The Onyx Vial (Shadows of The Nine Book 1) (13 page)

Chapter 10

Hunter breathed in the clean crisp scent of the city as he leaned against the front wall of Edan House. In the four days since Ariana's disappearance—as Tehya insisted on calling it—Winter had officially made its presence known. It was still technically Autumn for two more days, but it didn't feel like it.

             
Hunter studied Tehya as she rubbed her gloved hands together and exhaled into them, her warm breath escaping in swirls into frosty air that kissed the pink tip of her nose. He wanted to take her hands in his, warm them with his own breath. He imagined her watching him. Their eyes locking. A smile from her, pleased. An invitation for him to move in close, only the crystalline breath between their lips, and—  

“Do you think my father’s right?”

Hunter startled, blinked back to reality, where he stood four feet away from her on the opposite side of the doorway.

“Has it really been forty years since a Tierendar was born?”

He shrugged, hoping the redness of his cheeks would be mistaken for being cold, and stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. “Hope so."

If Bardoc was right, and Hunter’s race was as rare as he said, then maybe he wouldn’t need the documents to find his parents. Perry had sworn that the Hall of Records kept birth information for every Ionian citizen dating back at least fifty years. It'd be enough. His parents’ names would be right there, waiting for him. He wouldn't have needed the documents after all. So why had his grandpa insisted he take them? He still couldn’t understand why the old man hadn’t just told him their names. 

“What are they
doing
in there?” Tehya grumbled. She pushed open the front door and stuck her head inside.

Hunter watched her. Her mood had improved gradually in the time since the fire. They'd tried contacting Ariana
—using a special postal quill that, once they circled their signature, made the page curl in on itself, becoming spherical and iridescent, before winking out of existence. B
ut their letters had been returned undelivered right alongside Hunter's letter to his grandpa. For Tehya, this was enough to convince her that Ariana had somehow found access to a portal book
—or fixed the one Hunter had confessed she'd stolen from him—and
was safe somewhere in another world.
The bubbles can't cross worlds unless there's a working portal book available,
she had insisted.
There are so few of those now. It's entirely possible. Besides, they would just hover over her in her cell if the Huntsmen had her.
The same way they hover over graves.
Hunter hoped that was true, but he couldn't help feeling she was grasping at anything to make her friend's disappearance easier to take.

“Perry. You said you were right behind us. Where are Dilyn and Finn?” Tehya asked.
Someone must have
responded because she followed it up with, “Hurry
up
. Our blood is freezing in our veins out here.”

He could hear the boys now, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

A kitten growl escaped Tehya's lips. “No. Perry, this was your idea—your connections. We can’t go ahead without you. Besides, what if the tower lights up and we’re stuck in the street?”

Hunter glanced at the tallest spire at the city center, fearing the blood red glow that, according to Dilyn, signaled the presence of Recruiters within the city walls. A rarer occurrence, he was told, than Huntsmen. At least this far north. The conquering force was having a little more trouble with the resistance in the colder areas. But their numbers were growing.

The light in the tower was clear.

“Thank you,” Tehya sighed. “Now give Finn back his scarf and get out here." She moved away from the door and the three boys poured out, Perry laughing loudly.

Finn ran a hand through his pale hair and scowled. “Clamp it, Perry.”

“I do what I want."

Finn’s face contorted into a resigned grimace. He unraveled his balled-up yellow scarf and wrapped it around his neck, starting up the street with a huff.

Perry crouched and lunged toward Finn’s knees, clamping his arms tight around them. He hoisted Finn into the air. Finn shouted, his voice bouncing off the walls of the houses and tumbling down the lane. Perry let out a hooting cackle.

Dilyn grabbed hold of Finn too, helping Perry hoist him higher. They turned in a circle, Finn spinning helplessly, his arms flailing.

“Oh, Miss Tenner!” Perry cried in a sing-song voice.

Hunter chuckled.

Perry and Dilyn jumped as they spun. Finn flopped about like a fish with its tail caught in a fist.

“Let me down!” Finn howled, swinging his arms wildly, no doubt to throw them off balance and drop him.

“Make us, why don’t you?” Perry teased.

Finn’s features crinkled with concentration. He stopped flailing and focused on his hands, as if there was something in them. Hunter recognized the look. The wind lifted, fingering the edges of their clothes before dying down. Finn was trying to use etâme on them. But he couldn’t get it to work. He swore and dropped his hands.

Hm. Maybe I’m not the only one who sucks at this.
He’d been working on his own since the lesson, but hadn’t managed to get the feeling right again. He was disappointed. Ariana and Tehya had captured an entire storm above his head. He couldn’t even move a leaf an inch without blowing on it.   

“Ha! Guess all that talk is still just talk,” Perry taunted.

Finn smirked. “Oh, yeah?” He balled his fist. “Here’s some action for you.” He punched Perry in the ear.

Perry yowled and let go. Dilyn, only half Finn’s size and equally thin, crumpled beneath him as he dropped to the ground.

Tehya stopped, doubled over with laughter, the sound twinkling in the open air.

Perry pointed at the pair of them, his other hand pressed to his ear. “Ha!”

Finn shot Perry a look that Hunter was happy not to have aimed at himself, and scrambled to his feet.

Perry’s laugher died. He dropped his hands and took off running, Finn on his heels. Dilyn rolled, leapt to his feet, and chased as close behind them as his short legs would allow.

Tehya shook her head with a sad smile. "They're acting up to cheer me up," she said. "I know they miss her, too."

Hunter nodded, but couldn't decide what to say.

“Guess it’s just you and me,” she said, hooking her arm with his.

The blood drained from Hunter’s face only to rush back twice as hot. He let her lead him forward and tried not to think about the warmth of her arm against his, or the gentleness of her smile, or the softness of her skin, or the—oh, who was he kidding? He was going to be thinking about her the whole walk. “Yeah. Guess so,” he croaked.

“Are you nervous?”

His eyes darted to hers. “What? Why?”

She chuckled and held his gaze as if trying to read his thoughts. “You seem nervous.”

He gulped, tried to pull his gaze from her face but couldn’t. Was it that obvious?

“Don’t be.” She rubbed his arm with her free hand. “You’ll find something.”

He frowned, then realized she was talking about his parents. He exhaled in relief. “Oh. Yeah. Thanks.” He was glad to have finally confided in her about the search. Her positivity helped him believe the task wasn’t so impossible. And it seemed to help take her mind off of Ariana

Their eyes lingered on each other until an uncomfortable silence nestled itself between them. Tehya looked away first, and Hunter turned his attention to the Fyrennian propaganda.

Falken’s stamped eyes watched him. His line-of-ink mouth sneering as if to say,
I’ll find you.

He pushed the thought away, feeling ill. He took a deep breath, let his senses absorb the unmistakably autumnal scent of Tehya’s hair, and focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

The streets of Eastridge were much more crowded than they'd been on his previous trips for new clothes and toiletries. For the most part, people kept to themselves, but sometimes he’d catch a passing stare, always from someone Grandpa's age. He wondered if he should hide himself better, if maybe the older ones thought, like the Huntsman the day he’d met Tehya and Ariana, that he was someone else. A prince. Ha! Or worse, what if the Huntsmen had put out a search for him after all?

He fought the urge to tear down every one of those awful posters. He couldn’t do that. It would draw attention. That was the last thing he needed when he had no means, etâmic or otherwise, to protect himself from an attack.

The thought chilled him. He glanced at the tower hovering above them, its light still clear.

From his vantage point, as they walked steadily closer, the spires of the towers looked like giant, branchless trees twisted around one another by the harsh hands of a winding wind, and then hardened to salty stone.

“Took you long enough,” Perry said, pulling Hunter’s gaze from the sky as he and Finn emerged from the shadows of the spires.

They both seemed relatively unaffected by the ten-block run. But Dilyn leaned against the closest building, hands on his knees, sucking air as if there was a hole in his lungs.

Tehya unhooked her arm from Hunter’s and pushed past Perry and Finn. “You alright, Dilyn?”

The sudden absence of Tehya’s warmth made Hunter shiver.

Dilyn heaved a couple breaths, nodded, and straightened. “Yeah,” he wheezed. “I will be.”

Perry clapped him on the back. "Good you aren't trying out for the Kings team,” he said, then laughed and started toward the wide double doors of the nearest spire.

“The key to Kings is mental,” Finn pointed out haughtily as they followed him through the doors and crossed the cavernous entry hall to an opulent, black stone desk.

A squat, frumpy woman lounged in the chair behind the counter. She lifted one eyebrow and peered at them over her book, clearly irritated to have her reading interrupted. “Clearance?” The tone of her voice was unmistakeable: she wanted to get back to her book as soon as possible.

Perry leaned on the counter and flashed her a little gold pin he’d stuck on the inside of his coat. It looked like a page from a book.

“I’m Perry Madison,” he said. “Son of Ona and Levin Madison. They asked if I could wrangle some interns to sort through a section of the records room.” He waved his hand in the air. “Important files—copies have gone missing. Something about… well, something. I stopped listening. Anyway, they need the files before midday.” He huffed, looking so annoyed by this made-up errand that Hunter found himself feeling sorry for him.

The woman shifted in her chair, but was otherwise unmoved, or uninterested in what Perry was saying. “Basement. Second door on the left.”

Perry nodded, drew away from the counter, and they were in. Hunter flooded with relief. Unaware until that moment how anxious he'd been.

“That was easy,” Tehya mused, when the door had shut behind them and they wound their way down the poorly-lit stairwell. “You made it sound so convincing. We wouldn't have been able to get in otherwise.”

“Probably would have. But you would have had to fill out forms,” Perry reasoned. “And I thought we wanted stealth.”

“Nothing with you is stealthy, Perry,” Finn pointed out.

They all laughed at this, the sound spilling down the stairwell. It made Hunter feel good—almost safe—as if the attack on the old farmhouse was just one of his vivid bad dreams.

For a moment, he entertained thoughts of being at Ruekridge. He didn’t know where it was—the secret was too important—but he knew how his grandpa had described it, and he imagined himself there, surrounded by his new friends. Each of them donning their uniforms in their respective Order's colors, waving at him as he passed them in the Square on his way to Eerden Tower. Or was it Aeriel Tower? Did Tierens have specific living quarters? There was so much he wanted to know. But he would have to ask later. Then they reached the long, hot record room—overstuffed with massive leather binders covered in dust. It was time. If he was going to have any chance of finding his parents, it would be here, in this room.

“Alright. We need records of birth, sorted by race,” Tehya said.

“This way.” Perry marched down the narrow lane between reading tables. He led them to the back wall, to a large table with room enough for all five of them. “Birth records are on these two aisles.” He pointed behind him with his thumbs. “Tieren are probably on one of these sides here.” He indicated the shelves closest to the wall. “If those don’t turn up anything, we’ll search Eerdens, since that’s what you thought you were.” He nodded at Hunter. Then he clapped his hands together. “Let’s get to it.”

Hunter didn’t hesitate. He started toward the shelves and grabbed the first record book that felt right. It was Tieren, but not the right sub-race. He shut it and stuffed it back on the shelf.

Dilyn appeared beside him. “Close?”

Hunter shook his head. “Tierenved.”

“Ah.” Dilyn scanned the shelves, pulled out a book two levels below Hunter’s, and opened it. “Tierenvar,” he said. He looked past Hunter to the shelves across the aisle, where Tehya and Perry were searching. “What have you got?”

“Tierenmar,” Perry answered.