A matter of heart, p.28
A Matter of Heart, page 28
His offer is so tempting, but I suddenly realize—despite how much I love him and want him, now more so than ever before—I can’t sacrifice what I have with Jonah, at the expense of Jonah. Or at least, can’t right now. Maybe never, but then, I didn’t ever expect something to happen with Kellan again, either.
“I know it’s selfish,” I say, stumbling over the words, but needing them out there between us, “but I can’t make a choice right now. Please don’t ask me to.” Tears from the reservoir that I thought I’d depleted an hour before resurface. “I can’t. And I constantly feel this pressure to do so. Like somehow, because I love you both, I’m a crappy person. The guilt I feel over how it kills Jonah to know that I love you, and how you are miserable because I’m with him—I drown on a daily basis in it. There are no life rafts, no boats. I’m barely treading water here, Kellan, in the middle of the ocean.”
He drops his hand and sighs. I cry silently as the insects around us sing their night songs. Twenty-four hours ago, they were brimming with life and happiness. Tonight, they’re mournful. And my heart breaks clean in half, because as we listen to this symphony, Kellan shudders in the tiniest way when he breathes. Just once or twice, but it’s enough to notice.
My stomach twists until I’m breathless myself.
I scoot closer and lean my head against his shoulder. One of his arms loops around me and we sit there, anguished, knowing nothing either of us can do or say can change the fact that Fate has royally screwed the both of us.
On my desk is a thick file held together by a rubber band. A yellow sticky note on the top from Fraank Mountainhold informs me to return it directly to him rather than the Guard.
I sink into my chair and stare at the file. After coming back from Costa Rica last night, I forced myself to think not about my unraveling love life but about Jen Belladonna’s charges against me. Weird as it sounds, it’s easier to deal with this potential trauma than the one I’m actually living through with the two most important people in my life.
It’s a standard Guard file. Brown, with an embossed label on the front detailing the mission specifics:
Frejahnii Civilization / Cliff Dwellings
Gnomish / Ragnopikk / Baldurmei / Frejan Mountains
41.6041˚ S / 3.4829˚ W
CL-1-219C
My fingers slide over the raised series of letters and numbers designating my responsibility for the mission. Responsibility. It’s something I have, no matter whether I want it or not. I have a responsibility to fulfill my duties as a Creator, and as a Destroyer, too. I have responsibilities towards the countless people stretched across seven planes.
Of the handful of people I’ve quizzed, none admit to keeping track of any deaths that might occur due to their crafts. The reasoning is always the same—it’d drive them crazy to know such facts. And I get it; it’s a soldier’s mentality. Sometimes, to stay sane, you have to accept things without knowing the specific details.
And part of me never wants to know what the side effects of my craft might be. Just the possibility of knowing that I might be the cause for anyone’s death, purposeful or accidentally, is soul crushing. But I also know that, after years of wandering like a bumbling fool in the dark, I don’t think I want to live that way anymore.
I flip the folder open and sift through the papers. There’s the official Council order, including votes; the Guard mission overview; Tracker reports pre-mission; my detailed report. But my signature isn’t the last thing in this file. Behind my report is a post-mission Tracker report I’ve never seen and a handful of laminated newspaper clippings.
I scan the Tracker report first: the tiny Frejahnii civilization is officially extinct. No full-blooded Frejhanii citizen remains; smatterings of lingering bloodlines can be found in nearby heavily populated regions after the area had been conquered roughly five hundred years prior. An Intellectual will be dispatched within the next decade to drive a quest to rediscover remnants of the civilization for academic purposes; an Emotional will follow within a year to foster national pride toward the now-forgotten group.
The mission itself had been uneventful other than it being a windy day and the helicopter I’d been riding in felt more like a roller coaster than air transport. I’d been on the Gnomish plane for all of half a day, which was standard, considering I’m Human and nobody wanted me seen. I remember thinking the cliff dwellings beautiful albeit worn by age, feeling it was sacrilegious, in a way, to break apart such history. But I did it, and until Jens Belladonna mentioned it last month, I hadn’t thought about the mission again.
I slide the first newspaper article out. Written in a Gnomish dialect and script entirely different than any language on my plane, I have no idea it says. But it’s obvious it’s about the Frejahnii cliffs, because a picture of the desolate ruins is featured front and center. Further on down the page, though, is a pair of photos of young, twenty-something Gnomes wearing backpacks and big smiles.
My heart drops.
I slip the second newspaper article out and it is much of the same. Same photos. Same guys. Same smiles. Same cliff dwellings. The third article follows suit.
On the back page of the file I find another yellow sticky note: Inform Councilman Brievssonn of need to accelerate secondary mission.
I insert all the documents back into the file in the order I found them. Then I write out a new request form for Fraank Mountainhold because it’s clear I need a dictionary.
“So.” Jonah sits down on the couch next to me. “I hear you had lunch with Kellan and Sophie Greenfield while I was gone.”
My head snaps up; the book in my hand drops. A burst of panic forces me to construct an emotional shield.
“I guess it . . . surprises me? That you didn’t tell me that you met my brother’s . . .” Don’t say it. Don’t say it. But he does. “Girlfriend.”
My lips twist so I can chew on the corner. Yes, Jonah. I had lunch with them, and then afterwards, Kellan came over, and we almost had sex and merged and then spent the better part of the week with our hands all over each other. Only, when he asked me to pick him, I didn’t. I picked you. Again. And pretty much destroyed his heart and seriously wounded my own in the process. I don’t know if I can ever get over him, but I’m trying—even though right now, I miss him so much it hurts. “Yeah, I had lunch with them. Until Maccon Lightningriver showed up. Then I went and did some work stuff with him.”
Jonah studies me for such a long moment, I want to squirm. Somehow, though, I do not. I hate that I’m becoming so adept at hiding things from him. “Did you two talk about it?”
I laugh. It’s forced. “Of course Mac and I talked about what we were working on!”
If he wasn’t suspicious before, he sure is now. I’m awful at this. I’m a horrible liar, and emotional shield or not, Jonah knows me well enough to pick up this stuff like a heat-seeking missile. “I meant you and Kellan. Did you two talk about how he’s dating Sophie nowadays?”
My laughter turns hyena-ish until I realize—Jonah knew all along about Kellan and Sophie. And never. Once. Told me. “How long have you known?” I ask more forcefully than I’d meant to. But then, before he can answer, I find myself snapping, “And she’s not his girlfriend.”
His eyes narrow. “You’re right. She’s just some girl he screws when it’s convenient, because that’s what he does. He screws girls without any consideration for their feelings and then throws them away the moment they give him what he wants from them. But as he’s strung this one along for awhile, I think she’s got the right to label whatever it is they have, don’t you?”
Anger nearly engulfs me, but then I remember, his jealousy is not groundless. And I need to fix that, stat, even if I think he’s way out of line talking about his brother like this. I ask, more conversationally than I feel, all the while my stomach clenches and my head pounds, “Do you know her?”
He’s surprised by my turnaround, cautious with his answer. “I’ve met her a few times, but it’s not like I know her. I know more of her. She’s . . .” He pauses. “Popular, I guess. For lack of a better word.”
Well, no shocker there, considering she’s a goddess incarnate. I’m annoyed by how pathetic I must seem, having no clue who Sophie was when apparently everyone else knew, including Jonah. I manage, “She’s pretty.” Gorgeous is more apt, but I refuse to verbalize that.
My generosity only goes so far.
Jonah shrugs. “I guess.” Then he smiles, although it’s more of a comical leer accompanied by a pathetic attempt at eyebrow wiggling. “Only if you like redheads. Myself, I prefer brunettes. Always have. Always will.”
I end up giggling at his hideous French accent.
He laughs too, but then notices my book. “Gnomish dialects?” He picks it up. “Since when are you interested in languages?”
Since I started killing nons. I should tell him this, but . . . it’s too hard to even verbalize before I know all the facts. I take the book from him. “I’ve been thinking it might be useful to learn at least a few languages from all of the planes we work on, don’t you think?”
“Well, as I primarily work on the Human plane and already speak several . . .”
I swat at his arm. I’d forgotten that. Overachiever.
“Plus, I know some Elvin already, thanks to Astrid . . .”
I swat him again, but unable to contain my smile.
He grins. “Actually, I think it’s a great idea. Do you want some help?”
As I can only claim to speak conversational Spanish at its worst, I take him up on his offer. He’s certainly got his work cut out for him.
The map illuminated on the wall is eerily detailed, like an exact replica of land, mountains, trees, roads and all, turned on its side. It’s exactly what Zthane requested when he tasked me to create a machine that can project a map of any part of any of the worlds in perfect detail, both up close in zoom mode and from a distance.
Iolani stands before it, her finger mere inches away from one of the Elvin plane’s more populous cities. “Incredible,” she murmurs. Her finger dips into the picture; colors swirl momentarily before settling back into crisp focus. “Is there anything you can’t do, Chloe?”
Fall out of love with someone, I think. Or break a Connection. “Make baklava. Doesn’t that sound good right now?” is what I say out loud.
Zthane drops in the seat at the head of the expansive table that dominates most of the Guard conference room. “I don’t know what baklava is,” he says to me, “but I wish you could whip me up a double espresso like my mamán used to make for me after school on cold afternoons.” He pretends to shiver; the room is set at a comfortable seventy-two degrees. But then, Zthane hails from a Goblin region where the average temperature hovers around one hundred degrees year round; years of living in Annar has never taken the heat out of his blood.
“Did you actually ever experience anything below eighty degrees?” Iolani muses. A pen is chucked her way. She ducks in plenty of time.
Giuliana plunks a paper cup with a lid in front of Zthane. “I guess you’ll just have to suffice with this.”
He looks up at her, adoration stretching his lips wide.
“Before you offer up your first born, know it hails from the coffee cart outside,” the Elemental warns, choosing the chair next to him.
His smile doesn’t falter one bit. “Grazie.”
Dusky red spreads across Giules’ cheeks before she looks away. “Is everyone here?”
Iolani sits down across from me. “We’re still waiting on—”
“We’re here!” Karl steps into the room, Kellan right behind him.
Raul whistles. “You look like hell, hermano.”
As a matter of fact, both men do. Hair disheveled, clothes muddy and torn in a few places, smudges of dirt and plaster caked on their faces and brows. I must be the only one alarmed, because nearly everyone else in the room bursts into laughter.
Karl practically collapses in the chair next to me. “Shut it. All of you.”
Kellan sits next to Iolani. I try not to stare at him, but I fail miserably. He’s better than I, though. He hasn’t looked at me once since he entered the room. Hasn’t spoken to me once since the day we all left Costa Rica.
“You could say we got into a scrape,” he drawls, amusement dripping from every word as he taps a pen against the agenda in front of him.
More laughter. “Do tell,” Kiah Redrock says from further on down the table.
“Well,” Kellan says, “it all has to do with a spider.”
“SHUT IT,” Karl growls. He’s turned beet red.
“Kellan, expect to be benched for the foreseeable future if you do not finish this story,” Zthane says. Karl sighs deeply and crosses his arms.
Kellan is happy to oblige. “Apparently, this little spider dropped on Karl’s neck just as he was about to trigger the earthquake—”
“It was huge!” Karl barks. “Easily three inches across! Plus! It was a black widow, I’m sure of it.”
There are tears, people are laughing so hard. “As I was saying, it dropped on his neck, and in his panic to not . . .” Kellan grins across the table at Karl. “How’d you put it?”
“Screw you, Whitecomb.”
Kellan quirks one of his half-grins. “I think it was die. He was afraid of dying, or so he kept squealing, like his toddler would. Anyway, he started freaking the hell out. The spider finally hit the ground—”
“Goddamn thing bit me!” Karl sounds like he’s being strangled. “Here! On my neck!”
I peer at the back of his neck. The skin is smooth but dirty.
“So, of course, Karl figured it had to die an ugly death itself,” Kellan continues. “Which meant, he—”
“You didn’t.” Iolani cackles. “You smashed it, didn’t you?”
“Oh, he did,” Kellan grins. “Quite forcefully.”
Nearly every cell phone in the room is whipped out, so stats on the earthquake he caused just hours before on the Human plane can be disseminated. “Six-point-seven?” Raul’s eyes look like they’re about to pop out of his head. “But . . . Karl! It was supposed to be a three-point-one!”
I didn’t think it possible, but Karl slinks even further down in his chair.
“We were in an abandoned building that was situated right on top of the fault line,” Kellan says. “It was already falling apart. Karl simply helped demolish it. It just sucked that we were in it at the time.”
The guffaws in the room are deafening. It takes threats of bodily harm from Karl before petering out. “Well, Karl,” Zthane says, struggling to maintain a straight face, “I’m glad that in the battle of Magical versus Spider, the Magical won.”
“Oh, bite me,” Karl mutters.
“I would, only the spider beat me to it.” Zthane ducks Karl’s flying pencil. “Okay, okay. We can tease Karl for at least another hundred years about this if we’re lucky. Right now, I want to go over the latest Elder information we’ve acquired.” The room sobers instantly. “As many of you already know, two Magicals were killed this last week on the Elvin plane.” A red laser pointer circles the eastern edge of Gelandreigh, a city whose population hovers around three million. “Most of the attacks in the past have occurred in less densely populated areas. Therefore, it’s most likely safe to assume that with these latest attacks, the Elders are becoming more aggressive in their hunting.”
Kiah looks up from the agenda below her, where she’s been scribbling notes. “Who were the victims?”
“Micah Oleander, an Elemental, and Penny Yarrow, a Shaman.” Zthane hits a few keystrokes on his keyboard; the map disappears and images of the two Elves appear. “Oleander was on assignment at the time; the responding team who found his remains deduced that he’d been caught unaware just as he’d begun brewing his lightning storm.”
Micah Oleander looked nice. Like he was gentle. He was skinny, a bit hipster-ish, but his face radiated kindness.
Flashes of two backpacking Gnomes fill my mind.
“Yarrow was to merge in three months. She’d turned eighteen only weeks before.” A series of sighs fill the room. He rubs at his eyes. “She was Council-bound. Her parents are devastated.”
“Monsters,” is whispered from somewhere down the table.
Penny Yarrow’s delicate face smiles down at us. She looks extraordinarily young. Only a year younger than me, she could probably pass for fourteen.
Grief for her early death rocks me. Thanks to these . . . things . . . Penny will never get to discover the joys and challenges of her craft. If she hasn’t already, she’ll never fall in love with someone. She’ll never have a child, if that’s what she wanted. She’ll never know what it’s like to grow old.
“They need to be stopped,” Kiah says. Her voice is ragged.
“I doubt there is a Magical alive who doesn’t agree with that,” Zthane says. His fingers scrape against his day-old stubble. “Which brings me to my point. Battletracker sent out ten separate Trackers over the last month to try to discover the Elders’ whereabouts. Despite all our combined Magics, finding them has been frustratingly elusive. Seems like we’re always a few steps behind. But a couple of our guys think they might be able to track them after an orchestrated attack.”
Papers shifting against each other are the only sounds for a good five seconds. Then Giuliana says, “You’re talking live bait.”
Zthane nods slowly.
“It makes sense,” Karl says as we all digest this. “What better way to draw them out in the open than to offer up what they want most.”
Zthane slowly nods again.
And then Kellan growls between clenched teeth, “NO.”
My eyes fly to his face. He’s clearly pissed.
“Kellan—” Zthane tries, but Kellan cuts him off right away.
“You think Jonah is going to go for this?”
My heart trips. Jonah? They think they’re going to offer up Jonah as bait? Oh, hell no. I open my mouth to voice my dissent, too, but Zthane beats me to the punch.
