Deviation: Altera Realm Trilogy Book 2 (29 page)

“What do you mean?”

“Me and you. We both love and hate. We both can be hurt and be selfless.”

“What are you getting at?”

“There’s no reason we shouldn’t be equals. Why couldn’t we be together as friends or more?”

Leaf stood up. “I didn’t tell you this to make you feel guilty.”

“Oh, no, I don’t…I didn’t.” She sighed. “I agree with you, with him. Even outside the palace there’s so much…class distinction between the Lycins and Magic Users. But there’s no difference between us, Lycin and Magic User.”

“But there’s so much history with our races. I feel like nothing will ever change.”

Helen looked away and wrung her hands. “Syney mentioned to me this morning that she wants to motion to allow royals and nonroyals to join.”

Leaf nodded. “I would assume that is directed at her and Adam.”

She looked back at him. “What if she motioned to abolish the law against joinings between other races?”

Leaf looked away. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it quickly.

“What? You can tell me,” she prompted.

“During wartime, she’d never get that to pass. And she might lose some of the support that she’s earned on the council.”

Helen nodded. “You’re right.”

“I’m not sure how much either motion will do, to be honest. The pairings aren’t in any of our hands.”

Helen took a jagged breath. “They’ll be in mine.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “I saw how they’re done. It’s like the fire, but it’s water. Every day Vasclineda dips a piece of paper into the water and a list of pairings comes out.”

Leaf looked at her. “She can’t do it every day.”

She nodded. “Every day. She takes the list and looks it over. Most days she discards it,” she said, tears streaking down her face.

“Why?”

Helen took a deep breath. “Let me put it this way. Until recently Syney and Hunter were on the list every day.”

Leaf dropped his head. He didn’t like he sound of this. Pairings were a sacred thing. Both the high priestess and high priest were the vessels through which Venus and Cupid spoke.

“She discards the pairings that are against the law. She also doesn’t take ones in which the couple doesn’t show any…connection.”

“Even if they’re both royal or nonroyal?”

Helen nodded. “She says that she is the judge of love. And that I have to learn the signs so I can do the same.” She looked at Leaf with desperate eyes. “I have believed in this religion—my religion—for so long but I’ve…I’ve been questioning it all. What am I supposed to do with all of this? I’ve spent days and nights rethinking everything that I’ve been taught—everything I believe. I can’t do this…Everything I believed in is wrong.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s not.”

She wiped her tears with the back of her hand and stood up. “What if the whole story about the first Lycin and Magic User is like the pairings? What if that was just a way to explain away the fact that we didn’t want to fight our own battles?”

They silently stared at each other for a while. Leaf finally went and handed her a tissue. “Something is going on with Syney,” he said, changing the subject.

Helen nodded. “I think it has to do with Adam. I’m not sure she should trust him.”

“I tried that with her, but she didn’t want to hear any of it.”

Helen wiped her eyes. “We could wait to see what her next move is.”

“She wants to talk with the Shifter.”

Helen nodded. “Syney has been trying to find out information about how the war started.”

“Why?”

“Because she can’t end something if she doesn’t know how it began.”

Leaf nodded. “OK. I’ll let her in to see him. But I’ll stay with her. That way I can hear her questions.”

Helen sighed. “I keep getting this bad feeling that…my mother is…I don’t know.”

Leaf instinctively rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “Let’s deal with one thing at a time. Can you keep a list of the names Vasclineda pulls out for pairings?”

She nodded, his gesture visibly calming her down.

“Good. It’s going to be OK.”

She smiled. “And I came here to cheer you up.”

He shrugged. “You did.”

“No, I didn’t.” She stepped back. “I’ll come by tomorrow with the list. Just…never mind.”

“What?”

She headed to the door but turned back to him. “You and I probably will be on it. We were today.” She stared at him for a while before leaving him alone in his room.

Helen was right about one thing. She hadn’t cheered him up; she’d only brought up more to think about. It unnerved him to question such core beliefs, but at this point, he couldn’t help it. There was so much in motion right now that he wasn’t sure what he wanted to tackle first, or if he even wanted to do anything at all. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He needed to clear his mind and relax for now. He had to present the front-line report tomorrow, and he had to be very careful with what he said. He started to review the report again in his head. Above all he needed to be prepared.

Syney was freaking out. She sat on her bed with her hands underneath her. She didn’t want her hands to touch anything or wave by anything. Since she’d come to the palace, she’d never had a hard time with magic. The only things that didn’t come easily were her inner powers, like the Daemon energy and the healing. She really wanted to explore the different magics she’d been coming across, especially some of her Daemon powers. When she had written down the list of things she had done, the most interesting power she possessed wasn’t even on the list. When she heard Hadrian’s voice in her head, she thought she was going insane. But he had told her not to scream out; it was a Daemon power to be able to project verbal thoughts into someone’s head. She couldn’t figure out why he didn’t just tell her that it was one of their powers when he was addressing the last thing on her list: the calm feeling she got with Hunter. He told her that it wasn’t something he’d ever heard of before and that he was pretty sure she didn’t want him addressing it out loud with Adam there, which she thanked him for. At the time Adam had broke in and helped her with the healing, so she made a mental note to practice talking to someone in his or her head, which is what she wanted to do when she got up this morning, but then all hell broke loose.

When she woke up, she thought about how cold she was, and suddenly the air in the room started to boil. She went to turn on the lamp beside her bed, and every light in the room popped on. At that point she knew something was
wrong. She jumped out of bed, thinking of which clothes to grab, when her drawers flew open and a set of clothes flew out and into her hands. She dropped them and jumped onto the bed, hiding her hands and clearing her mind. She closed her eyes and just tried to breathe.

“Whoa, it’s hot in here and really bright.”

Syney cracked one eye open and looked at Adam, who was taking off his jacket.

He looked at her. “Syney? What’s going on?”

She opened her eyes. “Something’s wrong.”

“What?”

Syney took some breaths. “It should be colder in here.” The temperature in the room dropped quickly.

Adam eyed her then looked around the room. “Did you do that?” he asked slowly.

“I think so.”

“How?”

“I don’t know! I just think of something…like a brush.” Syney’s wooden brush flew across the room and into her hand. “And hey, look, a brush.”

“OK, this is a problem.”

“Ya think?”

He sat next to her and grabbed her hands. “Wow, I can feel the power in you.”

“How do I turn it off?”

“You have to control it. Close your eyes, and try to stop the flow of magic.”

Syney did as told and felt the rush as magic tingled throughout her body. She tried to get it to slow down, or put it away somewhere, but it kept flowing. She opened her eyes. “It’s not working.”

Adam sighed. “Maybe you have excess energy from healing Noelle.”

“OK, I can go with that. Should I, like, drain it out?”

He made a face and shrugged. “I’m not sure about this at all. But I guess you could try that.”

Syney nodded and held out her hand. The Daemon energy had strained her the most, so that was the first thing she thought of. She closed her eyes and pushed all the energy to her hand. She finally started to feel the power drain out of her and smiled. She opened her eyes, and her mouth dropped open. The energy ball was much bigger than the one she had created at Becca’s house—almost five times the size. “What do I do with it now?”

Adam looked around the room. “Um, fireplace?”

Syney looked over and tossed the large ball of purple into the fireplace. When it hit the stone and wood, a purple fire exploded into the room a foot
from the fireplace. Syney yelped and jumped back farther in bed. The purple fire burned for a few moments before dissipating. Syney took a deep breath and looked at Adam. “Holy crap, that was scary.”

“Do you still feel the magic?” Adam asked.

Syney closed her eyes but couldn’t feel anything other than what she normally felt. She opened her eyes and shook her head. “I think that did it.” She smiled and lay back on the bed. “That was crazy!”

“Yes, it was,” Adam said quietly.

Syney sat up quickly. “What’s wrong?”

He smiled at her. “Nothing. It’s just…that doesn’t happen every day.”

She rolled her eyes and got out of bed. “Add it to the list.” She started to get dressed and glanced at Adam. He had gotten quiet again. She bit her lip and put on a long leather skirt. She had a council meeting after breakfast and was a little nervous. She had thought for a while about her proposal to allow royal and nonroyal pairings, even going as far as asking Vasclineda and Helen to come to the meeting in order to get their opinions. It was an idea that had merit for the entire palace, like moving the dining hall but on a larger scale. Proposing the idea did scare her a little. Yes, Adam played a big role in her wanting to do this, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to be paired. “So, um, I was going to…in the council meeting today—”

“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” Adam said, cutting her off.

“Oh, OK. But first I wanted to talk about…”She stopped and sighed. It didn’t matter what she was going to motion at the council meeting if she wasn’t ready to have a future with him. She walked over and sat next to him. “I wanted to talk about our future.”

He looked at her and smiled. “All right.”

“What do you see for us?”

He shrugged.

“Seriously, I need more than that.”

“I…I don’t know. And I don’t care as long as we’re together.” He leaned over and kissed her lightly.

She smiled. “I want that too, but I do have a little more direction than you. I was thinking about ending this damn war, settling in here, and having a few kids to carry on the Vilori rule.” She watched as his smile fell, and he looked away. “We don’t have to stay here.”

“It’s not that.” Adam winced. “I…um.” He paused and turned to face her. “I told you about how I grew up. I moved around a lot and didn’t have much of a parental figure besides Gabe, who took me out drinking for my fifteenth birthday. I didn’t want to settle down, and I really didn’t want to bring any children into this world—not the way it was and considering my lifestyle. So I cursed myself.”

“What?” Syney asked, her heart dropping.

“It’s an easy one, an infertility curse.”

“How long ago?”

“A very long time ago, so yes, it’s permanent now. You have to understand it was an easy decision at the time and made total sense…until I met you. But I’m OK with it.”

Syney stood and walked a few steps away. “I’m not OK with it.”

“Syn, nothing can be done now.”

She shook her head. “There has to be a way, and I’m going to find it.”

He walked over to her and cradled her face in his hands as tears filled her eyes. “And I love you for wanting to.” He kissed her as she wrapped her arms around him. He was hers, and she would do everything she could to help him; she had to.

When he pulled back, he stayed close, his arms resting against her hips. “Gabe and I were talking last night, and we have an idea we want to run by you.”

“What is it?”

He stared at her silently for a moment. “Today, at the council meeting, we think you should motion to bring the troops back from the borders.”

Everything inside Syney stopped. “Why?” she managed to get out.

“Gabe learned some information about the report you’re going to hear today, and it looks like the Council may want to move the troops north, which would put them much closer to the underground Shifter kingdom. Gabe thinks the Shifters will probably see them as a much greater threat and will attack.” Adam’s voice wasn’t as smooth as it usually was. He knew exactly what he was asking; there was no doubt. It wasn’t just the nameless troops the Council wanted to come back to the Village; it was Hunter.

Syney stepped out of his embrace. “I’ll think about it after I hear the report.”

Adam nodded. “OK. Do you want to go eat?”

“Sure. I want to tell Gabe about what happened with my powers just now too,” Syney said, leading the way out of the room.

“I think we can catch him and Noelle on their way out of the dinning hall.”