The Chosen of Anthros Read online

  “Well, are you going to tell me?” Abagail pressured.

  “I was with the ravens this morning, and I had a kind of vision,” Leona said. She sighed. “No, it wasn’t kind of a vision, I really did have a vision. But in the vision…” she shook her head and closed her eyes. Just thinking about it made her sick to her stomach. “I think I might be Hafaress.”

  There wasn’t the immediate rebuttal she’d expected from Abagail. Abagail sat staring into her mug, lost in thought. Leona had expected that Abagail would instantly reject the notion, but there was worry on her sister’s face, and that bothered Leona. Does she believe me?

  “Well that’s just silly,” Abagail finally said, taking a deep drink of her cooling milk. “What would that make me then, the All Father?”

  “But I’m able to wield the hammer. I’m the only one able to lift it, just like Hafaress. And in the vision I was referred to as Hafaress by Daniken.”

  “She’s a darkling, and likely to say anything to ruffle you. And if I remember my mythology right, Hafaress was the only one able to lift it because the hammer recognized something in Him. It knew that his intentions were pure and that he wouldn’t use it to harm the gods.”

  “And then Olik stole it. How was he able to lift it?”

  Abagail shrugged. “He must have had the same intent. Hiding it so it couldn’t be used on the gods.”

  Leona smiled, but there didn’t seem to be any real humor in it. The night had been ruined. Thoughts of home had turned to thoughts of what had driven them from home. Was there any escaping what they’d become? Would they ever have moments again where they could just be Abagail and Leona?

  It did make her feel better that what Abagail said reflected so well her own thoughts. She was able to relax some. But no matter what her sister told her, it didn’t stop the fact that when she’d been called Hafaress in her vision that she felt the weight of that name and felt the truth in the declaration.

  It was a rare night when Rorick was home to eat dinner with them, so Leona and Abagail had made a large dinner and even tried their hand at making an apple pie, like he loved so much. The bottom crust burnt, and though he said he loved it Abagail couldn’t imagine how he could. The apples were nearly raw and the top crust was almost cold.

  “It should be better next time,” Abagail said, stepping out the front door with her mug of cocoa.

  “There’s going to be a next time?” Rorick asked.

  Abagail laughed. “I thought you loved it?”

  “Oh, I did!” Rorick told her. “But you know what they say, longing makes the heart grow fonder and all.”

  Abagail shook her head at him and took a sip of her cocoa.

  “Another cold night out,” Rorick said. The door shut behind him and Abagail and Rorick were left in the near total blackness of the night. In the distance, most likely from New Landanten, she could hear the sounds of revelry.

  “It’s always cold here,” she said, tightening the jacket around herself.

  “What are you talking about? It’s summer, it’s a perfectly balmy night!”

  Abagail laughed at him and he smiled at her.

  “It’s not often that you get nights off,” she said to him. “Or rather, often that you get nights at home.”

  “It feels good,” Rorick said. There was a look in his eye that she couldn’t read. Maybe there was another reason that he was staying in tonight. That’s not what bothered Abagail, though. What bothered her more was that she couldn’t read the look in her friend’s eyes. She used to be able to tell what Rorick was thinking, almost down to the last detail.

  So much has happened lately, she thought. She stared off into the night wishing that she could have that past Abagail’s life, before the plague. She and Rorick used to be such good friends. What had happened?

  Almost as if a reminder, she felt the weight of the glove so much heavier on her hand.

  Right. That happened.

  “It’s quieter,” Rorick said, casting a glance up to New Landanten. “Something is going on up there.”

  “Something like what?” Abagail asked. “You’ve spent time up there, what do you think is happening?”

  He shook his head, “just whispers. Gossip mostly, but the night life isn’t what it was even a couple weeks ago. Something is up.”

  “Well, what’s the gossip?” Abagail frowned.

  “Some think that Garth is getting too befuddled. There’s talk that the dark elves are trying to get him to go into the light.”

  “Is that really a bad thing?” Abagail wondered. “From what I hear, if he’s letting the dark elves have too much say, maybe it’s best if he’s replaced.”

  It was Rorick’s turn to frown. “I guess.”

  Abagail let it go. All through the trip to their new home, it was evident that Rorick sided with the dark elves. She hadn’t thought Daniken could have had such a pull on Rorick. It’s his blind ambition to destroy darklings. He’d rather see the nine worlds in possible ruin than to see one more darkling.

  The glove felt more than a burden now. It felt like the thing holding them apart. That couldn’t be true though, it was likely just her own hatred for the plague that made her feel like Rorick was singling her out.

  “Do you ever miss it?” Abagail asked.

  “What’s that?” Rorick wondered. The railing of the porch groaned as Rorick leaned against it.

  “The way life used to be for us?”

  “Of course,” Rorick said. “That’s a silly question. Don’t you?”

  “Only every minute I’m awake.”

  A silence grew between them, and Abagail wanted more than anything to be close to Rorick again. She remembered telling Skye about her and Rorick. She remembered that day in the woods between their houses on O, when they’d been the closest they’d ever been. She wanted that again. Was there any way to bridge the gap that had formed between them?

  Abagail took a deep breath and hardened her resolve. She moved up beside Rorick, and slipped her hand into his, lacing her fingers between his.

  Rorick jumped away from her, almost like the glove was a brand burning into the flesh of his palm.

  “What are you doing?” he asked her, his eyes wild and locked on her face. “Are you trying to give me the plague?”

  All of the air left Abagail in a rush. The cold night air pressed in on her in a way she could feel in her bones. In her mind was a wail like the barren wind over the frozen plains below.

  “Rorick,” she said. “You can’t catch the plague through my glove,” she told him. But her voice was weak and strained around the lump in her throat.

  “Just like you shouldn’t have caught it through your protective gear when you came in contact with the bees.”

  She shook her head, but her eyes were burning, and she knew that if she opened her mouth the lump in her throat would burst out into uncontrollable sobs. Her throat tightened, and she turned away from him before he could see the tears.

  Before Abagail knew it, she was off the porch and her feet were carrying her away from home. She was lost to her own thoughts and the broken feeling inside her. What had she been thinking? After everything that had happened to him, how could she think that…

  Stop making excuses for him, she told herself, dashing her tears away. Abagail shucked off her glove and shoved it in her coat pocket. She held her hand up before her eyes. The darkness that had abated with Skye was back after her run in with Rorick. He has no right to be an asshole. You didn’t kill his parents. You’ve only ever been there for him.

  The line of thought wasn’t helping, because the angrier she became, the further out of her palm the plague was spreading.

  Abagail took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She tilted her head up and thought of happier times. But her happier times used to be the times she’d spent with Rorick. She pushed the thought away, and she let herself be surrounded by the memory of the newly made Fey Forest Skye had taken her to. The way his hand felt on the back of her own. The
way he made her feel comfortable and not a beast.

  She surrounded herself in the memory of the lights from the fey, and how the tinkling of their laughter had infused her mind with a miasma of warmth and peace.

  Her mind flashed to Skye and his violet eyes. Her stomach lurched again, but it wasn’t a bad lurch. It wasn’t the lurch of her thinking the elf was out of her league, but instead the lurch of how someone so wonderful could like her, a broken mess on the verge of becoming a beast.

  Her feet carried her to the clearing and the lake where Skye had shown her before. She settled down on the edge of the lake, amidst the flickering lights of pixies and fairies.

  Abagail pulled the glove out of her pocket and pulled it back in place.

  The glove was firmly over her hand before she’d had the chance to notice the pinprick of silver light forming on her palm, chasing away the shadows.

  When the cold became too much, Abagail picked her way out of the impossibly green forest, and back to the abandoned streets of Haven. Dark shadows skirted the edge of the road, flitting between houses and down back alleys.

  A prickle of fear trembled down Abagail’s back. She didn’t know what the shadows were, but she didn’t think they were darklings. Most everyone who lived in Haven were either at duty stations, or deep asleep by now. It was unlikely there were as many people out wandering at night as she was.

  What are those shadows? She wondered.

  Abagail was about to turn down one alley in pursuit of a dark billowing cloak when footsteps behind her prickled the fine hairs at the base of her neck.

  Abagail spun, lashing out with her fist, but a strong hand wrapped in a dark green glove closed over her hand. A chuckle stopped her from attacking further. It was a good-natured guffaw from a tall man. A man she instantly recognized as Fen.

  “Sir, I’m sorry,” Abagail said, bowing quickly. She tucked her hands behind her back.

  “There’s no need for that,” he said, holding both his hands up to stop her apologies. “I should be the one to apologize. I snuck up on you in the middle of the night. You had every right to lash out at me. Especially with the shadows you’ve no doubt seen.”

  “What are they?” Abagail wondered.

  Fen motioned toward the path before them, a slight smile curving his face and distorting his goatee. Abagail started walking and he fell into step with her.

  “There’s no real way to know,” Fen said. “We’ve seen the shadows nearly as long as Haven has been here. Normally they keep to the base of the mountains, but recently they’ve ventured into the town.”

  “And no one has investigated to see what they could be?” she wondered.

  “Until tonight,” Fen said. “I was curious as you were.”

  “If you need help…”

  “I appreciate the offer,” Fen said, coming to a stop before her home. “But here we are at your home, and you have classes tomorrow that can’t be missed if you ever hope to get such duties.”

  Abagail nodded and climbed the stairs. There was a light burning inside, casting the shadow of a pacing figure onto the porch. Fen waited for the door to close behind Abagail before he left.

  “Abagail!” Rorick said. His hands were on her shoulders as soon as the door closed. He hugged her tight. “I was worried.”

  Abagail didn’t hug him back.

  “You worried about me?” she asked.

  “Yes. Where did you go?” he pulled back to look into her eyes. Whatever he didn’t see there made him frown.

  “A place where my illness isn’t a burden to those who are supposed to be my friends.”

  His frown deepened. “I overreacted. I’m sorr—”

  “You’re damn right you did,” Abagail said, a slight edge to her voice. “You know, for the longest time I thought you’d be the one that helped me beat this plague. It turns out, you’re one of the only things that can make it take control. I think it’d be best if you didn’t talk to me for a while. That is, unless your aim is to make me a darkling you can kill.”

  Rorick could only shake his head. His mouth worked, but no words came out.

  “I’m going to bed, and I don’t want to see you for a while Rorick Keuper.”

  Abagail shouldered passed him and climbed the stairs at the back of the house to the second floor. She didn’t bother looking behind her to see his reaction. She didn’t care about Rorick any longer.

  It didn’t take long for Rowan to discover what made Abagail angry. For the next week her training sessions were a mixture of meditation and mental abuse, or so it seemed to Abagail. Rowan knew what would bring the plague out, and that’s what she tried to do. She tried to put Abagail into a situation where Abagail would call on the plague. Accompanied by meditation Abagail was starting to learn how to push the anger aside and think with a level head. It wasn’t always easy, but it was always rewarding.

  The days passed in a blur of training, doing chores, eating, and sleeping. At night she meditated; it wasn’t required of her, but she knew the need for her to get a handle on her emotions. When the house fell still and there wasn’t any noise from passersby outside, Abagail would sit on her floor and clear her mind. A time or two she even tried to conjure some kind of bad thought that would normally feed the plague, and each time she was able to push it aside and not let it bother her.

  By the end of the week Abagail was gaining confidence that she would finally be able to get a hold of the plague and maybe stop wearing the collar.

  The dreams of the All Father hadn’t resurfaced. A few days after she’d set fire to her bed Abagail noticed that Leona was less tense than she had been after her first day at Haven. Abagail worried that maybe Leona was on to something. Maybe there were more differences about the two of them than simply being harbingers. It was a thought that would normally make Abagail draw up short and fill her with dread, but the days were just too busy to worry about it. At night she was too tired to think of much of anything other than meditation and sleep.

  But Leona had started to act better. Her initial upset could simply have been that she was settling into a new place and was finally able to relax enough to actually miss home.

  Occasionally Abagail would see Rorick for a few minutes in the morning before dashing off to her chores, but it was rare. What was even rarer was seeing her old friend during the evenings and at meals. His guard duty kept him occupied most nights, and even if he wasn’t on guard his routine was thrown off. He’d started to hang out more with his trainer, Camilla, up in New Landanten with the elves. It was a place Abagail had yet to visit.

  Abagail missed Rorick, but she couldn’t be sure that he missed her. She was still angry with him, and hurt because of his reaction to her. It was finally sinking in to her that Rorick wasn’t the person she was bound to end up with, and she wasn’t sure what she thought of that.

  In fact nothing remarkable seemed to happen that entire week until one night after a large dinner with Gil and Rowan.

  Leona and Abagail were just cresting the top of the stairs to their house when a noise caught Abagail’s attention behind them. She turned to see the raven sisters seemingly materialize out of thin air behind them.

  “Hello,” Abagail said as Leona opened the door.

  “Hello Abbie,” Muninn said. Abagail knew it was Muninn because she was smiling, and Muninn was the one of the two who wore a dazzling array of necklaces and bracelets.

  Huginn stood to the side with her mouth pursed, and her hands clasped before her.

  “It’s actually Leona we’ve come to see,” Muninn said.

  Abagail looked at her sister. Leona seemed to find something on the point of her toe very interesting. Her hands were fidgeting with the hem of her wool jacket.

  “You haven’t been attending classes,” Huginn said, shrugging her shoulders as if to settle her black feathered cloak better around her lithe frame.

  “Actually, why don’t we step inside for this?” Muninn asked, and smiled.

  Abagail nodded and mo
tioned for the twins to join them.

  Abagail took the twin’s black cloaks and Leona tended to the fire to help warm the place up.

  “This is a nice place,” Muninn commented, looking around herself.

  “It’s like all the others,” Huginn said, slouching into a chair. She crossed her legs, her eyes never leaving Leona.

  Muninn harrumphed and took a seat beside her sister.

  “Is there anything I can get you?” Abagail asked.

  “That’s fine, we just had dinner,” Muninn said.

  “Maybe you can tell us why your sister hasn’t been back to her training?” Huginn asked Abagail.

  Abagail shrugged.

  “It’s not required,” Leona said. She took a pose behind the chair opposite Huginn. She braced her hands on the back of the chair. “When I came here Rowan didn’t say I had to take any classes. I had to help, pull my weight. I’ve been training with Ephram and working in the greenhouse. I’m doing what’s required of me.”

  “That’s unacceptable,” Huginn said. Muninn silenced her with a gently placed hand on her sister’s arm.

  “What’s unacceptable is you trying to force me into a situation I’m not willing to be in,” Leona said.

  Abagail took a step back. She’d known that her sister could be fiery, but she hadn’t heard her really be this hostile before.

  “Leo,” Muninn said, a smile spreading across her pale face. “We aren’t trying to force you into anything. You’re the first that can divine the future that we’ve seen in some time, and now more than ever that gift is so important to all of us.”

  Leona rolled her shoulders, but didn’t seem to relax at all.

  “What did you find out with Fortarian?” Huginn asked.

  “You went to see him?” Abagail asked, just now coming back to herself.