The Spark of a Feudling (24 page)

****

The sun had set. If any warriors had survived that battle, they had not come looking for her. Her father, too, had disappeared, although that did not surprise her and she did not worry for his safety. She knew he would not die, not when there were so many of his own to use as shields. She waited until darkness took complete hold of the night before rising from where she huddled on the bridge. Her entire body ached in protest, but she ignored it, hurrying to the railing. She leaned as far over as she dared, cursing her short stature and fear of heights. “Charity.”

“I'm here, Ada.”

Relief flooded through her as she climbed quickly up on the railing and slid off the other side. She shimmied down as far as she could before letting go. The fall was short, yet terrifying. The net caught her and she tumbled sideways under the bridge.

And into Charity's lap.

“I thought you would be killed.” Charity hugged her so tightly Ada thought her bones might break. Sobbing, she wrapped her arms around Charity's waist and they cried together long into the night.

“They think you are dead. You're free now, Charity,” Ada said as they lay quietly together. She stroked Charity's hair and stared at the underside of the bridge, watching birds nest and bats come and go. Living their lives despite the humans above nearly bringing the bridge down. Despite the war. She wished to be a bat.

“Where will I go? What will I do?”

“I will take care of you. I will send you money. You will want for nothing. I promised you I would protect you and I will. Forever, Charity.”

The End

Present Day

“Ari, if you blow up one more football because you're afraid we're about to score, I'm banning you from the game,” Hunter bellowed.

Ari scowled at him. “I didn't do it on purpose, you big ox. With nothing to fight, my flames get bored!”

Shane's arms snaked around her waist and he pulled her back against him. His breath against her neck made her blood race and delicious chills ran up and down her spine. “He's leaving for college in two days. On a football scholarship. His ego won't let him lose to a girl.”

She smiled. “Okay, for his ego, I suppose I can take it down a notch.” It was a relief to hear the teasing lilt to Shane's voice. He'd been on edge the past couple of days. She didn't blame him — they were starting new, scary lives. College. Ari was used to starting new schools every year, but Shane was not. Plus, tomorrow was Will and Dani's wedding. If Ari had learned anything from TV, it was that boys
do not
like weddings. With a long-suffering sigh, she turned to Hunter. “Fine, your hulkship. I solemnly swear I will not blow up—”

Nevaeh interrupted her. “It's time for us to reinstate our womanhood!” she crowed from the sidelines.

Livi bounced eagerly on her toes, her face splitting into a grin. “Spa day bachelorette party!”

Ari smiled. She'd missed them while they'd been at college in Utah. Ari, Shane, Charity, and Hunter had gone to summer school, and then taken the year off to recover and learn to live without the constant threat of war.

It had been harder than Ari had expected.

“Ah, there's my MIA little cousin,” Shane called as Charity emerged from Dani's house, with Ari's future sister-in-law on her heels. “I wondered where you've been all day.”

Charity gave him a look that bordered between amused and irritated. “There is a
wedding
tomorrow, Shane. Not all of us get to play football all day.”

Shane sounded wounded, although Ari couldn't see his face. “Hey. You kicked us out of the house, remember? You
told
us to go outside and play. Like we're kids or something.”

Hunter met Charity in the road, kissing the top of her head. Even from several feet away, Ari could see the engagement ring sparkling on Charity's finger.

Dani paused at her side. “Your mom said she was inviting a friend to the wedding, but I haven't seen anyone yet. Curiosity is killing me.”

Ari nodded, leaning her head back against Shane's neck. “She left yesterday morning. Whoever it is, he or she must not be able to do a
saldepement
. Will offered to burn her one but my mom declined.”

Dani's face fell. “So not Christian, then?”

No one had seen Christian since he'd left right after it had been apparent Ari would, in fact, make a full recovery. Ada, or Vivian as she'd been calling herself for as long as she'd been Ari and Will's mom, had kept herself busy ever since, doing all the things she'd never been allowed to do before — traveling, training, basically being free, but Ari could still see the sadness in her eyes. She and Shane had even gone looking for Christian, back to the Yukon, but the little house was abandoned. And if the boy… er, man… didn't want to be found, there was nothing they could do.

“Spa day! Spa day! Spa day!” Nev and Livi chanted from the other side of the road.

“I still think it's incredible how okay they are with this whole magic-exists-and-my-best-friends-are-sorcerer-assassins thing,” Dani said, watching them with amusement.

“I think they always suspected something was different with us,” Shane said, releasing Ari. She felt the cold at her back as he moved away — something no other sorcerer would feel. But Ari had had her flames stolen
and
she'd died, and even though she'd gotten her flames back and obviously returned to the land of the living, there was much that was different about her now. One difference was that her flames didn't keep her warm any more. She had no idea why that was.

Her brother Will bounded down the stairs from their house. When Ari went to college, she would move her things to her mom's house, she supposed, so Will and Dani could start a new life without Will's baby sister always hanging around. Although if she wanted to be really annoying, she could just stay. She sent him a wicked grin. He stared back at her in worried confusion.

“Gotta go do the bachelor party thing. Will has a lot of friends. So… no pressure.” Shane's metallic blue eyes sparkled as he flipped sparks from one hand to another with nervous energy. It was a new habit he'd picked up since they didn't have to fight things anymore. Ari thought it was adorable.

“So I'll see you tonight?” Ari started to move away but Shane made a strangled noise behind her.

“Tonight? What do you mean tonight? How'd you know?”

Ari glanced at Dani to see if she was as flabbergasted at Shane's reaction as Ari was, but she bent quickly to tie her shoe, nearly toppling over in the process. “The… bonfire?” Ari raised her eyebrows and spoke slowly.

The color returned to Shane's face. “Right. The bonfire. I thought you'd somehow figured out an ancient bachelor party tradition that girls are not allowed to ever know about. Ever.”

Hunter, finally joining them with Charity in tow, rolled his eyes. “Seriously, Shane. Shut up.”

“Okay,” Charity said, detangling herself from Hunter's arms. “So… bachelorette party-slash-spa-day? Shall we?”

With the war over and no need for wards any longer, Will had turned their colony into a gated community. Surprisingly, most of the Renegades who had lived there and left had returned, grateful for a place to play with their magic without worrying about getting seen by Normals. That meant a
lot
of friends to invite to the bachelorette spa day. Ari counted almost thirty before she gave up trying to see how many had actually come. “Snowballs,” she muttered. She'd been trying very hard to quit swearing. Snowballs was her replacement word. It came almost naturally now. “The spa might be slightly over-crowded,” she murmured to Charity as they walked inside.

Charity smiled and shook her head. “I called them beforehand. They're ready for us.”

Ari just shook her head. “I don't think anyone could really ever be ready for us.”

Getting facials and pedicures and manicures and mud baths and massages was the most pointless thing in the world when Ari was constantly in battles that messed up her nails, and admitting she loved facials and pedicures and manicures and mud baths and massages was laughable when she was an
uber
-powerful warrior. But now Ari was just a girl who could throw flames, and she was not afraid to admit she loved every minute of it. Somewhere, someone needed to make it a law that pampering was required.

She was the first one done, and waited in the serenity room by herself, drinking something that she'd been under the impression was supposed to be yummy, and admiring her pretty toes. Charity came in minutes later, and as always, Ari felt like a part of herself she hadn't even noticed was missing, had just come back to her. She and Charity had been through too much, and they were forever bonded because of it. She'd already asked Ari to be the maid of honor at the small ceremony she and Hunter had planned for the fall — only a month or so away.

“How was it?” Charity asked, settling next to her.

She reached for the weird water stuff and Ari stopped her, shaking her head. “Trust me, it's deceptively icky.” Charity chuckled and dropped her hand. “It was wonderful. Until the lady asked where all my scars came from and I told her my boyfriend had killed me. Then things got awkward.”

Charity burst out laughing. “Oh Ari, you didn't.”

Ari shrugged and grinned. The thing about Charity was that they could sit and just be, without the need for constant chatter. But this was one time Ari needed that chatter. “Char…” she waited until Charity looked up at her. “Have you noticed anything… off… about Shane?” When Charity's silver eyes widened, Ari dropped her head, playing with her freshly painted nails. “I mean, he's been pretty grumpy lately.”

Charity suddenly found the folds of her robe very distracting, and set about smoothing every imaginary wrinkle. Ari scowled at her, which was pointless, given that Charity refused to meet her gaze. “Char.”

Charity finally looked up. “I know he's been grumpy. He's just stressed about all these upcoming changes. Just give him time and don't judge him too harshly. In fact, I'm sure by tomorrow he'll be back to his old self.”

Ari tipped her head to the side, which reminded her every single time she did it of a small, confused dog. She did it anyway. “Tomorrow nothing will be changed. We'll still be in the middle of Will's wedding. We'll still be leaving for college the next day — and in my defense, college won't be that different. We'll all be together. And Will is only a
saldepement
away.”

Charity smiled, patting Ari's hand. “You're used to change, Ari. Shane isn't. His entire world was thrown completely upside down and he's just gotten used to this new one.”

Ari dropped her gaze. His entire world was thrown upside down because she showed up at his school, almost let him kill her, got his cousin kidnapped, and then let him kill her for real. Luckily he'd wanted to bring her back after all that. But now that she thought of it, yeah. Maybe it was too much for Shane. Maybe he couldn't handle Ari and all the chaos she brought with her. She didn't blame him.

Not blaming him didn't make it hurt less, though.

“Hey. I see where your mind is going.” Charity leaned forward until her big silver eyes were staring into Ari's, flashing a little in mild anger. Because Charity rarely ever got all the way angry. “Stop it, Ari. Shane loves you. More than anything, he loves you. Everything that you two have been through has made you stronger together, and he will never, ever walk away from that.” Ari still didn't respond. “Because you showed up at our school, Ari, our lives were finally brought out of the darkness and into the light. Never ever think that anything we've been through wasn't worth it.”

****

While the rest of the day had been spent with almost the entire colony, that evening was just for their small group — he and Hunter, Ari and Will and Dani, of course, and Charity, Livi, and Nev. It should have been far less stressful, but Shane couldn't make his heart stop pounding.

Bonfires, for regular people, mean large infernos started with matches or something like that. For a group of sorcerers, bonfires mean super large infernos started by throwing spells at anything that needs to be disposed of — broken furniture, old clothes, weeds, rusted cars. Making the fire was half the fun. Shane had a lot of nervous energy to work off, so he threw lots of spells and laughed like a maniac when his spell collided with Ari's and blew the car up in a mass of purple flames.

“Snowballs!” she yelped, which would have sounded ridiculous to anyone who didn't already know she was trying to quit swearing. He glanced over to see her watching him across the fire, a smile playing across her lips. His heart raced until he felt dizzy and he looked away. He was never going to make it to tomorrow.

“So, Alabama, huh? That's a long way from Utah,” Livi said, speaking over the crackle of the fire.

“I've never been there, but whither thou goest…”Charity looked up at Hunter with a smile. Shane's big guard was the entire reason he, Shane, Charity, and Ari were all going. He'd had several scholarship offers, but he'd picked Alabama, so to Alabama they were bound.

“I've been there,” Ari said, from where she dug in a grocery bag, looking for marshmallows. “I went to school there for a few months. Fought in a couple battles there, too.” She looked up with a grin. “We might even go to school with some of my classmates.” Her smile died as she considered the idea. “That might not be such a good thing. I think I broke a kid's face once.”

Battles apparently led into what Nev had been waiting to talk about, because she jumped on the word and changed the subject almost before Ari was done speaking. “So, I get that the whole prophecy thing is over cuz Shane…” Nev trailed off, giving Shane a look fiercer than he thought possible from a friend, “
fulfilled
it, but aren't you afraid the bad guy will come back?”

Ari sat next to her, sliding her marshmallow on the roaster before sticking it into the fire. Shane sat across the fire and watched her through the smoke. It brought back too many memories — fighting across from Ari while the places around them nearly burned to the ground. The screaming, the dead bodies… He felt his breath quicken and his blood roil, but then Ari was speaking and the sound of her voice calmed the chaos. “Richard is dead.”

Shane knew this, but most of the colonists, apparently, did not. “What? When?”

Ari didn't look at any of them, just stared into the fire at her marshmallow. Hunter sat gruffly next to her, nudging her with his shoulder. The barest hint of a smile ghosted her face, and as usual, Hunter had her back. “Richard lost his mind after Ari took
what was hers
,” he emphasized each word by tapping Ari's knee. “He went looking for the ancient seer, Charity. Threw himself from the bridge she threw herself from.”

Will sat next to Shane, stretching out his legs toward the flames. Dani sat on Will's lap, leaning her head against his shoulder. “We're going to get married tomorrow,” she whispered. Shane smiled even as the words made his pulse nearly jump through the roof.

“Yeah, I hope my mom gets back in time,” Will said, his voice low so he didn't interrupt the conversation across the bonfire about Richard.

On the other side of him, Charity had been watching quietly. Now, she gasped and Shane turned to her quickly to see her eyes glowing. “Your mom will make it, Will,” she said, her voice hollow. Ari and Shane were instantly at her side, Ari kneeling in the dirt in front of her.

“And—oh!” Charity yelped.

“What,” Ari asked, her voice panicked. “What do you see?”

“I believe she sees me.”

They all jumped, whirling toward the unfamiliar voice. A dozen spells bloomed into the air, waiting to be pushed. Ada cut through the shadows, stepping quickly in front of the body that belonged to the voice. “It's okay! She's my friend!”

Ada was tiny enough that she left her companion's entire head exposed. Had any of them acted fast enough, they still could have killed her. “Dangerous move there, Mom,” Ari muttered.

“Will, Ari, Charity.” Ada faced them with a nervous smile, her hands twisting in front of her. “There is someone I think you would like to meet.”

“Charity,” Charity whispered. Shane's cousin stood and turned slowly. Shane stared hard at her before following her gaze to Ada, and then back to Charity. “Ada, light up the dark.” Charity's voice shook.

Ada nodded, the shadows flickering across her face, making her at once pale and hidden. She raised her hand, sparks leaping from her fingers, and Ari gasped, rising too quickly to her feet. She fell sideways against Shane. He wrapped his arms tight around her, pulling her against his chest.

“What? What's wrong?” Hunter growled, moving in front of Charity, Ari, and Shane.
Old habits die hard
, Shane thought with a wry smile.

Will was the first one to speak. “How? I thought you died when the war started. I thought — I thought you threw yourself from a bridge.”

“Your mother has protected me all these years. I have been in hiding.”

Realization washed over Shane like ice in his blood. “Charity.
The
Charity? Charity Buttercroft?”

He should have been used to discovering that there were people who should be long since dead, but were not. After all, Ada and Christian both were over three hundred years old, kept alive by the power of war. Even still, when faced with the woman's silver white hair and eyes, he felt like he was looking at a ghost.

“It was not safe for her to return until Richard was gone. Now that he is—”

“I am looking for my brother. And my mother. Ada tells me they live still.”

Ari straightened, apparently over her shock. “We have also been searching for them. I'm afraid they don't want to be found.”

Ada stepped backward, slipping her arm around her friend. “We will find them, Charise. Do not worry. Christian and I…” Ada sighed, squeezing Charity's hand. “I feel him. I will find him.”

“Charise? I thought Charity called you, um, Charity.” Nev finally spoke from behind them. Shane had forgotten she and Livi were even there.

Ada chuckled. “We all have many names. I call her Charise. It was safer.”

“And far less confusing,” Shane piped in, and Will chuckled. Charity — his cousin Charity — looked at him and rolled her eyes. They shared the silver eyes and hair, but otherwise they looked nothing alike. Still, Shane couldn't help but wonder if Charity was some distant relative. And if Charity was, there was a good chance he was, as well.

“It has been a long journey. We are going to bed, but I thought it best to introduce her tonight. Before the chaos of the wedding,” Ada said, looking directly at Will.

“Good call, Mom.”

“Speaking of wedding,” Ada straightened, as if a gigantic burden had just been lifted from her shoulders. “Dani, we have some last minute things to discuss.”

Dani danced forward, linking her arm with Ada's and Charity—Charise. “That we do, Mom. I'll walk you home.”

“Well, I guess that's the end of that fire, isn't it? Will, you should get some sleep anyway. Big day tomorrow.” Ari smiled affectionately over at her brother. “I'll head to Mom's, too.”

“Wait, Ari. How about we be roommates for one more night. For old times' sake?” Will tried not to look panicked. Shane was guessing the thought of spending the night alone with his pre-wedding jitters was not something Will wanted to face.