Ascension (The Gryphon Series) (5 page)

Chapter 7

My father, whose coffin I watched be lowered into the ground just two years ago, stood strong and proud as he lorded over the room from his balcony perch. His regal blue robe draped from his arms as he raised them high above his head to acknowledge the adoring crowd. The only visible difference I could see was a jagged scar that sliced from the middle of his forehead down to his cheek, breaking only to spare his eye.

I had no words … could form no coherent thought.
Neither my brain nor heart could digest this huge morsel of knowledge. By Gabe, Keni, and Gram’s slacked-jawed silences, I guessed I wasn’t the only one drowning in a swirling typhoon of confusion and emotion.  

A tight
-lipped smile was the only acknowledgement we received before he focused his gaze on a Guide positioned by the door. He dipped his chin in a brief nod and flicked two fingers toward the exit. That simple gesture spurred the arena into immediate action. The double doors at both exits were flung open. Spectators rose from their humbled postures to file out in a subdued, orderly fashion. No one questioned his command or even raised an eyebrow in protest. Authority permeated off of him. This wasn’t my dad. It couldn’t be. My dad was lazy days pushing us on the swings in the park, snuggling the whole family under one blanket to watch scary movies, driving lessons in an abandon parking lot with him white knuckling the dashboard. Maybe it was his softer side we buried that cold December afternoon.  

Gabe snapped out of his shock enough to slide his shorts back on
, then quickly rejoined the rest of us in gaping at our father. The doors banged shut behind the last of the spectators. Dad took that as his cue. Light exploded, showering twinkling lights from the balcony, as he morphed back into owl form. Grey tipped wings stretched out wide, gliding him down to the arena floor. One blink and his form reverted.

“Michael
.” Big Mike snapped to attention the instant his name left my father’s lips. “You will take the role as their guide. I expect you will do better than the previous one, but not
quite
as good as the very first.”

Dad g
lanced Alaina’s way and gave her a wink. She sat up straighter at his acknowledgement, her cheeks blooming bright pink.

“Thank you, Council Master.” Big Mike bowed his head
in gratitude of his new title.

Kendall
took a tentative step forward, followed by another. “Daddy?” By her fourth stride she broke into a full run and sprinted across the arena. He opened his arms to receive her as she threw herself into his waiting embrace. “Daddy! You’re alive … I think. I don’t really understand what’s happening! But it doesn’t really matter.
You’re here!
”

Dad
chuckled at Keni’s exuberance and dotted a kiss to her forehead. “It’s a long story, but I can sum it up by saying that since my human life ended I’ve been here. That was the stipulation I insisted on.”

For reasons
I couldn’t explain, a foreboding sense of apprehension hatched in my stomach and spread its poisonous tentacles through my veins. I swallowed around the lump suddenly lodged in my throat. “Stipulations for what?”

Dad cocked his head and peered at me as if answer
ing the blatantly obvious. “For me to select one of you as the Conduit.”

His words slammed into me with the del
icate touch of a wrecking ball. My vision tunneled. Gabe’s tree trunk of an arm caught and held me steady just as my knees buckled.

My
sentry’s eyes flashed to topaz. A low growl bubbled within his chest—directed at the man that once dried our tears and tucked us in at night.

“You
… you …
picked me
?” I forced the words through my dry, constricted throat.

“I did
,” Dad boasted, his chest puffing with pride.

“Why?”
I croaked in an almost inaudible whisper.

“What?”
His forehead creased as if I’d just lapsed into a rant of inane gibberish.

The lingering influence of muse poured gasoline on my burning anguish. The inferno that resulted raged and scorched until there was
nothing left except a charred pit of despair. “Everything I’ve endured, everyone I’ve lost, and you
picked
me.
Why
?”

A
belittling smile curled the corners of my father’s lips. He folded his hands in front of him. “You were chosen for this
high
honor, CeeCee. Because of your strong strength of character. I would have thought that obvious.”

I pushed Gabe’s arm away and planted my feet.
The shakiness vanished—chased away by pure resolve and its sidekick, blatant anger. “
You
don’t get to call me that,” I snarled through my teeth. “That was my
dad’s
nickname for me. The
Council Master
can refer to me as Celeste. Or—better yet—by the title
he
chose me for …
Conduit
.” 

H
urt swirled in my father’s eyes, but did nothing to cool my rage. “Celeste, if you could just calm down we can discuss this. There’s so much you don’t understand.”

Keni shook her head
, causing her pink bangs to fall forward and tangle in her eyelashes. “I don’t understand any of this.” She caught Dad’s hand and held it in both of hers. “How can I be touching you now when …” tears spilled from her eyes, leaving zigzag tracks of sorrow down her cheeks, “… we saw your body after the accident?”

There was a time when Dad would have held
Keni’s face tenderly in his hands and dried her tears with his thumbs as he murmured words meant solely to soothe. Now her emotions barely seemed to faze him. “I could explain, but perhaps it would be better if I showed you?” With a grand wave of his arm, a
golden scepter materialized in his hand in a spray of sparks and flashes. He banged the end of it twice, kicking up a small cloud of dirt. Blue light shot from the head of the scepter like a movie project.

“No!” Grams yelled, finally breaking her stunned silence.

The blue light flickered back out. My father’s forehead creased in confusion. “Mother?”

W
ith determined strides, Grams stomped to the stairs that led down into the arena. Mid-step, she kicked off her heels before they dared to slow her down. A smile warmed my father’s face as his mother neared. Grams did
not
return it.

Instead
, she halted in front of him and yanked the scepter from his hand.  “After everything these kids have been through—every awful trial they’ve faced—you talk to them like
people
. No magic and no showy tricks. You gave these kids a death sentence. You owe it to them to talk to them like
human beings
and explain
why
.” White lines formed around her tightly clenched lips as she let the scepter fall to the ground with a dull thump.

Dad
’s coffee colored eyes, that so perfectly matched my own, flashed with indignation. His chest expanded with a cleansing breath I assumed was meant to squelch it. “You’re absolutely right, Mother. The truth is what they deserve and that’s what they’ll get.” He peered over her shoulder to Gabe and I. “The two of you were still in middle school, Keni still in elementary, when Alaina first appeared to me.”

Gabe tensed beside me at the mention of his wife’s name
. For the moment he remained silent, but I doubted it would last long. My empathe ability wasn’t required to feel the resentment radiating off of him. The line of those experiencing that particular emotion was fast becoming a lengthy one.

“That’s when I learned of our ancestral ties to the Gryphon and what the three of you would be called to do. I wanted to protect you
. After all, you’re my children, not soldiers.”

I snorted a humorless laugh at the paltry hollowness of that declaration.

“Think what you will,” Dad’s eyebrows rose, his face set in a mask of sincerity, “but I never wanted this life for you. The Council wanted me to choose one of you as the Conduit and that was the only bargaining chip I had. Its effectiveness was limited since they planned to call you either way, but I was able to make a deal. I named one of you as Conduit and in exchange they secured a seat for me on the Council. That clause allowed me to watch over you and protect you the only way I could. Me being struck by the car was very real. And there
was
a drunk driver.” Dad brushed Keni’s bangs from her eyes with a gentle caress, then laid his palm to her cheek. “But, it was no accident. That afternoon Alaina appeared to me and told me it was time. To secure our agreement, I had to end my life on Earth and take my place here. I stepped into the street that day knowing full well that my Earthly life would end.”

A heavy silence hung in the arena. A choked sob escaped Grams trembling lips
. Her quaking hand fumbled to cover her mouth. My heart bled for her at the pained stare of accusation she now focused on her
only
son.

Gabe’s back rounded as he spun
on his bride. “All this time,
you knew.”
His upper lip pulled back in a livid snarl. “We spoke our vows in front of God and everyone. And never once did you clue me in that my father was
alive
.
Who does that
?
Are you even human
?”

Alaina
’s chin trembled. A wash of tears brightened her moss green eyes to a brilliant chartreuse. Before she could utter a syllable in her defense, the Council Master interjected on her behalf, “She was doing her job, Gabe. In a fashion I commend her for. She realized that the three of you have a destiny that far surpasses mortal comforts or whims.”

“
Mortal comforts
?” Gabe erupted, his face red with fury. Spittle foamed in the corners of his mouth as he raged. “I took a barb to the chest! Keni got infected by a spider demon! Grams—
your own mother
—landed in the hospital after a run in with Barnabus. And Celeste …” My brother glanced over his shoulder at me. Pride and sadness jockeyed for position as his primary emotion. “She gave up everything: school, love, normalcy. This has nothing to do with mortal comforts. This is about you deciding the course of our lives without giving us the courtesy of a choice in the matter.”

My gaze flicked one way
then the other, scanning the otherwise vacant arena that provided the backdrop for this emotional purging. I knew I should feel more at that moment. Sadness. Elation. Anger.
Something
. Instead, all I felt was a kinship to the arena itself; an empty vessel others used for their own purposes.

“
The Council respects all the sacrifices you have all made. Speaking of, if it provides you any piece of mind at all, I can assure you that Caleb is quite safe.”

My head snapped up at th
at treasured name.

Before I could question that particular topic further, Dad pressed on
, “As to the rest, saying it’s been for the greater good seems a weak argument, but it’s all I have.” 

“Three times
,” I breathed the words so softly they sounded distant and foreign to my own ears, “I nearly died. I heard your voice … felt your presence. What was that?”

Dad
hesitated before answering. His tongue flicked across his bottom lip as he clasped his hands behind his back. “It was an incantation. Similar to the one Bernard used to communicate with you mentally during battles. Nothing more.”

I
n my numb state, I somehow managed a weak nod. “And the scrolls? Where those you, too?”

Out of the corner of my eye
, I saw Alaina jerk her head side to side signaling me to stop as subtly as she could.

In an instant m
y father’s haughty Council posture returned. “Scrolls? What scrolls?”

“Twice, Council Master,
” Alaina interrupted and quickly rose to her feet, “scrolls written in a language none of us could read arrived for Celeste. As we couldn’t make out the message, and couldn’t identify the source they originated from, we disregarded them.”