Crowned (34 page)

I blink at him, almost amused. “I’m the least certain person on the planet. I never know what I’m doing!”

“But you do
something
,” he counters. “You step up. Always. Even if you’re scared to death. And when you screw up, you’re not afraid to apologise and make it right. You face up to your demons; most people can’t even admit that they exist! The Puppetmaster had nothing to do with that. He didn’t raise you. He didn’t guide you, and he certainly didn’t make your choices for you. He rolled the dice and hoped for the best, and you turned out to be more than he could have imagined.”

I stare at him, stunned and moved. I feel the prick of tears again, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to cry after that speech. “All of that is just a euphemism for stubbornness.”

“You’re not stubborn, you’re infuriatingly pig-headed,” he says, but his smile takes the sting out of the words. “Sure, the thing with our gifts is nice, but I liked you long before I touched you. I noticed you because in a place where everyone was trying to stand out, you were trying not to. This is what the Puppetmaster doesn’t understand. He’s offering you the one thing you have never wanted, and trying to make you think you have no choice. But there’s always a choice.” He reaches out and takes my hand, interlacing our fingers and holding them up so I can see the sparks. “
This
is out of our control. But I’m not here because of sparks, or fate, or biology. I made a choice. I chose
you
.”

Words buzz in my head, pretty, poetic words that are too fluffy and articulate, clumsy words that ring far truer. None of them can find a way out of my suddenly constricted throat. Instead all I can say is, “But you’re a drifter.” I immediately want to kick myself.

Rakwena rolls his eyes. “I know I’m a drifter. Apparently it makes no difference to how I feel about you. I’ve tried, Connie. You can ask the others. I tried, but it doesn’t work. The damage the serum did is irreversible, and together with the mutation I inherited from my father it means my body doesn’t work like other drifters’.”

I blink. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I can’t conquer.” He lifts his shoulders in a sheepish shrug. “My psychic energy levels don’t dip – they climb, so I have no urge to conquer. The only thing I crave is sugar.”

“But…” My head is reeling from this revelation. “What happens when you try?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. Well, sometimes my energy hurts, like an electric shock. But I don’t absorb anything.” He steps closer, pulling me into his arms once more. “I don’t need to conquer. What I need is you.”

“Rakwena…” I look into his eyes, overcome by emotion. A few minutes ago I was contemplating martyrdom and now it feels as though the world is just beginning. The words come from a place deep in my core, and the terror I felt before dissipates the moment they reach my lips. “I love you.”

His face lights up. Literally – his smile is radiant, his eyes shining, a faint, pale blue light casting a glow on his irises. “I love you, too. And I want to be with you.”

“But your clan…”

“They’ll deal with it,” he says with reckless certainty, and I believe him. “I can’t be without them, but I can’t be without you, either.”

When our lips meet the kiss is fierce, bursting with need and longing, making up for lost time. We cling to each other, standing there in the bush, his arms clasping my waist, my hands locked around his neck. I don’t want it to end. I
never
want it to end. My body tingles, and then fills with fire as his energy intensifies and pours into me.

“I was scared you wouldn’t want me any more,” I murmur. “After finding out what the Puppetmaster did, how he controlled us. Even now, what we’re feeling–”

“Don’t.” His voice is terse now. “This is real. You know it is. It’s real, and it’s all us. I would love you even if you weren’t a telepath.”

“And I’d love you even if you weren’t a drifter. I’m just scared. I don’t know how to fight him.”

“We’ll find a way.” He holds me close, my cheek pressed against his chest.

It’s so warm in his arms, so safe. Nothing can hurt me here, not while his power is creeping under my skin. But…something is happening. I close my eyes and surrender to it, and fall into the strangest premonition I’ve ever had.

The usual symptoms – stiffness, tingling – don’t make an appearance at all. I’m standing in a garden filled with sunlight. I feel beautiful in a way I never have before. I feel strong, solid. I don’t have a blue spark, but I feel the Ultima’s power moving through me, bound to my gift, and now bound to Rakwena’s, too.

Someone is sitting beside me on the grass. It’s my mother, her face exactly as I remember, except for the bright green eyes.

I turn to her. “You’re not really my mother, are you?”

“No. I’m not really anything.”

“John thinks you can only be embodied by a gifted.”

“I can be embodied by anyone with enough courage to accept me.”

“I don’t have enough courage.”

“You have more than you know. You’ve let your fear blind you.”

“Fear keeps you safe.”

“Yes. But you don’t need to be safe. You need to be strong.”

The premonition fades. I linger in Rakwena’s arms. What was I so afraid of? In this moment I feel that there is nothing I can’t do, no trauma too much to bear, no opponent to powerful to defeat. I had to earn my crown. But not the gilded one the Puppetmaster crafted for me from an ancient legend – the one I crafted for myself, from all the slippery steps I’ve taken, all the stupid things I’ve done and all the stupid things I’m yet to do. My gift may have matured when I was sixteen, but it hasn’t been mine, not really. Until now.

My body is singing with it, vibrating on that mysterious frequency that the gifted are so in tune with, and I feel…how can I explain it? As though everything that ever has been and ever will be exists in this moment, right now. Everything makes perfect sense.

The Ultima isn’t going to save us. Her mission is to restore the balance of energy. She’s just a force, energy given form for a short time in order to carry out a specific task. She has unimaginable power, but she’s not in control of my life. I am. And I have a plan.

I pull back and smile into Rakwena’s face. Was he always this beautiful?

His eyes widen. He can sense it, this change in me. His eyes lock on mine. “You’ve thought of something.”

I nod.

“What is it?”

“A Trojan.”

He frowns. “Like the horse?”

I nod. My hands slide down to his chest. “Let me into your head. He might be listening.”

His barrier comes down and I slip inside and tell him my idea. He leans back to stare at me with disbelief and awe. “Do you know how to do that? Because I don’t.”

“Neither do I.”

He blinks. “Uh, that sounds like a pretty big obstacle.”

“Don’t worry. We’re going to learn.”

Chapter Fourteen

I’ve arranged to meet my friends and the drifters at four p.m. Although I have a plan, it’s still in the formative stages.

I call Ntatemogolo several times without success. I’ve just decided to go down to his house when he returns my call.

“Is something wrong?” he asks by way of greeting.

“No, Ntatemogolo. I have an idea and I’m going to need your help. Can you come over at four?”

He’s quiet for some time. “What kind of idea? Don’t tell me you plan to try to stop the Loosening on your own.”

“Not on my own. With Rakwena and the Ultima. I know you don’t believe in her,” I add, before he has time to protest. “But I think this could be my chance to finally destroy the Puppetmaster. Even if I’m wrong about the Ultima, getting rid of the Puppetmaster is the only way to save everyone. We can at least agree on that, can’t we?”

He sighs. “I can’t argue with that, but I don’t want you running off to do something careless.”

“I don’t want to be careless. I want to do this properly. That’s why I called you.” I let that sink in, knowing how important it is to him that I respect his opinion. I’d never do something this important without speaking to him first. He doesn’t know that. Like everyone else he thinks I jump in head first and worry about the consequences later. Sometimes that’s true. But this isn’t some little mystery that affects a couple of people I happen to know. The stakes are high. If I screw this up the entire gifted world will be affected, and possibly the ungifted world, too.

He exhales, and I hear the resignation in his voice. “Four, you said? I will be there.”

“Thank you, Ntatemogolo. See you soon.”

The nerves start to kick in as the day passes. I’ve thought about the magnitude of my mission, but not in depth. I’ve just touched on it and then busied my mind with practicalities, because it’s too much to take. It’s too much for anyone, let alone a teenager who rarely gets things right.

But now, as the minutes tick by and I come closer and closer to my fate, I can’t not think about the burden that has been placed on my shoulders. I’ve fought the Ultima, pushed her aside, denied her. I did all that to protect myself, my sanity, but every second I wasted was a second I could have used to help the people trapped in the Loosening.

I’m slow to trust. I always have been, which is why for most of my life there were only two people I felt comfortable enough with to call my friends. I met plenty of perfectly nice people, but the idea of going through the trouble of opening up to them and possibly sharing my secret put me off.

Then Rakwena sauntered into my life with his cocky attitude and his blue sparks, and nothing has been the same since. I’m not the same. I was changing even before the Ultima. I was growing up. I wanted my life to mean something. I wanted to find a way to use my gift to make a difference, and I got exactly what I asked for, in spades. I don’t know why she picked me, but I have to give this my best shot.

An hour before the meeting I use my bell. The first ring fills my head with its resonance, making me breathe slower and deeper. I ring it twice more, as always. Was it the Puppetmaster who said three was the magic number? He’s a nutcase, but he knows his stuff.

I set the bell down and keep my eyes closed. I take my time, letting the now coherent thoughts return, filed in the correct order. I know what I have to do. I pick up the puzzle box and examine it. I have no intention of opening it yet, though I know I could. I need time. I no longer feeling the pain of the Ultima’s bonding process, but I know we’re not one entity. Not yet.

I sit on the edge of my bed, waiting. I know he’ll come. He’s growing desperate. The Loosening is still running, greedy as ever. It’s mere minutes before I sense him.

You’re trying my patience, Princess.

Hello, John.

Open the puzzle box.

I can’t.

You’re not even trying! The Loosening is growing more unstable every day.

I know.

I sense his anger, a needle twisting in my head, making me wince.
I can’t believe that you would allow people to lose their gifts this way. You alone can save them, and yet you choose not to. That’s not the Conyza I know.

Which Conyza do you know? The one who does what she’s told, even when the instructions are so subtle she doesn’t recognise them for what they are?

He sighs impatiently.
You are angry now, but in time you’ll see how I’ve helped you.

I shake my head slowly. I’ve been an idiot. The integrity that was supposed to help me defeat him was almost my undoing. It made me empathise with him, and while I was busy playing shrink, he was scheming and plotting more than ever. I can’t reason with him. There is nothing I will ever be able to say or do to change him, and it’s not my job to try. My job is to use every weapon at my disposal to rid the world of John Kubega.

Normally I find your stubbornness endearing, but there is no time. Open the puzzle box and save the world. What are you afraid of? You know the Ultima is good. Giving in to her power will only help others, and you. She’s not like me. She is selfless.

He coaxes. He cajoles. He uses cold, hard reason. He tries in countless ways to seduce me, but I am finally immune. I know if I allow the Ultima her full power, he will wait for her to break the Loosening and then throw her in a cage. I don’t know how he’ll do it, but I know he will. He’s too anxious. He’s certain of his plan, and he wouldn’t be certain if it weren’t foolproof. But he’s not the only one with a plan.

Let me tell you how this is going to play out, John.
I get slowly to my feet.
I am going to destroy you. I’m going to obliterate every trace of the person you have so carefully created over almost two hundred years. Go ahead, keep pushing me. Just know that when I reach that peak, I will decimate you.

I feel his smile like a slice of blinding light behind my eyes – too sharp. Lethal. My threat hasn’t frightened him. It has excited him, as I knew it would.

I look forward to watching you try.
He withdraws with a faint chuckle.

He doesn’t believe I can beat him. He’s thrilled to see the determination in me because it will make me a stronger vessel for his twisted fantasy, but he doesn’t believe for a moment that I can overturn his plan.

Wiki was right. This is a foe no prison can hold. When it comes down to that final moment, one way or another, I am going to have to kill the Puppetmaster.

* * *

My friends and the drifters are all on time, even Lebz. The ungifted bunch sit huddled on the sofa. The drifters sit around the dining table. Duma is here as well. He looks a little the worse for wear. Like the other abductees he can’t remember a thing, but his smile is as bright as ever. Ntatemogolo stands apart, looking every inch the strict teacher before his terrified students. His eyes are narrowed and his arms are crossed over his chest. He doesn’t think anything I say will convince him that I know what I’m doing, but I plan to change his mind.

“Thanks for coming,” I tell them. “First I want to apologise to all of you for the trouble I’ve caused by dragging you into my battle, but once again I have to ask for your help. I’ve found a way to fight the Puppetmaster, and I can’t do it alone.” My gaze meets Rakwena’s and his lips curl in a conspiratorial smile.