Shatter (The Children of Man)

by Elizabeth C. Mock

  "Really? How old was he when he crossed the Boundary?" Sheridan asked.

  Mireya's eyes searched the sky as if the stars held the answer. "He was fourteen, I think."

  "Were you already at the temple when he arrived? Was it love at first sight?" Sheridan’s eyelashes fluttered melodramatically.

  "When Dathien was fourteen I was four. That's just gross," Mireya said with an expression of disgust contorting her face. "I was already at the temple, but I didn't meet him until I was nine."

  "So, that makes it better?" Jair asked his voice cracking. "I mean, I get the whole Grier partnership thing, but that is a little too literally stealing out of swaddling for me."

  “Ugh, no,” Mireya disagreed waving her hands in front of her face, “I don't think you get it at all.”

  "Okay, so explain," Sheridan encouraged her.

  "Griers don't always marry their oracle. It is common because of the bond they share, but sometimes that bond is merely like the love shared between Faela and her brother, Caleb, or, Sheridan, your love for Kade."

  Under her breath, Sheridan corrected her. "I think she means inexplicable toleration."

  "What's this bond then? Did you have it when you met him when you were nine?" Jair asked still looking queasy.

  "The bond between a Grier and an oracle grows, it's not instantaneous. Vaughn thought that Dathien would partner with a girl near to his own age years ago. Her name’s Anna. They were very close and everyone thought that friendship was the early signs of the bond."

  "Can Griers bond with more than one oracle?" Sheridan leaned her chin into her cupped hand shifting her weight toward Jair.

  "It's never happened that I know of. The only thing that can sever the bond once it's forged is death." A shadow clouded her clear blue, pupil-less eyes. "We can't survive without the bond. If the bond is cut, the survivor doesn't live for long, not that he’d want to."

  "So if something were to happen to you, Dathien would die?" Faela asked, her underlying shock masked by the gentleness of her voice.

  Mireya nodded tears forming at the edges of her eyes just at the thought. "It's how the partnership works. It's both ways. I don't think I explained it right earlier. Death doesn't really sever the bond, you see. The bond just pulls the one left in the realm of the living through the veil into the realm of death."

  "I don't understand," Sheridan said flatly. "Binding magic doesn't work that way. It dissolves when the person who cast the spell dies or when the person bound dies."

  "But binding magic is orange, not blue," Faela said as she watched the flames lick at the night sky as the stars began to sprinkle across the wide expanse above them like scattered grains of salt.

  "Binding magic is," Sheridan acknowledged, "but Mireya said that the bond grows. That's not how any binding spells I know work. They’re all immediate. Is there a ceremony of some kind, something that seals the spell?"

  Mireya's eyebrows drew together and she looked like she'd go cross-eyed trying to explain when Kade and Dathien emerged from the darkness with small fur-less carcasses in hand.

  "Dinner," Sheridan exclaimed with a moan of pleasure.

  "And already skinned and gutted," Kade said as he slapped them on the flat stone in front of Faela.

  "Someone trained you well," Faela said as she twisted to grab her bag.

  "That would be your brother," Sheridan answered pointing to Faela.

  "Dathien," Mireya said getting his attention, "I'm not explaining the bonding right."

  Dathien settled down beside her and she burrowed into his side both for warmth and out of long habit. Tucking her under his cloak, his fingers stroked her upper arm in small circles to warm her faster.

  "That's because your gifts are very different than theirs, love," he said down to her before he raised his head to address his companions. "You were all trained how to use, how to wield magic. You’re the ones in control. Simply put, you tell it what to do, what shape to take. But that's not how blue magic operates and our training doesn’t involve learning how to control the magic."

  "But that's what the Orders do," Sheridan said poking a stick into the fire with the toe of her boot. "They teach you how to use magic."

  Dathien shook his head. "That's what all the Orders, save one, do. I was training at the Tereskan temple when I felt the call. I'm from a small fishing village in the southern edges of the Kurinean Sea."

  "I thought you’re Deoraghan," Kade interrupted.

  "I am," Dathien confirmed. "But my Tribe settled this village after the Cleansings."

  "Aren’t all the Tribes nomadic?” Jair asked.

  "Most still are. It's a small village," Dathien said with a grin. "But as I was saying, in Kilrood, I learned to harness the magic in the blood, to use it. But when I began my training as a Grier, I had to learn that I didn't use the magic. The magic used me. I had to learn to surrender to the magic and to get out of its way. When I first met Mireya, she was still a little girl and I was nineteen."

  "That’s only a year younger than me," Jair said his jaw slack in shock.

  Dathien just smiled. "It's not like that, Jair. She was just another one of the young girls underfoot at the temple to me. I was focused on my training."

  "Okay, so how are you two married now and is this story in any way not creepy?" Jair asked frowning in anticipation of the answer.

  "Everyone in the temple thought the bond was growing between me and another oracle, Anna," Dathien began. "I was twenty-six as was she. You have to understand that Anna was very old to be unbonded. You have older Griers sometimes, but an unbonded oracle Anna's age was unprecedented. Then Paul arrived. He had been resisting the call for the past six years. Anna and I found him when I was riding patrol at the Boundary."

  "He had been attacked by bandits and had wandered over the Boundary," Mireya said taking up the tale. "Well, he took one look at Anna and started muttering about the woman in his dreams. It wasn't long into his training as a Grier that they were bonded."

  "And I was still unbonded at twenty-seven," Dathien explained. "Vaughn asked me to start accompanying Mireya on her rides after she nearly got herself killed."

  "I was fine," Mireya objected with a pouting glare.

  "You fell off of a cliff, love," Dathien said trying not to laugh.

  "Wait, is this the same falling-off-a-cliff story you told us before?" Jair asked.

  Faela chuckled, recalling the mental image of Mireya pitching off a cliff. She flipped one of the small rabbits on the stone and rubbed some herbs into its flesh.

  Mireya burrowed her face into Dathien's side and said with a muffled voice, "Maybe."

  "There's a Mireya-fell-off-a-cliff story?" Sheridan asked her brown eyes flashing with mischief. "Oh, I want details, lots of details."

  "Actually, this may help you understand how we don't use blue," Dathien suggested. "Go ahead, Mireya. Tell it."

  With an animalistic growl, Mireya sat up and threw her hands above her head in surrender. "Fine. I was collecting plants, herbs and the like, for some ointments and creams I make. I found a really good patch of klamath weed. It's not as prevalent as you'd think. Well, I needed the roots, not the leaves or the flowers for what I wanted to brew, so I couldn't just cut what I needed. Instead, I loosened the dirt and was pulling out the roots. There just happened to be one that had a really deep root system."

  "This cannot end well," Jair whispered to Sheridan who covered her mouth with her palm to control her laughter.

  Unaware of Jair's commentary, Mireya continued. "So, I was pulling and it was still stuck. Naturally, I braced my feet and pulled too hard and tumbled off the edge of the cliff."

  "How high was it?" Sheridan asked.

  Slitting a hole at the base of the rabbit's neck, Faela pushed a stick through and propped the meat over the fire. "One hundred and twenty feet," Faela said as she winnowed the stick into the dirt for stability.

  "How’re you alive?" Sheridan asked blinking in surprise. "Did you catch yourself?" />
  "Nope," Mireya said shaking her head. "A protective shield encased me when I fell, I just bounced to the bottom."

  "Not even a scrape," Dathien told Sheridan over Mireya's head.

  "Wait," Sheridan said with her hands up. "You're telling me you were in a blue protective bubble?"

  "Yeah, it was a bit like an unpoppable soap bubble," Mireya said agreeing with the analogy.

  Sheridan blinked once more before she dissolved into giggles, which transformed Kade's smile into laughter that drew in Faela. Even through her scowl, Mireya smiled. Sheridan fell into Jair's shoulder out of breath.

  With tears of laughter streaming down her face, Sheridan managed to say, "You have a protective bubble," before dissolving back into laughter.

  After several moments they regained control of themselves and Mireya pouted.

  "Do you see what I mean though?" Dathien asked. "Mireya didn't form the field. It just protected her when she needed it. It's the same with all our magic. When we need it, it uses us."

  "Okay, but how does that make bonding not creepy?" Jair asked shaking a finger at Dathien.

  “There’s nothing strange about the bonding itself, Jair,” Dathien explained. “How does any relationship grow? As I said, Vaughn asked me to keep an eye on Mireya. Though still young, Mireya's been of marriageable age for almost four years. But that wasn't Vaughn's intent."

  "I wouldn't put it past him though," Mireya said staring into the firelight. "He's a sneaky old man."

  Without saying anything, Kade had begun picking out likely sticks and whittling the tops to points then handing them to Faela as she continued spicing the game. They had surrounded the fire with their macabre pikes of cooking meat. Pushing the tip into his thumb, he brushed off the flakes of wood and handed it to Faela. Sheridan watched them pass off the skewer and noticed how Kade made sure that his fingers never brushed hers and she hid her smile behind a hand.

  "At least, I don't think it was," Dathien mused. "It just started as me accompanying her on her rides."

  "Then I found myself searching for him before anyone else to tell him the latest thing I had learned reading the archives," Mireya continued for him.

  The gamey smell of the first rabbit wafted on the smoke as its grease dripped into the fire causing the coals to hiss and spit.

  Sheridan inhaled the scent and closed her eyes. "I'm drooling. That smells amazing."

  Rotating the skewers to make sure the meat cooked all the way through, Faela said, "This one should be done soon, Sheridan. But I can't guarantee you it'll be much good. Not waiting for embers to cook on makes it tricky to heat evenly."

  "I have never doubted your culinary prowess before," Jair said with his fist over his heart in a valiant pose, "and I shan't start now. You could make a rock taste good."

  "Taste good?" Faela said with consideration. "Yes. Make sure one side isn't burned with the insides still raw? Not going to stake my life on it."

  "Unless I can shove that hare in my mouth now, I need to be distracted," Sheridan declared wiping drool from her mouth in an exaggerated fashion. "Continue regaling us with your tale, my blue comrades."

  "Well, Rivka recognized the beginnings of the bond right before I had the prophecy that sent us searching for Faela," Mireya picked up as though there had been no interruption. Though with how Mireya constantly got distracted and seemed incapable of recognizing the passage of time, they were uncertain she did realize there had been an interruption. "Once the bond was acknowledged by the Scion, we were betrothed."

  "We weren't going to marry immediately," Dathien said watching Faela poke at the first rabbit with the tip of her dagger. "We were going to wait another year or two for Mireya to finish her training."

  "But then I got the smack-in-the-head message from the Light to leave the temple to find Faela. Not that I knew it was Faela I was searching for," she amended unnecessarily. "So, we got married and headed out to find her."

  Before anyone could express their confusion, Dathien explained, "When a Nikelan oracle gets a calling from the Light, no one knows how long she and her Grier will be gone from the temple. Before Rivka became Scion, she and Vaughn were part of a working for seven, maybe eight, years. Especially with the difference in our ages, it makes things much," Dathien paused looking for the right word, "simpler while traveling for us to be married."

  "Oh," Jair said as if Dathien had just told him the most obvious thing, "well I guess that's not creepy."

  Dathien smiled his slow smile. "The bond is magic, but it doesn't make us love each other."

  Mireya snorted unattractively. "I'll say."

  "The bond exists, because we do," Dathien said with a half shrug, his arm still around Mireya.

  "Okay, so there's this magic that binds you even beyond death, or whatever," Jair summed up, "but what's the purpose? That sounds like a big commitment if you ask me."

  "For one," Dathien began, "without the bond, a Grier's blue magic is unusable. The power of a Grier comes from his oracle. We are essentially living shields, though it's more than that."

  "Much more," said Mireya moving her hands apart in emphasis.

  "First one's done," Faela declared handing the impromptu skewer to Kade. She nodded her chin at Sheridan and he passed it to her.

  Without even a word, Sheridan had her knife in hand and sliced off a hunk, which she promptly chucked into her mouth. Her eyes started watering with the heat in her mouth, but she chewed and swallowed. "Darkness!" Sheridan cried out sucking the hot grease off of her fingers.

  "Careful," Faela warned. "That’s really hot still." Then added as an afterthought, "Share it with Jair. There aren't enough for us each to have one."

  The night grew deeper as they sat around the fire eating and talking companionably as each piece of game finished cooking until only one remained. Everyone had eaten and the conversation had hit a lull. Faela stared at the fire, but the warmth she felt came from Kade's presence radiating next to her not the fire. Stealing a glance out of the corner of her eye, she saw his gaze slide back to the fire as well.

  Sheridan craned her neck around to look across the moor illuminated by the waxing moon that would soon be full. Nothing interrupted her view of the gently rolling waves of the landscape, save for a few scraggly bushes and a scattering of thistle.

  "Anyone know where Eve and Haley went?" Sheridan asked after her search yielded nothing but a badger scurrying across the top of a ridge.

  "Haven't seen them since we split up searching for game," Kade answered.

  "I know game is scarce, but they should have been back by now," Sheridan said her lips thin. "Which direction did they head when you split up, Kade?"

  "They headed east along the forest's edge."

  Before he could offer to show her, Jair rose and held out his hand. "You shouldn't go by yourself."

  Kade arched an eyebrow at this, but said nothing.

  Taking his hand, Sheridan stood and wiped the dirt off of the back of her trousers. "Thanks, farm boy."

  "Sure enough, slim," Jair responded.

  "I am not skinny," Sheridan protested as they headed toward the forest at an easterly diagonal.

  Faela chuckled as she heard their bickering dissolve as they merged with the darkness. Seeing moonlight pooling on the moor, it resembled rippling water. Faela felt a pang in her chest as she realized that the last time she had contacted Sammi was the night the twins and Haley had arrived.

  Sensing the shift in her mood, Kade tensed and caught her gaze. Faela averted her eyes immediately to avoid unintentional contact. Despite what Tobias had advised, that was not how she wanted Kade to find out about Sammi or more importantly about Nikolais.

  Scrambling to her feet, Faela brushed off her trousers much in the same fashion that Sheridan had. "I need to get some air," she informed them as she began walking toward the forest to the west.

  She could hear Mireya calling after her and Kade's voice answering as she started jogging toward the tree line.

&nbs
p; *****

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Without slowing his horse from its canter, Vaughn thundered across the bridge and into the shimmering blue curtain of the Boundary. After leaving Wes in the care of the Phaidrians, he had caught a train heading for Montdell. Late the next morning, he had disembarked in Parvaling, the town closest to Vamorines along the railway, and had ridden for two days straight only stopping to change mounts. He had been forced to leave Mesa after the first sixteen hours of the ride. His current mount was number three.

  He hated to push any animal this hard, but he needed to reach Rivka yesterday. Not for the first time, Vaughn wished Lior had given him the gift for popping. It would make his job so much easier. Instead, he rode toward his goal sleep deprived beyond exhaustion.

  The remaining leagues, like the last three days, flew by in a blur for Vaughn and before he knew it, he heard the clattering of the horse's hooves on the marble courtyard of the Nikelan temple's stables. He drew back the reins and the horse stopped gladly, its sides heaving from exertion.

  Adolescent seekers assigned to the stables for their chores that day streamed into the courtyard at the commotion. Vaughn saw Jacob, a fifteen year old with curly walnut hair, turn as soon as he saw Vaughn and run back into the stables to get supplies for the overexerted horse. As he turned, Jacob caught the arm of a girl around his own age. He spoke a few quick words to her. Bobbing her head, she bolted to the side entrance that lead into the temple.

  Sliding off his horse's back, he handed the reins to a young girl with two braids and patted her on the back lightly as he passed. "Thank you, sweetling."

  "You look awful tired, jha’na," she said with a whistle. She was missing her right front tooth.

  Vaughn stopped and crouched in front of her. "That would be my wife, Lynn," he said as he recalled her name. "Just Vaughn, all right?"

  "All right, jha-" She smiled with a slow shyness as she swung her arms back and forth. "Vaughn."

  "That's m'girl." He gave her a wink and a pat on the cheek as he stretched to his full height and saw Rivka stride into the courtyard.