House of Fear and Freedom (The Wyrd Sequence Book 1)

by Kimberley J. Ward

  He wasn’t anything like she had envisioned.

  Nessa turned to Hunter, wondering if he had been bullshitting her all along. Orm couldn’t even open his eyes, let alone answer any questions.

  Hunter, it seemed, was less than impressed with his friend’s current state, and went over to him. At least, he tried to. The chests acted as barricades, and the pillows really didn’t help matters, slipping underfoot as Hunter straddled a chest, trying to get over it without burning himself on one of the smouldering incense sticks.

  Nessa watched his struggles, contemplating whether she should give him a hand or to just stand by and see how it played out.

  She chose the latter.

  She didn’t feel bad about that at all.

  Orm opened an eye. Not both, just the one. He looked at Hunter as he struggled, smiling faintly. “’Ello, Hunter,” he murmured, not moving a muscle to help his friend. His eye landed on Nessa and his smile grew. “And hello Hunter’s friend.”

  Nessa gave him a lazy grin and a small wave, fingers wiggling.

  Orm blinked and gazed at Nessa and Hunter with both eyes open, his curiosity obvious. “Welcome to my humble abode,” he said. “It is my pleasure to have you here this fine eve. How may I be of assistance?”

  Hunter managed to get over the wooden chest without breaking himself, and promptly collapsed on the pile of pillows, sinking down into them.

  “We need you to sober up,” Hunter puffed, “and answer some questions.”

  “Sober?” Orm laughed. “Who says I’m not sober?”

  “I do.”

  “And I second that,” Nessa murmured.

  Orm paused, considering their words. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. In any event, I didn’t know that the two of you would be coming and found myself growing bored. You can’t blame a man for simply passing the time.”

  “Just passing the time, is it?” Hunter managed to extract himself from the pillows and sat up, red faced and irritated.

  Orm nodded solemnly.

  “And what are you passing the time with?”

  Orm chuckled, and from under the pillows, he pulled out a small wooden box. He opened it, revealing that it was filled with a number of cigars made from a dark flaking material. Nessa scrunched up her nose, having no idea what they were, although they couldn’t be normal, judging by the way Hunter rolled his eyes.

  “You’ve fallen back into bad habits, my friend,” Hunter said, crawling forward, reaching out for the box. He went to grab it, but Orm squirrelled it away, hiding it. “You promised me you’d stop smoking this stuff.”

  “And you, Hunter, my lad,” Orm pointed an accusatory finger at him, “promised to meet up with me three months ago for some fun at Silverman’s. However, you never turned up. You abandoned me and our wonderful, wonderful plans.”

  Hunter shook his head and settled back against the wooden chest, giving up with wrestling the pillows. “Well,” he began. Nessa, sensing that the conversation was going to continue for some time, decided to join them. She managed to hop over the chest with more ease than Hunter had, and settled down beside him on the pillows, which were less of a bed and more of a bottomless pool. “It was a little hard to meet up with you,” Hunter continued, “since I was imprisoned in Ironguard.”

  Orm was amused. “Oh yes, I remember hearing all about that.” He grinned from ear to ear. “Interesting and mildly entertaining it was, listening to the tales of your arrest.”

  “So you had heard?” Hunter looked displeased. “I had wondered. Thanks for the gallant rescue.”

  Orm shrugged. “I had intended to help, but then something happened and I got into trouble and blah blah blah, and so on and so on…”

  “And so you left me there,” Hunter finished. “For three months.”

  “I was in a lot of trouble,” Orm argued. “Anyway, don’t try and guilt trip me. Clearly you didn’t need my help. You escaped that dreary place all by yourself. Bravo. And managed to end up in such fine company too. Double bravo.”

  Nessa couldn’t stop her lips from twitching into a small smile. Orm, it turned out, amused her greatly, and had inadvertently given her a small glimpse into Hunter’s past that got her thinking.

  “You see,” Orm said, “it was the Gods’ way of getting the three of us here, together. A rather long and roundabout way of getting us here, I agree, but they got us here nonetheless. And for a reason, I’m sure. You can’t be mad at me when I was merely a pawn in the Gods’ divine game.”

  “And which divine game is that?” Hunter asked dryly.

  Orm chuckled. “Who knows? The Gods work in mysterious ways, my friend, and they have yet to reveal their intentions.”

  “Huh.” Hunter scowled.

  “Come now, Hunter,” Orm said, placating. “It all worked out for the best. Here we are, the three of us, happy and healthy, and in reasonably good spirits. It is a time to rejoice, and I can think of no better way of celebrating our gathering than with a good old smoke.” Orm rifled around in the pillows, hunting for his box of strange looking cigars. He found it, setting it on his lap with a wide grin.

  “Orm,” Hunter said firmly. “No.”

  Orm pulled a face. “Come on. One smoke won’t do us any harm.”

  Hunter looked at Nessa beseechingly. Seeing as it was unlikely she would be getting any decent answers anytime soon, Nessa resigned herself to wait until the morning and shrugged. Hopefully Orm would be lucid by then.

  Hunter sighed as Orm opened the box and pulled out a flaking cigar, smiling like an imp as he did so. He popped it in his mouth, and with his other hand, clicked his fingers. A small flame flared between his thumb and forefinger, igniting the tip of the cigar.

  Nessa jumped, startled. He had no matches, no lighter. It was by no normal means that he had conjured that flame. It was magic. Orm had magic. It unnerved her to see such a blatant display of it. Then understanding dawned on her. Hunter believed Orm might know how she had been brought to the Twelve Kingdoms because Orm knew about magic, he could use it himself. Nessa looked at Orm with renewed interest.

  Orm wiggled his eyebrows as he took a draw on his cigar. “Let’s get this party started,” he said around it.

  Hunter, head in his hands, murmured, “This isn’t going how I had planned it to.”

  “In all honesty,” Nessa said, “I don’t think anyone could plan this.”

  “Hmm.”

  Orm blew out a lungful of smoke and looked at them with drowsy eyes. “That’s so much better.”

  “Yes,” Hunter muttered, “it must have been so hard for you here, tucked safely away from your problems.”

  Orm shot him a halfhearted glare. “I’ll have you know that the woman who lives opposite is incredibly annoying.”

  Hunter glanced at Nessa, who raised her brows, smirking.

  “Irritating,” Hunter said to her. “He finds his neighbour irritating.”

  “Must be a living hell,” Nessa replied.

  Orm pretended to look wounded. “Those words are mean.”

  “So is leaving your friend to rot in prison,” groused Hunter.

  Orm took a long drag on his cigar. “Ugh, you’re just going to keep bringing that up, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine, fine.” Orm waved a hand. “The next time you wind up in prison, because let’s face it, it’s more than likely to happen, I swear on my mother’s grave to come and rescue you.”

  Hunter frowned. “Your mother’s alive.”

  Orm paused in his smoking, actually having to give that a bit of thought. “Huh,” he said after a little while. “So she is. I should probably write to her or something.”

  “Or something,” Hunter muttered.

  Orm began looking around, as if he was going to do such a task then and there.

  “So… Um…” Nessa started, unsure of what to say, but wanting to keep Orm’s attention on something relevant, at the very least. “Hunter says that you might be able to help me?”

&nb
sp; “I will endeavour to help you in any way I can, pretty girl.”

  Nessa’s eyes slid to Hunter.

  “He’ll be no good to us for at least another eight hours, I’d imagine,” he told her.

  Nessa believed that, and sank back against the chest, shrugging off her bags. Orm was quite happy in a world of his own, thanks to that strange cigar of his. He took another draw, making the cigar’s end flare green. Smoke billowed from his nose in twin streams a moment later. Despite Hunter’s attempt at airing the room out, it was quickly filling with smoke again, both from the cigar and from the incense sticks.

  While Nessa acted like she was fine, she was, in fact, getting desperate to go somewhere else. The smog was growing ever thicker, making her eyes water and burn. Her lungs too, ached a little as she was forced to breathe in the fumes. She looked over at Hunter, wondering if it would be considered rude to ask if they could go elsewhere, just for some fresh air.

  Then time seemed to lose all meaning, and Nessa’s awareness to the world around her became warped and disjointed.

  Hunter was speaking, his mouth moving and his eyes twinkling, but Nessa heard nothing but a quiet murmur, the words escaping her ears. Her gaze moved to Orm, seemingly in slow motion, finding him once again playing his reed pipe.

  Nessa’s mind turned foggy, filled with a strange haze. A purple filter settled over her eyes, giving everything a slight amethyst hue. Weirdly enough, she didn’t care. It was as if all her worries had suddenly flown away, the weight on her shoulders gone. It was a wonderful feeling, to have one's fears fade away. Nessa smiled, relaxing further into the pillows. Yes, she thought faintly, this will do quite nicely. If the smoke still made her eyes water or burn, Nessa didn’t notice as her eyelids grew heavy. Yes, Nessa decided, this will do very well.

  Nessa’s gaze was drawn down and she noticed something odd. The smoke from Orm’s cigar and the incense sticks had condensed around her, shimmering gently, and her hand practically glowed. Her eyes went wide as she slowly realised that it wasn’t actually her hand that shone, but the scar that was wrapped around it.

  The light hovered on and around it, a thin and delicate web. Her eyes traced it, and found that the light wasn’t just isolated to her scar, but also streamed way from it in a drifting thread, one that flowed to her messenger bag.

  Nessa frowned, wondering why, of all the places, it went there.

  With slow, clumsy movements, she opened the bag. Aoife’s head popped out, large eyes blinking. Nessa didn’t move as the little dragon slowly clambered out, stepping onto her lap. She was too busy watching as the thread of light shifted with the little dragon.

  Nessa’s fog-filled mind wasn’t able to think straight, and it took her a long minute to realise that the thread wasn’t connecting her to the bag, it was connecting her to the dragon, to Aoife. Nessa stared at the light that hovered around Aoife’s chest, just as it did with her scar, tethering the two of them together.

  Binding them together.

  It struck a chord and a burst of fear stabbed into Nessa’s chest. Her heart began to thunder and her breaths quickened. Something wasn’t right.

  This wasn’t right, her mind screamed at her.

  Aoife looked up at Nessa, and something profound clicked into place in her head, and she knew that nothing would ever be the same again. It was like a light bulb turning on in the darkest of places, illuminating secrets and hidden things. There was no going back for Nessa. She knew that right then, saw it with her own eyes. It was written on her skin and inside her. She could feel herself changing.

  An unbreakable bond had formed between her and Aoife, binding dragon and girl together.

  There was nothing Nessa could do about it.

  The ground suddenly felt as if it had opened up and swallowed her whole.

  Nessa woke to the heinous sound of snoring. She held her eyes shut, trying to find the blissful darkness of sleep. It was not to be found, though, as the snoring was jarring and without much rhythm.

  Snore… snort… sputter… silence… Then it started all over again.

  Nessa groaned and rolled over, discovering that she was on a narrow bed with a blanket thrown over her. She frowned, the snoring momentarily forgotten as she gazed around the dim room, wondering where she was and how she had got to be there.

  It was a small room, filled with soft shadows. The ceiling and walls were rounded and smooth, as if someone had blown a bubble into the rock, and the floor was made up of uneven planks of wood. The door was over to the side, small and hidden mostly by a heavy drape that allowed minimal light through. There was another small bed beside hers, and atop it was Hunter, stretched out on his back, feet overhanging the end, his arm thrown over his eyes. His mouth was wide open, emitting the dreadful noise that had awoken her.

  Nessa scowled at him. It wasn’t the first time he had sounded like a goddamn foghorn, but hell, it was giving her a headache. She sat up, hoping that the pain behind her eyes would go away. It didn’t. However, she did find Aoife curled up at the bottom of her bed, fast asleep, which was a small relief.

  Careful not to wake the hatchling, Nessa swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat on the edge. Someone, presumably not her, had been thoughtful enough to remove her boots before putting her to bed. The floor was cold against her bare feet, and she scrunched up her toes as she searched for her socks.

  Then everything came rushing back to her.

  Orm.

  His shop.

  Her light bulb moment.

  Nessa gazed around, wondering if Orm was somewhere in the room, sleeping in a corner. Not that the room actually had a corner. In any event, he wasn’t. It was then that Nessa realised she wasn't in his shop anymore.

  “Huh,” Nessa murmured, trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. The only problem? Nessa was missing a couple of them.

  She stood and crossed over to Hunter, the floorboards shifting under her.

  “Hunter?”

  She gave him a shake. He snorted and tried to roll over. Nessa growled and gave him a quick whack.

  He startled awake. “What! What’s happening?”

  Nessa frowned. “Nothing. I just wanted you conscious.”

  “Oh.” Hunter relaxed, closing his eyes. “Well, I don’t feel like being conscious at this precise time, thank you very much.”

  “I just wanted to know where we were? And how I came to be here? I don’t remember going to bed.”

  “We’re in the apartment above Orm’s shop.”

  “Right.” Okay, that made sense.

  “And as for how you got up here,” Hunter continued. “I believe that I carried you, and Orm carried me. Or something like that, I think.”

  That made less sense, but Nessa couldn’t bring herself to comment.

  Hunter rolled out of bed with a moan. “Since I’m awake now, I suppose we’ll see if there’s anything to eat. I’m famished. Is Orm around?”

  Nessa shook her head. “I haven’t seen him, nor have I heard anything. Although, in all honesty, I haven’t been up for very long.”

  Hunter stretched, moving over to the drape that acted as a door. “Well then, I suppose we should find him and invite him to breakfast.”

  Nessa trailed behind Hunter as he disappeared through the drape, and having no desire to lug a squirming dragon hatchling around, she decided to leave Aoife where she was.

  The door opened onto a rather small and cramped hallway. The sides were wonky and the ceiling was low, forcing Hunter to stoop a little. There were two other doorways, both hidden behind mismatching drapes, and a steep, compact staircase that wound downward. Instead of those ethereal glowing mushrooms, the hallway was illuminated by a candle that was tucked away in a nook.

  Both of them couldn’t fit in the hallway together, so Nessa hovered in the doorway as Hunter poked his head around the one opposite.

  He quickly reappeared, sporting a peculiar half smile.

  “Orm’s not in there,” Hunter said, chee
ks pink. “Although someone else is.”

  “Oh?”

  Hunter didn’t elaborate and Nessa didn’t ask as he started down the stairs, swiftly but also with a touch of caution. She noticed that they were uneven and had a tendency to move around a little. It was clear that someone without woodworking skills had put the floors and stairs in, and their lack of craftsmanship was showing. Nessa kept a hand on the wall, helping to steady herself as she descended.

  At the bottom, thankfully, was a solid rock floor. It was bumpy and uneven, but it didn’t shift when she took a step. Hunter moved forward and Nessa found herself in another small bubble-like room, one that acted as a hall. There was one rounded doorway just in front of them, and another to their right, both hidden behind curtains.

  Hunter went straight ahead, dipping his head to fit under the doorway. Nessa paused, wondering what the other doorway led to, and she pulled back the edge of the curtain, finding herself greeted by the sight of Orm’s shop. It was dark, and all she could make out were a few vague shapes and the front door, which had a seam of light around the edges where it didn’t fit into the door frame properly. Nessa let the curtain drop and went after Hunter.

  She found him in another rounded room that had been turned into a makeshift kitchen. A small fire pit sat in the centre, a pan perched in the middle of the flames. The smoke rose up to the ceiling, where it disappeared into a small hole that acted as a vent. A number of boxes and crates were placed around the side, acting as tables and worktops.

  Hunter and Orm sat on pillows by the fire pit, watching whatever was cooking in the pan. They were chatting away, and Nessa suddenly felt a little unsure of herself. They were close friends, had known each other for years, and their ease with one another made her feel like an intruder. Neither of them noticed her hesitation, and Hunter gave her a grin as Orm leapt to his feet, striding over to her on long legs. He seemed to be in a fabulously fine mood, and offered her a gratuitous bow.

  His manner calmed her nerves, and Nessa found herself smiling.

  “Hello hello,” Orm said in welcome. “Due to a lack of manners last eve, I would like to formally introduce myself.” He took her hand, giving it a quick kiss. “Orm, at your beck and call.”