Regius (11 page)

Strangely enough, I didn't
feel uneasy or threatened here. Instead, I felt incredibly
comfortable. Walking deeper into the space, I glanced shyly at the
transparent pots and beakers on a large table that carried many
flashy colored liquids, the tubes coming out of them spiraling
outwards and disappearing into the floor. As I followed their
trajectory, I realized they circled their way through the room,
connecting to each flowerpot.

This place was surreal,
unlike anything I had ever seen before. Even the Pallium garage,
foreign to me when I'd first seen it, was rather dull in comparison
to this conservatory.

"The view is incredible."
Because I'd expected someone to be here, I wasn't surprised to hear
the voice. I peeked out of the corner of my eye to take her in as
she came to stand beside me and I felt shock run through
me.

She wasn't Regius. Or not
entirely anyway. Her hair was Altor black, with two blue bangs
hanging before her ears and framing her face gently. She was pale
like a Regius, but she had to have had an Altor for a parent, as
the traits were just much too dominant for her blood to have been
diluted throughout the generations.

"It is." I responded,
shamelessly staring at her at this point, not caring that I could
see an ocean of trees on the outside of her conservatory windows.
She allowed me to take her in a while longer. She was wearing a
long light sapphire dress, her arms naked. It was of lesser quality
than the dress Maya had worn. The ends of this girl’s dress were
ripped along the edges, the color in the knee areas faded. This
girl was also a lot younger, maybe twenty-five at the most. Her
hair was twisted gently over to the side, forming a braid, the ends
of the locks resting on her right shoulder. She had a sweet face:
high cheekbones, freckles covering the bridge of her nose with full
heart shaped lips that offered easy smiles. She had very big eyes,
and those eyes...

When I noticed the color
of them,
my
eyes
widened in surprise. "You're Seer."

She cleared her throat. "I
am Kalmia and Sage's daughter. Like my half-sister, Vervaine, I do
indeed have the gift of foresight."

While that was interesting,
what had me surprised was the other thing she'd revealed through
that. "And Calycanthus is your half-brother."

Turning her body towards
me, she offered me her hand. "I am Mallow O'Malley. It is very nice
to meet you at last, Solenum Everhart."

"Err." I looked at her
hand. "I'm not sure I want you to be privy to all I
know."

"Unlike my sister, I
haven't deprived myself of my powers. I no longer need skin contact
to have visions." So, I guess she knew me inside and out already.
"I have been narrating your story." How exactly was I going to tell
Cali that not only had I met his sister, but she was entirely
whacked out of her right mind as well? "You are right to believe me
crazy. Not too long from now, the gift will get the better of me
and I will lose the last remaining shred of sanity I have
left."

"You're writing all your
visions down." I realized when my eyes landed on the dozens of open
notebooks laying on the floor, my name readable several times, from
where I stood.

Making her way over to the
distillery, she heightened the fire beneath some beakers and
lowered it below others. "The reason Digitalis didn't come for you
before is because he never kidnaps. Nevertheless, he is also the
person the Steward trusts most. So when Xania decided to use you as
bait to lure Galax into closer proximity and out of Pallium
territory, he had Digitalis do the job." When I grimaced at her
cheerfulness about it all, she shook her head. "I'm not evil at
heart, Solenum." I looked at her carefully as her eyes flashed for
a moment, glazing over as her lips parted, a soft exhale escaping
before she shook herself.

"Well," I murmured softly.
"My vision doesn't see you as dangerous, and I do feel strangely at
home when you are near." I really didn't feel out of place at all.
"I don't know whether this is because you aren't 'evil at heart' as
you state or because you are related to Calycanthus." I missed him
so. More than I had in Cobalt City. I was alone here.

"Don't air quote 'my
heart'." Mallow huffed out indignantly.

"Forgive me for second
guessing my instincts. You are part Regius and work for them. My
instincts should be screaming at me." She seemed upset at my
description for a moment, then she blinked, her eyes glazing over
again for a split second before she eyed me strangely
again.

"Contradicting, is it not?
To judge me as you do when you clearly do not place the same
judgment upon the heir to the throne."

"Do not speak of Galax." My
voice was sharp.

She raised an eyebrow.
"Because I do not know him? You do not know me." Grabbing a pair of
scissors, she walked over to a plant growing in a pot a few steps
away from us, and cut a flower from it. "Sage has made sure Xania
could never use me the way he wishes to."

I eyed her when she offered
me the flower, but took it since I didn't know what else to do.
"How?" She gestured for me to stuff the plant in my
pocket.

"The Regius are not as
together as they appear to be. The day Xen died and the rest of the
royal family that had a chance at bearing the mark vanished, Xania
has been forced to cut deals with my mother to make sure the army
doesn't revolt."

"Why doesn't she just let
them?" I asked as I pushed the flower she'd given into one of my
many pockets.

Mallow chuckled. "Because
in her own twisted way, she cares for me and knows that if she lets
Xania near, it'll be the death of me. She needs my
visions."

"That's not caring for you.
That's keeping you around for her own beneficial
reasons."

"I did say it was
twisted." She sighed then, looking at me with pleading eyes. "She's
kept me in the dark for years. I've been my own company for so many
hours, I stopped counting. My visions are my friends." She
murmured. "When I saw in one of those visions that I have a brother
and a sister living somewhere outside of this place, I was jealous
at first, but in the end, they became my friends. Their happiness
while growing up...It kept me sane." She tapped her temple. "Had I
not allowed the gift to start overruling my senses, I would have
lost my mind to darkness." Her smile turned sad as I remained
silent, letting her do all the talking. "Seeing Cali befriend
Datura and then you, it kept me alive." There was that name
again.
Datura
.
Isa had mentioned it when I'd first met him. "Aside from those
visions I've only spoken to my mother or Robinia."

"Robinia?" Another name
mentioned before.

"Trust him when you
meet."

"Like how you are using
your powers to make me trust you right now?" I accused.

"I am not doing anything.
You, like I, are Seer." She reached over to her desk that held the
many pots and beakers, and opened one of the drawers on the side of
it. "Here." My eyes widened in surprise when she handed me a gun.
"It is loaded and I am now asking you to shoot me."

I took a large step away
from her. "Excuse me?!"

She shrugged, holding the
thing loosely with two fingers, allowing it to dangle in the air.
"Don't act as though this is shocking. You have been kidnapped by
the Regius and your life is in danger. I am now offering you a way
to overpower me and get a chance at escaping." She stepped forward,
pushing the gun into my hands. "If you don't want to kill me due to
my being unarmed or because I haven't shown any true signs of
threat, then wound me, but realize that I won't be letting you out
of this conservatory unless you take action."

"But-" I held the weapon
shakily. If I disabled her, I could make a run for it. There was
logic in her suggestion all around where it concerned my survival
instincts; yet, there was just something that made it impossible
for me to wrap my head around the idea of lifting the gun and
shooting a bullet at her. I wasn't a killer. I didn't kill unless
the person in front of me threatened to kill me in return. But
then, she said I didn't need to, that I could wound her and run.
"But!" I shouted, my head spinning a mile a minute as I tried to
figure out what it was that I had to do.

"Do it!" She told me
frantically. With my eyes wide, I gulped and gripped the gun and
tried pointing it at her.

"I can't!" I shouted in
shock. While pulling the trigger was another matter, simply lifting
the gun and pointing it at her... "It's impossible, something won't
let me!"

"Exactly." Her voice was
gentle again as she carefully took the weapon out of my hands
before I could let it clatter to the ground.

"You, Solenum, can kill
when there is no other option. You haven't known me long enough to
care more about my wellbeing than your own. Even if I am blood
related to Calycanthus, you know that your life trumps that of mine
in his eyes. I may not pose an obvious threat, but you are in a
dire situation where collateral damage wouldn't be considered wrong
on your account. You are surrounded. What if I'd been your only way
out and that gun had been your answer to make your way past me?"
She took my shaking hands in hers, enclosing them and shushing me
softly when I couldn't control my breathing. "As you said, it's
impossible. Why?"

"Because Seers..." She
nodded, encouraging me to continue. "Can't harm other Seers." I
breathed in awe, looking up into her golden gaze. "We
literally
can't hurt one
another?"

"There must always be four
Seers of the same generation until a new one is created and can
take over. Once the new generation is born, the one before it may
die." Mallow said. "If it had been possible for a Seer to kill
another, my mother would have long since taken my life."

"Your powers would go to
her." I realized. Sage
couldn't
see. "Why can't I see?"

"A wrong was committed in
the history of the Seers."

I frowned. "What
wrong?"

Mallow seemed lost all of
a sudden. "I do not know. I cannot see that part of Zinc's history.
Certain things are locked away, out of my power's reach. The answer
to why you
and
Calycanthus can't see, is one of those things. What I do know
is that the gift seems to skip one generation in a bloodline. Your
father and Cali's mother both had the gift, but you
don't."

"And Sage can't see. How is
it she birthed two children who can see?"

"My mother is an only
child." Before I could point out being an only child meant there
had only been three in their generation, Mallow continued. "Linn
and Leann had a younger brother whom they fell out of contact with,
as they did with each other, when they were forced to separate for
their own protection against Sage's tyranny. Lorne was the first my
mother found and the first she had killed. When he died, I had
already been born."

"You were never supposed to
have received the gift."

"If Lorne had not died, he
would have fathered a child with the gift as he didn't have the
power to see like his brother and sister." Mallow sighed. "Sage
created more balance issues. Up until Lorne's death, the two clans
in the Seer race, one siding with the Regius and the other siding
with the Altors, always had one
with
the gift on both sides. But by
killing Lorne before he could father the child who could see, Sage
effectively forced that power into me."

"Are you saying you weren't
an accident? She planned you? Timing it with Lorne's death and
making sure you'd receive the gift of foresight?" I
asked.

"Yes. When she lost
Vervaine, her only hope was to make another child and make sure it
would have the power to see. Kalmia was her target."

My heart ached for her.
"She thought a Seer couldn't kill another only within their
generation. It's why she had others kill Linn, Lorne and Leann,
because she couldn't do it herself."

"And then she found out
that rule applied on all Seers. She could not kill me, as she
wasn't able to kill them. But like I said, in her own twisted way
she cares for me. Otherwise she would have had someone kill me for
her."

"You need to get out of
here." I implored. This place was terrible. She needed to leave and
understand life wasn't cruel. Mallow didn't deserve any of
this.

"Maybe one day. But today
is not that day. For now, I am an ally you can trust and count on."
She touched my cheek, giving me a watery smile. "Do as they say,
and they won't kill you." She gently turned me around and then
guided me back to the door I'd come through. "Hold on for as long
as you can, Solenum. I will make sure someone will find you."
Although she didn't spell it out, it was implied something bad was
about to happen, and it is also now that my Seer side awoke and the
gut feeling that warned me I was in big trouble assaulted me hard
enough to make me want to puke.

"I-" She cut me off by
shaking her head, grasping my hands in hers.

"You
can
do this. I have seen it. Just
hold on and be as brave as I know you to be." Before I could
protest or second guess her words or ask her all the other
questions I wanted to, she pulled the door open and nudged me out.
The sound of a lock turning reached mine and Maya's ears not a
second later.