Beloved (15 page)

“I don’t understand.”

Brenna reached for it and ran a finger across the silver strand. “What is it?”

Blayde appeared on her other side and put his face so close to her wrist he nearly touched it with his nose. “Is that a charm?”

Kira took her hand back and rubbed the welt briskly. The little red marks were now silver, as if the metal had seeped into her skin and become a part of her. “Yeah, Octavion gave it to me. It binds me with his sister and is how I can heal.”

Brenna motioned for Kira to bring it back into her view, then touched it with her fingertips. “It is very strange. Has it always been a part of your skin like this?”

“No, that’s new.”

Nigel raised his fist to the air and flexed his arm muscle, then pointed to the Crystor.

“What is he saying,” Brenna asked Kira.

“The Crystor also gives me strength . . . and a few other gifts.” She wasn’t sure how much to reveal. When she’d first arrived he’d wanted her to tell Brenna everything and she hadn’t, but now Kira had grown to know and love the people here. She felt she could trust them with her secrets. She glanced around the clearing, noticing for the first time that everyone had slowly crept closer. They were still a few feet away, but close enough they could see what they were talking about and hear her voice.

She held her arm up so everyone could see the Crystor clearly. “This gives me the ability to heal and it makes me stronger. It also enhances my senses. When I focus on its powers I can see in the dark and force an electric charge through my fingertips. It’s how I shocked Blayde the day I arrived.”

Everyone’s eyes were wide with wonder, but they didn’t come closer. They whispered a few words here and there, then Jaya piped up. “What does . . . ‘elec-tric charge’ mean?” Several of the others nodded, also curious. Of course they wouldn’t know what that was. Electricity hadn’t been invented in their world. Instead they had magic.

Blayde answered for her. “It feels like a small bolt of lightning—makes my skin tingle all over and my muscles to spasm.” They seemed to be content with his answer.

Nigel waved everyone away, sending them all to continue with what they were doing before she became the village spectacle. He pointed to the swing and then the Crystor.

“I get it,” Kira said. “You want me to focus more and call on the powers this thing gives me, right?”

He exhaled a sigh of relief and his shoulders seemed to relax a little. She’d finally gotten what he’d tried so desperately to communicate to them. It was what he’d been trying to teach her all along, that she was a strong independent woman who could protect herself and win when faced with adversity. And there was more, something that shone in his eyes. He believed in her and knew she could do anything if she put her mind to it.

In that moment she realized she’d been holding back her whole life—always the mouse, never the aggressor. How many times had she cowered when confronted by someone she thought wanted to hurt her? Her mom’s boyfriends. Shandira. Zerek. Draego. All of them wanted to beat her down and to a certain extent, she’d let them by not fighting back with everything she had.

“Stand back,” Kira said as she climbed back onto the swing and adjusted her footing. She could do this.

Kira closed her eyes and took in her surroundings. The scuff of footsteps as her friends backed slowly away. The woodsy scent of the forest punctuated by leather, fresh fruit from Blayde’s bounty, and hot metal—she’d smelled that the first day she’d met Blayde. She opened her eyes and found Blayde watching her intently. Where had he been?

Focus, Kira
. She chastised herself and closed her eyes again. This time she turned her focus within. The flow of Octavion’s blood pulsing through her veins, her eyes as they grew colder and colder, and the burn of the Crystor as she drew on its powers. She felt the Crystor explore every cell of her body, mind and spirit. She’d never felt so connected to it, like it was melting into her pores and becoming a part of her.

The bow grasped firmly in one hand, arrow notched, she let go of the rope with the other hand and began a steady rhythmic sway. Back and forth. Back and forth, until she was no longer aware of anything except herself, the chunk of wood beneath her feet and the wind as it rushed by. When she opened her eyes, she could see the target with exquisite clarity. She timed the upswing perfectly, drew back her bow and released the arrow. She heard it slice the air as it sailed toward the scrap of red fabric hanging on a branch across the clearing, hitting it dead on.

Everyone cheered, including the few who’d lingered just beyond the trees. Her dismount was far less graceful than Blayde’s, and she almost got nailed by the swing as it made its way back, twisting and turning from her dismount.

“You did it!” Jaya yelled, her feet pounding the dirt as she jumped up and down with excitement. It took all of Kira’s strength not to join her.

Nigel grabbed the swing to stop it from bouncing around while Blayde clapped with a slow, over exaggerated staccato, making it sound even louder than it was.

“Well, done,” he said.

Kira threw her bow over her shoulder, but didn’t say anything at first. The adrenaline surging through her body felt like someone had turned up the heat on a pressure cooker and shooting the arrow did nothing to release it. She needed to get it out and didn’t want to turn loose on anyone there.

“Thanks,” she finally said through clenched teeth.

A mischievous grin crept across Blayde’s face. “Perhaps we should use some of that attitude to your benefit. Another lesson would suffice.”

“Or I could just wipe that smirk off your face and call it a day.” Kira reached for him and he swatted her hand away.

Brenna laughed. “That would be my cue to leave. You two have fun.” She wrapped her arm around Jaya and they both disappeared, while Nigel walked to the edge of the clearing and found a stump to sit on. He motioned for them to continue.

Kira tossed her bow and quiver of arrows at Nigel’s feet and rolled up her sleeves. Blayde pulled his shirt over his head, twisted it into a ball before throwing it at Nigel, who blocked it and let it fall to the ground.

In the past few days, they’d limited their lessons to a small area in the clearing, Blayde showing Kira a technique, then her practicing it with varying degrees of success. This time there were no limits. She wasn’t sure if it was Blayde’s new knowledge of the Crystor’s powers and her ability to heal herself if injured, or if he finally believed she had actual fighting skills, but he didn’t seem to hold back, not even when she stumbled back and cut her arm on a jagged rock.

The wound healed instantly and their battle continued without pause. At one point they even took to the trees and, once again pulling from the powers of the Crystor, Kira surprised herself by scurrying up one of the vines using only the strength in her arms to pull her up. She thought about how Lydia would be proud and how she wished the whole gym class could see her now and cheer her on.

When they reached the creek, Blayde grabbed a long twig the size of a broomstick and began using it as a weapon, first lightly tapping her on the side of her head and then hitting a little harder on her legs and arms.

“Stop that!” She knew he was just doing it to irritate her, so the next time he tried to hit her, she grabbed it and pulled him toward the water. He let go, but not in time to avoid falling head first into the creek.

She crouched by the edge of the water and let the tiniest of her powers flow through her fingertips and into the water. The surface glowed for a split second, and so did Blayde, making his body go ridged.

“Ouch!” he yelled. “That is cheating.”

“So was the stick.” Kira stretched her hand toward the water again. “Concede.”

He put his hands in the air as if surrendering. “I would concede to anything to avoid being hit by that again.” He waded onto the bank and shook the water out of his dark hair, making it flop over his eyes like a sheepdog. He brushed it back off his forehead.

Kira stood, getting another whiff of hot metal as he brushed past her. “Maybe you should have stayed in the water a little longer. You stink.”

Blayde spun around, confused. “I do not.”

“Yes, you do. I smelled it the first day I met you and again today. Where did you go?”

He sat on a fallen log, took off one of his boots and poured out the water. “My father is a blacksmith. I go there occasionally to help him. He is getting older and the larger projects are difficult for him.”

“Your father? Why do you live here in Lairdor if you have a father out there you can stay with?” She was under the impression that everyone here had no one else to turn to. Misfits, as Jaya had said.

Blayde sighed deeply. “We come here because someone close to us becomes a Darkord and we do not want to lose them or force them to live alone. My mother . . . she was unfaithful.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure what else to say, except the thought did occur to her that she’d never met his mother. So where was she? “And now?”

He emptied the other boot and, with quite a lot of effort, managed to pull them back on. “She passed away a few years back. By then I had grown to love this life, living in the forest and helping the Darkords who chose to remain good. Brenna wanted to return to live with father, but Jaya knew no other life and begged her to stay with Nigel. They have always had a close connection.”

“And Nigel? What’s his story?”

“He came here with his brother, Zerek.” He looked up at her, hesitation in his eyes. “I am sorry for the things he did to you.”

“You know about that? But I thought Nigel had lost his ability to share his thoughts. How—”

“Not when he first returned from your world. He came here, told us what happened and that he felt responsible. He was heartbroken that his own flesh and blood could do something like that and have no remorse. He vowed to make up for it, to protect you.”

“So everyone here knows what happened, that Zerek is dead?”

“Yes.”

Kira’s stomach lurched. She moved closer and sat next to him on the log. “I thought they would hate me if they knew.”

Blayde adjusted his position so he faced her. “We all knew Zerek was different. The reason Nigel brought him here was to show him he could change his ways and live a happy, productive life, but he was always getting into trouble and, to be honest, everyone here was fed up with him and wanted him to leave. They knew it was just a matter of time before he turned on someone and took a life or gave away our location.”

“If he was so bad, why did Nigel bring him to my world?” It was something she’d always wondered about—how two brothers could be so different and if Nigel was so good, why he let Zerek talk him into joining up with Shandira.

Blayde shook his head. “I wish I had an answer for you, Kira. All I know is that Nigel has the kindest heart I have ever seen in a man. As big and strong as he is, he would die for any of us. I think where Zerek is concerned, he simply refused to give up on him.”

Kira thought back to when Nigel had fought Zerek to protect her. He’d stabbed him and had been prepared to kill him to save her. She knew at the time it must have been hard for him to do, but now the gravity of his sacrifice was beyond compare. And the fact that he’d done that for her, a stranger, made little sense to her. Maybe it was like Blayde has said earlier, that Nigel was just trying to make up for the damage Zerek had done.

Kira slid her hand into her pocket and fingered the ruby tucked inside. It was something she did often without thinking. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Of course.”

“Is Nigel mute or can he speak?”

He looked over his shoulder, searching the forest before turning back to face her. He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “He would be angry if I told you, but I think it is only fair that you know his circumstances. After all, he has encouraged you to tell us everything, right?” He winked.

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

Blayde stood and began pacing, still keeping his voice low and soft. “When he was very young—in his sixteenth year I believe—he fell in love with a girl, Siri. They wanted to be bound, but while her mother agreed it would be a wonderful union, her father did not. The mother lied to her husband and told him she wanted to visit her sister in nearby Finvarra and take Siri with her. Since they were commoners, he had to make arrangements for them to travel by carriage, so he did and gave them his blessing.”

“What he did not know was that they planned to meet Nigel and be bound before the Elders of Lor, sealing them together forever. The union was beautiful and they made a home not far from here, near the fishing village of Orrin.”

Kira recognized the name. “Nigel took me there the day before we came here.”

“He still has friends there who help him. They understand how he became a Darkord and feel as we all do, that it is unjust.”

“How did it happen? And how did he lose his voice?”

Blayde returned to sit next to Kira. “It wasn’t long before Siri announced she was with child. I have never seen Nigel so happy, but by that time her father had discovered their deceit and was furious. He had his wife’s tongue cut out for lying to him, then set out to find his daughter. It was a new moon and Nigel was hunting, which left Siri alone. Her father took her by force and hid her away in the mountains so Nigel could not find her.”

“That’s horrible.”

“It gets worse. After a few months, her father sent word to Nigel that she had died during childbirth and so had the child. He was devastated, as you can imagine.”

“And his voice?”

He smiled. “You are impatient.”

“Well, stop stalling.”

“I thought you wanted to know the whole story.”

“I do. Keep going.”

He shook his head. “Do you want to know about the curse? How it works and how a Royal becomes a Darkord?”

“I already know it’s because they are unfaithful.”

“That is part of it, but not all. For the most part a Royal is bound to one person forever. Even if their spouse dies at the hands of another, they are not able to be with someone else. I think when the king of Panthera originally created the curse, he feared the princes who were bound to his daughters would have them killed so they could marry whomever they wanted. I know some of their descendants tried to get around the curse by doing that, but it did not work.