by C. A. Gray
“I did tell you the legends were true, though!” Bruce pointed out anxiously. “I always tried to tell you about the Ancient Tongue, and Carlion. You just wouldn’t listen.”
“Why didn’t you tell me what happened to Mum before?”
“I didn’t know how I could explain without telling you who you were, which I was expressly forbidden to do before the proper time.”
“Oh, you mean the moment when I was nearly killed by Kane’s car? Or the moment I was attacked by a throng of penumbra?” Peter retorted, getting angry.
“That was never supposed to – look, Peter. I should have been honest with you. I’m trying to tell you that even now if I had it to do over, although I realize I should have told you the truth, I’m not sure how I could have done things differently. But,” he held up a hand to hold off Peter’s retort, “I am extremely sorry for the way things happened instead, and I admit that what I did was wrong.” When Peter folded his arms and looked away, Bruce sighed, and added heavily, “I wish there wasn’t still more, Peter, but there is.”
Peter held up a hand, and pushed himself to his feet. “Sorry. I think I need some air.”
“You’re already outside,” Bruce pointed out with a weak smile. “Peter, wait!”
But Peter did not turn around.
The garden, which formed a pair of dragons from a bird’s eye view, looked like a maze once inside of it. Hedges grew seven feet tall with flowers the size of Peter’s head. He found Isdemus waiting for him. He seemed to have known that Peter would come.
“I need to know who the third person is who might be the Child of the Prophecy,” said Peter without preamble.
Isdemus raised his eyebrows. “All right.”
“Kane believed it was him. He believed it enough to risk his own life. Even if he isn’t dead, he had to know he might not make it back out of that lake again. So I have to know. Is it him or not?”
Isdemus looked back at him with his unfathomable blue eyes and placed one hand on each of Peter’s shoulders. Peter was tempted to shrug them off, but he resisted. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“No,” said Peter baldly. “I’ve got to now, though, haven’t I?”
Isdemus did not blink, but continued to gaze at him steadily. “How much did Bruce tell you?”
“He told me he lied about what happened to my mum,” said Peter shortly.
“That is true,” said Isdemus carefully. “However, it is not the whole story.”
Peter was trembling now. “No, it never is, is it?” Then he sighed and added, “He told me there was more, but I don’t think I can handle anything else about my family right now. All I want to know is who the third person is.”
Isdemus said, “The third possible candidate as the Child of the Prophecy is your twin brother.”
Peter just stared at him, not comprehending. His lips repeated without his brain’s engagement, “My –”
“Fraternal twin, yes,” said Isdemus. “Kane wondered why I went to so much trouble to locate him in the foster system, why I brought him to Carlion and raised him myself. Your mother abducted him when your parents divorced. She tried to abduct you too –”
“But Sully found me, yeah,” Peter finished weakly. “That’s what Dad said...”
“Yes. But he could not find Kane. We pieced together later that your mother died when Kane was four, because that’s when he said he entered the foster system. I managed to locate him when he was eight years old, and when I finally did, he was far too wild to be trusted in another foster home, even in Carlion. Raising him myself was the only option. He assumed that the reason I did so was because he was very special indeed. He was right.”
“Kane is my twin brother,” Peter repeated numbly. “So then, technically, the prophecy does apply to both of us.”
“Yes, Peter. It does.”
***
Cole’s room looked like a hospital wing, decorated with wildflowers that Mrs. Jefferson had picked in an effort to make the place seem more cheerful, when she wasn’t acting as his nurse. Cole sat up, his cheeks pink and his eyes much brighter than they had been the last time Peter had seen him. He sipped Dr. MacDouglas’s elixir through a straw, but by the end of that first day back (it turned out Peter had only been unconscious for around ten minutes), he was already taking solid food again.
“This stuff is kind of disgusting, but in a really addictive sort of way,” he explained to Brock, and offered him a sip.
Brock declined with a face. “It smells like feet.”
Peter had just finished telling Brock, Cole, and Lily everything Bruce and Isdemus had said. He felt a bit strange speaking about such intimate things in front of Brock, but their relationship seemed different after everything that had happened. They even almost seemed like friends, Peter thought. Almost.
“So Kane was your twin brother all along!” Cole exclaimed, shaking his head in wonder.
“Is his twin brother,” Lily corrected. “Isdemus said he doesn’t think he’s dead, remember?”
“So – do you think he’s really gonna find Excalibur and bring it back into our world?” Cole persisted, eyes wide.
“I don’t see how,” said Peter. “I didn’t follow everything Isdemus said about the water being a lens, but I’m picturing Kane trapped between two panes of glass, imprisoned with the Shadow Lord…” he shuddered.
“But – we know the sword comes back to our world eventually, so that it can be broken. And we know that it happens within your lifetime,” Lily added.
“Or yours,” Peter shot back, and closed his eyes. “Look, can we not think about that, please? Let’s talk about something else.”
“Like what?” said Brock.
“Like what happens now.”
“What do you mean?” asked Cole.
“I mean, do we go home, or do we stay in Carlion?”
Lily and Cole both looked as if he had doused them with a bucket of ice water.
“You want to leave?” Lily demanded.
“I don’t want to. I mean, I don’t know,” Peter said quickly. “They haven’t asked us to stay, though, have they?”
“Peter, are you crazy?” Lily persisted. “You can’t leave! Every penumbra in the world knows who you are by now, and you don’t know how to control your power yet. You wouldn’t last a minute out there!”
“I – know,” Peter muttered irritably. “I just wanted to know what you all were gonna do, that’s all.”
“My mum said we were staying,” Cole announced. Then he looked at Brock and added, “I mean, we are – her and me. You can do what you want, of course. I know you like being big man on campus and all that.”
Brock’s cheeks reddened just slightly. “I used to like it,” he corrected. “I don’t know if it matters so much now.” He looked at his feet self-consciously.
“It doesn’t matter?” Cole repeated, genuinely surprised.
“It’s hard to maintain the same priorities once you’re a Seer,” said Lily knowingly. “I don’t think King’s would feel like home anymore for any of you.”
“And you think this place would?” Peter challenged.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she shrugged. Then with a sly smile at Brock and Cole she said, “You two could get used to using your gifts every day, though, couldn’t you?”
Cole groaned, and sipped the elixir again. “I think I could do without it for awhile, thanks.”
“Well, that’s because you nearly killed yourself, you idiot. You weren’t supposed to do that,” said Peter, affectionately. Cole grinned back at him.
“What about your dad?” Brock asked Peter abruptly, and suddenly the mood changed.
“What about him?” Peter asked coldly.
“Well, what’s he going to do? Are you still going to live with him?”
Peter fought the urge to retort, none of your business. “If we stay in Carlion, we’ll live here in the castle, I expect,” he said evasively.
“Peter,” Lily began in a gentle tone that told him he wasn’
t going to like what she said next. She laid a hand on his arm and said, “I know how hurt you must be that he lied to you about being a Watcher, and about your mum, and about Kane. He really was doing what he thought was best, though –”
“Yeah, well, everyone seemed to be doing that, didn’t they?” Peter retorted. “And look how that turned out!”
Lily bristled, her gentleness gone. “Oh, well, I’m so sorry for you that everyone spent so much time and effort trying to protect you in a way you didn’t happen to like! That must be so hard on you!”
Cole whimpered. “Guys, we all just nearly died, remember? Can’t we all just... get along?”
Lily crossed her arms over her chest and looked away in a huff. Peter couldn’t see her eyes but he knew she was tearing up.
“Sorry, Lily,” Peter said reluctantly.
“But – Peter,” Brock began, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to finish the sentence, “whatever else he might have done, your dad – loves you.” He sounded supremely uncomfortable as he said the last bit, and added under his breath, “Which is more than some of us can say.”
“More than most of us can say, actually,” Lily sniffed bitterly. She turned back towards Peter and made eye contact for a second before looking away, though, which Peter understood to imply a truce.
Peter sighed and stood up, walking to the window. Then he turned around again and faced them. “So you’re all staying here, then?”
Lily and Cole both nodded eagerly. Brock hesitated, but eventually he nodded too.
Peter sighed. “So I suppose we’d better enroll in Paladin High, then.”
“I can’t wait to meet the guy who can merge minds!” said Cole. “I wonder what his gift is technically called? I wonder what subjects they teach – if it’s just the usual maths and literature and that rubbish, or if it’s stuff like the Ancient Tongue and social studies by portal and –”
Suddenly a shadow fell across Cole’s bed and he stopped talking, as if he’d swallowed his tongue.
“Peter,” said Bruce. “Can I have a word?”
Peter stood up and began moving across the room before Bruce had finished the question. Bruce gave Brock, Lily, and Cole a brief, tense smile before he closed the door behind them.
Once they were in the corridor, Peter folded his arms across his chest and turned to face Bruce. “Well?”
“I – just wanted to say – well,” Bruce stammered, and ran a hand through his brown hair compulsively. “Maybe you figured this out already, but it’s not really safe for me to go back to the university right away. I’ll have to lay low in Carlion for a while until the penumbra forget who I am or what I look like. Not that they have another fortress to take me to, that we know of –” he laughed uncomfortably, “but they still might try, and anyway Isdemus thinks it’s a good idea if I stick around here for a bit. Of course at least until you kind of… know the ropes a little… you have to stay, too. I guess you knew that.” He paused, waiting for some acknowledgement.
“Uh huh.”
“Right,” Bruce went on nervously. “Well, I… guess that’s all, then. I just wanted you to know that I’ll be staying in the castle, and you’ll be staying in the castle, and that means we’ll probably see each other sometimes.” He stopped, and watched timidly for Peter’s reaction. Before Peter could say anything else, he blurted, “And I just wanted to say that even though I didn’t tell you the truth about our family and I’d understand if you didn’t want to talk to me anymore, I – love you.” He took a deep breath, like the words had cost him something. “You’re all I’ve got left too, kid.”
Peter bit down on his lip, hard. Suddenly the flood of emotions that he had barely kept at bay since they returned from the Fata Morgana broke forth with overwhelming force, and they rushed at him so quickly that he couldn’t name a single one. Instead, his body acted without his permission, and a second later, he threw his arms around his dad like he was still seven years old.
“I love you too, Dad,” he managed to choke out.
Stunned, it took Bruce a moment to wrap his arms around his son, but when he did, he nearly crushed him. Peter faced the door to Cole’s room, which was suddenly ajar again, and he could see several pairs of eyes watching them with approval.
Down the corridor and just off the stairs, with a rustle of quicksilver robes, Isdemus turned unseen and walked quietly away with a smile.
Sneak Preview:
Invincible (Book 2)
Prologue
Kane felt as if he was suspended in the crystallized fragments of a kaleidoscope. Everything was perfectly geometric, brilliantly colored and yet crystal clear depending on the angle at which he looked at it. It was very much like being inside of a prism.
He had only a vague memory of what had happened, but had no idea how long ago it had been. Kane remembered the shower of silver daggers all around them in the Fata Morgana: the shattered mirrors that had made the fortress look like an endless reflection of a spherical sea… the flashes of steel and the eruptions of light colliding with darkness…
The voice. He remembered the voice of Sargon speaking to them through the surface of the water, and he felt chilled to the bone.
He wondered at that expression, chilled to the bone. Did he still have any bones? Reflexively he began to move his fingers and toes to make sure he still could. He felt his appendages respond to him, but he couldn’t see them. It was like the kaleidoscope was pressed against his face, dominating his entire field of vision.
With a start Kane remembered diving into the water. He remembered what it had felt like the moment he’d made contact with it. He had expected a slap, the way it felt to dive into a real pool, but instead he had been surprised by the sensation of a cold vacuum. It was not wet at all, or if it was, he had no recollection of the transition from dryness to wetness. Water wouldn’t feel wet to a fish, he thought. The moment he touched the surface of the water and felt himself sucked under, it was as if he had never known anything else.
A voice said, That is because time is different here.
Kane jumped. Who’s there? he demanded. He was not so much frightened by the voice as by the way he heard it. He didn’t know if heard was really the right word, because it sounded like the voice had originated inside his own head.
It did, said the voice.
Kane tried to gasp for breath, but found that his lungs would not expand.
You don’t need air here, said the voice. It isn’t like your world.
Where are we? Kane demanded. Suddenly he understood why he could not speak aloud. Voice required breath.
It is the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh dimensions.
Kane’s mind was blank. What does that mean?
There are eleven dimensions in the universe. Your world exists in four, including time. The world of the nimbi and the penumbra takes up three more dimensions, although time is shared between them. Here we also have three dimensions, which is why you can feel your body, even if you can’t see it. Yes, you still have one.
You said there were four dimensions in this place, said Kane. What’s the fourth?
Time. Ours is only tangentially associated with that of the lands of earth and shadow. For the most part, our time is our own.
Faster or slower? Kane thought, with a shiver of dread.
Neither.
Kane could feel the other’s enjoyment of his fear.
The colors around him reflected, danced, and faded one into another as Kane floated, weightless, struggling to determine which direction was up.
There is no up, the voice said pleasantly. Up has no meaning here.
There has to be an up! Kane shouted back. We’re in the Lake of Avalon, aren’t we? The battle came back to him in flashes as he envisioned the Fata Morgana above them, wherever that was, and the smooth surface of the water reflecting a bloodless, disembodied face with the high, cold voice…
Tell me, does my voice sound any different now that it’s inside your head?
; This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. There had to be a way out. Why had he jumped in?
I was wondering the same thing, actually, said the voice conversationally, and at once Kane felt himself ripped open from the inside by an uninvited presence. He had a bizarre sense of helplessness, as if he possessed the capacity to stop the intruder, but to do so would require muscles that he had never learned to use. It was even worse than the feeling that he was completely powerless.
Unbidden, Kane’s own memories began to flash before his eyes. He was flooded with images of Peter as he grew up. Remembered emotions of contempt for the skinny, awkward little boy rushed back to him.
You envied him, the voice said incredulously. You envied him nearly the point of hatred…
I never hated him, Kane retorted. I just hated the way everyone responded to him. I hated how they all thought he was so special…
Flashes of nights in the belly of the castle flooded Kane’s mind’s eye next, obscuring the kaleidoscope of colors. He saw heavy books covered with thick layers of dust, one after the other, all about the legends of Excalibur. Sucked into the pages written in the Ancient Tongue, Kane saw flashes of a knight whom he recognized as Lancelot on the banks of the Straits of Messina, hurling the golden sword into the waters below the mirage-like image of the Fata Morgana. The vision was accompanied by another explosion of remembered emotion – it was triumph and determination mingled with just enough fear to be exciting. Instantly the image morphed into a more ephemeral quality that Kane recognized as a memory of his own fantasies – he could tell the difference because details were hazier than in memories he had actually experienced. In it, Kane held the sword in his hands. Kane faced the creature he had envisioned as the Shadow Lord – an amorphous monster with tentacles and glowing yellow eyes.
Hardly flattering, said the voice in amusement, with a tsk-tsk quality.
Kane shuddered.
So that’s it, is it? the voice went on. You fancied yourself the Child of the Prophecy, and you knew the sword was here, so you thought you’d come get it and finish me off?