CRYSTALLUM (The Primordial Principles Book 1) (14 page)

"I'll be right outside attending Miss Sparrow's chart." The doctor wobbled toward the door.

"Sparrow?" Cole's brow crunched.

The doctor glanced at the chart, scanning the top with his finger. "Yes, Kadence Sparrow."

"Masters of flight and…camouflage," Cole said to himself.

The doctor chuckled. "Yes, yes, I do believe that is how the saying goes." He smiled and edged Ms. Thatcher out with him before closing the door.

Cole's focus went back to Kadence. "His Eye Is on the Sparrow. That's from the Bible, well, it's a hymn, really. Little birds, sparrows. They symbolize hope. And peace. Did you know that? They deserve protection.” He gazed at her pink cheeks. "I knew I shouldn't have let you walk away from me in Crystalline. I could feel it. I should have taken you home myself.
As soon as the Nefarius said the word 'her,' I should have found you, taken you home, and made you stay inside.
The Nefarius couldn't have tracked you if you were with me. Dracon wouldn't have found you." He glanced at the red streaks on his palm again. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I never make mistakes."

Cole scooted closer to keep from falling off the bed. "You told me Dracon would find you again when you were asleep earlier. I don't know what you meant, but I won't let it happen." He touched her fingertip. "I'm guessing by the way you looked at me when I told you you were a Primori, that you don't know much," he went on. "And obviously I was wrong about that," he sighed. "I doubt I'll have all the answers you'll want, but I can tell you about the Primordial." He straightened the blankets over her legs.

"The doctor said you weren't warming up." Cole tucked the
blankets underneath her feet and around her calves. He watched her sleeping. She looked like an angel. "You even look like a little sparrow," he whispered. He'd never wanted to protect someone as
much as he wanted to protect her, but he needed to get that thought out of his head. She wasn't his to protect and never would be. "I never break Ward rules," he said. "I've never broken the Doctrine in a way that really mattered. Besides fighting with Jake and his crew, I don't do anything wrong. My dad would've skinned me alive if I'd even tried, but—" Cole stared at her. "I would have broken every rule the Ward had to protect you last night." That knowledge scared him more than anything else had.
"And I don't know why."

Kade made a soft noise and rubbed her face, rotating her weight so she faced Cole. He shifted over, giving her space, and she settled again, her knees nestled against his leg, before falling still.

"I wish you would open your eyes,” he said. “They have little specks of yellow around the irises that bleed into gray green. Even in the dark, they shine."

***

Kade wasn't sure what she was hearing. If she were dreaming, or listening, or what. It had been like that for what seemed like forever, though. Lying in a bed she knew wasn't her own with her arms and legs weighed down, hearing little more than white noise.
Someone was sitting next to her, she thought, and her feet were wrapped up in a blanket cocoon.
Still, she was freezing and her head hurt. Bad enough that she was sure she'd been knocked unconscious. That was the real problem. She was knocked out, and weird thoughts went through people's heads when they weren't conscious. Weird dreams.

"I've never had to explain what I am before," the same voice she'd been hearing spoke in her dream again. "Usually a fledgling's parents tell them what they are and then Plumb fills in the gaps once they move into the Brotherhood. I have no idea what you know, but the Primordial—that’s what we are—are a very old race. One of the original races. Our people are mediators between the Planes. We're born of the Celestial Plane. And we protect the magnetic field that runs around the Mortal Plane here on Earth—it's called the Leyline grid or planetary grid. It's the barrier that shields the Earth and connects all the Planes from Celestial, to Mortal, to Infernal."

Kade shifted her weight. The voice, a guy's voice, was lulling.

"The Filios Daemoneum and the Nefarius," he paused. "I wonder if you even speak Latin. It's the language all Primordial speak. Filios Daemoneum means Devil's Children, and Nefarius means Black Guard. They're the ones who came after you at Crystalline and at your house last night. We've been at war forever."

Forever?
Kade shivered at the thought, and the bed shifted again, and she realized the person who must be sitting next to her had gotten up. She felt a rush of wind before something heavy fell over top of her.

"If you don't warm up soon, I'm either going to have to resort to covering you up with towels from your bathroom or lying down next to you. That's probably not the best idea with your octopus arms." She heard the smile in his voice. "This is the only blanket I could
find, and I don't know how Thatcher is, but Plumb is stingy
when it
comes to extra blankets. She has a secret hoard of them hidden
somewhere in the Brotherhood. That's my house, by the way, the Brotherhood.”

Kade smiled, but didn't feel the motion touch her mouth. She had no idea who Thatcher or Plumb were, but his voice was soothing, so she wanted him to keep talking even if it was only a dream. She wondered why he was telling her about the Primordial
race, though. She knew about them and the Devil's Children. Dracon had told her enough stories over the years to scare her to tears. It wasn't a topic she liked to think about. Or hear about. Besides that, she was forbidden to speak a word of it to anyone.

"So, Primori and Primeva," the guy went on, "are the two Primordial races. Well, no, we're the same race. Those are the two classes, but I really hate that word: class. It divides us in a negative
way."

Primeva were the children of the moon, Kade remembered. Born of tainted blood. The bad seeds of the Primordial race.

"Anyway, Primordials harness energy. All life has a built in electrical system, ours is just a bit more complex, because we also use magnetism."

Kade learned about electricity in Chemistry her sophomore year. At least she thought it was Chemistry. Maybe it was Physics. What a useless class. Like Pre-Calculus.

"Our abilities," he continued, "are higher up on the evolutionary scale than any other life form on Earth. Or as my dad would've made me say,
Mortalis Planum
. He hated it when I spoke in English. And Danny hates it when I speak in Latin." He chuckled. "Can't win.
Latin isn't Danny's native language like it is mine. I think I corrected him too much when we were little kids.”

Latin had always been easy for Kade, too, but none of the kids
her age spoke it, so she never let on that she knew it. And she definitely didn't learn about evolution in Chemistry, or was it
Physics? Both of them were stupid classes. She thought she'd gotten a seventy-five in Chemistry in the tenth grade.
Something warm stroked her cheek, the gentlest of touches.

"I've never understood how humans believe they're are all that exists in the universe," he went on. "How could there only be one way of intelligent life? That makes no sense."

He had a good point. They should teach
that
in Chemistry. Or maybe it was Biology?

"Anyway, we can wield energy. Bend electromagnetic fields. We maintain the Leyline grid that connects the Earth to the other Planes, and in some places the lines converge. At those points, they create gates. Vortexes. We can travel through the gates to other countries, other states, or Planes, within seconds. We manipulate the energy fields, keeping Daemoneum activity to a minimum."

A warm finger trailed over the center of Kade's palm.

"This is probably confusing. I'm a terrible teacher. Plumb is
much better at explaining what we are and what we do."

Kade wondered who Plumb was, and why the dream kept going.

"If you picture a giant net covering the planet...all the little ropes...some are straight lines, some bend, and others converge into
circles. All of the lines are Leylines, but where they converge, those
are gates," he said. "They're the places where the energy
concentrations
are highest, and that energy creates a spiral that emits from the ground called a vortex.
Vortexes are gates into other realms, other
places on
Earth, that sort of thing. The largest Leyline system is in Europe
where hundreds of lines intersect. The Ward has an arsenal of Primordial guarding all the points there."

Kade imagined a net covering the Earth.

“
From one of the Leygates here in Boulder, we can travel
directly
to the Ward in Rome. Different gates go to different places, and
they're
not all places you would want to end up.
The Nefarius and Devil's Children reroute the lines and black them so they lead to the Shadow grounds, the Infernal and Nocturnal Planes, hellish realms, basically. Most of us can't return from those places, so you see the benefit in
rerouting."

That was easy to picture. Except the blacking part.
Kade shifted her weight again. Dreams were so weird.

"Primori and Primeva work together under the Ward or we try to. That’s our government. Our headquarters are in Italy, but some of us—they are called Principals—are spread across the world, in
every country, watching and protecting. Balance must be kept to maintain the grid. But the truth is, Primori and Primeva aren't allowed to intermingle beyond friendship. We’re rarely friends,
though. It's an old rivalry." He took a deep breath, and touched her face again, her jaw this time. It tingled and left a trail of warmth that extended down her neck.

"I really hate that to be honest. I mean Jake and his boys start fights, but we should be friends, not enemies. We're working for the same cause. And I don't think any of us should be told who we're allowed to date."

His hand traveled from her jaw to her chin, and little circles traced over her skin. A surge of heat spread through her body, and she began to thaw—and wake.

"So, where the Leylines connect, tectonic plates form
underground.
Tectonic plates exist underground all over the planet. You probably know that. Everyone knows that.
If the lines get blacked, the tectonic plates can shift and the movement causes earthquakes, tidal waves, major devastation. We try to stop that by guarding those gateways. Problem is, the Daemoneum use old railroad systems, abandoned coal mines tunnels, sewer lines, anything they can to access the Leylines, so it's impossible to track everything they do."

Connections began firing in Kade's brain.

"The Daemoneum want to converge all the lines, blacking all the Planes. Blacking means converting all the positive energy that exists
into negative energy. If that happens, it would be the end of
humanity. The end of everything."

"Why...magnetic?" Words whispered from Kade's lips, so faint she wasn't sure if they'd come out.

"Why do dolphins breathe air?" Little circles traced across her forehead, down her cheek. "One of the smartest mammals on earth, and they live their entire lives in water. Magnetism exists everywhere in the universe. It's an invisible force that drives
everything we know."

"So...the Primordial have a...chemical gone wrong?" she asked.

He stroked her cheek. "It's not chemical. It's electromagnetic. Think of how an engine sparks in order to start. Our bodies work
like that." Figure eights trailed over her jaw. "We need that spark. That electric current for us to...work. Only it's combined with magnetism. The Leylines are generated by the same magnetism that
exists in the universe. It's our fuel. It keeps us alive."

"So...if all the energy, or magnetism, turns negative...the
Primordial die?"

"Yes."

Kade's eyes opened.

Cole's hand stilled on her chin. Recognition registered across his expression, in those beautiful crystal light eyes, and the corner of his mouth edged up into a small, surprised grin. His hand slid from her face and into his lap. "You're awake."

She nodded, unable to take her eyes off him. It was his hand she'd felt drawing circles on her face, touching her fingers, heating her body. His voice that pulled her out of a dead sleep. Not dreams, but reality. "You speak Latin." It was all that came to her lips.

"Yeah." He grinned.

"Me, too."

"I should...get the doctor." He stood, but Kade reached for his hand, and he froze.

"Where am I?"

"The Kinship. It's the common house for the Primeva. It's your new...this is where—"

"I'll live," she answered. He thought she was a Primeva, she realized.
The one's the Primori were forbidden to intermingle with, she thought she'd heard him say.
"With all the other bad seeds."
Kade took in the plain vanilla walls, free from any photographs or pictures, the same as her own bedrooms in all the houses she'd ever lived in. Void of any color. Any...life.

Cole squeezed her hand. "You heard everything I told you while you were asleep?"

"Yeah." She eyed the room. "I thought I was dreaming. I've never met anyone like me."

"There are thousands of us. And you're not a bad seed," he said. "I don't believe that."

The butterfly bandage stretched over his eyebrow, and Kade wanted to touch it, make sure he was okay, but she knew she shouldn't. She also shouldn't have reached for his hand. She let go. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

Cole tilted his head as if he was trying to get her to look at him. "That's the least of what you did when you were asleep at your house last night."

Kade's face heated as their gazes met. "Oh, god, I didn't...talk, did I?"

He smiled wide. "You did a lot more than talk. Can I ask you something before I go?"