The Rise (17 page)

Silvia clapped her hands together and stood. “Now, you should sleep,” she said. “You look like you’re two steps from death. Things will be moving quickly now that you have arrived. We need you at your best. In the morning I will assemble everyone we have, and we will hold a meeting about how to move forward. I have a room prepared for you.” She began to move toward the door. “I will show you the way if there is nothing else you need.”

I stayed where I was, and Kayden and Tommy made no move to stand either. “I do have a question, actually,” I said, trying to think of a way to ask it without causing too much suspicion about
why
I was asking it. “You mentioned before, when you were running through some of the other races, something about Seers? I think I have a vague idea of what that is, but well, what exactly…can they do?”

Silvia studied me a moment, her green eyes lingering on the silver on my arm. She looked as if she were trying to decide whether or not she should answer me. “A Seer can see bits of the future. They are connected to the order of events in a way that allows them access to
very dangerous
knowledge. Luckily, they are very peaceful creatures, and most of them will gladly face death rather than betray their knowledge to someone who wishes to steal it.” She paused. “Why do you ask, Warrior?”

I didn’t answer that. Instead, I asked another question. “Is there a Seer here? In the Outlands?”

I heard a low, barely audible growl beside me, and looked over to see that Kayden had a hard look on his handsome face, his jaw set tight. Well, I would figure out what was wrong with him in a minute. First things first. I looked back to Silvia, who was once more studying me with a guarded look in her green eyes.

“No,” she said at last. “There are no Seers here.”

At that moment, Camillia appeared in the doorway. Her gray hair was wet and wrapped up in its usual tight bun. She wore a silk robe over a long coral-colored nightgown. She must have taken a shower, because she wore no makeup either, and for the first time I saw how old and seriously tired she looked.

Silvia took her sister’s hand. “I’m so happy you’re here,” she said. “I really thought I would never see you again. When you gave word that the Sun Warrior had arrived, I had been afraid to believe that it was true, afraid to hope…”

I cleared my throat, and Silvia turned. “Oh, right,” she said, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Your room is just down the hall to the left. The door is a bright green. You can’t miss it.” Her gaze flicked to Tommy. “Yours is only a few doors down, red. If you need anything, please ask.” She turned back to her sister.

Tommy, Kayden and I slipped around them and headed down the hall. We passed through one of the glass tunnels that connected the cottages, and when I looked up I could see the sky above dotted with millions of white stars. The hallway we emerged into was painted from floor to ceiling with weeping willow trees, and tiny lights that looked as though they were strung across the branches lit the way like hundreds of stilled fireflies. I stopped when I came to a green door on the right side of the hall, and then I felt my cheeks flare up red and a twist in my stomach when a realization struck me.

Silvia had only designated two rooms, and she had told Tommy that his was the one with the red door. Did that mean that she thought Kayden and I were going to share a room? Despite everything that had happened on this long, awful day, the thought of this sent a fresh spark of fear through me. I suddenly very much felt like I was in one of those dreams where I was standing naked in front of a classroom of peers. Super nervous.

Yeesh, Warrior. Pull it together. What are you, fourteen? I would have thought you would have jumped at an opportunity such as this.

“I’m eighteen, thank you. And, well, just shut up.”

Well, eighteen is a magical age, now isn’t it?

After a moment, I realized that Kayden and Tommy had stopped and were staring at me. Tommy said, “Uh, Wallace, you can stay in my room if you want.”

No!
I thought, earning a long chuckle from my Monster. Kayden looked to me, his golden eyes seeming to glow in the dim light of the hall, his large shoulders still held tightly, his face saying nothing at all. When he spoke, his voice was gentler than I would have expected. He hadn’t said a word since we had gotten here. “Up to you, Warrior,” he said, and I saw his chest rise and fall with a sigh.

I pretty sure that my cheeks went from a deep pink to a bright red, like a cartoon character’s. I got the urge to reach up and hide them behind my hands, but as nervous as the thought of sharing a room again with Kayden made me, it’s not like I had to think too hard on the decision. I mean, I’m crazy, but I’m not
that
crazy.

Still, my voice came out smaller than I would have liked, like a child asking for the light to be left on after bedtime. “Stay with me,” I said.

This earned an eye roll from Tommy, and I expected some snippy remark, too. Didn’t get one. He just leaned back against the wall in his characteristic way, folded him arms and flipped his messy blond hair away from his face. “Can I have a word with Alexa, Wallace?” he asked Kayden. “I won’t keep her long. I’m sure you two are anxious to get some ‘sleep’.”

Ah, there it was. Still the same old Tommy.

Kayden threw a questioning look at me, ignoring Tommy’s sarcasm, and I nodded. He opened the door and turned back to Tommy before closing it. “You ought to watch what you say, Boy,” he said.

Tommy snorted and smirked. “So they tell me,
Grandpa.
”

With one last glare, Kayden shut the door. I turned to face Tommy. “You’re poking at a lion, you know that?” I asked.

Tommy shrugged. “He doesn’t scare me.”

I leaned against the wall next to him and was surprised when his warm fingers enfolded my hand and squeezed. I squeezed back and tilted my head to look at him. His cool blue eyes stared back at me, and for the first time I could see the angst behind them that he usually covered up with sarcasm and indifference. A realization struck me then, what seemed like the hundredth one on this endless day.

My voice came out in a whisper. “You’re worried about
her,
aren’t you?” I asked, though even as I said it I knew it was true.

Tommy didn’t ask who I was talking about, but his blue eyes continued to hold my own. “Aren’t you?”

Then Tommy surprised me by pulling against him, his back to the wall, our hands clutched in between us, the only thing in between us. I splayed my fingers and felt the resistance in the hard muscles of his chest, my heart hammering hard, but not in the same way that Kayden made it race. It was clear in our contact that nothing was between Tommy and me anymore, if there ever had been. He just seemed to be feeling the same grief and worry I was feeling, as though it radiated through his warm skin in electric waves, and it was nice to be sharing it with someone.

I pulled back a little and studied the lines of his face. Tommy was a pretty boy, with stylishly messy hair, a permanent smirk on his lips and striking ice-blue eyes. But they seemed to be clouded now with the anguish of a lost lover. “What-what did she do to you, Tommy?” I asked. “To all of you. What did Nelly
do
?”

His warm breath stirred my hair when he spoke. His hands held mine tightly, still crushed between our bodies. It seemed as though it hurt him to speak the words. “She…
touched
me, I mean, she touched all of us. I-I’ve never felt so much power, so much
greatness.
I feel like she’s still inside of me, slipping away slowly, and I just, I want her back. I want to…I don’t know how to explain it. I’ve never been in love before, never felt anything like this, but I would assume that this is what love feels like. I think I would die for her. I think we all would. I never really understood your protectiveness of her. I mean, I did, she’s your sister and all, but I never really got why you were so willing to give everything to keep her safe. I get it now. She’s…like, something precious, something otherworldly, heavenly, almost.”

I took a moment to let this sink in. I had always known how special Nelly was to me, how very much I loved her and had the undeniable urge to put her first, at all costs. But hearing my feelings spoken by someone else was strange. I’m ashamed to admit that I was a little jealous, also, not over the fact that Tommy was obviously over me, but because I felt like I was the only one who could love Nelly this way. I was her protector.

Even great Warriors need help sometimes. I would say now, if ever, is one of those times.

I pulled myself away from Tommy and took a deep breath. “So what do we do, then?” I asked. “If you feel like that then you know that Nelly is in trouble. Big trouble. She could be anywhere right now, and if word gets out about what she can do, about what she
is
, we’re going to have a much bigger task on our hands than just leading some revolution.”

Tommy squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his temples. “You asked about Seers, and I think your idea was a good one. We have to find one and convince him or her to help us. If anyone knows how to bring your sister back from…from wherever it is that she has gone, it’s a Seer.”

I glanced around the hallway, making sure we were still alone. “But Silvia said there wasn’t one here. How does someone find a Seer?”

Tommy’s hand came up and brushed some of my hair out of my face. A trace of his old smirk appeared on his lips. “You trust people too easily, you know that?”

I narrowed my eyes. “And you really ought to watch what you say.”

He laughed, and I couldn’t help a small smile. Tommy was good at making me laugh. Just like Jack—

I shoved that thought away. I could handle only so much right now. But now that Jackson had popped up in my mind, he wouldn’t seem to go away.

“Let’s get some sleep,” Tommy was saying, “I can’t think of any ingenious plans when my head is pounding from exhaustion.”

I nodded, and the question fell from my lips before I could stop it. “Tommy, where is Jackson? I mean, why didn’t he come with you guys when you left?”

Tommy’s face instantly became an unreadable mask. I wondered if all Warriors had to take a class on inscrutable expressions. They were masters at it. Tommy averted his gaze. “I don’t know,” he said. “Your sister called who she called, and we came. You’d have to ask her that.” And then he turned and headed down the hallway.

I stared after him until he disappeared behind the red door of his room, my brow furrowed deeply.

He was lying. You know that, Warrior?

“Yes,”
I told my Monster,
“I know that…I’m starting to wonder if anyone ever really tells the truth.”

I put my hand on the doorknob of the green door and took a deep breath. At least there was one good thing in all this; Kayden would be waiting for me on the other side. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. I pushed the door open and went inside.

Nelly

I was walking in a land of lost things, broken things. The landscape before me was bare and gray and dead. The silence of the place was so complete that it seemed to carry with it a physical weight, turning every step I took into an agonizing wandering. But I felt my feet moving, one in front of the other, as if searching for something beyond.