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“Yes. Okay, the Heinz family. The only one I know of where they’re all brothers, and their quiet wife, who always looks so distant. She’s older than Sadie was, older than her own husbands I think, by a few years. She was right on the edge of not having to complete the ritual. Anyway, yes. They’re very good. Two. Further out? They might have never seen one, ever. But everywhere we go, they show up. If we know, great. If we don’t know, we handle it, too.”
That was interesting. “Do you just leave the house periodically and ride until you find them?”
“Actually, that’s exactly it.” He laughed. “Sounds sort of silly, when you say it like that, but yes, that’s what we do. They’re not all as scary as the giant flying beasts. Or the mothman. Sometimes they’re just annoying. Little green things that want to bite at your feet.”
I laughed at the image. “That’s not the scariest one I’ve seen.”
“Really? What did you see? Because I’ve had three visions with you so far, and I would love to know which of those things you thought was more frightening.”
Did he not remember? “When I was going through the ritual, the visions I had then. The big red thing with the horns who smiled at me like he could see me scared me most.”
Truett went still behind me. “We didn’t see what you saw then. We just had a loud ringing in our ears, like bells going off, that told us we were matched with you. They’re not shared visions. Hold on, you saw a big red creature with horns, and it smiled at you?”
I hadn’t really let myself think about it much since it happened. “Yes. He smiled at me like he saw me. I can’t explain it. They can’t possibly see me in a vision, though. I mean… right?”
“Not that I know of, but what you’re describing is the thing of myth. We all hear about it during training. We pretend to fight it when we spar. The ultimate monster, the one who can’t be beaten, the one we’ll all die trying to take down if we’re not the best of the best.” He shook his head, because I could feel the movement. “I don’t know anyone who has actually seen one. Then again, maybe they do and that’s what kills them ultimately. We just never know. Interesting. I wonder if that means we’re going to see it. You had a vision, so it’s coming.”
He didn’t sound happy about that, and I couldn’t say as I blamed him. I didn’t want to run into it, either.
“Don’t be afraid, Sloane. We’ll take care of you.”
I blinked. I really wasn’t afraid. “I don’t think that thing is going to come find me at my country home. I’m more concerned about you running into it when you’re not prepared for it.”
“Let me ask you a question—that pain you had was pretty bad, right?” His voice was low.
That was an easy answer. “It was.”
“But it got better after a bit, right? Like, when Charlie kissed you a lot, it eased?” The sound of the horses cantering was all I could hear. From time to time, one of them would neigh. Despite occasionally feeling cold, it was a lovely evening to be heading toward Hawkseye.
“Yes. Much better, actually.” Did he have a point to his questions?
“The affection he gave you, and the way we rubbed your back eventually, it helps with the pain. It’s a quiet truth between wives and the Warriors. The physical affection between us can help you. Now, I know it’s complicated. Sadie didn’t have visions like the one you just had. Maybe she would’ve seen the crowd. We would’ve had to figure things out. The way you can turn your head around to look at things, to take in more? She couldn’t do that. I don’t think many can.” He sighed. “Sadie didn’t like physical affection from us, not in any regular way. Eventually, she only liked Oliver. It’s why Pascal is his. Anyway, the point is, if you leave us, you won’t have our touch to soothe your visions. It’ll just be the pain. I don’t want that for you. I’ve come to like you a lot. Don’t you like us, even a little?”
He really said quite a bit, especially for him. I leaned back against him more. “I…It’s hard for me to forget what you guys said.”
“I know.” He galloped a little bit faster. “Try to figure out if you can.”
He gave me a lot to digest. Forgetting that he was basically telling me he liked me enough to want to give me affection when I hurt—which was weird in and of itself—and that he would like me to stay, so I could keep getting that from them, and he’d also just told me about their previous wife. Sadie didn’t have visions as strong as mine. That couldn’t have been particularly easy for Warriors as talented as they were. And she didn’t like affection from them, although she’d come to like Oliver.
How awful had that been?
I decided right then I wouldn’t ever just pick one of them. I would either want all of them as my own or none of them. That was how it would work.
“Whatever happens, I’ll be behave exactly right with Judge.” I promised him that easily.
None of us had asked for our life to work out that way, and whatever had chosen us for it—maybe it was random, I didn’t know what connected us—we had certainly all been chosen together as a unit.
I chewed on my lip. What did this to us? Why did my sister and I have gifts? Why didn’t others? Why were gifts connected to just the nobility? Why did we need the ritual?
“What caught your attention?” Truett asked me as the sun went down around us. It would be dark soon.
“Fate. Life.” If I was honest, less important things, too. “Can I ask you a completely shallow question, considering things?”
Truett kissed the top of my head. It was sort of nice. “Would you want to kiss me? If I was just walking down the street and you saw me. If we weren’t connected like this, would you look at me and think that is a girl I want to kiss?”
His laugh was low, sultry. “As I kissed you when you weren’t in pain, with very little provocation, I think you know the answer. You’re very beautiful. Yes, I would want to kiss you. But I would probably think you were too young for me. You are, you know. But some ritual decided you weren’t. Truthfully, I thought that you would end up with my son’s group. I thought you might be able to get them in line.”
That was funny. I couldn’t imagine Jayne would get anyone in line. That wasn’t really how she did things. I smiled to myself. But maybe she did things in her own way. I bulldozed and she gently eased. That was what she always did with me.
