Defy (12 page)

“Your families need you with them,” Knorbis
said, his dark purple eyes understanding. “And it wouldn’t be in
the best interests of your health or the health of your future
children to leave the safety of your homes right now. Besides,
Tiege and the others could return at any time.” He looked to his
commander and second commander. “I’ll work with Meda and Leoma to
see if we can try and predict their likely course. We will continue
to work with the information discovered by the investigating
Waresti to reason out what the rogue Mercesti are pursuing, as
well.”

The others nodded.

Caleb listened with a heavy weight on his
chest as plans were made that didn’t involve him or his family. It
felt wrong to not be charging into action. But he knew that Knorbis
was right.

It seemed his firstborn children were meant
to fight this particular battle on their own.

Resist [
v
. ri-
zist
]:
Used with
object
. To withstand, strive against,

or oppose: to resist infection;
to resist
temptation
.

“Ariana, come here.”

She hurried to comply. As she had been
commanded, she performed a curtsy before the Mercesti who ordered
her over to him, keeping her head bowed. The action had anger and
humiliation burning in the back of her throat.

“My boot is untied,” the Mercesti said.

Although she ached to tell him to tie it
himself, she promptly fell to her knees and tied the laces, making
them as tight as she dared in an effort to calm her temper.

Her travels with this group of Mercesti had
extended into almost two weeks now, though the days since the death
of her best friend, Tisha, were all one big blur. They treated her
abominably. Her Lekwuesti power had been strained to the point
where she was now utterly exhausted regardless of the time of day.
They wanted food and drink. They wanted clothing and accessories.
They wanted portable housing and comfortable furniture. About the
only thing they weren’t demanding of her was soap or other items
for their personal hygiene.

She would gratefully stretch her power a bit
further to create such things if the disgusting group would but use
them.

As she finished tying the Mercesti’s boot, he
grabbed her by her hair, which they insisted she wear unbound.
Although she wanted to scream, she had also learned that such
behavior merely provoked these beings. So she endured the revolting
kiss he forced on her, praying it was enough to satisfy him. Fear
was a storm in her belly as he reached for the neckline of her
gown.

“Enough, Nels.”

The voice was cool and effective. Nels shoved
her away with a brief snarl before stomping over to the nearby soup
tureen presently bubbling over the campfire. He lifted the ladle
and drank some of the hot soup right from it.

Fighting the urge to wipe her mouth with her
shaking hands, Ariana glanced at the male who spoke…their leader,
Eirik. He stared back at her, his red eyes cold and gleaming. He
wore his blond and red-striped hair in a half-ponytail spiked on
top of his head, with the rest of his hair falling below his
shoulders. A white line ran straight down the entire left side of
his face. He stood a foot taller than her and was three times as
broad in the chest.

“If you take much longer to get us to our
goal, I will not continue to stop them,” he said.

His deep, gravelly voice made her shudder.
She believed every word. He had already started letting the males
take more liberties with her as a way to “motivate” her. And she
had witnessed many heinous things while in his presence…more than
enough to warrant her fear.

Nodding once, she turned to walk back to the
center of the camp. She had to stand there throughout their meal in
case one of them wanted anything. As she stood, she did the same
thing she had every other night since her capture.

She wondered how she would find the object
they sought.

Finding things was her specialty. Unlike many
full Estilorians, she possessed a second power: the ability to find
anything that had been lost. It was because of this power, in point
of fact, that she was in her current predicament.

While they were on their first visit to the
mainland almost two weeks ago, Tisha had taken Ariana aside and
begged her to help her find a necklace she had lost. The necklace
had belonged to another Lekwuesti named Charlotte, and Tisha had
wanted to avoid invoking her friend’s wrath. Ariana refused, not
wanting to disobey the dictates of the Gloresti protecting them.
They had been told not to double-back or they might risk
encountering Mercesti who might be following them.

Unfortunately, Tisha hadn’t listened. She
decided to take matters into her own hands. While their assigned
Gloresti gathered to discuss the horrible news that a Kynzesti had
been killed by a kragen, Tisha had snuck away to search for the
necklace herself. Alarmed for her friend, Ariana had ultimately
used her second power to search for her to try and bring her back
to the campsite housing the rest of their class.

Her search was now hazy in her memory, but
she clearly remembered witnessing Tisha’s brutal murder before she
passed out.

When she regained consciousness after finding
Tisha’s body being ravaged by Eirik’s primary henchman, Deimos,
Ariana found herself alone in a tent with Eirik. He hadn’t so much
as introduced himself. He instead explained that he sought a sacred
object, one that would significantly alter the order of things on
the Estilorian plane. He further explained that he had overheard
her speaking privately with Tisha, and that he knew of her ability
to find things. To verify it, he had followed her when she chased
Tisha down.

He offered her a deal. He would allow her to
live as long as she did whatever they said and found the Elder
Scroll.

She didn’t have any idea what the Elder
Scroll was.

Making matters worse, it didn’t appear that
Eirik had many details about the object, either. His descriptions
were vague, and she got the impression he didn’t have the answers
to her questions. Whenever she pressed for more information in
hopes it might help her find it, he growled and lashed out at
her.

The problem was, her power only worked if she
knew what she was looking for. And even then, it helped if she had
some kind of connection to the object. In this case, she had
neither.

The bottom line was she had no way of doing
what Eirik wanted her to do. And in very little time at all, she
figured she’d be as dead as Tisha.

“Come here, female.”

Jolted from her thoughts by Eirik’s command,
Ariana approached him to avoid provoking another punishment. He
grabbed her arm and pulled her into the tent she had created for
him. She stood in the middle of it with her hands clenched in front
of her, praying he was quick if he finally decided to kill her.

“You disappoint me,” he said after a long
moment. His unfeeling red eyes stayed focused on her face as he
slowly walked a circle around her. “Do you have nothing to
say?”

“No.”

“No excuses for your failure?”

“None you haven’t already heard.”

She realized her weariness kept the tremor of
fear from her voice, a fact that pleased her. He couldn’t see her
trembling knees beneath her long skirt and she kept her hands
clasped together to prevent them from shaking. At least she
wouldn’t die looking like a coward.

“Perhaps some time spent with Deimos will
help you reclaim your abilities.”

Her stomach pitched painfully. “My abilities
have not diminished from what they have always been. I made no
secret of their limitations. Hide something of yours somewhere you
believe I can’t find it. I will.”

He issued a noise behind her that might have
been disbelief. Then he moved back in front of her. He stopped
walking, leaving less than a foot between them. She had no choice
but to look up and meet his eyes, an effort that made her knees
even less stable.

“Tell me what you need to successfully find
the scroll.”

She almost sighed. This was something she had
been over with him before. But if answering him kept her safe from
Deimos and his other followers for even another minute, she was
happy to do so. “I need to know more about the scroll itself. What
does it look like? How was it made? In what general area was it
lost?”

“I have told you that these things are not
known.”

“Not known by anyone?” she countered. “Or not
known by you?”

His eyes narrowed dangerously.

Nerves had her blurting, “I ask because if
there is someone who knows more about it, they could aid me in
finding it.”

That brought a thoughtful look into his
frightening eyes.

“How did you find out about it?” she asked.
Now that she had issued her previous statement, she wished she
hadn’t. She just unintentionally involved another being in this
mess.

He resumed his movement, pacing around the
tent. When his back was to her, she eyed the pair of curved, black
krises he wore strapped to his back. Trying to wrest one from him
in a bid for her release was laughable, but she couldn’t deny the
thought flashed through her mind.

“There must be another way,” he said.

Ariana understood then that the being who had
told him about the scroll was dead. She wasn’t sure whether to be
relieved or terrified.

“Is there no record of how the scroll was
made?” she wondered. “Could someone not just ask the being who
created it?”

“
Beings
, you fool,” he replied in a
frosty tone. “It is called the Elder Scroll. How could you not
reason that it was created by the elders?”

Her face filled with color. It seemed
ridiculously obvious now that he said it.

“So you are essentially telling me that you
can only find the scroll if you have access to one of the elders?”
he asked.

“Well, if there is something tied to the
scroll—even in a minor way—I could possibly funnel enough energy
from that to find the scroll itself.”

He continued pacing in silence for a long
while. She tried not to think of the fear sitting like overcooked
bread somewhere between her heart and her stomach. And she
desperately hoped she didn’t drop to the floor in exhaustion. She
had swayed a couple of times and caught herself.

Abruptly, he stopped. When his eyes met hers,
they gleamed.

“What about the sword that look the life of
one of the elders who created the scroll?”

She felt her face fall into horrified lines.
“D-do you mean Grolkinei’s sword?”

“It belonged to Volarius before Grolkinei
killed him with it. Volarius always wore it. He would have had it
on his person when the scroll was created, I am most certain.”

Working hard to swallow, Ariana nodded. The
object would suffice. What she didn’t know was what the residual
energy clinging to it would do to her psyche when she opened her
senses.

He moved closer to her. Lifting his hand, he
trailed a finger down her cheek to the pulse pounding in her neck.
“It will mean a change in our course, so you had best be certain
about this. If you are wrong or attempt to deceive me, I will make
sure your suffering exceeds your worst imaginings.”

"Do you think they’ve found out that we’re
gone yet?” Sophia asked as they made camp the night after their
departure.

“Yep,” Tiege said.

“You seem awfully certain,” Clara Kate
observed as she assisted Ini-herit in building a fire. Although
they could create light easily enough, the fire would provide
better heat. It promised to be a cool night.

“Oh, I am. My dad dissolved my illusion a
while ago. I sensed it.” And he felt incredibly guilty about it,
too. But he didn’t mention that. Opening his bag, he glanced
around. “Is anyone hungry? I have bread, apples and cheese.”

Sophia shrugged from her position on a log
next to where Ini-herit and C.K. arranged kindling. “I could use a
little something. Toss me an apple, would you?”

“That should be enough kindling,” Ini-herit
said. “Now we need to create a flame.”

“No prob,” C.K. said. She flicked her wrist
and a spurt of fire flew over the wood.

“Showoff,” Sophia said as she took a bite of
her apple.

C.K. grinned. “When we need a plant grown,
we’ll let you do your thing.”

Sophia stuck out her tongue. It made Tiege
smile, something he hadn’t expected. He glanced at Quincy, who had
been very quiet since getting dragged into this. That sense of
guilt once again surfaced as he realized how miserable his friend
looked.

“Quincy, can I talk to you for a moment?”

With a look of surprise, Quincy said,
“Okay.”

Tiege got up and walked into the woods.
Behind him, he heard C.K. explain to Ini-herit about the Kynzesti
third power…the power of the elements. She could command small
amounts of fire. Sophia could make plant life grow. Tate could
produce water. He could make things cold.

When they were outside of hearing distance,
Tiege stopped and faced Quincy. Deciding not to beat around the
bush, he said, “I’m sorry I got you caught up in this.”

“What?” Quincy looked genuinely confused.

“I can tell you’d rather be anywhere else. I
want to apologize, as well as thank you for coming with us even
though you don’t want to be here. I really appreciate it.”

His eyebrows lowering in understanding,
Quincy shook his head. “Don’t be an ass, Tiege. I wouldn’t rather
be anywhere than with you, trying to find Tate. You’ll never know
what it was like flying after that kragen, knowing that it had Tate
and not being able to get to her.”

Tiege pursed his lips. “No, I won’t,” he
murmured.