Shadowstorm (Sorcery and Science Book 6) (5 page)

“Good to see you again, Everett,” Ryder said. His eyes turned toward Terra. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

Everett stepped in front of her. “From your calculating smile, I can see you already know who she is.”

“True, true. The lovely Terra Cross. Word is she sometimes travels with the infamous Jason Chanz. I’m not sure which worries me more: her Elition assassin or her Selpe emperor.” Ryder’s gaze panned across the city, then he turned his playful smile on Terra. “How do you do?”

“She’s my friend, Ryder,” Everett warned.

“Relax. I’m not going to try to turn her in. Even though she is worth…” His eyes drifted up. “…half a million Crowns. Man, that sure is a lot of money.”

“Even if you managed to catch me, the Selpes would shoot you if you tried to collect on the bounty,” Terra told him. By imperial decree, all Revs were to be shot on sight. That one went all the way back to Ambrose Selpe, the last emperor, though Terra had a feeling Lord Adrian had had a hand in drawing it up.

“You’re not wrong about that,” Ryder replied. “But it doesn’t matter. We look out for our friends.”

“Am I your friend?” she asked.

“You’re not even a Rev, and you dragged yourself all the way out here, to the edge of the war zone, to help us.”

“I’m here to help Everett,” she said.

He smiled. “And Everett is my friend. Now, let’s get going. That’s not the only patrol on the island.”

“If you knew the Selpes had set up a military base near Hope, then why did you ask me to meet you here?” asked Everett.

“Because, my old friend, I didn’t think you’d agree to come had I told you where we were really heading.”

Everett molded his face into a decent imitation of Jason’s stony mask.

“Black Currant Ridge,” Ryder finished.

Everett chewed on his lip for a few seconds before clearing his throat to say in a perfectly flat voice, “I have no reason to go back there.”

“Come on, Everett.” Ryder patted him hard on the back. “Aren’t you the least bit eager to see your family again?”

CHAPTER THREE

~
Black Currant Ridge ~

527AX January 8, Black Currant Ridge

BLACK CURRANT RIDGE was one enormous hill surrounded by a slender strip of beach that curled around its waterfront. Though there were no grapes this time of year, the view was nonetheless impressive. Even Everett could admit that. He looked up as Ryder’s boat scraped against the grainy shore. The sleeping vines were positioned in even lines all the way up the slope, like strings of lights dangling from the branches of an enormous tree. At the highest point on the island, high above the beach, a white-stoned villa of imperial proportions sat atop a system of engineered waterfalls. It was the first sight that met those arriving by water—a sight to make anyone feel mighty small.

Everett had hated that stupid white palace from the moment he’d first laid eyes on it. The nearly nineteen years since had done nothing to erode his disdain. His parents’ home was as ostentatious and vulgar as that of any Selpe aristocrat. He’d been happy to leave it behind the day he joined his first mercenary band, and he’d visited only sporadically since then.

Liam and Natalie Black had been good mercenaries, but they were even better entrepreneurs. Within a few short years of buying the island, the entirety of the Selpe Empire’s upper echelon was absolutely enthralled by any wine with the Black Currant Ridge label. Everett had always thought his parents were a bit too comfortable in their arrangement with the Selpes, and sure enough, their island was the only one in the entire Rev isles that had been spared in last summer’s attacks. He really didn’t want to learn they’d betrayed the rest of the Revs—not that it would be much of a shock, though. Their top priority had always been making boatloads of money, and there was no reason to think that would ever change.

For the past seven months, Everett had managed to keep himself busy enough not to think about any of this. But standing there now on the beach of Black Currant Ridge, staring up at that white monstrosity, made this outright impossible. The thought buzzed around inside his head, threatening to shoot out of his ears.

“Why are we here?” he asked Ryder as his friend’s crew dragged the boat ashore.

To Everett’s surprise, the two men flipped the boat over and lifted it above their heads. They began to walk toward the slope. Everett wondered if they were planning on carrying the thing all the way to the top of the hill. But that would be excessive. After all, there was a perfectly good dock right down here. It was even empty—well, except for the gargantuan yacht tied up there. Everett didn’t bother to ask whose yacht it was. The answer was all too clear. So clear that it was giving him a headache. There were many injustices in the world, and one of the biggest was the inability to choose one’s own family.

“We’re here to pay your family a little visit,” replied Ryder.

Everett watched the two men push the rowboat into a crevice in the hill and then conceal the opening with a generous helping of fallen twigs. They sure were going to great lengths to cover their tracks. A ball of dread dropped in his stomach like a boulder. Ryder had mentioned he’d uncovered new information about the attacks on Hope. Maybe he’d found evidence that Everett’s parents were collaborating with the Selpes. And maybe his plan was for them to all go up and kill them. If it turned out his family was guilty, Everett would never forgive them. But he would not kill them, and he wouldn’t let Ryder do it either.

One step at a time
, he told himself as they began the long ascent. Everett couldn’t help but note that Ryder hadn’t selected the direct trail, marked and visible from the house, but rather a steep rock staircase that tunneled through the hill. It would pop them up inside a shed on the backside of the house. It was Everett’s preferred path to the house, and he’d shown it to Ryder on one of his rare visits home. In sharing that seemingly harmless secret five years ago, had he inadvertently signed his parents’ death sentences?

“You’re stewing,” Terra whispered to him.

The others were further up the staircase, but not far enough away that he could risk sharing his worries with her. Not in that echo tunnel. So all he said was, “Family problems.”

She nodded. “Believe it or not, I understand completely.”

Everett didn’t doubt it. After all, she’d spent years pretending to be someone else—even to her own family. That had to have created its fair share of problems once her secret was finally revealed.

A dim disc of light appeared up ahead, the sign that Ryder had reached the top. Everett hurried up the steps and climbed out of the tunnel through an opening in the ground. Slivers of dim sunlight cut through cracks between the wooden beams that made up the shed’s walls. Cold air cut through those same cracks, which was especially noticeable now that the stair-climbing exercises were complete. The Rev islands—and especially a southern one like Black Currant Ridge—didn’t experience true winter, but the grass still often glistened with a coating of frost in the mornings. Even in the early afternoon hours, such as it was now, it wasn’t particularly pleasant to hang around outside. Everett found himself longing for one of his mother’s apple tarts. They were so good, they were almost worth the headache of dealing with his family.

“Your stomach just growled,” Terra told him.

Everett swung the door to the tunnel shut. “Between chitchatting with scavengers and fighting Selpe soldiers, we didn’t have a chance to catch lunch.”

“Why don’t you have one of your sandwiches?” she suggested. “You packed at least a dozen of them.”

Ryder roared with laughter. Leaving his men at the shed’s exit, he stepped forward to thump Everett on the back. “Don’t tell me he
still
makes those longevity sandwiches.” The statement was obviously directed at Terra, as he was grinning at her.

“Longevity sandwiches?” she asked.

“Yeah, the ones that still taste the same one month later. I think we even once ate one after two months.”

Terra crinkled her nose.

“It tasted the same as the one-month-old one,” he assured her. “And a good thing, too. Because it was either eat those sandwiches or eat one another.”

“I’m sure you made the right choice,” she said.

“Yeah, Everett’s too scrawny to make a good meal anyway,” joked Ryder.

In response, Everett provided a demonstration of just how scrawny he was. He landed a solid punch to Ryder’s shoulder.

“Ow!” Ryder shook out his arm. “Geez, man. What did you do that for?”

“Because he’s been hanging out with Phantoms for too long?” Terra suggested.

Ryder went into his knees and shot forward, butting Everett with his head, then tackling him to the ground.

“I take it back.” She sighed, taking a step away from them. “It seems to just be a male hormone thing.”

Ryder tugged on Everett’s arm, trying to pull it behind his back. Everett waited until he leaned in closer, then he threw a handful of sandy dirt into his eyes. As Ryder thrashed and spat profanities, Everett ran for the shed exit, pushed past the two men standing there, and bolted for the house. If Ryder’s band was planning on playing executioner, Everett would need a head start. He pumped his legs as fast as they could go, which thanks to numerous grueling runs with Jason was pretty damn fast. In fact, never before in his life had he been in such great shape.

Ryder called out to him from across the muddy yard, but Everett paid him no mind. He sprinted for the front door. Even before he made it there, it swung open. His mother stepped out, pointing a sword the size of a walking stick at him. Everett hopped back to avoid being skewered on the tip of her blade. She stood framed in the doorway, wearing her sunshine-yellow apron and flower-patterned house slippers. The effect of the softly feminine clothes juxtaposed with the sword she was holding would have been almost comical—had Everett not been aware of his mother’s bloody history. She and Everett’s father had been a top-paid mercenary duo, and they’d not made their money singing lullabies and baking cookies. In fact, they likely had more in common with Jason than they did with their own son.

“What’s the meaning of all this ruckus?” Natalie Black growled. Her hazel eyes swept over the yard, but they inevitably fell on Everett. Some things never changed—not even in thirty-three years.

“I apologize, Mrs. Black,” Ryder said, huffing up to the house.
 

“When we sent you to fetch our son, Ryder, did we not specify the need for discretion?” she demanded.

Ryder looked at his feet. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You sent him to get me?”

Everett’s mother ignored his question. “All right. Hurry inside, all of you.” Her eyes drifted up toward the sky. “You never know who might be watching.”

“I demand to know what’s going on here,” Everett declared, arms crossed.

“Yes, dear. How very manly of you to make a stand.” His mother smiled, but there was a hard edge to that smile. “Unfortunately, now is not the time for manly stands. However, if you come inside, I promise you may huff and puff about all you wish. And,” she added, her smile warming. “I’ve baked your favorite apple tarts for you.”

Well, who could argue with an offer like that?

Everett edged past his mother and entered the house.

* * *

527AX January 8, Black Currant Ridge

The Blacks’ formal sitting room was just past the front door, but Everett’s mother led them downstairs into the den, a zigzagging series of rooms. The stairs spilled out into a square foyer. Everett walked over the Black Currant Ridge logo, a swirly dark symbol in the beige marble floor. To his left stood a wall of ceiling-high cherrywood wine compartments. There was a tree-shaped opening in the racks, leading to a cove outfitted with more of the same shelving. The cove to Everett’s right was identical. A third wall of wine stood tall and imposing before him. Natalie passed through the tree opening on the left, and the rest of them followed.

The den’s second room held a dining table large enough to sit twenty on its two long benches. It was set for six. As Everett’s eyes fell on the platter of steaming apple tarts, his mouth began to water. He reached out to take one, but his mother slapped his hand away.

“Don’t be rude, dear,” she chided him. “Your father isn’t here yet.”

That’s the thing he hated about visiting Black Currant Ridge. In his parents’ eyes, he’d never aged beyond adolescence.

Natalie looked at Terra and hastily set another place at the table. “I’m Natalie Black.”

Terra shook her extended hand. “Terra Cross.”

“I didn’t realize Everett would be bringing a friend.”

From the way his mother was scrutinizing Terra, she clearly suspected something beyond friendship. Her next comment only confirmed that.

“How long have you known our son, Terra?”

“A bit over half a year,” she replied.

“And how did you meet?”

Terra opened her mouth to speak, but Everett cut in quickly. “A tale for another time, Mother.”

His parents didn’t need to hear about his time in the Elition Wilderness. That would only lead to questions—and worse yet, schemes of how to somehow profit from it all.

“Forgive me.” Natalie smiled at Terra. “We so rarely hear updates on Everett’s life.” Her smile widened. “And he’s never brought home a girl.”

“I can’t imagine why,” he muttered under his breath.

“What’s that, dear?”

“Terra is only a friend,” he spoke up.

“An Elition friend. How fascinating!” Liam Black exclaimed as he stepped into the room.

He’d changed little in the nearly two years since Everett had last been there. His hair had gone nearly completely grey, but other than that he’d hardly aged. He was still as fit as ever, the rewards of a morning exercise routine that went back over forty years. Everett watched his father stroll over to Terra, a skip in his step. Liam merrily shook her hand.

“Come, come,” he said, wrapping an arm around her. He led her toward the back room, the den’s lounge area. “We have much to discuss.”

Everett watched them go, then turned to his mother. “Do you think I’m supposed to go too?”