“I wasn’t talking to Damari. Only you,” Flynn retorted.
“This is all starting to sound dangerously like treason. I could have your head for that, you know,” the King challenged him, still grinning like a young boy.
“Please, like you’d want to live in a world without my cooking,” Flynn scoffed, but smiled and clapped a hand on Noah’s shoulder.
“Good point. All right, treason pardoned. You can live.”
THE GROUP DISSOLVED, each of them venturing to the various attractions of the tower that excited them most. Penny and Annette shared a meal at a restaurant that specialized in goblin-faerie fusion cuisine, then milled through the shops that sold a variety of treasures. Annette was keen on doing more shopping to pick up the avant-garde fashion of Sonarie City, so Penny bid her goodnight and made her way back up to the hotel. When she entered the spacious suite, she discovered Hector standing by the window that boasted a panoramic view of the city.
“It’s snowing!” Penny gasped in delight, rushing to place her palms on the frosty glass.
Hector smirked at her enthusiasm. “It’s been snowing. I’ve been watching it for a while now. How was dinner?”
“It was pungent. Man, tomorrow the city will be all white. I wish we could make a snowman, just like we did last winter. I love this weather!”
Hector grumbled something and Penny looked at him, one eyebrow cocked. “What? You hate the ocean and snow now?”
“I don’t hate snow,” he defended. “I was just struck by how similar this city looks to my home. It snowed there almost every day. We lived in tall towers like this one, so tall that sometimes you could see clouds outside of your window.”
“You mean in Nelvirna?”
Hector nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on the blustering snow. Penny wasn’t satisfied. “Tell me more about Nelvirna.”
“What’s the point? It’s all dust and rubble now, anyway,” Hector said with a frown, sitting down in a chair. “But it was quite the elegant society we had, I must admit. All rules and manners and taboos and ‘musts’ and ‘must nots.’ You’d probably be surprised to hear that I was something of a rebellious sort in their eyes―that might give you some idea of what the people were like.”
“You? A rebel?” Penny scoffed, sitting across from him.
“That’s what my parents liked to think,” Hector laughed, “but then again, they were even stricter than most people. My mother was an advisor to the president of our country and a war hero to boot. You see, where I came from it’s the women who are in charge―heads of the family, matriarchal lines, and such.”
“So you were kind of like a noble?” Penny asked with intrigue. Something clicked in her mind. “Oh! And that’s why you can dance so well!”
Hector laughed out loud and shrugged. “Not that the two always go hand in hand, but good guess. Yes, our family mingled with high society, I suppose. My father was the headmaster of the Royal Academy of the State, my older sister a revered general in the army, and my brother was a diplomat.”
“And you were?”
“A teacher,” Hector said with bitterness, his fingers laced together and his eyes distant. Penny was almost afraid to ask more, sensing that she was creeping closer to all the things which Hector always fought so hard to keep to himself, and not wanting to intrude too much. She could vividly recall him slapping her hand away when she tried to read his memories for the first time in Iverton, and hesitated for a moment.
“You don’t sound too pleased with that.”
“No, it was never my idea,” Hector all but whispered, looking at his feet. “My father secured a job for me at his Academy. Forced me into it is actually a more accurate description of the situation. I couldn’t be a prestigious warlord or politician, like Nenea and Tanial. I was unskilled and inept.”
“So your future was just decided for you?” Penny asked. “What did you really want to do with your life?”
“Travel,” Hector said dryly, resentment evident in his tone. “I wanted to see the world.”
Penny let this sink in for a moment. Hector held her gaze as silence descended.
The doors swung open and Noah, Flynn and Damari burst into the room, laughing loudly and smelling of alcohol. Noah caught sight of Penny and Hector and frowned. “How’s your evening been? Lovely, I should hope?” he asked, his voice high and uncomfortable.
“Quite so, thanks for asking,” Hector told him offhandedly.
“Do excuse me, but I wasn’t speaking to you,” he snapped at Hector, putting a hand on Penny’s back. “Perhaps it’s time for bed, hm? Tomorrow night should prove to be rough. No more of this kind of luxury, that’s for sure. Best to get some sleep!”
Penny had to shield her eyes from the glaring white blankets of snow as the palanquin door slid open. The sun was setting and it was bitterly cold in the thick pine forest outside of the stuffy carriage interior. Penny pulled her scarf tighter around her neck and stepped with difficulty through the snow to join Yrax, Entil, Feirne, and the other faeries as they floated from their palanquin.
“Are we really going to be sleeping here tonight? It’s dangerous, isn’t it?” Penny asked, remembering Damari’s words about the beasts of the wild.
“We must, Miss. The birds need time to rest. If they get too tired they might drop out of the sky,” Feirne told Penny, looking at the white birds sleepily nodding their heads. “We’ll just have to stay inside the palanquins tonight and leave early tomorrow morning.”
As they began setting up camp, Hector asked Penny to stay close.
“I’m going to clear away some snow, and I don’t want you passing out from the magic loss,” he explained.
Penny sat down on a stump and had just started to look around when a ball of wet snow smacked into the back of her head. She spun around and spotted a grinning Noct, who was already flinging another at Annette. Annette shrieked and Penny flew into action, grabbing up fistfuls of snow and lobbing them as she ran toward the culprit. Noct laughed and turned to flee, tripping over a root.
Without mercy Penny assaulted him with snowballs, circling the boy until he stuck out a foot and sent her sprawling into the snow. Wet and red-faced, they laughed, and Penny was struck by a sobering thought.
He’s still just a kid, really. So much innocence has been stolen from him.
“Watch this,” she whispered, gathering up some snow and crouching behind a fallen pine tree. As Hector passed by, she took aim and hit him square on the back. He glanced around, then resumed his trek when he couldn’t track the source. Penny looked at Noct. “Go on, get him. It’s loads of fun to make him mad.”
Delighted, Noct pelted Hector with two snowballs. He identified the source this time and raised his finger in warning. “Penelope, the adults are trying to work. Would you kindly stop that?”
Noct and Penny snickered as Penny threw another snowball.
“Try it one more time. See what happens,” threatened Hector.
Penny threw again and squealed as Hector rushed toward her, his face irate. Her attempts to flee were futile as the long-legged man quickly caught up and grabbed her around the midsection. She laughed and screamed as she struggled, until Hector grabbed both her wrists and looked at her, and her joyful laughter turned to nervous giggles.
“Will you please act your age?” he requested gravely and she nodded, forcing herself to be serious. He studied her for a moment until he was satisfied, then slowly let go of her wrists. Seeing his guard down, Penny reached over and tickled his sides, and his humorless scowl broke into involuntary laughter.
“St-stop that at o-once! Th-that’s not f-fair!” he gasped, then made a lunge for her. As they fought with each other and grew close to collapsing in laughter, Noah appeared at the other side of the camp. Hector abruptly ceased his unusual lapse of playfulness and coughed in embarrassment.
“Arlington, stop playing around. We need you over there,” Noah ordered, jabbing his thumb in a nondescript direction.
Hector
nodded. “Of course, my apologies,” he said, striding off. It occurred to Penny as she watched him leave that her heart was pounding twice as quickly as usual.
Night fell along with the temperature. As Noah and Flynn struggled to light the campfire, Noct stepped up between them and, without saying a word, shot a stream of fire from his hands onto the woodpile. He sat back down beside the crackling fire, seeming unaware that all eyes in the camp were glued to him.
“How did you do that?” the King demanded, frozen with a flint still poised in his hand.
Noct looked at him in surprise, then glowered at the flames. “It’s just something I can do,” he said, holding his arm up. It caught fire for a moment, then disappeared, leaving him unburnt. The faeries drew closer, and Luke, who was sitting on the other side of the fire, began scribbling furiously in his log. Argent looked up from a puppet he had been fiddling with, watching as Noah sat beside Noct.
“Come now, how do you manage such a thing?” Noah asked.
“Yeah, tell us kid. I’ve been wondering that ever since I first saw you do it,” Argent added, which was all the encouragement the boy needed. Hector and Penny exchanged nervous glances.
“Well, you won’t believe me, but…I fought a Kachina,” Noct admitted with a bit of pride, throwing his sleek hair back, his eyes straying repeatedly to Argent. Noah’s jaw dropped and even Damari looked intrigued now. There was a sudden susurrus amongst the faeries and Annette’s eyes grew wide.
“You can’t really expect us to buy that,” Argent protested.
“It’s true! I went all the way to the Nation of Dragons and found one. It almost killed me, but I fought it all the same,” Noct told them, very pleased to be the center of attention.
Noah looked skeptical. “But I thought Kachinas were extinct. All the gods of the old world are. People say they sometimes encounter them in desolate places, but I thought for the most part it was all just hokum or stories to scare children. How did you manage to locate one?”
“I’d heard the stories growing up too, about how Nestor created them at the start of the world to create the land, the sea, the forests, volcanos. I thought I’d go and try to see if there were any left. I became especially curious about whether they could help me right after―” Noct stopped and seemed to consider what he was about to say, then went on, “―after my sister Mia disappeared. I had to become strong so I could help her, so I traveled to the deserts in the Dragon Nation, following rumors about sightings in that region. The one I found was in the ruins of an old temple. I found it easier than most because my eye is special.” Noct gestured to his one red eye and smiled. Penny was very worried at the level of disclosure and looked meaningfully at him, but he was too delighted by the attention to stop.
“It took me a long time to actually locate it. It was deep under the ground, in a hidden chamber. I had to watch it for a while and I figured out that it was asleep. I think it had been sleeping there for a long, long time. The legend my father used to tell me was that if you can fight a Kachina, kill it, and eat its bones then you’ll have all of its powers at your disposal,” Noct told them, but Argent interrupted.
“There is no way I’m going to believe that a pipsqueak like you killed a divine spirit that came from the Ancient Age,” he said sharply, and Noct’s cheeks grew pink and little sparks snapped and flared from his head.
“I never said that I killed it! I just sort of snuck up on it and tried to saw off its finger.” Noct shrugged.
Damari laughed at this, but Noah was engrossed.
“When I cut it off, the Kachina became visible. That was the worst part really, just seeing it. The eyes. They’re paralyzing.” Noct seemed to lose himself in the memory of the Kachina’s visage, and suddenly Penny realized she had seen it, too. Inside his mind there had been an image of wild eyes saturated with bright, burning color and mingled with a feeling of deep, primordial prowess.
“The thing just smiled at me as I ran away with its finger, but then it followed me outside, so fast that I didn’t even hear it move. It was just there every time I looked back, staring at me, always perfectly still, always the same distance away. I ran until the night came, and I kept running until I couldn’t move. I just fell down in the sand. I had no water or food left at all. I thought I’d die or it might kill me, but eventually I just passed out from the exhaustion,” Noct told them.
“When I opened my eyes, it was standing right above me, staring down with those horrible eyes. And then it just started laughing. It was louder than you can ever imagine; I’m sure it must’ve carried for miles. I thought my eardrums would burst, but when it stopped, it said something to me in a weird language, and then it bit me,” Noct said, lifting back his sleeve to show them the jagged white discolorations that were the scars of his encounter. Annette gasped, and Noct beamed.
“And after that, well, it just left. It was almost like it was telling me that if I could survive the desert, then I could keep what I took. Luckily, a dragon was flying overhead the next morning and he brought me to safety. After I recovered, I took the finger, crushed up the bones, put it into a soup, and drank it.”
“So then, what, you could just shoot fire out of your hands? Just like that?” Simon asked, looking astonished.
“Well, it took a while. After I drank it, my whole body felt like it was burning. For days I felt like that, but eventually I just got used to it, I guess. I gained control over it little by little, but for a while it was pretty dangerous. Luckily most things in the Nation of Dragons are fire-proof. Just like me, now!” Noct joked, and Damari and Entil laughed with him.
After the fuss had died down and dinner had been eaten, Noah retrieved his enchanted lute and began to strum away on it as wine was passed around. Noct desperately wanted to drink some of the wine, but Hector refused him. The music and merriment continued on despite the snarling boy. Damari played and sang a ballad from his home country, and Annette could not resist the chance to perform. Though her words slurred and her balance was off, she sang beautifully to an upbeat melody played by Argent, further lifting everyone’s mood with her merriment. She tried to bow and almost fell over, but Simon caught her.
“Come on, Miss Annette. Let’s take a walk,” he said, ushering her away from the circle as she laughed hysterically. Penny watched them go, wondering if she could trust Simon with Annette in the state that she was in. She was distracted as Flynn took the seat beside her and pointed to Penny’s empty plate.
“Was it good? I mean, did you like it?” he asked awkwardly.
“Yeah. Your food is always great. Thanks for cooking it, by the way,” she said, feeling uncomfortable at his sudden attention.
“Good, good,” he said, scratching his head. “Listen. I guess I just wanted to apologize or something. I mean, I treated you a bit unfairly.”
Penny’s mind began racing. “Noah put you up to this, didn’t he?” she asked and Flynn turned away from her.
“Yeah. Yeah, he did,” he confessed, glancing over at the king to ensure he couldn’t hear. “But I think I might mean at least a little of it. I know you don’t intentionally try to be such a screw up.”
Penny bit her tongue and allowed him to continue.
“I just get pissed off when someone seems to be making things difficult for Noah. I hate to see him upset, you know?” He looked anxious for her to understand, and Penny thought she saw where he was coming from and smiled.
“I get it, Flynn. You don’t need to apologize.” Penny awkwardly patted him on the hand.
“Say, Arlington,” came Noah’s slurred voice. “How come you’re not having any wine? This is really expensive stuff, you know, and they’re being very generous letting us drink it.”
“I make it a habit to avoid alcoholic substances. I don’t find losing my inhibitions to be pleasant.” Hector’s voice was almost as chilly as the air around them, but Noah only laughed.
“That might be the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. You’ve got nothing behind all those fan
cy words, do you?”
Penny couldn’t help but think his teasing seemed a tad mean-spirited.
Hector’s brow furrowed and he crossed his arms. “Penny’s not drinking, why aren’t you bothering her?”
“Penny is a lady, and a refined one at that,” Noah combated, and Hector gave a derisive snort that satisfied and annoyed Penny at the same time. Noah shook his head and scoffed. “Well, go ahead and be stuffy and uptight, if you like. More for us.”
Hector shook his head and resumed his interrupted conversation with Luke. Penny noticed Argent slipping into the trees behind them and discreetly followed.
“What’re you doing?” she asked, matching his gait. He raised an eyebrow at her as he continued walking.
“Just walking around. I got tired of all that noise,” he said.
“Aren’t you scared of what might be out here?” Penny asked, uneasy about being away from the comfort of the larger group.
Argent chuckled. “Maybe. But I think whatever might get us here could just as easily get us from over there. Anyway, aren’t all of us scared all the time? Scared of this or that.” He looked at Penny, his yellow eyes bright in the darkness. “What are you scared of, Penny?”
Penny was surprised by his directness and didn’t have an answer. A high-pitched laugh interrupted them, and they turned to see Annette and Simon ambling through the snow, carrying on until they reached a clearing where fresh powder fell from the sky. Simon turned to Annette and grabbed her by the hands.
“Ah, Argent, maybe we should go.” Penny tried to tug on Argent’s sleeve, but he wouldn’t move.
Penny couldn’t hear their words, but Annette’s face changed from happy to rather distressed. She hung her head and pulled her hands out of Simon’s, taking a step back. Simon’s smile fell. Annette headed deeper into the woods, but Simon remained in the clearing, one hand outstretched as he called after her.
Penny could not make out his words, but she had a feeling she knew what they had been.
Eden Undone (The Dawn Mirror Chronicles Book 2) Page 10