Chapter 40
Valens
Istared up at my grandfather’s musty old cottage with more than a little trepidation. The hard truth was, I had no desire to step foot inside. When I did, it would be hollow, a brutal reminder that he was gone.
“This place looks like it belongs in a storybook,” Elodie whispered with hushed reverence, eagerly scanning the stacked stones, the moss and ivy clinging to them the way the finest lady’s pearl necklace clung to her slender throat.
“Like there’s magic tucked in every corner, little mice in the closets who can talk and cook and mend fancy dresses. ”
It was a fanciful rendition of the place, but even I couldn’t deny the roof was still solid, and my builder’s instincts insisted it was still quite sound, despite how I’d remembered it as nearly falling over.
Perhaps that was my mind’s way of protecting me from having to come back and face the pain of losing most of my family so close together.
Arms wrapped around my waist from behind. “Do you need a minute?”
I cleared my throat, resting my hands over hers. She could be gentle when needed, my warrior woman. “No, I’m fine.”
She scoffed, squeezing me tighter. “Everyone knows fine isn’t fine at all.”
I pulled her around to my front, letting my fingertips trail up under her chin, taking in her bright blue eyes, her blazing red lips. “I’m better than fine as long as you’re with me. Let’s go.”
She nodded and stole a kiss from my lips before turning, clearly excited to get inside, even though she was trying to tamp it down for my sake.
“Are you excited to find magic mice, or because you think we’ll find something useful in the attic?” I asked as I pushed through the front door without a single squeak.
“Maybe both.”
“Well, if there are mice, I can almost guarantee they aren’t magical. That’s one of the many reasons this was only my grandpa’s place. He came here when he wanted solitude, away from their cottage in town.”
“Nosy neighbors in town drove him nuts, huh?”
“You could say that.”
She flashed a grin at me over her shoulder, wandering farther into the place.
Watching her drink it all in was a balm to wounds I didn’t realize were still so raw.
I’d never stepped foot back inside after my grandpa’s funeral. It hurt too much. Then, losing my parents only a year later? I’d tried to forget this place, had to focus on the here and now of survival with a baby sister who was all I had left.
“Wow, your gramps liked to read, huh?” She wandered over to the bookshelves along the wall, his favorite recliner dust coated right next to them.
“It was one of his favorite pastimes, yeah. It drove him nuts that I’d rather run wild than settle down. But when we stayed the night with him, he’d always read us a bedtime story.”
“He sounds like a good man.”
“He was the best.”
The look she sent me this time was sympathetic, but I didn’t mind. If we were going to be mates, I wanted her to know it all. The good, the bad, the sad.
Unfortunately, in my life, there had been a lot of sadness.
“The entrance to the attic is this way.” I pointed toward the back of the house with my thumb, and she gestured for me to lead the way. I trailed through the empty house almost in a daze, the memories of old laughter still embedded in the walls an aching contrast to the utter stillness it held now.
The soul of it was gone. It seemed smaller somehow.
I stopped beneath the attic door, easily able to reach the rope to lower the stairs. Bits of dust floated over us as the stairs descended.
Elodie squinted up into the darkness overhead. “You guys used to play up there in the dark? Isn’t that kind of creepy for little kids?”
“Nah, we were explorers. Also, Pops had lanterns. Here.” I opened the nearest cabinet in the kitchen, finding them right where they always were, ignoring the pang in my chest as I did so. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had changed.
I glanced Elodie’s way, and reminded myself that some of the changes were for the better.
Back to the task at hand, I turned the switch on the first lantern, and it lit on the first try, so I passed that one to her and grabbed the other for myself.
She let me lead the way up the stairs, and to my surprise, I had to duck when we made it all the way up, to avoid hitting my head on the rafters.
“It felt bigger when I was younger.”
“You’re just freakishly tall now, that’s all.”
I laughed, glad to have her and her irrepressible sense of humor as part of my life.
“Freakishly tall?” I tsked, feigning indignation, but something had caught her eye.
The trunk. Elodie carried her lantern over to kneel in front of it. “This has to be it, right? It looks… important.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“And you have no idea what’s in it?”
“Nope. None. We weren’t even supposed to touch it.”
“And you just listened? Weird. I would have been in this thing first chance if I were you.”
I chuckled because I believed her, and I could imagine her getting into all sorts of trouble as a kid. “Pops didn’t have many rules, so we tended to stick to the ones he did have.”
“That’s fair. You ready to do the honors?”
I blew out a breath and knelt at her side. There was nothing but a simple brass latch between me and whatever had hidden in here all those years.
Still, touching it felt wrong after having it drilled into my head my entire childhood never to touch it. But Pops was gone, my parents were gone, and this was mine now.
Savvy’s too, but she had no more interest in revisiting our painful past than I did.
I lifted the latch, the same old familiar tingle buzzing in my fingertips. The lid was next, and then I lifted my lantern to get a better look at what was inside.
More books. They were haphazardly tossed in, as if whoever had last opened the chest had been in a hurry. But on closer inspection, the first one I picked up was leather-bound and full of handwriting, not print.
Elodie peeked around my side, not touching but too curious to wait.
“They look like journals. Did your grandpa keep a journal?”
I shook my head. “Not that I ever noticed, and this looks pretty old. Granted, he was pretty old. So it could have been his from a long time ago.”
“I imagine you and Savannah kept him too busy when you were here for him to journal.”
“True.” I set the top book aside, nothing about it in particular calling to me. Something in this chest was, though. I flipped through another book or two, but they were empty. Blank, old pages. Disappointing. I would dig through the rest later.
“Do you feel that?” I asked, bracing my hands on the wooden sides of the trunk.
“No, what?”
“Something… buzzing.” There was an urgent pull, something I couldn’t name or place. I quickly picked up the other journals, making a stack on the floor next to me. There was something else in this chest, something that had been calling to me since I was a child.
The call was stronger now, and as I dug through various trinkets that probably did something cool and magical, it only seemed to grow bigger in my mind. With everything lifted away, there was a false bottom. A single brass ring was the only indication that there was more underneath.
I didn’t hesitate, lifting the false bottom with considerable effort, the hinges protesting.
With a great creak and a faint splintering sound, it finally lifted.
A pair of broadswords lay within, peeking out from black fabric. I pushed the fabric aside, hungrily poring over them.
“Those look really old,” Elodie whispered, holding her own lantern high so we could see better.
The grips were black, but the light reflected off blades untouched by time and spirals of silver around the handles. The pommels were made from the same bright steel, perfect circles with a carving of a wolf inside.
But even as I drank them in, they called to me. No, not they. Just one.
Time seemed to slow as I reached down, taking the handle of the slightly larger blade. Every muscle in my body locked as if I were etched in time—no, in stone.
Finally. The word breezed through my mind as my body began to burn.