Page 29 of The Unseen Hour (The Unseen Hour Duology #1)

“ R y?” I asked a few weeks later, likely into March if our count was right. We were back at his home in the woods for the evening.

We sat outside, staring at the green and blue lights dancing between the trees.

“Hmm,” he responded, working with a piece of leather from his stockpile. He was close to finishing the holster for my knife.

We’d fallen into a comfortable camaraderie, one I was worried my desires might ruin.

Orion had been nothing but a gentleman, although my own reactions were well into the realm of scandal.

Even watching him put the finishing touches on the holster, the sure way his hands moved was torture.

My skin pebbled, imagining his hands feeling me, his fingers stroking against my skin.

I cleared my throat, aware he’d been waiting too long on my response.

“How did you come to be the head of the Shades? Did Charon assign you that role simply because you’re still alive? Was it because you were here with the first group of Shades?”

Orion ducked his head down a bit, fiddling with the knife that he was using to shape the holster. The muscles in his arms flexed as he worked, his sleeves rolled above his elbows.

“For both those reasons, and I suppose it’s because I’m the best at using Shade song. I personally think I excel because I’m not a full Shade, and therefore more closely related to those we’re drawing into the Ether. That’s just a theory, though.”

I chewed on the information for a moment, twisting my hair into a bun and then letting it fall over and over.

“Why does it matter, though? Can’t Charon claim all the souls himself? What does he even need Shades for? He’s a god.”

Why pull humans into this ridiculous spat he had with Death? The more I thought about it, the more infuriated it made me. We were pawns, cannon fodder, expendable. It wasn’t fair.

Orion gave a tense smile, cutting into the leather with force.

“Even gods have limitations. That’s one thing I’ve picked up in my years here.

Just because Charon is powerful, doesn’t mean he’s all- powerful.

Shades and Shade song are what allow him to conduct his business within the Unseen Hour.

He’d move too slowly otherwise. I suspect he has to expend a lot of his own energy simply to make the Unseen Hour exist. And I’ve noticed as I become familiar with the magic he wields that he’s concealing us somehow during the hour.

Not just with the fog, but with the way he impacts time. ”

“Not just from his victims, then. From Death? Since he’s trying to overthrow her?

” Understanding the politics of the gods might have been easier if I’d known more about them.

I’d searched through Orion’s collection of books for answers, and he’d shared the information he’d gotten from the Shades, collected carefully and painstakingly over the years.

Those in Mejje believed in a god that sounded a lot like Charon.

They believed in four deities total, but they didn’t name them.

Speaking the name of a god there was considered blasphemous.

The people of Sez had legends that conflicted, with anywhere from four to six.

Tang, like Emrys, only believed in two, although they also believed in an older, more powerful third god from the lost country that they said had ceased to exist. Then, there was the lost country itself.

I could not find any references to their religion aside from ‘gods.’ Even more odd, Orion had told me that he’d never seen someone from the lost country in the Ether.

Maybe there weren’t any people left there .

I realized Orion hadn’t answered my question. He was still working on the holster, but I could tell he was tense. Another Charon secret, then.

A couple of tree hoppers landed in front of us. I smiled at them and tossed a few seeds in their direction.

Some grey squirrels joined them, eager for a meal. I’d asked Orion about the squirrels when they’d first appeared; what traits made them different from animals in Emrys.

“Nothing. Apparently everywhere has squirrels,” he’d responded. Still, they were cute and harmless.

When the tree hoppers got closer, I pulled out one of my hair pins. This one had a pink jewel set on the end. There was no need for expensive stones here. The rest of the jewelry I’d brought along sat untouched, in a satchel in the cottage.

The birds hopped nearer, tilting their heads as the pin glinted in the blue and green light.

“Here, see what you think. It’s more valuable to you than to me.”

The larger of the birds snatched it gently from my fingers.

Within minutes, the two of them were using it together to scratch out food from the dirt.

“Ingenious things, aren’t they?” I commented.

Orion still didn’t respond.

I contented myself with bird watching for several more minutes before he let out a deep sigh.

“I didn’t want to do it,” Orion said. I rose, moving over to him and sitting on the ground. “I didn’t want to sing souls from their bodies, leaving them like empty husks for their families to find. Instead I’m stuck with a job that’s even worse.”

I didn’t want to say anything, afraid of breaking the moment.

“When Death showed up, I was only too happy to help her. We all die eventually, but the Unseen Hour is cruel. The song snares and entices people to their doom. It’s a beautiful and vile weapon.

And I’ve been at its forefront each time, leading the Shades as they create trails of frozen bodies.

Just as guilty for guiding them as if I’d sung out the souls myself.

And I’ve started to worry. What if we return during this hour, and you … ”

“I just won’t sing. I’ll keep my mouth shut,” I insisted.

Orion let out a humorless laugh.

“I think you’ll find you’re wrong, Starlight.

It’s like a compulsion, the song. When we hit the surface of the world it bursts forth, whether you want it to or not.

Music that needs to escape. All the pain and suffering of being separated from your home over the past year piled up into one hour.

It’s like the needs and emotions of the Shades are tamped down throughout the year, and the hour is their only release.

They can’t help the need to free it. When we return here, they’re calmer.

More subdued, like you’ve seen them so far. ”

“And you?”

“Me?”

“How do you feel? Does it help you, being able to sing?”

There was no shame in it, when he couldn’t help it. I didn’t want him to pile any more suffering on top of what he’d already endured, but he shook his head.

“No. It doesn’t help me. I’m aware enough of what we’ve done to come back choking on my own guilt each time. As soon as the hour, and my subsequent meeting with Charon, is over, I typically shut myself in the cottage for days.”

One of the tree hoppers made its way back over, chirruping. I held out a hand and it hopped on my palm, still clasping the hairpin in its beak.

“You’re doing all you can to help end the hour. No one could have done more. Don’t cast yourself as the villain, Ry. You don’t deserve that.”

“I’d make a very morose villain. Nothing like what you read about. Large personality and power. Cruelty with flair.”

I laughed, the bird cawing along with me. Orion gave me the tiniest hint of a smile in response.

“You’d never do as a villain. More like the determined and adventurous lead, throwing yourself into exploration and new experiences.

A bit jaded, perhaps, but more than capable.

Like the pirate captain in your books. Now that was a good choice.

I’m glad you brought it back. I’m sure it's a loss to the library it came from but well worth the thievery.”

He busied himself with the holster again, blushing and avoiding my eyes.

“Actually, it was already mine. No one else has read it. I wrote it myself.”

My jaw dropped open. It took me a good three attempts before I was able to organize my thoughts enough to respond.

“ You wrote? But it’s so good! Not that I’m surprised, I just didn’t realize you liked to write.” Maybe a family trait, given his brother’s diary? “Is there more?”

“I started a few things, but I abandoned them all over time. I wasn’t as excited for it once I got down here. I could never quite get the stories right. I could never come up with a happy ending. It always eluded me.”

I gulped, inching even closer.

“It doesn’t have to.”

“Maybe not,” he agreed, setting the holster aside and grabbing one of my hands.

The longer I was in the Ether, the closer I wanted to get to him.

I’d always enjoyed my own company. Even with Bram, or Charlotte, eventually the feeling of someone other than myself in my vicinity became too much.

Like an itch that had been ignored too long and demanded to be addressed. I had to find my own space.

Not with Orion. He’d been summoned by Charon once more since my arrival, and I’d spent the entire two nights he was gone wishing he’d come back.

If it hadn’t been for my search, Charon, and my concern for those I loved and had left in Emrys, I’d have to admit I liked it in the Ether.

Orion was a large part of why. Always ready with new information about our surroundings, but still striving to learn more.

Curious, intelligent. And apparently just as poetic as R. and his diary.

I knew our situation wasn’t sustainable. When we returned home, I’d have to contend with my family, and possibly Bellamy, and who knew what story Orion would have to tell people. Unless everyone became aware of what we’d done, unless we had proof, we’d never be believed.

He might still be lost to his estate.

Orion dropped my hand, and the familiar chill of the Ether returned. I swallowed disappointment as he retrieved the holster.

“Finished,” he announced, placing it in my hands. He flipped the knife so the handle was toward me, and then handed that over as well.

I slid it into the holster, then started trying to get the contraption placed over my thigh. The leather was soft and pliable and had plenty of give. No doubt it would be easy to move in, but I couldn’t quite figure out how I was meant to keep it in place.

“I might require some assistance,” I admitted.

“Of course. Here, let me.” Orion reached for my leg and tied the holster in place with strips of very thin pieces of leather looped onto the larger harness. His fingers brushed my leg through the fabric of my borrowed trousers, and his cheeks went as red as I imagined mine were beginning to.

“Starlight,” he started as he continued to work with the holster, “there’s something else about the Shade song. It’s the only way to save people, in a sense. Do you remember what I told you your first week here, about the others like us who I saw? The ones that Charon destroyed?”

I nodded slowly.

“They weren’t the only ones he’s done that to.

He prowls the streets alongside us during the Unseen Hour.

He enjoys the hour, even if he can’t be everywhere at once.

I’ve seen him in action. There have been a few times where a Shade was struggling to sing out a soul, or resisting.

Charon eliminated the Shade—and the resisting soul. ”

I gasped.

“Eliminated? How?—”

“No resting in the Ether. No going to Death. They cease to exist in any form.”

“That’s horrid! Why kill his Shades, if he needs them?”

“He said once that a soul not easily separated from a body wasn’t useful to his purposes. If we don’t sing them out, he destroys them. It’s part of why I don’t work harder to resist the song, and leading the Shades with it. I know the consequences if I do.”

Everything I learned about Charon made him sound worse and worse.

What if that’s what had happened to my father, and Orion hadn’t been there to witness it?

Even if I managed to find my father, even if we escaped and Orion came with us, this was the risk we opened the world up to every year.

And how could I help? If I did make it back, who would believe me?

It was one thing to know the Unseen Hour killed people, quite another to show up announcing that a god no one in Emrys believed in was attempting to overthrow Death.

To convince them that he had spirited peoples’ souls away to an adjacent realm where he was rallying them for some strange and hostile takeover.

I barely believed it myself, and I was living it .

No, the only way to stop it was to defeat the Unseen Hour.

All I needed was for Death to return.

“Finished,” Orion announced, but he kept his hand on my leg.

Warmth shot through me, and an aching need.

When Orion moved his hand I nearly reached for it.

“I know it won’t be much help against a god, but it could help with a slycat. I’ll teach you to use the dagger. I’ll feel much better if you have it, and I want you to feel comfortable defending yourself as well.”

“I’d be glad for the help, but I can’t promise I wouldn’t try it on Charon if I ever do meet him. Especially after what he’s done to everyone I care about. To you.”

“Are you saying you’re growing fond of me, Starlight?”

I wanted to get closer. To feel him. We’d been in the Ether together for weeks. No one from Emrys was there to pry. No one to gossip or judge.

Just the two of us.

“And if I am?”

I stared at him, part longing and part determination. We had no idea what might happen to us before the hour. I wasn’t wasting the time we had remaining.

Orion’s eyes went wide; then, in a flash, his arm was around my waist, pulling me close.

“If that’s the case, I might have to admit I’m falling for you,” he told me.

He pulled me closer, until my face was an inch from his.

Falling for you.

True, he hadn’t confirmed it, but it was more than a strong hint. I’d told myself for years that if I got a chance at adventure, I would take it.

I reached up, letting my fingers trail across the stubble on his chin.

“If that is the case, do you intend to do anything about it?”

“Starlight. May I?—”

I crushed my lips against his before he could finish the question.