Soul Seekers03 - Mystic (7 page)

Paloma’s energy deflates as she sinks deeper into her seat. “I’m afraid you’re right,” she says. “The night Daire went missing, Chay stood right here beside me as we watched the words lift from the page. I didn’t mention it to you until now because I wasn’t sure what to make of it. But I’m sure your impressions are correct. Cade is immature, impatient, and so he forced the signs before their time. And though I check the book daily, the space where the prophecy stood remains stubbornly blank.”

“Have you checked today?” I venture, unsure if I should voice this incredible sensation I’m getting.

“I checked this morning. It’s the first thing I do.”

“Check again,” I say. “You know, just to see.” I strive to keep my voice light, as though I’m merely hoping to be humored. Afraid of giving too much away, planting a seed of hope, when there’s a chance I might have it all wrong.

I hold my breath as she slides the book toward her. My cheeks bubbled with air as the cover sounds a dull thud against the tabletop, and the worn vellum pages turn one by one. That same rush of air whistling from my lips when she and Lita both gasp, the sound alone confirming the very thing that I sensed. Those ancient, yellowing pages are now shimmering with the promise of new text, where just a few moments earlier it stood blank.

“What does it say?” Lita asks.

“I don’t know.” Paloma’s voice is uncertain but more enthusiastic than I’ve heard in days. “The symbols are hazy, out of focus…”

I’m about to lean toward it, wanting to see if I can maybe intuit something, when I sense a subtle shift of wind. The slightest alteration in the atmosphere that might’ve gone completely unnoticed if it weren’t for the bright flashes of color, the surge of warmth, and the celestial chorus that accompanies it.

It’s a chorus I’ve heard once before.

The tempo lilting, lifting, until it rises into a crescendo so glorious, I can no longer contain it. I leap from my chair and cry, “Somebody needs to go open the gate.” Making sure I have their full attention before I add, “Somebody needs to go open the gate and let Daire in—she’s home!”

ten

Daire

I pause in the doorway with my eyes closed. Savoring the aroma of mesquite logs burning in the fireplace and ginger tea seeping into the air. Along with the sweet smell of cardamom cupcakes, lavender oil, vanilla perfume, and peppermint soap—the scent of home, family, and friends.

“
Nieta!
” Paloma crushes me to her chest so tightly I can feel her bones jutting from her shoulders in a way I don’t remember. “
Nieta,
what happened? Where have you been?” She draws away, runs the back of a hand across my brow and presses both palms to my cheeks. Staring at me with wide, unblinking eyes, as though she can’t bear to have me out of her sight for one second more.

“It’s a long story,” I say, eager to brush it aside in order to get to more urgent topics, like Dace. Just about to ask where he is, when I’m distracted by the deep lines of worry now permanently etched around her wise brown eyes, and the stark streaks of silver in her long dark braid that weren’t there before. Her face is drawn. Her body frail. Clearly my disappearance has taken a toll.

I switch my focus to my friends, noting the way they hover on the sidelines, too tentative to approach. Xotichl with her light brown hair, soft gray eyes, and beautiful heart-shaped face—and Lita with her gorgeous dark eyes, and long dark hair with ends that were recently dyed to look as though they were dipped in red paint. For someone who’s not used to having friends, I’m amazed by how much I’ve missed them. Still, I rushed back for a reason, and I need to confirm that Dace is okay.

“Where’s Dace?” I glance between the three of them. “I really need to see him—let him know I’m okay,” I say, only to have Xotichl’s voice overlap with mine when she raises a hand toward the scar marking my chest.

“You’re injured!” she cries, face creased with worry. “I can sense it from here.”

“Oh my God!” Lita slaps a hand over her mouth. “Who did that to you?”

“Cade.” I shrug, allowing Paloma to guide me to the couch where she settles a blanket over my shoulders, lowers the slim straps of my dress, and examines the wound. “He killed me,” I say, amazed at how easily the words just roll off my tongue. “And then Axel saved me.”

Axel.

I close my eyes at the memory, but I’m quick to open them again. There’s no time for guilt. No room for remorse. I did what I had to. He left me with no other choice.

“Axel? Nobody mentioned an Axel.” Lita glances between Xotichl and Paloma. She hates to be out of the loop.

“Axel is…” I shake my head, having no idea how to explain him.

Axel is my savior.

Axel is my captor.

Last I saw, Axel was sprawled in an unconscious heap on the floor.

“Axel lives in the Upperworld,” I say, figuring it’s best to stick to the facts as I know them. “He’s the one who stitched the wound closed. He’s the one who stopped Cade from stealing my soul.”

“What did he look like—was he cute?”

Lita leans forward, eyes wide, as Xotichl shakes her head and says, “Lita—honestly! I can’t believe you sometimes.” She mumbles something unintelligible under her breath and tucks a lock of light brown hair behind her ear.

“Well, was he?” Lita insists, ignoring Xotichl as she returns her focus to me. “I mean, since there’s no cute boys here, I was thinking maybe…”

“You were thinking what? That you’re going to move to the Upperworld so you can check out the hotties?” Xotichl groans, feigning complete exasperation that doesn’t hold for very long before it turns into a grin.

“Well, when you put it like that…” Lita folds her arms across her chest and frowns, as the two of them go at it like an old married couple. Their ease with each other making me wonder just how long I was gone, how much I might’ve missed.

“To answer your question, he had platinum hair, fair skin, and lavender eyes.”

“Seriously?” Lita squints as her lips twist to the side, presumably trying to assemble those pieces in her mind.

“You met your spirit guide?” The folds around Paloma’s eyes deepen.

“I’m not sure. He never did say. He referred to himself as a Mystic. That’s the most I ever got out of him. Though he failed to explain what that is.”

Paloma assumes a thoughtful expression. “The Upperworld is populated by Mystics,” she says. “Spirit guides and Mystics—and sometimes they’re one and the same. Though Mystics are thought to be even more powerful than guides. The tales of their magick are legendary.” She reaches toward the buckskin pouch and key at my chest, determined to remove them in order to better examine me, but I clasp my hand over hers before she can get very far.

“Please leave them,” I say. “I’ve been too long without them.”

She tips her head in assent and arranges the cords so the talismans hang down my back. “The wound is serious,” she murmurs, along with a few choice words in Spanish I can’t understand.

“You should see what he did to my insides,” I quip. “He sliced my heart nearly in two. I truly was on the verge of death, when Axel restored my breath, took me to the Upperworld, and used some of that legendary magick to sew me back together again.” I glance at my friends, noting the way Xotichl leans toward me, as Lita looks on in horrified fascination. Unable to discern what they find more disturbing—my disfiguring scar or the detached way in which I relay the events.

“I will make a poultice,” Paloma says. “Something to help the wound fade.”

She struggles to her feet, about to head for her office, when I say, “There’s really no need. I prefer to keep the scar.”

She looks at me. They all look at me. Three sets of eyes bearing the same shade of concern.

“Trust me, you definitely want it to fade,” Lita says. “Take it from someone who has the memory of Cade branded on my brain. If I could erase it, I would.”

“I prefer to remember,” I say. “If nothing else, it’ll remind me to never leave myself vulnerable around a Richter again.”

“You seriously think you need to be reminded of that? After all that you’ve been through?” Xotichl tilts her chin in my direction.

“Okay, then I’ll use it to remind me of my success,” I say, convinced there’s no way to argue with that. “It’ll remind me of how despite what Cade did, I still managed to avert the prophecy and save Dace’s life.”

The second the words leave my lips they fall silent. Each of them carefully averting their gaze to look just about anywhere but at me. Lita examines her hands, as Xotichl tucks her chin to her chest and fools with the hem of her sweater. While Paloma, after a few moments of silence, looks upon me with deep grieving eyes.

“What is it?” I say, voice rising with suspicion. “What’s going on? Somebody tell me what happened—where’s Dace?”

“
Nieta
—” Paloma starts.

But Xotichl cuts in, saying, “Daire, that wasn’t the prophecy.”

“Of course it was!” I look at them like they’ve all gone mad. “I know exactly how the prophecy went. I memorized it word for word!
The other side of midnight’s hour strikes a herald thrice rung—Seer, Shadow, Sun—together they come—Sixteen winters hence—the light shall be eclipsed—leaving darkness to ascend beneath a sky bleeding fire!
” I recite the prediction so quickly the words all blend together. “If that wasn’t the prophecy, I don’t know what is! Me, Dace, and Cade—we were all born on the same day, just after midnight, sixteen years ago. Seer, Shadow, and Sun—that’s code for the three of us. The sky bled fire during our sixteenth winter, on Christmas Eve. And, in the end, Cade killed me. Only he didn’t. He just thinks that he did.” I pause, needing a moment to replenish my breath before I go on to say, “The sky was bleeding fire! I know you all saw it—there was no way you could’ve possibly missed it!”

“While we definitely saw it,” Xotichl says. “Thing is—it wasn’t a natural event.”

My gaze darts between them, having no idea what that means.

“The timing was right,” Paloma says in a cool, calm, authoritative voice. “But Cade was too impatient to allow it to unfold on its own, so he forced it into being. Cade made the sky burn.”

“I … I don’t understand.” My voice is distant, as though it belongs to someone else. “I don’t get it,” I repeat, though the truth is, I’m beginning to.

A forgotten space in my memory has now cleared, revealing something Cade said just after confronting me in the Lowerworld. Just after I taunted him for being stupid enough to virtually firebomb his own town.

“It’s the prophecy, Daire … It just needed a little push to get started.”

“Cade forced the prophecy so he could put his plan into motion.” Paloma fights to keep her expression steady, but the grim look in her eyes betrays her worst fears.

“Maybe so,” I say, desperate to hang on to what I once thought was true. “But I was there, and I’m telling you it played out just like it read.”

“
Nieta,
the night you disappeared, the night the snow began to fall, the prophecy vanished from the Codex. Chay and I watched as the words lifted right off the page.”

“And now that you’re back, they’ve returned!” Lita jabs a thumb toward the office where Paloma keeps the ancient tome, wearing the excited, clued-in look of someone newly admitted to a clandestine club denied them too long. Clearly Paloma and Xotichl have filled her in on some of Enchantment’s more mystical secrets.

“And, what does it say?” I ask, voice weary, head spinning, trying to make sense of everything I’ve just learned.

“It’s…” Lita pauses, bites down on her lip, looks to Paloma and Xotichl to say what she’s unwilling to.

“It’s in transition,” Xotichl says. “Blurry and unclear. Which makes me think it’s malleable—possibly up to you to decide.”

I stare at them, speechless. All too aware that if what they say is true, if that wasn’t really the prophecy, then it’s quite possible that my perceived death didn’t actually serve to avert anything.

Which means …

“Where’s Dace?” My gaze moves among them—suddenly realizing that up until now, they’ve successfully avoided answering that very question. “
Where’s Dace?
” I leap from the couch, finding no comfort in the three sets of grief-stricken faces that meet mine. Voice shaking, I say, “Somebody better answer me quick, because I’m assuming the worst.” I look frantically between them. And it’s only a moment later when Paloma is beside me, lowering me back to the couch, and to my surprise, I allow it.

“No one has seen him,
nieta
.” Paloma clasps my hand between both of hers.

“No one? What about Chepi, Leftfoot, Chay?” I ask, knowing how stupid that sounds, I’m sure the elders have been in touch daily.

“No one has seen him since the night you disappeared.” Paloma’s voice is as gentle as her touch.

“And how long has that been? How long have I been gone?”

“A few days. You disappeared on Christmas Eve,” Xotichl says.

A few days. Not as long as I feared, but still longer than I’d hoped.

“And Cade?” My heart stops, refusing to beat until someone answers me. “Please tell me someone has seen him! The twins are connected, if Cade dies, Dace dies. But only if Cade is in human form. If he’s in demon form, then Dace can die without him—” The words sound jumbled, making sense only to me.

“Actually … someone might’ve seen him,” Lita says, causing Xotichl and Paloma to whirl on her in shock. “And, if it’s true, then apparently he’s spreading a rumor that Dace is dead.”

“Dace is
not
dead!” I say. “He
can’t
be!” But just after it’s out, I realize my gut instinct is my only real proof to back up my words. I pray it hasn’t failed me.

Xotichl whirls on Lita, looking as furious as she’s capable of being. “And you’re just now telling us this, because…”

Lita lifts her shoulders, blows her long, angled bangs out of her eyes. “It’s not like I’m the one who saw him. But I overhead Phyre talking about it at the Rabbit Hole. I didn’t mention it because I assumed she was just making it up to sound important, and I saw no use in upsetting you and Auden over what I was sure was just a rumor. Anyway, from what I could hear, she claims she ran into Cade a few days ago, and that’s what he told her. She said it’s the reason he’s been laying low. Despite the fact that he and Dace were never close, he’s surprised by how devastated he is over the loss. Says it must be something to do with the strange connection twins share … blah, blah, blah. Oh, and the whole time she was telling the story, she really played it up big. Doing her best to appear heartbroken, but I’m telling you right now it was a total fake out.” She shakes her head and scowls. Then seeing the way Paloma and Xotichl react to her words, she says, “What? I don’t see the point in beating around the bush. Daire’s the Seeker … a bit of a banged-up Seeker, but she’s still our only hope left. Lying to her is not going to benefit anyone. And the thing is, with Cade and Phyre both claiming that Dace is dead, doesn’t it make you wonder if they might be working together?”