by Tina Hunter
“Well, it’s not as nice as your family’s farmstead but it’s enough for my needs. And a Mr. Benjamin Burkly owns this home and surrounding parcel completely, thanks to some help from my friends.” He pointed with his head at Glasses who had come to stand behind her. He gave her the creeps. He didn’t show any emotion. It wasn’t normal.
“Allow me to introduce, Renaldo,” he said, pointing at Glasses. He didn’t look like a Renaldo. “He and I have been through a lot together and he is one of the few people who knows who I really am. Renaldo, you’ve already met my niece in her disguise as a man.”
Glasses raised an eyebrow and gave her a small nod of his head. “Likewise,” she said. Then she turned back to her uncle. “Does he need to be here for this?”
“Oh, don’t worry about him,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “He’s the most trustworthy man I’ve ever met. So, any secret you share is safe with him. Now,” he sat down at the small round table, “please tell me what happened to the locket?”
Warily Lynn sat down, still uneasy about trusting her uncle, and really not trusting Renaldo. There were many versions of the story she could tell but they all ended the same way, with her here. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about building a new character, this was all her.
The truth was, she didn’t really know how Darkan had stolen it, or why. But she remembered the last time she’d seen it. Her Aunt had given her a gift on the day she left for Iridan and told her not to open it until her birthday. Of course, she had opened it at the inn in Wellspring. She’d known from the little box it was jewelry but the note inside it left her shattered. It was from her mother. Pain, guilt, wishing her the best in her life, like she had known she was going to die. And she was leaving Lynn her locket. It was too much, and she hadn’t even looked at the locket that night. But when she’d arrived at the little hovel of an apartment in Iridan she had opened the box again and saw the locket looking just like it had around her mother’s neck for everyday Lynn could remember her.
She had cried until her eyes couldn’t make any more tears. Then she had reached into the box. She had needed it in a way she couldn’t explain, then or now. The closer her hand got to the locket the more she had felt and heard a voice. It was calling for someone to open the locket. When her fingers were hovering just over the gold trim, she heard the voice clearly.
“I know you are there. Open this locket. Immediately!”
She’d pulled her hand back so quickly, she’d almost dropped the box. Lynn had slammed the lid back on the box and shoved it into a drawer near the door. It was a poor choice on her part but she had been thoroughly frightened by what she had heard. She had even convinced herself for a time that the voice belonged to her Grandmother, and her ghost was haunting Lynn.
She’d had every intention of opening it up again later that day. But the day turned into days, and then a few weeks. And by the time she had gathered up her courage to open the draw again, the little box with her mother’s locket was gone. She’d cried again that day, over the loss of the last piece of her family outside of the farmstead that was forbidden to her.
Darkan had taken something precious to her, and now she suspected that her uncle might be telling the truth. There was something magical about that locket. The voice alone should have clued her into that. But how could she have reconciled her devoted Donassi mother with having a magical locket? It didn’t make sense unless it really was for her. It also explained why her mother had never let her touch it, not once that she could remember.
She finished telling Uncle Benjamin about her landlord stealing it from her before she’d taken the locket out of the box, and how he was using it to force her into this contract.
“I just wanted a little piece of my mother back,” she said, playing up the sad niece act. “I didn’t realize it would be so important. If what you’re saying about it is true?” she questioned him, hoping for more information about how all this Inborn stuff had come about.
Her uncle leaned back in his thoughtful pose, fingers by his lips, looking at the ceiling. “Oh, it’s true,” he said from behind his fingers, “but it’s a long story and I have other matters to attend to soon. We can’t do anything about your abilities until you have the locket, so let’s instead focus on what we can do to get it back.” He looked at her intently, “What is it you have to steal from inside the fort?”
Lynn held up her wrist with the bracelet on it, miming that she couldn’t talk about it. She could of course, but it was better if he didn’t know. He nodded knowingly.
“Well, I won’t force it from you. I’ve heard it can be just as painful as telling a lie.” Lynn shivered at the thought.
“What is your real plan with the fort?” she asked in a whisper.
He shook his head as if confused. “I don’t know...” he said looking at Renaldo. Lynn looked at him, too, but saw no outward sign of anything. No emotion, no tick, no facial movement of any kind and yet Uncle Ben nodded his head in agreement as if the man had spoken. “I suppose you told me why you were here. It’s only fair.” He leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “The truth is the attack is a cover. These men I’m recruiting really will attack, but I doubt they will get close enough to do any real damage to the crystals inside. Which is good because the crystals are what I’m after.”
Oh great. Now she had direct competition for the crystals.
“So, you’ll be using the attack as a distraction?” she asked, trying to figure out how to use this new information to her advantage. “You won’t be with the men attacking?”
“No,” he said with a grin. “I leave the foolish actions to the men of youth. Besides, it will leave a bad taste in the mouths of the upper class in Carran. How reckless and destructive these country anti-magic folks can be.”
Ah. So, his plan was two-fold. Crystals, plus deliver a blow to the growing stronghold of Donassi followers. It was a good plan. The best part was that she could piggyback onto it and still get what she needed without having to use her own compromised team.
“So theoretically, someone who needed to get something from inside the fort could join your extraction team and get what they needed as well?” A coy smile and a flutter of her eyelashes had her Uncle laughing again. She hadn’t spent a lot of time with him as a child, but she did remember that laugh. It brought up memories of warm evenings relaxing in the living room with bellies full of her mother’s cooking.
“If that is what you need to get back the locket that was so wrongfully stolen from you, then that is exactly what you will do.” He reached out and took her hand, and she gripped his in return. Perhaps he wasn’t the madman she thought, or perhaps she was just on his good side. It would be best to keep on that side for as long as possible.
Her uncle’s eyes snapped over to look at Renaldo. She followed his line of sight but she hadn’t seen the man move, and he wasn’t moving now. Yet her uncle nodded and said, “You can take care of it. I’ll be along soon.” When he noticed Lynn’s confused face he added, “And next time, use your outside voice around Lynn please.”
“Of course, sir,” he said with a little nod of his head. He was gone a moment later.
“He can talk to you without talking?” That would be a useful trick to have.
“He’s an Inborn, like us.” Uncle Ben said, still gripping her hand. “He would rather not speak aloud at all but alas he can only use his telepathy with one person at a time.”
“How far away can he be and still talk to you? When did he figure out how to use it, and how? and...” She snapped her mouth shut to stop the flood of questions she had about Inborns. He kept calling her an Inborn, but she didn’t have any abilities, not like Renaldo or Dorothy. Or... “What’s your ability?”
“Full of questions,” he said squeezing her hand one more time, then leaning back in his chair. He looked to be getting comfortable and Lynn took that to be a good sign. “I suppose that’s to be expected. I’m afraid I can’t answer all of them right
now but I can answer a few.”
He reached out his hand towards the water bucket sitting on the counter nearby and squinted his eyes ever so slightly. Then all Lynn could concentrate on was the floating water. Water was floating right out of the bucket and into the air. Then closer toward them, as Uncle Ben moved his hand. His hand flexed and twisted and the water took on shapes. A bird flapping its wings. A fish jumping from one floating puddle to another. Then a giant ring with spirals flowing from one side to another in a spinning pattern that was mesmerizing. And then it was just a single circle of water that floated back to the bucket and poured itself back inside.
“That’s what I can do.” He looked at her with cautious hope, and she didn’t need much acting for her response.
“That was incredible!” she squealed. His booming laugh had a hint of relief in it. “How do you make it do what you want?”
“Practice. It’s like walking for me now. Like moving a muscle in your leg. You don’t think about moving the muscle, you think about wanting to walk and your body does it. I think about what I want to create and it happens,” his smile was easy, relaxed. This was the man she remembered. And seeing a glimpse of him made her want to trust him so much. To have a little piece of her mother back in her life. But there were still things that didn’t make sense.
“When did you discover your abilities?”
“Ah,” he said, no longer as relaxed. “Well, that has to do with your grandmother. You see there are a great many secrets in our family. One of them being my mother’s relationship with the Morendi. Specifically, a man named Gregorio Faulago.” He stared out the nearby window and took a deep sigh. “You have to understand that my mother wasn’t a bad person, she just did some things that were unconventional.”
She raised her eyebrow in confusion. He was skirting the issue. She wanted to tell him to just spit it out, but she figured she’d get more if she sat patiently.
“The man who raised me, who I believed to be my father, was not my father.”
“Oh,” well... way to go, Grandma, she thought with a fondness for the old woman long dead.
Uncle Ben, however, looked uncomfortable and refused to look her in the eye. “I didn’t find out the truth until my father, the man she married, had died. Then she told us everything. How she had been desperate for children. How my father couldn’t give her any. How she had hidden her own Inborn abilities from everyone for most of her life. And finally, how she had stolen our abilities from us as children. My blood father had made special stones to hold our abilities until we came of age but my mother never retrieved them. She thought we were happier without them. But as she got older her opinion changed. When my father died, and she told us everything, and she also gave us our stones.”
Wait... “Us? You mean, my mother had one too?” Lynn placed her hand flat on the table hoping it would keep her steady as her world changed again.
“You can imagine her surprise. She was not pleased. Especially since she’d already converted to Donassi and married your father. And was pregnant with you at the time.” His eyes grew wistful and far away. “When I touched my stone, I felt as if I was finally whole. Like a piece of me had been missing my whole life, and I just didn’t know it.”
“Did you know what you could do right away?”
“I didn’t have a clue,” he said, finally turning to look back at her. “It took weeks to figure out. I tried doing everything I could think of. Finally, I figured it out when I was trying to move a cup full of water with my mind. Only the cup stayed where it was and the water came flying out to splash me in the face.”
Lynn laughed trying to imagine it, and her uncle chuckled along with her. “And what was mother’s ability?”
Uncle Ben shook his head sadly, “Cora never figured it out. The same day mother told us, she begged mother to take it away. When she wouldn’t, Cora grabbed it with a blanket and paid a stable hand to bury it somewhere in the mountains so she’d never have to deal with it. She never touched the stone.”
Lynn felt a sudden sadness for her mother, but it was definitely something she could picture her doing. Her mother was so sure that the Allsaint would take care of everything if they just lived without magic. A lot of good that belief had done for her in the end.
“And then they made one for me?”
Uncle Ben nodded. “Gregorio made it for you. Or rather for my mother. She was going to hold on to it until you were old enough to know what this all meant, but she died before that could happen and gave it to Cora to hold on to.”
“I can’t believe no one ever mentioned this to me,” she said sadly.
He reached out and took her hand again. “The Donassi are not tolerant of Magic. I don’t think your mother even told your father.”
“Really?”
“Well, he was so surprised when I used my abilities to wash down my horse on my last visit that he banned me from ever coming back,” he said wryly. “He told everyone on the Farnfoss council and had my name banned from every Inn there and in Swanmounth. So, yes. I’m fairly certain that your mother never told your father about you or herself.”
Lynn felt sad for her mother. Having to hide such a big secret from the man you were married to. Her parents weren’t the most loving to each other, but they were good friends from what she could remember. But maybe that was all a child’s wishful thinking.
“So, I come from a family of hidden Inborns. How strange...” She thought she had known her family but even eight years after her mother’s death, she was surprising her. And Grandma. She had known she had gone off to marry a Morendi, but no one ever spoke about it.
“The Morendi man that Grandma married. Was that your... blood father?” she asked carefully. Uncle Ben nodded with a sad smile.
“It’s hard having your world turned upside down, isn’t?” She nodded and he let go of her hand with one last squeeze, “When I found out that Gregorio lived in Eldridge, just a day’s ride away from where I had grown up, and I’d never met him. I was furious.”
“He lives here?” She was shocked. She hadn’t seen any Morendi in town. Not that she’d seen the entire town yet.
“Not exactly. There is a Morendi settlement just down the river from here. He moved there ten years ago.” Ben got a strange look on his face as he spoke about him. It didn’t exactly fill her with confidence. “He’s not my biggest fan. His Inborn ability has made him a little odd.”
“Of course, he is,” she said with a sigh. Just a few days ago she had known two Inborns her whole life. Now, apparently, she was surrounded by them. At this point who wasn’t an Inborn?
“I have another recruitment meeting at the Mermaid’s Tail just after lunch. I like to get there early to chat with the boys before the meeting, and since you’ve seen how talkative Renaldo is, I should probably get going.” He stood up and held out his hand to help her up. She took it even though she had much more she wanted to talk to him about. Specifically, when this whole attack was to take place, and what he wanted the crystals for, and how Renaldo became his best friend.
“Can I come see you later, or tomorrow?” she asked quietly. He pulled her into a hug again and she didn’t have to try too hard to enjoy it.
“Tomorrow morning will be better. You can meet me here after breakfast. I’ll even have a surprise for you,” he said.
She winked at him. “Bribing me with gifts, already?” He laughed in reply and released her from the hug before leading the way out of the house. She really did enjoy his company. Lynn hoped she’d be able to keep him around when this was all done.
Nine
~Thursday Lunch Time Outside The Burnt Scroll~
WHEN THEY WERE near the Burnt Scroll, she bid him a silent goodbye with a nod of her head and a short wave. He did the same in return. They had walked in silence the whole way back and the silent goodbye still felt friendly. However, even though she felt more comfortable, she still took a few extra turns and backtracks to get to the inn. No point in being careless.
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br /> Her stomach was growling by the time she finally walked in the doors of the Burnt Scroll and the smells that greeted her only intensified her hunger. The dining hall was full of people working their way toward a large buffet-style table along the back wall being filled with an assortment of food. Among those waiting she found Malack and Dorothy. She walked over to them, waving as she went. She had so much she wanted to tell them. Was it strange that she considered Dorothy a friend worth sharing such intimate details with since she’d only known the girl for a few days? Normally she had such a hard time trusting people but with Dorothy it had been easy. Perhaps it was because the girl couldn’t lie to save her life.
“Edward,” Malack said loudly, as a reminder to Dorothy to use her male name, “How nice to see you. Will you be joining us for lunch?”
“Yes, please,” she replied. “I’m starving.” Dorothy laughed at her statement and Lynn rubbed the girl’s hat the hid her hair. Dorothy pulled it down almost to her ears, refusing to let her long hair escape. Lynn laughed at her efforts. If she’d tied her hair up as Lynn had shown her, a small ruffle wouldn’t cause an issue.
They waited in companionable silence until they got their food. Dorothy exclaimed over the foods she’d never tried or hadn’t had in a long time. When they finally sat down at a table off the side of the main cluster, Dorothy didn’t bother waiting to see if anyone wanted to say anything before digging into her food.
Malack cleared his throat. “You’ve obviously been raised in an Aacahin home,” he said softly but without venom. Dorothy stopped eating mid-mouth-full and looked at Lynn, hoping for an explanation.
“Wrong religion,” Lynn said with a cough. The Oracles of Aacahin were worshipped throughout Aguara but seeing as how Dorothy was from Iridan she could believe in any number of religions allowed in the Empire. “What’s wrong? Would you like to say a prayer, Malack?” Lynn asked her cousin with a teasing poke of her elbow.