Hereditary (6 page)

When the bell rang, I didn’t wait for everyone else to leave, but scooped up my books and was first out the door. The classroom for Races and Religions wasn’t as easy to find as my first classroom had been, and I had just begun to panic when a familiar voice jolted my eyes from my timetable to Cale’s grinning face.

“I win,” he said, by way of greeting.

“Win what?”

“The bet my friends had running, as to whether you’d return to the Academy today.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“That’s the spirit.” He snatched my timetable, and spun me around to face the building I had just come out of. “And you were right the first time: the boring, non-magical classes are always in the buildings that aren’t lined with silver. This one is upstairs.”

“Oh right, I didn’t see the stairs.”

He walked me to class and slipped a small, folded card into my hand before he pulled his usual disappearing act.

“Those are the details for our session this afternoon,” he called over his shoulder, “I’ll tell you more at lunch.”

Chapter Four

Storm Clouds

The next class passed in what I was beginning to think of as the ‘usual blur’ of unwanted, uncomfortable attention, and an overload of information. Though these theory lessons were actually easier as far as the workload was concerned, as the general history side of things covered the only subjects that the tutors were successfully able to teach me, though I did make a mental note to find out what day the synfee race would be discussed, so that I could skip class.

At lunch time, I headed to the same courtyard as the day before, but didn’t go anywhere near the cherry-blossom tree this time, even though that particular group was nowhere in sight. I re-claimed my seat by the greenhouse and looked down, surprised, when a small vine-like plant snaked out a tendril from below my seat to wrap around my ankle. Shocked, I grappled for my connection, intending to urge it somewhere else. It was harder than I expected, and my shock doubled. No plant had ever resisted me before.

“I’ve heard that every girl likes her shoes, but really, those are a little battered, even for your admiration, Little Synfee.”

I looked up from my wide-eyed stare to see Cale standing before me.

“I thought I saw a lady-bug,” I explained lamely.

“Right.”

I could tell he didn’t believe me for a second, but it seemed Cale wasn’t the kind of person to press for details. He sat down beside me, folding his hands behind his head and tipping his head back to the sunlight, closing his eyes.

“It’s a beautiful day, a little intense maybe, but beautiful all the same.”

I looked up, only now realising that he was right. All the colours were burning brighter, even the sun felt hotter, and that vine… Panicking a little, I quickly re-checked the connection, confused because I hadn’t felt any of my power leaking out. Retreating into myself wasn’t something that I usually did when people were near—or at least, when I knew they were near—but the last thing I wanted was a bunch of over-enthusiastic vines binding me to the seat in plain sight of the whole Academy. To my utter astonishment, there was a steady stream of power flowing from me, and I immediately slammed a wall down on it, cutting the flow off abruptly. What was even more surprising was that as soon as I was back in check, I felt a heavy, constricting sensation settle over me. It was dismal, and it made me uncomfortably agitated in my own skin. Pushing the moodiness aside, I returned to a much duller world, and to Cale’s scrutiny, as his eyes were now open, and trained unblinkingly on me.

It was an expression I had seen before, on Hazen’s face, and I don’t know why it filled me with such panic, but I suddenly wanted to run as far away from him as I could. Except that, at that moment, Hazen himself appeared. He was flanked by his usual group, and they were spilling out of a nearby building, heading toward their cherry-blossom tree. None of them seemed to have noticed Cale and I yet, except for Hazen, whose head swung in our direction the moment he stepped outside, his eyes landing on Cale before sliding to me.

“Well,” Cale’s light tone broke through the intensity of Hazen’s indecipherable glare, “that was strange.”

“What was?” I deliberately avoided looking at him, instead bending to busy myself with digging out the apple that I had stashed in my bag earlier that morning.

“One minute the grass is greener than green, the sun is hotter than hot, like there is an energy pulsing through everything, drawing out the very essence of it all. And the next… it’s all normal again. You’re eyes were closed, so I suppose you missed it.” 

With a blush steadily rising, I took a big bite of my apple to save myself from an answer, and Cale soon seemed to move on, pulling his own lunch out and devouring it before I was even halfway through my apple.

“So care to explain the card to me?” I asked.

I had read it almost as soon as I sat down, and had thought that the single, scrawled symbol in the middle was some sort of joke.

“It’s your invitation. You’ll need it to get into the castle.”

“Oh
noo, no no no.
”

I felt the unfinished apple slide from my grip, but his hand shot out and caught it before it even hit my lap. He handed it back without blinking an eye.

“Oh
yes
, Little Synfee. I know you’d rather stuff a hot coal down your throat, but I’m afraid Hazen’s father insisted.”

“By his father, I assume you mean the
King
!” I was aware that my tone was bordering on hysteria, but I didn’t care.

“It has nothing to do with making you uncomfortable, I assure you. It’s just… well nobody really knows what you can do. Just as they don’t really understand Hazen’s and my own power, we’re a pretty volatile mix, and having use of the castle’s facilities isn’t such a bad thing.”

“By facilities, do you mean guards, who will make sure I don’t try to eat their prince?”

He laughed, reaching out to pat my knee, which had me flinching at the unexpected touch, something that he ignored.

“I’d be more worried about him killing us, but I don’t want to destroy your bad-girl image.”

Not for the first time, his bizarre statement managed to drag an unwilling laugh from me, and I put the issue to the back of my mind to deal with. I thought about Nareon then, and an unexpected shiver raced along my spine, something that I couldn’t quite place, as I wasn’t even sure what emotion had caused it.

“Have you ever seen a synfee before?” I found myself asking.

“Present company excluded?”

“Of course.”

“No, never. I saw a painting once.”

“Tell me about it?”

He turned, folding his arms behind his head again, tipping his face back up to the sky, though his eyes didn’t close this time, and his expression remained thoughtful.

“It was a woman, a very beautiful one. She was all shades of gold, though in those shades, you could see the influence of other colours, like the gold was just a sheen over hair that was really supposed to be grey, or black, or brown, you know what I mean?”

I thought back to Nareon’s own hair, of how I had gotten the feeling that it was a dark colour, despite the obvious golden sheen.

“Yes, I think I do.”

“Well she seemed to have blond hair, not the golden-blond type, it was more silver-blond, and her eyes were golden-green.”

His eyes turned to me then, and I got the uncomfortable feeling that he was comparing.

“She had your skin tone, it was really the only golden thing about her that didn’t seem to have any other underlying colour. There was no fault in her. She was beautiful, perfect, and yet…”

He shook his head, and his eyes narrowed.

“Hold on,” he reached out, taking on that slightly out-of-focus look that he had worn when declaring that I was wearing a glamor the day before, and I could feel his fingers brushing against my cheek.

“That’s it,” he whispered, his tone amazed, “you’re hiding that golden mask. I can see it now. Your glamor, it’s hiding your gold, and holding back your compulsion too…” his eyes grew even more unfocussed, and I found myself unable to answer or move.

“That’s enough.” The voice broke through to me, but didn’t seem to affect Cale at all.

I could see Hazen standing there out of the corner of my eye, but the expression on Cale’s face was so distracting that I found myself not wanting to move in case I spooked him. He looked as if he were in pain.

“Cale?” I whispered, hesitantly.

When I got no response, Hazen reached out and grasped Cale’s wrist, yanking his hand away from my face. As soon as the contact was broken, Cale gasped, and then doubled over, almost sliding off the chair. Hazen knelt down before him, gripping his shoulder hard, and forcing him to sit up.

“Not here,” he said through gritted teeth, “you’re in the middle of the courtyard, Cale, snap out of it.”

It took Cale a few moments, and I inched away from the both of them, not sure if I should feel alarmed or guilty. Hazen was acting as if this had happened before, which would mean that it wasn’t a fault of mine, but all I could hear was Nareon’s silky voice in my head, telling me that my powers were about to spin wildly out of my control. But then, if it wasn’t me, what had Cale been doing?

It dawned on me that we were starting to gather a crowd, and that the rest of Hazen’s group was beginning to make their way over, expressions angry, all except for Rose, who just looked scared. I started to inch further away, but Hazen’s head snapped up, those dark eyes pinning me to the spot.

“Don’t run away.”

I don’t know why I listened, I was really getting sick of people telling me what to do by now, but I stayed where I was, and eventually Cale straightened and brushed his friend’s hands away.

“I’m fine, it’s fine.” He was smiling easily again, but I could see the tightness at the corners of his lips, and he was avoiding looking at me altogether.

I thought about what I knew of Cale’s power, but the truth was, I knew next to nothing. Was it possible that whatever had happened to him was some weird side effect of using his abilities?

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Little Synfee.”

I blinked up to find Cale watching me, along with Hazen, and everybody else, apparently. Attempting a smile, I quickly scooped up my bag and rose, sure that nobody would try to attack me if I ran away now, not with Cale upright and smiling.

“Can’t be worse than what I see in the mirror every morning,” I muttered, my smile losing some of its tenseness when he laughed.

“Nothing could be.”

I winced, turning toward the voice. It was one of the elven girls, the one that Cale had called Kaylee. I decided not to rise to the bait, and began to move away from her, which wasn’t too hard, considering people fairly jumped out of my way, but she followed, persisting.

“I wonder… does the sight of yourself ever make you hungry? I can only imagine what a synfee would do, trapped, alone, and driven wild by hunger. The thought is positively revolting.”

I slowed, having heard the ‘do you ever try to take a bite out of yourself’ joke before, but never around so many people. But before I could think of a reply, I was hit by a sudden, staggering wave of anger, so strong that I barely recognised it as my own. Somewhere above, I heard the rumbling of thunder, and even the air around me seemed to hang heavy with nervous tension. I began to shake, and not because of the elven girl, but because I was suddenly fighting a losing battle with my powers. I could hear the people whispering around me, even heard Kaylee’s voice rising above them, but I couldn’t make out her words through the sudden static of nervous buzzing in my own mind. Hating my next task, I nevertheless closed my eyes and grappled with my control, managing to yank my barrier back in place quickly enough that it may have just looked as if I were gathering my thoughts. However, when I opened my eyes again, the world had grown considerably darker, and I realised that storm clouds had begun to gather. I turned slowly, ignoring the sea of faces, which looked to have doubled, and focused on just one. Kaylee.

She was closer, standing only a few steps away, her expression torn between anger, fear and confusion.

“What did you say?” I managed.

The confusion deepened, and I could see from the brief spark of victory in her eyes that she probably thought I was daft.

“I said,” she spoke with exaggerated slowness, “why don’t you crawl back to the forest, or does even your own kind not want anything to do with you?”

I thought I would completely lose it then, which was strange, because I had heard all of these things before, and I really didn’t think that they would bother me so much anymore. I could see small black spots flashing across my vision, and each of us seemed to jump a little as a sudden crack of thunder sounded. I have no idea what would have happened if Hazen hadn’t pushed past me. His hand flattened to the small of my back, and his voice sounded in my ear, so low that I was surprised I even heard it.

“Calm down, Bea. You’re going to lose it.”

It wasn’t his words that made the decision for me, it was his touch, or more, his
presence
. I could feel him there, in my mind, watching the storm kick up behind my blinking eyelids, and he calmed it where I had failed. When he continued to move past me, his touch falling away, I found myself in control again, staring into Kaylee’s now furious gaze. Of course, she, and everyone else, had seen Hazen’s interference, but did any of them understand just what he had done? I found myself looking for Cale, who was still sitting on the bench that I had left him on, his expression troubled.

Someone did
, I decided.

He forced a smile when I made eye-contact, and pushed up from the bench, strolling over to me as if nothing at all had happened and throwing an arm around my neck, turning me the other way.

“Don’t mind her, she’s just bitter. Besides, the bell rang, like, ten minutes ago.”

“It did?” I asked, surprised.

“Yeah. That storm kind of drowned it out.”