Chapter 38
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
Fenric
Ipaced the lakeshore path, the night air cool against my face as I struggled to quiet my racing thoughts. Everyone else had retreated to the cabin hours ago, leaving me alone with the moon's reflection rippling across the water's surface and the weight of my own uncharacteristic indecision.
The peace of this place should have been a welcome respite.
Instead, it only heightened my awareness of the growing complications that threatened my carefully ordered existence.
My fingers twitched, missing the familiar comfort of my tablet, but I'd deliberately left it behind.
Some thoughts couldn't, shouldn't, be documented in Bureau reports.
A twig snapped beneath my foot, the sound unnaturally loud in the night's stillness.
I paused, drawing a deep breath of pine-scented air, trying to center myself as I'd been trained to do when emotional control wavered.
The Seer blood in my veins hummed with restless energy, responding to the conflicting futures that stretched before me like tangled threads.
"You're going to wear a path in the dirt if you keep that up."
Milo's voice startled me. I turned to find him standing a few yards away, his wild curls silvered by moonlight, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders against the night chill.
"I didn't hear you approach," I was annoyed at my lack of awareness.
He smiled, the expression gentle in the darkness. "I can be sneaky when I want to be. Comes from spending time with the dead, they appreciate quiet."
I nodded stiffly, uncertain how to respond. Of all Winter's companions, Milo was perhaps the most perplexing to me. His chaotic energy and perpetual optimism should have repelled me, yet there was a depth to him, an unexpected wisdom beneath the youthful exuberance that I couldn't help but respect.
"Couldn't sleep?" He moved closer.
"I rarely require more than four hours," the half-truth falling easily from my lips.
Milo's eyebrows rose skeptically. "Right. And your midnight pacing has nothing to do with everything that's happening between all of us?"
The directness of his question caught me off guard. I'd expected his usual roundabout approach, not this pointed inquiry that cut straight to the heart of my discomfort.
"I don't know what you mean," the words sounded hollow even to my own ears.
"Come on, Fenric." Milo gestured toward the cabin. "Winter and Rook are up there right now, probably doing exactly what Winter and I did a few days ago, and what she and Zane did before that." His eyes met mine, unexpectedly serious. "And you're down here, pacing and pretending you don't care."
Heat rose to my ears, the physical manifestation of embarrassment that I'd never been able to control. "The personal relationships within the protection detail are not my concern unless they compromise the mission."
"Bullshit," Milo's crude word sounding almost charming in his earnest voice. "You kissed her. At the Bureau. Zane saw you."
I stiffened. "Agent Zane should learn to be more discreet with his observations."
"He only told me because he's worried about you. We all are." Milo took another step closer. "You're part of this too, Fenric. Part of us. But you keep holding yourself apart, like you're afraid of what happens if you let yourself belong."
His perception was uncomfortably accurate. I turned away, focusing on the lake's dark surface rather than his searching gaze. "It's not that simple."
"Why not?" Milo moved to stand beside me, his shoulder nearly touching mine. "Because of Bureau regulations? Or because you're scared?"
"I am not scared," I snapped, my control slipping. "I am being responsible. My Seer abilities make emotional entanglements dangerous. My father," I cut myself off, unwilling to revisit that particular pain.
"Your father lost control," Milo finished softly. "Winter told me what you shared with her. But you're not your father, Fenric."
I closed my eyes briefly, gathering my composure. "You don't understand the risk. Seer blood combined with strong emotion can distort reality. And with Winter's prophetic energy already so unstable..."
"So you're protecting her? Or yourself?"
The question hung in the air between us, uncomfortably perceptive. I remained silent, unwilling to answer yet unable to dismiss it entirely.
Milo sighed, then lowered himself to sit on a fallen log nearby. He patted the space beside him in invitation. After a moment's hesitation, I joined him, the informality of the seating arrangement making me uncharacteristically aware of my posture.
"Can I tell you something?" Milo's voice was gentler now. "Something I've never told anyone else?"
Curiosity overcame my reticence. "If you wish."
"I was terrified the first time with Winter," a faint blush colored his cheeks. "Not just because I'd never been with anyone before, but because I was afraid my necromantic energy would hurt her somehow. That I'd lose control and my magic would, I don't know, do something awful."
I hadn't considered this perspective. "Necromancy is fundamentally different from Seer abilities."
"Maybe," he shrugged. "But the fear is the same, isn't it?
The fear that the power inside us will hurt the people we care about.
" He looked at me directly. "But that's not what happened.
When we were together, our energies, they harmonized.
Her prophetic markings and my necromancy, they complemented each other. It was beautiful, Fenric."
I shifted uncomfortably on the log, unused to such intimate discussions. "I fail to see how this relates to my situation."
Milo laughed softly. "For someone so smart, you can be really dense sometimes.
" He nudged my shoulder with his own, a casual familiarity that would have offended me from anyone else.
"What I'm saying is that maybe what you're afraid of, your Seer abilities interacting with Winter's prophecy, might actually be something amazing instead of something dangerous. "
The possibility hadn't occurred to me. My entire life had been structured around containment, control, the careful management of my inherited abilities to prevent the kind of chaos my father had unleashed.
The idea that connection might strengthen rather than destabilize was unsettling in its implications.
"And if you're wrong?" My voice was barely a whisper.
"Then we deal with it together," Milo shrugged. "That's what we do now. We're a team, Fenric. A family, even if it's the weirdest family ever assembled."
"The Bureau would not approve," I muttered, though the objection sounded weak even to my own ears.
"When has the Bureau ever approved of anything good?" Milo grinned. "Besides, Winter likes you. Like, really likes you. And I think you like her too."
I remained silent, unwilling to confirm what we both knew was true.
"And for what it's worth," Milo continued, his voice softening, "I like you too. Even when you're being a bureaucratic pain in the ass."
That startled a small laugh from me, the sound strange to my own ears. "Your assessment of my character is not entirely inaccurate."
"High praise coming from you," he smiled, then grew serious again.
"Winter cares about all of us, Fenric. In different ways, maybe, but it's real.
And I think, I think that's what the prophecy meant.
'The Harbinger belongs to all.' Not as a possession, but as a connection.
A bond that makes all of us stronger together. "
I considered his words, turning them over in my mind. The logical part of me wanted to dismiss them as naive optimism, but another part, perhaps the Seer blood that occasionally granted insights I didn't seek, recognized the ring of truth in what he said.
"I don't know how to do this," the confession difficult but necessary as it came out of me. "My entire existence has been defined by rules, protocols, boundaries. This arrangement defies categorization."
"That's kind of the point," Milo smiled gently. "Some things are too big, too important to fit in neat little boxes. Like prophecies. Like families. Like love."
The word hung in the air between us, neither of us acknowledging it directly yet unable to ignore its presence.
"I should return to the cabin," I stood abruptly, needing space to process this conversation. "It's late."
Milo rose as well, the blanket still draped around his shoulders. "Think about what I said? Please?"
I nodded stiffly, then turned to go. I'd taken only a few steps when his voice stopped me again.
"Fenric? You don't have to figure it all out tonight. Just maybe stop fighting it so hard?"
I glanced back at him, this young necromancer with his uncommon wisdom and open heart. "I'll take your suggestion under advisement."
His smile told me he recognized the concession for what it was. "Good night, Fenric."
"Good night, Milo."
I continued along the path toward the cabin, my thoughts still turbulent but somehow less oppressive than before.
As I approached the darkened structure, I paused, looking up at the window I knew to be Winter's.
No light showed, but I could sense her presence, a warm pulse of prophetic energy that called to something deep within me.
The Harbinger belongs to all.
Perhaps it was time I stopped running from what that might mean.