Fracture (The Machinists) (24 page)

How is it any different than cremation?
he wondered.
It’s not done in front of me.

Kendyl squeezed his arm.
Am I really that easy to read?
He squeezed her back. It felt good to have her back. Nobody else understood him the way she did or could make him feel at ease like she could.
But even she’s not comforting enough for this.

The rain had slowed to a sprinkle, and the raindrops, small and fine, hung in the air. The smell of mold and decay accompanied the moisture, and the mist that had formed in the forest at the edge of the gardens swallowed tree trunks and low-hanging branches.
A somber mood for a somber day.

They gathered in a crescent shape around the pyre, never more than three people deep so everyone had a clear view. They were a colorful, if silent, group dressed in shades of red, blue, even yellow, bringing the garden to life with color.

Graeme stood in front of the gathering group, watching with his hands clasped behind his back. He wore a thick white robe with gold embroidery around a matching shirt and vest. He had come to see Kendyl while she was in her coma and once since she’d woken, but the visit had been more business related than personal. He wanted to know how Allyn had done what he did. He wanted him to do it again so he could see it with his own eyes. Allyn had been unable to duplicate the feat.

Dressed in white garb similar to Graeme’s, Liam and Leira stood on either side of him. Leira had tucked a green flower into her hair that matched the color of her eyes. Around her neck hung the pendant Allyn had untangled for Jaxon. It had been cleaned and buffed until it sparkled brilliantly.

Allyn tried to catch Liam’s eye, but any time he looked in Allyn’s direction, his gaze seemed to slide past him. He hadn’t spoken with Liam in a while, and he was hurt that he hadn’t come to see Kendyl. He may not have known her, but he and Liam were friends, and that was the type of thing friends did.

Once everyone was in audience, Graeme extended his hands out to the side, bowing his head, and hummed a single, steady note. The congregation followed by bowing their own heads and humming. Allyn’s chest vibrated, and the humming stirred the void inside him. It started small, like Graeme’s lone voice, but grew in strength as the congregation matched his tone, rippling through him with waves of energy.

A group of twenty-four magi stepped slowly down the path in a pair of parallel lines, splitting the gatherers down the center. They were dressed in black robes, with their hoods drawn to hide their faces as they looked at the ground. Each person held more of the fallen’s personal belongings. “A memento of the dead that had a deep sentimental attachment,” Nyla had told him. More than one was crying.

The families of the dead.

The funeral procession stopped in front of Graeme. One by one, he took their hoods in his hands and pushed them back, exposing their faces. He whispered something to them and kissed each person on the forehead. The first pair stepped around Graeme, walked up to the pyre, placed their belongings on the body of their loved one, and then turned to face the audience. The next two did the same.

Allyn was surprised when Graeme pushed the hoods back on the final two. They were
young
, maybe in their late teens—a boy and a girl. Siblings. The boy’s resemblance to his father was striking. He was thinner than Jarrell but had the build of someone who would put weight on later. He wore a pair of large, black-rimmed glasses similar to his father’s, and his hair was already showing signs of thinning. The girl had inherited her father’s small mouth and poor posture. Each wore the mask of strength. Allyn admired their courage.

The humming faded as Jarrell’s children placed their belongings on his body. Graeme began to speak. At first, Allyn thought there was something wrong with his ears, but by the confused look on Kendyl’s face, he wasn’t alone. Graeme wasn’t speaking a language either of them recognized.

“Latin?” Kendyl mouthed to him.

Allyn shrugged. He had no idea what Latin sounded like. How would anyone? It was a dead language. If anyone else in the audience was confused, they didn’t show it, though more lost their battles with their emotions, bursting into tears. Nobody offered them a hug or even a compassionate smile. They were alone with their grief.

Graeme spoke for several minutes, his voice strong and compelling. He looked each of them in the eye as if pleading with them, strengthening their resolve. Allyn may not have understood the words, but their effect was obvious. All around him, magi stood a little taller and held chins a little higher. Expressions became firmer, growing more resilient.

His Family had been through a lot: living in seclusion out of fear of the world outside, splinters within their family, war, and death. But still Graeme held them together. He was a true leader, whom Allyn, if he didn’t have other responsibilities, might’ve found himself following.

“I ask at this time,” Graeme said, slipping into English, “if there are any who wish to speak final words of the fallen?” Whispers rippled through the crowd. This, it seemed, was not with tradition.

An odd time to break with custom
, Allyn thought.

Kendyl stepped forward.

Allyn started to call after her, but stopped short. What did she have to say about people she’d never known? Allyn thought he saw the smallest of smiles creep across Graeme’s face as he took Kendyl’s hand and led her into position. He stood behind her left shoulder.

Kendyl looked over the crowd, her eyes growing wider, probably second-guessing herself. Allyn couldn’t help but smile. She saw him and must have taken it as encouragement, because she opened her mouth to speak.

“Hi,” she said nervously. “I obviously don’t know most of you or even many of them.” She pointed to the pyre behind her. “But I wanted to tell you about the person I did know. My captivity was… dark. I was beaten, burned, beaten again, and nearly drowned. I cried, pleaded, begged, but it never made any difference. It never stopped. And that was only the first day. Lukas thought I was one of you. He thought he could beat the ability out of me, force me into wielding. He was wrong.

“But the pain continued, and as Lukas grew more desperate, so did his methods of torture. I wasn’t going to last long. I didn’t
want
to. That’s how Jarrell found me. At my weakest. My lowest. After a particularly brutal session, Lukas forced him to heal me, and with compassion in his eyes, Jarrell did. It nearly killed him. But that day, I saw a promise in his eyes. He was going to help.” Kendyl’s eyes were wet, but she held her emotions in check. Allyn struggled to do the same. Kendyl hadn’t told him all of this. He’d asked, but she said with that haunted look in her eyes that it was too soon. Perhaps she was right.

“The torture continued, but every day, I had something to hold on to. I could hide inside that little ball of hope. It kept me from breaking, probably from death itself, and then two nights ago, when eleven other people made the ultimate sacrifice, Jarrell did the same. I was mortally wounded by a desperate attack from a desperate man trying to save himself. Lukas tried to break me. Instead, he broke my brother.”

Allyn shifted uncomfortably, feeling his face grow hot as the congregation’s attention turned to him.

“It’s true,” Kendyl said. “He can wield. I was saved by two people that night. My brother and Jarrell.”

Whispers spread through the crowd. Rumors of his ability had spread since that night, but hidden away in Kendyl’s room, Allyn hadn’t been forced to face them. His silence had turned some magi into believers and others into skeptics, but now that it was in the open, he would have to face them.

“Jarrell knew that saving my life would end his own. That it would be the most excruciating pain he would ever endure and that it had little chance of success. But he did it anyway. ‘Tell her I’m sorry I couldn’t do it sooner,’ he told my brother. His last words.”

The whispers stopped. Silence.

“Lukas tried to turn me into one of you. Where he failed, Jarrell succeeded. No, I cannot wield, but I make this pledge to you. As long as you’ll have me, I’ll be here. As long as you ask for my help, I’ll give it. Because this is a family, and Jarrell made me feel like I was a part of it.” She nodded to Graeme before striding across the wet ground, reclaiming her place by Allyn’s side.

“We need to talk,” Allyn whispered.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

At Graeme’s silent command, the mourners in black stepped forward. With Graeme in the middle of the line that extended around the edges of the pyre, they turned to face it. Fire ignited in the hands of the magi in black, and together, they lit the pyre. Flames quickly engulfed it. Blown by a gentle eastern breeze, the smoke billowed toward the mourning families. A collective deep breath was followed by a gust of air, pushing the smoke away. The flames flickered against the gust, and oddly, the nature of the fire changed. It burned differently, casting smoke away from the crowd.

They watched until the pyre was reduced to ash.

Allyn pushed Kendyl into his room and kicked the door closed. “You should have told me you were going to do that.”

“I didn’t know I was going to,” Kendyl said, rounding on him. “What difference does it make anyway?”

“I’ve spent weeks trying to save you so I can get you away from these people.”

“Why?”

“For your protection. As long as we’re intertwined with them, we’ll never be safe. We’ll never be able to go home or have a normal life.”

Kendyl smiled condescendingly. “You think they’ll leave us alone if we run away? That we’ll be safe and return to our lives like nothing ever happened?”

“No—”

“Then how exactly were you planning on accomplishing that?”

“We hide.”

“Where?”

“Far away,” he said and then added in a quieter voice, “I don’t want to talk about it here.”

“Are you afraid someone is listening?” she asked, her own voice growing louder. “Let them. I’m not leaving.”

“Kendyl—”

“No, Allyn.”

“Stop being so impulsive!”

“Stop being so impractical!” She lowered her voice. “I know you mean well, but you can’t protect me like they can, and you shouldn’t have to.”

“It’s my job,” he said, playfully nudging her shoulder. “You’re my little sister.”

“By seventeen minutes. That hardly counts.” She smiled. “I’m also an adult, capable of making my own decisions.”

“Have you ever dreamed of a fresh start?” he asked. “Just pack up what you can carry and go?”

“Of course.”

“This is that opportunity.”

“I know.” She sat on the foot of the bed and drew her knees to her chest. “I’m nothing out there, Allyn. I can make a difference here.”

He sighed and sat down beside her. Her mind was made up. He would stand a better chance of convincing a dog that it was a cat than he did of changing her mind.

“
You
should go, though,” she said. “You have a life out there.”

Somehow, he’d known that it would come down to this. He felt like a parent having to choose between two children. Kendyl was right. He
did
have a life outside, and he’d worked his butt off to build it. Turning his back on that meant turning his back on the years of early mornings, late nights, and the career that he’d begun as a tribute to his mother. It meant walking away from her memory. How could he explain that to Kendyl? She hated his career.

He looked at her. Those soft eyes that looked so much like his mother’s were pleading with him. He smiled. It made sense now. Leaving his career behind wasn’t disgracing his mother’s memory, but leaving his sister behind was.
They
were her memory. They kept her alive.

“You’re the only family I have left,” Allyn said. “Everyone else has either been taken from me or left. I’m not going to do that to you. I’m staying.”

Chapter 18

A
llyn watched as the young girl dug in her heels, forcing her mother to drag her. Kendyl stepped forward, ready to intervene, but Allyn stopped her.

“Please, Mother,” the girl said, tears streaming down her innocent face, “don’t make me go.”

“Michella,” her mother said, “we’ve already been over this. We’re leaving. Now come on!” She adjusted the bag slung over her shoulder and gave the girl a sharp tug. Michella stumbled forward and gave up her fight. She walked down the hall with her head hung low to where a man, presumably her father, waited.

He tousled her hair, gave her an encouraging pat on the back, and offered the girl’s mother a small shrug.

For an adult, moving was opportunity wrapped in inconvenience, but for a child who was leaving behind everything she’d ever known, it was terrifying.

They’re leaving because of us
, Allyn thought. And they weren’t the only ones. He and Kendyl had passed others in the halls. Allyn wondered if Graeme would actually allow them to leave. And if he did, how many more would follow?

Nyla had come with word that Graeme wished to see them in his study and then promptly left to attend to errands of her own, leaving Allyn and Kendyl alone to deal with the looks and whispers. Most of the magi were courteous, smiling and nodding to them, opening doors or holding them open to pass. The majority of the unhappy magi just scowled at them, but a few openly mocked them.

“Being able to wield doesn’t make you one of us,” an older magi had said before spitting at Allyn’s feet.