Shatter (The Children of Man)

by Elizabeth C. Mock

  Jair shook his head. "You don't talk about yourself."

  Faela pushed on the handle of the knife slicing through another potato. "You’re right, I don't. She's two years younger than me. She'll be twenty-four next month actually. Her name’s Deborah. I was taken to the Tereskan temple in Kilrood when I was four, so I only saw her when I came home." Faela paused then amended. "When it was safe for me to come home. Deborah's a shrewd girl. She'll make a good head of the House, if Ethan ever gives her a chance."

  "Ethan?"

  "My cousin," Faela answered pushing the pile of diced potatoes off to the side of the block. "Though Eve was blunt in her statement, she wasn't incorrect when she called Caleb a bastard. We have the same father, but we have different mothers. Caleb's ten years older than me and I'm the eldest of my mother's children. Caleb's mother was a good woman and I don't think our father ever really got over her death.

  “But our father couldn't marry her and she knew that. He had to be available for alliances with other Houses. She died in childbirth with Caleb. When our father finally married my mother, Caleb was already training in the temples. But he always made time to visit me. Even when I was in Kilrood." Faela smiled.

  "He would bring me baubles and books from his travels. However, because Caleb isn’t the legitimate son of our father, by Merchant law, he can never inherit the House. I could inherit, but I renounced my claim."

  "Wouldn't it fall to Deborah then?"

  "Legally, she does have the strongest claim, but Ethan has a head for Merchant politics and management. Plus, he was father's Second and as a blood relation, he does have a claim."

  Jair snapped his fingers at Faela. "Didn't that innkeeper in Dalwend say that you were the head of the House now? How can that be if you renounced your claim?"

  Faela picked up an apple and sliced off the bottom. She set the apple on its now flat side and began quartering the fruit. "This brings us back to the boy I met. As I said, I've never had a lot of experience with people my own age. I was naive." The force of her last cut embedded the knife into the wood of the block. She levered the handle to remove it. "He convinced me that he loved me. He convinced me to use my gift to influence my father's trading decisions toward certain parties. And I did as he wished.

  "I did it, because I was a gullible, idealistic child. I knew what repeated uses of my gift would do, but I ignored what I knew and I did it any way." Faela rolled another apple into place with the tips of her fingers. "Should I choose to, my gift allows me to affect the emotions of others, to make them feel what I feel. I have to be very careful not to get trapped by the person's emotions, their thoughts. Repeated contact is dangerous." She pointed the knife at Jair. "Think about it like this. When I cut into the wood, if I cut in the same place what happens?"

  "The mark in the wood gets deeper and wider," Jair answered.

  "Exactly. And after every cut, hitting that same fissure becomes easier and easier. It's the same way with my gift. Grooves, pathways are deepened, widened with each contact. After a while the contact no longer needs to be made deliberately. Unless I consciously block those pathways, my emotions begin to affect the person I'm linked to."

  "So, linking to your father was taboo?" Jair asked trying to wrap his mind around the explanation. "How is that unforgivable?"

  "The link wasn't unforgivable," Faela said correcting him, "just inadvisable. What happened because of that link, that's what was unforgivable. I made many bad decisions. I don't excuse them. They were my choices, no one else's, and I made them. For several very complicated circumstances, I was convinced that my father was in the way of my happiness. I began to think that it would be better if he were gone. About a month after my thoughts turned this direction, my father committed suicide."

  "You can't blame yourself for that." Jair spoke slowly.

  "No, Jair. I'm not blaming myself. I know that I did this to him. This isn't empty guilt over something that I couldn't control. What I did, manipulating my father's emotions, is a violation in every sense of the vows that I took to the Tereskan Order. There is a reason there aren't many like me. Most people can't control it. They can't keep themselves separate from the people around them. It’s dangerous for anyone like me to allow contact.

  “But more than that, I used black. I used the magic of darkness to manipulate my father. There's a reason why people fear Grays. We all have been touched by darkness at one time. We can't be trusted. I was not the one who put the dagger in my father's hands, but I might as well have with how I violated his mind."

  Motioning with her head to the cauldron peeking out of her bag, she said, "Can you fill that with water and start a fire in the stove.” With her elbow, she pointed at the potbelly stove across the room.” I want to smash these potatoes and I need to be able to boil water to do that."

  Jair jumped off the counter and grabbed the cauldron. Standing next to Faela, he hugged her with one arm. "You don’t have to hide, you know."

  Faela lay her cheek on his chest, her hands still busy cutting the apples. "I know. Now get going. This meal isn't going to cook itself."

  Talise and Kade sat talking at a table near the hearth where Caleb was starting a fire. The last rays of sun melted away as they fell in murky diamonds through the dirty glass panes. Faela and Jair had disappeared into the kitchens to make dinner earlier and the sounds of conversation and chopping drifted to the dining room. Using his own clear voice as the baseline, Haley sat on the floor by the hearth tuning his lyre. Eve and Sheridan sat at a table leaning toward one another in deep conversation.

  "Okay, so it's later," Eve announced to Sheridan as her gaze found its way to Kade's back. "Explain to me why I shouldn't drag Kaedman back to Finalaran tonight."

  "This situation is much more complicated than we originally thought," Sheridan prefaced before she started her explanation. "I can tell you definitively though that Kade is innocent of Nessa's death."

  "Based on what evidence?"

  Sheridan looked down at her own interlaced fingers. "I saw it."

  "You time-folded?"

  Sheridan nodded, her tiny braids sliding into her face and falling over her shoulders. "I found the cellar Gareth took her to, where she died."

  Eve took in a deep breath and leaned in on her forearms. "You better start at the beginning."

  "Gareth was a member of the Brethren. He had a hidden chamber in his quarters at the temple. You can only reach it by popping."

  Eve drew her eyebrows together as she traced a pattern on the table with a fingertip. "But Gareth never trained at Wistholt. He had no purple magic."

  "Apparently, he did. The room was sealed. In the room were letters, instructions from the Brethren. He also had a copy of Simon Nightfall’s teachings. His instructions were to persuade Kade to become sympathetic with the Brethren's cause. There was a specific vote on Montdell's council that the Brethren wanted Kade to veto. It was important enough for them to tip their hand. Gareth told Kade that if he didn't veto the legislation, they would kill Nessa."

  "I imagine that went over well," Eve commented with a snort.

  "Gareth kidnapped Nessa, brought her to that cellar. Kade tracked him faster than Gareth had anticipated. When Kade rejected the Brethren's offer, Gareth killed Nessa."

  "Why didn't Kaedman just step using his time-folding?" Eve asked still skeptical of Kade's innocence.

  "Because it doesn’t work that way. While I can only see the past, he can actually go there, but that doesn’t mean he can change anything. The best he could do was watch it happen again.”

  Still unsatisfied with Sheridan’s answers, Eve asked, “But if he got there before Nessa was killed, what prevented him from stopping Gareth?”

  “Kade couldn’t have known that Gareth would use black to attack Nessa and not him. Gareth knew who he was dealing with. He knew he couldn’t win in a head on fight against Kade. There’s nothing Kade could have done to save her, but he went after Gareth.

  “I found Gareth's body before I di
scovered his hidden room. He had been killed and someone had taken his time. The most troubling thing about the letters I found is that the Brethren had started watching Kade back before the war. I don't understand what game they're playing. Not yet at least."

  "So, he had no part in Nessa's death?" Eve raised the question again.

  "He was not the one who killed her, but she was put into the situation because of her ties to him." Sheridan reported honestly, pushing her hair out of her face with her fingers.

  "I see." Eve reclined back into her chair, her hand covering her chin and mouth as she absorbed what Sheridan had just revealed to her.

  Out of the corner of Sheridan’s eye, she saw Haley strumming his lyre and for a moment she could have sworn that his hair glimmered auburn, but when she turned to look at him directly, his hair was still the color of hay.

  "So, what do we know about Kade's previous ties to the Brethren?” Eve asked recapturing her sister’s attention. “Why were they coming after him?"

  Sheridan shrugged. "No names were mentioned in the letters except for references to ‘Hawthorn.’ The only person we know for certain had ties is dead." Sheridan set her chin into her cupped hand and her eyes slid to Kade chatting with Talise as Caleb joined them. The fire popped as air pockets cracked in the wood. Though he sat with a relaxed posture, Sheridan could spot at least three weapons on him within easy reach and she knew that if she saw three, he had just as many concealed. He appeared to be in comfortable conversation, but she could see the tiny adjustments of his gaze that never stopped assessing the room.

  "Eve, look at him," Sheridan suggested. "You really have to ask what they could want with him? He's one of the best fighters I've ever seen, but more than that, he's a stepper. Those who've walked the halls of the Amserian temple in Wistholt are few and those of us who can wield purple are usually poppers, not steppers. I can only watch the past. I can't interact with it. But Kade," she puffed her cheeks and blew out the air, “he can go there."

  "I know what a stepper does," Eve interrupted.

  "Well, then you should understand why they would want him. It seems obvious to me. Beyond his color blending, when that man is determined, he will get what he wants. He's a powerful ally. And well, I wouldn't want to be the one facing him on the other side. I'd recruit him too."

  Eve grunted, but said nothing as she watched Kade listening to whatever Caleb was saying.

  "You're letting your personal attachment to him get in the way of analyzing the facts," Eve concluded after they sat in silence for some time.

  Sheridan’s voice became flat. "What do you mean?"

  Eve traced the grain of the wood with her pinky as she began. "The Brethren have been trying to recruit Kade for years, what's to say they didn't succeed?"

  "That's absurd."

  "Is it? Let's look at the facts," she paused for emphasis, "objectively. You found letters from the Brethren saying they were trying to recruit him for over a decade. Kade flees Montdell after Nessa and Gareth's deaths. Kade is discovered in the company of not one, but two Grays. And the second Gray," Eve laughed without humor, "was black for the majority of the time they were together."

  "You were traveling with a Gray yourself," Sheridan said refusing to allow Eve to forget that fact.

  Eve flinched for a fraction of a second and someone who was not her twin would never have noticed, but Sheridan knew her sister. Waving away Sheridan’s objection, she replied, "Whom I ran across while tracking Kade."

  "Who you were granting safe passage without any talk of bringing him back to Finalaran for judgment." Sheridan caught her sister's eye. "What aren't you telling me, Evelyn?"

  "I hadn't decided what to do yet." Eve wavered. "What would you do when a legend walks into a bar?"

  Sheridan snorted as her laugh escaped. "Make sure I had a good joke to follow that set up."

  Eve tried to scowl, but failed. "Darkness, Sheridan, this is serious."

  "Oh, I know that it is, but really," tears were building in the corners of her eyes from her laughter, "he walked into a bar?"

  "Will you let me finish?"

  Sheridan covered her mouth to stop laughing and nodded.

  "When he fled from Montdell, he went looking for," Eve lowered her voice so it wouldn't carry, "a convicted traitor and bounty hunter who happens to be the brother of one of the Grays. This does not add up to him being pardoned."

  "He didn't join them, Eve." Sheridan shook her head with absolute confidence. "He wouldn't."

  "See," Eve said jabbing a hand at her sister. "This is what I'm talking about. You're compromised. You can't see the picture these pieces create. You won't, even if they are staring you in the face. He may not have killed Nessa, but he is far from innocent. I just need more time to find out what his angle is."

  With a wary eye, Caleb watched the twins speaking earnestly in the opposite corner. They clearly disagreed about whatever they were discussing and he did not have to stretch his imagination to figure out the subject of their conversation. Turning his attention back to his own table, Caleb joined Talise and Kade's discussion of the new kicks she had learned the last time they had met up with her Tribe.

  "See, it's all in the carry through," Talise explained twisting her torso to illustrate. "You aren't exerting that much force yourself, but using the force of your own weight to increase it."

  "It makes sense," Kade admitted. "But you can break the jaw of a man who's standing with it? At your height?"

  "Easily," she said her curls bobbing as she nodded.

  "As much as I love to hear you talk about crushing bones, babe,” Caleb interrupted, “Kade needs to know more about our visit with Rivka, while we have him to ourselves."

  Kade crossed his arms and settled back into his creaking chair. "So, you accused Tomas."

  "Aye, and she didn't seem all that surprised by it."

  "Well, she is the Nikelan Scion," Talise said thoughtfully. "Would anything surprise her?"

  "What evidence did you bring to her?" Kade asked.

  "Stantreath for one."

  "You suspected him of being behind Stantreath?" Kade's eyes sparked orange momentarily then faded. "For how long?"

  "Almost immediately." Caleb slid his hands across the tops of his legs.

  Realization passed over Kade's face. "That's why you refused to let me testify at the trial."

  Caleb nodded while watching the fire crackle and spark. "I didn't want him to associate you with my suspicions."

  "What did she say?"

  "That she would take it from here and that I was released from my obligation to the men who died and that I had a new mission."

  "If you suspected Tomas even before the trial,” Kade said thrusting two fingers at Caleb, “you must have spent the last decade collecting evidence."

  "That's right," Talise answered for him.

  "But why now? Why did you go to the Nikelan Scion now? What changed?"

  "Your logbook, what happened in Montdell with Gareth. You gave me a concrete connection back to Tomas."

  "Back to Tomas? If there had been a clear connection, I would have seen it."

  Caleb grinned. "With all the cards, yes, you would have, but you didn't have all the cards. How much did you know about Gareth?"

  Kade shook his head. "Only what I knew from our time together in Montdell. I never served with him before then. He was private and so was I. I saw no need to pry. It worked well."

  "Gareth Burke is Tomas' cousin, but more than that Gareth worked as one of Tomas' aids during the war. Among many others, he brought me the orders for both your deployment to my unit and the orders for Stantreath. When you told me about his involvement with the Brethren, you pointed me to the bridge I'd been searching for."

  Though a reserved man at times, Kade rarely found himself at a loss for words, but this news left him mute staring at his former mentor and commanding officer.

  Caleb hunched forward, his characteristic mirth gone from his face replaced with earnest seriou
sness. "Kaedman, you cannot trust anyone within the Daniyelans, especially those two." Only his eyes drifted to the twins. "Eve's first loyalty is to the Orders, she will not hesitate to bring you to Tomas, mark my words."

  "Sheridan will make Eve see reason," Kade argued.

  "You can't risk it, Kade. Eve sees me as the perversion of everything she holds true, because of my conviction at the trial. And by association, even if Ella weren't marked as a Gray, she would already be suspect in Eve's book. Look at who you're associated with." Caleb locked gazes with him. "You know how her mind works. Tell me that these facts lead to your innocence in her eyes."

  Kade sighed. "I can't deny it, but Sheridan won't turn on me."

  "Eve's her blood, Kade." Caleb's eyes flashed dangerously. "That ain't the kind of tie that breaks easy. Even knowing what Ella did, I'd still defend her to my last breath."

  Kade considered the sincerity of his friend's declaration and did not doubt a word of it. But he wondered if Caleb really did know what she had done and if he did, whether he would still be as vehement in his protection.

  "She may be Sheridan’s blood," Kade conceded, "but I'm just as much Sheridan’s kin. She won't betray me."

  Caleb shook his head. "You're a blasted stubborn fool, Kaedman Hawthorn. Don't say I didn't warn you."

  "I won't deny I'm stubborn and I may be a fool, but I trust her with my life, Caleb."

  Caleb nodded and lowered his voice. "It's one of the things I admire about you, mate, but don't let your blind spot for Sheridan put my sister in danger. One other thing that Rivka told me is that there's something special about Ella. There's something she's got to do, but I have my orders. Talise and I leave in the morning."

  "I wasn't planning on leaving her, Caleb," Kade cut him off, "even if you stayed."

  Caleb stopped for a moment watching Kade, studying his friend's motivations. "Be careful there, Kade."