Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
SACHA
“A connection once made leaves its mark on both souls.”
Love Songs of the Mountain Provinces
The words I spoke aloud against her skin while buried inside her return with uncomfortable clarity.
It isn’t that I didn’t mean them, it’s because I did …
Last night I gave her words I’ve never spoken to another soul.
Even in the light of day after passion has been spent, they remain true.
I’ve given her a part of myself that no one has ever been granted before.
I reach across the bed, already knowing she isn’t there.
The awareness is more than just a lack of her body beside mine.
It’s deeper. A connection that has engraved itself into my bones, my shadows, my consciousness.
It’s something I never expected to find for myself.
Intimacy and affection are for other people, not the Vareth’el, especially one who is fighting a war he can never win.
One who has to put duty to his people before anything else.
And yet …
I cut off that thought. It serves no useful purpose. My focus must be on returning to Meridian as soon as I can, before Sereven destroys Stonehaven and the remaining Veinwardens.
But I don’t move, other than to roll onto my back and open my eyes. Movement in the corner catches my eye, and I turn my head to find my raven perched on the small table beside the bed.
“You should not be out.”
Its head tilts, eyes gleaming.
“How long were you watching her before you brought her to Meridian?” I don’t expect an answer, not really, but its beak opens on a silent sound, and images flood my mind.
Chicago, two winters past.
I don’t know how I know that, just that I do.
The familiar circles high above the strange city, driven there by the summoning spell that has been seeking a compatible person for twenty-five years. Below, millions of humans move through their lives, unaware of the magic searching among them.
The raven’s sight pierces through glass and metal, hunting for something that holds the resonance it needs.
The spell demands someone capable of breaking binding magic, someone with latent power.
It couldn’t find anyone in Meridian and had to search farther.
A search that took it to other worlds. Most of the creatures registered as empty.
They held no spark, no potential for magic. But then …
A flash of silver catches its attention. It isn’t a visible light, but something that can only be seen by something that looks deeper than the surface.
A young woman emerges from one of the tall structures, pulling a dark coat tight around her body to ward off the cold. She moves differently than the others. There’s something in the way she holds herself that suggests she doesn’t quite belong, even among her own kind.
The raven descends, landing on a metal pole near where she passes beneath. When she does, the silver flare intensifies. The sense of power reaches it. Raw and untapped, buried so deep she doesn’t know it exists. But it calls to the spell like metal to a lodestone.
Satisfaction floods through the familiar.
Perfect.
But the raven doesn’t act right away. Something holds it back. An instinct that this choice must be timed precisely. And so it watches, and it learns about the woman who caught its eye.
She has friends—a small group she meets regularly—but even among them, there’s distance.
The raven watches her laugh with them, yet sees how she looks away when they speak of families, of futures, of belonging somewhere.
She participates but doesn’t quite connect. She’s present, but not entirely there.
The power inside her pulses stronger when she’s alone in her dwelling, surrounded by the life she’s built.
Sometimes, when the loneliness grows too heavy, objects around her develop hairline cracks.
Lights flicker. Sparks jump from her fingertips.
Small manifestations of the magic she doesn’t know she carries.
When it gets strong enough to break something, or cause a shock, she explains it away.
Winter deepens. The raven watches as she attends parties with her friends, then returns to her empty home, staring out of windows, eyes filled with a longing for something she can’t identify, but knows is missing.
For two years, it watches her. Here is someone already caught between worlds.
Living in one while unknowingly belonging to another.
Someone whose strongest ties are fragile enough that severing them wouldn’t destroy her, but whose power grows more accessible to the binding spell with each month that passes.
Finally, the moment arrives. The raven watches from its perch as she crosses a street, thinking about home, and warmth, and friends who care for her but don’t truly know her.
It blinks, spreads its wings, and opens its mouth. The spell releases, flying toward her, sure as an arrow. The world tears open around her. Light floods the space between realms.
And Ellie Bennet vanishes from Chicago to appear in the Sunfire Dunes of Meridian, carrying her coat and confusion, and all that untapped power the familiar spent years confirming was exactly what the summoning sought.
It releases me from the memories and I stare at my familiar with new understanding.
“You watched her for two years before bringing her to me.”
The raven tilts its head again, eyes glinting with what I’m sure is satisfaction.
Two years of the raven’s instincts working with the spell to confirm she was the right choice. That she was powerful enough to break the binding that held me to the tower. That she was lonely enough, despite her friendships, to be searching for something more.
All of it leading to the moment when the summoning could finally claim what it had been seeking all along.
The raven’s eyes gleam once more, then it dissolves back into shadow, and flows across the room to merge back into my body.
I rise from the bed, my mind still working through what it showed me, and I dress without any real thought about what I’m doing.
The clothes Ellie gave me are simple enough, without toggles or laces.
Thin material that can be pulled over the head and left to hang loose, while the pants are a softer fabric that hit low on the hips with a drawstring at the front.
Voices drift through the door when I open it. Ellie’s is familiar, but there are others, and I’m cautious as I make my way along the passageway to the living area.
She’s standing at the counter when I walk through the archway to the kitchen, a cup in one hand, and her focus on an odd device that appears to be showing moving images. She turns, her features breaking into a smile when she sees me staring at the glowing object.
“Television. Like … moving pictures with sound. It’s a news report, which gives information on what’s happening in the city and around the world. A little like when scouts report back, only with a wider reach.”
“Interesting. How does it work?” I move past her to examine it.
“I …” She stops to laugh quietly. “I have no idea, really. It’s something we just take for granted, I guess.
” She touches my arm. “Would you like a drink?” She pours dark liquid from a glass container into a cup.
“This is coffee. And this is cream.” She holds up a small white container.
“It makes the taste less bitter. Some people don’t add it, some do.
There’s also sugar, if you’d prefer it sweeter. ”
I try it without either of the additions first, then shake my head at the bitter flavor. “How can anyone drink this?”
She laughs again. “Try the cream.” She adds a small amount to the cup.
My second sip is cautious. The cream softens the harshness, adding a richness that makes the strange drink more palatable. There’s an underlying complexity to the flavor—earthy, almost burnt. I take another sip, while she watches me, a smile still on her lips.
“Did you sleep well?” The question seems innocent enough, but I catch the undertone. Is she asking about sleep quality, or is she asking about what I said to her? Does she remember my whispered confessions?
“Well enough.”
She nods, but there’s a hesitation to the action.
“What is it?”
“Nothing … well, not nothing.” She licks her lips. “Why don’t we sit down?”
I follow her to the other room and we sit on the long, low bench she calls a couch.
“I’ve been thinking about Thornspire.” She sets down her cup. “About the moment just before everything went crazy.”
The memory surfaces immediately. Blood flowing from Sereven’s nose and ears, the crystal burning in his grip. His voice tight with strain and growing desperation as he lost control of the situation.
“When the crystal started vibrating, Sereven said something to you.” She pauses, watching my face closely. “He called you ‘little brother.’”
“Yes.” There is little point in denying it. In truth, I should have anticipated this discussion.
“Is he? Your brother, I mean. Or was it meant in another way?”
I lean forward and place my cup down on the table in front of us. The answer to her question is simple enough. But the explanation is something I’d rather avoid. Yet after what we shared last night and then again this morning, refusing to answer feels wrong.
“In blood, yes.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?” I can hear the hurt beneath her question. She feels that, once again, I’ve kept something important from her, something that could change everything she understands about me.
I stand, and move to the window, needing space to collect my thoughts. “Does it matter?”
“Does it—” She stops, then starts again. “The man who tortured you is your brother. The one who’s been hunting us, who helped wipe out all the Veinbloods. Your own brother! And you don’t think that matters? You weren’t going to mention it?”