Something was also going on with Jushua and Dekimos. The two continued to shoot silent, manly expressions at each other when they thought she wasn’t looking. After the umpteenth such look, she stopped walking. “What is it? You two are hiding things from me. I want the truth. So spill it, boys. Or I’m not taking a single step further. Sorry, guys. We’re not playing the secrets game.”
Jushua yanked on her arm. “You are not so large that I cannot carry you if you prove stubborn. Dekimos and I merely share concern. Both for you and for the effects of this city upon all of us.”
“Then tell me of them. I will not break, guys. I’m not stupid or weak, and if you recall correctly I’ve been around eighty-one times. Died eighty times. I don’ fear it. But I don’t go looking for it either.” Even this time. She wanted to get through this, whatever it was. But she deserved to know what they were thinking. If they were planning something. “Tell me.”
**
He did not wish her frightened, that was all. And until he had the answers he sought he would not tell her the truth. “I merely worry that we will not find our exit in this place.”
“We need to follow the sun. Toward the mountains.”
“Where do you get these new ideas? What says go to the mountains?” She seemed so certain of this path they were to take. Her destinies, again? Or something else? Was she being truthful with them? “Tell me.”
“The Fates, if you want to put it that way. I know that is where we are supposed to go. Just as I know this is where we are supposed to be.”
“We are wandering with aimless intent. What can it hurt for us to go toward the mountains, or beyond them even to the seas?” Dekimos asked.
Jushua could not answer that. But he did not like it that she kept secrets from him. “To the mountains, then.”
**
They kept walking and walking, always following the sun.
Eventually they ended up on the edge of the city. Where they’d originated. They’d come nowhere.
Frustration and defeat filled her.
It only worsened when Dekimos stared at them with an inscrutable look on his face. “We cannot continue thusly.”
“What do you suggest?” Even she heard the frustration and anger in Jushua’s voice. Loren understood. She felt the same.
“This city, it is not real. Yet…there must be some sign of it somewhere. Of it, Cles City, all of them. We need to know.”
“And how do you suggest we do that?”
“I will go to Cles. I will return to you within a day. You and Loren, you are the ones meant to go forth in this task. Not I.”
Jushua argued.
Loren definitely understood what he felt. He was so determined to protect his brother, just as she had always wanted to protect her mother.
But…Dekimos knows the paths he should follow. Jushua must also follow his own way. To do else is to invite the Fates’ wrath.
Chapter Thirty-One
Loren didn’t like it, but it felt right. And it was always Deki’s right to choose. “Twenty-four hours, Deki. I think that will be about how long it will take me to know what it is I need to do.”
Ihth.
The sword in her hand vibrated just slightly, and it was in that moment that she realized someone was really in there. Or a part of that someone. She wanted to ask Deki if he knew, and opened her mouth to do just that.
Don’t. He already knows. This is the path we are to take. Though I am not certain it is Jushua’s.
How was she supposed to think about that? If Jushua was there, then it was his path, wasn’t it? To be something else, yet be there with her, wouldn’t that be impossible?
Dark sorcery makes anything possible. Go to Ihth. You will know what to do next when you arrive.
Loren was starting to resent the feeling that she was nothing more than a puppet of the Fates, and now she was being guided by a talking sword. How was she supposed to figure all of this crap out?
Before she had to face the darkest sorcerer of all time?
“We go to Ihth.”
“And I go to Cles City.” Deki brushed the hair off her cheek and then turned to his brother. “She is yours now. Protect her always.”
“Deki…you’ll return with us to Thrun, won’t you?” For some reason, Loren doubted in that instant how they would all return. She would not be pulling Dekimos through the realm barrier to Relaklonos again. She knew that with a certainty she could never explain.
“If the Fates decree it. If not…this is the path I am supposed to tread. Go. And be safe.”
With that he turned and walked off into the forest. Loren watched him for a long, long time.
“Is he coming back?” She whispered the question to the man at her side. He stared after his brother, worry on his face.
“I do not know. If he doesn’t, I will search for him. I will not lose him again.” Jushua’s pain was in his voice did he realize that? “I have not found him once more only to lose him again.”
Loren wrapped her hand around his much larger one. “We’ll find him, if we have to. But he has protected himself for five thousand years, Jushua. He’ll be ok. I know he will. And…I’m not yours. I don’t know why he said that.”
“Don’t be silly. We both know the truth of his words. The Fates you speak of so fondly have decided it for you.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean you should just give in so easily. I thought you didn’t believe in following the Fates.”
“I do. When it suits me.” He grabbed her arm and twisted her around so fast her head whirled. Until her chest was pressed against his. Then his huge hands went to her ass and he lifted her. “Kiss me, female.”
She looked up at him. He was crazy, wasn’t he? “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not? I think we both agree at this time that we were meant to be together. And we may die tomorrow. Should we not at least answer some of our more pressing questions?” His hand was behind her neck, beneath her hair. Her skin burned where he touched.
“That doesn’t mean I’m just going to go for it, and hop in the sack with you.”
“I don’t know what sack it is you speak of, but if that means sharing my bedroll while on this quest of yours, then I am quite willing.” He kissed her so quickly Loren couldn’t react. Couldn’t pull away.
She wasn’t so sure she wanted to. “I can’t do this now. I have to focus on this quest, as you called it. I can’t afford to screw it up.”
“And I would cause such a screw up, as you put it? I do not think so.”
“Still…” She closed her eyes and refused to think about him pressed against her and how right it felt.
She wasn’t Dardaptoan or Lupoiux, she didn’t think she could just find her mate that the Fates decreed her and automatically be with him, care for him. Desire him. But that didn’t mean the idea of him wasn’t tempting.
He wasn’t Dekimos.
That thought gave her a momentary rush of guilt. How could she even be thinking of Jushua like that when she had just found Deki? No, she and Deki weren’t meant for one another now, she knew that.
But that didn’t mean she could casually hurt him by being with his brother.
Fates decree, little Nelanora. Be with the one you are supposed to be. It is the way of things.
The sword vibrated and she pulled away from Jushua, not sure how to respond to any of it. “We need to get going. I don’t know where the Gardens of Ihth are, do you?”
He kissed her quickly, then stepped away. He knelt in the ground and outlined a crude map in the dust. It took her a moment, but it finally registered.
He’d drawn the same shape as had been in the temple in Dardanos. She had seen it before. In her dreams. “Ihth is here. My mother was born in Ihth. So was yours. Well…Nelanora’s.”
“What could we be searching for there?”
Not searching. Returning.
The sword again. How was she supposed to respond to it?
“We will k
now, will we not, when we arrive? Won’t your precious Destinies tell you?”
“You shouldn’t mock, Jushua. What if your mocking angers them? They have been known to make rash decrees. That rarely ends well, from what I understand.”
“Giving Destinies that kind of power over my life is something I will never do again. I make the choices for my own path. Something you’d best learn to do. Unless you wish to be a puppet with strings for the rest of your days.”
“I don’t get you. First you argue that I should go along with you because the Fates decree it, then you tell me to quit being a puppet. Hypocrite.”
“Yes. You should listen to them when they say you should go along with all that I say, all that I wish. The rest of it is your choice of course.” He grinned at her, and for the first time since she’d found him in Dardanos, Loren laughed. A full laugh that celebrated the fact that they were alive.
He pulled her off her feet and kissed her, hard, then set her back on the ground. “We should get moving if we are to reach Ihth before afternoon. It is a long journey from here out.”
“I am ready.”
“Good. And Loren, keep your sword at the ready.”
Listen to that brother of mine. He knows of what he speaks. Though you have permission to knock him upside the head. Little Jushie has always possessed more arrogance than he ought. And stop kissing him where I can see! There are some things a brother does not wish to witness.
Loren bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud. She wasn’t ready to tell him about the sword.
And the fact that it was most likely his brother’s soul trapped inside it. How much would that hurt him? To know his brother’s soul was confined, and not be able to free him?
That would be enough to drive Loren mad, wouldn’t it?
And to know that brother had been trapped for five thousand years? That would make it so much worse.
She felt for Dekimos, the pain he must have endured to bring the sword to her was something that had to be almost unbearable.
Yet he’d done it. Because it was his destiny.
She definitely couldn’t screw this up.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Gardens of Ihth were sealed off by something they could not see or touch. Only Jushua’s familiarity with the geography of Evalanedea even got them close to the place they sought.
But that didn’t matter.
They could see the Gardens and instead of the fragrant place of great beauty Ihth had once been, it was a burned and barren wasteland. Thorned plants black in color like she had never seen covered the entire five acre place.
To get to Ihth they had to pick their way down a steep hill that was littered with brambles and stones.
They’d almost made it to the bottom when Loren tripped and slid straight down the remaining twelve feet or so. Jushua grabbed her just as her foot knocked into the first of the black thorns.
Immediately something sucked the air from her lungs and flung the two of them…somewhere.
It almost felt like a portkey, but it was so dark and bleak and the pressure on her lungs was such that she was absolutely certain every last vestige of Druidic power she had was about to expunge itself from her body—through her nose—if she did not keep a tight hold of it.
It became so intense that Loren passed out for a moment—most likely from lack of oxygen.
She regained her senses when her head was submerged under freezing cold water.
Something was pulling her down.
It took her too damned long to realize that it was a male body.
She grabbed him as tightly as she could and used a blast of her gifts to propel them to the surface. She pulled in a gasping breath and treaded water, using her inhuman power to hold him to her.
The air cleared around them, but Loren still could not breathe. She held Jushua to her as tightly as she could, both physically and with every bit of power she still had left.
It was a miracle in itself that she had any trace of her gift left at all.
**
She pulled him with her through the choppy waters of what she thought was the Evalanedean West Coast, hoping and praying that the idea of deadweight wasn’t about to become a reality.
She’d lost hundreds of people in her lifetimes, but to lose him now—that would be a blow she could never recover from. It was finally sinking in that the Fates were damned determine she and Jushua be together.
Her body already wanted just that.
And so, she was beginning to think, was her heart.
Keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Do not let my brother go.
Even the sword was beginning to panic.
But Jushua wasn’t helping her swim, and he wasn’t breathing much at all.
The salt of the ocean mingled with the tears on her cheeks. But she refused to let herself waste what oxygen she still had by sobbing.
That would help neither one of them. The only hope she clung to was that he was Dardaptoan. And that meant he was damned hard to kill.
But if he was going to wake up, she’d prefer he do it sooner rather than later.
She kept swimming, feeling her power drain with each yard she traveled. She would not be able to keep them both afloat for too much longer. But there was no way she was letting go of him. Her fingers were locked together, tangled in the material of his tunic, holding him as much out of the water as she could.
If he went down, so would she. Damn the plans of the Four Fates.
Jushua was far more important.
At least to her he was.
She almost lost her grip on him when she saw the edge of the coast less than half a mile from where they were.
If she could reach the shore, she could open the barrier between the worlds and take him to his mother or the City of Healers. He would be helped there.
With a last push of strength, determination, or power—she wasn’t sure what was guiding her on—she pulled him to the shore.
Loren used the force of the tide to move his big male body to the sands. She bent over him and touched his chest. For a long, terrifying moment she was convinced his chest wasn’t moving at all. But then she saw it, felt it—she didn’t know for sure which—but he pulled in a breath. Then another.
And then he just stopped.
She cried his name, then pounded her fists against his chest, directly over his heart. “Breathe, you damned idiot!”
Would human CPR work on a Dardaptoan? Their hearts were on the opposite sides of their bodies, weren’t they? What else was different?
Still, one thing she did know—lungs needed air to function, no matter what the being’s Kind was. She bent over him and pushed soppy blond hair off of his face. Covered his lips with her own.
And breathed. Waited. Breathed again. And again and again. Until the beat of his heart started once more. Until his lungs pulled in a breath of his own.
But he still didn’t open his eyes. She kept going, until there was nothing left in her to give. She rocked back on her heals, then collapsed onto the sand next to him.
She took two deep breaths of her own and then was back over the top of him.
Loren pulled every iota of healing power she possessed, which had never been much. The Four Fates had made it clear to her early on that she would not ever have much of the healing talents. That was part of the curse the Dark Sorcerer had forced upon her.
To watch the people she loved die, and know she would most likely not be able to help them.
But that was then, this was today. “Jushua, dammit, open your eyes. Please!”
Chapter Thirty-Three
He could hear her, feel her, but there was no way in The Three Hells that he was opening his eyes. He couldn’t.
A strange lethargy unlike any he had ever known kept his eyes shut and his body like rock.
Her hands were pressing against his chest in a rhythm he did not recognize. He could have told her to stop, that it would do little good.
Jushua was not dead ye
t. But he was pretty damned close to it. Or at least he felt that way.
Finally, he could do it and he pushed his eyes open.
He’d never seen a more beautiful woman in all of his days as the bedraggled half-mermaid in front of him. “Pretty witchie.”
She gasped, pulled in so many ragged breaths he grew immediately concerned. He looked at her, checking for obvious signs of blood or trauma. “Are you hurt?”
She was so much more vulnerable than he. And that terrified him.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Bruises, mostly.”
“We survived.”
“For now.”
He covered her hands with his own, holding them to his chest. “That is all that we can take heart in now. And tomorrow, and the day after. We will get through this.”
“Don’t be sweet, I’m not sure I can handle it right now.” Her words broke at the last. “I thought we were both dead.”
“And I am harder to kill than that.” He sat up. He didn’t like the feel of his female leaning over his prone body with fear in her eyes. Jushua pulled her over lap and hugged her. “Do you have an idea of where we are? Any sign of Dekimos? How long was I in the ether?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I know that the sun wasn’t on this side of the sky when we were climbing down that hill. But…I don’t know how long we were…elsewhere.”
“Any signs of Dekimos?”
He would not worry for his brother. Dekimos knew what he was about when they started this journey. And Jushua knew his brother had a purpose of his own.
“We will find him. First, though, we must find shelter. I do not like the looks of those clouds forming. A storm rages on, but a few hours away. We need find a cave or something.”
“No caves. Not in this area.”
“And no underground for the little witchie? I shall keep you safe.” And he would. He’d realized something the moment the Dark Sorcerer’s spell had encircled them. Even if the Fates had not foredestined them, he wanted this witchie. And he would protect her. No matter what. And…he would embrace the gift he was given, and thank the Fates for her, if ever he had the chance. “Up. We need to get moving.”
The Witch Page 10
