Shaxoa's Gift (33 page)

“How did you feel when you met Uriah’s
grandparents, the ones who were Twin Souls? How did you feel about
Notah after meeting them?” I asked. She had told me and Uriah part
of the story when we asked her permission to get married, but
perhaps there was more, something that would help me.

“The first few days were so confusing for me.
I loved Notah, and until I met his parents, I believed I loved him
with all my heart. Being around them made me doubt my own
feelings,” Lina said. “I couldn’t say anything to Notah, and I
certainly couldn’t ask his parents. I went to Quaile, like I told
you, and she told me that Notah wasn’t my Twin Soul and that
neither of us would ever meet our Twin Souls. Well, for Quaile that
was enough. She refused to discuss it anymore and told me to go
home.”

Every time Quaile’s name was brought up, my
opinion of her dropped a few more levels. When I was finally face
to face with her, there would be no putting me off. She would
answer every question I had, and if I had to tie her to a chair to
get them, I would.

“I stewed about it for a few more days, but I
just became more and more miserable the longer I kept it to myself.
After three days, Notah knew something was wrong. I still didn’t
want to tell him how much his parents being in our home had shaken
me, but he kept pressing me until I finally told him the truth,”
Lina said.

“How did he react?” I asked.

“He laughed.”

“Really? He laughed? Why did he laugh?”

“He forgot that not everybody was used to the
effect his parents had on people. He had grown up surrounded by
their love, and it wasn’t that big of a deal to him anymore,” Lina
said.

“How could anyone get used to it?” I
asked.

“Notah took me in his arms and held me. I
asked him how he could love me knowing that we weren’t Twin
Souls.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that it didn’t matter to him. Even
though he was raised by his parents, he said that they understood
real love better than anyone. They always told him that real love
was built on trust and friendship, and Notah and I had both of
those things. His parents often told him that even though the bond
sealed them together, their relationship took years to build. Notah
told me that he loved me and he wouldn’t trade what we had for
anything,” Lina said. A wistful smile crossed her face as she
thought of him. Her eyes sparkled with tears for her dead
husband.

“Now I know where Uriah got his romantic
side,” I said. I was smiling too. It was the first time in quite a
while. Notah would have been proud of his son.

“Uriah won’t give up, Claire. You have to
trust him.”

“I do trust him,” I said. “It’s me I don’t
trust.”

Lina’s head tilted to the side as she
considered my words. “You’re afraid you’ll give in, aren’t
you?”

I nodded. “It’s not a matter of
if
anymore, it’s
when
.”

“You don’t know that, Claire. You’re strong.
You can do this. I know you can.”

“Lina, you don’t understand. If Uriah doesn’t
come home soon, there might not be anything left for him to come
home to. I’m hanging on by a fingernail,” I said. I had to wipe
away fresh tears. “Even with all these reminders, even sleeping in
Uriah’s bed and imagining that he was lying next to me, it just
isn’t enough. I need more or I won’t make it.”

“What do you need, Claire?” Lina clasped my
hands in hers. “I’ll do whatever I can.”

“I need to know what you’re hiding from me. I
want to know why all of this is happening. You know, Lina. Please
tell me,” I begged.

She shook her head sadly. “I can’t, Claire. I
wish I could, but I can’t.”

“Then I need to go.”

“Please don’t, Claire. Whatever you think
you’re going to find by confronting Quaile, you’re wrong. It has
nothing to do with you.”

“If these secrets are about Uriah’s future,
then it has everything to do with me, Lina. Whatever is going to
happen, I’m going to be there with him.”

27: More

Lina had tried to stop me when I left. Taking
advantage of her injured leg, I slipped passed her to the living
room easily. Sophia was there. My argument with Lina as I escaped
the bedroom had drawn her from the kitchen. Lina begged her to stop
me from leaving, but once I told Sophia what I was after she stood
aside. Her disapproving gaze fell on Lina, who shrank back in the
face of her friend’s judgment. It wasn’t until Sophia saw the blood
soaking through my sleeve that she made any kind of move to stop
me. Seeing her concern, I ducked outside and hopped in Uriah’s
truck even faster.

The drive back to my house seemed to take
seconds. Getting out of the truck had to have taken hours. I had
rushed to get there, but the sight of my dad’s truck in the
driveway held me in place. I couldn’t even count the number of
times we had fought with each other. Sometimes he won. Sometimes I
did. Those had been about stupid things, though. Clothes, hair,
boys, ballet. This fight was more important than anything I had
ever faced him down about before. It was a fight I couldn’t afford
to lose.

Lina said the secrets of Uriah’s future had
nothing to do with me. She seemed to truly believe that, but I
didn’t. I affected Uriah in ways that made no sense if I wasn’t
meant to be a part of his story. My dad made the choices he did
because he was trying to keep his children from getting tangled in
whatever he knew was coming. I wasn’t Uriah’s Twin Soul, but I was
connected to him in more ways than love.

Even with everything I had puzzled out, none
of it led back to me breaking my bond with Daniel. My personal war
seemed beyond the scope of Uriah’s secrets from the surface. Deep
in my heart, I was convinced it wasn’t. Something told me that
whatever was going on had much more to do with breaking my link to
Daniel than anyone realized.

It was time to get some answers.

Stepping into my house, the atmosphere
shocked me. Bubbling tension filled every inch of it. It skittered
across my skin, making me shiver despite the warmth of summer. For
a moment, I couldn’t move or call out. I stood standing in the
entryway, stunned. The sound of footsteps marching down the hall
finally got to me enough to break the spell. I turned toward the
noise just as my dad rounded the corner.

The haggard quality to his features caught me
off guard. Always so perfectly composed, even in his anger, the
hunched, nervous way he stood made him look like a stranger to me.
He looked as if he hadn’t slept in several days. I had doubted
Cole’s words about how frantic and upset my dad was, but now I saw
how serious he had been. My dad’s eyes latched onto me, hope
lighting them.

“Claire? You’re back?” he asked.

“I’m back for answers, Dad.”

His shoulders shook. It took me a moment to
realize he was crying. An odd compulsion to comfort him came over
me. It was bizarre, something I had never before felt. I almost
stepped over to him.

“You’re going after him, aren’t you?” he
asked quietly.

“If I can figure out where he’s going,
yes.”

He looked up at me. The red running through
the whites of his eyes and the tremble in his lips tore at me. “Is
there nothing I can say to you that will change your mind?”

A simple shake of my head brought on more
tears from him. I broke. Stepping forward, I placed my hand gently
on his shoulder. His head snapped up in surprise. It broke my heart
when he looked at my hand on him, comforting him, in such
amazement. It shouldn’t have been the first time we faced each
other like this. We should have had a lifetime together where he
held me in his arms, kissed a skinned knee, or I hugged him and
told him I loved him, or sat with him after he’d had a long day. My
dad’s hand slipped over mine timidly. I had spent so much of my
life hating him. In this one moment, I wanted nothing more than to
be wrapped in his arms and hear him tell me it was going to be
alright.

Half of my wish was answered when he pulled
me into his arms and cried. “Claire, I don’t want to lose you.
Please don’t leave San Juan. Don’t ask me to watch you walk away.
Please, Claire.”

Still buried against his chest, I said, “Dad,
I have to go.”

“Why?”

“Because I love Uriah, and I’ll do anything
to keep him,” I said.

Slowly he pulled back and faced me with tears
still lingering in his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re saying,
Claire. You have no idea what you’re going to have to give up if
you follow him.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll die, Claire. If you follow Uriah, it
may very well cost you your life.”

There was no deceit in his voice, no
manipulation to get me to stay. For the first time in maybe my
whole life, I knew beyond a doubt that my dad was telling me the
truth. I meant what I said about doing anything, but it was still a
shock to hear those words come out of his mouth. It took me a
moment before I could speak again.

“Dad, what are you talking about?”

He pushed out of our embrace gently and
turned away. “I can’t explain it, Claire. I promised Quaile I would
never tell. I can’t break that promise. She entrusted me with the
knowledge because of who I am. I can’t break my promise to
her.”

“Because of who you are?” I asked. I knew he
couldn’t be talking about his wealth or businesses. Quaile couldn’t
have cared less about that. Stories and reminders from my youth
quickly set me right. “She told you because your grandfather was
the last chief?”

“We may not have a real chief anymore,
Claire, but I’m the closest this tribe has. They all look to me for
leadership. I can’t betray that.”

Frustration and anger boiled over. “You’re
not the chief!” I yelled at him. “I don’t care what Quaile made you
promise! I’m going after Uriah with or without your help, Dad. You
can either tell me what you know, and maybe save my life, or you
can let me walk out of this house blind to what I might face. If I
die, it won’t be Uriah’s fault. It will be yours.”

It was a slap across the face to him.
Thinking of others before himself had never been his strong suit.
What I said had finally blown past his selfish heart.

“Deny me and save your prestige, or help me
and keep your daughter safe,” I said. “I’ll tell you right now,
though, if you don’t help me, Dad, this is the last time I will
ever speak to you.”

His face twisted in agony and indecision.
Strength left him entirely, and he slumped to the floor. Still, he
didn’t speak. I took a step away from him, determined to leave, but
he called out for me with desperation thick enough to stop me.

“Wait, Claire, I’ll tell you everything.
Please don’t go yet,” he begged.

I turned back to him and offered him my hand.
He took it gratefully, but I wasn’t feeling the same. Not yet.
“Tell me everything.”

At first his words came slowly, hesitantly.
The story of a woman having a vision of a young man who would one
day save the world from a dark power slipped past his lips in a
near whisper as if he were afraid someone else was listening. The
farther he got into the story, though, the more urgent his words
became. This young man would destroy the creature that murdered
Twin Souls, the creature that had attacked Uriah. The word Qaletaqa
rolled over me. I couldn’t explain the familiarity I felt at
hearing it. Without my dad having to explain that the prophecy was
about Uriah, I already knew it more surely than anything I had ever
known before. Retelling the story scared my dad, but to me it
brought a strange sense of peace.

This was who Uriah was. Not a simple rancher,
not a freak dropped out of a tribal myth. He was a savior to his
people, to the world even. He was everything I had always believed
him to be. The confirmation of what I had recognized in Uriah from
childhood stilled the raging inside of me. Even the bond seemed to
quiet. My dad kept talking, telling me how dangerous it was for
Uriah to face down the Matwau. He didn’t seem very optimistic about
Uriah’s chances and begged me not to go with him.

I didn’t even hesitate when he asked me what
I was going to do.

“Claire, do you understand now why I’ve tried
so hard to keep you away from him?” he asked. “Are you still going
to follow him?”

“I told you I wasn’t going to let him go,
Dad. Nothing you’ve said is going to stop me. If anything it’s
convinced me more than ever that I have to find him.”

He looked completely bewildered. “What do you
mean?”

“I have to go. Uriah is going to need my
help. I can’t explain how I know that, but I’m sure of it, Dad.”
That knowledge settled over me as soon as who Uriah really was had
been revealed. It made little sense to me. What did I have to offer
someone as uniquely gifted as Uriah? I had no idea, but I knew he
would need me before his battle was over.

So engrossed in my own thoughts, I hadn’t
even noticed my dad’s reaction to my bold statement at first. Only
when the silence grew long and deep did I look over and see the
shock on his face.

“How could you possibly know that?” he
asked.

The pure terror in his eyes sent a chill
through his body. It frightened me so much I could barely even
respond to him. “I…I just said I didn’t know. There’s this feeling
… I know I have to help him.”

His head shook back and forth. “It can’t be
true.”

His voice barely came out as a whisper, but
it was enough to sink deep into my mind. I was missing something.
He had told me so much of what he knew. Not all of it, though.
There were more secrets lurking behind his fear. What else could he
know about Uriah that would scare him so much? What he’d already
told me was frightening enough. Something finally clicked inside my
brain.