CHAPTER ONE
In the queen’s garden, there is a key that opens up our destiny.
Covered in mud and blood, it pleads the wisdom of dishonor.
It helps you face your enemy and searches out what seems empty,
But if you wait, and don’t misread, you may avoid a slaughter.
It dreams of time beyond the trees and sounds the call to mutiny
Because it cannot help but lead the horses to the water.
For though we may not all agree, our hearts are longing to be free
And so, we’ll follow, fight, and bleed until death weighs upon her.
Then through the rubble and debris, the saplings grow in twos and threes
From stone to stone, their shade of creed expanding ever broader.
And so, my dragon, use the key; and in time, I’ll have with me
The only thing I’ll ever need, my husband, son, and daughter.
—The Crystal Key
In the bright glare of morning, I rode Fantasma bareback, flying down the grassy trail away from the stables and toward the bridgestone. The wind whipped my face like a solid mass, stinging my cheeks and tugging at my hair as I hunched over, riding low against her dapple-gray coat.
In the waking world, Fantasma hated having her mane pulled and would toss her head repeatedly if I tried, but in my dreams, she and I were one. I squeezed my legs together and gripped her silvery mane to steady myself.
The ride shouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes, yet even as the trees were a blur of brown and green, we didn’t progress. Frustrated, I glanced down to see that the ground wasn’t even moving. Somehow, we simultaneously galloped and were also frozen in place.
When I raised my eyes again, Fantasma had disappeared. I stood on the trail alone, baking under a sun that felt more like LA in the summer than my beloved redwoods.
Through the trees, just ahead, I could make out the carved X of the bridgestone. A man with sandy blond hair and a red beard knelt atop the large flat rock, carving with a chisel and hammer.
He caught my eye, then smiled and raised his hand in greeting. His face was open and warm, and I thought, There’s my friend. I need to hurry.
I tried to walk, but my feet sank into the ground like I’d stepped into wet cement. Glancing down, I realized it was cement, and now I’d sunk down to my ankles. I swung my arms, which only threw me off-balance. Though I called for help as I fell, the bridgestone was now farther away and my friend couldn’t hear me. He knelt again, chipping away at his task, my existence forgotten.
I sank to my waist, and my attempts to lift myself up resulted in my hands becoming stuck as well. Though I wasn’t deep enough yet, a chalky flavor filled my mouth, my brain’s interpretation of what cement must taste like. As it sucked me under, a deep growl vibrated through my body, a sound that came from behind me.
In the time it took to look over my shoulder, day became night. A white wolf towered over my sunken form, its eyes glowing bright red in the dark. He directed his wrath at a man who floated beside me, just above the ground and unaffected by the trap I’d fallen into. I tilted my chin up to see the face of the ghost giant. He grew as I sank, his features remaining out of focus as he rose upward toward dark clouds in an even darker sky.
Bert,I thought. No, that’s not his real name.
The man spoke, but I couldn’t understand him because I now had cement in my ears. All that was left above the ground were my eyes, staring up, up, up. I couldn’t breathe, but I was unafraid. Somewhere in my mind, I knew this couldn’t be real, but I also knew that it was important. The ghost giant wanted to tell me something.
What’s Bert saying? I closed my eyes before the ground swallowed me. He’s calling my name.
“Lee,” a deep voice whispered. Aaron gently shook me awake.
“Hmm?” I opened my eyes to bright morning light shining down through the oculus. Blinking at the unwelcome glare, a dull throb settled behind my eyes and sank into my head. I was still dead tired, having only slept a few hours, and couldn’t help but squeeze my eyes closed again. The blanket became a soft shield against the world as I yanked it over my head and tucked my face down into the pillow.
“We have to get going,” Aaron said, shaking the bed as he scooted toward me. He pulled me against his warm body, then tugged the blanket down to kiss the back of my neck. I groaned in pleasure at the heat of his mouth against my skin. He chuckled, probably because he knew exactly what his kiss did to me. This is how our mornings always started on the days when Aaron was home.
Home.
It was no wonder I’d settled in. I had loved Jorin’s farmhouse from the beginning. It was elegant yet efficient, with two stories, a cellar, and a hidden attic containing Aaron’s bedroom. Every inch of it was handcrafted and lovingly maintained. From the transformed wooden floor to the spiraling dome roof, a lot of thought and effort had gone into its creation.
Transformation, Aaron had explained, wasn’t just a magic trick. It required raw materials and meticulous planning, not to mention an artistic eye. Aaron’s grandfather had possessed that talent in spades. He’d been a master artisan in the Woodworkers Guild, using a brightly colored veneer to create the illusion of jarring weed hanging down around the domed ceiling. The flowering trees burst with fuchsia while a crimson dragon peered down from the canopy. At the peak of the dome, a piece of clear glass was set into a circle of marble, an oculus, which let light into the room.
I felt at home there, and I could see myself staying with Aaron indefinitely, following the same routine every morning that we’d had for the last two months. He would wake me up with his too-hot kiss, make tea, then leave me to pore through books and practice my fragmentation techniques.
Later, he would teach me one of Aunt Clare’s recipes, which he said I picked up surprisingly quickly. Or I would work in the garden while he took the skiff out fishing, sometimes taking Ward with him, though not without calling him either a “dumbass” or a “smartass” at least once, his two favorite Earth insults.
It had been a beautiful little life.
Now, Ward, my best and oldest friend, was missing, and there were people in the room with us, hiding just as we were from Seleca and her Ministry cronies.
“Are they still on the rug?” I mumbled.
“Mmhmm,” he answered, then I felt his teeth on my skin, nipping at my neck, then my shoulder. His broad hand massaged my other shoulder, then trailed down my spine, a wordless invitation.
“You better stop that before it’s too late,” I whispered. He groaned quietly, pulled away, and sat up. I was glad one of us had some restraint.
I rolled toward Aaron and sat up next to him. He planted another kiss on my temple and then got out of bed, straightening his tunic. I took the hand he extended to me and stood to survey the room.
Ellis still slept in Ward’s cushioned reading chair, his head lobbed to one side, and his legs draped awkwardly over the chair’s other arm. He’d probably wake up in pain from how he’d slept.
Markus was on the braided rug next to the chair, face down and snoring. He shared a blanket with Falon, whose long, slender frame was curled on his side, one arm folded beneath his head. His eyes were open and averted, but he raised them to meet mine. When he saw me staring at him, his lips parted, and he looked quickly away again.
What am I going to do about this guy?
Falon hadn’t been able to take his eyes off me since I’d saved his brother’s life. Perhaps that was what prompted his interest. Or maybe, as I later discovered, it was because Falon was a minor pariah within his own family and saw me as a kindred spirit. I’m sure the fact that women were scarce in his life didn’t help either.
Whatever the cause, his interest presented a potential problem since he had Transmutation, a reservoir with the unfortunate side effect of hypersexuality.
Over the course of the last two months, I’d made my way through nearly every banned book in Aaron’s library and had read that fragment use always had unintended consequences. Sometimes, like with my increased lifespan, the side effects were beneficial. Often, they were not.
Evocation, for example, lets the fragmentor create fire but causes an unnatural increase in body temperature and makes it difficult to control emotions, especially anger. I had seen this in Aaron more than once, and it still made me nervous.
Falon and Markus both had Transmutation, a fragment that lets the user turn one substance into another, but which shortens lifespan and magnifies the sex drive. If I was right about Falon’s crush on me, then I needed to be more careful about public displays of affection. In fact, given the extreme sexual repression that this world suffered, that was probably a good policy in general.
We’d gotten to know the men a little better the previous night and had started using the word “crew” when referring to them, a word borrowed from Fitch and Shane, who lived aboard fish-herding ships. I wasn’t convinced, however, that the crew’s deference to Aaron would extend to me.
This was a world where women were often unsafe, even in their own homes, and the previous day’s confrontation with Axel had taught me that I was vulnerable despite my multiple reservoirs.
Axel, a high-ranking magister in the Ministry, had attacked the house during a torrential downpour, and one of his minions had kidnapped Ward, my best friend. It didn’t matter that I had so many reservoirs. If Aaron hadn’t been there, I’d probably be sitting next to Ward in a cage somewhere.
I shuffled over to the counter where I’d laid out the clothes that had gotten wet during our stormy confrontation. A brown tunic taken from Jorin’s closet and hemmed to my diminutive stature lay next to the red tank top and blue leggings I’d brought with me from Earth. The tunic, made of a light linen material, was dry, but my Earth clothes were still soaked from wearing them in the downpour.
The brown tunic wasn’t the warmest option for traveling but would at least be comfortable, though I was hesitant to wear men’s garb in front of all these strangers. The last thing I needed was to showcase how bizarre I was, but there was nothing to be done about it. It was cold outside. I couldn’t wear wet clothes.
I repacked my bag, leaving the tunic out and rolling the wet clothing tightly to minimize getting other items in the bag wet. Next, I packed a book about bridges that Aaron had recommended as well as one on Conjuration, the spirit fragment.
An hour later, after a light breakfast of a warmed grain cereal called goshe, we were all ready to go. Shane and Fitch both offered to carry my pack for me, but I declined, not wanting to appear weak.
I did accept the men’s offer to help with sailing, however. As members of the Fish-herders Guild, one of the only guilds that didn’t require a greater reservoir, Shane and Fitch would be able to help us sail Jorin’s boat up the coast to Neesee.
I wanted to teleport there, of course, but I didn’t know exactly how it worked yet, and I was deathly afraid of accidentally sending us out into space. Given the very real risk, we trudged out into the cold to travel the hard way, Fitch leading while Aaron brought up the rear.
It had stopped snowing, but the beach was draped in bridal white, only turning to gray where the waves gulped at the sand. My heart fluttered for a second as I peered out at the ocean, squinting into the early morning light that slanted across the water from a west-rising sun. The Meriweather Monster, or Merimo, as Aaron and his family called him, was nowhere to be seen, and I sensed no resonance.
Maybe we can take the boat out to see Merimo after we’ve saved our friends, I thought as we hiked out to the dock.
“Oh, is that all you’re doing now?” Spirit asked.
I jumped in surprise, then scanned my surroundings guiltily. Spirit had silently appeared directly behind the group, a habit that, as a ghost, she found very amusing.
“I thought you were planning to save the world? Now you’re just gonna take your friends on a fishing trip, then head home?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. I knew Spirit was just teasing, but she was still right. We were there for more than just sightseeing.
Aaron glanced over his shoulder toward the sound of Spirit’s voice, then stopped short. I backtracked to stand beside him. “You can see her now, can’t you?” I asked. Aaron didn’t answer but gawked, wide-eyed.
Spirit grinned, her white-blond hair and whiter teeth practically glowing in the dim light. She wore a deep red gown that hugged her ample curves and stood out starkly against the pale landscape. It stretched out behind her, floating atop the snow. She was stunning, as always, and Aaron ogled her just a little too hard. Not that I needed to worry about him leaving me for a ghost, but he was not not staring at her breasts.
I narrowed my eyes, then walked in between the two, facing Aaron and blocking his view of the crimson goddess.
“Um, excuse me, beloved? I asked you a question. Were you planning to answer, or should I just ask Spirit to tell me what you’re thinking right now?”
Spirit giggled, and a cough came from one of the men. Aaron blinked a few times but still didn’t respond.
“You can’t,” I said.
“Can’t what?” he asked absently.
“Touch her.”
The crew erupted in muted snickers. Aaron grimaced, turning toward the beach to cut through the group, the back of his neck flushed red as he stalked away from me.
“I didn’t even tell her that!” Spirit called after him, laughing so hard that she snorted. I think I liked it better when Aaron couldn’t see her.
We trekked the rest of the way through the pine and deciduous trees that surrounded the house, then walked toward the beach. The air was frigid, wet, and smelled of the dark brown seaweed that lined the beach.
Perched atop a sand dune and surrounded by pale driftwood and tufts of scrub grass, lay a truck-sized boulder marked with a large X. They called this the “sight boulder,” as they used it mainly to sit upon when looking out to sea. Neither Aaron nor I had ever witnessed the bridgestone being used for Teleportation, but the marking was unmistakable.
My thoughts drifted to the strange dream. Who was the man carving the markings into the stone? His smile had been warm and welcoming, like a friend who’d been waiting for me to arrive.
Thick fog obscured our view down the beach or out to sea, and the waves sounded like a hundred freight trains all headed for a single destination. There was another sound, too, a new, resonant ding that pulsed out of the fog.
“Wait,” Aaron called, waving the crew behind the cover of the sight boulder. He scaled the log to the top and rested on his stomach, waiting. The sound became louder until I could make out the ringing of a bell. Impatient, I scaled the log and lay down next to him.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A sailboat coming up from the south,” he whispered. “Spirit, can you go see who it is?”
Spirit blinked out, then returned to the top of the boulder, causing Aaron to nearly fall off the side when she appeared next to him. It was still creepy to see her move like that, especially when she giggled while doing it.
“Two men,” she said. “One older and one younger, and a woman who is very pregnant.”
“Does the older man have burn scars on his hands and arms?” Aaron asked.
“Yes,” Spirit said.
Aaron stood. “It’s Jorin,” he said, frowning. “He must have Terik and Farrah with him. Let’s go wait for them at the dock.”
Aaron had probably frowned because the couple didn’t have permission from the Ministry to have children. I had no idea what would happen if someone found out.
We descended the log, Aaron leading. He instructed the men to stay back to avoid startling his family, but I went along.
The dark gray sand was perfectly even, pressed flat by the tide and subsequently undisturbed. Aaron supported my elbow as we walked across the soft sand, leaving behind a trail of wet footprints. I didn’t actually need help with a little thing I like to call walking, but if I’m being honest, I liked how he took care of me. Though the feminist in me wanted to shout from the rooftops that I could handle wet sand without needing a fainting couch, I had to concede that I liked leaning on his strength.
What worried me was what might happen if that strength suddenly vanished. As devoted as Aaron seemed, I had known that same care and attention once before, and it had been shockingly easy for that person, Drew, to walk away. I hadn’t even thought about committing myself to anyone since then. I never thought I would meet someone that might be worth the risk.
I wondered idly what Drew had done when I’d disappeared into the woods. The vindictive part of me, Evilina, smirked at the thought that she might be crying somewhere over me.
Aaron squeezed my hand, and I looked up to his ice-blue eyes staring at me. He always seemed to know when I was trapped in my thoughts.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“The people I left behind,” I answered. It was more or less true.
“What about them?”
I shrugged. “From their point of view, I disappeared without a trace. I’m sure they’re worried about me.”
Aaron nodded. “I get it, but that’s not a problem you can solve right now. You’ll read the bridge book on our way to Neesee. We’ll get back to our families as soon as possible afterward. That is, if you don’t get seasick. Have you ever sailed before?”
I shook my head. “Not really. I’ve taken a ferry, but I’ve never really traveled by boat.”
“And did you get sick on the ferry?”
The taut line of my mouth must have been answer enough because Aaron chuckled. Yes, I had gotten very sick indeed. This would not be a pleasant journey.
It was a few minutes before the sailboat came into view. A bright swirl of orange and green on the mainsail cut through the fog as an outline of the hull appeared. An enormously tall man waved from the deck, and Aaron returned the wave, a rare grin spreading across his face. Another man, bulkier than the one I presumed to be Jorin, hunched beside him like a gargoyle.
As the sailboat drew closer to the dock, Jorin dropped the mainsail in a beautifully organized fold of heavy canvas. I wondered how he would manage to bring in the boat given the rough waters, but Jorin made it appear effortless. He used the waves to slip in smoothly behind the rocky outcropping that jutted from the beach at an angle, protecting the dock from the harsher waves.
“Ho there, Aaron!” Jorin bellowed as the boat approached. He was nearly bald, with only a wisp of steel-gray hair at the base of his head. He smiled broadly with two missing teeth, one on the top right and one on the bottom left, giving him the air of a human jack-o’-lantern. The rest of his teeth were crooked and yellow, and his face was beardless and deeply lined.
“I wondered if ya would be here,” Jorin called from the boat. “I’m glad to see ya safe, nephew.”
Jorin’s accent was slightly different from Aaron’s. He spoke more slowly with a little bit of a drawl, having traveled with the Caravan Traders from a province beyond the Gale Ridge Mountains. Though not an official guild, the Caravan Traders were powerful in their own right. As a youth, Jorin had worked as their scribe; a position Aaron had once hoped to attain prior to becoming an unemployable outlaw.
Jorin fit the sailboat snugly against the dock, using a long wooden rod to prevent the boat from smacking the dock as it came in. The rod had a hook on the end that he then used to pull in the boat the rest of the way. The other man, Terik, I presumed, assisted Jorin using his own hooked rod, then tossed a rope to Aaron, who tied the boat securely.
Terik vaguely resembled Aaron, though he appeared a few years older with brown eyes and paler skin. He was less handsome, too, with a long, beardless face and a weak chin. The deep scowl he wore didn’t help either. He glared at Aaron, then eyed me, unconsciously twisting a silver cuff bracelet with a large, lime-green gemstone set into the band.
I tried to withhold judgment about his sour demeanor, suspecting that he wasn’t pleased Aaron had brought a stranger to witness his illegally pregnant wife exiting the boat. Standing back from the reunion, I waited for Aaron to introduce me.
Jorin threw Aaron a second rope to secure, then disembarked, hopping easily across the gap between boat and dock. He embraced Aaron with a chuckle before he caught sight of me. The arms wrapped around Aaron’s back were covered in horrific scars that disappeared under the sleeves of his tunic.
Aaron said something that I couldn’t hear over the wind and waves, but which made Jorin’s eyebrows climb his forehead. A smile grew on his face, then he strode toward me with Aaron on his heels.
Jorin’s long legs covered the distance a little faster than I would have liked. After more than two months of waiting and worrying over his safety, a surge of irrational anxiety hit me over the head. Until that second, I hadn’t considered that this was the man who took care of Aaron after his family abandoned him. It was the next best thing to meeting the parents.
I wore Jorin’s own mud-brown tunic, sheared off roughly at the hem, with my blue windbreaker on top and ill-fitting leather leggings that I’d made myself. I looked ridiculous. I hadn’t even properly brushed my hair or teeth since I’d arrived.
Dear lord, what was I thinking? I should have stayed with the crew. God, I hope he doesn’t recognize his own tunic. A flush crept up my neck while Spirit giggled somewhere behind me.
Shut up, I thought. She laughed harder. I smiled through my annoyance as Jorin approached.
“Avelina Silva?” Jorin asked, grinning down at me with his comically bad teeth. He gave my clothing a once-over but didn’t seem fazed. He really did seem like a jolly, nice man.
“Please, call me Lina,” I said, craning my neck to peer up at him. He had to be eight feet tall. He was literally the tallest person I’d ever met—even taller than Ward. “And you’re the famous Jorin that Aaron’s been talking about all summer.”
Yes, good start,I thought to myself. Be flattering, but not too flattering. Don’t overdo it. Don’t underdo it. Shit! Stop overanalyzing and just be cool!
I smiled as pleasantly as I could while Spirit continued to laugh behind me. Aaron gave me the look and then stretched his neck to peer quizzically at Spirit from around Jorin’s tall body.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” I squeaked.
“Likewise, young lady,” Jorin said. He probably guessed why I was nervous. I wasn’t sure exactly how much he knew about Violet Atticus’s predictions, but I was fairly certain that he knew, at the very least, that Aaron had been waiting around for someone for several years.
What if I don’t live up to the hype?
Aaron’s hand came to his mouth as he cleared his throat, then his thoughts came to me through Spirit. Relax, he thought. You’re doing fine.
“Hey, Punkymidge,” Terik said from down the dock. “You finally found someone small enough for you. Did you get her a high chair for the dining table?”
Punkymidge?
Aaron shrugged, rolling his eyes. Nickname, he thought to me through Spirit. It’s a small, annoying bug that harasses the oardoo.
I turned back to the newcomer, narrowing my eyes. I guess Terik is an asshole, huh? That’s unfortunate. On the other hand, now I don’t have to feel bad that we stole all his clothes.
Spirit must have relayed my thoughts back to Aaron because he huffed out what sounded like a suppressed laugh. Jorin made a displeased sound, then he and Aaron turned to face Terik, who held the arm of the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
Farrah, I thought. Now, here is someone who absolutely lives up to the hype.
She looked like she was about a thousand months pregnant with octuplets and yet was somehow still way out of my league. Her enormous green eyes and full pink lips brought to mind a mythical goddess with the kind of beauty that penetrates your thoughts and lingers there uninvited. Yet, that wasn’t what was so striking about her.
I could feel her. She exuded tranquility to the degree that everything seemed to stop when she approached. It felt like I’d established a Connection link to her through the air, sending me just one message: Peace. All will be well.
What is this? I wondered, in awe of her sheer force of presence. I recalled Aaron saying Farrah had greater Production, a fragment that helps things grow and flourish. But I felt nothing like that from Jorin, and he also had a Production reservoir.
Farrah has greater Production and lesser Projection, Aaron thought to me through Spirit. She’s not doing it on purpose—those two reservoirs just interact like that naturally.
Wow,I thought. What must it be like to go through life with such intense natural charisma? I could have used that in school.
Terik escorted Farrah up the dock toward us, her cheeks flushed with the effort of moving her over-encumbered body. The breeze swept her ebony locks out to the side, like the wind itself wanted to steal her away. We all seemed to be rendered speechless by her calming energy, a phenomenon that could have made her famous on Earth as a natural “it girl.”
As they drew closer, a realization struck me like a ton of bricks. Growing up, I’d always had a hard time making friends. My parents had insisted that it wasn’t my fault, and that people just didn’t understand me. In truth, I hadn’t believed them, but had they been right all along? Perhaps my combination of reservoirs was the opposite of Farrah’s, like anticharisma, making people wonder what the hell was wrong with me. Hell, it made me wonder the same thing.
Spirit quieted at the sight of Farrah, leaving us in silence other than the crashing waves beyond the rocky outcrop.
She’s married, Lina. Quit staring.
You first, I responded, glancing down at Farrah’s hand. A silver cuff bracelet on her left wrist matched the one that Terik wore on his right, but neither wore rings.
Aaron stared at Farrah for a moment before tearing his eyes away. I recalled the night we arrived at the farmhouse, when Aaron had given me a strange look while describing Farrah. I’d thought he was afraid I would be jealous of his description of her beauty, but now it seemed there was more to it.
My guess was that Farrah was a source of tension between the two cousins. I wondered if she’d married her second choice. I felt a knot developing in my stomach as I realized that Aaron’s attractiveness was much more in alignment with Farrah’s than my own.
Oh god, am I Aaron’s second choice?
“No,” Aaron said, glancing at me, then he turned back to Terik, who had a decidedly smug expression on his face, “but it appears you two are about to need a couple of high chairs yourself.”
Oh right, the high chair comment. He’s not even talking to me.
Aaron’s eyes shifted to Farrah, then back down. “Hello, Farrah. You look well.”
“Ha,” Farrah responded. Her voice was deeper than I was used to in a woman, yet breathy and musical. “That’s very charming, as I’m currently pretending to be a house.” Farrah turned her lovely gaze back to me, and my emotions flitted between jealousy and desire. “And who is this?”
“This is Avelina Silva, of course,” Jorin said, turning back to me. “The long-awaited Lina.”
“Ah, the dog girl,” Terik said.
I narrowed my eyes. “I guess so,” I murmured, staring the man down.
Aaron had had enough. He positioned himself between me and Terik, taking my shoulders and physically turning me around to face away from his family. I didn’t resist when he directed me to walk up the dock, keeping his arm around me.
“Can you be civil, please?” Farrah whispered.
“Listen to your bondmate, Terik,” Jorin said loudly. “She’s always been smarter than ya.” Jorin walked on Aaron’s other side. “Lina, please excuse my son. He’s on edge, seeing as how he’s about to become a father.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “My presence is a bit of an unwelcome surprise, I imagine.”
“About that,” Aaron interjected. “Jorin, before we get too far, there are five more men up by the sight boulder.”
“What?” Terik hissed. “You brought strangers here? Rhoya, Aaron! You always know the exact way to ruin everything.”
Aaron ignored him. “Magister Axel attacked us last night.” Jorin turned to Aaron, clearly alarmed but not nearly as shocked as I would have expected. “He brought six men with him,” Aaron continued, “all in a Projection trance. He meant to kill me, burn the house down, and take Lina.”
Jorin nodded, as if he’d expected as much. “What happened?”
Aaron paused, then said, “Axel is dead—or was dead. I’m not sure if he still is. Seleca showed up and collected his body. She might be able to bring him back.”
Jorin closed his eyes, bringing his hand to his forehead. Terik and Farrah gaped at Aaron, dumbfounded.
“Bring him back?” Terik said. “Great goddess, that’s—”
“Then what?” Jorin asked, interrupting. “What happened with the men?”
“Lina freed them from the Projection trance,” Aaron said, “and healed them. They were nearly starved to death.”
The group studied me, perhaps reassessing.
“That’s impossible,” Terik said. “You’re mistaken. Only the projector can release a thrall.”
“Not anymore,” I said simply. “And they took my friend, Ward, as well as a couple others. I mean to rescue them.”
“You’re a healer?” Farrah asked.
I nodded reluctantly, not wanting to elaborate. The word “healer” had the connotation of prostitute in Neesee, and the last thing I wanted was Aaron’s family thinking I turned tricks on the side. Not that I personally judged sex workers, but in Neesee, they were treated as state property.
“She has several greater and lesser reservoirs, actually,” Aaron said, hugging me around the shoulders. “Protection, Connection, Absorption, and a few others.”
“Oh, dear,” Farrah said. “That’s quite a combination. I thought you couldn’t combine Protection and Absorption.” Her eyes bounced from me to Aaron, then she seemed to notice something about him because she frowned. Dropping her gaze, she cradled her swollen belly under her arms.
The sky darkened, and thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance.
“Uh-oh,” Spirit mumbled. Uh . . . Lina? I may have messed something up. She switched to internal communication so Aaron wouldn’t hear her.
Aaron still had his arm around me, and I leaned into him. Ya know, because it was cold, not to make sure that everyone knew what our situation was. That would be petty and hypocritical.
What? I asked irritably.
I don’t know how to tell you this, she answered. Uh, did you notice Farrah and Terik’s matching cuff bracelets?
Yeah, what about them?
Well, Farrah just noticed Aaron wearing a bracelet, too, and she didn’t show it, but she was pretty shocked.
Why? I asked, a sinking feeling building in my chest.
Well, Spirit thought to me, on Monash, I guess they don’t wear wedding rings. They sort of wear bracelets instead.
Oh, I thought, then I lowered my eyes to Aaron’s wrist. He wore the bracelet I’d given him the first week I’d arrived on Monash, the one Spirit had crafted with fire agate and aquamarine to help him control his reservoirs. It wasn’t a cuff bracelet, but it was close.
Oh crap.
