“If I’d known what was happening, I’d have stopped it straight away.”
“Okay.”
“I promise you, I would’ve come back immediately, no matter the cost to myself. You have to believe me.”
“Okay.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s over, Gunn. Let’s just…” I don’t finish my sentence.
I have no idea what we should do now.
And it’s not that I don’t believe him. I do. I do believe him.
But something has changed between us.
I look out the window. From where I’m sitting, I can’t see anything apart from a clear blue sky.
“Are you finally going to tell me where we are?” I ask when the silence stretches out too long.
“I’m afraid not.” He gives a pained little shrug at my surprised look. “It’s incredibly important to keep this location a secret.”
“I can keep a secret.”
“Yeah.” He blows out his breath in a long sigh. “I’m not sure you can, unfortunately.”
“Why would you think that?” I frown.
“Some of the keepers who got shine-struck after the trial last year appear to be connected to you in ways we don’t understand quite yet. At this point, we’re not sure how close the link is, but we’d rather not take a chance.”
“What link?” A sliver of ice shivers down my spine. “Are you telling me there are people who can… what? Look into my head? Read my thoughts?”
“We’re not sure how much they’re picking up on. But to some extent… Maybe, yes. I’m afraid so.”
“No. No no no. Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Oh, Jess.”
I close my eyes and breathe deeply through my nose, trying to control my heartbeat. “How long has this been going on?”
“Since that night you freed me from the cage.”
“No.”
I stare at the clear blue sky outside the window and try to remember a time when my life was my own. When my body was my own. My future. My thoughts.
Then I look back at Gunn.
Sometimes it’s best not to dwell on everything you’ve lost.
“Why would they follow me here?” I ask.
“Remember what I told you about how hard it was for me to stay away from you while I was still shine-struck? How it was almost physically painful? They still feel that way. My guess is they would move heaven and earth to be near you.”
I rub my temples. “So where have they been till now?”
“Jack Pendragon has been using his bloodmagic to keep them away.”
“But he’s hurt,” I say slowly, thinking this through, “and his illusions can’t confuse them anymore. So now you’re worried that they’ll find me.”
“Yes.”
I lean back in my seat for a while, rub my eyes.
Gunn gives my hand a gentle pat as he gets up. “We should be getting off the plane.”
“I don’t know if I want to.”
“It won’t be so bad. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“I don’t think I can handle any more surprises.”
“This is a good one. Trust me.”
I give one last look at the sunny blue skies outside the window, then stand up reluctantly. “What happened to Ingrid?”
“She got off a little earlier to make sure your surprise is ready and waiting.”
“Now you’re just making me nervous.”
At the exit, I see we’re right slap-bang in the middle of nowhere. The earth is flat and bare for as far as the eye can see, with only the odd shrub here and there to break the monotony of sand and rocks and dust. There are no mountains on the horizon, no trees, no roads, nothing. If it wasn’t for the tiny white single-story house in the distance, we could’ve been on the surface of Mars.
I step out the plane and onto the first step. The sky is clear, the air is warm, the silence is overwhelming. Two people are approaching the airfield. I look closer, squinting in the harsh light. One of them is definitely Ingrid; I recognize her walk. The other person’s walk seems kind of familiar too.
Wait a minute…
My heart stops, then explodes in a burst of joy.
I run down the steps, my feet hardly touching the ground, laughing and yelling and crying all at once.
Daniel looks just the same as always, except taller.
Since the last time I saw him, that night after the trial, he’s grown at least two inches, so that I now have to look up at him for the first time in my life. He also seems more confident, older and less awkward. But his eyes are still as warm and chocolaty as ever, his smile still as wide and crooked.
“Dude!” He opens his arms in welcome and hugs me tight, his wiry arms surprisingly strong.
“Dude!” I hug him back, then pull back a little to look at him, then hug him again. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He motions toward the tiny white house. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
“No way.” I look at the small building standing all alone in the middle of nowhere, like a spaceship forgotten on an alien planet. “Have you been here all this time?”
“Yup.”
I gape at him. “How did you not go crazy?”
“Let’s put aside the sensitive issue of my mental health for the moment, and just say that it’s not so bad out here, once you get used to it.” He laughs at my expression. “No really. The sunsets are spectacular.”
Then he looks past me. “Gunn!”
Daniel lets go of me to give Gunn one of those shoulder clasp/hug things guys give each other when they’re really good friends.
“Good to see you, man.”
“Good to see you too.”
“You’re looking great. Have you been working out?”
Gunn grins. “Rub it in, why don’t you.” And then they both laugh, as if he’s just said something hilarious, before there’s some more manly slapping of shoulders and clasping of hands.
“Okay,” I say, confused. “When did this happen?”
“What?”
I roll my eyes, waving at the two of them. “This.”
“I spent some time here last year,” Gunn says. “Sofia helped me deal with the worst of my shine-sickness.”
Now I’m even more confused. “Who’s Sofia?”
“Really?” Daniel gives me a look. “She’s only my mother, the person you magically cured of a long and debilitating illness and who now basically worships the ground you walk on.”
“Oh, of course. Sorry, I forgot.”
“Man, that’s cold.”
“I forgot her name,” I say, slapping him lightly on the back of his head. “It’s not like we were ever on first-name terms. So are your parents staying here too?”
One eyebrow shoots up again. “Sufficed to say, I’ve enjoyed a lot of family time over the past six months.”
I laugh. “How is your mom? Is she still okay?”
“You’d have to judge that for yourself; she can’t wait to see you.” He puts an arm around my shoulders. “Is it all right if I take her to the house straight away?” he asks Ingrid. “We’ll come back for her stuff a bit later.”
“Unfortunately, there’s nothing to come back for,” Ingrid says. “We had to leave in a hurry. You two kids run ahead; Gunnar and I will follow in a while.”
Daniel gives Ingrid a respectful nod before bumping fists with Gunn. Then he steers me towards the house. “Did you shrink?” he asks me after a few steps. “I could’ve sworn you weren’t always this short.”
I elbow him in the ribs. “Have you always been this annoying?”
“Have you always been this violent?”
“Have you always been an idiot?”
“Nah, that only happened after spending too much time with you.”
He tightens his arm around my shoulder as we grin at each other, our footsteps crunching loudly on the sand beneath our feet.
Chapter 11
The act of Pledging one’
s Allegiance is no doubt the ritual most deeply ingrained in the culture of the Order, as the secrets of each clan’s spells may only be revealed to those who have sworn a pledge of loyalty towards the Order’s highest initiates.
There are even those rare cases where the ritual is more than mere formality, for the power within some of the oldest bloodlines often remains latent until sparked by this ancient ceremonial act.
From A Brief History of The Order of Keepers by Lord Harry Charles Shawcross (1961)
The house turns out to be really big. It only looked small from a distance, compared to the miles and miles of nothingness around it. Vaguely Mexican in style (thick white walls, a red-tiled roof, an enclosed patio, colorful mosaic floors), it sports a big open-plan kitchen leading to a huge dining and lounge area, a study, four bathrooms, and six bedrooms. Inside it is cool and welcoming, a haven from the intense heat outside.
It’s about half an hour later.
We’re sitting at the huge wooden kitchen table, eating pancakes. Gunn has just told Daniel’s mom about my firemagic, and she’s totally freaking out about it, in a good way.
“But that’s extraordinary! Do you realize what this means? The Order has always considered it heresy even to speculate whether lifemagic could exist outside the four prescribed forms. And now this! I’ve always suspected…”
I’m only half-listening to what she’s saying, mostly because I’m so astonished by the change in her. The last time I saw her, she looked frail and gray-haired and kind of shrunken into herself, like the crone in a fairytale. But the woman who’s now getting so worked up about “keeper dogma” and “conspiracies of silence” is dark-haired and bright-eyed and youthful and passionate, and every time she smiles her crooked smile, she reminds me so much of Daniel that I can’t help smiling back.
“…need to start Jess’s training straight away. At the very least, it might give us a fighting chance.”
When I zone in on her words again, I send Gunn a panicked look.
“Actually, we thought we’d postpone her training for a while,” he says quickly. “Jess has been through a lot. She needs time to rest and recover.”
“We thought to postpone her training?” Ingrid asks, her voice sharp.
“Yes,” he says firmly. “We did.”
“I’m sorry to hear you’ve had a tough time.” Daniel’s mom flashes me a quick, sympathetic glance before turning back to Gunn and Ingrid. “But I don’t think you fully understand what we’re up against. The White Lady is far more dangerous than anyone realizes; you’ll need to start her training straight away.”
When she looks at me again all traces of sympathy are gone. “Jess, I’m sorry. There’s no time to lose. If you want to survive beyond the next couple of months, you’ll need all the power you can get. And even that might not be enough.”
I lift my chin, try to stare her down.
I met the White Lady at my trail last year, and she was by far the scariest of the lot: a calculating ice queen whose powerful spells might have killed me, had the Blue Lord not intervened. But I don’t care how dangerous she is—I’m not letting anyone put me through any drills again. I’d rather die.
“What can you tell us about her?” Gunn breaks the tense silence. “Outside the White clan, people know very little about Sonya Orlov, and I’ve never met any Skykeeper willing to say as much as a word about the woman.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m no longer a Skykeeper,” Daniel’s mom says.
“Once a Skykeeper, always a Skykeeper,” Ingrid counters, her voice like steel.
“No. That’s simply not true. Your ward stripped me of my magic and gave me back my life. I am just a woman now, and happy to be one.” She smiles at her husband and son before her face sobers. “Sonya doesn’t see it like that, though. She will not rest before I’m dead.”
“Welcome to my life,” I say.
She smiles dryly. “She wants to kill everyone in this room, actually. But the two of us probably top the list. Sonya quickly realized Daniel helped you during the trial, and because of the pledge I made to her mother, she’s holding me fully responsible for that betrayal.”
“Tell us what we’re up against,” Gunn says. “With all the rumors, I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“Whatever you’ve heard, the reality is worse.” Daniel’s mom gets up and starts clearing empty plates from the table, her face grim. “The Order should never have allowed that family to build up such a power-base in the first place. If Sonya’s actions lead to a full-out war between the clans, they have nobody to blame but themselves. And another war will destroy the Order forever. Of that I have no doubt.”
When she reaches for my plate, I shift it aside. There’s a stack of pancakes left, and I’m still a bit hungry.
“Could the Order have stopped her?” I ask.
“Yes. They had the right to intervene the moment it became clear that the Orlovs were building a dynasty. Keepers don’t believe in hereditary leadership. Our leaders have always been chosen on the strength of their magic alone: the most powerful woman in a clan becomes its lady, the most powerful man becomes its lord, and they’re stripped of their position the moment they’re challenged by someone more powerful.” She raises a shoulder. “Genetics being what it is, it hasn’t been uncommon for a son to follow his father, or a daughter her mother. But five generations in a row? That’s completely unheard of.”
She puts another pancake on my plate, then passes me the maple syrup. “The Orlov women have been leading the White Clan since the early 1900s, and in that time they’ve used their power to gain a stranglehold over all the important Skykeeper families. It’s gotten so bad that when Sonya took over the role of White Lady from her mother four years ago, no one even stepped forward to challenge her.”
“I thought Sonya’s undisputed leadership was based on the unequaled strength of her magic.” Ingrid pulls her lips into a thin, disapproving line.
“That’s exactly what you were supposed to think.” Daniel’s mom starts piling the dirty dishes in the sink. When Daniel gets up to help, filling the sink with water and soap, she turns back to the table. “Look, she’s strong in magic; I’m not denying that. She might even be the most powerful female Skykeeper alive. But we’ll never know, not really, because she obtained her position through intimidation and threats rather than any true test of strength.”
Ingrid sits up straighter. I notice she’s hardly eaten anything.
“I must say I find that hard to believe,” she clips. “The White Clan is simply too powerful: between them, the top ten Skykeeper families must own at least a third of the world’s riches. Nobody could be a threat to that lot, and least of all Sonya Orlov—whose family, if I remember correctly, were completely undistinguished until about a hundred years ago.”
Daniel’s mom shakes her head. “You don’t understand. Over the past century, the Orlovs have used the White clan’s resources to build a stronghold the likes of which the world has never seen.”
She lifts a hand to stop Ingrid arguing. “Yes, I know that family fortresses are not exactly uncommon within the Order—the Deleons have their island; Clara her secret jungle home, the Daras their fortress—but the main aim of the White Palace has never been to protect the Orlov family. In essence, it’s a prison: every prominent Skykeeper family has at least one relative living there, and most of us have long given up on ever seeing them alive again.”
Gunn and I are the only ones still eating. At her words, he puts down his fork. “Are you saying she’s keeping members of her own clan hostage?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“So… what?” I ask, confused. “Is she, like, kidnapping people?”
“Not exactly.” Daniel’s mom settles back at the table. “You see, within the Order, hostageship is an ancient, well-established practice. In the past, it was customary for clan leaders to keep children from other clans hostage to ensure that treaties were kept and financial obligations ho
nored. There was nothing particularly strange or ominous about it.”
She puts her hands together in front of her, fingers linked, and I suddenly remember that she used to be a world-renowned academic. “As a rule, such children were treated very well and returned to their parents as soon as they reached puberty. This system not only kept peace among the powerful but also strengthened the ties between clans, as hostages often maintained close relationships with the families they grew up in.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Are you saying this is normal?”
“No. It’s not. Hostageship is very rare these days, but even if it hadn’t been, what the Orlovs are doing is completely unprecedented. Basically, they’re keeping members of their own clan hostage: they imprison young members of the great families when they come to swear their pledges and then use them to manipulate their relatives.”
“Is that so?” Ingrid doesn’t try to hide her skepticism. “And this is common knowledge among the Skykeepers?”
“It is now. But twenty years ago, when I swore my own pledge, nobody truly believed the Orlovs would dare to be so bold.”
“So you’ve been to the White Palace?” Gunn asks.
She nods. “I was just a kid, really. Nineteen years old. Sonya’s mother, the Countess Orlov, was the White Lady then, and although there were some whispers of imprisonments and forced marriages, I disregarded the rumors. I was hungry for my power, impatient and greedy, and so I petitioned the White Lady, hoping she’d invite me to her palace.”
“You needed an invitation?” Ingrid asks skeptically. “For a pledge?”
Daniel’s mom smiles. “What do you know about the White Palace?”
“The same as everyone. It’s some kind of fortress in Russia—difficult to reach and off-limits to all but the Skykeepers.”
“Well, you’re partly right: it is in Russia and it’s very difficult to reach. But it’s off-limits to everyone, including the Skykeepers.”
Ingrid makes an impatient sound. “Nonsense. Pledged members must have free access to their clan leaders.”
Daniel’s mom gives her another wry smile. “Oh, in principle, all Skykeepers have free access to the White Palace. They’re welcome to enter at any time, and they’re welcome to leave at any time too. There are no guards, no guns and no high walls to lock anyone out—or in, for that matter.”
Fireborn (The Dark Dragon Chronicles Book 2) Page 11