Silent Orchids (The Age of Alandria: Book One)

by Morgan Wylie

  He had vowed then to protect Kaeleigh with his life or with his death, and this would be no exception. Alandria was no longer his home, but she was. He would do what he had to, to keep her safe.

  She gasped when she saw him. “Finn!” she shouted. “What are you doing?” Kaeleigh kneeled beside him and grabbed his hand, which had a white-knuckled grip on one of his knives, and pulled him away from his other arm, on which he seemed to be CARVING.

  He looked up at her with both anger, confusion, and a sad, faraway look that she had seen only a couple times before when he didn’t know she was watching him. Finn jerked his hand away from her and scooted back to where he could stand. He looked like a frightened cat about to bolt, but he didn’t. He didn’t say anything. He just stared at the water.

  “Finn?” She paused, trying to sound weak and nonthreatening, the way you would with a scared animal that you were trying to calm. “Finn, what’s wrong? Why are you doing that to your arm?” she said, unable to take her eyes off of the rivulets of blood flowing from the gash in his forearm and streaming down to his fingertips then onto the grass below him. Still no answer from Finn. Furious and scared that one of her best friends was hurting himself and that it might be her fault, she lashed out at him. “FINNLAN! Answer me... What the hell are you doing to yourself?”

  Angry that he felt compelled to answer her, here of all places, he shoved his bleeding arm out at her. Nodding at his arm, he spoke quietly but full of anger. “You don’t want to know what this is. There are things about me that you, of all people, don’t want to know about. You think you do, but you don’t. If you really did, you would have seen and asked questions long before now. You’ve explained away a lot over the last years. You are suppose to, though, it’s your brain’s defense.”

  Completely caught off guard, Kaeleigh sat down, trying to make sense of what Finn just said. Still worried about the condition of his arm, she kept looking up at it. Sighing, Finn covered his bleeding arm with his opposite hand to staunch the blood flow then sat down beside her.

  “Kaeleigh, there are things that I can’t tell you about myself.” Seeing her angry expression and that she was about to say something, he cut her off with further explanation. “I mean there are things to which I am bound not to explain to you. Things that you need to figure out for yourself.” He sighed. “I didn’t want you exposed to... there are those who would try to find you, maybe even hurt you... I wanted to protect you from...” Finn hung his head in defeat. “I’m sorry, I know you’re confused, but I am not able to say anything more. I’m sorry for what truths you may find.”

  Kaeleigh blinked several times in silent confusion, trying to process what her friend of the last several years had just said—well, not said, really. While she was thinking, she started to tear a piece of fabric from her shirt to bind his arm, but he grabbed her hand to stop her. Looking from his bloodstained hand on her arm to where the hand should be holding his own arm together, her eyes widened in disbelief. “Your... your arm...” Kaeleigh stammered, pointing at his arm that just moments before was a self-inflicted open gash, but now was smoothly knitted together skin with only traces of stained blood.

  Looking up at the sky, Finn spoke through a single wet, sparkling tear running down the side of his face. “There are things about my past that I would change if I could, things I try to get away from,” he said soberly as he gazed at his arm. She followed his gaze. If she didn’t stare directly at it, she could see a flicker of an extremely intricate circular shape which looked like some kind of a seal with black and purple shades within it. It was floral, almost feminine, but not quite. Every time she tried to focus on it, it would disappear. Revelation struck her like a lightning bolt.

  “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” she asked flatly.

  Pause. No response. “Answer me,” she said firmly.

  He looked blankly out at the water. “I am an Elf, a servant to the throne of Adettlyn, and I have been your guardian.”

  “All this time? And you didn’t say ANYTHING?” Kaeleigh was shocked and hurt.

  Finn didn’t move. He didn’t say anything. He sat stunned and hurt at her reaction. Numbness began taking over his mind and his body. The one person who had truly ever befriended him; the one person he had guided, guarded, and protected with his life; the one person he had lo... He was broken. “Kaeleigh...” Finn started but didn’t even know what else to say or what more he actually could say.

  “No! You LIED to me for years,” Kaeleigh said, now pacing back and forth in agitation. “I trusted you. Was any of it real? Was any of it true?”

  Finn interrupted her tirade. “How can you be okay with who he is, but not me?” he said with disgust as he pointed up the hill back where Daegan was.

  Abruptly stopping from the path she was beginning to wear in the grass, she slowly turned to face Finn. “It’s not what you are, Finn. I don’t even know who or what I am at the moment. It’s that you had all this time with me living this lie, making me believe it. Do I know the real you at all?” Kaeleigh now sounded more sad than angry.

  Before Finn had the opportunity to respond, Chel slowly came down the hill, looking haggard but mostly recovered. “There you are,” Chel said, a bit winded as she approached her friends by the creek. Quickly, she sensed the tension she just interrupted. Pausing once she reached them, looking back and forth between the two of them she asked, “Is everything okay?”

  Kaeleigh embraced Chel in a bear hug. “I’m so glad you are all right, I was so worried about you.” Kaeleigh assessed her friend, making sure that she was indeed recovered. Satisfied, she smiled at Chel and hugged her again.

  Chel, clearly uncomfortable with all the attention and affection, shrugged her off. “Yeah, yeah, no biggie. I’m alive, just a little weak still.” Suddenly serious, she looked Kaeleigh in the eyes. “Thanks to you, and to Finn and Daegan.” She nodded at Finn with affection. Needing to move on, she went back to the tension at hand as Daegan slowly made his way down to join them, clearly still keeping his distance and not wanting to be apart of this discussion. “Now, what in Hades is going on down here?” Chel asked.

  Kaeleigh pointed directly at Finn. “He is one of them!” Then pointed at Daegan.

  Chel gasped in shock and surprise. But Finn turned on her out of his own hurt. “Oh, don’t be so surprised! I’m not the only one with secrets, am I, Chel?” he said cruelly.

  Chel glared at him, but Kaeleigh turned on her. “What is he talking about now?”

  Angry that the tables got turned on her, she shot back at Kaeleigh, “Oh, come on. Don’t be so surprised that the world you have known is not all that it appeared to be. I tried to tell you, back at The Station. I tried to share what was going on with me, but you were a little too consumed by your ‘stalker’ to notice what was happening,” she said, nodding at Daegan, who shot his hands out in front of him in a mock pose of surrender.

  The three friends stood silently staring at each other and then at the ground beneath them, each either refusing to say anything to the other, or hurt and not knowing how to repair what was broken and afraid that they couldn’t. Finally Daegan, of all people, interrupted the angry silence.

  “We cannot stay here. You’ve created enough noise to alert the entire forest of your location. Clean up in the creek quickly, then we need to move on,” he said, seemingly not affected by any of the rest of them and their issues. The other three turned to glare at him, especially Finn, but it was Kaeleigh who spoke first.

  “He’s right. We can talk this out later.” Then she stormed over to Daegan and pointed directly up in his face and shouted at him in a whisper. “You... you knew about both of them, didn’t you?”

  Daegan looked at her. “It wasn’t mine to share, but you did need to find out eventually. Deal with it and move on.” Daegan pushed off of the tree that he was leaning against and held his hand to his left upper arm, wincing.

  Kaeleigh was completely put off by his abruptness, but softened the tiniest bit w
hen she saw the gash in his arm that he was trying to cover. Stiffly, she said, “You’re hurt. You better clean it up before it gets infected.” In an unusual show of submission, he nodded and started to head to the river. But before he was able to get far she said, “It’s your turn... What are you? Are you an Elf like Finn?”

  “No.” He barked out a laugh. He looked away, then turning his gaze back to Kaeleigh, he answered with pride, “I am a Ferrishyn, one of the Faerie warriors from Feraánmar.”

  Taking it all in, she asked, “Is that why you and Finn don’t get along?”

  “Perhaps,” he said vaguely with a knowing smirk.

  She frowned curiously, then softened. “It’s obvious you take great pride in who you are.”

  “I do.”

  “You must know I have no idea what you’re talking about, right?”

  He nodded with a smile. “I do.”

  Ugh! Man of many words, Kaeleigh thought with a roll of her eyes and a hint of a grin.

  Then suddenly insecure, she dropped her head. With a defeated whisper, she asked no one in particular, although she knew he could hear her, “What am I?” His face pinched, he simply shook his head, not knowing what to answer.

  After he washed his wound, she ripped the rest of the torn piece from her shirt that she had started for Finn. She reached out to him, but he jerked away. “You need to stop the bleeding,” Kaeleigh said impatiently. Then she added out of curiosity after a quick revelation, “Why aren’t you healing? Don’t you heal quickly, like Finn just did?”

  “Normally, yes. This,” he said, nodding down at the scrapes, “is from the dark creatures in the cave and they have been infected with the poisons from the Droch-Shúil. It will heal, just slowly and more painfully.”

  Kaeleigh gasped as he took his hand away to reveal purple/black veins stretching out from where the wound was deepest. He saw the concern in her eyes and fought against it. “It will need more than just being bound,” Daegan replied with anger.

  Kaeleigh flinched, but shot back at him, “Then what do you need? I’m going to help you whether you like it or not. Deal with it and move on.” She threw back the words he had used with her just moments before. He smirked and nodded.

  Finn came up behind them. “He needs the salve of a scarlet bush. Normally, it would need to be boiled down, but he doesn’t have time for that. The juices directly in the wound should work.” He looked at Kaeleigh. “I saw some not too far back in the forest. I’ll get some.” Finn must have felt the need not to hold back anymore on who he was because he moved inhumanly fast to fetch the plant, returning only moments later.

  Kaeleigh gasped in shock at seeing Finn like that... so other. It fit him. She was not only understanding him for who he was for the first time, but also seeing a blending of who she knew him to be before. Still, she wasn’t ready to go there with him yet. Sincerely, she said, “Thank you, Finn.” Then she turned to Daegan for instruction. Again, it was Finn who answered, seeing that Daegan was suddenly weakened by the poison.

  “We have to move fast. Break open the bud and smear it on the fabric, then squeeze the juices directly into the deepest part of the wound.” Finn paused, frowning. “On second thought, smash up a flower and put it directly inside the wound, then bind it with the salve too.”

  “You want me to leave the flower inside him?” she asked nervously.

  “Yes, his quick healing abilities will absorb the flower into his bloodstream.”

  Kaeleigh nodded and quickly did as he said. She rolled up the rest of his sleeve to have better access and noticed the tattoo he had higher up on the bicep of his arm, just below his shoulder. She could feel both Finn and Chel beside her watching and waiting to see what would happen. Looking briefly at his tattoo, she thought she saw it move but didn’t have the time to think twice about it, considering she was suddenly afraid for his arm—maybe even his life.

  However, beside her Chel made a barely audible short intake of breath when she saw it, getting closer and frowning as she studied it. Chel was obviously making Daegan uncomfortable, as he watched her look from the tattoo back to his eyes, appearing to see something that the rest of them didn’t. Daegan gave a slight shake of his head, whether it was in response to Chel’s gaping or to Kaeleigh’s needling with his arm, Kaeleigh wasn’t sure, but she didn’t have time to figure it out now. She added it to the other things she needed to talk about later, whenever that would be. Chel had always had an affinity for artistic symbols and tattoos. Perhaps she saw something unique or some odd symbolism she was interested in. Maybe she knew what it meant.

  Everyone, including Daegan, who seemed to be quickly regaining color to his face and strength to his demeanor, took a deep breath and sat back after Kaeleigh finished tying off the binding around his arm.

  After a couple of minutes, Kaeleigh looked up, to be pierced by the intensity of dark chocolate orbs locked on her. Pieces of his hair were sticking to his sweat-sheened forehead in a way that made her want to brush it away from his face, but the way he was staring and the uncertainty and intrigue she saw in his eyes made her uncomfortable enough to break the connection and look to her friends. He stared a second longer then shifted his gaze out to the creek.

  ✾✾✾

  Standing up tall, albeit a bit shakily, Daegan made his way away from the little group that had surrounded him. He needed space. Invisible walls of doubt were creeping up around him, pressing in on him, causing him sensations of claustrophobia. Stumbling down to the creek, he ignored all the shouts asking where he was going, if he needed help (him need help, ha!), he was too weak still (they didn’t know the meaning of weak). He needed to focus, to clean off the poison, to clear his head of anything but the mission he was on, to breathe. This was all too much. He needed it to be over. After his visit with the Elder, he had made a plan. The ending of it had still been vague as he waited to see if this “new power” was to be anything like what the prophecy foretold. He hadn’t thought she would be, but now he wasn’t so sure. He hated the struggle this situation—this girl—created in him.

  Cleaning himself off and taking deep breaths, he could feel himself coming back to his usual “friendliness.” His arm was hurting, pulsating actually; not the open wound that was now healing already, but his upper arm where his marking was. It had bothered him a couple times before now, often followed by something destructive. His head hurt, his eyes felt pinched, and his vision went black for a moment then returned. Perhaps this time it had something to do with the poison that had just invaded his system. It could have somehow triggered an irritation. He had his suspicions back before they had put it on his arm, but now he wondered if he wasn’t correct. His “aunt” Maleina had been so supportive of him getting it, too supportive—almost forceful about it.

  He usually didn’t go along with the things that she asked of him. Daegan always made sure it looked like he did, but unfortunately sometimes even he carried out her heinous orders. But then there were the few times he hadn’t even realized until the task had been “finished” that he himself had carried it out. It was usually when he felt the most resistant to Maleina’s command that odd things would happen. Every time something odd occurred, looking back, it had been accompanied with a pulsing ache in his arm where his mark was and a dull headache.

  Flashbacks of specific times he tried to disobey ran across his vision. The time she had tried to convince him that a particular old man was a threat to “her people” and needed to be “dealt” with. The time a family was trying to flee to another part of Alandria out of fear for the futures of their mixed-race children. That one was the worst. He had tried so hard to hide them from her sight, to get them out of town himself before she suspected anything, but she had found them while he was out on another “hunt” and burned down the safety house where the family had been hiding. He got there too late.

  He had run into the still-burning house to see if there was anyone alive, but when he went into the bedroom all he saw was the unmoving hand of th
e youngest daughter lying peeking out from under a burning pile of fallen beams. She was part shifter and hadn’t even had the chance to experience her first shift. He had liked her. Clutched in her hand was the smooth round piece of obsidian he had given her to play with. He grabbed it quickly and fled the house, turning his back on those he had failed to save and the piece of his heart that had tried to care.

  Suddenly snapping out of the fog that had taken over his brain, Daegan absently rubbed at his arm while trying to get a grip on his suddenly wild emotions. Without realizing it he had slid his hand down to his forearm, where Kaeleigh had bandaged his wound. She hadn’t done too bad of a job; he could tell it was already healing. He felt shocked and furious at how he had allowed himself to get injured and how that poison had affected him so, as if he was some kind of weak mortal. My emotions are out of control. I must focus. I have a duty to complete, he reminded himself with deep breaths.

  Looking up, he could see Kaeleigh and the others now, anxiously waiting to get moving. He didn’t understand her and didn’t know what she was or what part she had to play, but he was beginning to wonder if there might be some accuracy to the ancient prophecy. There was definitely something about her. She was stronger than he thought she would be. All this new information and yet, still not any of the answers she was looking for. Her friends had had their own secrets and demons that they had kept hidden from her, whatever their reasons, but she was trying not to let her minuscule world crumble around her.

  No! He would not think of her. He would not try to figure her out. He could not care; there was a job to be done and he was going to deliver her. She didn’t have any idea what she was being delivered into, although neither did he, and he didn’t like the feeling he was getting about what his “aunt,” the Paladin, might be up to.