The Queen, The Mirror, and The Creation (Fated Chronicles Book 5)

by Humphrey Quinn

  The shared worry passed with a wordless goodnight from Colby.

  Jae meandered to another of the wagons but wasn’t in the mood to sleep. Instead, he sank down on the front steps for a little while, staring off into the darkness. He watched Elisha return from her hunt and take perch on the steps in front of Colby’s wagon, her movements, telling. Her usual defiant demeanor, so much like her Master's, flattened, her head sinking lower and lower.

  She was worried about him. That was expected, but something in the little Catawitch's deflated frame, concerned Jae, deeply. Things were going to get much worse before they got better. At least Colby didn’t have the Projector’s power inside him any longer. But he was still powerful. And even though Jae was a couple wagons away, he might as well have been right back in that wagon, sitting inside Colby’s own mind.

  Jae had been there so many times. Right where Colby was now. When the truth was firing at you like a cannon. And you had no one to help you. No one to talk to. No one to trust. No idea what your future held. Except that Jae had gotten himself into trouble. Colby hadn’t asked for it, it was forced on him. And that was something Jae had trouble processing. That wasn’t something he had any idea how to help Colby with. What would it be like to wake up and realize you were raised by an evil man, with evil intentions? That you were never wanted. Only needed, to serve a purpose.

  But Jae did understand trusting the wrong people. Believing that the people you were taught to trust, were looking out for you. And if you could not trust your parents, or elders, to teach you right, who did you trust?

  He pushed out an aggravated breath.

  He needed to walk.

  Strike that! What he really needed was to fly.

  The monster inside was feeding off Colby’s pain. Heck, his own damn pain, worry, and shame. Not being able to return home without succumbing to Juliska's orders, was killing him. Not knowing what was going on back home, was killing even more. He wanted his friends and family to be safe, and he wasn't even able to help make that happen.

  Jae needed to burn some energy and take the edge off. He was out of Juliska's reach here. Maybe a quick flight would do the trick? He wasn’t sure he dared. But there was a moment when he was airborne, a fleeting moment, but one that allowed him to forget the reviling how’s and why’s of this miraculous ability, and enjoy the simple beauty of flying and seeing the world from a higher perspective. It was a fleeting moment that always passed too fast, replaced with the dread of, oh, yeah, evil monster heading to do Juliska’s bidding. But he had to hold onto any good thing he could in this nightmare that was his life.

  Her first order had come shortly after returning to the Svoda island.

  Attack—his own people. Not to kill, only to scare.

  The Balaton had blasted spells at him, having no idea he’d been one of the Scratchers in the air that day.

  And the sickest part was, it was nothing but he and Darcy playing around. They hadn't been the least concerned about the weak show of defense the Balaton used against them. And after, to add to the confusion, Juliska had told him to make an appearance as himself, and attack Darcy. They played it out well. Too well. It was one never ending sick joke—that sadly, at the time it happened, had only fired him up. He'd succumbed to the monster and let it win. Because it was the only way to live with himself after the truth of what he'd done began to reveal itself.

  But after—when that first attack was done—when his father had been so proud of him—and he'd gotten injured trying to attack Darcy… he had to make it look real. He recalled Meghan piling into the hospital room, that terrified look on her face. Terror—aimed at him—begging him to tell her what was happening. But he couldn't tell. Didn't want to tell. The reality of it all had settled into the human part of him like a burden flattening him into the earth, and he wanted to die. Shame, was an even more brutal beast than he'd become. A vicious and unforgiving punishment—because shame wouldn't ever freely release you. It built, and lingered, and festered into complete self-loathing.

  And the scariest part to admit was that after he'd gotten over the initial shock, and fear, and disgust in what he'd become… he liked it. He liked the power. But so much of it was the magic he'd been subjected to. It made it easy to give into the evil. And he hadn't known all Juliska was doing—he had no clue she was working with Fazendiin. He only thought she'd made her sick creations to keep people in line. Her reasoning—fear would keep them safer. And he'd fallen for that tactic at first. Until slowly he began to realize there was so much more at work. And that the Scratchers didn't just instill fear—they killed—innocent people. And he would have to kill too.

  He was a puppet with Juliska Blackwell pulling his strings. He wasn't free. He wasn't powerful. And it was only after all this, and only far too late, that he realized that real power wasn't in physical strength. Or magical prowess. It was in the truth. Real power only came in the form of the truth.

  This is where Colby was now—Jae would bet his life on it.

  The real difference between them, Colby had a choice about his future. He wasn't locked into a life sentence. And perhaps some of what made Jae care so much about Colby's future is that maybe, just maybe, if he got the guy to accept the truth and forge his own path, it might redeem his own unforgivable actions ever so little.

  Without realizing it, Jae had wandered into the woods of Grimble with no idea where he’d gone. He didn’t care. Getting lost might be a good option. He sank to his knees with a rumble of anger and loathing in his gut. At himself. At Juliska. At the entire damn world.

  He didn’t want to be a monster. A threat to those he cared about. A threat to anyone. And he wanted to blame anyone else, but the pathetic truth was, it was his own fault he'd gotten into the situation. Yes, Juliska used all the tools at her disposal to win him over. It hadn't been hard. He'd put up little resistance.

  But becoming the monster is not even close to what he'd expected. Not being able to tell anyone what Juliska was doing, had been the worst part of it all. So yeah, he'd given into the monster for a time. It was easier than facing the truth. Facing that he had a lifetime sentence. Funny, how time can take on a whole new meaning from one year to the next.

  And when he'd made the choice to die rather than live with himself—he'd promised to reveal Juliska's secret. If nothing else good came from it all, then that would have to be it.

  His death—he'd expected it to be ugly. He'd been warned his life was tethered to Juliska, their bond only breakable by her release of him, or her death. But there were ways around it if his own death was—messy enough.

  Not something he had looked forward to, but nothing less than he deserved.

  And now here he was, kneeling on the ground, the beast inside screaming to get out and fly. Oddly enough, being out of Juliska’s reach, he had some control over the thing. It was relatively calm, as long as he ordered it to be so. And stupidly, he'd even started thinking of it like some other living entity that wasn't a real part of him. But the monster was him. There was no denying it.

  When Tanzea Chase had fed him the potion that changed him, she'd told him the potion would only take hold if he had the right stuff inside him—meaning, a hunger for more. More what? Didn't matter, just more.

  Not being happy with what he had, landed him on his knees in the middle of the Grimble woods, the shame of it all like a slow death march. He thought he'd been enough rounds with this, that he'd come to terms with it all. And he was able to draw some inner calm over the fact that he needed to be the strong one. Because for today, at least, he was free.

  He would not hurt anyone. And that peace would have to suffice. He wasn’t doing Juliska’s sick wishes. And he had one guy to thank for that: Colby. Which is why he needed to keep a tight grip on that temporary serenity, and keep command of that inner calm. It's why he needed to go back, and not become lost. He might not have a choice in his future, but Colby did. And Jae was not going to let him make the wrong one.

  His head snapp
ed to the right—footsteps. Real ones, not a ghost.

  He swiftly wiped his eyes and bounded to his feet.

  "Hey."

  Jae let out a breath. "Colby—how did you—"

  "Couldn't sleep," he admitted timidly. "Didn't really want to try to. I, um, followed you."

  Jae didn't respond at first.

  "I'll just—um," he made to leave.

  "Stay. It's—nice out here. Easier to think," Jae conceded dolefully. He leaned against a tree trunk and slid down the side until his butt hit the ground. Hoping the sound hid the sniffle he preferred no one else heard.

  Colby mimicked Jae's movements, sliding down the tree trunk across from him. "I don't need easier to think. I need not to." Colby shook his head a little surprised at himself for revealing that thought out loud.

  "I was thinking about flying. Talked myself out of it."

  "What's that like? Flying…" Colby grasped onto that topic.

  "Um… it's—pretty incredible."

  "Just the rest of it, that's a constant living nightmare."

  Jae's eyes lifted in shocked response to the guy's rather sickly accurate view on his predicament.

  Colby shifted. "Really need to stop saying whatever pops into my head."

  Jae smiled. "I don't know. It's kind of refreshing. Honest—Real. And, not to rub it in, but, kind of a lot like your sister."

  "Oh, joy." Although being like her bothered him a lot less than it used to. He let out a tentative breath. "Will you—tell me about it? Flying, I mean? And, well, how it happened. How you became a—" he smashed his lips together, positive it was a topic Jae wouldn't feel like discussing. He was seriously bad at trying to have conversations. Apparently, listening to his sister have them did nothing to improve his own ability.

  The question Jae actually heard, though, was, will you talk for a while, because I'm tired of my own thoughts. He could oblige that request. Although it suddenly plagued him on where to start and how to explain it to someone else—he'd never done that with any true depth. But the words started flowing out of his mouth like he'd somehow prepared the story for the telling.

  He started from the very beginning—when he'd first arrived in a campground off the coast of Maine and befriended Meghan and Colin Jacoby. And after, proceeded to get stuck behind when the rest of his caravan moved on, without him. By accident, of course.

  Turns out—Colby was a fantastic listener. He soaked up every word. Sighed, gasped, clucked, made faces, and even laughed—in as much as the guy laughed—in all the right places. He didn't jab at Jae when things got quiet, or he had to stop because he needed a minute to gather his thoughts, or figure out how to explain something. And Jae held back nothing. Like Colby's non-filter, it was refreshing, to be so open about it.

  And when he'd finished, many hours into the night later—

  "And here we are." Right up to the moment they'd fled to Grimble.

  Jae let out a long breath. There was something unexpectedly therapeutic about doing that. Sharing every little intimate detail—the good, the bad, the ugly, the terrifying—with someone who listened, readily. Who didn't add their own opinions, judge the motives, but also understood the conflict that had gotten him here.

  Jae didn't realize how much he needed to do what he'd just done. He'd never been one for opening up and talking to people. Maybe he'd never found the right person—and he'd never have guessed in a hundred years, the right person would be Colby.

  "I, um—I never said… thank you."

  Colby's eyed narrowed in question.

  "I asked you to make it so I didn't have to hurt my family. And you did." And it set off a chain reaction that had brought Colby to this place, too. "Whatever your reasons for it, that probably had nothing at all to do with me, you still saved me from doing that. So—thank you."

  Colby wanted to reply a few different things—like, I kind of did do it for you, amongst other reasons, but the words wouldn't express themselves in anything but a timid smile and heated cheeks.

  "Are you—blushing?" Jae slapped his mouth shut, wondering why on earth he'd just said that.

  "I—I guess I'm kind of bad at talking to people." Colby scrunched his face, that wasn't exactly what he meant. "I mean, I talk to people. But it's usually me telling them what I think. Or what I want. And they just, you know, do that. It's typically a rather one-sided conversation. And with my father—we don't exactly talk. It's all lessons. And jobs. Orders. And then there's my sister, who never stops talking, but I don't usually talk back."

  "She'd have to stop talking, first," joked Jae.

  Colby let out a bashful laugh.

  Jae had a sickening awareness seeping upward. At sixteen, it was an extreme possibility that, other than Elisha, Colby had never had a real friend.

  Colby cleared his throat. "It's easy. With you." He spoke so softly, Jae wasn't sure he'd heard him right. But from the lowered head that refused to lift, Jae assumed he had, and that Colby regretted saying it.

  It took a great deal of courage to start a conversation. Especially when you were showing someone your most vulnerable moments.

  "Well—" Jae decided to make light of it, to ease the awkwardness. "I'm not a girl."

  Colby's head lifted, conflict darkening the bright blue in his gaze.

  "No. You're not." His simple statement had questions lingering in between the lines that made it a total awkwardness backfire. And made it Jae's turn to blush. He honestly had no idea where to go with that, other than, running away like a scaredy-cat sounded good.

  Colby shook himself, like he wasn't even sure of what he'd just said, and cocked his brow, like he was listening to some silent conversation.

  Jae recognized the gesture. "Something wrong?"

  Colby shook his head. "Elisha got back from hunting. She was worried when I wasn't there. I forgot to tell her I'd left."

  "We should—probably—get back anyway," Jae breathed out, his nerves a flummox of butterflies. "Don't need Katana getting into any trouble while we're gone."

  "Or maybe she'll go annoy the ghosts, and leave us alone already."

  Jae laughed at that. And didn't say anything when Colby got that shy blush on his cheeks again. Jae told himself not to read anything into what Colby was saying. But hearts were a fickle thing, it turns out, because the entire walk home all he wanted to believe was that Colby intended it to mean, I'd rather spend my time with you.

  CHAPTER 8

  Jurekai Fazendiin scuffed his foot across some iced over soot with an irritable grumble.

  The Banished Svoda camp was abandoned. They’d been warned and had managed escape. And from the looks of things, by KarNavan’s disgruntled shouting some distance away, the Stripers were unable to track the magic to find out where they’d gone. They were the best trackers immortality could buy… if they were not able to trace the magic, no one could. Not even himself.

  He'd waited too long. Should have harvested their magic sooner. But stupidly, he assumed they would not move from this place. But after what his son had done—the chain reaction was still clinking away and unraveling many years' worth of well laid plans.

  They'd hidden their tracks well, which meant they had help—the Svoda, Banished or otherwise, were not that good at covering their tracks. The Tunkapog were, however. Masters, of it, in fact. There was none better at hiding traces of magic.

  Which gave him a darn good idea where they'd all gone to. But in all his years he'd never penetrated their magic. Never found their homeland. And in the future he had seen, he was never able to until he created his new masterpiece—his new Stone. The magic in his new Stone would be so powerful, he wouldn't even need to hunt them down to steal their magic. No magic would ever be hidden from him, again. The new Stone would be the center of all magic and power. And it would all belong to him.

  And once he'd located every last magical being, he'd harvest every last bit of magic and he alone, would control all of it. With his son's help once he got over his teenage tantrum and ca
me crawling back home.

  His son’s actions were beginning to annoy him. His little bursts of hormonal angst were ruining a long-planned takeover of the magical community. But how to punish his insolence without bringing on another outburst? He still needed the boy. He needed an immortal at the helm—since he'd be giving up his own, at least for a while, when it was time to rebuild his Vetala bloodline. He didn't need more Colby's and Meghan's running around. No one powerful enough to confront him down the road. Which is why it was so vital he get his son back, and assure his loyalties remained intact.

  He supposed if he lost Colby's loyalty that the future would survive without him, but it made his own job that much easier with the knowledge that his son was carrying on his work, unchallenged, as he remade the world.

  Children… he’d never liked them and never wanted them, but it was an evil he had to suffer to get what he wanted. And least his next children would have a mother, his Queen, to raise them. It was a tiring thing, raising children. But he hadn't kept his Queen around all these years for nothing. She'd raise them in the Vetala tradition. They'd be a new and powerful bloodline.

  His own mother had been so divinely livid when she'd found out he was planning on bringing the immortal children into the world, himself. He needed to. Otherwise, the future would be left to chance. And that wasn't happening. He hadn't come this far for some prophecy to mess it all up. The world and all its magic were nearly his for the taking. And when it was, he'd reshape the world to his design. Rebuild the Vetala clan in his image. While Colby ruled as King, on his behalf.

  His son would return soon enough. Living without power and control would bring him crawling back—once he had the chance to miss it. It wouldn't take long for something to happen that showed the boy he was lost without his father's many gifts and offerings.

  Colby was a son a father could be proud of—damn kid had too much of his mother in him. He should have taken her from him sooner. Broken that connection before it could be solidified. But he hadn’t wanted to deal with a young mess of a child, and the fewer people in the fold, the better. Not that the hormonal teenage version was turning out to be any easier to handle, or more predictable. Even with the tools at his own disposal, to see the future.