Seeker

The sun was getting low in the sky over the Scottish estate as John walked away from the training barn. He and Quin had left the barn separately, as they always did, but he knew she would be waiting for him.

A thousand years ago, there had been a castle on the estate, which had belonged to some distant branch of Quin’s family. The castle was in ruins now, its crumbling towers perched above the wide river that encircled the land. As he walked, he could see the very highest point of the ruins in the distance.

Now the estate was made up of ancient cottages, most built over the centuries from stones carried off from the castle. The cottages were dotted around the edge of a huge meadow, called the commons. It was spring now, and the commons was full of wildflowers. Beyond the meadow, the woods began, a tall forest of oak and elm that crept right up to overshadow the houses and marched away to the ruins and beyond.

Barns lay at one end of the meadow. Some had animals in them, but others, like the enormous training barn, were where the apprentices practiced the skills they would need as Seekers.

John walked through the shadows at the edge of the woods, then headed deeper into the trees. Even with his tremendous failure on the practice floor hanging over him, he felt his pulse quickening. He was entering another world, when he was in the woods with Quin, away from the parts of his life that usually overshadowed everything. He hadn’t been alone with her in days, and finding her seemed more important than anything else at this moment.

She never chose the same spot to wait, but he must be getting close now. He was in their favorite part of the woods, where the canopies of the great trees touched overhead, blocking the sun and leaving the forest floor dark and quiet. A moment later, he felt hands encircling his waist and a chin sliding onto his shoulder.

“Hello,” she whispered into his ear.

“Hello,” he whispered back, smiling.

“Look what I found …”

She slipped her hand into his. Quin had dark hair cut chin length and a lovely face with ivory skin and large, dark eyes. Those eyes flashed at him mischievously as he followed. She led him to a stand of oaks that had grown in such a way as to create a tiny, secluded space in their center. She stepped through an opening between two of the trees and pulled John after her.

In a moment they were standing together inside the thicket. “It’s not exactly the finest room at the village inn,” she murmured.

“It’s better,” he said. “At an inn, you might be standing farther away.”

There wasn’t really enough room for both of them, and John was forced to pull her up against him, which was all right with him. He leaned down to kiss her, but Quin stopped him, putting her hands on either side of his face.

“I’m worried,” she whispered.

He could tell. He could feel it coming off her in waves, like heat off asphalt in the summer. She was right to be worried, of course. The knowledge they were being taught was ancient, and highly protected. And in John’s case, only perfection in his assigned tasks would win him the privilege of learning it. He was hardly a favorite of Briac’s. His failure in today’s fight was surely the excuse Briac had been looking for.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“I’ve never heard my father say anything quite so … final to you,” she said quietly. “What if he means to kick you out?”

The anticipation of meeting her in the forest had pushed aside John’s dread for a few minutes, but now it came back in full force. He was the strongest fighter of the three, yet he’d failed in the fight. He’d failed at the moment when he’d most needed to succeed.

He let his head fall back against a tree trunk. For a moment, he fought the sensation of a large stone pulling him to the bottom of the ocean. No, he thought, I can’t fail. I won’t.

His whole life was wrapped up in taking this oath. He was John Hart. He would get back what was taken and be at no one’s mercy again. He had promised, and he would keep the promise.

“Briac has to take this seriously,” he told Quin, working hard to sound reassuring, both to her and to himself. He must pull himself up from despair. “I was … horrible in that fight, wasn’t I? He’s got to be strict. He’s the ‘protector of hidden ways’ and all that. But he’s spent years training me. I’m almost there. It would be wrong to kick me out now.”

“Of course it would be wrong. It would be completely wrong. But he’s saying—”

“Your father’s an honorable man, isn’t he? He’s going to do what’s right. I’m not worried. And you shouldn’t be either.”

Quin nodded, but her dark eyes were full of doubt. He couldn’t blame her. John didn’t believe the things he was saying about Briac either. He knew very well the kind of man Quin’s father was, but he clung to the hope that Briac would keep his promises. There had been witnesses to those promises, and Briac must honor his commitments. If he didn’t …

He forced the thought away. Life had been good here on the estate with Quin—as good as his life had ever been, much better than he’d dared to hope for—and he didn’t want that to change.

Quin had made friends with John on the day he arrived. They’d been kids then—John only twelve—but even so, his first thought had been of how pretty she was.

In that first year, she and Shinobu both came to visit John in his own cottage frequently, but it was Quin’s visits alone he liked the most. She was fascinated with his descriptions of London, and eager to show him all of the estate.

When John’s mother had been alive, she’d warned him to keep up his guard around everyone, and he did. But he liked to hear about Quin’s family, about the lore of the estate. And Quin seemed to enjoy his company—not because he was wealthy or because his family was important but because she liked him. Just him. He’d never experienced that before. Even at twelve, John refused to let this move him—her interest might have been a trick, a way to get past his defenses and learn his secrets. Still, he spent time with her. With Shinobu he would practice fighting. With Quin he would take walks.

And she began to get … curves. He hadn’t realized how distracting curves could be. He knew he was in trouble when he was fourteen, sitting in their languages class, and he found himself examining the way Quin’s slender waist twisted into her hips. They were being asked to read aloud in Dutch, but he was imagining his hand tracing the line of her body. He tried to keep her from his mind, to stay as clear and calculating as his mother would have wanted him to be, but he couldn’t believe that Quin’s friendliness was false.

Then, when she was nearly fifteen, they were paired in an especially difficult practice match in the training barn. Alistair was sending them against each other again and again, demanding that they fight at the extreme limits of their strength.

“Come on, John. Strike her!” Alistair yelled, apparently thinking John was taking it easy on Quin.

Maybe he was taking it easy on her. It was winter, and her cheeks were flushed, her dark eyes bright with the exertion of the fight as she moved nimbly with her sword.

She struck him hard and he fell. Perhaps he’d let her hit him, because he didn’t mind falling. He imagined tumbling onto the floor with her … Then the fight was over and they were both breathing hard, staring at each other across the practice area.

Alistair dismissed them, and John found himself walking outside the training barn in a daze, trying to carry himself as far away from her as he could. He could not see where he was going. He could only see Quin. The desire to be with her was overwhelming.

He stopped around the back of the barn, hiding himself behind the trunks of the barren winter trees. There he leaned against the stone wall, his breath filling the air with steam.

He didn’t want to feel what he was feeling. His mother had warned him against love so many times. When you love, you open yourself to a dagger, she had told him all those years ago. When you love deeply, you have thrust the dagger into your own heart. Love did not fit into any of his plans. But how could you plan for this? It wasn’t just her beauty he wanted. It was all of her: the girl who talked to him, the girl who would bite her bottom lip when she was concentrating intensely, the girl who smiled when they walked through the woods together.

He pressed his cheek against the cold stone of the barn, feeling his heart beating wildly, trying to rid himself of the image of her.

Then Quin was there, walking past the end of the barn, only a few feet from him. She was staring ahead, into the woods, also dazed. Their eyes met, and suddenly he knew—he knew she had come looking for him.

John reached out his hand and grabbed the sleeve of her coat, pulling her toward him. And then her arms were around him. Neither of them had ever kissed anyone before, but all at once, he was kissing her. She was warm and soft, and she was kissing him back.

“I was hoping you would do that,” she whispered.

He’d meant to say something romantic and controlled, like You’re very beautiful, but instead the deeper truth came tumbling out of him. “I need you,” he whispered to her. “I don’t want to be alone … I love you, Quin …”

Then they were kissing again.

There were heavy footsteps approaching, twigs breaking. It was Alistair; they could recognize his tread anywhere.

Suddenly they were apart, pushing away from each other. And by the time Alistair reached the end of the barn, Quin had disappeared around the other side, with a final glance at John.

That began their forest meetings. Quin was quite sure her parents wouldn’t approve, so they kept their feelings for each other secret. But eventually it was obvious that everyone on the estate knew of their changed relationship—after a while, John sensed something colder in Briac’s stare, and a subtle irritation in Shinobu’s attitude.

John had tried to justify his feelings. Perhaps it was love he felt, but couldn’t love also be an advantage? Wouldn’t Briac have to care more about him when he understood how much he and Quin cared for each other? If he could eventually convince Briac to let her marry him, it would create an alliance, wouldn’t it? An alliance with Briac wouldn’t be pleasant, but it might be a way to fulfill his own promise, at least for a time.

Surely a feeling that made John so happy could not be bad.

Now, between the trees with his arms around Quin, he marveled at how right it felt. When they were alone, he could imagine that she would be by his side for everything to come. Eventually she would understand, even about her own father …

“I don’t want you to worry,” he told her, making her look into his eyes. “I’ll be a Seeker, just like you. Even if it takes me a little while to get there. It’s meant to be, the two of us together.”

The trouble cleared from Quin’s face a little. She almost smiled. “It’s meant to be,” she agreed. “Of course it is.” Her certainty gave him heart. “Look,” she went on. “You’re stronger than Shinobu. You’re a lot stronger than I am. You might be smarter than either of us. There are just some things you don’t do quite as well.”

“If you mean the disruptor—”

“I do mean the disruptor. We’re all scared of it.”

“I wasn’t just scared,” John answered, reliving the moment in his mind. “I couldn’t move, Quin. I imagined those sparks covering me—”

“Stop.” She said it firmly, and John realized his despair was rising again. He must focus, especially today. “You don’t want to end up in agony with your mind turning on itself,” she continued. “Of course you don’t. But you have to think of the disruptor as a weapon like any other weapon. We use our mental control to avoid it in a fight.”

“ ‘My mind is a muscle that’s always slightly tensed,’ ” John responded, quoting Alistair, who was their favorite instructor. “Only—I’m not sure that works for me when there’s a disruptor involved.”

“Try to concentrate on the higher purpose of our training,” she told him gently, “on how lucky we are to have this as our calling. Being a Seeker is bigger than you or me, bigger than personal fears.” Her voice was growing passionate, as it often did on this topic. “We’re part of something … exceptional. I get just as scared, but that’s how I fight my fear. It’s not just about disruptors, you know. You need the mental control when you go There. Or you’ll never come out.”

John realized he was looking at her with pity. She was a girl with stars in her eyes, born into the wrong family, and the wrong century. Yes, they were part of something exceptional, something bigger than themselves, but he would describe it in very different words—words such as “ruthless” and “vicious.” Briac was both of those things. John knew she would be going There tonight, and then beyond, when she took her oath. Quin might not yet realize the purpose of doing so, but John did. His mother, at least, had been honest with him, where Quin’s father had not been honest with her.

What would she feel when she discovered the truth? That there may have been noble Seekers once, but nobility was not Briac’s style? That her skills were going to be used for a very different purpose?

Softly he asked her, “What do you think you’ll be doing tonight when you take your oath?”

“Briac said it would be a task that requires all of our skills.” He watched her eyes growing distant. “Whatever it is, I feel like every generation of my family for a thousand years is waiting for me to join them,” she said. “My whole life has led up to today.”

John too felt the generations stretching behind him, waiting for him to take his oath. He had promised—Get it back and repay them for what they’ve done. Our house will rise.

“And what about the athame?” he asked quietly, pronouncing the word “ATH-uh-may.”

Quin was surprised, as he had expected her to be, for John was not yet privy to all of the secret knowledge that had been given to Quin and Shinobu. He watched her studying him, wondering where he’d learned the word.

“If you know about that,” she said, “then you’re already halfway to knowing everything.”

“I know it’s what Briac’s talking about when he mentions ‘the most valuable artifact in the history of mankind.’ And I know it’s a stone dagger.”

“Even I have only seen it, John. A couple of times. I’ve never used it.”

“Until tonight,” he pointed out.

“Until tonight,” she agreed. She was smiling now, her excitement at the upcoming events returning.

In the distance, they heard loud, happy shouts. Quin ducked down and leaned through the opening between the trees, and John crouched next to her. From this angle, just barely, they had a glimpse across the commons. The shouts were coming from the cottages on the far side of the meadow. It was Shinobu with his father, both yelling about how well Shinobu had done in the fight. Alistair might be gruff and brutal on the practice floor, but with his son, in his free time, he was a teddy bear of a man.

It had always seemed to John that Shinobu was in love with Quin, but since they were cousins of some sort, there was never a question of Quin feeling anything romantic toward Shinobu. And eventually, once he’d had Quin to himself, he’d been able to treat Shinobu with more friendliness.

“They’re celebrating,” John whispered. “We should celebrate.”

“What did you have in mind?” she asked softly.

John slowly pulled her toward him and kissed her. This time she didn’t turn away.

They had always stopped themselves from doing anything more. Quin was waiting. She had her oath to take and at least a year more under her parents’ guidance before they would consider her an adult. But she and John had daydreamed about camping trips across the river, or rooms in an inn somewhere, someday, when they would finally be able to give themselves to each other.

Now, however, something was different. Maybe it was her anticipation of the evening to come, or the glow of her triumph in the fight, but John felt something more in the way she was kissing him. She loves me, he thought, and I love her. I want her to be with me, even when she knows everything. The forest floor was covered with years of fallen leaves, and John pulled her down onto that soft ground. He whispered, “Let’s go to my cottage—”

“Shh,” she said, putting a hand to his lips. “Look.”

From where they lay, they could see a figure emerging from deeper in the woods, heading toward them. John pulled Quin up, hiding them from view behind the branches. They watched as the figure got close enough to identify. It was the Young Dread, with a string of dead rabbits slung over her shoulder.

From the look of her face, they had figured her age at about fourteen, though of course, with the Dreads, age was a tricky thing. The Young Dread had arrived on the estate a few months ago, along with the other Dread, the one they called the Big Dread—a burly, dangerous-looking man who appeared to be in his thirties.

Briac had been vague in describing the Dreads’ purpose for being there, but they were, apparently, to oversee the taking of oaths. Briac, who showed deference to almost no one, seemed strangely respectful toward the Big Dread. The apprentices had decided a Dread was a kind of judge of Seeker training, with a history at which they were forced to guess, since their instructors gave no more than hints.

If the Young Dread was indeed fourteen, she was short for her age. Her body was slender to the point of looking underfed, but her muscles told a different story. They were like delicate ropes of steel holding together her small frame. She had hair of an unremarkable dishwater brown, but it was thick and hung almost to her waist. It looked as though it had never been cut and had rarely been brushed, as though she’d received all her grooming advice from the Big Dread, who obviously knew nothing about raising girls.

She walked toward them with the strange gait shared by both Dreads. Her movements seemed slow, almost stately, like a ballet dancer during a particularly sad or serious part of the performance. And then, without warning, she would move at an entirely different speed. As they watched, there was a bird call from the meadow, and the Young Dread’s head whipped around, almost too fast for their eyes to follow the motion. When she had identified the source of the noise, she continued on her way, as steady and fluid as a marble sculpture brought to life.

“Watch this,” Quin whispered, so softly that John could barely hear her, though his head was still only inches from hers. Silently, she pulled her knife from her waistband. She waited until the Dread had walked into a patch of sunlight that would make her momentarily blind to motion in the shadows. Then Quin drew back her arm and threw the knife at the Young Dread as hard as she could.

The blade arced through the shadows expertly, aimed just ahead of where the Dread was walking, so she would carry herself straight into its path and it would impale the side of her head.

Yet that was not what happened.

The Young Dread continued her steady approach until the weapon was almost upon her. Then her whole body exploded into action. Her right arm whipped forward and caught the knife out of the air. She spun around so quickly, she almost appeared to blur against the forest backdrop, and she released the blade back toward them much like a thundercloud releases a bolt of lightning. It was propelled at such high speed that they could hear it whistling through the air, and both John and Quin ducked.

It made a perfect arc from the Dread, around the edge of the cluster of trees, and buried itself to the hilt just inches from where Quin’s hand still rested against the tree trunk. The vibration of its impact traveled all the way down the tree, and John could feel it in his feet.

“Nice shot,” Quin called, waving at the girl. “Maybe you’ll teach me how to do that sometime.”

The Dread’s eyes traveled slowly over their hiding spot, almost as if she were examining them minutely, even from that distance. Something about her gaze made them uncomfortable, and instinctively Quin and John moved a step away from each other, as though their intimacy could not survive her fierce stare. The Young Dread looked as if she might say something, but she never got the chance.

There was a new noise above the forest. The Dread and Quin and John looked up to see an aircar, throwing off a low vibration, circling to land in the commons. An aircar was such a rare sight on the estate that even the Dread stared at the vehicle for several seconds before turning away and resuming her steady walk.

John and Quin hurried to the edge of the meadow in time to see a man get out of the car and head toward Briac’s cottage on the far side of the commons. When John caught sight of the man, he began to run, sticking to the trees but moving quickly, trying to get a better view.

Quin caught up with him. “What is it?”

The visitor turned for a moment, looking around the estate. John stopped running. Was he imagining things? The man’s face looked familiar. But sometimes, when he was on the estate for months at a time, far from London and crowds, he found that every new face looked familiar.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Do you think you can find out who he is?”

“I’m sure Briac will tell us if it’s important.”

“I’m not,” John said quietly. He glanced at Quin and said mischievously, “But if eavesdropping makes you nervous …”

“Nervous?” She pushed him indignantly, and he was pleased to notice her now studying the visitor with more interest. John wanted as few surprises as possible when it came to Briac. “Hmm,” she said. “I’ll come find you if I learn anything.” She kissed John lightly on the lips. “I know Briac will do right by you tonight. He’ll say something harsh, but he’s not going to stop your training. Of course not.”

With that, she ran ahead of him, toward the cottages. John could already feel himself bracing for the coming confrontation with Briac. He watched Quin go, her dark hair swinging, her body graceful—but not the slow grace of the Young Dread. Quin was full of life.