Iridescent (The Ember Series)

by Carol Oates

  As usual, Ananchel was brazenly unaffected by Candra’s threat. She threw her head back and laughed loudly. “Who is going to make me? You?”

  Candra sucked in a deep breath and steadied her shoulders. Her lips curled up in a confident grin. Not one of the others spoke. Sebastian imagined they were thinking the same as him: best to let her get this out of her system. Although, for the first time, he was grateful for her temper—the room was at boiling point. Her outburst calmed it at once.

  “I won’t have to. He will.” She lifted her chin and looked straight at Draven.

  When Draven flashed her a full toothy smile, Sebastian would have been happy to kick his pearly whites in. They were on the same side, and he recognized they needed to work together, but it didn’t mean much when Draven looked at Candra in that way, impressed with her audacity and bravery…clearly beguiled and excited by it. Draven turned his head in profile to address Ananchel.

  “Calm down, or leave. We’ve come too far for petty arguments.”

  Ananchel’s slightly incredulous expression would have made Sebastian laugh another time. For years, he’d equally feared and craved her hold on him. Ananchel wasn’t someone to trifle with—neither was her ability to instill euphoria in unsuspecting victims. Her capability was…elegant. She could easily manipulate any person not familiar with her special brand of talent. Candra had marked her card early: she’d worked out that Ananchel’s gift was power, not pleasure. Ananchel had responded with something that verged on respect, or as much as Ananchel respected anyone or anything other than Draven.

  Ananchel shook out her hair, burnt gold reflecting from her eyes, although she made an exerted effort to brush off the altercation.

  Everyone seemed to release a breath at the same time. Sebastian caught Lofi mouthing “sorry” to Candra.

  She nodded in return. “I need a minute.”

  Sebastian took a step toward her. She stepped back to the door, keeping the same distance between them, and lifted her hands to stop him.

  “I’m going to get some coffee. When I come back, I want answers.”

  There it was again, the bad taste in his mouth, like curdled milk: rejection. Sebastian didn’t like it, a rather new sensation to him in the context of a relationship, and it made his toes curl in his shoes and his eyes tighten. If he allowed himself, he would release a smart retort and storm from the room. In many ways, his emotions were immature, more like that of a teenage boy than an almost immortal being, a consequence of never exploring them.

  “Candra, you’re upset. Perhaps coffee—”

  “Brie,” she exclaimed. “Upset, really?”

  The lines between Brie’s eyebrows deepened when she frowned. She closed her mouth, looking every bit the mother holding back a scolding in polite company.

  Candra sighed and shook her head. “Please, Brie, put the mommy mobile in reverse for just a while. I’m exhausted, my head feels like someone is dancing behind my eyeballs, and I need some caffeine.”

  Brie nodded stiffly, but Sebastian suspected that conversation wasn’t over. “I’ll go with you,” he stated.

  “No,” she said decisively. “I need to clear my head. I can’t do that with you around.”

  His jaw locked. He sensed Draven’s gaze drilling into the back of his skull. Rejection was one thing; this stab of nausea felt more like humiliation. His fingers twitched, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose. Sebastian’s ego bruised easily; it disregarded reason and cursed emotional maturity. His nature was to be the rejecter, not the rejected, and coming from Candra, the dismissal of his company forced the air from his lungs like a hammer slamming down on his chest.

  Chapter Four

  NOT GOOD, NOT GOOD, NOT GOOD…the two words zoomed round Candra’s brain, leaving her dizzy. Her fingers gripped onto the edge of the kitchen sink. She kept her eyes on the steady streaming water flowing from the tap in an attempt to calm her thundering heart. The way Sebastian had looked at her…like some helpless little puppy waiting for rescue from a pound. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she had nothing left to give.

  Candra watched the sink fill and then turned off the water, her reflection distorted to nothing more than a shaky blur of color. The clear liquid echoed precisely how she felt. She didn’t recognize her life or even herself any longer. She didn’t know who or what she was. She loved Sebastian. That was something she couldn’t doubt, but with everything in flux, how could she be sure this was part of the plan? She had begun to consider herself an encroacher inside her own skin. None of it should be important. Bigger things lingered on the horizon, she could feel it. Her skin prickled the way it used to in her early rebellious teenage years when she’d sat out in the sun, spurning Brie’s warnings about sunblock. She’d wanted a tan, but instead, she’d simply burned and spent several days itchy and peeling. She couldn’t risk another wrong decision costing someone their life.

  “Hey.”

  Candra closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing. She needed to take herself in hand quickly; otherwise, they would say she wasn’t ready for the truth or she couldn’t handle being part of the discussion on Lilith. Sebastian would use any excuse to keep her in the dark; he would attempt some justification about it being for her own protection. Protection couldn’t be the true reason because, from the meager amount of information she’d gathered since the ball, she was here to protect them as much as they protected her. Brie wasn’t much better. She treated Candra like a little kid. Okay, maybe that wasn’t entirely true. Candra didn’t know a lot of young girls living at home and allowed to have a guy sleeping in their room. Brie never once asked what went on between them for all those months, although she appeared to be making up for lost time.

  “Are you okay?” Lofi asked when she didn’t respond.

  Of course she wasn’t okay. In the last year, she had found out her father was a banished angel and had broken a peace treaty when her mother conceived. It also made her one of the Nephilim, soulless monsters that had almost decimated humankind. She’d fallen in love with the leader of the Nuhra, angels sent to destroy the Nephilim. She’d agreed to pledge her life to his nemesis, who had secretly hatched a plan using her to bring the sides together. She’d lost her best friend to a botched robbery and found out she was some kind of weapon and her very own light source. Now to top it off, this Lilith person showed up. No, she was most certainly not okay. Where was God in all this? Nowhere. God, the Arch, was missing…destroyed…lost…gone. They were alone.

  “Candra?”

  Her fingers strained against the porcelain. “I can’t do this.” Speaking hurt. Thinking hurt. Candra’s thoughts spun wildly out of control, making it almost impossible to pin one down.

  Lofi’s hand slid over her shoulder and squeezed in a reassuring gesture. The other reached around, sank into the water and pulled the stopper. “You want me to get rid of everyone? If you need some time—”

  “We don’t have time,” Candra murmured, cutting Lofi off.

  The water spun downward in a cyclone, slurping into the outlet.

  “We have time for this…if you need it. Besides, getting rid of Ananchel would be my pleasure.”

  Candra turned with a resigned sigh. The modestly furnished kitchen seemed sparse now, simple pale wood cabinets with a matching round table, a black marble worktop. In comparison to Draven’s well-used kitchen, the room was almost unwelcoming. The small herb garden-box in the window had lacked attention over the last few days, and the edges of the basil had rolled inward, tinged with brown. The cilantro hung limp and parched over the side. The chrome appliances all gleamed, as if new out of the wrapping or hardly used. They had been, but not often. There were no family dinners, no home baking. Candra couldn’t ever remember the aroma of fresh baked cookies or a roasting turkey in this room. The kitchen was used to prepare her favorite comfort foods of chicken noodle soup and oatmeal. She should have associated it with comfort, but she didn’t. It only reminded her of every time in her life she’d ne
eded comfort. The house where she had lived for twelve years felt less and less like home as the days went on.

  Lofi grinned at her. Clearly, she relished the idea of ejecting Ananchel from the property and was waiting for Candra to give the instruction, but what would it achieve?

  “I’m sorry for freaking out.” The words made her meltdown seem like past tense, although Candra was still in the grips of a mild panic attack forcing adrenaline through her system at an alarming rate.

  Lofi wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and scooped her hair back over both shoulders. Like all of them, she was stunning. But unlike the others, Lofi still possessed an almost child-like quality that seemed to put everyone around her at ease. She straightened her black shift dress, unwittingly reminding Candra that she was still in her mourning clothes. She looked down at the water stain spreading out across her midsection and making her dress stick to her skin.

  “You don’t have to be sorry. We get it…” Lofi paused, her lips pulled up on one side with a hint of condolence. “Sebastian gets it.”

  “That’s just it though, isn’t it?”

  Lofi said nothing, waiting patiently for her to continue. Candra slouched a little and leaned back against the sink, using her hands to prop herself up.

  “I feel weak.” She raised her hand, stopping Lofi when she opened her mouth to protest. “I do, but it’s more than that. I’ve never been so out of control. I don’t know if I can stand this much longer.”

  “Candra, your best friend just died. If you weren’t feeling out of control, I would worry more.”

  Candra bit down on her lip, knowing she wasn’t getting the extent of her emotional turmoil across successfully. She concentrated on the pinched flesh and wondered how much she should share—the dreams, the voice in her head…

  “I keep thinking I’m okay. For a few minutes now and again, I am. Then the loss hits me all over.” She rubbed her breastbone with the heel of her hand, right where it hurt the most. “I remember she’s gone, and I want to explode. How can any one person be expected to take this much pain?”

  Lofi shrugged. “One person isn’t. We are all here for you.”

  “Are you?” Candra flinched at the accusation in her tone. It caught her off guard. A burning sensation crept upward from her tumbling stomach. She hadn’t eaten the breakfast Brie had made and had left a full plate of food behind at the wake. They had served pigs in blankets and soggy triangle sandwiches no one appeared in the mood to eat. “Are you really here for me or for what I am?”

  Lofi narrowed her eyes speculatively and took a deep breath, giving more thought to her answer than Candra expected. Lofi had always been the most honest, although occasionally, her honesty took some deciphering. “Yes, and yes.”

  It wasn’t the answer Candra had expected. Maybe it was a little more honest than she’d wanted to hear. Her jaw slackened a little.

  “Well—” Lofi sat down lightly on the table and pulled her feet up onto one of the chairs “—I’m not sure we can separate the two. What you are, it’s the reason we are here. It’s the reason Sebastian sought you out.”

  Candra slid down onto the floor, keeping her legs out straight, and shivered. Cold tiles were the very least of her worries. “Lofi.” She paused and crossed her legs, questioning one last time if sharing was a good idea. Except her brain didn’t want to cooperate in making any kind of decisions. So she closed her eyes, picturing the image clearly behind her eyelids, and went on regardless.

  “I keep having these really vivid dreams. In one of them, it’s the depths of winter. I’m standing by the lake in Fairview Park. It’s snowing, and the ground is frozen over. The sky is so beautiful, swirls of silver and midnight blue textures. Almost as though it’s been painted with oils on a canvas…and it’s dark, but I can see perfectly. I want to reach out and touch it, but every time I do the color moves, shifts…or something. I can’t reach high enough.” Candra reached forward into nothing, straining to touch the beautiful sky in her dreams. Her eyes remained closed, seeing the silver slink into the night above her. Mercury, she decided; it was mercury and not silver. No, it was a memory, not a decision. Something told her reaching for something beyond her was dangerous—lethal. A dreadful shudder rushed through her at the recollection. She tried to hide it, but the barely audible hitch in Lofi’s voice indicated that she’d failed.

  Candra pulled her hand toward her and closed her fist, ignoring how her fingers tingled. “I walk out onto the ice. It’s thick and hard to keep my balance. I’m not even sure it can hold me, but I know I have to keep moving. I have to get to the center of the lake… There’s something waiting for me.” Her eyes tightened, straining to see clearer, and her heart rate picked up. Despite the chill radiating through her body, a warm dampness formed over her lip. “The ice begins to crack.” The sound resonated in her ears, like a blade dragged over glass. “I have to get there, so I go down on my stomach to keep going, crawling. All the time, the ice is shivering below me, fracturing outward like a spider’s web. I’m trapped in it. Then I see her—”

  She stopped suddenly, almost choking on the vision inside her head. Ivy’s eyes peered out at her from below the ice, wild and terrified. Her cheeks puffed out from struggling to hold onto her breath. She screamed silently for release from her frozen prison, her fingers scrambling against the slick, icy surface, finding no purchase.

  Candra’s breathing became more erratic, and her pulse pounded relentlessly below her skin. She wanted to tell Lofi what she saw, but the words wouldn’t come. In the dream, she clawed at the ice. What had seemed so fragile a moment ago had become utterly impenetrable. She couldn’t get to Ivy. Panic set in, and her muscles twitched inside her flesh as tiny electrical currents raced through her. She couldn’t breathe at all now. She banged on the barrier just as Ivy did. Cold seeped into to her, needles of ice jabbing at her skin. They were both hitting the same spot, but Candra knew Ivy was losing her battle. Her eyes were beginning to roll, and bubbles of air popped from her nose.

  As kids, they had loved bubbles. They’d remained out on the street for hours, holding up circles of plastic and watching the sun make rainbows across the shiny round surfaces of the bubbles as they floated away.

  Candra’s chest burned. The ice pressed hard against her and shook with the force of the rapid slaps of her fist. The pain vibrated through her bones, and every harsh breath pulled the smoky cold inside her lungs, freezing her from the inside out. It hummed through her veins, and she understood instinctively that it would take only moments to reach her heart.

  In the distance, she heard a voice calling to her. She told herself to keep going. All Candra knew was that she couldn’t lose Ivy again. The ground below her quaked violently, and a deep crack appeared in the ice. Candra’s insistent thumps intensified at the same time Ivy began to twitch and jerk. Through the murky water, Candra witnessed life draining from her eyes. Ivy’s fingers pressed forward, skimming the under surface of the ice lightly before she began to sink.

  “No,” Candra screamed, unsure if it was real. The sound tore at her throat as if it were real, but she couldn’t pull herself away from the dream. Fire ripped through her fingers as she clawed her nails across the crack, desperately wanting to aggravate the rift to breach the surface.

  “Candra.” Sebastian’s voice called to her. His hands clung to her shoulders, his strong, warm hands trying to pull her away.

  Below her, Ivy sank farther and farther down, disappearing into the inky blackness. With one final ferocious blow, the hairline fracture ruptured outward, and the surface exploded. Ice water consumed Candra, slicing across her flesh and delivering a jolt of undiluted terror instantly to her heart as death claimed her.

  Chapter Five

  FOR ONCE, SEBASTIAN WAS GLAD to be clingy and glad that his stubborn pride wouldn’t allow him to let Candra walk away. He had planned to check up on her, and if she’d told him to leave the kitchen, he would have.

  He found her in a fetal position on t
he floor in the grips of some kind of waking nightmare, with Lofi crouched beside her, attempting to coax her awake.

  “I don’t know what happened,” Lofi explained in a rush of words. “We were talking, and she just seemed to pass out or something.”

  Sebastian fell to his knees on the other side of Candra. His fear escalated to dizzying horror as he watched her body spasm and pain flicker across her expression. Behind her closed eyelids, her eyes darted back and forth quickly, confirming that she was dreaming.

  “Candra. Candra, wake up.”

  “Brie,” Lofi called urgently, edging back to give Sebastian more room.

  He slipped his arm under Candra and pulled her into his lap, but she began to fight him, thrashing in his embrace, aggressively slapping him away. Not now, he internally groaned. Draven would see this as a further chink in Sebastian’s relationship with Candra. Even unconsciously, she rejected him.

  “What in the Arch…” As if on cue, Draven filled the doorway, his massive shadow pitching them into darkness.

  Brie pushed him out of the way; her fierce mothering instincts overrode any sense of self-preservation in his presence.

  “What did you do to her?”

  Candra’s strength caught Sebastian unaware, and a sticky wetness dribbled over his jaw and down his throat from where she tore at his cheek with her nails. He circled her wrists with his fingers and managed to awkwardly tilt his head and rub his jaw against his raised shoulder. He wanted to wipe all the blood away, but that would mean freeing Candra’s hands. He could handle it if she hurt him, but not if she hurt herself. Whatever conflict raged inside her head, it wasn’t leaving much wiggle room for gentleness.

  “What did she say?” he demanded, flashing angry eyes toward Lofi.