A Traveler's Fate (The Journals of Krymzyn Book 3)

by BC Powell

  “It’s hard to focus,” she shouts over the wind.

  “Believe me,” I yell. “I’ve already learned that.”

  By the time we’re halfway to the cave, we’re wallowing through knee-deep water. Afraid that she’s still too weak to make it through the rising river on her own, I grab Tela’s arm and swing her onto my back. With her arms clutched across my chest, she locks her legs around my waist. I loop my free hand under one of her legs.

  The force of the water pounding against the back of my legs almost knocks me down several times. Using my spear to help me stay upright, I finally make it to the tunnel entrance without falling. After I lower Tela’s feet to the ground, she clings to my shoulders from behind as we hurry through the cramped passage. Inside the cavern, we plop down on the ground and ravenously share two flasks of sap.

  “How much do we have left?” Tela asks.

  “One full canister and two flasks,” I answer.

  “That should be enough to make it back to the Delta.”

  “Do you want me to go out for more?” I ask.

  “No,” she says, shaking her head. “We can stop at the transport before heading to the Delta if you think we need to. Where is it?”

  “Two hundred miles southwest of here.”

  She looks down at her empty flask. “I’ll miss the warm feeling.”

  “You can always go the Dunes,” I tell her.

  “It’s not the same.”

  I take the last swig from my flask and stand to my feet. After stepping through the expanding pool, I raise one leg at a time under the fall to wash off the mud. With the rain outside fueling a powerful rush, my pants and boots are clean in no time. Tela stands and crosses the cavern to me.

  “Since there’s a real waterfall right now,” she says, “I want to clean off before we leave. We can head to the Delta as soon as Darkness ends.”

  “All yours.”

  I walk to the other side of the cave and sit down by the tunnel entrance. With her back to me, Tela steps to the spill, tilts her head forward, and lets the water run through her hair. After reaching her hands to the back of her head, she lightly massages her neck. Her fingertips slide to the top of her shirt and grip the fabric.

  Slow and supple in her motion, she lifts the shirt over her head. When it’s off her body, she rinses it clean and then throws it to the dry ground beyond the shallow pool. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I have the decency to look away. But with the primal desires of Darkness clouding my thoughts, I can’t find it. Like a wild animal locked on its prey, I’m captivated by her every move.

  She turns around, closes her eyes, and leans her head back to the water. Beads of water glitter with violet as they trickle down her chest, slither over her full, round breasts, and drip off her rose-colored nipples. Her skin is ivory and smooth, her stomach flat and taut. Lowering her face, she opens her eyes and notices my gaze. A slight blush reddens her cheeks.

  Tearing my eyes away from her, I focus on the ground between my feet. The cavern is so small that I can’t help but notice that she slips her pants down her legs. After washing them off, she tosses them to the floor by her shirt.

  Aphrodite might as well have cast her spell over me. Enchanted by the thought of Tela naked in the fall, I can’t stop my eyes from drifting to her. The sensual curves of her hips lead to shapely, muscular legs that could belong to a powerful sprinter. Between her legs, a narrow triangle of fine, black hair glistens from the water running through it. Intoxicated by every detail of her body, I raise my eyes over her torso, up her shoulders and neck, and then stop them on her face. She’s staring straight at me. Her puffy red lips curl into a faint smile.

  “Your hair is darker,” she says.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  Never taking her eyes off mine, she walks across the cavern. When she stops in front of me, she reaches a hand down. I take it in mine and she helps me stand to my feet. After letting go of me, she raises her hand to the side of my head. She combs her fingers through my hair and then rests her hand on the back of my neck.

  “It must be from the wild sap,” she says. “It’s black now instead of dark brown.”

  “That’s a good thing,” I reply. “I’ll finally look like everybody else in Krymzyn.”

  She rests her other hand on my shoulder. “You’ve always looked good the way you are.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “You’re not bad to look at yourself.”

  Assuming we’re about to hug the way we’ve done at the end of her other showers, I lightly grip her waist in both hands. It’s obviously different this time since she doesn’t have any clothes on, but I don’t seem to care. Instead of embracing me, Tela rises up on her tiptoes. She inches her face towards mine until our lips meet in a kiss. After our kiss ends, we look at each other’s eyes.

  “Now I’ve had my first kiss,” she says.

  “How was it?” I ask.

  She pulls my face back to hers. Any innocence that may have existed in our affection for one another up to this point is obliterated when we kiss again. I open my mouth a little, she opens hers, and our tongues swirl inside each other’s mouths. A wildfire sparks in my veins.

  She presses her breasts against my chest while I slide my hands from her waist to the curves of her rear. Cupping her firm cheeks, I dig my fingers into her flesh. The growing firmness inside my pants pulses against her belly.

  One of Tela’s hands roams down my chest and over my stomach. When it reaches my waist, she unfastens the top button of my pants. With our tongues still probing each other’s mouths, her fingertips trace down to the second button.

  “Wuv-u, Daddy,” whispers inside my head.

  A knife plunged into my heart couldn’t cause me more pain. With gut-wrenching guilt overwhelming me, I break our kiss and take a step backwards. I grab both of Tela’s wrists and jerk her hands away from me.

  “We can’t do this,” I say, letting go of her wrists.

  Her face wrinkles with confusion. “Why not?”

  “Sash is the only person I can be with this way.”

  “But you looked at me like this is what you wanted.”

  “I know,” I reply. “I’m sorry if I led you on. You’re so beautiful in so many ways that any man would find you desirable. But I can’t do this because of how I feel about Sash. I lost sight of that for a while.”

  “Why is it different with her?” she asks.

  “I tried to explain it to you once. I love Sash in a way that I can’t love anyone else. It’s different than how I feel about family or friends. I can’t betray that.”

  “She’ll never know what happens,” she says bitterly.

  “I’ll know,” I reply. “And so will you. I could never live with myself. I don’t think you could either.”

  She balls her hands into fists. “I want to have this experience, Chase. I want to have it now.”

  “You only feel that way because of the wild sap.”

  “I don’t care what it is!” she fumes. “I like the way it feels when you touch me. Why did you hold me when we slept if you didn’t want this?”

  “In my world,” I calmly tell her, trying not to let the situation get any more out of hand than it already is, “friends can hug or hold each other. I care a lot about you. That doesn’t mean anything else has to happen.”

  “It felt like you wanted more to happen when we were kissing,” she sneers.

  “We shouldn’t have let it get that far. I think we’re both confused right now. We need to get back to the Delta.”

  Her eyes flame at me for several seconds. “Have it your way,” she finally says. “Let’s go.”

  Wanting to avoid looking at her again until she’s dressed, I turn away. Even though I seem to be able to temporarily suppress the corrupted thoughts of the wild sap, I’m never sure how long my self-control will last. After leaning down to pick up my shirt, I slip it over my head.

  “Let me know when you’re ready,” I say without looking at Tela.


  “Don’t worry,” she replies with so much festering anger in her voice that it shoots ice through my veins. “You’ll know.”

  I spin in her direction. As I throw my arm up in defense, Tela slams a rock against the side of my head. Trying to fight off the dizziness, I stagger to the wall. The second time she smashes my skull, she knocks me out cold.

  Chapter 21

  I regain consciousness with jackhammers pounding inside my head. Lying face down on the ground, I reach a hand to the side of my skull. A big lump has risen from my scalp, and the hair around it is sticky with blood.

  “Hell hath no fury,” I mumble. “Even in this fucked-up world.”

  With a hand pressed to the side of my head, I roll over and sit up. Darkness must have ended because the waterfall has diminished in strength. The spear and flasks are gone, but one canister is still lying on the ground. Tela is nowhere in sight.

  “Tela!” I shout.

  The only response is my own voice careening off the cavern walls. I pick up the canister and feel somewhat appeased because she left me the one that’s full. After rubbing a handful of the red liquid on my head, I drink about half of what’s left inside.

  Wobbling as I stand to my feet, I steady myself against the wall. As the sap gradually kicks in, the beating in my head recedes enough that I can walk. I hang the canister over my shoulder and step into the tunnel.

  “Dark,” I say, putting an end to the dreary purple aura.

  I skulk through the passage and slide my body through the crevice at the end. Static clouds hang over the terrain. The ferocious flow of water that was in the gully earlier is now nothing but a feeble stream. Once I’m out in the basin, I look up and down the ravine.

  “Tela!” I angrily yell.

  Turning in a circle, I wait for her to show her face. When she doesn’t appear, I surmise that she’s already on her way back to the Delta. I wrestle with the idea of returning to the transport for more sap, but I’m so incensed at how Tela blindsided me that all I want to do is catch up to her and give her a piece of my mind. I run up the ravine and splinter into the light.

  Consumed by smoldering fury, I have difficulty thinking clearly and focusing on the beams. Tela’s idea about going far to the north and coming back down to the bridge by the Delta never enters my mind. I blaze a path straight to the northeast, aiming in a direction that should bring me to the river right around the Delta.

  After several hours are behind me, I pause for a brief rest on top of a hill. While draining the rest of the canister, I scour the landscape in every direction. Any clarity that I felt after Tela and I kissed is now long gone, replaced by outrage at how she stabbed me in the back. I gulp down the last of the sap, rear my arm back, and heave the canister as far as I can. As the steel bounces across the rocky ground, two murky shapes flash over a hilltop a few miles to the south of me.

  The first thought that enters my mind is that I’d like to ram my spear down the ugly fucking Murkovin’s throats. Then I remember that I don’t have a weapon with me. I whirl around, bolt down the hill, and surge into the light to the north. I weave through a few small hills before reaching a long, flat open space. Maxing out my speed, I jet over the land, expecting to leave the Murkovin behind. A shape of light appears at my side.

  The creature arcs in front of me and partially solidifies the particles of his body. When he suddenly reduces his speed, I realize he’s trying to force me out my blend. I bring together the molecules of one of my arms until it’s almost solid, hurl my fist against his morphing body, and cut hard to the east. The second creature sails straight towards me from behind.

  Focusing my vision on a few bright beams, I aim at a row of low hills in front of me. With far less speed at my command than what I had before the morrows of living on wild sap, the two Murkovin stay right on my tail. At the end of the flat ground, I shoot up a hill and catapult over the crest. As I sail through the air, I see light glinting from the rapids in the distance. Not wanting to get boxed in by the river, the moment my feet skim over the ground, I veer to the north.

  I twist my neck to look over my shoulder. Less than twenty yards behind me, both Murkovin are still in the hunt. Returning my eyes to the Barrens in front of me, I yell, “Concentrate on the beams!” over and over in my head. At least an hour passes with all of us at full throttle. They don’t close the distance between us, but I also don’t gain any ground on them.

  As I stream over a hill, like a mirage rising in the distance, scarlet light tints the sky. I’m close to the Delta, which means the bridge north of it must be no more than a few minutes away. If they’re this close behind me when I come out of my blend, they could easily catch me on the bridge. Tela may have put me in this mess, but the game of chicken she and I have played at least a dozen times on our returns from the Mount might end up saving my life. I doubt the Murkovin have ever tried exiting the light as close to a steel bridge as I have.

  When I see the reflections from the bridge, I glance over my shoulder at the Murkovin one last time. They’re still on my heels, so I return my eyes to the bridge and aim straight at the corner closest to me. After a search of the land between me and the bridge, I lock my eyes on a rock that’s about fifty yards away from the edge of the bridge. That rock will be the last chance I have to retract my particles from the beams.

  My other concern is that I’m approaching the bridge at a forty-five-degree angle. The steel surface is only about twelve feet wide. If I transition from my blend to a run too quickly, I could have so much forward velocity that I fly straight over the far edge of the bridge. Even though I’m a strong swimmer, the rapids are fierce where the river forks around the Delta. The banks are covered by large boulders that I could easily be killed by if the waves smash me against them.

  As the rock zooms closer, I maintain all of my speed. The split-second I pass it, I suck my particles out of the beams. Stinging like a hive of wasps on the attack, my molecules smack back into my body. The last ray of light evaporates into my skin at the same time my foot hits the steel bridge.

  Like a sprinter navigating through a turn, I lean my body to the right. Waves from the rapids cascade off the side of the bridge only a few feet in front of me. I start to topple forward from the force of my momentum and hold in my breath in case go I over the side. When my foot hits the small lip on the far side of the bridge, I lurch off it towards the center.

  I stumble while trying to keep my balance, but push off the steel surface with one hand. Pumping my arms by my sides, I finally get my body under control. As I dash up the slight slope towards the arch in the center, I check over my shoulder. The two Murkovin have come out of their blends and are just now reaching the bridge. Even though they’re farther behind me than when we were traveling, I churn with all my might over the arch and race down the other side. The moment I reach the shore, I swerve to the south.

  After bursting into the light, I reach the road from the Mount in a matter of seconds. I slide out of the beams, sprint onto the bridge to the Delta, and look to the north. The two Murkovin are standing at the center of the other bridge with their eyes fixed on me. When they turn away and head back to the western Barrens, I slow to a jog.

  At the top of the arch of the bridge, I stop and drop my hands to my knees. It takes a full minute before I finally catch my breath. With my hands gripping my sides, I walk down the slope of the bridge towards the Delta. Cavu stares at me from above the gate.

  The light spilling from the clouds to the crimson hills in the Delta is almost blinding after morrows of living in black, gray, and sickly purple. I shade my eyes with one hand and watch Cavu disappear down a ladder behind the wall. After I step into the wall’s shadow, I stop in front of the gate.

  “Cavu!” I shout. “Let me in!”

  “Wait!” he calls out from the other side.

  I bang my hands against one of the locked doors. “It’s me, Chase!”

  “You have to wait!” he yells.

  “What is
that dumbass doing,” I mumble.

  It’s a good thing the Murkovin quit chasing me or I’d be dead while waiting for Cavu to get his shit together. But as I think that thought, I start to tremble from a wave of paranoia. Did Tela already return to the Delta and blame everything that happened on me?

  If Sash really wants to get rid of me, take my daughter and move on with her life, this would be her chance. For all I know, they’re plotting to banish me from the Delta at this very moment. Cavu must be part of the plan. He’s always looked up to Sash. Why else wouldn’t he open the gate for me?

  When one of the gate doors finally creaks open, I shove my shoulder through the gap. After barreling through the gate, I look straight at Cavu.

  “What the hell were you doing?” I growl.

  “He was doing his duty,” Larn says from off to my side. “You don’t look like yourself.”

  I snap my head to Larn and clench my hands into fists, ready for whatever comes at me. With tear dampened cheeks, Sash is standing beside him. She crosses the grass to me and envelops me in her arms. Standing erect and still, I don’t return her hug. Sash and Larn must be spinning a web of deceit around me.

  “I thought you were dead,” Sash whispers in my ear.

  “Not yet,” I say.

  “What happened?” Larn asks.

  I take a step back from Sash. She drops her arms to her sides and stares at me.

  “Is Tela back?” I ask Larn.

  “She hasn’t returned,” he answers. “Where have you been?”

  I shake my head and look down at the ground.

  Sash reaches out a hand and lightly grips my arm. “What’s wrong, Chase?”

  “Tela should have been back by now,” I reply, feeling increasingly confused by everything that’s going on.

  “Sash told us that you and Tela went to the flats,” Larn says. “When you didn’t return, we searched the Barrens in that area but couldn’t find you. The other Travelers and Sash have gone out with me to look for you every morrow since you’ve been missing.”