Rive (5 page)

“What kind of chatter?” Rylan said.

Victor shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “The dangerous kind. Plans to attack the children and others.” He directed his gaze to Celeste.

“Why?” Celeste asked. She stood now, pressing her body into the side of Rylan’s. “What did we do?”

“I don’t know.” Victor shrugged. “Look, I can’t talk about this anymore, but some of them hate you guys. You know that already with Fayga.”

Celeste thought of Fayga, who had hunted her down, kidnapped Tink, and tried to kill her. “Yeah, I know.”

“Should we go back now?” Victor asked. He walked toward the building. “I think we should go meet the rest of the bodyguards with your parents.”

“Okay,” Celeste said. The firm set of Rylan’s jaw told her he too was not done discussing the extra security.

She was halfway up the steps when something exploded inside her. “Oh.” She sunk to the ground, clutching her stomach and chest. Her power wavered in and out, coming in supercharged waves of energy. She felt like her body was turning inside out. “Oh, my God,” she managed. What was this? A heart attack?

Rylan crouched next to her. “What is it?”

She tried to stand, using his strong muscles to anchor herself. “Something is…wrong. I’m not sure,” she stammered.

Victor paused a few steps up. “Everything okay?” he called back.

“She’s hurt!” Rylan said.

Victor crouched next to her. “What is it? What’s happening?”

“I don’t know. It’s not pain, exactly, but it is. It hurts.” She hadn’t intended to call them, but the sky darkened with her blackbirds, swirling in massive circles, blacking out the sun. It was the most she’d ever seen.

Rylan gripped her arm tighter and she managed to pull herself all the way up.

“It’s something happening. Something—”

A loud, feminine scream pierced the daylight, cutting her off mid-sentence. A cacophony of yells erupted, followed by a series of pulsing beeps.

“Guards!” Victor yelled. Three
Sidhe
appeared out of nowhere, surrounding Celeste. One of them she recognized from this morning, the one girl with the strange grey eyes. “We need to get inside.”

Rylan pulled her toward the building, eyes scanning the perimeter as they sprinted inside. “What is this?”

Victor didn’t answer them until they were inside. He slammed the doors shut, glanced up at a security camera, then the locks slid into place with an ominous thump. The shrill beeping continued. “It’s a lockdown alarm.”

“Why?” Celeste managed to stutter. Strange feelings still coursed through her. Her blackbirds swirled outside, creating an ebbing darkness.

“I don’t know yet. We’ve never had one.”

More feminine screaming wafted from the direction of the potentiate dorms. “That sounds like Ashley,” Victor said.

They sprinted toward the dorms,
Sidhe
guards in tow. “Check on my parents,” she threw over her shoulder. One of them nodded and disappeared.

A girl was crouched on the ground, tears sending discolored streaks down her foundation caked face. A crowd of scared-looking teenagers filled the hallways.

They moved closer until they could see what she was looking at. It was Ashley, with her pale skin and golden blond hair on the ground.

“Ashley?” Victor said. “Ashley!” he shouted, dropping next to her.

Her eyes fluttered opened. “My head. It hurts so bad. The pressure.”

Celeste sat down next to her. She let her power flow through her, sending her purple light all over Ashley. She opened the portal wide, feeling a massive rush of panicked and confused
Sidhe
through the portal to the Otherworld. It was her gift.

Ashley sat up, slowly at first, leaning on Victor. “That’s so much better. You healed me.”

“No, I didn’t.” Celeste reached for Rylan’s hand, needing to feel something solid and true.

“What is it, Celeste? What did you do? Is she okay?” Victor said.

The potentiates leaned in, staring at Ashley.

Celeste rested her hand on Ashley’s shoulder. “You’re okay. Everything is fine.”

“What’s happening here?” Rylan’s green eyes bounced from Ashley to Celeste.

“She’s
Tuatha.
She’s just become a
Tuatha
.”

Ashley’s brown eyes widened. “I did?” She shook her head, golden hair falling around her shoulders. “But that’s not right. No one felt one coming. It shouldn’t be…I’m not seventeen yet and it’s only on the seventeenth birthday.”

“Unless a
Tuatha
died,” Regina finished.

They all spun in the direction of her voice.

She stood in the doorway, flanked by a Celeste’s upset-looking parents and stoic Usha, almost transparent against the doorway.

“A
Tuatha
has passed, and a new one has been born,” Regina said. “You can feel it, can’t you Celeste?”

Strange sensations still rolled through her body. She could feel the agonizing void of the dead
Tuatha
, and the fresh bursts of the uncontrolled power of the new one, Ashley. She finally spoke. “Yes, I can feel it.”

Regina looked at the cluster of potentiates. “Return to your rooms at once. We are on lockdown until further notice.”

The cluster of teenagers whispered, looking at each other with frightened eyes.

“Now,” Regina said in a much louder voice.

They dispersed, disappearing behind their respective doors, filling the air with the whir of their whispers.

Celeste was left with Rylan, Ashley, Victor, her parents, and the guards.

“Come with me, please,” Regina said.

Celeste linked her arm through Ashley’s, and then helped guide her down the hallway to the conference room they’d been before.

“What’s happening?” Celeste’s mom asked. “Something bad has happened, hasn’t it?”

“We were not expecting to lose anyone,” Regina said.

“She was killed,” Celeste said.

Several faces whipped to face her direction.

“How do you know, dear?” her mom asked.

“I don’t know. The darkness of it. I can feel it.” Rylan’s fingers wound through hers, squeezing.

“Me too,” Mateus said. His wide grin was gone, replaced with a much more solemn expression.

“What do we do?” Celeste’s dad asked. “Is Celeste in danger?”

“We all are, until we understand this. I’m going to need you all to stay in the complex until we figured out what happened,” Mateus said.

Celeste’s parents looked at each other, and then back at Mateus with their agreement. Her dad spoke. “We will stay wherever Celeste goes. Where are her guards?”

“All here,” Victor said. As he spoke, three
Sidhe
made themselves visible to her parents.

Celeste felt something moving through her, and gasped. A
Sidhe
appeared in the room holding a small, frail looking woman with thick, tight curls of copper hair. Drops of blood fell from her limp hand to the floor.

“Bettina!” Regina shrieked.

The
Sidhe
gently placed the bloodied woman on the floor. Regina cradled her in her lap. “Betty? Can you hear me?”

Betty stirred, head tossing back and forth. She spoke in a weak, watery voice. “We were attacked. Just outside the city. Naomi. She’s dead.” She sobbed, whether it was pain or agony or both, Celeste didn’t know.

Tears streamed down Regina’s face, dropping onto Betty’s forehead. “Rest now.”

Celeste buried her face in Rylan’s shoulder, closing her eyes, wishing for the image of the bloodied woman to disappear from her mind.

Chapter 6

Celeste walked slowly down the hall, the hem of her long black dress lightly sweeping behind her, her black ballet flats soundless on the floor. She linked arms with Rylan, handsome as ever in his black slacks and black button-down shirt. His eyes flashed in their supernatural way.

She smiled at him, but she was too sad to give him a genuine grin. He squeezed her elbow before turning his eyes forward again.

Her parents walked silently behind them. Her father handsome in his classic suit, her mother in a tasteful knee length black dress. Her mother had insisted they all dress to the nines out of the utmost respect. It was the way she was raised.

They followed Victor into the auditorium style room, filled to the brim with
Sidhe
, potentiates and some humans. Victor melted into the mass of people as soon as they arrived.

One familiar tall blond stood out in the crowd.

“Tink!”

He spun around, picking her up into a giant hug. “Hey, Rua!” She snuggled against his thin frame

“Hey, you,” she said, but it was muffled by his chest. “How did you get here?”

“One of your guards. You okay?” He peered into her face. “You’re looking a little peaky.”

“I didn’t know her, but,”—she glanced around the solemn faces that filled the room before she finished speaking—“I feel sad.”

“Of course. I’m so glad you’re okay though,” Tink said. “And I’m glad you have guards now, even though the chick who brought me looked a wee-bit creepy.”

“Me too.” She smiled. “Thank you for coming.”

Regina stepped to the microphone in front of the closed casket. Every inch of the sad wooden case was draped with beautiful greenery, ivy and flowers. It was Ashley’s
Tuatha
gift. She could make things grow and communicate with plants.

Celeste stilled as Regina spoke, slowly reading an obituary of Naomi’s three-hundred years as
Tuatha.
Her seven living children sat in the front, a row of shocked, surprised faces.

Celeste eye’s teared up as she heard of Naomi’s special affinity with language and how she used her gift to help others. She could understand and speak every known language in the world. It was an amazing
Tuatha
gift, and Naomi used it to better the world.

Until she was murdered.

She wasn’t sure what she expected from a
Tuatha
funeral, but it was fairly typical from her limited experience. After Regina finished her heart-wrenching, unusually personal obituary, a few family members offered remembrances, and then a priest led the room in a short, sweet prayer.

She was surprised when Regina re-took the microphone. “All
Tuatha
, please come down for our final ritual.”

“What?” Celeste whispered.

“Don’t know. Better go,” Rylan whispered back.

Her mom pressed her hand to the small of your back. “You’ll be fine, hon.”

She took a calming, deep breath then made her way down the cold stone stairs to the front of the room, one step at a time. The eyes of the
Sidhe
and humans scorched into her back. With all eyes on her, she was thankful her mom insisted she wear the floor length, empire-waist, chiffon black dress and matching slippers. Ashley had wrestled her auburn hair into coils that neatly wrapped around the back and top of her head like a crown.

Her light flowed through her as she neared the stage. She heard the collective gasp as her flameless fire burned through her body, lighting her up in violet. She kept her eyes on the casket as she entered the platform.

She fell into a loose circle around Naomi’s remains with the other
Tuatha
. It was a small group, since there were only five
Tuatha
on earth at any give time. Mateus stood on her left, a wide-eyed Ashley on her right, greenery forming on the spot where she stood. Betty stood next to Ashley, still bearing some scars from her ordeal. Regina stood between Betty and Mateus.

Regina turned off the microphone. She kept her voice low enough that only
Tuatha
could hear. “Hold hands,” she said.

They did, making a circle.

“Repeat after me.” She spoke a series of strange, almost guttural sentences. Celeste was afraid she wouldn’t be able to repeat them, but found they rolled off her tongue quite easily. It was some buried, ancient knowledge.

As the last word rolled off her tongue, power whipped through the circle. Mateus’s and Ashley’s hands gripped hers so hard it hurt, but she barely noticed.

Strength surged through her. She closed her eyes and dropped her head, overwhelmed with the feelings cursing through her being. Images started flashing behind her closed eyes. She instinctively knew the others could see them as well.

It was knowledge. All the knowledge in the
Tuatha
world somehow shared with her over a period of seconds. She saw her entire life in reverse. She saw her familiar violet eyes in another woman’s face leaving an infant in car seat at a fire station.
My mother.
The woman whispered, “I’m sorry. This is the only way to protect you,” as she left.

As she watched her story unfold, she saw Mateus’s life. His many, many loves. Victor being born. She saw Ashley’s life and Betty’s, even Regina’s long life that had began in a different era.

Previous
Tuatha
came next. The images moved faster as the
Tuatha
became more ancient. The modern clothes and cars disappeared. The cities gave way to villages, then to dirt. The people began to look stranger and different. Huskier, rougher. Shorter.

There were strange animals and creatures along with the early humans. Dragons, elves, true faeries, furies, skinwalkers, giants. They split on a seam, co-existing at the same time but not the same place. The corporal beings on earth, the rest in the Otherworld. She watched most of the magic leave the world.

Then it was more ancient. A time so long ago it was beyond her comprehension. There were the ancient ones, the very ones that were the light and the dark and time was beginning on earth.

She understood the power they held now, as controlling the seam between the two worlds. It could be closed, it could be opened freely. It could end the world.

She gasped as the images faded. Their hands dropped as they all struggled to step out of what they had just seen.

“Holy crap,” Ashley whispered.

Regina cleared her throat. “That is how it began. We are connected with earth. What you have seen does not leave the circle. Our powers must never be known.”

With that, she turned her microphone back on. “Thank you, everyone. The graveside service is family only. The wake is in the atrium.” She smoothed her skirt, and then stepped carefully off the stage.