Hidden

CHAPTER EIGHT

  Shaunee

  "Damien, I think I should stay way away from the stables. Lenobia has had a massive overdose of fire lately. " Shaunee looked from Damien to Erin. The three of them had moved off with each other when Z had told them to scatter, but instead of actually scattering they hung together, trying to figure out where each of them, with their elements, would do the most good.

  "That is a good point," Damien agreed. "It makes more sense for you to go over by Dragon's pyre. You'll be needed there soon. "

  Shaunee's shoulders slumped. "Yeah, I know, but it's not something I'm looking forward to. "

  "Just get into your element and it'll be easy," Erin spoke up.

  Shaunee blinked at her, not just surprised that she'd spoken-Erin had definitely been avoiding speaking to her since they'd un-Twined-but surprised at her off-handed tone. She was talking about burning Dragon's body as if it were no more than lighting a match. "Nothing about Dragon's funeral will be easy, Erin. With or without my element. "

  "I didn't mean easy easy. " Erin looked annoyed. Shaunee thought that it seemed these days Erin always looked annoyed. "I just meant that when you really get into your element other things don't bother you so much. But maybe you're just not that into your element. "

  "That's bullshit. " Shaunee felt the heat of building anger. "My affinity for fire isn't any less than yours for water. "

  Erin shrugged. "Whatever. I was just trying to help you out. From now on I'll quit trying. " She turned to Damien, who was looking from one to the other of them as if he wasn't sure whether he should jump in between them or run in the opposite direction. "I'm gonna go to the stables. Lenobia will be glad to see water, and I don't have an issue with using my element. " Without another word, Erin walked away.

  "Has she always been like that?" Shaunee heard herself asking Damien the question that had been circling around in her mind for days.

  "You'll have to define that. "

  "Heartless. "

  "Honestly?"

  "Yeah. Has Erin always been so heartless?"

  "That's really difficult for me to answer, Shaunee. " Damien was speaking softly, as if he thought he needed to be careful his words didn't bruise her.

  "Just tell me the truth, even if it is hard," she said.

  "Well, then, honestly until the two of you broke up it was mostly impossible to tell what each of you was like individually. I'd never known one of you without the other. You two finished each other's sentences. It was like you were two halves of a whole. "

  "But not now?" Shaunee prodded when he hesitated.

  "No, now it's different. Now you're individuals with your own personalities. " He smiled at her. "The nicest way I can put this is that it's pretty obvious to most of us that your personality is the one with the heart. "

  Shaunee stared after Erin. "I knew it before, and it bugged me. You know, the way she could be so sarcastic and gossipy and mean. But she could also be so funny and cool to hang out with. "

  "Funny usually at other people's expense," Damien said. "Cool because she excluded others to make herself seem better than everyone else. "

  Shaunee met his gaze. "I know. I see it now. Back then all I could see was that we were best friends, and I needed a best friend. "

  "What about now?" he asked.

  "Now I need to be able to like myself, and I can't do that if I'm only one half of a whole person. I'm also tired of always having to say something sarcastic or witty or just downright hateful. " She shook her head, feeling sad and really old. "That doesn't mean I think Erin's awful. Actually, I want her to be as cool and funny and great as I used to believe she was. I guess I've just come to realize that she has to either be, or not be, those things on her own. It doesn't have anything to do with me. "

  "You're smarter than I thought you were," Damien admitted.

  "I'm still crap at school. "

  He smiled. "There are other kinds of smart. "

  "That's good news for me. "

  "Hey, don't underestimate yourself. You might actually be good at school if you tried a little. "

  "I know that sounds like a good thing to you, but I'm fine with the 'other kinds of smart' part. " Damien laughed, and Shaunee added, "I'm gonna head to the pyre. Maybe hanging around there will help. "

  "Help you or the Warriors?"

  "Either. Both. I don't know," Shaunee said with a sigh.

  "I'm going to believe that it'll help both," he said. "I'm going to move around-like air. I'll try to blow away some of the Darkness that's clinging to this place. "

  "You feel it, too?"

  He nodded. "I can feel that the energy here is bad. Too much negative has happened in too short a time. " Damien cocked his head, studying Shaunee. "Now that I've considered it more, I don't think you should stay away from the stables. Fire isn't bad. You're not bad. Lenobia knows that. Remember how you made the horses' hooves heat up so that we could ride them through the ice storm?"

  "I remember. " Shaunee did, and the memory made her feel lighter.

  "Then go to the pyre-help there-but go to the stables, as well. Remind everyone that fire can do a lot more than destroy. It's how it's wielded that's important. "

  "I'm guessing you mean something like it's how fire is used that's important?"

  Damien's grin widened. "See, I told you that you might be good at school. Wield is an excellent vocab word: to have or be able to use, as in power or influence. "

  "You're making my head hurt," Shaunee said, but she also laughed.

  "So, I'll see you at the stables later?"

  "Yeah, you will. "

  Damien started to walk away and then turned back to her, giving Shaunee a quick, tight hug. "I'm glad you became your own person. And if you need a friend, I'm here for you," he told her, and then he hurried off in the general direction of the stables.

  Shaunee blinked back tears and smiled, watching his fluffy brown hair bounce around in his own little breeze. "Fire," she whispered, "send a little spark with Damien. He deserves to find a hot guy to make him happy, especially because he always tries so hard to make others happy. "

  Feeling better than she had in weeks, Shaunee walked in a different direction. Her steps were slower, more deliberate than Damien's, but she wasn't dreading where she was going anymore. She wasn't looking forward to the pyre and the burning-she wasn't Erin. She couldn't just shut out sadness and pain by freezing her feelings. And you know what? I wouldn't want to be cold and frozen inside, even if it meant I didn't hurt as much, she decided silently.

  Shaunee was centering herself and drawing strength from the steady warmth of her element. Thank you, Nyx. I'll try to wield it well, was what she was thinking when the immortal's voice intruded.

  "I have not thanked you. "

  Shaunee looked up to see Kalona standing near the big statue of Nyx that stood before the school's Temple. He was wearing jeans and a leather vest, one that looked a lot like what Dragon used to wear. Only this vest was bigger and it had slits through which Kalona's black wings emerged and then tucked against his back. This vest also didn't bear the insignia of the Goddess on it, but that was hard to think about when he was staring at her like that with his otherworldly amber eyes.

  He really is absolutely, inhumanly gorgeous. Shaunee shook the thought from her mind and focused instead on what he'd said. "Thank me? What for?"

  "For giving me your cell phone. Without it Stevie Rae would not have been able to call me. Rephaim might be dead were it not for you. "

  Shaunee's face was warm. She shrugged, not sure why she suddenly felt so nervous. "You're the one who came when she called. You could've just not answered and kept being a shitty dad. " Shaunee realized what she'd said after she blurted it and pressed her lips together, telling herself stop speaking!

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence, and then Kalona said, "What you say is the truth. I have not been a good father to my sons. I am still not bein
g a good father to all of my sons. "

  Shaunee looked at him, wondering exactly what he meant. His voice sounded weird. She would have expected him to be sad or serious or even pissed. Instead he just seemed surprised and a little awkward, as if the thoughts he was thinking were just now occurring to him. She wished she could see his expression, but his face was turned away from her. He was gazing at Nyx's statue.

  "Well," she began, not really having a clue what to say to him. "You're fixing your relationship with Rephaim. Maybe it's not too late to fix your relationship with your other sons, too. I know if my dad showed up and wanted to have something to do with me, I'd let him. I'd at least give him a chance. " The immortal's head turned and he stared at her. Shaunee felt jittery, like those amber eyes could see too much of her. "What I mean is, I don't think it's ever too late to do the right thing. "

  "You believe that, honestly?"

  "Yeah. Lately I've believed it more and more. " She wished he'd look away from her. "So, how many kids do you have?"

  He shrugged. His massive wings lifted slightly before settling again. "I have lost count. "

  "Seems like knowing how many kids you have is a good place to start in the whole I'd-like-to-be-a-good-dad thing. "

  "Knowing a thing and acting on a thing are distinctly different," he said.

  "Yeah, totally. But I said it's a good place to start. " Shaunee jerked her head toward Nyx's statue. "That's also a good place to start. "

  "At the Goddess's statue?"

  She frowned at him, feeling a little easier under his gaze. "There's more to it than just hanging out at her statue. Try asking for her-"

  "Forgiveness is not granted to all of us!" his voice thundered.

  Shaunee felt herself begin to tremble, but her eyes shifted to Nyx's statue. She could almost swear that the full, beautiful, marble lips tilted up, smiling kindly at her. Whether it was her imagination or not, it gave Shaunee the burst of courage she needed and the fledgling continued in a rush, "I wasn't gonna say forgiveness. I was gonna say help. Try asking for Nyx's help. "

  "Nyx would not hear me. " Kalona spoke so quietly that Shaunee almost didn't hear him. "She has not heard me for eons. "

  "During those eons how many times did you ask for her help?"

  "Not once," he said.

  "Then how do you know she's not listening to you?"

  Kalona shook his head. "Have you been sent to me to be my conscience?"

  It was Shaunee's turn to shake her head in denial. "I haven't been sent to you, and Goddess knows I have enough trouble dealing with my own conscience. I sure as hell can't be anyone else's. "

  "I would not be so sure, young fiery fledging . . . I would not be so sure," he mused, and then, abruptly, Kalona turned away from her, took several long, swift steps, and launched himself into the night sky.

  Rephaim

  He didn't mind all that much that most of the other kids still avoided him. Damien was nice, but Damien was nice to just about everyone, so Rephaim wasn't sure if the boy's kindness had much of anything to do with him. At least Stark and Darius weren't trying to kill him or keep him from Stevie Rae. Recently Darius even seemed a little friendly. The Son of Erebus Warrior had actually helped him when he'd stumbled onto the bus the night before, still weak from his magickally healed injury.

  Father saved me and then pledged himself as Death's Warrior. He does love me, and he is choosing the side of Light against Darkness. The thought of it made Rephaim smile, even though the former Raven Mocker was not as naive and trusting as Stevie Rae and the others believed him to be. Rephaim wanted his father to continue on Nyx's path-wanted it badly. But he, better than anyone except the Goddess herself, knew the anger and violence the fallen immortal had wallowed in for centuries.

  That Rephaim existed was proof of his father's ability to cause other's great pain.

  Rephaim's shoulders slumped. He'd come to the part of the school grounds where the destroyed oak lay-half against the wall of the school-half on the ground inside. The center of the thick old tree appeared as if it had been struck by a lightning bolt hurled by an angry god.

  Rephaim knew better.

  His father was an immortal, but he wasn't a god. Kalona was a Warrior, and a fallen one.

  Feeling oddly disturbed, Rephaim's gaze moved from the gash that was the destruction at the center of the tree. He sat on one of the downed limbs well toward the edge of the tree's broken canopy, studying the thick boughs that rested against the school's east wall.

  "That needs to be fixed," Rephaim spoke aloud, filling up the silent night with the humanness of his own voice. "Stevie Rae and I could work on it together. Perhaps the tree is not a complete loss. " He smiled. "My Red One healed me. Why not a tree?"

  The tree didn't answer, but as Rephaim spoke he had the strangest sensation of deja vu. Like he'd been there before, and not just during another school day. Been there before with the wind in his wings and the brilliant blue of the daylight sky beckoning to him.

  Rephaim's brow furrowed and he rubbed it, feeling a headache build. Did he come here during the day when he was a raven, when his humanity was hidden so deeply within him that those hours passed as a shadowy, indistinct blur of sight and sound and scent?

  The only answer that came to Rephaim was the dull throbbing in his temples.

  The wind moved around him, rustling through the downed boughs, causing the sparse, winter-browned leaves that still clung tenaciously to the old oak to whisper. For a moment it seemed the tree was trying to speak to him-trying to tell him its secrets.

  Rephaim's gaze shifted back to the center of the tree. Shadows. Broken bark. Splintered trunk. Exposed roots. And it looked like the ground near the center of the tree had already begun to erode in upon itself, almost like there was a pit forming beneath it.

  Rephaim shivered. There had been a pit below the tree. One that had imprisoned Kalona within the earth for centuries. The memory of those centuries, and the terrible, semi-substantial existence filled with anger and violence and loneliness that he had lived during that time, was still part of the heavy burden Rephaim bore.

  "Goddess, I know you have forgiven me for my past, and for that I will always be grateful. But, could you, perhaps, teach me how to truly forgive myself?"

  The breeze rustled again. The sound was soothing, as if the tree's ancient whispering could be the voice of the Goddess.

  "I will take that as a sign," Rephaim spoke aloud to the tree, pressing his open palm to the bark beside him. "I will ask Stevie Rae to help me make right the violence that shattered you. Soon. I give my word. I will return soon. " When Rephaim walked away to continue his patrol of the school's perimeter, he thought he might have heard a stirring deep beneath the tree, and imagined it was the old oak thanking him.

  Aurox

  Aurox paced in agitation, covering the small, hollowed-out space beneath the shattered oak in three strides. Then he turned, and took three short strides back. Back and forth, back and forth, he went. Thinking . . . thinking . . . thinking . . . and wishing desperately that he had a plan.

  His head pained him. He had not broken his skull when he'd fallen into the pit, but the lump on his head had bled and swollen. He hungered. He thirsted. He found it difficult to rest within the earth, though his body was exhausted and he needed to sleep so that he might heal.

  Why had he believed it a good idea to return to this school-to hide on the very grounds where the professor he had killed, as well as the boy he had attempted to kill-lived?

  Aurox put his head in his hands. Not me! He wanted to shout the words. I did not kill Dragon Lankford. I did not attack Rephaim. I chose differently! But his choice hadn't mattered. He had transformed into a beast. That beast had left death and destruction in his wake.

  It had been foolish of him to come here. Foolish to believe he could find himself here or do any good. Good? If anyone knew he was hiding at the school he would be attacked, im
prisoned, possibly killed. Even though he was not here to do harm, it would not matter. He would absorb the rage of those who discovered him, and the beast would emerge. He would not be able to control it. The Sons of Erebus Warriors would surround him and end his miserable existence.

  I controlled it once before. I did not attack Zoey. But would he even get an opportunity to try to explain that he meant no harm? Even have an instant to test his self-control and to prove he was more than the beast within him? Aurox resumed his pacing. No, his intent would not matter to anyone at the House of Night. All they would see would be the beast.

  Even Zoey? Would even Zoey be against him?

  "Zoey shielded you from the Warriors. It was because of her protection that you were able to flee. " Grandma Redbird's voice soothed his turbulent thoughts. Zoey had shielded him. She'd believed that he could control the beast enough not to harm her. Her grandmother had offered him sanctuary. Zoey could not want him dead.

  The others would, though.

  Aurox didn't blame them. He deserved death. Regardless of the fact that he had, recently, begun to feel, to long for a different life, a different choice, it did not change the past. He had committed violent, vile acts. He had done anything Priestess had commanded.

  Neferet . . .

  Even silent, an unspoken word in his mind, the name sent a shudder through his agitated body.

  The beast within him wanted to go to Priestess. The beast within him needed to serve her.

  "I am more than a beast. " The earth around him absorbed the words, muffling Aurox's humanity. In despair, he grabbed a twisted root and began to pull himself up and out of the dirt pit.

  "That needs to be fixed. "

  The words drifted down to Aurox. His body froze. He recognized the voice-Rephaim. Grandma had told him the truth. The boy lived.

  Aurox's invisible load lifted slightly.

  That was one death that did not need to be on his conscience.

  Aurox crouched, silently straining to hear to whom Rephaim spoke. He didn't feel anger or violence. Surely if Rephaim had any idea whatsoever that Aurox was hidden so close, the boy would be filled with feelings of vengeance, would he not?

  Time seemed to pass slowly. The wind increased. Aurox could hear it whipping through the dry leaves of the broken tree above him. He caught words that floated with the cool air: work . . . tree . . . Red One healed . . . All in Rephaim's voice, absent of malice, as if he just mused aloud. And then the breeze brought him the boy's prayer: "Goddess, I know you have forgiven me for my past, and for that I will always be grateful. But, could you, perhaps, teach me how to truly forgive myself?" Aurox hardly breathed.

  Rephaim was asking for his goddess's help to forgive himself? Why?

  Aurox rubbed his throbbing head and thought hard. Priestess had rarely spoken to him, except to command him to execute an act of violence. But she had spoken around him, as if Aurox had not had the ability to hear her or to formulate thoughts of his own. What did he know about Rephaim? He was the immortal Kalona's son. He was cursed to be a boy by night, a raven by day.

  Cursed?

  He had just heard Rephaim praying, and in that prayer he had acknowledged Nyx's forgiveness. Surely a goddess would not curse and forgive with the same breath.

  Then with a little start of surprise, Aurox remembered the raven that had mocked him and made such a noise that it had caused Aurox to fall into this pit.

  Could that have been Rephaim? Aurox's body tensed as he readied himself for the seemingly inevitable confrontation to come.

  "I give my word. I will return soon," Rephaim's voice drifted down to Aurox. The boy was leaving, though temporarily. Aurox relaxed against the earthen wall. His body ached and his mind whirred.

  That he could not stay in the pit was obvious, but that was all that was obvious to Aurox.

  Had Rephaim's goddess, the one who had forgiven him, also led him to Aurox's pit? If so, was it to show Aurox redemption or revenge?

  Should he turn himself in, perhaps to Zoey, and take whatever consequences were meted out?

  What if the beast emerged again, and this time he could not control it at all?

  Should he flee?

  Should he go to Priestess and demand answers?

  "I know nothing," he whispered to himself. "I know nothing. "

  Aurox bowed his head under the weight of his confusion and longing. Tentatively, silently, he mimicked Rephaim with his own prayer. It was simple. It was sincere. And it was the first time in his life Aurox had ever prayed.

  Nyx, if you are, indeed, a forgiving goddess, please help me . . . please . . .