Distant Star (17 page)

With a sigh, I rubbed at my eyes
and licked my lips. I wanted something fizzy, for a change, such as a can of
Coke or something. The Forget may have held every territory ever written by the
Willful, but the bulk of True Earth’s delicacies often found their way over,
one way or another—particularly in and around Ascension City, where the majority
of humanity crossed between the realms.

I made my way toward the kitchen.
My bare feet were silent against the wooden floorboards, which is why I heard
the two gentle voices before I saw them. I slowed to a stop just in the hall
outside of the kitchen and eavesdropped.

“Trust me when I say this,” Aaron
said. “You do not want Declan Hale fighting this war again. He is ruthless.”

“That’s good for a war, isn’t
it?” Ethan asked, obviously not in the gardens. I heard the fridge open and
close, the rustle of brown paper bags. They were putting away the supplies
purchased in Farvale.

Aaron sighed. “Spoken by a man
who has never fought in one. You misunderstand, because you cannot understand.
Declan is kind, caring, and loyal. He is all of these things, yet he is ruthless.
In war he is driven by rage. In the final years of the last conflict, he
committed such atrocities. The Degradation was almost among the least of them.”

“What did he do?”

“What was necessary to protect
what he believed. In
whom
he
believed.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,”
Ethan remarked.

“No?” Aaron chuckled without
humor. “Again, you cannot understand. I took lives in the war, young Ethan.
Many lives. Some deserved death, and some did not. But
I
never wielded true power. Not like Declan. In the final days of
the war, just before he created the Degradation, the penultimate battle was
fought in a realm of Forget known as the Reach. A city of millions… Declan used
a weapon he found in Atlantis during his Great Quest to fight in that battle.”
Aaron sighed.

“What weapon?”

“A sword. A terrible sword
capable of harnessing an absurd amount of Will. He lost control, Reach City
burned, and Declan’s little secret was exposed. With Atlantis at risk, he chose
to seal away the city… at the expense of the Story Thread.”

“And now that’s he going back?
What will happen?”

“I wish I knew. He’s changed.
Perhaps for the better, perhaps not. Only the guilty can understand the cost of
true power, Ethan. And Declan is very guilty. Millions of innocents suffered
and died for his ambition. Let us hope he has learned from that mistake. Yet I
can’t help but feel the last five years were nothing more than a brief
interlude between conflicts.” Aaron sniffed. “Last time, Declan had Tal
Levy—Sophie’s sister—to fight for. Now he does not. Now he has…
just his anger. I’m terrified we’re helping a madman gain inconceivable power.”

“You could… talk to him about
this.”

“And say what? No, we must watch.
We must help him
avoid
the war.” One
of them turned on the sink tap. “Besides, I am not nearly brave enough to anger
Declan Hale. No, no, no.”

I’d heard enough. Aaron’s words
did ignite a spark of frustration in my heart, but I liked to think I’d changed
since the end of the Tome Wars, since my choices had forced Tal’s death. Fair
to say I’d paid a handsome price for my
ruthlessness
.
Stepping away from the kitchen, I headed out to the balcony once more for some
fresh air. My ire had to be directed towards my true enemies.

Jon Faraday.

Morpheus Renegade. His stab-happy
wife.

And anyone else that gets in your way, Dec?
whispered a voice in the back of my head.

How far would Faraday go? His
acceptance of Renegade into the Fae Palace had been a surprise, but he wasn’t
stupid enough to actually trust the snake. Not in a million years. The heat
death of the universe would pass us by before Faraday would so much as blink in
Renegade’s presence. So what was the plan? The end game? Plunge both kingdoms
back into war? Too simple.

The sun disappeared behind the
mountains, casting violet halos on the craggy peaks.

The solution came back to Atlantis,
and what could be won there. The fate of the new world order would be decided
in the ruins of the old.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I Ain’t
Happy

I went into the kitchen for that
Coke I’d been craving earlier. With the rest of the gang missing, the villa was
a quiet place. I knew Clare had been upstairs earlier, so I set off to find
her, two fizzy drinks in hand.

Dusk light filtered in through
the skylight in the hallway upstairs. “Clare?”

“In here, Declan.”

I followed her voice down the
hall and into the bedroom she and Sophie had shared last night. The door was
ajar, and the subtle scent of cinnamon drew me in and left me wanting to sit
down and sigh. I was a long way past regret for what could have been in my
life. Still, I couldn’t help but want at these simple moments of perdition.

Clare was seated in a window bay
that overlooked the magnificent lake and mountains. The failing light caught
her lounging in a silk blouse and shorts. A golden aura of energy seemed to
cling to her form, to follow the curves from her bare feet up to her avian-like
face.

My heart skipped a few beats. I
felt a familiar surge of longing—of raw desire. She wasn’t just gorgeous.
She was
beautiful
and made me feel my
age, for once. Young before war’s end, before Tal.

“You’re staring, Declan.”

“Sorry. Breathtaking view up
here, is all.”

Clare smiled at the not-so-subtle
compliment. She accepted the Coke with a word of thanks and twisted off the
screw cap to release that satisfying 
hiss
 of
bubbles. “The first sip is always the best.”

“I was lonely, so I came looking
for a friend.”

“Oh, we’re friends, are we?”
Clare took her first sip. “Not just old lovers who hook up once every
half-decade? Or break one another out of custody? Risk treason and execution? I
don’t know what we are, Declan, but I am confused.”

I sat on the edge of the window
niche and gently stroked Clare’s ankle. “I know, and although the words are too
small to convey any true meaning, I
am
sorry for all the trouble. I know I can be… ruthless, sometimes.”

Clare rolled her eyes. “You’ve
just never gotten over the girl you couldn’t have. Tal was lovely, Declan. She
was kind and lovely. But she’s gone. Long gone. Move on, would you?”

Everything was tied to Tal,
wasn’t it? My every choice, every victory, and every defeat came back to her.
Love was a many splendored thing.

“Is it that simple?” I asked.
Never mind the armies of Forget were on the move. Never mind I had just over a
day left to live, if the past was to be believed… “I loved her, Clare. I still
love
her. So very much.”

“And that’s fine, very human
even. I’d be worried if you felt any other way. I know losing Tal—never
really having her—makes you feel torn open inside. Declan, that’s a good
thing. That’s a goddamn strength. You’d be broken and finished if you didn’t
feel that bad from losing someone you love. But she is gone, and you’re wanting
after something you can’t have. Typical man.”

“I did have her once. On the eve
of the Degradation in the ruins of Nightmare’s Reach. I told her I loved her
and she said… heh… she smiled and said thank you.”

Clare closed her book, a finger
between the pages, and crossed her legs. “I never knew that.”

I shook my head. “No one did. She
died later that night. That endless night.”

“I’m sorry, Declan, for your
loss. I don’t know if anyone has ever said that. I guess if no one knew…”

“Sophie knew I loved her. That’s
why she stuck with me through the exile.” I sighed a sigh for the ages.
“Thanks, Clare.”

“Honestly though, you can’t have
her. So move on.”

“Easier said than done, sweet
thing. I… I try not to think about it. Sometimes I get so absorbed in my
writing—or a bottle of scotch—that I go an entire half a day
without thinking of her. Sometimes. But…”

“But?”

“I let myself think of nothing
but her—for five minutes at the end of the day. Five minutes where I let
myself
bask
in the regret of what
happened. The one I lost, who I never really had. It’s futile, I know. Five
ultimately pointless minutes that do nothing but hurt, yet I reckon I’ll be
doing it right up until the day I die.”

So, just once more then,
according to the Historian. Grand.

“Well, this is just a whole other
side of you. You’re always closed off. Emotionally flat. I think you’re
actually feeling so much so often that you’re broken.”

Emily Grace had said something
similar, under the hot lights and amidst the fierce music at Paddy’s only a few
short nights ago.
I think you’re trying
very hard not to cry.
I missed her.

“You kissed me,” I said, changing
the subject rather abruptly.

“Yes.
And you kissed me back.”

“May I kiss you again?”

Clare leaned in so close that our
noses almost touched. “No,” she said, her breath warm against my face. Then she
pressed her lips against mine softly, just for a heartbeat.

I laughed, enjoying her secret
smile and affection. “Please do that again…”

Clare uncrossed her legs and
returned to her book. “You need to think about what it is you want, Declan.
Goodnight.”

*~*~*~*

“Did you get all of it?” I asked.

Marcus made it back to the villa
early the next morning, as most of us were sitting around the kitchen.
Something as simple as cornflakes should’ve taken the magnificence out of
breakfast in Forget, but if anything, the mundane cereal only enhanced the view
of the forest-city further down the lake and added a sense of reality to the
unreality.

Sugar to the spice.

“I brought you some clothes and
shoes,” he said, stomping through the kitchen unshaven and tired.

A knot of dread settled in my
stomach at the sight of the backpack slung over Marcus’s enormous shoulder. I
already knew what was in there. I
knew
it.

He unzipped the bag and tossed me
a white collared shirt and a pair of trousers—all wrapped up in my
favorite grey waistcoat.

I can’t save you from that wound
, I’d
told my dying self.
All the Will in the
world couldn’t… Are you wearing my favorite grey waistcoat?

My funeral suit. Oh… goody. I
pushed away the bowl of cornflakes. Suddenly, I wasn’t so hungry anymore.
Still, the clothes were better than the dirty polo shirt and jeans I’d been
wearing for two days.

“And then there’s this,” Marcus
said, and handed me a book in a brown paper bag. “Really, you just left it
sitting on the counter?”

“Hidden in plain sight.”

“What is it?” Clare asked,
running her spoon through the milky dregs of her breakfast.

“
Tales of Atlantis
. How Tal and I found the Lost City, back in the
day.”

“Hmm. Go get changed, would you?”
Clare stopped running her foot up and down my leg under the table. “You don’t
look like you without the vest.”

“You’ll be the death of me, sweet
thing.”

I excused myself and headed
upstairs to the shower. Better to die well dressed, I suppose, although I was
still a few pieces short of solving that grim puzzle. The man who had died on
my shop floor had had a fresh scar cutting down his face and a gaping wound in
his gut. Knowing it was coming, perhaps it could still be avoided.

Sophie and Ethan were cuddled up
together on the leather sofa in the living room, sketching crude drawings of
the mountains over the far side of the lake, when I came downstairs. Ascension
City was just on the other side of those peaks.

Sophie laughed as Ethan stroked
the small of her neck, just behind her ear.

Kids.

“Good morning, you two.”

“Hey, Mr. Hale,” Ethan said.

I offered him half a smile. “Call
me Declan, Reilly. You’ve earned it.”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “You need
a shave.”

I rubbed at my stubbly cheeks.
“So, here’s the thing. You two are heading back to Perth this morning. I’m
sending you on a super-secret important mission to, uh, go have fun at the
beach or something.”

Sophie glared. “What?”

“Just until all this plays out,
one way or another.” I held out my hands and, after a moment, Sophie and Ethan
each gave me one of their own. “This isn’t your fight, even if you want it to
be. Neither of you are ready for this. Sophie, you were just a kid during the
last war, and Ethan—despite your daring rescue—this is your first
time in Forget. You’re untrained and worse, eager to please.”