Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
MAVERYK
D awn bleeds slow over the range, washing the world in gold and quiet.
I’ve been in the saddle since first light, hoping distance could drown what happened in the barn. It hasn’t.
The mountains vibrate under my skin, low and steady—the same note that thrummed through her mouth when I kissed her.
I tug a sprig from a nearby pine tree, crush it between my fingers. The resin bites my skin, masking the faint metallic tang that rises whenever that frequency gets too close.
But nothing can mask what I did.
Stupid. Reckless. Unforgivable.
Put Melody at risk. Myself. Perhaps, other Wildbloods. An echo of the purges washes through me—how we lost our identity, our technology, maybe even our souls, if the Sentinels’ stories are true.
The mark on my arm burns faintly, half-healed, half-alive. Every few minutes, it pulses, as if it remembers her touch. I flex my hand, willing it to stop.
The calf I patched last night follows its mother now, healthy as if it had never been torn open. I should feel pride. All I feel is fear.
The Sentinels would call it contamination.
A Wildblood’s light isn’t meant to answer a human’s.
But the resonance is stronger than rules, older than blood. It’s already inside me, circling like wildfire through dry timber.
Wind lifts dust across the valley floor. Each gust carries echoes—her laughter, the quick hitch of her breath, her heartbeat. I swear I can still smell her, lilacs, rain, and sin.
“Enough,” I mutter, pressing my knees to the mare’s sides. The horse moves, sure-footed and fast, hooves drumming the hard earth like a heartbeat trying to outrun itself.
I crest the ridge that separates my land from Martin’s. Below, the ranch lies quiet, the roof glinting with dew.
And there she is—on the porch, wrapped in a dusty rose quilt, watching the same sunrise. I can almost smell the scent of wet lilacs that rolled through the barn when our lips met. Like I couldn’t tell where the rain ended and she began.
Even from this distance, I feel the pull.
The hum spikes through my spine, sharp enough to steal my breath. For a heartbeat, I think the mountain is calling me home. Then I realize it’s her.
I turn the horse away before she can look up, but the echo stays—her pulse braided with mine, the song of the Starborn Range rising between us.
I have to go, disappear beyond the north pasture.
Winter over at the old herding cabin if that’s what it takes.
Just long enough for the hum to fade. For her memory of me to evaporate.
By all rights, I should ask for help from my other kin.
Wildbloods still roam these hills, some ranchers or farmers, others ranch hands who help out permanently or seasonally.
But I can’t risk my secret coming out, so I’ll take the herd alone.
Disappear until things right themselves again, and I can forget about the raven-haired beauty with mossy eyes that make my soul sing.
Action transforms fear into hope, though it’s a hollow sort. I push the herd northward, Winnie breathing hard from doing the work of many horses. But my skin hums less the further I get from the mountains and Melody. I need this solace, the quiet that comes with it.
At the cabin, I strip to my waist, nothing worse than fabric against the marks when they burn.
The dark air fills with their luminosity.
Not sure what they mean, as I eye them moving and pulsing.
But it’s faint this time, growing more so.
I’ve done right, though my heart aches and complains behind the breastbone.
From my saddlebags, I pull a small box, painstakingly wrapped in a thin, silver-like metal fabric. Inside, I stare at the dampener. Don’t know if it’s more helper or torture. The crude device, half machine, half stone, holds the promise of pain … and forgetting.
The ancestors built it to keep us hidden. Seems like all we’re meant to do beneath the shadow of the Starborns.
I activate it, and a strange bluish-white light mirrors the echo of the girl, of the mountains in my tattoos. I reach out an unsteady hand, press my palm to the device that disrupts vibration like a pulse.
Memories flash, older than me. Of a ship meant for stars, home but not. Fragments of another world, one made of spirit, vibration. A woman’s voice—singing in a language of light—cuts through the pain before it’s gone. My flesh burns until the smell fills my nostrils.
The device cracks. The hum strengthens. Melody’s voice whispers my name. Not heard, felt.
I pull back, eyeing the angry melt of flesh. Better my suffering than hers.
I go to the window, drawn by the pull. The sky over the Starborn Range glows faintly red, the kind of light locals call aurora. As if a name could mask the strangeness.
The air shifts, thick and heavy, my pulse synced with the distant mountains. I feel the hills answer me, like inevitability. But I can’t believe that. Won’t allow myself.
Instead, I mutter to myself, “You can’t know, Melody. You can’t ever come up here.” I pause for a long moment, say what I really need to. “You can’t come near me again.”
Eyeing the device in the box, a final relic of another life, another world, I can’t touch it again, the pain of suppression inching toward something far worse.
Instead, I wrap the box in the cloth, speaking over it things I don’t understand.
Things taught down through the generations without explanation.
Night falls, storm rolling in as I check the herd, survey the fences one more time. The horses sprint around the paddock, like they’ve caught the fire in their veins. Winnie spooks, rears back and nearly throws me from the saddle.
I whisper to the fracturing mare in secret tones, patting the side of her neck and crooning the steady peace I need from her. She snickers, whole body relaxing as I notice the distant lights moving through the mist, too deliberate to be lightning.
The next morning, I awaken to the hum. Only this time it’s far closer … in the walls of the cabin. Not fading, following me. The radio on the nightstand crackles. A burst of static. Then faint, metallic voices: “Frequency anomaly… Wildblood signature detected…” The ancient ones. Sentinels. Hunting.
My palm burns, singed flesh aching and pulsing. So does my flesh where the ink hums. I sit up in bed, grip the sheets, focusing into the pain, the great purifier, the great solidifier.
They shouldn’t be able to find me up here at this elevation, atmosphere thinning. Land around me heavy with metal veins of ore. All natural defenses the Wildbloods learned long ago. Things I once discounted, thought of as old wives’ tales.
Not now.
Sweat drips, body aches, and terror grips me.
“It’s not supposed to work this way.”