Emily stepped forward, leaning over Aern’s shoulder where he sat. “That doesn’t mean she wanted it. That doesn’t mean she wanted this.” She gestured toward the table, and Aern couldn’t be sure whether she’d meant Brianna’s guessing at the prophecy, or her decision to sort them with the shadows.
“It doesn’t mean she didn’t,” Brianna said. “And how else do you explain her clues? The training?” She thrust her own hands forward, tattooed wrists exposed for her sister to see. “What else could she have wanted, Emily?”
Brianna’s hands dropped, her tone changed. Resigned. “Do you think she didn’t do everything she could to pick this outcome, to bring us right here? Do you think she didn’t see this?”
“You didn’t,” Emily said evenly.
Brianna’s answer was just as flat. “Because my powers were bound.”
It was all she had to say, and some unspoken message passed between them, some bit of knowledge they’d withheld from him and Logan. Aern’s gaze fell to Logan, but he was watching Brianna. Watching as she steeled herself for sharing one more secret she wasn’t quite ready to give.
“The thing is,” Brianna began, shifting just enough that her admission was directed to both of them, “the thing that doesn’t make sense is that she permitted us to be bound, chose this path for us, brought us to you.” She hesitated, eyes falling first to Aern and then lingering a heartbeat too long on Logan. “Because the shadows are the reason”—she wet her lips—“the ones who took the power from the Seven Lines to begin with.”
Aern stared at her, everything that he’d learned in his youth rolling through his mind. The Seven Lines had once been powerful, able to do much more than simply use sway. Something had happened, something they’d called a thinning of the blood, that had slowly weakened their powers until no more than this remained. He wanted to not believe her. He wanted to keep thinking the stories they’d been told were true.
But the shadows were part of their legend. A horrible, dark part of the Seven Lines’ history.
And Brianna was one of them.
His chest ached for a moment at the thought of Emily, but he pushed it away to deal with the problem at hand. He trusted Brianna, and she had given him this power, given him the ability to sway his own kind. This was the story that made sense. This was the only thing that had felt of truth for a long time.
“So you think she placed you here for them?” He corrected himself, purposefully separating Brianna and Emily from the others. “For the shadows?” To spy, to destroy them from within, to gain some benefit from their position among the Seven.
Brianna shook her head, clearly not certain about any of it. “What else, Aern? She was a shadow.”
“Maybe not,” Emily said. “Maybe”—she twisted her hands, paced two steps away only to come right back—“maybe she wanted us away from the shadows. Against them.” She glanced at Aern. “Maybe that’s what she saw. Just like the prophecy, Bri, maybe she wanted you to save them.”
It was there again, that doubt in Brianna’s eyes, and Aern remembered words that had once been spoken softly among the ancient documents of Council. That she’d had her doubts about the prophecy, that she’d wondered if it was not some long-dead magic pushed to her from a place unknown. Until Brianna had seen the actual document, she’d not been certain the prophecies were real. And now that these visions were popping into her mind, she didn’t trust that any of it was her own.
Except for her power, and this new talent for seeing the now that she’d had only days. Because even Aern knew there was no questioning that. The repaired connections brought something to them that was undeniably theirs, a tangible link. It was an indisputable fit. It didn’t just exist, it belonged.
“If they did this,” Brianna said, “if they put all of this into place, it doesn’t matter what we want. Things will happen their way. We’ll have no choice but to let fate push us to whatever they’ve seen.”
Logan shifted, eyes not landing on any of them when he said, “No, Brianna. You always have a choice.”
Chapter Four
Ellin
Ellin woke from her spot on the floor, still tied at the wrist and ankle to a clevis sunk into the concrete behind her. They’d only bothered fastening one side of her body, but she couldn’t do much with the other half anyway.
Face pressed against cold cement, she tried to sense whether anyone had noticed that she was awake before she opened her one good eye. The other was smashed, swollen and bloodied, along with the entire right side of her face. Her healing was fast, but she’d not had a chance to so much as seal the wounds before they’d come at her again, busting the still-tender skin open further.
The blood was everywhere. She could taste it, thick in her throat, the metallic tang from even the smallest movement. It was caked on her cheek, some of it dry, but most a muddy mix from the dampness on the floor … the water from what they were doing to Brendan.