He stood there, stunned, unable to speak. The spell had worn off and he felt his stomach clench as he remembered what he had said to Lily.
I think you’re beautiful!
“Hey, you guys were playing a trick…” he began, but Calista interrupted him.
“Huh!” She stuck her tongue out at him, then turned and broke into a sprint toward the ranch. Within moments, she had phased into a hawk and was gliding swiftly through the air.
“Show off,” Lily said. “Oh, well, at least I won the bet.”
“I can’t believe you did that,” Milo said, trying to keep his voice from rising into a whine.
“Why? Wouldn’t you cast truth spells on people if you could? You would probably cast one on me, if you knew how.”
He crossed his arms. “And why would I do that?”
“Because,” Lily said, “girls are mysterious. All boys wish they knew what went on in our heads.”
He shrugged and looked away. “Whatever.”
“I apologize,” she said, clasping her hands behind her back and drawing a line across the grass with her big toe. “I just wanted to see if the rumors were true.”
“What rumors?”
“Well, only what Emma told me, really. That you liked me.”
“Yeah? And how does Emma know anything about who I like?”
“So you don’t like girls?”
“You’re arrogant,” Milo said, certain he would regret all of this later. But he didn’t care right now. He was just so—annoyed. “Just because I don’t like you doesn’t mean I don’t like girls.”
“So you don’t like me?”
He lifted his chin a little and narrowed his eyes. “Nope.”
Lily reached down and picked up a clump of dirt and grass. She threw it at him, catching him in the chest.
“Hey!”
“Truth spells don’t lie,” she said, turning away.
Milo could only watch in stunned silence as Lily took off running across the field. A bubble of shimmering air seemed to form around her, bending and warping the sun’s light. Then she was gone. She had cast an invisibility spell—or had it been teleportation? Why wasn’t he learning spells like that?
Milo let out an exasperated grunt and searched the ground for more stones he could throw. His face warmed with embarrassment as his own words came back to haunt him.
You’re so exotic looking! I like studying with you!
“Gods,” he said. “I am such a dork.”
Something thudded against the ground next to his right sandal. One of the stones he’d thrown earlier.
He turned, half-expecting to see Lily grinning at him. Go ahead, he wanted to say. Keep playing your tricks. You think I’m the one who likes you, but really it’s the other way around. That’s why you won’t leave me alone.
Yeah, that would get her good.
Instead, a brown-skinned boy stared back at him.
He was standing by the tree Milo had been pelting with stones. Milo backed away, tripping on the stone the boy had thrown back at him. He fell hard against the earth.
The boy looked alarmed. He said a word that sounded like “Kwee-dow!” and approached, either to help Milo or to kick him while he was down.
“Get away!”
The boy stopped and pulled back. He was a bit taller than Milo, and scrappier, like someone who did a lot of running around, an athlete maybe, and he had straight black hair that swept across his forehead and down around his ears. He wore a yellow, dirt-covered soccer jersey with the words REAL CARTAGENA printed above a soccer ball and three triangular, multicolored flags.
Milo didn’t recognize the design, but he had heard of Cartagena before. There was a Cartagena somewhere in South America and another one in Spain. The boy was clearly Hispanic—that much Milo gathered from the light brown of his skin, the thick eyelashes, and his deep brown, almost black, hair.
And the kid had a tail.
“A Feral,” Milo said in a whisper, staring at the brown, short-haired tail swinging behind the boy’s tattered shorts. His entire body and all of his clothes, down to his sneakers, were covered in dirt and twigs. There were fresh scrapes on both of his knees.
“Hello,” the boy said. “I sorry I scare you.”
Milo picked himself off the ground and slapped the dirt off his hands, his breathing becoming steadier as he relaxed. He felt ridiculous at having overreacted. From a standing position, he could see that the boy was only an inch or two taller. He was probably a year or two older, as well.
The boy watched Milo rise. He backed away a step.
“It’s okay,” Milo said. “I was just surprised. I think you’re more scared than I am.”
The boy only stared.
“What’s your name?” Milo said.
“O-Oscar,” he said, appearing to relax. “Oscar Andres Cabrero Reza.”
“Oscar, my name’s Milo. Where are you from?”
The boy pointed at the words on his shirt.
“Colombia,” he said. “From Cartagena city. Where are you from, May—Maylo?”
“Mi-lo. I’m from New Jersey. A town called Dearborn.”
The boy smiled. “Ah,” he said. “Gringo.”
Milo relaxed even more. All the tension left his body, and he began to entertain the idea that he and this boy might become friends. There was something about his frightened eagerness that put Milo at ease. Of course, he would have to tell Ascher about this meeting first.
“Oscar, you should come inside the house. You look like you could use a bath and some clean clothes.”
The boy looked past Milo at the ranch beyond the trees. “I can’t,” he said. “My father. He no trust in you people. He say that you are people who hate our people.” He reached down and gripped his tail and lifted it to show Milo what he meant. “Salvajes,” he said.
Milo shook his head. “No, not savages. Ferals. But it’s okay. We have a Feral at the ranch. Her name’s Calista. We don’t discriminate like that, trust me.”
The boy seemed suspicious of the eagerness in Milo’s voice. He was about to speak when another voice—this one deep and feminine—boomed across the field. It was Coral, shouting from an open window as usual.
“Kids, start getting ready for dinner!”
Oscar drew back in fear. “I no should be talking with you.”
“Wait,” Milo said, holding up his right hand to calm the boy. By then, Oscar had already turned away. He leaped up and grabbed a tree branch, and Milo watched in fascination as he easily pulled himself up. He vanished into the treetops with a rustle, dropping a cascade of leaves. Milo could see flashes of his yellow shirt as he skipped from one branch to the next and eventually disappeared.
CHAPTER 40
T he day was cool and windy as Emma made her way down the hill toward the barns.
She found herself taking light, springy steps. Lately she’d been dreaming about levathons gliding across the sky, and her, Emma, using her own beautiful white wings to keep up. In her dreams, the levathons were jealous of her wingspan, which was the same as her mother’s.
Gods, she wanted so badly to fly.
The barn doors opened with a creak, and the warm, earthy smells of hay and beast filled her nose and lungs.
Someone was inside. Her heart did a double pound. She almost turned and ran, until she saw that it was only Sevarin, sitting against the back wall, his head hanging in despair.
Sevarin didn’t notice her at first. He sat with his legs bent, forearms hanging over his knees. One hand gripped a blue milk jug that she suspected was not full of milk at all. She took a step toward him, then another, then a few more until she was standing before him. The smell coming from the bottle was strong and sweet.
“Sev?”
He peered up at her, and then he moved to get up.
“Wait,” she said. “Don’t go.”
He grumbled something, took a swig from the jug and belched. She crinkled her nose at him.
“Go away, Emma.”
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“You can talk to me, you know. I don’t hate you.”
“What makes you think I care? You can hate me all you want, oh winged goddess with no wings.”
She sat on the dirt floor across from him. The country smells of hay and levathon droppings, and the nectarwine on his breath, were almost overpowering. She coughed a few times and cleared her throat before speaking.
“Is this about what happened to you in Baltimore? When you were a kid?”
“Eh, what do you know?” He frowned at her and then looked away. “No one understands me here. No one cares.”
“Cares about what?”
“About anything besides their stupid books and magic spells. Life isn’t only about luminether and wings.”
“There’s magic inside you, too, though,” Emma said, wincing because the words sounded so corny. “I mean, isn’t that what gives you your strength? The luminether in your muscles and bones?”
When he looked at her again, Emma saw a wall before his eyes. This was going nowhere. And why did she care so much, anyway? Let him cry like a big baby.
He guzzled down the remaining nectarwine and threw the jug aside. It crashed into a wooden pillar and broke into pieces. Emma flinched. She tried to control her breathing so Sevarin wouldn’t see how nervous she had become. After all, he was drunk and stronger than thirty men combined. What if he tried something on her?
“You should go easy on that stuff,” she said.
“What for? Do you know how much it takes to get a Sargonaut drunk? I’d have to drink a tubful of this crap to feel anything.” He stood up and staggered, arms waving as he tried to regain his balance.
“Doesn’t take much, apparently,” Emma said.
“Ha ha.” Sevarin made for the barn doors. “Go do your homework, kid.”
Emma sprang to her feet and followed him with hasty steps.
“Grow up, Sevarin.”
He spun around and glared at her. “No, you grow up. I’m sorry about your father and your mother getting kidnapped and all, but I wasn’t the one who made it happen.”
“I know that. I never said you had anything to do with—with…”
Oh no, the tears. She couldn’t let herself cry in front of him, not again.
Sevarin crossed his arms. “With what?”
“With my pain.”
Sevarin sighed and began to walk toward her at a brisk pace. For a moment, she thought he was going to hit her.
She backed away. He grabbed her by the shoulders—hard, but not as hard as he could have done, being a Sargonaut and all—and pulled her close. She practically fell against his face. A moment later, their lips were mashing together.
It was the strangest sensation. She had never imagined her first kiss would be with a boy like Sevarin—someone with the strength to lift a car over his head, in a distant world where horses flew and magic burned from people’s hands.
And yet it wasn’t all that great. She squirmed to get away from him.
“Sevarin!”
The look on his face was one of wide-eyed confusion, like he’d just woken up from a weird dream.
“Wow,” he said.
Emma wiped her lips with the back of one hand. She slapped Sevarin’s shoulder, which felt like a block of wood.
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“You know what.”
“Hey, babe, you wanted me to do it. I could tell.”
“Get out of here, Sevarin, before I scream.”
“You wouldn’t.”
She clenched her hands into fists. Then, eyes closed, she opened her mouth and took a deep breath.
“Okay, okay, wait!”
Sevarin put his arms up to shield himself. Emma felt a little proud of herself for having made a Sargonaut afraid.
“Go away, Sevarin.”
He gave her a sideways look. “See? You don’t care at all.”
“I’ll scream.”
He lifted his hands and swished them apart in the air. “Fine.”
She watched him walk toward the barn doors. He was wearing a gray tank top, basketball shorts, and Grecian sandals that crossed all the way up his calves to his knees. He looked so American that she actually felt a stirring of nostalgia.
She almost asked him to wait, then thought better of it and crossed her arms instead. She stood that way, wanting to call out to him and feeling ashamed at the sudden emotion, until the doors closed with a slam, leaving her by herself.
The levathons looked at her above the stable doors.
“Don’t you just want to fly away sometimes?” she asked them.
They gave her puzzled stares, shook their heads, and snorted through flared nostrils. She could see their wings fluttering above the walls and felt sorry for them. It didn’t seem right to keep such beautiful winged creatures cooped up like that.
Something small and sharp fluttered into the barn. It perched atop the wall of a stall and stared down at her.
A hawk. The creature flapped its wings and dove right at her. Emma gasped and threw her arms up. There was a gust of wind as the hawk transformed into a fully clothed girl, then landed with a soft thump.
Calista, black-and-copper hair tumbling down her shoulders, rose into a standing position. Her orange eyes smoldered.
“Emma,” she said.
Emma spoke in a breathless gasp. “Calista.”
“I see you and Sevarin have gotten pretty close.”
“It’s not what you think.”
Calista slunk toward her, shoulders low, body slightly bent like she was going to jump on her. “Oh, really? So I didn’t just see the two of you smooching in the barn? Gods, what a cliché. The Acolyte and the Sargonaut. You featherbrains think you’re so hot.”
Emma frantically shook her head. “You’re prettier than I am. I’m sure he likes you more.”
“Ha!” Calista’s tail whipped around her waist, targeting Emma like a snake ready to strike. “Well, he never took me to the barn to smooch.”
“I told you. It’s not like that. I came to see the levies and he—he was just here.”
Calista crossed her arms and pouted. She turned away so Emma couldn’t see her face.
“Then what is it like?”
“What do you mean?”
“You and Sevarin. Before you showed up, he used to like me, you know.”
Emma took a step forward, but only one. Something told her it was a bad idea to get too close to a Feral in a bad mood.
“I’m sure he still likes you, Calista. He’s just—confused. Angry. Maybe he’s afraid to like anyone, including himself.”
Calista shrugged. Emma could sense the girl was on the verge of tears.
“It’s okay,” Emma said, taking another step toward her. “Everyone here is your friend.”
“What do you know?” Calista turned on her, and Emma could see the girl was not crying at all—not even close. There was a hard, angry look on her face. “You’ve barely been here a couple months. You don’t even know what it’s like. You have no idea what my people have to go through. The emperor persecutes and enslaves Ferals all over Taradyn. And on Valestaryn it’s even worse.”
“Valestaryn?”
“The land of the Ferals.” She let her arms drop to her sides. Her hands bunched into fists. “He sends in his Berserkers and low mages and burns down any villages and cities accused of housing rebels. He makes my people wear magical collars that keep us from being able to phase into animal forms. Pretty soon, he’ll start using his Towers of Light and Dusk to slaughter us all and make himself as powerful as a god.”
Emma looked down at the dirt floor, then back up at Calista’s burning eyes. “Maybe we can help?”
“Who, you and Milo? Pssht! You’re like twelve years old. How could you possibly make a difference?”
Now it was Emma’s turn to be angry. “That’s just great. With that attitude, I’m sure the emperor won’t stand a chance.”
Calista leaped at her. Emma
fell back a step, convinced the girl was going to lash out and claw her face.
“Take it back!”
Emma cowered and shielded her face. “Stop it, stop it!”
But Calista didn’t scratch or even hit her. Instead she backed away, looking around herself in a panic.
“Did you hear that?”
Emma could only stare in wide-eyed alarm. “N-no?”
“Shhh!”
Emma shut her mouth and listened. She could hear nothing except the levathons snorting and the wind tumbling outside the barn.
“It’s Milo,” Calista said. “I think he’s in trouble.”
She ran toward the barn doors. Emma followed, though she was not nearly as fast. Calista shot forward with the speed of an arrow, still in human form.
“Show-off,” Emma said.
Outside the barn, the sunlight was dimming. A few hours from now, it would be dark. Emma looked toward the forest and saw a small figure sprinting up the hill toward the ranch. It was Milo all right, running as if his life were in danger.
Emma cupped her hands around her mouth. “Milo!”
He changed course toward the barn, eyes wide.
“Emma.” He was gasping for breath. “You won’t believe what just happened. The man Coral saw, he has a son—a Feral son named Oscar!”
Calista appeared by his side. Milo saw her and almost fell back in shock.
“Whoa! Don’t scare me like that.”
“What did you see?” Calista said, scanning the field with her keen, orange eyes.
“A boy named Oscar. He’s Latin American. He’s a Feral!”
“Calm down, Milo.” Emma placed a hand on his shoulder. “What are you talking about?”
Milo explained what had happened. Calista listened, glancing now and then at the forest beyond the field.
“Oscar,” Emma said. “And he’s here with his father?”
“That’s what he said. I don’t know. He had a thick accent. We have to tell Ascher. I think he needs help.”
“An Earthborn Feral,” Calista said.
Emma and Milo spoke together. “A what?”
“A boy from Earth. He probably has no idea what’s going on. His father must have brought him here somehow.”
Savant & Feral (Digital Boxed Set): Books 1 and 2 of the Epic Luminether Fantasy Series Page 24