“What makes you one over the other then?” Daniel grilled.
“An affinity. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
My eyes were glued on the back of Riel’s head. “That’s why you could use it to help you train back at the Academy.” Sol help me—how could a handful of days feel like a year ago?
She twisted around to nod at me. “Seems so.”
I tilted my head to the side and took advantage of the fact she was right there—in front of me. “You okay?”
“Will be when this is done.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why? Are you concerned?”
Seph snorted. “I know I am. We’re wandering into the unknown without a plan.”
“Just because instinct cannot be quantified, just because the five senses cannot justify it or credit it with merit, does not mean that it shouldn’t be trusted,” Linford intoned sharply, his voice free and clear of the tremor of age.
I cut him a look. “You’re right, but that doesn’t mean we’re not on a fool’s errand.”
“We are all fools for the Gods,” Gabriella replied, her voice moody now. “We fulfill their errands and hope that we fulfill them in a manner which suits them. That’s all we can do.
“For my abuela to contact Riel tells me that we are on the true path. She had the original vision, after all. She guides us now.”
A dead woman was guiding us.
Great.
It was easy to see that she found comfort in that, but me? I preferred my guidance to be offered by people who were still roaming the land of the living.
That wasn’t to say I didn’t feel bad for doubting, because I did, but I just wasn’t about to put all my faith into a spirit who kept on visiting my mate when she was asleep or unconscious.
As we traipsed around a corner, we found an oddly constructed wooden house. Painted a dark red, it stood out like a beacon. Sitting on the water’s edge, I wasn’t sure how the place wouldn’t flood when the rains came, but considering the witches here were water witches, maybe that’s what they wanted. Or, maybe, they just diverted the water and sheltered themselves from the inundation.
Because that would be pretty fucking nifty, I eyed the crops around the homestead, and wondered if all the houses of the first families were so basic. It was easy to see the people within weren’t rich, and the crops alone told me their garden was for food. The way the earth was tilled was indicative of more magic because it was too perfect for a human hand or even a machine to have arranged.
There were low wooden partitions that separated certain areas from others, and as we approached, the scent of manure told me why.
Bearing down on my nose to evade the stench, I saw the small cluster of pigs and noticed there were a few filthy piglets in the pen.
My lips curved at the sight of their dirty hides and the little squeaks they made, before my gaze drifted over another pen that housed a couple of goats who were gnawing on some grass.
“They’re self-sufficient,” Gabriella murmured softly. “As are all the first families. We know not to depend upon the vagaries of society.”
My brow puckered. “Do you expect the apocalypse or something?”
She snorted. “No. At least, not like anything that belongs in The Walking Dead.”
“You watch that?” Daniel blurted out, his astonishment evident.
My lips curved as she declared, “I’m old, not dead. Even witches appreciate the joys of streaming.”
Daniel snickered at that, but Seph muttered, “What kind of apocalypse then? Or should we just be relieved that zombies aren’t on the cards for us any time soon?”
“What is vital to society today might not be vital for society tomorrow,” she replied calmly, unmoved by his sniping tone. “A hundred years ago, a machine to till this land would have been considered revolutionary. Now, I can access the world’s data banks on a machine the size of my palm. Things change. We evolve. Witches move with the times but retain our connection with the past. We can only remain grounded that way.”
As she finished speaking, the door to the red house opened. It was a squat, one-story structure, but it was long and wide. The only word I could use to describe it was functional really. There wasn’t much artifice or decoration. Even in the opening of the doorway, I could see that, and it was only confirmed when the male stepped out in workworn jeans and a thick flannel shirt. His beard was bright red, his hair more strawberry blond, and his eyes were a glinting green as he took us all in with a glance.
“Blessed be, Lars,” Gabriella called out.
He dipped his chin in greeting. “Blessed be, Gabriella,” he replied, his English perfect, with barely a hint of an accent. “Why are you here?”
She sighed. “It’s time.”
Time? Time for what?
The other male, who was only fifteen or so years older than me, tipped his head to the side. “So soon? I didn’t expect the call in my lifetime.”
“Who knows why the Lady and the Lord time things the way they do?”
His puckered brow relaxed somewhat, and I realized that was as much of an answer as we were going to get.
“You’re younger than I expected,” Lars murmured as he approached us, his head tilted to the side. “When my father passed last month, he told spoke of you and said to expect you—”
She raised a hand to stall him. “My blessings for your family in your time of grief, Lars. Ulric was a good man, and I should have attended his burial but life got in the way.” When he dipped his chin in understanding, she carried on, “The reason for my youth is unusual, but as always, it is tied to Sol and Gaia.”
His narrowed eyes flared at that. “Of course. As is their way.”
It took me a second, dumbass that I was, to figure out he’d been expecting Gabriella to be older, not Riel.
Lars shoved aside my curiosities by raising a hand, then tipped it palm facing upwards. When his magic began to manifest, I canted my head to the side at the cyan color. It was rich yet began drifting into a silvery white that reminded me…
“It’s water!” I blurted out, watching as the color dispersed and sank into the liquid that was whirring above his palm like a puppet on a string.
“Never let it be said you don’t have a brain between your ears,” Linford grumbled, his tone caustic.
My cheeks pinkened at the accusation, but I just hadn’t expected him to do this. I’d seen many things in my life, had seen a shit ton more since Riel had become my mate, but this? This was new.
Gabriella turned to Seph. “You need to touch it.”
Lars tensed. “Why?”
“He was gifted,” she said simply.
Gifted?
Hardly. At least, not to me. And by their unimpressed faces, not to my brothers either.
“What will he do with it?” Lars rasped, eying the offering that rested on his palm.
Gabriella just smiled. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
❖
Seph
The other man eyed me warily as he shoved his hand out in front of me. “Go on then,” he ordered, his face suddenly drawn into a rictus that took me aback.
It wasn’t as easy as ‘go on’ because I had no idea what I was supposed to do.
“Just touch it, Joseph,” Gabriella encouraged, but this Lars guy’s wariness put me on edge.
It was like he expected something to happen, something I was totally in the dark about.
I licked my lips and cut my troupe a look. Riel’s newly silvered eyes were glinting like a new penny as she eyed the water whirl on Lars’ palm, but when she sensed my attention, she turned to me.
“What is it, Seph?” she asked softly, her voice low.
How could I answer? I didn’t know.
“Lars… I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, boy,” Linford chided, making my eyes round.
“What do you mean? I have no grievance against the witch. I have no desire to harm him.”
A sudden loud squawk sounded from inside the house. It made me jump, especially because it was in time to Lars’ words. The second he heard it, he winced, his face blanking of all color as resolve settled on him like a heavy weight. Just as acceptance flowed through him, we all processed exactly what the noise was, and the baby began crying.
“You think I could hurt him?” I bit off, angry now as I turned to Gabriella. “He’s a father. I can’t do—”
“He knows his duty,” she rasped, her tone darkening. “Just as I know mine when it’s Riel’s turn to take it from me once my usefulness has come to an end.”
I blinked at her, then at my mate. “Did you know this? You’ve been keeping shit from us—”
“This is exactly why communication is important,” Daniel ground out, evidently just as mad if he was throwing up the past at her.
“What’s to communicate?” Riel retorted, eyes flashing with irritation as she jerked back at my words like I’d hit her. “I know as much as you do!”
“You acted on your own, without any of our input when it came time to deal with the battalion. Then that crap with the AFata—”
Riel’s mouth pursed. “The battalion was coming to capture us. The AFata provided me the means of capturing them, for Sol’s sake! I had to act, I had to deal with them. I wasn’t cutting you out of the process to be unfair,” she ground out. “As for last night, how am I supposed to bring you into my dreams?”
“It wasn’t a dream, querida, but a vision,” Gabriella corrected calmly, and the serenity on her face pissed me off all the more.
Lars burst in, “What’s she talking about, Gabriella? Battalions? AFata? I want no part in any of that.”
“Calm yourself, Lars. It isn’t what you think,” Linford inserted drolly. “My granddaughter brings chaos with her. Just consider her the Pandora of our time. She does what she oughtn’t and yet, she is the harbinger of change.”
Daniel shifted on his feet, his wings rustling with displeasure. “This is nuts.”
“He isn’t wrong,” I muttered, my eyes on the still whirring waterspout flittering about Lars’ palm like it was on LSD.
“It isn’t crazy,” Gabriella denied. “You just don’t know your witch lore.”
Lars’ brow puckered. “They might not, and their wings tell me why, but I do, Gabriella. Before you take my powers from me, at least explain—”
“Take your powers from you?” Riel burst out, her eyes wide with horror. “That isn’t what we’re about to do!”
“Hush, mija, you speak of what you don’t understand,” Gabriella chided.
Riel’s nostrils flared. “No. No. Maybe I don’t understand,” she ground out, “and maybe I don’t because that’s your fault for leaving when you did. Instead of teaching me what I needed to know, you left. Abandoned me. Well, it was your loss too, because you missed out on watching me become a stubborn pain in the ass who knows her own mind.” She glowered at her grandmother, the two likenesses glaring at one another was like Riel standing in a mirror and frowning at herself.
“I can attest to the fact she’s a stubborn pain in the ass,” Daniel chimed in, but his lighthearted joke, intended to break the stalemate, did little other than glance off the two females who made the term headstrong look weak.
“You’d have him lose his powers over a hunch?” Riel spat. “We have no idea what we’re doing.”
“Your tatarabuela told you to come here, said that the first families would know what to do—”
“That isn’t enough. He looks like he’s waiting to die!”
“I give my life and my power freely,” he whispered.
“You don’t mean that,” I grated out.
“A life without magic should be no life at all but I’d settle for a half-life to remain with my wife and son, that much is true,” Lars inserted calmly, and perhaps it was apropos that his words were like throwing water onto a fire—considering his gift, and all that. “But I must act as Gaia wills it.”
Riel’s mouth flattened as she turned to him. “You knew, when we arrived, what we wanted?”
“Of course.” He tipped his head to the side. “The families have long since spoken of a day when…” The water ceased to stir as he raised his hand and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Perhaps we should go inside? Where it’s less cold and more comfortable and I can explain?”
Riel dipped her chin. “I’d appreciate that.” Before he could turn around, she grabbed his arm and, face to face, murmured, “I mean you no harm, Lars. Nor does my troupe or my family.”
His gaze drifted over us. “They’re Fae. You’re Fae. You always mean my kind harm.”
“Not this child,” Gabriella insisted. “She’s the change we’ve been waiting for.”
“Pandora,” Linford muttered.
Riel ignored them both. “I swear to you that I mean neither you nor your family any ill will.”
Lars’ mouth softened a touch as his glance drifted over her features. “I believe you mean that.”
The inference being that even if she meant it, he didn’t think she could keep to the vow.
Riel faltered. “I don’t understand.”
“You will. Soon.” Lars cleared his throat. “Come, it’s brisk out here today. The weather is changing sooner than it should. It has been a wet summer, too wet even for my taste.” He peered up at the sky then grimaced as he set off for the doorway.
Her anger with us apparently forgotten, Riel headed after him, only glancing back to connect with each of us. It reminded me of a duck keeping her ducklings in a row, and even though the notion should have irked me, it actually amused me.
Matthew, Daniel, and I were the most powerful warriors of our class, and yet, here we were, being herded.
Only a mate could ever put one in one’s place so thoroughly.
Shaking off the amusement that was inappropriate at this time, I trudged after her. The ground outside was a bit like wet slurry thanks to a recent rainfall and the mud on the ground. As we stepped inside, there was a door straight ahead and a bench where Lars sat down to toe off his boots. Following his lead, we hovered, waiting our turn before we were all barefoot. By this point, he and Riel had already headed into a room that though open planned, was cozy.
It also let me see, very quickly, where my woman was.
One half of the space was dedicated to a kitchen. It looked like it belonged in a magazine with its scrubbed wooden cupboards and a center island that gleamed thanks to spotlights overhead. The other half of the room contained an overlarge, brushed brown leather L-seater and faced a large screen TV. But what interested me was the fire. There was a deep hearth, large enough to almost stand in, and beside it, there was an old woman. She was sitting in a wheelchair, her mouth slack, her face free of expression, but the only part of her that moved were her eyes.
They darted left and right, here and there, taking everything in. Absorbing it like she was a sponge and we were dishwater.
I licked my lips, uneasy with the sight of her. The Fae weren’t often ill, and we were unaccustomed to diseases that the healers couldn’t fix. There were a few out there, granted, and the healers couldn’t repair old age, but this level of sickness was beyond my grasp.
At my side, Daniel and Matthew were also shuffling around, fidgeting with their discomfort, but Riel showed no such awkwardness. She moved over to the old woman, asking, “What’s wrong with her?”
“She had a stroke a long time ago,” Lars murmured, his surprise at her interest evident.
Riel’s brow puckered. “She’s lived like this for a while?”
“Yes. My great-aunt has a very stubborn nature,” Lars murmured.
“You didn’t think to put her in a nursing home?” Riel queried, her focus half on him and half on the old lady.
“Of c
ourse not. She does well here at the homestead. We never do well far from it.”
Riel’s eyes widened. “Why?”
Gabriella cleared her throat. “Our homesteads are our hearts, Riel. No first family strays far from it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“The houses are imbued with ancient magic,” Lars reasoned. “From the dawn of our lines, we’ve lived here. Someone has kept the fires at the homestead burning. Renewing our connection with this land, in this hearth. It is our center, and we all must live here for most of the year. Our family was many, and that’s why the property is so big.
“Leaving, even for college, can be painful.”
Riel scowled at her grandmother. “We don’t live at the homestead.”
“We couldn’t,” was all Gabriella said.
“How long have you been away from it?” Lars asked, his curiosity and his horror evident.
The presence of the latter indicated more than anything else could just how bad it was for a first family to be away from their homestead.
“I’ve never lived in it. Nor has my mother.”
Lars’ eyes widened. “Sol’s teeth. You must—”
Riel’s mouth worked. “Must, what? Be suffering? If I am, I don’t know it.”
“Why would you? You’ve been suffering since you were born,” Daniel reasoned. Unhelpfully, I thought.
Riel gulped. “I guess.” She cut her grandmother a look. “Is this why Mama is such a bitch?”
Gabriella snorted. “No. The homestead isn’t a cure-all, mija. It doesn’t change our personalities.” She hesitated for a second, then sighed with relief when Linford approached her. I watched as she leaned into him, appeared to gain strength from his presence, then murmured, “But it would have helped you with your magic from a young age.”
“The homestead centers us. Especially when we’re young, and especially if we’re powerful,” Lars explained, then he beckoned to the island and murmured, “Would anyone like coffee?”
Riel scowled. “I’d like answers.”
Finally Faeling: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book Three Page 16