“Oh, it’s just you.” She let out the breath she had held and her posture relaxed though her face remained unreadable. Without another word, she surreptitiously stuffed the cloth into her bag.
Kade grinned. “Just me? Just?”
Not rising to the bait, she asked instead, “Do you need something?”
Kade leapt from rock to rock until he reached hers and sank down next to her. “What’s with you and running water?”
Faela just stared at him her mouth slightly open at his brash intrusion. “Did I say, ‘Please join me; won’t you sit on down’?”
Kade’s grin widened. “I’d love to.”
“That’s not what I—” Faela broke off making an irritated sound in her throat. “Forget it. What’s the point anyway?”
Undeterred by her reaction, Kade asked again, “What started this fascination with rivers?”
Faela just sighed, resigning herself to his presence. “It reminds me of home.”
“Which one? Kilrood or Finalaran?”
“You know, it’s a little disturbing that you know that.”
“Everyone knows that the Tereskan temple is on the shores of the Kurinean Sea in Kilrood. Plus, you’re a Durante of House Evensong, so that means you’re from Finalaran and the Dalibor River cuts the city in half. Anyone who knows the Merchant Houses would know that. Let me see if I understand. You find a basic grasp of geography and deduction disturbing? Anyone ever tell you that you’re paranoid?”
Faela spoke enunciating each word clearly. “Caleb Murphy is my brother.”
“Ah, you do have a point,” Kade conceded. “So, which is it?”
“Both, I guess. I’ve always lived near water,” she explained. “Everything seems too quiet without it. Half the time without even realizing it, I find myself seeking it out. I usually don’t even know that’s what I was doing until I’m already there.”
As she tucked her knees under her chin, Kade smiled watching her out of the corner of his eye.
“What about you?” she asked scraping her heel against the rock as she readjusted. “Do you sneak up on people for fun all the time or is it just me?”
“Who says I’m out here looking for you?” Kade deflected her comment.
Faela rotated her face, her cheek resting on her boney knees, so he could see her skepticism.
Without missing a beat, Kade found a plausible excuse. “I promised your brother, but since you keep insisting on disappearing, I am forced to find you. It’s not my fault that you’re unobservant.”
Faela rolled her eyes, but her mouth jumped as she tried to repress a grin.
Kade’s eyes, the intense eyes of a predator, captured her own, though her instinct was to look away, she did not. The pleasant warmth spreading in her stomach offset the unease in her mind. It was nice to not have to hide from everyone.
“You know your eyes shine like moonlight on water when you smile. You should let yourself do it more often.” Kade felt the same warmth lap at his mind and grinned as it confirmed his suspicions.
A cold bitterness sliced through her as his words evoked memories of Nikolais. He had loved the color of her eyes before, before everything shattered. “There’s not much to smile about,” she whispered as the warmth froze.
Sensing the shift in her emotions, he tested his theory. “Light will come and night be done.”
Faela’s head snapped up. “Where did you hear that? Did Caleb tell you?”
“No.” Kade stretched out the word. He could feel her panic like spikes jabbing him. “I heard it from you. It’s what drew me to you earlier. You were singing it, weren’t you?”
Faela’s brow drew together in disbelief. “But you weren’t here. I never saw you.”
“You’re right. I wasn’t. I was about half a league from here trapping with Dathien. That’s when I heard it.” Kade tapped his temple. “I heard it in here.”
Faela buried her face into the sleeves of her coat. “Oh, no.”
“I also felt, I felt joy, affection, love, and sadness, but you were trying to hide the sadness.”
Tangling her fingers into her hair, she berated herself. While they talked, the half-light of dusk had deepened to full dark. She raised her head and pressed her chest into her tented legs, humming low to herself. Her temples pulsed with golden lines and her eyes glimmered red. She touched his cheek and his heart quickened as he felt her fear as though it were his own while the image of a stuffed lamb abandoned on a rocking chair formed in his mind. He could smell the tang of salt in the air that blew through the open window.
Looking into Faela’s eyes, he described what he saw. “It’s near the sea. There’s a rocking chair with a lamb on it, a stuffed lamb.”
Faela’s hand wavered where it touched him and the colored light cleared like smoke. She moved to pull her hand away and he caught it with his own.
With guilt rippling around her, her eyes searched for forgiveness. “I am so sorry, Kade. It was–“
Too late, Kade dropped her hand and twisted just as a tall woman with cropped brown hair leapt onto the rocks and threw a right hook at his jaw whose force ground bone against bone. Standing over him, the woman removed a curved blade from its scabbard.
Orange fire licked along the blade and engulfed her eyes. “Miss me?”
Though night had fallen, Eve had refused to stop when Lucien had asked. As she led Kimiko through the forest, he hung back giving her space. They must be getting close. Otherwise she would never risk her horse turning an ankle in an unknown wood in the dark. Remembering how annoyingly observant Hawthorn was, Lucien began preparing the glamour for his persona, Haley. His hair shimmered from a deep auburn to the color of straw and his nose bent as if he had been on the losing side of a bar fight, while his jaw retracted and rounded near the chin. The golden light faded from his eyes and temples when the transformation completed.
Eve stopped Kimiko and waited for him to catch up. She turned to look at him and took an instinctive step back at his appearance and punched him in the chest.
“Darkness take you, Lucien! Warn me before you put up a glamour.”
When he spoke his voice rumbled, its pitch had lowered. “Sorry, Evie. From your fidgetiness, I figured we must be close to Hawthorn. I didn’t want to risk him recognizing me. He always notices way too much.”
Eve caressed his cheek once without thinking. “No, that’s good. But don’t call me Evie. He’ll suspect something if you do. Like you said, he notices too much. He’s close now, very close.” Reins in her hands, she pointed where the forest began thinning ahead. “This way.”
From the direction that Eve indicated came the low thunder of water. Lucien watched her back as she wended Kimiko around the densely wooded forest. The muscles of her neck and shoulders bunched hard and tight. Her fingers played with the reins as they always did when she had too much nervous energy. She was wound like a coil ready to explode. Eve had always been tightly controlled, but Lucien had never seen her like this.
The desire to make the tension inside Eve melt away felt like an itch he couldn’t reach. He moved his hand to push a stray hair behind his ear before he realized his hair was too short to do so. With Nessa dead, however, there was nothing he could do except stay out of her way and he knew it. That didn’t mean that he liked it. As much as he hated Kaedman Hawthorn, he couldn’t deny the man’s skill or his lethality.
Lucien dreaded the idea of Eve opposing him. While her height matched Lucien’s own, her lithe build looked like a delicate willow swaying in the wind. She seemed so breakable to Lucien right then. He had an unshakable faith in her abilities, but that didn’t stop him from fearing for her safety. Hawthorn was not a man you antagonized unless you had good reason and Eve had a reason that no amount of charm could persuade her to abandon, no matter how badly he wanted to protect her.
They had reached the edge of the forest and he could now see the river tumbling on its way. Seated amongst a rock field, a man leaned toward a woman deep in conversation.
Lucien recognized Hawthorn’s profile at once. Eve had dropped Kimiko’s reins as the woman touched his temple and he covered her hand with his own. Her face blank of all emotion, Eve sprinted toward the pair.
The warm bite of blood filled Kade’s mouth. Rubbing his jaw where Eve had hit him, he spit the blood into the river. He rose with deliberate care and positioned himself so that he blocked Eve’s view of Faela. A stolen glance told him that she had already pulled on her hat that had rested on the rocks. Though Kade knew without a doubt that Eve’s attention fixated on him alone.
“Eve,” he said in way of acknowledgment. Not even a full foot filled the space between the two Daniyelans.
“My name? That’s all you have to say?” Eve clenched her fingers around the hilt of her long knife in order to keep her voice from shaking with the rage filling her. “Clearly, you don’t even miss Nessa,” she accused, waving her blade at Faela who had yet to move. “Is this why you killed her, Kaedman? To run away with this tart?”
Eve took a step toward Faela, but Kade mirrored her movement blocking her way. “No, Eve.”
“Well, she obviously meant nothing to you from what I just watched. She’s not been dead three weeks, Kaedman – three weeks.” Eve closed the gap between them. Kade stood only a few inches taller than the woman before him.
Locking his eyes with her flame-filled ones, he advanced forcing her to take a step back. “When you were eight, Eve, you accused Sheridan of stealing your copy of Roland’s Legends simply because you had seen her reading the day before. I thought you would grow out of jumping to wild conclusions based solely on your own perceptions. I see that you have not. Where is Sheridan? Why isn’t she with you?”
Eve’s breathing quickened, but her hand remained steady as it gripped the hilt. Her control finally broke and she yelled drowning out the roar of the river. “Don’t you dare tell me, tell me, about my sister, you darkness loving traitor. She trusted you, loved you like a brother, and this is how you repay her? By killing our cousin? By murdering your fiancé?”
The fire on her blade flared and surrounded her hand as well in response to her anger.
“You must calm down, Evelyn,” Kade warned watching the fire. “You know what will happen if you lose control.”
Despite the rock biting into her ankle, Faela did not move, but watched Kade and the Daniyelan woman, her mind trying to understand what was happening. This woman had just accused Kade of murdering his fiancé. Faela had no doubt that Kade would kill when he had to, but this was different.
She could feel his regret, his guilt, his pain. Kade had been running, just like she had. She had known there had to be a reason. Why should this information feel like she had been punched in the gut? Faela’s shock and mistrust hit Kade harder than Eve’s right hook, but he would not look at her. He wanted to explain, but he would not draw Eve’s attention to her. It could wait.
At that moment Mireya, Dathien, and Jair broke through the line of trees. Staff in hand, Dathien’s eyes swept over the scene assessing the situation as he approached with caution.
Hiking up her skirts, Mireya pushed past him and marched over to the rocks. Dropping them, she put her hands on her hips and faced Eve demanding, “Who are you? And what do you think you’re doing?”
Mireya’s blue eyes shone with her irritation. With one look at her eyes, the flames consuming Eve’s blade and hand extinguished. Her fingers lost their grip and the blade clattered onto the rocks. Faela grabbed the sword and joined Dathien and Jair.
“A Nikelan?” Eve whispered, her rage transformed into confusion.
“You haven’t answered me, Daniyelan,” Mireya said with more authority than someone her size should be able to command.
“Sister Evelyn Reid of the House of Fireglen.”
“Well, Sister Evelyn Reid of the House of Fireglen, what did you think you were about to do, hmm?”
Regaining her composure and her righteous anger, Eve gestured toward Kade. “Taking a fugitive into custody.”
“That’s not what it sounded like to me, Evelyn Reid.”
“I’m sorry,” Eve said her ire rising, “but what business of yours is this, Nikelan? What concern of yours is this man?”
Mireya’s confidence wavered. “Um, he hunts for me for one.”
“Hunts?” Eve raised an eyebrow. “What right do you have to stop me from fulfilling my oath to justice?”
Mireya gnawed on her bottom lip and looked to Dathien who stepped to her side. “What are the charges against him, Daniyelan?” His voice was quiet and steady. “What laws of the Light has he violated?”
“He murdered a daughter of the Noble Houses of Montdell, Nessa Reid.”
“What proof do you bring against him?” Faela questioned, speaking for the first time since Eve’s arrival.
“I do not have to prove anything to anyone but the Light.” Eve tried to peer into the moon lit shadows cast by the brim of Faela’s hat. “You weren’t wearing that when I first arrived.”
She made to move toward Faela, when Kade stepped in front of her and swept Faela behind him with an arm. Eve’s eyes and right hand ignited with orange fire.
“You kill Nessa, but you protect her?” Her voice dropped to a deadly growl. “By the Light, you will pay for this, Kaedman Hawthorn. I swear by the burning flame of justice, you will pay.”
With that, Eve placed her open palm against his chest, which exploded with fire that engulfed them both. Kade stumbled and blood seeped through his shirt from his chest wound. Mireya shrieked and backed away from the inferno. Faela looked down at her hands and saw the flames begin to appear. Closing her eyes, she hummed a single note and the flames extinguished.
Without a moment of hesitation, she wrapped her arms around Kade’s back allowing the flames to flow over her. The full force of her voice behind the note this time, the flames turned scarlet and disappeared.
When the fire vanished, a loud crack and a flash of purple exploded throwing Eve, Kade, and Faela apart. Faela landed hard knocking the air from her lungs with Kade crumpled at her feet. Where the trio had been, stood a woman like, but unlike Eve. Her hair was braided like brown silk down to her waist.
The woman whipped her head around until she spotted Kade bleeding, sprawled across Faela’s legs. “Kade!” she cried and rushed to his side.
Faela had already started moving. Kneeling next to him, she lowered her ear to his mouth. She felt his warm breath and heard his thought, Darkness, she actually tried to bind me.
Blinking, but too relieved to be shocked by the mental contact, she rested her forehead on his chest for a moment. “Can you sit, Kade?”
He nodded but said nothing as he lifted his head. Now that Faela could see her clearly, the woman looked like a reflection of Eve, except for the hair.
Kade put a hand on the woman’s forearm and squeezed, a genuine smile on his mouth. “Sheridan, you’re here. Good.”
Sheridan winked. “Someone’s got to save your hide.”
Pausing, Sheridan stared at Faela supporting Kade. The force of the fall had knocked Faela’s hat off so that it hung down her back. Distracted by Kade’s possible injuries Faela looked up without thinking and their eyes met. Sheridan grinned with a laugh of surprise, but said nothing.
Convinced that no lasting harm had come to Kade, Sheridan surveyed the riverbank and spotted her sister who had clambered back to her feet. Sheridan pushed off the ground and advanced on her sister and slapped her across the cheek with a sharp crack. “Eve, what in the name of the Light were you thinking? I told you to bring him back so we could question him, not bind him. He can’t stand trial if he’s dead. Darkness, Eve, you could have killed both of you! Then where would I be?”
Eve stared at her twin her mouth agape in shock. “But he’s guilty. He never denied killing her once.”
Sheridan smiled cheerlessly. “That’s where you’re wrong. Gareth killed Nessa, not Kade.”
Before Eve could respond to Sheridan’s revelation, Mireya watched
the twins and her eyes glowed like burning sapphires and lines of blue seared her hands.
Her voice expanded and boomed across the river. At the multiple voices speaking as one, the twins froze facing one another and turned to see Mireya’s eyes staring at them without seeing them as she recited the prophecy. Her head tilted to the side as she concluded.
“Twin branches extend, a choice here resolved,
Either shall end betrayed or absolved.
From death shall be life; the world formed anew.
A promise was made; redemption pursue.”
As the voices faded and the light withdrew, Mireya blinked as though she had no idea what had just happened. Dathien put a hand to the small of her back as she began to wobble unsteadily.
"Was that what I think it was?" Sheridan asked the corners of her lips twitching with excitement.
Jair tapped his chin thoughtfully. “If you thought it was a Nikelan prophecy, then you get a cookie." Jair craned around Dathien so he could see Faela sitting on the ground. "Faela, do you have any cookies?"
Sheridan tried to repress her amusement at the lanky man. He seemed to Eve unusually comfortable with what had just occurred as though Mireya had merely skipped a stone across a pond, instead of acting as a channel, becoming the voice of the Light.
"Ohh, so I prophesied then?" Mireya asked leaning into Dathien’s support. "That would be why I'm dizzy. I thought I was just hungry.”
Kade had managed to get himself into a sitting position with Faela's help. "What does it mean? You haven't prophesied, since you first saw Faela."
Eve had stood stunned since the prophecy had interrupted Sheridan, but the mention of the woman she had found with Kade in connection with the prophecy piqued her curiosity. She wanted to know who this woman was.
Dathien supplied a theory. “I’d say more of the seven have arrived. Though they don’t look very tree-like, there’s no denying that they’re twins.”
Looking up through her hair, Faela added, “And they’re not alone.” She looked at Eve, her face impassive. “You can tell your friend to come out now.”
Shatter (The Children of Man) Page 22