Arbiter (The Arbiter Chronicles Book 1) (14 page)

She was adrift in a sea of light.

Her body felt strange to her, as though she wasn't entirely her own. Vague images flashed through her mind—a hospital room, a man in white, her brother’s face, her own voice, declaring that she would do anything to get him back.

…Was that really her voice?

It didn’t sound like it. She didn’t know what her voice sounded like anymore.

All she knew was light.

Slowly, sensation began to return. At first, she simply noticed that the stream had stopped—she was no longer floating. She realized vaguely that she was lying down on something soft, something warm and heavy wrapped protectively around her. Smell was next, and her world became filled with the scent of green, green grass, the smell of a summer field after the rain. Her mouth felt dry and tasted vaguely metallic, as if she had been asleep for a long while. Slowly, sound began to break the silence of her dream and she heard the low murmurs of conversation, the wind rustling through the trees.

The girl opened her eyes, and the light faded away.

She was lying on a pallet of blankets spread out on a wooden floor, a single heavy blanket covering her. It was soft to the touch, and seemed to be made of a material she didn’t quite recognize. Her head turned, her eyes drifting over the rest of the room. Her first thought was that she was lying in a tent of some sort, but instead of canvas above her head, she saw nothing but leaves, woven loosely together so that the sunlight drifted through. The tent flap seemed to be made of hanging vines, coming down from the ceiling and obscuring her view of the outside. She turned her head towards it.

The voices were coming from out there. There were many of them, although a few seemed to be speaking louder than the rest. One of them was a masculine voice, and he spoke something that sounded like a curse, followed by a wave of high-pitched laughter. She smiled slightly at the sound of it, raising her hand up to curl around the edge of the blankets.

She breathed deeply, then slowly pushed the blanket off herself.

#

Rae sighed, taking a sip of the tea one of the Ivali had brought her as she watched Cathel continue to lose at the card game they had tricked him into playing. She rolled her eyes impatiently, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she heard the mage curse, throwing down a losing hand yet again. It was a good thing they were only playing for fun, because Rae didn’t know exactly what Cathel had left to bet.

His companions, small, blond Ivali that came up about as high as her waist, laughed at his loss, making a joke about the
tarethan
’s wits still being addled from his fight with Skor as they shuffled the cards again. They gave him capricious grins, dealing out the cards one more time. She took another sip of tea, staring at the scene.

He was an idiot of the highest order.

But she felt a faint smile appear on her face anyway. She would rather see him like this now, alive and losing a card game, than see him the way he had been in the clearing, half-dead and barely conscious. When Larin returned with a troop of Ivali that called themselves the forest people, she had never been more relieved. They had been happy to patch them up and take them into their small village, especially once they had learned that Skor was dead. Apparently the
firithan
had been tormenting them for the past few weeks, and they had been unable to get a message for help through to Alcian.

Cathel was being hailed as a hero. Not that he needed anything more to get to his head.

She rested her arm across her knees as she watched them, slowly setting down her cup of tea as she unconsciously rubbed at her wrists. She had removed the runic bracelets from them the very first night the Ivali had brought them back, and had scrubbed at her wrists hard with soap and water to remove the “stench” that their hosts complained about. They were still bruised and ached slightly, red rings encircling them from what she assumed was the vines. She couldn't think of what else it could be.

The sound of vines rustling behind her made her pause and she looked up. The girl they had rescued stepped out cautiously through the curtain of vines, one hand on the back of her head as she studied her surroundings. Her eyes, Rae saw now, were a dark blue, and they met Rae’s for a second before looking over at the card game, and at the other Ivali moving through the clearing, weaving in and out of the small homes they had made for themselves in the forest as they chatted amongst themselves. She saw the astonishment register on the girl’s face, a face that looked strangely familiar to her, although she still wasn’t sure where the resemblance came from.

“Feeling better?” she asked.

The girl’s eyes widened, looking back at Rae. She nodded once, then hesitantly dropped down so that she was sitting next to her.

“Um, yeah. I think.” Her eyes trailed to the Ivali again. “What happened to me?”

“You were unconscious. When you came from your world to this one. We saved you from some trouble, and brought you back here.”

Her eyes widened, and she stared at Rae. “…Unconscious? How long was I out?”

Rae shrugged, looking away.“Three days.” It was one more day than she had been unconscious, but Cathel had mentioned once he had started walking around again that the girl had a fairly strong Source as well.

The girl's eyes widened in disbelief. “Three days? Seriously?”

“It’s not exactly an uncommon thing.” Rae idly pulled up some of the blades of grass beside her, twirling them around her fingers. It felt odd, talking to someone from her world. For the past…almost two weeks now, the only human contact she had had had been with Cathel. The girl’s appearance reminded her just how limited her previous social interactions had been. “I was out for three.”

“You were?” asked the girl. “So…um…I’m guessing you’re not from around here either, then?”

Rae shrugged her shoulders again. “Nope.” There were so many questions she had to ask—about how the girl had gotten here, who had sent here here, and what she knew, but she couldn’t quite figure out how to ask them. So she settled on the obvious instead. “…Got a name?”

The girl blinked, before a grin broke her uncertain expression.“Of course I do.” She held her hand out towards Rae. “It’s Mikaela. My friends call me Mika. What about you?”

Rae hesitated, tentatively grasping the girl's hand. “Rae Miller.”

Mika paused, slowly pulling her hand out of Rae's grip. “You’re Rae Miller? That means you know what happened to my brother.”

She let her hand fall to the ground between them.“Your brother?”

“Mm,” said Mika in reply. “Nathan James?”

Rae stared openly at Mika. Now she knew where the resemblance came from. The memory of what had happened in that alleyway came back to her—the blood on the ground, the hospital room, the Reaper’s deal…

Nathan James…

Nate...

“He’s your brother?” She didn't bother trying to hide her surprise.

Mika's grin grew slightly tired, and she tilted her head back, her arms wrapping around her knees. “So you do know,” she said. “I wondered about that, but it looked like what that man was saying was true after all.”

That man…

A sudden thought chilled her, and she placed her hand on Mika’s arm, turning the girl towards her. An image came to her mind—that of a dark-haired man with cold, dark eyes. But that was impossible. As far as she knew, she was the only one who could see the Reaper.

“…What man?” she asked. “Who told you that?”

“The man who sent me here.” Mika shrugged. “He said you would know what happened to my brother.” Her eyes trailed upwards, focusing on the expression on Rae’s face. “Why? What’s wrong?”

Rae took a deep breath, realizing that she probably looked slightly crazed. She released Mika’s arm, exhaling slowly and tucking a strand of black hair behind her ear as she tried to keep herself calm. She stared down at her hand as she pulled it away. It was shaking.

“…Did he have black hair? Pale skin, black clothes? A scythe?”

Mika cupped her chin in her hand and tapped her cheek with her index finger as she looked up at the sky. “No…No, he didn’t look like that at all. It was a blond guy. Tall, white clothes, kind of cute…? You know him?”

Rae’s tensed. She recognized that description. She thought back to the man that had spoken to her during her transition into the Twilight Realm, warning her about the Reaper’s plot. The man whose name she still didn’t know…

He was Ivali, she was sure of that now. There was something about him that just couldn’t be human.

“Yeah.” She spoke quietly. “I think I do. What did he say?”

“He came up to me one day when I was visiting my brother,” Mika propped herself up on her arms, leaning back. Her expression grew far off, as if she was recalling a distant memory. “…It was about two days ago—well, I think it would be five days ago now…He asked me if I wanted to help my brother.” As Rae watched, Mika shook her head. “…He’s still not awake. My family doesn’t think there’s much hope left for him. I didn’t want to give up so easily, so I was there, trying to talk to him, and that was when that man found me. He told me if I wanted to help my brother, I needed to come here and find you—that you were the best person to help him now.”

Rae looked away from Mika as the girl met her eyes, the look in them making her feel slightly uncomfortable. She didn’t like seeing the hope in them, the idea that she was responsible for this—for Nate’s life as well as her own. “…So you decided to come here?”

“Well, not at first. I mean…that’s kind of a crazy thing to hear out of the blue. But I thought about it some and…I figured that if there was any way I could help, I needed to do it. So after…” She hesitated, and Rae saw her take a deep breath, her fingers curling tighter around her leg. “…after school one day, when Dad and I got into a fight about Nate…I just…tossed some things into my backpack and ran. I found the guy outside of the hospital. He sent me here. Um…” Mika looked up, a slightly embarrassed look on her face as she glanced at Rae. “You…uh…wouldn’t happen to have found my backpack, would you?”

“...It’s over there.” Rae jabbed her thumb in the direction of the tent. The elder’s tent had been the only place in the village large enough to house Mika. Most of the other tents were made for people half their size.

“Ah, thanks,” said Mika, nodding once. She injected some cheerfulness into her voice. “So…um…yeah, that’s basically it! I’m here to help! Wherever you need me!”

Wherever you need me…

She saw Cathel again in her mind’s eye, Skor’s fist burying itself into his gut as the mage went flying off into the trees. She saw Nate crumpling to the ground, heard the metallic sound of the pistol being dropped onto the alley floor as the muggers swore and fled. The hand on her other side, away from Mika, clenched into a fist as anger ran through her.

Cathel had been hurt because of her.

Nate had been hurt because of her.

Now she was supposed to look after a high school girl?

She didn't realize she was speaking until the words left her mouth. “You shouldn’t have come. It’s too dangerous here.”

“How dangerous could it be?” asked Mika.

She remembered Alcian’s power, remembered the gleam of the Reaper’s eyes, remembered Skor licking Cathel’s blood from his talons…

Her fist shook on her other side, and she took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. How much blood would be on her hands before this was over?

“More dangerous than you think. Go home. You shouldn’t be here.”

“I can’t go home!” protested Mika. “I promised I’d stay and help you!”

Stay and help her? What had that man been thinking? It was different for Rae. She could come here for a year. She could stay here forever. She had no reason to live in the Daylight Realm, no attachments, and almost no future. Mika had all of those things.

She shouldn’t be here.

“You have no idea what we’re up against,” Her voice came out angrier than it should have been.

“So tell me,” said Mika. “I’m listening!”

Rae took a deep breath, slowly unclenching her fist and shaking her head. “…I don’t know where to begin,” she said.

“The beginning’s a good place,” said a voice from her right. Rae and Mika both turned, facing Cathel. He stood in front of them, watching her carefully. She hadn’t even noticed that his card game had stopped, as engrossed as she was in thinking about Mika and the Reaper and Nate. The mage was dressed in his traveling clothes again, the Ivali having stitched them up as best as they could. They couldn’t do much for Rae’s gloves, unfortunately. She would have to make do without them.

Like this, Cathel looked fine—like he hadn’t been injured by Skor’s attack at all. Rae knew better. She knew that the only reason he was standing right now was because his particular brand of magic allowed him to encourage his bones to heal faster, that his arm and his chest were still bandaged tightly, and that the only reason he was still alive was because of the quick intervention of the forest Ivali.

She took a deep breath. She wanted to scold him for sneaking up on her, for eavesdropping on their conversation, but the heat of her anger wouldn’t come. In her mind’s eye, she still saw him lying on the forest floor, bloody and broken. She still thought that she would have lost him then…