by LJ Andrews
“Teagan,” I said, a tad reluctantly. “Ward.”
“Ward,” she repeated breathlessly. “Wow, it’s really happening, then.”
“Okay.” A prickle of nerves crept along my forearms. “I’m going to go.”
“No, wait. I know you’re lost,” Mini said softly. “Sorry I was so snippy back there. I shouldn’t be so unwelcoming. I’ve been told I can be overbearing. Listen, Teagan, if you cut through on that path right there, you’ll end up back at Wyvern Reform in about fifteen minutes.”
“You’re giving me whiplash.” I paused at the trailhead.
“I know. It’s just a lot of people come up here to party and they leave their junk everywhere. I live in one of the cabins on this lane, and we all like to keep it orderly.”
“Sure,” I said. “So this path will take me to the house?”
“Well, close to it. You should see it when you come out on the road,” Mini said.
“Thanks.” I hesitated.
“I promise,” she said. “This is the road you ought to take.”
Then, Mini darted away. Logic demanded I not trust her, but curiosity won out. The trail was narrow, and the darkness of the forest only deepened the further I went. I drew in a deep breath through my nose. Darkness was like a new layer of skin and I hated it.
After five minutes of walking, the forest looked as though it had fallen into night and I had trouble seeing my own feet. In my thoughts I cursed Mini. She must have tricked me just to be rid of the reform, and I’d fallen for it.
I pushed through a thick spruce tree, and at the next step, my stomach shot into my throat. Air whipped around my face. I was in a freefall.
Brambles, twigs, and stones scraped my face and arms. I fumbled clumsily, trying to find anything to grab. The flat ground came too soon. I smacked my face, hard, on piles of dead leaves and twigs. With a groan, I rolled onto my back, ribs aching. The ravine was shockingly brighter. I scanned the hillside. A thirty-foot slope, at least.
My palms were warm with sticky blood from countless gashes. Releasing a pent breath, I carefully lifted to my hands and knees and tried to orient myself.
It wasn’t a ravine at all. It was a clearing at the base of the slope. I shuddered when a cold breeze kissed the back of my neck. It was unsettling in this part of the forest. I could almost pretend there were whispers floating in the air. The sore skin where my tattoos had been inked ached. Wind picked up once more, rustling funnels of leaves around my body—this time I wasn’t imagining it. I heard a voice. A terrifying, calming, chilling voice.
“Hello?” I called out like every soon-to-be-murdered victim in every horror movie. Rubbing the sudden chill from my arms, I scrambled to my feet. The leaves blew again, but I pushed through them. My stomach rumbled in knots, and all my senses piqued in defense.
I stumbled on a stone jutting from the ground. The undeniable whisper on the wind came once more. The words made no sense in my mind, but they reached something inside. I sat back on my knees, studying the strange stone, and traced the carved symbols.
It was written in a strange language. Almost familiar, but quite alien, too. At the top center was a symbol of a dragon head. My eyes scanned the rest of the clearing. All around were similar stones in a deliberate pattern. Five main stones formed a circle, then corresponding smaller markers splayed out in a straight row like a sun with its rays. Each stone had weathered, speckled moss and years had aged the stone. These could be dragon clan monuments from a lifetime ago. I grinned and inched nearer.
Different symbols marked the stones, obviously saying something unique on each surface.
I touched one of the large stones again. My forearms ached and bubbled in the same slow burn. The tips of my fingers felt a slight shock. The dormant magic in my blood embraced this place. Old magic lived here.
Energy of the forest filled my body. I breathed deeply. But as quickly as the surge of energy had flowed through me, all at once it stopped. The forest was again silent, the stones were just stones, and the sunlight faded, leaving me in cold pitch.
In my mind, I tried to find a way out of the lower forest. Climbing would be difficult. My hand was still resting atop the dragon stone as I yearned for a new path. With the shudder of an icy chill, I searched over my shoulder. No, there hadn’t been a path there before. It was an impossible thought, so the path before my eyes had certainly not appeared because I’d wanted one.
A chill danced along my back. I found my feet again and hurried down the new road. Branches swooped over my head creating a shield against the newly falling rain. The storm had found the town, but I stayed dry until a few paces more dropped me behind the large reform house.
I whipped around. The forest was as it always had been. No road in sight.
The back of my throat was dry, and my body fell from the euphoria of whatever happened. Had my power done something? No. Had to be those weird stones. Like an old spell waiting to assist.
Thoughts lambasted my mind as my arms trembled with new cold. The forest had spoken with me—yes, I wasn’t crazy, I’d felt a subconscious connection to the clearing. I’d sat in my haze, surrounded by the stones, believing magic and powers beyond my understanding were real. Now, the feeling was seeping away like water in a sieve.
“Teagan!” Mr. Sapphire shouted from the porch. Ducking my head, I buried the nauseating questions deep inside and rushed toward the house. He ushered me into the dry entryway. “Where have you been?”
“I missed the bus. I had to walk and got turned around,” I said. Sapphire didn’t need to know of my supernatural experience. He’d likely give me a demerit for it.
He pinched his mouth. “Come inside and get warm, we were starting to get worried.”
I stomped my muddy shoes and stepped in the house. The storm howled behind me, and I watched the rain pound against the glass panes.
As the wind rattled the screens I could almost hear the same voice from the clearing. Only clearer now. Speaking directly to me. I wouldn’t let on, not when nothing made sense, but in truth, now the voice terrified me.
Chapter 12
Aches and pains along my arms and head faded, but my heart was still in a patter after the experience in the forest.
I got up once, asked Sapphire for an Aspirin, and tried to sleep. That girl, Mini, she was strange. Dash was strange. The more I thought about the people in Wyvern Willows, the more it seemed everyone knew secrets I didn’t. Magis districts were known for their abnormalities, but this was over the top. A truth no one wanted anyone to know and it left a prickle on the back of my neck well into the night.
Part of my unease came from not seeing Jade today. The obsession to keep her safe rattled me to my core. Maybe I was on the brink of unhinging, like my mind was slipping away..
My eyes began to flutter shut when someone shook my shoulders vigorously. I jolted upright, eyes wide.
“Shh!” A gentle hand touched mine, sending a tremble up my spine. “Don’t say anything, they’ll hear you.”
It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust in the dark, but panic set in when I locked onto her emerald eyes. “Jade? What are you doing here? Sapphire will kill me.”
Jade moved as if the dark were part of her, silent as a shadow, and her hair glowed once more like moonlight. “I needed to see you.”
Needed. She dragged the word, put meaning on it. I could understand the feeling.
“How did you get in here?” I rasped. The light was on in Sapphire’s office and I was positive Jesse would barge out any moment.
Jade’s white grin broke the darkness. “I went through your window, of course. It took some doing trying to find you all curled down here like some delinquent.”
I couldn’t help but revel in the thrill of having Jade sneaking into the house to see me. Thankfully I was actually dressed; sleeping without a door and privacy would do that. “You must have ninja skills or something to get around Bart and Lily. They patrol all the floors and don’t mess around.”
Jade snickered and kneeled at the edge of the cot. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Wait, where? Jade, what are you doing here?” I said, hesitating. “Why haven’t you been at school?”
“Do you want to ask all these questions now, or come outside with me?” She inched closer, so I caught a hint of her skin. Vanilla, and citrus, and rose.
I swallowed with more effort and fought off the urge to touch her face. “If I get kicked out of here, I’m going to the rune cells. I can’t risk getting into trouble.”
“Teagan,” she said softly, her face inches away. “You don’t really believe you got blackout wasted, do you?”
Drawing in a breath, feeling my heart pounding all through my neck, I held her deliberate gaze. “No. I don’t.”
“Me neither.” I closed my eyes against the trill on my skin when her lips brushed my ear. “There’s something different with you, something I need to understand.”
“What do you want to know?” I asked.
Jade rested a hand on my leg. “Come with me, we’re going to figure this out. They don’t want us together for a reason and, frankly, I’m tired of being treated like a child.” Her eyes begged me, and I thought for a breath I might do anything she asked. “Please. I need to show you something. It’s a place we can get answers. Don’t worry about Sapphire, I’ll make sure we’re back before sunrise. Besides, Jesse is fast asleep.”
I wrung my fingers together, but after a long breath, stood and followed Jade through the kitchen and out the back.
The storm had left the world in damp freshness that invigorated my mind and made the risks of the night fade into oblivion. Jade kept close, her body radiated warmth, and her smile rarely left. As if this were the most fun she’d had in forever.
There were a few moments when she’d stop and look at me, when her eyes said a thousand things, that sent my head in a fog. Then, she’d shake her head and keep going.
Jade wore solid black, and only her pale face and hair were visible when we walked deeper into the trees. The night was alive. Sounds of creatures grew louder the longer we walked. I closed my eyes, reveling in the peace of the place, breathing in the extra energy from the towering trees.
“You fit in out here,” Jade whispered.
I nodded, a gentle smile finally breaking through my frustration. “I’m alive out here.” Clearing my throat, I nudged her shoulder with my own. “You said they don’t want us to be together. Who’s they?”
“After what happened at the field I had regulations placed around me. For my protection and all gods, I’m so tired of hearing that.” Jade rolled her eyes.
“All gods,” I said with a grin. “I haven’t heard anyone but a three-hundred-year-old forest fae use that before.”
Jade’s nose wrinkled. “Wyvern Willows isn’t exactly modern.”
“True. So who is they?
“My family,” she said. “There’s something they’re trying to handle independent of me. Energy shifts at the gate, and they think keeping me in the dark is helping.”
“Energy shifts.”
“Yes. You know every Magis District has warding and barriers, well, we have some of the oldest magic defending us. And lately it’s started to change. But you, Teagan, seem to be a piece of whatever secret they’re keeping.”
My stomach backflipped, but I kept my tone steady. “Okay. I’m going to pretend like that made sense. Your mom talked with me, but was pretty nice. I know Sapphire thinks I went out and got tatted up, but I don’t get the vibe he thinks I’m part of the energy shift.”
Jade laughed, but there was little humor in it. “I think those tattoos are the things that have everyone on edge. But no one will tell me why. Eisha told me to keep a distance from you while they figured out the surges, but I can’t. How do you explain that, Teagan?”
I couldn’t explain the need to be closer, so I said nothing.
Jade paused at a slight slope in the forest. I lost my breath when she slipped her fingers into mine. The hum of unspoken power running between us. “Come on, it’s just up here.”
My palm burned as Jade squeezed my hand and led me through the trees until we came to the chain link fence. When she released me, my insides grew colder. Emptier.
Jade dragged her fingers along the fence, then without a backward glance she started climbing.
“I’m starting to think you really want to see me kicked out,” I said.
“I would never want to send you away, Teagan,” she said through a long stretch toward the top. “You’ve changed me. Now, climb so we can get you back and tucked in like an obedient reform.”
The spell of Jade Drake took hold on my sensibilities again, and soon I scaled the fence. I jumped from the top, landing on my feet without trouble on the other side. The air was different on this side of the barrier. Colder, a little heavier. And the trees sang a different song. A song of warning.
“You sense it too,” Jade whispered. Her smile dropped. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“Sense what?” My skin rushed in hundreds of tiny pin pricks. Jade furrowed her brow, studying my every expression, but she didn’t expound. I took the lead, though I didn’t know where we were going. I needed to stand between Jade and whatever was sending a chill through my blood.
She used her head to point toward a passage through a corridor of trees. We walked in silence, tugging back endless brambles and branches in the unkempt portion of the forest. There was a strength in the soil. With every step, new energy bloomed through my veins, like I was close to something great. Like I was finally home.
Whatever defective magic lived inside me, it wanted to awaken here, and it was disconcerting.
Jade paused. “There. The Wyvern Willow.”
In a clearing was a willow tree. Wild, tangled branches with few leaves. A pitiful kind of willow, with tattered bark and huge, ugly gashes along the roots and branches.
But the tree was unique in ways I didn’t understand, and it was trying to tell me something.
“What is this place?” I scanned the trees, embraced the shift in temperature, the energy.
“It’s sacred to us,” she said. “I’ve found guidance here; it’s where I refresh. It’s my peace, and I knew I needed to bring you here, though I was hoping you could help me understand why.”
I glanced over my shoulder, hearing every word Jade spoke, though not comprehending anything. “I don’t know. You feel a connection with nature like I do. Maybe you just wanted to show me your spot.”
“This isn’t my spot, Teagan,” she insisted. “I don’t feel a connection with nature. The spirits of life are mine to balance and call upon.”
I crinkled my brow. “I thought you said your magic faded.”
“It’s trapped inside me. Like I believe yours is. I don’t believe you’re defective, I believe someone made sure your power never showed.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know why anyone would do that. I’m nobody.”
“So you think.” Jade canted her head. “You really have no idea what I’m talking about, but you feel a connection with the willow? I just don’t understand.”
She turned and paced, rubbing the sides of her face.
I stared at the gnarled tree and reached out my fingertips, gingerly touching the bark. A spark dragged a cough and ragged breath from my throat. White heat flowed in my blood and something almost familiar took hold of my insides. As if I’d been here before, or someone close to me had once stood in this place. I flattened my palm on the tree, closed my eyes, a tremble of power in my veins.
Jade placed her hand over mine. Her touch sent my head into a spin, and cautiously, I squared my shoulders to her. I wrapped my arm around her waist, gently, and opened my hand on the small of her back. Her body pressed to mine, a dizzying rush hit my head when her fingertips touched the line of my jaw.
Her eyes turned a glassy emerald, tears limned her lashes. “Are you wyvern? Please tell me the truth?”
“Wyvern? Jade, wh
at are you talking about?”
Jade’s brow furrowed deeper, the gold of her eyes shading to a rich amber. “I don’t understand. If you’re not wyvern then . . . how is the willow speaking?”
“Speaking?” My voice cracked, and I drifted my attention to the warm bark. “You hear the trees, too?”
She nodded vigorously. “This tree. The willow has a power, Teagan. A spirit that ripples through this community and it protects us. Warns us in times of danger. I felt the warning weeks ago. Something was coming, and even my own dormant power started to awaken. Then, I met you. It was the first moment I felt at peace. I could feel my strength again, and something whispered to me that you were my answer.” Jade slowly rolled back my sleeves and traced the green tinted tattoos. I flushed, but she pulled my hand away from the tree and curled my arm around her waist with the first, so she was held entirely in my arms. “Then you saved me. No one else saw the zomok, but you did. So what sort of wyvern are you, and why haven’t you said anything before?”
This conversation made little sense, but the way Jade’s fingertips touched my bottom lip, my body drew against her, never close enough.
“Jade.” I tipped my brow to hers, my lips brushing over the ridge of her nose. “I’ve never heard of those creatures. What’s a zomok? How did I save you?”
“You don’t remember saving me?” Jade eyed me funny and stopped her traveling fingers for a few breaths, which was a disappointment. “What did they do to you?”
Her palm cupped the side of my face, followed by her other hand. A wrinkle gathered between her brows, and she muttered something under her breath.
My knees buckled, her body kept me standing. The back of my throat tightened and my mind spun in a nauseous frenzy. Then, my eyes shot open.
Everything flashed back: the day on the field, the hooded assailant, the glowing bag that burned my palm. I remembered Raffi, Dash . . . I remembered Sapphire now.
“What are you doing?” I gasped, clutching the sides of my head and pulling away from Jade. “Raffi and Dash—they took me to Sapphire. They did something to me and . . . then just put me in my room. Why did Sapphire lie? Who was that guy in the hood and that . . . stuff? And what are these?”
