“I would not ask for him back,” the woman said. “I will have him free from my clan and the oaths they would demand from him. Will you train him to forge his own path?”
The monastic pushed the covering on the bundle to reveal a baby, Merc’s bright hazel eyes in the round features all baby’s possessed. Merc was awake but silent, staring at the man in quiet contemplation. “I guarantee nothing.”
“I ask for him to have a chance, nothing more.”
With those words, Merc’s master reached out to cradle the baby. There was one second where Merc’s mother’s hands and arms tightened, a small pulling of the bundle back to her, but she gave way and Merc was nestled into the monastic’s arms. Without any hesitation the man left, and Merc’s mother’s gaze never wavered from him until he disappeared from sight.
They were back in the castle, Merc’s mother once again at the table of scrolls, the lines on her face a bit deeper. As the woman continued her work, Amana rounded on the monastic. “Why haven’t you told Merc any of this?” she demanded, fighting back tears on Merc’s behalf. The way Merc had deadened his voice when talking about family, it meant Merc had no idea of where he came from. He had lived his whole life not knowing about his parents or why his mother gave him up.
“Because it is not my place. That is for his mother to explain.”
“His mother? His mother is–”
The ground began to quake. Bits of ceiling began to rain down as scrolls fell to the floor in large numbers. The woman’s eyes widened and her mouth parted in shock and surprise.
The monastic smiled, grim and dark, the most emotion Amana had seen from the man since their meeting. “Behold, the Great Collision arrives.”
Before Amana could process his words, multiple men burst into the room, weapons drawn, splitting up to surround Merc’s mother. She stood, surprise vanishing, a transformation from scholar into a warrior taking place between one breath and the next. The woman grabbed a sword by her desk Amana had not noticed before, and leapt at the closest man.
The clash of swords was loud, a metallic chorus of death and skill, all the while the ground rocked uneven beneath them and outside, thunder cracked and the sky split itself into two, a blood red brightness Amana had never witnessed before even in the colorful skies of her home.
A feminine scream, and Amana turned from the sky to the woman on her knees, a sword thrust into her belly, other men surrounding her and bringing their own weapons down to strike her again.
Amana’s eyes closed against the vision, regret rocketing through her though there was nothing she could do to stop what had happened. The scream stopped, and Amana’s eyes opened to see one man grabbing the bundle of scrolls that had held her attention earlier. The surviving men left with the scrolls.
Merc’s mother was on the floor, grabbing at the wounds on her chest, her mouth a twisted grimace of pain, her eyes resigned to what was to come. She turned until she was on her side and began pulling herself toward the door even as the floor buckled under her, a trail of blood following in her wake.
“Talia!” The cry came from the almost Merc voice, and the woman’s eyes lifted from the floor.
“Matthias?” Bleeding from multiple wounds, the woman kept on her making her way to the door.
Merc’s father entered the doorway, and his face crumpled in despair for a brief second before he smoothed his features out, crouching above her, making to grab her but his hands pulsed, hesitated, as he searched for an area on her mutilated body that would be safe to touch.
She grabbed his hand, brought her own around his neck. “Hold me.”
With a strangled cry, he did, bringing her tight against his body. “We must get you to a healer.”
With a soft stroke, she settled her hand over his chest, leaning her head against him and closing her eyes. “I fulfilled my oath. I protected the Spellbook to my death. In these moments before my heart stops, I will be with you.”
The world itself shrieked around them, earthquakes pulling apart the stone room, and the red sky beat down through the broken windows and split walls to show itself in fearsome splendor.
With this background, into the room a woman came, composed and relaxed as if damnation itself wasn’t on display around them. Her white dress floated around her with ethereal lines, enriching the gold of her dark skin. She was shoeless, uncaring of the rubble she stepped into.
Talia’s eyes opened at her entrance. “Oracle.”
The Oracle crouched down before her, and leaned in to kiss her forehead. “My beloved Talia. I came to say goodbye.”
“What is happening?” Merc’s father asked this, undisturbed by the appearance of the Oracle.
The Oracle pulled away. “A Great Collision. A melding of worlds. You are not the only goodbye this day.”
“Our son?” asked Merc’s mother.
“He is with Shisen. He will survive.”
The monastic – Shisen – moved towards the door, and with great reluctance Amana followed. He was right though. She’d stayed too long. This intimacy between Merc’s parents, between them and the Oracle, was not meant for her eyes or ears.
“Us?” asked Merc’s father.
The Oracle hesitated only a moment. “You will remain together.”
There was a calm satisfaction in Merc’s mother’s voice when she replied, “That is all I ever wished for. Will our son be happy?”
At that question, Amana had to look over her shoulder as she walked away, her ears straining for the answer.
The Oracle rose, walking towards the door in a parallel path to Amana. In front of Amana the Oracle paused and said, her eyes fixed on Amana, “He will find his dream.” She exited the room, Shisen a step behind her.
Amana’s doppelganger was now in front of her, and they were both back in the bedroom of the cabin, Merc on the bed and holding the sleeping Amana’s hand. Amana stepped back, surprise and confusion rocking through her, that she had gone through all that without her demon. How? Where had the other been?
Death-blue eyes stared into her own, malevolent anger and, yes, confusion in the other’s face. She didn’t know why Amana had been able to move without her either. “What is it you found?” the other asked, advancing on Amana, those thin fingers curling into fists at her side.
“Nothing,” Amana said, wincing with the realization too fast. Spoke too fast.
“Now that’s a lie,” the other said, her mouth twisting in anger.
How had Amana experienced that vision without this one around? Wasn’t this one the key to her power somehow? “Lie or not, it’s all you’re getting from me.”
Amana moved to turn away, but the other grabbed her upper arms hard, slim fingers digging into the skin, and it hurt, even in the dream. “Keep lying to yourself, if that makes you happy, but you will eventually ally with me. No one is immune to the power we can have together.”
Amana faced her devil. “I’ll admit to many sins, but one thing I’ve never done is lie to myself. If anything, you’re the one who is desperate for me to be a liar, because that means you can take control.” Amana leaned closer, and in a fierce whisper, said “It’s not happening.”
The doppelganger went calm, her eyes considering. “I’m still here, and I’ll always be here. Give me the opening, and I’ll take over.”
Amana woke up, to Merc’s soft snores filling the room and long, slim stripes of bruises on her arms.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‡
His hair was being stroked, and Merc arched into the touch, pushing his head against the hand like a cat wanting to be petted. Loved the light strokes, loved having someone touch him, not having to watch his back, and loved sleepy wake-ups instead of worry…
He jackknifed up, away from Amana’s hand, her fingers tangling only a moment in the long strands before they slipped free.
“Morning sleepy-head,” she said, calm and collected, sitting up in the bed beside him. “You look better.”
How the hells had he
fallen asleep? He’d… he talked to Nemesis, and closed his to think for a minute…
Fuck.
But…Amana was here, still in her pajamas, and the book was still in the safe, sending out the same inviting waves it had been since he first laid eyes on it. “You didn’t escape.”
She swallowed hard, turned her head away, studied the painting of the mountainside as if it held the secrets of life within. “You shouldn’t trust me yet,” she said, pausing to lick her lips, the movement endearing in how visible her nerves were. “I’m still going to save my brother, and if leaving you would have accomplished that last night, I would’ve. But the Guild can’t be trusted, and there is nothing I can do by leaving you that I can’t do by staying with you.”
She was lying to him, the most gorgeous lie he’d ever heard. While her words were technically true, she would have had an easier time and more options if she had left, and she knew that. Instead, she had chosen him, chosen to stay together. He pushed the fall of hair back from her face, that face which had become dear to him in dreams, but was now becoming dearer in reality. “I know nothing can ever stop you from helping your brother, but can you wait for me? Let me finish this, and I swear, we’ll work together to get him.”
He hated the tentativeness in his voice, but no matter how hardened he was, the prospect of her turning away from him had him wanting to protect his heart, shore up his defenses.
Defenses that were washed away as her eyes lit up, joy spreading across her face as slowly as her smile did. “Are you serious? You don’t know where he is.”
“Somewhere very difficult to free him from if you needed help from the Guild,” Merc said, sitting up more and resting his back against the headboard. “It will be ugly and hard, and after it’s done it’ll mean a life on the run. Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“Yes,” she said before he had even finished the last word, before he could add any other warnings. Her eyes were wide and shining, a fervent light and a focused intensity where he could see the future play across those beautiful brown eyes. “Yes. It’s everything I want. It’s hard now. I’m always running now. At least I’ll have my brother, and…if you wanted…you and I…”
Here she broke, her eyes now leaving his, breaking the chains of energy that looped them even when the physical touch had disappeared. Her hands were nervous little birds, fluttering in her lap as the words jumbled themselves on her tongue.
He tangled her fingers with his, stilling them and getting her attention. His voice was teasing when he answered, “You mean stay with you both? I don’t know…you haven’t cooked for me yet. Isn’t that the real test for staying with someone, if they can cook?
She giggled at that, bringing her hand up in front of her mouth as she was want to do, and that crushed his heart inside him, made it hard to breathe. The laughing slowed, and her smile gentled. “How about we save the philosophical questions, and you kiss me good morning.”
“Yeah,” he said, leaning forward to wrap around her neck and bring her onto the bed with him. “That I can do.”
Her lips were cool, and he nibbled the top one to warm it up, bringing it in between his teeth for a gentle going over. She had the most delicious little mouth, a point of sweetness he could spend hours indulging himself in, and now, for this brief time between worries, he did.
Merc grabbed her by the waist and sat her on his lap, pulling her tight to him, so his arms enveloped her, so she was as close to him as their skin would allow. He wanted everything. He wanted her weight against him, he wanted the curves of her body to create matching hollows within his own.
And they did, because they fit, and whether it was because of magic or luck or destiny, it was as it had been the first night, where something in him recognized her, didn’t want to let her go, never wanted to be apart from her.
It was an awakening. I know you! it whispered. I’ve been waiting. What took you so long?
He pushed his tongue out, pressing against the seam of her lips and asking entrance, an invitation she extended, opening and meeting his tongue with her own, wrapping around with gentle strokes as she brought him deeper, allowed him to explore her.
Her stomach grumbled, breaking them apart. She drew back, her eyes wide and horrified outside of what the situation warranted, and bubbles of laughter escaped him, even as he fought them back with no luck, until she was joining.
“Okay,” Merc said, pushing her to the bathroom. “I’ll deal with breakfast. You go get cleaned up.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‡
The smell of garlic and onions wafted through the cabin, and Amana’s stomach grumbled in response. She stepped out of the bathroom, running the towel over her still damp hair. “It smells delicious,” she called down, and Merc looked up at her words, a smile coming over his face.
“It’s only a hash and scrambled eggs, nothing fancy.”
“Doesn’t change that it smells delicious.” She tossed the towel in the hamper and came downstairs to Merc plating the food, setting two plates across from each other at the small counter. The first bite was worth a moan of contentment, and before she took the second, she said, “I’d never have thought this of you.”
“What?” he asked, taking his own bite of food. His eyebrows furrowed for half a second before he gave a small nod and continued eating.
“Cooking your own meals. If you asked me, I would have assumed you lived on takeout.”
“I was responsible for making my own meals while I was training, and it stuck with me. Beyond that–” and he seemed to reconsider what he was going to say, sticking a bite of food in his mouth instead of continuing.
Like she was going to let him off that easy. “Beyond that?” she prodded.
He gave her a look, but rolled his eyes and after he swallowed, said, “Beyond that, I have plenty of people who’d like to get rid of me. Cooking my own food reduces the chance of poisoning.”
Well, that wasn’t a depressing statement, but with it, a pleased curl of emotion rounded her center, because this made his earlier teasing of her cooking for him so much more than a mere play on women cooking. It was instead a statement of how much was changing. “Why are you a mercenary? You said your teacher didn’t force you into anything.”
“No, he didn’t, and in some ways that was the worst thing he could have chosen to do to me.” He stabbed at the food, picking up a mixture of eggs and sautéed vegetables. “With the tattoos, I’m marked in ways that can’t be hidden.”
“I noticed.”
That got a small smile out of him. “I wasn’t suited for an ordinary life, but I had no one I was trained to serve. I had to find my own way in the world. I fell in with a gang for awhile, but–” He paused, grabbing another bite of food.
He looked contemplative. Not quite ashamed, not quite comfortable, some mix of the two, plus an indefinable third emotion mixed in. “I can’t imagine you in a gang.”
“It wasn’t a good fit. It was only Shisen and I growing up, and he left me alone so much, I became used to keeping my own company. And outside Shisen, no one ever told me what to do.”
“So why didn’t you run the gang?” Amana could see it so easily, others jumping to do Merc’s bidding. He had such an aura of strength about him, it would be impossible for her to doubt anyone would follow wherever he led.
“Because I didn’t want the responsibility of leading either. It seemed best to be on my own. And after I decided that, Shisen sent someone who needed help to me. It wasn’t a conscious decision to become a mercenary, but I needed money and they needed my help, and it went from there.”
“Why did you take the job with the Spellbook? It doesn’t seem like your usual job.”
“No, it’s not.” He paused, shook his head. “I got impatient with a few things, plus the Guild ticked me off.”
“They do that a lot.”
“You can’t even imagine. I was thinking, maybe,” and here he became uncomfortable, squirming slightly. “Maybe
Shisen can help you with your powers, if you wanted to try the whole mysterious master routine.”
As if she were back in the dream, the waves of power that radiated from the man poured over her, bathing her in an unfamiliar feeling of both wanting to get away from the man, and wanting to go nearer to him, to let him help her. “Maybe that wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
“Yeah?” Merc’s eyes lit up for a split second, before he tamped down the excitement, taking a sip of water. “Well, if you do decide to meet him, I’ll make it happen. I can’t guarantee anything, but I do believe he would be very interested in meeting you.”
Joy bubbled in Amana at his desire to connect them even further. Their story hadn’t been an easy one so far and wouldn’t be for a while longer, but maybe this meant they would have a story, that they could weather together the upcoming trials and stand together through them all.
Until time proved otherwise, she’d hold that hope to her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‡
Merc was right, the whole mysterious master routine got old fast.
Sadly, in that one area, the Seven Houses surpassed even the Guild. They made keeping their underlings guessing and waiting into an art form. Right now, Nemesis waited in a long hallway of pure white walls and a thirty-foot ceiling. In front of her, guarded by two giants, were black floor-to-ceiling double doors, which at that moment were beginning to open.
The guards moved to the side, and Fallon walked out, clothed in her usual black, with Tenro’s hilt a beacon from atop her right shoulder. As their eyes met, Fallon broke out into a smile. “Didn’t know you were going to be here.”
“I’m popular.” Fallon seemed too happy for someone summoned in front of the council, which meant Nemesis’ upcoming meeting would be anything but.
“They know they have a good thing with you.” Fallon walked until she stood only a few inches away, driving out all the oxygen before her and making it hard to breathe. “The Guild could be good to you to, should you ever want a change of scenery.”
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