Seeing Light (The Seraphina Parrish Trilogy) (21 page)

I scream with anger, with heartbreak, with helplessness. There’s nothing I can do; I’m too exhausted to fight, and he knew I would be. Jerking my head in the Grand Master’s direction, I narrow my eyes and scream at him as I tremble with fury, “Why are you doing this?”

He leans down, leveling his eyes with mine. “Why even worry? Now that they’re anointed and ready for the Masters, we can sacrifice them. You don’t need them anymore. All your connections have been severed. Don’t you see? Don’t you feel the difference? You’ve taken a majority of their gifts from them, sucked them right from their bodies over this past year. They’ve made you what you are and you’ve made them weak, while they’ve given you the power of three, making you a Chosen. They’ve already made their sacrifices—to you. Now they must make them to me.”

“What?” I say the word automatically, but in my heart I know what he’s saying is true. I can see the truth of it for myself in my own mind. The Wandering connection has been broken. I don’t sense my team the way I had before, or need them the way I used to. Sam was right; I’m finally free, but in the worst possible way.

I look away and gasp a sob. They’re almost completely defenseless and it’s my fault.

“Tsk, tsk. Don’t cry, sweet child. You’re meant for something greater than the use of a mere team. You’ll embody the spirit of the Masters now.” He stands above me, crossing his large arms over his bare chest. “And now it’s time for you to go back and retrieve what I need.”

“You haven’t even told me what that is!” Slowly it seems, he’s pinching my freedom so tightly that I have no choice but to comply with every request, and the thought sickens me. I glare at him and demand, “And how do you know that I won’t betray you and fulfill the prophecy instead?”

“For one, I told you I’ve taken out insurance,” he says with a self-satisfied sneer. “Macey and your father stand at the edge of the pit of Nocturna, and if you don’t return with what I need, I’ll send them there too. They can keep Mona and sweet little Charlotte company in their final living days. And two, you won’t fulfill the prophecy because that possibility requires you to kill someone, and I know once you’re there, you won’t have the will to follow through.”

“I’d kill
you
,” I spit out, in that moment believing every word.

“No, you’ll do exactly what I ask to save your former team members.” He gestures to the box above the fire and turns to me, his lips twitching with amusement. “And by the look of things, you’d better hurry.”

No matter how much I don’t want to give him the satisfaction, I can’t help but glance at the box lowering slowly toward the fiery pit. It’s closer now, much too close, and the warmth of the flames has already begun to darken the bottom. The fire briefly surges a little higher, and a few flames actually singe the edge, causing my heart to beat faster. My hands clench so tightly into fists that my fingernails pierce my skin, and I can feel the warmth of blood dripping from my palms.

I swivel my head slowly toward the Grand Master and glare at him. “Just tell me what you want.”

::37::
Egypt

Grand Master Levi paces before the pit. “What I want is for you to travel back to our beginning with Unika’s crown and retrieve a canteen of the aqua vitae—the water that gives life.”

“Water,” I repeat flatly.

“That’s all. And if you succeed, all of this will be over.” He gestures around the Grand Lodge.

“Everyone’s safe, my friends and family. And what about Bishop’s family and the people of Nocturna?”

His lips quirk to one side. “Bishop’s family and the others of Nocturna sealed their fates the moment they violated the laws of the Society. ’Tis a pity, I had such high expectations for Charlotte. Lovely little thing.” He turns back to me. “Save who you can, Sera. It’s some or none at all.”

With a nod that is clearly meant to end the debate, he says, “Rex has prepared you for your trip.” He gestures to my body, and I look down. I’m dressed in a linen tunic with a rope belt tied at the waist, a leather canteen hangs from my shoulder, and woven straw and reed sandals protect my feet. And I realize I saw this in my mind too, but my brain was just too cloudy to compute the information.

The Grand Master hands me the crown of Unika; he must have taken it from my drawstring bag. I wipe the blood from my hands on the hem of my tunic before I accept it. “Hold the crown in your hand as you run to Wander. As a Chosen, your body will know where to take you. You are the only one who can Wander from Gibeon without a Wandering compass.”

“But where am I to find this special water?”

“In the palace there is a fountain with an obelisk. From it runs the aqua vitae.”

Like the fountain in the drawing in my mom’s journal? I think of the room with the stars on the ceiling in the sketches. She’s drawn each room of the palace, the entire layout of the city, but where she found information so ancient, I still have no idea.

“Ticktock, Sera. Your friends and family need you to save them.”

I push myself to my feet and look around. All the students still stand zombie-like, but now they’re anointed and dripping with oil. Each glistens with the golden hue that is reflected from the walls by the flames of the fire pit. Somehow they’ve become part of the interior, just another tool for the Society to abuse.

“I’ll be waiting for you, Sera,” the Grand Master reminds me.

Now more than ever I must end this misery. I grasp the crown in my hand and look inward for the place I should Wander. In my new mind’s eye I see it clearly, though I’ve already seen it several times before: in dreams, in the hot air balloon ride, and in painted murals in the Academy’s atrium. It’s the desert.

Feeling my energy coming back, I sprint over the raised pedestal, down its long length. There’s just enough running room, like an airport runway, and at the end, I leap into the air over the anointment pool and catapult into the blinding light of a glittering wormhole. The world doesn’t turn over for me like it has in the past, but I’m not the same as I was before. I’m not sure if I ever will be again.

Wandering through time, I land in a field of wheat and fall to the ground. I rest for a moment, feeling the wind brush the long willowy strands against my bare arms and legs. I look up, not at the bright blue sky, but at the golden obelisk that stands pointing toward the heavens, just like in the story about King Unika.

The strong sunlight beating down from directly overhead reflects the surface, creating a blind spot, and I cover my eyes as I stumble to stand. Trying to get my bearings, I desperately come to terms with the fact that I’ve traveled through time back to ancient Egypt. After all I’ve been through I should believe anything by now, but the strength of my new gifts will never cease to surprise me.

Shielding my eyes, I scramble to my feet and pivot, surprising myself by walking directly into the bare chest of a guard. Before I can react, he grabs my arms, speaking angrily in what sounds like an ancient language. A second guard, somewhat younger, stands behind him and points a spear at my chest, poised menacingly just inches from my heart.

It would have been helpful to know the language before coming here, but since no Wanderers travel here, only the Chosen such as myself, I’m not that lucky. Even in our world of Wanderers, some things are still a mystery.

He screams at me again.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” I plead with outstretched hands.

His eye widen at the unfamiliar sounds; of course they’ve never heard English before. Though I think I’m dressed properly for the time, he looks me over, his lip curled with what can only be disgust. His eyes widen when his gaze reaches my hand, and he rips the crown of Unika from me. Being caught in any era with the jewels of their king can’t possibly be good, so I cringe and await his reaction.

Understandably he freaks out, gesturing wildly at me as he barks louder in his strange language. The younger guard with the spear takes the relic from him, and the older guard drags me around the obelisk to a donkey. The younger packs the relic into a pouch that hangs from the animal, and then he mounts the donkey and straddles it. He throws a rope to the elder and says something.

The guard nods in response and jerks me to face him while he binds both my wrists with rope made of woven reeds. My mind spins…I have a decision to make: I can either let them take to me who knows where, or I can fight them. I’m not sure that my strength has completely returned or what it’s even turned into, but I decide to take my chances.

Retracting bound fists, I bash him squarely on the nose. His head jolts backward as his nose erupts with an instant nosebleed. The reeds around my wrist loosen, releasing my hands, and I punch him in the face again, then launch away from him, running along the path through the fields.

The younger guard yells at me as he takes chase on the donkey, the animal galloping faster than I expect. I’m running as hard as I can, pumping my arms as the breeze pushes at my face, my hair flying in the wind. If I can outrun the Reaper’s horse in Nocturna, I can certainly outrun a donkey. I push harder at the thought, but my toe catches under a large rock, tripping me, and I fall face first into the dirt. Before I have a chance to scramble to my feet, the young guard leaps off his moving animal and lands, pinning me to the ground. We struggle in the dusty dirt of the field—arms twisting, knees kicking, hair pulling—and I lean in and savagely bite his ear. He’s stronger than I expect, and though I draw blood, he continues to fight, restraining me until the second guard arrives.

On my belly with my face shoved into the dirt, it’s impossible to resist anymore. They tie my arms again, this time so tightly, the wrapping of the reeds draws blood like a thousand paper cuts. The restraints wind their way from my wrists to my elbows—probably five times stronger than anything they’d do to a Normal.

Then they tie me to the end of a long leash that stretches across the back end of the donkey. The young guard mounts the animal again and kicks its ribs. The donkey takes off in a gallop, forcing me to keep pace with them or I’ll fall and be dragged behind, which is probably what they’re hoping for.

We travel for several miles, and even though I run the entire time, this is not so bad; the worry is much, much worse. Where are we going and what will they do to me? This isn’t a school field trip Wandering back in time. There’s no Gabe to guide me, no notes to peek at with instructions.

We enter a city alive with retail and trade, and when we pass through the market, everyone stops to stare, but they are the least of my worries. The donkey stops at the gates of a palace, and the young guard dismounts, shouting out several commands. More guards pour out from the main gates and I’m handed over to them, who then cut me loose from the horse and use the tether to pull me inside like an animal.

Up the stairs, through the columns, they force me inside, pushing me through several chambers and hallways. It’s not until we reach the grandest room that they knock my legs out from under me, and I collapse to the floor on my hands and knees. A guard presses his foot on my back. He yells and I stay put, using the time to catch my breath and rest.

Someone approaches. Through my new mind’s eye, I view the room from above. The room is full of people, but I only focus on the woman in front of me. Cascades of dark hair flow beneath a petite crown. Though I can’t see her face, I understand that she’s their queen.

“Who are you?” a woman’s voice asks in English.

Automatically I look up in confusion, only to glimpse a pair of ornate sandals.

“I said, who are you?” She kicks my side until I flip over on my back. At the sight of her face, I instantly curl away in shock, because this face is one that’s haunted me for years.

::38::
A Queen

The woman steps forward; her shapely body shifts gracefully beneath her cream gown. In her hand she holds the crown of Unika, the relic I used to Wander here from the future.

“Mom?” The word slips from my lips as my brow furrows. Confusion roils inside me, stealing my breath and clutching my heart in a vice grip.

She’s taken aback by my words but looks at me as if she doesn’t know me. I leap to my feet and reach forward to hug her, but the guards stop and restrain me and the courtiers gasp at my action. Clearly it’s not acceptable to charge a queen, because this is what she is in this time.

“I thought you were dead!” I grit out as I struggle against the guards.

The queen inspects me closely, her eyes narrowing as she allows her gaze to travel from my head to my feet and back again. When she meets my eyes again, she tilts her head slightly to the side. “I have no idea who you are, but I can guess why you’re here. You’ve come to fulfill the prophecy.”

“I’m your daughter,” I state defiantly. “That’s who I am.”

She steps close, so close that she’s inspecting my features, looking at every detail, no doubt trying to find some piece of herself within me. We look exactly alike and I realize that she’s very young, too young to have a grown daughter. This meeting is taking place before she’s ever given birth to me.

“My own daughter would not come here to kill me.”

To fulfill the prophecy I must kill the queen and king or stop them from ever meeting. I guess I’m too late for the latter option. Grand Master Levi said I wouldn’t have it in me to kill them, and he was correct. Somehow he knew that my mother was at the beginning of time, responsible for the setting off the prophecy of the Masters.

Of course I would never hurt her; I’ve spent most of my Wandering life trying to find her and, finally, here she is standing before me. How will I set everyone free now? How will I save Bishop’s family?

While I’m piecing the information together, she utters several words in the direction of the guards in the ancient language. They respond by dragging me away.

“Stop! You’re making a mistake,” I cry out. “I’m your daughter. I’m Seraphina!” My screams echo off the interior walls of the space, but she doesn’t respond. To my dismay, she allows them to carry me away, and as I’m screaming for her to listen to me, someone smashes the back of my head and the world spirals, soaking my vision in black.

•

I awake in a dark pit, lying on a floor of dirt. The walls are high, at least twelve feet. Sitting upright doesn’t make anything any better. Pain shoots from the back of my skull to my forehead as I stand and wobble to the wall, placing my hand against its coolness to steady myself. From here I catch a glimpse of the moon. Its low position in the sky tells me it’s been at least twelve hours since I arrived.

Several figures appear up above, and a guard throws down one end of a rope. It bangs against the wall, falling to the floor at my feet. For a moment, I consider whether I should take it, but I have a better chance of survival if I’m out of here.

I coil the rope around my arms and hold tight, allowing the guards to drag me up the side. When I reach the top, they pull me to my feet, yanking me by my tunic.

My mom, the queen, stands before me. Carefully, she looks me over but gives no indication of whether she believes me.

“Follow me,” she finally says.

The guards stay behind. At least this is a positive sign.

I follow silently behind her as she walks across the courtyard, taking in my surroundings along the way. The darkness is dotted with fireflies, just like the fireflies that I dreamed about the night Mona told me I was a Wanderer.

Beneath the moonlight, I catch a glimpse of her mark, stretched along her spine but mostly hidden beneath her long locks. The ancient hieroglyphs glisten at this angle. She’s a Chosen too, just like Terease explained.

She guides me into the palace and down a hall with grand columns, just like one of the rooms I saw in her journal. Now I realize that my assumption that she researched the palace was incorrect. The drawings weren’t sketched from descriptions from others; they were drawn from her own memories. She’d actually been here herself and sketched the drawings that represented her life.

The queen steps out onto a balcony and stops at a railing lined with torches to stare out at the twinkling stars. With no lights from the city of the modern world, they’re the brightest I’ve ever seen. Despite their beauty, I lean against the balcony and stare at her instead. I can’t believe that I’ve found her here, of all places.

“Do you believe me now?”

She sucks in a shuddering breath and lets it out softly in a sigh. “Yes.”

“What changed your mind?”

“You told me your name.” She turns to me. “It’s the one I hope to name my daughter, a name I haven’t shared with anyone yet.” She reaches for her belly and rubs it in a circular motion. From the fullness of her dress, the tiniest baby bump appears.

“That’s me?” I point. “You’re pregnant? But, but—”

“Yes, and with one child who’s already died and the other hidden away, I’ve held on to hope that this child will be strong enough to survive.” She turns to me. “I want to hope that you’re telling me the truth, that you’re my child. But if you are, and you’re from the future, that means that I don’t stay here. My time here is limited.”

“I have siblings?” I shake my head, confused. I can’t even begin to fathom the thought. “But don’t you want to return to Ray?”

“Ray?” She laughs at this. “How do you know Ray?”

“What do you mean? He’s my dad.”

She reaches a hand to my shoulder. “No, he’s not. The king was your father, and he was a great and noble man.”

“Was?” My heart sinks at these words for so many reasons.

“He passed not long ago.” Her eyes glisten in the moonlight; she lifts an elegant hand to brush away a tear before it can fall.

I want to cry too, for her heartbreak and for mine. Ray, the man who raised me, isn’t my dad; at least, not in the technical sense. Maybe it’s something I’ve known all along, something I’ve felt deep inside but never acknowledged. Haven’t he and I always been at odds? Haven’t I always felt disconnected from him? This information should not surprise me but I look away, trying to hold back the tears. Even though Ray and I never really connected, I still love him. He’s the closest family I’ve ever had. The closest I’ve ever gotten to Normal, and it’s another lie that makes me realize I never had any true blood family of my own. No Aunt Mona, no true father…just lies.

“I can see this makes you sad,” she says. “But since I haven’t lived that part of my life yet, I can’t explain how it happened.”

I nod, taking a deep breath. Before, I would have run away from this information, but now I can’t. There’s so much more I need to know, so I compartmentalize the facts, suck in the emotions, and change the subject, hoping it will give me some relief. I wipe a tear away. It’s the only one I will allow for this. Later, I can grieve for my hurts, my losses. Now, I need to focus on my mission.

“I’m confused. How are you here? How am I here?” I gesture to her belly again.

“As you’ve surely guessed, I’m a Chosen too. After growing up and finding myself at the Academy and then at Wandering College, I became disillusioned with that world. I knew it was wrong, the manipulation that they used for time and the mind control of their people. I’d already taken the Oaths, but it took me some time to be marked with the tattoo and decide to fulfill the prophecy.

“I Wandered back to this time, but when I arrived, there was no queen, only the king. I thought that I’d gotten here be
fore they meet. What a wonderful chance for me to curb the engagement as opposed to ending someone’s life. I gained access to the palace by securing a job, helping in the kitchen, so I could watch the king. That’s when I realized that he showed no signs of being a Wanderer as our mythologies suggested. The inaccuracy perplexed me.”

She pauses for moment, her eyes unfocused as she looks back into her memories, then continues. “But one night as I served him dinner, he asked me to stay. Of course, this was absolutely unheard of, but you don’t disobey a king, and I was curious, so I did as he requested. We talked. By this time I had learned the language quite well. Each night as I served him dinner, he asked me to join him. He was handsome, truly a gentleman, very romantic and powerful. We fell in love, and before I realized what happened, I was his wife.” She speaks with the elegance that you would expect from a queen. “At that point I never wanted our love story to end. That’s why meeting you here is quite bittersweet. Yes, I’ll have a beautiful daughter,” she says as she gently lifts my chin, “but I’ve also just lost the love of my life.”

I pause, taking this in. “So who is Ray to you if he’s not my father?”

“Ray was a very lovesick boy I dated when I was in high school. He loved me very much, and I cared for him too, just not in the same way Wanderers love. At that time I was still bound to a boy who should have been on my team—the twin brother of Joseph, my Protector, who is now Mona’s husband. But I was desperate to be free of loving this other boy; he was an awful person.” Her eyes closely briefly as she shudders with distaste, then looks my way again. “Because of our Wandering DNA, I had no choice who I loved. So I tried dating a Normal, Ray, a boy from a nearby Normal school. I hoped I could force myself to fall in love with him, but as you know, it’s impossible. Our Wandering ties are unbreakable—unless you become a Chosen. Only then are you free.”

I jolt at this. Though the Grand Master said that I was free of my team, I hadn’t even considered that I could choose to love freely now. I should be happy for at least this little thing because, finally, the face of one boy dances behind my eyes. I push his image away; this is neither the time nor the place because I need to focus. I look up to Mom, who continues to talk.

“Still, I wanted to be Normal despite all the chaos around me. My team was no help. Mona and Joe were inseparable after college, getting married, getting pregnant. And at that time I was already an anointed Chosen, but not marked. I wasn’t even sure if I would ever be. The further I sank into the Society life, the more corruption I witnessed. I spent years debating and calculating the good against the bad. But when the mark appeared, finalizing my transition, I couldn’t allow their evil to continue, so I decided to fulfill the prophecy. It just so happens that at the same time, the Grand Master beckoned me for a task of his own and at that time informed me that he had made me a Chosen, by allowing the twins on my team to live.”

“Right.” I look down now, recalling Mona telling me that Mom had disappeared after college.

“So, it seems that sometime in the near future, I leave Egypt to return to my true time, have a lovely little girl, name her Seraphina, and raise her with Ray?” She looks at me in question.

“Yes and no. You leave me with Ray and then you disappear.”

“Why?”

“Well, from what Terease tells me, you worry for my safety. You leave me with Ray, fake your own death so that the Society and the Grand Master will leave me alone, and then you join the Underground.”

“I see.” She looks down. “But you’re here to kill me, so none of that will happen.”

“I obviously don’t kill you since I’m standing here now.” I smile. “But if I can’t follow through with the prophecy, how will I set everyone free from Nocturna? And set the others free from Wandering?”

“There is a way,” she says hesitantly.

“How?” My voice rises in excitement.

“I’ll tell you, but we have to talk first.”

My mind churns, wondering how I can still set everyone free, but then it migrates to the next thought. “And there’s that small problem of taking back some aqua vitae from some fountain with the obelisk.”

“For the Grand Master?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure he’s still waiting for me in my true time, just where I left him in Gibeon.” She laughs. “Though when I return, he won’t know that I’ve been here for years.”

“Years! But how? What about schalg?” In fact, I’m starting to feel the effects of it myself. Time travel jetlag makes you groggy after several hours of being in another time.

She smiles coyly and winks. “That’s where the aqua vitae comes into play.”