I wriggle beneath my captor, struggling to pull my arms from beneath the blanket where the person has pinned them, to no avail. If I had them free, the pulse would quickly throw the heavy person away.
“Don’t,” my captor whispers in a voice that sounds strangely familiar. “I’m not going to hurt you, unless you scream. Understand?”
For some insane reason, I believe her.
My captor pulls back slowly. I rip my hands from beneath the covers, and she angles her dagger at me. She is covered in black clothing from head to foot. I can only see her eyes – crystal sparkles beneath all the dark layers.
“Who are you?” I ask, ignoring the urge to thrust her in the direction of the flames.
She pulls the hood and mask from her face, allowing me a clear view of her smooth skin, marred only by a single scar on her forehead.
Celeste.
“What are you . . .?”
“Keep silent, you fool!” she hisses. The sweet demure look she’d worn is gone. Instead, there’s a harsh, yet commanding, twist in her face. “I’ve only come to warn you.”
“Warn me of what?”
“Those scars on your neck . . . I know what they are! I know what you are!” she says.
My veins turn to ice, but my palm remains hot and ready. I can silence her quicker than she thinks.
“I am too.”
The pulse in my hand fades. “You’re what?”
“I can hear them,” she whispers. “I can understand them. I am a ‘witch’ as King Arkran and his kind call us.”
I stare at her, blankly, trying to contemplate everything she is telling me.
“You must not tell anyone what you can hear. They will use you for it. Until you’re of no more use. Or, they will kill you because they’re frightened. Frightened because they can’t contemplate how we can hear demons unless we had ties to their darkness. But I don’t think you’ll tell anyone. You know what they’ll do already. What I really came to warn you about was telling them.” Her voice shifts ominously.
“Them?”
“The shadows, as everybody calls them. Don’t let them know what you can do when they find you. And they will find you, eventually. I don’t know how they do, but you can’t hide forever. If they do, don’t ever let them know you understand them! Worse things will await you if you do!” Her eyes are wide.
“How do you know this?” I slip out of bed anxiously and face her, despite the icy cold of the floor seeping into my feet. “Tell me!”
“I had a brother,” she snaps. “They came for him!”
My mouth dries up. I can’t say anything.
“You know all about that, though, don’t you?” she asks maliciously. “He was in Gavrone.”
I stumble backwards, the weight of her words disrupting my balance.
She follows me, step for step, eyes never leaving my face. The dagger in her hand shakes unsteadily. “I sent him there because I thought he’d be safe. I thought my mother would be able to hide his unique gift, but she couldn’t hide it from those that live in shadow!” she snarls. “They came, but they didn’t take him. I heard they slaughtered my mother. But they didn’t kill him. The people did. Forced him off a cliff. My brother died, not because of something he’d done wrong. But because he had something no one could understand! Because people are cowards and fools.”
Holy gods!
“No one knows. I had to mourn him in silence, knowing that his body is ripped apart at the bottom of a cliff, without anyone to bury the pieces or say prayers over him.” She falls on her knees, the strength fading from her eyes. The dagger falls from her hands. Tears pour silently down her cheeks as her mouth trembles. I know the feeling. I know she wants to scream.
I walk to her and let my palm rest on her shoulder. “No, he isn’t.”
She looks up, confused.
“I found him,” I whisper, “and buried him for you.”
She doesn’t say anything for a long time. When she does, its etched in disbelief. “But – he fell off a cliff!”
I shrug. “He could have fallen out of the heavens themselves – I would have still gone down to bury him. He deserved that much. He didn’t deserve what happened. He didn’t deserve death. And he sure as hell didn’t deserve to lie, cold and alone, by the sea.”
Celeste’s arms are around me, tight and trembling. “Thank you,” she whispers, the floodgates of her sorrow finally opening. Her tears wet my neck. “Thank you, Kyla.”
I hold her until she finally pulls away, wiping any signs of mourning from her face. “Stay safe, okay? I don’t want to hear about how you fell off a cliff too.”
“You wouldn’t. There are no cliffs in Agron.”
She smiles and starts to move away.
“How did you know they would come for you?” I ask her. “For your brother?”
She sighs and looks at the fire. “My brother, my mother, and I used to all live together . . . in a small house in the middle of the woods. There wasn’t a village around for miles. One night I walked out into the woods to get some more wood. I was coming back. I heard voices. People normally didn’t travel into our corner of the forest and the voices weren’t . . . natural. But of course, you know all about that?”
I nod.
“The voices got closer, but wherever I looked I couldn’t see them. They kept saying they’d ‘found’ us. When they did reveal themselves, I knew what they were. Everyone knows about the shadows. There were only two of them. They came after me. I fled, got my mother and brother, and we ran for our lives.”
“You escaped them?”
Celeste levels a cold stare at me, and I bite my lip, chastising myself for my ignorance. “We ran into a hunting party who made short work of the shadows. But when . . . when I told the three men what I’d heard they grew frightened. Superstitious. It didn’t help that my brother admitted he’d heard them too. The men talked about turning us over to the authorities in the nearest village.” She looks at me, a hardness in her gaze that chills my blood. “Naturally, I couldn’t let them do that.”
She doesn’t say anything else and I don’t embarrass myself by asking another foolish question. I know what she must have done.
“I sent my mother and brother to Gavrone. I’d heard about it from a friendly goatherd who happened to stop by our house a couple weeks prior. It seemed like the proper place. And I . . .” She pauses and rubs her arms nervously. “I struck out on my own.”
“To Smoke?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” She shrugs helplessly and it gives me a glimpse of what she once was – an innocent, naive girl who’d just discovered she was destined to die. “When I got here, there were few options for a single young woman with no penny to her name and no trade. I found work in a tavern. One of Lucius’s servants found me there and offered me a job in the palace. I’d be a fool not to take it, yes?” She laughs, but it lacks any sort of gaiety. “I wish I’d stayed a fool.”
I open my mouth but no words come out. What words are appropriate for something like that?
“It could be worse,” she says casually. “And it’s not like I was a virgin before. Lucius could be a complete barbarian.”
“You mean he isn’t?” I ask.
She levels a critical look in my direction. “You’re an innocent in these matters, aren’t you?”
I duck my head to hide the flush of my cheeks. “I know enough.”
“Sure you do,” she quips. She stands up and brushes a hand over my shoulder. “And I pray you never have to know more.”
She glances towards the door, eyes alert as if she’d heard something. “I have to go,” she mutters, retrieving her dagger and slipping it beneath the folds of her dark outfit. “I don’t want to be discovered missing for the third night in a row. Lucius gets insanely jealous if he thinks I’m whoring myself to fellow palace-dwellers.” She stalks towards the door.
“Celeste?” I call after her. “What was his name?”
She turns and looks a
t me. “Averick.”
“Thank you.”
She opens the door. “Farewell, Kyla Bone.”
“Farewell, Celeste.”
The door closes.
I hope, to the gods and the holy heavens themselves, that she was wrong and the shadows forget all about me.
I open my eyes, and I’m standing in a familiar hallway past a flight of stairs. My house. In the foyer below our butler walks back and forth at a frightening pace. His face is pale.
Dread fills my lungs.
Ahead of me, a light shines under the doorway of my parents room. I see shadows passing in front of it. Leaning against the door-frame, Landor has his eyes closed and his head tilted back against the wood. There is blood on his hands. On his face. Under his fingernails. His Celect Knight uniform is torn at the shoulder.
“Landor,” I say.
Like always, he doesn’t hear me. There is an invisible wall between us. A wall that cages sight and sound.
My parents door opens.
Landor jolts to attention.
Mother storms out the door and heads straight towards me. Her hair hangs wild about her face. Her eyes are stormy.
She’s been crying.
“Mother!” Landor calls after her. She doesn’t answer him. He follows her.
They breeze past me and down the stairs. I follow, floating on the air like a whisper.
“Mother, where are you going?” Landor asks. His voice is laced with concern.
“To get a drink!” she snaps. She throws open the doors of Father’s study and walks to his desk. A carafe of his best wine glitters in the sunlight streaming through his large, colored-pane window. She pours herself a glass and downs it in one swallow. She starts to refill it.
“Mother . . .” Landor protests and grabs the carafe from her hands, spilling some of the red liquid on the sleek carpet.
“Really, son? You’re a voice of reason now? Now! When your father lies upstairs, beaten to a bloody pulp because of that son of a bitch! Because that puppet of a man was too cowardly to defend your father and take a stand. What other wise words of reason will you give me, son? I guarantee I’ve heard them all.”
“You are Lady Bone and . . .”
“Heard it,” she interrupts him.
“Father would want you to be . . .”
“Don’t even finish that sentence, Lan!” she snaps.
The corner of his cheek twitches. He’s biting it from the inside.
They stand in silence for a moment longer. Finally, Mother breaks eye contact first and sags against the desk. She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t sigh. She stays silent and stares at the carpet. At the red stains dotting its surface.
“Do you know I regretted it too?” she asks.
Landor looks up.
“I regretted that I let that man take my daughter – my only daughter – and cast her out like she didn’t belong. Like she was worthless trash. Just because she knew tyranny when she saw it and stood up against it. Just because she wanted a life that she chose instead of one chosen for her. That’s what I want for all of you. I want you to choose a life. I want you to have the opportunity to choose a life. I wanted both of my children to be able to stand up for what they wanted and grab at it with both hands, consequences be damned. But . . .” She shakes her head. A single tear slips down her cheek. “But, in the end, I regretted ever encouraging such behavior. When he branded her – her screams – do you know they tore me apart inside? To hear her scream and watch no one go to her rescue is something I’ll have to live with the rest of my life. I regret not encouraging her more. I regret not telling her everything about her strengths. I regret . . . not talking to her more.”
“Mother . . .” Landor’s voice is deathly quiet. “What did the doctor say?”
Her hands bite into the wooden rim of the desk so tightly that her knuckles turn white. “He’ll live . . .” she whispers. “And he’ll lose his leg.”
Oh, gods!
“Father!” I scream but, of course, there is no answer. I cannot move. Cannot flee this scene before me.
Landor stands quietly for a moment and stares at the red stains in the carpet too. Slowly his eyes flutter closed, and he balls up his fists. He’s thinking. No! He’s not thinking. He’s bracing himself. He’s preparing to do something he knows he shouldn’t do and . . .
He grasps the carafe and pours himself a glass. He drinks it quickly and slams it back onto the desk. My mother looks up as the glass smacks the wood. Landor starts towards the door.
She grabs his arm. “Where are you going?”
He looks at her, and I shiver at the darkness in his gaze.
“No!” She tightens her hold on his arm. “No, son, I can’t let . . .”
He shakes loose. “You told me you wanted me to make a choice and grab onto it with both hands. I am sorry what I have chosen is not what you had in mind but it is necessary. I failed to protect my family once. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”
“This is not right, Lan. It’s too late and . . .”
“Right? Right?” He slaps a hand to the door. “Who the hell gives a damn about what’s right?”
“Landor, listen to me, please.” She grasps his shoulders and turns him to face her. He avoids looking into her eyes. She notices and frowns. Gently, she palms his chin and turns his face towards hers. “It is not the right time or the right place to do such a thing.”
“If it was Kyla you’d have done it!”
I know he didn’t mean it, but the effect of his words knocks Mother backwards. Her eyes widen. Regret stains his face the moment the words leave his mouth.
“I . . . I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean . . .”
“If only you knew,” Mother whispers, her voice so low – so sad – that it tears at my chest. It is the same voice she used to console me when I was drunk. The same voice she used so many times when I would constantly berate my existence. The same voice that urged me to break the devil’s chains and free myself. “If only you knew half the story behind your sister and what happened you’d . . .” She breaks off and shakes her head. “No, you wouldn’t understand, would you? No one would. No one could.”
“I . . .”
“Do you know you and your father died?”
His brows rise in question.
She leans against the door. “Your father took you . . . when you were five . . . on a journey to the island of Landor. Celectate Wood had a mission for him and you wanted to see the land you were named after. I protested . . . no, I fought against the idea with every bone in my body because I knew the dangers of sailing the Argan Sea. No one listened to the ‘pleas’ of a woman. Two months after your departure I get word that your ship sank off the coast of Landor.”
Landor’s stares at her, his expression blank. He doesn’t remember.
“I mourned you five months. Five months, son! Five months I had nightmares about sea creatures feeding on the flesh of my husband and son. I envisioned your screams. Your cries for help. And I couldn’t help you. Do you know what that does to a mother, son? No, probably not. I will never forget it.” There’s a deeper sorrow in her eyes. A part of this story she’s not telling. I feel it. “You both lived. A group of scavenging merchants fished you out of the sea. Your father couldn’t remember who he was. You wouldn’t talk. It took them months to figure out the chaos. When you finally returned, I had nearly given up hope. I had tried to move on.” Again, her eyes darken with an undisclosed sadness. “When your sister came seven months later . . . I swore I wouldn’t lose her. I promised I wouldn’t lose her.”
“And she was sent to the Wilds!” Lan snaps.
“That wasn’t losing her. That was letting her go.” That mysterious smile plays at the corner of her mouth.
“What the hell are you saying?” Lan asks.
“Your sister isn’t dead.”
“I know that. That’s the only thing stopping me from killing that son of a bitch.”
“Your father isn’t dead eith
er.”
He sees her point and that darkness in his eyes fades. He sags against the wall and puts his head in his hands. “His leg, mother. His leg . . .”
“Is not his soul,” Mother admonishes. “He’ll live.”
“He’ll wither. Father was not meant to be a cripple.”
“Your father was not meant for these times. He was meant for times when the Community was sovereign and beasts like the Celectate were in chains. We all knew those times would pass, but not all of us were prepared for it.” She leans close and pats his shoulder. “But we are. And together we can keep your father alive.”
“Mother . . .” He lowers his head. “I can’t do this if . . .”
“You are your father’s son!” she snaps and lifts his chin. “Just as Kyla is her father’s daughter. You have your gifts and she has hers. Both of you – look at me, Landor! Both of you are strong. Both of you are meant for these times. Both of you, understand?” She wraps her arms around him, pulling him close.
“If something happens to you because I’m too weak to stop it . . .”
“I am strong enough to take care of myself, thank you very much!” she snarls. “I’ve faced evils far greater than pompous lords trying to get on Celectate Wood’s good side. And if something does happen to me, Landor, it is not of your doing. Don’t blame yourself.”
“Kyla was my doing. I should have killed the man, mother, before he harmed her. I had many chances and I . . .” He shakes his head sadly. “I failed her.”
“You didn’t fail your sister. Kyla is where she belongs,” Mother argues.
He looks up. “What do you mean? No one belongs in that savage land!”
A mysterious smile plays at the corner of her lips. “Your sister has her gifts,” she says, “and you have yours. Don’t ask me any more questions, Landor. Time will answer them for you. Until then . . . trust me.”
The butler appears in the doorway. “My lady,” he says, “Celectate Wood has sent a guard bearing his condolences and wishes to offer you whatever he can as compensation for your misfortune.”
Landor and Mother share a look – an icy spear of rage and cunning – before looking at the butler.
Ostracized (The Ostracized Saga Book 1) Page 53
