Free The Young Dread by Arwen Elys Dayton Page A

would understand.”
    It was such a strange thing to say, she decided her mother must be more drunk than she looked.
    “I’m not drunk, Quin.”
    “I didn’t say that! But…now that you mention it, I do smell something in your mug.”
    “I’m not drunk,” Fiona repeated.
    “I never said you were.”
    “You did.”
    It was pointless to argue about whether or not she’d said those words, so she didn’t bother. “I’m going to take my oath
tonight,
Ma. Didn’t Briac tell you? I can’t leave the estate.”
    “He did tell me.” Fiona put a hand on top of her daughter’s hand and held it there firmly. “But I am telling you this: you take your oath only if that’s truly what you want to do.”
    Quin was momentarily speechless. Finally she managed, “What—what have I been doing here my whole life? Of course it’s what I want to do. I—I know how lucky I am.”
    “Are you sure?”
    Quin smiled as she would at a child with an irrational fear. Her mother had never taken the oath. Fiona taught them languages, math, and history, subjects with no direct ties to Seeker-hood. Though her mother did not like to speak of it, Quin had gathered, from comments made by Briac, that Fiona had completed all the training, but something had prevented her from becoming a sworn Seeker. Sometimes apprentices did not make it, and this had, to some extent, ruined her mother’s life, perhaps even caused her fondness for alcohol. Quin loved her, though, and didn’t want her mother to be sad on this particular day.
    She clasped Fiona’s hands gently. “I’m sure,” she told her. “And I’ll make you very proud of me. I mean to do great things.”
    Her words did not have the desired effect. Her mother’s eyes searched hers for a moment, quite urgently. Then her gaze dropped back to the table, and she nodded to herself.
    “Of course you will,” she said, moving her lips into a smile. “And I wish you every happiness in your life, my darling girl.”
    Fiona got back to her feet and turned to the stove. Quickly, so quickly that Quin could not be sure it had happened, her mother wiped her eyes. Quin whisked Fiona’s mug off the table, sniffed the remaining cider inside, and dumped it down the sink before her mother could drink any more.
    Quin could hear the aircar taking off outside, and she gave her mother a kiss on the cheek, then ran to the front door. From there she watched the car ascend in slow circles above the meadow, until it disappeared across the sky. It headed south, to somewhere far from Quin’s life, Edinburgh, perhaps, or London, or somewhere even farther away. Perhaps she would be going to those places soon too. Once she had gone
There,
she might go anywhere. And then the world would be open to her and she would be a player on its enormous stage, fulfilling her destiny.
    She walked toward the woods, thinking she’d meet up with John again, tell him she’d learned nothing about the visitor to the estate. Halfway across the commons, she saw him. John and Briac were walking together. Briac’s hand was on John’s shoulder, and John’s face was turned toward the ground. She could almost feel the heaviness of John’s steps, as though her father were leading him to his execution.
    I know he won’t do the wrong thing, John,
she thought.
You’ll stay on the estate and finish your training. Everything will be all right.
    It was the last time she would ever think so.

Briac’s hand was resting on John’s shoulder as they walked along the commons. This made John uneasy. It was like having a battle-axe resting on your shoulder, just as hard and unforgiving. They’d been walking in silence, but eventually John couldn’t tolerate the quiet anymore.
    “I failed my mental control,” he said. “I won’t deny it. But it’s only when you have the disruptor—”
    Briac snorted, cutting him off, then walked a full twenty paces in silence. John was trying to decide whether he should simply repeat what he had said