Page 12 of The Knight
I moved my face from against the wall and looked at the room around me. I wanted to unshield my soul. It was a lot of work to keep one's soul shielded. Mine was no exception. I thought of what would happen if I did, and quickly decided that it wasn't a good thing to focus on. It would tempt me too much. I thought about Shad’s melody and then Emma’s. If the prophecy was true, then Emma would be more like her real self than ever before,simply because Shad was just across the street. I hated that thought—so very, very much.
“Shad cannot know,” I said.
“Cannot know what?”
“He cannot know who Emma is.”
“She has a melody, Ryker. What else would he assume? Do you think he will believe that she is something other than Terran?”
“Please, Mary. He just can’t know about Lamont, about her being the princess. Let him suspect all he wants, but I want it to remain a secret that Emma is an heir. He believes in songs, for ancient’s sakes—actualsongs, Mary, so he may even believe that she could be from this realm. I wouldn't put it past him to believe in the impossible. He already does.”
“I don't know why you don't believe in songs. All our people were built around them. We are from them.”
“Yes, and then the ancients took them away.”
“Rykerian, we don't know that, and if that was the case, maybe they are coming back.”
She sounded so hopeful, and I didn’t have it in me to crush her. I knew it was a fairytale, a dream, not real, but I didn’t need to convince her of that. She had to already know. I must have been silent for too long because she spoke again, changing the subject,
“I haven’t spoken to him, and I don’t plan on it.”
“Good, I just need time.”
“Come home, Ryker. Emma is doing better, but she still needs you. You are her best friend.”
“I will. I just packed my bags. I will book my flight tonight.”
"Good."
My flight landed in Sacramento late that night. I texted Mary that I was back and threw my carry on bag in the back seat of my truck. It would be nice to no longer have a rental. I opened the door and sat down inside. Frustration flooded through me. I was back, and although I wasn't completely empty-handed, I didn't feel that much closer to figuring things out. I started the engine as my phone chimed a new message from Mary, confirming that she had received mine.
I missed everything—how easy things used to be. I missed Terra.
I missed–no, do not go there. I shut the lid on that box quickly. But not before–
Anawhispered through me.
I shook my head. I missed Lamont and Ara. I even missed the simple way things were before Emma’s melody was unleashed. She had become so much more difficult to keep safe because Mary and I had to work so hard to shield her soul, something we were barely able to do. I missed the snow covered mountains of Haleston. Missed the life I once had.
But, I missed Torren, too, I missed the cool water of the beaches, the sand, the bright sky, the treasures found on the seashore. I banged my head against my headrest as feelings and emotions ran through me. Memories blasted into my brain at laser speed, and I tried to reign them in. Those memories were always in that box, tucked away in my mind, the box with cobwebs and dust on the outside. I never touched that box—not anymore—not for over sixteen years.
Ana
Grey eyes haunted me as I sat there. I closed my eyes and tried to pull the memories back inside the box where they belonged so that they could not haunt me anymore. They slipped back out anyway, and I saw in my mind, that still body and that dark, black-brown hair. They were the first things I had noticed, onthat bright day I had been patrolling around Torren as part of my knight training. I was worried because she had no melody—that was a sign of death. But when I came closer, my feet moving slowly on the clear pebbled sand, I watched as her eyes opened, revealing clear, silver-grey eyes,notthe eyes of a soulless. Life flashed before me; I stood frozen, looking at her. How could she not have a melody?
I tugged at my hair, begging myself to stop reflecting, begging myself to end the pain. The drive home was torture as I fought the inward battle, raging a war inside of me. The memories I had locked up sixteen years earlier tried to float onto center stage in my mind, over and over, but I pulled them back—shoved them in the once-beloved box and locked it tight. I needed to focus. I knew my task; I knew my vows and promises, and I would not break them. I did notwantto break them, no matter what was inside the blasted box.
Chapter 8
Ifloated just above the surface of the water. I had been able to sense her while unpacking my bags and knew she was about to head to the pool, so I grabbed my swim trunks and ran to her yard. I needed to see her, and although I needed rest and a shower, I needed her more. I had slipped into the pool just as she opened the sliding glass door. She was wearing her white and green bathing suit. I tried to keep my mind from wandering, from focusing on the curves of her figure and her cascading hair. It wasn't honorable to be so focused on her looks.
She was safe, she was alive, and she was breathing, and I had done my job. It felt wonderful for a moment to know that she lived and breathed. I still could succeed in my duty, to her, at least.
Emma was indeed stunningly beautiful, but she was also so much more than that. She seemed so much more put together than I had ever seen her before. I waited for her to walk down the pool steps and ease her way in, but she just stood there, looking into the pool as if she were looking into her own soul. I moved around the pool’s edge and grabbed her foot, pulling her into thedepths of the water. As she popped her head out of the water, she looked terrified, and I was afraid that I had made a mistake. Maybe she wasn’t well at all, I thought.
“Ryker, you almost killed me!” she spat, splashing water into my eyes.
We joked for a moment. “We just got home, like an hour ago,” I lied, there was nowe, only me. But I said it with a smile. “You seem better, Emma.” That was the truth. One lie, one truth; that was a good balance.
