Page 19 of Brought to Light
“And why would he need to do that?” Oskar said after an ominous pause. He stalked toward me, frowning. I knew him too well to be afraid of him, but ancestors, I was really starting to get a headache. “If he didn’t mean you any harm in the first place, as you strongly implied.”
“Besides, humans lie,” Kaspar said, finally getting to his feet himself. “We talked a bit last night. I don’t know if I believed a single word out of his mouth.”
“Why did he have to promise not to hurt you?” Oskar demanded again. “I agree with Kaspar, but getting more information out of that bastard’s not worth the effort.Youowe us the truth, Linden.”
My temples throbbed, and my stomach let out a pitiful grumbling howl. “Please can we not,” I whispered. “Right now, he’s on our side. My side. He has a friend at home who may be in danger because he’s helping me. He wants to end this so he can go home and get his own affairs in order. Please don’t ask me any more questions.”
Oskar opened his mouth, probably to ask many, many more questions—and then Callum opened the door, and Oskar spun on his heel to glare at him instead of me. Callum’s gaze flicked to me for a moment and then settled on Oskar. I felt like withering into the floor, covering my face with my arms, and pretending I couldn’t see or hear any of them. My few hours of sleep hadn’t been anything like enough, and all I wanted was to sleep until all of this went away.
Which wasn’t like me at all. On the day of my birth, precisely at midsummer, my mother had labored all throughout an unseasonably rainy morning. She pushed me into the world at the exact moment of midday, and as I let out my first cry, the clouds broke and sun poured through, a dazzling shaft of light that set all the raindrop-laden leaves and flowers glittering like jewels. I’d stopped crying, blinked in the sunlight, and smiled.
That was how I’d earned my real name, the one my mother called me only when we were alone: Laikesev. If I’d translated it into English, it would’ve roughly come out to Sunlight One.
I’d lived up to it. I was almost always cheerful, not only because everyone expected it of me but because I always found something to enjoy, no matter the weather or the company or the place. It was my blessing, although the coincidence of Lord Evalt’s seer having a vision of a man bringing light who would be Lord Evalt’s doom had made it my curse, as well. But mostly it was a blessing. Happiness, for me, had never been dependent on circumstance. It came from within me.
So what did a man do when he couldn’t be happy? I didn’t have a frame of reference. This thick, weary, despairing weight on my chest and in my heavy head felt like more than I could carry. I’d been afraid when I ran from home, afraid and homesick in that little California town, and terrified in the labyrinth. But none of it had felt quite real. It was like watching an illusion of someone else’s life, with all my emotions kept behind glass.
Now I’d come home. The air carried all the familiar scents of my realm’s trees and grasses and shy wildflowers, the sounds of birds I could identify, the indefinable essence of my own world. I’d grown up with Kaspar and Oskar. They were as real to me as my mother or my bedroom in Lady Lisandra’s manor, as real as the ivy tendrils creeping through the casement of that bedroom’s single, low-set window.
If Lord Evalt found me with them, we would all die. Kaspar’s blood spilling at my feet would be real. Oskar’s final battle-cry as he swung his sword at our enemies before they overwhelmed him and brought him down would be real. My mother’s grief…at least I hopefully wouldn’t be there to see it. And I’d be far enough away from her that she wouldn’t die with me.
That reminder of what was at stake washed away the sticky mire of misery I’d allowed myself to sink into.
I had to be stronger than this. My friends had risked their lives to come and find me, and they deserved better than to plan and fight and struggle for someone too pathetic to do more than mope. And Callum…I finally got up the courage to look at Callum. He and Oskar hadn’t stopped eyeing one another like two testy cockerels in a farmyard.
My chest gave a painful squeeze. Callum had been hired to kill me. I’d been truly terrified of him, as he dragged me out of town with his gun pointed at me, no matter what his reaction to my magic in the hot chocolate had been. And I’d run from him in the labyrinth when I’d had the chance, when his non-magical being had been knocked unconscious by the journey. My magic hadn’t been strong enough to make the journey smoother, the way Kaspar could.
But he’d promised not to hurt me. And he’d even told me he’d defend me, protect me. He hadn’t asked to go home to his own realm.
On the other hand…he wanted answers. Information. He hadn’t come here out of loyalty to me, and building some fantasy in my head that he’d want to stay and help me was neither rational nor fair. He didn’t owe me anything.
“Oskar,” I said, and my voice came out stronger than I expected. “He’s not going to explode if you stop staring at him for ten seconds.”
“You don’t know that,” Oskar growled.
“Yes, I do!” I protested, the headache surging. Ancestors, I was so hungry and so chilly and so dirty, and I hated being at odds with my best friends. I hated everything about this. “He’s not going to hurt any of us—”
“Unless he’s lying to you!” Oskar shouted. “Unless he’s Evalt’s agent. Your story doesn’t add up!” He spun back to Callum, taking a menacing step forward. “And last night, trying to question Kaspar and me—you weren’t as subtle as you thought you were. I want to know what the bloody buggering fuck you’re doing here, and what neither of you will tell me!”
Oskar had gotten so close to Callum they were almost breathing each other’s air, and Kaspar moved forward, trying to pull Oskar away, saying something meant to defuse the situation.
It wasn’t going to work. I could feel it. They were going to finally come to blows, and I couldn’t do anything about it—
“I used to be a soldier,” Callum said abruptly. His face stayed a blank, neutral mask, and I couldn’t read anything of what might be going on behind his steady dark gaze. Oskar froze, staring at him. Callum took a deep breath. “With allegiances. Loyalties. To my country, to my unit, to my officers, when they weren’t useless dipshits straight out of school.” Oskar shook his head and snorted a laugh, and then looked pissed to have been caught agreeing with Callum about something. “Not anymore,” Callum went on with grim intensity. “I’m loyal to myself and to one man I work with and trust. You can’t trust me to work against my own interests. That’s not fucking happening anymore in this lifetime. You want the truth?”
Oh no, oh no, and I opened my mouth to intervene after all—but too late. “Someone hired me to kill Linden. Someone who probably would’ve killed me too, and my associate. I didn’t want to take the job, but it didn’t look like I had much choice. Well, now whoever it is will kill me no matter what, because I fucked up the job and helped Linden get away from my competition. My friend’s in the wind, I hope, if he’s not dead. The only way to end this—forme, you understand?—is to go to the source and fuck up whoever started this. It sounds like that’s Evalt. So if your plan is to kill him, I’m on board. You can trust me that far. Take it or leave it.”
A heavy silence fell after that. Oskar wasn’t trying to kill Callum. Yet. That might change at any moment. We all stood frozen, my heart sinking down to my feet.
“If you touch him,” Oskar said at last, “if you hurt him, I’ll kill you. No questions asked. I won’t hesitate. You can takethator leave it.”
“He promised not to hurt me,” I said. I looked at Callum, and found him looking back at me, something dark in his unreadable eyes. “He promised not to hurt me,” I said again, softly, wishing Callum would give me some sign he hadn’t been lying to me. Hoping against hope for…I didn’t even know what to hope for.
“Humans lie,” Oskar snarled. “I think this one lies more than most.”
“Yeah,” Callum said, his voice a little hoarse. He was speaking to Oskar, but he didn’t look away from me. I felt like he looked all the way through me, down to the pitiful, helpless part of me that longed to have faith in him. “I do. But I also keep my word.”
“That’s easy to say for a liar, but—”
