The Silver Siren (8 page)

With the speed of a cobra, a fan
appeared out of Alba’s sleeve and she swatted Kael on the top of
the head. He winced and bowed it again in subservience.

“
And you still haven’t
changed! Can’t even wait for the end of the story. Why did it not
surprise me that you slurped the tea, during your test?” Alba gave
Kael a fond glare and slipped her fan back into her overly large
sleeve. Again there was a lack of tinkling.

I was afraid to speak after her
exchange with Kael. Would she whack me with a fan? She settled back
down and refused to go on. Part of me wanted to ask, another wanted
to sit quietly and wait till she spoke first. But the third part
wanted to get up and walk out. Just leave this whole farce behind.
I chose a fourth option.

Without being obvious, I sent a thread
of power to the bell closest to me and knocked it hard. It didn’t
make a sound, so I was somewhat confused.

“
Impatient and a bit rude,
aren’t you?” She looked at me full in the face. She knew what I had
done.

“
I picked up a few traits
from a certain SwordBrother,” I said.

“
Very well, then. I’ll
tell you. There was only one other person that I know of that
served someone else the tea. That was me.”

Alek spoke up from behind Kael. “Alba,
you never told us that.”

“
Of course not. Why would
I tell you? You didn’t choose that method, now did you,” she
chastised. “Your choice, Thalia, tells me you don’t wait for others
to tell you what to do. You forge your own path and make your own
choices, but you are rarely prepared for the
consequences.”

I swallowed as a cold finger of fear
ran up my spine. She could be guessing.

Alba turned and addressed Kael. “Now
your actions, Kael, on the other hand—abandoning your brethren and
family, forsaking your calling, bringing outsiders into the
sanctuary—these are all serious offenses. You know this. You know
that no one is allowed to know where we live, and despite how
charming this one may seem, she is still an enemy. Not one of us,
nor born of us.”

“
No, you’re wrong. I’ve
been training her in our ways. She’s strong. I think, given time,
she could adapt to living here and be one of us.” Kael had jumped
out of his kneeling position and was standing over Alba.

I gasped. Not once had Kael ever
mentioned the possibility of us not leaving.

Alba shook her head sadly. I looked
over my shoulder and watched Alek’s and Gwen’s reactions. Alek was
stone-faced with anger. Gwen looked hurt and confused. So much for
the lighthearted laughter from earlier.

“
Kael, you know the laws
we live by. She can’t stay. We’re not even supposed to let her to
live.”

The sound of swords being drawn made
me jump to my feet. I took a defensive stance and stepped away from
the delicate tea set to where I would have more room to fight and
keep my back to a wall. Alek and Gwen had not moved an inch, but a
few of the other SwordBrothers had moved forward to surround
me.

I did not want to fight and kill
Kael’s people.

“
Then my life for hers,”
Kael answered back. His voice rang deep with anger. He strode over
and stood in front of me. I assumed he was reaching for his dagger
from his bandolier, but instead I watched as he unfastened the
leather buckle and began to disarm himself. He wrapped up the
bandolier with the knives, took his knife out of his boot, and
placed everything in a neat pile on the floor.

He turned to face me, his deep, dark
eyes filled with pain. “I’m sorry, Thalia. I had hoped we would
have a different reception.” He reached forward and gently brushed
my cheek with his thumb. Alek stepped up behind Kael and pulled his
wrist away from my face, bracing it behind Kael’s back. Others came
forward to secure the SwordBrother, but all I could do was stand
there frozen in shock. This couldn’t really be
happening.

His hands were manacled and chains put
around his feet. He wouldn’t look at me. He wouldn’t raise those
beautiful stormy blue eyes to even try and tell me that we would be
okay.

“
No!” I turned back to
Alba. “You can’t do this! I didn’t know that by coming here, I was
putting anyone’s life in danger—mine or Kael’s. You must
reconsider.” I kneeled on the floor before her and bowed low, my
forehead touching the cold wood floor as I pleaded for Kael’s life.
“I can’t let him die for me.”

“
Child, why are you so
upset over this one? If it wasn’t him, it would be you.”

“
Because he saved me,” I
cried out. My chest felt heavy with emotion. “Over and over again
he saved me. I owe him my life. And frankly, if he died right now
because of this, I would never be able to forgive him. I would hate
him till the day I died.”

Alba shook her head at my stubborness.
“If it’s not death, then his punishment at dawn is to the very
brink. Tortured and beaten till he wished for death. Would that
suit you?”

My breathing ragged, it took me a few
moments to comprehend her form of mercy still demanded pain. I sat
up. “How could you do that to your own? That’s almost worse than
death.”

“
Yes, it is, but that is
our law.”

“
It’s a barbaric law,” I
seethed.

Her eyes narrowed and she looked into
my face accusingly. “Thalia Valderstal, are you saying that your
clan laws are less barbaric than ours?”

“
I…I…uh—how do you know my
name?”

“
I wouldn’t speak about
barbaric customs and laws, until you look deep into your own family
history.”

“
I know my family history.
Yes, there are some things our clan does that I’m not proud of, but
I’ve been trying to change things for the better.”

“
You don’t even know if
your own clan will allow you to lead. You’re not like them.” Her
hand reached out and covered my blue eye, so that I only saw her
with the horrible silver one. “Just as I thought.” She pulled her
hand back and poked me hard in the chest. “It’s weak, but it’s
there.”

“
You know what’s happening
to me?” A single burst of hope started to rise. “What is wrong with
me? How can I change it back?”

Alba scoffed and stood. “I see why he
brought you here, thinking that this,” she waved at my eye, “might
validate all of the wrong things he has done. But it hasn’t. There
is much he hasn’t told you. If he did, you might want to change
your mind about his punishment. Besides, you can’t change it back.
You can’t make something disappear when it’s always been
there.”

“
What do you mean?” I
called out, but Alba was already shuffling off into the back of the
house.

I turned to follow her, but a
calloused hand grabbed me around the neck and directed me to the
front. I twisted my neck out of the grip and turned to glare at
Gwen. Someone else came and grabbed my elbow, and the pair roughly
escorted me outside. Gwen seemed to be taking her jealous anger out
on me. By the next day, I would have huge bruises. They led me
around the building, and I tried to search for Kael, but I couldn’t
see where they had taken him. I should have fought, should have
stopped them, but instead, I began working on a plan.

Gwen stopped in front of a small stone
shed that butted up to the back of the house.

“
We haven’t had company of
any sort in many, many years, so this will have to make do for
now,” she said.

Two more hands grabbed each of my arms
and began to lift me off of the ground and force me into the
shed.

“
Wait! What are you doing
with Kael? Stop this…ouch!”

With a shove, I was thrown into the
dark shed. The heavy wooden door creaked shut behind me. My lip
stung. Somehow in my struggle I had been elbowed in the lip. I
raised my hand to touch it and winced. I should be panicking,
pacing, screaming in suffocating heat that was my
prison.

Instead, I sat down, crossed my legs,
and waited.

Chapter 10

One
of the hardest lessons I never learned was patience.

My clan was certainly not known for
it. I despised it as well as the craziness that comes with being
idle for long periods of time. I decided it was worse torture than
splinters under my nails.

I counted to ten thousand—twice.
During that span, I felt the air around me become
cooler.

It was time.

I stood up and stretched out my arms
and legs, did a few squats, then headed to the locked door. I had
listened very carefully over the last few hours, and I didn’t hear
anyone outside guarding my little shed. I could only hope it was
because Alba hadn’t suggested more precautions against me. My
father had a saying about people that assumed things.

Leaning against the door, I brushed my
fingers over the chilled metal lock and felt around it for the
dense wood frame. My hand grew warm, and I bit my lip as I
concentrated. I was phenomenal at destroying things in big showy
explosions, or anything that I could just let loose on. Smaller
tasks that required more thought, more tact, and more skill were
beyond my training, except for healing. That was just encouraging
the body in what it already wanted to do—protect and heal
itself.

Sweat trickled down my forehead, and I
shifted my weight. I was trying to break open the lock quietly. If
I had a set of lock picks or Joss’s ability to teleport, I would
probably have been better equipped. Instead, I kept my focus on
breaking the wood around the lock.

The beam grew warm and I could feel it
start to warp under my hand. I heard the first faint creak followed
by a crackling noise as the wood buckled. I waited a few seconds
for someone to give a cry of an alarm, but there was silence. I
continued my attack on the frame, slowly. As I pushed more power
toward the wood, the strain on the wood intensified, and it
cracked. The large lock fell off and the whole door shifted down.
Jumping back, I waited in case the door fell off. It slowly swung
outward.

Creeping forward, I peeked out into
the night and gently pushed the door forward enough that I could
slide out and duck into the shadows. Someone grabbed my arm and
pulled me into the night. Their arm wrapped around my throat,
pressing my back against their body. My mind went through all of
the drills Kael had taught me, and I reached for a pressure point
on the attacker’s hand.

I heard a cry of pain, but I didn’t
stop. I grabbed his wrist and twisted my own body, forcing his body
weight to the ground. By controlling his arm, I controlled his
whole body, but I needed to silence him before he called out for
help.

Part of me wanted to kill him, but I
restrained myself. I picked up the large iron lock from the ground
with my left and swung it at his temple. On contact, the guard fell
forward and didn’t move. Quickly, I dragged his body into the shed
and gently closed the door. From a distance it wouldn’t look like
it had been broken open.

I just prayed no one would take a
closer look.

Where to next? I had to find Kael. I
don’t care what he said—or in this case didn’t say—about the
SwordBrothers, I was not going to leave him to their machinations,
but first things first.

I needed a weapon.

I kept to the shadows and stayed close
to the buildings. The streets were empty except for a stray cat. I
looked along the rooftops of the buildings and could see
silhouettes and torches. When a silhouette moved, I knew it was a
sentry. I could see similar torches along the valley’s walls. A
door opened down the road, and two figures stepped out of a
building, walking toward a tall tower.

I followed close behind and listened
to what they were saying.

“
I can’t believe he came
back.”

“
He shouldn’t have come
back,” the larger one said.

“
This changes
everything.”

“
This changes nothing.
Gwen has made her choice.”

“
Have you spoken with
Alek?”

“
No. Not until we are sure
she’s going to fail.”

Both men stopped talking but continued
walking. They headed toward a tall guard tower on the south end of
town. I ducked into a bush and listened as they rapped three times,
then once, then twice. A slot in the door opened and a large
furrowed brow peaked out.

“
What do you
want?”

“
We want to speak to our
brother,” the tall man said.

“
No, he’s…” a deep chuckle
spilled forth, “detained.”

“
This is
important.”

“
You will have to wait to
have your questions answered like everyone else.”

I watched as the tall man shook his
head and motioned for the other to follow him. Both walked down the
path and away from the tall tower.

That must be where Kael
is
. He had to be the one they were talking
about. I looked up and saw that the tower was at least fifty feet
high, with one small window and ledge on every floor. There was no
entrance other than the door guarded by Mr. Gargantuan.