Silver Smoke (#1 of Seven Halos Series) (47 page)

"Cassander's younger son Antipater was jealous, and eventually murdered our mother. Without her protection, I begged Alexander to leave with me—but he was so involved in the politics of the kingdom. I left without him, fleeing to the seas, where I stayed for several years. The only contact I had with humans is when a ship passed near enough to me to prompt an exchange. I sometimes tried to gain information from them. 'Is Alexander the king still alive?' I would ask. Eventually, I found out he was dead, assassinated by a friend of his vying for power."

Rykken wasn't sure that Thessa was speaking to him anymore; she seemed lost in a faraway ocean of her own thoughts, aimlessly adrift.

"Thessa," Rykken whispered. Her eyes met his, focusing on him again. "I need to find Brie. She's..." he tried to put into words the pain Brie had to be feeling, but he came up short. "She stabbed Kennedy," he said. "I think she killed her."

"I know," Thessa said. "Brie is going to pay for that." Thessa's eyes faded from brown to black. "Do you know who you are?"

"Yes," Rykken said. "A Hallow. A son of Gabrielle."

"And a future leader of the Hallows," Thessa said, finishing the list.

"How do you know that?" Rykken asked.

"I told you, I see things. I see you and Sirena disbanding the New Order and taking over the Hallows, several years from now."

"I don't care about the Hallows right now. Brie needs me."

Thessa sighed. "Do you remember what I told you about my husband, Bes?"

Rykken nodded his head.

"I lied," Thessa said, not a hint of remorse in her voice. "Bes was an Egyptian monk I met wandering the desert. This was at a time when Egypt was rejecting its pagan gods and deities and turning to various forms of Christianity. After several years, we married, ready to grow old together—but we were unable to get pregnant. We lived at the Hallow capital so I had access to all the researchers and sociologists and historians who studied and tracked the lifestyles and abnormalities of the Hallows. I underwent all sorts of tests, but at the end of it all, their findings were inconclusive. While infertility happens to humans, it had never happened in the history of either Hallow or Nephilim.

Hallows and Nephilim have the ability to heal themselves. So genetic defects, bacteria, viruses, cancer, and other types of sickness don't affect us. We even elude aging until we have children. The only other way to die is by falling in battle.

"I was an anomaly. The team finally concluded that I had simply waited too long to have children. If you'll remember, I spent hundreds of years in hiding, and the doctors said there must be a reproductive limit even for the Hallows.

I cried for weeks when I found out. Bes tried to comfort me, insisting that he wouldn't leave me. Both Hallows and Nephilim typically mate for life, but I couldn't imagine anyone choosing to endure eternity with me. Finally, I moved on, investing myself in my relationship and my work. Bes and I travelled the world together, trying to accomplish the mission of the Hallows among humans. We had lots of free time, so we made a game of visiting every country, tasting every delicacy, seeing every wonder the area had to offer.

"Eventually, we had been everywhere and done everything several times over. Even the changing times, the different periods, the way the human race was developing didn't bring enough newness to the experiences.

Bes and I went back to the capital.

"When the New Order took over, Bes' had to take a new wife—but not just any wife. His wife was Magda, the friend I told you about—Clara and Cora's mother. She had heard our story, of course—everyone had—and she felt guilty for taking a man away from the woman he loved. At the same time, I felt guilty for giving her a husband who would never be in love with her. What could we say to each other though?

"I stayed away, as much as I could. I travelled some, but my travels only reminded me of Bes. A few years later, I returned to the capital. That same year, Magda did bear children, two twin girls, with the most beautiful almond eyes, skin the color of coffee, and heart-shaped faces.

"When I held Bes' children, I felt like they were my own almost, as if Magda was a surrogate mother for the children I couldn't have. Bes aged quickly as soon as the children were born, the years he spent alive catching up to him. The girls crowded around his bed as he withered away of old age, begging him to tell them stories. He told them stories about us, replacing my name with Magda's. The three of us, in the strange relationships we had formed, agreed it was the best way to protect the girls. Bes was gone by the twins' tenth birthday."

Thessa gently placed her hand on Rykken's. "It was hard to let go of Bes. I'm not going to pretend it was easy to see him with Magda, and to see her still when I look at Clara and Cora. But it was for the best. In many ways, she had given Bes and me a gift. She was the ice pick, cracking the moulding surrounding our relationship, which had been frozen in time for far too long. And if I hadn't let go of Bes, I wouldn't have the twins now."

"Why are you telling me this?" Rykken sensed the troubling, double-meaning of her story.

Thessa's gaze shifted to one of genuine empathy mixed with stout certainty. "I know how much you think you love Brie, but she's a Trinity. I'm sorry Rykken. She isn't one of us."

He glared back at Thessa, pain pricking him all over his chest. "I don't care."

"You should. The Brie you're in love with now will fade, replaced by someone neither of us recognize anymore."

"No," Rykken said. "The stones can cure her."

"And how will you find the stones?" Thessa asked, tilting her head curiously. "The odds were against Brie even when I thought she was an extremely powerful Hallow. Now, the chances of her going dark before she finds them all... well, it's almost an impossible task."

"You know what's going to happen in the future, don't you?"

Thessa buffed her nails on the bedsheets, admiring a gold ring she was wearing. "Yes, some of it. Just images, really."

"Like my vision about Brie falling off of the boat and almost drowning."

"We share a gift—the ability to see the future in our dreams." Thessa gestured to the door. "All of my visions are catalogued in the next room. You can reference them any time you want."

"What do you mean?" Rykken asked. "How?"

"I'm giving you my visions, but I don't advise you to go looking for trouble. Knowing too much about the future is just as dangerous as not knowing enough. I would let your subconscious decide what to look at, if I were you."

"I don't understand."

"Rykken, you were dying. I used an ancient ritual named after a man named Cronus that allows a Hallow to use his or her healing abilities to help another living being. The Cronus ritual is not always a death sentence for the healer, but with your wounds, the only way I can save you is by giving my life in place of yours."

Rykken's jaw plunged into total astonishment. "Did Kennedy kill me?"

"Yes and no. She is the reason you're dying, but Brie brought you back to the van Rossum house just in time." Thessa left Rykken's side and traversed the room, meandering in random patterns. "You're alive because my own life force is keeping you here. You can tell, because I'm controlling the room."

"Why would you die for me?"

"Because you're far more important than me," Thessa explained, an uneasy passion in her words. "You can bring down the New Order." She gestured to a shelf. "I'm passing on my powers to you too. It's a rare gift, to receive another Hallow's powers. But you'll need them, if you are to fight and win the wars that lie ahead."

"What about Brie?" he asked. "She doesn't trust you anymore. She said you were going to turn her in to the Hallows."

"I was." Thessa sighed. "When you live as long as I have, you learn to look at the bigger picture. But I was overruled." Thessa held up her hands. "Either way, I'm dying. Brie doesn't need to worry about me spilling her secret anymore."

"You also said she would pay for what she did to Kennedy."

"She will," Thessa said. "Sirena will protect her, though, for as long as she can."

"So will I," Rykken said.

Thessa's bottom lip twitched. "Brie is just one person. You're destiny is bigger than her or you—you have the chance to change history; to overthrow the government, to make things right with the Hallows, for once."

"What happens to Brie affects me," Rykken said defiantly.

Thessa's stern look reminded him of a teacher. She pursed her lips. "I guess it could be better that you're close to her. I thought it was a weakness at first—something that would just hurt both of you at the end. But now, I wonder if it might help you."

"I can fix this," Rykken said. "My visions helped me save Brie once."

"My visions say otherwise," Thessa countered, "and I have lived for thousands of years. I've never once changed the course of one of my visions." She sat down again. "Not even the vision of my husband having children with another woman."

"What's the use of having visions then?" Rykken asked, frustrated. "If you can't change what's going to happen, there's no point in knowing early."

"Because in rare circumstances, you may save someone. Like the way you saved Brie. Sometimes good things happen, but most of the time the visions just prepare you for the inevitable. They help you let go of the ones you love."

"I won't give up on her," Rykken said.

Thessa pursed her lips. "Very well," she finally said. "It's best if you discover your true destiny on your own." She kissed his cheek. "Be well, my friend."

She shoved him back down onto the bed. He panicked, wishing he could say something wise to her, or at least thank her for sacrificing her life to save his. But his eyes drifted shut against his will, pushing him back into a clear, blinding world of pure white.

*****

Cora buried her head in Pilot's chest. "Don't let go of me," she begged.

Pilot wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin against the top of her head. They sat like that for several minutes, blocking out Clara's screams and Brie's sobbing.

"Why do you find me comforting?" Pilot asked. It didn't make sense to him. They weren't particularly close, and he was an earthlie. For the most part, the other Hallows ignored him.

She looked up at him, tears glistening from her eyes. "Because you
do
have powers," she choked. "The others are wrong." She sat up. "My powers change peoples' emotions, but you can block them. I don't understand how, but even when I touch your skin now—it has almost no effect. I can barely feel what you're thinking. It's like possessing any sort of sensation—sight, sound, hearing—and all of a sudden, having it dulled, perhaps by a blindfold, or earplugs."

Pilot paled at the unspoken truth in Cora's words, reminded of what Kennedy had told him earlier in James' office. "You've changed my emotions before, haven't you?"

"Yes," Cora confessed. "And Clara has changed your thoughts too, twice. We had no idea—"

"That I was a Trinity also?" Pilot asked.

"You aren't a Trinity, Pilot. We made sure of it, actually. We bound you, once we realized that you weren't going to develop powers naturally."

"Great," Pilot mumbled. It was news to him that his powers were bound, but he didn't have the energy to question whether it was a good or bad thing at the moment.

Cora looked at him. "Oh no," she said. "We didn't take your powers away from you. We just prevented you from
getting
powers, for your protection."

"My protection," Pilot repeated.

"So you are an earthlie with Trinity blood, and the ability to block Hallow attacks. It's unheard of."

She hesitated. "You block their feelings for me. You can't imagine how hard it is, feeling everything that everyone around you feels, in addition to your own pain. It amplifies and intensifies everything you're feeling two or three times."

The tears were falling down Cora's cheeks now, and Pilot brushed them away with his pointer finger.

"You're right," he said. "I
can't
imagine it."

There must have been a tone to his voice, because Cora looked up. "You're mad at me, aren't you? I mean, I think you are. Like I said, I can't tell." She sat up and positioned herself in front of him, holding the back of her hand to his cheek. "Yes, you're mad at me. Why, Pilot?"

He reached up and entwined his fingers with hers, gently pulling her hand away from his face. "I get it," he said. "Everyone else's emotions exhaust you. Being with me is like putting a mute button on the TV, and..." he paused. Cora had her other hand on his other cheek.

"You think I'm using you," Cora said, staring into his eyes.

"Everyone else does." Pilot turned his head, breaking contact with her hand. It scared him, the way Cora communicated—she had a way of making him feel like they had a connection, but they didn't. It was just her powers.

"I guess I am using you," she admitted. She brushed his bangs out of his eyes, lost in her own thoughts. "But I can take away your pain also, if you want. Then we'll be using each other."

Pilot looked up quickly. "Kennedy," she said. "I can siphon away your feelings for her."

"How?" Pilot asked. He had a hard time imagining anyone taking away the emptiness he felt right now.

Cora's arms drifted to his waist; she lifted the front of his shirt and put her hands on his chest. He wrapped his own hands over hers, hoping she wouldn't let go of him. "Open your emotions to me," Cora said, closing her eyes. Pilot wasn't completely sure what she meant, and he wasn't sure he could trust her with how he was feeling.

He closed his eyes and tried to pretend Cora was Kennedy, letting the most secret, painful feelings he had creep to the top.

Cora's hands trembled against his chest as she pulled the feelings out of him, absorbing them into her own being. He had to admit that it made him feel better to release the feelings he was struggling with at the moment. Slowly, he released more anger, more hurt, dredging up things he didn't even realize existed.