Shaking her head, Payton turned back to Jarrett and gently nudged him. “Why aren’t you goofing off like the rest of us?”
He shifted, obviously uncomfortable.
“Obviously we can’t take it all back to Imeryn with us but it’s still nice to pretend we’re stupidly wealthy.”
“Indeed.”
Rolling her eyes, she leaned back, laying down and staring at the cave. “Even if we only take a fourth of it back, we’ll be rich. All of us. Can you imagine? Full bellies every night? No more worrying about where the next meal will come from. A new house of our own. Dad can open his own business without worrying about Simmons’ loan sharks coming around to take their share. Isiah and Sammy can do whatever they want.” Abruptly she looked at him, curiosity brewing. “What will you do with your share?”
His brow furrowed, face becoming guarded, making him look all the more adorable with the still lopsided crown that he had not removed. “My share?” he repeated.
“Yeah?” His confusion bewildered her. “You know. Your cut of the profits.”
He shifted again, discomfort coming off him in waves.
Comprehension finally dawned on her. “You didn’t think you’d get a share?”
His brown eyes flickered to her and then away.
“Jarrett…” She started to touch his arm but then stopped short, remembering just before she made contact how much he hated being touched. “You’re a part of this trip. Of course, you’re getting a share. Without your help, we never would have made it this far.”
He tilted his head to the side, looking at her through a veil of black hair. “We’ve had two battles. One where my blade could strike nothing but air and I became an injured liability and the second where you recklessly ran up the back of a dragon to attempt to take it down.”
“Yes, but you shredded the wing.”
He gave her an exasperated look.
“You’re here because you’re a good fighter and I needed someone I could trust to watch my back.”
Now it looked as if he might start laughing at her.
“You’re here for moral support?”
Yup. Totally was going to laugh at her.
“Bah. Think what you want,” she grumbled.
He gave her a soft smile. It made her insides flutter and heart skip a beat. Damn him.
Chapter Fifty-Five
It took a bit of maneuvering to get both – now emptied – carts down into the tunnels, ready for the haul of a lifetime. More than once Nyla bemoaned not bringing more with them, especially since she was determined to bring back the head of the damned dragon. Nothing would dissuade her from that claiming she’d drag it herself if she had to. In the end, they crudely made up a sled of sorts to be pulled behind the cart, hoping the yaks would not be strained by the extra weight of it all.
As it was they had piled the gold and treasure high. It wasn’t until they reached the surface that they realized they had to remove some of it because the runners sank into the snow and cracked the ice beneath it. Many of them loaded their packs with the gold and gems that had been removed from the carts, forgoing food in exchange for it, the promises of the future to come enough to sate any hunger that might arise over the next few days.
That night they celebrated with wine Atherly had brought and stew Nyla heated. All of them twinkling in the firelight as they remained adorned with their treasures, cheering their finds and promising to take care of the families of the fallen.
It was a good night.
The following days on the trek back to the ship were not as pleasant. It was cold and the wind felt much harsher than it had on their journey to the city. It bit into them, pushed on the weight of the carts making the yaks strain to pull them. The nights were long and filled with bitter snowfall, coating them all in a frigid chill that refused to leave no matter how many fires they built. Tempers were growing short and stomachs hungrier as it felt as though they had been walking in the blizzard of white forever. That was, of course, when things went from bad to worse.
Payton abruptly stopped in her tracks, holding up her hand to put a halt to the procession behind her. There was something wrong, something just on the edge of her senses screaming at her. Hesitantly she took a step forward and knew in an instant.
“Echoes!” she shouted back the warning a moment too late.
The snow beneath her feet exploded, the heat of the fireball that just missed her scorching the air around her. Cursing she dropped her pack and threw herself out of the way of another incoming blast. Just ahead in the tangible field of magic, she could see the shadowy ghosts begin to warp into existence.
Her eyes darted from the advancing forms to her bag and then back. She lunged forward, fumbling at the front of her pack. She just managed to grasp what she was looking for when someone pulled her away, a magical shield flickering into life just as a bolt of lightning would have zapped her to extinction.
She exhaled, looking up in gratitude at her youngest brother. “Your timing is impeccable.”
“Your actions are moronic,” Samuel replied.
“Says the man who can hit them with his mind,” she retorted, pushing to her feet. “The rest of us have to resort to alchemy and running in circles screaming for the nearest mage.”
“Lucky for you I came along.”
She winked at him and gave him a nod. The shield dropped and together they attacked. Samuel twisted his staff and thrust it out, channeling a volley of fire at the approaching Echoes while Payton pulled the first of the vials of the grenades belt she had created after the first attack. She threw it in his stream of flames and watched as an explosion took place, tripling the amount of damage. It sent a shock wave out that had even the Echoes staggering back.
“Remind me never to get you angry,” Samuel commented.
“Should have paid more attention when Shaman Tarlevon was teaching,” she said cheekily, dodging a spear of ice that was directed at her.
Samuel conjured a swirling ball of lightning and threw it forward. It zipped around, impacting two of the Echoes and making them twitch in place. “Had other things on my mind.”
“Like the cute apprentice? What was his name again?”
“Shut up.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot. You’ve moved on. How’s Darcy doing these days?”
Her brother managed to blush as he cut a path through the appearing Echoes, his staff nearly a blur of motion. Back to back, she smoothly tossed two more vials, allowing their liquids to mingle and cause a sludge that at least slowed the creatures. She was surprised that had worked. No time to ponder the reasons why they were affected by these physical attacks and not any blade. Three more were coming toward her.
Making a rather awkward dance to get out of the path of two blasts of fire that came from two different ghost staves, Payton practically cartwheeled out of the way. She used the momentum to land on the other side of them. Flashing the monsters – who likely had no comprehension of her at all – a grin, she dropped a smoke bomb before darting away. The gray haze billowed in the air. Then she tossed the flashbang. Fire. A whirlwind of it sent out in a shockwave, catching at least four of them.
Pleased with her work, she danced her way back to Samuel, throwing her special little bombs as she went, praying to the Creators that the battle would end before she ran out.
One of the now on fire Echoes slammed its staff down and there was a vibrating crack. The ground beneath Payton and Samuel was shifting. It caused them to stagger, attempting to stay balanced. Her eyes widened in horror as the Echo repeated its action and hit the ground again, fissures in the ice growing larger and snaking out from beneath it.
Panic seized her.
Another rumbling crack caused the ground to move again and she fell to her knees with the sudden drop. Samuel hauled her to her feet and together they tried to run, his magical shield flickering into life to protect them from the bombardment of spells from the other Echoes as they tried to get off the unstable ground.
>
But the floor was going vertical. The damned floor was going vertical!
A strangled cry of alarm came from her when she realized that they were falling, an entire shelf of ice crashing out from under them. Springing from the ice instinctively, she threw herself forward, slamming into the newly created cliffside with a painful thud, positive that if she didn’t just break her ribs, she had bruised them very badly. Samuel had managed to do the same beside her, grasping on but just barely. What made matters worse was the slick ice and snow made their grip slippery and they could not stop themselves from sliding.
“Help!” Payton cried out.
There was another deafening crack and she could feel it through her gloves as the floor was beginning to break again.
“Isiah!” she shouted for her twin as she scrambled for a hold, her feet scraping uselessly against the ice wall. “Jarrett! Atherly! Someone! Please!”
The ground began to crumble.
“Payton?” Samuel’s voice was shaking.
She turned to look at him but it was too late. A huge chunk of ice had collapsed taking Samuel with it.
“Sammy!” she cried reaching out. She slid farther off the cliff in her attempt to catch her brother as he fell into the abyss below but it was too late.
He was gone.
Swinging her hand back up, she looked down into the darkness, searching for some sign of him, some clue that he had survived. He was on a ledge farther down. He had landed in a soft snowbank. There was water down there and he was cold but alive. He had survived. He had survived. He had…
“SAMMY!”
There was no response.
Deep down she knew there never would be.
Tears burned in her eyes as she stared numbly at the ice she was clinging to. It was fracturing, every second she slid a little more, a few more pieces broke off and fell. She tried to adjust, tried to pull herself up but the ground crumbled causing her to jerk about, barely able to hold on. She was left dangling by one arm, her muscles straining, her grip slipping.
She was going to die.
The realization made her throat constrict.
The ice crumbled a little more under her hand, causing her to swing slightly.
An unworldly scream ripped from her when the ice chunk finally gave way.
It frayed her vocal cords as she felt weightless.
Tore at the back of her throat and burned her lungs in the brief second before Payton comprehended that she was airborne.
Suddenly something grabbed her by the forearm, causing her to jerk painfully, swinging from side to side, at the abrupt stop in her descent. Something in her arm popped but she barely noticed; hope surging through her as she looked up.
Jarrett had caught her.
The warrior was grunting, trying to stop from tumbling off with the extra weight she added. His gauntlets clawed into her bracer, determined to hold her. His brow was furrowed sharply, straining to keep his hold as gravity worked against them.
He met her eyes and the corner of his mouth twitched, as though wanting to offer her a smile. But panic and fear were in his dark brown orbs.
She was slipping.
Fear and horror pulsed through her as she felt herself lurch, the sharp tips of his gloves scraped into the leather of her wrist guard, attempting to stop her from slipping. She clung to his forearm, terror in her eyes. He was sliding forward inch by inch, tiny ice chunks and debris raining down as they were pushed off by his body.
“Fuck!”
Bracing his other hand against the ledge, he strained. For one brief moment, it helped and then—she felt herself drop slightly. His hand was now in hers but they both knew that wouldn’t last. Even now the grip was already failing, her hand sliding further down.
His other hand swung out, clutching her wrist in a frantic attempt to hold her, heedlessly ignoring how he was halfway off the edge himself now. Letting out a sound likened only to a growl, he started to pull her up.
She fumbled at the jagged ice, trying to help when she was high enough. One of his hands made a fist around her coat, yanking her the rest of the way to safety and incidentally directly into him.
Falling back, they scrambled away from the edge, his arms wrapping around her protectively. Payton was shaking, curling into him, her head against his chest; fighting the tears that wanted to start falling. They were both panting, acutely aware of how close to death she had just come.
“Are you alright? Are you hurt?” Jarrett asked, the deep rumble of his voice vibrating against her.
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her heart was beating too fast, her mind still unable to wrap around what had happened in just a few moments. All she could see was Samuel’s face as he fell.
“Oh thank the Creators, they’re gone.” The relief in Caius’ statement was palpable. Several people voiced their agreement with her.
“I hate ghosts,” Nyla announced.
“Don’t worry, they hate you too,” Atherly assured.
The din of conversation buzzed in the background. She could not process it. Did not know how to process it.
Payton sat up, clutching her shoulder as if to hold the pain in place. She could see the tundra properly now. One of the carts was overturned, the yaks pulling it making a loud fuss that she only now was registering. Only one person was down, unmoving at the far end near the overturned cart. The others were up and about and Payton took that as a good sign.
“Sam? Payton?” her twin’s frantic voice managed to penetrate the fog.
She blinked sluggishly and saw Atherly and her twin were hurrying toward them. Isiah was still scanning the area for their missing brother. A pain twisted in her chest so deeply it stole her breath away.
“Where is Sam?”
She could not say it, could not form the words to say what happened. Not this time. All she could do was look to the edge of the ice. To the new chasm that now existed.
Isiah followed her gaze and then jerked back as if she had slapped him. “No. No. NO!” he shouted at her, grabbing her by the arms and shaking her. She let out a murmur of pain but he did not seem to notice. “Where is Sam, Payton? Where is he?!”
She just kept staring at the edge. Samuel hadn’t even screamed. When he fell he hadn’t screamed or cried out. He just said her name when he realized he was going to fall and then… nothing.
There was a burning sensation on her cheek and her head snapped to the side. It was only when she saw Jarrett wrestling Isiah back that she understood that he had hit her.
“How could you let him die! How could you let him fall?!”
Payton flinched. She wanted to refute the accusation. She wanted to rant and cry that she had tried, that she did all she could, that she nearly died. But she couldn’t. And what would it matter if she could?
Samuel would still be dead.
★★★★★★★
Stef M Ensing is gamer, a reader, and author of the new novel Shattered, part one of The Chronicles of Payton Clark duology. Stef M Ensing is brand new in world of publishing and hopes to make an impact with her tales of character-driven fantasies.
She is happily married with two adorable cats and all three fuzzy males having become the center of her world. She knows that the muse can hit wherever is pleases and can often be seen hurriedly pulling paper and pen from her purse or grabbing her phone to quickly jot down the idea that came to mind before it vanishes.
Stef loves to throw readers into the thick of tense and dark subjects, often horrific traumas, while showing the difficulties of how to move past it, all while weaving humor and romance within the tale. Life is messy and she is not afraid to show it but neither will she forget to show the bits of light amid the dark.
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