Lucky Rabbit

Early in the morning just two days later, Lian’s mother woke him from a sound sleep. Hands trembling, she told him to get the bag he’d packed and meet her in Thaniel’s room. “I sent for the carriage,” she whispered, her face gray in the pale dawn light trickling through his curtains. “Your father will catch up with us. Later.”

Later. Even then, Lian knew ‘later’ held far less certainty than he was comfortable with. He wanted to see his father – sometimes stern, sometimes distracted, but always a bastion of safety and love – right then. But something about the feverish light in his mother’s eyes told him that if he did, he risked being left behind as well. As much as he wanted his father, his mother needed him, and Lian wouldn’t let her down.

Thaniel was barely aware as they packed his bag. He kept drooping, then jerking upright, rubbing his eyes. Their mother told him they were going on an adventure, just like Wayward Pirate Pete, and it was a sign of how sleepy Lian’s ever-energetic little brother was that he only nodded and smiled.

They didn’t see anyone as they made their way down the stairs, even with Lady Grace stopping to catch her breath halfway down. More than half of the staff had quit when they realized it was that or remain on the estate until Lord Conroy told them they could go. Those that remained were probably in the kitchen if they were even awake at this time of the morning.

Nels was up, though, bundled up until only his swollen, red-rimmed eyes glared out from between his scarf and his hat. He swayed as he climbed up into the driver’s seat, not bothering to help his passengers with their bags. Lian’s mother had to climb in on her own, and Lian handed Thaniel to her himself, rather than trusting the younger boy to the coachman. Thaniel curled up next to their mother and was asleep almost instantly.

As Nels grasped the edge of the driver’s seat to pull himself up, Lian asked, “Nels? You’re sure everything’s all right?”

Glaring down at Lian with a look that was as much spite as derision, the coachman said, “Yessir. Checked it myself.”

Lian hesitated, looking over the carriage, but he certainly couldn’t see anything wrong with it. There were no blatant cracks in wheels or spokes, no problems with what he could see of the horses’ tack. All he could do was trust that the old man’s anger wasn’t enough to allow him to disregard his mistress’s safety entirely.

Once Lian was settled, he let Nels know they were ready, and the carriage took off with quite a bit more force than usual. Lady Grace let out a small groan, closing her eyes and clenching her jaw for several seconds before releasing a long breath and looking at Lian. “Is everything all right?” she said.

He stared at her. He was the one who should be asking that. Except he knew the answer was no, but either she would lie, or he would be complicit in whatever was happening. Either way, Lian didn’t think he could bear it.

Instead, he shrugged and picked up one of his books, laying back on the cushioned seat in exactly the way he used to when he was young, but his parents hadn’t allowed in years. He even kicked off his shoes and put his feet up on the wall, but still his mother said nothing, simply holding her belly with one hand and stroking the hair back from Thaniel’s forehead with the other.

One of Lian’s greatest strengths was closing himself off from the outer world so he could focus on whatever he was working on, but on that ride, he couldn’t do it. The words on the page blurred together, and he had no more idea which king passed the nonsensical law against licorice than he had when he started. And then everything went wrong.

One moment he was scanning the same sentence he’d been trying to read for at least five minutes, and the next the carriage dropped sharply, a crack sounding from outside. Another crack followed, and Lian fell off the bench as the carriage tipped. His foot caught on something while the rest of his body went the other direction, and there was a wrenching, tearing pain as something in his leg snapped. He screamed, feeling hot blood begin to soak his pants. Whatever was wrong, it was bad, and they were still falling.

He didn’t remember much of that nightmarish tumble. He lost consciousness for a heartbeat, woke for another, then passed out again as something struck the bone protruding from his leg. He opened his eyes as he dropped through the open door, not aware enough to even try to grasp the hand his mother extended toward him. His last glimpse of her was all white face, huge eyes, and horror.

He fell through the branches of a tree, and looking back he thought he must have passed out again, because when he woke he was on the ground, half-covered in broken branches and fallen leaves. It seemed like most of their belongings must have fallen with him, because his suitcase was lying nearby, open and with the contents dangling from the tree overhead.

Something had woken him, and he turned his head, barely able to make out a large, dark lump in the dimness beneath the trees. They lay at the foot of the hill at the edge of their land, where the road rose up to meet the treetops. How many times had Lian looked out of the window, marveling at the way the carriage seemed to be flying above the forest, the road invisible beneath the wheels?

That image was shattered now, brought to earth with a literal crash. His vision was swimming, but as he forced himself to roll over, he saw that the dark thing was their carriage, lying on its side, half of the roof torn away so it was collapsing in on itself and its occupants. Someone inside was screaming. His mother was screaming.

His mind, usually so sharp that some of his classmates almost seemed to fear him, couldn’t put together what was happening. What he should do. He rolled to his belly, bones grating in his leg, and darkness swallowed him again. When he woke, the screaming had changed, becoming something more primal, and he got an arm beneath himself, hauling his body forward. His lips shaped a word.

“Lumis,” Lian whispered, and the delicate elemental flickered into sight. What was it supposed to do, though? It was only a tier two, so weak as to be little more than a fanciful nightlight. Someday it might be able to do more, but now it, and he, barely understood each other. “Help,” he whispered anyway. “Help.”

The elemental darted around, leaving a trail of sparkles behind it. Dorian was fascinated by those sparkles. He kept trying to get his Ice elemental to make tiny specks of ice that would twinkle like that, and Edgar just laughed, using his Fire elemental to melt them. Not in a cruel way, no. Somehow Edgar managed to make everything fun and lighthearted, unlike Lian, who was always too serious, too…

“Help,” he whimpered again, hearing something new. A crackling sound. Fire? Was that what had reminded him of Edgar? What would he do to have his friend here now? Or Kaden. Kaden was so unpredictable, but once you were one of his people, you were his, and he would defend you to the death. Or Dorian would save Lian’s family by simply picking them up and throwing them over his shoulders to carry them home. Lian wanted his friends. He wanted his father. He didn’t want to be alone, crawling through rotting leaves toward-

Warmth. Warmth that chased the fear and the pain away. Light surrounded him, filling him up, as gentle arms slid beneath him. He felt like he was little again – Thaniel’s age or younger – being cradled in his father’s arms, his mother leaning in to peer at him, her loving smile filling his world as his eyes drifted closed, safe in the knowledge that nothing could harm him while these two watched over him.

He didn’t know how long that sense of security lasted. It could have been a single breath or a hundred. Not more than that, because when he opened his eyes again, the pain flooded back in, somehow lessened, at least partially, but enough to allow him to focus.

Looking around, he saw that he was in the tower room. How had he gotten here? Had he passed out again? Had his mother found him? Flit? Mother’s elemental wasn’t around often anymore. She liked babies, but not enough to stay when she wasn’t called. Did she even know he would have a new sibling soon?

“Wake up, Thaniel. Please, you have to-” A sob broke through the voice that was almost unrecognizable as belonging to Bryan Conroy. There was a terrible sorrow in it that Lian had never heard before, and he struggled to sit up, to see what was happening. His body refused to respond, still locked in that strange lassitude that held the pain at arm’s length.

A deep, rumbling growl that was barely a voice came to his ears, but Lian truly couldn’t understand it. It seemed to be speaking another language – one made up of harsh edges and guttural vowels. His father growled back in the same language, then said, “Make it work, Tyne. Whatever it takes.”

More growling, and then something terrible pushed at Lian. It shoved away the lingering peace that cushioned him from sensation, dropping Lian back into himself with the force of a boulder falling from a mountain top, or a carriage from a hill. He lurched upright, realizing as he did that he was on the floor. His father stood in front of him, hunched over the table on which he and Mother worked together. Mother’s art was so beautiful, with its intricate details and hidden secrets, but Father’s was whimsical – jaunty pirates with twinkling grins and monkeys in eyepatches, one leg ending in a tiny peg carved to look like a banana.

At first, Lian’s mind refused to accept what lay before his father. It was a pile of old clothes, a bundle of rags and hair and pale, pale skin streaked in crimson. It was Thaniel, and his blue eyes were open but already fading, their light snuffed. His chest was a mass of… of…

Lian felt his stomach rebel, and he vomited, glad for the first time that Mother hadn’t given them time to eat. Bile flowed, but nothing else, and when he convulsed against it, his leg screamed so loudly that he almost managed to forget everything else. Almost. So many almosts for a single day.

Darkness gloomed around what remained of his little brother and his father. It was so thick that it made its own word, crawling over Lian’s skin in a frigid, sticky, voiceless rasp of wrongness that his entire being rebelled against. The hairs on his arms and neck rose up, and he shuddered, his breath coming in gasps of vapor that hung in the air for so long they made punctuation marks of distress.

“Now,” Bryan Conroy growled, thrusting his hand into his son’s chest. He was holding something, but Lian couldn’t tell what it was. As he opened his fingers, leaving the thing behind, the darkness coiled – gathering, tense, ready. It sank into Thaniel’s small body, taking with it something that Lian only glimpsed, but instantly recognized – Flit. The elemental’s mouth was open, her body wrapped in a nothingness more solid than obsidian, her wings still for the first and only time.

Thaniel gasped. His eyes blinked, and he reached up as if to rub them, but his limbs failed to obey, so one hand struck his forehead, while the other missed entirely. He breathed out, then in, then began to cry. His body convulsed, eyes staring as his lips attempted to form words. They failed, and Bryan Conroy’s shoulders hunched forward, taking on the pose of defeat that he would wear until his death.

Laying his hand over Thaniel’s eyes, he whispered, “Sleep, precious child. Sleep, and forget.” The small shape stilled, and Lord Bryan Conroy turned to face Lian. His eyes were pale, shadowed echoes of the bright color they’d once been – more gray than blue – and his hair had thick swathes of silver in it, rather than the few strands Grace loved to tease him about, threatening to pluck them out while he slept.

“I’m sorry,” he told his son, a broken man. “I’m sorry.”