Inherit

by Liz Reinhardt

  My mother’s sigh is so long, it creeps right into my window and tickles my ear. “The problem isn’t the boy, though he’s going to be a scarily powerful magus once he opens up to his powers. The problem is Magda. She was on the edge of the dark arts when we fought so many years ago, and Wren is on her radar now.”

  The creak of the swing intensifies as they pick up a tiny bit of momentum, lunging from plain old quick-paced to flat-out crazy. “I always thought we should take her somewhere else. This is too close to too many covens.” My dad’s voice doesn’t actually come out and accuse, but it’s drunk-walking the accusation line for sure.

  Mom lashes out with a fury so controlled, it’s like her words are skating on a sheet of black ice. “Where else were we supposed to send her? At least here she was in the middle of a shieldmaiden hotspot. I thought that if she had any powers, she’d wind up hiding in plain sight. And, at very best, I assumed she’d have middling to high powers, like I do, and they wouldn’t even notice her. How could I know she’d come into the powers with so much strength at such a young age? Ryuu, I swear to you, I’ve never seen anyone learn the shields so fast or with such mastery. She manipulated the smør and changed the entire concept of how that shield can be used in days. Not even the most advanced shieldmaiden in the last two hundred years has been able to do what she mastered in no time at all. I had a hard time hiding how impressed I was during training. The last thing we need is for her to get high on her own powers, which are damn incredible.” My mother’s words vibrate with a pure pride I’d never even caught a hint of during training. “The problem is, the line between the dark side and the light is so thin right now, and one step over the edge could unravel everything.”

  I rub my hands up and down my forearms, flecked with goosebumps and at-attention fuzzy arm hair. I was so sure she was disappointed in me, it was branded as a fact in my brain, proven and undisputed. Now that I hear the truth, it occurs to me that my mother might be the most complicated liar I’ve ever met. And I know better than anyone that every lie has a color-wheel’s worth of tones in every shade of grey.

  “So our baby mastered smør? You’re serious?” My father’s voice is new moon full and bright with happy pride, but his words already start their panicked eclipse by the next sentence. I hear a distant, strange sound, almost like a hug crow thundering its caw through a loudspeaker. It rolls and trembles like thunder. “Robin? How long ago did you practice the smør shield?”

  “Three days. Why?” The squeak of the springs on the swing comes to an abrupt stop.

  “It only takes two days for the trackers—” my father begins.

  My mother’s gasp cuts him off. “There aren’t any in this area! My mother did a cleanse before training. I’m sure. Unless someone ordered an origination search. But who would have known to look? And why would they have sent—” Her last words are almost lost in another rumbling caw.

  I jump off the bed and press my ear to the screen, but all I can hear is the buzz and chirp of a symphony of crickets and then, farther off but getting closer every minute, the occasional caw of a crow.

  My father says the word quick and long, like a warrior pulling his sword from its sheath. “Kråke.”

  My mother, the one I expected to answer with a warrior’s snarl, chokes out a word so tinged with love and loss and pure, primeval maternal worry, it pulses through my ears and pierces my rapidly beating heart. “Wren!”

  Chapter 21

  I spring from my bed and meet my parents down the hall. “What do we do?” I sputter.

  “Kråke are soldiers of the shieldmaiden. They could be here for information or destruction, but we have to hold them off. Tentakkel. Right now, Wren.” My mother’s words coast soft and slow to my ears, calming my heart and stilling the explosive whir of my brain. She puts her hands on my shoulders and closes her eyes. Her hair lifts at the roots, then higher, flying around her perfect cheekbones like there’s a sexy-hair fan blowing on her. She murmurs the incantations that she needs to say, but I don’t bother.

  I always said them to humor her, but my shield powers work without the spells. Actually, I maintain a stronger grasp when I go completely still and put my mind to my work. Right at the core of my stomach, I gather the bright white, swirling constellation of energy and light. I flick, here and there, softly at first, until the ball unfurls and releases long-reaching feelers.

  I concentrate harder, and the feelers gain strength and stretch with frantic energy past me and my body, tunneling in a quick, focused pattern until they wrap around the people I love, belting Dad, coiling around Mom like a boa, cradling Bestemor, who’s still sleeping blissfully in her room, in a cozy grip.

  If I’m nervous about the Kråke, I snatch at that energy before it has a chance to overwhelm me and I manipulate it, pulling it apart and feeding it, bit by bit, to the squid of grasping protective energy that winds around my family.

  My family.

  The people I don’t know if I love or hate, but now realize I would die or kill for, no question.

  I can hear the caws of the Kråke vibrating closer, excited because they sense a target. It’s like the roof of the house is blown off, and I’m able to zoom in and stare into their black dewdrop eyes, glassy and fanatically determined. Their claws flex and retract, ready to grab and tear, and their black wings fold and expand, bellows of disaster and reckoning.

  They circle the house, swooping and diving like black flames, eager to tear through everything good and peaceful Bestemor has cobbled together here and rip it to shreds. I’m afraid of their hateful eyes, their long, piercing beaks, their razor sharp talons. They want me. I’m the shiny eyes of a newly dead corpse that caught their attention, and they’re bound and determined to peck at the glint until it’s just a raw wound.

  But I’m determined that they’re not going to get what they want.

  Not today.

  Not this girl, not this family, not when the promise of something better is finally in my lap, and there’s still so much to fix. I’m stronger than they are, and I know it with every radiating shield I pulse through.

  I hold the tentakkel shields steady and click them into a kind of cruise-control while I muster a new, vibrant, violent wave of energy. I claw across doubt and guilt and grab at my fiberglass-thin connection with Loki, calling to her with my mind and heart laid bare and open.

  Loki, I will find you. I will come for you. But help me. Help me before they take me away and I can’t do anything for you. Help me.

  I know it’s weak and probably runs more along the lines of throwing a bottle with a ‘Help me!’ note into the ocean than sending a true, transmitted SOS, but it’s all I have.

  If Loki can help me, I know she will, but I can’t wait on it. I have to pull my big shieldmaiden boots on, cuff my sleeves, and put some elbow grease into taking these bitches down.

  I hold my tentakkel energy still, then start reaching into the deepest folds of my brain, the cartilage in my ears, the nails on my toes, the recesses deep inside me that I ignore, overlook, and don’t engage, and I pull with all my might. This is the tug-of-war game that could end my life, and I’m not letting go of my grip no matter what gets sent my way.

  The sound of my mother’s musical incantations strengthens my hold, and I pick up on arrow-points of energy she sinks into the weakest areas of our shield as the Kråke beat their enormous black wings against the tremulous walls, scratch holes with their claws, tear with their beaks, and throw the full weight of their bodies at it, all in an attempt to puncture through our shield. They manage to pop dozens of small holes, and the sharp, grating crack of their caws muddies our focus, loosens our hold, and weakens the power of the shields.

  I begin another round of incantations to Loki, my entire body shaking so hard, my teeth chatter. My father’s voice accompanies mine in my head, and it’s like his big, warm hand takes mine and helps me calm down. I focus on the words in our head and try to ignore the squalling, squawking birds Kamikaze-ing against our
shields. Some slam so hard they break their necks or smash their skulls, sliding down the sides of the shield with smears of crimson blood. I screw my eyes tight against their assault and listen to my father’s prayer, adding my own on top of it. Loki, great spirit of the Kochi family, please aid us in our time of need. Loki, great protector of the Kochi family, please bless us with your power.

  Like a spool of thread unraveling, the words spin out and find their way across miles to a hidden place I can’t see, but I can feel her, can feel Loki’s tiny heart thumping with a rapid, steady beat. The shields tighten and the white, frenetic power I was able to pour out in quick waves and flailing tentacles whirls in a blinding blizzard of energy. The screeching noise is painfully fierce, its cold iron spikes jabbing my eardrums over and over. More black feathered bodies throw themselves at the shield, and broken, spent feathers catch and spin in the wind while more splatters of red explode against the shield.

  I listen to my mother’s steady incantations and draw deeper, even as tremors bolt through my body over and over.

  It’s like an orchestra of out of tune instruments playing with no harmony as loud as and long as they can, and the violence of the noise and the bright red blood splashes and midnight feathers floating like a thick cloud feel like they’ll take over and blot out every good, meaningful thing.

  I scream over the deafening crash of it all, as loud and long as my lungs can bear, pushing every last spark of power out of me to hold those filthy, horrifying birds away.

  And then, like a power cord that’s been yanked from the wall, it’s over.

  It’s all so quiet.

  My bones are suddenly no more supportive than strands of Silly Putty, hot in a little kid’s eager hands, and I sway. I expect to hit the floor, but my mother catches one shoulder, my father the other, and the two people I’ve spent the last few years resenting and missing in equal measure keep me standing upright, my own warm-bodied crutches. I lean on them hard.

  “We need to leave, Robin.” My father’s voice serrates through our tender family moment and brings us right back to the blood-tinged, black-feather-spattered reality of our present. “They’re gone for now, but they’ll be back, and they’ll track her everywhere she goes from now on.”

  “Who would have sent the Kråke? There isn’t a shieldmaiden with that kind of power in this area.” Mom presses her hands back into her hair, all gold and perfect even after a crazy crow battle.

  “Magda lives in the area, Robin,” my father points out. My mother’s pretty face lines with stormy anger, and she dismisses the idea entirely, flicking her fingers like there was something disgusting on them she had to get off.

  “Magda? If she even had the power, which is a huge ‘if’ all on its own, she’d never use it like that. Against me?” One manicured hand presses itself to her ample cleavage and she lets out a short, sharp laugh. “I’ve always been able to best her. Hands down. No issues. No questions.” With each insistent phrase, doubt settles heavier between her eyebrows and creases her smooth forehead with worry lines.

  “Jonas said his aunt is super powerful now,” I offer. Mom’s head snaps over and she stares at me like I’ve just told her that I also wanted Magda to adopt me and that she’s the prettiest lady in the whole wide world. Strange how her little jealousy makes a warm happiness coil through my chest. “I’m not saying she is, but she must know spells, because she gave me this drink while I was there—“

  My parents jump so close I felt the kind of claustrophobia I could imagine miners deep in the bowels of some dark cave experiencing. “What drink?” My mom’s voice is laced with panic, her fingers press my eyelids open so she can look at my pupils and squeeze my cheeks so I’ll stick my tongue out. “What kind of drink?”

  I bat her hands away and back up. “Calm down! It was to help me. I passed out. I made some shields at school, and I didn’t really know what I was doing, so I passed out, but it was fine.” Every word I utter makes the panic spread across their faces faster, like lava spewing and pooling out of an active volcano. “She gave me something disgusting and bitter. I’m sure it was just roots or whatever. And I’ve been fine,” I insist.

  My father paces and shakes his fist in front of his body absently. “It’s been a shieldmaiden’s tracking potion the whole time. I was sure it was Hina and that little demon-spawn, Sakura that alerted those damn birds with their black magic casts. I can’t believe it was one of you.” The words drop out of his mouth, unencumbered by any worry, but my mother’s strangled gasp changes that.

  “One of you?” Her voice is a long, sharp icicle on the exposed nerve of a cavity-laden tooth.

  My father stops pacing and makes a tiptoed attempt to backtrack. “Robin, that’s not what I meant. Not at all.” One hand tries to find its way to my mother’s shoulder, but she deflects before he can make contact.

  Her words scrape and twist, a briar patch of trapped rage. “I’ll remind you, Ryuu, that this whole damn problem started when your father sent that animal to her. He didn’t even have the courage to bring it over and present it. As usual, our child gets the leftovers when there’s no other option, after Hina’s little idiot almost brings the Kochi house down on itself.”

  “If my father didn’t come, I’m sure he has reasons. Good reasons.” My father speaks like a ventriloquist, his words filing out from between locked teeth.

  Their fight makes my breath wheeze in long, labored pulls. The happiness I wished and fought for felt almost possible for a split second, but the fissures bursting through their unity make more sense. This is how my family functions: we don’t.

  “It would have been so nice of him to let us know before we had to fight for our daughter’s survival.” Her arrow hits its target.

  My father goes rigid between his shoulder blades. When he looks at her, his eyes are flat and hard. “You of all people should understand that just because you can’t be right there, it doesn’t mean your heart isn’t breaking.” They lock eyes and she swallows hard, her face suddenly too young and too scared, and it’s a face so vulnerable, it makes my heart ache. I want her mean and barbed again. He holds a hand out to her, and, though she doesn’t flinch away this time, they still don’t make contact. “I worried about you every single day. I thought a million times over that we’d made the wrong decision. That we should have stayed and fought for each other, fought for our family. There must have been another answer. If we looked harder, if we went beyond our families, I know we could have figured it all out. The day they cast that spell on you, part of me died, Robin, and now that I have you back, I’m not letting go for anything.”

  My wheezing stops. His voice is like the forgotten lullabies of my babyhood, but I realize it’s also like love ballads to my mother’s ears, and I badly want them to fall for each other again. Whatever happened in the past, however screwed up we are in this present, I want them—us together.

  My mother wraps her arms around him, lays her head on his chest and lets big, breathy sobs choke out of her throat on bitten-off gulps of air. She cries hard, and when I look at her face, it’s as gorgeous as ever. I’m pissed that, once again, my genetics managed to screw me in the inheritance department, because I look like an absolute hag when I cry.

  But mostly, I’m profoundly happy that my mother is wrapped in my father’s arms, whether I really want to admit it or not.

  Shivers run up and down my spine when I hear a caw. Or do I imagine I hear a caw? The thought of those huge, black birds and their talons is enough to send me hustling to Bestemor’s room. She’s still asleep despite the incredible cacophony of the past half hour, and I decide to head to my room and get some things packed before I wake Bestemor and head…where?

  Where can I go? Where will my family be safe?

  My cell rings, and I snatch it up in a sweaty hand, jarred by the suddenly loud sound in the eerie quiet. “Hello?”

  “Hey. It’s me.” Jonas’s voice is exactly the sound I most wanted to hear, and I clamp the phone tighter to
my ear. “There was…I felt…are you okay?”

  I can still hear my mother sobbing. I think it’s weird my grandmother slept through the whole crazy thing, that my parents are fighting and working things out right in front of me, that huge, wild, black birds attacked our house, that I felt Loki but don’t know where she is, and the one and only thing I want is him. I want solid, strong, stable Jonas to hold me tight and tell me it’s all going to be alright.

  My knees are so weak, they buckle under me and send me toppling onto my bed. My words buzz out on a long, pathetic whine, but I don’t care. I need help, and I’m not too proud to beg Jonas for it. “Nothing is okay. I’m not, no one is. Shit got really weird here, and I’m so fucking scared. Can you come here?”

  “I’m already on my way.” I hear the clang of his keys as he scoops them into his hand. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Huge crows came.” I close my eyes and pull air, still electrified from all of the energy that got thrown around today, in through my nose slowly, channeling to the truth and trying to grapple past the ridiculousness. “Enormous evil crows, and my parents are freaked out and my mom is/was crying. My gram slept through the whole thing like she’s in a coma. I felt Loki. Like we were connected by an invisible wire. Do I sound like a lunatic?” I press my hands to my temples and bite my lip to dam up the tears.

  Jonas is silent for a long minute. “Huge crows?”

  “Yes.” I hold full lungfuls of breath in and wait for his answer.

  It’s one short syllable, but it communicates the frustration I was afraid he’d feel. “Fuck.”

  “What is it? Do you know something? If you do, you need to tell me, Jonas.” My voice swoops and dives like a flock of predator birds over schools of doomed ocean fish.

  He groans. “I promise to tell you everything. But can you do me a favor? Go to your parents. Tell them I’m coming. Tell them I said I ‘kommer i fred.’”