Tariah grabbed her arm and said "Hey, slow down! Are you absolutely sure you can drive yourself home?” Emiran nodded briskly, "Honestly, I’m feeling a lot better now." she lied. "But I will let you follow me home, so you don't spend the rest of the day worrying." They parted ways and Emiran quickly slid behind the wheel. She let out a shaky breath, and grabbed her phone. By the time she'd hung up with her boss, explaining her sick leave, Tariah was waiting behind her.
She pulled out and proceeded home, much slower than she had gone when leaving it. When she pulled into her parking lot, she expected Tariah to leave, but she pulled in next to her and got out. Emiran let out a quiet huff of irritation and got out. "Well you're making sure I get all the way home huh?" She locked her car and began across the parking lot. Tariah stayed close to her and said in a disapproving tone "Girl, you're lucky I'm not making you go to the hospital. Yes I'm going to see you inside and make sure it's safe."
Emiran's eyes quickly surveyed the hallway in both directions, as they reached the top of the stairs. One of her neighbors was standing at the mailboxes at the far end of the hall, but there was no sign of the man. She let out a relieved breath as she realized she'd been holding it. She waved to the woman from 3-C and went to her door. Tariah was on her elbow as she unlocked the door and pushed it open. She pushed her way past Emiran so that she could get in first.
Emiran rolled her eyes at her friend and followed her inside, shaking her head. She closed the door and went into the kitchen to start some boiling water while Tariah wandered in the other rooms. After the water was on the stovetop, Emiran went after her. She checked through each room as she passed, to make certain everything was clear. Tariah came around the corner and said, "I've checked everywhere, except for the room you have locked. Nothing seems amiss, and no criminals hiding in the shadows! I think you're safe for now."
She gave Emiran a hug. "I am satisfied now. I'll come by tomorrow in the morning to see how you're feeling. No more wrestling with the bad guys! Go to bed and eat some hearty soup." Emiran walked her out to the stairs "Ok mom, I promise I'll rest" she said sarcastically. "I'll see you tomorrow. We can have brunch and do some investigating." Tariah left and Emiran turned to go back inside. She could hear the tea kettle shrieking from all the way out here. She rushed inside and closed the door, careful to lock it behind her this time.
Some chai tea with vanilla and honey sounded heavenly to her right now. She pulled her special cup from the cabinet, and slowly poured the water over the tea bag. Her hands were still shaking and she was having a difficult time holding on to the kettle. As the tea steeped, Emiran grabbed a rag from the towel drawer and set it in the sink. She put the plug in, and poured the remainder of the hot water onto the rag. It was time to clean her arm again. She could tell that it was infected. The gauze stuck to her arm as she tried to peel it off, and she winced and yanked it off. It made the cut start bleeding again. Grunting in frustration and pain, she threw out the old gauze and went to the bathroom to get more.
She turned her arm over and over, examining it as she walked. The whole lower half of her arm was swollen and turning different shades of purple and red. The grey lines down her wrist were now solid black, and spreading up her arm towards the top of the gash. She grabbed the fresh gauze and went to her room to grab her special box of herbs. Her sister had been a healer and had passed on quite a few home remedies to her over the years. She grabbed the box of herbs and the things she'd hidden beneath the bed that morning, and went back to the kitchen to clean up.
She set the stuff of her sisters on the dining room table, and brought the herb box over to the sink. A pinch of lavender and cherry blossom in her tea would help fight the infection from the inside. She mixed the 5 ingredients together she'd memorized with a bit of the scalding water to create a paste out of them. The smell of it washing over her made her start thinking about the last time she'd had to use this remedy. It had been when she was a teenager and her mom had been sick. She could picture it clearly. Squeezing the excess water out of the rag, Emiran began scrubbing the gash as hard as she could tolerate, and continued reminiscing.
Growing up it had been just the three of them. Their father had left when she was 4. She actually barely remembered him. Elanore had been 7. She did remember some things about him. But no matter how much Emiran had begged for information, neither of them were willing to say much about him. Elanore had stepped up in his place, and had become their mothers little shadow. She followed in her footsteps, and had become like a second mother to Emiran. They had been pretty inseparable when they were young. But then her visions had started. Both Elanore and her mom had been so excited when she told them.
They were proud that she had inherited the ancestral gifts. But even at 11, Emiran could tell that being gifted in today's society was highly frowned upon and could get you in serious trouble. So she wasn't exactly excited about it. Emiran did her best not to embrace her powers, despite them trying to teach her about the ancestral knowledge. She didn't want to be labeled as a freak, and she certainly didn't want to be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life. Elanore couldn't understand it. She thought that being special was amazing. That had been the start of their separation.
Then their mother had fallen ill. Emiran was 13 and Elanore was 16, just a few months shy of her 17th birthday. She was well into her journey of becoming a powerful medicine woman. Elanore had taught her many home remedies. Their mother wouldn't go to the doctors at hospitals. She didn't trust them. So as she declined, it fell on them to take care of her. After two years of watching their mother waste away slowly, Emiran had decided that she had to become the breadwinner in the family. Since their mother could no longer work. And Elanore was more concerned about following her spiritual destiny than financial matters. So Emiran had done whatever odd jobs she could find in the surrounding quadrants while she finished school.
When she started high school, she decided she would pursue a career in law enforcement. Emiran knew that COLO would pay her a good living wage, so she would be able to afford to take their mother to a real doctor. But no matter how hard she tried, she never could convince their mother to go to the hospital. In her last year, her immune system wouldn't function anymore, and she got infections easily. A few months before she passed, she had an accident and cut herself open pretty badly. Elanore had moved out by then and it was all on Emiran's shoulders. The wound got infected quickly, and Emiran tried every home remedy she'd been taught. Including the one she was now using on herself.
But by then her immune system was too far gone, and no amount of help was enough. The massive infection ultimately killed her, just two weeks shy of Emiran's 17th birthday. The memories caused a sharp, twisting pain in her heart and Emiran snapped herself back to reality. She rinsed her arm thoroughly and set the rag to the side. After a few hasty sips of her tea to ease the tightness in her throat from trying not to cry, she grabbed a thick glob of the paste and rubbed it into the gash. The burn was instantaneous, and of such intensity, Emiran couldn't help letting out a slew of curse words through her gritted teeth. Her eyes were watering fiercely but she kept going, until every inch of her lower arm and hand was smothered in the paste.
She wrapped a thick layer of gauze over her arm and tied the ends of it. The gash was so big that she might have even needed stitches. But Emiran had no interest in going to the hospital and explaining what happened. She knew all too well that it would lead to an investigation by her employers. And considering an investigation might well lead to COLO uncovering her abilities, she decided it wasn't worth it. If it became necessary, she could stitch it up herself. She grabbed her tea and sat down at the table. She knew that she needed to look for the photo album, but she wanted to put it off as long as she could. So she sipped her tea slowly, and picked up the two small leather bound books on the table. They weren't as fancily decorated as the 3 others she'd found, but again they lacked an author's name and it made her wonder why.
One bore the title Ancient power: tracing your roots to the source of your power. And the other had only a single word on it, in fancy gold lettering, Bloodlines. These books had to be really old, but they didn't show any visible sign of aging. She set them back on the table, intent to thumb through them and the others she'd found, at a later time. After a deep shaky breath and a long swig of her tea, Emiran picked up the jewelry box and set it in front of her. She lifted the lid slowly, not entirely sure of what was making her hesitant to look inside. As the lid lifted enough for her to see inside, something immediately caught her attention.
There, right in the center of the box, was a crest that she instantly knew was the missing part of the ring. She knew there was nothing else it could be, and a creeping sensation began down her spine. No doubt this is what the man had wanted. She picked up the half a crest and closed the lid. Nothing else in the jewelry box seemed to matter to her. Turning it over and over she examined it closely, but with half of it missing, it was hard to tell what she was looking at. A surge of energy seemed to urge Emiran on, and she knew she could put it off no longer.
She gulped down the rest of her tea and pushed herself up from the table. It was time to finish what she had started, and find the photo album. She slipped the half crest in her pocket and went quickly to the storage room. There were so many boxes to go through, and Emiran heaved a choked sigh as she slid 3 of them out into the hallway. She really didn't want to go through everything that remained of her sister. And she hoped fiercely that she would get lucky and find it in the first few boxes. After the first two boxes, which contained nothing but her sister's clothes, Emiran had the sneaking suspicion that her hope was in vain. She pushed the two boxes to the opposite side of the hall, and added the one box of her sister's stuff to it.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
She left the box of items she'd never seen before where it was. The third box did contain pictures, but not the photo album that she was on a hunt for. Regardless, Emiran looked through them to see if she recognized anyone. Some of the pictures she recognized because they were pictures that Elanore had taken from their house, after their mother had passed. Emiran clutched the picture she was holding tightly, and closed her eyes. No matter how hard she tried to keep her feelings buried, going through these things made it impossible to ignore them.
The picture she was holding was the last picture the 3 of them had taken together before their mother died. It had been a few months before, when Elanore had come home for a visit. Emiran had spent most of the visit in her room. She was pretty upset with Elanore for leaving, and didn't have a big desire to spend time with her. But when her mother had called to her wanting to take the picture, out of respect for her, knowing how bad she really was, she obliged. Out of earshot of their mother, she and Elanore had their first big fight. That's when Emiran had told her of her plans to work for COLO. Elanore was not happy with the decision and told her what she thought about it. Emiran had told her, in no uncertain terms, that she didn't really care what she thought about it, and that she'd lost her right to choose the right thing for her when she had left.
Emiran set the picture down and shook her head, trying to clear the memories away. She pushed the box to where the others were, and got up to pull more boxes out of the room. When she bent down to pull the next set out, a light tapping sound caught her attention. She lifted her head trying to determine where it was coming from. It sounded like it was at the front door, and it sounded like something was trying to pick the lock to get in. Emiran sprinted down the hall to her room to grab her baton. She reached her room in record time, and dove quickly to her bed, grabbing the baton just as she heard the front door swing open.
She held her breath, and listened to a set of heavy footsteps go into the kitchen. She sprung up from her bed, and crept over to the door as quietly as she could. As her head peaked around the corner, a wave of heat crashed over her. She let out a gasp of surprise, louder than she meant to, and stumbled into the hallway. The house was deadly silent now and Emiran didn't dare move. Her eyes drifted to the kitchen doorway, and she waited breathlessly to hear any sign of movement. Time seemed to drag on forever as her ears strained to hear anything other than her own pounding heart.
After what could have been two seconds, or two minutes for all Emiran could tell, a faint scuffling sound came from the kitchen. Emiran bolted down the hallway and flung her body around the doorway as fast as she could, baton in front of her and ready to swing. The man she had encountered twice now was standing at the table, his hand on the now open jewelry box. "So you found the piece." he said, "That means your journey has begun." He didn't turn around, seemingly waiting for Emiran’s response. Even without seeing his face, Emiran knew he was smiling, and she felt just as hollow as she had earlier. When she found the nerve to say anything she replied "Who are you? What do you want with me?" she paused to catch her shaking breath "Turn around and face me.”
She could hear him chuckling as he turned around. The sound sent a shiver down her spine. "Well you've got quite the spirit. Good, you'll need it. He said, “My name is Traevin. I came to give you this. It does belong to you after all." With that he lifted his hands, and pulled the ring from his finger. He held it out to her and waited for her to grab it. He definitely had a smile on his face, and his grey blue eyes seemed to glint as Emiran studied his face. She let go of the wall slowly and pointed at the table. "Put it down there, and back away slowly." she said, "I'm not taking anything from you. The first time you showed up, you left me with this."
Raising her arm to show off the gauze, she moved closer to him, keeping the baton up between them. His head tilted slightly, and a shadow seemed to fall across his face. "Yes." his smile never wavered but he did as she asked. "Apologies, but you made it necessary," he said. When he'd backed away from the table, Emiran darted forward and grabbed the ring, then just as quickly backed herself up to the doorway. "What's that supposed to mean? You're the one who broke into my house." she said in an accusatory tone.
He nodded at her. "Yes, I did. But you were never supposed to know that. I paid good money to make sure you were gone when I came." His teeth flashed as he continued. "Ah well, looks like I'll just have to get rid of them. It would have been necessary eventually anyway, but it wasn't supposed to be this early in your journey." A look of pain crossed his face again, that looked oddly out of place with the grin he still held. He pulled a small red card from his pocket, and set it on the table where the ring had been. As he stepped forward, Emiran reflexively stepped back, and he slid into the hallway. "I'll be seeing you, sooner rather than later I should think." he said, backing slowly towards the open door behind him. "Just remember, next time it will be on my turf, and you might not fare so well with a crude weapon such as that."
With that he was out the door and around the corner before Emiran could react. By the time she got into the outside hallway, it was empty and Traevin had disappeared. Emiran stood there for a moment, trying to process what had happened, and watching both sides of the hallway to see if there was any sign of him. She watched the parking lot, which she could see from her front door, for a few minutes with no luck. She was sure she had seen this man before today, but she really couldn't place from where. It was nagging at the back of her mind as she turned to go inside. Locking the door almost seemed pointless, but she did it anyway out of her deep desire for personal safety.
Emiran made her way into the kitchen and picked up the card, setting the baton down in its place. On the front side of the card was a single black cat, in classic frightened design, like a Halloween decoration. On the back of the card was a short paragraph. It read, "Follow the path the black cat lays out. At the end of the line you will find the answers that you seek." Followed by an address she recognized as an address from a quadrant away. She set the card back down and pulled the piece of the ring from her pocket. Sliding into the chair in front of her, Emiran held the ring steady and put the piece in its place. A shock went through her hand and she pulled it back, expecting to drop the piece as she did. But the piece stayed in place. Raising it to her face, she examined it closely. No matter how hard she looked at it, she could see no indication that the ring had ever been in separate pieces. Puzzled by this, she turned the ring over to examine the crest.
The middle of it appeared to be an eye, whose iris was divided by a wavy vertical line. Each half was a different color. It reminded her of a ying yang symbol. One half was an icy blue, the other half a smoky grey. On both sides of the eye sat a crescent moon, facing opposite directions of each other. Now she knew she had seen this ring before. It stirred a memory of a man that had come to visit her mother; shortly after she found out she was sick. Emiran had come home from school, and her mother and the man were standing in the kitchen, talking in a hushed tone. She hadn't wanted to interrupt them since they seemed to be deep in their conversation. As she passed by the kitchen, she couldn't really hear what they were saying.
But the man had his back to her so she had never seen his face. The hand he had resting on the counter though, held the very same ring she now held in her hand. It had been whole then. The strangeness of it had caught her attention. Emiran slipped the ring on her finger, and a darkness seemed to dim the room, even though she was sure the lights themselves hadn't changed at all. The throbbing in her arm turned into an intense burn, and the sound of her heartbeat seemed to pierce her brain like an ice pick. She quickly pulled the ring off and set it on the table.
Jumping up, she grabbed a washcloth from the towel drawer, and wrapped it up carefully before placing it in the still open jewelry box. She closed the lid with a snap, and grabbing her baton, made her way to her room. Looking at her bedside clock, she was surprised to find that it was several hours later than she expected it to be. She slid the baton back under her bed, and put the jewelry box in the drawer of the bedside table. The day had been a long one, and as curious as she was to find out what Traevin had meant, she was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go to sleep.
Crawling under her blankets, without bothering to change, Emiran fell quickly into a sleep so deep, even the dead would be envious. The sound of both knocking and her phone ringing finally woke her up. She glanced at the clock hazily to find that it was already 9am. She picked up her phone and answered it. But before she could get a word out, Tariah's impatient voice sounded from the other end. "Well there you are." she said hastily "Are you going to let me in or not?" A huff escaped her lips and Emiran sat up slowly. "Yes, yes. Sorry I slept late." she uttered, pushing the blankets off of her. "I'll be there in a second."
She hung up the phone, and groggily pushed herself out of bed. Rubbing her eyes to wake herself up, she made her way slowly down the hallway to the front door. Tariah's incessant knocking hadn't stopped. Emiran huffily swung the door open and quickly ushered her inside. “Goodness gracious” she said “how long do you need to knock for?” Tariah turned towards her as she closed the door. “I’ll knock as long as necessary. Girl I’ve been knocking for twenty minutes! I was about to call the authorities and report you missing.” She replied curtly.
Emiran raised an eyebrow at her friend. “That’s a bit premature don’t you think?” she went into the kitchen to make them some tea, and Tariah followed hot on her heels. “I’m sorry, I went to bed late. I’ve been feeling pretty run down since I got this injury. I think it’s infected. And I guess my immune system isn’t up to par right now.” She turned to see her friend staring intently at the card Traevin had left for her. “What is this?” she asked, seemingly disturbed by it. “My intruder left it for me last night when they returned.” She said “Why does it mean something to you?”
Tariah sat down, still holding the card. Emiran mixed their tea while she waited for a response. Tariah looked up at her as she came to the table. “Oh something tells me you wouldn’t be interested” she replied finally “It just reminds me of an old story I heard as a kid. I know how you feel about conspiracy theories.” Emiran knew she was baiting her with that last statement. But since the card was there and she couldn’t deny its existence, she wanted to know what her friend thought it meant. She handed Tariah her cup and said, “Well, crazy or not, it’s here. So tell me the story.”
After another long silence, her friend finally spoke. “Well when I was eight, at one of our temporary homes, I met a girl just a little bit older than me. She had the strangest grey eyes. Her name was Lenora.” She paused to take a sip of her tea “One day I asked her why her eyes weren’t blue or brown. Mind you, this was after the genetics war COLO waged. That’s why I was so curious. I thought that all of them had been killed off or had otherwise disappeared. Until her, nobody had seen anyone with grey eyes for at least a decade. At least no one I knew of.” Emiran stopped her friend and said “A genetics war? What do you mean by that? I’ve never heard of a genetics war.”
Tariah scoffed at her and said, “It’s said that after COLO rose to power, they systematically waged war on anyone without blue or brown eyes. They said something about their genes being impure. They claimed they were a threat to the future of the human race.” She got up from the table and began pacing in front of the window now. “At least that’s the rumor anyways. They spread the word about them having unnatural abilities, such as the ability to kill you with just a touch if they wanted to. They whipped the public into frenzy until everyone with grey, green, or hazel eyes were killed, or went into hiding.”
“Anyways since this all happened before I was born I didn’t take much stock in the rumors, until I met her. She told me the grey eyes were the marker of the Esmiri clan. When I asked who they were she said they were a family of powerful witches dedicated to protecting the gate at the end of black cat’s crossing.” She gulped down the remainder of her tea and frowned at her cup. “When I asked her what black cats crossing was she became suddenly hostile and said “It’s a secret road that only a child of light, touched by death can follow. But when I asked her to elaborate on what she meant she wouldn’t and I never saw her again after that.” She pointed at the card now and said “This is where I met her though. This is the address of one of the temporary shelters in sector 15.”