“We were shocked to hear you were the Breaker,” Everett continued a moment later. “Someone so meek and mild entrusted with such a task…how do our vampire brethren fair?”
“Not, well, sir,” Rilen answered. “Not well at all.”
I leaned forward and cleared my throat. “Everett, who has taken over the Rest?”
Both Rilen and Roran turned their heads to look at me, eyes wide, shock on their faces. I darted between their looks, waiting for Everett to answer.
“The Fox Family,” he said, but there was reluctance in his voice. “I’m afraid they aren’t as good at attending to the needs of the Resting. We have all taken turns doing rounds in the caves.”
I sighed. “Should I speak with them? It is my duty to make sure that the caves are cared for.”
“I think it would be more than a mere suggestion to them if you did.” He chuckled. “I can just see Bateena’s face when not just one but three temple masters appear at her door.”
A little chuckle escaped me. “I believe that crapping her pants would be an understatement.”
I heard Everett chuckle along with me a moment later.
The rest of the ride was quiet, as Roran and Rilen were clearly doing their twin thing, something passing back and forth between.
It only stopped when Everett pulled his carriage to a stop in front of my old home. House. Home.
It confused me more than ever to be there.
Roran helped me out of the carriage as Rilen pushed the gratuity into Everett’s palm. No one wanted for the basics of life in S’Kir, but the finer things required gold. And the people of the Middling Hills were always in want of gold—I was glad Rilen pressed it on him. I would do more if I could.
Perhaps I could. I’d look into it soon.
As the carriage rumbled away down the dirt trail, I stood looking at my old house.
It was nestled in the shadow of a tall cliff, the sun only shining down for a mere three hours in midday, between its rise from behind the hill to its slide behind the trees on the far hill.
There were two paths. One led to the front door, poorly tended even for a dirt path, and the other led off to the right and up the hill to the mouth of a cave.
Rilen’s voice broke the odd silence between us. “Kimber, your parents were the Keepers of the Rest?”
“Yes.” I glanced to the right to the two handsome men standing there. “It wasn’t a secret.”
“I just never realized you were that Raven family.” Roran’s eyes locked on the entrance of the cave.
“I’ve been gone for nearly fifty years. I trusted the Poulson family first. They were terrible at taking care of it. I left it to the mayor to choose the next family. Too bad it seems they were just as bad as the Poulsons.” I sighed. “We’ll go up and check the Rest before we go to Everett’s house for dinner.”
I headed up the decrepit front walk, and the twins bolted after me.
“How many Rest?” Rilen asked.
I pulled out a key to the front door and unlocked it. “I don’t know. I don’t keep the records here anymore. I am merely the owner of the land. Other people are the caretakers.”
The door creaked on its hinges as it swung into the house. The same creak I remembered from all my years there. No amount of oil or grease ever fixed it.
The dust I stirred floated through the air and didn’t have any intention of settling. It was thick and choking, and with a brush of magic, I pushed all the windows of the house open, and a welcome breeze traversed the rooms.
So bucolic. So peaceful.
So unnerving.
There was something…that always bothered me about being there. Even before my parents died. Even when Cely was there to chase the boogeymen away.
It never felt right as home.
“Let’s find the box with my mother’s stuff.” I walked toward my parents’ old bedroom and pushed the door open.
Daylight didn’t do much for the room in the back of the house. This room had always been starved for light, and I felt it now.
Roran stepped in the door, and Rilen followed, bringing up some magical light in the room.
Even after breaking the Spine, I kept forgetting I had power and magic and didn’t have to rifle in the dark.
“No furniture?” Rilen asked, moving to the windows.
“No, I got rid of almost everything when they died. I gave it to the others in the town who could use it. Their bedroom furniture was one of the first things to go.” I pulled the closet doors open. “I stored all of their personal belongings in here.”
There were only a few boxes, one labeled Willow, one labeled Dixon, and one for the two of them together. They were married when they were a hundred, so the personal boxes were smaller.
I lifted my mother’s out of the closet and knelt down with it, opening the top.
The box only had a few things. Parchment from her school. A silly project from when I was young. A necklace made from pretty stone she’d found as a little girl. The small, stuffed kitten that my father had given her as a gift on their second date. The dried rose from when he proposed to her. Their Sealing ceremony certificate.
A small, ancient-looking box my mother had only let me see once before she hid it away sat in the center. I only saw it again after her death, and that was when I found the prophecy inside.
Opening the lid, I reached in and pulled out a pale blue seashell. This was old, old magic. A whisper shell. A seer could enchant it and whisper the vision into it before giving it to the focus of the vision.
This one was my mother’s with the promise of death for my birth.
I put the crystal next to the box in my palm and offered both to the twins.
It was silent a moment, then the prophecy started to fill the room. Nothing more than a breath carried the sound around.
“…a child born of unfathomable time, a whole made of two impossible halves. Destiny waits for her sword and blood, your death shall follow her birth…”
The looks on their faces were of wonder, horror, and shock. Rilen took the crystal while Roran took the small box. They studied them, turned them over, traded, and traded back.
The prophecy kept whispering from the shell.
After a long time of study, Rilen finally spoke. “Kimber, there’s no way that this belonged to your mother.”
My brows knitted. “She got so upset when I found it and opened it. She was utterly livid. Possibly the only time I ever saw her angry.”
Roran shook his head. “It’s not hers. It can’t be. This magic is ancient. It hasn’t been used since before the Spine rose. And it can’t be used anymore.”
“But—”
“Roran is right. This must be an heirloom of some sort that meant a lot to her. These whisper shells”—Rilen held it up—“are native only to the Southling Caye. Once the seer whispers their vision into it, it never stops whispering back.”
Turning the box in his hands to show me the runes, Roran traced a finger over them. “This box with these words is the only way to quiet the shell.”
“But I don’t understand why you say this isn’t used anymore.”
“Because these runes,” Roran continued, “must be carved into only one kind of wood, a hushwillow tree. And those trees grew in only one copse in all of S’Kir. It stood northeast of the vampire stronghold in East S’Kir, beyond the Twin Falls.”