“T-that’s very true,” I answered, almost stammering. “But it’s not my fault.”
She huffed and turned away from me. “And something like that is supposed to matter when the entire world is at stake?”
“I’m not gonna destroy the world, Merrin. I don’t have it in me.” I marched toward me.
She spun around quickly, though her hair stayed perfectly still. “Is that right? You’ve done a good job of destroying me and, to hear you tell it, you weren’t even trying. So don’t give me lectures on what you are and are not capable of.”
“You need to get out of my head,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Don’t you think I want to? Do you really think this is my idea of a good time; watching you inch toward the apocalypse while canoodling with the one person in the world that fate chose for me? This is hell, Cresta, and you’re my own personal Satan.” She turned away from me again, her voice cracking as she continued. “I just hope that, when my body dies, it takes my mind with it.”
“I’m not going to let that happen,” I answered.
“Don’t do me any favors Bloodmoon,” she said, still looking away from me.
“I’m not doing it for you,” I answered. “If you die, Owen will never forgive himself. He’ll live the rest of his life in torment, blaming himself for what happened. After a while, he’ll start to forget who you are deep down. He’ll only remember the good things, and maybe I’d lose him to that memory.” This time it was my turn to get nose to nose. “You don’t scare me, Merrin. I don’t care if you know the truth about what happened to my dad. I don’t care if you know that I’m the Bloodmoon and that your people’s crazy ass end of the world prophecy can be pinned on me, and I don’t care if you know every secret I’ve ever kept. I want you around. I want you alive. He chose me, Merrin. He chose me and not you, and I want you here every day of our lives, so that he never forgets why.”
She huffed, staring at me so hard that I was afraid the bulgy vein that was throbbing up and down her forehead might burst. “He’s going to kill you, you know. He might be with you now. He might kiss you, and hug you, and promise that he’d give anything in the world to keep you safe. But at the end of the day, he’s a Breaker; a real Breaker. And love isn’t something that real Breakers take into consideration when the chips are down. Before it’s over, he’ll come to his senses, and he’ll take you down. I just hope I’m still around to see it.”
Tears stung behind my eyes, but I wasn’t about to cry, not in front of her. Instead, I spit of the words, “Get. Out. Of. My. Head.”
And, to my surprise, as soon as the words escaped my lips, Merrin was gone. I closed my eyes tight. The pain in my head was so intense now. This was crazy. Was Merrin really there, trapped inside of my head, or had the intensity of the situation finally gotten to me? Had I lost my mind? It certainly wouldn’t have surprised me. I slumped onto the bed. Maybe I just needed to sleep. Maybe the trip to the Hourglass had been too hard on me and I was seeing things. A nap would take care of it and, if it didn’t, I’d add ‘mental image Merrin’ onto my ever growing list of problems.
I drifted off to sleep easily, eager to forget about Merrin, the Council, and everything that had happened. The next thing I knew, I was jarred awake by a loud noise.
“I should have known! I’m not even back a whole day and you want to start with this!” Owen’s voice was loud. He was obviously angry. I sat up in bed. The sun was low, almost set. How long had I been asleep?
“You will not use that tone with me!” Owen’s father was yelling too. “You will address me with the respect that I have earned.” I stood quickly and ran to the door. I inched it open and pressed myself against it. Whatever they were arguing about wasn’t my business, but I’d wager that, in one way or another, it was my fault.
“I’m an adult, Father. I’ve been through things that you couldn’t imagine.” I couldn’t see him, but if I knew Owen (and I did) his hands were clenched into fists and his teeth were gritted.
“You’re no such thing,” Petar spat out. “You are seventeen, that’s true. But you still haven’t been made a Breaker, and you have no one to blame for that but yourself.”
“I take responsibility for my actions, Father, but that doesn’t mean that I would change them,” Owen answered.
“You allowed yourself to be manipulated, Owen. Your mother and Sevie and I spent the last two years under the presumption that you were a traitor.”
“Sevie never thought that!” Owen butted in.
“You wouldn’t have any idea what Sevie thought, would you? Because you were gone letting Allister Leehman make a fool of you and this family,” Petar answered. “You are two years behind your contemporaries. Devinan Oswald was just made a Breaker, Owen. He’s a year younger than you. Do you have any idea how that makes us feel, how your actions reflect on this family?”
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Owen’s voice was softer now, less forceful. I wanted to run out there and hug him, to grab his hand and let him know that he wasn’t alone; that he’d never be alone. But this was his father. It was complicated and placing myself in the middle of a fight that I couldn’t fully understand wouldn’t be good for anybody. “Yes, I got tricked, but once I learned the truth, I did the right thing. I was brave, and I fought like a Breaker.”
“A Breaker follows the rules, Son,” Petar answered. His voice had not quieted. “You fled from your designated facility, stole a car, and embarked on an unauthorized mission that resulted in the death of one of the world’s only Seers; and I’m not even touching on the monstrosity that you allowed to happen this week.”
“Well, you’d know all about breaking the rules, wouldn’t you?” Owen answered. “Why do you think Allister Leehman targeted me in the first place? It’s cause of what you did! Because of this tattoo you branded me with!”
“We did that to save your life!” Petar answered, in what was quickly becoming a shouting match.
“There was a life at stake when I did what I did too, Father.”
“You speak of Ash?” Petar snorted. “She’s a traitor. She put her own wants and desires before that of the world. She got what she deserved.”
Heat rose into my face. Owen’s father or not, nobody was going to say that garbage about my mother. I stormed out of the room, intent on giving that son of a bitch a piece of my mind. Before I could round the corner though, Owen answered for me.
“How dare you?! You didn’t know her. That woman left her entire world, her whole family and the only home she had ever known to save the life of a child. Can you really stand there, after having done what you did to save me, and tell me that you think she was wrong?”
“I didn’t do anything to save you,” Petar muttered.
“Petar no! Not now!” Owen’s mother yelled. I hadn’t even realized she was there. She had been so quiet during all of this.
“What are you talking about?” I heard Owen ask.
“What was done to you, it was your mother’s doing alone,” Petar answered. I stopped in my tracks. “She brought the idea to me, told me how she planned on saving your life, and I forbid it.”
“You were going to let me die?” Owen asked. The hurt in his voice yanked hard at my heart.
“Your death was a fixed point. Stopping it would mean defying fate, and there are always consequences when one defies fate.”
“And I suppose being the colossal screw up that I am was your consequence?” Owen asked.
“The end of the world was my consequence,” Petar answered.
“Petar, I’m begging you to stop this,” Owen’s mother pleaded.
“She’s not the Bloodmoon,” Owen lied.
“It doesn’t matter,” Petar said. “You are the Dragon. The fact that you’re still breathing years after you were fated to die is proof of that. And, given that you are who you are, it means that the Bloodmoon walks the earth now. We brought about the end of the world, Owen. There’s no way around it. Our family will be responsib
le for the suffering and death of millions. And we did it all to save you.”
There was a long silence, during which I became very aware that I was standing in the middle of a barren hallway across from a window, totally invading this family’s privacy. Still, I couldn’t move. Owen was-Well, he was Owen. We were a team. I loved him more than anything and, even if he didn’t know it was happening, I wanted to be there for him.
“I thought you didn’t do anything, Father,” Owen said with a shaky voice.
“No, I did. And I would do it a thousand times over if I had to,” Owen’s mother said. “Now would the two of you stop this foolishness? What’s done is done. There’s no going back, only forward.”
“And what is forward, Mother; when I know now that my father would have let me die if he had his way?” It sounded as though Owen was crying, though I hoped he wasn’t. Like Merrin, Owen’s father didn’t deserve those tears. He hadn’t earned them.
“To save the world, to save the future, I would let us all die,” Petar answered. “That is who we are. It is the merit of our lives. But I wouldn’t expect you to understand that. You’ve allowed yourself to be corrupted, and by what; some foolish girl and her drama?”
Maybe he wasn’t talking about me?
“Cresta is foolish, and what happened to her wasn’t her fault,” Owen answered.
Well, so much for that.
“Fault has no place within the confines of the future. If you were half the Breaker you could be, you’d know that. Every creature on the planet is a pawn of destiny. What makes us special is that we have a say in which way it turns. But you still don’t understand that. Do you Owen? You still don’t realize how great the responsibility of being a Breaker is, let alone the enormous weight that comes with being the Dragon.”
“That’s not-“
“I’m not finished!” Owen’s father yelled. It was a scream so loud that the glass in the nearby window shook. “Cresta Blut might not be the Bloodmoon, but you thought she was. There was every indication that she would be the person responsible for the end of the world, and you still fought for her. You still stood by her and helped advance her agenda. Why would you do that, Son?”
“Because we’re in love,” I muttered under my breath. Still, I hoped Owen wouldn’t say that. The last thing I needed was for his parents to learn about us.
“It was the right thing to do,” Owen said.
Good answer.
“Are you really that young?” Petar said, though his voice seemed less angry somehow. “Right and wrong is only perspective, Owen. Make sure that your perspective isn’t distorted; not by anything.” He cleared his throat. “Now, there is much to prepare for. We haven’t time to fight about these matters anymore. You’ll both see the Crone tomorrow, and things will take shape from there. Until then, I believe your perfect; the girl with whom you share a sacred bond and responsibility is fighting for her life in the infirmary. You’d do well to spend some time with her. Unless, of course, there’s someone else you’d rather while away the night with.”
My face got hot again.
“No sir,” Owen answered. “I-I’ll go there now.”
“Good,” Petar answered. “And Owen, just because I disagreed with what your mother did with you all those years ago, doesn’t mean I was sorry to see her do it. I wasn’t.”
“Okay,” he answered quietly, and then I heard the front door open and close.
An hour or some later, Owen’s mom delivered a covered dish to my room. It was braised beef, beets, and some sort of weird salad with cabbage leaves and no dressing. She apologized and explained that, because of prior commitments, the family wouldn’t be able to sit down for a formal dinner. I told her it was fine and asked where Owen was.
“He’s with his betrothed,” she said, and the word hit me like a bullet in the chest. Though she was basically on life support, and very likely stuck on the inside of my brain, in this place, Merrin was still his fiancé. And to his family, Owen belonged to her. “Do try to sleep,” Owen’s mother said. “Tomorrow is a big day.”
Sleep didn’t come though, not like it did after my conversation with Merrin. I tossed and turned, staring out the window at the moonlight. Wherever the Hourglass was, the sky was insanely clear. It wasn’t like Chicago or even Crestview. This sky was stark and cloudless; dotted with a billion stars. After a few hours, I decided there was no chance sleep was going to happen for me. And, realizing that, without doors or even much in the way of hallways to block the sound, sneaking over to see Owen would be too dangerous; even if he was even back from his visit with Merrin.
Instead, I decided to climb out the window and take a moonlight walk. It seemed as good an idea as any. The window opened with ease, and I realized that there wasn’t as much as a lock on it. Now that I thought about it, I didn’t remember seeing any locks on the doors either; what few doors there were. I climbed out and hopped down to the ground. The grass was damp and soft against my bare feet. It was insanely dark outside; the sort of darkness that only exists outside of the city, where lights are a rarity. Luckily for me, in the Hourglass, the ‘city’ wasn’t too far away. At the edge of my vision, on the other side of the hill I chased Sevie up the day before, the lights of what I assumed to be the main area of the Hourglass shone brightly. Stuff was actually happening over there. I wondered what time it was, and cursed the apparent blanket clock ban the Hourglass seemed to have going on.
Since there was no sun to gage with, I had no idea what time it was, or how long before I’d have to get up for my ‘big day’. What was more; I had no idea what it would consist of. Other than Owen’s father’s remark about seeing the Crone (whoever that was), I didn’t have the first clue about what the morning would bring. Hopefully not the Council. I walked along the yard, letting the grass squish between my toes, and trying to calm my racing mind. The last time I had been out this late, other than that awful night in Crestview when I watched my mother die, was with Casper. We thought Owen was hooking up with Mrs. Goolsby back then. Everything was so light in those days, without a hint of the darkness to come.
I missed Casper now almost more than ever. I needed his humor. I needed his loyalty. More than anything, I needed the way he seemed to make everything alright. I clutched at the piece of sweater in my pocket and thought about using it. But I didn’t have a candle, and there was no mirror in my room. Besides, given how small the piece of sweater that I had left was, any contact could be the last I ever had with Casper. And I hated the idea of that.
“You are a fellow sufferer,” a voice said from the darkness behind me. I spun around, throwing my hands up like my palms could save me from whoever was there. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” the voice said again.
Squinting through the dark, I watched as a shape emerged before me. Sevie stood with his hands at his sides. He wore a softer version of the brown and white number that everybody in the Hourglass had sport today, and his bronze hair looked slept on.
“What the hell are you doing?” I blurted out breathlessly.
“The same as you Cresta; taking a walk.” His smile was wide and innocent. “Not to worry though, you are safe here. There is no one and nothing within the walls of the Hourglass that would ever mean you harm.”
Except, you know, the Council and every Breaker who answered to it; which was all of them.
“Insomnia is a monotonous affliction, isn’t it?” Sevie smiled.
“I’m not an insomniac,” I answered, shuffling my feet. “I just have a lot on my mind tonight.”
“You heard the argument,” Sevie said, less a question or an accusation than a flat out fact.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.
“The walls are thin. Of course, you do,” he grinned.
The night air was chilly, and I had fallen asleep in my tank, which left my arms and shoulders exposed. I shivered, crossing my arms over my chest.
“You’re cold,” Sevie said and, without another
word, whipped the white shirt over his head and handed it to me, leaving him bare chested in the moonlight. To be honest, I hadn’t seen much in the way of resemblance between Owen and his brother; but here, looking at the curve of his shoulders and the exquisite flatness of his stomach, I definitely saw the family connection.
“That’s not necessary,” I blinked, offering him the shirt back.
“Is it not chivalrous?” He seemed disappointed. “I read of modern chivalry. Of course, I also read of the death of modern chivalry. There seemed to be conflicting viewpoints. It was very confusing.”
“Just take your shirt back,” I said. He grabbed it and slid it back over his torso.
“Should I build a fire; perhaps a hut?” Sevie’s voice was flat. His face was genuine.
“You’re sweet,” I answered, grinning. “But if I was that cold, I’d just go back inside.”
“Of course,” Sevie nodded, looking at the ground. Then, looking up with renewed brightness in his eyes, he asked, “Would you walk with me? I’m always alone at night, and it would be nice to have a bit of company for once.”
“You know,” I said, offering him my hand. “I wouldn’t mind some company myself.”
Chapter 12
The Crone
“You know, I never pictured Owen as a farm boy,” I said. Sevie and I had been walking for at least an hour and, about twenty minutes ago, he settled in the loft of an old barn. “He just seemed so out of place in Crestview; like he was the biggest city boy in the world. To see that he was raised here is such a trip.”
Sevie was perched atop a bale of hay, sitting with his legs crossed and looking out at the ridiculously clear night sky. “To be fair, he never liked it here. He always yearned for bigger things, for more responsibility. He went to Father once, begging to be allowed to begin his training early. He always said that his life wouldn’t matter until he became a Breaker.” Sevie shook his head, still gazing at the stars. “But Father wouldn’t hear of it. He told him that we all play the parts we are meant to in fate’s plan. He said that no one part was more important than another, and that Owen would never been a proper Breaker until he learned to understand that.”
The Breaker's Promise (YA Urban Fantasy) (Fixed Points Book 2) Page 12