Lives of Magic (Seven Wanderers Trilogy) (30 page)

“W
hat is this place?” I asked in the darkness.

Kian fumbled around the small room, trying to find the batteries he had put in his pants pocket for the lantern. We were underground and there was no natural light source. I strained my eyes, squinting into the black, but could still see nothing. I sighed, regretting my inability to even create a light with my magic.

“A storage locker,” Kian answered distractedly. “I believe the owners of the house were afraid of having their valuables destroyed while England was bombed during the war and stored them here just in case.” He struggled with the lantern. I heard plastic clicking and Kian huffed in annoyance.

“What do you think happened to the owners?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” he answered.

I hugged my knees to my chest as the cold set in. I yawned, the darkness threatening to lull me back to sleep.

Kian’s watch alarm clock had gone off, startling me into wakefulness. I hadn’t asked him what time it was, hoping to delay our departure from the small underground safe haven.

Light erupted suddenly and I shielded my eyes. Kian held the lantern and peered at me, smiling. I winced at the brightness as up my stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten in a long time.

“Let’s get out of here,” Kian said, standing. I hesitated.

I was still mostly naked and there had been a storm. Three magicians were still out there, and they wanted to enslave my magic and me. I couldn’t help but voice a concern that had bothered me since the previous night, though I was afraid of the answer.

“Why didn’t you kill them?” I asked.

Kian sighed and kneeled next to me. “You weren’t listening to what they said, were you?” he asked as if he was quizzing me on one of the self-defence moves. I shrugged.

“My mind was on other things,” I said. Immediately, he shied away and I regretted my sarcasm. Guilt played across his face until I squeezed his hand.

“Even if I had the strength to do that,” he said, “the magic that sent your soul forward has put you into a cycle, a wheel that will keep sending your soul forward until your task is complete,” he said. “If I or any of you kill them, we would lose them all over again and would have no way to find them until you felt their magic growing, just like they felt yours. It’s why they didn’t want to kill you.”

My head spun with implications.

“Wait,” I said slowly. My mind worked to weave the threads of knowledge and make a whole. “What task?”

Kian looked around the room as if searching for words. “The task is the reason you work the magic in the first place. Their task was to conquer. Your task is to stop them.” He smiled at me. “Call it a destiny.”

“But their magic is …” I shuddered. “Too much for me. I didn’t even feel it invade my mind.” The terrifying memories encircled me, threatening to break free and destroy my resolve to keep going.

His smile turned into a grimace. “Then perhaps you need the element of surprise, like I had last night. Their magic can affect me. But they had no need of it. They were convinced I would do exactly as they ordered. The only thing I had in my favour was the element of surprise. Next time will be different.” He looked at the floor and bit his lip. “I’ve become a liability for you.”

“But —” I opened my mouth to protest, but Kian turned his back and began climbing the metal rungs. His logic was not going in a direction I liked, and I made a mental note to bring this up again as soon as possible.

Kian threw open the hatch and I gasped as an even deeper chill hit me from the first cellar. It was cold before, but it grew colder as we climbed up. Kian extended a hand and helped me out of the tunnel. I itched to sit and hide, not knowing if the magicians were still here. Kian saw my unease.

“They’ve gone,” he said. “They would have checked the house and moved on. Without your magic, you’re lost to them. That’s why they needed me.”

Right. When everything settled, there would be time for thought. For now, I needed to concentrate on escaping, so I logged his comment away in my quickly expanding file of things to reflect on.

He left me by the open door he had smashed the night before and told me to wait. I spent several minutes, which felt more like hours, huddling into the frame of the side door, shivering. My heart beat wildly as I strained to listen for signs of Kian’s return. Finally, when I heard him approaching, I ducked without thinking in case he was someone else. When I saw him re-enter, I straightened and shook off the fear.

Kian had brought me a woman’s dress that looked to be from the Victorian period. It was a light mauve colour and had a high collar, with double-breasted buttons up the front. Some brown boots and a brown cloak were also included in the bundle he thrust at me.

“There is a display upstairs,” he explained.

I put on the clothes and immediately felt better. I was still cold but being clothed felt like being protected. I hadn’t had the luxury since Kian had stripped me in front of the fire the night before. I ached for a shower to wash the last remnants of blue clay from my skin. My stomach growled again. And food. I needed food.

When I was as bundled up as best as could be, we ventured out into the snow. Every few steps I glanced behind me convinced someone was on our trail. He saw me looking.

“Their magic is powerful, but it has limitations. They found you through your power,” he said. “Imagine your magic like a window. Only you have control of the glass, but you can see out and others can see in. While your window is open, you can do more. See more. The magicians can feel you and find you. But close the curtains and you are lost to them.”

Luckily, the day was calm and the wind only stirred up a light dusting of snow around our feet. As I shivered, I thought about his analogy. What if I covered the window for good? The thought was tempting, but I knew that I would not be able to. I had seen too much, and as much as I hated to admit it, my magic had become a part of me.

The sun was high above us, though I had no idea what time it was. Exhaustion set in as the hunger made my head ache. My heavy limbs stung with cuts and bruises I did not remember receiving. We walked for an hour, cresting a hill and walking down through the snow to a two-lane road. My feet were soaked.

Pulled over on the side of the road was an old farmer’s truck. It was painted a faded red, and its round features gave it an antiquated look. Snow covered most of its surfaces.

Though Kian only wore a shirt, he brushed the snow off the windshield and windows with an arm, opening the door for me with a silver key he produced from his pocket. I wondered at the surprises and planning he had done. He climbed in and turned the key in the ignition.

For a heart-wrenching moment, I worried the truck would not start. It made several noises of protest before the engine roared to life. I sighed in relief, realizing I had been holding my breath. Kian turned a dial and cold air blew from the dashboard. I was about to protest, but after a few minutes hot air replaced the cold and I settled into my seat, letting my limbs relax. Kian pressed his hands against the vents and I noticed his lips were blue.

When we had let the truck warm up, he pulled out onto the road. I didn’t know where we were going and was too tired to care. The warm air pulled at me and I felt lost at sea, with Kian as the captain. I didn’t know the time of day, our location, or our destination, but my trust allowed me to drift off and I settled to lie down across the cabin, my head resting on his thigh.

Memories tugged at me but I pushed them away.

Not now,
I complained,
I’m too tired.

I felt my mind release and was asleep.

The scene around me changed as bright colours flowed down grey stone walls. I stood immobile in a small room with no roof. A stone box. At once, I knew this to be a dream and not my memory. Blues, reds, yellows, and greens took turns running down the walls around me and disappearing into the cracks in the floor as if rainbow waterfalls had overflowed. Kian stood before me.

“Pay attention,” he said, pointing to the wall.

The colours turned to tapestries that ran in the same colourful cycle.

“Your story repeats, different but the same. Like me.” He pointed to himself and sank into the ground.

“No!” I cried, lunging for him. He was gone. I sank to my knees as sorrow took over. Suddenly, a young boy stood in front of me.

“Don’t cry,” he said.

He smiled, and his two front teeth were missing. It was the same boy who had given me the flower in my memory. The one who had stood next to the king.

“You’re going to miss it,” he told me, concern wrinkling his young features. A strong jaw and long nose would make him handsome, but his round, youthful cheeks suggested playfulness. Kian stood before me once more.

“Pay attention,” he said again. As I reached for him he turned into Seth. Then Seth turned into the older version I had seen in the past. The older man with a beard looked at me lovingly, but a hint of worry was in his hazel eyes. He shrank into the small boy and Kian’s brown eyes looked back at me. The boy turned into the Seth I knew.

“You’re going to miss it,” he said to me with the young boy’s voice. Then Kian stood before me.

And so the pattern went. It was eerie but I sat and watched, letting the dream run its course.

I awoke with a start. Kian took his eyes off the road and glanced at me.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. We were still driving and the sun shone brightly over the snow. Hours or minutes could have passed.

I eyed him curiously, piecing together my suspicion as the dream vividly replayed in my mind.

“You were young when we died,” I said. It was not a question. Kian’s features dropped and he stared at the road, expressionless. “You were just a small boy. That’s why you couldn’t recognize us as teenagers. You never saw us like that!”

He nodded stiffly, his actions looking like he required much strength to do it.

“You were a prince,” I continued, remembering everything he had said about the king and his father. “Seth must have been …” I thought about it. “Your brother!”

Kian flinched. I remembered the concern on his face. His behaviour appeared to me in a new light since New York. He was trying to protect his brother. The memories and dreams had tried to tell me a story, but I was too preoccupied to notice. Though fatigued, I felt the threads pulling together and becoming a single piece like the kind that had run down the walls in my dream.

We sat quietly for long moments, but I waited. This was his story to tell. Finally, as we drove down another snowy, impossibly narrow road, Kian began to speak.

“Even when I was young, you were beautiful and for me you were like light. My brother was married. As were you. I still cannot understand why you think you were together. The love you’ve shown for him made me jealous.”

A lump formed in my throat. This was the part I didn’t want to hear.

“When the king, my father, ordered his warriors to sacrifice themselves, the decision did not come lightly. It would mean sacrificing his son and daughter-in-law.”

My mind drifted to Moira.

“Seth was late. The elders thought he had abandoned our tribe, but he came in the end and the ritual began. Everyone thought you had run away. You ran in just in time, and then you were all gone.” Kian’s eyes shone and I reached for his hand, though it gripped the wheel with white knuckles. A scab was beginning to form where he had cut himself with the knife.

“We buried you,” Kian continued and the lump in my throat grew. “My father surrendered to the Romans and they let him keep the tribe together to prevent a war.” He paused as his voice began to shake and took deep breaths to steady himself. “Life was not good, but it was bearable. Our tribe began to plot with others in the north, and we would defeat the Romans. Every year they were beaten back.” He took a deep breath again. “When I saw seventeen, I was going to lead our tribe’s rebellion against the Romans. My father was sick. He was dying.” One tear spilled over and he wiped it away quickly with his hand.