by Lisa Morrow
“Clarissa,” Blair said, the word a warning.
Looking up, I noticed the other girls watching our exchange.
“I’m just teasing her,” the blonde said, itching beneath the leather bracelet on her wrist. “She just looks too tightly wound for a girl at a celebration.”
Her words stung, even though I wished they didn’t.
Bethenny laughed, adding to my embarrassment. “Ignore her. She’s not used to this kind of thing. No one really invited her to anything back in Duggery.”
Interest flared in Clarissa’s eyes. “Why?”
“Well,” Bethenny said, taking a large gulp from her goblet. “Just look at her.”
My stomach dropped. This was the moment she ruined things for me here too, pointed out to the women how obviously I looked like our enemies.
The blonde, however, simply frowned. “What do you mean?”
“She looks like a Northerner, of course!”
It seemed to take a painfully long time for Clarissa to answer. “That’s it?” She picked up her glass, annoyance in her tone. “I hoped it’d be more than some small town prejudice.”
Silence followed her words.
Sirena grinned and jostled me with her shoulder.
Relief and surprise rushed through me, and I took another bite of my food, my appetite renewed.
“There’s more.” Bethenny’s words were dark and full of hidden meanings. “Her family has secrets.”
I froze, swallowing the hard lump of food in my mouth. Us? We didn’t have secrets. Of course, other than that my mother had become a Protector and no one had told me.
“So what happens next?” Sirena rushed out, obviously trying to change the subject. “I mean when we start being, well, Protectors.”
Blair sounded tired as she answered. “We unlock your powers and train you to use them. Depending what kinds you develop, you may stay in this castle, or get placed in one of the towns or cities in Tarak.”
“Is the training hard?” Sirena asked, worry lacing the question as she took another slow drink of her wine.
“No. It’s simply important. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses will allow you to… be successful in your new position.”
Sirena nodded, then smiled hesitantly. “Did you know my great-grandmother, Delera? She became a Protector too.”
Without missing a beat, Blair answered. “Of course. She is a very fine woman.”
“Will I get to meet her?”
Clarissa laughed. “Sooner than you think, I’m sure.”
“Because of how long Protectors live,” Blair explained, glaring at the blonde, “many of you may very well meet relatives of yours. Some you might not even have known existed.”
I hesitated. This was my chance. “Do you know my mother, Calyce?”
The room fell silent.
Chapter Five
Blair’s silver gaze pinned me to my chair. “Yes, but we shouldn’t spend your whole celebration discussing relatives who have joined The Order.”
The conversation died on an awkwardly tense note, but the girls returned to their food and wine as if completely unaware of the unexplainable strain that lingered. Only Sirena sat quietly, stiffly, an expression of extreme discomfort on her face.
I tried to calm my nerves, telling myself that there’d be plenty of other opportunities to ask these women about my mother. But somehow, I sensed a mystery, one Blair would rather I didn’t solve.
Unfortunately, she had no idea how focused I could be when I wanted something badly enough.
My plotting was interrupted when another woman entered the great hall, followed by six servants. She moved with the grace of a water bird, gliding fluidly on her long legs. She wore a black gown tapered just below her breast, before it flowed down and gathered at her ankles. Bare feet poked out from beneath the silky gown. But her hair, much to my surprise, was hidden beneath a piece of black cloth, intricately tied to hide all traces of her hair from sight.
“Just in time for dessert,” Clarissa purred, with a mocking twist of her lips, at the woman who settled into the chair next to her. Then, the blonde turned to me. “This is Meisha. She was the other Protector at The Choosing.”
The woman turned her amber-colored eyes towards me.
I stiffened, my breath catching in my throat. No human had eyes like hers.
Clarissa laughed. “Don’t mind her, she’s from a jungle a long way from here. Her people are very different from our own.”
Another silent girl placed a strange mixture the color of honey in a bowl before the amber-eyed creature. She raised it to her lips and drank slowly. When she was done, she let the bowl drop on the table and rose.
“If we should not meet again,” she whispered, her heavily accented voice drawing the attention of the others at the table. “I was impressed by your bravery. It has been a long time since someone thought to refuse The Order’s invitation.”
She turned and walked back out the way she’d come, and I relaxed into my chair. Her presence, her eyes, even her heavily accented voice, made me ill at ease. Blair and Clarissa exchanged a glance of disapproval, and I wondered if they too found her upsetting.
“Well, that was strange!” Bethenny giggled, wine sloshing out of her drink with each exaggerated movement.
Yara dissolved into laughter.
Sirena turned to me, her expression worried. “Perhaps they’ve had too much.” Her voice was barely a squeak in my ear, but I nodded in agreement.
I’d never been drunk. Waking up every morning to find my dad passed out on the table, or on the floor, had killed any desire for the experience. But even though my personal knowledge was limited, these girls seemed to lose control shockingly fast. The wine must’ve been stronger than what they were used to drinking. I noticed, with some approval, that Sirena seemed to have lost her interest in her wine.
“You don’t like the wine?” I whispered, keeping my gaze on Yara who was singing some old song from our youth about boys who tell lies.
She leaned closer to me. “It’s really good, just something about this place feels off.” She gave a humorless laugh. “I’m probably being silly. This is what we always wanted, after all.”
She was right though. It was unnerving. Just a short time before, Yara had looked like she wanted nothing more than to return home to her father. Now, she seemed entirely settled into her new life.
Yara turned, as if reading my mind. “I can’t believe my father had me so afraid of this place.” A bubble of drunken laughter escaped her lips. “It’s like being a princess!”
I was saved from having to reply as servants rushed into the room, clearing our plates away.
“This castle is lovely,” Sirena responded, but the words sounded forced.
As the last dish was cleared from the table, Blair rose as if impatient. “I’m so glad to see all of you enjoying yourselves so much, but I want you to know there is one more thing that must be done before you’re fully Protectors.” She pressed her hands onto the dark mahogany wood of the massive table. “The Choosing Ceremony.”
Her final words sent goose bumps racing along the skin of my arms.
“I thought we already had that,” Bethenny belted out drunkenly.
Blair’s expression didn’t change. “No, that was just the beginning.” She paused, and a wicked smile touched Clarissa’s lips. “We made our choice today by picking all of you, but there are more choices to be made. Tomorrow, you’ll have the final ceremony before becoming Protectors in all ways.”
Clarissa’s smile spread. “But don’t worry about that now. Just relax and enjoy yourselves, as if tonight was your last night.” She winked at Blair. “All of us have stories of our first night here. It’s a tradition to have too much fun.”
Blair’s expression was humorless. “You’ll each be shown to your rooms. If there is anything you need, pull the cord by your beds.” A forced smile twisted her lips. “If not, as Clarissa said, eat, drink, and have fun.”
We
were led from the dining hall by another servant and shown to our rooms. The drunken girls entered their own bedrooms first, with gasps of appreciation and more laughter, before Bethenny shouted she’d found more wine.
Yara raced into the other girl’s room, slamming the door behind them.
We remained in the hall, staring at our unopened doors, while the servant waited silently behind us.
Sirena gave me a curious glance. “Are we—?”
But I didn’t want her to say anything in front of the servant that could give away our uncertainty, so I cut her off, “So is this where we’ll be staying for now on? Or will they move us later? No one has really told us what we’ll be doing, or what’ll be expected of us.”
The young girl stared at me with blank eyes.
My breath caught in my throat.
Dogs had more intelligence in their eyes than this girl. She neither blinked nor stared. The glazed quality of her gaze hinted that her mind was somewhere far from her body.
A chill ran down my spine. This is how the victims of the Blood Wizard Sazar and his brothers were described. People stripped of everything that made them human and left to do simply as their masters commanded.
“Are you all right?” I reached out a hand but stopped just before I touched her shoulder.
“Yes.” Her even voice struck me as strange. Not even a single word should hold so little emphasis, as if the speaker had no idea what they spoke.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Do you require anything else?
It took me a second to form the word. “No.”
She jerked into motion, turning and walking away.
Sirena looked at me. “That’s a bit… scary.”
“Maybe she’s just tired,” I said, trying my best to hide my horror.
She scrunched up her mouth. “I guess.”
I squeezed her shoulder. “We just have to remember, this is what we’ve been dreaming of.”
“My dream wasn’t like this. You?”
I stiffened. “Not exactly, but it isn’t… horrible.”
She met my gaze. “Come on, Rose, don’t put on a brave face. How do you really feel?”
I clutched the cord around my neck. She was watching me, waiting, so I sputtered the words as quickly as I could. “Something about this place makes me feel like we’re in a snake hole.”
Her shoulders relaxed, and she nodded.
Some slight sound had me whirling around.
Meisha stepped around the corner, her gaze locked on me. “You’re the Vidoryn child, aren’t you?”
“Why do you ask?” the question shot from mouth before I could stop it.
The woman’s eyes narrowed, and she looked around the hall. “It seems you have a lot of questions you want answered. Perhaps I could help?” Moving with an unnatural speed, she lifted one of the tapestries from the wall and disappeared behind it.
My heart raced as I took a step forward.
Sirena grabbed my arm. “You can’t be serious.”
Logic told me it was a terrible idea to follow the strange woman into some dark place. But for once, I didn’t care. I’d do just about anything to find out about my mother, about someone who might actually care about me.
I took a deep breath. “I know this is hard to understand, but my whole life I’ve just accepted my mom was gone, and I was stuck with my life. Now though, I think I have a chance to get to know her. I don’t know why that’s so important to me, but it is.”
“Just wait,” she begged. “Blair may tell you later.”
Biting my lip, I avoided her gaze. All these years alone with a father who hated me, I’d tried to imagine my mother. Yet every time I did, I had to remember she hadn’t just walked away from him, she’d walked away from me. I thought I’d done something wrong, so the idea she’d simply been Chosen allowed a tiny seed of hope… that she might still be somewhere, thinking about her only daughter, and maybe missing me too.
I gave Sirena my best apologetic look. “Maybe she could even tell me something that’d make this place seem less scary and… full of secrets.”
She sighed, but I could already see she knew there’d be no changing my mind. “I don’t like this.”
I forced a smile. “I know, but you love me anyway.”
She rolled her eyes, a slight grin playing across her lips. “If you aren’t back soon, I’ll go look for you… and I’ll bring those drunks with me.”
I laughed nervously. “So I’ll be back soon.”
She went to her room, opened the door, and stared back at me.
I nodded, then followed the woman behind the tapestry.
A poorly lit passageway, so narrow I had to turn slightly to move through, hid behind the tapestry. I shuffled forward until I reached a turn, and then followed it to a small room lit by a dozen flickering candles. The room had no windows. Shelves full of old books covered the walls. In the center, a tattered and faded rug covered most of the stone floor, and two chairs sat facing each other, the color of dried blood.
Meisha sat in one of these chairs, her back straight. “I know of your mother, child.” Her eyes fluttered to the ground, before she pointed one long finger to the other chair. “And I know of your father.”
My heart quickened as I crossed the room and eased myself into the chair opposite her. The smell of dust filled my nose, and I fought the urge to sneeze. “Was my mother one of you? Was she a Protector of Tarak?”
Meisha hung her head further, as if she might fall over, and her thin shoulders sagged. “She was almost a Protector, until your father came for her.”
I nearly tumbled forward. “What—what do you mean?”
“There is very little I can tell you,” she whispered, her accent making each word like a hiss. “But, your decision in the Choosing Ceremony is very important.”
I tried to hide my annoyance as I spoke. “I don’t care about the ceremony. Tell me about my parents. Did my father try to stop my mother from joining? Was that how he was hurt?”
At last, she looked up at me.
I collapsed back into the seat. Her pupils had grown until nothing was left of her amber eyes, and her tongue flickered out to glide across her razor sharp teeth before she spoke. “You are as foolish as your mother if you do not heed me well. She too cared nothing for the ceremony, nothing for anything but returning to your father, and she paid the ultimate price. We paid the ultimate price for her foolishness.”
My mind whirled. “She didn’t want to join? I thought we had a choice?”
She laughed, or at least made a sound like an animal mimicking a laugh. “Had you chosen to return to your father tonight at the portal, they would have forced you, or killed you.”
My skin felt cold and damp. “What happened to my mother?”
She tilted her head. “They forced her to join, or at least tried to.” Her tongue darted out once more, and she jerked as if woken from a restless sleep. “But none of that matters now. All that matters is that you choose to become one of us.”
I tried to sound brave, “after all you’ve told me, what would possibly make me want to join The Protectors?”
Meisha leapt on me.
The chair flew out from under me, and I lay on the floor, her terrifying face inches from mine.
“Are you frightened of me, girl?” she asked, husky and breathless.
I nodded slowly.
“Well, I am the least frightening thing you will see for the remainder of your life. And if you should make the wrong choice tonight, the image of me now will likely be the last thing that passes over your mind before you die.”
Then, she was gone. I wasn’t certain if I blinked, or if a candle or two had gone out, but the room felt darker, and the woman was nowhere to be found.
I rose to a sitting position and gripped my arms until my fingers bit painfully into my flesh. Part of me wanted to go running, screaming, from the fears she’d enflamed inside of me, but the other part of me refused to back down. Even from t
his.
Rising on shaky legs, I moved to one of the candles, resting on a partially empty shelf. It flickered harmlessly in the small glass holder.
I felt a word filled with power catch in my throat. Glancing towards the shadowed hall, I tapped the wooden shelf, leaving marks in the dust. These women thought to frighten me, to force me to make the choice they wished, but they might find me a little different than the helpless girls they were used to manipulating.
Pulling on the cord around my neck, I brought the shard of stone out. It dangled over the fire, glittering shades of purple in the light. My father had given me the stone when I was just a little girl, but I’d known instantly it was more than something pretty.
It’d opened up another world. A world of magic I’d suddenly sensed flowing through all things. Most girls had to wait until they were much older to know whether they had powers, or be trained by The Protectors in order to learn how to tap into it. My magic had roared to life the moment the necklace touched my flesh.
I’d sensed it, but didn’t know how to use it. Not until one night a few weeks after receiving the necklace. I’d gotten turned around in the woods. Freezing in the dark, alone and afraid, a name had come to my lips. Several times I’d spoke it in desperation, before it worked.
Since then, I’d tried several other names. None had worked. Yet. But the one name was enough for me. For now.
“Prometha, Prometha, Prometha,” I chanted the Goddess of Fire’s name over and over again, watching the stone change from purple to a deep scarlet.
The word was just as I practiced it, a song, a prayer. I forced emotion into each syllable until my chest hurt. But I couldn’t stop, not until the intonation, pitch, and inflection were perfect.
Warmth gathered around me, a physical sensation tied to the gathering of my powers. Like pulling back an arrow on a bow, I held my magic, waiting until I showed it what I wanted it to do.
In my mind, I pictured a flame being swallowed by the air, and a tingling spread across my flesh as I released my magic. Moments later, the flame went out, followed by all the other candles in the room.
I cursed. “Nice work, Rose.”