Miles snorts. “Yes you are. So what’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing!” Pard looks down at the table and grades Miles’s first phylum. He slides it back over to him. “You need to carry the two and six, not the four and eight.”
Miles nods. “Oh, I see.”
“Now figure out number two.”
“All right.”
Miles lowers his head and scribes out number two, and Pard peeks around Miles’s shoulder until his eyes find Selby.
Selby adjusts her thin glasses and crosses her legs, then she glances up at Pard and gives him a kind smile.
Pard, embarrassed, snaps his gaze away and it locks onto Miles’s paper as he works out the phylum. Pard slowly lifts his head.
Selby, attention no longer on Pard, is in deep concentration reading a large purple book.
Pard continues to stare and gets lost in Selby’s presence.
Miles flicks his pencil in the air and lets it tumble onto the table. “And done!” He slides the paper over to Pard.
Pard, still lost in his dream, imagining him and Selby strolling in the forest and holding hands, he ignores Miles again.
Miles leans over the table. He clicks his fingers in front of Pard’s face, and Pard doesn’t flinch. Miles turns around and sees Selby then he lets out a laugh everyone in the library can hear.
Selby lowers her book and turns to Pard and Miles.
Pard snaps out of his moment and swallows the lump in his throat.
Miles eyes Pard and then Selby. Miles waves at Selby, and she smiles and waves back. Nodding, Miles turns to Pard. “Ha, I see now.” He gives Pard a goofy grin as Pard lowers his head back to the quiz.
“What do you see?” Pard says.
“Why you said you’d come to the library and tutor me—because of her.” And he flicks his head toward Selby.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Pard snatches Miles’s paper and grades the phylum.
“Sure you don’t. So did you talk to her yet?”
Pard doesn’t look up and continues to scribe corrections. “Talk to who?”
Miles slides his fingers across the table and rips his paper away.
Still grading, Pard marks a two and a minus sign on the table before lifting the tip of the pencil.
“You know who,” Miles says.
Serious, Pard stares Miles down with a death glare. He quickly glances toward Selby, and she smiles at him. He smiles back though his lips twitch in a blink of an eye and they only make it a hair past horizontal before they immediately return to their normal reserved state.
“So what’s up—did you talk to her yet?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Pard furrows his brow. “That’s Selby Barrow.”
“Yeah, so what?”
“She’s the daughter of the mayor of Greysin, and she’s the most beautiful girl in all of Vetlinue.”
“Yeah, and you’re not bad-looking either, I guess, and you’re definitely the smartest kid I know, not to mention you’re a badass that can shoot light out your fingers and blow shit up.”
“Shut up about that.” Pard looks away, upset that Miles reminded him that something is seriously wrong with him. He puckers his lips. Heat radiates off his skin and his armpits sweat as his temper rises. A flash of aqua light flashes over Pard’s pupils. Panic and anger take over, and Pard sweeps his books into his arms and rushes away from the table and Miles. Ignoring Selby, he swoops past her so fast the wind wisps Selby’s hair off her shoulders.
Miles rolls his eyes, and with the same motion, slides his books into his pack. He winks at Selby as he passes her by then runs to catch up with Pard. “Slow down, come on, wait up, Pard. No need to run off, it’s not a big deal, I was just talking.”
Pard bulls through the library front door and lunges through the threshold. Embarrassed and in flight, he doesn’t feel the harsh cold and brisk wind.
Miles slips through the front door and bounds down the marble stairs toward the cobblestone street. “Wait up.”
Pard waves behind him with a floppy arm and hand. “Leave me alone!”
“Come on, I meant nothing by it, slow down. Let’s talk for a minute.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
Miles opens his arms wide. “So does this mean you won’t tutor me?”
Pard, amazed at the nerve and block-headedness of Miles, Pard snorts in fits as he keeps barreling forward, eyes fixed on the rising turrets of Fairstone perched on the hill surrounded by evergreens.
Miles leaps forward and latches onto Pard’s shoulder.
Pard skids to a stop next to two draft horses attached to a sleigh.
“Settle down,” Miles says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it, it’s just a stupid girl. You should talk to her if you like her so much.”
Pard’s arms shake, infuriated as he imagines what he must have looked like running out of the library in a panic. He clinches his teeth, No way will she talk to me now, she’ll think I’m weird. His head twitches in anger as Miles looks him in the eyes. Pard turns away and his gaze finds the giant solid brown eye of one of the sleigh horses.
A web of aqua-blue light arcs away from Pard’s chest.
“What the heck—” Miles says as his eyes widen, his hand still holding onto Pard’s shoulder.
A string of blue light enters the horse’s chest. Another arc of light lassos Miles’s wrist and latches it tight to Pard’s shoulder.
Pard, Miles, and the horse all freeze in place, locked together by the flowing strings of light.
Energy pulses in waves, building in Pard’s chest. Pard’s mind races as he tries to comprehend what’s happening. “This is so not right.”
“Pleasure to meet you, young man,” the deep, raspy man’s voice of the horse says inside of Pard’s head. “Better bundle up, it be a cold one tonight.”
Energy continues to blast Pard in waves, then it hits him as he sees the light arcing out of him and entering the horse’s chest. “I-I did kill Nero. The-the horse can talk, the horse is talking to me, this is so wrong on so many levels. How is this even possible?”
“Dang, this is so cool, professor,” Miles says inside of Pard’s head. “I’m seriously impressed right now.”
“Miles, inside my head? Can you hear me?”
“Of course I can hear you, and, holy shit, that horse just talked to us. Hey, professor, you’re not gonna fry us, are you?”
“It’s late for you two boys to be out on the town,” the horse says. “Fairstone boys I imagine, think they own the world, snobby little brats.”
“Hey now,” Miles says in a defensive tone, “not all of us are snobby little brats. But I agree most of them are—”
Pard’s eyes twitch and a nauseous sensation builds in his stomach as he continues to listen to Miles have a conversation with the horse inside of his head. “This is so so not right.”
“—especially the ones from Wellingtin, Alrin, and Bivmerin.”
“To right, young man, to right. I found those from Elemerin and Latvin the most worthy of my pull. The others? Not so much.”
“I hear you there,” Miles says. “Hey, what’s your name? This is the first time I’ve ever talked to a horse.”
“A pleasure to meet you, my name is—”
Unable to take the pulsating energy and Miles and the horse inside of Pard’s brain, Pard’s body tightens. He screams, and with all his might Pard leans his body to the side and disconnect to run.
A flash of blinding light bursts in front of Pard and everything goes black. Pard collapses to his knees and gasps for air. He blinks, regaining his vision as he grips the grooves of the icy cobblestones with his fingers.
“Neigh neigh,” the horse says as his head jerks up and down.
“Whoa!” Miles says, “holy shit, I’m still alive. Ha, all right. Hey, professor, that was nuts, you’re such a badass!”
Pard shakes his head in a panic and scrambles on all fours and
gets to his feet. His heart thumps and mind goes blank except for, go! He sprints away with blurry vision.
Miles picks up Pard’s advanced mathematics book and The Third Order Of The Rue. He raises them high above his head. “Pard, Pard, your books!”
Pard doesn’t look back as he darts through the dark street. But a glimmer of something catches his eye to the right, and he glances to the side.
A man, maybe thirty with a black thin curly mustache and wearing a black duster leather coat and a black leather skullcap is staring at him. A silver monocle is fixed to his cap with a silver attachment, and a black tattoo of a small star is etched underneath his left eye. The star man gestures his cigarette toward Pard. He pulls a drag. A glowing orange ember brightens, illuminating his gaunt face and one black and one solid silver eye, then it goes dark as he exhales a thick cloud of smoke. The star man flicks the cigarette butt into an embankment of snow, then backs away, disappearing in the shadows.
MYSTERY & MISCHIEF
Pard slams his bedroom door and braces his back against the wood. His cheeks numb and bright red from the cold. He breathes heavy to catch his breath. Liquid snot drips out of his nose, and Pard wipes it with his sleeve. His mind races: What’s wrong with me? The horse talked. Am I going to kill everyone that touches me? Pard’s body sways, and he swallows though nothing goes down his dry throat. He looks at his boots form a puddle on the wooden floor as the slush melts. His body calms. I’m all right, I’m all right. It will be okay, breathe. He glances at his desk and then at the window, and then it hits him. “Shit, my books.”
Bang bang bang—
Pard flinches from the unexpected knock on the door.
“Pard,” Miles says, “open up.”
“Go away, leave me alone.”
Miles rattles the brass door handle. “Come on, open up, I won’t tell anyone, you can trust me, seriously.”
“Just go away, I said leave me alone.”
“Don’t you want your books? You’re going to need it for mathematics class tomorrow. And how about—” Miles raises the Rue book in front of him and twists his face in confusion, unable to read the letters and symbols. “Right, and this old leather book you’re always lugging around. Don’t you want it back?”
Pard’s eyes snap open, and he yanks open the door. He lunges for the book, and Miles hugs it in tight to his chest and backs away.
“Not so fast,” Miles says with a smirk.
“Give it to me, Marlow.”
Miles angles his body to the side, shielding the book from Pard’s grasp. “You still gonna tutor me?”
“Have you lost your mind? Didn’t you see me connect to the horse with some wonky blue light that I blew Nero up with the other day?” Pard leans forward and talks to Miles as if he is a child. “The horse talked to us, Miles. That’s not right, you should stay away from me and give me my book back before something bad happens to you.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me, Pard. Don’t exaggerate. If you didn’t notice I was attached to you with the light and I’m perfectly fine. And you freaked out and still didn’t hurt me or the horse. I think I’m safe to be around you, as long as I don’t mention Selby Barrow.”
Pard scowls.
Miles chuckles and raises his hand. “Just kidding, just kidding. Dang, you really need to chill out, professor.”
Pard holds out his hands. “Books.”
“Fine, here you go.” Miles hands Pard his books.
Pard turns around, about to close the door.
“What? Not even a thank you? And you’re not going to invite me in?”
Pard strokes the rough spine of his mother’s book.
“Seems like you can use a friend now more than ever. You can’t push everyone away, even if you are a badass.”
Pard purses his lips as Miles’s words sink in. He walks toward the window, focusing on the ice-encrusted glass. And even though he wants to be alone, he doesn’t really want to be alone. Pard sighs and clinches his teeth. He mumbles, “Come in—close the door.”
“That a boy,” Miles says with a grin as he steps into Pard’s room. He plops down in the desk chair and slouches. “So what’s with that book anyway? Why are you always lugging that thing around the castle?”
“It’s my mother’s book and one of the few things I have left from her. It’s rare and valuable. I have to keep it safe.”
“Sorry about that by the way. I remember when that happened. Your parents seemed like good people.”
“They were good people.”
“Hey, now that I think of it, why don’t you have a backpack? Seems that would be a standard accessory for a booky.”
“I had an incident with Nox and my pack ended up in one of the Fairstone foyer’s fireplaces.”
“Bummer.” Miles points at the Third Order of the Rue. “So what’s the writing and symbols on the cover? I looked inside and I didn’t recognize anything.”
“The writing is Rue, and the symbols are the ancient symbols of En. Together they form an ancient written language called Ruen. Not many people can read it. My mother was a language teacher as you know, and she also was an ancient language scholar. My grandmother was Rue, and she taught my mother how to read and decipher these types of texts. I believe it’s one reason my parents were killed.” Pard holds up the book toward Miles. “Most of these books are rare, if not one of a kind. They hold knowledge and secrets of the world, and can lead the reader to treasures and powerful beings. My mother had several of these texts and Rue artifacts in her possession which she studied and guarded. Most of these items were passed down through the generations in my family. On the night they were killed, the thieves came past midnight for my mother’s things, somehow knowing she possessed them. And when my mother and father refused to hand them over, the bastards murdered them. I was away on a field trip to the Wellingtin Art Museum.”
“Yes, I remember that trip, boring.”
Pard gazes at the Rue book. “It’s the only thing I have left of them besides the painting on the wall.”
Miles eyes the portrait. “I’d want blood if someone killed my parents like that.” He pops out of the chair and strolls up to the painting until he is within a few inches of the canvas.
Pard tries to smile as he watches Miles examining his parents’ faces. He leans in closer to him. “She had just taught me how to read beginner Ruen the year before they were murdered.”
“So you can actually read that language?” Miles says, pointing at the book in Pard’s hand.
Pard scoffs. “I wish. I can usually make out the Rue portion of the text with little work. But the En portion I may make out ten percent, though I really don’t know because I have no one to tell me if I’m reading it correctly or not. My mother always said, ‘Rue requires a teacher, and En requires a lifetime.’ Even she didn’t know what every symbol meant. Though she taught me the most common symbols so I could start reading.”
“That’s cool. I never knew that stuff even existed. I mean, I’ve heard of the Rue of course. But they aren’t the most well-looked upon people.”
“My mother used to say they’re just misunderstood.”
“I guess that’s one way of putting it.” Miles squints at the locket around Pard’s mother’s neck. “That’s weird.”
“What?”
“I think I’ve seen that locket somewhere, but I can’t quite remember.”
“In Yitch’s office?” Pard says.
Miles slowly nods as he points at the locket of the Ida tree. “Yeah, yeah I think so, I saw it in one of his display cases.”
“I saw it this morning for the first time. It was the only time I’ve ever been in Yitch’s office. And the headmaster basically said I was going to be expelled next week.”
“Seriously? Expelled?”
“Seriously.”
“Good news bad news with the light, I guess, but you’ll be all right.”
Pard shrugs. “What can I do?”
Miles shakes his head. “Do
n’t worry about that now, you won’t get expelled. He’s a blowhard, more talk than anything—lost in his shiny trinkets and his own self worth.”
“But he has evidence and witnesses.”
“We’ll see,” Miles says, “something tells me his evidence is not that creditworthy. Anyway, it’s been two years since I’ve been in the old condor’s nest, but I remember this locket, I’m sure of it.”
“My mother hardly ever wore the necklace and kept it with her other Rue things. I wonder if there’s a lot of them out there—must be if Yitch has one.”
“Are you really that thick?” Miles says, tilting his head to the side and eyeing Pard as if he has mushrooms growing out of his ears.
“I don’t follow you.”
“Dang, I guess what they say about book smarts is true.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Miles snorts and waves off Pard. “Nothing, anyway, you said your mother only kept rare Rue items, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And Yitch, the condor holding art collector of rare expensive ancient items, collects the kinds of things your mother would’ve had, right?”
“I guess so.”
“And the locket was stolen the night your parents were killed?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Pard shakes his head not following or wanting to believe that the headmaster had anything to do with his parents’ death.
“And, still no bells going off in that brilliant noggin of yours. All right, so look, your mother kept rare things; Yitch is a snobby showoff that uses his education and lowly title and collection of rare expensive things to impress his betters. He doesn’t collect the things there are many of. If Yitch has a similar Rue necklace in his office, and there was another one of your mother’s lockets floating around out in the world, and especially in Greysin, then it is the coincidences of all coincidences in all of Vetlinue. So, ringing any bells now?”
“Yitch was in on the robbery and my parents’ death?”
“Ding ding ding, and we have a winner.”
Pard lowers his head and turns away as it all sinks in. He strolls toward the frosty window and remembers back when his parents were alive. The way Yitch and his parents interacted, and the way Yitch treated him. “He was always pleasant to me.”
The Ruens of Fairstone (Aeon of Light Book 2) Page 7