Compendium (13 page)

Still, Mia couldn’t help feel as if there were some connection between them, some reason she had triggered his rage, and it wasn’t just because she was a pretender. She was, to be sure, but the circumstances of the acolytes here were so varied, and the more she learned about them, the more she realized that not everyone was here because they had a calling.

Cedar had the calling, but Taryn had grown up in a gypsy forest camp, and her parents had sent her to the Order because they thought she would benefit from the stability of an education there. She missed the freedom of roaming all over the main continent, especially the forests, and talking to her grandfather. That said, Taryn was constantly amazed by the amount of reading material at the Order. Her family always traveled light, so she had little in the way of a book collection. She’d been at the Compound for a few cycles, but her dedication to history wasn’t enough to progress her past the stage of acolyte. Another of the acolytes joined the Order specifically because he’d heard whispers about its feats of engineering. There were as many reasons for coming to the Order as there were acolytes.

Something else had to be driving SainClair’s mistrust, and Mia was curious what that might be.

“Compendium,” she said, “tell me about Thaddeus SainClair’s family.”

The results were surprising to say the least.

The SainClair lineage is long and illustrious indeed. The SainClair family served as ministers on the Central Counsel. The very last SainClair to serve on the Central Counsel was Aris SainClair.

“What happened to her?” Mia asked.

Unable to respond. Information locked.

Mia sighed. She sometimes encountered such roadblocks when she asked Compendium questions.

“What happened to the SainClairs after the Great Fall?” she asked, changing the subject.

Gerard SainClair, Aris’s son, was among the founding members of the Order. The SainClair family has served in the Order continuously since its inception.

No wonder Brother SainClair was so wrapped up in the idea that the Order was a calling. “He sees it as his sacred familial duty. He probably thinks the purity of the Order’s mission is being diluted
.
Still, that’s no reason to be a total arse.”

The SainClair family has been decimated in recent generations
, Compendium continued.
At least one SainClair from every generation has taken vows to serve the Order. That is the family’s sacred pact. In Brother SainClair’s generation, two signed up for service, Thaddeus and his sister Jayne. They both served dutifully. Jayne married a cleric, Claude. He had no illustrious bloodline or family of his own, and he took Jayne’s family name and was welcomed as a son into their fold. The SainClair family had a sprawling estate in the Northlands that remained peaceful until the family started to divide itself over the increasing political tensions that rippled throughout Lumin.

“What Father told me was true,” Mia said. “The Order had no intention of involving itself in political matters, and it made that position clear to the leaders of Willowslip.”

Yes
, replied Compendium.
This official response created a fracture within the Order’s ranks. Some clerics agreed with the establishment that the Order should not involve itself in political disputes. Another faction in the Order did not believe that remaining neutral would serve the mission. They championed peace and lobbied the Order’s leadership to get involved. When the Dominus refused, this faction left and joined the war effort. Jayne and Claude SainClair left the Order, and Thaddeus SainClair remained. This rift tore apart an already fragile family.

Jayne and Claude were killed in the war. In addition, the SainClair estate was torched to the ground, killing the rest of the SainClair family. Thaddeus SainClair never learned who set the fire, but foul play was suspected. The family had been too vocal politically. Numerous bodies were found in the ashes, but all the remains were unidentifiable, burned beyond recognition.

“How horrible.” The story almost made Mia sympathize with SainClair. Almost
.
He had lost all of his family and was the last in a line that stretched back thousands of cycles. It seemed she and SainClair had more in common than Mia initially had thought.
Still, why take it out on me?
She was just a nobody from Hackberry.

The logical part of her brain said he was just being protective of the only family he had, the Order.
I would do the same. I did do the same
.
It’s why I’m here.
However, the emotional part of her said he could go jump off a cliff.

Mia pressed her lips together in determination. The Order might be Brother SainClair’s family, but it wasn’t hers. She still had Father.
He may not be perfect. He may even have sold me up the river for a long-shot cure for his spores, but he’s still my family.

Her thoughts turned to the Shillelagh. If it really did exist, she could use it to visit Father. It wouldn’t really be leaving if she just popped in to make sure he was recovering then popped back. If it were capable of instantaneous travel, no one would even notice.

She daydreamed about the forest. Instead of the quiet talking and occasional cough of the acolytes, the songs of birds rising from the resonant hum of the trees filled her ears. Instead of the smell of dusty books and sweat, the earthy smell of soil richening at the roots of the trees wafted into her nostrils. Instead of the lumpy bean mattress and flat pillow, the soft soil and grass padded her back as she lay on the ground and took in the visual gymnastics of the night lights rolling across the sky.

She was suddenly so homesick that her breath caught in her chest. As she lay in her bunk, her feet warmed by the cake, her chest tightened, and it took every muscle in her body to keep herself from crying. All this drama and politics had nothing to do with her quiet life in Hackberry. Maybe Compendium could help her find her way back there.

17
The Grove

Lumin Cycle 10152

Mia
Jayne stared up in awe
at the massive trees, the largest she’d ever seen. They fit snugly into the even grander cavern that soared upward to an open volcano crater. It was just as Compendium had described it. After her run-in with SainClair in the tunnels, she had become even more adamant about finding her way here, partly because she missed the sight, smell, and feel of trees and partly because she had to see for herself what was needed to power this place.

The first time she entered the Crater Grove and gazed upon the elders within, she wasn’t disappointed. The trees stretched so high that their tops were out of her view. The roots were enormous and gnarled, snaking out from under the trunks in every direction, popping up like giant worms wriggling in the dirt.

She always came here in the middle of the night, when no one would be about. She hoped to be able to see the night lights through the branches of the trees, but they were so thickly clumped that they formed their own closed roof over the immense crater. The room was so spectacularly huge that she almost couldn’t fathom that it was inside at all.

The hum was loud and vibrant. It drew her toward the trees, and she so wanted to reach out and touch the closest elder’s trunk, but thus far she had resisted. Before she saw them for herself, she labored under the delusion that perhaps she could climb up one of the elders and be gone, disappearing like a mouse in the night.

Clearly that was a silly idea. She instead contented herself to stare up at them and breathe their fresh air and pretend she was in her forest. Tonight she took her usual spot on the root-disrupted soil, with its springy mosslike grasses, and lay back on the ground, staring up. She inhaled deeply and let the energetic hum sink into her bones until she reached an almost meditative state. She knew it was insanity to lie out here in the open like this, but she needed these trees the way she needed water. They cleared her mind and filled it with calm—comforting, protecting, nourishing her, providing her with a small piece of home in foreign surroundings.

It was an impossible feeling to describe to others, so she’d never bothered to try. She also knew it was far from normal. It had been this way for her since she was a child, and she still didn’t understand it.
I’ll have to ask Compendium about that
.

Compendium. She had grown to rely on it to the point where she carried it everywhere, even though she couldn’t use it in front of others. It was tucked into her sash even now. She patted it at random intervals to reassure herself of its presence. Its weight and warmth had sunk into her body and become a part of her.

Mia was deeply entranced in her meditative state when a muffled crunch snapped behind her. She froze. Whoever or whatever it was must see her, as she lay prone on the ground of the Crater Grove.

“Who is it?” she asked softly, still frozen.

“It’s just me” came the whisper of a familiar male voice.

A sheepish-looking Cedar emerged from behind her to stare down at her sprawled figure. He looked as if he had caught her engaged in an embarrassing or perhaps supremely private act.

“Oh,” she said, relaxing, her voice also a whisper. “What are you doing here?”

“Um, mind if I sit down?” he asked.

“Suit yourself,” she said, and shrugged her shoulders against the grass. “My permission is pretty pointless. Neither of us is allowed in here.”

He sat down near her and crossed his legs. “I suppose that’s true.” His dark, fathomless eyes stared up at the branches in wonder. He eventually uncrossed his legs and lay down next to her, so their heads were near each other, and whispered, “I see why you position yourself like this. It’s amazing.”

“I’ve never seen elders this large,” she murmured.

“I read that before the Great Fall the Central Counsel used to meet at a grove of ancient elders that were so large that they started deep in the ground and reached so far into the sky that no individual ever climbed them to the top.” His voice sounded soft and dreamy.

“You’re beginning to sound like Taryn,” Mia said, poking him in the rib with an index finger.

He grabbed the offending hand and covered it with his, resting it on his lean chest. His heart beat slowly and rhythmically beneath his breastbone. Her mind wasn’t sure how to process this touch. She rather liked the gentle warmth of his hand and the steady beat of his heart, but she was unsure of the meaning. Her social education in this area was sadly lacking. She just left it be and enjoyed the sensation of having her hand held.

“I should very much like to see this grove someday,” she said quietly.

“Me too,” he whispered.

“You never answered my question. What are you doing here?”

“I followed you,” he said, turning his head to look directly at her.

His features were lit with a bronze glow in the dim light, like a browned butter and sugar combination. Mia marveled at the beauty of the light on his face.

“I’ve recently noticed you leaving the barracks in the dead of night,” he continued, “and then sneaking back some time later. I got so curious that I couldn’t get a good night’s sleep, because I wondered if you were going to sneak out, then wondered where you went.”

His hand was warm, his voice smooth. Mia closed her eyes and let them sink into and melt and mix with the rest of her senses.

“So one night last week, I followed you out of the barracks and into a moss-covered corridor,” Cedar continued. “But when I looked around the turn, you were gone. It was the oddest thing. So I waited for you. Finally, after a long while, the moss of the wall began to move, like something was going to punch its way through. I panicked and was going to run, but then a pale, thin arm popped through.”

“I never saw you,” Mia said quietly.

“Well, I ran off before you could,” he said. “Tonight, when you disappeared in the corridor, I followed you through the moss, and here we are.”

“So you followed me because you were curious?” she asked, opening her eyes again. Cedar’s hand still pressed hers against his chest.

“Essentially. I thought you might have been up to no good,” he said with a crooked grin. “I know how nefarious you are.”

“Aye, indeed.” Mia cracked a smile. “I’m terribly untrustworthy.”

“I half expected to find you rerouting power to the library to give Brother Cornelius his own hearth.”

“Oh, that’s an excellent idea. He would love that. Although he’s rather sensitive to humidity and temperature in the library. He even invented a special gourd that absorbs water from the air.”

“You don’t say?” said Cedar. “That sounds incredibly useful.”

“I know. Right?” she exclaimed slightly louder than she’d intended. She lowered her voice again. “You can take one with you when you travel to absorb water from the air and crack it open when you need a drink.”

“He should invent one with a hole,” Cedar said. “Then it could be emptied and reused.”

“I suppose we could just drill a hole, as long as it doesn’t damage the gourd. I can’t recall how long they’re good for.”

They mused for a bit on Brother Cornelius’s unending ingenuity.

“So you just come here and lie under the trees?” he asked, turning the topic back to Mia’s presence in the Crater Grove.

“Thus far,” she said. “I do have an interest in the systems, but when I get here, the warmth and the hum of the trees cajoles me into a relaxed state, almost like a trance, I guess.” She looked over at Cedar to gauge his reaction.

She’d never mentioned the humming to others, except for Brother Cornelius, who didn’t seem to notice, but she felt warm and comfortable, and Cedar’s steady heartbeat under her hand reassured her. He looked over at her, his dark, luminous eyes searching hers for something.

“I hear them too,” he said. “I thought I was imagining it, but I hear it.” He frowned slightly. “They’re always like this?”

“All trees and roots hum and vibrate,” she said. “Some louder than others. I’ve heard them since I was a small child.”

Cedar looked surprised but not disbelieving. It probably helped her case that he heard them too, at least here, in a room where the trees practically screamed with joy.

“Does it drive you mad?” he asked.

“Not at all. I find it incredibly comforting. It’s as if I’m never alone. The trees are always whispering to me.”

“That seems kind of creepy,” Cedar said softly.

“I suppose it would to someone unused to constant noise. To me, though, the deep quiet of the stone walls of this cavernous Compound seems creepy.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence. Mia succumbed to the sounds of the trees once again, and when she glanced over at Cedar, his eyes were round and absent, as if they were out of focus.

Finally he said softly, “Did your Father make it?”

Mia’s body tensed a little at the question. “I don’t know,” she replied, and bit her lip.

Cedar squeezed her hand reassuringly.

“They haven’t told me anything,” she continued, her voice trembling like her hand.

“Is he your only family?”

“Yes. For as long as I can remember, it’s just been Father and me.”

“What about your mother?”

“I never knew her. She died when I was an infant. I have no drawings of her, and Father never described her except to say she was very beautiful. I must resemble her, because I look nothing like him.”

“Does he not talk about her?” Cedar asked.

“He avoids talking about her to the extent that over time I conditioned myself to stop asking. Instead I make up fantasies about her in my head. Silly, I know.” Her cheeks grew warm from the embarrassment of the admission. “All I have of her are my fur bag and her locket.”

“You have a locket?” he asked, perking up. “Is there anything inside?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, disengaging her hand from his to tug at the long, intricate chain around her neck. She retrieved the chain from deep inside her robes and slowly pulled up the shiny metal egg at the bottom. “I’ve never been able to get it open, and I don’t want to damage it, so I’m hesitant to force it. I like to think it’ll open when it’s ready.”

Cedar took the small golden locket from her hand and ran his thumb over the latch. “It almost looks as if someone jammed it intentionally,” he said softly, peering closely at it in the dim light. “It would require some fine tools to work it open. The quality is exceptional, though. How old is it? The details look too fine to be accomplished by just any old country jeweler.”

“I really don’t know,” Mia said, feeling useless. What did she know? Apparently nothing. She admired the way the locket glinted in his long brown fingers as he handled it.

“Well, you’re quite a mystery,” he whispered solemnly then gently placed the locket in her hands.

Mia gave it one last glance before she propped herself up on her elbow and dropped it down the front of her robes.

“Are you hiding anything else in there?” he asked with a mischievous grin.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she blurted out, flustered.

“Aye, I would,” he said, matter-of-factly, looking over at her carefully.

Mia quickly flattened herself against the grass once more, baffled as to what to say next. A part of her craved the intimacy that Cedar’s eyes offered within their shiny depths, but another part said it was madness. Words tumbled through her mind, but nothing witty emerged.

“Oh, don’t be daft,” she said, again louder than intended. Her voice echoed up among the trees, and she thumped her hand lightly on his chest.

In an instant, he tugged her hand and pulled her over to him. Before she could speak or even think, his soft lips were on hers, and his right hand was caressing her cheek. When she gasped in surprise, he deepened the kiss. Her body relaxed against his, and when Cedar finally released her mouth, she was trembling.

“If you look like your mother, she really was beautiful.” With that simple statement, he sprung to his feet gracefully and held out a hand to pull her up.

She let him pull her to her feet, standing much closer to him than she was accustomed. His lanky frame towered over her. She took a small step back, still rather dumfounded by the entire exchange. Her heart pounded in her chest. She reached up to Cedar’s chest, but his heart was beating strong and steady and slowly under her palm. Wordlessly he took her hand and led her out of the crater and back toward the barracks.

They walked in silence so as not to draw attention and proceeded into the acolytes’ chamber. Before he released her hand, he brought it to his lips and gently kissed her palm. Then he smiled softly and slipped off to his bunk.

That night, Mia lay in her bed a long time before finally falling into a restless sleep. The meditative relaxation of the Crater Grove had been replaced by heart-racing thoughts and fears, some to do with Cedar and others to do with her mother.