I nodded because I fully understood. “It will become easier with more time.”
She took another deep breath and faced me resolutely. “That’s all I know about Arrow,” she finished.
When we reached the automobile I left parked at the entrance of the eastern side of the forest, I could have exhaled a sigh of relief. From here, we had to drive to the airport where we would board the next plane bound for the United Kingdom.
But my mind was not centered on our trip home. No, I was too busy replaying every move I made while at Luce’s camp. I tried to recall the way I managed to make it past the wards that secured the perimeter and the buildings …
My mind shifted to thoughts of Lady Bryn. I wondered what her reaction would be once she discovered where I was and what I did there. Certainly she would welcome me with open arms after learning how I avenged her?
Yes, it was certainly a homecoming that I anticipated eagerly.
FOUR
Bryn
The tension in the air was thick. I stood with my back to the large window inside the nursery and looked at Jolie, Mathilda standing at her side. In the background, I could faintly hear my niece gurgling over her mobile of stars and moons that slowly orbited her crib.
My hands were clenched tightly at my sides and my heart was beating faster and harder, making my chest ache so much, it nearly crippled me. I managed to ask through my gnashing teeth, “What do you mean he went after the men who hurt me?” Anger filled my head as I thought about the death sentence Sinjin must have incurred. The hardest thing for me to understand was why Jolie allowed him to do it. She should have known better! “What are you telling me, Jolie?”
Putting her finger up to her mouth, she shushed me and nodded toward my niece. She’d already suggested we should take our discussion outside, but I was too furious to move. Furious and scared. Glancing down at my angelic niece’s face, I restrained the explosion building up inside of me and obediently followed my sister out of the room.
We walked in silence down the hallway until we reached the double doors that led to the courtyard. Mathilda, respecting our privacy, stayed behind with Princess Emma.
Once we were outside, I couldn’t contain my anger any longer. “Why would you ever allow him to do that?”
Jolie put her hand out and tried to calm me, but I abruptly pulled my arm away. “It wasn’t an easy decision,” she started. “But this is Sinjin we’re talking about.”
“So what?”
“So how do you expect me to stop Sinjin from doing anything that he intends to do? You know him better than that.”
Despite my loathing to admit it, she was right. No one could stop Sinjin from doing what he set his mind on doing. It would have been easier to stop a runaway freight train or the incoming tide. My sister, his queen, had no more control over him than anyone else did.
Anger continued to pump through me, but truth be told, now I wasn’t even sure why I was so angry. Of course I didn’t want Sinjin meddling in my business. I wasn’t a helpless woman in need of his protection or revenge. And I certainly didn’t need Sinjin fighting my battles for me, but he had avenged me, something which on the outset seemed … laudable.
“I can’t believe he would have done something so completely stupid,” I said while shaking my head and taking a deep breath, just as quickly talking myself out of praising him.
“It just goes to show how much he cares about you,” Jolie answered.
“No,” I snapped at her. “It goes to show how big his ego is! So big that he would risk putting himself in such an impossible situation.” I exhaled deeply. “You do realize, don’t you, that Luce has probably already killed him?”
My nightmare suddenly came back to haunt me and I had to forcibly banish the violent images out of my addled brain.
“I don’t believe Sinjin is dead,” Jolie responded calmly.
“Well, how do you know that?” I demanded. “Have you heard from him? Do you know where he is? Do you know what’s happened to him or if he actually escaped?”
Jolie shook her head. “He knows better than to try to contact me. He is well aware that Luce could trace the call with his magic.”
“So we don’t know anything?” I snapped.
“Maybe not. All we can do now is put our trust in Sinjin and hope that he knows what he’s doing.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Sinjin is as helpless as a newborn kitten compared to Luce!” Bleak scenes from my nightmare returned anew. “And what if Sinjin does escape? What does that mean for you? Or for us?”
“I don’t follow,” Jolie answered, her casual nonchalance was so irritating all on its own. Couldn’t she understand the weight of this situation?
“If he isn’t dead already, and he actually managed to escape, what do you think that means for your people? For our people? Do you think Luce will just ignore Sinjin’s attack and let it go?” My body trembled with anger as I thought about how idiotic this whole situation was becoming. What the hell was Sinjin thinking?
“No, obviously I don’t expect that,” Jolie retorted with a frown.
“And what about my nightmare, Jolie?” I continued. “Now, knowing what I do, I’m really starting to wonder if it was more than just a bad dream.”
“I don’t know, Bryn,” Jolie answered as she shook her head.
“That’s the problem,” I sighed, glancing down at the ground. “No one knows what to make of it.”
“Have you ever had a premonition before?” Jolie asked, and I saw more concern in her eyes.
“Not that I know of,” I answered despondently. All I could do was keep wondering if I’d ever see Sinjin again. I couldn’t help thinking the answer to that question was a blaring “no.” Even though hope continued to rain down over me, it was simple logic that defied my wishful thinking. And logic insisted that anyone going up against Luce would lose.
At the thought that Luce had killed Sinjin, I could feel my temper rising rapidly. The heat in my body began to scorch my insides, extending outward until I could feel the flush of warmth on my skin. I flashed back to the night when Jack Jeffers had pawed at me with his filthy hands and how something strange had happened. I’d felt overwhelmingly hot and like a ticking time bomb, I’d exploded into flames—a hot, blazing inferno that burned Jack, forcing him away from me.
While whatever had happened to me had protected me from Jack, the last thing I ever wanted was for something like that to occur around my sister … and the princess. So I concentrated on taming my temper, on forcing the anger back down again so I could talk to her with the voice of reason.
“If Sinjin is in trouble, he’ll need help,” I started to say with a deep exhale. “And if anyone can help him, it’s me. I know the camp like the back of my hand. I also know how Luce thinks.”
“No way.” Those two words seemed so final—and she said them so stubbornly that once again, my blood rose up in defiance and began to boil.
“So you’d rather just let him die?” I yelled as I crossed my arms against my chest. “Or worse, become a helpless puppet for Luce?” My voice rose higher with each word I said, and I saw Jolie’s eyes widening slightly. The worry she felt was clearly evident in her crisp, blue orbs.
“Sinjin can handle himself, Bryn,” she replied, but her tone betrayed her message and I knew that even she wasn’t fully convinced of it. “There’s a reason he managed to survive this long. He’s extremely smart and very powerful.” She held my gaze and took a big breath. “Besides, what logic is there in sending you back? Especially since neither one of us knows if he’s even still there. What if he’s already on his way back here?!” She started shaking her head adamantly. “I’m not letting you go, and that is my final answer!”
Even though I hated her telling me what to do, I couldn't find fault with her logic. There was a chance that Sinjin had escaped, and if so, there was no reason to jump back into the line of fire.
But none of that helped my mood. I was still pissed off and needed to vent some stea
m. Every time I thought about Sinjin going out to avenge me, my anger sparked all over again. I had to seek a healthy outlet to release it. So I just nodded at Jolie before I started walking away.
“Where are you going, Bryn?” she asked.
“For a walk or a run or anything physical to get my mind off this whole mess.” Turning, I glanced back at my sister and added, “I just … I just need to be alone right now.”
***
Standing in the forest with my legs slightly apart, I let my arms rest at my sides. My eyes were closed. In the midst of the forest and nature, I was searching for something, trying to locate my center point in order to ground myself. It could have been a form of meditation, I didn’t know. But it was a practice I’d always done whenever I sought better self-understanding. And right now, I needed to deal with my red-hot anger that kept consuming me and threatening to overtake me.
It wasn’t that I considered anger a bad emotion. Not necessarily. Growing up with Luce, I learned to be a warrior, and in order to be a formidable one, it was necessary for me to hate my enemy. Anger was widely considered a good thing in battle and training for battle. But in the past, I’d always been able to manage my fury. That didn’t seem to be the case anymore. Something was off. Something was very different.
I opened my eyes and took in the myriad pine trees. Their rows seemed never-ending. I was in the exact location where Sinjin and I once practiced my magic. That was the last time I’d seen him. We were working on my detection skills, and I had to sense him whenever he materialized or dematerialized into the ether. That was, of course, before he foolishly chose to confront an entire compound of adversaries: nearly one hundred Daywalkers and Elementals, and he did it singlehandedly.
At the thought, the burning anger inside me returned, like acid eating away at my stomach.
Just who in the hell did he think he was? What gave him the right to go after the men who raped me? Why would he have thought it was okay without asking for my consent?
The more I thought about it, the madder I became. Why? Because those sons of bitches took something that belonged to me; therefore, I should have been the seeker as well as the plotter of my own revenge. It should have been my call, not Sinjin’s.
But I also knew that Sinjin never would have allowed me to seek my own revenge. Not by myself anyway. He would have insisted on going with me.
That was because he cared.
I caught myself on the thought. Did he really care? Or was he simply seeking favor from Jolie, his queen? Was he protective of me because I was Jolie’s sister, and therefore, a member of the royalty in my own right? Sinjin had sworn his allegiance as a loyal protector to the queen and her family, so wasn’t he only doing his job?
It doesn’t matter! I yelled in reply. He was wrong to avenge me! He was wrong and very stupid.
And now he could be dead.
A burdensome weight suddenly seized me, and I feared I would drop to the ground under its massive gravity.
He can’t be dead, I said to myself. Because if he were, I didn’t know what to do, or how to deal with it. I doubted if I would ever be the same again.
Another fiery plume started spiraling within me, but this time, it was because I cared, and maybe too much. Sometimes I felt like a hostage catering to my raw emotions. I tried to understand them, but feelings of love and respect and compassion were so new to me that I couldn’t say I welcomed them. Not yet. It seemed like an unnecessary illness. Once you opened up to love and all its attachments, you also put yourself on the path to grief.
“Please be alive, Sinjin,” I begged whoever might be listening. It could have only been the trees, the birds, or the curious breeze that wrapped around my body. “You can’t be dead.”
I closed my eyes and forced the ugly pictures away. I had a new mission now, one that needed all my energy and focus, which I surrendered wholeheartedly. If Sinjin were truly gone, a new protector had to replace him. And I was determined to assume that position. But first, I needed to train until I was completely certain I was as strong and fast as Sinjin was. I had to protect my sister and my niece. I had to make myself as powerful as Sinjin.
Just the thought of his name filled me with heartache. It was a feeling of loss unlike anything I’d ever known before. Suddenly, I yearned to hear his voice again, calling me bête noire, or pet, or tempest, whatever term of endearment he chose for me.
I miss him. God, I really miss him!
The truth of my own thoughts stunned me, but I honestly couldn’t deny it. I longed for him. I missed his witty remarks, his easy candor, and his calculating smirk that usually meant he was up to no good. I missed those piercing blue eyes which always narrowed when he was annoyed with me, which seemed to be a nightly occurrence. I missed his stories, his intelligence, and his humor. I missed the little things that showed he cared about me, even if I were nothing more than a job to him.
Alone now in the forest, I held a boomerang in my right hand and a box of ceramic training discs at my feet. I always preferred training with someone else, usually with Sinjin, but now it looked like I’d have to train alone. And it wasn’t like I wasn’t accustomed to training alone. I spent my whole life doing it.
The boomerang was no stranger to me either. I’d been throwing one for the last ten years at least. Leaning down, I picked up one of the discs from out of the box and studied it for a few moments. I had to familiarize myself with the target. Then I studied the boomerang in my other hand.
Made from the wood of a mulga tree, it was a cherished gift from Sinjin. He’d traveled all the way to Australia to select it for me, after insisting that the best boomerangs had to be Australian. Mine was crafted from the roots of the mulga tree, which apparently grow in the same shape as the boomerang itself. That was an important fact, Sinjin lectured me, because quite often, the tips of other boomerangs tend to break off when they hit the ground. That never happens, though, when the grain of the wood follows the same kidney shape.
My yearning to see Sinjin standing in front of me again, going on and on just as he had on the day when he gave me the boomerang, became physically painful. His lecture had exasperated me at the time and I’d been eager to get on with it. But not now. Now, I wished more than ever that the conceited vampire were standing here with me right now, explaining whatever he wanted to.
But he wasn’t here, and I was all by myself. I gulped down the acidic taste of remorse that crawled up my throat. Seeing the disc in my hand, I figured if I were going to stand out here in the middle of the forest, I might as well practice my training.
The disc was light and very easy to throw. But these weren’t just any ceramic discs. No, I had to imbue them with magic to make them more challenging opponents. Now, they could corner trees, fly high and low, and zigzag while still in flight.
I had grown quite fond of my boomerang, but that wasn’t always the case. When I was a young girl, Luce first introduced the boomerang to me and I hated it. That was mostly because it took me a hell of a long time to learn how to throw it, and in so doing, I received a series of bruises and gashes for a good year or so.
In those days, Luce would put me into a large room full of the magicked training discs, aiming all of them straight at me. Then, when he was ready, he’d activate not one, not two, but sometimes five discs at a time! They would chase me everywhere as I clumsily attempted to take them out with my boomerang. Usually, the stupid device returned only to nail me in the face or the leg.
I could recall picking myself up over and over again with tears in my young eyes and blood on at least one area of my body, but usually more. Despite all my pleas to Luce, begging him to give me a break, he’d start the whole process over again, sparing me nothing, least of all mercy. He would tell me, “I’m training you to be a great warrior, and to be great, you must first be broken.”
Over time, I honed all my skills and eventually crushed all of the training discs simultaneously. Even though I’d felt victorious, there was no celebration to
be had. To Luce, this just meant he wasn’t training me hard enough. So while I smiled with pride at my accomplishments, hoping for a small pittance of praise or acceptance, Luce just glared at me before releasing six more discs and watched me falter as I struggled to stay on my feet.
Despite having an audience and regular onlookers, no one ever came to my aid. There wasn’t even a common nurse to patch me up or clean my wounds. The only person to give me any consolation was myself.
Now that I looked back on it, I fully realized just how cold Luce was, and how empty and drab my life was. No one ever hugged or praised me. No one ever asked if I was injured or in any kind of pain. No one cared.
But that’s what made you all the stronger, I told myself, desperate for something positive to emerge from my wretched childhood. And Luce never did manage to break you. You built your own strength, and that’s what allowed you to take your place at the front and center. As a warrior—one of the elite, one of the best.
I shook my head, banking the memories away. I needed to practice some more, to hone my sensory skills so I could detect a Daywalker should it materialize in the air behind me or at my sides. I had to learn the skills that Sinjin was teaching me—listening closely for any changes in the atmosphere, which would indicate some kind of danger was present. I had to master that—and to accurately separate the normal earthly sounds from those of magic. And I hoped these discs would help me do just that—I enchanted them with the ability to take me by surprise. To remain hidden until the moment was perfect, and then they were programmed to attack me from my weakest angles.
I needed this training. Mostly because I felt different. I no longer embodied the soul of the superior warrior as I used to. No, I felt older, weaker, and emptier. What I’d endured at the hands of all the men at the camp had done something critical to me. It eroded my self-confidence, and now I intended to rebuild that confidence and even increase it. I had to own my skills and abilities and defend myself flawlessly because I refused to ever allow another man to take me against my will. I had to become stronger, faster, and better than I’d ever been before.