The Soulstoy Inheritance (6 page)

“It’s nothing,” I assured her.

She fell back a step, and I settled into examining the clearing. When no answers immediately came to me, I pushed back to my feet and ran back to the cottage, Cereen close on my heels. Once inside, I tried my best to ignore her.

“Nareon. I have a question.”

Cereen, who had stationed herself outside again, immediately appeared in the doorway, just as Nareon happened into existence.

“Flintwood?” he asked, not noticing the other woman yet. “What in God’s name are you doing here?”

“I’m going to Red Ridge.”

“I see. And to what do I owe the unexpected pleasure of my presence in this expectantly un-pleasurable place?”

“I left my connection open all night last night, but nothing has changed. Am I… am I broken or something?”

He threw his head back and laughed.

“The opposite. You’re better, stronger, more in control.”

“Oh.”

“Did the Power Thief let you come here alone?”

“Would you even be angry if he had?”

Nareon grinned. “No, I think some separation between you two is a good thing.”

“Well it’s not going to happen,” said Harbringer from the doorway.

He crouched through the opening and moved to the wall, leaning back against it with his arms and legs crossed, as though he were there to supervise.

“Pity.” Nareon’s mouth turned down at the side in a semblance of a scowl, and then he seemed to spot Cereen, who had re-appeared in the doorway, eyes as wide as saucers.

“Ah, Fire Elementalist. I remember you.”

Her mouth opened and closed but no sound came out, and eventually Nareon simply turned away from her again.

“Well, as delightful as these visits are, I still have work to do—”

“What on earth could you really be doing?” I asked, unable to help myself. “You’re supposed to be
dead,
Nareon.”

“Oh, that reminds me.” He ignored my question and dug into his pocket, pulling out a small wooden token with a carved coat of arms delicately set into the surface.

I recognised it immediately as the token he had given me on our second meeting. He had said to show it to any of the other Tainted Creatures, should they approach me—that it would protect me in some way. 

“Don’t leave it behind again,” Nareon said, tossing it into the air.

I reached out and caught it, disbelief forcing a stiffness into the action. He had even threaded a braided band through the top of the token, so that I could wear it around my wrist.

“How did you get it?” I asked, slipping it over my hand.

“I emptied your book bag like so,” he mimed lifting something more reminiscent of a sack of concrete, “and then I picked it up, how else?” This, he demonstrated, by sorting through invisible paraphernalia that apparently rivaled myself in height.

“Yes but
how
?” I ignored his theatrics. “I thought you couldn’t appear unless I summoned you?”

“Things change.” He grinned, white teeth flashing insolently, and then he disappeared again.

“I thought you couldn’t disappear until I banished you either,” I whispered, staring at the spot where he had stood.

My eyes met Harbringer’s. Although he was frowning, he didn’t appear anywhere near as afraid as I felt, and I was
terrified
. With shaking legs, I pushed out of the doorway again and headed back to the centre of town. Cereen hung back now that Harbringer was with me. A few early morning stragglers had appeared by the time I reached the bench that I had vacated. They moved about the clearing, absorbed in their various tasks. I sat down and let my head fall into my hands, busying myself with the simple and uncomplicated task of drawing one breath after the other before I opened the connection again.

Think of something good
, I tried to tell myself,
something happy
. A series of images flashed through my mind—my friends’ faces; the dark brown of Hazen’s gaze; and my father’s ruffled orange hair, illuminated by the hallway lantern as he stood in my doorway. His posture was relaxed, his eyes calm. I could almost smell him, and he smelt like home. I saw myself twirling in a ludicrous dress while Rose and Miriam laughed, and then, as if the floodgates had suddenly been unlocked, I began to sob. Harbinger slid onto the seat next to me and pulled me into his side, but I only turned my face into his dirt-stained shirt and cried harder.

The falling of rain did not clear the fog of my sorrow until it was falling hard enough that the sound of it was a persistent roar, demanding the attention of my unwilling senses. I could feel the droplets, fat and cold, falling into my hair and soaking through my clothes; the damp scent of wet soil permeated my nostrils; and the taste of precipitation had crept into the corner of my mouth. When I had no tears left to cry, I took a deep, shuddering breath and lifted my face to wash the sorrow clean. People had begun to gather, staring up at the sky in astonishment. A woman had fallen to her knees. She seemed to be weeping.
Was that relief
?

“If you drowned them all now, they’d die happy,” Harbringer whispered in my ear, causing me to choke on an unwilling laugh.

I felt a tiny pinprick of energy, and when I looked down, a small shoot had speared from the ground, a tiny piece of green in a clearing of mud.

“Do that again!” I turned to Harbringer.

“Do what again?”

I pointed to the sprout, and for some reason he frowned.

“I can’t make you laugh on command.”

‘Why not?”

“I’m not a funny guy.”

I tilted my head, considering him, and then finally nodded. “You’re right, you’re not a funny guy.”

He stood. “I am a few other things though.” And then he grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet.

I had no time to question him before his hand slid around the side of my neck, his thumb brushing across the base of my jaw, tilting my head up.

“Where’s that line?” he muttered, drawing me closer, his lips hovering so close to mine that I could feel every breath he released, warming my face as the rain splashed onto my cheeks. 

My hands were on his chest again, and despite how calm he seemed, I could feel how his heart raced. It made pushing onto my toes and pressing my mouth to his that much easier. He froze, much as he had the first time I kissed him, except this time I didn’t draw back. I slid my hands higher, over the planes of his chest and along the back of his neck, leaning into him until his free arm angled across my spine, and the hand that had frozen on my neck moved to tangle in my hair. My feet left the ground for an instant, and he tilted me backwards, shielding me from the rain as he returned my kiss with an intensity I had never experienced before. I thought that if he didn’t stop, I would faint. But he did.

He straightened all too soon, and set me back on my feet, pushing a lock of wet hair from my face.

“Causing a scene here is probably that line.” I could tell that he was trying to make light of it, but his voice was rough and his eyes were shaded.

It seemed that there were equal parts passion and anger in his eyes, and I couldn’t understand the combination. His hand lingered by my face for a moment longer and then he let it drop. I stepped hastily back, unable to meet his perplexing expression in my state of utter, spent disarray, with the rain soaking me through to my skin. I looked to the ground instead, blinking rainwater out of my eyes, and was met with tiny blotches of green among the mud: a patchwork of new life spreading about the clearing.

I laughed then, and flung my arms wide. The energy buzzed throughout me again, there was finally enough life within the clearing for me to nurture. I noticed people staring, but I didn’t care. I ran to the nearest tree, placed my palm against the trunk and closed my eyes. It lunged for my energy after a little coaxing, and I sank to the ground, leaning back against the rough bark as the branches once again began to sprout leaves, sheltering me from the pummel of rain. I felt the roots of the tree winding about my wrists, snaking their way up my arm, and I had to briefly chastise them before they bound me completely, though I contented myself to stay in their embrace while I pushed my energy out into the rest of the clearing.

It was a tiring task. While the majority of the clearing had been sucked of life, there were still many patches of darkness that my mind couldn’t reach, as they were too far gone. They had not only been drained; they had been destroyed. When I felt that most of the work was done, I opened my eyes and found a disconcerting number of synfee villagers gathered before me. They sat in the slosh that had become of the ground, a straggling spray of rain falling around them, their hands joined as they stared at me. It unsettled me to my very core.

Harbringer stood with Grenlow, Cereen and Rohan beneath another tree across the clearing. It had re-sprouted foliage. I ordered my own tree to release me and struggled to my feet, uneasy with how shaky and weak my legs had become. A man rose as I did, and I recognised him from the night before. He smiled at me and I flinched again at his sharp, pointed teeth.

“Lady Queen…” He stepped forward, but Grenlow suddenly moved across the clearing, angling himself in front of me, his expression uncharacteristically hard.

“That’s enough, Daggar, keep your distance.” Even his voice was harsh. 

Taking a step backwards, wanting to put some distance between them and myself, I examined the startled look that Dagger gave Grenlow, which rippled quickly into surprise, before settling—just as rapidly—into understanding. He gave a short nod, turned, and signaled the others to their feet.
Was he some kind of village leader?

“The Lady has been sent to us by our beloved King, may his soul live on forever through her gracious actions!” he cried, inciting the cheers of the gathered people.

I turned from them all, not wishing to be cheered—or associated with Nareon—and began to walk back to the cottage, my mind spinning with absurd notions. Harbringer fell into step beside me.

“I underestimated Grenlow,” I said lowly, sliding him a look. “I think he might be a little more like Nareon than I gave him credit for.”

Harbringer’s mouth was pressed into a hard line and his eyes were unfocussed. He was lost in someone else’s thoughts.

“His mind is always so guarded, it’s hard to be sure, but I think you might be right.”

“Whose side is he on?”

“Nareon’s.”

“Whose side is Nareon on?”

“His own.”

I nodded, and when we reached the place where our horses were tethered, I untied the reigns, looking back down the road to make sure the others—who had begun to follow us—were still far enough away that they wouldn’t be able to overhear.

“Are any of them on my side?”

“That depends, Harrow. Which side is yours?” He tossed my question back at me.

I frowned, but he shook his head, intercepting my expression before it could follow the unhappy direction of my thoughts. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

I used the fence to vault myself into the saddle, and steered it away, looking down at Harbringer.

“I have no idea which side is mine. I just don’t want to die, I don’t want to lose anyone else, and I’m doing what I can under the circumstances.”

He pulled himself onto his own horse, but didn’t say anything more, as Grenlow, Cereen and Rohan reached us and began readying their mounts. We waited in silence, and then when I saw that everyone was ready, I took off without a warning. I was weak, hungry and angry, and knowing that it was because I needed to feed my synfee craving after using so much energy didn’t help.

We rode in tense reticence for the time it took to reach Red Ridge, and then I spent several hours sitting in the middle of the devastated city, trying to find even the slightest hint of life in the destroyed vegetation. At one point I turned to Harbringer, who stretched out on the ground beside me, atop a tiny square of mostly broken tiles that he had arranged, staring broodingly up at the sky.

“Why can’t your Force do this?” I asked him.

“The synfee specialisations differ just as widely as the human ones. A mind ability can cover anything from an enhanced empathy to what Hazen and I possess, the same way that Force can be obtained in varying degrees. My Force lends more finesse to the elemental power that I already had, whereas yours… yours is a version of raw, unabridged power that I’m sure most other Force users would kill all over again to possess.”

I didn’t say anything more for a short time, as I fought a loosing battle with the remains of a shrub somewhere in the city. My awareness was spread thin, encompassing as far as I could reach. Usually that would have been too much for me to handle, but the lack of overall life in the city made it easier.

“You make it sound better than it is.”

“You haven’t learnt to use it properly, Harrow. You’re barely scraping the surface.”

A distant shout carried to us across the ruined expanse of nothingness, shattering my concentration then. I yanked the connection closed, pushing to my feet and craning my neck to catch sight of the others. They stepped out from behind a crumbling building and ran toward us; I counted an extra person, a man by the look of it. Harbringer stood too, and we both looked to the newcomer as they reached us. He was panting and bent over, his hands on his thighs as he tried to catch his breath.

“My Lady,” Grenlow said. “A large gathering of Read soldiers have amassed at the border. They haven’t crossed, but they sent an emissary over, the boy Cale.”

“Cale? Where is he?”

“He returned after giving us their message.”

I felt disappointment start to well, but I pushed it aside. “And what was the message?”

“They want to discuss the terms of your upcoming trial.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“They offered to send back the emissary tomorrow, I am told he will convey your willingness or otherwise to comply with their offer.”

“That
really
doesn’t sound good.”

“Someone is giving Hazen a hard time,” Harbringer agreed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire party of advisors were rallying for your immediate execution. They aren’t as tolerant of the Tainted Creatures as Miriam, and as long as they are kicking up a fuss, Hazen’s hands are tied. If they’re willing to negotiate though, you might have a chance.”