CHAPTER 12 RAYA
RAYA
For the longest time, I didn’t see the point in seeing the future.
Sure, my parents were renowned for it—built their wealth on it, even, and their reputations—but to me, the rules had always felt too rigid, the questions too particular, and I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to spend their days searching out answers that might still change.
The change is the point, Raya, my mother had said, every time until I stopped asking.
If you can’t change the future, then there’s no point in being able to see it, and there’s no point in being able to see it if you don’t mean to enact change.
It took me years to get my head around that idea, to accept that the choice to see is in itself a change to the paths we tread.
It’s destiny and free will all at once, a snake that’s eating its own tail—and it can steer you in any which direction.
Towards the right path, yes, but sometimes, towards the wrong one, as well.
So incredibly wrong. My mouth tastes of copper and the rest of me feels like lead, my head throbbing as though it’s been struck by lightning.
Pieces of the day assault me in broken fragments: my open question, the fight with Killen, an execution stayed with stolen magic and a vision that led to a Hue and an iron hell.
But at least the nausea’s gone . . . I don’t remember exactly when I lost consciousness, but I’m fairly certain that I was still out in the street, in the physical realm, in the company of three illegal half breeds who were brazenly discussing my fate.
My potential usefulness. Whereas now, the world has dulled to a colorless haze, a caress of shadows swirling gentle circles around me.
The Gray.
I’m back in the Gray.
Where my power can replenish and the pain will eventually abate.
But where in the Gray? My relief is brittle and short-lived. Because the room I’m in is entirely unfamiliar, and when I try to move, a shooting pain in my wrist keeps me firmly anchored in place.
Oh, crap—and this cuff’s iron. I force in a breath to quell the panic.
In the shadows, the metal won’t sicken me or sap my strength, but as long as it’s encircling skin, it will keep me tethered here, both to the Gray and to the pipe it’s attached to.
A pipe in an abandoned house, by the looks of things, so run-down that even the shadows can’t disguise the wealth of grime and decay.
Soot-burned brick, moldy plaster, a termite-bitten floor, derelict to the point of condemned.
And yet this pipe is rock solid. No matter how hard I try to wrench it off the wall, the cracks in the mortar won’t give, even despite their crumbling texture.
“It’s been reinforced with magic,” a voice says from the doorway.
His voice—the Hue; I recognize the deep tenor and the bitter edge, though it’s no longer laced with the fuzzy slur of drink.
He’s sobered up since we escaped the tavern, which means that I’ve been out cold for an hour or two, at least. Maybe longer.
Since all the windows in this room are boarded up, it’s impossible to tell.
“You do realize this won’t hold me forever,” I bluff, staring daggers as he folds down to sit opposite me, legs crossed with his elbows resting on his knees.
An Orange could spell this cuff open with a snap of their fingers, a Yellow could turn the pipe to spaghetti, while a Blue could cause it to rust so fast it simply withered away.
For a Shade with an active power, this tedious ring of metal barely presents a challenge, let alone a threat. And this Sapphire doesn’t know I’m a—
“You’re an Indigo.” He meets my lie with the truth and a pointed glare. “Your power is passive. It can’t affect the cuff.”
Damn it. My stomach gives a painful lurch. He knows what I am. That he’s got me well and truly trapped here.
“Did you figure that out with your gift?” I ask, refusing to betray fear.
“I didn’t need to use my gift.” He shrugs dismissively. “I know what talking to the future looks like.”
Right, of course, because he’s a Sapphire and Sapphires are a dilution of Indigo magic. One of this Hue’s parents was a seer.
“So then, you know that it’s an imprecise art,” I say, trying to minimize my appeal. “Keeping me here won’t help you. I won’t help you.”
“Then why did you help me before?” he asks, straight in with the one question that requires an answer too damning to admit.
“I wasn’t helping you; I was helping me.” Though it does present an opportunity to twist this conversation to my benefit, get a few answers from him.
“By betraying your own trackers?”
“No—” That was merely a side effect of this idiocy, not the aim. “By getting to the bottom of a future they can’t predict.”
“Which is?”
“The death of the Gray,” I say the words calmly, clearly, studying his expression to see how bluntly they hit.
“Then I’m sorry to be the bearer, but you’re a little late to the party.
” The Sapphire doesn’t even flinch. “We dealt with the threat to the Gray over a year ago—no thanks to you Shades. Where were you when the shadows were being drained of their power, huh?” There’s suddenly a crack to his voice that’s widening with pain.
“Where were the trackers when we actually needed them? Where was the Council or the seers’ guild?
Why didn’t you step in to prevent that future then? ”
Because I wasn’t there.
Because I hadn’t seen it yet.
Because I don’t have the faintest clue what you’re raving on about.
“You’re wrong.” I fight the urge to call him a few other things, as well. “The threat to the Gray isn’t gone—I only saw it this morning.”
“Well, then you’re clearly not a great seer, because unlike you, I was there when we stopped the Amber, and I know for a fact that she doesn’t need stopping again.”
It takes everything I have not to reel as though he’d slapped me, not to let on just how close to home his insult landed—regardless of how offhandedly it was said. As to what another Hue has to do with anything, I have no idea, but at least he’s starting to offer up some solid details.
“I also saw my own death,” I tell him, testing to see how far his knowledge of my power extends.
“Yeah, that’s not possible,” he mutters, climbing back to his feet. “That’s the one thing an Indigo can’t see.”
Good, so he is familiar with the basics, maybe now I can push the advantage my way.
“I used to think that, too, but it turns out there’s a loophole to that rule and the future can show us our deaths—just as long as they’re caused by the death of all magic.
That’s why you have to let me go, so that I can stop it,” I say, rattling my cuff.
“Please, I promise I won’t tell anyone where you are.
If I was going to turn you in, I would have done it back at the Golden Stag. ”
For a long moment, the Hue remains silent, his head cocking to the side as he considers me with interest, his eyes narrowed but his attention piqued.
I’m not dangerous. I make a nervous show of biting my lip and wringing my fingers, of hunching my shoulders to appear as small and unassuming as I can get.
He may not have told me much about this .
. . threat he claims to have averted, but in the space of a few minutes, he’s told me enough that I could do the rest of the legwork myself, figure out if I’m dealing with the same thing.
I no longer need to keep him from the trackers, and by now, the shadows have replenished my color enough that, if he did remove the cuff, I could shimmer out of here before he could even think to give chase.
Hells, I could probably catch him off-guard and shimmer him along with me, end this disastrous hunt by delivering the Council its Sapphire.
All I need is for him to fall for the pretense and undo the—
“Why did you say ‘we’ll die like the stars’,” he asks instead, snapping me out of the fantasy.
“Erm . . .” My first instinct is to lie, though not for any reason other than I don’t want to give this Hue more truths than he’s already learned.
But of all the questions he could have asked me, this one seems like the most innocuous.
He already knows that I’m an Indigo, so what difference would answering it really make?
“Because the future told me to,” I say, like it isn’t ridiculous. “Why? What does it mean?”
“That’s none of your business.” The Hue instantly frosts over, his face darkening with a deep contempt.
Far too strong a reaction to such a nothing answer, if you ask me, to the point that the tension in his jaw doesn’t just speak of irk, it screams of anger, as though I’ve gone and robbed him of something precious.
As though he was desperately hoping for me to say something else.
“You were right—this was a mistake.” He turns to tell the faceless shadow hovering outside the door, “She’s all yours, do with her what you will.”
My whole body tenses at his sudden change in demeanor, shrinking back against the wall as his golden friend comes striding in.
Where the Sapphire is striking in a quiet, understated way, the Gold can only be described as ostentatious.
Blond, tanned, obnoxiously pretty, with brushed silver eyes and features that look as though they’re carved from marble.
“They’re going to come for me, you know,” I say as he stalks towards me, my wrist fighting the iron shackle anew. “Your compulsion didn’t work; I was able to tell them everything—about you and the Bronze. They’re going to come.”
“I hope they do.” His voice is sharper than the Sapphire’s. Colder. Dangerous in pitch. “See, us half breeds, we’re not like you full-bloods; we don’t just kill everything we’re scared of.”
That is not what we do, I want to yell at him, to correct this absurd assertion that the Council’s law stems from fear.
We purge the world of Hues because of the threat they pose to the Gray; that’s it, that’s all there is to it.
And yes, that’s distasteful, and violent, and I imagine—to their eyes—entirely unfair.
But such is the cost of keeping the shadows safe from ruin and I’ll be damned if I let this Hue shame us for prioritizing the greater good over a few biological mistakes.
Though as the Gold drops into a languid crouch before me, all that actually escapes my mouth is an absurd assertion of my own.
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“That’s funny—” He leans in closer. Close enough for me to feel the malice radiating off each syllable. “Because you look quite afraid to me.”
She’s all yours, do with her what you will.
There’s only one thing a Gold could want from an Indigo, and it’s the very last thing I’d ever want to give.
“Please—there’s no point in taking my magic, I swear; it won’t work for you—it doesn’t even work for me!” I scramble to catch the Sapphire’s eye, to implore him to call off his power-hungry friend and show some mercy.
For all the good it does me.
What little warmth he’d exhibited before is gone now, and I may as well be speaking a different language given how absolutely he ignores my plea, how he simply stands there, frozen, and drops his eyes to his feet.
Who’s the coward now? My vindictive triumph is a fleeting, feeble thing.
Because I can’t force him to watch the crime he’s permitting, and shackled as I am to the pipe, there’s nothing I can do to stop the Gold from wrapping his hands around the exposed skin at my wrists, no amount of struggle that would sway his mind or break his grip.
“This’ll hurt less if you hold still,” he tells me, reaching for his gift.
“No, please, don’t do this—you don’t have to do this, please.”
But he does do it.
And the second his magic hooks its talons into mine, my protest turns into a scream.
It’s in that moment—as the pain consumes me—that I realize my vision was nothing but a vicious lie, a cruel misdirect, a cosmic trick. Because there’s no way I could ever fall in love with anyone who would condone such brutality.
I will never forgive the Sapphire for this.