Enduring Light

by Alyssa Rose Ivy

  “He would support you on what? Keeping the Essence away from her Gerard? Not a chance. It is like defying destiny. They belong together whether you like it or not.”

  “So I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life—my ridiculously long life—watching the girl I love be with someone else?”

  “Love? Wow, Liam. That is a big word.”

  “It’s true. I’ve been in love with her since we were kids.” I found a new rock to kick. Once I started being honest, I couldn’t stop.

  “Does she know? Did you ever tell her?”

  “What does it matter? Wouldn’t it defy fate?”

  “It would. I just wondered. I think she is in love with you, too, but it is not enough. You are not her Gerard. It is a feat in itself that you are on her Guard at all.”

  “A feat?”

  “A non-Energo man a Guardian? Unbelievable.”

  I gave up on the rock. “She kissed me. Before she left for Alaska, she kissed me. I’m almost positive that’s what started it all.”

  “I take it you have thought of that kiss often?”

  “Way too much.” I’d stared at her stupidly afterward. By the time I could come up with the courage to talk to her about it, she’d already left.

  “You sound like one of those men from Rachel’s books.”

  “I didn’t realize you read romance books, Henry.”

  He punched my arm. “I do not read them. She just talks about them. At least I am not losing my head over a girl.”

  “No, you’re just missing one.”

  “True. Very true.” He patted my back again. “Get some sleep, Liam.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You have to. You need your strength. Your job is to protect Charlotte, and you cannot do that job if you do not rest.”

  His logic made some sense. If I couldn’t be with her, I was still going to protect her. I wasn’t sure what part of me, the Guardian or the personal, realized that. “All right, thanks.”

  “Anytime. See you in the morning.”

  I nodded and headed back inside the house. There was no way I was going to actually sleep, but standing outside wasn’t helping either. I was so busy moping that I ran right into Charlotte on the stairs. “Char? What are you doing up?” She was walking around alone at night? Wasn’t Calvin supposed to be watching her?

  “I… uh… need the bathroom, and there isn’t one.”

  “Oh. Do you want me to walk with you somewhere?”

  She made a disgusted face. “Umm, no.”

  “I’m not going to watch you, but you can’t walk around alone.”

  She rested a hand on the worn wooden railing. “I don’t get why they live like this. They have the technology for modern plumbing here.”

  I forced myself to smile as I turned around to head back downstairs. “Maybe that can be your first act as ruler when we get rid of Blake. Modern plumbing in all residences.”

  She laughed that light, carefree laugh she hardly ever used anymore. “That’s the best idea I’ve heard in ages.”

  Really? Better than Calvin’s idea to spend the night together? I kept my mouth shut. I held open the door for her, and we walked back outside.

  “Charlotte? What are you doing out here?” Henry asked.

  “She needs to use the bathroom.” I wasn’t going to make her say it again.

  “Why did you not just use a chamber pot? There has to be one in your room.”

  “Not a chance. I’d rather go in the woods.”

  Henry picked up his lantern and walked over to us. “Does Calvin know you left your room?”

  I glared at Henry. “She doesn’t have to alert Calvin of her every move.”

  “She cannot be unprotected. Put your personal feelings aside.” Henry handed her the lantern.

  “Does she look unprotected to you?”

  “I knew one of you guys would be out here. I’m going to go. Listen for my screams.” She walked toward the woods, the lantern letting us know where she stopped.

  Henry groaned. “Not funny, not funny at all.”

  “Yes it is,” she yelled over her shoulder. At least she had her sense of humor. That was usually a good gauge of how she was doing.

  Calvin ran out of the inn, buttoning his pants in the process. “Charlotte? Charlotte?” He hadn’t bothered with a shirt. Yeah, no more pretending.

  I didn’t bother to look at him. I couldn’t look at him. “She’s peeing in the woods.”

  “Why not just use a chamber pot? Or at least tell me?” Calvin asked.

  “Because she’s Charlotte. Charlotte would always prefer the woods to something like that. Don’t you know her at all?” I stormed back toward the building. I was positive Calvin would make sure she made it back to their room.

  Henry laughed. “Glad to know you are up on Charlotte’s bathroom habits.”

  Even from the entryway, I heard Charlotte’s response. “What? What does Liam know about my bathroom habits?”

  I smiled. At least she was still the same Charlotte.

  ***

  Traveling to the swamps didn’t sound particularly appealing, but at least it meant Charlotte and Calvin wouldn’t get any more alone time for a while. There wasn’t a chance that Charlotte was letting Calvin touch her with Henry and me sleeping close by.

  “Are you ready?” Calvin asked, helping Charlotte into the saddle of their horse.

  She turned to smile at him, and it was a different smile from the one she usually gave him. It was intimate, and I hated it.

  “Liam? Are you going to get on your horse?” Henry asked.

  I had to shake my mood. Charlotte was going to notice, and my jealousy would only make things worse.

  Calvin mounted the horse to sit behind Charlotte. “We will cut straight across the plains until we reach the Sutuni desert. We need to be prepared for a difficult crossing.”

  “Why? At least this time Charlotte will be able to make us water.” Henry laughed, referring to when we’d entered Energo just weeks before.

  Charlotte turned red. Her emotions were always so clear on her face. “Shut up, Henry.”

  He grinned. “I wonder if this is what it is like to have a sister. I thought brothers were bad.”

  “Brothers are bad.” She laughed. “Although, I kind of wish Kevin was here now.”

  “Why? Would you feel safer?” Calvin asked.

  Seriously? That’s what he asks? What about the fact that she misses her brother, the closest person to her in the world—or any world.

  “I just miss him.”

  “I’m going to tell him you said that,” I teased.

  “Go ahead. He probably won’t believe you.” She ran her fingers through her hair. She struggled with it for a moment before giving up and tying it up in a ponytail.

  I laughed. “Or he’ll think you lost your mind.”

  Finally satisfied with her hair, she let her hands fall to her sides. “Doesn’t he already think that?”

  Henry grinned. “We all do.”

  “Aren’t you going to defend me, Calvin?” Charlotte gripped the reins. She looked pretty natural.

  He pulled her back against him. “Not when I know you can defend yourself.”

  When I put my revulsion at watching his hands roam all over her aside, I could admit that was a good answer. Charlotte didn’t say anything, but she smiled. She hated when people thought she couldn’t take care of herself. That probably came from being in a family of protective men. Between her father, Kevin, and Monty, she had plenty. As the Essence, she also had an entire Guard of protective guys in her life. I didn’t envy her. It would have driven me crazy.

  Charlotte started their horse forward at a slow gait.

  Calvin said, “All kidding aside, Charlotte cannot be expected to make us water.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Because there is nowhere to pull energy from. You need all of your own energy saved. Besides, you know as well as I do the danger you are in from Blake.”


  “Hey, I can—”

  “Let me finish, love.” He stroked her arm.

  “Fine.”

  “We will need your energy if we meet trouble. We need you to save it in case of an emergency. We have to find this scroll.”

  “I know, but I can still make water if we need it.”

  “I am aware you are capable, but we cannot rely on it. We have to prepare.”

  “He’s right.” I hated saying that.

  “Prepare? Like refill our water skins?” she asked.

  “And mentally get ready for it. A lot of it is mental. That desert is huge, and we do not know exactly where we are going,” Henry added.

  Charlotte got her in-the-zone expression. “All right, I can do that.”

  “Of course you can. It is your Guardians I worry about.” Calvin rubbed her shoulder.

  Did he have to touch her constantly? Wasn’t it bad enough they were sharing a horse? I was about to come up with a reply when his laugh let me know he was joking.

  “Good one, Calvin.” At least I could play nice.

  Chapter Eleven

  Kevin

  Why did Samantha bring out the blubbering idiot in me? I couldn’t seem to go ten minutes without putting my foot in my mouth. Had I really called myself her boyfriend and then tried to cover it up with a joke? I leaned back in my seat. Our plane would be landing in Fairbanks in less than an hour. The last time I’d been there, I’d been worrying about Charlotte’s transition back to Charleston. Life had been so much simpler then.

  Samantha mumbled something before laying her head on my shoulder. I tried not to breathe any more than necessary. She may have been sleeping, but I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to have her close. Add to blubbering idiot that she brought out the hopelessly pathetic part of me too. I’d cared about a girl before, but not like with Samantha.

  I closed my eyes, trying to savor the seemingly normal moment before I faced reality again. I still had no clue how to find the Onyx or how it was going to help us. I also had no idea what I was going to say to my father when I saw him.

  “Hey, Brutus. It’s time to go.”

  I opened my eyes to find Monty smiling at me—or maybe at the way I’d fallen asleep with Samantha leaning on me. I gently shifted Samantha to wake her up. She looked at me groggily, seeming confused for a moment, then she pulled her bag out from under the seat in front of her.

  Talen was already a few people ahead of us in the line to get off the plane. Monty left room so Samantha and I could get into the aisle, and we waited for our turn to exit the plane. The airport was quiet. Monty said Dad was picking us up outside baggage claim. No one had checked bags, so we headed straight to the exit. I held open the door for Samantha and could tell she was really nervous. Determined to learn from my experiences, I didn’t ask her why.

  “Kevin!” Dad called from across the median.

  We crossed over to where he stood next to his Yukon. “Hey, Dad.” I gave him a small hug. “This is Samantha and Talen.”

  Dad nodded at them. “Nice to meet you both.”

  We cut the greetings short when we noticed an employee coming over to make us move.

  I gestured for Samantha to take the front but she shook her head and slipped into the back between Monty and Talen. I shrugged and sat in the front seat.

  “How was the trip?” Dad asked as though we had just been on a normal vacation or something.

  I figured it would be a long trip, so I decided to get comfortable. I pulled my wallet and cell phone out of my back pocket and placed them in the center console. “Well, no one tried to kill us or anything.”

  Dad shook his head. “Glad to know you haven’t changed too much.”

  “Nope. I still have my wonderful sense of humor.”

  “How’s Mom?” he asked.

  “She’s okay. Worried, of course.”

  He pulled away from the curb. “Is Charlotte with her?”

  “No. Charlotte’s off gallivanting with older boys.”

  Dad turned to stare at me with his mouth hanging open.

  “Watch out, Stan!” Monty yelled.

  Dad faced the front just in time to narrowly avoid slamming into another car.

  Monty kicked my seat. “Charlotte is perfectly safe. She has her Gerard and two other Guardians with her.”

  “I know you all glorify Guardians, but how am I supposed to trust my little girl with men I’ve never met?”

  “You’ve met Liam.” I waited for the jaw-dropping response I knew was coming. I was pretty sure no one had told him yet.

  “Liam? Liam is a Guardian?”

  “Yes,” Monty answered carefully. “We’re not sure how.”

  “Too bad he’s not the Gerard,” Dad mumbled.

  I smiled. I was pretty sure we all wished that. Calvin wasn’t a bad guy, but we didn’t know him. He seemed so traditional, so old. If Charlotte had to be with someone, I wanted it to be Liam. I’d have never told him that, though.

  “Where are we at with the Onyx, Stan?” Monty asked.

  “I think I’ve finally traced the Onyx’s last known location. It’s a long drive from here, and then an even longer hike.”

  “Hike? Where the hell are we going?” I asked.

  “Everything I’ve found points to the Onyx being buried in Lake Davis. It’s frozen year round.”

  “So we’re going to retrieve some sort of powerful rock out of a frozen lake?”

  “Yes.” Monty said it resolutely, as if it were a simple errand rather than a potentially deadly task.

  “Too bad the Essence is not here. She would be good at this,” Talen said.

  As if Charlotte didn’t have enough on her plate. “Charlotte is busy with her own job.”

  “Do you think they have found the scroll yet?” Samantha asked.

  Monty pulled out a worn map. “I don’t know.”

  “What’s that a map of?” I twisted around in my seat so I could get a better look at the browning paper. It was actually several maps in one, made up of different pieces of land all connected by dots.

  Monty tilted the map to give me a better look. “It shows all the known gates between the Pact Nations and the lost world. Once we retrieve the Onyx, we’ll have to return quickly.”

  “I still don’t know what we’re supposed to do with the Onyx anyway.” Like everything else, I was only told the bare minimum.

  “I don’t know.” Monty’s face was blank. He couldn’t be serious.

  I turned to Dad. “Do you know?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are we bothering with this?”

  He didn’t take his eyes from the road. “Because all signs point to it.”

  “So we hopefully don’t die finding it, then we bring it back and… what?”

  “That is why we need the scroll, Kevin. The scroll will tell us.” Samantha had a way of making everything seem simple even when it wasn’t.

  “What happens if Charlotte can’t get the scroll? We think it’s at Ruth’s, but what if Blake got it first?” I fiddled with the radio. There had to be something better than the commercials currently playing.

  “The same can be said for the Onyx. All we can do is try.” Monty didn’t make things sound nearly as simple.

  “So what do we do? Just head out into the wilderness?”

  “First, we need to get everyone some gear.” Dad sped up to a pass a slow car.

  “Careful, Stan,” Monty said. “We don’t want to attract attention.”

  Dad replied, “Driving under the speed limit would attract more attention.”

  I glanced out the window. “Where are we getting the gear?”

  “There’s a shop I use.” Dad slowed back down to five over the speed limit. “The owner thinks I’m bringing in some new team members for my research.”

  “Will they have clothing appropriate for me?” Samantha asked.

  Dad smiled into the rearview mirror. “Of course. Women are routinely part of these projects.”r />
  “Oh. That is nice to hear. Only the Resistance allows women to work in nontraditional sectors. Some nations are more open, but we are ages behind.”