Enchanter's Echo (4 page)

“I vow.” He gagged. Unmanly, yet unavoidable. The moment the strained words left his mouth, the heavy weight of a vow to the High C pressed on his shoulders.

A click came through the receiver. She’d hung up on him.

He dropped the receiver into it cradle and grabbed the base to yank out its cord. There wasn’t one. He let the landline thump to the top of the junk pile and pondered kicking the whole damn stack to the ground.

Beyond the attic door, footsteps pounded a warning. He recognized the rhythm, as well as the approaching mage vibes. His twin was coming up the stairs. A one-man cavalry. He wasn’t surprised. Vincent had surely sensed his pain from the fissure and was coming to check on him. In welcome, Edmund pushed the door open with his vibes.

Vin gave him a chin-up nod as he entered. He inspected his surroundings then marched to the nearest window. Edmund glared at the landline once more before returning to his spot at the other front window.

Outside, a car pulled into the gates. Two flags waved on the sides of its hood.

“She’s home. ETA three minutes.” Vin stared out, motionless, straight. Always at attention. “Talk quick.”

Edmund stuck his hands in his pockets. “You’re disturbing my nap,” he drawled.

“Sleeping on your feet, were you?”

“With a rocking dream.” She’d rocked a number of his dreams over the last months. He hated waking up from them. She disappeared all over again.

Their mother’s driver pulled up in front of the house. A sentry, clad in the dark gray of Rallis with a scarlet sash, exited the passenger seat and opened her door. She stepped out, one high heel at a time and looked up at the attic windows, her gaze targeted him like a tracking spell though even she couldn’t see through the spelled glass. Could she?

“Two minutes.”

It’d be nice to confide in his brother. But he’d just vowed silence to something. The only way to find out was to try and see which words strangled him. He took a breath. “Aurora...”

He let the rest of that breath go. His luscious girl wasn’t the secret.

“Aurora?” Vincent prompted.

With another inhale, he prepared to explain, but stopped. He wanted her to himself for a little longer. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and thought fast. “The aurora borealis can’t be seen from here except on very rare occasions.”

Vincent blinked. “I used to think highly of your bullshit skills. Not anymore.”

Edmund ignored the taunt. It wasn’t like that would be hard to earn back. With another breath, he tried the next topic. “A fi—” The word cut off, his air stopped as if a hand shoved down his throat to block his vocal cords. He grabbed his neck as if he might dislodge the energetic grip, but his hands couldn’t touch the vow. There’d be no telling anyone about the fissure after all. Why the hell had the High C done this? The senator needed to know the territory was facing a serious threat.

“Are you choking?” Vincent’s alarm took a moment to penetrate Edmund’s oxygen deprived brain. He spun around, giving his back to his brother, not wanting a witness to this, but Vin didn’t cooperate. Edmund shoved away the hand on his shoulder, but a backwards hug came next, along with a serious thrust of Vin’s fist into his diaphragm. Vibing hells, his brother was giving him the Heimlich. Edmund might have laughed. Unfortunately, this vow was going to kill him before he had the chance to share the joke.

Another thrust. Consort of the goddess, that vibing hurt.

“What is going on in here?” His mother busted into the room. The door banged against the wall.

As the threat of his words disappeared, the silence vow finally released its chokehold. He took an enormous gulp of air. It resounded around the room.

“Vincent Burr Rallis, were you strangling your brother?” Their mother had no qualms at reprimanding the commander of the Republic’s army.

Vin lifted his hands, palms facing his body in an innocent mage’s pose. “My arms weren’t around his throat. He was—”

“He was practicing his Heimlich, Mother,” Edmund rasped.

The lady of the land’s nose flared. “Oh, for goddess’s sake, Edmund, is that all you can come up with?”

He cleared his throat. “Apparently I’m not the bullshitter everyone thinks I am.”

“And neither are you well-mannered.”

He tried to break it to her gently. “Manners are just a façade men put on for the women in their lives.”

She puffed up. “They certainly are not. Manners are the foundation of civil society. They keep a people cohesive and cooperative. When the entire group has common expectations of behavior, fewer misunderstandings occur. For instance, the rules of this house. One in particular comes to mind. Dangerous items confiscated from criminals are housed in the basement armory and are not removed until the convening.”

Edmund shook his head, hands in pockets. “I’ve not heard that rule before.” He looked at Vin. “You?”

“Nope. Haven’t heard that one.”

Truth. It had never been specifically verbalized as a rule.

“Edmund!” His mother actually stomped her foot. “The unnatural eye is missing! Imagine my surprise, my utter embarrassment.” Her vibes skewed slightly with the last words, jerking in the air.

The vibes of lies always reminded him of crickets chirping.

“I opened the deadening box to find it empty. Empty! In front of the entire judicial panel.” Crickets again.

He’d known this was coming. “Mother.” He shook his head, disappointed. “You might have opened the box, but it wasn’t in front of the judicial panel. The hearing for that violation was erased from the convening’s agenda scrolls. I cast the spell to erase it myself. The man who bore the eye is dead. There’s no point in convicting him of a crime.”

She shook her manicured finger in the air. “That eye was strewn with power. Utterly drenched in it. Who knows what that man was capable of seeing with it? In my life I’ve seen many cases of unnatural physique up close and personal. Never have I encountered the power that reeked from that sphere.”

It hadn’t reeked. It had sung with power, despite the fact that it had been in the skull of one of the darkest mages in existence.

His mother took a breath. “Someone made that eye. Someone needs to pay. The entire Republic abhors unnatural physique.”

She was right. The vibes of unnatural physique made it impossible for a ruling family to bind a mage and ensure his loyalty, leaving the mage a renegade with uncontrolled energy. That was reason enough for the founding families to despise it. But it wasn’t just the descendants of the Mayflower mages who hated it. The uprisings of ’93 and ’02 that started in the south and spread to the northern territories would never have happened if the radical political groups hadn’t had access to unnatural physique. Artificial muscles had powered the rebels beyond human strength. Enhanced skin had repelled defensive spells and let them charge through the army’s barricades. Thousands of innocent mages had been caught in the crossfire and died.

What had Aurora been thinking to create such a monstrosity? That eye had severed the metallist mage from his Rallis ties and might even have contributed to his insanity.

But there was no point bringing that up that now. The eye was gone forever. Wiped from existence.

“We can all guess who the criminal was. It was a metal eye worn by a metallist mage, who is now dead. Making this public knowledge will only reflect poorly on Rallis.” And endanger his enchantress. He stepped forward and placed his hands on his mother’s shoulders. “I understand your feelings on unnatural physique, but for the sake of the territory, we need to keep this within the family. I’ve taken care of it. I also took care of mailing our census this afternoon.” His change of subject probably wouldn’t distract her, but it was worth a try.

Before he’d driven to the junkyard, he’d slipped the papers into the new mailbox at the corner of Goodale Park. Reporters from the city’s three major papers had captured the moment, Edmund’s attempt to help the city heal. No one would ever forget the little boy who’d opened the mailbox on the corner of Park Street and Buttles Avenue, excited to be tall enough to reach all by himself, only to be brutally murdered, along with twenty-eight other mages, the terrorists’ bomb triggering when he’d opened the mailbox.

Five months gone and the park had yet to be repaired. Its beloved elephant fountain remained a partially crumpled heap on the park’s northeast quadrant. To prod the park committee into action, he’d finally had a new mailbox installed. The former blue metal hump that had hidden the bomb had been replaced with a glass one—see-through and strengthened with spells to ensure it was indestructible. There would be no hiding deadly weapons in this one.

He’d publicly taken the crystalline hump’s virginity with the fat census envelope while the reporters’ image spells snapped around him. The background of the pictures would clearly show the committee’s lack of work on the fountain.

Edmund always played his part to bring their mages peace, to lead them into their future, whether he wanted the job or not.

His mother nodded. “I heard. Nice move.”

“Yep. I can see the headlines now.
Rallis Family Census Heir-Mailed
.” He looked over at his brother. “Those reporters are fools if they don’t take advantage of that pun.”

Vin shrugged. “They’re fools. You better call and suggest it.”

Their lady mother covered her eyes with a hand but collected her frazzled wits easily. “Since I have you both here, the P.U.R.E. Ball is in two days. You are going, Vincent. And Edmund, you will have a proper date.”

“Of course, Mother. I’m asking the love of my life to the ball.”

She stared at the ceiling, exasperation drenching her every vibe. “Just show up with someone appropriate.” Spinning on her heel, she disappeared down the stairs, her footsteps silent, like all well-mannered mages.

Vincent stared. “I cannot believe she didn’t notice.”

Neither could Edmund. He wasn’t unique in his ability to sense lies. Many mages could...when they bothered to pay attention. And their mother always paid attention, except, apparently, when Edmund spoke of love.

“You’re telling the truth.”

* * * *

Aurora huddled over the morning newspaper at her usual booth, but her eyes skipped over the words. Instead, Edmund occupied her mind. He’d held that metal eye and blindly believed she’d done nothing worse. Her lips softened, as if in sympathy for his gullibility, but really it was in memory of his kiss. Heat uncurled inside her and rose to the edges of her skin.

She flicked the paper shut with an annoyed snap. The heir was not gullible. And that kiss needed to be forgotten. She lifted her mug and took a scalding swallow of coffee to drown any remnants of the memory.

Behind her, bacon sizzled on the grill, the hiss merging with the diner’s sleepy atmosphere. Its scent mingled with yeasty waffles and fresh ground coffee. Though Bleak’s Diner had good food, their coffee was the best in the territory…the best in two territories since she’d not found its equal in Noble Territory either. She could only guess that Bleak added magic beans to his daily grind. Like sunflowers on a rainy day, she was droopy without it.

She leaned back as Izzy paced over, coffee pot in hand. The waitress’s bright yellow hair, bobbed but spiky at the ends, swished in time with her pace. The tips of her spikes were a rainbow of colors that matched the tiny beads in her nose ring.

“I heard a rumor about you.” Izzy poured the hot stream of caffeine into Aurora’s mug, then set the coffee pot on the table and rubbed at her scarred fingers.

Aurora closed her eyes, but it was too late. The roar of the bomb exploded in her mind. The cloud of fire burned her face as if it were in front of her all over again. Its thunder had silenced everything. When it had receded, it left the screams and moans of the dying in its place. Her mind processed the memories like snapshots of sounds and sights, Merida dominating many of them, begging, pleading, demanding her help. Around them, fate’s chaos squeezed them together, binding Aurora to her future.

“I heard you have a sweetheart.” Izzy said, oblivious to the horror that held Aurora’s mind. The waitress was another survivor of the bomb, her scarred fingers just one of her souvenirs. “If it’s true, then he isn’t worth cleaning your sheets for if he doesn’t come in here with you. A man ought to take his woman to breakfast the morning after, feed her something sweet to remember him by.” Izzy smiled with tight lips. It was hard to catch the other woman in a full smile. “You seen Bull?”

A few days after the bombing, Bull—Izzy’s brother and current leader of the junkyard gang—had insisted Aurora and Merida fix his sister’s crushed hip and legs when he’d learned what they’d done to Lily. One month later, Izzy had been the first person to move out of the forest and live with the rest of society despite her illegally enhanced physique. Although Aurora had nightmares on a regular basis about Izzy being exposed, the brave woman didn’t seem worried in the least.

The diner’s door chimed open.

“Speak of the devil. Here he is.” Izzy picked up her coffee pot, the dark, rich liquid steaming thanks to her spell. “Morning, Bull.”

“Morning, Iz.” He fluffed his sister’s hair and slid into Aurora’s booth, across from her, as if he’d been expected. He was broad enough that sitting next to him on the bench seat would be an intimate experience. A construction worker by day, Owen Crombie, a.k.a. Bull, spent his evenings in the junkyard training for amateur mage fighting matches. He always won. A dark mind mage, he read the dark thoughts of his opponents. His mage power was just another muscle to use when fighting fellow mages, though his ability was a deeply hidden secret.

He eyed her coffee. She tightened her fingers around her mug. Bull wouldn’t hesitate to swipe hers for a sip or four. She pulled it closer. It took two full mugs of this brew daily to power her up. Never mind that she was on her third. “Get your own.”

He smiled and mouthed the word
please
to his older sister. Once his own mug of coffee was safely in front of him, Aurora spoke. “What do you want?”

He held up his hands, palms in. “I can’t come see the enchantress of the Drainpipe just because I want to?”