“Hope that breaks,” I tell him.
“Ouch,” he says, taking a block of chocolate from his pocket.
I lunge, reach out, and wrap my fingers around the chocolate. He tries to pull it free, leans back, loses his balance, and falls in a mess of flailing arms. He hits the ground with an oomph that sends the nearest horse skittering away. But he loses all grip on the chocolate.
As tempting as it is to eat, this is my weapon, and I hurl it as hard as I can at Pax’s back. Hitting him between the shoulder blades.
He turns sharply, anger flashing across his face.
“Wasn’t me,” Seth says, slowly picking himself up off the ground.
We both ignore him.
“We’re safe now,” I say, hoping to see understanding in Pax’s gaze.
He remains still.
“I deserve answers,” I press, annoyed at the quiver of desperation in my tone.
Yes – I’m desperate. No – I don’t want them to know that.
“Liars don’t get answers,” Pax growls.
I’m halfway through the railings when Killian says, “Stop her.”
Seth wraps an arm around my waist and lifts my feet off the ground. I push forward, trying to get to Pax, but he puts one hand on the top of the fence, then jumps over the thing! One movement, taking me with him.
I scream.
“Easy, Vexy,” he says, putting my feet on the ground.
“Tell her,” Killian says – suggests, really – then he walks away, taking his weapon and his wood with him.
Off into the trees, like going for a stroll was always on his agenda for this evening.
Pax slams the brush down on the fence post and hops over the thing. Just like that. One jump, with his hand on the railing, no run-up needed. How do they do that?
I swallow and try not to show my shock. These guys are so gentle, so restrained around me, and I’m just no match for the things they can do. Without effort. Without practice.
The churning sensation in my chest has a few possible labels. Jealousy is definitely one of them. Envy. Inadequacy. Longing. Disappointment.
“We’ll tell you what we know,” Pax says. “But you can’t go running off with this information and some half-cocked plans of your own.”
“Since when have I ever done that?”
Seth raises an eyebrow at me, relaxing his grip for a second – then, seeing I’m not about to try and attack his brother, he lets go of me.
“When?” I demand.
“You traded shirts with a servant and thought it would be a fantastic idea to kneel before Lithael,” Seth says.
Moments before Lithael sucked the life out of the other two servants in the room.
I swallow hard.
“Right, I promise not to do that again.”
It wasn’t exactly intentional the first time.
Seth shakes his head, like he doesn’t believe me, then moves to collect his chocolate bar from the dirt. He dusts it off on his pants before slipping back through the fence.
I wave the note in the air.
“I won’t use this information to do anything – except stay alive.”
Roarke waits for Pax’s nod before holding his hand out to me. I give him the paper.
“Wait,” I say, just before letting it go. “You’re not going to rip it up, are you?”
His brow creases. “Why would I?”
Right, this is Roarke. The guy who squealed like a child when I tried to tear a picture of the Origin Spring from his book.
“No reason,” I say, letting him take the note.
He reaches up, grabs my wrist, and yanks me down to the ground.
Okay, I’m sitting.
Then he unfolds the paper and points to the writing about halfway down the page.
“Let your reflection go hazy in clear waters, and see instead through a gray lens,” he reads. “Mother wrote that on a slip of paper and stowed it in my bag the day we were branded with the Return Seal and ordered to the White Castle.”
He passes the note over to Seth.
“Wait until your grief has passed then – Seek the remnant beyond the border. Speak to a man named Martin, but believe the word of a bird. She sent a courier to deliver this message to me. He was ordered to ride the long way around. It took the message three weeks to arrive – two weeks and six days after she died.”
He passes the note across to Pax. For a moment I’m not sure the guy is going to accept it. His expression is pinched with uncertainty. His jaw held tight like he’s trying to fight back what he really wants to say.
“Whether you like it or not, we have to do this,” Roarke says softly.
Pax doesn’t bother to take the piece of paper. “In Silvari glass is a blade that can pass, a soul that can kneel, and a world that can heal. This is not a battle that can be won. Before this time can pass, the mortal soul from its beginnings cannot last. There is no way a soul can rule and live.” Pax’s voice is soft, gentle, and reverent of the words.
Of the person who first spoke them to him.
“We,” Roarke begins. He clears his throat and tries again. “We thought that maybe the thing we were collecting from Martin was a weapon or a tool. Something that could safely release the souls in the glass vials around Lithael’s neck. The minute we attack, he’ll release souls. Silvari – even those without Seeds – don’t whisper quietly, becoming ghosts if they get lost on the way to the Aeons. We become balls of energy, volatile and angry. If he breaks even one jar… we are as good as killing half this realm. We can’t make our move against him until we have a way of forcing those souls through the veil.”
“But what you found at Martin’s was just a statue of a knightsing. Are knightsings weapons?”
“And you,” Pax says softly.
“No, knightsings are not weapons, Kitten. The birds are extinct, and the statue was just a poorly-crafted wooden impression.”
“What were they like? Maybe it’s a clue?”
“They were,” Roarke hesitates, rubbing his mustache-beard combo as he thinks. “Like the phoenixes from your stories, but their wings were made from glass, and they could manipulate their size. From something as small as a bee to something as large as a dragon.”
I smile at the idea, though I’m not sure why. I’ve never been much for stories and fantasies, but the image that paints its way through my mind leaves a warm feeling in my chest.
“Why the riddles? Why didn’t your mother just give you a checklist? Lists are so much easier to follow.”
“She was a ProphecySeed. They see a thousand different possible outcomes in uncontrollable flashes. The words they choose to describe them have to accommodate variables and allow for multiple futures to unfold,” Roarke explains.
“We don’t know if we were supposed to find you or not. We don’t know if there was another option. If we’d arrived ten years earlier, you would have been a child and not sitting on top of a post,” Seth says.
“I still would have been up there,” I mumble, not expecting Pax to tense in response.
“Or,” Seth says loudly. “If our grief had dragged on for another fifty years, you probably wouldn’t have been alive.”
Which does nothing to calm Pax. He crosses to me, crouching down and balancing on the balls of his feet to look me in the eye. My world narrows. Just me, a hand span of air, and then him. His chin is a little stubbly, his hair a little mussed, and his full attention is on me.
“You might not be the key to all of this. Mother left Jada a note to deliver to whoever was in our presence at the time. In an alternate future, that could have been a servant or one of Roarke’s lovers. Your existence could still just be a mistake created by Chaos,” he says, stabbing his thumb toward Seth.
“Ouch,” the guy says, patting his chest to emphasize his emotional pain. “Not for me, for her. Way to make a girl feel like shit, brother.”
I swallow hard. “What he said.”
Pax shakes his head, looking down at the gras
s between us.
“I don’t want you to be here.”
“That was actually worse,” Seth says.
Pax turns sharply to face the guy, a wolf-ish growl escaping. Seth throws his hands up in submission, and after a beat Pax turns back to me, canines lowered and a slight glow to his eyes.
“Before this time can pass, the mortal soul from its beginnings cannot last,” he says slowly, the words partly a growl as his lips try to move around teeth made for a much bigger jaw.
I swallow, finally understanding the root of his fear, and scramble for the next thing to say before I do something stupid – like pat Pax’s face.
Why is that even an option right now?
“What about Killian?” I ask. “What did your mother leave him?”
Pax shakes his head. He doesn’t know. But I do – The one thing to fight a grimm is something that’s finally dead.
Putting all of these clues together as many ways as my soot-servant brain can muster still brings me to one conclusion. Lithael is a bastard that needs to die – and making that happen means I will die.
“Maybe that mortality part means Lithael will die?” I say.
“He’s immortal. If that were the case, then it would say, ‘Before this time can pass, the immortal soul from its beginnings cannot last’,” Roarke says.
“So, your mother left out two letters.”
“Two very important letters, Kitten.”
“But Lithael can die?”
They all nod. “We can recover from a lot, but we’re not completely out of death’s reach. Both Lithael’s father, Lucif, and Lithael’s son, Kuornos, are dead.”
“How did they die, then?”
“Lithael ran his son through,” Roarke says, “Killian saw him do it. And Lucif died somewhere in the battle. So many bodies were burned, the whole wing of the castle turned to ash, and we can’t exactly have a sit-down with Lithael and get the facts.”
“But if souls go through the Veil, and Lithael can already do that, doesn’t that mean DeathSeeds don’t truly die?”
Roarke actually laughs at me, and I feel like an idiot.
“On this side of the Veil, he would be nothing but a silver ball of energy. Hence the name Silvari.”
My mouth opens wide in a big ‘o’ as the answer to a question I didn’t even know I had clicks into place.
“On the other side, he would have a corporeal form,” Roarke says, looking at Pax and not me. The AlphaSeed gives him a sharp nod before Roarke continues. “People on the other side of the Veil look like people, but spirits look like the shadows of their former forms. Not many people can exist over there and not turn into decaying corpses themselves.”
“Only those that belong,” Pax growls.
“Well, a DeathSeed sounds like he belongs.”
Pax shakes his head sharply, his skin a little blanched – or the light playing tricks on my mind. “Those like the Queen. Those destined to rule,” he growls.
“But a ruler needs to be living, which Lucif is not anymore,” Roarke argues. “So even if his soul is still inside the Veil, it would be corporeal and tortured, and likely unable to recognize his own name.”
“It’s been seventy-seven years, so he isn’t even corporeal anymore. They would have sucked the energy from his soul by now,” Pax interrupts.
“So your mother’s messages have nothing to do with him?”
“We didn’t know that all of these individual messages were supposed to form the one prophecy,” Roarke says, but neither Pax nor I avert our gazes from each other. “We were hoping that Seth’s and Pax’s would complement each other and provide us with a weapon. Not only are we still missing a weapon, but we have gained more riddles.”
“Because I heard what the Origin Spring said to the tallest forest tree – the key will be in the last of me.” I pull the words from my memory. “I’m not the last soot-servant, but you four are all the last of your lineages.”
“And the attacks happening have all involved Seeds which should have been extinct, or very close to.”
Roarke keeps talking, but I still can’t pull my gaze from Pax. His canines retreat, and the intense glow in his eyes slowly dims. I swear if he doesn’t give me some space, I’m going to tackle him to the ground and kiss the bralls out of him.
“This bandit was the last ShatterSeed that we know of, and he was supposed to be locked away in Tanakan Prison. Gartil was a TremorSeed – also a last of. They would have been in the glass wing.”
I gulp, repressing my desires long enough to twist my head and look at Roarke. “How?”
“The prison guards let them out. Gave them one order, and then said they were free after that. Orders which could only have originated with the Crown.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
“The same way Allure knows anything,” Pax says, getting up and walking away.
“Explains why our chocolate bandit was hunted down. Clearly he didn’t fulfill his end of the bargain,” Seth says.
“Chocolate bandit?” I ask, but my attention is mostly on Pax.
Pacing.
Making me nervous again.
Seth points down at the wrapper in his hands. Okay, makes sense.
Dream job, chocolate bandit. Just minus the Crown having you on his hit list. Which we seem to have anyway – but at least this bandit had something good to eat.
“Is that how you were wounded? Asking all these questions?” I ask Roarke.
“Trying to question them as the inn burnt to the ground – yes. The ShimmerSeed took me by surprise,” he says. Then, seeing my look of confusion he adds, “They move through shimmers of light and can remain invisible to the naked eye for long periods of time. I had two Blaise sisters under control, but the Shimmer came out of nowhere.”
“Are Shimmers extinct?” I ask.
“No. But he’s dead now. And so are those two BlaiseSeeds.”
“How many Sabers were there?” I ask.
But no one can answer me. There was too much going on. No one can say for sure who was there. But we know who got away – Daryan and Sromma.
Daryan, whose teeth were sharpened and who brought Pax to his knees with one word. And Sromma, whose skin was pale white and whose shirt was bright crimson.
“How did he control you?” I ask.
Which is a bit off-topic, and gets stunned silence from them all.
I meet Pax’s gaze – he knows what I’m talking about. “It’s complicated,” is all he says.
“Can he do it again?” I demand.
“I’m working on it.”
Dread fills me, right down to my core.
“How many bad guys were in Tanakan?” I ask.
“A lot,” Pax snaps, not stopping in his pacing.
“How many like Daryan?”
“None. He’ll be the last one. But there are other things,” Roarke says.
Pax growls, punching the fence post next to him and breaking the damn railing. The two broken halves fall loose, making the horses dance into the far corner.
Yep – scary shit resides in Tanakan.
I don’t even want to paint that picture.
The one thing to fight a grimm is something that’s finally dead, I think through the words that Killian has forbidden me to say before opening my mouth to recite the rest.
“Wait until your grief has passed then – Seek the remnant beyond the border. Speak to a man named Martin but believe the word of a bird.
Let your reflection go hazy in clear waters and see instead through a gray lens.
In Silvari glass is a blade that can pass, a soul that can kneel, and a world that can heal. This is not a battle that can be won.
Before this time can pass, the mortal soul from its beginnings cannot last. There is no way a soul can rule and live.
Because I heard what the Origin Spring said to the tallest forest tree – the key will be in the last of me.”
“I thought you couldn’t read?” Roarke asks.
�
��I can’t. Killian read it for me.”
“Then what was the point of Mother giving you the message if you couldn’t read it?” Seth asks.
I ignore him. How was his mother supposed to know I wouldn’t be taught to read? “Did anyone know the last few lines, before today? Because I heard what the Origin Spring said to the tallest forest tree – the key will be in the last of me.”
They all shake their heads.
“So, that was the point of the note. To turn your fractured messages into something whole, and give you the final lines. Maybe my being here was just a timing thing. Like the last cog turning into place in a clock, allowing the hour chimes to ring out. If I wasn’t at the castle, you would never have gone into that tournament. That got Lithael super mad, and was the trigger for Jada turning up and the assignment that got us all out of there. Maybe my role in all of this is already done?”
None of them look convinced, but I refuse to entertain the idea that their dead mother has locked in my funeral date. Trying to survive is a daily activity, but a determination hums through me as her words echo in my mind. I’m not going to die.
None of them say anything.
“What about Logan? Is he, or Thom, or Asanta, after us too?”
“I doubt they’ve left the White Castle. Kyra, however, is a mystery. She’s up to something, and I’m not even sure it has anything to do with Sabers, or Logan, or even the castles,” Seth says.
“She’s probably run away, like a spoiled rich kid with daddy issues,” Roarke says.
Which Seth snorts at. “Says the spoiled rich kid.”
I roll my eyes at them, moving the conversation right along. “Fine, what’s next on our plan? Find the Potion Master and get rid of this bubble?”
Pax shakes his head. “We need to get to the bottom of the Tanakan escapes. We can’t risk assassins following us to the Potion Master, and we can’t bury ourselves in research and experiments when people are dying.”
Of course we can’t.
“We could split up,” Roarke suggests. “Shade and I ride for the Potion Master’s, and…” he trails off, taking Pax’s long, slow, head shakes as a ‘no’.
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