The Elder Blood Chronicles Bk 1 In Shades of Grey (30 page)

Lex opened her door and stepped into the room
and gave a short laugh. “Madren, what the fuck are you doing?” he
asked, his voice incredulous. She heard a slight yelp from Madren
and pushed her way in behind Lex. Her entire room was covered in
flowers. Every flat surface held vases of them. Rose petals were
strewn on the floor; as well as his clothes she noted with growing
alarm. She looked up sharply, and her eyes found Madren in her bed,
scrambling to cover himself in the blanket. A rose hung limply from
his mouth, and his eyes looked frantic.

“You aren’t supposed to be in here,” he said
to Lex, his words garbled from the flower clenched between his
teeth.

“Neither are you,” Lex pointed out,
smothering a laugh.

Jala felt her temper reach a boiling point.
She did not find the situation funny in the slightest. Finn was
correct, the boy did have issues. “I’m glad you find this so
amusing,” she said to Lex.

He had the grace to wipe the smile from his
face at her words. Lex crossed the room in two quick strides and
picked Madren’s clothes up from the floor and threw them at him.
“Get up and get dressed. You’ve started enough trouble for one
night,” he ordered.

Jala looked away quickly and busied herself
trying to locate her possessions under the flowers. She shook her
head in disbelief at the sheer number of Lilies, Irises, and Roses
of every kind imaginable.

“I had no idea you had a tattoo,” Lex said
quietly, the amusement back in his voice.

She whipped her head back around to them and
found Lex waving a notebook lightly with a faint smile on his face.
“That’s it,” she snapped and grabbed her coat from the door. “Tell
Shade I’ll send for my things once I’ve made other arrangements.”
She spun on her heels and headed for the door.

“Jala wait,” she heard Lex call behind her
but ignored it. She didn’t slow her pace until she was well away
from the rooms and yards down the winding path. She bit her lip and
leaned back against a wall, letting the shadows cover her. She
didn’t even know where she was going. She wore her coat over a
night robe and gown and was barefoot. She glanced back toward the
hall and her eyes narrowed. With a slight growl, she wrapped her
coat tighter around herself and pushed off the wall. She would not
be going back there. She began to walk again, not sure exactly
where she was going, but too angry simply to remain still. The
anger burned off slowly and the dream seemed to fill the void it
left. She could still hear the voice. Before she knew exactly what
she was doing, she was through the portal and making her way
quickly toward Sovann’s house.

Sovann sat across from her quietly sipping
the dark tea he had brewed soon after she had arrived. His hair
hung loosely about his shoulders and by the rumpled look of his
clothing she had woken him. He had not asked any questions about
her arrival, though her bare feet had caused him to give her a
strange look. He had simply let her in, brewed tea, and sat her
down. He was watching her now, still silent, but his expression was
concerned.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” she began.

He cut her off gently with a shake of the
head. “Tell me instead why you woke me; I can see you are
distressed so there needs be no apology. I would like know what has
upset you though. Should I send for Finn?” Sovann’s voice was so
gentle she knew his concern was genuine.

“Why would you send for Finn?” she asked in
confusion.

Sovann raised an eyebrow at her and smiled.
“If someone has hurt you, he would deal with them willingly and for
free,” he explained. “He is a duelist by trade and he makes a
living defending others.”

“No, no one has hurt me, it’s just Madren.”
She gave a weary sigh and saw him nod in understanding. “You know
him?” she asked in surprise.

“Finn has told me of him before. He has a
reputation for being rather troublesome for women,” Sovann
answered.

She rubbed her face and gave a slight nod.
“He gave me a diamond necklace the day I arrived. Then he began
reading really bad poetry outside my door at night. He showed up
once outside my window to sing. It sounded as if a cat were being
strangled. Then today he gave me a box of drugged chocolates that
said “Marry me” on them.” She shook her head and sipped her tea. “I
simply cannot take his attentions any longer; I woke tonight from a
nightmare to find him watching me sleep. Do you know how unsettling
it is to find someone watching you sleep?”

He frowned at her. “Nightmares?” He spoke the
word as a question.

She gave another nod. “That’s another part of
the reason I’m here. I need to go somewhere, Sovann, and I don’t
think I’m trained enough to guard magical transport. Will you help
me?” she asked, her voice almost a plea. She had decided it on the
way to his home. The only way to assure herself that she wasn’t
haunted was to return to Merro. An odd mixture of dread and longing
filled her at the thought.

“Where?” Sovann asked.

“I need to go to Merro,” she answered, her
voice barely above a whisper. She expected him to ask questions,
ones she wasn’t sure how she would answer. He simply nodded,
though, as if the request were not unusual.

“You will need shoes,” he pointed out.

She shook her head slightly. “No, not even
rocks remain in Merro, I’ll be fine,” she replied. She would have
to return to her room for shoes, and she had no desire to go there
tonight. She took another sip of tea and then looked over her
shoulder at the sound of the front door opening.

She looked back to Sovann in question, but he
wasn’t watching her. His eyes were fixed on the parlor door. A
moment later it opened and Finn walked in. He wore fine clothing, a
green silk shirt, and fine black linen trousers. His boots bore
fresh dust on them from the street, and his swords were buckled on
his waist. He turned to look at her as he pushed the door shut
behind him and she saw no trace of sleep on his face. She wondered
what entertainments Sovann had pulled him from and how angry he was
with her right now.

“I understand we are going to Merro before I
kill Madren,” Finn said to her as he took an offered cup of tea
from Sovann. He smelled of smoke, beer, and faintly of women’s
perfume as he moved closer. She looked back to Sovann before
answering, and he simply shrugged.

“I’m sorry he took you from your
entertainments, Finn. You don’t need to go with us to Merro, and
you certainly don’t need to kill Madren. He is a fool, and an
irritating one at that, but I’m not sure he needs to die for those
crimes,” Jala replied.

Finn looked her over, taking in her night
robe and bare feet with a glance. He took a sip from his tea, and
she squirmed a bit under his gaze. She longed to reach up to
straighten her hair but fought the desire back down. Doing so would
just bring further attention to her disarray. He sat his tea back
down gently and looked to Sovann. “What do you think?” he
asked.

“That Madren is touched in the head, and
either needs to have his mind repaired by a skilled mage or put out
of everyone’s misery,” Sovann replied easily.

“There we have it then. Merro, then I kill
the little bastard,” Finn agreed with a nod and gave Jala a smile.
“No worries. He has been annoying me for a while now, and I won’t
mind in the slightest.”

“You can’t just kill him,” she objected,
trying hard to silence the voice inside her that seemed to rejoice
at the thought. Madren didn’t deserve to die, she told herself
firmly. Really, she couldn’t believe Finn was taking this so
seriously. Why should this matter concern him at all? She barely
knew him.

He raised an eyebrow at her and smiled.
“Well, no, I’ll have to challenge him to a duel first. From there
it becomes quite simple.”

“What makes you think he would accept a
duel?” she asked. She could remember how quickly Madren fled before
Cassia Avanti, and she had a hard time picturing him standing
before Finn for any length of time.

“Simple. I’ll tell him it’s a duel for the
lady’s affections. He will accept before he realizes what he has
done,” Finn replied easily.

“This can be dealt with at a later time. Do
you know where you wish to go in Merro, Jala?” Sovann asked.

“Exactly where I wish to go,” she said, the
image of a long dead Jimpa tree and a small brook already filling
her mind. Home, she told herself, I want to go home.

“Then I will simply reinforce the spell and
you will do the casting. Safer that way. Let me gather a few things
and we will go.” He rose as he spoke and made his way from the
room.

She watched him go, and when she looked back,
Finn was watching her. “Why would you kill Madren for me? You
barely know me,” she spoke finally, breaking the silence between
them.

“Do you remember the first time I brought you
here?” Finn asked. She gave a slight nod unsure what this had to do
with her question. “Sovann said my Fate line touched yours,” he
said.

“And you said that wasn’t possible,” she
reminded him.

“And even I am wrong from time to time,” he
countered. Their eyes met at his words, and Jala felt his
sincerity. She didn’t see it, she felt it. She held his gaze and
remained silent, confused at the emotion that obviously wasn’t hers
and unsure of what to say.

“Not words I would ever expect to hear from
you,” Sovann said as he entered the room and his voice seemed to
shatter whatever had passed between them.

Finn stood slowly, set his cup back down on
the table, and looked to her. “Shall we? It will be dawn soon and
we both have classes on the morrow,” he said.

She stood and looked to Sovann unsure. “I’ve
never actually used a transport spell before. I took you for your
word when you explained the dangers of someone interrupting my
spell,” she cautioned.

Sovann gave a shrug. “Cast it anyway, if I
feel you faltering, which I don’t expect to, I’ll bolster the
spell,” he said with no concern whatsoever.

She gave a slight nod and offered a hand to
each of the brothers and closed her eyes. She cleared her mind of
everything and focused simply on the spell and her home. She felt
the air shift around her changing from the warm parlor to an almost
icy cold. Small drops of rain pelted her, and goose bumps began to
rise on her arms. She opened her eyes and looked upon the wasteland
of her nightmares. She hadn’t been back here since the Fionaveir
had rescued her.

She felt Sovann gently remove his hand from
her grip and she loosened her hold on Finn as well, without looking
at either of them. Her eyes were locked on the landscape. It was
still night here, and she wondered if the sun ever came out in
Merro now. Thick and brooding storm clouds filled the sky. Faint
flickers of lightening echoed through them. The ashes had long ago
blown away, and all that remained was charred, dead ground.
Swallowing, she forced herself to look at it all, to realize no
ghosts remained here.

A bit of white on the black ground drew her
attention, and she let out a strangled sob as she realized what she
looked on. A small pile of bones lay strewn near a dip in the
ground where a brook had once flowed. Memories flashed through her,
of a small white fluffy pup with a black mark on his head and back.
“He looks like he is wearing a cap, Daddy,” she heard her
child-self saying. She remembered late nights when the nightmares
had come, and he had curled up tight against her and licked her
face when she cried. The last memory was the most bitter. Cap
sitting below the tree warning her, his loyalty and love for her so
strong he wouldn’t run without her. She blinked back tears and
realized she was kneeling by the bones. She didn’t remember moving.
She could hear Finn or Sovann speaking to her, but her mind was
racing too fast to focus on their words.

Her gaze went to the hill and dread filled
her. Wordlessly she scrambled to her feet and ran north, terrified
of what she would find. She knew Finn and Sovann followed her but
didn’t pause to explain, for she couldn’t explain. She searched the
landscape frantically until her eyes locked on bones once again.
Buck had been a large horse in life, and in death he seemed no
smaller. She slowed her pace as she approached and swallowed
heavily. She had thought them destroyed, turned to ash like the
rest of Merro. Her eyes scanned the ground for what she most
dreaded, but there were no bones of her father here. She dropped
heavily to her knees beside what remained of Buck and picked up a
tarnished buckle that had once been a part of a saddle, now long
rotted. She lowered her head and let the tears fall as they would.
There was no point in holding them back. She already had a lot of
explaining to do to the Sovaesh brothers.

She felt Finn kneel beside her and strong
arms pulled her closer. She buried her face in the green silk shirt
and cried. He remained silent, simply holding her while she
cried.

“We are not alone here,” she heard Sovann say
in a voice barely above a whisper. She pulled back from Finn and
wiped her eyes before looking around. Finn already scanned the
darkened fields. One arm remained around her protectively, while
the other rested easily on his sword.

“What do you sense?” Finn asked in a hushed
voice.

Sovann shook his head. “I’m not sure, Finn,
it’s strange. I don’t think it’s human,” he answered, his voice
cautious.

Jala gave a shiver as she thought of the
reason she had come in the first place -
ghosts
.

“
Finally you come
,” a deep voice said,
and she realized with alarm she heard it in her mind and not out
loud.

She must have jumped because Finn’s arm
tightened around her and he looked at her with concern. “What?” he
asked. She shook her head and remained silent, not wanting to say
she was hearing voices.