Heart Seeker (The Fire Heart Chronicles Book 1)

by Juliana Haygert

  I shoved my hands inside my jeans pockets and trudged along, following the sidewalk around the block. My mother lived in a nice neighborhood and the sun was high and warm. There were no shadows for monsters to be lurking about, ready to pounce.

  However, as I walked and inhaled the fresh, warm air of September, my mind raced. I couldn’t stop my thoughts as they shifted through everything that happened this last month. If only I could go back in time … then I wouldn’t … what wouldn’t I do? I hadn’t planned on any of this, and without a warning, it was possible everything would play out the same.

  I sighed.

  “I’m sorry,” Cora muttered from a couple of steps behind me. I glanced over my shoulder at her. “I know what it is to lose everything.”

  Oh yes … her entire enclave had been killed by alchemists two years ago. Only Nico, Rye, and she had survived.

  I did think the things I had lost were important, but Cora … she had lost her parents, her brother, her friends, her home. The pain she had felt, probably still did, was much greater than mine. Yet here she was, looking strong and beautiful and lethal, ready to break out in a flamenco move or stab the next person who crossed our path.

  “Does it get easier?” I asked in a low voice.

  “It never stops hurting and you never forget the despair and the pain and the helplessness, but it does. It gets better. It gets … tolerable.”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry for all you had to endure.”

  She nodded at me, too.

  We walked for a moment longer in silence.

  Then Cora’s phone beeped. She picked it up from her pocket.

  “It’s Theron. He’s on the way to switch with Rye and me.”

  I looked at her. “Rye is here?”

  “Yeah, he’s stationed behind the house.” She tucked her phone back into her pocket.

  I slowed my steps. “Hmm, is there something between you and Rye?”

  Her eyes widened for a brief moment before her face returned to its cool mask. “Why do you ask?”

  “The first day I was in Bellville … when I asked about you being engaged … I saw you looking at him, then both of you looked away.”

  She pressed her lips into a thin line. From the tension of her body, I didn’t think she would answer, until she finally said, “Female warriors are rare and they were looked down upon in my enclave. So unlike most girls in my enclave, I wasn’t promised.”

  I frowned. “Looked down?” I didn’t understand that. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “Because women are supposed to be delicate and weak and dependent on men. I don’t know. It doesn’t make much sense to me.”

  It didn’t make much sense to me either. Every time I looked at Cora, I was utterly jealous of her beauty, her posture, her elegance, and her strength. I wished I could be as badass as she was.

  “That’s stupid,” I mumbled.

  She let out a dry chuckle. “Yeah, I agree. Anyway … the night Rye asked for my hand from my father, our enclave was attacked.” I gaped at her. “Rye and I … I don’t know. We have something going on, but neither of us knows how to name it.”

  “But you’re twenty-one, right?”

  She nodded. “Rye asked once. Only once. I said no.”

  “Why? Don’t you like him?”

  “I … I think I do.” A crease marred her forehead. “It’s just complicated.”

  “But—”

  “We should head back,” she blurted, halting suddenly.

  “All right,” I muttered, understanding she didn’t want to talk more about it. To be honest, I was surprised Cora had shared all that with me. But I was glad she did.

  In the driveway of my mother’s house—my house—Cora bid me goodbye. She moved her hand in front of her and the stones, the ones that lined the flower bed, floated in the air, forming a stair for her. She grinned at me as she climbed it and disappeared at the top of a tall tree.

  The stones floated back to their places as if nothing had happened.

  Still amazed at all they could do, I shook my head.

  I walked to the front door, my thoughts back to all the crazy happenings of the last few weeks as I tried to fish my keys from one of my pockets, until I stepped forward and kicked something.

  Automatically, my gaze fell to my feet and I gasped.

  The Heart Flower.

  The red flower with the heart-shaped middle lay on the ground before my shoes.

  With my mouth open and incapable of closing it, I hunched down and grabbed it in my hand. The whole head of the flower was bigger than my palm and its stem was as long as my forearm. The petals felt like silk and the red shone as if the flower was powered by batteries. However, at the center, where I had seen a gelatin-type cushion in the painting, was nothing. The gelatin part was missing, leaving a small depression on the heart-shaped center.

  Exquisite. And its scent was like nothing I had ever smelled before. Sweet and spicy at the same time, rich and velvety. I could eat it, but I doubted it would taste as good as it smelled.

  I ran my fingertips over its petals, still amazed with its feel. Incredible.

  I turned around to show it to Cora, but I couldn’t see her from here. I opened my mouth to call her, but the sound of my mother’s voice coming from inside the house startled me. For some reason, I hid the flower under my thin jacket. Then another voice rang loud. A man’s voice. Their tones were angry, and they snapped at each other. I couldn’t hear their exact words, but they sounded mad.

  My heart hammered. What if the man was an alchemist and she was snapping at him and making the situation worse?

  Frowning, I unlocked and pushed the door open. To my shock, my mother and Dolan were standing in front of each other in the living room. What was Theron’s father doing here?

  My arrival had shut them up, and my mother’s gaze changed from angry to worried.

  “Mirella, you’re home.”

  “Yes … I said I wouldn’t be gone for long.” I turned to Dolan. “Hi. What’s going on?”

  Dolan opened his mouth to speak, but my mother pushed him toward the door.

  “He was just leaving.”

  “Risa.” The man glanced back to my mother, annoyance printed in his expression.

  Again that name … Risa. Did he know her from before she had been banished?

  “Our discussion is finished, Dolan.”

  Immobile, I watched as my mother pushed Dolan out without ceremony.

  After closing the door behind her, she smiled at me as if nothing had happened.

  “What was Dolan doing here?”

  Her eyes averted mine. “Nothing.”

  “That didn’t seem like nothing.”

  I thought I would break her; I thought she would spill what was going on. But once more, she let me down.

  Without looking at me, she walked away to the kitchen. She mumbled something about cooking dinner for us, but I barely listened. I was too stunned to listen.

  Damn it. Everything was falling apart around me. Here I thought coming back to my mother’s house would help. Maybe deep down, I had been hoping she would finally open up to me, talk to me, stop lying, and make everything clear. Clearer.

  Who I was kidding?

  Why did I have such hope my own family, my own mother, would become someone I could trust? She had never given me reason to.

  23

  My life sucked.

  At the moment, I had more than a plateful of problems and no energy to deal with it all. Trust issues with my mother. Alchemists after me. Not talking to Ellie. Heartbroken over Phillip and Annie. I couldn’t go to the dance studio or to my classes. Theron and Artan looked like two mother hens instead of just guarding the house—or me. Darcy had come to visit me yesterday, and once more her too-wide grins made me think she really was an old hag, giving me chills every time I denied her something—this time, it was about moving to Lovell.

  My busy mind and my problems were taking all the breath out of me.

  I
was really trying to get by, to go on, live a day at a time, but damn, it was hard when all I could do was sit here and do nothing. And I had been at this for five days now—it was enough to drive a person crazy.

  “Are you okay, Mirella?” my mother asked me as she sat beside me, handing me a cup of tea.

  I had been alone in the backyard, seated on the porch steps, thinking about the shit exploding around me, until my mother arrived with tea—her signal for wanting to talk—or trying to.

  I sipped from my tea. “As well as I can be.”

  “It’ll all work out.” She patted my knee. “What were you just daydreaming about?”

  Daydreaming? I was crying on the inside, trying to figure out how to solve all my problems. But no, to my mother, I was simply sitting here, enjoying the warmth of the sun before it set, as if there was nothing wrong.

  I bit my tongue, forcing the argument to stay bottled up. Damn, I was tired of fighting.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” was all I managed to say.

  After another pat on my knee, she stood and went back inside the house.

  I took a long breath, as if the air around me had been stuffy with her so close.

  But my relief was short lived. A minute after my mother left, Artan, using his air powers, landed on the lawn in front of me.

  With the orange sun shining behind him, his hair looked more golden than amber, and the skin of his lower arms and neck and face seemed more tanned. Bright light reflected from the small hoop on his ear. Standing like this, tall and strong and framed by sunlight, Artan looked like a god ready for battle.

  He sat beside me, his solemn amber eyes on me. “What’s your plan?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “You’ll just stay inside this house, without going anywhere, with us watching out for you, for the rest of your life?”

  I glared at him. “Well, I would leave if I could. I want to go the dance studio and school, but you know I shouldn’t.” I looked down at my feet. “I can’t go anywhere.” Not without putting others at risk.

  A plan had started forming in my mind on my second day locked here. But before I presented it to Artan and Theron, I had to find the right words, to plan it right, otherwise they would shut me down before I even finished telling them about it.

  The alchemists were after me, right? Or my things, whatever. Well, Artan and Theron could grab some of my things and go to an open space, far from innocent gadjos, a place where other warriors could easily hide. Then, they wait. At some point, the alchemists had to show up, right? Artan, Theron, and the warriors could fight the alchemists. They would win, I hoped, and I would be free to return to my normal life.

  “That’s not true,” Artan said, yanking me from my planning.

  “What isn’t true?”

  “You can go to Lovell.” His voice was a little less rough and harsh than usual, as if he too was trying to butter me up. “There you can roam free, do what you want … we even have a dance studio where the kids learn how to dance flamenco and other dances. I bet you could become a teacher there. At Lovell, you would be involved in the community, you would make friends, you would do something.”

  “Ugh, you’re worse than your grandmother.”

  A lopsided grin. “Is it working?”

  Unfortunately, it was. I didn’t want to surrender that easily, but I knew I couldn’t just stay seated here forever. Another week of staying idle like this and I would be crawling up the walls, truly insane.

  Then there was my plan …

  I pushed to my feet. “I … need to think about it.”

  Without waiting for a response or a comment, I marched into the house.

  I threw the cup of tea into the sink, wishing it would break and release some of my stress, but it didn’t, and I had to live with the lump in my chest getting bigger and bigger.

  I was walking to my room, to sulk or cry or break everything, when my cell phone rang. It was probably Theron checking on me. He did that whenever he wasn’t here.

  I fished my phone from my pocket and stared at the screen, freezing in place.

  Ellie.

  My hands started shaking. I rushed into my bedroom and leaned on my closed door.

  “Hello?” I answered. Through deep breaths, I willed my voice to a normal level and tone.

  “Hey, it’s me,” she said, her voice small. “I was thinking we could talk.”

  I paused. “I’m listening.”

  “Oh no, not through the phone, it’s … I would rather see you.”

  Damn it. “I can’t, Ellie. I’ve got som—”

  “Please, it’s important.”

  Her sweet, begging tone. It gutted me. “I can’t right now,” I repeated.

  “What if I come to you?”

  I glanced over my shoulder, to the closed door, as if I could see through it, through the walls, to wherever my mother was. Then there were my bodyguards. There were always two of them at a time. If Artan was here, it meant Sloan was here too.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. You see, I moved into my mother’s house and she’s always all over me.”

  “Then I’ll just park in the driveway and you can come to my car. We can just drive around the neighborhood while we talk, if you want. Or even around the block. Whatever works for you.”

  I shouldn’t talk to her. It was best for her if she stayed far away from me. It was safer. “It’s better not …”

  “Please, Mi. I really need to talk to you. Please.”

  When she put that please in there, I couldn’t take it. My will was crumbling. My strength fading. No, I couldn’t see her, talk to her. I shouldn’t.

  But I missed my friend. I missed her easy laughs, her contagious smile, her happy personality. And if my plan worked, soon I would be free to be her true friend again. A good, real friend, like she deserved.

  It wouldn’t be so bad, though, right? Technically, it would be like my walks around the block, but instead of walking alone and being followed by the warriors, I would be in Ellie’s car. It would be safe, as long as it didn’t take too long.

  I glanced at the closed door again, a plan forming in my mind. “Come over at nine.”

  “You’re looking better,” my mother said when I came to the kitchen a few minutes later.

  “I am.” I looked at her, hoping she couldn’t see anything suspicious in my face, couldn’t sense anything suspicious in me. “I was thinking … can we make dinner and invite Artan and Sloan?”

  She smiled at me, probably thinking I was finally choosing Lovell. “Of course.”

  For the next hour, I helped her make a hearty salad, a rich garlic rice and chicken bake, and potatoes au gratin to go with it. And we had ice cream for dessert.

  When it was almost ready, I went out to the back porch and called them.

  Artan jumped down from a big tree in the backyard, his air power softening his landing, and Sloan appeared from the side of the house.

  “We made dinner for you,” I told them, gesturing for them to come inside the house. Usually, my mother brought snacks, water, and juice to whoever was outside every few hours, but we hadn’t invited them to eat inside yet.

  Artan and Sloan exchanged a look.

  “We shouldn’t,” Artan said first.

  “Yeah, we should stay outside, watching out,” Sloan added.

  I rolled my eyes. “You can eat fast then, if you have to, but come on. Nothing is going to happen in ten minutes.”

  Artan sighed. “I don’t know.”

  I put my hands on my waist. “Look, I just cooked dinner for you, and you will come inside and eat. I’m not taking a no.”

  After another shared look between the two of them, Artan nodded. “But it’ll be quick.”

  I shrugged. “That’s fine.”

  Two minutes later, we were seated around the kitchen table, the food on trivets in between us. My mother had wanted to dine in the dining room, with her best cloth and china, but I told her the gu
ys wouldn’t want anything formal.

  All part of my plan.

  Sloan took a big lungful. “Hmm, this smells good.”

  “Wait until you try it,” my mother said, rather proud.

  I could see the wheels turning in her mind, thinking that Artan and Sloan would go back to Lovell and sing her praise, then Oscar and Darcy and the other elders would forgive her and un-banish her, and welcome her back into the enclave. I didn’t doubt for one second that she would move there in a heartbeat if she could.

  The guys dug in. I picked at my food, waiting for the right time. When they went for a second serving, I stood.

  The guys stopped with their arms and plates in the air and looked at me.

  “I need to use the bathroom,” I explained. “Be right back.”

  They resumed serving themselves, and I walked into the hallway. From there, only my chair around the table was visible, not the others. Careful, I opened the door of the half-bath in the hallway and closed it. Then, holding my breath, I tiptoed to the living room. I had debated going out through my bedroom window, but then I would have to jump down and I would probably twist my foot, if not break it, doing so. I also thought about using the front door, but I was afraid that wouldn’t be as quiet as I wanted it to be. So, before meeting my mother in the kitchen and asking if she would help me cook for the guys, I stopped by the living room and opened a window. I took off the screen, and then closed the curtains over it, praying there was no wind blowing from outside and that no one looked too closely.

  I slipped my flip-flops off, picked up the ballet flats I had left hidden behind the couch, and quickly ducked under the window, stepping on the porch as quietly as I could. Then I tiptoed down the porch steps and, once on the concrete, I slipped on my shoes and ran down the driveway.

  Ellie’s car was parked two houses over—I had been afraid they would hear it, especially with the front window open.

  I didn’t have long before they noticed I was gone, so I ran faster and slipped inside her car.

  “What happened?” she asked me, her eyes narrowed.