Page 42 of Power of Five
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Tye
“You were looking for me, Sparkle?” Tye said, leaning against the doorframe of the Slait palace library. The others were already outside, getting ready to leave now that breakfast was over. River had decided that, despite the relative safety of the Gloom in Slait, they would travel with Lera the old-fashioned way—riding through the Light. Tye couldn’t say the decision upset him any, since he was in no hurry to actually reach their destination.
Autumn looked up from her table, barely visible to Tye behind piles of books and journals. As with her room, the objects entering Autumn’s presence somehow immediately arranged themselves in the most disordered way possible. “No, but I was just about to,” she said. “How did you know?”
Tye grinned. “What female wouldn’t be looking for me the day I’m leaving?”
River’s younger sister extended her hand, sending fiery sparks dancing and burning along Tye’s ears. “You are insufferable.”
Tye stifled the sparks, his grin growing. “Should I leave, then?” He knew the answer, of course. The only reason Autumn would be absent from the courtyard was that her brilliant mind was occupied with something else. Tye just hoped those thoughts were not spurred by the bastard calling himself her and River’s father.
“Stay.” Autumn waved him in, waiting for Tye to close the door, pull out a chair, and straddle it backwards. Her voice lowered. “I do need to talk to you. About Lera.”
Tye’s chest tightened, his body involuntarily tensing around his soul. He grinned lightly at Autumn, as she and everyone else expected him to, but he was dead tired of people talking about Lera. Discussing her necessary departure. Questioning her existence. It would take an effort of will not to snap the neck of the next person who called Tye’s Lilac Girl a mistake.
“What if Lera isn’t a mistake?” Autumn closed the book she was reading, a drawing of a four-corded knot betraying its contents as quint lore. Autumn crossed her arms. “Since when does magic make mistakes? Don’t answer—I’m not convinced you can read, much less opine on matters of magical history. Point is, what if River is wrong?”
“If you are looking to convince someone that Lera is smart, beautiful, a little too brave, and frighteningly fitting for every wretched soul in our quint, then I’m already aware.”Too bloody aware.“Want me to fetch River so you can say as much to him?”
“River will want facts,” Autumn said frankly. “And I have no facts. I’m telling you because you think outside the rules.”
“Rules are... like fences,” Tye conceded. “They keep things nice and orderly, but he who hops over them gets the apples.” And the thrashings. But that was beside the point. Autumn knew exactly who she was talking to. The female had been there during the quint’s initial training, and she knew more of Tye than his own parents did. Which was probably a good thing for his mother’s sleeping habits. “What’s on your mind, Sparkle?”
Autumn hung her head with a sigh. “I don’t know exactly. When you came back with Lera, you were all different. In a good way. As if your souls had found a missing piece of something. But I wonder if there isn’t more to it. Bar the Elders Council—the only other mixed-gender quint ever to exist—you’re the most powerful quint to have come out of the Citadel. Both in the strength of your individual powers and in the combined magic. How does your fire feel now?”
“Stronger still,” Tye said carefully. “I’ve not tested it fully, but stronger than when Kai was alive.”
Autumn nodded. “And Shade shifted form in the mortal lands. Do you know how impossible that should have been? Again, don’t bother answering.”
Tye blew out a long breath. “I’m the last person in Lunos qualified to discuss this, but even I must concede that while our individual powers are strengthened, our combined power is nonexistent. The quint magic has killed fae; it would rip Lera apart in a moment.”
“Yes, yes,” Autumn waved her hand. “I think you’re right on that. I wonder if the magic strengthened your individual powers as compensation for Lera having none of her own. But there is something else too. Look at your quint now: a child of Slait, Blaze, Flurry, Mors, and now a child of the mortal lands. Doesn’t that seem a bit too neat to be an accident? To be a mistake?”
“You are making my brain hurt, Autumn,” Tye confessed, balancing his chair on its front legs. “I’m game for anything that keeps Lera with us. So tell me what you want me to do.”
Autumn put her palms on the table. “Buy me more time to figure this out. Don’t let the council cut the tether. Not yet.”
Tye snorted and pushed off the chair, heading for the door. If he’d had any idea in hell as to how to stop the severing, he would have done it well before now. Autumn might need her books and calculations to figure it out, but Tye had known the truth in his heart and soul long since. It wasn’t a matter of desire. It was a matter of ability.
In the courtyard, Pyker and the quint were already mounted, the playful breeze ruffling the fur of Lera’s new cloak. Tye scowled. The garment did fit her perfectly well, but he much preferred seeing the lass wrapped in his own cloak. In his own scent. Lera was also, Tye noted, sitting atop her own horse. And doing it bloody well too, thanks to Coal’s training.
“I don’t like this,” Tye said, glaring at Lera’s high-backed saddle.
She bristled, checking her tack and posture, her voice low. “It took Coal two hours this morning to declare that I would more likely than not stay in the saddle without being tied to it. You are threatening to undo it all. So, pray tell me whatspecificallydo you not like?”
“Everything.” Tye’s eyes narrowed accusingly at Coal. “It was my turn to have Lilac Girl ride with me. How is she supposed to throw herself into my arms if you’ve taught her to ride?”
“You’ll figure something out, I’m certain,” River said dryly, signaling the six of them into motion just as Autumn stepped into the courtyard, demanding that everyone in the quint—even Coal—return to embrace her goodbye.
Lera’s gaze lingered on the small female as they finally rode out, a brave smile trying to conceal sad eyes. “I won’t see her again, will I?” Lera asked.
“You never know,” River replied, his eyes on the fields of wheat opening before them. The white-capped mountains beckoned from beyond.
The tightening of Lera’s jaw said she’d heard the lie for what it was, just as Tye had. He kept his mouth shut, though, focusing on his horse’s powerful movements—as if that could stave off the terror of all this becoming nothing but a distant dream where Tye hadher.The fact that saidherhad the most exquisitely curved hips, a chest so ripe it begged to be suckled, and lips that made Tye’s balls ache with need was bloody inconvenient.
Silently cursing Autumn, Tye nudged his horse to trot up to River’s. “What if we don’t do this?” Tye asked quietly, resorting to the truth for lack of other ideas. “I don’t want the tether broken. I want her.”
