Chapter 12 #2
Stepping past the guards at the entrance, they slipped into the shady forest. That scent of cedar and stardust overloaded his senses again, and a glistening copper creature hopped from one trunk to another.
Autumn pointed toward the canopy. “Luster. The Light. It’s everywhere. It’s in everything. The energy is sometimes visible, sometimes not, but it drives everything in this realm, and we draw it into ourselves as a source of magical energy.”
David lifted their joined hands. “Magic. Like the happiness and heat in your touch?”
She smiled. “Yes. Devas exude heat. But the happiness is mine alone.”
“Devas?”
“Yes. I’m a deva. Well, part deva, part human.”
“What am I?”
She drew one burning finger down his arm. He’d not had a proper look at himself since traversing the mist, but he stared now, and his heart jumped to his throat at the sight. His skin glistened with a faint sheen of gold.
“See all the gold?” she said. “That’s sylph.”
David swallowed the urge to panic. Gold skin. Totally normal.
“If devas are hot, what are sylphs?”
Even her laughter contained Luster. He could hear the Light. “Sylphs mostly keep to themselves. They charge their Light with knowledge. They’re…introverted. Sort of reserved? That’s not the right word. They’re pure.”
Well, if there was one thing David was not, it was pure.
“And their Light allows them to see the future,” she said, all offhanded like that wasn’t the most important piece of information.
“The future?” His voice remained even despite the weird tingle creeping along his skin.
“The Sight. Have you ever Seen anything?”
He diverted his attention toward the others around them—reclining in the grass, giggling in groups. They all stopped to stare, sometimes glare, when they caught sight of him.
Each new gaze fired the instincts drilled into his brain, telling him to ferret out the threat, eliminate it. He’d learned young that attention was like a drug—a little felt good, too much was lethal.
“I wouldn’t know,” he lied, distracted by the sheathed dagger at a man’s hip not twenty paces from them. “I wasn’t given an instruction manual.”
“They won’t hurt you,” Autumn murmured, once again cutting into his train of thought.
He turned to her, narrow-eyed.
She tugged on his arm, smiling. “So you never randomly thought of something that came true later?”
David shrugged. Was it really her business?
In the distance, the trappings of combat training occupied the forest—fighting rings, target dummies, archery ranges. The place was crowded but organized.
“I take it that’s where Exorcism school happens?” he asked.
She nodded. “The training grounds.”
To his right, crinkling leaves brought his attention to an animal almost like a fox skittering from the brush, silver and gleaming. He blinked as it dove into its burrow. “Are there—unicorns here?”
A confused divot formed between her brows. “What’s a unicorn?”
“Never mind.” He shook himself and refocused. “What about Morgan’s magic? Where does that fit in?”
The ever-present smile on her face darkened. “All those in the Manae family have been blessed with varying degrees of Morgan’s magic. The last bloodline to possess it.”
“Who exactly is Morgan?”
“She’s one of the ancients, like the Queen, though she’s not been seen in centuries, so she’s likely passed into the Light by now. Her magic deals in manipulating the private places of the mind. Intuition, emotion, volition.”
Volition.
There it was. The word he’d been searching for. He could take a person’s volition. He’d been doing it, unknowingly, for the better part of his life. When he spoke, people obeyed.
His father’s dark laughter sizzled in his ears.
How do you do that with your voice, son? You’re my get-out-of-jail-free card.
Autumn’s arm threaded around his elbow and she pulled him close. Her voice lowered to a near whisper. “It wasn’t right, what he did to you.”
David’s gaze shot to hers, and they slowed to a stop.
He searched her face, the gold in her eyes, the scattered freckles across her nose, the twist to her mouth that, even in her consternation, still looked like a smile. “If I asked you to stop listening to my thoughts, would you?” he asked in his flattest tone.
She touched the tip of his nose with her burning finger. “I don’t have a choice.”
Against his wishes, a host of disturbing memories rose. He didn’t want people knowing this about him. Didn’t want to look her in the eye and know that she’d seen the filthy things staining his past.
Shard by shard, he iced himself over. He shut it all down, closed it off, and threw on his insouciant overlay, waving a lazy hand toward her. “So you like eavesdropping?”
The brush of her heated fingers slid over the scar on his forehead. “I hear them like you’re speaking them to me. I don’t like it.”
The innocence of the forest clashed with the tainted images in his mind. His jaw clenched.
Autumn grabbed his arms, pulling him close. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t have a choice.”
Refusing to look at her, David’s gaze played across the sparkles in the air.
The sunlight was too gold. The leaves too green.
“Yes, I did. There was always a choice. I chose what was easy.” He’d wanted to do the right thing, but he always succumbed to his father’s demands.
Obeying was simple. Defiance was grueling, exhausting work.
“Hey, you!” called the man with the dagger.
David and Autumn turned as one, and she shifted to stand protectively in front of him. He almost laughed at the display.
The emotions from the stranger hovered somewhere in the region of hostile rage, smelling of burned embers. His comrades tried to restrain him, but he broke free and marched David’s way. “Go back to where you came from,” he spat. “We want no Followers here.”
“Is that right?” David replied.
“You’re not wanted here.”
“Never stopped me before,” he muttered under his breath.
The man drew close enough to throw that knife if he wanted. David chided himself for going anywhere unarmed. He wasn’t the greatest with blades, but a knife was better than the redheaded shield that had erected itself in front of him.
“What are you, drunk, Hayim?” Autumn asked, incredulous. “You can’t threaten the heir of Manae.”
“Seems like he doesn’t agree with you,” David whispered.
“Go home, or face the consequences.” Hayim pulled the dagger from its sheath. One man attempted to drag him back, but most of the crowd bore witness with wide eyes and exhilarated emotions.
David took a good look at this stranger—short brown hair, scant clothing, gold light at every edge. Deva.
Were all devas this reckless?
“What are the consequences?” David asked out of curiosity.
“Seelie Court says Followers burn.”
This announcement was greeted with loud calls of agreement, inviting others to join the spectators, but David froze. So association with his ancestor meant a death sentence, even centuries later? Their prejudice certainly ran deep.
What did that mean for him? Would he be punished for his ancestor’s crimes? If the glinting blade in Hayim’s hand was any indication, David presumed the answer was yes.
His gaze darted across the swelling crowd, searching for any additional threats. This wasn’t a great start to his time here, and he suspected it wouldn’t improve any time soon.
“So what do you say?” the man asked. “Will you leave, or will you burn?”
“Not great options,” David said in his practiced bored tone. “Can I have a day to think it over?”
“Is this a joke to you, Djiante? I’ll show you how much I’m not joking.” He started forward, raising the knife.
Djiante? The word converted strangely in his head. He wasn’t quite sure what it meant.
“No, you won’t.” David laced his voice with enough spiky sugar that the man winced and dropped his knife. “You’ll leave me alone. Won’t you?”
“Yeah. Of course.” The man nodded, blinked, turned away in confusion. The crowd exploded into bewildered whispers.
“Come on.” Autumn gripped his wrist too tightly and strode away. At a safe distance, she slowed.
“Should I expect more of that?” he asked in a low voice.
She glanced back. “Maybe a little. It won’t take long before the message spreads that you can’t be touched.”
David smirked. “I’m sure that little show didn’t work in my favor.”
Her smile finally vanished. “No. But it doesn’t matter. The Mother…she’ll get what she wants. She always does.”
Their goddess sounded a bit selfish, if he was honest. “What does she want?”
Autumn shrugged. “To do things right this time.”
“How vague.”
Her laugh returned, and she looped his elbow once more. “So tell me, when exactly did you learn to speak Lux?”