CRYSTALLUM (The Primordial Principles Book 1)

by McMann, Laney

  "I believe Kadence needs a bit of...reassurance in her unconscious state. Perhaps you are the one who could rouse her. No one else has been able to."

  "She barely knows me."

  "The boy she saved from the Nefarius? The boy who saved her from the Draconis?" The man grinned.

  "But why not Giselle? Kadence seems to know her." It seemed odd to think that Kade would be roused by the sound of his voice. A stranger, really.

  "Because Kadence didn't say Giselle's name a short while ago. She said yours."

  Cole's face heated, and he pictured Kade lying beside him in her bed, whispering his name. "I—"

  "You did the right thing," Warden Caelius cut him off. "Protecting her. I know I am asking a rather large favor of you because she is not one your own, but I believe it necessary that you see her. After today, however, I must ask that you keep your distance."

  Cole gave a grudging, stiff nod.

  "She is at the Kinship. I thought it best she got a feel for the place."

  "So, you are placing her there?" Anger spiked through Cole's words, but he didn't care.

  The Warden sighed. "When she is ready to leave her father's house, yes." He opened the door. "I received your reports from Plumb, and I've decided to have one of the Principals lead the investigation surrounding the Mortal Coil, as well as the Araneum."

  "What?" Cole shouted that time. "That's my case. I located the symbols, the Hives, and forced the information out of the Nefarius. It's my lead!”

  "And you did an excellent job, but I believe the subject matter related to the investigation hits too close to home. Besides that, school has started."

  "You've never cared about me not going to school before. I could pass every one of those stupid classes with my eyes closed," Cole snapped. "Half of them I'm taking again because there are no other options left. And I can handle the investigation, and the subject matter related to it. It's my job to handle it."

  "Cole—I can't risk it." The man averted his gaze. "Not again. Not with you."

  Cole was stunned into silence.

  "Have you seen Tiffany lately?" the Warden asked in a lighter tone.

  Cole gave a half shrug, like a sulking five year old, knowing the Warden was trying to change the topic. Of course he'd seen Tiffany. He saw her every damn day. They both lived in the Brotherhood.

  "She's such a nice girl, Cole," he said. "Give it another chance."

  Crossing his arms over his chest, Cole gave an exaggerated sigh. "Okay."

  10

  COLE HAD ONLY BEEN to the Kinship once when he was fourteen years old and the common house had been identical to the Brotherhood. Deep green roof, brown log exterior, wide front porch, and a semicircular drive. The view of the mountains was similar, too, just from the East instead of the West.

  Pulling the emergency brake up on the Jeep, he stared at the double front doors. An owl crest rested just above them, underneath the cornice. Cole rolled his eyes. Jake always flaunted the crest, putting owls on practically everything. Thankfully, he and the rest of the house were at school.

  Making his way up the front steps, a sense of foreboding flooded Cole. Kadence would be living at the Kinship at some point. On this side of the mountain. Away from him. He didn't know why that bothered him so much. Caring about someone he barely knew.

  Ms. Thatcher, the Kinship’s Lead, greeted him, arms open wide, a huge grin on her narrow face. "Cole, honey." She pulled him into her arms. "Why don't you ever visit? I only get to see you at Ward meetings. What fun is that? We all just sit there listenin' to speeches and starin' at each other."

  Cole patted her back and tried to unlatch himself from her grip. "Sorry. I've been busy." His voice was muffled, his face buried in her wild hair. It had always reminded him of a bird's nest.

  Thatcher grabbed his shoulders. "Look at you. You're practically a man now. And how I didn't get you in my house..." She shook her head as if she couldn't comprehend such a travesty. "Well, can't go worrying about things we can't change, now can we?" She pinched his cheek. "I guess you're here to see that poor new girl. She's down the hall." Thatcher pointed a long, fake red finger nail. "The Warden didn't tell me much," she whispered. "But I can see it. Somethin's not right with her. You know I get the feelin's."

  Cole knew. Everyone knew about the feelings she got.

  "I just know that girl doesn't belong here,” she whispered.

  Cole cracked a smile. "I'm sure it'll be fine. All newcomers are little off at first." He started down the hallway. "She'll settle in." Just saying those words ate at him.

  "Oh, it's not newcomer jitters, darlin'. I can feel it. This is somethin' in my gut. And while we're talkin’, why are you the one visitin' the girl, darlin'? I thought you were datin' Tiffany."

  The door to Kadence's room stood open, and Cole didn't hear the rest of what Thatcher said. Candles and yellow roses adorned the window sill and bedside table. Various herbs burned in small silver bowls, filling the room with the scent of vanilla and sage. Cole knew the scent from spending time in the Ward's infirmary as a boy. He'd gotten motion sickness from traveling through Leygates the first few times and had thrown up for three days straight. His father had no sympathy. The day Cole was released from the sickbed, his father had him traveling through gates from his house in Rome to his uncle's house in England and back. The dizziness caused by traveling from one place to another within seconds took months to get used to.

  "Young Mr. Spires, it is always nice to see you." The short, round doctor reminded Cole of a ground mole with his pointed nose and beady eyes. "The Warden assured me you would drop by." He motioned for Cole to come out of the threshold and into the room, but he stood frozen, staring. "She won't bite, I promise you."

  Kade was on her side, blankets tangled between her legs, her small fist gripping the pillow underneath her head. The sight of her took his breath away.

  "Cole, honey, are you okay?" Ms. Thatcher tapped his arm.

  He nodded without taking his gaze off Kade.

  "Mr. Spires?" the doctor asked.

  Cole took a shaky step, unsure why he was so nervous. It wasn't like he'd never been around girls. He'd been around a lot of them, but he'd never been affected by one before. Like he couldn't catch his breath or remember his own name. With another shaky step, as if he were falling off the edge of a cliff, or his knees were giving out, he reached the side of the bed and leaned against it.

  Sunlight filtered through the window and cast a slight tinge over Kade's creamy skin, painting her cheeks and her closed eyelids pink. His hand rested on the sheets next to her leg, and he had an overwhelming urge to touch her, hold her hand, but that seemed completely inappropriate. Especially with the mole doctor watching him like Cole alone held the voodoo spell that would wake Kadence from the comatose state she'd fallen in. The Warden said she'd been unresponsive to anyone.

  "How is she?" Cole asked.

  "She is...well, she is not injured," the doctor said. "Not in any danger. She simply seems to be in a very deep sleep. She will be perfectly fine, I believe, once she wakes. She is quite cold, however. It is the only symptom I have found so far. Her body needs to warm up."

  Cole nodded. Kade had been warm when he was lying next to her, hot even.

  "You can talk to her," the doctor went on. "She won't remember anything you say today, or you being here. We were hoping that your voice might trigger a response within her mind. Encourage her to wake. It would be best if she went on with normal activity and put last night's...adventure behind her." The doctor made a shooing motion with his hands as if pushing Cole closer to Kade with an invisible force.

  He took a tiny step closer to the head of the bed. "Kadence?" His voice was low, timid. Like a twelve-year-old kid who had a crush on someone, and wanted to tell her, but instead pinged her with spit balls in the back. He cleared his throat. "Kade?" He got an encouraging smile from the doctor.

  With a breath, he sat on the edge of the bed, trying not to touch her. He didn't even
know if she liked to be called Kade or Kadence. She'd told him her name was Kade when he'd asked her the day before, but Lindsey called her Kadence, and so did the Warden, and the doctor. Shouldn't someone who was visiting a friend know what the friend wanted to be called? He fiddled with his fingers, threading and unthreading them, trying to ignore the red lines spreading across his palm. Kade wasn't his friend. Not really. She was a stranger. His opposition in so many ways, and after today, he was supposed to keep his distance from her.

  "So..." he began, not knowing what he was supposed to say. Maybe she couldn't even hear him. "I'm sure you're wondering what's going on."

  "I'll be right outside attending Miss Sparrow's chart." The doctor wobbled toward the door.

  "Sparrow?" Cole's brow crunched.

  The doctor glanced at the chart, scanning the top with his finger. "Yes, Kadence Sparrow."

  "Masters of flight and…camouflage," Cole said to himself.

  The doctor chuckled. "Yes, yes, I do believe that is how the saying goes." He smiled and edged Ms. Thatcher out with him before closing the door.

  Cole's focus went back to Kadence. "His Eye Is on the Sparrow. That's from the Bible, well, it's a hymn, really. Little birds, sparrows. They symbolize hope. And peace. Did you know that? They deserve protection.” He gazed at her pink cheeks. "I knew I shouldn't have let you walk away from me in Crystalline. I could feel it. I should have taken you home myself. As soon as the Nefarius said the word 'her,' I should have found you, taken you home, and made you stay inside. The Nefarius couldn't have tracked you if you were with me. Dracon wouldn't have found you." He glanced at the red streaks on his palm again. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I never make mistakes."

  Cole scooted closer to keep from falling off the bed. "You told me Dracon would find you again when you were asleep earlier. I don't know what you meant, but I won't let it happen." He touched her fingertip. "I'm guessing by the way you looked at me when I told you you were a Primori, that you don't know much," he went on. "And obviously I was wrong about that," he sighed. "I doubt I'll have all the answers you'll want, but I can tell you about the Primordial." He straightened the blankets over her legs.

  "The doctor said you weren't warming up." Cole tucked the blankets underneath her feet and around her calves. He watched her sleeping. She looked like an angel. "You even look like a little sparrow," he whispered. He'd never wanted to protect someone as much as he wanted to protect her, but he needed to get that thought out of his head. She wasn't his to protect and never would be. "I never break Ward rules," he said. "I've never broken the Doctrine in a way that really mattered. Besides fighting with Jake and his crew, I don't do anything wrong. My dad would've skinned me alive if I'd even tried, but—" Cole stared at her. "I would have broken every rule the Ward had to protect you last night." That knowledge scared him more than anything else had. "And I don't know why."

  Kade made a soft noise and rubbed her face, rotating her weight so she faced Cole. He shifted over, giving her space, and she settled again, her knees nestled against his leg, before falling still.

  "I wish you would open your eyes,” he said. “They have little specks of yellow around the irises that bleed into gray green. Even in the dark, they shine."

  ***

  Kade wasn't sure what she was hearing. If she were dreaming, or listening, or what. It had been like that for what seemed like forever, though. Lying in a bed she knew wasn't her own with her arms and legs weighed down, hearing little more than white noise. Someone was sitting next to her, she thought, and her feet were wrapped up in a blanket cocoon. Still, she was freezing and her head hurt. Bad enough that she was sure she'd been knocked unconscious. That was the real problem. She was knocked out, and weird thoughts went through people's heads when they weren't conscious. Weird dreams.

  "I've never had to explain what I am before," the same voice she'd been hearing spoke in her dream again. "Usually a fledgling's parents tell them what they are and then Plumb fills in the gaps once they move into the Brotherhood. I have no idea what you know, but the Primordial—that’s what we are—are a very old race. One of the original races. Our people are mediators between the Planes. We're born of the Celestial Plane. And we protect the magnetic field that runs around the Mortal Plane here on Earth—it's called the Leyline grid or planetary grid. It's the barrier that shields the Earth and connects all the Planes from Celestial, to Mortal, to Infernal."

  Kade shifted her weight. The voice, a guy's voice, was lulling.

  "The Filios Daemoneum and the Nefarius," he paused. "I wonder if you even speak Latin. It's the language all Primordial speak. Filios Daemoneum means Devil's Children, and Nefarius means Black Guard. They're the ones who came after you at Crystalline and at your house last night. We've been at war forever."

  Forever? Kade shivered at the thought, and the bed shifted again, and she realized the person who must be sitting next to her had gotten up. She felt a rush of wind before something heavy fell over top of her.

  "If you don't warm up soon, I'm either going to have to resort to covering you up with towels from your bathroom or lying down next to you. That's probably not the best idea with your octopus arms." She heard the smile in his voice. "This is the only blanket I could find, and I don't know how Thatcher is, but Plumb is stingy when it comes to extra blankets. She has a secret hoard of them hidden somewhere in the Brotherhood. That's my house, by the way, the Brotherhood.”

  Kade smiled, but didn't feel the motion touch her mouth. She had no idea who Thatcher or Plumb were, but his voice was soothing, so she wanted him to keep talking even if it was only a dream. She wondered why he was telling her about the Primordial race, though. She knew about them and the Devil's Children. Dracon had told her enough stories over the years to scare her to tears. It wasn't a topic she liked to think about. Or hear about. Besides that, she was forbidden to speak a word of it to anyone.

  "So, Primori and Primeva," the guy went on, "are the two Primordial races. Well, no, we're the same race. Those are the two classes, but I really hate that word: class. It divides us in a negative way."

  Primeva were the children of the moon, Kade remembered. Born of tainted blood. The bad seeds of the Primordial race.

  "Anyway, Primordials harness energy. All life has a built in electrical system, ours is just a bit more complex, because we also use magnetism."

  Kade learned about electricity in Chemistry her sophomore year. At least she thought it was Chemistry. Maybe it was Physics. What a useless class. Like Pre-Calculus.

  "Our abilities," he continued, "are higher up on the evolutionary scale than any other life form on Earth. Or as my dad would've made me say, Mortalis Planum. He hated it when I spoke in English. And Danny hates it when I speak in Latin." He chuckled. "Can't win. Latin isn't Danny's native language like it is mine. I think I corrected him too much when we were little kids.”

  Latin had always been easy for Kade, too, but none of the kids her age spoke it, so she never let on that she knew it. And she definitely didn't learn about evolution in Chemistry, or was it Physics? Both of them were stupid classes. She thought she'd gotten a seventy-five in Chemistry in the tenth grade. Something warm stroked her cheek, the gentlest of touches.

  "I've never understood how humans believe they're are all that exists in the universe," he went on. "How could there only be one way of intelligent life? That makes no sense."

  He had a good point. They should teach that in Chemistry. Or maybe it was Biology?

  "Anyway, we can wield energy. Bend electromagnetic fields. We maintain the Leyline grid that connects the Earth to the other Planes, and in some places the lines converge. At those points, they create gates. Vortexes. We can travel through the gates to other countries, other states, or Planes, within seconds. We manipulate the energy fields, keeping Daemoneum activity to a minimum."

  A warm finger trailed over the center of Kade's palm.

  "This is probably confusing. I'm a terrible teacher. Plumb is much better at explaini
ng what we are and what we do."

  Kade wondered who Plumb was, and why the dream kept going.

  "If you picture a giant net covering the planet...all the little ropes...some are straight lines, some bend, and others converge into circles. All of the lines are Leylines, but where they converge, those are gates," he said. "They're the places where the energy concentrations are highest, and that energy creates a spiral that emits from the ground called a vortex. Vortexes are gates into other realms, other places on Earth, that sort of thing. The largest Leyline system is in Europe where hundreds of lines intersect. The Ward has an arsenal of Primordial guarding all the points there."

  Kade imagined a net covering the Earth.

  “From one of the Leygates here in Boulder, we can travel directly to the Ward in Rome. Different gates go to different places, and they're not all places you would want to end up. The Nefarius and Devil's Children reroute the lines and black them so they lead to the Shadow grounds, the Infernal and Nocturnal Planes, hellish realms, basically. Most of us can't return from those places, so you see the benefit in rerouting."

  That was easy to picture. Except the blacking part. Kade shifted her weight again. Dreams were so weird.

  "Primori and Primeva work together under the Ward or we try to. That’s our government. Our headquarters are in Italy, but some of us—they are called Principals—are spread across the world, in every country, watching and protecting. Balance must be kept to maintain the grid. But the truth is, Primori and Primeva aren't allowed to intermingle beyond friendship. We’re rarely friends, though. It's an old rivalry." He took a deep breath, and touched her face again, her jaw this time. It tingled and left a trail of warmth that extended down her neck.

  "I really hate that to be honest. I mean Jake and his boys start fights, but we should be friends, not enemies. We're working for the same cause. And I don't think any of us should be told who we're allowed to date."

  His hand traveled from her jaw to her chin, and little circles traced over her skin. A surge of heat spread through her body, and she began to thaw—and wake.