“You've made it pretty clear you can’t stand me. So no, I won’t. I’m going home.”
Except the tears nudge in my gut. Even though I want to, I can’t abandon them. I don’t understand it, but they need me. And Ren; I can’t abandon him either.
Talon fiddles with his aud, and again I debate calling my parents to let them know I’m okay. But I won’t be able to explain why I need to stay. So I can get a jar of tears? My dad is always the one saying how dangerous tears are and what a risk it is to drink them. He won’t understand. Better to let him think the Arcs have me.
Talon drags a palm over his neck. “I’ll teach you to fight,” he says. It sounds like a question.
“Are you going to be nice to me?”
“I…well, that’s…”
“Just say sorry, Talon. It’s not that hard.”
Huge pause.
“It is for me,” he says.
I don’t force the issue. It seems as if we’ve reached some sort of truce, though my eyes skid to Paul’s house across the street. Betrayal sinks in clear to my gut. I can’t believe Paul turned me in without a second thought.
Makes me wonder what my parents will think once they find out I’m a wanted criminal.
I glance at Talon, at the worry riding on his brow, and a surge of pity streams through me. They must be really important to him for him to take them this seriously. I find myself gravitating toward him, and not only because of the way moonlight plays on his features. I don’t know that much about him. And I’d like to.
“What now?” I ask. “Are you going to tell me what that was about? How Tyrus knows you, or maybe why he wants the tears at all? And about that, Talon. Why do you want the tears? What’s the big deal? I mean—”
“What matters right now is we’re going to get them back,” he says, answering me without really answering me. He goes into the house and returns, carrying his pack. Without a word, he descends the porch steps. Any remaining pity I had for him withers away.
“Just like that?” I say. “You’ve got some nerve. You were such an axrat to me just now, and yet you expect me to bow to your wishes?”
Talon blinks several times, then saunters back and stands toe-to-toe with me on the porch. His intense eyes hold mine. All traces of his annoyance vanish. I can feel the heat of his body, and my flesh pulls and tightens with awareness.
“I’m truly sorry for being so rude. I thought I lost something very important to me. Will you please help me get the tears back?”
My breath quickens. Who knew he’s capable of such civility? “You’ll teach me to fight?”
His mouth breaks its usual concrete expression and lifts on one side, hinting at a dimple in his cheek and sending warm tingles into my belly. I guess that’s a yes.
It’s a constant headache. The tears call my name even in my sleep. And it’s something I can’t become desensitized to, either. I need to get them back so I can find some peace. Though Talon drives, I point the way. We stop and pick up a few clothes, along with a small, over-the-shoulder pack for me to cart them in. Talon carries the rest of our basic necessities in his backpack.
We pull into the woody outskirts of the Ramald Forest. We haven’t seen a town for miles, or a paved road for that matter. Clusters of wildflowers bunch here and there along the open grassland near the thin line of towering trees. Talon hasn’t been much for conversation, but he shuts off the ignition and begins talking.
“From what you’ve been saying, I think they’re taking the tears to Valadir.” Where I say Vala-deer, he pronounces it Vala-deah. Valadir is not only Itharia’s capital, but the center of the Arcaians’ domain.
“But we can’t plunge in there with you the way you are,” he says, getting out of the vehicle.
That’s a random thing to say. “What does that mean? What are we doing here?”
The sky spreads above us, wide and pale blue, whisked with the occasional cloud. I sip the clean air, drinking it in. The ground begins to incline, trees clumping thicker the farther and higher up we ascend.
“You’re going to get your wish,” he says, adjusting his pack onto his back. “I’m going to teach you how to fight.”
I bounce inside, and a smile beams across my cheeks. We’re after tears, yes, but I’m determined to rescue my brother while we’re at it. Fighting the way Talon can is my only chance.
The tears poke at me, and in an instant the feeling deflates. “Do we have time for that? Tyrus could drink the tears any minute, and it’d be all for nothing anyway.”
“He won’t drink these,” Talon says, hiking deeper away from the vehicle and into the pines.
“How do you know?” I push through the trees to keep up with him. I wonder if the tears will let him drink them, or if they’ll burn him if he tries, like they did to me. My feet crunch, and I dodge branches. The ground continues to incline. My breath can’t keep up.
Talon raises an eyebrow. “Are they still calling to you?”
I rub the base of my skull. “I’m surprised you can’t hear the dull thrum in my cranium.”
“Then my guess is they haven’t been drunk. And they probably won’t be. For a while, anyway. Tyrus will want to put on a show for something like that. He’ll want to make sure to get as big an audience as he can.”
“I still don’t get it,” I say, gasping and panting. My thighs ache. “Tears get sold all the time at Black Vault, don’t they? Why not just find some different ones and leave mine alone?”
“Those aren’t just any tears.”
We reach the top of the incline, and the trees spread further apart. I hunch over, heaving breaths and cringing at the spasms of heat spearing along my out-of-shape legs.
Talon drops his pack beside a tree. “How advanced is your magic?” he asks.
I’m still out of breath from our hike, but I stiffen, immediately defensive. Does he know? I almost let it slip that one time, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never mentioned my lack to him.
“I thought you were going to teach me how to fight,” I say, warding him off.
“Magic is fundamental. Basic. It’s at the center of everything.”
I press my palms into my lower back and bend backwards, giving my face a sunbath. “So in order to learn how to fight, I have to know magic?”
Talon nods and begins pacing. His feet crunch over the occasional fallen twig.
My breathing slows enough for me to speak normally. “Look, Talon—” Here goes. “I sort of…don’t…have any.”
“What?” He stops and stares directly at me, piercing me with those green eyes.
“I don’t. I know everyone is supposed to be born with it, but I must have missed the Itharian genetic code or something.”
“Didn’t your parents teach you?” he asks, sounding confused.
“They tried! But nothing ever happened. I must be the only person alive born without some kind of magic.”
“I can’t believe you never told me.” His voice is tender and kind for the first time. It catches me so off-guard that I just stare at him. I half expect him to get annoyed and angry at me again.
The tears peck at the nape of my neck. They haven’t moved from the southwest direction for nearly one whole day.
A small burning barbs the corner of my eyes. “So you can’t teach me, then. I knew it.”
“I didn’t say that.” His sympathy is gone, and I’m glad. He stands directly opposite me.
“Lesson one. Seeing.”
“Seeing? What does that mean, I can already—aah!”
That instant my eyes blacken as if a screen has been placed over them. I raise my hands, startled. “What the…Talon?”
It’s dark. Too dark. My chest rises and falls, and hysteria builds slowly, filling me with panic. Sounds smack my ears from every side. I’m more aware of the beating of my heart, the air coming from my nostrils, the giggling trickle of water in the near distance. Wind whispers to the leaves, and they rustle in response. Birds chirrup to join the conversation.
Each and every one of my senses are heightened because I’m no longer relying on sight. But I don’t like it. This is too much like before. In that dungeon four years ago, in the dark, watching the other kids Torrent while I got left behind.
“Calm down.” I hone into his voice, never realizing before just how low it is. Deep and controlled. Velvety smooth. Talon. “I’ve blinded your eyes.”
“You what?”
“Don’t worry, it’s not permanent,” his voice soothes. “Your hearing will be next, but you’ll still be able to hear my voice. All right?”
No, it’s not all right! What in the world does this have to do with teaching me to fight? To use magic?
“Give it back, Talon. I don’t like this.” My voice wobbles. I feel vulnerable knowing that I see nothing, but everything else sees me. “Talon? Talon?”
The sound of my shriek cuts off as my ears mute. Completely unnerved, I can’t hear the small sounds that moments before I took for granted. The swishing of leaves as the wind brushes its invisible fingers across them. Talon moving or breathing, everything is gone. Smells are more distinct now, sprays of pine flecking off the nearby tree needles, raw dirt. A tiny hint of sweat. My skin soaks up the clean, unpolluted air.
“Talon.” I say his name again, but hear nothing. The panic reignites in my chest. I feel trapped, on display in a way I can’t control.
“Ambry,” comes his voice, deep and unnatural in the complete, black silence that’s suddenly become my world. I turn, trying to see him—a foolish, natural reaction, as if I can gain sight or hearing again by moving.
“Don’t move, Ambry. Find me.”
Without moving?
Loss plummets down to my stomach, cold and thick like an avalanche. “How?” I ask, though I don’t hear myself say it. How he can expect something so outrageous of me?
“Your parents taught you a little about your magic, didn’t they?”
“They tried,” is my tentative response.
“Then do it! You have to know how to see something, even if your vision is covered.”
“I already told you. I can’t!”
Something strikes my face. My head jerks, my cheek stings. I’m not sure, but I think he just slapped me. It wasn’t hard, but it doesn’t resonate well with the thrumming from my tears.
“Did you just hit me?”
“You needed to focus. You wanted to train with me. This is how I do it.”
“You don’t hit someone to get them to focus!”
“Try, Ambry,” his plush voice says, calm and encouraging. Nice to know his tone can contradict his hands.
My cheek still throbs, as do my eyes. Fine. I’ll try. But it won’t work.
“Learn to see, even when you can’t.”
“You mean to sense where you are?” I still don’t get it.
“No!” he snaps. Temper, temper. “See me.”
I tap my fingers against my thighs, growing more annoyed by the minute. What he’s asking is impossible, even if I did have magic. I know he’s watching me stand around like a muted futz. I feel almost naked because all of my resources have been stripped from me.
“Come on,” he says, sounding impatient. “You’re wasting time.”
“Demanding it like that doesn’t help.”
I breathe in long and slow, trying to focus, to relax. An exercise I usually do once a month or so. As usual, nothing happens.
“Open your mind. Keep trying.”
My muscles loosen. I hear my mother’s voice in my head, her daily attempts to help my magic Torrent. Deep breaths. The deeper you breathe, the deeper you’ll feel it, followed by my father’s less patient demands like, Stop fooling around and just pull it forward. Like it’s a piece of candy I can dig out of a jar at will.
I hear Ren’s insistence that mine must be that much stronger than everyone else’s because it’s harder to find; my teacher’s assertions that I must not be trying hard enough; my friends’ prattle about how they found theirs, how it bubbled up like it was always there.
It’s like everyone has a secret, and I’m the only one who doesn’t know it.
I shake my head to clear it. He’s just trying to help, I tell myself. Talon’s blind method is different from everything anyone else has ever tried. Maybe it will happen this time.
I focus harder than I ever have before, my mind straining like it’s trying to uncoil and dislodge the magic itself. I picture my brain growing hands, traveling through my body and digging its way to my bone like a Xian claw. But the harder I try, the thicker and more stubborn my bones get.
I’m more aware of myself than ever in this silent aloneness. I do the familiar breathing. Relaxing. Waiting for it. Except I don’t know what I’m waiting for. All I feel is the usual vapor, as if someone has their mouth on the end of my bones and they’re blowing into them like straws.
“It’s not working, Talon,” I say finally.
Sound hits my ears. My natural eyesight returns as well. It’s like resurfacing from deep water and breathing air for the first time.
He’s sitting on the ground in a relaxed position. My hips and feet ache—how long was I searching for my magic? The sun is lower in the sky. Must have been hours.
That’s longer than I’ve ever tried at one time before. And I still failed.
I failed.
Again.
I just want to curl up on the ground and pout. It’s one thing to flop in front of teachers and parents, but doing it now in front of a boy I barely know? Especially one who looks like Talon?
“It’s been dormant for sixteen years,” he says, pulling his knees to his chest. His hands hang over his legs. “You can’t expect it to come all at once. I knew it wouldn’t.”
“That makes me feel better.” I sink to the ground. My feet throb, and the dirt is rough on my palms. I should have known he didn’t think I could do it. He shouldn’t even bother to help me.
“It’s true. Something like this is bound to take months of practice. Years maybe.”
Years. As if waiting sixteen hasn’t been enough. My muscles are goo, supple and gross all over, like my body has turned to grease. Ugh, what is wrong with me?
“Why bother? It’s clear I don’t have any. I may as well stop—”
“Shh,” Talon says, holding up a finger. His brow creases, and he slants his head to the side.
Silver streaks shoot out through the nearby branches, and voices mutter as sounds clang, like pots being banged together. Talon gets to his feet and moves without a sound to a gathering of bushes nearby.
I tiptoe to his side, but my feet aren’t as light, and twigs crack beneath my weight. I wince, steady myself against a low branch, and peer around him. To my surprise, about a dozen boys no older than Talon and I are huddle around a clump of khaki-colored packs like Talon’s. A few others look to be about my father’s age, with several men falling in between. Each of them is wearing a battered white shirt covered in dirt and blood stains, and the familiar Arcaian brown cargo pants.
Talon and I exchange a questioning look.
“They could never hold me for long,” says one teenaged boy. He’s tall and beefy, but not muscular, his white-blond hair buzzed short. “Not when I got top marks in my Procedures class.” As if to prove his point, he directs his arm toward one of the youngest boys and sizzles out a streak of magic at the boy’s backside.
“Yeow!” says the boy.
One of the older men shoves Top Marks, who stumbles back but catches himself. He rolls his shoulder and gives the man a pudgy glare.
The man has a shaved head like the others, and a magitat of a snake climbing out of the collar of his shirt and up the side of his face. “War isn’t a test in school, Grisly,” he says. “And this is no dream—not like the one you just had. You’re lucky we got away at all. They might have taken our magic by now if we hadn’t.”
“Tyrus could never take mine,” says Grisly, sticking out his chin so his face looks thinner. “I’m telling you—tha
t dream was real. It made me feel things. It made me feel stronger. I am stronger!”
Talon scoffs under his breath like he’s trying not to laugh.
This isn’t a joke for me though. Deserters. They have to be.
When I swallow, I swallow everything: realization, air, panic, relief. All in one huge gulp. I duck under Talon’s arm and push through the prickly branches, making a racket like I’m shaking a plastic grocery bag. Talon’s hand on my wrist jerks me back.
“What are you doing?” he whispers.
“Let me go,” I demand quietly, but his grip remains firm. His eyes widen as if he’s trying to shoot fire with them.
“Who’s over there?” one of the boys calls.
Talon groans. “Now you’ve done it.”
“These guys are harmless,” I mutter, though I don’t know how true it is. One of them must have had a dream, been fueled by the emotion from it, and gotten others to escape with him.
I won’t stay back there and pretend I don’t see them. If they were just taken in a raid, they may have bumped into Ren. Or maybe Ren is there with them. They might know something. They might have seen him.
Excitement shatters inside of me more and more by the second. I push into the open space and the glaring sunlight. The guys all stop when they see me. A few of them pull daggers from their belts.
“Who are you?” Grisly asks. Snake Tattoo and a few others look around and exchange glances, though the rest of them have the same expressionless faces as the rest of my countrymen.
“We’re only hiking,” says another boy, his voice weary with guilt. A few others nod, but most look around with pale faces and sweat beading at their temples.
“Ren Csille,” I say, heart smacking. I clear my throat and force my voice louder. “Has anyone—is Ren with you?”
Grisly sticks out his chest and tilts his neck, like he’s about to spout off another cocky remark, but Snake Tattoo steps forward.
“Too many new recruits to know them all by name,” he says with apology in his voice. “He’s someone you know?”
“My brother.” I can’t tell if the admission brings relief or more sadness.
“Enough,” comes Talon’s voice from behind me. Footfalls crunch the ground and then he’s at my side. He lays his hand on my shoulder and trains his gaze on me, ignoring the rest of them.
Such A Secret Place (Stolen Tears Book 1) Page 10