Ascher glared down at Sevarin, who got up with a dramatic sigh and went to the sliding doors.
“Could this day get any worse?” he said, slapping a tree branch along the way.
CHAPTER 22
T he mountain’s jagged teeth glowed in the light of the setting sun.
Ascher led them away from the ranch and down a path cut into the side of the hill. They were going toward the small pond Milo had seen before, during the carriage ride. He could already smell the water. When they arrived, both he and Emma gaped at the beauty of it.
The water was as clear as glass, and they could see the swaying plants at the bottom, and the fish that moved like streaks of color among them. Blue-white swans drifted along the surface like painted crystal figurines, now and then shaking their heads and making a strange sound—a cross between a croak and a whistle.
“Beautiful,” Emma breathed.
Their shoes clapped against the white stone path, which stretched all the way from the ranch to the pond.
“Sevarin made this path,” Ascher said. “Used his bare hands. Punishment for not coming home one night. I love that boy like my own son, but it hasn’t been easy.”
“So Sevarin was born down below,” Milo said, “like us?”
“That’s right. He’s American like you, too. Born in a city called Baltimore, in the state of Maryland.”
“I don’t like the way he treated that levathon,” Emma said, picking up a small stone and flinging it aside.
Ascher shrugged. “He had a rough childhood, practically grew up on the streets. I think he just puts up a mean face to keep people from getting close to him. Physically, though, he’s one of the strongest Sargonauts I’ve ever seen.”
They reached the edge of the pond. Ascher whistled, and the birds changed course and swam in his direction. Unlike swans, they had pointed beaks and dark blue feathers that fanned out along the backs of their necks.
“Astrican swans,” Ascher said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small bag. He took out what appeared to be fruit seeds and tossed them into the water. The seeds swelled into fluffy balls the color of bread. The swans croaked and whistled and fought over them. “Look closely,” Ascher said, “they turn invisible in water.”
Milo studied the blue creatures. The lower part of each swan was indeed invisible, no bellies or legs to be seen. One of the swans rolled over and exposed its belly and its orange, webbed feet. Its head and neck, however, disappeared in the clear water.
“Whoa.” Milo’s mouth hung open.
Ascher slipped the bag of seeds into his robe and motioned for Emma and Milo to follow him.
They went down a ways and sat on a bench facing the pond. Sevarin appeared along the path, balancing a metal tray on one finger. The tray held a teakettle, a bowl of biscuits, and a plate of tiny sandwiches. He was whistling a joyful tune and didn’t seem to be having any trouble keeping the tray balanced. Milo was again impressed by the boy’s skill, though he found himself disliking him more and more as he kept showing off.
“Here’s your stuff,” Sevarin said in a monotone, giving Ascher a look of utter boredom. “Can I go?”
“You can go clean the stables,” Ascher said. “And I don’t want you leaving the ranch again until I say so. You’re grounded, remember.”
“Pop, come on, that ain’t fair!”
“What’s not fair,” Ascher said, “is you disobeying house rules so you can go out and drink nectarwine with your friends. It’s not safe out there. You could’ve been arrested.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Is that right? What would you do faced with one of the emperor’s Berserkers? Tell him one of your jokes and hope he laughs himself to death?”
“I could take on a Berserker.”
“Maybe one,” Ascher said. “But what about five? Now get going, sonny boy. You have chores to finish.”
Sevarin flashed Milo a dangerous look and turned toward the house. Milo watched the boy sulk his way up the path, the lines of his muscles visible in the sunlight.
Great. Now he had an enemy at the ranch. And a Sargonaut, no less…
Emma put her hand on his arm. “I don’t think he’ll bother you much. Now that he knows about the fireball, he’s afraid of you.”
Milo squinted one eye in a look of distrust. “Let’s hope so. I wouldn’t want to get into a fist fight with a Sargonaut.”
He looked back at Ascher, who had the tray on his lap and was pouring tea into three cups with one hand and stuffing little triangular sandwiches into his mouth with the other.
“Ascher, you wanted to tell me something back at the ranch.” Milo gripped the metal armrest and took a deep breath. “I think I’m ready to hear it.”
Ascher opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment, a woman’s scream tore across the pond. Ascher jumped to his feet, spilling the teacups, biscuits, and sandwiches everywhere.
“It’s my wife.” He surveyed the forest. “Coral!”
A few of the swans, upon hearing the scream, lifted off the water and flew toward the trees.
“Follow me,” Ascher said and waved them along.
He had to pick up the front of his robe with both hands as he skipped past the trees—but he was fast. His sandals crunched against twigs and green spiky things resembling pinecones that sprouted thin, leaf-like wings and flapped away.
After a full minute of sprinting at top speed, Milo saw a big woman wearing a country-style dress with her hair gathered in a tight bun. She was almost as big as Ascher and had thick forearms and a pleasant, pillowy face. Her eyes, Milo saw as he came closer, were open wide with fright.
Two baskets lay overturned by her feet, the vegetables and fruits having spilled out all over the ground. She wasn’t moving. Her eyes were locked on a tree a few feet away.
“Coral,” Ascher said, gathering his wife into his arms. “Dearest, what happened?”
He kissed the woman’s face many times, and still she didn’t flinch. She stared at the tree as if it had been dancing a moment earlier.
“He was watching you,” Coral said. “From across the pond. He was so dirty and—and his clothes were ragged—and he had a boy with him. A boy with a tail.”
“Say that again. Did you say a boy with a tail?”
“A Feral,” the woman said, pointing at the foot of the tree, where a patch of ground looked more trodden than the rest. “He was dressed in rags and had a filthy face, all stained and—and he was so dark! When he heard me scream, he—he turned and ran. He took the boy with him.”
Coral blinked a few times. Then, as if waking from a dream, she looked at Milo and Emma.
“Oh my,” she said, lifting her hand to her cheek. “Are you new here? Look at you, you must be so hungry!”
CHAPTER 23
N o one spoke about the man and the Feral boy.
As the servants prepared for dinner, Coral led Emma upstairs to a bedroom she would share with a girl named Liliara Breezewater—“Lily” for short. Lily wasn’t in, but Coral explained that she was probably in the bathroom getting ready for dinner.
Her first sight of the room left Emma speechless. The walls had been painted a vibrant yellow and were covered in red and orange symbols, and pictures of suns and warriors with spears chasing big horned animals. The pictures dominated entire sections of the wall and were so intricate that they must have taken months to draw.
Three hand-woven dream catchers hung from the ceiling, two small ones and a third as big as a basketball hoop. They were made of wood and had strings that crossed in the center. Colorful feathers hung from beaded string and spun lazily in the air.
“Who did all this?” Emma said.
“Your roommate. Lily is quite the artist, in addition to being a Savant summoner. Fifteen years ago, when she was only a baby, Ascher rescued her from a massacre that killed her entire family. She was part of a North American tribe called the Sacawas, who lived on a reservation. You see, a mean old magician named Kovax
received a tip that her mother was a Savant demigoddess and sent some of his men down there to look for her. They killed everyone, including her parents. Now Lily’s all that’s left of her tribe.”
“That’s so sad,” Emma said, reaching up to stroke a feather hanging from the dream catcher.
Coral busied herself with the room, opening and shutting drawers on Emma’s side to make sure she had everything she needed.
“Her ancestor was Valcyona, which makes her a direct descendant of a mother-god. Not quite a demigoddess, but close. She’ll live to be thousands of years old just like you and your brother.”
Emma spun around, her breath catching in her throat. Coral saw the look on Emma’s face and smiled.
“A thousand years seems like a long time, but you’ll get used to it. After four or five hundred years, your senses will expand and you’ll begin to notice the smallest things. You might spend a whole day admiring a beautiful flower or three days reading a single poem. Time will stretch and years will go by like months—a pleasant way to live, so I hear. Never a dull moment.”
“I don’t believe it,” Emma said. “Milo and I will live to be a thousand years old?” She jumped and twisted in mid-air, landing with a flourish. “That’s like living forever!”
Then all at once, Emma’s joyful mood fell away. A look of pure sorrow came over her face.
“What is it, nectar?” Coral said.
Emma examined the wall drawings as she spoke. “It’s my mother. If we don’t rescue her, how many years will she have to spend with that wizard? Centuries?”
“Oh, nectar.” Coral took Emma into her arms and hugged her.
The bedroom door opened and Emma looked over to see a slender, brown-haired girl, a girl who was obviously older than Emma by a few years and whose body had already begun to take on the shape and poise of a woman’s.
“Lily,” Coral said. “This is Emma Banks.”
Lily Breezewater walked into the room, barefoot and wearing a simple sundress that looked as though it had been sewn together from multicolored fabrics. She wore bracelets of all different colors, some made of beads and others made of string and what appeared to be tiny seashells. Her hair was the color of cinnamon, and her skin looked tanned, as if she had just returned from a sunny vacation.
And her eyes! Emma was stunned by how pretty the girl was. Her eyes were deep brown with flecks of green. They were set above high, shapely cheekbones that hinted at her Native American ancestry.
“Hi there,” Lily said. She skipped across the room, her bare feet making pat pat pat sounds against the carpet. She threw her arms around Emma and giggled. “This is so exciting! I’ll teach you everything you need to know about this place and which boys to stay away from.” She cupped a hand around her mouth and whispered, “Pretty much all of them.”
Emma giggled. Coral patted both girls on the shoulders and turned toward the closet. She took out a towel, which she handed to Emma.
“Lily, darling, show Emma where she can wash up. Dinner is in thirty minutes, okay?”
Lily clasped her hands behind her back. “Yes, Mama.”
“Okay, then. You girls be quick.”
As soon as Coral was gone, Lily took Emma by the hand and led her to the other side of the room, where a wooden statue of a woman stood on the bedside table. Large, triumphant-looking wings rose from the woman’s back.
“You’re an Acolyte, right?” Lily said.
“I guess so.” Emma felt proud she could at least call herself that. “Like my mom, I hope. She has these big, white wings. They’re beautiful.” Gazing at the polished wooden statue, she realized that it looked a lot like her mother. “I wish you could meet her.”
“I’ve heard a lot about her. You know she’s famous, right?”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. She’s a legend. People sing songs about her.” Lily touched the tip of one of the statue’s wings and let out a wistful sigh. “I wish I was an Acolyte. It would be so epic to have wings and be able to fly. But I’m a Savant, which means I have to study all the time and read lots of books if I want to be able to use magic.”
“But don’t you like to read?” Emma said. “I heard Savants love to learn things.”
“It’s true. I’ve been told I possess superior intellectual capabilities that…” She covered her mouth and looked wide-eyed at Emma. “Oh no, I did it again.”
Emma tried to stifle laughter but it proved too difficult. She let out a giggle.
“I’m such a geek sometimes,” Lily said. “It’s okay. You can laugh.”
“Don’t worry,” Emma said. “My brother talks like a book sometimes, too. He’s a Savant, but I don’t think he realizes it yet. He grew up reading these really thick science-fiction books, and he would always dress up like superheroes for Halloween. It was really funny.”
Lily gave a smile of embarrassment. “I like science fiction. And comic books.”
“Don’t worry. I like cheesy romantic soap operas”—Emma smiled even wider than her new friend—“and movies with happy endings.”
“Like Disney movies?”
Emma gasped. “You watch Disney movies here?”
“We have some in the library. Illegal imports from the human realm. I’ll show you sometime. My favorite’s Beauty and the Beast. I guess that’s because I’m a summoner and my specialty is Golem Enchantment. What about you?”
“Golem Enchantment?” Emma said. “What’s that?”
Lily gave her a mischievous look.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll show you.”
CHAPTER 24
M ilo couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
After showing him his new bedroom, Ascher tossed him a towel and showed him where he could wash up before dinner. Milo had expected a bathroom with a tub and a showerhead, but the place to which Ascher took him looked more like a Roman bathhouse, complete with a high, vaulted ceiling and walls decorated with colorful frescoes. The air was moist and warm, thick with the smell of water, like an underground cave. The floor was decorated with mosaics, little chips of stone pressed into the concrete to form complex patterns and designs. Light streamed in from the windows, illuminating bodies of mist. At the center of the enormous room, surrounded by marble pillars, was a pool of crystal blue water.
“There are separate girls’ and boys’ bathrooms upstairs,” Ascher explained, “but you take turns using the bathhouse. Unless under Coral’s or my supervision, there will be no swimming together in this room, understood? Boys have their own hours, and girls have theirs. Bathing in the morning switches so you can take turns sleeping in.”
Milo nodded, still taking in the incredible sight of all that crystal-clear water.
“We had one bad apple who used to invite his girlfriends in here at night. Now I keep the place locked after seven.”
“Let me guess,” Milo said. “Sevarin.”
Ascher chuckled. “You’re going to fit right in.”
He left Milo to wash up alone, and once the jolly bearded man had left the room, Milo took full advantage of the moment. He took off his shirt and pants but left his underwear on in case another orphan walked in, and then he ran, jumped, and tucked himself into a cannonball as he sailed through the air. He crashed into the hot water, and a few seconds later, his entire body was sparkling clean.
Drifting on his back, he looked up at the skylights and beyond to thin wisps of cloud drifting over the ranch. He felt like a cloud himself, floating on the surface of this magical pool with his hands joined behind his head. He had never felt so relaxed.
Then he heard it. A scraping sound like a footstep. He was being watched.
He spun his head around to see who was there. At the last second, he caught sight of something small and black dart behind one of the pillars.
Milo climbed out of the pool, then walked around, bare feet slapping the tiles, and checked behind the pillars. The room was bigger than he had thought, and the air was thick with mist. He could get lost
in here if he wasn’t careful.
Then he saw it. The cat studied him for a moment, and then darted away. He followed it. Something about the creature made him extremely curious. It had shied away from him the way a person would, tilting its head downward while glaring at him with its weirdly shaped orange eyes.
“Here, kitty,” he said. He didn’t like the way it sounded. What if it was a male cat? Would it appreciate him using a feminine word like “kitty”?
“It’s just a cat,” he told himself, turning toward the pile of his clothes on the floor. “What’s the big deal?”
He stopped. The cat was sitting a few feet away, its narrow shoulders up by its triangular face. The eyes were large, disproportionately so, and there was something strikingly human and feminine about them.
A dangling white thing swung from the cat’s mouth. One of Milo’s socks.
“Okay,” he said. “Hand it over.”
He walked along the edge of the pool toward the cat. The creature backed away, lowering its head as if to pounce. It let out a soft purr.
“Come on,” Milo said. “I’ll be late for dinner.”
He got down on his hands and knees and crawled toward the cat, realizing as he was doing so that this was all just a game. The cat shied away from him just enough to make him think he had a chance of reaching it.
He stopped and waited. The cat turned in a circle with the sock hanging from its mouth. It turned again, and when it had its back to him, Milo reached out and grabbed its tail.
The cat let out a shriek and slashed Milo’s wrist, leaving three bleeding marks on his skin.
“Ow!”
He fell back on his butt. The cat dropped the sock and lunged at him, claws first. Teeth flashed in its open mouth. Milo made a swiping motion and caught the cat’s body with his right forearm. It let out an angry whow! and landed in the pool with a splash.
“Uh oh,” Milo said. He had heard many times in his life that cats hated getting wet.
Savant & Feral (Digital Boxed Set): Books 1 and 2 of the Epic Luminether Fantasy Series Page 15