The Killing Jar (28 page)

I'd been expecting a leisurely stroll, but the path Cyrus chose was more of a climb. We culled anima from various sources along the way, flowers and plants and even a few insects, and the voice of my grief for Bully became a distant echo. I breathed easier and my heart stopped aching. Still, none of the anima we took came close to satisfying the craving in me for more of what we'd taken last night.

“We're almost there,” Cyrus told me. “There's something I want to show you. I promise it's worth the trek.”

I nodded and tried to concentrate on not twisting an ankle or getting jabbed in the eye by a branch. The mossy trees were so thick they allowed no light, only cool, dank shadows, which made it hard to see whether I was about to step onto unstable earth. I was so focused on the ground in front of my feet that I didn't notice when the forest suddenly cleared.

I heard the drone of rushing water, and felt sunlight warm my cheeks and shoulders. I raised my eyes and gasped. We stood on a rock outcropping overlooking a hidden lake. A river poured over steps of rock leading down from the mountain, feeding the lake, its water clean and clear enough to see all the way to the bottom. I spotted fish darting over the rocks, swimming their haphazard, zigzag path. At the head of the lake, a short waterfall dove thirty feet to churn the otherwise calm surface. Massive trees grew so densely around us that they seemed like a natural barrier, a wall to guard a place too perfect to be disturbed.

The anima I'd taken during the hike had dissipated, but even with my natural, unenhanced vision, this was one of the most breathtaking places I'd ever seen.

“Behold, my lady,” Cyrus said, holding his arms out wide. “Your own private lake.”

I moved to the edge of the rock outcropping, which had been painted with a design of interlocking moth wings. I peered over the edge and experienced a wonderful sort of vertigo, a dizzying urge to let myself fall into the blue. Erratic birdsong burst from the trees, calls and answers. And there was that forest white noise, the sound that is not a sound, but is the woods themselves living and breathing like one tremendous, connected organism.

I turned back around to Cyrus, a smile growing wide as wings on my face.

He started to unbutton his shirt. A glow spread across my skin and I felt that sense of vertigo again, like I was going to fall, and the fall was inevitable. I wanted to stop fighting. To let go and feel myself plummet toward something new. A whole new life. A fresh start.

But starting over meant leaving some things behind. Blake's face swam into my mind, his warm eyes and his boyish smile. His sweetness and sensitivity. The way he made me feel like maybe I could live in the real world as long as I could do it with him by my side. But what was best for Blake? Was I good for him? If I was honest with myself, the answer was no. I had hurt Blake so much already. If I let things go any further with Cyrus, there would be no going back. Was that what I wanted? To make a choice that would end the war going on in my heart? To force myself to let Blake go?

I turned my back on Cyrus, breath short, heartbeat a kettledrum booming against my ribs.

I wasn't ready to let go. Not yet. Not when I was still torn between people I loved.

“Kenna.” Cyrus spoke my name into my ear. His body was close behind mine. His oven-warm chest against my back. One of his hands settled on my left hip. The other swept my hair aside, baring my neck. I felt his hot breath against that sensitive expanse of skin, and my breath caught. Then his lips touched, and my stomach thrilled, a geyser of excitement erupting to fill me. The hand that was on my hip pulled my body more firmly against his, and I felt every curve and knot of his taut muscles against my own tensed back. His mouth trailed wet, warm, exploring. My skin charged with sensation.

Don't let go
, I warned myself as I weakened.
Don't let go
.

Cyrus kissed his way toward my ear, and when his teeth caught my earlobe I gasped, my body a reactor melting down, losing control. Losing the will to resist. His face nuzzled the side of my face. His hands spread like starfish on my belly. I felt the forest observing me. The birds had gone silent.

I turned in Cyrus's arms. His eyes scoured me, torrid, his face slack with desire. I had never been so longed for, not by Blake or anyone. It made me feel like an animal, a beast made to act on every natural urge.

Cyrus's face fell slowly toward mine, his eyes drooping closed, his lips parted, and mine mimicked his. His fingers clenched on my back, digging into my flesh until it was almost painful. His hipbones cradled mine. His mouth was a fraction of a centimeter from mine when a sudden panicked rustling from the woods split our attention. We both whirled toward the noise and saw a flock of birds explode into the air. Something heavy shook the boughs of the trees and then went still.

I realized I was clutching Cyrus's arm like a damsel in a silent film. “What the hell was that?”

“Probably just a bird,” he said, but his eyes were hard, staring up at the now-silent leaves. Was it my imagination, or did he seem almost as uneasy as I was?

I pried my fingers from Cyrus's arm and turned to him. “The night I took midnight glory … what I saw…” I bit my lip, eyes still searching the treetops for signs of movement. My heart began to slow, and I shook my head, embarrassed. “Never mind. It's just, I saw this picture on the Internet, and—”

“Internet?” Cyrus blinked at me curiously.

“A computer network thingy. I don't really know how to explain it. It's, like, where you go to find anything you ever need. Anyway, there was a drawing and some information about the Eclipse moth, and it kind of freaked me out.”

Cyrus's brows drew together. “What did it say?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly, waving my hand as though to clear my words from the air. “It's not important. Just forget I said anything.”

“No.” Cyrus took hold of my wrist, his grip a little tighter than was comfortable. “Tell me.”

“Okay, okay. It said the Eclipse moth was some kind of fairy tale goddess that lives on blood and grows to enormous sizes. And that, um—” My words cut off, but what I was about to say played through my mind:
And the Eclipse moth granted powers to those who worshipped it.

“And that's all I remember,” I said, smiling a smile I wished didn't feel so forced.

*   *   *

Cyrus and I swam in the lake until our fingers and toes were numb and our teeth were chattering from the icy mountain runoff. The tension between us didn't dissolve, but he didn't try to kiss me again, probably sensing that my mood had changed since that disturbance in the trees. I tried to shake my anxiety, but my eyes returned again and again to the spot where that flock of birds had burst from the leaves so suddenly, clearly startled by something. But there were a thousand things in the forest that could startle a flock of birds, including Cyrus and me.

I wished I could stop thinking of what I'd read about the Eclipse moth, but I'd never had much success at
not
obsessing. I tried to focus my attention on the beautiful man in the water with me, his hair and skin glistening wet and his teeth so white and his contrasting body so brown and flexed.

I wanted him. That much I could no longer hide from myself. The question was, could I have him when my heart was still divided?

I loved Blake. I knew Blake. I still wanted Blake.

I couldn't be with both of them any more than I could live both with my family and at Eclipse. Like Rebekah said, I could not live in two worlds. I had to choose.

Teeth chattering, I was about to climb out of the lake when Cyrus grabbed my wrist and reeled me in against his chest. “Are you hungry?”

“Starved,” I told him. “What did you bring?”

“A frying pan.” He winked at me, let go of my wrist, and dove underwater. He was under for more than a minute, and when he broke the surface he had, clutched in both hands, wriggling and squirming, a good-sized trout, its scales silver and spotted. It looked slippery, and Cyrus could barely keep hold of it.

My eyebrows went up. “Of course you can catch fish with your bare hands,” I said. “That's totally normal.”

Cyrus grinned. “My normal could be your normal. It just takes practice.”

The fish lashed its tail, fighting for freedom. I couldn't help but sympathize with the trout.

Cyrus made a small fire on the stone outcropping that overlooked the lake and panfried the trout with lemon and herbs he'd brought in his pack. We ate the fish with our fingers while the fire dried us.

I ran my hands over the moth wings that had been painted onto the rocks. The pigment had faded from weather wear, so the depictions appeared ancient.

“Who painted these?” I asked. “Was it Sunday?”

He nodded.

“When was that?”

He shrugged. “Long time ago.”

“How long?”

“Oh, I don't know. Years and years. You know time doesn't mean much to us.”

Cyrus chose that moment to go down to the water to wash out his frying pan. He remained shirtless, and I noticed for the first time a series of pale scars crisscrossing his back. I sucked in a breath. I'd seen scars like that before, but only in movies. Usually movies about slavery, or children with abusive parents.

I remembered what Cyrus had told me about his mother, that she wasn't the kind any kid hopes for. I got the feeling that was an extreme understatement.

Cyrus must have felt my gaze, because he glanced back at me and caught me staring. He frowned, and I turned my eyes away, feeling as though I'd been caught going through someone else's things. I knew Blake inside and out. The boy claimed to be an open book, not a single secret to speak of. I could guess what he was going to say before he said it. Maybe it was the fact that I knew next to nothing about Cyrus that made him so attractive to me. It was exciting, but the mystery phase couldn't last forever. Eventually, you had to find out who people really were.

Cyrus began to pack up. The day was waning, but I didn't want to go yet. I put a few more sticks on the fire. Cyrus saw and smiled, pleased. He sat back down with the fire between us.

“If I'd planned better we could have stayed the night out here,” he said.

His suggestion made my stomach wriggle pleasantly.

Cyrus pulled his shirt on and then took a wineskin from his pack and offered it to me. I took a drink, felt the wine pool warm in my belly, and passed the skin back to Cyrus. He swigged, and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“I saw you looking at my scars,” he said.

I glanced away. “You didn't get them at Eclipse, did you?”

He barked a laugh. “No, those were courtesy of my mother. She was quite the disciplinarian. Spare the rod, spoil the child. That kind of woman. I ran away from home when I was thirteen.” He lowered his gaze, his voice softening. “I never talk about my life before Eclipse. Barely think about it, for that matter. It's funny how you can learn to block out what you don't want to think about.”

I thought about that Leatherman tool in Cyrus's wagon, and the initials engraved on it.

“I've never been particularly good at that,” I muttered, twisting a long lock of hair around my fingers. Regular doses of anima seemed to make my hair grow faster. When I'd first arrived, my hair had barely reached past my shoulders. Now it hung halfway to my waist.

“Why didn't anima heal your scars?” I asked.

“I got them before I became Kalyptra,” he said. “Anima can do a lot of things, but it can't take away your scars.”

“And … how did you become Kalyptra?” I asked, trying to keep my tone casual with an edge of disinterest.

“Ahhh, I know what you're up to,” Cyrus said, not fooled for a second. “Rebekah told me about your deal. There are no secrets between your grandmother and me.”

“Why is that?”

“Why is what?”

“Why are there no secrets between you and Rebekah? Are you saying there are secrets between Rebekah and the other Kalyptra?”

Cyrus's face closed for a moment, became unreadable. Then he shook his shaggy hair and his mouth curved in a tight smile. “Everyone has a secret or two, Kenna. Rebekah trusts me because I've proven myself to be trustworthy. That's all.”

“Fine,” I said, dissatisfied with his seamless answer. I pulled my knees in so I could rest my chin on them and sulked in silence, hoping that if I pouted long enough Cyrus would give in and tell me something.

“Why do you need to know so badly?” he asked, staring into the dying flames of our intimate little fire. “Is there someone you want to make Kalyptra?”

I almost said no, but only because I'd never considered what Cyrus was telling me. Once I did, the idea bloomed in my mind like fireworks.

There
was
someone.

“My twin sister, Erin,” I said. “She's sick. She's always been sick, ever since she was born.” I turned my face away so he couldn't see the tears glazing my eyes. “And it's my fault.”

Cyrus shook his head, brows drawn in concern. “It's your mother's fault, not yours. She made the choice for you.”

“Doesn't make me feel a whole lot better.” I picked up a stick of firewood and peeled off a splinter. “Did my mom … do something when she was Kalyptra? Something bad?”

Cyrus hesitated. “She never told you?”

“Maybe I haven't been entirely clear about this, but the only thing my mom ever told me was to not be Kalyptra.”

Seeing the grave expression on Cyrus's face, I swallowed hard, bracing myself for what he was going to tell me.

“What?” I asked. “What is it?”

“Your mom killed someone, Kenna.”

I swallowed hard, and for a moment my ears rang as though someone had blasted them with noise. A part of me had suspected something like this, but having it confirmed changed everything.