Destiny Be Damned

by Rebecca Royce

  Jett shook his head, his red hair falling in his face. “Not one of us has threatened your life.”

  “No, but I bet you would have if I hadn’t agreed. You were threatening Krystal.” My temper was up. I’d been holding it down, I’d been surviving this. No more. I wanted to scream, so I was going to. Let them deal with me. Why was I always so intent on making things easier for other people?

  Titus shook his head. “That wasn’t us. Hulsey and his four are different than us. You were in the Sisterhood. You know how Guards work. We’re two separate groups.”

  I pointed at him. “Who you spend your time with is who you are.”

  “We don’t spend time with him, Sister,” Zeke, dark haired and dark eyed, shot back. “We were sent here together. There’s a difference.”

  “Is there? Fine.” I got to my feet. “You still did this. You did.” I pointed to all five of them. “And some day when you meet your Sister, you’re going to have to tell her what you did. You’re going to have to explain that you took me, the Oracle”—I wasn’t above using the word if it got me what I wanted—“from my home in the middle of the night. That you associated with and helped five men who would have harmed an unconscious woman. That you worked for Sister Katrina as she destroyed the Sisterhood and the world. You can look at her, and you can tell that soul that is waiting for you, that loves the five of you, that would have believed in you above all others, that you did this. I hope you can live with it.”

  Ryland stood slowly. He was blond and blue eyed. Was he going to strike me? Had I gone too far? Instead, he placed a gentle hand on my arm. “Please sit down, Sister. I don’t want you to get hurt if the train abruptly stops.”

  I sat. Tears I wouldn’t cry in front of them burned my throat and the inside of my eyes. “I can’t go anywhere. I am not crazy enough to jump from a moving train, and even if I were, I can’t fit through the small window in here. Do you have to stay in here with me? You are taking me to what could very likely be my death.” Maybe that would be preferable to what could happen to me at the hands of Katrina. “So if you wouldn’t mind giving me time alone, I’d appreciate it.”

  I didn’t expect them to comply and yet they each in turn rose, and headed to the door. On his way out, Ryland turned to me. “All Guards have soul mates?”

  “The ones who haven’t lost their souls, yes.”

  I’d meant the jab to hurt him but he just nodded, his eyes narrowing slightly before he closed the door behind him on his way out. I sunk into the bed, grabbing onto the stiff sheets, and I wept. My tears weren’t only for this. They were for the years I’d worked for Katrina not knowing if I would ever get away. For never having a family to hold me through the nightmares that living day in and day out with demons as my only focus caused. For being cursed to live in darkness on a path. For being the Oracle when the last thing I wanted was to take people’s children. For our house collapsing to the ground. For the twenty Sisters the wraiths killed. Finally, for the five men who didn’t love me and I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about.

  I cried for all of it, and when I was done, I knew I’d never cry again. There were no more tears inside of me.

  Wayne

  I grabbed Brother Raven by the shirt. Maybe I shouldn’t have. He’d shifted from a black crow with a white feather into this man in two seconds and stopped Thaddeus and Neil from fighting with their swords with just a word. He was clearly not a being to be trifled with. Plus, I remembered him, sort of. Like the way I could slightly remember a dream on occasion, distantly and without any real form to it.

  And yet he’d said we were Mika’s Guards, her soul mates—or Neil had said it—and that made sense to me inside my gut the same way I knew my own name. My mother had always told me that there were times in life you simply knew things and you had to trust yourself, to believe you understood your path to your destiny.

  “How do you not know where she is?” I spoke through clenched teeth. What I wanted to do was slash and burn the world until Mika reappeared.

  Brother Reed—he used both names. That sudden clarity came back to me. He preferred Reed, but the Ravens called him Brother Raven. The Ravens? Who were the Ravens? We were. All of us. The Guards…

  I let go of his shirt, and he nodded at me. “Everyone underestimates you, but I never did. It’s because most of the time, you’re so darn friendly, son. They don’t realize how quickly that can turn over in you. Good job controlling your temper. I’m proud of you.”

  That was a little too paternal for my taste. “I have a father. He’s the only one who’s ever called me son.”

  “And he’s a good one.” Reed stepped back. “You were lucky in that. One of the few in the world, I think. So little love left.” He walked into the center of the circle that had formed. Almost everyone was there now, except Mika and the grouping of Sisters in the corner who were rocking back and forth.

  I didn’t want any more avoidance. “Answer me.”

  “I don’t know where she is because there is a big, nothingness around her. That’s not death, by the way. If she had died, I would see her very clearly. I might even be talking to her.”

  Sister Teagan nodded. “Yes, he spoke to me when I died. That’s how I feel around her, too. Like I can’t get anything. No future to see, not even a gravestone.”

  Teagan died? I would ask for more details on that later. Right now, my focus was Mika. “How did that happen? Aren’t you divine?”

  “I wish. I work for the divine. I assist where I can. I don’t determine destinies; I don’t set the course of the world. I do what I can to help, as do all of you. Mika is missing. That can only mean that Katrina has finally gotten ahold of some very old magic.” He sighed. “She summoned the wraiths which we didn’t see coming. She has managed to keep her plots from Teagan and from us. This can’t last forever. Even the conjuring she’s doing can only last for so long. It will stop. In the meantime, I hope that another plan I put in motion is working.”

  I forced myself to breathe. “I don’t want vague nothingness. I want answers. What plan?”

  “That, I’m not going to share. Some things I will keep to myself. In the meantime, we have to hope that she doesn’t die because Mika’s role in the coming battles is pivotal. I know it. Somewhere inside of her, she knows it. Deep and hidden in the five of you is that same knowledge. Moreover, Katrina knows it. There is no future for any of us without the Oracle.”

  Reed kicked the dirt then looked up at the sky. The birds were cawing, loudly. What did they want?

  He continued. “I can only assume that her sudden need for Mika is that the powers that be have managed, finally, to render Katrina’s Oracle visionless. That poor woman has been through enough. But Katrina needs a future too if she’s going to win, so she has taken Mika. We always knew this was a possibility.”

  “The dark to the light,” Daniella whispered. “This is hers.”

  Reed nodded. “It would seem that way. We all have many possible futures, right Teagan?”

  He didn’t wait for her to answer and instead strode over to Gordon. “It hurts less when you stop fighting it.”

  “Wait, Brother Raven,” the one they called Noah shouted out, but Reed paid him no attention, instead bopping Gordon on the ears. My friend cried out, and in a second, I was by his side, as were Neil, Lennon, and Ren. We didn’t leave each other to suffer. It was one of those unspoken things in life.

  Gordon cried out, grabbing both his ears then falling to his knees.

  “What did you do to him?” I didn’t care what Reed was or wasn’t. He’d hurt Gordon and that meant that…

  Gordon grabbed onto my pant leg. “It’s okay. I’m okay. He… Wow.” His color was better and his eyes clearer. “I can hear them.”

  “That’s right. You can hear them. At last.” Reed nodded. “When we set all of this up, it wasn’t supposed to be this hard. We knew there would be challenges, but I didn’t realize I’d have to spend half my time running around waking up my Guards fr
om their demon-induced power drain? You were supposed to have some kind of immunity to it.” He shook his head.

  I turned my attention to Gordon. “Hear what?”

  Ren met my gaze over Gordon’s head. In it, I saw all my own concerns. I couldn’t hear anything. He’d seen things in the dust storm. What was happening?

  “The Ravens. I can hear them.” He pointed. “What they’re saying, what they see.”

  Lennon stood next to Neil. “Which is what?”

  “We can get to that,” Reed answered for Gordon. “None of this was supposed to be this way. Mika was never to be in play, the way she’s been. We knew she’d be taken, she understood she has to go through the dark to get to the light.” He looked at Daniella briefly. “But she should have been with you this whole time. I didn’t drop you five on Peter’s Isle and the rest into the fray by accident. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you had such seemingly idyllic childhoods.” He looked at Ren when he said that, which didn’t surprise me. Out of all of us, his upbringing had been the most troublesome. “But this was really supposed to be about Mika. That Oracle saw Mika being born when it should have been hidden. She should not have been taken off that island.”

  His words blew through my mind. “She’s the one? The Sister they came and got right before I was born? Taken as a baby?”

  “Correct, and it was so traumatic that Peter’s shut down travel to anyone Sister related which is why they never came to get you. Either scenario would have been better than this. Either you wouldn’t have needed to go anywhere because you’d have always been with her—which was the original plan—or like these three groups you would have gotten to her. Neither happened.” He rocked back on his feet.

  She was supposed to be with us? “We would have all been together.” I realized I kept repeating myself, and I understood suddenly why Neil had all but shut down earlier. This was life-changing information we were getting. My girl would have been with me my whole life. Adventures. Laughter. First Kisses. Swimming in the pond. When my mother died, she would have been there. With the way Mika saw through things, she would have easily seen what I didn’t with Ren’s father and mother. She would have gotten him out of there.

  Reed placed his hand on my arm. “We thought it was all lost. Done. You would be one of the groupings that didn’t happen. But then you left the island. No one leaves there that doesn’t have to. You did.”

  “That wasn’t you making that happen?” Lennon’s face was hard, my friend was having as much trouble with this as I was.

  Brother Raven shook his head. “No. You guys did that on your own. I wasn’t ready for you. I didn’t know you were coming. And then here you were. Bravo. I’m so rarely surprised. With no memory, no fighting training, no push from the divine, the five of you went to seek your girl and got here. Well done.”

  Anne stepped forward. “Brother Raven.” She looked up at the sky. I followed her gaze and gasped. There were bird-like-white-looking-sort-of-hard-to-describe-how-they-also-looked-like-people things floating above our heads. What was that?

  Bryant nodded toward me. “They’re spirits. They talk to the Sisters, mostly. And sometimes Milo.”

  Bryant’s number five shrugged. “I’m special.”

  Brother Raven turned to Anne. “Yes, Sister Superior?”

  “How could she be the Oracle and never leave that island? How does that work?” Bryant put his arm around her and tugged her close. For just a second, both their eyes turned white. That was something I was going to have to learn about, too.

  “When Mika sees a baby, she connects with the mother. It’s just how it works. How it should work, anyway. Let’s say it works that way for her. The mother will simply know she needs to come with her family to Peter’s. Live there together, all of them, while the child learns to be a Sister. Then they’ll come here to you. That would have happened even if you’d never met Mika in person. She’s a teacher. She would have been joined by others to teach Sisters.” He eyed Daniella again. There was something going on there, and I didn’t know what it was, but Sister Daniella was keeping secrets. “Peter’s is immune to demons. They can’t see it. As though it doesn’t exist. One of five places left like this. The population there won’t object to the Sisters. They’ve always known, somehow, that they were coming. Even if they didn’t really know it consciously. That’s how it works or should have. The Oracle isn’t supposed to fight demons.”

  “She’s incredible doing it,” Ren called from behind me. “She doesn’t look like a woman who shouldn’t be fighting.”

  “I know,” Reed answered. “Mika is different. I didn’t understand how much so until recently, but she is.”

  My mind flooded with so many ideas I could hardly speak them fast enough. “It can still work that way, the way you described. We have to find Mika, rescue her, and we’ll go home. I’d love to bring Mika home. I can’t think of anything I’d like more.” I could keep her safe there. I could hold her until she knew that her days would be long and her nights warm. Even in the winter and the rain. My father would make her stew. He made it for everyone the first time they came over. I think he thought it was better than it was, but that was fine. “We’ll do that.”

  Reed lifted his chin. “Maybe that’s possible. But first you have to be Guards. And you’re not. The training we did in the other place is still there. I see it in you. Your bodies have to learn it. Your minds have to be instructed in the ways of the demon. You have to become what you should have had years to do in the time it takes to find out where Mika is.”

  “Whatever she needs of us, always.”

  Brother Raven nodded. “I always liked you, Wayne. I’m not sure the feeling was mutual, but I did.” He turned around. “Bryant, as much as Thaddeus may have gotten the job done, so to speak, I think you have more patience for the day-to-day training.”

  Bryant nodded. “Sure thing.”

  Reed met Daniella’s gaze one last time. “It’s over. You know that right?”

  “I do.” She turned away, and her Guard grabbed her arm.

  He must not have known any more than the rest of us what was going on. “Hun?”

  “Not here, inside.” She practically ran from the rest of us, her Guards fast behind her.

  “Brother Raven.” Sister Krystal had been hanging out in the back of the group. She surged forward. “Where are my powers? Where have they gone?”

  He tilted his head to the side. “They are where they always were.”

  She scrunched up her face, clearly not liking that answer, but he was going to give no other.

  One second Reed was there, the next he took to the sky, a raven with one white feather, again soaring higher. Gordon lifted his head to watch them, and I wondered if he could hear their conversation.

  Anne and Teagan stared at each other a long moment before both of them moved toward the rubble that had been the main house.

  Bryant paused a second. “Maybe tomorrow we can start.”

  “Today.” I might not win any friends with my attitude, but I didn’t want any except the ones that I had. They were more than friends to me; they were family. In fact, it went beyond that, and maybe that all made sense now that I understood.

  Bryant stared past me at Neil then at me again. I supposed I could be pissed off that he’d looked to Neil for confirmation, but they were both Ones. I knew that. I always had.

  Neil was in charge. We all deferred to him and there were good reasons for that. Out of all of us, he was the only one who could shoulder that kind of burden. Even as a child, he’d stood up and taken every punishment meant for all of us. When we’d tried to stop him, he’d waved us off as though the idea of not doing so was foreign to him. That had only made all of us want to behave, want to make sure that Neil never had to endure a second of pain that he himself hadn’t earned.

  And he almost never did anything to deserve any.

  If he needed me, like a few minutes earlier when the truth of things hit us all like a sledgehammer, I was a
lways there to take his place. That was because I was Two.

  I turned. Bryant hadn’t spoken, and I needed to see what he’d viewed. Gordon was on his feet. He’d been on the ground, but I hadn’t needed to witness his rising. Nothing kept him down for very long, not even awakening powers he didn’t know he had. Next to him, Ren was deceptively still. That only meant he was waiting for his moment to grab control of something. And Lennon, who most people would never understand, saw through all of us. Our strengths, our weaknesses, what made us who we were, and he cared. So much so that he sometimes told all of us to shove it.

  “We have no idea when our girl will be found. It could be tomorrow. There really is no time to waste.”

  Bryant pulled the sword off his back. The glint of the metal glowed in the sun. “If it’s tomorrow, you won’t be ready, next week you won’t be ready, but for Mika’s sake, let’s hope you’re not ready. The sooner she’s found the better. Anne spent a year in a cage. Teagan spent five years in a mine. Daniella spent a year in a factory full of demons. When we rescued Anne, I killed a man. Mason killed another. I’d do it again. And again. Anything for her. I watched you for the last almost-month with Mika. So I don’t think lesson one will come as a surprise to you, guarding a Sister is really about so much more than her physical person.”

  That made sense. “When she battles, she loses form. I don’t know if we can help her.”

  “You already did most of it instinctually. Or at least I heard that you did. You were there when she came back. They like to act strong, and divinity knows they are that way, but imagine losing your physical form? It’s like a pounding every single time. In that vein, you should go eat and rest. We’ll start tomorrow. You’ll never be any good to Mika if you are exhausted. I don’t have time to make allowances for that. One night. We have food in the guesthouse. Most of us are resting around camp fires.” He nodded toward one on the left. “That was where Mika was taken from. If it were me, I’d want to be where Anne had been. So that’s yours if you want it.”