Across the Divide: (Alitura Realm Book 2)

by J. K. Holt

  No sooner had the panic overtaken her than her shirt caught on another object and she was yanked, harshly, against the current. She tried to detach herself, only to catch hold of something that seemed quite close to a hand, and it closed like a vice against her own and hauled her to the surface again. She sputtered, gasping, to find her head once again above water, this time on the other side of the bridge.

  “Snails, Tess! Pull yourself up!” A voice screamed, and she obliged, though clumsily. With the water stinging in her eyes, all she could see was a mixture of light and dark, blurring together in a kaleidoscope of swirling colors that caused instant disorientation. Tess flailed until catching hold of something that felt like a leg, fighting the current that pulled hard against her hold. Then another hand grasped her shoulder, and another on the other side. Slowly, painfully, she was hauled back onto the bridge by her shirt, until her entire, dripping body was dropped unceremoniously onto the planks.

  She rolled, heaved air into her lungs, coughing up water, and tearing at the clothes that still threatened to kill her, clinging to her like heavy ice. Strong hands helped her, and her eyes cleared enough to see that it was Rosie, her knife cutting aside the buttons that fastened her coat. “A moment, Tess. I’m getting it,” she said, through gritted teeth. They pulled her clothes off slowly, replacing them with a rough blanket, likely from one of the horses, until Tess was able to move. She slid on hands and knees across the boards until finding the moist ground on the other side, curling into a ball beneath the meager blanket as she tried to pull warmth from it. Rosie sat next to her, pulling Tess’s head onto her legs.

  “Give it a moment,” she said, her voice soothing. “Just give it a moment. You’re out of danger now.” Rosie’s hand rubbed Tess’s back in a vigorous pattern as she yelled, “Alright, then, Fish?”

  Tess kept her eyes balled shut but heard an affirmative reply from Fish, some distance away. “Rosie?”

  “Aye?”

  She shivered, attempting to master the fear that rose like a released beast inside her, and took a breath. “Please don’t let me drown. I’d rather not die at all, of course, but if I have to die, just…I don’t want to go out that way, okay? Please.”

  Rosie patted her shoulder. Her voice when she responded was tinged with amusement. “Aye. I’ll do my best.”

  A warm, wet breath alit on Tess’s cheeks, and then a soft nuzzle followed it. Tommy. Poor darling. She reached up and grasped him, scratching beneath his jaw. “I’m alright, bud. We’re alright.”

  Tess finally opened her eyes, wiping the last remnants of water from them as she forced them to focus. Tommy loomed above her, Rosie’s leg still beneath her. In her eyeline was the bridge.

  The horses had all been trotted across, and they ranged quietly within several feet of one another. Two forms still sat upon the bridge, and Tess caught the bright reflection of Fish’s rowdy hair. She swiped at her eyes again. “What are they still doing over there? It’s dangerous.”

  “They’ll be along soon. Not in much danger from my point of view.”

  Tess squinted. “But why are they sitting there? Did Loren get thrown from his horse again?”

  She remembered now, his recommendation to take the horses across one at a time. If he had fallen from his, Tess was to blame.

  “No, actually, he jumped from his,” Rosie said. “I don’t think it hurt him, though I can’t be sure- it’s probably what Fish is checking now. It’s more likely that his foot got treated a bit roughly when he caught you in the water and now he’s milking it for attention.”

  Tess frowned, and she struggled to sit up. Rosie helped, answering her unspoken question. “Aye, it was his legs he threw over, quick as a flash too. Just luck you hit them and held on. Fish and I were too far away to get to you that quickly.” She looked pensive. “Does back up your claim though, that you’re valuable to him. Likely more valuable than we realized. We might be able to use that, if it comes down to it.”

  Tess’s head swam from the information. “I think maybe I swallowed more water than I thought,” she groaned.

  “Right, sorry. I’ll get your change of clothes.” Rosie hopped up and walked to one of the nearby horses.

  Tess leaned forward, elbows on knees, and caught Loren’s eye. He sat in a similar position while Fish finished tending to his foot- it looked as though he was wrapping it tightly with something. Loren grimaced, but kept Tess’s gaze.

  Tess replayed the events in her mind: the complete disorientation, the frigid water, and the hard thing she’d caught herself upon- Loren’s leg. The ankle he’d hurt was what she’d clung to. And the voice that had yelled at her to pull herself up must have been his as well.

  Could she really be that valuable? It was hard to believe. But there was no other plausible explanation.

  She gave him a nod and mouthed “thank you”. He hesitated before returning the nod.

  No matter his motivation, Loren had saved her, and she resented him somehow for her lessening feelings of hatred towards him. It had the power to make everything more complicated.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “We’ll be around the outskirts of Barrowville by the end of tomorrow, and then we can follow the river all the way north to Merktown. Should be there in another three or four days,” Rosie said that evening around mouthfuls of hard tack. They’d found a deserted barn, half of the roof collapsed from a recent snow, and had hunkered down in the far corner after scaring off the rats. The hay was damp and smelled of old urine, moldy and full of rot- they’d spent a good half hour clearing it before they could even bring the horses in. Loren had been little help, his ankle more swollen than the day past, and he’d huddled in a corner beneath a blanket Tess had provided him, while they worked to make the place hospitable, at least for the night. Fish had made a small fire, but there was no warm meal this evening. The four of them had clustered around it, eating quietly until Rosie pulled out the map again.

  Loren eyed the map curiously, and seemed disappointed when Rosie offered no further explanation of their plans. Tess wondered how far they could take him on their trek before he became suspicious of how closely their route mirrored his own desired path. So far, they followed a fairly straight course north, the same that anyone might take to a large town like Merktown on this side of the mountains. But when they decided to cross, Tess guessed that he would become increasingly suspicious of their destination. She, Rosie, and Fish had no communication about what would come next with Loren at that point. She would need to become more aggressive in attempting to glean some further information from Loren before then.

  “What’s in Merktown that’s of importance?” Loren asked, his casual manner fooling no one.

  “Well, apparently they have the best freshwater clams south of the Misties,” Rosie said blithely.

  “That and lake trout,” Fish added. “Lake Vera runs deep and cold. Maybe I could get some fishing in.”

  Loren slanted his eyes at Fish, and Tess laughed beneath her breath. It sounded like they were planning an extended vacation. Loren must be so frustrated.

  Tess remembered that Merktown was the place she’d fictionally originated from, and was grateful not to have to continue the charade. It would have been nearly impossible to pretend to know a place when she was really a stranger there. As Loren would have no knowledge about that part of her backstory, she felt comfortable asking a question or two.

  “Have you ever been there?” she asked, to no one in particular.

  “Once, a long time back,” Rosie answered. “With my uncle, but not in recent years.”

  “Never,” Fish said sadly. “This is as far as I’ve ever ventured outside Wharfton.”

  “How about you, then?” Tess asked Loren.

  He gave her a shrewd look, and she shrugged in response. “Why not answer?” she said. “We’ve come this far together. Would it be so bad to make small talk occasionally?”

  Loren swallowed, then shook his head. He looked at Fish and quickly glanced a
way, his expression changing, becoming slightly vulnerable for a moment. Tess had nearly given up on a response when he spoke. “Yes, I’ve been there a few times. Never to sightsee, though by all accounts the lake is beautiful on a clear day. And their clams are delicious, though I prefer the saltwater fish caught in the Ethereal Sea to any caught in Merktown’s lake, including their trout.”

  “Right, but best be careful of the blue plague,” Rosie replied, referencing the scapegoat the lampreys had used to cover their tracks as they blurred everyone who got in their way. “Those fish are likely to cause disorientation and complete loss of personality. Or so we’ve been told by the authorities.”

  Immediately, Loren’s face became brick, any vulnerability retreating behind a wall of defenses. Tess cursed Rosie inwardly for her thoughtlessness, but said nothing. No point now. Meanwhile Rosie smirked, amused with her own clever jab.

  Loren retreated to his corner soon after, waiting while Fish tied his hands to a nearby beam. Tess gave Rosie a calculated glare, which Rosie pointedly ignored. Then, before they each turned in for the night, Rosie motioned to Loren with her head and raised her eyebrows.

  Tess took her meaning. “I’ll try,” she mouthed back.

  Her time for pulling information from him was shortening, like a tightening noose around her neck. Or better put, Loren’s neck.

  As she tucked in to her bedroll that night, the ground cold and hard beneath her, she wondered about how much of the pressure she felt was for their group, to keep them going in the right direction, and how much was for Loren’s life itself. Had it taken on more meaning to her recently?

  Somewhere along the way, she’d begun to see him as a damaged, complicated person, rather than a typecast evil goon. Likely, her new version was more accurate, but infinitely more problematic. She knew Rosie would still eliminate him as soon as it was necessary, which was beginning to feel like an issue that could no longer be avoided.

  And what about Fish? She knew he was loyal to the group; of that she had no doubt. Yet he may still, in his own scarred way, care for Loren as well. And Tess was beginning to suspect that the feeling might not be one-sided.

  An hour later and still awake, she slid from her covers and crept to Loren, placing a gentle hand upon his back and calling to him with her mind. He was not dreaming, and was far away, beyond her reach; she barely caught a flicker of his energy before it would disappear again. She tried another few times before giving up and slithering back from whence she came, a small feeling of shame following her, though she did not fully understand why.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Merktown. For Tess, the name itself elicited images of dirt and muck, green stagnant water and the smell of grime and silt. A town just holding on, content in its own homeliness.

  Tess was wrong.

  They had been climbing steadily for close on three hours before the town came into view. Long before then, the hazy tips of the Misties had become more defined, blue outlines against a deeper cobalt sky.

  Indeed, sometime in the last few days of travel the weather had cleared, a slight warmth lowering itself upon the land. The promise of spring had caught Tess in its clutches, and she’d relished the thawing of the land around her, though again they traversed a muddy plain. After the events on the bridge, Tess felt grateful for the mud and sludge. Anything was a welcome change from the ice and freezing rain. She had even laughed as they’d stooped low in the saddles on a path beneath pines with long, low-lying branches and her clothes had become soaked with the drip drops of melting ice.

  She was so tired of winter.

  And now, with the mountains in view, a new piece to their journey had seemed to open another new obstacle to face, just as the last events began to draw to a close. Even though Tess had no doubt that climbing the Misties would be its own challenge, the draw of something different was strong. She was ready for it.

  At the top of the plateau, the land leveled as the trees thickened around them. They passed through a realm silent in repose, where the birds called quietly and the horses were soft in their footfalls. Tess allowed herself a moment of reflection in these woods. The trees, stark and bare, seemed to stand as silent guardians, witnesses to their journey, though unwilling to take sides in the follies of man.

  Even Loren seemed taken with the solemn quiet. He sat straight, eyes closed as his horse walked beside Tess’s own, still bound. She was, for a moment, transfixed by him. He breathed deeply, face at peace, one hand removed from the reins and listing by his side, fingers out as if to catch any nearby branches.

  How odd, that nature should bring out the human in each of them.

  Suddenly, they reached the crest, and the spindly tree tops descended in front of them, drawing their eyes to the bright blue spark beneath- Lake Vera, so deep blue in color under the full force of the sun that it hurt Tess’s eyes to gaze upon it, though no sooner had she pulled her eyes away to shade them than they were once again drawn back to the sapphire disk below.

  On this side of the rise, a town was visible, clinging to the shores, a wooden creature crowding in on itself as it stretched into and across the lake. A pier, daring in its span, crossed to the center of the lake where a large island sat, overrun with buildings, the piers stretching out from it in every direction like spokes on a gigantic wheel.

  As they descended, traversing switchbacks down the steep trail, the town began to thrum, bursting slightly at the seams to Tess’s eyes, its lifeforce strong, as though the combined auras of thousands had created its own glow around the town, protecting it from any malevolent spirits.

  Drawing nearer, Tess saw that nearly every surface sparkled, clearly the intended effect. Glass of every color decorated nearly all available surfaces- baubles hung from clotheslines, stained-glass displays adorned shop windows along busy streets. Mirrors stood along street corners, reflecting the happy faces of children who dashed along the cobbles.

  Merktown- dazzling in its own brilliance, as if competing with, or perhaps just intending to enhance, the natural beauty of the lake it sat upon.

  Here was a city proud of its worth.

  Here was a city that might consider changing its name.

  “Well,” Tess said, to herself more than others. “Don’t judge a book by its title.”

  “Wealthy area,” Loren said beside her, nearly conspiratorially in tone. “The mountains around here are rich in ore and gems, though you wouldn’t know it if you’d never been here before. They prefer to keep it close to the chest.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a small enough town, large compared to Wharfton of course, but imagine if everyone in the depressed areas caught wind that this was the place to work.”

  Tess understood. “They’d descend.”

  “Aye. The mountains would dry up before you knew it, and the locusts would disperse just as quickly as they appeared, and what would be left? A ghost town with some sad history.”

  “Like the gold rush,” Tess said, thinking of the towns she’d learned about years back, left deserted in California as some relic of a forgotten time, a lesson too far in the past to be remembered.

  “The what?” Loren asked.

  “Oh. Never mind. Though it doesn’t seem they’re trying so hard to hide their wealth. It would be as easy as you or I spreading the word as we went, wouldn’t it?”

  “Not exactly. They don’t talk about it, or flaunt it, aside from their absurd taste in glass, and they don’t trade with anyone outside of Turand, and the royals have reason to keep this information hidden. They’d have a much more difficult time controlling the value of their coin and gems if this area was exploited.”

  “I suppose that makes sense.” Tess said, but thought to herself, and how do you come to know so much about it, Loren? She filed away connections to the capital in her sparse mental vault with information on Loren.

  And why had he shared the information with her? Maybe he was thinking two steps ahead, feeding her misinformation for his own purposes. Or was
it possible that, just as her feelings of hatred had mellowed in the past week, his had begun to change for his present company as well? If he was letting down his guard, it might be the opening she’d been waiting for.

  She glanced at him to take measure. His hands were still unbound, though his horse remained tied to Tommy. His ankle, though still bruised, seemed to be healing quickly. What was to stop him from jumping free of the horse and disappearing into the throngs of villagers? The thought made her pulse quicken. It was risky to chance this, though she knew tied hands would raise more questions than they wanted from the locals. Truly, they were banking on Tess’s value to Loren as a greater reason for him to stay than to flee. She was the honey they were dangling in front of the bee, though they still knew so little about what he wanted her for, or what her value could possibly be.

  Tess would feel more at ease when they were once again away from the masses and Loren was tied safely to some pipe, or bed, for the night.

  She got her wish some ten minutes later, when Rosie turned them in to a large building that sat on the far edge of town. “Lodging,” she said to Tess as they dismounted. Then, lower, “and the last connection I have through my uncle. After this, we’re on our own to traverse the Misties. We’ll need to leave the horses here.”

  A bittersweet pang hit Tess. True, she’d been longing for a change to their routine, a chance to stretch her legs a bit more, though she knew they made better time while riding. But the thought of leaving Tommy, who had proven himself to be both steadfast and loyal, made her feel crummy, like deserting a pet who wouldn’t understand what they’d done to deserve it.

  Her dismay must have shown on her face, because Rosie cocked her head. “They’ll be well taken care of, and we can collect them again as we travel south. No need to look so long in the mouth.”