CRYSTALLUM (The Primordial Principles Book 1) (37 page)

"Right." She'd actually forgotten that. "I just...you know."

"You're worried. Jake's a good guy. You don't need to feel guilty for being worried about him just because he and Cole hate each other."

"It's not just that. I never got to apologize for walking out on him at the dance." It was true. No matter how great things were with
Cole, it had been eating at her.

"He understands," Giselle said. "I explained it to him."

"How?"

"You're a fledgling, Kade." She smiled. "Remember the whole
volare
thing?"

"Oh, yeah." She gave a sheepish grin.

"It's normal for fledglings to fly off the handle. Jake doesn't blame you, and truthfully, I'm not sure that's what's on his mind. Kyle was his third in command. He was Jake's responsibility."

"Oh...god."

"Yeah. The Warden isn't happy from what I hear, so Jake has a lot to prove." Giselle sat at her desk. "I doubt you're even on his radar."

Cole strode into American History and brushed against Kade as he passed. She breathed in the smell of his clothes.

Giselle laughed. "You really have it bad, too."

She eyed Cole with a grin. "I really do."

***

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. Like waiting for the ball to drop on New Year's Eve. Cole kept checking the clock, but it never seemed to move. For the first time in his life, he wasn't out searching for the enemy or investigating a Hive, and he was itching to be involved. Itching to find Kyle. He wanted to be the one who found him, not anyone else. Him. He owed him three times over. Once for scratching Kade's cheek, another for enclosing Cole in a Sheol gate, and the last, and most important, for hunting Kade.

Cole had warned him that if he ever touched, spoke, or came near Kade again, it would be the last thing he ever did. When he found Kyle, his life would be over.

***

"So, I thought we could mix up the 'watch' thing today and take a drive," Cole said after school.

"Sure. Okay." Kade nodded.

"You could get some training in?" He eyed her. "Maybe race a little bit? Show you some other things we can do? Start your training before you move into the common house.”

"That works." Kade wanted to do exactly that. Learn more. Get trained and become a part of something for once in her life.

Cole took a right onto a dirt road a few miles past the high school. The road was riddled in giant boulders and it was slow going as they crept up the mountain.

"Are we going to the top?" Kade asked, an ominous feeling prickling up her spine.

"Close." Cole pulled the Jeep off the side of the road and got out.

"This is where you wanted to come?" Nothing but the top of the mountain loomed over them.

"Yep. This is where we need to start training." He grinned.

"I've seen lots of mountains. Too many to be honest, so I'm not sure what this has to do with racing?" Kade stood next to him.

"Don't take this the wrong way," he said, leading her up a rocky path. "But sometimes you remind me of Giselle."

"Uh. That's not very nice."

He laughed. ”To who? You or her?"

Kade chose not to answer the question. "Is it close? Where we need to go?"

Cole came to a sharp stop on the edge of a cliff, a deep gorge
hundreds of feet below. Kade swayed slightly, looking down, an ominous sensation grabbing her hard and taking her breath away. She knew it wasn't the same place, couldn't be, but it looked exactly
like—

"Sparrow?" Cole squeezed her hand. "You don't like it?"

She stared at the snow-covered tree tops hundreds of feet below and wanted to scoot her feet back, grab hold of a tree limb to steady herself, but she was nowhere near the edge.

“I…I thought you'd like it. You seemed to love the view from the
Kinship. You remember it, don't you? Out the dining room
window?" Cole sounded sad, like she'd ruined the plan he had.

"No, I...it's not that."

"You're not afraid of heights?" His voice pitched as if being afraid of heights was a very bad thing.

"A little," she confessed. "Cole." She stared at him, tearing her gaze off the gorge. "Remember when I told you that Dracon used to come to me when I was younger sometimes?"

"Yes." The clip in his tone wasn't masked.

"Well, once, he..." Kade glanced at the trees below again.

"Once he what?" His jaw hardened.

"He found me when I was probably six years old, and the Shadows, they were chasing me through the woods outside my house in Utah. There was an abandoned church that I used to play in sometimes."

His eyes widened. "Utah?"

"I used to live in Salt Lake City, twice, actually, and I would
make forts in the balcony of the abandoned church, and just, you know, use it like my own playhouse. I thought it was safe." She continued to stare into the ravine. "That a church would be the safest
place to be, and that Dracon wouldn't find me there, in a holy place, but he did one day, and the Shadows, they chased me to the edge of a cliff.”

Her gaze went back to Cole, and he let out a deep breath.

"I was trapped and afraid. I mean, I was a little girl." She stared down again as if in a trance. "It looked just like this. I had nowhere else to run, no way to escape." She shook her head as if it had been a dream she'd forgotten, but she hadn't. She remembered it as if it had happened yesterday. The memory replayed in her head all the time. "I...there was nowhere for me to run," she repeated. Cole squeezed her hand. "I had to get away from him, from all of them, they were taking over the skies, blocking out the light of the sun, and…" Kade shook her head again and stared up at Cole with tears in her eyes.

"And you jumped," he said.

She nodded, unable to say the rest. It had been terrifying,
something she couldn't understand, promised herself she would never tell a soul, and she hadn't. Not once.

Cole squeezed her hand again and let go. Walking to the edge of the cliff, he turned to face her, allowing his heels to hang over the ledge. "Remember when I told you you could trust me?"

"Cole—" Kade took a step forward. "Please don't do that. Come back over here." Panic and alarm fed through her veins.

"Trust me, Kade." He held her frightened gaze. "You're safe with me. I promise you."

"But—"

"Don't be afraid. I just want you to watch. This is why I brought you here. Just watch." Cole jumped, did a back flip into the air over the deep gorge.

Kade screamed

A piercing cry rang through the forest.

“Cole!” She rushed to the edge of the cliff, but he wasn't falling. He wasn't down there at all. Instead, a falcon appeared before her, its slate wings spread wide, eyes black as night. The same bird she'd seen outside her window at her house, and at school the day she'd gone to get coffee with Jake. The bird landed at her feet.

"Your turn."
Cole's voice chimed in Kade's head and she turned around in a circle.

"Cole?"

"Right here."

She looked down at the falcon.

"Your last name isn't Sparrow for nothing."

Kade gasped, hands covering her mouth as she stumbled backward.

"Please don't fall again. This wasn't my plan, to show you like this, but ... you need to know that what you think you are...this bad person, or bad
Primordial, or whatever other crazy thoughts you're having, are completely normal. All fledglings panic at first when they find out what they're capable
of."

Kade couldn't blink, her eyes were glued wide. "Oh, my god."

The falcon tilted its head.
"All Primordial are birds in their natural form. The closest thing to the heavens on this planet. We're mediators between the Planes. When you jumped off the cliff, your instincts took over and you flew in your true avian form. Simple as that."

She stumbled back further, starting to hyperventilate. Birds? It was Cole who she'd seen all of those times. The falcon had been him. She couldn't breathe.

A wrenching cry of pain touched her ears, and Cole stood in front of her, arms wrapping her waist. "I'm sorry. Jesus. I'm sorry." He tucked her head against his chest, holding her tight against him. "I thought if you saw me as the falcon, you'd understand that you
aren't some freak." He swept her hair away from her face. "I'm so sorry I scared you." He lifted her chin to face him. "You're so beautiful, and I can't believe for one second that you would ever
think there was anything wrong with you."

Tears flooded down her face.

"Sparrow?"

"I'm not...beautiful," she cried. "You just...can't see. And I don't want you to see." She pulled away from him. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have...but you're...amazing and I…" Kade gazed at him. "I'm not like you, Cole. I'm not like any of you."

A crease showed between his eyes.

"I'm not...a sparrow. I...have to go. We have to go." She started toward the trail, and picked up her speed into a run—a
very
fast run. Red blazed through the snow covered trees at her back.

"Kade." Cole was at her side in less than a second, pulling to her a halt. "Stop. Please stop."

All of her momentum drained away and she fell into him, arms wrapped around him as if he was the only person in the world who could keep her upright. And he was. "I'm sorry," she mumbled into his chest.

"Please don't say that ever again. I'm sorry. That was really stupid of me. You weren't ready."

She stared up at him.
He's a falcon?
"I just...overreacted."

He hugged her tighter. "I scared you, you didn't overreact." Cole pressed his lips to her forehead. "I think that's enough excitement for one day. Ask me anything you want. Any questions at all. I don't want to make your transition any harder than it is."

Kade stepped back. "No."

"No, what?"

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "If we're going to keep seeing each other then I need to be just as honest with you as you are with me. It isn't fair otherwise."

"Okay..."

She started back toward the cliff.

"Sparrow?"

"You said you knew what I was capable of, that you witnessed some of it. What did you mean?" She asked, still walking.

"I saw you run," he admitted. "Before we started dating. In the forest by your house. I saw how fast you are, and I saw..." Cole reached for her arm, pulling her to a stop. "Your corona is red."

"I know."

"Okay. Well, do you know that a red corona, or
rubeum
, is a color born only of the Celestial Children?"

She averted her eyes. "Yes."

"Yes?"

She walked toward to the cliff.

"Kade, are you going to explain how you know that?" His voice pitched.

"I know a lot of things. I told you that before. Too many things." The trail ended and she walked out of the forest.

"You were Christened as a Primori, your corona is only born of Primori...what else, Kade?"

She walked to the edge of the cliff, turning to face him the same way he'd done with her, heels hanging off the ledge.

"Okay, I get it. I scared you before, so now it's your turn," he said, a sharp edge in his tone. "Please step away from the cliff.
You’re right. It scares the shit out of me to see you standing there like that. I was a total ass to do that to you." He walked toward her, but she didn't move. "Kade, please. Come back over here." Panic replaced anger. "You're not trained yet."

"I've never shown anyone this before, and you might run screaming, but I..." She glanced at the ground. "I've been lying to
everyone, Cole. All my life. I've been afraid of everything. I told you I've never had a real friend before. Never had a boyfriend, and now that I do...I'm happier than I've ever been, and I don't want to lie. I'm sick of being afraid of what I am, of being afraid of everything, all the time."

“Kade, I'm not kidding, I appreciate that you want to be honest, I do, but if you don't step away from the ledge, then I'm coming to get you, and although I know how fast you are, I'm a
rubeum
, too. I can catch you."

She grinned. "Dracon told me once that no one could move the way I could."

"I can," Cole said in his arrogant tone that had grown her.

"I know. You're incredible."

He didn't smile. Not even a hint. "Maybe I'm completely insane, but the fact that you're a
rubeum
, like me, proves that you're not a Primeva. I don't care what the Warden says, I know you're not."

"You're right. I'm not. I tried to tell you that, the day in the Kinship, but the words wouldn't come out right. And then I thought, maybe I could just pretend. Blend in and be one of you. Finally have real friends. Have something to belong to."

He crinkled his brow.

Kade took a deep breath and glanced over her shoulder, down at the gorge. "I just want you to know that these past few days have been the best of my life."

"Kade, don't. You have no idea what you're doing. I don't want to have to come after you. It's really far down."

"And you're an awesome kisser," she said. "I could kiss you all day long and it would never be enough."

Cole's mouth dropped open.

She jumped.

“Kade!"

***

The wind howled in Kade's ears with a deafening pitch, the sheer cliff face screaming past her at alarming speed. Cole's scream resonated in her head. She knew she had to act fast. He could come from her. The falcon would come.

The pierce of barbs cut through her jaw, her temples, slicing through her flesh as if her true form had been dying to come out, trapped within her human flesh. Wings tore through her shoulder
blades, rising to peaks above her horned head. Spread wide, they stopped her fall, and she hovered for a moment over the reaching snow covered tree tops. It had been forever since she'd flown,
allowed her
wings to escape their confines. It was freeing. A freedom she'd
missed, had forgotten about, forbidden to ever show herself.