Sovereign Hope (9 page)

Kayden smiled
again. The look would have disarmed anyone else, had many times
before, but I had known him too long. I didn’t trust him for a
second.

“
Sounds like a plan…” Kayden trailed off, indicating that he
had obliged me in my request not to call him
bro
, and reached out his index
finger.

I flinched,
and a hard light glinted in Kayden’s pale blue eyes.

“
There’s something really interesting in the way you shy away
from virtuous touch,” he said.

“
I don’t mind the virtue part. It’s
you
I mind.”

Kayden gave an
exaggerated sigh and placed his fingertip in the center of my
forehead, filling me with a wave of warmth that surged from my toes
to the tips of my hair. The irritation vanished, to be replaced by
a blissfully deep sense of peace.

“
That’s just it, bro,” Kayden said. “Me and virtue, we’re one
and the same.” But I was beyond hearing. My body had slipped away.
I felt myself tumbling, floating, falling; a slow, powerful breeze
blew through me, down to my very soul. As it pulled through me, it
carried particles of me away with it, carrying me to a better
place.

******

The trees’
bare branches were like witches’ claws choking the sky overhead,
blocking out the stars. A rich black velvet, spangled with the
brilliant pinpricks of a thousand other times and a thousand other
places, lay spread out above me like a graceful map. My mind
snapped back into place like a jigsaw puzzle, and my surroundings
came bearing down on me all at once: freezing cold, dark and
ethereal. I still wore the thin t-shirt and jeans I had been
wearing back in the hangar. Kayden, on the other hand, was leaning
against a tree, wearing a thick parka. Bastard.

“
Why am I on the ground?”

Kayden’s
silent laughter slipped free from his lips in a visible spiral of
fog. “Wanted to give you a soft landing. Sorry.”

“
No, you’re not,” I growled. I pulled myself up on my elbows
to see that snow lay in a thick blanket over the ground. It coated
everything in a ghostly shroud, giving off an eerie silver glow. I
got to my feet, glaring at Kayden, who was definitely trying to
give me hypothermia. Sure enough, my t-shirt was soaked through and
my jeans were already freezing against my skin. “Where are
we?”

Kayden drew a
deep breath into his lungs. “Alaska. Can’t you smell it on the air?
The untarnished, untameable aroma of the wilderness.”

“
Can’t smell anything.” The cold had a way of robbing the
senses like that. I had been to Alaska before; it had been a cold
and lonely place then, too. “Where are they?” Kayden wouldn’t have
dragged me all the way out into the wilds to socialize. Despite the
banter, Kayden loathed our meetings just as much as I did. That
meant the Quorum had to be close by.

“
This way.” He turned and started crunching through the crisp
mantle of snow, creating slight indentations where he walked. When
I followed, my feet sank up to my mid-calf, and by my fifth step my
shoes were soaking and my toes were numb. There was no way I was
going to say anything, though. I wouldn’t give Kayden the
satisfaction.

The thicket of
naked silver birch we were in soon petered out to overlook a
sweeping downward slope, where a group of figures stood in a broad
circle at the center of a clearing. They wore long cowled robes,
inky black in the bleached moonlight, drawing their faces into
shadow. They turned in unison to look up at us as we emerged from
the tree line.

I was about to
make a smart comment about the Quorum members being seriously
freaky but Kayden, there a second ago, had vanished. When I turned
back to look down at the clearing, I saw him standing like a stiff
pillar behind one of the figures, watching me, his blond hair
shining like a halo of beaten silver.

“
Creep.
”

“
Daniel Montisauri,” a booming voice—male or female, I
couldn’t tell—echoed through the thick silence. It rattled off the
narrow spindles of the tree trunks. A flock of birds, startled from
their sleep, took to the sky as one, shrieking and flapping their
dark wings overhead. The sound of my full name was like breaking
glass in my ears. I recoiled, slipping in the snow.

“
You have been summoned, Daniel,” the voice declared, louder
than before. “Come before the Quorum.”

“
All right, all right,” I hissed under my breath. “We can’t
all just click our fingers…” But I obeyed all the same and started
down the slope. The snow on top here was loose, and underneath a
slick layer of ice had formed, making the steep way down
treacherous. It was a full five minutes before I reached the
bottom, by which time I was shivering uncontrollably.

“
Come forward, Daniel,” the voice said. The figures—I counted
eleven in total—were gathered, facing towards one another,
statuesque in their stillness. It was tough to tell who had spoken
and where I should be heading, and I paused, scanning their
lifeless forms. The figure Kayden was standing by seemed like the
wisest bet. The boy watched me with a blank expression, his usual
humor and faint arrogance all but disappeared as I made my way
over.

“
I am Emissary Nevoi, head of the Quorum,” the voice said,
“You have been called before us to discuss the matter of Miss
Farley Hope. We understand that she is currently under your
protection?”

“
She is,” I replied warily. The way the Emissary asked the
question made it sound more like an accusation.

At my
response, the voice spoke again from inside the cowl of the robe,
fogging the air. It was a surprise. I’d almost come to suspect that
there wasn’t really anybody inside the robes at all, but the mist
on the Emissary’s breath gave evidence to the contrary.

“
We require that the girl be handed over to us.”

My heart
contracted. “Why?”

“
The girl is essential to the balance. The Quorum maintains
the balance. We fear she may be endangered if she is not cared for
properly. You are aware of the prophecy?”

“
Of course.” A twisting feeling writhed in my gut. This
conversation wasn’t going anywhere I cared to go.

“
Then you know what must happen in order for the prophecy to
be fulfilled.”

“
No. I know what you
think
must happen. The prophecy’s a thousand years old.
It’s been translated into as many different languages. There could
be any number of different interpretations.”

“
There is only one,” the voice replied. An edge of irritation
had grown in its timbre. Seemed the Emissary didn’t much like the
way I was talking back.

“
Why have you brought me here?” I demanded. If they wanted
Farley, Kayden could have just taken her back in the hangar. There
had to be something else. The Emissary stepped forward into the
silent circle, still buried beneath the folds of thick
material.

“
The girl is collateral damage. We need to make sure you
understand that. We have the same goal, you and I. The Reavers have
upset the balance and must be destroyed. You also want them dead.
The girl has been pre-ordained to sacrifice her life, but there is
another part of the prophecy that must be fulfilled, also. We
haven’t taken the girl because we require your help, and we are
aware that you harbor feelings towards this Farley
Hope.”

“
What?”
Even I didn’t understand how
I felt about Farley. There was no way
they
could.

“
You know what we refer to. If not now, then at some point in
the future your emotions towards the girl will deepen. It will be
as inevitable as the drawing of breath for you. You must make an
oath before us now that you will not act upon these
feelings.”

A cold hand
forced its way inside my chest and squeezed its frigid fingers
around my heart. The only warmth I felt came with each of the
Emissary’s words, thrusting into me repeatedly like a searing hot
knife.

“
I can’t make that oath,” I whispered.

“
You have no other choice. If you do not, Farley will become
our ward until the time comes when she is to die.”

It was all I
could do to keep my teeth from chattering. “And what else? You said
you need my help to fulfill another part of the prophecy.”

“
We do.” Emissary Nevoi stepped closer until the two of us
were standing less than a foot apart. Still I could see nothing but
the hollow depths of darkness inside the hood. A hand, female after
all, withdrew from the folds of the robe, and the Emissary reached
up and touched my face. It was a feather-light stroke, but with it
came a bewildering flurry of images and information that made me
drop to my knees, gasping for breath. When it was over I looked up
at her, feeling the cold seeping in through the wet patches in my
jeans.

“
There’s only one way I’ll agree to what you’re asking of me,”
I said. Now that I knew what they needed from me, it seemed silly
to worry about Farley’s safety. She would be safe; they would do
whatever I wanted so long as I promised them this one thing. The
Emissary gazed down at me, the hint of her eyes suggested in a soft
reflective shine from within.

“
What would you have?”

“
Farley stays with us. And you have to swear you’ll do
everything in your power and the power of those at your disposal to
research the prophecy. You have to swear you’ll try and find
another way.”

“
Agreed. But whatever the outcome, you must surrender the girl
all the same. When the time comes.”

I tasted blood
in my mouth. Something else, too, like fear. I nodded.

The Emissary
drew an ancient-looking bone-handled dagger from her robes. It
glittered in the cold midnight blanket of the Alaskan night. She
drew it swiftly across her palm, squeezing her fingers around the
blade. “It shall be done.” She held the dagger out to me. “And you
swear to do all that we ask of you in this, and that you will not
involve yourself with the girl beyond your duties as her
protector?”

I took the
blade, noticing that my hand was steady. I was always steady in
these situations, but it was surprising that I was calm right now,
given the gravity of what I was promising.

“
It shall be done,” I whispered. The pain of the steel biting
into my skin was barely anything at all. I clasped hold of the
blade the way Emissary Nevoi had done, pulling it free from my
clenched fist.

Fat, weighty droplets of blood dripped from its end to fall
amongst those of the Emissary’s, which already stained the perfect
white snow. By the time I looked up from the irrefutable evidence
that I had done something
big
, the Emissary was gone, and so
were the other Quorum members. All that was left was Kayden. He
watched me with a keen, detached interest that I’d never seen
before. For a fleeting, half-dreamed moment he almost looked
sad.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Arrogance and Self-Adoration

My bag was on
the floor by the bed when I woke, and thankfully I could see
perfectly in the illuminated room. My body ached like I had been
hit by a train, though, and when I rolled off the mattress and
dragged myself to the duffel in order to find my medication, I felt
like I was seconds away from passing out again. I took the pills
dry and waited there, the edge of the bed digging into my back,
hoping the pain in my head would ease off soon. It was half an hour
before I felt well enough to stand.

My vision lurched, and I reached out to steady myself against
the wall, but the feeling quickly passed. The room slowed to a
subtle tilt. I found myself looking down at a scuffed plastic
chair, pulled up a little distance from the bed. It hadn’t been
there before. I would have remembered, and there was a coiled twist
of paper on top of the book beside my bed, too. Someone had
definitely been in here with me. So it
had
been real, then. Daniel really
had found me and carried me back to my room.

The hangar was
well-lit and easy to find, but my nerves were still frayed by the
time I reached the entrance. How had I managed to get so lost in
between here and my room? Where had Daniel found me? I could have
been back out by the hatch for all I knew.

Agatha sat at
her computer typing away, and Daniel was at the far end of the
hangar, sitting on the ground beside the dismantled engine with a
guitar laid across his lap. He didn’t look up when Agatha called
out, “Well, good morning. Or should I say evening?” but he
definitely reacted, his shoulders stiffening.

“
Yeah, good evening,” I said to Agatha, still watching him. He
was restringing the guitar. His fingers worked quickly, threading a
long, golden length into the instrument and twisting it. His hair
fell down into his face, a black shield hiding his eyes.

“
How did you sleep?”

“
Huh?” Agatha had risen from her chair and was standing behind
me. “Sorry. I slept really badly actually. I had a—” I hesitated. I
hadn’t discussed my episodes with Agatha. Were they something she
would understand, or was the migraine excuse a safer bet? Though,
if anyone was going to believe that I saw things, it would
definitely be Agatha.