Ninthborn (The Ninthborn Chronicle Book 1)

by J. E. Holmes

  “You’re still thinking about him,” she said. She shivered. “You’re clenching your jaw.”

  He hung his head. Despite the cold, despite the shivering, her skin felt hot. Her insides were a mess of nerves in a way they had never been before in her life. She’d been fine this far because of her Presence, her natural ability to glide through social situations, but she had never done anything like this. Nobody had ever shown her affection or closeness like this.

  She let her hand move up, into his hair, brushing through it. She glided behind him, her body against his back. She set her hand between his shoulder blades, put her other arm around his front, across his chest, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

  “Princess,” he said.

  “Is this inappropriate?” she said.

  “It isn’t undesired.”

  “You can call me Ediline.”

  “You’re a princess,” he said.

  “I’m also an Ediline.”

  Her head bounced against his back when he chuckled. His chest was strong and firm, and the leathers he wore were smooth and soft.

  “I so enjoy things that are inappropriate. Remember? Totoath lili tetenerefete oekoekun bo tu?”

  “Not an unapt expression. You’re . . . .”

  She was the daughter to a warmongering king. His father might kill her father in just one week, if he felt he had just cause. But what if Javras knew the truth, that she was just the ninthborn, unlucky unwanted and insignificant? Would he still want to be embraced by her? Would he even want to be in the same space as her?

  The ice-rain fell harder, pounding.

  “I’m no one important,” she whispered.

  “Ediline.” Hearing him speak her name filled her with warmth.

  She almost told him. The truth rested on her tongue and pushed at her teeth until she bit it back. Not because it might ruin things for her father or her brothers and sisters. Not because it could endanger the relationship between his nation and hers. But because there was a chance that, if she told him the truth, he might not want to see her again. Why did it matter so much when she was born? Burn the number eight.

  “I’m cold,” she said. “Are you?”

  He turned around and faced her, and she was forced to release the embrace. After he’d turned, her hand lay resting on his chest. He covered it with one hand and brushed her hair back with his other. It lingered at the side of her face. Her eyes felt heavy-lidded. She was heated by the deep blue fire of his eyes. There was something bizarre and alien and powerfully lustful inside her, pressing out from her in every direction.

  “I should go,” she said. She wanted to stay, but the lie was heavy in her heart.

  “I understand,” he said.

  But she didn’t go. Her hand remained on his chest, his covering hers. He remained touching the side of her face. Was this what her mother had wanted? For her to join the boy on a balcony and embrace him while it rained ice? What would they do next? Did he like her? Did he love her? Was it her duty, or was it her own desire?

  “I should go,” she repeated.

  “I understand,” he said again, barely words. His eyes didn’t leave hers.

  Part of her was held fast, entrenched in the desire to stay, to push, to feel him around her and to press tightly to him, to pull and to have his hands in her hair and to grapple and kiss and everything more. But she couldn’t. She balanced on a razor’s edge.

  She let go, turning, and his hand glided from her cheek down her chin into the open air and away from her body. She pried herself away, and she walked through the opening back inside, shaking the cold from her legs. She strode down the hall without looking back, even though it felt as if she’d left something behind and might never find it again.

  At the end of the hall, she stopped. Wulfgar sat there. He sharpened a long-bladed metal knife. “Do not be alarmed, Princess,” he said. “I will not wound you with this knife.”

  “I . . . um, thank you.” Her mouth felt fat. Her whole body still pulsed with heat, despite the cold on her skin. But Wulfgar and that long-bladed knife stirred a fear in her that wiped away everything else.

  “Are you leaving? I thought you were to stay for dinner.”

  “I would love to, but I think I should go.”

  “If you want to stay, you should to stay,” he said. “If you want to go, you should to go.”

  If only it were that simple. Her orders were to stay, but her body and mind were tangled messes like her hair after a long morning’s sleep, and she needed to yank a comb through them before anything else.

  “Before you go,” he said, “I would like to threaten you.”

  Her heart pounded. Her tongue tasted buzzing bitterness. She watched the knife.

  “I care much about my young Javras,” Wulfgar said, “and he has many things about to think.” He twisted the blade of the knife in the air. It shined in the dim light. “Since we arrive, he has spent much time with you. He likes you, I think, and he does not let himself to like many things.”

  “I like him, too.”

  “Do not make him to hurt. Is all I say, and I am done with my threatening.” He turned the knife again and returned it to its leather sheath in a motion like flinging it. “If you do leave now, come again for dinner. You will tell me how to say shit things in your language, and we will laugh.”

  “Okay.” Her legs felt weak.

  “I threaten, but Wien also threatens. She does not say so, but she does. We love young Javras. My threatening is done now for actual this time, I swear by Lords and Tyrants is truth.”

  “Okay.”

  “We are an understanding?”

  “Yes.”

  Wulfgar rose and walked down the hall the way Ediline had come, back toward Javras. Ediline opened her side satchel, drew out her thick cloak and hood, and put them on. Then she climbed down the ladder, passed through the wonderfully smelling front rooms, and left Yithin’s manor. The door guard mocked her, but she didn’t listen. She didn’t look back. She walked in the pounding ice-rain, numb and cold and aching, to Sladt, a manor where everyone treated her terribly, because here she could vanish a little while, and figure out what she was thinking, and whether or not she wanted to be thinking it.

  — Chapter 6 —

  “In the time of Attenia, there was strife, there was unrest, and there was war. There were people who suffocated and died under the blanket of their rulers, who had always been obsessed with their own power. Let their pain be written in detail here and now, for a Truist would never admit these to be facts.”

  —The foreword of The Ruin of Attenia by Veneras of Paar, 384

  It had been two days since the awkward moment on the balcony with Javras, and she hadn’t been back to see him since. She’d gone nearly out of her mind distracting herself, roving about where she was least likely to run into him, spending hours at her desk carving away at nice little chunks of wood, until finally she had to do something. That night, she fed Marv, pet him extra, grabbed her bag, and left her house. She needed advice, and there were only two people she knew that she could get it from, now that Ancil was occupied, and one of those two lived in Sladt.

  Eight ladders up, two ladders down, three doors, four ramps, and three mocking guards. That was what lay between her house and the highest point in Sladt, where her sister Isbeil lived.

  At the top, a little landing and a beautiful view over the sparkling city and the dense dark jungle beyond. Lit by the glow of the moon, the jungle canopy looked like the ocean, like crashing waves, like dense grass to a giant. At the other end, a house much taller than Ediline’s, with beautiful scrolling across the wood framing the windows and the blue-stained door.

  Ediline hesitated at the door. Isbeil was the only one of her older siblings who tolerated her, who even seemed to like her sometimes, but even in spite of those, her words were fanged, and they could hurt whether she meant them to or not. The meaning didn’t matter much at that point. She sighed. To the desolation with it. She k
nocked hard, rattling the door in its frame.

  The night had barely cooled at all. Even in her thinnest clothes, sans sleeves and cloak, she could feel the residual heat of the day coming off the wood all around her in waves. She knocked again.

  The door opened. “You know, it’s a lot more enticing—“ Isbeil bit down on her words when she saw Ediline. She shifted her tongue to one cheek and frowned. “Oh, Lords, Edi, what do you want?”

  “Did you think I was someone else?”

  Isbeil was stunning. Ediline sometimes believed that each family tree had a certain allotment of qualities to distribute amongst those who dotted its branches. When it had come to distributing the beauty of their line, Isbeil had been gifted a heaping portion. Her chestnut hair was somehow curly and wavy at the same time, luscious and shimmering; her face was symmetrical and smooth, her eyes bright brown-and-green. And tonight she was dressed in a long sheer skirt and an incredibly low-cut bodice. She would have made quite an impression on whoever it was she’d been expecting.

  “Shut it,” she said. “And go away.”

  “Please, Issy, I need your help.”

  Isbeil stretched up onto the tips of her toes and peered past Ediline’s shoulder, toward the ramp up to the house at the top of the manor. “Damn it,” she said. “If there comes another knock on the door, I’m hiding you in the closet.” She stepped back and allowed Ediline to enter.

  When the blue door closed, a dim light brightened overhead, a torowood lamp. Isbeil, being of Focus, could feel the emblem, the plant that shared her affinity, and she could cause it to glow brightly or dimly just by, well, focusing on it.

  A sprawling sofa spanned an entire wall, and a semitransparent curtain divided the sitting area from Isbeil’s bedroom, tucked just beyond. How tantalizingly close it must have seemed to the men lucky enough to get this far. To the right, a narrow stair led up to Isbeil’s observatory, where she did all manner of experiments Ediline did not understand.

  “Do you want some tea?” Isbeil said.

  “Is it a science experiment?”

  Isbeil scoffed. “You’re such a baby. I’m pouring you tea, damn it.”

  “Thank you.”

  Isbeil offered the cup to Ediline then sat on the soft, her legs tucked up and to the side. Ediline joined her. Isbeil’s posture was so feminine and effortless, coy and alluring without even trying. As subtly as possible, Ediline noted the way Isbeil carried herself and imagined mimicking those movements and gestures. She sipped her tea and was delighted to find it was sweet.

  “Talk, baby sister. You said you need help?”

  “It’s about Javras.”

  Isbeil sat up, suddenly much more interested. Her interest in men was at the same time intense and shallow. She flirted and dated frequently, but it seemed she rarely, perhaps never, had someone she was truly attached to. Had she ever been swept up in the type of intense infatuation Ediline was suffering?

  “What do you know?” Ediline tried, cautiously.

  “I know he’s about your age and devilishly charming.”

  “No, I mean what do you know about why. Our family is planning something, and I’m wrapped up in it, but no one will tell me what they’re all planning.”

  Isbeil shook her head. “I don’t know any more than you do. They picked you to entertain this young man, which I hear you’ve been doing well. Just do what they ask of you and don’t ask too many questions.”

  “Do my part, right. I’ve heard that from just about everybody.”

  “You’re enjoying being with him, right?”

  “Yes,” she said, very quickly. Then she shrank back, and Isbeil smirked a little. “I mean, yes, I am, but I don’t like lying to him.”

  “That can’t be helped, Edi.”

  “Can’t it, though?”

  “If you don’t, then Lords help you, little brat. Just keep it up and don’t ask why.”

  “Do you wish it were you instead?”

  Isbeil scoffed again. “You think I’d envy you? Please.”

  Ediline sulked. “I need your help.”

  “What’s wrong? Did he come on too strong?” She sat up. “Did he touch you?”

  “What? No, he’s been, well, perfect. I’m the one who’s an idiot.”

  She relaxed. “Note my shocked face.”

  “Very funny.”

  “If he’s been perfect, and you’re the problem, then what do you need to fix?”

  Isbeil cut right to it. Maybe anyone would have. Ediline thought she’d have to explain a little more, but this just showed how inexperienced she was with all of this. “I’m afraid I may have come on too strongly. I almost kissed him.”

  “And now you think he’s disappointed?”

  She felt her face go hot. “What? No. Why would he be?”

  Isbeil laughed. “You’ve been spending every moment courting this man for a week. Most men I’ve seen for that long would be disappointed at such little . . . progress made.”

  “Progress? It isn’t progress,” she hissed. “I’m not courting him, we’re just spending time together, and no one is making progress. It’s terrifying and I don’t know what to do.”

  “Don’t be an idiot.”

  “Issy.”

  She rolled her eyes. “What happened after you failed to kiss him?”

  “Don’t call it that!” This was a terrible idea. Isbeil was just going to tease her.

  “Well, you said it almost happened, so that sounds like you messed it up.”

  “We had a moment.”

  She sighed. She tilted her head, as though listening. Ediline stopped and listened as well. A soft patter began to sound on the rooftop. “There goes my hopes,” Isbeil said with another sigh. Then turned her attention back to Ediline. Her expression softened, and she scooted a little closer. “Tell me about the moment, really.”

  “We were on the balcony, alone.” Warmth surged through her at recalling the memory. She closed her eyes. “I sort of wrapped around him. He was opening up to me. I wanted to comfort him. He turned around, and we were . . . so close. Front to front.” A tingling sensation rippled through her, almost made her shiver.

  “That sounds like a good moment, baby sister.”

  Ediline opened her eyes. “But then I left.”

  “Why in the realm of the Lords did you do that?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Forget about Mother, forget about Father. You should go back to him, as soon as possible. Right now. Immediately. And if you like him, you should actually kiss him and tell him what you feel. If you don’t like him, and you were just weak and foolish, you should tell him that, too. Smooth it over. Because right now, he’s just stewing in it, probably worrying as much as you are, except he can’t make the next move and you can.”

  Ediline leaned back and looked her sister over. Isbeil wasn’t that much older, but she seemed wise, now. Normally she considered her sister a little combative, impulsive, and condescending. But right now she was everything the opposite. “Thanks, Issy.”

  Something slammed into the door.

  Ediline jolted up with a start.

  Isbeil jumped, hands to her chest. She readjusted her low cut blouse. “Don’t scare me like that!” she called out. Then she looked down at Ediline and whispered, “Closet, I swear to the Lords, right now. Sneak out when you can, and you’re welcome.” She pulled Ediline up, pushed her toward the wall, then ran back and picked up Ediline’s teacup. “Take this with you. Go.”

  Ediline clutched the cup and allowed herself to be herded. She wanted to sneak a look, to see who was there, but soon she was in a dark closet, and Isbeil shut the door on her. It was quiet in the dark, a little bit of Everquiet to nullify everything around her. The lack of sound was unnerving, piercing deeper than silence. Distantly, in the light of torowood lamps beyond the closet door, she heard the sound of Isbeil’s blue door opening.

  Isbeil gasped and stifled a scream.

  Ediline threw her shoulder into the door and
burst out of the closet. She whipped around. Isbeil staggered back from the open doorway. There was nothing but darkness beyond it, a pure black blanket. Dark-rain. Almost like water droplets, the motes of darkness spread and stuck together against anything they touched, stealing the light. But Isbeil wasn’t looking out at the rain. Ediline followed her sister’s gaze.

  On the surface of Isbeil’s door was a series of deep scratches.

  “Issy.” Beyond the door, a few feet of wooden walkway, and then nothing. The outline of the walkway was barely visible against the deep purple sky, flecked with tiny stars. Ediline clutched her sister’s arm.

  “Who would . . . ?” Isbeil stooped to the door, ran her fingers along the marks carved into the wood.

  “You think it was someone?” Ediline said. Even removed from it, back a few paces, the Everquiet seemed to swell from the dark-rain and threaten to swallow her words.

  “Or else what? Something?” Isbeil’s expression was a mix of fear and calculation. Her impulse was to try to figure things out, but her fear interrupted it. Ediline stared out into the dark, trying to see something; she strained to listen, trying to hear something. “Nothing is out there, Edi.”

  “Something hit your door. We both heard it, and you can see right there. That’s called proof, right? In science?”

  “Shut up.” Her voice trembled.

  “I’m going out there,” Ediline said.

  “What?”

  “Just a few steps. Just to see.” She didn’t know why. Her heart pounded, rattling her down to her fingertips. Something out there felt like it was drawing her. And she would feel safer if she had a better idea that there really wasn’t anything there.

  “Not alone.” Isbeil stood up and took Ediline’s hand. “Lords, you’re insane, but if you’re going to die, I’m going to see what killed you.”

  “Such kindness.” But, beneath the fear, it was honestly touching, and more than a little reassuring.

  With one hand gripped tightly, Ediline edged out, sliding rather than stepping. Her boots inched past the doorway, onto the wood floor protected from the dark-rain by the awning over Isbeil’s doorway. Her other hand she held straight out. The closer she got to the complete darkness, the closer the Everquiet pressed inward from every direction. A humming wall, thick but empty, loud but quiet, a tense pressure.