by Kade Cook
“No, child, not at all. All I mean is that using brute force is sometimes overrated. The key to survival is a tricky one and sometimes, most of the time, one needs to learn how to use the squishy thing between your ears as effectively as you can,” she says, tapping the side of her gray braided hair, and takes her seat again. Holding the tube gently within her fingers, she lifts it up, twisting it in the air, and watches the metal gleam against the dim particles of light in the room.
Shane’s face grows flat of expression and he glares at her as she daydreams about what is inside, knowing she is toying with him.
“Really, Maddy?” he spits out, short and sarcastic. “Open the damn thing already.”
Her face crinkles and Madorrah bats her eyes at him, showing off all her heavily disguised scars. She lets go of her trinket and waves a hand at him and his impatience. “You are just no fun at all these days.”
He lifts his brow at her. Seems to him that the little wrestling show he just had was nothing more than her having plenty of fun at his expense.
“Fine, fine, close your eyes.”
“What?”
“What do you mean what? You heard me right—I said close your eyes.”
He sighs, wondering if this is just another one of her eccentric games but does as he is asked.
Madorrah searches his face. “No peeking.”
Shaking his head at her child-like demand, he raises his hands in surrender. Eyes closed, grin and all.
Studying his promise to obey, she stands to peer closer. Satisfied with his compliance, she pulls at the leather bind hanging discreetly around her neck. From beneath her cloak, at the end of the strap, she retrieves a small round stone—or what looks like a stone.
“Remember, no peeking until I say.”
“Madorrah!” Shane growls at her.
Wrinkling her nose and flashing a toothy grin, she holds the round nugget within the palm of her hand, clasping it gently out of habit. Cleaning her face of her coyness for Shane, she lowers herself near the vessel. Pulling it in closer, she puts the worry stone upon the center of the tube. A low quick click emanates from within the device and she hurriedly tucks her stone beneath her cloak once more, away for safe keeping.
Exhaling the breath she held, she grins. “Okay, you can open your eyes now.”
Shane’s sea green eyes open to minimal crack at first then he widens them and peers down at the tube still intact and frowns, unimpressed.
“Well? That’s it?” He shoots a glare with creases deepening at the top of his nose. “It still looks the same.”
“Does it?” she taunts with another toothy grin.
She places her fingers on each end of the tube and presses inward in a slow but steady compression. The contraption clicks against the pressure and the center releases it sentry. The sides twist sequentially and fall backward against the table, abandoning the guardianship on its yield inside.
14
THE MAGIC WITHIN
“WHAT THE—” SHANE EXHALES, scraping the edges of his shadowed jawline gently with his fingernails. He grabs his injured hand, unsure of what kind of trickery she has conjured up to pull this off then succumbs to the defeat of her game and concedes. He crosses his arms and leans back a bit, but straightens his spine again—leaning in. His eyes scowl from across the table at her smug, chessy cat grin boldly displaying on her mouth. “Okay, you win. I give up.”
She continues to beam as she taps the side of her head mockingly at the young Schaeduwe she entrusts her life to. Happy with her victory, she drops her humour as quick as she held it then reaches forward to the unprotected loot. Her eyes flare as her hands touch the blackened leather satchel that had once lain within the belly of the vessel, and her hands’ steadiness fails, trembling before her.
Shane can’t help but wonder if her shaking is due to the pure joy of seeing the treasure or if it is somehow draining her of energy.
“Maddy, are you okay?” he asks, leaning toward her with eyes wide and sincere. “We don’t have to do this.”
She shoots him an evil glare over her the bridge of her nose, not turning to face him. “Yes, we do,” she snaps.
“We do?” Taken aback by her sudden seriousness, he leans away and relaxes a bit, still concerned.
“I have my orders.”
“What? Your orders?” he mumbles, not quite understanding the strangeness in her words. “You know, when I had a gift in mind I didn’t realize that you would take it so seriously.”
“Not your orders,” she huffs out, not looking at him.
His face contorts into a state of confusion, completely lost in her meaning. “Well then, who’s?”
“Just you never mind about all of that. I need to concentrate.”
Shane’s face remains unchanged, flinching with internal thoughts of who in the Realm, if not him, ordered her to make this happen. But he remains silent. Her cryptic slip has his mind whirling, wondering if there is more to this gift than he wants to know.
Madorrah grabs a turned wooden bowl from the side of the table and edges her fingers toward the satchel to dump its contents into the bowl, careful not to touch any of the stones. Her eyes latch upon the multitude of different coloured chunks of time, pressed tightly into jewels of earth magic. She slaps her boney hands with a loud crack and rubs them together briskly before shaking them out at her sides. She inhales the musty air around her and closes her eyes. Her hands lift and hover above the bowl from left to right and back again, over and over until all at once they stop.
Her eyes fly open, pupils dilated and all the colour that had been held within her cloudy irises vanishes. She smiles triumphantly and lowers her gaze down to assess what her senses have decided before reaching for a tong-shaped utility hung beside her upon a wide root protruding from the wall. Slipping it tenderly around a specked oval-shaped stone, Shane gasps at her choice.
“This is the one.”
“Are you sure?” he asks, barely able to contain his surprise.
She throws him an irritated glance that silences him. Shane had wanted to give Gabrian a gift of his devotion—one that would help her mind settle and maybe help ward away the nightmares—but he wasn’t counting on this. He hadn’t dreamed for something this precious.
Madorrah, or whatever energy that helps her choose, has chosen one of earth’s most honoured and sought-after gifts—the Azurite stone. A rare strand specially sought out and cultivated from deep within the grounds of France, its existence has sparked the winds of War by men and woman of the world who yearn to possess it for the tremendous bounty of power it wields. The power of great persuasion, of mind control, and the ability to expel its influence over a great many masses is not something that should be held without great caution.
Her eyes soften their intense oddity. She blinks a couple of times and turns to rest them upon her young friend and his disbelieving gaped mouth. She lifts her hand to push his mouth closed and pinches his chin gently.
“You are certain?” he whispers as if someone might hear his question.
She nods once, a strand of loosened grey hair slipping forward as she does, and her hands clasp over the stone. Shane’s eyes widen as a dim glow forces its way out in between the cracks in her curled fingers. Madorrah’s eyes grow heavy once more as the earth sparks within her takes over. Shane can feel the heat radiating off his crooked little friend as the metamorphosis takes place before him.
Madorrah lifts her lids slowly. The clouds that shrouded her irises clears momentarily and liberates the emerald sheen of green beneath. With a last bright flare from within her hands, the light is gone and in its absence, the clouds in her eyes return, bringing with it one more fragment of haze. Shane blinks and pinches his lids together, struggling to adjust his eyes to the dimness of the room once more. Her hands release their embrace, unveiling not one but two perfectly mirrored stones coupled in the palm of her hand.
They sit in silence for what seems like an eternity, staring intently down at her cr
eation.
“Okay, now get outta here so I can get to work. I will have them ready just before sunset.”
Shane gets up from his perch, stiff-legged but elated. He moves toward the foot of the stairs but not before he jumps across the small room and slumps down, kissing her endearingly on the cheek.
“You are truly a beauty, Madorrah.”
“Ah,” she huffs, waving a hand at him, “away with you and your wicked flirting ways before I change my mind.”
15
VISITING DISASTER
THE CLOCK IS A CONSTANT reminder today that Gabrian needs a break from pretending she is fine. Every tick, every tock, bores deeper and deeper into her skull. She tries desperately to focus on her client but all she is able to do is nod and force herself to take down the notes of their trivial, mundane lives as they talk—all the while straining to contain the burning desire to rip free every last strand of white essence dancing freely around them
The clock strikes four and the final client idles toward the exit. She digs her fingers deeply into the edge of her new teak desk, wishing they would go already. Once through the door and on the other side, she quickly jumps up and gathers her things to follow suit. She needs to get out of there, somewhere open, uncontained, and somewhere without life.
Ethan is not quite done for the day so she won’t have to worry about talking to him but she still has to get by Rachael without arousing any suspicion. She wishes herself good luck as she reaches her door.
“All done for the day?” Rachael chirps just as Gabrian steps away from the archway of her office.
Gabrian nods her head to concur with her friend’s observation.
“Do you want to go catch a bite to eat?”
“Oh, um, you know, I have a couple of urgent errands I have to run before I forget to do them again. Do you mind if I give you a rain-check?”
Gabrian can see the light in Rachael’s eyes dim as she spins her chair to the right and lifts herself up, hiding her face into the filing cabinet behind her to sift through the files in the drawer. “Fine, suit yourself,” Rachael chirps.
Gabrian senses the shift in her energy level, feeling it plunge from the rejection, but her voice reveals nothing of the sort.
“But you are going to miss out on some really excellent company, not to mention the two-for-one special on frozen margaritas at Geddy’s tonight.”
Gabrian chuckles at her friend’s unrelenting spunk, trying to smile, but it becomes strained. Echoing like a base drum, she can still hear the clock in her office ticking loudly through the back of her head and her eyes glaze over. Searing impulses and clawing of her energy lust slithers its way through her. Watching Rachael’s iridescent aura flicker and spark as she hides her hurt feelings with sass is almost unbearable to Gabrian.
“Next time, okay?” Gabrian says to her, edging her way toward the exit before the irritation becomes too intense.
Rachael turns to say, “Have a good night,” but Gabrian is already gone.
Gabrian grips the edge of her steering wheel all the way down Main Street toward Route 3, but somewhere along the way she takes a left turn onto Park Loop Rd and heads toward Thunderhole. She has dreamed of it every night for weeks, waking up in sweat-drenched blankets and so today, she gives in to her subconscious needs. She has to see it again—the barren ground where she nearly met her demise.
Cutting onto the most drivable pass, the branches of the guarding trees scrape at the sides of her car’s aging paint job, threatening to destroy what is left of it. But soon she reaches the end, too narrow for a vehicle. A clearly cut, well-maintained path leads to her point of destination, inviting her to continue on foot with her quest to the edge of the precipice through the woods.
Sliding out from the safety of her car, each step into the woods has her mind reacting with haunted memories of its environment. Shocking images jolt through her mind’s eye of what she assumes are remainders from that eventful night—echoes of voices crash through her mind, hurting her ears.
But her memories conflict with each other. One moment she sees her friend, Ayden, being charged by the Elders of the Covenant, all threatening to kill him and in the next, she sees fragments of Shane, Orroryn, Ethan, and Matthias looking terrified, trying to reason with a monster, him, to let her go.
Each moment rushes at her, causing her to waver as different bits of dialogue dig their way through her mind, disclaiming everything and deluding any measure of truth from her memories.
She slips closer to the blackened earth where she once had stood defending her friend. She wraps her arms tightly around her abdomen as the pit of her stomach lurches. She remembers the pleading look in Ayden’s eyes to help him, to save him from the real monsters that would come after her too. The heat of anger rushes through her body as she relives the feeling of hatred she held for the Covenant, for Shane, for the life that she was served—choosing to give up her own essence in order to save her friend from the Covenant of Shadows regime—convinced that her sacrifice was warranted.
Caught up in her memories, she wanders in circles and listens to the chaos in her head. The more she tries to straighten everything out and make sense of it, the more her head threatens to implode, eradicating any evidence of the mystery she is trying to unravel.
A sudden flash of light halts her pacing; a mirage of bodies encircles her, their eyes empty of free will, stolen from them by her demands. The sight of it robs her of stability, striking her with the force of its cruel measure. Gabrian stumbles forward, landing hard on her knees and drives them down into the ground beneath her. Visions of draining the light—the very anchors that connect them to their souls—ripping it away as they remain abandoned victims, consumes her. Every muscle in her body contracts as panic electrocutes Gabrian, making her spasm and tremor helplessly. Wrenching her hands free from her paralyzed state, she wills them to obey, clasping her head—wrapping it securely within her clawed fingers. Her mind screams out incomprehensive words, surfacing to combat the insufferable assault of pain pulsing through her. Dots speckle the darkness claiming her sight and she forces her lungs to inhale. With the single breath, the invasion is gone, her body and mind free as it drops her face-first onto the Earth.
Gabrian presses her fingers into the coldness of dirt, pushing against it to raise herself up. Her eyes widen at the touch of a warm hand on her shoulder. Swinging her arm behind her with conviction, she twists herself to her feet into a low fighting stance. Regaining her senses and feeling the sting of adrenaline course through her—fully fueled by fright—Gabrian is ready to fight.
“Easy, Gabrian, it’s just me.”
Her eyes press tight, trying to focus on the figure shadowed in the sunlight.
Tilting his head to the side to block out the sun and ease the strain on her vision, he reveals his identity. Her brain registers what her eyes finally focus in on and slowly she exhales a ragged breath, feeling her heart thump in her ears as it attempts to decelerate.
The sea green luster of his eyes pushes through the shadows and shoves away the pain that had encompassed her mind. She reaches out and grabs his extended hand, pulling herself up from her battle crouch. Gabrian’s lips tremble as they curve upward into a timid bend with his presence humming through her veins, settling the frayed edges of her soul. Her hands mechanically brush at her clothing in attempts to remove the layer of dirt on them.
“What are you doing here?”
Gabrian glances over her shoulder at the blackened ground then her eyes rest on Shane’s concerned expression. “I...” Gabrian stumbles with her thoughts. “I just had to see.”
Shane’s eyes soften. He knows she has been in a silent struggle since the night Adrinn kidnapped and nearly killed her. “I know it has been rough on you. It will get easier, Gabrian,” he whispers and steps forward, his body cloaking Gabrian’s twice over. Shane reaches out his arms, his fingers cupping the edges of her jaw within them. Letting the weight of his arms slip, he gently lowers them down across he
r back and coaxes her toward him.
Feeling the heat of his touch soak into her back, she lets loose the remainder of her anxiety. She doesn’t resist his embrace or affections and lets his warmth consume her for the moment.
Shane pulls her small frame close, holding it snug against his stomach, and feels the tightness in her shoulders release. He bends down and kisses the top of her cinnamon-scented hair. Pressing the muscles tight around his eyes, he tries to push away the moisture haunting the corners of his long dark lashes with the wish that he could take away her nightmares and steal her suffering.
16
THREE FOR TEA
SCRAPING THE BUTTER over her freshly popped toast, Rachael stands against the edge of the counter, slathering her fancy supper with empty calories and feeling more alone than she has in her entire life. Well at least this life, anyway. She doesn’t count the time she was born a gypsy’s child and had been lost somehow on the trail to the market to trade their gifts for food and precious stones. No, that one didn’t count.
After moving to Bar Harbor to continue her career working with Gabrian, she had insisted on having her own place. Even though Gabrian offered Rachael a room in her parents’ large country cottage, Rachael wasn’t fond of having to drive everywhere to buy something or do anything. She missed the convenience of urban life in Manhattan, but she grew fonder of the coastal charm of Maine. Just the same, she refuses to live anywhere she can’t walk to a store within five minutes of leaving her front door.
That is where she draws the line.
Having found a quaint one-bedroom apartment above Gayln’s café, Rachael sits happily within her abode just on the other side of Geddy’s—admiring her view of the harbour.
The center of her irises swirl, a wave of ice blue washing through her natural green colour as a voice enters her mind, interrupting her grand feast.
“Rachael, I have had a request by Vaeda and Orroryn. They wish for a moment to converse with you. Is this a convenient time for you?”