Authors: Brenda Drake
He dragged his fingers through his messy helmet hair. “I apologize… I didn’t mean…”
I stared off at the empty field. “No worries. I get it. We’re just friends.”
“
Just
friends, huh?” He sighed. “Friends don’t think of each other the way I think of you. The danger you face. I feel driven to protect you. Maybe it’s because I admire you so much. Facing a world you know nothing about and not cowering in a corner. You fought me—hard—to save someone you’d just met who wanted to kill you. And pushed me away when you were wounded so I could guard your friends. But that makes me worry about you more, because you’re not being careful.”
My chest tightened. I wondered what his game was. What he wanted from me, when he already had someone else, someone hot and sexy. “What do you want me to say to that?”
“I don’t know. Something. Anything. Nothing.”
“Okay, how about Veronique. The rules. Remember them?” Despite my resentment that he’d sort of led me on, I didn’t want Arik banished to a prison in Somnium. No one deserved being tormented by an eternity of nothingness.
He heaved a deep sigh. “We’ve been here before. I told you there’s nothing there.”
I snorted. “Well, the body language between you two the other night suggests differently.” I exhaled a slow breath. No need getting upset about it—there was nothing between us. I threw my hands up. “I’m sorry. I get it. You guys have to keep it a secret. But how can you risk being with her? That’s a real dumbass thing to do.”
He looked like I’d just slapped him.
“Listen,” I said. “I just want to be your friend. I could definitely use one. I feel so lost here.”
“Then there’s nothing left to say.” He stalked off toward the castle. “Are you coming? I must see you safely to your room.”
“
You
have to see me safely to my room?” I called after him, rushing up the path. “What part of me screams damsel in distress to everyone around here?”
He stopped short and spun around. “Don’t be daft. You’re not safe. And play fighting won’t cut it here. You’ve never fought a Mystik creature. It’s not a game.”
Daft?
After that, I
really
wanted to punch him.
“I leave for a mission in the morning,” he said over his shoulder as he led me to a side door. “Carrig will be here to watch over you.”
“I don’t need
watching
over.
”
A frustrated breath punched out his nose. He shoved on the bar to open the door and leaned against it, holding it for me. His muscles rose and fell in all the right places on his body, and his nearness as I passed caused a shiver to run across my skin.
Silence clouded us all the way to my room.
“Hey,” he said when we reached my door. “I apologize. Regardless of you being the…”
“Doomsday Child,” I finished for him.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I
meant
, even though the Coming has already happened—” He punched out a breath. “Regardless of how I feel, the laws are still the laws. I’m the leader of our band of Sentinels, and I must follow them.”
Just like you followed them with Veronique?
I knew a lame excuse when I heard one.
When I didn’t respond, he added, “Try to stay out of trouble while I’m gone.”
“You’re not my pop.” My hands shook at my sides as I thought about what he said.
Friends don’t think of each other the way I think of you.
How can he say something like that when he’s with another girl? I didn’t buy any of his reasons. That he admired me? I’m nothing but a fraud, like I’m playing Nick’s video games and pretending this is all make believe.
He grunted and his boots clacked down the hall.
I was not going to stamp or yell. I would not show him any weakness. “Goodbye, Arik…and be careful.” I turned the knob and pushed the door open.
“Good evening,” he grumbled.
I watched him until he vanished around the corner. Not once did he look back.
“Are you coming or going?” Lei flipped through one of my books, her crossed legs resting on top of the desk. Her hair hung like a shiny black curtain over the back of the chair. Her sword and scabbard were still strapped to her thin waist.
I shut the door and bolted the lock. “Why are you here?”
“I’m on duty until your bodyguard returns.” She continued scanning the book. “Wow, did you know there were this many battle globes?”
I peered over her shoulder. “Actually, I did. Uncle…Professor Attwood showed me all of them earlier. What’s your globe?”
“It’s a lightning globe.”
“What are the other Sentinels’ globes?”
“Jaran performs a water globe,” she said. “Once he flooded the National Library of Austria. Demos can do a wind globe. Stay away when he has one going…he’s careless. Kale’s is a stun globe. He stunned himself once in Madame Tussaud’s in London. None of us could undo it, so we propped him up next to some Bollywood stars while we waited for a wizard to release him. People believed he was one of the wax figures and were taking pictures with him. It was rather hilarious.”
“Why were you in Madame Tussaud’s?”
“We chased a rabid feral there.”
“A what?”
“They’re shifters who only change into cats. Anyway, Arik can do a fire globe. He’s the best. He can manipulate the fire into a thin whip, and he never hits walls or books. I can’t wait to see which globe is yours.” She turned a page and yanked her hand back. “Love a duck! Paper cut.”
Lei dropped her feet to the floor and examined the cut. “It’s a ghastly one. Those pages are thick.” A couple drops of her blood fell onto the desk. She slipped her finger into her mouth and hustled to the bathroom.
Two tiny puddles of her blood beaded on the lacquer finish. I stared at the crimson pools before glancing at the bathroom door, which was slightly ajar. The faucet ran, and Lei hunted through the cabinets.
I swiped her blood off the desk with my finger and smudged it on my palm. Professor Attwood’s warning caused me to hesitate. If she were untrue, she just might off me with that extremely sharp katana sword of hers. Before completely psyching myself out of doing it, I ignited a globe. “Can I trust Lei?”
“What’s that?” Lei asked, coming back into the room.
I gasped as she crossed the distance between us, her hand on the handle of her sword.
Why the hell is her hand always near her sword?
Chapter Fourteen
“Y
es, I am trustworthy,” Lei’s image said within the globe.
Lei’s lips parted into a wide grin. “Brilliant. Yours is a truth globe.”
“Huh?” I totally wasn’t expecting that response. My body shook as the energy faded from it.
“Well, that’s good.” Nana said from the doorframe of the bathroom. “It would have been awkward if you weren’t true, Lei.” Nana went to the wardrobe, pulled out a nightgown and robe, and snatched my toiletry bag from the shelf. “Kale told me you found Faith. Is she okay?”
“Yes, she’s fine,” I said, with a hitch in my voice as I recalled Faith’s limp body shackled to the tree. “But it was so
horrible
.” She shut the wardrobe door. “What are you doing with my things?” I asked.
“You should take a hot bath and relax,” Nana said. “It’s been a long night.”
“Go and take a soak, Gia, and I’ll give Ms. Kearns the details,” Lei said.
I snapped up a banana from the silver tray and peeled it. By the time I reached the bathroom, I had scarfed it down, my cheeks full like a squirrel storing nuts. After skinning out of my clothes, I sank to chin level in the hot water. For a few moments, I pretended I was home in my own tub. I missed Pop like crazy. I stayed motionless, letting the warmth caress me. When I felt better, I pulled myself out, dried off, and slipped on my nightgown and robe. I wiped the steam off the mirror and ran a comb through my wet hair, pausing mid-tangle at a knock on the door.
“Come in.”
Lei eased in and stood behind me. I eyed her image in the mirror. We were almost the same height, but I was about an inch taller. “You’re upset?”
“I’m fine.”
Why am I always saying that? Am I fine? Or just trying to convince myself I am?
It wasn’t like everyone in Asile was mean to me.
Well, except Veronique
. “Hey, what do you know about Veronique?”
“She’s a nutter bunny.” Lei studied herself in the mirror and rubbed at a black smudge under her left eye. “She’s always throwing herself at Arik. I think he fancied her once, but it fizzled out after she showed her true spots. Be careful around her. The girl is dodgy.”
So they’re not together.
Maybe I had a chance after all.
I smiled and dragged the comb through my hair again. “You have to admit she’s beautiful.”
“Yeah, a beautiful snake.”
I laughed. “Why do you say that?”
“She spent a year at academy training with us,” she said. “She had been privately trained before then. Sentinels work together in battles. She wasn’t a team player. She only wanted to be the top Sentinel in all the games.”
“Did she come out on top?”
“No. She could never beat Arik.”
I smiled at that.
She gave me a curious look. “Do you like Arik?”
I paused, and then shrugged. “Of course, I do. I like you, too.”
“I meant
like
like him.”
“Does it show?”
“Like a nasty gash in your arm.”
“Gross. Only a warrior uses analogies like that one.”
She pursed her lips. “Was it too much?”
I picked up Nana’s jar of face cream, scooped some out with my fingertips, and rubbed it onto my face. “Who am I kidding? I can’t compete with Veronique. Heck, I don’t even know if I want to try.”
She gave me a sympathetic smile. “You haven’t got the correct picture of yourself. Perfect heart-shaped face. Huge green eyes. Pouty lips. Your features are amazing. Men like to shake it up with a vixen like Veronique. But when it comes to love, they go for something deeper. Like you.”
I gave her reflection an appreciative smile. “Thanks.”
“It’s useless, anyhow. You’re a Sentinel, and it’s illegal to be with another one.”
I wiped the cream from my face with a wet washcloth. I decided not to tell her I was the Doomsday Child and it didn’t matter if Arik and I were both Sentinels.
“Besides, we’re supposed to stay pure for our betrothals.”
Betrothal for
Sentinels
. But I was something different. No matter what Carrig said, I wouldn’t be forced to marry a stranger.
She picked up Nana’s perfume bottle, removed the cap, and sniffed it. “But don’t worry,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the smell. “It’s eight years until wedded bliss, so a little flirtation is fine. Just don’t get caught snogging, and whatever you do, don’t bonk.”
“Listen, I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” I padded to the bed.
“Right-o,” she said. “If you need me, I’ll be on the couch.”
“Okay.” I yawned and slipped under the covers, tugging the curtains around the bed closed. As I drifted off, I thought about Pop and hoped Deidre was taking good care of him.
T
he dream came when I closed my eyes, on the edge of sleep. The wizard from the tapestry, Taurin, sat at an enormous wooden desk, writing something with a quill under the glow from a candelabrum. He didn’t look so much a wizard as he did a king.
“Pardon my intrusion, Taurin.”
Taurin looked up. “Ah, Athela, do enter.”
Clutching a burlap sack to her chest, she hesitated before gliding to him, her elaborate dress trailing behind her. Her delicate face wore concern. “I wish to speak of thy son.”
“Barnum?” He sounded surprised. “He’s been dead for months, what have thee left to say?”
“My father has done a terrible deed that involves Barnum.”
Taurin straightened. “Go on.”
Athela seemed to look directly at me. “May we have privacy, please?”
“Of course, milady,” the voice belonging to the body I was in said.
The man marched out the door and stopped just around the corner, where he hid in the shadows to view Taurin and Athela through the open door.
“I wish to speak of the four creatures my father calls the Tetrad. The havoc they have created with the elements was inhumane. The earthquake, storms…fires…so many dead…so many…women and children… infants.” Each word was drenched with tears and her voice got softer until the last word was barely a whisper. “It is my father’s doing. He should be held accountable for such atrocities.”
Taurin stood, came around the desk, and handed her a silk hanky. “Thou art not to worry about the Tetrad. We have entombed it within a mountain.”
She took the cloth and wiped her eyes. “My father used me to lure the beast. How could he risk…he knew the man-lion creature would be distracted by me. I recognized him straight off. It was Barnum.”
“Thou art mistaken.”
“No!” Athela shook her head. “He recognized me, as well, and he told me it was him. The other beings were his fellow warriors who died in the same battle. My father resurrected them and turned them into
those
creatures.”
“It cannot be,” Taurin muttered.
“Scry me if thou must. See for thyself.” She lifted Taurin’s hand and placed his open palm on her cheek. “
Please,
” she said, putting so much force behind the word that my heart broke for her.
Taurin spread his fingers across her face and lowered his head. Athela’s body trembled and her eyes rolled back. Taurin’s face twitched and twisted with a mix of sorrow and pain. It went on for several minutes before he let Athela go.
“It is the truth—Barnum—my son.” His eyes settled on Athela’s face. “Thou art with his child.”
“I am.”
“I must call on the Wizard Council.”
“Thou must not. My father has poisoned the Council.” She dropped the bag on the table, whatever was inside clanking together. One by one, she withdrew several metal rods the length of her hand and placed them on the table. “I found these in my father’s chambers.”
“The Chiavi,” Taurin said.
“Yes, all but the seventh. My father took the Chiavi from the other wizards. He will come for yours, then control the Tetrad. He wants to rule all the kingdoms. Thou must hide them from him.”
“My sons and I will suffer this. Mykyl will not care that thou art his daughter. He will seek revenge for betraying him.”
“A trusted servant waits with a carriage for me and I will leave this moment to—”
“Do not tell me where you will go. Tell no one else. Just go now, and do not ever return, for thy sake and my grandchild’s sake.”
Athela kissed his cheek and turned to leave.
As the man I occupied ran down the hall to get away before Athela came out of Taurin’s chamber, I knew he was heading to Mykyl to inform him that Taurin had all the Chiavi. I was also aware I’d hitched a ride in the body of the man who would later stab Taurin in the back.
T
he dream haunted me the entire night, and I barely slept. I dragged my tired butt to the bathroom. After tying my hair back, I washed my face and brushed my teeth.
When I glanced in the mirror, I looked the same, but I didn’t recognize myself. Dark circles strangled my eyes. My hair was knotted and wild.
I’m not the same. Who am I?
I choked on the lump forming in my throat. There was no going back to not knowing about this place. The nightmares would always find me, and I had to learn to deal with it.
Who am I?
Continued to play in my head.
Who am I?
“Come in,” Faith told someone, interrupting my pity party. “Put it over there.”
Faith?
I grabbed a towel off the hook attached to the wall. It was still dark outside the bathroom window. Wondering who would visit us this early, I tightened my robe and charged into the bedroom.
Two men wheeled in a wardrobe.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“I’m not sure.” Faith’s predator stare intimidated the two nervous men. When they had settled the new wardrobe beside the one already against the wall, they rushed off, slamming the door behind them without saying a word.
“When did you get back?”
“While you were in the shower.” Faith pulled open the doors to the wardrobe, acting like nothing happened the night before. “It’s your battle gear.”
Leather pants, metal breastplates with a slight girly curve to them, and light blue blouses hung neatly on hangers across the rod. On the top shelf sat three silver helmets, each shaped like a cat’s head. Five scabbards bedazzled with blue stones hung on one door, while two shields with tiger heads on them dangled on the other. The hilts of the swords were silver tiger heads with sapphire eyes. My heart hammering, I pulled the door wide, metal clanking against metal. Three pairs of calf-high leather boots were in the bottom of the wardrobe. All of this was real—I could no longer deny I was training to become a warrior.
I grabbed a pair of pants and wiggled into them. I squatted to see if they’d bind or bust apart.
“They’re tight but flexible, and the pockets—Love. Them.” I tossed the blouse Faith handed me onto the bed and grabbed my black, long-sleeved T-shirt instead. “I’m not wearing that. It’s not my style.”
“But it’s a uniform,” Faith protested.
“Don’t worry. It still is, just my version.” I slipped the breastplate over my head, and Faith helped me fasten the straps on the sides. Then I finished putting on the rest of the biker-knight gear. “Fits perfect. How’d they know my size?”
“Someone must’ve scanned your body with a measuring charm.” Faith examined me. “You look lethal.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“And—” Faith looked away then back at me “—thank you for saving my life, especially because you are still scared of me.” She shook her head. “That was very powerful magic, breaking a charm spell no one else could. I’d heard you need lots of training. And you don’t know how to conjure, but—”
“They’re right.” I looked at my new gear then out the window. “I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m not sure I could do that again.” From the corner of my eye, I could see her still studying my face, and I focused on her. “But I’m glad whatever I did worked.” I offered a small smile, and she returned it. The silence continued on for several moments, but it no longer felt awkward between us.
“You better go to breakfast, or you won’t get to eat before practice,” Faith finally said and headed for the bathroom. “Don’t kill anyone with that sword—yet.”
T
he practice field was empty. Carrig was late, so I stretched and did some jumping jacks to warm up. When he finally bounded onto the grass, his face was all twisted and sinister. He spotted me staring at him and shook away the bull-that-just-saw-red look.
A feeling of doom rushed over me. Crap. He was pissed off about something, which was not good when sparring, especially for me.
“Good to see you warming up.” He dropped a long, narrow duffle bag, and his gaze traveled over me. “Jaysus, you’re a regular warrior in that gear.” He kneeled beside the bag, pulled out two wooden swords and two small balls, and placed them on the ground. He reached his empty hand out to me. “Give me your sword.”
I handed him my scabbard and sword, and he slid them carefully into the bag. “We’ll be using practice swords and globes,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to be killing each other on the first day now, would we?”
“I’d prefer
not
to die.”
He ignored my joke and got to his feet, handing me one of the practice swords. This was going to be a
long
practice. “We’ll start at the beginning, then,” he said.
“I’m on the advanced fencing team back home. I have all the basics down.”
“Is that so? What be the basics?”
I did a quick leap forward with the dummy sword extended. “That’s a
balestra
and this—” I said at the same time I hopped and lunged forward “—is a
balestra
with a lunge.”
“Good. Show me more.”
He lunged, and I took a step back, twisting my body a quarter turn to avoid his attack.
“That is an
in quartata
,” I said.
“You do have good balance, I’ll give you that. We’ll skip the basics. I’d rather teach you the reality of swordplay. It’s not all
balestra
and
in quartata
. It won’t be polite like fencing. There be no protections from a sharp blade but your wit and your instincts. And wielding your sword gets a little bit trickier when you have a shield and a battle globe to cope with.”
“Okay. I’m ready. Teach me how to fight
dirty
.”