Disobedience (Bastan Hollow Saga Book 2) Read online

  When he motioned for me to exit the bath, I walked to Tem and Evie, who quickly dried me off before retreating again, allowing my grandparents to come forward. My grandmother dressed me in the traditional robes of the Calamity Clan, leaving most of my skin bare to the elements. The colours were a deep emerald green shot through with thin whisperings of gold that shifted as I moved. Two thin lengths of the fabric looped around my neck and led down to the thicker cut of material that hugged my waist and clinched in the sections of the robe. The skirt was long in the back and slightly shorter in the front, made up of several pieces that were secured loosely along the front and back of my thighs with tiny golden hoops.

  Once dressed, my grandmother pulled me into a quick embrace.

  “You have a soft heart,” she whispered into my ear, her long fingers gripping me in a stern way. “But a soft heart is a weak heart.” Shame trickled through me. “Many die during their aetalus. If you survive but do not complete your sacrifice, do not return here. A normal witch might be banished, but you are a duality witch. Your blood is precious and useful. You will be sacrificed in their stead.”

  It was the most she had spoken to me in months, after I refused to accompany one of the local raiding parties to a nearby human village.

  She pulled back, touching her fingers to the blood marked on my forehead, and then she drew away. My grandfather approached me next, and his face was impassive as he shook out the ivory material he had carried into the atrium. My fingers itched to reach out and touch it as the beautiful colour rippled out, sliding silkily over his arm. It was a cape, I realised, as he held it out for me.

  I took it without a word, and with as little emotion as I could manage.

  A delicate golden filigree pattern secured the cape across the front of my robes, allowing it to hang lightly over my shoulders. It was fashioned to look like a finely threaded scarf, the material so light and breezy it would have been impossible to know that it had been woven with metal until you were touching it – but I could tell, now. It was a fascinating and undoubtedly rare object. Very little clothing in Covalen was made from metal – other than our jewellery and ornaments – and generally, only the human warriors covered their bodies with such armour. Hoping for an explanation, I looked up to my grandfather, rubbing the material between my thumb and forefinger.

  “It belongs to you,” he said, with about as much emotion as I assumed Cruel would show if I burst into tears right then and there. “It was made from the robes of our founder. The man who brought the people of the Calamity Clan together. The man who created Covalen, where witches and warlocks would be forever safe from the humans. The man called –”

  “Deidrick the Terrible,” I inserted, hoping to be spared another “hail Deidrick” speech. “I know who he was, grandfather . . . but how has it survived all this time?”

  “Deidrick was an incredibly powerful warlock, Mel. Like you – and like others in his bloodline, he had the power of duality. Like you, he was born with a permanent rune. During his aetalus, he was tasked with proving his worth to his clan. He chose to avenge those witches and warlocks who had been driven from their city by a human mob who set fire to their houses. He took to a cottage in the woods and set his sights on the farmer who had orchestrated the attack. He watched and waited for months, until finally, the farmer sent his children, Hansel and Gretel, into the woods.

  “He disguised himself to look like a harmless old woman, and then he disguised the cottage to appeal to the children, drawing them right into his trap. A week later, he returned to his coven with two human skulls, declaring he had avenged his people. He was one of the greatest warlocks in the history of the Calamity Clan, so it should come as no surprise to you that the material cut from his cloak would stand the test of time.”

  I dropped the edge of the cape I had been fingering, blinking at my grandfather as though I had never truly seen him until that day.

  Like others in his bloodline . . .

  Meaning . . . I was a part of that bloodline? Why hadn’t I been told I was a descendant of Deidrick the Terrible? They were constantly droning on about me having the duality-power, but none of them had thought to tell me I was a spawn of the greatest – or worst, depending on your persuasion – warlock in clan history?

  “You are an adult now.” My grandfather was oblivious to my inner turmoil. “It is time you know of your own history, and of the shoes you are expected to fill.”

  The hard ball of anxiety that had been steadily growing inside my chest suddenly exploded, and the rune on my wrist burned. I tried to fight it back – not because I was afraid of my own power, but because I didn’t want to face the reality of my situation. After a moment of struggling, I managed to quieten the voice trying to pound through my head, and then I simply nodded to my grandfather.

  “Thank you for the cape,” I said plainly. “I won’t let you down.”

  Yes, you will, the voice inside my head whispered. It was a voice similar to mine, yet it wasn’t. It was deeper and more sorrowful.

  I pushed it back again.

  “Sit by the bath,” Evie instructed kindly. “We will do your hair, and then you will be ready to begin your journey.”

  I moved obediently to the marble bath, perching on one of the dry edges as the two women fashioned my hair into its usual style. Vic reappeared carrying another box – though this one I recognised as my own. Inside were pale-gold chains and a delicate circlet in the shape of a gilded golden leaf. Each spike of the leaf had been coated with a very peculiar poison, and the metal enchanted to hold in the substance. Seeing the familiar circlet brought a wave of relief over me, and I focussed on the dimly glinting metal as Evie picked up the thin chains and emulated my usual hairstyle. The right side was left loose in moonlight-pale waves as the left side was sectioned off into two braids. One of them fell over my chest while the other was drawn back to gather some of my hair into a twisted bun. The thin chains were woven through the braids, connecting to the circlet which was slipped onto my head to hold the wisps of hair back from my face.

  I was not permitted to look at myself as they finished with me, but I didn’t need to see what they had done. The style was familiar. The clothes were my own – the only addition being the cape, but it fit naturally and comfortably around my shoulders. Instead of shoes, my ankles were wrapped in thin golden chains, and my grandparents knelt by my feet, pulling out sharpened quills and scratching blood runes into my skin. They were runes of strength and protection – though they would only last for the duration of my journey. They would not help me once I got to my destination.

  After the preparation ceremony was complete, I walked ahead of the delegates to the door of the atrium, where I could already hear the excited chattering of people. The sun was almost showing now, and it was time for me to be on my way. I passed by the people gathered outside my grandparents’ house – only those related to me were waiting, while all others were on the ground, already forming the procession I would need to pass through. I moved down the spelled stairs that curved along the outside of the royal ciana tree that cradled my grandparents’ house, the others following closely behind. I could tell they were enjoying this day. They were enjoying the attention they were getting, even if they didn’t particularly enjoy me. I had never connected well to any of the coven members, other than Evie and her son Des – and then later, Odi.

  I searched for them now, but they seemed to have disappeared after the bath. Frowning, I refocussed on the path ahead of me. I trusted they would never let me leave without saying goodbye, but I still felt nervous that they were now out of my sight. I reached the ground as the first hint of the sun burned through the trees, turning the leaf-speckled ground orange with warmth. The entire clan had escorted me to the edge of the forest that hid our coven from the rest of the world, forming a procession around me. The children had all been ahead of me initially, but they paused now at the road that would lead me on, lining up on either side just as I had lined up for so many others b
efore me. I passed through their ranks with the rest of the adults, but only a few miles further down, the adults also came to a halt and lined the road. Flowers were thrown at me, salt sprinkled over my shoulders and onto my hair. Des and Odi were nowhere to be seen.

  Goodbyes were said, but luck was not wished.

  Luck had nothing to do with this.

  2

  Slade Oliver

  The Hollows - Bastan

  I stood at the edge of the water, staring through the trees to where a cottage sat within the basin of a gully overrun by sunflowers and birds. The whole place had been annoyingly bright and cheerful during the day, but as Malevolent Ignoble drew closer, malice seemed to settle over everything, following the afternoon sun as though it sat on the back of the fiery ball of light, weighing it down lower and lower. The malice had a very distinct, magical taste: powerful blood magic. Malevolent – or Mel, as she called herself – was triggering something with each step closer that she travelled. She was igniting the fires of both old spells and new spells. A network of magic connected to her bloodline. The Guild had warned me this would happen.

  The Guild of Records dealt with all kinds of tales, though there were some that were more important than others – like the Hansel and Gretel tale. As the Advisor to the Guild, it was no longer my job to enforce the deviant tales, but this one in particular had drawn my attention. It was located in Tier Ten, where all of the most important and influential fairy tales played out, and it was also one of the most controversial tales we dealt with. There were many qualified Enforcers who could have been sent out to deal with Malevolent and the children, but I had insisted on doing it myself, and doing it alone. I had told them I missed the field, that I was crawling out of my skin being confined to an office all day and dealing with the politics of Tier One. And nobody could fight me on the decision because even though it was controversial, what I had to do was remarkably simple. It shouldn’t even take that long.

  My first task was to deliver the children to the witch in the woods. Once there, I had to save them from her evil ways, and finally . . . I had to make sure she died.

  A year ago, I would have accepted that reality easily. I would have killed the witch myself and smiled as she burned, because that was just what I had to do to save the world . . . but I knew better, now. The lies the Guild had been feeding to us about the connection between Earth and Bastan were finally being revealed. It wasn’t such a simple reality anymore that the tales needed to play out or else a horrible ripple effect would tear out over the world of Earth. That was still true, but now I knew our people were to blame. We had created that bond between the worlds, and the previous Keepers of the Guild had been covering up the truth for centuries.

  “Fuck it,” I growled, walking to a fallen trunk. I didn’t want to think about the moral dilemma anymore.

  I had taken on the case myself because deep down, I wanted things to change. In an ideal world, change was still hard – but in Bastan, it went a step further. It wasn’t just “hard” or “complicated.” Change was downright deadly. I was never going to work through my dilemma without getting my hands a little dirty, and I certainly wasn’t going to come to an informed decision by hiding away in my office and banging my head against the wall. I had to live inside the issue before I could decide what to do about it.

  I sat on the edge of the trunk, one booted foot crossed over my knee, a spyne spinning through my fingers in an agitated way. I wasn’t a “creature” like Mel, or the other warlocks or witches belonging to the hidden-away covens within Bastan. I was a Hollow, and an important one at that – despite my many objections to the title. Together with the Keeper of the Guild, the High Warlock, and the High Witch, we formed the governing body that controlled not only our own Tier of Bastan, but all of the other Tiers and the magical population of Earth.

  We were the in-between people – the people who maintained order. An order that Mel was threatening to seriously fuck up. Hansel and Gretel’s “wicked witch” had picked a terrible time to deviate from her tale, and she was deviating in a big way. She was supposed to be evil and bloodthirsty, chomping at the bit to munch on some children, but instead, she was quiet, beautiful and innocent. She liked gardening and swimming in the lake near Covalen. My binder had labelled her as a vegetarian. I mean what the fuck?

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket as I waited and placed it in my palm as I drew a communication rune onto the inside of my wrist with my spyne – the instrument that Hollows used to access their magic. I didn’t actually need the spyne to draw runes anymore, but the thing was already in my hand so I figured I’d put it to use. The rune took shape, and one of the black rings that littered my fingers warmed up, humming against my skin. The screen of my phone switched on, showing an elderly woman’s face. She had a toothpick and was aggressively leveraging it between her very large, very white veneers.

  “You’ve reached CentralComm,” she spoke around the pick. “You’re speaking to Doris. Who can I connect you with?”

  The previous Advisor to the Guild – whose job I now occupied – had been somewhat of a tech genius and had excelled in the magical manipulation of technology. He had been the one to pioneer CentralComm, which was a call centre secretly owned by the Hollows. It employed oblivious humans who didn’t even realise that every time they typed something into their enchanted computers, they were activating a tracking spell that could cross between worlds.

  “Lilou Adler,” I answered. “Keeper of the Guild.”

  “Please hold.” Doris wasn’t even fazed by my request.

  She reached forward and typed something into her computer. She had forgotten to actually put me on hold, because I could still see and hear her – though, in her defence, the humans employed by CentralComm didn’t actually know that their computers were spelled to show us their faces.

  “Lie-low Ab-buster,” she muttered to herself, leaning forward to stare into her monitor.

  Unfortunately, that meant that her face became magnified in my phone screen.

  “That’s not what I said,” I corrected her, causing her to jump in her seat and rear back.

  She touched her headset, her wrinkled nose scrunching up. “What was that, dearie?”

  “I didn’t say anything about an Ab-buster.” I worked to keep the frustration out of my voice.

  “Oh, there’s no need to be shy about it.” She tossed her toothpick away. “I have one of those Lie-low Ab-busters, and it’s been a real godsend. Saved my marriage if you know what I mean.”

  “I really don’t.”

  “Well . . . my husband said he was going to leave me if I didn’t start making something other than sausages and mash for dinner, so I spoke to my friend Sal –you wouldn’t know her. Anyway, I spoke to Sal, and she said that her marriage was on the rocks a while ago but then she bought the Lie-Low Ab-buster and it really turned things around. Really brought the excitement back, if you know what I mean.”

  “I still don’t,” I replied.

  “Well I agree with you – what was your name again?”

  “Slade,” I sighed out, my head falling into my hand. I should have just disconnected and called another CentralComm employee but the truth was I really had nothing better to do while I waited for Mel.

  “That’s a real intimidating name. Slade. Is it from the bible?”

  “No.”

  “Is it from Breaking Bad? The other women in my church group really enjoy that show. We watch it every Thursday night on Mary’s grandson’s laptop while we knit. The knitting is an important part of it. Otherwise the husbands will think that they can form clubs for anything, like the time my husband tried to form a neighbourhood-watch thing. I mean what a scam, am I right, Slade? You can’t make up dumb things like that and expect us older women to fall for it. The second you become complacent in a marriage, that’s when the cops call up and say they confiscated a hooker because your husband hid four ounces of crack up her butt and she has a high school geometry test that she c
an’t comfortably walk to.”

  “Can you ‘confiscate’ a hooker though?” I replied tonelessly.

  “Sure you can,” she replied. “So is Slade your street name, then?”

  “No.”

  “Your pen name?”

  “My what?”

  “You know.” She flapped her hand around. “Like Henrietta down the road who writes those rodeo romances but doesn’t want her mother to read them.”

  “It’s not my pen name,” I answered, watching as she pulled her cell from her handbag – a black, crocodile leather monstrosity – and scrolled through it.

  “Hetti Hardrod,” she finally announced. “That’s her pen name. Hetti Hardrod – writer of men who ride powerful beasts, and women who ride the powerful beasts that are riding the other powerful beasts.” She opened her mouth wide, a surprised and amused sound escaping her. “Ha! That’s great. Maybe I’ll read Claimed by the Horse Whisperer Twins. It’s got some really great reviews, and apparently one of the twins is also a biker who works for the mafia. So how’d you get a name like Slade, then?”

  “It’s my name. It’s like Doris, but better.”

  I watched as she tucked her cell away, oblivious to my insult. “Well anyway, I agree with you, Slade. There’s nothing wrong with bangers and mash for dinner every night.”

  “I never said that.”

  “You cut out for a second there, dearie,” she said, shaking her head and tapping the earpiece of her receiver. “Anyway, we both agree that there’s nothing wrong with what I was cooking, so something needed to be done. I bought the Ad-buster with the coupon code Sal gave me and got free three-day shipping, so I guess you could say I saved my marriage in three days. Unbelievable, right?”

  “I certainly don’t believe it . . . but I’ll pretend I do for the sake of ending this conversation, so I’m glad you met your weight loss goals, and your husband is happy again, now can you please put me through to Lil –”