Pieces of Eight (The Frey Saga, #2)(15)

And then I remembered Junnie was council. And my mother’s aunt. Confusion took over and I clutched Steed’s arm in an attempt to focus. I had no idea how to react to her. She was still speaking to Chevelle, a flood of words running together, she hadn’t even seemed to notice me.

When she finally looked my direction, it was not at me. I barely had time to turn and see Ruby approaching before it happened. The spots in my vision came just as fast. Through them, I saw a flash of Junnie’s cloak flying past as she picked up the limp body of the girl. The human.





Chapter Four


Paranoia





I should have caught on by then that the fainting was a protection mechanism. But I didn’t often think rationally. And shock wasn’t exactly an easily controlled reaction. It was just that I missed so much every time I blacked out. All the important stuff.

Before my eyes opened the first time, I heard someone. “… she took Snickers…” Recognition came. The puppy. And confusion was back. Junnie had seen the girl, the human, and her reaction was so fierce. I’d heard a low oath just before the girl’s body hit the ground with a thud. She hadn’t even waited for an explanation. My stomach churned. I hadn’t even tried.

My eyelids fluttered and the blackness came again. But this time, there were dreams.





I was in the practice rooms. A tall, dark man with a large scar across his brow was threatening me, or pushing me too far, I couldn’t be sure. There was darkness again; it was creeping in on us, closer and closer. And then I was alone in the darkness as it swirled around me. But I couldn't have been alone because I heard voices. My chest tightened as I realized what they were saying about me. Comparing me to them, like dumb animals. It ached. How could he? I didn’t understand. I ran to my mother, she had been right.





It was a long time after I woke before I could bear to open my eyes. When I did, they were all quiet. But I didn’t question them. And I’d forgotten about the girl, about Junnie. All I could think of was the dream. It had twisted my reality. I couldn’t get it to fall in place in my thoughts. I had known the voice this time. But it couldn’t be right. My grandfather must have been killed in the massacre, he hadn’t ruled since. He must have been gone.

But the man in my dream was not gone.

Lord Asher.

My mother’s father, the one who had driven her to the massacre, the man who had pushed us both. I felt the pain associated with the memory. It couldn’t have been. How could that man have been the same Asher, the same man that had met with Chevelle? I remembered the first time I had seen him. The look he’d given me, the way his knuckles whitened as he gripped the staff, his shabby cloak. I remembered thinking it must have been a disguise because of the way he carried himself, and then chastising myself for being so paranoid.

I realized I was staring at Chevelle as I recalled their meeting. He was watching me, concern on his face. A thought flashed that maybe he knew that I was on to him. But it was all so wrong.

My head spun and I closed my eyes. I tried to find something to grasp, something to steady me before I blacked out again. I needed a way to fix the conflict. Asher couldn’t have been my grandfather. I struggled to sit up long enough to reach my pack. I felt around for the only thing real I had. My fingers finally caught the edge of the binding and I pulled the diary out, clutching it tight as if someone might try and take it from me.

I couldn’t make myself look at the others, but I knew what they’d be thinking. It was a few minutes before I could focus well enough to read. I flipped through the first pages: my mother as a child; her father’s prize.

A tear tracked down my cheek and I wiped at it absentmindedly. And then I felt their eyes on me so I hardened, biting down, determined to keep another from escaping.

I scanned back through, searching for mention of him, but I kept getting caught in the story. It was all so different now, now that it wasn’t a stranger. It was my mother’s story, my story. And Asher’s?

Lord Asher.

Page after page I kept my nose buried in the diary. No one asked me to move. But they kept close. I could feel them watching, waiting. Eventually, exhaustion won out and the dreams were back.

The next day, I was almost certain the dreams were not just dreams, they were memories. And Asher was Lord Asher. But what I could not reconcile was how he was alive, how he could have met with Chevelle, and why.

My thoughts were clearer now but that made them all the more distressing. I felt like secrets were everywhere, swallowing me.

I recalled each time I had seen him. I focused on the day we all had seen him in the tree line: how they had reacted to his single nod. I could see his braid swing behind him as he turned and disappeared into the brush. I struggled to understand and I couldn’t help but remember what had happened just before, a memory I’d not returned to willingly. I could still hear the sickening thud as the council tracker’s head landed on the ground. The sight of it rolling to a stop, the blood on my blade.

Yet I could not understand.

And so I forced myself to stop thinking of it. It was the only way to put an end to the screeching pain in my head. But when I finally calmed it to a dull throb, I could begin to feel the ache in my chest. It was tough to breathe. How could they… But I couldn’t even finish the thought before the other pain returned.