Page 45 of The Brotherhood

“Did you always have this ability?” Noctis asked.

She shook her head. “No. I thought it might be the pregnancy, but… I’m pretty sure it was the bite.”

“The bite your husband received,” Volkan confirmed.

“No,” she said, quieter now. “The one… my husband gave me.”

Everything froze in Sinrik as the data from the scan returned to him. “There were traces of it in her readings,” he confirmed to the Pillars as her gaze found his and locked on tight.

The Pillars were in a whispered discussion while Sinrik tried to understand what was happening in his own head and how it was connected to what swirled in her mysterious and yet knowing gaze.

“Tell us what happened when you encountered the place in your dreams,” Oblivion said, drawing her from his gaze.

“I told them to stop,” she began quietly. “Seer was driving.”

“Seer?” Noctis cut in.

“Samuel,” she corrected. “He also has a gift. He can see things about people when he touches them.”

“Mirror-touch synesthesia,” Noctis marveled.

“Seer let off the gas when I said it and my husband told him not to stop, it was too dangerous. And as we continued on, the feeling that we needed to stop grew to… unbearable and I… I yelled for him to stop again and this time he did. Too abruptly. He said he didn’t do it. That I had. My words did. But I didn’t mean it,” she whispered.

“What was at this place?” Volkan asked.

“Women and children being held hostage by some very bad people. We rescued them… took them with us.”

“Tell us more,” Nexus urged. “About your gift.”

“Yes,” Noctis pressed. “When did it happen again?”

“On our way back.”

“From picking up this woman,” Oblivion said.

“Yes… only, she ended up not coming with us.”

The room shifted with yet another twist in the plot.

“My sister also has a gift,” she began. “She also sees when she touches people. But she draws it. We don’t always understand all the exacts of the drawing, but… there was one particular drawing she did before we left, it was… I think it’s called a bistable image. Three people looked at it and they all saw completely different things. The problem was, it was relevant to the entire mission and… my husband panicked, sure we’d screwed up and something bad was going to happen because… Seer said he’d seen a bad outcome if I didn’t go with him on the mission, and here we’d been instructed to get this woman andshe chose to stay, he… he was worried it would bring the bad outcome.”

Her emotions cut off her words and the sound of it strangled Sinrik’s muscles.

She wiped her face, her breaths shaking. “And when I was taken, when I asked Morgue to take me and leave my friends alone, I know for a fact he blamed himself. But I had to,” she assured, her grief bringing Sinrik just behind her. “I just knew, like I knew we were supposed to stop at that place, that I was supposed to go with him, and I was supposed to meet Mr. Sinrik.”

“And do you know why yet?” Noctis pressed quietly.

She lowered her head and Sinrik carefully put his hand on her shoulder as she whispered, “No.” Again she wiped her tears. “And every time I want to demand he take me back, I can’t. Because whatever I’m here for isn’t finished. And… I was hoping coming here would answer whatever it was that insisted I meet him. And… I think I’m… I need food. I’m so dizzy.”

The entire room lurched when she fell as Sinrik caught her limp body and lifted her in his arms.

Every Pillar and apprentice surrounded him with a very troubled Nexus at the forefront. “Bring her to one of the resting chambers,” Nexus hurried. “We’ll have food brought.”

CHAPTER 11

Hell’s Warden

Handy sat on the metal examination table, feet planted on the edge, elbows resting on his thighs. He didn’t move, didn’t fidget. He just breathed. Breath that was all his own, lungs that were his own, in a body that was his own. No interference. No foreign signals humming beneath his skin. No ghosts rattling in his skull. Just silence. Just control.

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