Central Read online

  “Woohoo!” Olivia cried, setting her bow down and running toward Skye.

  Amber grinned and did the same. She met her sisters in the middle of the courtyard. When they threw their arms around her in celebration, she didn’t fight them off.

  “We did it!” Skye giggled.

  “Good job, ladies,” Gabriel said, reaching over and hooking an arm around Skye’s shoulders even as she clung to her sisters. “I’m very proud of you.”

  “Excellent shot,” Caleb said, propping his elbow on Olivia’s shoulder.

  “You are a true team,” James added. He tapped his fist to Amber’s.

  “We’re all a team,” Skye corrected. She held her hand out, palm down. “We’ll work together…support each other.”

  Olivia understood. She laid her hand on top of Skye’s. “Encourage each other.”

  Amber nodded and placed her hand on top of theirs. “Love each other.”

  “Believe in each other,” Gabriel said, laying his hand on top of Amber’s.

  “Challenge each other,” James contributed, adding his hand to the pile.

  “And protect each other,” Caleb finished, putting his hand on top.

  The resulting explosion of power knocked everyone in the courtyard off their feet.

  PART II:

  Integration

  Excerpts from the Great Foretelling:

  “Through her and her sisters, our minds and our hearts will ultimately be opened.”

  “If he denies what he feels, he will fail the greatest test set before him.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  James heard someone calling his name, but he couldn’t make himself respond. His body was a strange blend of numbness and incessant tingling. Hot pain seared across the inside of his right wrist and then faded. Everything was gray. He felt like he was floating.

  Then he heard someone urgently speaking Olivia’s name. His Gloresti power surged.

  “Olivia,” he said suddenly, his eyes flying open. He was on his feet in a fraction of a second.

  His gaze absorbed everything in as little time as it took to get to his feet. The three sisters were all on the ground, not moving. Gabriel and Caleb were just getting to their feet, their eyes glowing dark blue. The elders all knelt beside the girls, obviously trying to rouse them. Skye’s spirit guardian hovered over her still form.

  What just happened?

  Is she breathing?

  He blinked in surprise when he heard Caleb’s and Gabriel’s thoughts directly in his mind. Then he dismissed it as unimportant right at that moment and fell to the ground beside Olivia.

  “How long has she been this way?” he asked, trying to get closer to her. Uriel was leaning over her, checking her pulse. James couldn’t see her face.

  How long did I leave her unprotected? he couldn’t stop from thinking.

  When Gabriel and Caleb both turned to look at him from their positions beside Amber and Skye, he understood that he had inadvertently conveyed the thought to them.

  What did we do? he thought as he looked from one of them to the other.

  Gabriel shook his head as he lifted Amber’s upper body so she was supported by him. I don’t—whoa…her hair!

  James and Caleb instinctively glanced down at Olivia and Skye. Now that Uriel had sat back, James realized what Gabriel meant. A streak of Olivia’s hair, about an inch wide, was now a startling shade of green on the right side of her head. It started from her scalp and appeared to go all the way to the ends, but because her hair was bound it was impossible to tell. When he looked in Skye’s direction, he saw an identical streak in her hair, but light blue. Although he couldn’t see Amber’s head from his angle, he imagined she had a similar gold streak in her hair.

  Gabriel leaned down and pressed his lips to Amber’s even as the thought about her hair registered. It obviously worked, stimulating Amber’s self-healing. Within a moment, her eyes opened and she jerked in surprise.

  “What happened?” she asked immediately, looking around.

  “We don’t know,” Gabriel said, not resisting when she pulled away and crawled over to Olivia, who was closest.

  Uriel moved further back when Amber got beside her sister. She didn’t comment on Olivia’s hair, though her eyes rested on the anomaly for a notable moment. Instead, she just rested her hands on either side of Olivia’s face.

  Only seconds passed before Olivia’s eyes opened and she blinked in awareness. James almost sighed with relief.

  “You’ll live,” Amber said, giving Olivia another brief pat on the cheek before crawling over to Skye to repeat the procedure. This time, when she saw her sister’s hair, she spoke. “I’m assuming I have this rather odd coloring in my hair now, too?”

  “Yes,” said all of the males around her.

  She nodded, then touched Skye, whose eyes flickered and then opened. Her spirit guardian winked out of sight.

  “Holy cow,” Skye said, sitting up and holding her head with her right hand. Her eyes touched on Amber’s hair, then flickered over to Olivia. “Holy cow!” she repeated, louder this time. Then she looked at the inside of her right wrist, resting almost directly in front of her eyes. “Holy mother of all cows!”

  Amber took hold of Skye’s hand and turned her wrist so she could see it. As she did so, she glanced at something on her own wrist. Caleb, who was watching them, turned his right wrist over.

  Look, he thought.

  Hearing him, James and Gabriel looked at the insides of their right wrists. Olivia quickly did the same.

  They hurried to their feet and walked toward each other, holding their right wrists up so that the others could see. Ini-herit, Uriel and Knorbis followed them, looking on in deep curiosity.

  Each of them now bore a mark about an inch in diameter. It was a triquetra, an infinity knot with three pointed and overlapping rings. One of the rings was gold, the other light green and the third light blue. Amber’s and Gabriel’s marks were positioned so that the pointed tip of the gold ring pointed down their arms, toward their hearts. James’ and Olivia’s marks had the green ring pointing down and Caleb’s and Skye’s had the blue ring aimed downwards.

  “Holy cow,” they all said at the same time.

  Ini-herit did his form of an exam to assure Gabriel and Amber that their baby had suffered no ill effects from the unexpected display of power.

  “But you never know if he or she might not come out with weirdly colored hair or covered in tattoos,” Skye had pointed out cheerfully.

  Once they determined they were all okay, they went inside and showered and changed, taking time to collect their thoughts before meeting again. Now, they were all sitting at the long table in the dining room, the easiest place for everyone to congregate. The only person eating was Amber, who had a plate of fruit and cheese in front of her.

  Olivia shifted in her seat, the skirts of her dusky-pink sundress flowing over the chair’s legs. She kept running the thumb of her left hand over the new symbol on her right wrist. What did this mean?

  Ini-herit sat at the head of the table. He spoke first. “I believe that these symbols have formed as a result of the Gloresti-Corgloresti pairing.” When everyone stared at him, he pointed at his own silver tattoos. They lined the undersides and backsides of his arms. “When a Corgloresti pairs with a Gloresti, they exchange a permanent symbol marking them as paired. You, Gabriel, once had as many such markings as I do. They did not remain on your Estilorian form when you returned to this plane.”

  Gabriel nodded. “I’d forgotten about that,” he admitted.

  Olivia glanced at James. He didn’t have any such markings. But then, he had already told her that she was his first pairing. She guessed the same was true for Caleb since he was also a young Gloresti.

  “I believe that this was a delayed marking,” Knorbis agreed. “Each of your pairings was done in nontraditional ways. Gabriel, you were paired with Ini-herit, but rather than you remaining here to watch over his form, your roles were reversed.”

/>   “Still, the usual marks were made before you crossed planes,” Ini-herit said. “But you did not retain yours.”

  Knorbis nodded. “And with each of you girls, there was no time to assign your Gloresti until after you had been sent to the human plane, and you were too young to pair, anyway, meaning no marks were made.”

  “The formation of the marks involves an exchange of vows, much like the marks shared by Amber and Gabriel,” Ini-herit continued, referring to the mark on Gabriel’s bicep and the coordinating gold and blue-gray markings Amber now had around her eyes and on her right shoulder blade. “Unlike their vows based on love, however, the vows between a Gloresti and Corgloresti are the ultimate commitment to another being’s life: absolute protection and guardianship. I believe that since the girls are half-Corgloresti, the vows you all exchanged in the courtyard served to bind you together.”

  There was a long silence. Eventually, Skye cleared her throat. “Um, well, I guess this is my fault then.” She ducked her head sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”

  Gabriel was sitting next to her. He reached over and ruffled her hair. “Just because you started it didn’t make any of us mean it less. It wouldn’t have resulted in all of this if we didn’t all mean it.”

  There were nods around the table. Skye smiled and caught Gabriel’s gaze. “Thanks.”

  “Any idea why our hair freaked out?” Amber asked before she took a bite of a strawberry. She also had her hair down. The gold streak fell over her right shoulder.

  “None,” Ini-herit admitted in his level tone. “This does not usually happen with Corgloresti females.”

  “Groovy,” she said.

  Olivia grinned. I like the streak, actually, she thought.

  “Yeah. It’s kind of punky,” Skye said out loud. “Like Rogue from the X-Men.”

  Raising her eyebrows, Olivia thought, Did you just hear me?

  Amber looked between the two of them. “Oh,” she said. Then she looked at Gabriel.

  He nodded. “It seems this exchange of marks and vows—or whatever—resulted in shared thought, as well.”

  Knorbis looked intrigued. “Can you all hear each other?”

  They spent some time experimenting. In the end, they discovered that the sisters could hear each other, and Gabriel, James and Caleb could hear each other. Amber and Gabriel could, of course, still hear each other’s thoughts. They did have to focus a thought to be heard, which was a blessing. No one wanted their every stray thought heard by someone else.

  “But I heard more of James and Caleb when we first regained consciousness,” Gabriel said. “Now I can’t hear them unless they focus the thought.”

  Ini-herit responded, “I suspect that you could hear each other so clearly because your Gloresti power was at a peak.”

  Gabriel nodded in apparent agreement.

  “We must spend some time learning how to control all of these thoughts,” Knorbis said. “We cannot immediately know what impact this might have on each of you.”

  “I, on the other hand,” Uriel said, “intend to go ahead. Your training has advanced as far as it can at this time. A few more days will not matter, and I can meet with my commander to review the security arrangements before you arrive.”

  Olivia suddenly had a vision of the Secret Service motorcade escorting the President of the United States and wondered why she and her sisters warranted so much effort. When Skye and Amber snorted with laughter, she realized she had thought rather “loudly.” Color flooded her face.

  It was a very good thing they were getting some extra training on controlling their thoughts, she mused.

  “Please tell me more about Estilorian Central,” Olivia urged James a few days later.

  They would leave Gabriel and Amber’s home the following day. James was escorting her on an evening walk after their dinner. He held his hands casually behind his back as they walked, the muscles exposed by his ivory tank top pulling taut with the action. She had gained a new appreciation for his physique these past weeks. Watching him wield a sword was beyond inspiring. It just about made her jaw hang open. She knew that he, Caleb and Gabriel did their own exercise routines with the other elders every evening after the girls went to sleep. It explained to her how they all remained so fit.

  She and James hadn’t had much time alone together while they were at Gabriel’s. With her and her sisters getting launched into their training from sunup to sundown for the first month and then nearly all of their time spent with the whole group these past weeks, they hadn’t really been alone. Olivia hadn’t realized just how much she missed this one-on-one time with him.

  “What is it you would like to know?” he asked.

  She thought about that. “Estilorian Central” wasn’t the real name for the place where the majority of Estilorians lived. But as it didn’t have an official name (Estilorians just called it “home”), Olivia had dubbed it such. Her sisters had picked up on the name and started using it themselves. “Central” for short.

  The girls had already been told a bit about the place where they would be going. It sounded almost like a commune. Each of the different classes had its own homeland, but they also congregated periodically at a central hub that sounded to her like some kind of Estilorian multi-plex. It had arenas and stadiums, ballrooms, a library, a meeting chamber kind of like a senate, outdoor areas for training or leisure and even an assortment of hospitality spaces, kind of like a hotel. Apparently, there would be rooms prepared for each of them at this location.

  “Well,” she said finally, “how long can we stay in the rooms we’re going to be getting?”

  “As long as we wish,” he replied.

  “And it doesn’t cost us anything?”

  He looked at her. “We do not use money here. You know that.”

  “Yes, but there are other ways to pay for things. Barter, for example.”

  “Ah.” He considered this. “You do not feel comfortable receiving something for nothing.”

  “Of course not,” she responded.

  In fact, that was the biggest issue she had so far with this new existence. She had been given multitudes of things, from a roof over her head and clothes to wear to food to eat and a bed to sleep in. But she hadn’t contributed a single thing to earn it.

  He nodded. “This aspect of Estilorian life is different from what you have described about the human plane. We do not have to work to earn income, and we do not place particular value on material things. We have a reciprocal society. Everyone has a specific role, and because they chose the form they took on this plane upon entering it, they are content with it.”

  She frowned. “Well, that’s all fine and good from one Estilorian to another. But what roles are Amber, Skye and I supposed to fill to make ourselves worth all of this?”

  Now he stopped, causing her to do the same. He turned to face her. When she just stared up at him, he reached out to touch the side of her face, allowing his hand to rest where it cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing her bottom lip. The heat of his touch made her blood sing. The heat in his dark blue eyes, on the other hand, turned her body and her mind instantly to mush.

  “You do not believe you and your sisters have a role to fulfill on this plane? One that would make any one of us feel honored to do whatever we can for you?”

  She shook her head, unable to look away from his intent gaze.

  “Olivia, since you entered this plane just a few short months ago, you and your sisters have taught those of us in your proximity how to feel…how to truly express ourselves. We have experienced things that no Estilorian ever thought possible. Friendship. Laughter. Family. And on top of those miraculous things, you each have the ability to carry new life inside you.”

  Unable to think of a thing to say—indeed, not believing words could get around the knot in her throat—she swallowed hard. And when he smiled, she felt her heart roll over in her chest.

  “Olivia, you said it once before, at the Becoming ceremony. You bring us hope.”


  Chapter Fifteen

  The trip to Central took them three days. They stopped at Knorbis’ home on the first evening. He lived in a Mediterranean-style villa that looked like something out of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. It sprawled in glorious splendor along the coast, a pleasing arrangement of white-washed walls and flat ceilings. Because the weather remained temperate year round, there was no glass in the windows. The amazing water view from the back terrace alone was enough to make Olivia want to grab a book and curl up on the chaise lounge chair for a week.

  They timed their arrival to be about two hours before nightfall for safety’s sake, as well as to allow Amber to rest. She still tired quite easily. No sooner had they gotten to Knorbis’ than she was shown to the bedroom she and Gabriel would be sharing and she went to sleep.

  The rest of them enjoyed a tour with Knorbis followed by a light meal of assorted olives, light, flaky pastries stuffed with spinach and cheese, and sliced cucumbers with yogurt dill dip. When they were finished, Caleb walked with Skye outside so they could get in an hour or so of flight practice before the sun fully set. Gabriel sat in a richly-appointment parlor with the other elders, engaged in conversation about their travel plans over the days to come.

  Olivia stood on the back terrace gazing out at the water, unsure how she would spend the rest of the evening. She was considering getting a book from the library she had seen on the tour and settling in to watch the sun set.

  “Are you up for a little adventure?” James asked from beside her as if he heard her thoughts.

  Glancing over at him in surprise, she smiled. “Sure.”

  He returned the smile. “Excellent. Follow me.”

  She did so without hesitation. He walked over to a part of the terrace without a railing and extended his wings. She followed his lead.