Dance in Shadow and Whisper (Marionettes of Myth #1)

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

 

There was a moment when I stepped outside, when the early evening wind tossed the fragrances of our backyard orchard in my direction, submerging me in the scents of its post-summer decay. But the smell of McIntosh red apples and ripened cherries still lingered as pungently as the scent of coals burning on its last cinders, sliding a knife of nostalgia between my ribs. I stared down at the frayed, muddied doormat beneath my boots, recalling the old memory, the hellfire in her eyes and the venom in her voice.

The door creaked open behind me. Lio stepped out with a light coat over his robe. I had long since come to the conclusion that he didn’t believe in real clothes, because I never saw him in more than a silk robe in the summer, or a fuzzy fleece robe and slippers in the winter.

I stepped aside, eyeing him. “Going somewhere?”

“Thought I’d take a walk.” He shoved his hands into his coat pockets and tipped back his nose, sucking in so much oxygen that I felt the air around me stir. “It’s such a lovely night, and the moon is quite beautiful.”

I offered him a coy grin before I hopped down the squeaky stairs and onto the gravel. He didn’t bother with shoes either, but the bottoms of his feet crunched the pathway like Toivo’s tires.

We walked together, down the driveway as the eaves of trees swayed above us, carrying the first essence of a cool kiss in the wind, fleeting, but I could sense it in my bones. The fireflies, however, continued to pulse and float lazily within the trees like ripples of floating candlewicks.

When we reached the main road that straddled the undulation of hills, he finally broke the silence with a sigh. “I really am quite sorry, Kali, that this whole mission is happening to you so suddenly.” I peeked up at him. The wind tossed his haphazard ponytail. His eyes were downcast. “Rajy pretends not to understand, but you know how he can be, so fickle and reserved. His objectiveness often overpowers his own feelings—oh, don’t give me that look. He has feelings.”

“He’s an evil overlord. Evil overlords can’t have feelings.”

“I don’t suppose so. They typically don’t, do they?” He sighed again, shoulders hunched and head tilted back. “Everything must be so terribly concrete with him, yet he doesn’t realize he’s hitting his head off of that very concrete half the time. I wanted to show you a bit more of the world, Kali, I did. I always have. I believe it could have only helped you.”

The silence hung off his last words. A car with painfully bright headlights growled by, slapping us with a wave of wind.

I worked up the confidence to speak. “But it’s because of my parents. My biological parents, I mean. Because, if the ones who had killed them found me, I’d be dead too. I understand. Concealing me, keeping me hidden and protected here all my life and away from the rest of the world, was for my safety.”

The words were rehearsed. They felt rehearsed and they sounded rehearsed, and it didn’t get past Lio as he peered down at me, strong brow drawn together as tightly as a fist. I could tell he wanted to say more. A lot more. Words climbed up his throat and settled on his tongue, but he kept his lips clamped. His attention returned to the road ahead.

A new question tackled its way to the backs of my teeth and I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “So—what happens? When I can confidently tell the other Allegiance lords that Jason is who he is? What will they do?”

“I haven’t the faintest.” His eyes squinted as he saw ahead into the shadows. We had low-light vision that could pierce through darkness as thin as the night. Our eyes acted as cats and dogs could, absorbing the meager light with reflective lenses to pierce through the shadows. The only darkness that could blind us totally was perfect darkness, like lights going out in the gym. “I suppose it will depend on where we are with locating the other.”