Sacrifice Page 8

  “Except only messengers and gods have access to the weave,” Paris says, almost gleefully. “Which makes you quite interesting, little soul.”

  Echo turns to Callum. “Have you ever heard of a human soul being able to connect to the weave?”

  “Never.”

  “Should we tell Kaius?” Echo goes on, though he seems hesitant to even put that thought to words.

  “No, let’s not!” I blurt, my heart lurching in my chest. A dress strewn across the floor in front of me flops over as if in response to my agitation.

  “He’s already angry at us,” Paris replies, eyeing the dress with fascination.

  “Indeed.” Callum watches the dress too, as if expecting it to get up and dance, or maybe to attack him. Then he nods once. “I agree. For now, we won’t bring it to his attention. In the meantime, nobody else needs to know about this either.” His emerald gaze flicks up to me, his eyes narrowing. “Tell no one, soul.”

  “Who am I going to tell?” I ask, exasperation displacing some of my fear. “The only people I know in this realm are you three, and a third of you can’t even stand me. I won’t tell anyone.”

  Callum doesn’t seem amused by my sass. He continues to glower at me, his expression gravely serious. “Good. See that you don’t. Now go back to sleep. We’ll decide what to do about this”—he gestures at the clutter and disarray around us—“tomorrow.”

  He doesn’t mean the actual mess. He means the cause of it. Me.

  There doesn’t seem to be anything else to say, and I can’t stand the tension that simmers in the room. I crawl across my bed, shoving discarded dresses and shoes onto the floor before I slip beneath the covers and turn my back on them.

  As if it weren’t bad enough I’m dead and stuck with these three men who terrify me and draw me in by equal measures; now I’m manifesting some strange power I shouldn’t have access to. I’m tired of being humiliated and talked down to and treated like a pretty, fascinating toy.

  The overhead light cuts off, and I hear footsteps on the marble floor as the men leave. I lie awake in the dark for some time, still sick to my stomach over my nightmare. It was so vivid, so painfully visceral. Was it real? Is my village still suffering? Did my sacrifice do nothing to help them?

  Or was it just a product of my fevered mind, which has been through so much in the past day and a half that it’s struggling to make sense of everything?

  I drag in a deep breath and roll over—then I freeze.

  Not all of the men left. Callum leans against my door frame, his eyes glittering like twin stars as he watches me.

  “Rest,” he says, his voice quiet and deep in the darkness. “Sleep.”

  I don’t want to. I don’t even think I can. But slowly, my heart begins to slow and my breathing evens out. Callum remains there, his presence intimidating and soothing all at once, eyes burning in the night.

  He is the last thing I see before I slip into a blessedly dreamless sleep.

  11

  Breakfast in the morning is as lavish as dinner was the night before. Fried eggs, plump sausages, even fresh fruit the likes of which I’ve never seen before.

  I pick up a thin slice of something green and seedy, fascinated by the shiny pulp and the perfect little black beads fanning out from the center.

  “Try it,” Echo says, taking the seat beside me with a steaming clay mug in his hand. “It’s delicious. Sweet yet tangy.”

  I pop the slice of fruit in my mouth, and the flavor bursts across my tongue. I immediately reach for another but pause as my thoughts drift back to the nightmare I had last night.

  Can I actually sit here and eat like a queen when my family is starving? Are they still starving? Farse, I wish I knew.

  Paris drops languidly into the chair across from me and shoves the plate closer. “Eat, little soul. We have plenty.” He leans on his elbows and helps himself to a plump, red berry. “Sleep better after the exorcism?”

  My eyes open wide, and it’s only when my gaze flies up to his face that I realize he’s joking. In my world, we don’t joke about ghosts or demons. Everyone has a healthy fear of the supernatural, respecting the power of the magical creatures that inhabit our land, unseen by us.

  But messengers probably have no reason to fear it the same way my people do. They can manipulate the fabric of existence itself—what do they have to fear from ghosts?

  “The way you were screaming, I thought it was someone attempting to murder you,” Echo says, his brows pulling together.

  “I had nightmares,” I tell them, holding out my plate as Paris offers me a spoonful of golden eggs. “Then I woke up and everything was flying everywhere.”

  “That likely exacerbated it,” Echo agrees. “Magic can be affected by your emotional state.”

  Callum strides into the kitchen before I can respond with more questions, looking even surlier than he did at dinner yesterday evening. Nobody speaks as he helps himself to the carafe of hot liquid on the table and takes his seat at the head of the table.

  “Sleep well, brother?” Paris asks, watching him carefully. I get the sense he’s both teasing his friend and genuinely asking. Does he know Callum spent most of the night awake in my room, watching over me while I slept?

  Callum just grunts in response.

  As the burly man fills his plate, Echo turns back to me. “We should test your magic today. See how much control you have over it.”

  “Exactly none,” I say, a burst of adrenaline filling me at the idea of intentionally trying to recreate the chaos I woke to last night. “Or were you not there when Paris had to hold me down like a child having a tantrum? I didn’t even know how to make it stop; I just calmed down like he told me to, and everything stopped moving on its own.”

  Paris stands and reaches for a succulent apple—this particular fruit, I’m familiar with. There’s a small apple orchard on the west edge of my village, though coaxing fruit from it has become harder and harder each year.

  He tosses the red fruit in the air and catches it with ease as he circles the table. Placing the apple in front of me, he says, “Lift that with magic.”

  I blink up at him. “I just told you. I don’t know how.”

  “You did it last night,” he says, as if I’m holding out on him.

  “Yes, when I was half-asleep and running high on emotions.” I shake my head emphatically. “But I have no idea how it actually works.”

  Echo pushes Paris back toward his seat, then turns in his chair to give me his full attention. “Don’t worry, little soul. We’ll teach you. If you have access to the weave, you’ll need to learn to control your power, or else you’ll be bumping into it all the time. Now, close your eyes and listen for the hum.”

  Darting a quick glance between him and Paris, I do as he says. All three men gathered around the table remain silent, and if they were any other observers, I might be able to block out their presence and pretend I’m alone. But as it is, I remain hyper-aware of each of them—every movement, every small shift in their posture, seems to ping the connection between us.

  My gaze grows unfocused as I try to follow Echo’s instructions. At first, I can’t pick out anything, but I close my eyes and concentrate, and after a while, I do become aware of a slight hum in the air. It’s faint, but it thrums like a million tiny strings.

  “I hear it,” I say a little breathlessly.

  “Good!” There’s a smile in Echo’s voice. “All right, reach for that hum. Pluck at it with your fingers.”

  That sounds so strange. I feel silly, but I do it, reaching out with my hand and feeling around within the hum. My fingertips latch on to a thread, and I gasp, surprised it actually worked.

  “I have it!”

  “Wrap it around the apple and pull,” Echo instructs.

  He makes it seem simple. Easy. I try to do as he says, weaving the tiny thread around the apple in my mind’s eye. Then I pinch it between my fingers and pull.

  Nothing happens.

  I open my
eyes. The apple still sits benignly on the tabletop, red skin shining in the sunlight.

  “Wha—but I did everything you said!” I let out a breath, shoving the apple away irritably. “You have to be wrong. I didn’t cause that disturbance last night. It was a demon or ghost or something.”

  Callum, who’s been watching me intently from across the table, shakes his head. “It wasn’t a demon. Try again.”

  Arguing with this intractable man isn’t high on my list of things I want to do today, so I huff but close my eyes and make another attempt, feeling around me for the weave.

  Just like the first time, I manage to find the threads of the weave, grasp one, and wrap it around the apple. But when I tug at the string, the apple remains stubbornly immovable.

  I groan with disgust and pick up the apple, pitching it out the open window behind Callum. I get a brief moment of satisfaction as he feels the wind of it passing his head and looks up at me, surprised.

  Echo laughs and reaches for another apple. “She’s got a temper on her. I like that. Come on, little soul, try—”

  “No.” Shoving my chair back, I stand and glare at each of the three men in turn. “No. I’m not your puppet. I don’t know how to use your weave, and I don’t know why you expect me to be able to. Before yesterday, I was a normal human living a normal life, just trying to survive. I don’t know how to do magic, I don’t understand any of this, and I’m sick of being treated like a toy. Levitate the farsing apple yourself.”

  I storm off, intending to retire to my room and fall into a deep well of self-pity over my current predicament. But near the threshold to the dining room, I trip over something invisible and pitch forward, hitting the marble floor hard. My right knee hits a sharp edge, sending pain shooting up my thigh.

  It’s an inner battle not to scream my frustrations. I roll over, kicking away the skirt of my dress to see what I tripped over. But there’s nothing on the floor—no rugs, no misplaced items. I yank up my dress to assess the damage to my knee, hissing at the sting as I do. The stone sliced thinly right beneath my kneecap, and I’m already bleeding profusely, a trail of red trickling down my shin.

  Nish. I should have stayed in bed.

  That’s when I realize the men haven’t even moved, nor have they seemed to notice I’m sitting on the floor with a bloody knee. I glance up at the table, ready to tell them all off again, but my mouth freezes half-open, my jaw going slack. All the apples that were on the table are now floating near the ceiling.

  Paris finally tears his gaze away from them and looks to me, pointing up at the high ceiling. “You might not understand it, little soul, but you have magic. That was you.”

  “I tripped over my own feet and fell down. How was that me?”

  Echo finally seems to register that I’m sprawled on the floor. He shoves his chair back quickly and comes to help me up. “Are you all right? You didn’t trip over your feet, little one. I think you tripped over the weave.”

  “Why was the weave on the floor?” I say hotly, slapping his hands away and scrambling to my feet on my own. His touch comforts me more than it should already; I’m not going to indulge in feelings I shouldn’t be having. I need to remember to keep my guard up.

  Undeterred, Echo takes me by the elbow as soon as I stand and helps me to the table. “The weave is everywhere.” He lifts my skirt to my thighs and reaches for a napkin to dab away the blood.

  I’m entirely too aware of how exposed I am, of how all three of the men can see the pale skin of my legs and the little goose bumps that rise up in response to Echo’s touch. If he notices, though, he doesn’t remark on it. His touch is confident and casual as he cleans my wound, and I lose the will to bat his hand away again.

  “You definitely have magic,” Paris muses. “We just have to teach you how to manage your power. You are terrible at controlling it, so making sure you don’t pluck at the weave without intending to needs to be our priority.”

  “Wonderful, thanks,” I say dryly. “It’s good to know how terrible I am.”

  “You’re not terrible, Sage. Well, not that terrible,” Echo adds playfully, swiping at the last bit of blood on my shin. He grins wolfishly up at me, his hand resting on my knee for a moment. It feels… nice. His palm is warm, his grip firm as he gives me a little squeeze, and for some reason, my heart beats a little faster at the sensation.

  “I used to be competent,” I mutter, glancing away from Echo and hoping he can’t see my pulse fluttering in my neck. I tug my dress down as he returns to his seat, relieved to have that small barrier back in place. Now that he’s no longer touching me, I can meet his gaze again. “I took down a bear the day I died. I’ve singlehandedly fed my family dozens of times over. But this whole… everything. This world, this new existence, the magic. It’s too much. I’m out of my depth here.”

  Echo’s gaze softens with sympathy, and for a moment, I’m lost in the soft brown of his irises. Then his attention shifts to something over my shoulder, and a second later, Callum is standing over me. He grasps my elbow and pulls me to my feet, and I don’t bother shaking him off as he pulls me through the back door and into the small courtyard behind their dwelling.

  “The fact remains, you now have access to the weave,” he says sharply. “Whether you want it or not. Whether you had it when you were human or not. Now, you need to learn control over it. The last thing we need to add to this disaster is you destroying the realm with untamed magic.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I snap, finally shaking off his hard grip.

  “Sit down on the grass and practice engaging with the weave,” Callum says. “Reach for it. Connect with it. Then release it. Without destroying our home, if you please.”

  “And if I say no?” I ask, irritated at his constant bad mood.

  Callum takes me by both elbows and yanks me against his body. We’re crushed together, our bodies pressed so close I swear I can feel the thud of his heart as it pounds against his rib cage. His stoic, handsome face is set as if it’s carved out of stone. “Defy me, little soul. If you dare.”

  “Why? What would you do to me?” I inject a taunting lilt into my voice, even though the catch in my voice betrays me. A tiny thrill runs up my spine, and I can’t tell if it’s fear or something else.

  His bright green eyes gleam as his gaze drops to my lips, and then he releases me so suddenly that I fall backward, stumbling and landing hard on my ass in the soft grass that blankets the courtyard.

  His jaw clenches, and again, I see and feel a flash of regret in him. But he draws himself up to stand straight and tall, looming over me as he takes a step forward. “Don’t think on that, little soul. Just do as I say.”

  There are tears in my eyes as I close them. All three of these men are cruel. Dismissive. Hot and cold.

  I hate them all, but something inside me burns for their touch—and their approval.

  I don’t want to give Callum the satisfaction, but I know he’s right. As things stand right now, I’m a hazard to myself and others. And I’m at high risk of being discovered if I can’t learn to control this power.

  So I do as he says and begin to practice.

  It will be worth it.

  All of this is worth it if my family is safe.

  12

  I’m still in the garden practicing when Paris interrupts to let us know that Kaius has sent for his messengers.

  Callum sits behind me. I can’t see him, but I’ve felt him for the last hour and a half, his cold presence beaming at me like the antithesis of sun rays, just out of reach as he regards me.

  “His timing is for the dogs,” Callum grunts.

  “True. But you know we must obey, in this and in all things,” Paris says, holding out a hand to help me to my feet. Then he surprises me by reaching up and brushing his fingers down the line of my cheek. “Is he treating you poorly, little soul?”

  Paris’s fingers are warm and soft, his touch so gentle it takes everything in me not to lean into it. I drop his
hand and step back as I say, “Does he treat anyone well?”

  Leaving Callum behind, the blond messenger tucks my arm into the crook of his and draws me back toward the house. “He’s a good man under that gruff exterior,” he says quietly. Truth resonates in his voice. “I trust him with my life. With more than that.”

  I can sense the depth of his feelings, not just for Callum, but for Echo too. These three men have probably been through more together than I can imagine, and hearing him speak of his burly, ill-tempered friend with such respect and love in his tone is almost enough to soften me toward Callum.

  Almost.

  I didn’t realize how warm I was getting under the direct sunlight of the courtyard until we pass into the cool, dim interior of the house. Paris doesn’t drop my arm, and I look up at him as we walk down a wide hallway. “Are you headed to the palace, then?”

  “We are headed to the palace,” Callum says, brushing past us.

  “Go put on some walking shoes, little soul. Cobblestones are hard on the feet.” Paris smirks as he gestures me toward my room, but I can read between the lines of his words. He’s telling me that no one will be carrying me around like a sack of turnips today—and for that, I am intensely grateful.

  Moving quickly, as if I’m afraid he’ll change his mind if I dawdle, I hurry upstairs to fetch my walking shoes.

  The journey to the palace isn’t as long as I remember it being, probably because I was upside down with all the blood rushing to my head last time. This time, I’m allowed to walk properly on my own two feet, flanked on either side by Echo and Paris as Callum strides purposefully a few steps ahead of us.

  I’m charmed by the city now that I’m able to see it right-side up. It’s an amalgamation of architectural styles, looming stone buildings and small quaint cottages side by side. The closer we get to the castle, the closer together the buildings become. There’s no market today, or at least, we don’t pass by it this time. I see only the normal street traffic of a large city.