by Jaya Moon
Dore’s eyes assessed me. What were they going to do? I had to trust if they needed my help they wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, but ice flooded my veins. Something didn’t feel right.
Eventually Dore let out a long, annoyed sigh. “Berron.”
I had to hope that meant they were going to let me go. When I turned back to Berron, his cold eyes said it all, but they relaxed after a moment.
“It seems we have gotten off to a bad start, Ms. May. I apologize.”
He extended his hand, and I hoped if I accepted his peace offering he’d get out of my way, then I’d run back to Tallow and Mox and never leave their sight again.
I reached out and took his hand.
The world spun, and I realized my mistake. I tried to wrench my hand from Berron’s, but his grip held onto me like a vice.
The vortex tightened before images flashed in my mind. Images of a bear. A bear I had seen before with a bright white star on its muzzle. It stood up on its hind legs, mouth wide, teeth dripping with saliva.
A scream tore from my throat.
14
It had rained all morning, but by early afternoon the sun had come out and the world outside my window was jeweled with raindrops. I climbed off my bed and began to put my shoes on. Finally I could go outside and escape my parents’ heated voices in their bedroom down the hall.
I wish I knew what had fractured our peaceful world. They’d been arguing for days, and the tension between them filled the air.
By the time I was ready to leave, the house had fallen silent, but I knew it wouldn’t last long.
When I heard a knock at my door I expected it to be Ginny. She had sought comfort in my bed the last few nights and I’d held her as she’d cried and asked, “What’s wrong with Mom and Dad?”as her fingernails had dug into the skin of my arm.
The knocking came again. I knew then it wasn’t Ginny. She only knocked once and came straight in. The door eased open and my father’s face appeared.
“Your mother and I thought we should all go out. A walk in the forest. What do you think?”
It wasn’t an unusual request. We often went for walks together. When we nursed rescued animals back to health, we returned them to where they’d been found injured. Other times it was simply a family outing. Usually I wouldn’t hesitate. This time was different. I didn’t want to be around them.
He must have sensed my reluctance. “Ginny is coming. Megsy, I’d really like you to come too.”
The way he said it was strange. He sounded conflicted, as though he half hoped I’d say no.
“Okay.”
My mother’s eyes were red from crying, but she smiled at Ginny and me as we piled into the back of the car. “It’s a beautiful day for a walk.” If her eyes hadn’t betrayed her, her tone would have. She didn’t want to go on a family outing and I wondered why she’d agreed.
We drove for a little over an hour, moving through the forest of fir before Dad arrived at one of our usual pullovers beside a rocky stream. As I hopped out, I heard Mom, who had been rummaging around in the trunk, swear. “We forgot the packs.”
Usually we came prepared with daypacks full of essential items. Water bottles, snacks, a first aid kit, bug repellent, and bear spray.
“It’ll be fine. We’re not going far,” my father assured. “It’ll be fine.”
She didn’t look convinced, and the tension between them rose again.
My mother went to the stream and began to rock-hop across it. Ginny followed. Dad shrugged at me and crookedly smiled before he started after them.
Light fell in shafts between the trees, making a tapestry of the forest floor. After we’d crossed the river, my father chased after my mother. For a while Ginny stayed at my side, her hand in mine. When Dad caught up with Mom, I expected more fighting. I don’t know what he said to make her stop, but she did. He took her hands and they stood there as though they’d suddenly gone to another world where only the two of them existed. Ginny and I slowed our pace as we watched them.
“What are they doing?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
Eventually it appeared whatever wall they had between them broke as my father let go of my mother’s hands and she threw her arms around him.
When he called, “Come on slowpokes,” Ginny ran to catch up. She shoved them apart and reached a hand up to both of them, and soon she swung back and forth between them, giggling and yelling, “Wheeee!” Everything had returned to normal, at least for the time being.
We’d walked the track numerous times before. It rose in a gentle incline before dipping. I watched the three of them reach the crest. My mother glanced behind at me and waved before they disappeared from view.
I had a habit of lagging, too busy stopping to look at lichens and moss and running my hands across their velvety textures gently, or being distracted by birds, insects, and noises from the undergrowth. Anything and everything drew my attention, and they were used to me being far behind.
A blue jay landed on the ground to the left of me, its color bright against the greens and browns of the forest floor. I squatted down as it flicked at the leaves looking for grubs before I made a sound through my lips like you would do to encourage a cat. “Come on, sweet thing. Come on.” It hopped closer to me. “Come on.” I stretched out my hand. Suddenly the blue jay let out an alarm call and took flight.
A scream ripped through the quiet. Ginny!
My mother’s voice knotted with anguish and terror. “Get away! Get away!”
My heart responded, pumping hard as blood thundered in my ears.
Dad yelled. Loud. Urgent. “No! Don’t! Get back!”
I sprang to my feet, started to sprint up the incline toward them, only to trip on a root and come crashing down hard, my forehead and nose smashing against the ground.
“God! No! Meghan! Run!” It was Mom. “Ru—"
Her screams were cut short. The sound that followed from my father, a wail full of anguish, coupled with my sister’s screaming, turned my blood to ice.
I scrambled to my feet; my mouth full of blood from biting my tongue when I’d fallen. Its rusty taste was metallic. The smell of blood surrounded me.
I took a few fearful steps forward before my father’s head appeared above the rise in the track. He mouthed one word: “Run.” His eyes were so wide I saw his terror despite the distance between us. Then he disappeared, snatched from my view by something I couldn’t see.
Silence.
“Dad?”
I stood there frozen. Minutes may have passed. Hours, even.
“Mom? Dad? Ginny?”
The deep rumbling roar of a bear filled the forest. I saw its head first, coming up over the rise; its ambling form was dark except for a star of white between its eyes. It reached the crest, saw me, stood up on its hind legs, and rumble-roared before it dropped down on all fours.
I turned fast. I ran.
15
“Get away from me!”
I’d finally yanked my hand from Berron’s tight grasp and slowly backed away from him, like I knew I should with a bear.
“Stay the fuck away!”
Could Tallow and Mox hear me? Would they come and save me? Would Berron do to me what he’d done to my parents and Ginny?
“There’s no need to be afraid,” Dore said in a soothing tone.
I quickly glanced past Berron. Dore hadn’t moved from where he’d stood the moment before I’d taken Berron’s hand.
How could I have been so stupid and not remembered what a hand to hand connection would do? It didn’t matter. Now I knew the truth. “He killed my parents.” The words were all choked in my throat and hardly came out. I returned my attention to Berron, still backing away.
“No, I didn’t,” Berron answered.
“Don’t lie! I saw you. I saw you.” I wanted to scream out to Tallow and Mox, but I was barely capable of talking. I knew what Dore and Berron were going to do. Placate me and then Berron would turn into a bear agai
n and kill me now I knew what he had done.
“Things aren’t as they seem.” Dore still hadn’t moved. “Berron, move away from her.”
Without hesitation Berron turned his back on me and went to Dore. I kept my eyes fixed on him. I didn’t trust either of them, but out of the two only Berron could tear me to pieces.
“Meghan, look at me.”
Despite the commanding tone of Dore’s voice I refused to obey.
“Meghan, the Fallen killed your parents and sister, not Berron.”
My eyes snatched back to Dore. The Fallen? That was a lie. “I know what I saw! Him.” I tried to point at Berron, but my arms were so weak I couldn’t lift them. “A bear with a white star on his nose. I saw him, just then, when I took his hand.”
Fuck. I’d messed up again and divulged I could see. I expected them to look surprised. Neither of them did.
“I was there, but I didn’t kill your family.” Berron had never stopped being an ass to me, but for once he had a gentle, almost sincere tone. What game was he playing?
“Hell of a coincidence you happened to be in the same place as where my family was killed, don’t you think?” My confidence was all bluff. I didn’t believe them. I needed to pull myself together and run, scream for Tallow and Mox. If only my body and voice would work. I had to fight not to collapse to my knees. I stood face to face with the man—the thing—that murdered my family. I thought I was safe at the Eyrie but I wasn’t, just like Tallow had said.
“I came to meet with your father. And to meet you and your sister for the first time,” Berron said.
“You what?”
“Meghan.” Dore began to move toward me but stopped when he saw me take a shaky step back at his approach. “Your parents were known to Berron and me. Your father, Jonathan Dawson—”
I flinched as I heard his name—they knew him? Maybe they had found that information somehow.
“—was kin. A sea eagle.”
I probably wouldn’t have considered for a moment that he spoke the truth if I hadn’t seen my father in the glade the night before. So it was true? My father was a shifter?
“An Alaskan sea eagle.”
Both my father and mother had been born in Alaska. We’d visited there twice.
“That, too, is where Berron is from and for many years roamed. Your grandparents on your father’s side have passed, yes?”
Another truth. “Yes.”
“Do you know how?”
I shook my head.
“They, too, were kin and killed by hunters. Although an unlikely bonding, Berron reared your father after their deaths.”
No. I studied the shifter who had nothing but disdain for me. He stared back. “I considered your father my son. Then he met your mother, Jenny.” He spat her name.
They knew her as well? “What’s she got to do with this?”
Berron’s mouth twisted like it was full of something tart and his eyebrows moved down into a vee of anger. “She bewitched him. An unnatural union between—"
“Berron,” Dore cautioned. “This isn’t the time.” He took a step toward me, but only one. “Your mother was what is known as a Guardian, someone who lives among the kin, who heals us when we are ill, who gives guidance when none can be found, and before the power of the Fallen rose, offered us protection. Once there were many, now there are few. She was one.”
If I could believe them, I’d finally gotten one of the answers I wanted, the truth of what I was or, at least, my heritage. Kin and Guardian. Was it true? My father in the glade had said I would soon learn the things I needed to know. Had he been aware this moment would take place?
“Your mother and father began a relationship.” Dore turned to Berron for a moment and some silent exchange took place between them. “A union that may be considered unnatural.”
Berron rumbled in the back of his throat like an angry beast on the verge of lashing out.
“These are delicate matters, ones that can cause conflict,” Dore continued. “Your father chose to leave the world of the kin to be with your mother, and your mother abandoned her ways, although I have come to understand she cared for injured kin when she was alive.”
The animals we’d cared for. The fawn we’d found who I’d touched and, for the first time, seen. The raven-haired girl on the sofa between my parents later that night must have been kin.
Berron sighed loudly through his nostrils. “Despite our estrangement, I had wanted to see your father and meet you and your sister. Your mother was against the idea.” He growled as though he’d expect nothing less from her. “Your father agreed.”
Those arguments my parents had in the days leading up to when they were killed were about Berron?
“I waited at the place we’d arranged to meet, hidden. I saw your father, mother, and sister come over a rise in the track.” He paused. “I don’t know where the Fallen were hiding or how they knew your parents were there. I made a choice to stay hidden rather than attempt to save them.”
“Because you wanted them—all of us—dead.” He’d made it clear how much he disapproved of my mother and father’s relationship. He’d even made it clear what he thought of me from the first moment we’d met.
“No, the choice was simple only because the information I hold is vast. If they captured me, all kin could have died. The lives of many is worth the lives of a few.”
I should have screamed at him. He chose to let my family die? They were expendable? But my mind swirled with all the things I’d been told, and it made me incapable of speaking.
“I did try to save you. Your father said all four of you were coming. I had only seen your parents and sister. Once the Fallen were gone, I came and warned you. That’s why I chased you and roared, so you’d run.”
“We are genuinely sorry for your loss,” Dore said. “However, now it is time to move forward. It remains the case that you are the only one who can rescue Savannah Dacore. I was aware of your presence last night at the glade. Your father came to see you, didn’t he? I’d hoped that would be enough. That he would tell you what you are and you’d agree to help us. As it seemed he did not convince you, we chose this way to show you the truth about what happened to your parents and sister.”
“Why not tell me yesterday who I was? Why didn’t Berron say he knew me from the first moment we met?” I remembered his assessing eyes at Tallow’s lodge, looking at me as though I had something to prove to him, and how he spoke to me outside my apartment. Now I knew why. He didn’t like me because I was the product of some “unnatural union” between his adopted son and my mother.
Berron’s eyes flared. “Because if I had my way—”
“Berron, you’ve made your feelings clear. I’m asking you to put them to one side for the greater good of all kin.”
Berron grunted but didn’t say anything more.
“Berron has had hesitations about your involvement and help, that is why he didn’t tell you who you were. As for not telling you yesterday, would you have believed us if we told you? I wanted to spare you more grief, avoid Berron having to show you the truth. We decided we would try other means first. I wasn’t surprised I didn’t convince you to help us at the council, but I wanted to plant a seed that I hoped your father would germinate.”
A seed that would germinate? I thought back to everything my father had said and what I had seen in the vortex created by the kin. Just like allies can be found in unlikely places so, too, can foes. Why had I forgotten he’d said that? Did he mean Berron? Was he someone I perceived as a foe who was in fact an ally? Should I now trust him?
Dore waited for me to say something. When I didn’t, he continued, “You are tied to this whether you want to be or not. You are kin and Guardian, and the people we fight against are responsible for your parents’ deaths.”
I didn’t know what to believe. Were they lying to manipulate me? Maybe they knew my parents, and maybe most of what they’d said was true, but I wasn’t convinced. “I saw their death certificates
. It said they died from a bear attack.”
“The Fallen have infiltrated law enforcement,” Dore replied. “They have a hold on local government. You can’t trust them. Those pieces of paper meant nothing.”
“If you don’t believe me, I can show you what I saw.” Berron held out his hands.
Watch them die? I couldn’t do that. I didn’t need to. Berron wouldn’t offer his hands to me if was lying.
…allies can be found in unlikely places.
Berron hadn’t killed my family? The Fallen had?
“You helped us once without knowing who you truly were. We thank you for that. Now, knowing what you are, I’m asking you to help us again.”
The Fallen killed my family.
I didn’t know if I was supposed to save Savannah. I didn’t understand what my father had shown me. Why had the forest burst into flames? Was it because I’d hesitated to pick her up? Did he mean to show me if I didn’t act promptly the world of the kin would be destroyed? Did any of that matter anymore?
The Fallen had killed my family. They would pay. I’d end their reign of terror, do what Dore asked me to do.
Tallow wouldn’t understand. Mox wouldn’t either. I would have to leave them behind and hope one day they would.
Perhaps I’d struggle to find the courage to do it if I thought that meant doing it on my own. But I wouldn’t be alone. There was one person who I wouldn’t have to explain myself to. Abriel, who wanted to wipe every angel off the face of the planet.
16
“Don’t tell Tallow. Or Mox. Don’t tell anyone.”
Dore nodded, a sharp movement of his head.
I left without another word. Perhaps we should have spoken about the logistics of what I had to do, or how I’d leave the Eyrie without anyone knowing. There were other things we needed to discuss, but Dore let me leave as though he had put the urgency of rescuing Savannah to one side. Or maybe he knew I wouldn’t stall, that drawing things out and remaining at the Eyrie around Tallow and Mox would only cause me anguish.
