Shatter (The Children of Man)

by Elizabeth C. Mock

  “Where you taking me?” she asked sounding timid for the first time in their short acquaintance.

  "I'm sorry, Wes," he said putting a hand on her head. "I can't leave you here. I don't have time to discuss this further. You’re going to have to stay at the Phaidrian temple until I get back. You don’t leave and you don’t mention my name. Understand?”

  Wes nodded, but something lay hidden behind her eyes as they left the harbor heading toward the city center and the Phaidrian temple.

  *****

  Chapter Nineteen

  Faela sat on the servant stairs that led to the Tin Whistle's kitchens. Though it was late and most of the customers had gone home for the evening, the clattering of dishes and chatter drifted up to her hiding place. She pressed her back against one wall and propped up a leg against the other listening to the familiar noises. For so long, she had waited to find Gresham. She had spent so many nights away from her son for this. Placing her elbows against her thighs, she buried her face into her hands.

  "You always did like small spaces," said a deep, rich voice behind her.

  "Why didn't he tell me, Tobias?" Faela asked her hands.

  She felt more than heard the large man sink to the floor in the hallway as the floorboards lifted a little.

  "Ianos is nothing, if not a teacher, Faela. You know that."

  "What was he trying to teach me through this?" she pleaded, her voice stretched thin as she turned to face him. "What lesson was this one?"

  "Had you known that he sent you to find me, what would you have done?"

  She answered after a moment's consideration. "I would have asked how in the name of the Light you could help me."

  "And had he told you that I was a redeemed Gray, what would you have done then?"

  Faela chewed on her bottom lip as she thought. "I'm not sure I would have believed him at first."

  "So, you would have obsessed over whether it was worth it to find me, no?"

  Faela tapped her heel against the wall, remembering the thoughts she had entertained mere moments before he arrived. "I don't know."

  "Yes, you do." Tobias pushed her, his voice gentle.

  "Fine," she admitted. "I might not have come at all."

  "Why?" he asked, peering down at her face. "What would have restrained you? What didn't you tell me earlier?"

  She closed her eyes and crushed them into her palms again. Exhaling, she sat up, her back flush against the stairwell. "I have a son," she said, her smile laced with bitterness. "His name is Samuel. He'll be six months old in five days."

  When Tobias remained silent, she continued. "He's the only reason I'm still alive, you know. After what I did, he was the only reason the guilt didn't destroy me. I knew I had to live for him."

  "It may not have ended your life then," he said with a subtle intensity, "but you're still allowing it to consume you. It is destroying you, Rafaela."

  "I have to carry it," she said with firm conviction. "I can never forget what I did – never."

  "What you did is horrible, I won't patronize you by trying to deny that. But if you continue to cling to this guilt, it will destroy you."

  "Then what am I supposed to do?" Faela asked with a caustic glare.

  "Accept what you did," he began. "Grieve for the loss of your father. Accept that nothing you do will ever make right what you've done. I know it's a hard truth, but it’s one you must embrace. Because what you did is a part of you. You must accept that this darkness is inside all of us. Once you accept that you must let it go. Let go of the past or become its slave. Those are your only two options."

  "Just let it go?" she asked her voice rising with her skepticism.

  "Yes, accept it, then let it go."

  "What does that even look like?" Faela asked her hands splayed on her thighs.

  "Don't hide from what you did and why you did it."

  "It's not like I can really hide," she said gesturing to her eyes.

  "But that's just it," Tobias said leaning across the hall. "You are hiding. You can't look at your own reflection without being overcome by your guilt can you?"

  Faela chose not to answer, but looked down the stairs concentrating on the normal, domestic sounds of the kitchens.

  "See? You're hiding even now." He studied her face. "Just as you were hiding why you killed your father from those boys earlier. You weren't hiding that from me."

  Faela whipped her head back to stare at Tobias. "That's not true," she objected a little too forcefully. "Jair knows."

  "So, you were hiding it from the Kade boy then," he surmised. "Why?"

  Faela was unsure she even knew why. She couldn’t imagine why she would hesitate to tell him. He already believed her to be a pitiless kin-slayer, but for some unfathomable reason the thought of him knowing the truth made her numb with fear.

  "I don't know," she admitted.

  "Would you like to hear an old man's theory?" Tobias' eyes sparkled.

  Faela repeatedly flicked her thumbnail against her index finger. "I'm not sure I'll like what I hear, but say it."

  "Who is Samuel's father?"

  "That's not a theory," Faela felt compelled to point out.

  "Just answer the question."

  "His name is Nikolais."

  "And what role did Nikolais play in your father's death?"

  "I believed the lies of Sammi's father." She refused to say his name aloud again. "He's the one who encouraged me to manipulate my father. Once my father was dead though and he had what he wanted-" Faela broke off and looked up at the ceiling. "Well, let's just say that I wasn't what he really wanted. I left him while still pregnant with Sammi. Ianos hid me."

  "What angers you more, the fact that your actions led to your father's death or that you were betrayed?"

  Faela's eyes hardened. "Careful, Tobias."

  "That alone answers my question," he replied his eyes saddened. "You feel like a fool for believing that this man cared for you."

  "Of course," Faela answered in exasperation. "But what does that have to do with this?"

  Tobias looked at Faela sitting in the stairwell, her wavy hair shining like pale copper in the lamp light of the hall, her brows drawn together in frustration, her bottom lip tucked in between her teeth. She really couldn't see it, but he decided against telling her. He had always believed that revelations like this needed to happen in their own time. It wasn’t his place to tell her what she had yet to realize. He decided to take a different approach instead.

  "Do you remember when you were a little girl and I would visit Ianos?" he asked rhetorically. "It was several years between my first visit and when I brought you to Kilrood from Finalaran. You didn't recognize me and you hid under Ianos' desk and he tried to coax you out, but you refused."

  Tobias chuckled remembering the dirty-faced little girl with a thick braid of reddish gold hair peeking out from the shadows of the desk. "Then I sat on the floor and told you that since you refused to come to me, I would come to you. Do you remember?"

  A small smile tugged at her lips and her posture relaxed somewhat. "I do. I thought you were a bear who was going to eat me, but you made me laugh."

  "And eventually, you came out," Tobias reminded her. "But, Faela, not everyone will come to you. You need to be willing to go to them from time to time. You need to be honest. You can't keep everyone at arm's length forever."

  Faela took her foot off the wall and swiveled to face Tobias. "I'm not trying to keep Kade away, because I'm afraid of being betrayed." She locked Tobias with her gaze. "I'm afraid of betraying him."

  "Enslaved, my dear," Tobias said shaking his head. "This is exactly what I meant. Until you accept who you are and what you've done, you will be trapped by it."

  "Maybe I should be trapped," Faela suggested, "then I can't hurt anyone else."

  "Rafaela, we all hurt people." Tobias’ voice was sharp and cutting. "That’s universal. We’re all broken and those shards will cut those around us."

  "Yes, but we don't all
kill our fathers."

  "No," he admitted, then his voice turned cold. "Some of us commit genocide against our own people."

  "That's not what I meant," Faela began then trailed off.

  "Rafaela, if anyone here has the right to self-flagellation, it is me, not you," he told her bluntly. "It’s a certainty that you will hurt every single person you are traveling with in some way on some level and if you keep closing yourself off in a martyred attempt to keep them safe from you, you will eventually explode and that explosion will be much worse than anything you're fearing."

  Faela combed her fingers through her hair and closed her eyes. "I already have."

  "Explain."

  "When we were in Oakdarrow, I smelled something that reminded me of Nikolais. It triggered an episode."

  "Merciful Lior, what happened?"

  "I linked Jair and Kade's minds to mine."

  "Without Ianos to yank you out of the time stream to segregate you from any other minds, how did it end?" Tobias asked with real concern.

  "Mireya." Faela smiled. "She commanded me back. I don't know how, but it worked."

  "Have there been any side effects?"

  Faela nodded, her cheek resting in her palm. "Kade can feel my emotions and I his. He's even managed to project his thoughts and pick out mine. It's not fading like I thought it would." She grimaced. "It's getting stronger."

  "What about Jair?"

  "I don't know, he hasn't said anything about it, but tonight when I was compelled to come here, to find you, both Kade and Jair were effected as well. They felt the same pull."

  "My dear girl, this is troubling."

  "See," Faela said then pointed to herself. "Causes problems."

  "Regardless, you still need to be honest," Tobias reprimanded her, his tone softening. "Until you are and until you want to, you won't be able to let it go."

  "Well," she said being honest, "I'm not there yet."

  "Good." Tobias smiled. "At least you've acknowledged that."

  "What a triumph," she said sarcastically.

  "You need your sleep, child. You have many long days of travel ahead of you." Tobias stood and stooped over kissing her on the top of her head. He said into her hair, "Go to bed."

  "Soon," Faela said her fingers intertwined in the chain around her neck. "I'll go soon."

  "Where's Tobias?" Mireya asked as she wandered into the dining room of the tavern, her dark hair still big and bushy from sleep.

  Kade, Dathien, and Faela sat at a table with a pile of sweet rolls in the middle. Mireya noticed the darkness ringing Faela’s eyes, made even more severe by the mirrored reflection of her irises. Clearly she had not slept well, if she had slept at all.

  Faela sat, her fingers curled around a steaming mug. "As far as I know, he's still sleeping, the sluggard."

  Scratching her head, Mireya plopped down into a chair across from Faela and grabbed a roll. She bit into its soft and hot doughiness. With a large hunk in her cheek, she asked, "Is that where everyone else is too?"

  Kade answered as he set down his mug. "Sheridan went down to the market. She said she was tired of borrowing Eve's things. I'd wager collecting water tonight that Jair is still asleep."

  "That's not a fair wager, when he's your bunkmate," Dathien said licking the melted sugar from his fingers.

  "What's unfair is that he is my bunkmate."

  Dathien smiled at that and passed his mug to Mireya who happily slurped the tea inside.

  "I don't know about Eve and Haley though," Kade finished.

  "Those two seem to be together quite a lot," Mireya observed then popped the remaining bits of the pastry into her mouth. "How did she say she knows him again?"

  "Just said he was traveling with her from what I remember," Faela answered, her arm resting across the back of her chair as she sat at an angle facing Kade and Dathien.

  "Huh," Mireya said with her mouth full of roll. "That seems odd. Eve doesn't seem the type to be chummy with any Gray."

  "Indeed," Dathien agreed, but offered nothing more.

  "We were just discussing the fastest route back to the Boundary with Dathien," Kade explained. "Do you have any suggestions that don't involve briar patches?"

  "You take a man through one briar patch," Mireya muttered to herself. "I'd say retracing our steps, then head north from Oakdarrow to avoid the Auchneid woods. It should be the fastest route, if not the most direct."

  Kade and Faela both stared at Mireya.

  "What?" she demanded ripping apart another pastry with her fingers.

  "That was so coherent," Faela stated with surprise.

  "And accurate," added Kade with an equally shocked expression.

  "And helpful," Faela said gesturing to Kade with an open palm.

  Mireya scrunched up her nose, then shoved a large piece from her mangled roll into her mouth. After swallowing, she retorted, "I tramped around this continent for a year looking for Faela. I know my way around."

  "Now," Dathien said with a sly smile at his mate.

  Before Mireya could retaliate, Sheridan entered the tavern now sporting a pack of her own and a half-eaten snow plum.

  Spotting the plum, Kade raised an eyebrow. "I'm going to the market," he said in a nasally imitation of Sheridan’s intonation. "Really, the market, not back to Montdell to retrieve my things there."

  Sheridan walked over and punched Kade in the arm before joining them at the table. "What? Eve’s clothes are too tight and the prices were outrageous."

  Unperturbed by her assault, Kade continued his imitation. "And I definitely never went back to my quarters at the Amserian temple in Wistholt to steal from the kitchens."

  Sheridan tilted to the side and bit into the plum, the juices dribbling onto his exposed arm.

  "Hey!" he exclaimed immediately reciprocating by wiping the juices on her sleeve.

  To which she squealed and batted his arm away. "This was actually clean, you slob."

  "You dripped on me, love.”

  Sheridan finished off the plum and chucked its pit into Kade's mug. Watching it successfully disappear into the rim, she let out a whoop of triumph. As she gloated, she licked the stickiness off her fingers.

  Narrowing his eyes, Kade waved a finger at Sheridan in warning. "Remember well that you started this."

  "It’s not my fault you are undeniably jealous of my ability to return to Wistholt whenever I please. I was born this way," she said fluttering her eyelashes at him. "I wasn’t the one who gave you the short end of the purple stick. Take it up with your mum."

  "That gives me an idea," Faela said still smiling at seeing Kade so at ease. His playful mood radiating from him energized her despite her lack of sleep. "Sheridan, could you pop us to the Boundary? We were just discussing which route to take there."

  Sheridan shook her head, her freshly braided hair swaying. "It doesn't work that way. I've never been to the Boundary. I can't pop somewhere I haven't been."

  Mireya paused from her feasting, her full lips pursed. "Then how did you pop to us from Montdell?"

  "Okay, so let me amend. I can only pop to somewhere I've been or somewhere Eve is," she explained shoving a whole sweet roll into her mouth. "It's a twin thing."

  "Well can you pop somewhere Eve's been?" Faela asked trying to grasp the limits of Sheridan’s ability.

  "We've never tried that," Sheridan admitted, but she had that far-away look in her eyes that meant that her mind was trying to solve something. "I don't know. It might work. I mean, I use her as an anchor when I pop to her. I know where she is in space and I just go there. I'm not sure how to adapt that to somewhere she's been that I haven't."

  "Have you been to Oakdarrow?" Faela asked pushing aside the warning that Caleb had given her about the bounty hunters. No matter how they got to the Boundary they would be heading toward not away from the hunters Nikolais had contracted.

  Sheridan shook her head again. "My circuits have usually kept me in the central and western portions of the continent, mostly to
the northwest in Isfaridesh around Kitrinostow, the southwest of Indolbergan around Wistholt and the furthest east I've been is to Kilrood in Mergoria, but never to the northeast to Lanvirdis. Even during the war, they kept us away from the front lines of the conflict as healers since we were still seekers. I haven't spent much time in Nabos before now."

  Kade calculated. "We can save three, maybe four days if we can pop near Oakdarrow. It's definitely worth a try."

  Sheridan nodded though still distant as she thought through all the possible difficulties presented by an attempt.

  "We could make it to the Boundary in four days from Oakdarrow," Dathien said mapping the journey in his mind.

  "How much of a risk would be involved?" Faela asked.

  "If I try to pop somewhere I haven't been, or where I don't have an anchor of some kind, I could be ripped apart or just disappear and never come back," Sheridan said dismissively, still lost in her thoughts, "or I could end up inside a tree. It would depend on what I did wrong."

  Eve and Haley entered the tavern both smiling. Not an odd occurrence for Haley, but infrequent would be a generous description for Eve. As Haley stopped, swinging his head to watch Eve as she passed him, Sheridan caught their entrance out of the corner of her eye. As the morning light hit Haley, she saw the movement of a dark copper ponytail. Turning to get a better look, she saw nothing more than Haley's bird nest of short, wheat-colored hair. She blinked her eyes a few times. That was the second time the light had played tricks on her. Instead of dismissing it, Sheridan tucked away her observations.

  "Eve, I need your help with something," Sheridan said rising and taking her sister's hands.

  "Um, okay," Eve said confused, but willing to help.

  "I need you to remember Oakdarrow."

  Eve stiffened recalling her emotional collapse in the field after touching the wild red magic. "Why?"

  "An experiment," Sheridan explained. "I want to see if I can pop to a place I haven't been to, but you have."

  Her discomfort at the memories evaporated and concern replaced it. "Sheridan, that's extremely dangerous, isn't it?"