by Emma Hamm
Other women might have pried, might have asked what he meant, who Lyra was, why he called her name in his sleep. But not Mercy. She narrowed her eyes, and nodded sharply.
Even calling Wolfgang a dead man did not peak her interest. Fascinating, Jasper thought. She was an enigma of a woman.
The awkward feeling between the two of them disappeared.
He was staring at her again. He couldn’t help it. She drew his eyes and he was helpless against her allure.
The spell was broken when the Centaur ambled to his feet. The creature shook his entire body before grumbling, “Might as well go to bed if this is what’s going to happen.”
The others left, one at a time and in small groups They melted into the darkness like shadows, and Jasper suddenly understood with great clarity how they had remained hidden for so long. Their footsteps were silent, and they used the woods to their advantage.
Mercy stood and brushed off the bright fabric wrapped around her body.
He cleared his throat. “They’re amazing. This entire place feels like a dream.”
“This is the real world. Not your pretty little bubble of a city.”
“I like it.”
“Really?” She arched an eyebrow. “You look like you’re afraid of them.”
“I was. They are startling when you don’t know what to expect. But the more they speak, the less I notice the differences.”
She looked at him in that strange way again. The kind of way that suggested she might believe him. Or perhaps that she was as interested in him as he was in her.
Mercy shook her head and reached into the fire for her strange companion. Ignes clung to the coals stubbornly, so she roughly brushed them away from the lizard. He could hear her quietly scolding Ignes for his behavior before she rolled her eyes and let him be.
“Ignes would like to stay where he is tonight. Come, I’ll show you your tent.”
“I have a tent?” he asked.
She walked away from him without answering. The moonlight outlined her body, radiating a soft glow. In the darkness, she was more flame than human.
Their feet crunched through twigs on the ground and rattled stones. He had never thought he’d want a pair of boots more than breathing, but he was beginning to understand the power of small luxuries. Jasper’s tolerance for uneven ground had disappeared the day he had left the farm.
This place reminded him of his childhood. Not of his family or his home, but of the feelings that resided deep inside him. The Fairy that possessed him was not the only one who loved the wilderness. A buried part of himself was comfortable here.
Dirt had no mouth to speak. Plants had no thoughts to doubt. Trees did not think less of him because of his wings. Nature was kind while people were cruel.
Jasper paused as his mouth gaped open. “They didn’t mention my wings.”
“No, they didn’t,” Mercy said.
“Why?”
“Did you think they would? You’re the prettiest one here. Try living fifteen feet taller than everyone else or being an old woman your entire life. A set of wings is nothing to them.”
And not once did he feel their eyes upon him in judgement. The Hag had smiled at him. The Centaur had ignored him. Even the Thunderbird did not notice his wings fluttering. They were stranger than he was. Being a burly man with pink wings didn’t make him any less of a person to them.
Mercy stopped in front of him, oblivious to his epiphany. She gestured behind her at a rather small tent, which he thought might be green. It was hard to see in the darkness beyond her glow.
“This is yours. There’s a bedroll and a pillow for you. Not the highest of comforts, but it’ll have to do for tonight.”
“I’ve slept on the ground many times,” he told her. “This will be no different.”
“Have you?”
“Grew up outdoors. The city life came after I gave that up.”
She cocked her head to the side. Again, he thought she would ask him details about himself. Instead, she nodded and turned to leave.
“Mercy.” He didn’t know what he wanted to say. He only knew that he didn’t want her to leave just yet.
She turned until he could see the silhouette of her face outlined in the flames behind her. The graceful slope of her nose, the slightest bump that suggested she may have broken it once before. Lips that he realized were now far more pronounced than he had given her credit for. A square jaw and chin that suggested stubbornness was in her blood rather than a learned trait. She was no natural beauty, but she was rugged and shaped by the world into something strong.
“Stunning,” he muttered.
He could hear her sigh. Not the happy kind of sigh a young woman would breathe when a man complimented her. This was an exasperated sound, immediately followed by her stalking towards him.
The top of her head struck his chin. He had never had a woman come this close to his height before.
“Don’t make this mean something it doesn’t,” she growled at him.
She reached up and buried strong fingers in his beard. With a tug, she brought him down to her lips.
She kissed like an open flame. Burning, scorching, she left nothing of him behind. Every movement, every inhalation, she branded him with her mark.
And she tasted of fire roasted chestnuts.
He was stunned. Shocked. Awed. There were too many words rattling around in his head for Jasper to react properly. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had kissed someone because, again, Mercy turned his thoughts to ash and dust.
Like an idiot, he stood still until his brain caught up with him. Only then did he raise his arms and yank her against his chest. He splayed his fingers wide against her back to draw more of her into himself.
He knew his beard had to be scratching her, or he was squeezing her too hard. Someone had told him that before, but he couldn’t think of a name when Mercy’s teeth were nibbling at him.
As quickly as the kiss had begun, she ended it. She pulled back so far that his arms dropped from her body to hang limply at his sides.
He stared at her, doe eyed, until her words caught up with him. “How am I supposed to take that?”
“I was asleep for two hundred years, Jasper. How many times do you think I thought about doing exactly that?” Her eyes sparkled with mirth. “It’s been a very long time. I’m glad it’s as good as I remembered.”
The sight of her sauntering away from him would forever be burned into his memory. Sleep would not come easy this night.
11
She tried not to touch her lips. That would have been foolish after all. She was two hundred years old. She had lived longer than any other human. Teenagers touched their lips after kissing someone new.
Her chin itched where his beard had scraped her skin and her back tingled where his fingers had massaged the muscles. Above all the other sensations, her lips felt swollen.
Mercy’s sudden desire to kiss Jasper had emerged from curiosity. She had watched her family and her people all night. With that connection, her humanity slowly began to return. She wasn’t trapped in a Dream World. She wasn’t hidden in the roots of the World Tree and devolving into something dark. Ignes wasn’t even currently healing her.
Life was now unpredictable. She didn’t know how to act, which was just as exciting as it was frightening.
She paused in front of her red tent and told herself not to look back. Looking back meant she might see him staring at her. Or she might not.
Mercy didn’t know which was worse. If he were staring at her, she thought she might turn around and go back to him. That could only end poorly as they barely knew each other. If he weren’t looking, she would assume he was thinking about the woman whose name he called out in his sleep.
Strange how a man could profess such emotions for one woman and yet still show interest in another. But Mercy was not the jealous type and she wasn’t interested in wasting her energy on things she could not control. Jealousy only festered. There was en
ough negativity festering in her soul already.
She didn’t look back. She would only be inviting difficulties into her life. He was enough trouble as it was.
Brushing aside the tent flap, she stepped inside. While Jasper would be spending his night on a relatively thin bedroll, the creatures had made a nest for her. Tiny had mentioned it before the Hag had begun to tell stories.
Mercy hadn’t expected them to take care of her. They had their own struggles, and they were all aware she did not need help. But they truly wanted her to be comfortable while she remained here.
She was both touched and horrified. Learning how to control Ignes’s powers was hard enough. She didn’t want to also worry that if she didn’t have complete control, she would harm people she loved.
This was why she didn’t get close to anyone. Mercy reminded herself that, although she felt normal, she was not. Phoenixes should know how to control their powers, but she and her childlike creature were not capable of learning on their own. They did their best.
But the beast inside of them always lurked just below the surface.
She sighed and brushed her fingers through her hair. They snagged immediately in tangles, and a twig scraped her knuckle.
“I’m a mess,” she muttered, turning to find something she could run through her hair.
It was then that she saw them. The depth of the shadows in the back corner of her tent, pulsing with unnatural life. They had a heartbeat of their own that made her muscles tense.
Mercy wished she had Ignes. He would have burst their body into flames and protected her in an instant. Without him, she was just the shell.
“Who goes there?” Her deep voice rumbled through the shadows, intimidating and fierce.
The shadows moved. They had a life that darkness should not have. Sticky tendrils reached for her before they retreated back into the mass.
“A friend.” The voice echoed in her mind. “With a warning.”
“Rarely are warnings welcome,” she told the honey sweet voice. “I refuse to listen.”
“There is trouble coming.”
“Sent by you?” She peered deeper into the darkness, but couldn’t make out a figure.
“No, by Malachi.”
Mercy’s lip curled into a snarl. “He can try. He will not find us here.”
“He will find you. He is very interested in having you by his side.”
“I belong to no man.”
“Perhaps not Malachi.” The shadows thickened in one particular spot, not unlike the way Ignes appeared within flames. “But you will have to belong to someone. Otherwise, you are a ticking bomb waiting to go off.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know of you. I know the future. I know the past. You will repeat the same mistakes you made long ago if you do not listen to me.”
“You don’t know that.” She didn’t recognize this voice, she didn’t recognize these shadows. But she was certain they did not speak the truth.
“If you had looked into the flames, you would know for yourself.”
She tugged hard at the tangles in her hair. “You speak in riddles, Shadow Man.”
“Perhaps you are the problem. You are limiting yourself by focusing upon me, when you should be focusing on yourself. Powers beyond your comprehension sit at your fingertips. You are simply not using them.”
Mercy’s mouth gaped open for a moment before she angrily shook herself. “How dare you!”
“I dare because I wish for you to succeed. You need a master. A teacher.”
“You?” She gestured towards the shadows. “An unseen face and a hardly impressive voice?”
That got the reaction she wanted. In one nearly inaudible snap, the shadows coalesced into a singular, tall form. Lean, dressed in black, with his clothes outlining hard muscles, the man was not what she expected.
This man was the epitome of sophistication and bad boy danger. He fairly oozed class, but he was casually leaning against a wall of shadow. One leg was lifted enough for the faint light underneath the tent to glint off of the leather covering his body. His ripped black shirt appeared more fashion than accidental. A lock of ink dark hair fell across his forehead as he peered at her through soulless, midnight eyes.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Someone who wishes to help.”
“You do not have the look of someone who helps others.”
The man crossed his arms over his chest. “Why does everyone always say that?”
“Perhaps it’s something in your eyes. They’re windows to the soul, you know?”
“All I see in your eyes is fire and brimstone.”
Mercy shrugged. “So you aren’t blind, then. Perhaps you should be frightened of me.”
When he smiled, she took a step back. That was no normal smile. The man was a predator, plain and simple. It was a small bit of magic to reach out and taste the air, scenting his power. Mercy knew immediately that he was considerably strong. His magic pricked across her skin like pins and needles. Shards of ice and black abyss, silent and cold.
His canines were delicately pointed, she realized, as they punctured his full bottom lip before he spoke again.
“I understand you wish for no master,” he said soothingly, “but you must take one or learn better control.”
“I control myself fine.”
“A quick temper and easily risen to battle is not control. That is the opposite, in fact. Not that I mind those qualities in a woman, just not in you.”
Mercy narrowed her eyes. “You speak as though you know me. I don’t think we’ve ever had the pleasure.”
“Pitch.” He did not hold out his hand for her to shake. “Let’s just say I have a bit of an Oracle on my side who says I need to be concerned about you.”
“Why?”
“I’m invested in your health. Stay alive because I want you to. Because the world needs you to.”
Now she really had to laugh. Mercy held onto her sides as the ugly sound burst forth from her body. This was not happy laughter but sarcastic and melancholy.
When she was finally able to speak again, she spat out the words like poison. “The world has no care for me.”
“The world has no care for anyone. We are all fending for ourselves, but I have a stake in you. In the prophecy.”
“What prophecy?”
He froze. Pitch stared at her, the unnatural darkness bleeding away from his wide eyes. His natural irises were black beneath the magic.
Mercy repeated herself. “What prophecy?”
“Damn it,” he muttered. Pitch reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigar. Fire flared, and bright puffs of yellow smoke swirled around him as he exhaled. “I’m here too early.”
“What?”
“Too early, as in not at the right time. Ask Jasper about the prophecy. And learn to control yourself, or take him as master. You only have two choices.”
Mercy wasn’t about to be ordered around by a shadow in the night. “Or neither,” she told him.
“No. One or the other.” The shadows curled around him.
“I do not listen to men who order me around.”
A long strand of shadow shot towards her. Mercy flinched away, but was surprised when it seemed to pass through her body, not harming her in the slightest.
“You will do what I say because it is important. Listen. Learn. And heal your mind. Two hundred years is a long time to be locked up. I should know.”
“Why are you here?” she asked again.
“You’ll find out soon enough.” His mouth twisted into a wry grin as he faded back into the shadows. “If I get the timing right next time.”
And then he was gone. The shadows returned to their normal intensity, and Mercy was alone again.
Though she was brave, Mercy could not stay in this tent alone. The Dream World was so much safer, controlled by her and Ignes alone. Reality had no control at all. Only darkness. Danger. Fear.
A shiver skittered across he
r arms, raising gooseflesh in its wake. Fear was not an emotion she felt often, and she wanted to peer into the shadows again. Was he still there? Would she even notice if he was?
Mercy refused to take the chance. Exiting the tent, she stomped towards the bonfire. She did not hesitate to plunge her hands into the embers and drag Ignes out.
She did not register his angry cries. Her heart beat hard, her breaths rushed from her lungs, and her mind raced. Her feet flew as she fled back to her tent. Ignes continued to grumble even as she poured his flames from her palms into a bowl filled with wood chips.
“That’s rude!” he shouted. “I don’t yank you out of your bed!”
“Ignes, enough.”
“You’re always thinking of yourself—”
“Ignes, I said enough!”
Her shout seemed to give him pause. She watched the flames swirl in a mini cyclone before they grew large enough to pour like liquid onto the ground. A tug in her chest suggested he may be using her life force to give himself power. The flames grew into the form of a man before her.
He reached for her. The warmth of his hand would have destroyed anything he touched, anything other than her. Fingers that carried the heat of lava followed the angry lines of worry that marred her beauty. The slightest tingle followed his touch, suggesting he was healing any wrinkles that might have formed.
“You are afraid.” His voice had changed from the hearty crackle of a campfire to the booming grumble of a volcano.
“Someone was here.”
Great bursts of flames erupted from him. “Who?”
“I don’t know. A man made of shadows.”
“From this camp?”
“I don’t think so.”
The fire of his body continued to grow until she worried he would set the tent alight. Mercy had picked up much of her volatility from Ignes; the young Phoenix had little control over his powers, and even less over his emotions. Sometimes she could calm him, but, more often, she was unsuccessful. At least in her dreams.
She stepped forward into the heat and squinted as it blasted into her sensitive eyes. When he was worked up like this, even Mercy felt the pain of his power. He likely wasn’t aware he reached for her and immediately began healing her.
