The Bonds of Blood (46 page)

As soon as it started it stopped, and
Angelica laughed at her silliness. Sitting there, with the energy
no longer playing around her, it was easy to believe it had all
been imagined. After all, she was very tired, and they had been on
the road a long time.

The campfire popped and hissed behind
her. She had been woken up in the middle of the night to take
second watch; she was sure it was just her mind playing tricks on
her. Deep down, though, Angelica knew this was not the case, and
she was slightly worried at what she might have just called upon,
what she might have alerted in the mountains to their presence. She
knew whatever she had called on was even at this moment seeking
them.

There were a few other feelings she
had. Though she worried what this new presence she called was all
about, she knew with a certainty that lasted only moments before
fear drowned it back out that it meant them no harm. The other
feeling she got in that brief calm before anxiety intruded again
was that events were quickly spinning out of control, and they were
all being wrapped up in it. Angelica had the feeling that they were
being infiltrated even now and events would come in which they
would need the help she called.

Shaking her head, Angelica decided that
this sounded preposterous. After all, their sister had only been
kidnapped; it wasn’t like this marked the Second Coming of
Arael.

It might have been that feeling that
forced her hand this night, but she wasn’t sure. Her upbringing
with Candalyn told her that foreseeing the future was not real;
only a charlatan claimed to be able to psychically follow the
thread of wyrd that made up one’s fate, but lately she begged to
differ. After all, hadn’t that been what her and Jovian had been
doing all along? They had glimpsed the future a few times, even if
they were still trying to puzzle out the riddles that made up the
elusive future.

Angelica shrugged, fear worming its way
back into her calm thinking. She shivered from the chilly night and
looked at the mountains again with speculation longing for her bed
and the heat of the campfire. Wrapping her cloak tighter about her,
she walked back to camp; time for Joya’s watch.

“I can help you get Amber back,” the
voice intruded on her peaceful dream. “I can show you the wyrd that
can help you retrieve your sister from the darkness that ensnares
her even now, as we speak.”

Until that point Joya had been enjoying
the dream she had been having. She was standing in the middle of a
sun-warmed field smelling the earth and the hot, sweet smell of the
wildflowers that cropped up between tall stalks of hay. Flowers too
numerous to name in colors she barely recognized waved in a languid
breeze that made the summer-like warmth cozy, sleepy.

This dream was different. Instead of
sharp images and sounds that normally came with a dream, everything
seemed to be seen through a film, as if she were looking at a
painting. Streamers of light surrounded everything she looked at
giving the impression that she really was standing in a painting as
opposed to an actual field.

The intoxicating smell of all those
flowers had been working its Wyrd on her, letting her drift through
thoughts peacefully, not giving a care to any of the worries that
had been plaguing her thoughts these last few days.

The voice, in point of fact, had been
the cause of all these thoughts. She was happy to finally have a
moment without the voice when it came to her again, stirring in her
all the thoughts and wonders Joya had thought successfully
repressed.

But still something stirred in her.
Until this point she was not certain that Amber was in any real
danger, other than the normal danger that surrounded a missing
person. The way that the voice of Wisdom spoke, however, made it
sound like a bane more absolute than Arael having cast its shadow
on her.

“Of what danger do you speak?” Joya
wanted to know.

“That is something that we cannot go
into here; rest assured that there is a danger lurking around your
sister, and I can show you the means by which to stop it.” Joya
turned then, not feeling the oily shade that the voice had once
brought with him.

Her breath caught on her lips. Behind
her floated a man. He was erect in stature, feet dangling a few
breaths above the stalks of hay that swayed lazily in the breeze.
The man seemed to be moving in circle above the silage, rising
slightly higher into the air, and then back down, but never
touching the hay.

There was not much to see of his face
except a strong, bronze jaw and full, masculine lips that curved in
a sardonic smile. The hint of a hawked nose was all that Joya could
see of the rest of his face, for it was hidden buy a voluminous
white hood. In fact, the bronzed bottom half of his face was all
that was visible, as his hands were folded in front of him, hidden
inside the opening of the opposite sleeves of the white robe he
wore. A black sash bound the robe at his apparently muscle torso;
none of this seemed to be touched by the wind.

Joya realized now that he was not murky
like the rest of the images here. He was not surrounded by the
energy that the plants were; he was clear, distinct, and most
certainly not appearing as if in a painting. There was a rich
golden glow that surrounded him, as if the sun itself was shining
behind him casting him in its silhouette. For Joya to look at this
light burned her eyes, and she found that she had to avert her
focus to the ground for fear of harming her pupils.

She had the impression that this made
him smile more.

It was then she was aware of her own
garb. Her dress was like one that she adored wearing back home.
Long and black, the dress seemed to be made of nothing but lace
covering coarse black material that she could hear rustling as she
turned. The bustle was subtle but there nonetheless. The corset
narrowed her waist sufficiently while the bodice lifted her ample
bosom. There were no sleeves to the dress, only lace straps that
hung off the shoulder for decoration more than anything else. From
her elbows down she adorned black gloves fashioned of the same lace
that made the covering of her dress.

Her hair, normally hanging down to her
waist in rivers of ebony silk, was now elegantly arranged on top of
her head. Even as she wondered at all this a large fan appeared in
her hand, and then Joya began to wonder as to why her dress was
important.

“Why do we look so different in
contrast to the flora?” she asked instead.

“Joya, my dear, that’s because you are
seeing a world of energy. You are seeing their energy fields. Don’t
worry; all things have this field of energy, and I will teach you
to tap into their powers and use their Wyrd.” He extended a
perfectly manicured hand to her, one that very obviously had never
seen a day of hard work.

She hesitated for a time. “But
sorcerers call on their own energy to work the Wyrding Way.”
Instead of taking his hand, she fought the urge by gripping the fan
she held tighter in both fists.

A slight curve of a humorous smirk
touched his perfect lips. “Only a fool uses their energy alone; you
would drain yourself. You must supplement your energy with the
energy of your surroundings.”

She frowned slightly. “That is not what
the voice of Wyrd tells me.”

The voice of Wisdom gestured around.
“And where is she now?”

Joya conceded his point. Hesitantly she
relaxed her death-grip on the fan.

“There are many things I can teach you,
most of all how to keep those you love from harm. Fear is what
stops you from protecting all that you love. Ms. Neferis, we have
talked of this fear before; do not let it halt your training for
that could be catastrophic and have terrific
conclusions.”

She had been thinking this very thing
for days, which might have supported the reason why her hand
relaxed its grip a little more and slid to her side.

“Your sister is lost without you, Joya;
you know this. Deep down you have known all your life that Amber
and you would be lost without the other. So it is now, do not leave
her to the darkness, take my hand. I will show you a world of
endless possibilities, and I will reveal to you the lies you have
been living.”

“Lies?” All thought of keeping herself
from him was now lost.

“Indeed.” The smile grew wider showing
the line of perfect white teeth. “All your life you have been
living a lie.”

“But what is it?” Joya asked, eagerly
taking a step closer to his outstretched hand.

“Ah, that you will know as we undergo
your training. There is potential in you, strong potential, Joya
Neferis, if only the lies did not cloud what you truly
are.”

“What am I?” she asked with another
forward step.

“It is not just who you are … but who
your entire family is not.”

“My family is not? What do you mean?
Are these more lies to cloud my mind and sway my judgment?” She was
beginning to grow angry, and she felt her Wyrd well at the base of
her neck, illuminating the lemniscate to pulse in tune with her
heart.

“These things I cannot reveal to an
unprepared mind. You must learn the Wyrding Way better before I can
reveal the lies for what they are.”

She shook her head and made to turn
away when a vision took Joya to her knees.

“This can’t be true,” Joya sobbed,
tears burning her cheeks and fear tangling her insides. She saw the
images again and again, though they were only shown to her once
Joya was sure the ghastly images of her father in bloody ruin, his
throat slit, his viscera spilled onto the cold stone of the
plantation’s entryway would live in her mind until her time came to
a close. Angelica, eyes red from sobbing, no tears left to cry in
her, holding a laconic Jovian to her, sitting on the front stoop of
their home. Alhamar dead at Joya’s feet, killed by the blood dagger
in her hand.

“TELL ME IT IS NOT TRUE!” Joya screamed
to the hot earth.

This time when the voice of wisdom came
it was right over her left shoulder. Joya was certain that he was
closer to her now than he had been previously, though in her mind
she could not fathom that he was close enough to actually touch the
serene grass as she was.

“I wish I could tell you that it was
not, Joya Neferis, but I cannot do that to you. I can, however,
teach you the ways to stop these things from happening,” he added
as an afterthought. “But you have already turned away from me and
what I offer. How sad,” he said with true regret in his voice. “I
will leave you now, Joya. Never again will I pester you with
knowing the Wyrding Way as I can teach it—”

“Wait,” Joya said, pushing herself to
her feet, though she was slightly unsteady after the horror the
vision brought to her mind. She sniffed a few times, trying to
clear her nose, and wiped at her still streaming eyes. “If that is
the world I must face by not taking your hand, then that is a world
I do not want to be a part of.”

Joya,
another voice called to her, but Joya shook it off. The voice
of wisdom looked distraught at the sound of the feminine voice
breaking into their revere.

“I don’t know how those things could
have happened,” she continued, “and I am fairly certain I don’t
want to know why. That world makes no sense to me; that world shows
me losing all that I hold dear, everything that made me a Neferis,
and I don’t like that world.”

Joya took a few tentative steps toward
the robed man, her dress whispering around her ankles like a weight
trying to drag her down, stop her from what she was about to
do.

Joya,
the other voice called again, this time more
urgently.

“Take my hand!” the voice ordered
almost as urgently as the other voice calling out her
name.

Joya!
the voice broke in again, sounding angry this time.

Joya reached out a hand that had grown
cold the closer she stepped to the Voice of Wisdom. Just then
something happened that she had never before felt. It was a
sensation of being pulled from behind, as if she were attached to a
cord that had suddenly been yanked violently.

She was pulled from the voice of
Wisdom, away from the field, and into a murky blackness that
existed apart from the dream, yet above it at the same time. She
looked down on the field and the voice of Wisdom from above, almost
as if through a window that spiraled away from her as she flew with
alarming speed backward, a cold, dead wind whistling around her.
With a thunderous force, Joya was pulled from the sleeping world
and slammed back into her body to feel hands shaking her shoulders
in aggravation.