Chapter 14
Ridgecrest Forest, Border of Eldridge and Zamyra
Anger simmered below the surface of Connor’s control, threatening to boil over as Daya explained the violent collision of magic Veda had just been subjected to and, worse, what it meant. An intense awakening to a huge calling. He understood it just enough to be furious.
“She’s a child, no more than ten,” he challenged. “How do you expect her to make a lifelong decision—more than that—a literal change of life that will affect her for centuries?”
“I don’t know.” Daya ran her hand over her brow in a rare show of agitation. “I was expecting an adult as the next guardian. I’m not prepared in the slightest to take her on. Children haven’t been called in a very long time.”
“How old were you?”
“Twenty. And I was given a year before I had to make the final commitment.”
His spine tingled with a sense of foreboding. “When will she have to make the choice?”
“I don’t know for sure, but it feels soon. Even if it’s not immediate, I’m afraid she’ll have to decide before you leave.”
Otherwise, she’d be re-orphaned and likely picked up again by mercenaries. Daya couldn’t leave the mountain to take her somewhere safe. It was now or never. His mind tripped over the word decide.
“Wait, she can reject it? What about what just happened? There wasn’t much acceptance from what I saw. That wasn’t her choice, it was all Hannelore.”
His own words sifted back to him. Zevat. Was this what she’d been trying to explain? Hannelore took the people it wanted and cast aside the others.
“Hannelore initiated it—just like you said. The choice has already been made by the mountain, and it’s holding the connection for now. Sealing the bond is up to her.” Daya’s voice softened the tiniest bit. “It doesn’t work the other way around.”
Right. Because it was about Hannelore, not about the person being absorbed into its depths. He set his personal situation aside, focusing on Veda. “If she refuses the call, it can be severed without harming her?”
“Yes. She can go with you as planned. This entire experience will fade into memory.”
He released the breath he was holding. I can still save her. The need wove around him like a vine, cutting off rational thought.
“The thought of leaving her here, of failing your team, is tearing you up. I get that.” Daya’s voice hardened. “But it’s not a bad life. Solitary, yes, but she wouldn’t be alone. She’d have a family.”
Denial reared inside him. “That’s not—”
“Your teammates were killed defending those girls. Returning with them brings meaning to their deaths. But it’s not my doing, Connor. It’s not me taking her from you. I didn’t choose. The mountain did. It’s beyond all of our control.”
The words hit him like a whip, lashing in their honesty intensity. People he cared for, stolen from him, out of his control. Pain and anger swirled into a mess of emotion inside him.
“Not everyone regrets accepting their calling, even when they’re forced to decide young.” Pride and stubbornness warred on Daya’s face as she stared him down.
“What about you? Would you make another choice, if you could?” Would you leave with me if you could sever the bonds that tie you?
The silent question invaded his heart, edging his anger with the primal passion born of impending heartache.
Hannelore was keeping more than just Veda from returning with him.
A shaky breath preceded the shift in Daya’s eyes. “No. I wouldn’t.”
The rejection stung, lancing him with a sharp, needle-like pain. Not even an I’m sorry, Connor to soften the blow. An incessant part of his soul refused to accept the impossibility. Insisted that Daya belonged with him.
“It’s hard to understand the calling from the outside. Just don’t take the choice from her. It might be what she’s meant to do. Where she belongs.”
Where she belongs. With Daya. With Ereven, Ember, and Neka. Where he could never belong because the mountain hadn’t chosen him. The ache of a permanent hole in his heart bloomed as he met her fierce gaze.
The sound of hoofbeats pounding the dirt kept him from responding. He cleared the distance between them in a flash and sunk them to the ground. Arms wrapping around Daya, he wove them into the shadow of a fallen tree.
A large group rode nearby, the sounds of multiple men and horses invading the quiet of the natural clearing. Soldiers returning to the fortress, no doubt. A large contingent had left the fortress earlier, but these men must have been the local troop.
Connor breathed Daya’s sunshine green scent into his lungs while he kept them covered in shadows.
Knowing she would choose the mountain over him should make it easier to leave, but his soul still burned with the deep desire to connect with her.
Bind with her on an elemental level. But he’d lost that battle centuries before they’d ever met.
She turned to him as the sound faded, and he released them from the shadows, bad news clearly etched into her expression. “They have your sister.”
“Zevat!”
Connor pinched his eyes closed and tried to breathe. It wasn’t only the mission spiraling out of control, into disaster. His sister. His soul-daughters. The woman he loved. Everyone important was out of his grasp. Hovering just outside the wings of his protection.
He refrained from asking Daya if she was certain about the identity of the captive. She wouldn’t say it was Celina unless she was absolutely certain. “Is she hurt?”
“I don’t know, she was unconscious.”
An unconscious mage in enemy hands, who happened to be a noble and a royal. With a track record for passionate but impulsive decisions. If another mission had gone this badly, he’d be cursing alongside his teammates. But this was so much worse.
His sister was at the mercy of brutal mercenaries. All because of him. She’d traversed a hostile realm when she thought he was in danger. Put herself in harm’s way. And gotten captured.
It was his turn to save her, now.
Celina’s voice wove through his memory from the tremulous time after their parents died. Family sticks together, Connor. We’ll do it. You, me, and Cat. We don’t need anyone else, just the three of us.
Don’t worry, Cela. I won’t let you down.
“Have one of the hawks follow them,” Connor said.
“Ember is on them now.”
“Good.” He knew Ember better than Ereven. Trusted her to keep an eye on things for him.
“We’ll get her back, Connor.”
“Yes, we will,” he vowed. “And then we’ll finish this conversation, because it is far from over, Daya. I’m not leaving Veda here just because your mountain thinks that’s what’s best for her.”
He’d give his life in a heartbeat for either of his sisters. Veda was his family now, too. His soul-daughter. He wasn’t letting her go without a fight.