by Lila Felix
As usual, Colby found this funnier than it actually was. I did a double take looking at her now. In the glow of the lanterns, she looked worse for the wear—paler—more fragile—like she could collapse at any moment. I would have to speak with Theo about it. Maybe it was too much flashing.
“I am not a Viking. That is a special ‘pet’ name.”
Colby snorted again. “Special is right.”
The woman did an almost bow. “I am Malynn. Welcome to the Clandestine. You now help protect the Eidolon and his mate. You are no longer a Guardian.”
I hadn’t been a Guardian in a long time—longer than I could remember. It had only been months since Theo knocked at my door but, for the first time, contrary to what I’d always been taught, I felt like this was what I was born to do.
“Thank you. I think. Where is Ari?”
Colby turned to Theo with her palm out, extended. “Pay up. It hasn’t even been five minutes.”
Theo groaned and whispered something in her ear that made her defenses drop. I didn’t even want to know. Contrary to her statement, no money was exchanged.
“I’m going to get her, Collin. Don’t worry. Your mate will be here soon.”
Theo flashed out with hardly a lick of wake. I wouldn’t even acknowledge him calling Ari my mate. Colby would drag it through the mud and back again. I had learned when to give her fuel and when to stay silent.
“Colby, may I speak to you?” I asked, taking her by the arm and leading her away from the crowd.
“What?” She smiled but even it wilted.
“Is something else going on with you? Is there something I should know before the others get back?”
She looked around, flashing a smile to the others before turning her back on them. “I’m a little weaker than usual. I have no appetite. And no matter how much I try to sleep, I can’t for more than a few minutes at a time. But I think it’s just all that’s been going on. Don’t tell Theo. He’s so preoccupied with going back to the Fray that he barely notices anything.”
I countered her. “He needs to know. He won’t return if something is wrong with you. You know he won’t. His job as your mate is to take care of you.”
Colby grew angrier as I spoke, gritting her teeth. “I know what his job is, and taking care of me is the smallest part. Now you shut it or I will shut it for you. Got it, Viking?”
Malynn stepped forward, and Colby raised her palm to tell her it was all right.
“I won’t say a word. You have my promise. Just wait until Ari gets here. I won’t have to.”
Ari and Theo arrived minutes later, looking like they’d had a similar conversation—or at least as pointed.
I knew a lot of things about our friendship situation, but what I didn’t know was how to act with Ari in front of Theo and Colby. It hadn’t been long since they discovered we were getting to know each other, but it was still new.
“Hey,” Ari said as she walked over, encircling my waist with her arms. Colby giggled. I took it as her sort of approval, so I hugged her back and stroked the length of her hair.
“It’s been a while,” I said to her, bending to allow my lips to grace her ears. I didn’t know what I had been so worried about. As soon as Ari looked up into my eyes, there was no one else in the room or the world.
“It’s been too long. We really need to do something about that.” It wasn’t the time or the place, but seeing Ari again made me never want to let go. I didn’t ever want to be cold again as I was when she wasn’t with me.
She smiled and the cleft in her chin got deeper. “Then we’ll just have to stay together.”
I blew out a deep breath. “Can’t get more together than being sealed.” I barely got the words out. There was nothing I wanted more than to be with this woman for the rest of my life, but blurting it out in a room full of people wasn’t the way I’d planned it.
Ari gasped and pulled back to look at me. There was some age difference between us, but it didn’t matter. She was my mate, and I knew the Almighty had created us for each other.
“Are you asking?” She was taunting me, and I loved it.
“I am.”
Colby squealed. “Sounds like sealing vows to me. Looks like we have a ceremony to plan.”
Malynn stepped forward. I thought she would probably be the one to give us the reason why we shouldn’t be sealed—the adversary to our union. Instead, she said, “I see many children in your future. Many, many children.”
Ari shot daggers at her with one look. “One step at a time, sister. I don’t even know who in the hell you are.”
Over the next few hours, introductions were made and plans were put into place. There were so many teams and schemes that I felt like we were on a real-time version of that TV show, Survivor.
Colby wanted to trick the Synod and bring Collin with her.
I made Collin promise to take care of her while also making him promise that he would alert me if anything went awry.
Ari made Collin swear that he wouldn’t be the hero.
Collin told me he would do anything to protect Colby.
Colby made me say that I wouldn’t go anywhere without her.
The voices got louder by the second.
Ari was yelling at Malynn to shut up about how many kids she’d be popping out.
Omar, through the whole thing, was shining a sword that was bigger than my arms and legs put together.
Damn it all to hell, when is this madness going to end? Someone give me the immunity statue.
Colby would go to the Synod the next morning. So as with everything in our lives lately, I had to squash everything I needed her to know into one night and treat it like the last I had with her.
Every night I had with her could possibly be my last.
And I had to make it count.
She came to our room, given to us by Omar and Malynn, already yawning. After letting the fabric that made our door fall into place, she slipped off her dress and grabbed a tank top that had seen better days.
When she turned, I got a good glimpse of her body and didn’t like what I saw.
Thin didn’t even begin to describe the waif quality of her body. Colby was thin before—she’d purposefully stayed thin most of her life because she thought weight inhibited her flashing.
Then she started to eat with the knowledge that it had nothing to do with her ability to travel.
What I saw in my mate was something more like sickness.
It was such a dramatic change in such a short length of time that the sight of her constricted my chest. If I could, I would pull fat and muscle from my own skeleton and give it to her.
Her ribs stuck out. I could count every single one. The dimples above her butt were sunken and made her hipbones protrude. Even her fingers were nothing but knuckles—they resembled magic wands instead of digits.
She’d become skin and bones, but I’d been too busy running to even notice.
“Colby?” I breathed into the air, but it hung like a stale request.
“I know. I won’t let them trick me into anything. I’m not stupid, Theo. I know they are still the enemy even if I can convince them to help us somehow.”
My breaths were being stolen by how she’d changed.
“Colby.” My voice was strained a little more. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the Synod or anyone else in the world or beyond.
“Did I miss something?” she said, still coming back at me with a snide attitude. “I won’t get too out of hand, although they deserve anything I have to say to them. I guess I do owe them some sort of apology for believing they killed Rebekkah, but I’m not sure if I want to just yet.”
I stood and walked over to her, running my fingers down the length of her arms and then down her spine before she could pull the tank top over her head. What had once been curves, softer than anything I’d felt in my life, were now rigid bumps and harsh reminders. “Querida mia, you’ve missed a lot. You haven’t eaten right in a while, I think. We should ju
st stay here for a time. Forget about the Synod. Forget about the fight. Forget about running. Let’s just get you back, okay? I’m sorry. We were running, and I didn’t notice. Maybe I did and just didn’t pay attention…”
Sighing, she leaned back against my chest. She was probably banking on the fact that we were too busy to notice the little things like her getting so damned skinny. If she turned sideways, I would miss her.
“I’ve tried to eat. It comes back up. I’ve tried everything I know how. Even water comes back up. I’ve hidden it from you. We have enough going on. It will be fine. It’s just the stress or the constant flashing. It used to energize me, but now it wears me down. Like every time we flash, a little layer gets filed away.”
When I reached around her, tears welled in my eyes. I could feel the difference in her waist, her hips, her everything. What I saw in my mate had to be more than just a few weeks of missing some meals.
“We have to fix this. You have to talk to Malynn. Maybe there’s something they can do. Maybe Collin knows something.”
Even her breathing was more shallow than normal. But if she wasn’t eating, everything was probably working overtime just to keep her normal functions going.
She bumped her forehead against mine and placed a feather-light kiss on my nose.
“We can try after I get back tomorrow. I can’t concentrate on anything until I see what we can get out of the Synod. I hate to say this, but they might be our only chance of stopping Sanctum. I just feel like there’s something we are missing. Rebekkah always said that the truth isn’t really the truth and we had to look beyond the façade. I just have this feeling. Honestly, I don’t give a damn about myself until I at least try to talk to them. After tomorrow, I swear I’ll ask them. I swear it.”
Malynn insisted on loaning me one of her dresses for our visit to the Synod. No matter what those women did to our race, it was still ingrained in us to treat the Synod like royalty.
Brainwashed was more like it.
She put me in a long-sleeved top and a matching skirt of emerald green that left a little of my belly showing. She had to pin some of the skirt because my waist was nothing. If anyone looked closely, they’d want to feed me a cheeseburger. I’d kill for any food to stay down at this point.
With this outfit, the Synod would think I’d become a belly dancer in my spare time.
“May I do your hair?” All the attention from Malynn was kind of freaking me out. I felt like one of those princesses from fairy tales who needed assistance in getting dressed because doing it herself would just take too much effort.
“Oh, why?” I thought tangled was the new rebel. I’d try to put a brush through my hair, but it seemed that with the weight loss, my strands had become brittle, dry, and frail. Just like me.
She smiled at me and straightened my top—again. “Maybe I should tell you a little more about our people while I fix your hair. Once we were the protectors of the first Eidolon—sentries were probably a better name for us—but over the centuries, we’ve lost out on who we are, much like your grandmother, the Prophetess.” She escorted me to the nearest mirror and sat me down on the carpeted floor in front of it. The mirror was inlaid with gold filigree, and I felt more beautiful just looking into it.
Our eyes met in the mirror. “You knew my grandmother?”
She smiled at me, wrangling with my knots. “I did not, but my father did. He was alive when the Prophetesses were rendered useless—useless? Is that the correct word?”
The agreement caught in my throat. “Useless, powerless, not valid. Yes, those are all correct words.”
She continued. “He was there when the proclamation was made. Rebekkah wasn’t the only one. She outlived them all, but she wasn’t the only one when the Synod outlawed them. I believe there were three. I’m not sure. The Clandestine were once revered for our ability to serve the Eidolon and his family. Our women were servants to the queen and her daughters, and our soldiers would accompany the Eidolon wherever he went. We lived in their house, and we were fed and treated like royalty ourselves. We were more than slaves—more than workers. We were honored friends and advisors to the Eidolon’s family. All of that ended when the Synod came. There are rules against seeking us out or even admitting that we still exist. Remember that when you go today. They will not appreciate your blatant ignorance of the law.”
“It’s not ignorance if you just told me, and I’ve never been a fan of their laws. Most of them aren’t even made public until they deem someone a criminal. How can we obey the laws if they aren’t even made available to us? The Lucents are a good race of people, blessed by the Almighty. We don’t need a table full of gaudy old women telling us what to do.”
Malynn laughed and tried, in vain, not to make faces about my mess of hair. “What does gaudy mean?”
“It means too much makeup. Too much hairspray. Too many long, red fingernails. Too much of everything. But even if they weren’t gaudy, we wouldn’t need them.”
She had already gotten my hair looking halfway normal again. As she nodded, she kept adding some oil from a bottle on the table near her. I didn’t even ask. At this point, pulling a Pema hairdo would be better than what I had going on. “We do not. That’s the problem with all people. They think they need to be governed. But I think with all people that they will make their own justice and their own peace if those who want power would just mind their own beeswax.”
I laughed so hard that tears came from my eyes. Her English was so good at times, and then she would say things like beeswax. “Business. Mind their own business. Only children say beeswax.”
She canted her head and shrugged her shoulders. “Well, that explains some things. I once flashed to America to buy some hamburgers, and a man tried to flirt with me. I told him to mind his own beeswax, and he laughed so hard I wanted to punch him.”
“Wait.” I turned and faced her. She squealed because I’d made her ruin whatever she’d started back there. “You can flash?”
Her face reddened as she nodded. “Yes. We all can flash, even though we are Clandestine. Our males can flash too. If would be difficult for us to protect you if we couldn’t. Warrior women. That’s what we were once called. Your Collin should know. Now turn around or they’ll think I’m not working.”
She was joking, of course, but I turned around and lamented all the things about our own people we didn’t know. All the books and records and laws—yet we knew hardly anything about who we were and why we were on this Earth.
We were uniformed, yet had allowed ourselves to be led. It was an equation bound for disaster from the start.
“Colby, you shouldn’t cut your own hair. This piece is way shorter than the rest.”
I furrowed my eyebrow. “I haven’t cut my hair.”
She just shrugged and continued.
Malynn took at least an hour to fix my hair, but by the time she was done, it looked like a mass of expertly spun spider webs. She’d placed gold clips at the bottom of the braids. For the first time, I looked like someone who was actually going to see the Synod.
They wouldn’t know what hit them.
With the kind of mood I was in, hopefully it would be me hitting them—in the face—with that damned squeaky chair.
She smiled at my reflection in the mirror. “It is done. Let’s go show everyone how beautiful you are. Yes, we will speak about your stomach and health when you get back. I think we have something to help with that, though I have some other less favorable theories.” I stared at her in awe. “In here. Can’t help it.” She pointed with one finger to her temple.
As I turned round and round in front of the mirror, I actually felt human again. Well, like myself again. Malynn was another friend I’d gained on the journey, even in such a short time period. “Won’t you come with me? I would feel better if maybe you were there to help me decipher the truth.”
“Decipher?”
I smiled. “To know if they are telling the truth.”
She bowed and looke
d at me with tears in her eyes. “I would be honored to once again be of service to the Eidolon and his mate.”
“Get ready to learn American sass, sister. It’s going to be rough.”
***
It was just as easy for me to flash into the meeting room of the Synod as it was the golden room, but I thought if I wanted them on my side, the best place to start was with a little show of respect.
Except when we landed on the once-metallic tiles, the gold room didn’t have the gleam it once did. In fact, it didn’t have any gleam at all. The glittery wallpaper had been torn and tattered like Wolverine himself had a piss-fit right here. The chairs and ceiling were tarnished and almost rusting—like the whole place was antiquing before our eyes.
It was more like the rusty room now.
“It has changed. This was once a palace. Now it crumbles like it has been…”
I finished Omar’s lament. “Like it has been forgotten.”
The familiar click of heels alerted me to Regina’s arrival. Soon, she was in front of us—a relic in her own right. Apparently, the cameras were still working.
“Regina?” I gasped and whispered her name at the same time.
Her eyebrows bunched and she cocked her head like a puppy who had heard a sound for the first time. “Colby? Is that you?”
“Yes. Of course it is.”
She squared her shoulders and waved for us to follow her. We walked through the hallway that was now like a crumbling tunnel of horrors. Ivy grew from the cracks in the ceiling and the marble was like gravel beneath our feet. I had to hold Collin’s hand not to trip. It was almost more decrepit than the tunnels I’d gone through with Sanctum on my ill-planned journey to end them.
She brought us into the meeting room. This was the place where I’d almost peed my pants, almost lost my tongue, and found my courage—all in the same room.
“What happened here?” I spoke first, the tiniest inkling of pity ringing in my tone.
“Why should we tell you? It’s because of you and Theo that we are degraded to this hell.”
Never mind—the pity was long gone.
I took it all in. The room looked like a construction zone gone wrong. There was a gaping hole in the ceiling and the walls looked like they were withering as we stood. “How is it my fault you’re living like this? It looks like a hurricane passed through here and you were behind on your insurance payments.”