by Ellie Margot
“Comforting,” said Cassian. He didn’t stop walking or even look at Mekhi when he said it.
“And biting at each other doesn’t help anything,” said Riette.
“It can’t make it worse,” said Cassian, his voice clipped.
“Biting hurts unless you’re the one doing it,” Mekhi said.
“Fucking boys,” Riette said. She pushed forward until she was leading, pushing her shoulder into Cassian’s as she moved ahead. They could have a pissing match behind her. She was there to save someone, like she should have done before when she was given the chance.
They made it to the edge of the woods. They didn’t stop walking until they got to the last place Riette had seen Corin. Riette could still imagine Corin standing there, waving at her. She squinted as if she could look harder and make her reappear.
Mekhi remembered his grandmother’s saying from childhood. “‘All who leave may be lost and those who enter few. The warning is and will remain; the decision belongs to you.’”
The spot was the defining spot between what was known and what was unknown. Mekhi didn’t have to read it though. None of them did. They could have recited the sign message from memory since they were young.
“Cute?” asked Cassian.
“They took the time to rhyme it instead of saying, ‘Just know you’re fucked for leaving here. Good luck.’”
“No one is getting fucked, okay?” said Riette.
“This just keeps getting worse then, doesn’t it?” mumbled Mekhi, but no one said anything about that.
Chapter 7
“Let’s go,” Riette said, starting their route that led to the cliffs. The sound of the leaves crunching behind her told her they were coming, but she didn’t turn to check.
She hadn’t remembered the saying when she was there with Corin. Maybe if she’d read it to Corin, it would have made some kind of difference. That probably wouldn’t have been the case, but entertaining the thought was one of those things a brain did to get through something it hated. It made things worse.
“Wait,” said Cassian. His hand touched Riette’s elbow. She stopped.
“Maybe she didn’t really go. Maybe she lost her nerve, and you just didn’t see her.”
“I saw her, Cassian.”
“You saw her start. You didn’t see her when she walked deeper into the woods when you looked. You said as much.”
“She went. I don’t know what happened, but she did.”
Cassian looked down.
“Hey, we could go through the fucking unknown and back and still be okay, right?” asked Riette. “Cassian?”
He looked up at her. “Yeah.”
“We’re just the best thing going, and we’ll save Corin, and everything will be next-level beautiful, okay? We just have to—”
“Go into what could be Demura to get her,” said Mekhi. He was the only one weird enough to not sound terrified saying that. Demura, or Hell, wasn’t something they joked about. No one did.
“Right.”
Riette walked ahead and pushed through the trees. She could feel something pressing against her. It was like walking through a film, and she knew, just as the coldness enveloped her, that she had walked through magic. She looked at her arms and saw that across them and all around her in the space as far right and left as she could see, there was a slice of darkness, of gray, as if she were standing in a cloud of electricity. Behind her, there was nothing, and in front of her was the sun shining at the ledge. She was entering a place where she couldn’t return, not easily. The tattoo tingling on her shoulder made her feel that truth in her soul.
The cliffs were high from there, and though the water on the horizon didn’t look all that large, the creatures that they were able to see from that height stopped all conversation. A sense of wonder ran through her. The others passed through the realm behind her. Riette turned to see trees she had just walked through, but it looked different. The trees were impossibly tall, taller than they had been on the other side. There was a darkness between the trees that made seeing anything inside of them impossible. The three of them stood in this space, but none of them could speak of it. They could only talk of the horrors that they could witness in the water below them.
In the distance, Riette could see the swells of smoke as they came from a collection of buildings. A sprawling port boasted docks with ships as tall as young Vitan trees. A strip of buildings faced the docks, the walkways in front dotted with people who were barely visible from the top of the cliff. It was a small collection of things they were never told existed. Elves living outside of Vitan and not perishing.
“There’s people,” said Mekhi.
“We knew there had to be, right?” Cassian asked.
“But seeing them existing this close to us is something else.”
“This whole fucking thing is something else,” said Riette. “Are you ready?”
“And we know she went down here?” asked Cassian.
“That shows it,” Riette said. She pointed, and their eyes followed.
Below them, there were vines, but these were different. Where the vines they knew were green more than anything else, these were black vines with green leaves.
The drop was steep, and there was a jagged cutting path of scorched earth from the top where they stood to what was beneath them. It was like a child’s idea of a straight line.
“She burned it,” said Cassian. His voice sounded choked.
“Why would she do that?”
“Let’s get down there and ask her,” said Riette. Every Elf knew to not hurt the nature around them. To do so was tantamount to a crime. A serious one.
Riette took her first step. Her foot slipped, and the vine wrapped around her ankle. A naive part of her thought the vine was trying to help—until the vine grew tighter and tighter.
“Shit,” said Cassian. He grabbed her hand and tried to pull her free.
The vine gripped, closing in to cut into her ankle.
“What the fuck?” asked Mekhi.
Riette’s tattoo tingled. Flames appeared in the hand that Cassian wasn’t holding. She shot the flames at the vine, and it released her instantly.
They scrambled back to the edge of the woods.
“What the actual fuck?” asked Mekhi.
“We know why she burned it now,” said Riette. She leaned down and winced as she touched her ankle. The vine hadn’t drawn blood, but the angry red line on her skin showed that the cut was close. The lines it had made were etched into her skin.
“The powers above us booby trapped the hillside?” asked Mekhi. “It’s like we’re not supposed to ever leave.”
“No, we’re supposed to be protected from those who try to enter,” said Riette. She was reciting words straight from her mother’s lips, what she thought she would say, but Mekhi’s words made more sense than her theory, and that bothered the shit out of her.
“Who made this?” Cassian asked. His voice was quiet. He leaned down to touch the vine by his foot. It curled up vertically, like a snake that moved to a silent song, reacting to him being close. If Cassian moved back, it moved closer. The same was true in reverse.
Riette watched the exchange. “We’ll put that question in the ‘fuck if I know’ pile.”
“We need to get to her now,” said Mekhi, taking a first step. “Before something happens to her. There’s too many people down there to all be good people.”
A jagged line had been burned into the hillside that was narrow and came in starts and stops. It looked like Corin had only burned when necessary, but with the little bit of power she had, she may have used it as much as she physically could. A young Elf like Corin maxing out her powers like that before being around a bunch of unknown factors couldn’t be good.
Mekhi took another step, and the vines rose to curl around him. He stomped one with his boot, grinding it into the ground until it stopped fighting. Other strands kept coming, but slower, as if they had witnessed what had happened.
&nbs
p; Riette followed closely behind Mekhi, not wanting much space between them, and Cassian took up the back.
Every few steps, a vine attacked. The one after Cassian was the biggest. He hesitated. Not hurting the vines was second nature to him. Turning on them was something else entirely.
“Cassian,” said Riette. “Behind you.”
He turned to see a vine unfurl itself to his height. He was the biggest in their party and, therefore, the biggest threat.
Cassian closed his eyes, and the wind blew. It wasn’t as quick as it needed to be, but it was coming. Riette saw his tattoo glowing through his shirt. She itched to shoot fire over his shoulder and end it, but the wind seemed to work after precious moments passed.
Part of the vine unfurled itself in the air next to Cassian’s shoulders. It reached out and up, aligning itself with his throat. A fucking disturbing development, but Cassian pushed the wind as sweat pebbled on his brow. The current of the wind pushed it backward and up, stretching it to taller heights.
“Fuck me,” said Mekhi, his voice was a whisper as he looked back behind them.
“We should run,” said Riette.
“Now,” said Cassian.
They turned, the vine on their heels. The path Corin had left them made sharp twists that could snap an ankle if one wasn’t ready.
Riette turned to check behind them. Cassian kept blowing the wind away, keeping the biggest vine at bay.
“Don’t look back,” said Cassian. “Move, Riette.”
She turned back. Her tattoo tingled, her legs burned again from the effort, and her breath came in pants. The ground in front of them rippled. The vines contorted like snakes of green ivy, curling over each other and struggling to release themselves from the tangle around them. It pulsed to a rhythm as some broke free and writhed in the air above the mass.
“Fuck!” Mekhi screamed as several vines appeared in front of him.
“I got it,” said Cassian. He lifted his hand to start the wind again.
“No,” said Riette. She put her hand on Cassian’s arm. “I’ve got it.”
Riette bent down. Other smaller vines were already trying to curl around her feet. They were taking advantage of the rare moment of them being still. She stomped one like Mekhi had done and twisted her foot into the ground.
The vine seemed wounded and retreated a little, the parts that weren’t squished and destroyed. Riette bent down and placed her hand on the ground.
“Riette,” said Mekhi. He stretched her name out in a warning. The vines started to close around Mekhi. Cassian too. They advanced slowly but in increasing numbers. Another larger vine toppled the others and moved across the ground in quick succession to Riette. It crawled the earth until it almost touched her feet.
“Riette!”
“I’m hurrying. Hold on.” She touched the ground again and closed her eyes. Her tattoo tingled and then burned hot again, but it was different. The power she was channeling was something she had been using since she first came into her powers.
The ground rumbled beneath her hand, and the vines in front of Mekhi shook from the effort. The ground beneath their feet rumbled as well.
“Easy, Ri,” said Cassian.
Riette throttled the power a bit, but she didn’t want to let off too much. The vines shouldn’t fuck with her. The bag shook on her back, and then it felt like the world itself was shaking.
The vines stilled and then started to retreat, making a path for them to walk to the bottom. The new path looked like a jagged scar on the cliff’s side. The vines parted, wriggling against each other on either side of the split. Riette could hear the rustle of them moving against each other as they restrained themselves. The journey would still be long, but at least they wouldn’t be attacked quite as often.
Riette halted the power and let out a breath. When she stood, she stumbled a bit. Mekhi caught her arm.
“I’m good.”
“You’re fucking legend,” said Mekhi.
She shared a smile with her cousin, and then Cassian clapped her on the shoulder.
“That was impressive.”
“Stop. Both of you. Let’s go get Corin.”
Chapter 8
Hours later, when Riette took her first step on the flat land at the bottom of the cliff, part of her wanted to hug the ground beneath her. Making an angel in the dirt wasn’t the worst idea she had ever had, but Cassian and Mekhi would never let her live it down.
She waited for them to catch up to her, having gotten a bit excited in the home stretch and running the last leg. She flattered herself by thinking running was getting easier for her, but the reality that she’d just started her running career this morning—and why she did—sobered any pats on the back she was giving herself.
When Cassian and Mekhi joined her, they both faced the cliff they’d just gone down. With the exception of the couple of burned spots from Corin, the hillside was covered again. The vines had gotten back into position the second Mekhi stepped away.
“Let me go first,” said Mekhi. He stuck out his chest, and his hair wagged a second after he did, the red in his hair shining in the sun and his pale skin flushed.
Riette gave a short chuckle at the flush of his skin, but she probably looked a mess too. Her skin, being a lot more tan, hid most of her sins, and the freckles from her father did too, but it was moments like this when she was glad that was the case.
Riette glanced at Cassian. His dark hair still behaved. His whole family was all a lighter, olive shade. He looked like he’d just come back from vacation.
She rolled her eyes.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s just garbage. Your face.”
“Excuse me?”
“We both look like shit—no offense, Khi—and you still look fresh as a fucking daisy,” said Riette.
“It’s true,” said Mekhi as he smirked. “He’s almost too pretty.” The smile fell off his face a moment after. “She has good genes I guess.”
Corin was prettier were the words no one spoke.
They had reached the bottom of the side of the cliff. They had to travel through orchards, fields of vegetation, and growth to a port where these were sold behind it. The vines went just shy of all the way to the outermost edge of the small buildings that flanked the port. It was a marriage of nature hitting manmade, and it was hard for Riette to take in. They left behind the farmed area and approached a teeming port town.
“Let’s go find her,” said Cassian. They turned to follow Cassian. Riette looked at every face that passed her and tried not to let her jaw go slack at noticing just how many faces there were.
Where are all these people from? How are they here?
One woman sneered at her when she caught Riette looking. Many of the people had scars. The buildings themselves looked hastily designed. The materials that made them up looked like they’d been taken from the earth around them. Vines were dried and used as ropes. The people wore weaved clothing that looked sourced from the vines as well, and there was a hardness to everything. Nothing shined. Nothing was new.
Riette saw the townspeople, most of whom were men, and everyone seemed busy, angrily at work on whatever was set before them. The men and women alike had heavy steps that clomped by them, and even though some did take their time to look, Riette couldn’t talk herself out of looking at them too.
Cassian moved like he knew where he was going. If his direction was any indication, Riette guessed he was heading straight to the sea. A chill ran through her when she thought about what might lurk in the water. She shook her head. The day was full of fucking surprises.
Riette grabbed Cassian’s arm. He turned quickly, and she stopped herself shy of running into the back of him.
“We need to… ask someone,” she said. Her words came out in bursts as she found her breath.
“She’ll be at the water waiting for us,” said Cassian. He touched Riette’s hand, but he turned just as quickly, leaving Riette to hold the air he once occupied.
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br /> Mekhi moved past her to keep up with Cassian, and Riette bit her lip to keep from saying something. She wasn’t going to ask what would happen if Corin wasn’t there, not willing to breathe life into that fucked-up scenario.
Everywhere Riette looked, there was something to astonish her. A woman walked by carrying a creature she knew was some kind of fish, but it had extra eyes, and its skin was midnight blue. The shops that lined the streets each had windows that displayed things for sale. In the forests, things were more communal. There wasn’t a need for trading things, but everyone here was busy with the work of getting new things. Riette watched the transactions with unbridled interest. Mekhi touched her arm several times to stir her from her trance and to keep them moving.
Not all of the people were Elves either. She hadn’t seen any other kind of person before, and the port offered several variations. She wanted to talk to everyone, ask questions, stand in awe of what she saw around her, but she knew she didn’t have time for any of it.
The first time they walked the length of shops near the port, their hopes were high. The second time, there was the hope that they had missed something because they were rushing. The third time? Reality started to seep in. Corin wasn’t there.
She wasn’t at the docks.
They moved off to the side of the bustling docks and tried not to get trampled in the process. A man shoved Mekhi for stopping in front of him, and Riette grabbed his arm before he said anything to warrant more attention. The air around them smelled of the water, and there was a salt crust starting to form on Riette’s face. She wanted to wipe it off, but she knew there wouldn’t be a point. Not this close to the water.
“It doesn’t mean she’s not here somewhere,” said Riette. Mekhi ran his fingers through his hair and held them above his shoulders as he looked up at the sky. He spit after he stretched. Riette knew he was carrying Corin’s disappearance hard, if not the hardest.
