Of Seekers and Shepherds: Children of the Younger God, Book One

by G. H. Duval

  “You may not call me that!” Mina hissed. “Mother may call me Mina. Spring may call me Mina. My father may call me Mina. To you, Lena au Terre, I am your First in Waiting.”

  Lena’s eyes dropped from Mina’s face. “Of course, mum. Forgive my impertinence.”

  “Forgive?” Mina laughed, a hard, barking sound. “Your arrogance persists! You dare exhort me to forgive?”

  Before she could consider what she was doing, Mina went to Lena. Standing over this woman who had pretended to love her, to protect her, Mina cringed at the memory of the girl she had been because of Lena’s perverted brand of love.

  Mina tugged at Mother, drawing the Headmistress’ presence around her, grounding herself in who she was now. No longer that sick, useless, invalid. It settled her, and she was able to keep her voice steady when next she spoke.

  “Look at me, Lena.” It was almost a whisper, but the command was evident, nonetheless. “See me for who I truly am.”

  It took an intolerably long minute for Lena to comply, and when she did, tears streaked her face as she looked upon the child she’d birthed. A child who quite clearly no longer belonged to her.

  “I see you,” Lena croaked. And as Lena gazed into Mina’s violet eyes, something flashed in her own eyes. “I have always seen you, my daughter.” Her jaw clenched and her chin lifted, as if daring Mina to respond.

  And Mina did.

  “No more words from you,” Mina said, leaning down to bring her face inches from Lena’s. “I’ve had enough of your lies for a lifetime. I did not summon you to hear more of that.”

  “Why did you bring me here?” Lena asked, dejected, the momentary fire of her insubordination gone.

  “I brought you here to take what I need from you.”

  Almost tenderly, Mina placed her hands on either side of Lena’s face. In her peripheral vision, she saw Spring rise from her chair and take a hesitant step forward. Spring’s fear—for her mother and her sister—washed over Mina.

  “Stay out of this, Spring!” Mina bellowed without taking her focus from Lena. “She has used you against me enough.” She took a breath and added, more quietly, “I mean it, Spring. Do not interfere.”

  “Please, Mina,” Spring whispered, slowly retaking her seat. “Please, don’t hurt her. I know you’ll regret it.”

  Mina smiled. “Not to worry, sister. I promise not to break her as she tried to break me.”

  And with that, Mina entered Lena’s mind.

  Mina was transported back to their old home. She was sitting at the dining room table, watching as Arbiter Jeyson and Shepherds Preon and Myrra were talking. Her father looked from Jeyson to her and back, face frozen. In a seeming daze, her father joined her. No, not her father. This was Jasper, this was her husband.

  Mina shook her head, disoriented. She’d never forced herself into another’s mind this way before. She struggled to found her boundaries, to define where she ended and Lena began.

  Like this, dear, Mother told her. A flash of light was followed by warmth as Mother connected her tether to Mina’s. Mina followed the light until it showed her where Lena’s mind was in relation to Mina’s own: an opal band undulating around a shimmering emerald sheet. Mina caressed the light, merging her tether with it until she could feel it herself, without Mother’s intervention.

  I have it now, Mother. Thank you.

  Wilha’s presence withdrew to the recesses once more.

  *

  Lena sat still as Jasper retook his seat beside her at the dining table. The words from Jeyson—your daughter is a Seer—still hovered in the air between them. Lena held so still as Jasper came near her that she wondered if she might simply be an extension of her chair. Would that she could somehow fuse her very being with the wood beneath her…merge with it so that the shell of a life that lay before her could be avoided.

  And yet, Jasper’s stillness was a thing of purity that put hers to shame—his presence beside her even more devoid of life. Cold. A stone of silence the likes of which can only be born of complete surprise. No, not surprise. If she were to call it true—and was it not long past the point where she should admit the truth—she would name if for what it was. Betrayal. Complete and utter betrayal. Today, he learned that she was not the Shepherd he had believed. Not the wife he had believed. Not the mother he had believed. So what was she to him now?

  She dared not move for fear of calling his attention to her. She scarcely dared breathe. All the strength and fire that had come to her aid when she’d seen her long-forgotten schoolmates had faded, leaving her spent and brittle. And afraid. She was so very afraid, she could not find a safe place even to rest her gaze. She settled for staring at her hands.

  A sound, soft and low, brought her gaze up. Coming from Myrra, it was a small sound, but it was one of appreciation. She watched her old bunkmate take in the surroundings—the humble trappings that made up Lena’s home. Watched the midnight-blue eyes sweep the room, cataloging the low ceilings—kept spotless of dust and cobwebs—and the clean rugs on scrubbed floors before finally coming to rest on the table at which Lena and Jasper were seated. The table was well-oiled and of dark seamless wood, polished to a mirror sheen by the care only two au Terres could offer. She saw it all through this now-stranger’s eyes, and the approval she saw reflected in those eyes was undeniable. In Lena’s current state, it took her like a blow, reminding her she was still a person. She was still a living, breathing person, and she had to rally—had to fight for the life she had built.

  Once the three Shepherds of the Firsts were seated, Jeyson cleared his throat and looked Lena directly in the eye. Something in the way he held her gaze offered support. She began to yield to it, then bristled. Compassion, she wondered, or manipulation? His eyes reflected no channeling, but she knew that most Shepherds of any decent talent could channel their Aspects subtly without any outward sign.

  “Lena,” Jeyson spoke into the heavy silence. “Would you like to tell us of how this came to be?”

  Lena nodded and straightened in her seat. She moved just the slightest bit away from Jasper, as much to prove to herself that she would take full responsibility as to distance him from any judgment that would fall upon her as a result.

  “Yes, I would. Thank you, Brother Jeyson.”

  Her voice caught as the fear she had kept at bay for so long threatened to overtake her. She clenched her hands into fists where they were hidden in her lap below the table. Willed herself to the strength that had preserved her for so long.

  When she was certain she had control of her voice once more, she began again.

  “I want you to understand that I never meant to interfere with the Headmistress or a Seek. Not exactly.”

  Lena’s voice grew fainter, but she maintained her posture of strength. “I never knew for certain that Mina was Spirit-touched. Only suspected. To know for certain, I’d have to announce her to Coer. After what happened to my mother, I simply could not bring myself to trust them with my daughter.”

  Her voice shook with the familiar rage of loss—the grief of a child whose mother had been stolen from her and who had never accepted the unfairness of it all. Her nails bit into her palms as she fought back the tears, not wanting to appear weak in front of this lot. In front of Jasper. After all he would think of her today, Lena the sobbing mad woman would not number among them.

  “I wasn’t certain,” she continued. “You have to believe me. I wasn’t certain. Not at first. It took years before she could speak clearly enough, could relate her visions, before I even knew them for what they were. Even then, I refused to believe…”

  Jasper groaned, a sound between a sob and a choke escaping him as he rose from his seat and kept it between him and Lena.

  “When you told me you had defied Coer,” he whispered, “I thought you were speaking of Brandin, and now Spring.”

  He gripped the back of his chair, knuckles white. “Whom we both know should be at the Steading!”

  His voice rose, as did his colo
r, and Lena broke—tears welled, full and heavy behind her eyes.

  When was the last time she had seen him this angry?

  “But you were so steadfast. Still so bloody wounded over your mother, Lena! That I relented. I let you beat me down and convince me we could keep our children safe. Let you talk me into that baffling courtship with the Hevlin boy! And now it all makes sense! Is that why you wanted Jayden pulled into this? To protect you from his uncle?”

  Lena half-raised from her seat, held one trembling hand toward her husband, who simply stared at it as if she were handing him a hot poker.

  “She was so fragile, so confused.” Lena’s voice broke completely, and the pools in her eyes turned to thick rivulets down her cheeks. “I just wanted to protect her. I knew if we went to Coer, they would take her.” The last words came out in a near wail, agony and fear and heartbreak given form.

  “Not Brandin,” Jasper said, his voice a cross between disbelief and wonder. “Not Spring…it’s Mina! Mina! Our baby girl. The one you led us all to believe was so sick. Isn’t that right, wife?” Jasper spat the title as if it were an epithet.

  “She is sick, Jas!” Lena’s voice was desperate. “She isn’t Shepherding anything, she’s being dragged under. It’s all I can do to keep her sane.”

  “Keep her sane? Have you completely lost your mind?”

  Jasper’s tenuous hold on his temper slipped completely, and he screamed. Lena had always admired Jasper for his control, his calm, his Aspect-touched ability to think in long-term outcomes and patiently work toward them. Seeing him this way, his face mottled with anger and betrayal, opened a hole in her she knew would never mend.

  “You’re making her worse, don’t you realize that? Your own children, Lena.” He was silent a moment, his body literally shaking with emotion. “Mina doesn’t need to be protected from Coer, Lena. She needs to be protected from you.”

  Lena shuddered and her hand—outstretched toward Jasper –fell back to her lap.

  “So, you’d prefer she be used? Just another tool. Like my mother, is that it?” Her voice was flat as she added, “Drained for her talent and discarded like fodder when empty? That is what you would have for your daughter?”

  She dared meet his gaze, needed to hear his answer.

  “No, Lena,” Jasper said, tearing away the chair between them and stepping forward to loom over her. After a terrible beat that had Lena steeling herself for the worst, she dropped her eyes from her husband’s face. She heard Myrra release a heavy breath and caught the movement of Preon rocking back slightly from where he had been poised to move. They, too, had sensed that horrible moment.

  “I would that my daughter had been given the choice. You are her mother, not her owner. And now,” he broke off as he shifted his gaze to Jeyson, “you won’t have her at all.”

  “What do we do now, Arbiter?” Jasper asked Jeyson, his voice and bearing formal. “Is there any way to protect my family?” His voice nearly broke then, and Lena looked up, intent upon the Arbiter’s reaction. She stopped breathing.

  Jeyson’s eyes pulsed as he rose to place a hand on Jasper’s shoulder. Silent communication passed between the men as the vibrating tension in Jasper’s body gave way. His head fell, shoulders slumping, and he wordlessly moved to the stairs and disappeared upstairs.

  Jeyson remained silent as he retrieved the chair Jasper had turned aside and returned it to the table, seating himself next to Lena. Tentatively, she allowed herself to breathe again.

  “Jasper is seeing to the children,” he explained, ostensibly for the benefit of all, though his eyes remained fixed on Lena’s. “The girls are to be made ready for travel, and your family will be the guests of my sister’s house as of this very evening.”

  His tone allowed no room for questions or negotiation. It was a world away from being clapped into a governing band and dragged into a cell in the bowels of the Accord, so she kept her mouth shut and nodded, as meekly as she could manage. Jeyson seemed satisfied.

  “Brandin will remain here to see after your business,” he continued. “And to keep any gossip to a minimum. You can imagine, I am sure…” He paused and his eyes hardened. “That the First is not keen to share the fact that one of her own ilk would defy her so. If that were to become common knowledge, the options available to our First in dealing with you would, I’m afraid, become extremely…limited.”

  Lena swallowed, her fear forming into a hard stone in her throat, and she felt the blood drain from her face.

  Jeyson moved along as if he had not noticed her blanching reaction. “It is not so unexpected for the family of two young people who will soon be joined in marriage to spend time together in preparation for Spring’s admittance to the Steading, after all. It will be an unconventional arrangement, to be sure. But House Hevlin is already well established as a breaker of conventions, is it not?”

  Again, he paused to gauge Lena’s reaction, but she kept silent. Her days of resisting the Firsts were behind her. All that was left was trying to secure the best outcome for her children. She dared not hope that she, herself, would survive it.

  “Harlan and Jayma, too, will be sending their child to the Steading—long-past time, really. And they have agreed to keep an eye on Brandin for however long is needed.”

  He nodded, as if that settled everything. “You will remain guests of House Hevlin until the remainder of Captain Preon’s complement arrives. They will serve as official escorts of the Firsts to see that you and yours arrive safely to the Steading.”

  The knot that had claimed her entire body loosened a fraction, and Lena began to wonder how much of the Firsts’ treatment of her and Jasper would be influenced by their connection to House Hevlin. Could she dare hope that she might yet be spared in some way? No. She crushed that thought, that weakness, and simply accepted her fate. Though grand and comfortable, House Hevlin, as it turned out, was to be her prison until Preon’s Complement could arrive.

  The fact that they had summoned the remainder of his unit to Hayden’s told her that they really did believe this ridiculous notion that Mina could be the Candidate. Yes, she had withheld a Spirit-touched child from Coer, but Mina a Candidate for the First? She shook her head, baffled and incredulous. Her daughter could scarcely contain the affinity with which she had been cursed. How could they entertain such lunacy?

  “Lena,” Jeyson said, his voice grave and oddly commanding. As she had never visited the Accord to see him at work, resolving disputes and dispensing justice, Lena had seldom heard Jeyson’s voice take on that tone of authority. Save perhaps for the Declarations he officiated, as he had Brandin’s. The thought of that day, of her pride in her son and how she had been so full of joy and hope for what lay ahead, left her empty and sour in the face of what her life had become. But his voice held her attention and kept her in the moment.

  He offered his hands to her, palms up, and she shuddered. She feared what would happen next, and it was not the fear of a middle-aged woman who had raised children, made a home, and run a business. It was the physical terror of a young girl facing the bogeyman lurking outside the darkened window. Still, she marshalled the courage to place her hands in his, but she could not help that they shook.

  “Close your eyes, Lena,” Jeyson said, and while his tone was gentle, it was not a request. Lena obeyed.

  The scent came to her first. It was rich and sweet, yet acrid and faintly metallic. The combination of the sweat of her labor, her placenta, and the pure perfume of an infant’s skin. She was back in the moment when the midwife had placed Mina in her arms for the first time, holding the precious third and who she knew would be her final child in her arms. She breathed in that scent, filling her nostrils and lungs with the aroma of the moment, of her baby girl. The babe blinked up at her blearily, as exhausted as Lena in her efforts to join them in this world. Lena smiled, cradling the baby close and stroking her tiny head. So small. Smaller than any of my others…She drifted between sleep and remaining awake, lost in the brilliant, w
atery green of her daughter’s eyes. Like mother’s.

  “Mina,” she whispered, before tearing her eyes from the perfect face of her child to her husband’s. “After my mother.” Jasper beamed from his place at their side and nodded, still too emotional to speak himself. He felt it, too, she realized. Mina was special, and Lena knew in that moment that her life was complete. She was honored to be mother to the children whom Hirute, in all His blessed names, had granted her. As she returned to gazing at her daughter, however, the moment slipped away, dissolving into mist.

  In the next moment, she was in Mina’s bed, her daughter’s trembling body in her lap as she rested against the headboard Harlan au Terre had so lovingly carved for her. It was either very early or very late, or so near to both as to make no practical difference. One of her eucalyptus candles had burned down from where she had placed it on Mina’s bedside. Next to the candle sat a wooden bowl, now empty save for a thin coating of the concoction she had put together to help soothe her daughter when the fits came. This was before Tahnia returned, she realized. This time, as visceral as it seemed, Lena understood that she was not actually present but was reliving a memory, though she struggled to understand why Jeyson was showing her this.

  Mina breathed against her, and Lena stroked her daughter’s slender arm with her free hand, hurt anew at the clamminess she felt there. A result of the seizure that had wracked Mina’s body and drawn such exertion from her young, frail form. The anger and fear she had always felt at those moments flooded into her, but before Lena could react, the memory shifted again. Only this time, rather than dissipating, the memory persisted but her perspective changed. Instead of holding Mina, she found herself being held. She opened her eyes and found herself looking at…herself! And, roots, she hurt! Her head was aflame with a buzzing that would break only to reveal an emotion or image that made no sense. After several minutes of this, one such image emerged, and she recognized it. It was a thought that she, Lena, had fought often; the image of burying her precious, fragile, beautiful, brilliant child.