Page 63 of Veiled Fate
Chapter Thirty-One
Clive was bracing himself as I walked back to our table. A glance showed nothing of interest had changed in our surroundings. The dim interior of the worn-down inn was still mostly empty, with only a couple of regulars at another table and the bar. The entire place stank of coal and had a general air ofdirtthat never seemed to come out, no matter how hard the barman scrubbed at it. The black dust was ingrained in the very fibers of the tiny mining town outside of Nycitum.
All of which let me know that whatever Clive was doing, it was about me, not our current situation.
“Spit it out,” I said as I shoved his mug in front of him and plunked down my own as I sat across from him. “Cause you look wound tight enough to explode, and I don’t want it attracting attention.”
After nearly a week of waiting, the locals had adjusted to us for the most part. We paid our bills—or so they thought. The owner was an ally to the rebellion, which was why Kiel had made it our rendezvous—and didn’t cause any trouble. In the eyes of the exhausted miners, the crippled elders, and those too young to work the mines, that made us acceptable.
But that didn’t mean things couldn’t change, and we had to be careful not to draw attention to ourselves. There were still a lot of people after us. People … andthings. I shuddered as the ghostly memory of being stabbed through the stomach by the Nehringi settled in my mind.
“Why are you shutting me out?” Clive said with a hint of bitterness in his voice.
“Huh?” I blinked. Hadn’t we settled that a long time ago? That he and I just weren’t meant to be. “Clive, you’re my best friend, and I—”
“Not that,” he said. “We’re past that. No, I’m talking about you. Just you, and why you aren’t telling me about it. You’redifferent,Jada. Not just more experienced, more wise to the world. No, I mean literally different. I’ve waited and waited for you to explain it to me, but you haven’t. But now, I need to know. How did you do what you did at the river?”
He looked up at me, his eyes round and concerned. Yet in their depths, I saw something else, something I had hoped never to see from my friend. Caution. He was wary of me. Of what I could do. And I couldn’t blame him for that in the slightest.
I had hoped he would just let the question lie. Apparently not.
“I waited until the others left,” he pushed, gently but firmly insisting I answer. “They’re gone now, dispersed to other hidey-holes. It’s just you and me, Jada. You’re my best friend …”
“After you left, we went after the Fate Stone in Arcadia,” I said.
“I know. You told me all about that. How you shattered it, which is what allowed you to kill him,” Clive said, waving me along in the story, though he kept his voice quiet so others wouldn’t overhear.
“When it shattered, Fate should have been free,” I whispered. “That shard of her, at least. But for some reason, she wasn’t.”
Clive’s face narrowed in confusion. I waited, staring at him until shock broke out.
“You,” he hissed.
I nodded slowly.
“You’re one of them now? You’re one of the Alphas?” he gasped, just a bit too loud.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the elders turn toward us. The wizened old man was missing half an arm and an eye, but his hearing seemed to work just fine.
“Keep your voice down,” I snarled, baring my teeth at him. “And no, that’s not it at all.”
“But … back at the river,” Clive murmured, shaking his head.
“It’s in me,” I confirmed. “But that’s all I know.”
For some reason, I didn’t want to tell him about the visions and the journey to Mount Triumph. Not because I didn’t trust him—I did—but because I didn’t want to put that burden on him. Clive would insist on coming to help, and something told me that wasn’t the right thing.
The door to the inn opened suddenly, admitting a gust of cool mountain air along with two figures. I stiffened as I recognized the pair of cool blue eyes staring out at me from underneath the hood of the larger of the two.
Kiel.
“They’re here,” I muttered across the table to Clive, who had his back to the door.
“They?”
“Kiel,” I said, looking deep under the hood of the second traveler.
A strand of deep red hair slipped free, curling around the woman’s jaw.
