by CD Coffelt
A small breath of wind caught his clothes, smelling of cool wetness, and the hairs on his arm crawled as if a thousand bees were humming there. His stomach dropped and he gasped. She whirled to face him with the same mask of fear he knew she saw in him.
“You have to leave. Now,” she said. Panic threatened to control her, and as he watched, she fisted her hands at her side.
“It is too late.” Justus smiled. How strangely calm he felt. His eyes never left hers as he nodded at the approaching car. “They are here.”
Bert stood abruptly, and Justus heard his gasp, but he could do nothing for him. Sable’s mouth trembled, then firmed. She faced the car. Justus stepped to her side. He found it surprising that none of the emotions he thought he should feel, nothing of panic or fear, were a part of this moment. Running was not an option.
To avoid confrontation, unthinkable.
The emotion sifting into him was something different, harder. Resolved. He felt like he was poised on the edge of a high cliff, preparing to jump. Or fly. The choice was his to make. And with that, calm washed over him.
He loved flying.
Justus watched the car slow to a stop, and the two people, a man and a woman, stepped from the vehicle. The woman, he dismissed immediately. She was a mage, but her aura held no alarm for him. The elements of Air and Earth soared around her as she scanned the shop and their postures. A troubled frown appeared on her brow.
The man was a different story. He was the image of authority walking, a man who knew what it was to command, give orders, and expect obedience. This was a man in control. Justus narrowed his eyes as he viewed the roaring elements flashing around the man. Fire was the mage’s talent, in enormous amounts. The hunter glided around the front of the car with no wasted motions, like a supple panther stalking its prey.
This was a dangerous man, lethal in every way.
Even as Justus had done, the man appeared to assess the three people facing him, measuring and then dismissing the wide-eyed teenager who stood frozen by the wooden bench. Those blue-gray eyes brightened when they turned to Sable and appeared satisfied. But when he turned to Justus, the expression changed. His eyes sharpened as they focused on him. With the ward stone protecting Justus, the man could not see the mage standing before him. But something made the face of the man harden. Maybe something of the emotions coursing through Justus at that moment were on his face, the hot bar of anger he felt turning his mind into familiar, but controlled fury.
The Imperium thought they could carve out a section of his world just by being here.
No.
In that moment, Justus formed the anger into adamant and iron will. The rage going through his thoughts turned into icy-cold calm, with fire licking the edges.
The mage’s brow furrowed deeply, alarmed by what he saw when Justus met his gaze without flinching. In the time the couple had exited the car and the first character assessments made, only a few seconds had passed.
Justus waited.
Prepared. And cold with rage.
Softly spoken words broke the invisible effervescence.
“The shop is closed,” Sable said. She stepped in front of Justus.
The open street with the sun reflecting from the buildings across the road, the teenage boy stiff with fright to his left, and the man still facing him; Justus became aware of his surroundings and took a breath. The man facing him also flicked his eyes around as the strange woman laid her fingers on his arm, her face worried. His quick smile steadied her, and he took a deep breath as well.
“The shop is closed,” Sable said again, “but I think you know that already.”
“We aren’t here to shop.” The woman smiled briefly.
“We are here on behalf of your parents,” the man said.
Sable remained quiet.
“I am Dayne Mathon, and this is my wife Macy.”
“Why do they want her?” Justus didn’t realize he’d intended to speak until the words left his mouth. The sound of his low, steady voice sliced through the air.
The adept looked at him with the eye of a man under attack. The mage touched his Fire element, not gathering it, not yet. It was like a finger ready to flip the safety of a gun.
“To find her, to know she is okay,” the man said, his tone low as well.
Justus couldn’t stop his lips from curling away from his teeth, and he took a step to the side away from Sable. He needed more room to act. Glacier cold enveloped his mind, and he automatically prepared to gather his elements. He began to extend his thoughts to pull from the Earth and Air great magnitudes of energies.
A hand on his arm, a soft voice beside him stopped him, and he looked down at Sable. She stood in front of him, looking up into his face, her hands on his chest. The rage he felt, the ice and the lava together, was nothing he had ever felt before. The only things holding him from releasing it against the man were those eyes that spoke silently to him.
To wait. To stop.
He took a calming breath and nodded.
“We aren’t here to take her,” the other hunter said softly. Macy brushed her hair back in a nervous gesture. “We just want to talk to her, make sure she’s okay.”
The words meant nothing to him. Even when tension ebbed from the man standing at the woman’s side, his eyes stayed on Sable’s face.
And she mouthed silently three words.
I love you.
Nothing but her face, her lovely eyes and mouth could hold his attention now, her lashes making a black fringe around her gray eyes.
The emotions washing through him were like nothing he had felt before, no anger, no fear, but a soaring emotion that would rival the fastest bird. Not even the man’s voice could break through the hold on him.
“That’s right. We just want to talk. Let her parents know she is okay. Not to take her back,” Mathon said.
Justus bent to softly kiss her cheek, and then he breathed into her ear, “As I do you.”
He smiled as the tears sprang into her gray eyes. Without breaking from their gaze, Justus said, “That would be a good thing…that you are here for information only.” Justus met the man’s eyes. “A very good thing,” he said to the hunter.
Gently, he pulled Sable from in front of him, his arm around her waist, so they could both face the two mages together. He looked at the wide-eyed woman standing by the grim man and nodded to her.
“Ma’am.”
She stepped back from him, startled by something in his face. For a moment, he thought he saw fear cross her features. Then wonder, as she collected herself and stood silently by the man’s side.
“We just want to talk to her. That’s all. Alone. For her sake, we need to make sure she’s okay. Make sure she’s under no duress,” the hunter said and looked pointedly at Justus’s hand on her waist.
The smile Justus gave the hunter was not pleasant. Sable stopped Justus from moving forward with her hand on his arm.
“It’s okay. I think I can talk to them. Don’t worry,” she said. Her tone was soothing, low.
He released her. The woman called Macy was still staring at him. When Sable patted Justus’s arm and stepped away, Macy smiled and seemed to relax. She motioned for Sable to precede them down the sidewalk. Hesitating, Sable threw one glance over her shoulder and then walked ahead of them. They were almost at the corner when Bert released the air he held in a sharp puff. He looked at Justus, opening his mouth to ask questions.
Justus quickly put one finger in front of his lips, and Bert subsided. Without expending magic or gathering any energy, he augmented his hearing.
He heard a low huff of breath. “I didn’t think he was going to let us leave for a minute,” the hunter called Dayne said.
Chapter Nineteen
“I didn’t think he was going to let us leave for a minute,” Dayne said.
He tried to shake it off, the battle-sense that had settled over him. It had taken all of the experience and nerve to hold his ground in the face that black-eyed man�
�s stance. In the back of his mind, he wondered if his Fire element would have been enough to stop the man—a human, no less.
Ridiculous, he scoffed to himself.
He blew out another breath to pull himself together. “Who was that guy?”
“A friend,” the young woman said curtly.
The tener unus seemed willing enough to walk with them, but her trust didn’t go very far. She paced between them, her eyes forward as they moved down the tree-lined street. A small park was his destination, a staging ground on their earlier trip to find the young one.
Not so young, though. Probably in her twenties, really too old for what she was: untried.
Oh, well, not his problem.
The corners of Macy’s mouth turned down as she kept her pensive gaze on the tener unus. She patted the young woman’s arm without speaking.
The tener unus jerked away from her and strode ahead of them. Dayne flinched when hurt flashed across Macy’s face. Clearly, his wife wasn’t ready for the emotional traps, the suspicious newbie, and the Imperium’s sensory bonds of this mission. But it was too late now.
Early joggers looking to beat the summer sun passed them as Dayne trailed behind Macy and the girl through the entrance. He wiped the perspiration off his brow and wondered when the real heat would hit. The air was still and muggy, really too hot for his taste.
He hoped it was the heat making him sweat and not the human back at the shop.
The trail opened into a clearing. Several concrete benches were scattered under the trees alongside the path. Dayne took the lead and motioned for the women to follow him to a set of benches under one oak tree. The young one sat opposite them, looking at her hands twisting in her lap, the many bracelets clinking as she moved.
As he leaned back against the bench, Dayne had his first real look at the tener unus, the source of all Tiarra’s angst. Time to allay her fears with his most benign face. He prepared to begin his calming speech, but the words stuck in his throat when she looked up and met his eyes. It was then he realized his mistake. He had no need to give her soothing words to allay her fears. Her face held nothing of fear.
The young woman coolly appraised him, and it sure as hell wasn’t apprehension that curled her lip back from her teeth.
“What do you want?” she said.
For a beat, he paused, her steady gaze confusing him. For the first time since he had risen to the top of the Imperium, words and strategy abandoned him and left him speechless. This land of uncertainty was not a familiar place for him. She watched him silently, calmly. Her poise reminded him less of prey and more of the predator. Dangerous…
Dangerous? What idiot was he channeling today? First, a human had given him the willies, and now a magic-less girl.
He cleared his throat. “Exactly like I said. We just want to talk. See where you stand.”
The girl tipped her head to the side. “How I am progressing, you mean,” she said.
From the corner of his eye, Dayne saw Macy’s mouth twitch. He tamped down his irritation. Unbelievably, she found something funny about the business with the girl. He shook his head. “No, we want to answer any questions you might have and help you—”
“Turn me,” she interrupted.
He gritted his teeth and sucked in a breath to calm down. Macy covered her mouth with her hand, but not before Dayne saw her newborn smile.
“No. We are not here to ‘turn’ you. That is your business, not ours.” Dayne frowned. “How much do they know, those two humans back there?” he asked in a low harsh voice. “And your other friends, the old couple, have you told them anything? That guy, the shop owner, he was ready to take me on, so you must have told him something.”
“No, I haven’t told anyone about my gift.”
She said the last word like a curse. The young woman pursed her lips together. “Mr. Aubre knows I had abusive parents. Not my fault you chose that excuse for tailing me,” the tener unus said. She jerked her chin up. “Why are you here, then? And screw the political rhetoric. I don’t need petted. I don’t need managed. Why are you here?”
Dayne hesitated and traded looks with Macy while he wavered. He didn’t have experience with this situation. Macy’s mocking smile didn’t help his indecision.
The girl, Sable, watched with bird-bright eyes, quietly observing their unspoken conversation. Her intent look drank in and seemed to store every scrap of information. Dayne shrugged and gave in.
“You seem to know a lot about us. We have orders to guard you and watch over you.”
“What? Tiarra doesn’t want to haul me in?”
Dayne shook his head. “No. She wants your allegiance, but not until you’ve reached your full potential. She hopes you will turn without her personal attention.”
Sable shivered. Finally. She was beginning to show a little fear.
“How did you hide from those two hunters?” he asked.
“I didn’t know I did.” Sable frowned and hesitated, as if picking her words carefully. “We had a mystery a few weeks ago, a bunch of kids with severe headaches. They got better after a few days in the hospital, but it was chaos for a while. Did the Imperium have a hand in that?”
He nodded, but didn’t elaborate; the subject was not something he wanted to relive. The kids taken to the hospital had received a visitor, Tiarra, who bonded with them as they lay helplessly in their beds. Spirit blanked the minds of parents and hospital staff, and she had moved from room to room without opposition. Tiarra’s harvest was miserly. Very few of the ones she had bonded had enough talent to light a match, and her resulting bad temper had kept her underlings treading carefully ever since.
When Macy frowned at him, he realized he had inadvertently caught a loop of Fire that he spun as a human would a rubber band. He saw an identical frown on Sable’s face, and he released the energy.
“Tiarra doesn’t want the magically inclined to run loose. She wants them under control. They can be dangerous if they aren’t. The Wilders, the unrestrained wizards, need to be found and controlled,” Dayne said.
Sable tipped her head to one side, as if puzzled. “Controlled? Why control them?”
“They must be controlled. The crazies.”
Macy gave him a sidelong look, while Sable didn’t even stir.
Dayne gestured with his hand. “There are wizards out there with no restraint. They don’t care who they hurt or how they do it.”
Sable’s hooded eyes bored into him. “So they have to be policed. What is the big deal?” she said. “Just like the human population, we need cops and security. Why should we serve one person, without our consent, against our will?”
“Picture the world of wizards, unrestrained wizards who could turn the world upside down. Unimaginable chaos,” Dayne said.
Macy stirred, but didn’t speak.
Sable gave him an even look. “Define ‘unrestrained.’ Maybe it means something different in your world than it does in mine. I always thought it meant to be free.”
He scowled and looked to his wife for support, but Macy crossed her arms.
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” he said to her.
“I’m on the side of the one who is right.”
“Damn it, Macy, this isn’t the time to do this.”
She lifted one eyebrow and shrugged. “What are we doing? Just having a discussion, that’s all. She is asking logical questions about her future. Nothing wrong with that.”
Dayne stood abruptly and jerked his head for Macy to follow. “Excuse us for a while, Sable. My wife and I need to have a private discussion.”
Sable smirked and leaned back against the bench. Macy followed him to the edge of the clearing. It was far enough away that the tener unus couldn’t overhear, but he kept his voice low as a precaution.
“Macy, you need to get a grip. You are taking this way too personally. Our mission here is watching over her, keeping an eye on the TU, not taking her side. She needs to be guarded from herself. And her crazy ideas won’t
fly, you know that, not after Tiarra takes over.”
“Don’t you see, Dayne,” Macy said. “That’s why she doesn’t want to become Tiarra’s acolyte. As soon as she is turned, she loses her autonomy and freedom. She’ll become Tiarra’s puppet and slave. And Heaven knows what else.”
Dayne felt his stomach clench with foul, unwanted memories. He forced them from his mind. An ache in his skull threatened to split his head. He scrubbed one hand over his eyes. “We keep the chaos at bay and try to live our lives.”
“No,” she said, sweeping one hand between them. “We don’t live our lives. We dance to her tune. We follow her rules.”
“And what’s the alternative, huh? To go down in fire like that mage that created the volcano in Mexico? Or the wilder that blew up in Russia a hundred years ago?”
He gestured at the tener unus. She was contemplating the ground and hadn’t moved. “How about her? If Tiarra hadn’t bonded with her, she’d be like a crazed animal with delusions of grandeur.”
“Hey. I’m sitting right here, you know. I can hear you,” Sable said, her voice pitched low.
Dayne swiveled. She still looked down at the ground. “No, you can’t,” he blurted.
Her eyes came up as his confusion multiplied. She chose not to answer.
Macy’s laugh broke through the tension. She was still chuckling as she went back and sat down on the bench. Dayne followed, his bafflement warring with curiosity. The girl stoically kept her gaze on him.
He drummed his fingers on the back of the bench as two runners came down the trail. He waited for them to pass. They disappeared around the trees.
“You were listening,” he said.
“Obviously.”
“You have come into your magic, then. How are you covering up your talent?”
But as he spoke, she was shaking her head. “No, I am not a full wizard. Using my small talent leaves me weak, but I do know how to boost my hearing without much trouble.”