I shuddered at the thought. We weren’t about to get attacked, we were on our way to find a fight. Why hadn’t I waited until I had trained more? Why hadn’t I kept my big mouth shut? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Cold?” Steed asked.
It brought me back. “Oh. Uh, no, I’m fine.”
I realized the conversation I was missing was about the horses and a question popped out without a thought. “Steed, what’s your horse’s name?”
“Oh," he replied casually, "I’ve named her Elfreda.”
I blushed. Well, blushing was putting it mildly. He smiled through tight lips, trying not to laugh. Ugh. Who had told him that I’d named my horse Steed? Probably would have given that a second thought if I’d known how things would turn out.
The way was rough and I found I’d liked riding up better than down. Maybe it was only my nerves, but leaning back all day to avoid being tossed over the horse’s head while being jostled around wasn’t exactly fun. And we had not, as far as my poor directional skills could tell, swung back around toward the south side of the mountain. The stones were darker here, less traveled, and, well, eerie. We finally stopped for the evening and I slid down off the horse, walking around a bit before the dinner around the fire I was eagerly looking forward to.
There seemed to be a conversation I wasn’t expected to be a part of, planning no doubt, so I busied myself by checking out what Ruby had packed for me. When I opened the first bag, my stomach knotted at the disturbing sight. It was full of weapons. I told myself they were for training, not for what lay at the end of our journey. I pulled out some knives. The blades were shiny and sharpened to a frightening degree. I gingerly slid them back in the bag to one side and took out a less offensive-looking weapon. Two sticks were connected end to end by a metal chain. It looked fairly harmless. I was satisfied with my find as I stood to try it out. Much safer.
I had a hand on each end and gave them a pull, as if I were testing the chain. I wasn’t sure what I was doing but it probably looked cool. You know, check out your… what was this weapon… before using it. It seemed to be pretty sturdy but I couldn’t decide how to use it in both hands so I went with one. I’d seen Grey spin a staff so I thought I’d try that method. I held the end of one stick in my right hand and swung it around carefully in a circle. It worked out nicely so I swung it in a figure eight that wrapped around my sides. I found that it worked better with momentum so I sped up a bit.
I really liked it. I got brave and tried out some new moves.
Thwack!
I tried not to grab my face as the free end cracked me on the bridge of the nose. My eyes were watery but I risked a glance at the group, desperate to see if they had noticed. Ugh. To their credit, they were trying to hold back their laughter. They were strong but it didn’t matter… they’d seen the whole thing.
I’d save the embarrassment for later, my face hurt too bad right now. I plopped down on a rock and used the base of my palm to apply pressure to the bone between my eyes. I scowled behind my forearm when I heard a chuckle. Probably Steed.
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but I knew I was dreaming. I knew because I was that other Elfreda again. I was younger and braver and though I couldn’t lose the confusion even when I was dreaming, I was in control. We were outside, but the ground was rocky and the trees were low and spiky. We were hiding as we waited, pleased with ourselves as we watched our plan play out perfectly. Aunt Fannie had found our decoy. She was younger, too, but this old me still held strong negativity toward her. She’d spotted the scroll and checked to see that she wasn’t being followed. She’d not seen us. Her eyes widened at the words on the page before she softly whispered them aloud. Beside me, I heard a stifled chuckle as he worked his magic, burning the lines into her palms. She dropped her prize and her face froze as she took in the image on her skin. A map. A false map that would lead her in circles for days and give us time…
I jerked from Ruby’s touch as she tried to wake me. It was dawn. I was covered in sweat and muddled, confused. Had it been a dream? Had I taken the memories of the map that I had found, the map that had led me north, led me here, and combined them into a dream with these rocks and… Chevelle.
No, no, I couldn’t believe it. It must have been a dream. How would he? Why?
I shook my head and hastily grabbed my things to mount as the others were leaving. No. Impossible.
But the images nagged at me all day, they would not be quieted even as we rode down the mountain, further and further from the castle.
I tried to remember the words. I was almost certain of them; it had been such a shock at the time. When I couldn’t fight it any longer, I held back from the group as we rode and nervously whispered the spell.
Nothing happened.
Maybe I’d used the wrong ones. No, I was sure. Well, maybe a spell only worked once, though I’d never heard of that. But I didn’t know much about spells. Maybe I was already here so there was no reason for the map to appear. No, to burn into my palms. But I wasn’t here when the lines disappeared. I was riding into the village where we had met Ruby. When Chevelle had nodded at my hands. My mind returned over and over to the idea that it was a memory, not a dream. But I held fast to the one shred of evidence I could muster. No one has the power to heal.
We were stopping before I realized it was evening. I was exhausted from worry. Ruby could tell something was wrong; she tried to act cheery.
“Ooh, you should have put some snow on that,” she giggled, pointing to my black eyes from yesterday’s self-taught sticks-on-a-chain lesson.
I managed to glare at her but it hurt more than it was worth.
We sat as Chevelle lit a fire and I tried not to eye him suspiciously. I’d once marveled at how good he was with a flame. Maybe he had a reversible burning power. Okay, now you’re just making stuff up. I thought back to the incident again, to his explanation later. His sincerity when he’d said he had to take me north, now that I’d seen the map I’d have to. His regret, how he should have been paying closer attention. His confession… I’m sorry, Freya. I let you down.
But he couldn’t have burned the map into my palms. He’d said he’d been distracted. He’d had his own agenda; I’d watched him the night before as he snuck into a strange village and through a window for a secret meeting. I froze as I made the connection.
“What about Junnie?”
I saw Ruby shoot a glance at Chevelle but his eyes didn’t stray from the fire. She looked away, busying herself as he answered. “What about Junnie?”
“I saw her… when we were being attacked.” I swallowed hard at the memory but tried to stay on track.
He looked at me then, but I had my own answer. My voice was weak. “She’s a member of council… she received the calling just before I left the village…”
He let me digest my own words.
I was sure the fog in my brain, the breaks in my memory, were keeping me from being able to work through this. Junnie had been my only friend in the village, all those years. But she wasn’t my friend, was she? She had been my mother’s aunt, she was my family. She had come to see my mother, to warn her. I tried to think back through my memories, the days in her study, the lessons. She’d been kind to me, yes; there was no question of that. But she’d never let on that she was any more than, well, than my mentor. But that wasn’t right either. She’d helped me with my studies, but she never taught me about magic. Though I had been sure I couldn’t really do magic then. But I’d had fire, Chevelle had shown me in one morning how to control the tiny flame I’d been using since I’d arrived at the village.
“Frey?” Ruby’s voice pulled me from the spiraling thoughts. I tried to clear my head as I looked up at her, away from the flicker of the camp’s fire. I could feel the tension in my face.
Pity was evident in her eyes and it was easy to believe this group was as important to her as it had become to me. It was all either of us had. She, alone but for a half-brother and a missing father. And my o
nly family a… well, two aunts. Though at the moment I couldn’t be sure whether I could count either. Thoughts of Fannie replaced my stress over Junnie.
And then something gnawed at the edge of my memories. A forgotten dream? Aunt Fannie, glorious in anger…
“Frey?” Ruby was harsher this time. She kept my attention. “It will be dark soon. We should continue your training.” I had the feeling she was trying to distract me. Someone always interfered when they saw the strained look on my face, fighting with the bonds and the memories…
She choked out a laugh as she scrutinized my bruised face. “I’m guessing you don’t want to try weapons today.” Grrr…
Training was brutal, as always, but I had a harder time than usual because I’d not been able to stop my mind from returning to Junnie and Fannie. I wished there was a way to retrieve my memories now. I cringed as I realized the most likely way was the one we were taking, hunting down those who’d bound me to destroy them. And then the worry set in. There was no guarantee it would work, no guarantee that no one would be hurt, not even certainty that I wouldn’t be hurt. I wouldn’t think of the flames now…
But I did have that memory, the memory of the flames. I thought of the diary then. I’d not wanted to read it after the revelation of my human father, after the description of my mother’s own father and his wicked plans, after the madness that led her to destroy the North. I looked around the fire as I sat alone with Ruby, the others speaking in hushed tones across from us. It didn’t make sense, the reports I’d seen of the northern clans had claimed extinction.
“Ruby?”
She smiled automatically as she answered, knowing I would likely say something stupid or entertaining. “Hmm?”
“What happened,” it was hard to talk about, “when my mother…”
Her brow tightened as I trailed off. “We don’t have to talk about this now, Frey.”
“I want to know.” I didn’t sound convincing and I knew it.
“You think you do.”
“Would you be happier, if you never knew…” I couldn’t finish that sentence either. How could I point out that she’d poisoned her own mother, and who knew how many others, by accident?
“Wouldn’t I?” she replied coolly.
I sighed. She was probably right. But not knowing was torturous. “But she couldn’t have… I mean, you are from the North. And Steed, and Chevelle…” As I waved my hand toward them for emphasis, I noticed Chevelle was watching me. Staring at me. Yes, my mother had killed his clan. My throat was thick but I managed to choke out my question in a whisper. “She didn’t kill them all, then?”
Ruby’s face flashed with sympathy and irritation and a half dozen other emotions before she answered. “No, Frey. She didn’t. But most remained scattered until things settled a bit.”
I let out a deep breath, slightly relieved, and she eyed me suspiciously.
“Frey…”
Uh oh.
“What made you think she’d killed them all?”
“Um, I read it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That wasn’t in the diary.”
I hesitated for half a second and then decided on the truth, mostly because I couldn’t come up with a good enough lie. “It was in some papers from the village.”
Her eyes flicked to Chevelle and then back to me. I noticed he was still watching, but now his face was hard. Her voice was almost accusing. “I thought you burned those up?”
“The ones from the council, yes. These were from the library.” I glanced from Ruby to Chevelle. Something about this troubled them, but I couldn’t tell why. And then my brain caught up and I turned back to Ruby, a little harsher than I’d intended. “Wait, you read the diary?”
She almost blanched. Almost. And then she answered matter-of-factly, “It was of interest to me.”
Before I had time to respond, Chevelle was beside us.
I was startled, and then I flushed… this was the closest he’d been since my last failed seduction attempt.
“That wasn’t in the documents you found at the library.” I tried to process the concern in his tone but as his words sunk in, I flushed anew. He had seen the documents I’d had at the library, researching him. He was waiting for my answer.
“Um, I found these before.”
“In the library?” Still serious.
“Yeah.” And then I remembered. “Actually, they fell, from a higher level.”
They were staring at me like I’d missed something obvious, something they didn’t like.
Ruby interjected, “Frey, are you sure you didn’t pull them to you with magic?”
“I don’t think so…” But how would I know.
They were quiet.
“What?”
Chevelle was close, intense in his “careful” mode, the one they used with me to protect my delicate brain. I nearly snickered but held it, this was the wrong conversation for that. “Were there any other documents, papers, anything, that you found?”
The way he said found had me confused. “Uh, I don’t know.”
He waited.
“There were those, and then the ones in the library… the day you helped me study…” I tried not to trail off as I realized he hadn’t been helping me study, he’d been watching me. I huffed out a breath and continued, “And then the ones in the council library.”
“Nothing else?”
“Only the scroll.” They both looked away for a second and then he turned back to me.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. But it didn’t matter, they were all messed up anyway.”
“What do you mean, messed up?”
“They were all out of order, just loose pages.” His eyes narrowed and I couldn’t stop myself from talking. “The stuff about the northern clans was mixed in with stuff about Fannie… and you…”
My voice cut off at his response. I thought he might have paled, but I couldn’t be sure because before I could get a good look, he was gone. I watched after him for a moment, and then turned to Ruby, who sat beside me, still. Expressionless.
“What is it, Ruby?” I whispered.
She composed a polite smile. “Nothing, dear. You should get some sleep.”
I tried not to glare at her. They weren’t going to tell me anything.
I flipped a blanket out a few feet from the fire and flopped down, pouting. I wondered for a moment if I could get someone else to tell me. Steed maybe. I could try. I didn’t know about the others, they were not as open. I liked Grey very much but I had my suspicions that he hung around more for Ruby than my company. And Rhys and Rider were practically never in conversation’s distance, always on the periphery, watching, guarding. That only left Anvil. There was something about him. I was drawn to him the first time I’d met him, wanted to be his friend. It didn’t seem right, though. He was massive and should have been frightening. Not to mention the fact that he could shoot lightning from his hands. The feelings I had toward him, that inexplicable pull, didn’t match my dreams. His tongue wagging, being burned, torn away. Ugh.
I tried to remove that picture again. Maybe there was another way. There could have been more in the diary. Maybe I should have kept reading it. I wondered who had it. Probably Ruby. I couldn’t remember seeing it after I woke. The last time had been the night Chevelle had tossed it aside, when he’d held me as I wept…
Uh, there were so many images I had to ban from my mind these days.
And then inspiration hit. Surely we were still close enough…
I closed my eyes and concentrated until I found what I needed. This new talent seemed better all the time. I was in the mind of one of the large mountain lions I’d left in the castle, seeing through its eyes. It wasn’t as easy as the others, harder to stay focused here than in the horses. He didn’t cooperate as well as I would have liked, but I was able to get him to move from his comfortable spot… where was he? I tried to look around but the cat became distracted by the sight of blood and I had to focus harder to keep hi
m moving. Eee, hope that was whatever Dree was feeding them and not Dree… He’d been lounging high on a ledge, in the throne room I thought. I wasn’t sure how to get where I was going, still confused about the layout of the castle. But I thought I knew where to go – Ruby’s room.
As we wandered through the corridors my head began to ache slightly. The castle was pretty empty, but I didn’t know if that had anything to do with the presence of the cats. I tried several rooms, but most of the ones that were open held nothing of interest. I was wondering how I would ever find it when I came to a set of double doors that I’d never seen before. They looked more ornate than the others, which showed promise. With some effort, I reached a heavy paw up to pull down the lever that released the latch. The cat was bigger than I’d realized, its weighty body pushed the door right open.
He slunk forward, toward the sheered bed and I let him, looking around as we went. It seemed easier to “ride along” than to constantly try and control his movement. He pounced the sheers, pulling them loose, and then lazily plopped down on the end of the bed, looking out, around the room. I wasn’t sure how to know when I’d found Ruby’s room, let alone where to look for the diary, but this was definitely a woman’s room. There were rich fabrics everywhere, dresses draped over the wardrobe door. But, they were dusty, very dusty. I took a closer look at the bedding, it was also aged. So, this couldn’t have been Ruby’s room, it hadn’t been used for what seemed to be a exceptionally long time. Why weren’t the servants cleaning it?
I tried to move down from the bed to get a better look at the items on the vanity. We didn’t budge. My head was almost throbbing now but I tried harder. He didn’t behave as I wanted and I wondered if this was why so many less had shown up at the castle than I’d planned. Then his head turned suddenly, there was some commotion nearing the door. He was moving now, but I concentrated on making out the sounds.
“The seal has been broken… Miss Vita’s room… no, no, by one of the cats…”
Frey Saga Book II: Pieces of Eight Page 2