Banished (22 page)

‘The only thing I know about the Elder Gods is that one of my ancestors was sent North in Victorian times to record their mythologies. Helena Blackhart. I had some of her journals.’
I feel a pang of loss. Her journals were the only things that I had that mentioned her magic ability, even if she glossed over it most of the time.

‘Her name sounds familiar, but then there have been so many Blackharts who’ve worked with my family.’ He shrugs almost apologetically. ‘Lore on the Elder Gods is vague
and contradictory at the best of times. What most books do agree on is that it took humans and Fae working together to banish them, in the Time Before Time. Power-mad and hungry for human
sacrifice, the Elder Gods demanded untold sacrifices from their followers. There is a temple in Russia where the bones of their victims are buried.’

‘Do we know how they banished these guys?’

‘Not that I’ve read or heard of. Perhaps the knowledge is there but not readily accessible to us. Sorcerers and priests would control that kind of information.’

I put the hot chocolate down before him and he catches my hand before I manage to sit down.

‘I don’t want things to be weird,’ he says. ‘I know things got out of hand earlier today and I’m worried you think there’s something wrong with me. I
don’t know what happened. I’ve never felt such wild uncontrolled anger in my life. Really, the only thing I saw was you in danger and it was as if suddenly I was someone,
some
thing
, else and I wanted to rip the chimera apart and anything else that might want to hurt you.’

I look down at my captured hand and make no move to try and untangle it from his.

‘I understand, I really do.’ I take a deep breath, not quite believing what I am about to do. ‘Let me tell you something. This is something I’ve never told anyone before.
Not even my cousins know all of this, okay? My uncle Jamie does, but that’s because he was there for part of it. The night I found out about my heritage – who I really am – was
the same night my nan died in a house fire. Only, it turns out the fire was started by an Unseelie knight who had a grudge against the Blackharts. At the time I didn’t even know who or what
the Blackharts were. My birthday was coming up and Nan promised she had something big to share with me. I was so excited. I thought she was going to tell me more about my parents, maybe about where
they were buried. Stuff like that.’ I move back to my seat and pick up my cooling mug. ‘The Sidhe knight had seen her at a farmers’ market. He recognized her and threatened her.
When I got home from school she was on the phone to someone. She told me that my uncle Jamie would be showing up later that evening, that she was going to tell me about my family when he got
there.’

‘You didn’t know anything about your family at all?’ he interrupts, lifting his hand in apology.

‘I was very small when she took me away. She changed our names, got false passports. I never knew at all. She was trying to protect me, and didn’t want me growing up with the
violence and craziness. She wanted me to have a life of my own.’

‘And the knight took her dream for you away.’ His look is astute and I nod, sighing.

‘Yes. A neighbour was up to let his cat out when he looked over and saw our house on fire. He raised the street and I woke to find our neighbour climbing through my window to rescue me. He
tried to find my nan but it was too late: her room was ablaze and the ceiling was collapsing. My neighbour basically threw me out of my bedroom window and I managed to cling to the tree outside,
then climb down. I had inhaled so much smoke I was sick, then an ambulance rushed me to hospital. I woke up in the small hours of the morning and a stranger was sitting next to my bed. It was my
uncle Jamie. He told me who I was. He didn’t try and pretty it up. He said: “Your family hunts monsters. And I’m going to show you how to do it too.” Then he made me dress
and we drove back to the village where I used to live. The house was gone, burned right down to the ground. Jamie gave me a knife and told me to follow him.’

It feels weird talking about all of this. I’ve not ever told Megan or anyone about that night. It was just me and Jamie under the moonless sky. ‘We tracked the knight and his bunch
of redcap cronies to a hill outside the village. They were bragging about how they set the fire. How the bitches got what they deserved. I got so angry, I couldn’t think straight. I walked up
that hill with Jamie, armed with my knife and this growing rage.’ I touch that same knife through the fabric of my shirt, where it’s nestled against my back. ‘I didn’t even
know how to use the knife properly. Jamie spoke to the Unseelie knight, demanding that his unlawful killing of a human, a Blackhart, be taken to the Courts. The knight just laughed at him. All this
time, I could feel this white rage building. They ganged up on us and I killed one redcap outright, the knife into his eye. The others . . . I don’t remember much of it but Jamie told me
afterwards that this wave of energy spilled out of me, this magic that’d been part of my gift since I was born. I had no idea it was even in me, and it tore down the hill, flattening it
– destroying trees and rocks and crushing the Unseelie knight and his redcaps. I woke up in the back of Jamie’s car with a nosebleed, and a migraine so bad I couldn’t see
properly for days.’ I smile grimly in the darkness. ‘So I think I know what you mean, Thorn, about getting angry. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, or a bad thing. I’m
saying we have to be careful and watch out for each other but also trust one another. And know that the other person is capable and strong.’

The silence in the kitchen lengthens but then he nods. ‘I didn’t know about your family. About your grandmother, I mean. I’m truly sorry for your loss.’

It’s difficult not to just shrug it off and be glib. Being glib is easier than facing it all over again. I’ve tried to forget about that night, about the smell of the smoke and the
heat of the flames. Of course it’s not possible. For months I struggled to sleep properly.

Jamie found me in the Manor’s gym, training in the middle of the night, and decided that if I couldn’t sleep, he wouldn’t sleep either. He helped build my fitness levels and
taught me various new katas and self-defence techniques from different fighting styles. But, more importantly, he showed me how to use my knife and sword properly. He utterly failed to teach me how
to use a bow, even a crossbow, and was only marginally more successful when it came to gun training.

I’m an old-school girl, apparently. I’m all about physicality and punching and hitting and swinging around bladed weapons. I practised for hours with the bow but none of the arrows
went where I wanted it to. He told me I’d inherited my nan’s and mother’s stubbornness. It hit me hard then, when I realized what he was saying. I was so focused on the loss of my
grandmother; I had never stopped to think that he would be mourning his sister, my father and my grandmother, his aunt. It was a big wake-up call.

‘Thank you. She was a special lady, very fierce. I think she would have liked you.’ And it’s the truth. Only, knowing my nan, she would have had him singing all the time.

‘She sounds a remarkable person. It must run in the family.’

I flame bright in the darkness and duck my head, uncertain how to answer this. The kitchen suddenly feels far too small and intimate. I finish the last bit of my hot chocolate and walk over to
the sink to rinse my mug before wandering back to my chair.

For a few minutes there’s only the sound of the rain and wind outside as he watches me.

‘Let’s not fight again,’ he says, holding out his hand. ‘It creates too much of a dissonance.’ He taps his head. ‘In here especially.’

‘Agreed.’ I can see a flash of his teeth in the darkness.

‘Friends?’

I nod and chuckle. ‘Friends.’

The kitchen door that leads to the garage suddenly opens and the lights go on. Olga and Aiden burst in, laughing and looking a bit flushed. They both stop to look at us in surprise, me in my
overlarge T-shirt and far too much bare leg and Thorn fully dressed in a T-shirt and jeans but looking dishevelled.

‘Are we interrupting?’ Aiden asks, looking at us narrowly, taking notice of how close we’re standing, that Thorn still holds my hand. That I may or may not have been
crying.

‘No,’ says Thorn, not bothering to unlock his fingers from mine. ‘We’re just having hot chocolate. It’s customary, isn’t it? When one can’t
sleep?’

‘So that’s what you’re calling it,’ Aiden says giving me an elaborate wink. ‘That’s okay with me.’

‘Shut up, or I’ll hurt you,’ I tell him, taking my hand with me when I move away from Thorn. I look at Olga, who’s carrying a large backpack. She’s wiping her face
and hands with kitchen towel and she looks flushed and pretty in the unforgiving light of the kitchen. They are both wet and out of breath. ‘And where exactly have you guys been at this time
of night?’

‘I had to run an errand and took Aiden with me. I think I’ve got something.’ She hefts the backpack onto the table. ‘Check it out.’

I’m probably the only one who isn’t thrilled to look at the crumbling manuscript. It’s not that it’s not exciting, it’s just that whatever
language it’s in, I can’t read it – unlike my cousins and the rest of my family, who all have an impressive repertoire of ancient and dead and forgotten languages. Growing up
normal, away from having to know folklore and legends and weird esoterica, although it did give me a better grasp of how the real everyday world works, did not help me feel that I was contributing
when the family sat down and discussed the pros and cons of cornering an ogre in its lair or the proper etiquette in negotiating a crossing of the Cerulean Sea with its mer-keepers.

We are all crowded around the lectern in the Garretts’ study. The manuscript Olga brought back from Emm’s rests beneath a softly glowing light, spread wide beneath a plate of glass
that has a magnifying effect. I don’t know what the manuscript is made of, but I know it’s not parchment or paper. I refuse to acknowledge that the texture looks like finely worked
human skin.

‘This is it,’ says Olga, looking at Thorn. ‘It’s in Peri.’

Aiden notices my blank look. ‘Old dead name for the Fae language,’ he offers in a stage whisper. I scowl at him and lean closer to look at the squiggles, suppressing a yawn.

Thorn gives her a distracted look; as he turns back to the manuscript, his gaze briefly meets mine and in the depths of those dark eyes of his I see worry.

I watch Thorn rub the scar of the cut above his brow in a gesture I’ve started to associate with him feeling uncomfortable. ‘After Eadric attacked me, my father sent our sages and
sorcerers combing the combined libraries of the Citadel and those in all of Alba to find any scrap of prophecy or threat about the future. He sent out word to the other high kings in Afrique, the
Americas, to the Dragon Lords in the Far East, seeking any bit of prophecy they could find. It took him almost six years to find a copy of this.’

‘What does it say?’ Aiden is poring over it, a frown drawing his brows together. ‘To me it looks like some drunk decided to make up his own language.’

Oh Aiden. You really should keep your mouth shut
, I think to myself, but secretly I have to agree. The markings on the manuscript are so vague and delicate that it takes a lot of
eyestrain even to make sense of the curly lines and marks.

‘In far more flowery language it basically says that the fate of the worlds rests on the shoulders of the youngest son, that his choice will unleash the forces of creation, blah,
blah.’ Olga gestures with her cup of tea. ‘There is nothing in this so-called prophecy that indicates that it relates to Thorn. It can as easily relate to the youngest son of a
swineherd in Pax Australasia.’

‘And they assumed this was about you?’ I ask Thorn.

‘It’s the only thing they could find after all that time searching. So they made it fit.’ He shrugs.

‘That’s shite.’ Aiden’s scowl is impressive. He claps Thorn on the shoulder. ‘No wonder you’re so uptight.’

For a second it looks as if Thorn’s going to lose his temper but then he grins and it lightens his features, and once again he’s the handsome Fae prince I secretly enjoy checking out
when I think he’s not looking. ‘It’s not been too bad. At first it was, I mean. No one wanted anything to do with me, but my brothers stood by me and beat up anyone who said
anything about me, behind my back, or called me names to my face. But then, as I grew older and the world did not go up in flames, people started forgetting, or worrying about it less. Even my
father seemed to breathe easier. He started paying attention to my training and listened to my opinions about things. He sent me into the Frontier to live for a while and get accustomed to being
around humans. But still, this prophecy, this rumour of darkness remained. I didn’t have many friends and I learned very quickly how to fight.’

I remember the photo on the computer back at the Manor, the heavily scowling Thorn aged fourteen, the petulant lips and the disdain in those eyes. Things are becoming clearer now.

‘You said the manuscript mentions the Elder Gods,’ I prompt Olga, letting my hand trail across the glass.

‘It’s here,’ says Thorn, touching the far right-hand bottom corner of the manuscript where it looks as if something, long ago, decided to try and eat the manuscript. ‘You
can’t see it well, but basically it says: “Woe to the prophesied son as the Elder Gods await his coming. Upon his decision to cast aside what has gone before rests the fate of the world
and the Elder Gods’ return. They will remake the world as it once was, bringing with them the destruction of fire and water and all will be as new.” Pretty dire, right?’

Aiden grimaces. ‘It’s a ball of crap. It could even mean me. I’m my father’s youngest son.’ When we all turn to look at him in shock he holds up his hands in mock
surrender. ‘Hey, I’m fine. I’m not going to go all Dark Lord on you, I swear.’

I lean over and swat him on the arm. ‘Stop being a smartass.’

But the tension in the room is gone and he gives me a toothy grin. I shake my head and laugh, catching Thorn watching me. When I keep on smiling, he returns it, but it’s not the smile I
would have liked. It looks sad and pensive.