Boundless (Unearthly) (22 page)

“Well, it sounds dumb when you put it that way. I guess a sword is good.”

Dad makes a face. “I think you’ll find the sword more useful than anything else. And tasteful.”

“An elegant weapon, for a more civilized age,” I joke.

He doesn’t get it, but my geekiness makes Christian smile, which counts for something.

“Why?” Christian asks suddenly. “Why would a sword be more useful, I mean?”

“Because the enemy uses a blade as well,” Dad says, his eyes serious. “Fashioned from their sorrow.”

I sit up straighter. “A sword made of sorrow?” I try not to think about Christian’s vision, about the blood on my shirt, about how scared I am, like every minute, that what he’s seeing is my death. But I haven’t worked up the courage yet to ask Dad for his interpretation of the future.

“Typically it’s shorter, more like a dagger. But sharp. Penetrating. And painful. It injures the soul as well as the body. It’s difficult to heal,” Dad says.

“Well that’s … great,” I manage. “We have a glory sword. They have a sorrow dagger. Yay.”

“So you see why it’s so important that you learn,” he says.

I get up, brush sand off my shorts. “Enough talk,” I say. “Let’s try it.”

About an hour later I drop back down to the sand, panting. Christian is standing next to me with the most beautiful blade of glory in his hand, perfect and shining. I, on the other hand, have made a glory lantern a few times, a glory arrow of sorts (more like a glory javelin, but it’d do the trick in a pinch, I think, which is not
nothing
, I point out), but not a glory sword.

Dad is frowning, big time. “You’re not concentrating on the right things,” he says. “You must think of the sword as more than something physical that you can hold in your hand. You must think of it as truth.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t a metaphor.”

“I said it was more than a metaphor. Let’s try something else,” he suggests. The sun is fully down now, shadows stretching across the ground. “Think of something you know, absolutely, to be true.”

I say the first thing that comes to mind. “I know I’m your daughter.”

He looks pleased. “Good. Let’s start there. Think about the part of you that knows that fact. That feels it, in your gut. Do you feel it?”

I nod. “Yes. I gut-feel it.”

“Close your eyes.”

I do. He steps up beside me and takes my wrist in his hand, stretches my arm out in front of me. I feel him draw glory around us. Without being asked, I bring my own to meet it, and his glory and my glory combine, his light and mine making something greater, something brighter. Something powerful and good.

“You are my daughter,” he says.

“I know.”

“But how do you know you’re my daughter? Because your mother told you so?”

“No, because … because I feel a connection between us that’s like …” I don’t have the right word for it. “Something inside me, like in my blood or whatever.”

“Flesh of my flesh,” he says. “Blood of my blood.”

“Now you’re getting weird.”

He chuckles. “Focus on that feeling. Believe that simple truth. You are my daughter.”

I focus. I believe. I know it to be true.

“Open your eyes,” Dad says.

I do, and gasp.

Right before my eyes is a vertical bar of light. It’s definitely glory, that light, a rippling mix of golden warmth and cool silver, the sun and moon combined. I can feel its power moving through me. I glance down at my outstretched arm, watch the glory curl around my elbow, down my forearm, to where I’m grasping the light like it has a kind of handle; then I sweep my gaze up the length again, to the tip, and it seems to have an edge to it. A point.

Yep. It’s a sword.

I look over at Christian, who grins and gives me a mental thumbs-up. Dad lets go of my wrist and steps back, admiring our handiwork.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he says.

“Yeah. Now what do I do with it?”

“Whatever you want,” he says.

“Do I have to be careful with it? Can I cut myself?”

Dad responds by forming his own glory sword and swinging it at Christian, so fast that he doesn’t even have time to move, let alone duck out of the way, before the sword cuts through him. I bite back a scream, sure I’m about to see my best friend cut in half, but the blade passes through like a sunbeam cutting through clouds. Christian stands there totally shocked, his own glory sword abruptly gone from his hand, then looks down at his stomach. A long section of his T-shirt flutters to the ground, cleanly severed. But there’s not a scratch on his body.

“Holy …” Christian lets out a breath. “You could warn a guy before you attack him like that. I liked that shirt.”

“If you were a Triplare,” Dad says matter-of-factly, “you’d be dead.”

I frown. “He is a Triplare.”

“One of theirs, I mean,” Dad clarifies. “Those with the dark wings.”

“So we can’t hurt each other?” I ask. “I mean, if we spar with glory swords, they’ll pass through like that?”

“As long as you are aligned with the light, glory will not harm you,” Dad answers. “It is part of you, after all.”

Christian’s chewing on his bottom lip, which is not like him. “My wings aren’t all white,” he confesses, meeting Dad’s eyes. “They have black specks. What does that mean?”

“It happens when a child is born from a white-winged mother and one of the Sorrowful Ones,” Dad says thoughtfully. “It’s a mark the Black Wings leave to identify their Triplare children.”

“But our wings are a reflection of our souls, right?” I ask, confused. “You’re saying that Christian’s father marked his soul?”

Dad doesn’t answer, but his grim look says it all.

Christian looks like he’s going to be sick to his stomach.

Time for some stress relief, I think.

I move my arm slowly back and forth, watch the way the light lingers in the air, trailing my movement. It’s almost dark now, the sky a deep navy, and the sword against it reminds me of sparklers on the Fourth of July. On an impulse I write my name with it.
C. L. A. R. A.

“Come on,” I say to Christian. “You try.”

He recovers himself and focuses until a bright blade appears in his hand, then starts writing his own letters in the air. We start to goof around, turning circles, making patterns, then taking swipes at each other’s exposed arms and legs. Just as Dad said, the blades pass right through. The warmth and power of the glory makes me a bit giddy, and I keep laughing as I maneuver the sword. For a minute I forget about the visions. There’s nothing that can touch me, with this. Nothing to fear.

“I’m glad you understand now,” Dad says, and there’s relief in his voice. “Because this is our last session.”

Christian and I both drop our arms and look at him, startled. “The last session?” I repeat.

“Of your training,” he says.

“Oh.” I lift the sword again. My heart is suddenly heavy, and the sword dims in my hand, flickers. “Will we be—will I be seeing you around?”

“Not for a long while,” he says.

The sword goes out. I turn to him, stricken, fearful that I haven’t been taught enough. I’ve learned so much in this small amount of time: how to fly better, how to fight, how to cross and transport others, which has already come in handy when I need to get Christian and me to the beach on our own, how to almost instantaneously call glory and shape it, and use it more efficiently for healing. He’s also taught us to speak to each other in our minds one-to-one, so that we can talk silently without being heard by anyone else, not even angels, which I’m sure every now and then he regrets doing, when it’s clear that Christian and I are talking about him behind his back. It’s been harder work than any of my courses at Stanford, but I’ve loved the training, truth be told, as scared as it makes me feel. It’s brought me closer to my dad, more a part of his life. It’s made me feel closer to Christian. But I don’t feel ready for any kind of Black Wing–Triplare battle. He didn’t even teach us to use the actual glory swords until today. “How long?”

He puts his hand on my shoulder. “You’ve got some trials ahead of you, I’m afraid, and I can’t help you. I can’t interfere, as much as I’d like to.”

That doesn’t sound good. “Any more hints you’d like to give me?”

“Follow your vision,” he says. “Follow your heart. And I’ll be with you again soon.”

“But I thought you said not for a long while—”

He smiles almost embarrassedly. “It’s a matter of perspective.”

He turns to Christian. “As for you, young man, it’s been a pleasure getting to know you. You have a fine spirit. Take care of my daughter.”

Christian swallows hard. “Yes, sir,” he says.

Dad turns back to me. “Now, try again with the sword, on your own this time.”

I close my eyes and try again, going through the steps carefully, and it works. The sword fills my hand. Dad draws his own, and we all spend a little more time there, just a little more time, together on the beach, Christian and Dad and I, writing our shining names onto the air.

“I heard about Angela,” Wendy says as we walk out of the Teton Theatre in Jackson a few days later. I called her, like I promised, asked her to hang out, and since I picked her up it’s been like old times, her and me joking around, shooting the breeze, and I’ve done an admirable job, I must say, of not showing that I think about Tucker every single time that I see any of his expressions cross her face.

Sometimes it really sucks that they’re twins.

“What did you hear?” I ask her.

“That she had a baby.”

“Yep, she did, a boy,” I say a bit guardedly. I’m protective when it comes to the subject of Angela and her baby. Maybe because I feel like they don’t have anybody else to protect them, and there is so much in this world that they might need protecting from, starting with the nasty gossip that’s surely going around about them in Jackson. Word here travels fast.

“That’s tough,” Wendy says.

I nod. Last time I called Angela, I could hear Web wailing the whole time in the background, and she said, “What do you want, Clara?” all monotone, and I said, “I’m calling to see how you are,” and she said, “I’m a clueless teen mom whose baby never stops freaking crying. I’m covered in milk and puke and crap, and I haven’t had more than two hours of sleep in a week. How do you think I am?” And then she hung up on me.

She obviously hasn’t come around to seeing how she’s blessed.

“She’ll get through it,” I say to Wendy. “She’s smart. She’ll figure it out.”

“I never thought she’d be the kind to …” Wendy trails off. “Well, you know. She’s not exactly the motherly type.”

“She has her mom to help her,” I say.

We head toward the square, where the antler arches greet us at the four corners. I think about how long ago it feels since I first came here and stood under one of those arches, when my hair started to glow and my mom decided we needed to dye it. Just to get me by until I learned to control it, she’d said, and I’d laughed and said something like,
I’ll learn to control my hair?
and it had felt crazy, saying that. Now I can control it. If my hair started to glow at this moment, I’m fairly certain I’d be able to put it out pretty quick, before anybody noticed.

I’ve grown up, I think.

We walk into the park and take a seat on a bench. In one of the trees over our heads there’s a small dark bird staring at us, but I refuse to look closely enough to see if it’s a bird or a particularly annoying angel. I haven’t been seeing as much of Sam these days, only twice since February, and neither time he spoke to me, although I’m not sure why. I wonder if I offended him, last time. I take a sip of the soda I got for the movie. Sigh.

“It’s nice to be back,” I say.

“I know,” Wendy says. “You haven’t talked much about what’s going on with you. How’s Stanford?”

“Good. Stanford is good.”

“Good,” she says.

“Stanford is great, actually.”

She nods. “And you’re going out with Christian Prescott?”

I nearly spit out my soda. “Wendy!”

“What? I’m not allowed to ask you about your love life?”

“What about your love life?” I counter. “You haven’t said anything about that.”

She smiles. “I’m dating a guy named Daniel; thanks for asking. He’s studying business communications, and we were in the same English composition class last fall, and I helped him with some of his papers. He’s cute. I like him.”

“I bet that’s not all you helped him with,” I tease.

She doesn’t take the bait. “So what’s going on with you and Christian?”

I’d rather have my teeth pulled than have this conversation, her staring at me expectantly with her version of Tucker’s hazy blue eyes.

“We’re friends,” I stammer. “I mean, we’ve been on a date. But …”

She quirks an eyebrow at me. “But what? You’ve always liked him.”

“I do like him. He makes me laugh. He’s always there for me, whenever I need him. He understands me. He’s amazing.”

“Sounds like a match made in heaven,” she says. “So what’s the problem?”

“Nothing. I like him.”

“And he likes you?”

My cheeks are getting hot. “Yes.”

“Well.” She sighs. “It’s like my daddy always says. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”

I don’t know what she means, but I have the distinct feeling that she’s getting at something Tucker-related. I laugh like I get it, and look off across the street, where there’s a sudden flurry of noise and movement. Some kind of show is being put on. They’ve blocked off part of the road, and a number of costumed guys are standing in the middle of it, shouting something about how the notorious Jackson gang has robbed a bank in Eagle City.

“What is this?” I ask Wendy.

“You’ve never seen this before?” she asks incredulously. “Cowboy melodrama. One of the other great things about this town. Where else on earth can you go and witness a good old-fashioned Wild West shoot-out? Come on, let’s go have a look.”

I follow her across the street toward the action. The cowboy actors are quickly drawing a crowd from the tourists on the boardwalk. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I notice that the actors all tote rifles or pistols.

Wendy turns to me. “Fun, right?”