Origin Exposed: Descended of Dragons, Book 2 (9 page)

“
S
tella
, girl, stop gnawing your cuticles. It’ll be all right. We’ll figure this out.”

Timbra eyes were filled with empathy as she watched me fidget in my chair during our Wednesday morning Intro to Craft class. For once the stand-in professor, Dean Miles, was the least of my concerns. She never missed an opportunity to humiliate me or make me feel inadequate in some way. Honestly, I would’ve welcomed the distraction.

My smile at Timbra’s ever-forward way of navigating life was weak, but that wasn’t her fault. I was feeling significantly less positive about the situation.

“I just don’t know what to do next,” I said.

“Too bad you can’t divine some kind of plan or see the future through a spell or something,” she mused.

“Timbra, that’s it!” I yelped.

“What’s it?” She blinked her over-long eyelashes.

“Obviously, I need help. And this place is crawling with clairvoyants, oracles, and seers of all kinds. I don’t know what to do, but surely someone could help me see the right path. Right?”

“Sure, I guess. Who do you think could help?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I’m new here. Don’t you know anyone?”

“I’m afraid my family’s not very magical. We excel more in the political arena. But I did hear our Elements professor saying she dabbled in pyro-osteomancy.”

“Pyro-what?”

“It’s a kind of divination that uses bones heated over a fire until they crack. Then someone reads the cracks to foretell the future.”

“What kind of bones?” I yelped.
Ew.

“I dunno. Surely animal. I don’t think it has to be the pinkie toe of a virgin or anything.”

“Wait a minute,” I said slowly. “Layla. Layla once said her mother is a clairvoyant. A good one.”

“
Miss Ston-ewall
?” rang a sarcastically-pert sing-song voice.

Dean Miles. Perfect
. “Yes?” I squeaked.

“I was just discussing how modern perceptions of witchcraft in other cultures are a convergence of science, superstition, and history. But you know that, of course, because you were listening so intently.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Tell me, Miss Stonewall, your particular thoughts on that image we’re all so familiar with of a cone-hatted witch riding a broom across a moonlit night. I’m sure your perspective is one we’d all love to hear.”

I knew she was being sarcastic, that she was taunting me, but what were my options at that point?

“Ah…okay.” I cleared my throat. “Well, as early as the 1300s there’s evidence that people who practiced witchcraft made compounds—hallucinogenic compounds—from plants like nightshade, henbane, mandrake.

“And a natural progression of drug use has pretty much always been to discover how to get higher faster. These people discovered their compounds could be absorbed through sweat glands like the armpit or mucus membranes like…well, farther south.

“Of course the primary benefit of these alternate routes was they bypassed the metabolizing function of the liver.” I paused to aide my dry mouth with a swallow. The subject matter had made me uncomfortable. “Ah, so, they bypassed the liver and stayed higher longer. Not to mention avoiding a righteous stomachache.

“Anyway,” I said, growing ever more agitated as I went on, “it’s documented that the compounds were applied with the end of a broomstick.” The room was dead silent, and the sound of my throat clearing was like a trumpet blast. “Ah, you get the point. And as for the flying…well…yeah. Middle-Aged version of an acid trip.”

My classmates, who until then had sat in stunned disbelief, or morbid curiosity—maybe both—erupted in raucous laughter. I shrugged and swung an arm behind me before taking a little bow.

“Enough for today,” Dean Miles clipped out. A wicked grin pushed her mouth toward her cruel eyes. Despite the applause, she was distinctly pleased she’d forced me to publicly discuss broomsticks stuck in hairy places.

T
imbra shook
her head in astonishment as we made our way across campus. “How could you possibly know that?”

“About the hallucinogens and the brooms, you mean?”

“Of course that’s what I mean! Is it true?”

“I don’t know if it’s true or not. But I read about it in my extracurricular studies. Makes sense, though.”

“Phew,” she said and splayed fingers in front of her face. “Mind blown.”

L
ayla’s family lived in
…well, a tree house. She traced Timbra and I to her family home after our morning classes. She was certain her mother wouldn’t mind helping me, though she warned me she never worked for free. I didn’t have a lot of money since I was living on a stipend, but I took what little cash I had. I hoped it would be enough.

The suspended wood cabin lay hidden deep in the forest among ancient trees. The tree that served as the foundation for Layla’s home was the largest I’d ever seen. As we approached, it loomed bigger and bigger, its massive branches extending into the surrounding canopy and disappearing altogether.

The house itself was composed of smaller, rough logs, but featured modern windows and architecture. I spotted solar panels atop the slanted metal roof. What I didn’t see was a logical way to the front door.

“How do we get in?” I asked Layla.

“By invitation only,” she smirked.

“What does that mean?” Timbra’s head tilted in question before it was jerked back by the force of motion. There was only a moment to consider what had caused her sudden jolt before I, too, began moving. And not of my own will.

When tracing, the sensation is akin to being exposed to a dark room full of dry ice. This was similar, but not the same. We were pulled through a cold, windy corridor, and I could do nothing to stop it. I tried to fight the forceful pull, first physically and then mentally, but I was powerless against it. Layla’s dim words drifted toward me, “Don’t freak. It’s my mom. Just go with it.”

Right.

In the end, I might as well have just gone with it, because there was no stopping Valdete Avenatio. We were vacuumed from the forest floor right into the family room of the tree house, where a woman with deep black hair stood with her hands on her hips.

Layla ran and caught her up in a tight hug. “Mom, hi, I’ve missed you,” she gushed and placed a soft kiss high up on her mother’s cheek. Layla was maybe the least-affectionate friend I’d made since coming to Thayer, so the sweet gestures took me by surprise. Layla often said she “wasn’t cut out to deal with people,” and generally lived up to the self-assessment. But to her mom she was adorably affectionate. “These are my friends from The Root, Stella Stonewall and Timbra Redfern.”

“Ms. Redfern.” Mrs. Avenatio’s coiled hair bounced along her shoulders as she acknowledged Timbra. “I know your father from council meetings, of course,” she said.

Her face crinkled in a somewhat remorseful look. “I’m sorry about the rough landing. Only way in or out of this place, though—by my invitation.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Timbra said. “No problem. I’m pleased to meet you, and thank you for welcoming us into your lovely home.”

“Oh, don’t ma’am me, for goodness sake. Call me Val. Please.”

“Yes, ma’am—Val,” said Timbra.

Val cut her eyes in my direction and the nearly-black orbs searched my face as her head tilted from side to side. It was a very avian thing to do.

“You I don’t know, though. Who are your parents, girl?”

“Ah, well, that’s why we’re here, Mom. Stella was raised on the other side—America, actually. Her mother is missing and her father until recently was unknown. Now she’s learned that her father was an omni named Gabrio Shaw.”

“Gabrio Shaw, you said?” Val’s face was inscrutable.

“Yes,” I cut in. “Do you—did you know him?”

“I did meet him, yes. A long time ago. A fine man. Brave, strong. A bit foolhardy, but he was young. We all were. Who’s your mother, then?”

“Elena Stonewall. She raised me alone. After my father was killed, I suppose.”

“I don’t know that name.” She focused her beady eyes on me like a robin sighting a grub worm. “What can I help you with?”

Right to the point. Okay.
“Well, you may have put together that if my father was Gabrio Shaw, then my uncle, of course, is Gaspare Shaw. I’m here because I don’t know him, and I’ve suffered some fairly tough betrayals recently. I don’t know who to trust or what to do. Is Gaspare a nice guy or some evil dictator from whom I should stay far away? Layla said you’re a powerful clairvoyant. I want you to see my future. Specifically I want you to tell me if I should trust Gaspare Shaw.”

“And what about Brandubh?” Val asked.

“What
about
Brandubh?” I asked, blinking in confusion.

“I know you’re the girl that fought him. That somehow lived to tell about it. But I also know he’s still out there. Don’t you want to know if he’ll seek you out again? Surely he came after you because of your lineage as an omni. You think he’ll give up so easily if he has reason to want you?” She shook her head dubiously. “I don’t.”

She had assumed that Brandubh was after the heritage my father left me, rather than my mother. Fine by me.

“Oh, I know he’ll be back,” I said. “I have no doubt. And I want to be ready when he comes. But I could use some help. I know nothing about being an omni and they’re apparently hard to come by. That’s why I want to know if I can trust Gaspare. I want to know if going to him for help is a mistake.”

“I see,” Val said somberly. “Layla oversimplified my talents when she told you I was a clairvoyant. I’m an augur. Do you know what that means?”

I shook my head and looked to Timbra for help. She bunched her shoulders.

Val went on, “An augur divines the future by interpreting the flight patterns and the songs of birds. We are evolved of birds, the Avenatios, thus the connection.”

My mouth formed an ‘o,’ but I didn’t make a sound.

V
al led
the three of us away from her house along an old trail through the trees. As we traveled I was keenly aware of the ever-increasing volume of birds overhead. Val didn’t appear to be calling them in any way, but they had progressively gathered and followed us.

“Your mother gave you a strong name,” Val said, pulling me from my observation.

“What? Oh. Yes. I never minded the name Stella.”

“Do you know what it means?” she asked.

“I do. It means “star” in Latin. Which is kinda awesome because I’ve always been drawn to the stars. I love astronomy.”

“Names have power, Stella Stonewall. Remember that as you find your own way in this world.”

“O-kay. Yes, ma’am, I will.”
Whatever that meant.

“Now, the birds divine what they will,” she said as we stopped just inside the edge of the forest. Beyond lay a beautiful green meadow, its tall, thick grass rippling with the breeze. “I may ask them what we wish to know, but ornithomancy isn’t an exact science. It’s divination. It’s open to the will of the powers that be. It’s open to interpretation. And that’s the beauty of it, really. We may not always know the right questions to ask, but the spirits always know the right answers.”

I hadn’t considered until that very moment that a clairvoyant—an augur—might be able to see more than what I asked for.

My palms broke out in a cold sweat. I swallowed convulsively, and my face and hands became clammy as I realized the possible repercussions. What if Val saw who my mother was, what she’d done? What if she saw my connection to Bay and the other Drakontos.
Oh, no, no, no
, I thought.

Surviving meant keeping my secrets.

The sound of the accumulated birds neared deafening, and I looked up to find the flock stirring. They were agitated. Ready for flight. Val squinted at me, suspicious of my reaction to her statement.

As she held my uneasy gaze, she flicked her hand and the birds took flight at once. The whole flock—hundreds of them—vaulted into the air. Their song wasn’t sweet, and it wasn’t pleasant. The birds screeched, cried, and dove roughly through tree limbs before exploding into the open meadow.

I took the opportunity to run.

My strategy was getting out of there before the birds showed Val who and what I was. Maybe some distance between from the flock would neutralize the effect.

But before I took two strides Val’s firm grip was a vice around my upper arm. She clasped it so tightly I couldn’t break free despite jerking with all my strength. She was stronger than she looked.

I tried to trace away, but she’d somehow prevented me from escaping.

“Still, girl,” she said, though her thoughts were somewhere else entirely.

I wasn’t going anywhere. My chin hit my chest as I hung my head in dread.

Val Avenatio watched intently as the birds ascended and swooped through the air, their wings extending and bracing against the airstreams to glide in a graceful dance with the wind. When the birds began calling she closed her eyes, concentrated on their song. I attempted to imagine what she might be interpreting from her avian cousins, but all I saw was a flock of squawking birds.

Timbra, who was prone to nervous energy already, was nearing over-stimulation. Her prone ears twitched furiously, instinct overriding her capacity for control. Timbra’s eyes were wild, frantic, but she found the focus to shoot me a questioning look about Val’s grip on my arm. I shrugged in resignation.

With an intake of breath so sharp she coughed to recover, Val’s eyes shot open in alarm. She found my gaze immediately.

“It’s not possible,” she breathed before whispering, “I knew her.”