Page 16 of The Marked and the Broken
The faintest sound of fabric scraping against wood reaches me in the dark, and I freeze. I call on the runes on the helix of my ear and focus past the sound of my own pounding pulse. I scan my surroundings, my knees bent and my body ready for anything that may come my way. But after what feels like forever just standing and listening, I don’t see or sense anything out there that poses any threat. I put one foot in front of the other again, and before I know it, I’m walking into a cleared area where an old barn stands.
I feel a magical barrier a few feet away, and I call my Defensive magic forward. I close my eyes, and when I open them, it’s with a sheen of magic filtering my view. A coral-colored dome protects the grumpy looking barn. I think back to everything that Becket and Bastien have taught me about barriers, and I filter through my options as I stare at the coral glow of the obstacle in front of me. I don’t want Silva to know that I was in here, so shattering or overtaking this protective magic—which is usually my go-to—is a definite no go.
I pull on more Defensive magic from my core and direct it to pool in my hands. I crouch down to the base of the barrier and run my index finger in a straight line up the side of the barrier, standing as I move higher. I weave my intention to go unnoticed and leave no trace, with the yellow-orange magic in my hands as I go. My magic coats the magic of Silva’s barrier, and a slit in the side of the dome forms directly in front of me. Silva’s protections aren’t overly strong, and the lack of over the top security measures on the building makes me question whether he’s hiding anything in this place.
I step through the slit in the barrier, and as soon as I’m all the way in, all noise of the forest disappears. It’s quiet in here, and the sound is distorted like I’m underwater. Why would Silva put sound protections on this place? I file that question away and quickly make my way inside the barn. It’s so dark I have to manifest a ball of fire in my hand so I can see through the inky blackness. The fireball lazily floats above my moving palm as I search for a light switch. I spot one just to the left of the door and flip it on, causing the fluorescent lights above me to sluggishly blink to life. The buzz of electricity as it runs through the bulbs fills the quiet of the barn, and I look around, not sure what to expect.
At first glance, the roof is two stories above me, and the inside of the barn has been quartered off. I walk through the room that I’m in and open the door to my left. It swings open with a slight creak and reveals the spells that Silva was talking about, or at least I think that’s what’s in here. I recognize stoppered bottles of the shifter saliva Sabin and I took from his family’s warehouse. I didn’t know how many of the bottles survived the shifter attack, but it looks like a couple of cases arrived here unscathed.
I don’t walk through the doorway or feel the drive to explore this room. I don’t actually know how volatile these spells might be, but it’s not worth the risk of accidentally blowing myself up. I close the door, and that same angry creak voices its displeasure at being disturbed. I move to the doorway on the wall to my right. The one light switch must control the illumination in the back rooms of the barn too, because I walk into a bright room with large maps covering two of the four walls. I move closer to one of the maps and run my gaze over the dark green markings that have been made on them.
If I’m reading this layout of Europe correctly, it seems Lachlan, Keegan, and Silva have been tracking lamia movement in Greece, Portugal, Poland, Romania, and Belarus. There are clusters of greenXs in all of these countries and lines connecting the clusters. Without a key or someone to explain what all the writing means, it’s impossible to decipher for certain, but I don’t miss that the largest cluster of greenXs is just across Belarus’s border with Russia. There’s a small blue star close to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, and something about its presence niggles at my mind.
No matter how I try to reach for whatever it is that’s bugging me, I can’t get my mental fingers around it. Sets of computer screens demand my attention, and with a shake of the mouse, the screens come to life. I have no idea what to make of the images I see on them. One looks like ruins of some kind. There are crumbling piles of old stone, and one stubborn wall with a small cut out for a window still fighting against the elements and refusing to topple over. On another screen is a picture of a man or more likely some kind of supe.
He looks older than Lachlan and his coven, but I’m not sure exactly how much higher up his age range would fall. He’s handsome, has curly brown hair, and his frown lines seem etched into his skin like a warning. There’s nothing familiar about him, and the picture gives no indication of why Silva or anyone else would be interested in him. The third computer screen has a tab that requires a password. I click on the two screens with images on them, but they don’t respond to the commands of the mouse, and it’s clear that, without the password, I’m not getting any more information about what’s on these computers.
I leave them and scan the rest of the room for anything else that might be of interest, but aside from a couple chairs, the desk that takes up most of one wall and only has markers in the drawer, and the computer screens nestled in one corner, this room isn’t hiding anything else. I move to the last door. I open it cautiously, and it gives way without a sound.
The room is the same packed dirt as the rest of the barn, but it has dark splotches that mottle the color. There’s a bucket in the corner, and something about the smell in the room has my hair standing on end. My gut churns with warning, but I can’t place what it is about this space that is setting my internal alarms off. I move to step further inside the room when the telltale creak of the door that leads into the spell room breaks through the silence like a cannon.
My adrenaline spikes, and my heart starts to race. I swallow down my fear and quietly shut the door to the room I’m not going to get to explore. I move soundlessly until my back is pressed against the wall directly next to the door leading into the room. I never shut it behind me when I came in here, but it’s closed enough to offer my movements some cover and so that I’ll be able to grab whoever pushes the door open before they see me.
I work to slow my breathing and focus on the door and any movement in the other room. Whoever it is, they move as soundlessly as I do, and I’m surprised when a hand appears out of nowhere and pushes the door open. I spot the runes on the ring finger of whichever of my Chosen has decided to follow me, and I’m instantly relieved and irritated at the same time.
“Valen, what the fuck?” I demand, my question exploding into the silence like a firework, and Valen jumps and lets out a small yelp.
“By the stars, Vinna, you scared me.”
“You scared me, you ass. Why are you following me around?”
Valen gives me a sheepish smile. “We wanted to know where you were sneaking off to, and I won the roshambo off.”
I chuckle, not able to help myself. “You rock-paper-scissored to see who would follow me?” I ask, my tone exasperated with just a touch of amusement.
“Of course, arm wrestling takes too long,” Valen tells me matter-of-factly before his attention turns to the room and its contents. “What are you doing in here?”
“Spying,” I admit casually, as I join him in looking around again.
“Find anything good?”
“Not really. I can see where Silva and the others have been tracking lamia, but I have no idea what all the markings on the map mean or where the pictures on the computers are from and what significance they have.”
Valen steps further into the room and quietly peruses the map and then the computers. Unlike me, he actually tries to type in a couple of password options, but nothing is correct. He studies the picture of the man just like I did and then looks at me with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Yeah, I got nothing,” he admits, and we both step back to the map and stare at it for a minute.
“The thing I still want to know is how did they end up over here? The sisters said they were following up on a lead, but where did that lead come from? Why is Silva being so squirrely about this place. What’s he up to?”
“Well, aside from the fact that he doesn’t trust you, he also has a tendency to treat Bastien and me like we’re still thirteen. He never really tells us about missions or plans because he thinks we’re kids and can’t handle it. I know there’s mutual distrust on your part too, but honestly, he’s not behaving out of character.”
“Well, you would certainly know him better than I would,” I admit.
I turn back toward the weird dirt room that Valen’s interruption kept me from looking through, but he reaches out and grabs my hand, keeping me from leaving. I turn around to find worry in his eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asks me, and I’m not sure what to say. “We’re worried about you. You’re pushing pretty hard, not giving yourself any time to just breathe and process,” he tells me, his stunning hazel eyes searching mine. “What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?”
Valen pulls me into him, and I tilt my head back as he brushes stray strands of hair out of my face. His brow is furrowed with concern, and his lush lips are pursed with questions.
