Eve of Destruction (43 page)

Zach rubbed at his brow and sighed. “This is…”

“My fault,” Eve whispered. She still hadn’t moved. “It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have let you come with me. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this...any of you.”

“Let’s dispense with the self-pity and focus on the actual problem,” Shaedra grumbled. “Either we head to Cadotheia and try to avoid Chaval, or we make our way to Vaschberg and worry about the Enclave.”

Zach sighed. “Fine. We’ll turn back around and hope Maltus brings a miracle with him.”

A thick silence fell over the camp. Zach tried to sit down next to Eve but she pushed him away. Aram continued to stare blankly at the fire, and Danev idly rubbed at his moustache. When none of them seemed willing to broach the other, even more important issue at hand, Shaedra finally sighed and stood.

“In the meantime,” she said, “I think it’s finally time for you to accept what you are and work to control it.”

Eve glanced up with a look that bundled hate, fear, and resignation all in one. “What do you expect me to do? What do you expect me to say?”

“I want you to recognize that there’s no hiding from this. Not anymore. You’ve killed now—you’ve whet your appetite. The hunger is only going to grow, and you need to learn to control it.”

“You make it sound like I wanted to kill them,” Eve hissed. “I didn’t. I just…reacted. I don’t take some sick, twisted pleasure in killing. I’m not you.”

“No,” Shaedra whispered. “You’re much worse…or you will be eventually. Maybe you’re not really the Avenshal—maybe you’re just a savant who picked all this up like it was second nature. But either way, ignoring your potential isn’t the answer. You can either sit here and choose to ignore your gift and then lash out uncontrollably the next time something sets you off…or you can accept it for what it is and learn to control it.”

“You can’t be serious,” Aram interjected, spinning around to face her. “The power of the Avenshal is evil. It is a taint spread by a dying god. There is no controlling something so vile.”

“Your only other choice is to kill her,” Shaedra said flatly, “and I don’t think any of us want to do that. Personally, I don’t think sticking my fingers in my ears and pretending it isn’t real will solve anything.”

“I’m never going to weave again,” Eve breathed. “That’s the only solution.”

“That’s not a solution. It’s cowardice, pure and simple.”

“No one asked for your opinion,” Zach hissed. “In fact, no one asked for you to be here at all.”

“Tara DeShane misused her power once,” Shaedra went on, ignoring him. “She unleashed a revolution whose devastation still tears at the Fane. But instead of learning from her mistake and trying to correct it, she hid herself away. She did nothing to counteract what she had started. Now she’s dead, and we’re about to be thrown into a civil war that could destroy everything.”

“Shut up!” Eve screamed as she leapt to her feet. “Get away from me!”

Shaedra snorted. “You can run from your destiny or you can make it. If you choose to run, then the Enclave is right: you aren’t worth saving.”

She turned and lumbered off into the woods.

***

Eve glared into the darkness where Shaedra had disappeared into the forest. A part of her wanted to lash out, to try and burn away what was left of the mangled Vakari just so she would go away and keep her mouth shut. But of course, that instinct only vindicated what Shaedra had been trying to tell her for days, and it was why her words stung so much.

They were true. At least partially.

Eve had lived a sheltered life in Lushden, perhaps even more than the average child of magi. Her parents made enough money that they’d never had to worry about much of anything, and she’d always been able to attend quality schools and be surrounded by good students. She had lived in a safe, comfortable world of ideas and reason.

The problem was that she never really learned how to
feel
. Maybe that explained why she had so much trouble dealing with Zach since he’d returned. She was still a child in that regard; nothing in her life had ever forced her to grow up. Her father’s death many years ago had been devastating, but the experience had eventually taught her how to grieve and accept loss. She’d never had a similar experience with anger, and she’d never truly faced any serious danger.

Until now. Perhaps it was the reason she’d never noticed her…gift…before. Back in Vaschberg at the
Calio
, she’d reacted to a threat by summoning magic she had no business understanding. Then today, she had done the same, only on a grander and more destructive scale. What would happen the next time she was confronted? What if the Enclave caught up to them and she had to defend herself? What if Chaval came after them again?

What if she Defiled without even knowing it?

She turned away from the shadow of the forest’s edge and took a deep breath. Perhaps the one thing she’d been sheltered from more than anything else was simple doubt. For almost twenty years she’d lived a life of absolutely certainty. She had known that her parents would take care of her—she had known that she would study the Fane and become a mage. And she had known that the Dusties were evil and the magi were good.

Now nothing in her life held that kind of certainty.  She didn’t know who she should hate more, Chaval or the Enclave. She didn’t know if she could trust one of her oldest friends, Mr. Maltus. She didn’t know if she really was going to destroy the world. She didn’t even know if any of them would live to see another day.

Actually, she did know one thing. No matter what happened, Zach would still be right there with her to the bitter end. Maybe it wasn’t much, but right now, as she turned to look up at him, it was enough.

“So what are the odds that some big predator will eat her while she’s out there?” Zach said after a few minutes of silence.

“Nothing in the forest but weeds and trees,” Aram said. “Besides, not many beasts will get close to a Vakari.”

“So ‘low’ is what you’re saying,” Zach muttered, plopping back down on the ground. “I figured we wouldn’t be so lucky.”

“I’d be more worried about Chaval’s people. In fact, I might as well take another look around and secure the area.”

Danev glanced up to him. “I thought you already set up some traps earlier?”

“A few,” the Eclipsean said, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the spot where Shaedra left. “She might walk right into them.”

“Hopefully you laced them with cellium or whatever you called that stuff,” Zach replied as he leaned his head back on his bag.

Aram grunted. “I’ll go check and see if I can secure it any better. You should get some sleep—we’ll need to leave at dawn.”

He wandered off, and Zach snorted softly. “Somehow I doubt any of us are going to sleep much.”

Eve sighed and turned to face Danev. “You know, you’ve never really said what you thought about this whole thing.”

The man cocked an eyebrow. “I think I was pretty vocal about the fact we should head back into the city.”

“Not that. I mean what happened on the train…and about mom’s visions.”

He pursed his lips. “What I think is that we still don’t have enough information, and I’m loath to draw conclusions in a vacuum.”

“That’s not much of an answer,” Zach said. “Do you believe in this prophecy or not?”

“I told you before I believed in Tara’s power,” Danev explained. “But I also like to think that she was given this gift for a reason, and I doubt Edeh is so petty that she just wanted to torment your mother with nightmares about her only child. There’s a way out of this mess—there always is if you know where to look.”

“What about the train?” Eve asked. “It doesn’t bother you that I killed three people?”

“Considering they shot me once and then tried to kill me a second later…my sympathy for them is rather low,” he said. “You defended yourself in a difficult situation, and no one who died didn’t deserve it. The same goes for the ones Aram and Shaedra dealt with.”

Eve swallowed heavily. “But?”

“But…I would be lying if I said it didn’t concern me at all. Not many magi can wield the type of power you showed, even among the experienced magisters. For a nineteen year-old who hasn’t taken the Oath Rituals…”

“So you think it’s true, then,” Eve said. “I am the Avenshal.”

“Maybe, but like I said—we don’t have all the facts. Once Glenn arrives and we can pool our resources, I’m hopeful we can figure something out.” He sighed and leaned down against his pack. “For now, Aram was right: we should try and get some sleep. It’s not going to be an easy trip.”

Eve turned to her suitcase and backpack. She’d almost left both when they fled from the scene of the wreckage earlier. The extra clothing she could easily do without, and the school books in her pack seemed less relevant than ever. Maltus’s spellbook and her mother’s journal where in there too, but she never wanted to see either of those—

She frowned as she stared into the half-open pack and saw the familiar binding of the journal. “Oh, drek.”

Zach looked over at her. “What?”

“The journal—you remember that page we were looking at on the train?”

“Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten about it.”

She pulled out the book and tried to find the page. It took a few moments, but eventually the two of them were looking at the odd script once again. It didn’t make any more sense than it had the last time.

“Too bad the Avenshal isn’t gifted with the ability to read Agean,” she muttered.

“What was that?” Danev asked. He’d taken off his overcoat and was inspecting his wounds.

  “We found a strange page in the journal while we were on the train,” Eve told him. “It looks like a short message, but I think it’s written in Agean.”

His entire body seemed to stiffen. “Do you mind if I have a look?”

“Why not?” she murmured as she walked over and handed him the book.

“You speak Agean?” Zach asked.

“Speak? No—it’s been a dead language for a long, long time. I used to be able to read and write it pretty well back in college, though.”

Eve pursed her lips and tried to ignore the chill suddenly working its way down her spine. “Was it some secret thing the Seven used back at Valmeri?”

He snorted as he looked over the page. “Hardly. I was the only one who took courses in it.”

Eve turned to look at Zach, and she could tell he had come to the same conclusion.
Take my journal to Gregori Danev
, her mother had written in the cryptic note back home. The only one of the Seven who could read the script, and here they were with him…

“’Eve, by now you realize what you are, but you cannot lose hope,’” Danev read softly. “’There are choices to be made, and I have faith you will make me proud. But right now, you need to run. Beware of…’”

“If it cuts off there I’m going to shoot myself,” Zach muttered.

Danev shook his head and turned towards the woods. “Beware the eyes of the Eclipse.”

Eve’s mouth fell open. “Aram?”

A distant scream echoed across the forest.

Chapter Twenty

The trees might have been spread sparsely out here in the western plains, but Shaedra could still feel their life energy resonating across the Fane. Their presence—and that of all the grass and flora here—was like a soft buzzing in the back of her mind. It had been a while since she’d stood in a place so open and teeming with life, and she’d almost forgotten the intensity of the sensation.