Rise of the Seven (2 page)

“
Oh, yes,” he answered
grimly. “We made quite a spectacle of it.”

“
News has not traveled back
to us. Have you received any word of reaction?”

I could tell he really didn’t want to
answer.

I waited.

“
Not all were convinced. I
would suggest a gathering.”

Damn
.

He saw my hesitation. I’d developed some bad
habits during the time I’d spent bound. I’d been working to regain
the control I’d spent my childhood forming, the ability to mask
emotion that seemed to come so easily to the others. I nearly had
it mastered, but Chevelle knew me well.

“
This isn’t simply your
distaste for exhibition.”

“
No,” I answered.

His patience astounded me. I glanced down at
my hands, and then faced him, chin up. “I am having some trouble
controlling the magic.”

He stood and crossed to me. I saw the
slightest hint of worry in his gaze. “The bindings?”

“
No, no.” I assured him.
“Not my magic. His.”

“
Should we try to undo the
casting?”

“
No.” It might have been
overemphatic, but I hated spells. There was no way to be sure of
Asher’s methods and so much could go wrong.

“
Then there is nothing left
but to practise.”

I bit my cheek to keep from commenting.

Silence hung between us for a moment and then
in a soft voice, he asked, “Are you well, Freya?”

My heart clenched. I could only nod.

“
I know this is far from
over,” he said, “but I feel you are safer now than in the
village.”

I knew it wasn’t his fault, knew what had
happened was beyond all of our control. And I could see his guilt,
just as I felt my own, but none of us were entirely blameless
either.

It must have been hard for everyone, but I
had been bound, unaware during so much of it. I shook off a chill.
I’d been imprisoned in the village by an unwilling council.

“
It was a long time.” I let
it sit there, not exactly an accusation, but close
enough.

“
Yes, it was,” Chevelle
answered, and it tasted of regret.

But there was nothing to do now but move
on.

“
A banquet, then,” I
supplied.

He nodded. “I will arrange it.”

“
And practice.” I grimaced,
for old times’ sake.

He smiled genuinely then,
and I ached at the contrast with the pain he’d worn only moments
ago. He started to reach for me and then caught himself, and the
gesture made me want his touch so badly that I wondered if I
had
been truly bound to
him.

That was the only thing that kept me from
closing the distance between us.

“
You should rest,” he said.
“I will meet you for practice in the morning. Our usual
time?”

I laughed. It hadn’t been usual for a long
time. And there hadn’t been much practice involved.

He moved a breath closer and whispered,
“Sleep well, Freya,” before walking past me out the door.

I had to pinch myself to keep from following
him.

I loosed the straps on my armor and shrugged
it off, tossing it on the table by the door. That was when I saw
the box.

It sat centered on the table, alone. I wasn’t
sure how long I watched it before I moved, but when I finally
reached for it, my hands shook. I had to sit down. I laid the box
on the bed and curled my legs up in front of it, afraid to open
it.

Asher had taken everything from me. My
mother, my freedom, my safety. But, given the enormity of those
things, it was often the small treasures that I thought of most.
They were naught but tiny remembrances that had given me comfort.
In his attempt to control me, he had taken even those.

Those last bloody days were the tipping point
for my mother, I was certain. Had I known the outcome, I might have
let the tokens go, might have yielded to Asher. They meant little
compared to her life. But I had fought him harder then, as if that
infraction was the worst of it, when he had done so much more. I
had not the temperament of the others. The elves were stoic, but
when pushed too far chanced being overcome, grief-stricken or
crazed and unable to return to themselves. I had to fight to hide
my emotion, but it could come and go as the winds, leaving me no
worse for the storm.

There was no wind now as I opened the carved
stone lid. On top was a letter, a small note folded in half. I laid
it aside and pulled a strip of silk from the box. My fingers ran
across the soft fabric, a piece of my mother’s favorite dress. When
Asher had confined her, these scraps had accompanied her messages,
so I would know them truly hers. I held it to my nose, breathed in
the scent of her. She was rain and honeysuckle, a cool winter
night. Her scent was a contradiction, as was she. She was of light
and dark. And I of both and my father. I had often wondered what
that made me. When we were young, I had asked Chevelle what I
smelled like. Without hesitation, he’d answered, “Wet elk.”

With a smile, I returned the scrap to the box
and touched the smooth stones, gold ring, and leather strap that
lay inside. The amulet was there. I wondered if Chevelle had known
its origin. The inky blue had reminded me so much of its owner,
Sapphire.

We both blamed Asher for her death. Though I
shared that blame with myself. I had been a fool to think we could
escape him. After all he had done, I had known there was no true
escape. Somewhere, deep down, I had to have understood what I was
risking, there was no doubt that such blatant defiance would have
to be answered. And I had not cared about the cost. Until we found
her.

I could still see her lifeless body cradled
in Chevelle’s arms. I could feel the anger, taste the bile, recall
the first flavor of infinite hatred. Nothing else could have driven
me to seek such a final revenge. She had been an innocent. They had
cleaved her eyes from their sockets because I intended to walk away
from all of it, to leave with him. They had dressed her in a royal
gown of azure, adorned her with jewels.

His mother. The blue of her eyes a message to
me. The same depthless sapphire as Chevelle’s.

Chevelle had returned these items to me.
Though they meant little now, they had once been precious. I’d no
doubt they had been a trial to recover. I didn’t know if I had the
courage to read his note, but my hand moved numbly toward it.

I took a deep breath and opened the fold.

“
My love.”

Well,
shit
.

It changed everything. Chevelle knew me. He’d
given me all that he could and left me to decide.

My head fell and I put the note in the box,
closed the lid, and slid it in the hiding spot beneath the third
stone under the floor of my bed. I walked out of the room without
looking back, turned down the corridor, and ran.

Six doors, two stairways, and a window later,
I was scaling the last ten feet to a roof of the castle. I’d stolen
a cloak on my way and when I reached the top, the wind caught and
flipped it behind me. My hair whipped my face as I made my way
across to perch on the only point that was blocked from wind by the
tower but still allowed a full view of the mountain below and sky
ahead. I wrapped the cloak tightly around me and felt settled for
the first time in days.

It was silent for two hours, and then the
quick, light padding of paws approached. Keaton and Finn.

They settled in beside me, quiet and still.
Their silvery fur caught the moonlight in an ethereal glow.

“
I can’t leave him,” I
said.

The wolves did not respond.

“
I may not be able to be
with him, but I cannot leave.”

Chapter Three

Meeting

I woke on the perch as the sun broke the
clouds. My first thoughts were curses; I should have met Chevelle
at dawn. I hurried down, running until I reached the corridor and
saw the servants. I didn’t recognize them, but that was no surprise
considering so many of them had to be removed after they’d been
found out as Asher’s spies. The castle was fully staffed now and
each of them, properly uniformed and mannered, prepared for the
banquet. Chevelle had been busy. Remembering my own station, I
straightened my shoulders and slowed my pace.

When I reached the practice room, I thought
he’d given up on me. I walked into the empty space for the first
time since I’d regained myself fully. It held an echo of memory,
emotion. I walked further, glancing up to see the morning sun
stream in the filigreed windows, catching dust motes in its rays. I
sighed, thinking of how it must have looked to him when I hadn’t
shown up after the gift he’d left me. And then I saw him.

He stood in the shadows, watching me. When he
knew I’d found him, he stepped forward. He’d been on the ledge,
probably watching out a window while he waited. He stopped for a
moment, the sun at his back throwing his features into further
shade, and I had a flash of nervousness. I didn’t know if I could
pull this off.

I straightened. “I fell asleep.”

I thought I saw the corner of his mouth pull
up, but couldn’t be positive. He jumped down and crossed to me.

“
Good,” he said, “you’ll
need your rest.”

Sleep was once a sore subject with me. I
required about twice as much as the others and I used to fight it,
trying to keep up with them. Chevelle knew that, he’d seen what I’d
done to myself.

I’d been different in so many ways, and he
knew them all. Things didn’t work the same with me, I wasn’t born
with the natural instincts for magic. I’d always had to work at it,
find the power and force the control. But I had overcome it. And
now, I had a new problem.

“
So,” I started,
“practice.”

“
Show me what you’ve got,”
he answered.

I really didn’t want to do this, but I closed
my eyes, centered my breathing, and released. The stones beneath
our feet started to vibrate and shift, the walls shook, the iron in
the window let loose an ear-piercing metallic creak. Tiny sprinkles
of rock fell onto my face and I stopped, sealing the stones back in
place before opening my eyes once more.

He looked dubious.

“
Yep,” I said. “And that’s
not even angry.”

“
You’ve been angry?” he
asked.

My face twisted cynically. “Ruby’s been
here.”

It was clearly a joke, but he didn’t laugh.
Not even a little. And then I smiled as I realized how much he’d
been forced to deal with her antics while I’d been bound. I
wondered what all she’d put him through.

“
You chose her,” I reminded
him.

“
I used to think so,” he
said.

I chuckled. “Things do tend to have a way of
working out for her.”

“
Cursed fairies,” he
grumbled.

“
Cursed fairies,” I
agreed.

“
Do you have a plan for
demonstration?” he asked, clearly determined to change the
subject.

“
I think I’ll wing
it.”

“
Brilliant.”

We were silent for a moment. Finally, he
asked, “Fire?”

“
All right,” I answered with
little confidence.

He stepped beside me so we were both facing
the long, empty space and used his magic to chuck a rock from the
box in the corner. As it flew across the room, I raised my arm and
pointed at it in an attempt to focus solely on striking it with a
fireball. Not one flame lit but the rock exploded.

“
What was that?” Chevelle
asked.

I shrugged. “Did I mention sometimes it
doesn’t work properly?”

He nodded, expressionless. “This time, try to
shatter the stone.”

Another rock launched from the box, flying
straight into the expanse. I focused on splitting it and it burst
into dust. I looked to Chevelle.

He tore a small piece of fabric from the hem
of his shirt and held it before me. “Burn this.” I started to
glance down, but the first finger of his other hand stopped me.
“Not my palm.”

Right
.

I concentrated on the fabric
for a moment before the idea of burning his palm recalled one of
those odd, not quite me memories. The lines of a map burnt into my
palms. An old trick we’d used on Fannie.
Ass
, I thought, for one fraction of a
second, before I realized I’d gotten angry.

I gasped at Chevelle’s intake of breath and
raised my hands in a helpless gesture as the flames died down.

“
I see what you mean,”
Chevelle said through clenched teeth.

“
Ah, I’m sorry. I just... I
got irritated for a second.”

He eyed me questioningly and I glanced at the
seared flesh of his hand. I might have still been irritated. At my
expression, understanding came over his face.

“
Let’s just call it even,” I
suggested.

“
Aye.”

“
And,” I continued, “in case
you’ve forgotten, we are in agreement that you’ll not use spells
near me unless absolutely necessary.”

He stared me straight in the eye. “We are
even from here.”

My jaw rolled involuntarily. Come to think of
it, there’d been a lot of catching up on his end while I’d been
bound. “Fine,” I answered, taking a step toward him.

We stared at each other for one long moment
and then the unburned hand clenched into a fist. When I’d been
bound, I had thought him constantly angry with me. But I knew him
again, and I understood this was a different kind of restraint. He
wouldn’t touch me, he’d let me decide.