Authors: M.J. Scott
Shadow Kin (38 page)
“Why not?”
“That’s a long story.”
“Well, we’re stuck here together for now, aren’t we?”
“Some other time.”
“Why not now?”
“I’m not in the mood for remembrances right now, Lily. Particularly not those remembrances. Like you said, we have time.” His voice gentled on those last few words, but his eyes were distant blue.
Perhaps we didn’t. Neither of us knew what might be coming. I needed to know now. Not just so I knew if he would fight beside me, but because I wanted to know the man.
“Tell me,” I said softly. “You’re good with a sword. Why won’t you fight?” I hesitated, then laid my hand on his arm.
He pulled his hand away as though I’d burned him. “Because I like it too much.”
I turned and walked away, moving fast. Gods. I should have kept my mouth shut.
But Lily wasn’t the kind of woman who’d let the subject go, and sure enough, I heard her footsteps start behind me after a few seconds.
Gods and fucking suns.
I didn’t want this. Not now.
There was a door beside me in the corridor. I grabbed the handle, and was inside, locking the door behind me before I had time to think. Considerate of the Brothers to leave the key. Better still, the room—some sort of office—was empty. I took a few steps, wondering what in hell I was going to do next.
“Simon?” Lily’s voice came through the door, soft but definitely annoyed.
“Go away,” I said to her. At least the sun was still shining so she couldn’t just walk through the wall.
Behind me there was a soft rattle followed by a clink. Before I realized what she was doing, the door opened and Lily stalked through, hairpin in one hand.
“I don’t need darkness to pick locks,” she said. She closed the door, then leaned firmly against it, blocking the exit.
“I said, go away.”
“No.” She cocked her head as she shoved the hairpin back into her coiled red braids. “Of course, you could make me but that might be difficult without fighting me.”
“Lily—” I said, warningly
“Simon,” she said in the same exact tone. The same anger that had flared at me across the weapons hall darkened her eyes again. “I’m not going anywhere. You took me from my world. You asked me to put my life at risk for you. Last night you came to my bed. So now I’m asking you to do something for me. Let me
in
.”
in
.”
I spun away from her, walking toward the window, reaching for the sunlight blindly. The old glass was thick and dusty under my palms. Familiar. Tied up with everything I didn’t want to remember.
“Simon?” A hand touched my shoulder, light as a feather, then dropped away. “What happened to you?”
I kept my gaze on the window. Everything was blurred and wavy. No clearer than my mind. “What makes you think anything happened?”
“I have a passing familiarity with pain,” she said.
“Damn it, Lily—”
“You told me I couldn’t keep running. What makes you think you can?”
She had me there. Gods and fucking suns. I’d wanted her to let me in and she had. If I couldn’t do the same, then I’d been wrong all along and I had just been thinking with my cock. I turned to her.
“I was a novice here once,” I said slowly.
Her eyes widened. “You were a Templar?” Her forehead creased, then eased. “Oh. That’s what Liam meant.”
“Liam?”
“I asked him why he was a Templar instead of a healer like the other sunmages. He said sometimes people change paths. He was talking about you.”
“Yes. But it’s not that simple.”
She shook her head. “I would imagine not.” She reached for my hand again and tugged me toward the desk, perching against it. “Tell me.”
Two simple words. They shouldn’t hurt quite so much. But it wasn’t the words, not really. It was the memories.
“My powers rose when I was seventeen. Later than some,” I said. “Guy had joined the order a few years earlier, when he turned sixteen. He was my brother, my hero back then. I wanted to follow in his footsteps, so I left school, convinced my powers were a sign I was meant to be a holy warrior. I didn’t listen when anyone talked about being a healer. I thought I knew why I’d been given my power. For a time, it seemed I was right.” I took a deep breath, though the smells of the Brother House didn’t make it any easier to fight the memories.
“What happened?” Lily asked.
“Everything was fine for the first year of my novitiate. It’s mostly schooling and learning to fight at that age. And learning to channel my power. Easy enough, even though I tried too hard to live up to my brother’s reputation. He truly was born to this.”
Lily considered this. “He fights very well,” she said. “But I think the only difference between you and him is that he is more in practice.”
I laughed. She didn’t know how close she was to the truth. “Maybe so. But back then I wanted to be better than him. He was my hero but a rival too. Two stupid, arrogant boys, butting heads as much as we got along. He liked bossing me around a bit too well, I thought. At the end of my first year, he swore his final vows. He knew he had a true calling.”
“And you?”
“I thought I did, back then. I was good at swordplay even though I’d never done anything real. And I knew I wanted to help people, much like Guy.”
“So, what changed?”
Now came the heart of it. My chest ached but I made myself continue talking. “Do you remember the night we met? I told you a little of my family.”
“Yes. Guy and your parents and two sisters. Hannah and Saskia?”
“That’s right. But I had another sister.”
“Had?”
Lily’s voice was very soft now. I didn’t look at her. “Edwina was two years younger than me. Just sixteen. Just being introduced into society. She was headstrong. They’re
all
headstrong.”
all
headstrong.”
“Why should the girls be any different from you and Guy?” Lily said.
I snorted and the ache eased for an instant. “You sound like Mother.”
“Edwina,” Lily prompted.
“She got involved with a fast set. They did the sorts of things you do when you’re young and stupid. Went places they weren’t supposed to go, mixed with the wrong crowds. The sort of thing most of us scrape through with only the odd hangover or gambling debt or broken heart to show for it. But Edwina—” I stopped, swallowed. “Edwina fell in love with the wrong man. He was a Nightseeker. We didn’t realize at first. He hid his proclivities well. But she followed him into that world.”
Lily made a small unhappy noise. “Go on.”
It took an effort to comply. I’d spent too many years locking these memories away and not letting them escape. But the bonds were frayed now and the images rose, fresh as they ever had been. “It was Mother who realized something was wrong. She caught Edwina in a lie about where she’d been and told her she was not to be allowed out for a month. Edwina seemed to accept it at first, but she ran away two days later.
“Mother sent for Guy and me and we looked for her. It took nearly two weeks to find her. When we did it was obvious she’d drunk from one of the Blood by then. She was locked.” I paused, sickened. “She refused to leave with us. The Blood threw us out of the Assembly.”
“You left her there?”
“I thought we’d come back for her. That we’d go to the order and they’d help us rescue her.”
“But she was locked. It was too late.”
My eyes burned suddenly. “Yes. That’s exactly what Father Cho said. But I couldn’t accept it. I was determined to try. I thought Guy would help me.”
“He didn’t?”
I shook my head. The edge of the desk bit into my palms. I tried to loosen my grip. “He followed orders. He was young and full of his calling, I know that now. The Templars believe the locked are lost. They also believe in the good of the many, not the one.”
“So, what did you do?”
“Me? I was full of my own particular brand of righteousness. I knew that I could save her. That she would listen to us if we could just get her back. I talked some of the other novices and some of Edwina’s friends into joining me and we staged a raid on the house where she was kept to try to take her back.” I turned, letting myself look at her for the first time.
Her eyes were bright with sympathy. “Don’t tell me the rest. Not if you don’t want to.”
“No, you should know. And I need to tell you.” I paused, seeking the right words. “Needless to say, it didn’t go well. We got in, got to Edwina, but she wouldn’t come with us. Screamed the place down. There were Nightseekers and Trusted guarding the locked. Too many of them. There were only six of us. We fought but we were losing. I’d never fought a real fight before and I was so angry . . . something just took hold of me. I didn’t know who I was anymore, I just knew I had to fight them. Kill them. I liked doing it. Gods, Lily. I
liked
it. I went crazy. For a while I was even beating them. But then one of them got through my guard, sliced my side open, and before I realized what I was doing, I called sunlight, called fire.
liked
it. I went crazy. For a while I was even beating them. But then one of them got through my guard, sliced my side open, and before I realized what I was doing, I called sunlight, called fire.
“What happened next was like a nightmare. The house caught fire. Smoke and fire and screaming, that’s all I remember. I still don’t know how I got out but I did. But three of the boys who’d come with me didn’t.”
“And Edwina?”
“Edwina was killed in the panic. Or that’s what they told me. Her body was found amongst the others. For all I know, I killed her myself.”
“No!” Lily’s hand closed over mine. “No. You wouldn’t do that, Simon. You wouldn’t hurt someone you loved.”
“But I did. She died because of me.”
Lily looked away for a moment. Then her voice turned fierce. “She died because she chose to do as she did.”
“Maybe.” I had heard that argument countless times. Nearly enough to make me believe I agreed with it. “Anyway, the three of us made it back to the Brother House in the confusion. Father Cho—well, let’s just say I was surprised he didn’t kill us himself, he was so furious. I don’t know exactly what happened—I was at St. Giles being patched up and then, once I knew Edwina had died, I was . . . lost for some time—but there were no repercussions. Maybe only the locked ones died and the Blood didn’t think it worth pursuing. After all, no Blood were harmed.”
“Just humans,” Lily said, voice cracking. “I’m sorry, Simon. I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose someone like that.”
I didn’t want her sympathy. It might just break me. “It was a long time ago.” I stood, wanting to be gone. “And in some ways it turned out for the best. I gave up the order and joined the healers. It’s who I am now. Who I was meant to be.”
“But—”
“Story time is over,” I said. “I need to be alone. You should go back to your room.”
It was several hours before I summoned the courage to knock on Simon’s door. I spent the time alone in my room, wishing I hadn’t pressed him to tell me anything. His pain had filled the air of the room like a living thing. Dousing me with an icy dose of reality. Behind his words were other truths. I knew now that the disgust I’d heard in his voice when he’d spoken of the blood-locked was real. As was his determination to defeat Lucius. The Night World had broken part of his world. He wouldn’t stop trying to mend it. His search for a cure was a search for redemption, in a strange sort of way.
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