I looked up at him, trying my hardest to see any trace of deceit or manipulation on his face, but deep down I know that I wouldn’t find any. If there was one thing I knew, it was the look of someone whose only concern was protecting their brother. I used to see it every day in the mirror, and now it was staring back at me again, but this time through the eyes of another. I might not have understood everything he’d told me, but what I did know was that for the first time since we’d met, he was being honest.
“You know,” I sighed, “that’s the first thing you’ve said that I actually believe.”
“I’m glad,” he said, still serious, but no longer severe. “Does that mean you’re willing to hear me out?”
“Yes,” I nodded once, my eyes still locked on his. “But it better be good.”
With a satisfied breath, he finally broke our stare-off, glancing down as he began slowly pacing around the center of the room. As he gathered his thoughts, I retook my seat in the chair I’d occupied earlier and waited patiently – albeit skeptically – for him to begin.
“Steven and I grew up like all other Bhunaidh children. Private schools, private tutors, private lives. We had no friends outside of other Bhunaidh children until we began attending school, and even then we were instructed to keep to our own kind as much as possible. We were tutored rigorously in the Bhunaidh histories, customs, and ways, always accepting everything that was taught to us without question or complaint, all in anticipation of the day our Awakenings would occur. The Awakening of a Bhunaidh child is more than simply the day his or her ability appears, it also marks their induction into Bhunaidh society. Finally being accepted into the ‘proud and ancient majesty’” – he rolled his eyes – “of the Bhunaidh fold was everything we were taught to want, and as children it was all we could think about.”
He stopped for a moment, leaning against the enormous four-poster bed, bracing his hands on the footboard as ripples of a deeply harbored anger began to seethe under his skin.
“I was fourteen when my Awakening occurred,” he continued, his grip on the bed becoming rigid. “As we were twins, everyone expected Steven to follow closely behind me, and when he didn’t, my parents became impatient. They arranged for him to be awakened manually by an Alchemist, which is when we discovered that there would in fact be no Awakening because there was no ability. I was sad for him of course as I knew better than anyone how disappointed he was, but I was sure that both he and my parents would come to accept it, and that eventually everything would be fine.” He laughed, though the sound was dark. “And the fact that I actually believed that just shows how blind I truly was. Up until that point, I had spent my life believing that the fundamental lesson in all the Bhunaidh teachings was the importance of family – that that was what we held most sacred. What I didn’t realize was that family and lineage are not one and the same, and that it can be very easy to mistake someone loving who you are, for simply loving what you are.”
He stopped, taking several breaths as he stared at the floor while I fought back the sympathy I felt trying to claw its way out of my chest. No, damn it! I would not feel sorry for him. At least not until I could determine if all this was true, or if he just knew that a story about a helpless brother would be the best way to win me over. Though, skeptical as I may have been, I couldn’t help but notice that something was different about him – something more than just his lack of obnoxious ego. There was a realness about him that I hadn’t seen before. An emotional undercurrent to his words that ran deeper than the shallow surface façade he’d worn throughout our past conversations. Something that was strong as it was vulnerable, and definitely couldn’t be faked.
“Suddenly,” he began again, the strain in his jaw making his cheeks quiver, “the world didn’t look at Steven as my brother anymore. As far as they were concerned, he was just this thing that followed us everywhere, fouling the air with his tainted blood and burdening my parents with his presence. Parents who never once tried to defend him or stand by him, but instead bemoaned their ‘great misfortune.’ Parents who, instead of accepting their child for who he was, accepted condolences from their friends who couldn’t believe that such a horrible fate had befallen them. Parents,” he spat the word, “who expected me to behave as they did, shunning my best friend – their son – for no reason at all.”
He stopped again, this time for so long that I wondered if he was done. “I appreciate you telling me this,” I said sincerely, not wanting to belittle what he’d shared. “Really I do. And to be honest, I understand far better than you know, but this isn’t exactly helping with my overall confusion.” In fact, I’d say it had more than doubled since the start of our conversation.
He nodded with what might have been a smile and came back over to sit in the second armchair. “Bear with me,” he said, “we’re getting there.” He paused again quickly before beginning again, his emotions back under control. “Of course I refused to go along with everyone’s sudden intolerance of Steven, instead turning my back on my parents and all the rest of the people I could no longer put up with, and putting all my energy into finding a way to help him.”
“If things were so bad, why didn’t the two of you just leave?”
“We… were going to,” he told me, shifting uncomfortably. “That was my first plan. We would do what we had to until we turned sixteen and had full access to our financial accounts, then we would leave and start new elsewhere. However,” he hesitated, looking away, “matters changed and we realized that would not work as we’d hoped.”
“What happened?”
“There were complications.” He said it casually, but there was nothing casual about the way his hands fidgeted in his lap. Before I could question further, he moved on. “After that,” he continued quickly, “I floundered a bit, not sure what to do. Actually,” he smiled, raising an eyebrow at me, “I became quite a bit like you. Standing up to the ones who shunned Steven, convinced that if I was strong and didn’t back down that eventually I would be able to change their minds. But I was fooling myself. There is no changing the minds of people who refuse to listen, and for all my efforts I only seemed to make the matter worse. Finally, I became so desperate that” – he bowed his head as though he were ashamed – “I decided to seek the help of Darragh.”
My eyes popped open. “You what? Please tell me you’re kidding…”
He shook his head. “I’m not proud of it, but at the time there didn’t seem to be any other way.”
“What did you think he could do?”
“Show me the process of taking and assuming abilities from others.”
“You wanted to give Steven someone else’s ability? You do know that involves killing the Holder you take it from, right?”
“I did know that Darragh killed for his abilities, but that didn’t necessarily mean that was the only way it could be done. Maybe there was a way to harmlessly take the ability of a Holder who was about to die of natural causes, or perhaps take small bits of power from several Holders with the same ability and combine them, I don’t know. It was totally and utterly stupid, I know that now, and honestly a large part of me knew it then, but again, I was desperate. My brother’s life was disintegrating and I refused to do nothing but stand by and watch, but I swear to you, I only ever intended to learn the process so that I could try to adapt it. I would never have killed anyone.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said, “though I think there may have been a better chance of Darragh killing you.”
“Probably. But luckily, Ciaran intervened before I was forced to find out.”
Immediately my ears perked up. “Wait, Ciaran Shea?”
Bastian nodded. “He’d had a vision of my yet-to-be-arranged meeting and was able to stop me before I did anything foolish.”
“So you knew Ciaran?”
“I did. That’s why when I found out that you were looking into him, I realized that we might be of use to one another.”
“How did you find out about that?�
�� I asked with a squint.
“Steven told me.”
“He ratted me out? He promised not to tell anyone!” Oh, he was so dead…
“Well, as far as Steven is concerned I’m not ‘anyone.’ And just so you’re aware, he only told me after he came to your gallant defense. He gave me quite an earful for yelling at you the way I did.”
“Good,” I raised my eye brows, “you deserved it.”
“Maybe,” he allowed, a smile twisting his cheeks. “But I think we’ve gotten a bit off topic.”
My glare turned wry. “I happen to be enjoying this topic, but if you insist, go on.”
“Thank you,” he clipped, a smile hiding in his eyes. “So as I said, Ciaran had a vision and came to see me. In exchange for not informing my parents about what I’d been planning to do, Ciaran insisted I tell him what was going on. When I explained what I’d wanted from Darragh and why, he told me that if I was willing to allow him, he could help.”
“Help Steven?”
“Help me to help Steven, yes, but not in the way I’d expected. He explained that not only was my attempt to cut a deal with Darragh reckless, it would also have been futile as only Holders can assume abilities taken from others. The new ability actually bonds to the one the person was born with, thus if there is no ability already present, the new ability has no way to be absorbed.”
“Ciaran knew how to steal abilities? I thought Darragh was the only one who knew how it was done.”
“So did I, but it turned out that Ciaran was the one who first told Darragh it could be done, though he didn’t know how, nor did he realize the lengths Darragh would go to in order to make it a reality.”
“So Ciaran and Darragh actually knew each other?”
“Quite well from what I understand. Darragh had a talent for seeking out the most powerful Holders and keeping them close, and Ciaran was one of the most gifted Seers to have ever lived. There was a time when the two of them worked closely together, Darragh giving Ciaran a home, protection, and anything else he may have needed, while in return Ciaran kept Darragh appraised of all his visions and prophecies. Their arrangement remained for decades – until the day when Ciaran shared a vision which prompted Darragh to single-handedly kill every member of his own bloodline.”
My stomach turned. “Darragh killed his own family? All of them? Just because of something Ciaran said?”
Bastian nodded slowly. “Every last one.”
Dear God…
“What was it?” I asked, trying to hide my fear under the far less vulnerable emotions of shock and abhorrence. “What did Ciaran see? What could make a man – even a man like Darragh – do that to their own family?”
“I don’t know. Ciaran never told me, but I do know he carried the guilt of it to his grave.” He paused a moment looking away, and I had to wonder just how close the two of them had been. I could have asked, but as it wasn’t really the time, I sat quietly until he turned back and continued. “That was when he finally left Darragh and came to us – or to my grandparents, I should say, as it was long before I was born. He told them he wished to join with the Bhunaidh, and considering that his bloodline was pure and the fact that they enjoyed the idea of finally having a Seer among their ranks, they welcomed him onto the fold.”
“And Darragh never came after him?”
“Honestly, that is the part I have never understood. There was no doubt that Darragh knew where Ciaran was, but anytime I would ask him about it, all he would ever say was, ‘Darragh and I have an understanding.’ Yet despite the ‘understanding,’ Ciaran seemed to constantly be on edge, forever looking over his shoulder. Most people attributed it to simple paranoia or assumed he was beginning to lose his mind to his ability as was so common with Seers, but the truth was he knew he was being watched.”
“But if he was so paranoid,” I asked, my skepticism rearing up again, “why did he trust you enough to tell you all this?”
“Because, as mentioned earlier, he wanted to help me. I’ll admit that at first it seemed odd even to me, but then I began to see how similar we really were and wondered if he saw it as well. He’d been watching the situation with Steven and saw how much it had changed me. He knew that I’d come to see the Bhunaidh way of life for the hollow sham that it was, but like him, could not risk leaving the measure of protection it provided. Maybe it was what he saw of his own struggles within me, or perhaps it was to help allay some of his underlying guilt for the deaths he felt he caused, I’m not sure. But whatever the reason, he decided to take it upon himself to show me that if I truly wanted to help Steven have a better life, lashing out and fighting was not the way. The collective mindset of the Bhunaidh was one that had been too long standing and rigidly formed to be broken, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t twist and manipulate it from within. In other words, he taught me to play the game.”
“The game?”
“This,” he waved his hand around the room, “them, all if it. It’s a game. Say the right things and play by the rules; you win. Say the wrong things or step out of bounds; you lose. Simple as that. Ciaran convinced me that if I acted the part and became who they expected me to be, that I would be able to reassume my standing in Bhunaidh society, and that using that standing to my advantage would be my true power. I was skeptical at first, but as I had nowhere else to turn, I decided it was worth a try. After talking with Steven and making sure he was agreeable to this new approach, I swallowed my disgust and assumed the mantle of a true Bhunaidh. I retook my place at my parents’ side, mirrored the pride and contempt that everyone around me seemed to wear like a second skin, and – at least while in public – began treating Steven the way everyone else did. My parents remember it simply as the day I ‘returned to my senses,’ when little did they know it was actually the day I finally took control. Control I used to convince my parents to allow Steven back into the private academy we’d both attended, because it was ‘just so embarrassing to be without him and let all the other students know that he was no longer worthy.’”
“And that worked?”
“I’d begged my parents to let him stay when they pulled him out just after his failed Awakening, and they had barely heard me. But one single mention of being embarrassed for my family name, and lo-and-behold, Steven was immediately reenrolled. That was when I realized that Ciaran had been right and that true power lay not in fighting my position, but using it.”
“OK… I get that, but how did all this lead to you sneaking around hallways and eavesdropping through keyholes? Not to mention land you in my math class?”
“It started out as simply a way to try to help Ciaran. He was convinced that there were several members of the Bhunaidh that were secretly informants of Darragh, so I decided to look into it so that I could help put his mind at ease. However, the more I learned, the more it became apparent that not only was Ciaran correct, but that the informants were actually using Bhunaidh resources to help Darragh’s operations. They provided him information from the archives when needed, even stealing volumes on occasion, and of course they kept a tight watch on Ciaran for him. There were also times when they acted as middle men, often meeting with other of Darragh’s spies and relaying information back and forth.”
“Kind of smart, really,” I mused to myself. “I mean it’s no secret that you all don’t exactly like getting your hands dirty when it comes to Darragh. No one would have looked twice for spies here.”
“A fact I’m sure they have counted on,” he agreed. “Being both outraged that these men were getting away with betraying their entire race to a madman, and excited that I had finally found some way I could truly be of use to someone, I made espionage something of a hobby. Any time that was not spent away at school, I did my best to attend as many gatherings and functions as possible, make as many visits to the individual men’s homes, and did anything else I could manage to learn as much as possible. My hope was that if anything serious were to be plotted, I would hear enough about it to remain one or two steps
ahead and be able to prevent any sort of disaster. It was slow going at first and there were some very near misses – though none quite as near as the one I just rescued you from,” he chuckled.
“You did not rescue me, you abducted me,” I corrected, not about to be looked at as some damsel in distress.
“But once I got the hang of it,” he continued, acknowledging my protest with nothing more than a snarky grin, “and began to incorporate my porting, I actually became quite good. But despite my growing proficiency, oftentimes, there simply wasn’t much to be learned. Then finally, I received my big break. It was the thing that I was sure would put me ten steps ahead of everyone including Darragh, and oddly enough, it didn’t come from, as you say, sneaking around halls and listening at keyholes, but from Ciaran, and was given quite by accident. He and I were discussing the Black Iris one afternoon, and he happened to mention something about the person destined to awaken it – a person he quite clearly referred to… as she.”
“Ciaran knew about me…” I whispered, only realizing after the words were out that I probably shouldn’t have confirmed it and instead played dumb. “How?”
“A vision, most likely. When I asked about it he denied having said it, but the look on his face was as good as a confession.”
“Is that how you found out where I was? Did he know that too?”
He nodded. “At first he wouldn’t say, claiming it was for both your safety and mine, but when I learned from one of my many bouts of eavesdropping that one of your father’s most trusted associates was yet another of Darragh’s informants, Ciaran became worried that you and your brother may be in danger. He couldn’t risk sending word to your father when there was a traitor so near him, nor could he go to check on you himself as it would call too much attention to the situation. I, on the other hand, was about to leave for my next semester of school anyway, and with some careful planning, would not be missed. With both Ciaran and Steven’s help, things fell quickly into place, and before I knew it I was in the States attending high school.”
The Seers Page 17