for dead. Where have you been?”

  All of the shame and fear she had been carrying around bubbled up inside of her and she felt like her chest would burst. She put her hands on Caleb’s shoulders and forced herself back. He let her go reluctantly. Unable to look at him, her eyes found the horses. “Caleb,” she began.

  Getting a good look at her for the first time, Caleb tilted her chin to the side and saw the deep bruises along her jaw, cheek, and collarbones. “Who did this?” he demanded in a quiet tone that caused the hairs on the back of her neck to prickle.

  “Dead men,” she answered with a fleeting rage that sparked in her eyes.

  “Good,” Caleb said brushing his thumb along the bruise on her jaw. “That’s my girl.”

  Counting slowly, Faela tried to calm her racing heart and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she grabbed his hand, but the worry mixed with relief in his gaze caused her hands to quake. “I'm sorry, Caleb.” She shook her head, alarm and dread warring inside her. “I can't. I just can't.”

  At that she dropped his hand and spun on her heels and ran. The forest melted into a blur around her as she ran. The wind whipped against her face, pulling her hair out of its knot. Water dripped down her neck and between her shoulder blades.

  Until she stood at the creek’s bank staring into its water, she had not realized that her feet had taken her back there. She dropped to the grass and laid her head on her knees in defeat. Trapped in her own cyclical thoughts, she failed to hear Kade's approach. She never heard him approach.

  “You're clearly not all right, so I won't insult you by asking.” He sat down beside her and left her silence untouched.

  All the memories Faela had tried to keep buried had surfaced with the arrival of Caleb. Had it not been enough that every time she passed a reflective surface, her eyes reminded her of the line she had crossed? Now Kade, a near stranger, sat beside her in respectful silence, waiting to hear the sorrowful tale of how she had been wronged. Only Faela had not been wronged. Her own choices had caused it all and Caleb's sudden appearance would force her to make another choice.

  “If you're waiting to hear some sob story, you'll be here awhile.” Her eyes locked on her own reflection, willing away the man sitting next to her.

  Kade only grunted and lay on his back, his head resting in his interlaced fingers. The silence descended between them again. Distracted, her hands dug at the clay of the bank and began shaping it. Soon she had a sizable lump that she formed and reformed, first into a star, then a dog, then a person, then a flower, then a lamb. Her sculpting failed to banish Kade's presence as she wrestled with her indecision.

  Exasperated, she balled the clay and threw it at Kade taking care to hit him in the thigh far from any of his injuries. “Go away!”

  Kade started in surprise at her assault and found her face flushed in anger and he laughed. “Aren't you a little old for temper tantrums?”

  “Stop laughing.”

  “Or what? You'll take your lump of clay and go home?”

  “No, or you'll tear open your injuries, you jackass. Don't give me that look. I know you have a good bit of talent for red magic. You know better.”

  “You going to tell me what all that was about?” He stared up at her from his reclined position.

  “No.” Faela curled her knees back into her chest and rested her chin on its shelf.

  Kade nodded. “You ready to go back?”

  “No.”

  “Will you ever be?”

  “No.”

  Faela rose to her feet, gray eyes staring back from the water condemning her. She spun to escape her reflection.

  “Are we going back now?”

  “Yes.”

  Through a break in the canopy of leaves, an eagle wheeled toward the cliffs above the mouth of the cave. Kade’s eyes slid from the careless aerobatics of the aerial predator to his companion. Faela kept stride with him even though the rigidity of her back and the occasional tensing of her hands betrayed her hesitance to return to the cave where they had left Caleb and Talise. The thick silence between them had only deepened since leaving the brook.

  His thoughts circled the questions presented by this woman like the eagle moving ever closer to the rocks. People had always been simple to Kade, their motivations straightforward. Instead of answering his questions, spending time with her just produced more. He had known Caleb since he was seventeen and this woman he stumbled across in the woods had some deep relation to him. A relationship Kade had known nothing about. This ignorance disturbed him.

  As they reached the clearing in front of the cave, Caleb knelt holding Chance’s hoof, dagger in hand as he cleaned his shoe. Relief spread across his face when he spotted Faela beside Kade. One-handed he returned the dagger to its sheath on his forearm. Taking a deep breath, Faela wrapped her arms around her ribs as she lifted her gaze from the ground to his face.

  She broke the stalemate. “I know this is stating what is beyond obvious, but we need to talk.”

  Stoic, Caleb nodded, but said nothing.

  Kade cleared this throat. “I’m going to see if Talise needs any help.” Neither acknowledged that they had heard him. They stood in silence as several minutes passed, each waiting for the other to begin.

  “Before you ask where I've been, there are some things that you need to know.” Faela watched the sun streaking through the leaves and took a deep breath. “First, you're an uncle, Caleb.”

  As Caleb shot up from his crouch, his volume rose with him. “I'm a what?” He had expected to hear some shocking things from his little sister to explain her disappearance, but this possibility had never crossed his mind.

  Faela's mood shifted with her weight and she put her hands on her hips. “Will you try to keep your voice down?” Her gaze darted toward the cave, then back at her brother. “Yes. You're an uncle. I have a son. His name is Sammi, well Samuel.”

  Caleb blinked, recovering his voice. “When did this happen? How did this happen?”

  “Do you really need to me to explain the how?” Faela quirked her lips to one side recovering her humor for a moment.

  Caleb proceeded oblivious to her response. “Who's the father? Darkness, Ella, were you unfaithful to Nikolais? Is that why you left? Wait.” Caleb's eyes widened and he looked from Faela to the cave.

  “No, will you let me explain.” Frustration started overtaking her remorse and guilt as her brother continued concocting his own version of events.

  “Is Kade the father? Oh, I am going to beat him within an inch of his bloody life.” With that Caleb started toward the cave.

  Faela supported her voice with the full force of a performer’s diaphragm. “Will you shut up and let me explain! Darkness, you are impossible sometimes, you know that? Sammi is Nikolais'.” She said the last name with regret and no small amount of bitterness.

  Crossing his arms across his chest, Caleb stopped. “If the boy is Nikolais' son, why did you disappear, Ella?”

  Faela looked into her brother's bright eyes and knew she might risk everything if she told him the whole truth. He would eventually forgive her this creative truth telling. After it was done, she would explain all of it, just not today. She had made her decision.

  “Not long after the wedding, I found out I was pregnant. Nikolais wouldn't let me return to the Tereskan temple in Kilrood. He felt that I should stay, now that I was the head of the House.” She avoided mentioning their father's death and focused instead on her inheritance of his responsibilities. “But I just wanted to leave
the management of the House affairs to Ethan or Deborah. You know that Father had been grooming them to take his place. He knew I couldn't renounce my vows to the Orders to run the House.”

  Faela then began to spin the next series of events as she spoke. “Regardless of whether I ran the House or not, I wanted to return to Kilrood to visit Ianos. I wasn't sure how my gifts would be affected by my pregnancy, since so few mind healers live past childhood and since he practically raised me, Ianos is the closest thing to an expert that exists. The night I told Nikolais that I was leaving to consult with Ianos that was the night I realized what kind of man he really is.”

  Caleb's jaw tightened. His scar pulled his mouth into a grimace, but he said nothing.

  Faela closed the distance between them as she rolled the sleeve of her shirt up to her shoulder. Rotating her arm out, she exposed the tender skin under the upper arm. Running its length almost down to her elbow was the shiny puckering of a long burn in the shape of a blade. “He shoved his dagger into the embers, grabbed me by the shoulder, and forced me onto my knees.” Her voice lost its dancing cadence and slipped into a flat monotone. “He told me that I was his and would do as I was told. He took the dagger out of the fire, twisted my arm and held the blade to my skin. I can't remember for how long.”

  Faela skimmed the burn with her fingertips, then dropped her arm to her side and started unrolling the fabric. “He told me that now I could never forget that I was his and always would be.”

  Caleb's throat muscles strained and his hands flexed into fists as he absorbed his sister's story.

  “I would have killed him where he stood. Our lives are so fragile. Death comes so easily, just the tiniest pressure to a vessel in his head. Or bleed him on the inside, just a few slices to the key blood flows in his belly. It would have been slow. It would have hurt.” Her eyes glimmered the ghost of red as the corner of her mouth jumped into a smirk. Then she sighed, dispelling the haze.

  “But I couldn't. I could feel his blood in my growing baby, but I would never allow him to touch my child. So, I ran. Ianos hid me until Sammi was born. Since then I've been leaving a trail leading Nikolais as far away from Sammi as I can. I couldn’t contact you without the possibility of alerting Nikolais. He knows you’re the first person I’d turn to if I were in trouble. I’m sorry, Caleb. I couldn’t risk it.”

  Dragging his hands down his face, Caleb sighed. “You sure can pick 'em.”

  Faela’s lips pursed as she shook her head. “Thanks for that.”

  “Ella.” Caleb waved a hand to the side cutting her off. “Just shut up, will you?”

  She nodded mute as Caleb paced, his nostrils flaring. He drew one of the curved, long knives at the small of his back and started twirling it from hand to hand as he stalked. Sheathing the knife, he withdrew the two-handed sword slung across his back and preceded to turn the nearest sapling into firewood with impressive efficiency and savagery. Exhaling with a burst of air, he stopped as abruptly as he had begun.

  “Well, some things are starting to make sense now.” Caleb sheathed the sword with a sliding hiss.

  Faela's brows drew together in concern. “What things?”

  “I had some suspicions. After you vanished, Nikolais hired several bounty hunters. No one in the House knows about it.” He grinned, his scar twisting the expression into something predatory. “But hunters can gossip worse than washerwomen and I know a couple of these hunters by reputation.

  “I didn't want to think the worst of the man you married, but when he hired them, Ella… Let's just say, they don't care how damaged the goods get as long as the goods make it back to the client. The more I looked into your disappearance, the guiltier Nikolais appeared. Do you know that he's running the House in your name? He's been claiming that you've been ill.”

  Covering her mouth with her fingers, she chewed on her bottom lip. She dropped her hand and shrugged. “I wish I could say I'm surprised. He got what he wanted.”

  “Ella, Ianos could have hidden you indefinitely. Darkness, he's the Scion of the Tereskan Order. Nikolais could never have gotten to you. “ He trapped her silver eyes with his amber one. “It's because you're Gray. That's why you left.”

  She winced at the word. She had hoped that connection would elude him. It was a vain hope, she knew that, but that hadn’t stopped her from hoping all the same.

  “Yes.”

  “Damn, there hasn't been a Gray in living memory, Ella. I always thought they were just a metaphor for breaking the vows. You of all people know how dramatic and flowery Lusicans can be.” His eyes alight, he snapped his fingers as he wove his own version of events. “You did something the night you left Nikolais that broke your vows and turned you Gray. And since you're Gray now, you can't come home without fear of being brought under judgment by the Daniyelans.”

  The band constricting her chest eased as he steered the conversation. For once grateful for his presumption, she left his assumptions uncorrected.

  “If Grays actually exist, then you're looking for the Shrine.”

  “Give the boy a prize.”

  Affording Caleb and Faela some privacy, though his curiosity burned like a furnace, Kade walked the short distance to the cave and found Talise staring at her interlaced hands.

  “Did you find Faela?” Talise bent forward, her chin resting in her cupped palm.

  “Yeah.” Kade gratefully set his aching head against the cool wall of the cave. As he slid to the floor, he watched Talise from under his dark eyelashes. “She’s not your bounty is she?”

  Talise looked up in surprise. “You thought she was our bounty?”

  “Why else would you be looking for her?” Kade asked in an attempt to get more information on the woman with whom he had been sharing this cave.

  “By Lior, you mean you don’t know?” Talise laughed her blue eyes causing the rest of her face to sparkle as well.

  “Clearly, I don’t,” Kade said tossing a small pebble at the petite nomad.

  “You mean to tell me that you fought side-by-side with Caleb for over a year in the war and he never once mentioned his little sister, Ella? I find that very hard to believe.”

  “Faela is Ella. Caleb’s Ella?” Kade felt like someone had just punched him in the gut.

  “I know that I’m stunning, but it’s not polite to stare, love. I’m an old married woman after all.”

  “That woman,” he pointed outside the cave, “that infuriating woman is Caleb’s crazy little sister, Ella?”

  Talise’s eyes darted to the entrance of the cave as if wanting to join the discussion in the clearing. “She’s his sister in more ways than just blood, Kade, which it sounds like you’ve already figured out. Well, she’s his half-sister technically, who incidentally has been missing for the last year. Speaking of which,” Talise said her eyes flashing, “what are you doing here with her, my friend?”

  Kade furrowed his brow. “I’m not sure there’s anywhere I could hide, if you two wanted to find me. You couldn’t find her?”

  Talise shrugged. “It was like she fell off the world. Caleb went a little mad for awhile.” Her eyes darkened as she tapped her fingers on her thigh remembering that time. “It’s been a bad year.”

  That’s when they heard Caleb’s voice, trained to command the attention of soldiers in the chaos of battle or cut through an angry crowd of villagers, bellow in disbelief. “I'm a what?” Followed by the hurried rise and fall of Faela’s voice.

  “Oh dear.” Talise pursed her lips and shook her head. “Knowing those two, this is going to get much worse before it gets better.”

  Just then they heard Faela yell. “Will you shut up and let me explain!”

  Talise winced. “If you had any doubts that they're siblings, that should be proof enough. But how did you, my friend, end up here in this cave with my sister-in-law?”

  As Faela and Caleb strolled into the cave, Kade noted that no trace remained of the tension that had gripped both of their bodies. Instead they walked inclined t
oward each other with an unconscious openness born of a lifetime of familiarity.

  “Faela!” Talise sprang toward Faela as if to tackle her, but she seemed to expect this reaction from the slight nomad and braced her stance to absorb the impact. Faela returned the hug with enthusiasm. Talise pulled away and frowned when she registered Faela's eyes. “Well, that certainly explains a lot.”

  “Caleb can fill you in on the details later.” Faela squeezed the older woman's hand in reassurance before she let go.

  “Speaking of which,” Caleb said, segueing the conversation, “are you two the only ones staying here?”

  “Yeah,” Kade answered automatically, “we are now.”

  “Now?” Caleb inquired with his arms folded across his chest.

  Faela sat down amongst her nest of blankets. “It’s a long story,” she said with an exasperated chuckle.

  “We have time,” Caleb stated the levity gone from his voice.

  As Faela, who had been trained by the Lusican Order as a performer, began to tell their story her temples shone with golden lines. Starting with how Kade and Jair ambushed her near Ravenscliffe, she finished with Jair’s exit the day before yesterday. When her story ended, the yellow lines faded into her skin.

  Talise had been watching Caleb the entire time having already heard Kade’s version of events.

  A look of accusation crossed Caleb’s face and he reached over and punched Kade hard in the arm. “You darkness-blasted git, you’re the one who erased Rafferty’s trail. Do you know that you cost us four days? I couldn’t figure out how it had vanished at that creek. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that boy knew who to find to save his own skin.”

  Kade smiled. “You’re the one who taught me how to track and how to hide my trail, Caleb. What did you expect?”

  “Against me,” he muttered, “you’re all against me.”

  Faela looked from Talise and back to Caleb. “You’ve been hired to catch Jair?” She seemed concerned. “I mean, I know he’s a terrible thief, but what in the name of the Light could he have done to warrant someone dishing out the small fortune you two charge?”