The Discovered

by Maggie Sunseri

  With a labored grunt, Dad suddenly leapt toward me, breaking his defensive magick. As soon as his hands collided with my shoulders, he cried out. My vision was distorted by darkness, and a suffocating iciness constricted around us both.

  Then, he let go. My ears popped and the roar of a great whooshing blew me through space. I staggered forward, nearly throwing up from the vertigo. The sky came into focus, its lovely lavender and baby blue swirls eclipsing with the stormy, black clouds rolling in from the west. I was on the beach now, and I heard lyrical chanting floating through the wind and the waves. The sand beneath my feet was warm and multicolored like the remnants of geodes.

  “Daelon!”

  I turned to see Mom running at me, tears streaming down her olive-toned skin. She was dressed in white for ritual, her dark hair ornamented with blooming pearl flowers. I saw more of my people gathered in a crescent formation by the tall dunes.

  She enveloped me in her lavender-scented arms. Pulling back, she studied my eyes carefully. “Where’s your father?”

  A sob escaped my lips, and a deep sadness rolled over her features like the storm clouds. We both knew without saying. We could feel it. It felt like a bad dream, and I just wanted to wake up. I wanted to be back under the covers between them, practicing my shielding and invocations.

  “Listen to me now, Daelon. We don’t have much time, and you can’t be here.”

  “No, Mom,” I sobbed. “Please don’t send me away. Let me stay and protect you.”

  She shushed me, her chestnut-colored eyes insistent. “I’ve seen things in the waves. Things that are to come. Your purpose is not to protect us, sweet boy. It’s to protect someone who will lead you back to us. Things are about to change, and what do we know about change?”

  My tears were hot as they pooled and slid down my cheeks. “That it’s the natural state of things.”

  I peered around my mother at the figures approaching. It was Celeste and Jane, hand in hand. There was a magick in Celeste’s growing belly that I didn’t know how to put into words—like the cresting of a tall wave.

  “And therefore mustn’t be feared. Good. You are going to have to live among enemies for a long while, but you mustn’t lose hope. We will never leave you, even when you can’t see us anymore.”

  “No,” I whined and begged, my small hands clutching her fingers tightly in protest.

  “You will not be alone. There will be others of us, living in the shadows. You will find a way to survive until you find your reason to hope again. Do you understand?”

  “No,” I said again, the lump in my throat growing.

  “That’s okay,” Celeste said, reaching us. She rubbed her round stomach. “You will in time.”

  I frowned. A soothing feeling reached out from her to me. Even in the darkest depths of my sadness and confusion, it felt like a trickle of light at the end of a long tunnel.

  “You should be gone already,” Mom said without turning to them, her voice riddled with concern.

  “We had to see him before we left. We just wanted to—”

  A blast erupted from beyond the sand dunes, startling us all.

  “We love you so much, Daelon,” Mom whispered, resting her forehead to mine. “But I need to help Celeste and Jane now.”

  She gripped my shoulders even as I squirmed and fought against her. I didn’t want to be sent away. I wanted to stay with her and protect her. I wanted to protect us all. She touched my forehead with her soft fingers, and I felt a pressure in the space between my eyes. It was like a flower of knowledge taking root and blooming.

  “Do you understand?”

  I nodded even as I continued begging her with my eyes. She kissed my forehead and then sent me spinning through space once more.

  My ears popped and my vision spun. As soon as my feet collided with the cobblestone street, I started running back toward the ocean to be with her again. “Mom!” I yelled.

  Everything was aflame. I heard shouting in the distance. Flashes of light leapt into the sky. My feet were bare, tired, and scraped. I could still feel the smoke working its way from my lungs, and my eyes watered and burned. The sky was now completely dark.

  Everything I’d ever known was being taken from me. Everything I’d ever loved. I needed to go back and save my mother before I lost her too. I didn’t want to follow the path that was now set out before me.

  “Hello there,” a woman called, stepping forward from behind burning rubble. She had a little boy beside her, his hand in hers. He looked to be the same age as me—seven or eight years old. They were both dressed in strange, modest, dark clothes, with black hair and piercing blue eyes.

  I could hear my heartbeat thumping in my skull. I took an instinctive step back from her, but something about the warmth in her eyes eased my fear. The flower of wisdom my mother rooted between my brows bloomed and breathed. My path came alive, and I had no choice but to follow.

  “I think they killed my dad,” I said, sniffling. I needed to make myself seem small and weak. “Who are you? Will you help me find my mom?”

  I wanted to run, but I knew I couldn’t. I had to stay for my parents. I had to stay for all of them. For Celeste and Jane and their baby blessed by the Goddess, for my friends and elders, and for the land that was burned to rubble and ash.

  “Mother?” the little boy said. He narrowed his eyes at me as his lips quirked up. The confidence in his voice made him sound much older than he was. “I have a feeling. Can we keep him, please?”

  The woman cocked her head, peering down at the boy and then back to me. She sighed and closed her eyes, an almost imperceptible energetic spark flickering from his palm to hers. She opened her eyes again and regarded me with curiosity.

  “Your father won’t be pleased, Lucius.” She clucked her tongue, her features softening in defeat. “Let’s go, then. It’s dinnertime.”

  Lucius stepped forward, unclasping his hand from his mother’s. His black hair whipped in all directions, his eyes resolute and his posture straight. He moved like respected elders did, unfazed by the crashing, screaming, and burning all around us.

  I wiped the tears from my soot-covered face, and when he stretched out his hand to mine, I took it.

  Chapter 1

  The wooden floorboards were cold against my cheek, smelling faintly of lemon, and their stability and stillness soothed the broken, shattered parts of me. I lay in the fetal position, tracing shapes into the space where the floor met the green, patterned rug. The morning sun wasn’t as warm as it should’ve been against my exposed skin, and as the seconds, minutes—or maybe hours—passed, it began to creep higher on the walls of my lavish prison until all was illuminated, from the ornate bed to the burned, tattered clothes lying idly next to the dresser. I wanted to burn the whole place down, but my new babysitter, Taryn, interceded before the flames could engulf anything but the garments that reeked of betrayal and shame.

  The sound of voices from the living room of my chambers did little to rouse me from my motionless state. The power and connection that once threatened to consume me lay dormant; it curled up at my feet like a wounded animal and whispered tales of every great defeat that was and is to come.

  I hadn’t seen anyone in two or three, maybe more, days—not since I slammed a burst of my own pain into Daelon’s chest, so he could feel just a fraction of his own betrayal in that snowy forest. He shattered my trust in the magick I thought would deliver us—crumbled my trust in myself and everything I thought I knew. Now I was lost and scrambling to grab hold of any kind of anchor in this stormy ocean of power.

  “She still hasn’t eaten anything?”

  Footsteps approached as the voices became clearer. The sound of Daelon’s pierced through me like a cold blade.

  “I wouldn’t go in there. It’s like someone died,” Taryn warned.

  The floorboards creaked, and without seeing I knew that Daelon’s hand was on the doorknob. I wanted it off.

  Heat.

  He grunted, sucking in
air through gritted teeth. I imagined him inspecting his now burned hand. I imagined his clenched jaw and narrowed eyes, and his defensive, dominant stance. It transformed my power from wounded and weak to a thirsting predator. It was easier to live inside the anger than the pain.

  Taryn’s snorting chuckle cut through the palpable tension. “She sure as hell doesn’t want to see you.”

  “Clearly. But you can’t seem to do just the single task that was assigned to you, and Lucius couldn’t care less at this point if she starves to death, so who else is going to keep her alive?”

  Taryn sighed. “If she gets hungry enough, she will eat,” she snapped. “If you would stop coming in here and provoking her and annoying the hell out of me, maybe we’d start making progress, yeah?”

  There was a beat of silence, and I knew without my ability to read his energy that Daelon was seething. I could catch glimpses of his fiery aura as it reflected in Taryn’s, which was on the defensive and rising in temperature in response.

  Good. I wanted him to feel desperate. I wasn’t quite sure why he cared whether I ate or not any more than Lucius, but I surmised it was probably guilt—the same reason he came into my room three nights ago to continue his web of lies.

  Like the lie that he loved me.

  I would not be absolving him from even an ounce of that guilt after he snaked his way inside my body and soul on orders from someone who embodied evil and death. I was starting to wonder if anything Daelon said was ever true, or anything I felt in my vast ocean of magick. Maybe I’d only seen what I had wanted to see, and I’d been alone all along.

  “Not sure what you expected after all I’ve heard,” Taryn said. “People are talking—”

  “I’m sure they are,” he said curtly, cutting Taryn off. “You don’t know anything about it and neither do they. Make sure she eats.”

  “You know you can’t order me around, mate.”

  My eyes flew open, a sinking feeling plunging deep into my gut. Raw power rushed toward me like reignited flame, and soon the dresser within my line of sight began to shake against the wood panels. I closed my eyes again and took a breath, unsure if I had the will to control this magick like I once did.

  The way Daelon had taught me.

  After a long beat of silence, Taryn spoke. “I’d say that’s your cue to leave now. If she starts setting things on fire again, I’m not sure how we’ll be able to hide it from the King.”

  After an exasperated sigh the floorboards creaked, and I heard Daelon walk away.

  “She’s killing the gardens.” Lucius’s voice carried from the living area through my bedroom door. “I cannot fathom why anyone cares so much about some damned flowers, but the incessant yapping about it is truly starting to irritate me.”

  “And what do you want me to do about it?” After a brief pause, Taryn gasped and choked, as if Lucius had cut off her air supply.

  “Show her why no one who lives in the Kingdom of Aradia has any reason to be so grim. If that doesn’t work, maybe some time in the dungeons would offer her some perspective,” Lucius said, raising his voice so I understood he was speaking to me directly now.

  I’d moved to lying in the bed now, my thoughts running in circles around each other, trying to make sense of where I was and how to escape without my ability to teleport. I waited in silence for the sound of the door slamming.

  Taryn muttered to herself, the thudding of her footsteps indicating that she was pacing back and forth. “Okay. Okay.” The door flew open, letting in flickering light that made shapes on the ceiling above as she entered. “All right then. Sit up,” she said, her voice terse. Her energy was flaring and contracting, now tinged with red hues. It reminded me of a thorny rose bush: harmless unless its natural boundaries weren’t respected.

  I was in no mood to follow orders, but I knew from her aura that she wasn’t commanding as an act of arrogance or control. Her intentions were purer than I’d expected from someone who seemed high in the pecking order in this dark kingdom.

  I sat up begrudgingly, taking in the long, flowing, purple dress that hung off her sculpted shoulders. Most of her dark hair cascaded down her collarbones and chest, with some tied into loose braids.

  “I don’t quite understand what happened with you and Daelon or, well, anything else, but I know you don’t want to be here.” She took a step closer, lifting her hands out toward me as if to express she wasn’t a threat. Then she said something under her breath, stretching out her arm and waving it in the air like she was drawing a shape I couldn’t see.

  I cocked my head and quirked a brow.

  “Making sure we’re truly alone,” she explained, speaking louder now. “I understand not wanting to be here, but it’s not something you can be vocal about, yeah? You have to find a way to survive. You don’t want to go to the dungeons, trust me.” She shuddered, grasping the bed frame and smoothing her fingers over the intricately carved wood detail. Her gaze was intense. “You need to keep your head down about the other stuff, too. Like how you somehow have enough power to kill all the gardens on the castle grounds. That’s not something people can know. I think I’m the only one other than Daelon and the guard, and Lucius of course, who has any idea. In fact, I don’t see how you’re even alive right now, all things considered.”

  “Not a problem. I don’t plan on speaking to anyone, anyway,” I muttered.

  Taryn shook her head, looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t think you’re hearing me. The King should’ve killed you. But he didn’t. And while I can’t for the life of me figure out why, I just know that if I were you, I’d be doing anything in my power to remain in his good graces. That means to stop sulking, stop throwing fits, and start pretending to get along.”

  I pursed my lips, feeling a flash of anger at her condescension. She had no idea what had been done to me—what had been done to my mothers, my people, and this world. Or did she know, but just didn’t care?

  Like Daelon.

  “Now stop that. I can tell you’re going somewhere in your mind. That’s not going to do you any good right now.”

  I looked away, weighing her words. If Lucius and Daelon were convinced that I was truly so much weaker than Lucius, then why was my power such a big secret? It seemed as though this illegitimate king’s paranoia and narcissism knew no bounds.

  She sighed. “Look, I’m going to help you, okay? Mostly because I owe someone a favor, but also because I know if I don’t, you’ll be dead by morning.”

  “You can say his name,” I said quietly, turning back to her.

  “Can I?” she laughed.

  I wrestled with my magick, willing it to be calm and still. It wasn’t like my power had done anything it had promised thus far. All it had done was lead me astray. Maybe keeping my head down for now was the best option, after all.

  “Okay,” I said, and it took all my strength to say it. I didn’t want anything to do with any of this. It felt like I’d already failed—already let my mothers down, and maybe even something higher than them—the vast web of connection and purpose I could feel immersed in my magick. I was forced into a foreign realm all over again, but this time I was in the belly of the beast, living among my enemies.

  “There’s someone that wants to meet you. But we have to be sneaky about it, yeah?”

  I nodded, curiosity getting the better of me. There was nowhere to go that was lower than where I was right now. At least, I hoped.

  “Let me grab you something to wear that isn’t so… human. Also, you need to eat something if you want Daelon to leave us alone.”

  I took my first steps outside my chambers since I’d been betrayed, Taryn at my side. My stomach was finally rid of its emptiness and I looked more like myself. We walked down a long corridor, its ceiling high and vaulted like a medieval church. The halls were lined with candles and bathed in a golden hue, just as I had seen them in my dreams and astral projections.

  I had been too distraught to notice it before, but now that I was moving, I discern
ed even the slightest bit of hope in the pit of my stomach. It was like a tiny seed of wisdom, newly rooted, or a whispered word of welcome from someone I could not see.

  Maybe I wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

  “You look less like shit,” Taryn said.

  I snorted. I was growing accustomed to her style of communication. “Thanks.” She returned a hesitant smile.

  She’d lent me a delicate, black blouse with sheer, off-the-shoulder sleeves and a corset-style front, paired with a long, emerald green skirt with golden patterns along its hem. It wasn’t really my style, but it seemed to help me blend in. I was beginning to understand this wasn’t a t-shirt and jeans kind of place. The style was a rather strange blend of modern and classic, like perhaps what actors in an aristocratic period piece would wear if they just wanted to dress up in high fashion without necessarily being historically accurate.

  “Why is everyone staring at me?” I whispered as a couple women walked by dressed like what I would imagine socialites wore to Paris Fashion Week. Their gazes bored into my skull.

  Taryn shrugged and made a face. “What makes you think they’re looking at you? Besides, you look hot, so that would be why.”

  I could tell she was trying to make me feel better, but the more people who stared me at me as we moved through winding, maze-like halls, the less it helped.

  “I don’t think keeping your head down is going to help as much as I’d hoped,” she muttered. “They know you’re different. These vultures can smell it on you.”

  I swallowed, remembering the energy vampires who wanted to suck the magick right out of me. Daelon had once said that where he was from, it was power that was used as currency.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” a man asked, halting us in our path. He stepped out of the shadows of a doorway, and I immediately recognized him as the man Daelon and I fought on the beach. It was Nathaniel, one of Lucius’s henchmen—or guard, as Taryn said. He’d witnessed a rather intimate embrace between Daelon and me and fought with Daelon, and I couldn’t help but intervene. After he tried to syphon my power for a high, I sort of kicked his ass, which led him to declare that our time was up. I understood now that he was the one who convinced Lucius it was time to bring Daelon and me back to the castle. So, Daelon knew the whole damn time exactly what was happening, which made my blood boil once more.