Page 34 of Caelum

“What do you mean?”

Stefan sighed and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Seriously, bro, you raise this now while we’re eating?”

“It’s not like it has the power to break our appetites,” he retorted dryly.

“Maybe not you,” I grumbled, but seeing her interest, I relented somewhat. “My parents disowned me when I was eleven. It was too expensive to treat me, so they dumped me on the local priest. He cared for me until he died.” I almost choked on those last three words, but I was proud that I kept a straight face. “After that, I was homeless until I got picked up by a recruiter.”

“I’m so sorry, Nestor.”

I shrugged off her sympathy. “Eren’s right. We all have our stories.”

“What’s yours?” she asked, her voice soft as she directed the question at Eren.

His mouth tightened. “There was a terror attack in my city. My parents were killed in the blast. Our house was buried under rubble. They didn’t make it out, but I did.”

Her hand went to her mouth. “You were trapped?”

“Yes.” His fingers tightened around his cutlery. “For three days.”

And he had the nightmares to prove it.

“My sister and brother-in-law raised me until I was recruited.”

“What about you, Stefan?” she questioned, but I could see that she was only asking out of a reverse sort of kindness.

She didn’t want to know, not after our sad tales, but not asking Stefan would have been rude. See? She was sweet.

“I never knew my parents. I grew up in an orphanage. When I was eleven and I started hearing the voices, they didn’t take it well. I used to get tied up a lot.” His shoulders wriggled as though his muscle memory reminded him of what it felt like to be restrained. “I ran away a year later and lived on the streets until I was recruited.”

“You all said that you were recruited…”

Eren nodded. “So were you. Merry came for you.”

“She did.” She narrowed her eyes. “How did she find me?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“The soul.” I forked up some steak and explained, “Our souls call to one another. In your instance, it could be a hiker who’d been close to yourcompound who sensed you. They tell HQ, which happens to be here, and then they send a recruiter to investigate.”

“How does that work?”

“It’s good fortune and a lot of luck. That’s why you were found late, though. Most of us were in towns or cities with a decent population of people who moved in and out. But with you? Not so much.”

“I was going to run away when I was eighteen,” she whispered, her gaze directed on her plate. She’d stopped eating, and I regretted that. The food was too good to waste, but I understood how our stories might have upset her. And shit, she didn’t even know the worst of them. Even Dre’s had been whitewashed for her benefit.

“Why eighteen?”

“Because that’s when they’d have married me off, but also because I overheard one of the Sisters say that in this world, eighteen is when you’re an adult. Because of that, one of the Brothers would take you somewhere off the compound for the day. I was going to use that as my chance to leave.” Eve pulled a face. “I clung to that hope. I needed to get out of there. The souls weren’t behaving themselves, and it was really tough keeping them contained. Then Merry came and told me that it would only get worse.”

Stefan murmured, “She wasn’t lying, Eve.” His gaze was soft as he stared at the woman the fates had determined would be his. “Containing the souls? It makes them worse. You’ll find your level here, and then you’ll be able to figure out which is your main creature.”

She bit her bottom lip. “I hope so.”

I wasn’t sure why, but I knew I wasn’t the only one who heard the dubiousness in her words.

TEN

---