P. Cast - Destined

“I told you we should have brought Kramisha,” Stevie Rae whispered.

“I think we should have brought a damn tank,” Stark said.

“ Clear your minds! ” I practically hissed the whisper, giving all of them a hard look. Then I went back to braiding.

I tried to clear my mind.

I tried to think about truth.

But I was too young—too scared—too worried. So the truth I found myself concentrating on was simple, but definitely not what Thanatos meant:

The truth is I need my mom and I’d give just about anything to have her alive and on my side again.

Aurox left the House of Night campus quickly, being sure he was well ahead of the school bus. It was, by human standards, very late and the roads were nearly empty. He was glad for the directions from the voice in his vehicle. Glad that he had time to drive and think without the worry of being discovered following an all too diligent Darius.

Neferet had ordered that he thwart the forthcoming ritual and the death spell Thanatos meant to cast, though she’d made it clear he wasn’t to kill any of the Priestesses in doing so. Aurox was not surprised that he was grateful for that one small caveat. For a moment while Neferet had been speaking her commands to him he’d believed she was going to task him with murdering Zoey. The thought had made him feel sick, although according to Priestess he did not have the ability to feel anything. He was a vessel. The emotions of others fueled his strength, but once used, the feelings were meant to dissipate.

Then why, since the moment he’d been alone with Zoey when she’d been weeping about her mother’s death, did he still feel sadness, a deep, pressing despair, guilt, and recently something else, something new? Aurox felt loneliness.

He could almost hear Priestess’s mocking laughter.

“Yes, I feel!” he shouted, and his voice echoed within the speeding vehicle, as if he was alone in a cave—always alone. “I do feel, even though Priestess says I do not.” He smashed his fist in the dashboard, not minding that his knuckles split and the leather dented. “I feel her sadness. I feel her fear. I feel her loneliness. Why? Why does Zoey Redbird make me feel?”

We each decide what we are by the life choices we make. Thanatos’s voice seemed to be there with him in the car. Our actions define us, and will keep defining us until even after death.

“I was created to serve Neferet.” Could Thanatos be correct, even for a creature such as him?

More of the High Priestess’s words came to him as if answering his question.

“… the future need not be dictated by the past .”

The voice in the car spoke then, dissipating Thanatos’s wisdom. It told him to turn right and within half a mile he was to arrive at his destination. Aurox completed the turn, but then he steered the car through the ditch and did not stop it until he was sure it was parked well away from passing headlights and prying eyes. He got out of the car and, moving silently and quickly, Aurox paralleled the quaint gravel lane, which led to a modest home.

Aurox halted before he came to the home, and not just because he needed to use the concealment of the small orchard adjacent to the house and the large lavender field that framed it. He halted because of the sight of the scorched circle within the winter-sleeping herbs. He knew that burning. It was not from fire that the land was charred and the lavender destroyed. It was from a cold burn—a frigid destruction.

Darkness has been here. Aurox told himself. And then he understood. Neferet and the white bull did this deed. They killed Zoey Redbird’s mother.

Something slipped inside him then, as if a wheel that had been stuck, struggling in the muck and the mud, had finally broken free. Aurox’s legs felt weak, and he sat heavily with his back leaning against the rough bark of one of the trees, waiting … watching … but doing nothing.

Looking up Zoey’s home address had been quick and easy. Her grandmother’s farm was only an hour or so away. He waited until the school bus left campus, and then followed slowly, being certain the ever-vigilant Darius did not notice him in the rearview mirror. Dragon didn’t need to stay close to the bus. He knew where he was going. He knew what he must do.

Duty was everything.

His task was to keep the school and its students safe.

A dragon protects its own.

That’s all he had left—the dragon.

“Your death has broken me

The dragon is all I have left to be.”

His own words taunted him. “I was telling you the truth!” he shouted to the emptiness. “Anastasia, you’re gone. I have nothing left except the dragon and my duty.”

“If you are not my mate, kind and true,

how will I ever again find you?”

Anastasia’s answer seemed to drift around him, bringing with it the fecund scent of the land bordering the mighty Mississippi River and a warm brush of humid, summer breezes where sunflowers nodded their heavy heads as if in approval.

“No!” he shouted, dispelling the memory. “That’s all gone. You’re gone. I have nothing left. I didn’t make this choice, your Goddess did when she let you be taken from me because all those years ago I was merciful.” He shook his head. “I will not make that same mistake again.”

Ignoring the emptiness inside him, Dragon Lankford drove on.

As we got closer and closer to Grandma’s house I got more and more nervous. My stomach was killing me. I had a headache. My angelica wreath was crap. Stark had to help me finish it. Seriously. Stark. And that boy is not what you’d call skilled at braiding.

My mom is the truth. That’s all I know.

“Remember,” Thanatos said as we turned down Grandma’s familiar lane. “Intent is important. We are here to reveal the truth so that we might bring about justice for a life cut short. Nothing more. Nothing less.” She looked at me. “You can do this. You do not lack courage.”

“Are you sure?”

She smiled just a little. “Your soul was shattered. That should have been a death sentence, yet you lived and you returned to yourself, bringing your Warrior with you. That has never before been done. You do not lack courage,” she repeated.

Stark squeezed my hand. I nodded my head like I was agreeing with her, but inside I was shrieking a different truth: If I’d been really courageous I would have been able to save Heath and my soul wouldn’t have ever shattered and Stark wouldn’t have needed rescuing!

Thankfully, before any of that could slip out of my mouth and mess up everything Thanatos was trying to help us do, Darius stopped the bus and opened the door.

We all just sat there. Finally, Thanatos said, “Zoey, you must touch the earth first. It is your mother who was killed here.”

I got up and, still clutching Stark’s hand, climbed down the bus stairs.

We’d parked in front of Grandma’s house. The bus looked weirdly out of place in the little gravel parking lot beside Grandma’s Jeep.

I guess because I knew Grandma wasn’t staying in her house during the seven-day cleansing ritual, I’d expected it to be dark and strange looking, but it was the opposite. Every room was lit. The place was so bright that I had to squint to look at it straight on. The windows twinkled like the glass had been newly polished. The big front porch was alight, too, showing comfy rocking chairs and little lemonade-ready tables.

And then Grandma was there, pulling me into her arms and filling my world with the scent of my childhood.