by Ellie Margot
Cassian didn’t want to be away from her, and Mekhi just flat out was not going to be. Guy was happy and quiet, two miracles, and they found sleep easier than any of them ever had before. Dire was in a room adjacent to theirs.
Then sleep came.
Riette slept before she heard it again. The clicking. The breaking of twigs. The sound of someone’s footsteps moving slowly closer.
She sat up in bed quickly. The blanket that had been wrapped around her fell on top of Cassian where he was sleeping.
He sat up. “What’s wrong?”
“Shh,” Riette said as she moved closer to the window.
The clicking was louder now. The sound hurt her ears. The sun was on the edge of rising, and the light of it showed the outline of something large outside her window. Whatever it was wasn’t human or anything like it. It had an extra elbow and a hand that wasn’t quite a hand.
Riette took a breath. Her tattoo tingled and burned, and flames found her fingertips. She moved the curtain with her other hand, and a creature that looked like an insect came to life. It had a mouth, and it had eyes, but the rest of it was something Riette couldn’t make good sense of.
The flames burned higher in her hands.
The glass of the window was half broken and gone. There was nothing between them now, but neither moved.
“What do you want?” she asked.
The clicking continued. This was the thing that had been following them. She recognized the creature from the shadows she had seen and the way it was bent in front of her.
“Can you speak?” Riette asked, and her voice was hardly her own. It was louder and stern.
Cassian stood beside her, and the wind his power generated swirled in the air, waiting for a home. He had a surprised look on his face.
“What the fuck?” asked Mekhi, and the creature’s attention went to him. It opened its mouth to speak.
“What you seek can be found in the Trial of Truth,” it said, its voice like a hiss in the wind. Riette barely understood the creature.
“What do you think we’re seeking?”
“Who. You’re looking for a girl. She’s like you. Tall, lost. Lonely. That’s the only place that will give you the information you seek.”
“Why are you helping us?” asked Riette.
“Because you’re in danger. You have been for a long time, and now the danger is finding you.”
The hairs stood up on the back of her neck, and a chill ran down her spine like icicles being held against her skin.
The thing blinked, and its eyes found something above her head. Dire. She felt him there before she turned around by the breath that was hot against her shoulders, and when she turned, he held something in his hands.
“Is that a sword?” asked Mekhi.
“You need to go,” said Dire, who never took his eyes off the thing. The creature blinked again before it hunched, inverted its spine, and ran back into the woods.
“Who called it here?” Dire’s voice boomed in the small space.
“No one,” said Cassian. His eyes found Riette’s, and he gave a small, almost indiscernible shake of his head.
“Fucking vermin.”
“What was that thing?” asked Mekhi.
“A scar on the earth,” Dire said, and then he turned and left their small room, passing Guy who stood at the doorway with his hair still mussed from sleeping. Dire’s words were said confidently, as if any of them could find sleep now.
The three waited for Dire to fully leave the hallway before shutting the door and talking quietly. Guy went with him.
“What the actual fuck?” said Mekhi.
“Whatever is going on between Dire and that creature is their business,” said Riette. She took a deep breath and let it out before speaking again. “We need to go to the Trial of Truth.”
“Why would we go there?” Cassian asked. “Why would we trust that thing?”
“Because I trust it. The creature gave us a place to go. A concrete location. Guy hasn’t done that. Dire has his own issues. We have a mission.”
“Riette, this is a bad idea,” said Cassian.
“No, this is an idea,” said Riette, biting her lip. She didn’t stop biting until the metallic drop of blood hitting her tongue reminded her to.
The next morning came quickly because it was already almost there when the creature had left. They got up, each one feeling more worse for wear than they had the night before, and they found their way to the kitchen.
Guy was already there, drinking something that smelled bitter. Riette sniffed the air and scrunched her nose.
“Coffee,” he said, lifting his cup into the air. Whatever it was, she wouldn’t be drinking it.
“Where’s Dire?” Riette asked.
The house felt too quiet, like they were alone in it.
“He left,” said Guy. “Business. I said our goodbyes for us early this morning while you all were still sleeping.”
“Do you know where Corin is, or was that creature telling the truth?” asked Riette.
Guy swallowed.
“You don’t know where she is.”
“There’s only but so many places she could be.”
“What kind of bullshit is that?” asked Mekhi, stepping forward.
“We need to go to the Trial of Truth,” said Riette. Enough time had already been lost to indecision.
Guy took another sip, his face pinched. “That place is barely on the map. A broken-down fair.”
“What’s a fair?” asked Mekhi. He wiped an apple on his shirt before taking a bite and almost eating half of it whole.
“Fucking weirdos, I swear,” muttered Guy as he rolled his eyes. “It’s a day and a half walk if we don’t dawdle.”
“Isn’t there a faster way?” asked Cassian. He also had an apple, but his hands were too busy gripping the table to bring it to his lips.
“Not that we can afford. Fairies don’t tend to play nice, as you know, and Angels are way out of our price range.”
“Then we don’t have time to waste,” said Riette.
Chapter 23
They left Dire’s house in a hurry. Mekhi tried to hurry them along by carrying most of the supplies they had and a few extra things Guy assured them Dire wouldn’t miss.
His confidence in that statement added proof to Riette’s theory that the house wasn’t Dire’s at all, and Riette didn’t want the weight of what may or may not have happened to the real owner on her conscience.
They hit the road quickly, and in Mekhi’s case, literally, when he took on too many of their things and let the ground meet his face.
When night came, they slept under the stars. They roasted apples and potatoes Guy had smuggled in his bag over an open fire made with woods from neighboring trees.
“Favorite food?” asked Guy.
“Roasted potatoes. Potatoes are life.” Riette took another bite. She fought back the urge to moan, at least externally. “That may or may not be because I’m eating them right now.”
“You’ve been a spud fiend since birth,” said Mekhi. He was on the third potato of his own. Riette would have thrown a potato at him, but it found its way to her lips instead. It wasn’t worth losing the goodness.
“Corin loves potatoes too,” said Mekhi. “She’s the only one who can throw them back like you can.” He smiled, but then the expression slipped, his face falling into darker territories.
The group got quiet, but it wasn’t a sad quiet like Riette expected.
Mekhi’s words made her see Corin again as if she were in the circle with them, her smile still just shy of being too big for her face and her eyes bright.
Riette focused on the fire, but her thoughts wouldn’t stay there. The reds running through the wood, the crackling, and the smell of smoke finding its way into their clothes took her to other places.
Riette looked away. She didn’t want to close her eyes because she knew exactly what she’d see. Vitan on fire. Her home.
She cleared her th
roat and grabbed some leaves from the pile of Vitan twigs Guy had laid out. Biting into it and chewing hard, she felt the piece of it slide against her teeth.
“I need a minute,” she said. Riette stood, taking her bag with her. Cassian didn’t say anything, but the way he held his jaw spoke for him.
Riette walked a few yards away, just beyond the small collection of trees around where they had made camp. The others couldn’t see her from there, but they could hear if she was loud enough. She wasn’t crazy enough to put too much distance between them, but she needed to find some space to breathe before she choked on the thoughts cluttering up her mind.
Riette sat her bag on the ground and bent to let Bark out of the bag. The monkey came tumbling out too. Bark stretched, but Riette didn’t see him. Her eyes were too focused on the monkey in front of her. It was still a statue, but it moved almost indiscernibly in front of her. There was a soft hum in her ears. Then the monkey came back to life in a shimmer of light from its frozen statue state.
It stretched its small frame as if coming back from a long sleep, and then it smacked its lips and adjusted its jaw with a small smile on its face. Riette smiled, and Bark’s eyes narrowed, barely opening his mouth to make a noise when all the peace was lost. The monkey turned, spotted him, and attacked.
He mounted Bark and slapped his face, and Bark made a yipping noise before smacking him back. Riette jumped and then reached out to separate them, but they were a tangled mess of blue fur and splinters, small bites, and thrashing of little hands.
When Riette did get close enough to the fray, a small piece of wood lodged itself in her pinkie. Bark made a mewing noise and reached out to help her when the monkey sucker punched him in the face. Bark fell back, and the monkey came to her side. He nuzzled her hand, and Riette fought her instincts to shake him off.
The fact that he didn’t try to eat her hand made him different from the angry little suckers on the ship, but looking down at him, all she saw was a frightening collection of teeth that seemed to love her.
Bark growled from deep in his throat, watching the exchange. He had a piece of blue fur tucked into the grooves on his face, and he blew a puff of air up to dislodge it as his little arms lay by his side. Everything stopped when they heard a small noise from the other side of the clearing.
Riette scrambled, and without being forced, Bark jumped into the bag with the monkey following closely behind. She had barely pulled the bag shut when Guy came into the space.
“You okay over here?”
“Extraordinary.”
“I hate that word. Who wants an extra dose of ordinary in their life?”
“Right now, that doesn’t sound like the worst option in the world.”
“Is everything else okay?” Guy asked. He looked at her bag pointedly and then back at Riette.
She stilled her face. “I’m good.”
“I’m not judging. We’re all allowed to have secrets, right?” Guy smiled at her and then shrugged. He scratched his neck. “You mind coming back now? I have something I need to share.”
Riette grabbed her bag, praying the inhabitants wouldn’t kill each other and out themselves when she got around the rest. She settled back into her spot by Cassian, with Mekhi across from her, and Guy, instead of returning to where he was before, stood just outside the circle.
Riette waited for him to speak, but Mekhi wasn’t as willing.
“Spit it out. We already know who you are. It can’t get much worse than that, right?” The words sounded mean, but he was smirking as he said them, and Guy let out a little laugh before scratching his neck again.
“Uh, you know how we’ve been getting along pretty well since we’ve been here?”
“Give or take,” said Cassian, smiling himself. Riette should have known something was wrong from that alone.
“There’s a reason.”
“Beyond your sparkling personality and shady-ass friends?” asked Mekhi.
Guy ignored him. “We’re on sacred ground right now. Near to it anyway.”
“Sacred how?” asked Riette.
“There are spaces in Esper, places where there used to be Vitan trees. Myth tells us. The trees are gone, but the roots are still there, and they make Elves feel more at peace. More at home.”
“You’re saying we’re close to a Vitan tree root?” Riette asked. She sat up straighter.
“We’re not directly on it, but it’s a half a mile away, give or take.”
Riette stood up. “Then let’s go. We could fully recharge—”
“No,” said Guy, and his tone was harsher than they had ever heard it. “Getting closer is the last thing we need to do.”
Chapter 24
Riette made a sound in her throat. “I can’t be this close to what we need and not go to it.”
“You can if you don’t want to fuck things up for all of us. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.” Guy turned, and his posture hunched, and Riette fought the urge to hit him and snap him into sense.
He moved back to his spot, sat on the ground, and tented his hands behind his head after running them harshly through his hair.
“We can’t go closer. It’s dangerous.”
Riette looked at the crackling fire in front of her instead of looking at Guy.
“We can’t be anywhere near the Vitan tree center. That’s where the highest concentrations of unsavory individuals are. If we got closer, we’d be fucking enslaved.”
“What?”
Guy sighed. “Look, Vitan tree roots are hubs for fucked up shit. Bad people. People needing power. People willing to take power by force.” Guy didn’t look at them when he spoke. His voice sounded strangled, and he cleared it, but it didn’t make a difference.
Riette watched him, and he looked smaller than he had before. Like he was trying to physically take up less space. She’d seen this look before, not on him, but in the men who had tried to attack them before they even found Guy.
It was the look of fear. It was the way it twisted a person into themselves until they disappeared or broke from the pressure, and all Riette could feel was that same pressure, not from fear but from the anger that felt like hot burning embers eating up her chest from the inside.
“We’re not... Vitan trees aren’t fucking fuel. They’re sacred ground. Elves aren’t made to keep other people running.”
“She’s right; it’s fucked,” said Cassian. His voice was low and gravelly. No one else spoke. “What? I’m allowed to say things are messed up too.”
“You know things are fucked if Cassian is cussing,” said Mekhi.
Riette stared at the fire until she felt like it was consuming her.
A darkness found Riette’s soul. It was the darkness she had staved off for long stretches of time, but it found her again, and it didn’t want to release her. The sickness in her stomach, the one from the boat, compounded by the one in her head, made her still. It made the darkness darker.
“Riette?” asked Guy.
Cassian turned and then immediately moved closer. He placed his hands on her cheeks and held her firmly, trying to get her to focus on him instead of the flames jumping higher in front of where she sat.
Her skin felt on fire. Cassian looked down at the flames on her hands. They burned upward from her palms, and he grabbed them, trying to put it out. He held on for seconds, but nothing changed. The fire didn’t leave her. It burned his hands without slowing. The pain forced him to release her, and he looked at the blistered flesh of his own palms.
Mekhi moved closer, grabbing Riette’s shoulder and yelling her name. Clouds came and formed quickly above their heads. Then, Mekhi went quiet. His eyes closed while the cloud swirled faster.
Cassian tried to pry them apart, but he couldn’t release their hold on each other. They all were breathing hard. Guy watched from the sidelines, his shock freezing his feet in place.
Riette’s eyes had gone dark, darker than ever before, even the whites disappearing.
“Riette,”
Cassian screamed. “There’s no white in your eyes.” He yelled again, his voice hoarse. “Riette!”
One moment passed and then another until finally, Riette shook her head, at first slowly, as if coming out of a trance. Then, she shook it again, and the rain started. Big drops fell from the sky and dripped and dripped and dripped. It soaked her hair, and she flicked it, releasing Mekhi from her hold on him.
She closed her eyes and opened her hands. The fire left her and the glory. Everything stopped but the rain. Everyone was quiet except for their breathing.
When Riette opened her eyes, she saw Mekhi shaken, leaning back on his hands as he stared at the sky, still ripped open above them. Cassian looked at her and swallowed again. He didn’t speak, and Riette was glad for it.
Guy didn’t hold his tongue.
“What are you?” he asked, and he couldn’t shake the awe from his voice.
“Leave her alone,” said Cassian. His voice was rough and broken.
“No. I just saw some shit I have never seen before. I want to know what she is.”
Riette swallowed again, the rain still hitting her face. “I want to know that too.”
Chapter 25
The rain didn’t stop, even when their breathing quieted down. Whatever peace they’d all had between them was missing. Broken.
Cassian stood. His hair was in his face, soaked through because of the rain that wouldn’t stop above them. The drops made his clothes cling to him and made his steps heavy. Riette tried not to look at him when he came closer. Whatever she was or wasn’t, she didn’t want the disappointment in her to show on Cassian’s face.
He was fully in front of her before she offered a glance to his offered hand, and she took it. When she stood, his eyes didn’t leave her face.
“Come with me,” he said.
They went back to the same clearing where they were before. The rain still came from the sky, not ceasing, though it had slowed some. She sat because she didn’t trust her legs to carry her. The tattoo still burned at her back, and she rubbed it with her right hand as if she could soothe it into submission.
