The Girl with the Scar (Dark Connection Saga Book 1) Read online

  The Girl With The Scar

  By William Stadler

  Copyright 2013 William Stadler

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1 — THE TURN

  CHAPTER 2 — THE DEAD MAN

  CHAPTER 3 — THE RIVER

  CHAPTER 4 — THE QUESTION

  CHAPTER 5 — THE ANSWER

  CHAPTER 6 — THE MESSAGES

  CHAPTER 7 — THE SEVRANCE

  CHAPTER 8 — THE CONNECT

  CHAPTER 9 — THE JOURNEY

  CHAPTER 10 — THE TWO

  CHAPTER 11 — THE SPARKS

  CHAPTER 12 — THE LUCIDITY

  CHAPTER 13 — THE WHISPERS

  CHAPTER 14 — THE ENCOUNTER

  CHAPTER 15 — THE RETURN

  CHAPTER 16 — THE WEAK

  CHAPTER 17 — THE STRONG

  CHAPTER 18 — THE RAIDER

  CHAPTER 19 — THE KNOWLEDGE

  CHAPTER 20 — THE NEW TREK

  CHAPTER 21 — THE FIRE

  CHAPTER 22 — THE FOLLOWER

  CHAPTER 23 — THE DEPARTURE

  CHAPTER 24 — THE REQUEST

  CHAPTER 25 — THE DISSENT

  CHAPTER 26 — THE CONNECTION

  CHAPTER 1

  THE TURN

  Edward yelled, holding his sister down on the bed. “Mother, hurry! It’s happening again!”

  The walls of the log cabin quaked, and the kitchen table in the next room rumbled, shattering the clay centerpiece onto the splintered-wood floor.

  Maria flung the door open. The autumn breeze gushed in with her as she jostled the bucket of water to the bedside. She dunked a towel into the cool water, wrung it out, and placed it firmly on her daughter’s head.

  Eva’s body jolted, and her eyes rolled back, exposing the whites. Her skin became clammy, sticky from the sweat. She ground her teeth, and foam oozed between her contorted lips.

  “Hold her down!” Maria yelled.

  “What do you think I’m doing?” Edward called back.

  Eva’s body stiffened, pushing her veins to the surface. Shelves toppled over, casting books and vases across the room. The fireplace in the kitchen ignited, blowing thick, black smoke up the soot-lined chimney. Then, in a rush, it passed. The rumbling ceased, and the fire waned, leaving behind only the eerie crackling of the dying embers.

  Eva’s eyes bolted open, and she clenched Edward’s shoulders in her arms, crying. She felt weak, like she had carried water from the river. The muscles in her arms were cramped into knots.

  “Why!” she cried, pulling Edward closer, drenching his shirt in tears and sweat.

  Maria massaged Eva’s back, hoping Edward would say something to comfort her daughter, but what could he say?

  “You’re going to be fine, Eva.” Edward held her in his powerful arms, placing his chin in the groove between her neck and shoulder. “It’ll get better.”

  Eva did not respond, but she sobbed silently, easing back into complete consciousness. The seizures were getting worse. After a moment, she let him go and slid back onto the bed with her back flushed against the headboard, staring at the ceiling. Maria covered Eva’s shivering legs with the heavy blanket. The seizure had ceased, but the sweat still cooled on Eva’s fair skin.

  “I’d best fix us some supper.” Maria stood up and brushed off her burgundy dress, wiping away a few tears. She picked up the pieces of the broken vase and fixed her silvering hair, tying it behind her head and letting it stream down her back. Edward reset the shelves, then put items back in their rightful places.

  Body still tingling from the seizure, staring blankly out of her bedroom into the kitchen, Eva watched her mother build the fire with Edward’s help. Eva's autumn-orange hair swirled down just below her shoulders, unlike her brother’s, which was charcoal and stationary, seeming to be at attention like the king’s army. “Do you think it’ll ever end?” she asked, mystified, watching them prepare for dinner.

  Neither responded, but Edward prodded at the coals, rekindling the fire that had mysteriously caught ablaze. Their silence was all the answer she needed.

  Maria broke the silence. “Of course, darling.” She did not meet eyes with her daughter, but she chopped the vegetables, pretending not to seem alarmed. “We just have to wait a little while longer.”

  “You’ve been saying that for years.” Eva’s tone was as dry as uncooked rice and equally as bland.

  “Perhaps you just haven’t had your turn with the gods yet, sweetie.”

  “Or maybe I have. Maybe even the gods don't know how to help me.”

  Maria stopped cutting the carrots, and she dragged her eyes up to meet her daughter’s. “Your time is coming.” Her voice was calmer than the induced silence made it seem.

  “What if I have to live with this forever?”

  The fire erupted, and Edward brushed the ashes off his tattered leggings. “What if you don’t?”

  “Sweetheart, why don’t you come help us fix dinner?” Maria asked.

  Eva nodded, knowing that neither her mother nor her brother had an answer for her. She slipped out of bed, and her muscles tightened from the cold. She could still feel the stiffness in her joints from the seizure.

  She dragged the water over to the cast-iron pot and dumped some inside. Edward grabbed the pot and hung it on the hooks near the fireplace. Maria handed Eva the knife and pushed the carrots and potatoes over to her. Reaching into a burlap sack, Maria pulled out three ears of corn and started shucking.

  Committed to the topic change, Eva’s face brightened. “How’d you get the corn?”

  Maria smiled and pointed a half-shucked ear at her. “Your mother has her ways.”

  Resting at the table, Edward grabbed a few potatoes and started skinning them with his dagger. “Her ways consist of being sweet on Tyel from two houses up.”

  Maria threw the husk at him, and he ducked, though the husk fell short of his head. “Don’t be giving away my secrets.”

  Edward laughed, leaned forward, and spoke slyly, face painted with a half-smile. “She’s a woman now. She needs to know the ways that you speak of.”

  Maria went back to shucking, seeming to be speaking more to the corn than to Eva. “Well, Genevieve, the menfolk can be quite foolish at times. Even your hard-headed brother over there has his moments of stupidity.”

  “I think I know about menfolk by now,” Eva replied, grinning.

  “You most certainly better not!” Maria exclaimed.

  “Not like that, Mother.”

  Maria’s voice cooled, though only slightly. “All you need to know is that your eyelashes and your hair, if you flick them just right, can buy you anything you want.”

  “Maybe for a few flicks I could buy a cure for these seizures,” Eva chuckled.

  “Well just don’t go flicking at Tyel. I’m still working on him. If I aim just right, I’ll be bringing home a bag full of pork legs.”

  Eva’s stomach rumbled, and her mouth watered. She hadn’t had pork legs since her father was alive, but she did not dare say. Five years were not long enough to heal her mother’s heart. Maybe her mother needed to wait her turn with the gods as well.

  Eva finished cutting the carrots and started snapping the peas. “If you bring home some pork legs, I might start listening to you. Otherwise, I’ll just keep doing things my way.”

  Edward smiled and examined the potato, making sure it was skinned, and then he pushed it over Eva to slice it while he started to skin another.

  “Any news from the Connect?” Maria asked him.

  “Nothing good,” he said casually. “The Water Walkers said that the king is clamping down on
his royal resources.” The rebellious words rolled off his tongue.

  “What’s he planning to do?” Eva asked, more concerned than Edward seemed to be. She despised how little he worried about things that should have demanded his attention.

  “I can’t imagine that we’ll have too much more potatoes and corn, so we’d better enjoy this meal. The rest might only be rice and carrots and those god-awful peas. Why must he take the potatoes and corn and leave the peas? I think the king hates me.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. The king hates us all,” Maria said, looking over the corn. “You’re nothing special.”

  Edward threw the husk back at her, and it landed on her forehead.

  She wiped it off. “Have some decency, boy! I am your mother, you know. I can still take a rod to you.”

  “I’m a lot bigger now.”

  “You’re never to big to have your backside bruised. Even the gods can’t stop the rod of a mother in her discipline.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Edward said, rolling his eyes. “I called out to them many times in pain and heard no answer.”

  “Maybe they were afraid too,” Eva laughed.

  Maria beckoned to Edward with four fingers. “Now the water wasn’t free. How much lighter is our purse?”

  Edward kept his eyes on his mother, reached into his pocket, and slapped three copper king’s coins on the table. “Not too light!”

  Her eyes widened, but she tried not to show her surprise. “Only one copper for an entire bucket?”

  He flexed his muscled arm at her. “We men have our ways, also.”

  Eva burst into laughter, clapping. “I think I’ll take my lessons from you, big brother.”

  He winked at her and went back to skinning. “Sessions start tomorrow.”

  “Fie on that foolishness,” Maria said. “Glad you saved us some coins. I think I’ll take them and pay the gods for a better son.”

  “Lovely words, Mother.” He laughed and kept skinning.

  “Was that all the Water Walkers had to tell you?” Eva asked. She felt that there was more that her brother wasn’t saying, covering up the heavy with lightheartedness.

  His face fell and the mood became thick, as the fire crackled behind them. “There was another raid.”

  Eva swallowed hard, and she stopped snapping the peas, her fingers cold and trembling. “How far away?” she asked, trying not to seem anxious.

  “Genevieve, don’t ask questions that you don’t want the answers to,” her mother warned.

  “There’s no need to hide it from her, Mother,” Edward said. “She needs to know. This raid was near River Run Heights, to the north.”

  “So then they’re getting closer….” Eva was unsure if she was making a statement or asking a question. Either way, she knew the answer. “That’s only a winter away, maybe less.”

  “A season is a long journey, especially for an army,” Maria said, sad eyes revealing her false hope.

  “Not long enough,” Eva replied.

  “You need not worry, darling. They won’t ever make it here.”

  Eva ignored the empty encouragement. “Anyone we know in the raid?”

  Edward resumed his cutting, less heartily now. “No one either of you knows, but an old friend from the Strikers was named among the dead.”

  “Edward, you have to leave the Strikers. You’re only going to lead the Raiders here,” Eva warned.

  “The Raiders don’t control me,” he said. Eva watched as Edward’s stubbornness took him over. “You think that if I quit the Strikers that the raids will end?”

  “Maybe not, but you’re going to lead them here, to us, so that our people can be slain, and who knows what they’ll do to me.”

  “Only the weak flee from the edge of the blade, ” Edward replied.

  “Is that what those heathens teach you?” Maria asked, not expecting a reply. “Do they also teach you that the strong are equally as weak when they have a blade in their bellies? Hm? Did they teach you that?”

  “No, Mother. But I’d rather die strong than live weak.”

  “Don’t give me that Striker jargon. That’s the same…” Maria's voice cracked in pain and snapped in rage, “foolishness that your father used to say, and look what they did to him!” She leapt out of her seat, and the three ears of corn rolled off the table onto the floor. “I already buried the most important man in my life. I won’t bury the other.” She wiped away the tears. “Now listen to your sister. Leave those Strikers alone, for the sake of my heart.” Her voice peaked in high-pitched hurt at the end.

  She turned and excused herself to her bedroom, choosing not to eat dinner. Edward shook his head, aggressively slicing the skin from the potato.

  “Edward.”

  “I’m not quitting, Eve.”

  “You always look after me,” she stated. “Whatever I need, I know I can depend on you. The boys won’t even come near me because they’re afraid of you, but staying with the Strikers is dangerous, not just for you, but for me. The Raiders want me, and they won’t stop until they find me, the Girl with the Scar. I’m begging you, Edward, if you love me, please let this go.”

  “These raids won’t stop. They feed off the killings, like savage beasts. They aren’t looking for you. Even if they find you, they won’t stop the raids.”

  Eva didn’t respond, but she went back to the peas, having trouble pushing them out of their pods because of her unsteady hands. How these green little beads remained so persistent, she had no idea.

  “How is it anyway, the scar?” His tender voice returned, and she felt his compassion in her chest.

  “I can’t tell.” She picked up her curly hair and exposed the back of her neck. The barely swollen circular burn wound was still there, just a mark after fifteen years.

  “Still the same.”

  “Maybe it’ll go away someday,” she said.

  “Just wait for your turn with the gods,” Edward mocked.

  “Shh!” Eva covered her lips with her finger, laughing silently. “She’s going to hear you.” Eva sat back in her chair. “Edward?”

  “Yes, Eve?”

  “Why are The Raiders looking for me?”

  He leaned in towards her and pinched her cheek. “Because they know how impressive you are, and they want you all to themselves.”

  “I’m serious.”

  He sighed and set the potato on the table. “What did Father used to tell you?”

  “The whole Teardrop of the Moon story, but I knew that was a fairytale from the day he made it up.”

  “Did you ever tell him that?”

  “No!” She smiled and gathered the peas into a bowl. “It meant so much to him.”

  “I would have told him. There’s no way I could have listened to that old story every night.”

  “Not everyone is as cold-blooded as you. Besides, I liked it, and now that he’s gone, it’s all I have left of him other than this rusted old pendant.” Her finger touched the weathered charm on her leather necklace. The charm wore the wings of an eagle carved into a piece of metal.

  “Silver doesn’t rust, you know.”

  “Tarnished then.” She plucked him on the shoulder, then her eyes looked away from him, knowing that he would disagree with her. “What if the fairytale were true?”

  Edward squinted and gave a sarcastic, squinting grin. “A crying moon, Eva? You cannot be serious.”

  “Some say they saw it, you know?” she shrugged, making her eyes wide.

  “Just as some have said they’ve seen a ghost tearing Strikers to shreds,” he replied, rolling his eyes, thumping the end of the potato playfully and making it spin in circles on the table. “They claim that this ghost is a mercenary of the Raiders. A mercenary?” he laughed. “Who would even have the heart to hire him? I suppose that we should believe that story as well.”

  Eva grinned, pushing her curly hair out of her eyes. Though Edward was being facetious, she didn’t like the thought that there might be some spirit out there, po
ssibly even hunting her brother. “You would be wise to believe.”

  “Your wisdom is foolishness to me.”

  “Then I would dare say who’s the fool.” Eva picked herself up from the table to inspect the pot over the fire. “It’s boiling.”

  Edward chopped up the last few potatoes without skinning them and dumped them into the pot.

  “That’s disgusting! You left the skin on,” Eva said.

  “This is how we ate them in training,” Edward replied, smiling.

  “Well we’re not in training. Stop cooking like a brute.”

  “If you don’t like it, then put your hand in there and pull it out.”

  She started to do it, but then she thought contrary, putting her hand by her side and shaking her head. She dumped the other vegetables into the pot, including the corn that had fallen on the floor.

  “No salt?” Eva asked.

  “I didn’t see the miners at the Connect today. Besides we can’t afford their rates, not since the last raid.”

  A heavy knock banged on the door, rattling the walls and swaying the iron pot over the fire. “What manner of man wanders the streets past the wink of the sun?” she whispered.

  Edward pulled out his spadroon, fashioned like a rapier, then tilted it towards the door. He unlatched the bolt and leaned his head around the slither to peer outside.

  “Let me in, Ed. This stuff is heavy.”

  Edward slid his blade back into its sheath, relieved. “What are you doing out this late, Tyel?”

  Eva pulled the door open and let the thin-bodied man inside, and then she went to get her mother. After a moment, Maria emerged from her room, eyes still red from the tears. She adjusted her hair and her dress, reestablishing her impoverished sophistication.

  “We were just fixing dinner, and there’s enough for one more, if you’d like,” Maria offered.

  Tyel lifted a hefty bag and dropped it on the floor.

  “Have you brought us a gift?” Maria asked.

  Eva moved closer to the bag to examine it. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking,” Tyel said, “but this is four legs, all snipped from the same hog.”

  Eva’s cheeks lit up with a smile, and she could taste the pig’s salty juices just thinking about cooking it.