“Maybe it’s bound to the bridge,” I said.
“Maybe,” Harper said, and then she started walking toward the bridge, as confident as ever. “But there’s only one way to find out.”
30
Gemma
We stood shoulder to shoulder at the start of the bridge, with Harper in the middle.
The wolf stared back at us with bright white eyes that looked like miniature moons.
“Be ready to draw your swords if necessary.” Harper’s voice was low and steady, as to not startle the wolf. “But don’t threaten it unless it threatens us.”
My heart beat so intensely that I could feel it pounding in my head.
What happens if we can’t draw our swords fast enough?
I shook the thought away. Mary had promised that this journey wouldn’t kill us. We’d just almost die, be healed, and sent back home.
But I refused to let that happen. We needed to get to that library.
“Maybe we should keep walking around the mountain,” I said. “See if there’s another way forward.”
“There’s not,” Mira said. “I felt the river the same way you felt those lily pads. It surrounds the mountain. This is our only way across.”
I took a deep breath, letting the magic in the air fill me and calm me. Then I stepped forward, my foot landing on the first plank of wood on the bridge.
The wolf’s ears perked up, but it remained seated.
I brought my other foot forward, so I was fully standing on the bridge. Mira and Harper followed my lead. Keeping my breaths steady, I slowly approached the wolf.
It continued sitting there peacefully, observing us as we got closer.
Howls echoed in the distance.
The wolf stood up slowly.
I tensed, ready to reach for my sword if necessary.
Anticipate your opponent’s next move, Raven’s voice filled my mind. Be ready if they’re about to attack, but be equally aware if they want to yield.
The wolf showed no outward signs of aggression. Instead, it took a slow step forward, and then another, and another, until it stood centimeters in front of Harper.
She stood perfectly still.
The wolf lowered its snout to the top of her head and sniffed. Its eyes glowed soft green, like the Northern Lights. Then it did the same thing to me and Mira. After each sniff, its eyes glowed green again.
I stayed still, afraid that any sudden movement would cause it to attack. I barely even breathed.
The wolf made a sound that seemed like approval, turned on its paws, and walked to the other side of the bridge. It stepped off, then turned back around, watching us.
“I think it’s letting us pass,” I said softly.
“Agreed,” Harper said. “But we should still be ready, just in case.”
Ready to fight.
We walked carefully and softly to the other side of the bridge. The wolf stayed where it was and moved its head up and down, as if telling us it was okay to pass.
Harper stepped onto the path first, and I followed. Mira stepped off last.
Once across, it felt like someone wrapped me in a blanket, binding me. The ground no longer pulsed with life. The embers inside me dimmed and snuffed out.
“My dragon magic,” I gasped. “It’s gone.”
“Mine, too,” Mira said softly.
But warm light still shined down on me, comforting me. The moon.
Whatever had happened to me when I’d stepped off that bridge had done something to my elemental magic—but not to my witch magic.
Harper shushed us and looked at the wolf. It was still staring at us.
None of us said a word as we continued forward. But I kept an eye on the wolf, until I was watching it over my shoulder.
It returned to its post on the bridge and turned its back to us.
We quietly walked around a bend in the path. Instead of being surrounded by moonstones like the path that had led us to the bridge, it was surrounded by shrubbery. It was like we were in a labyrinth, but one with a single way forward.
The bushes smelled warm and welcoming. I ran my fingers along the leaves, but the energy I normally felt while touching the earth was gone. It was like the leaves were dead, although from their vibrant green color, they were obviously very much alive.
It was my connection with them that was dead.
Suddenly, it felt hard to breathe.
“What happened to my elemental magic?” I looked at Harper, hoping she might have an answer.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe Hecate’s protecting her mountain from whoever’s trying to track you down.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But she better give us our magic back when we’re out of here.” I stood straighter, hoping the goddess heard me. “At least we have one roadblock down. And who knows how many more to go.” I looked up at the mountain, disheartened by what little progress we’d made.
“We’ll be up there before we know it,” Harper said. “Look—the path is starting to incline.”
It was subtle, but she was right.
And so, we continued forward, starting the gradual ascent to the top of Moon Mountain.
31
Gemma
“He’s been so distant,” Mira complained. “And I don’t understand why.”
We’d been hiking up the winding path for hours, unable to tell how far up we were because of the tall hedges lining the sides.
The entire time we’d been talking, Mira kept turning the conversation back to Ethan.
“It’s probably nothing personal,” Harper repeated for what felt like the millionth time. “He has a lot to worry about since you and Gemma got your magic. It’s his responsibility to keep the two of you alive. Imagine how stressful it must be for him.”
“But that doesn’t mean he should push me away every time I try to get close to him.”
“He’s protecting you because he loves you.” Harper had far more patience than I did. Or maybe I was just annoyed because whenever Mira talked about her relationship with Ethan, it was like a punch to the gut.
“He doesn’t love me.” Mira sniffed and wiped the corner of her eye.
“Of course he does,” Harper said.
“No. He doesn’t. He acts like it—at least, he did before we got our magic. But he’s never said it.”
Hope filled my chest.
Is he pulling away from Mira because she’s not the one for him?
“Why do you look so smug about it?” Mira sneered.
“Sorry.” I wiped all emotion from my face. “I’m just surprised.”
“That’s not what you look like when you’re surprised.”
Sometimes it was really annoying when someone knew you almost as well as you knew yourself.
“Fine.” I scrambled for a lie. “I guess I agree with him that we need to be focused on learning how to use our magic. By not progressing your relationship, he’s helping keep you—and me—alive.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
I shrugged, because she was right—it probably didn’t make any sense. It was just the first excuse that popped into my mind.
Harper glanced at me, suspicion in her eyes, then refocused on Mira. “Have you slept with him?” she asked.
I nearly stumbled on the dirt at the bluntness of her question.
Mira’s cheeks reddened. “We’ve gotten close, but no,” she admitted. “Dragons abstain from sex until after their first shift. So we have to wait until he returns to Ember and gets his full dragon abilities.” She sighed. “Whenever that might be.”
“He’s talked to you about Ember?” Harper perked up, as curious as she’d been when we were telling her about the Queen of Swords.
“Nothing more than that,” she said.
“Do you know why dragons wait until after their first shift?”
“He says it’s because of some old dragon myth,” Mira said. “But he won’t say more than that.”
“Interesting.” Harper nodd
ed, and I had a feeling she was going to probe Ethan for information once we returned to the Haven.
“But even though we can’t be together physically, I don’t understand why he’s pulling away emotionally,” Mira continued, and just like that, we were back at square one, trying to explain to Mira that Ethan was just as—or more—stressed than we were. After all, he was away from his home, living in a strange realm, and responsible for keeping us alive when we were literally magnets for trouble.
We were far from home, too, but at least we were still on Earth.
Sort of. Because Moon Mountain didn’t feel like Earth. Especially because even though we’d been walking for hours, the moon still hung in the same place in the sky.
“Does the sun ever rise here?” I asked, switching the conversation away from Ethan.
“No idea,” Harper said. “But since Hecate’s also a goddess of the moon, she might have spelled it to be eternally night.”
“Is that even possible?” Mira asked.
“Anything’s possible with magic.” I smiled and tilted my head up, closing my eyes as the moonlight soaked into my skin. With my elemental magic muted, it was like my soul was opening to receive witch magic. Like I was being blessed by Hecate.
My eyes were still closed when something furry brushed my ankle.
I jumped to the side and fell into Harper.
She grabbed my arm and steadied me. “Relax.” She chuckled. “It’s just a cat.”
A black cat with glowing eyes and a crescent shaped white spot on its forehead looked up at me expectantly.
Another cat crawled out of the bushes—this one with a crescent shaped spot in the other direction on its forehead. It circled Mira’s ankles and sat down, looking at her in the same way my cat was looking at me.
A third cat emerged. Its white spot on its forehead was a complete circle, and it nuzzled Harper’s legs.
“They’re Hecate’s,” Harper said confidently. “The symbols on their foreheads come together to create the triple moon.”
I nodded, since I also recognized the witchy symbol.
Harper kneeled and held her finger out toward her cat’s face. The cat looked at it for a second, then rubbed its cheek against her finger.
Mira and I did the same. Our cats nuzzled our fingers, too.
I felt instant affection for my cat, as if it had decided to accept me.
We’d never had animals in our house, but after our interactions with the wolf and the cats, I was feeling much more like a cat person than a dog person.
Harper’s cat turned around and started walking down the path, its tail held high. Mira and my cats followed.
“Come on,” Harper said. “They want us to follow.”
“Did you communicate with your cat?” I hadn’t read about that type of magic in the spell book. But witches also had private family spells, so there was no way to know what each witch was capable of doing.
“Telepathically?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“No.” She chuckled. “Don’t be ridiculous. But it’s obvious that the cats want us to follow them. And I’m gonna bet they’re leading us to our next roadblock.”
32
Gemma
We didn’t have to follow the cats for long before they stopped at a fork in the road. Well, multiple forks, since the path split into three.
Each cat walked to the start of one of the paths. My cat was in front of the path on the right, Harper’s in the center, and Mira’s on the left. The white markings on their foreheads glowed under the moonlight.
“I think they want us each to take a different path,” Harper said.
“Bad idea,” I said. “Whenever people split up in books and movies, it never ends well.”
“But this is a roadblock,” she said. “We’re supposed to be brave and face challenges to prove we deserve access to Hecate’s Eternal Library. And the cats want us to face this challenge on our own.”
“I’m with Gemma,” Mira said. “You came with us because we need your help. You can’t give us your help if we split up.”
“But this is what the goddess wants.”
“I thought you didn’t have telepathy,” Mira snapped.
“I don’t.” Harper crossed her arms and glared at Mira. “But I’m intuitive. Especially with magic. Like you said, that’s why I came here with you. And our cats want us each to go down a separate path.”
Mira looked to me, waiting for me to defend her.
But the magic in the moonlight prickled my senses, and I knew Harper was right.
“Each of the cats chose one of us,” I said, slowly and carefully. “They led us down the path, and now they want us to follow them down different paths. Like Harper said, we’re here to show Hecate that we deserve access to her Eternal Library. If we’re too scared to walk down a path alone, what does that prove?”
Mira’s nostrils flared. “It proves that we’re smart and cautious.”
“Or it proves that we’re unworthy to enter the library,” I said. “And yeah, I am scared to walk down that path alone. But if we don’t do this, we’ll fail, be sent back to the Haven, and be just as lost as we were before.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I’m not sure how,” I said. “But I can feel it.”
Mira frowned, but she didn’t refute my statement.
“You feel it, too, don’t you?” I said. “The magic in the air. The witch magic.”
My twin shifted on her feet, refusing to meet my eyes. “Maybe.”
Her cat purred, as if saying she was on the right track.
“We need to do this,” I said. “And remember—no matter what happens here, we can’t die. So whatever’s waiting at the ends of the paths can’t kill us.”
“But they can almost kill us.”
Agony flashed in Harper’s eyes. “Almost dying is a hell of a lot better than being dead,” she said.
She’d been perky so far during our journey, but in that moment her grief over her mother’s death hung in the air so heavily that it pulled at my heart.
Mira pressed her lips together and said nothing.
“So it’s decided,” I said. “We’ll follow our cats down our paths, and find each other when we’re back out.”
If we got back out.
But I must have sounded more confident than I felt, because Mira simply nodded, and then the three of us wished each other luck and followed our cats down our assigned paths.
33
Gemma
The path narrowed, the tall shrubbery on both sides of it making it feel more like a labyrinth than ever. My cat occasionally looked back, checking to make sure I was following.
“Lead the way,” I said. “I’ll go where you go.”
When I spoke, a delicious smell flooded my senses. Sweet, mystical, fantastical. Calmness settled around me, and my stress melted away.
The smell was coming from up ahead, and I hurried forward, curious to see what it was.
I rounded a curve, and smiled at the beautiful purple flowers growing out of the hedges. Their petals curved downward, and narrow yellow bulbs burst forth from their centers. A few dark blue berries surrounded them, but the fruit wasn’t nearly as gorgeous as the flowers.
What type of flower are they?
The name was at the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t put a finger on it. It also didn’t help that the textbook on plants and herbs was the one I’d paid the least attention to in my studies. I had a natural grip on nature because of my earth magic, so instead, I’d focused on learning spells and training my elemental magic.
But the flowers were filling me with such happiness.
Maybe they were breaking past whatever spell was muting my earth magic?
I stepped closer to the hedges, entranced, and reached forward to touch the largest flower.
A needle darted out of the bulb and pricked my thumb.
I gasped and pulled my hand back. A drop of blood bubbled out of the tiny hole. But it
didn’t hurt.
It felt tingly. Numb.
Cold.
Ice cold.
I instinctively raised my thumb to my lips and sucked off the blood. Then my tongue numbed, and my mouth dried. As I swallowed, the flower’s name popped into my mind.
Nightshade.
Poison.
I swayed on my feet, and the flowers blurred. My heart raced, and fear seized my throat, squeezing until I struggled to breathe.
No.
I needed to resist. I needed to stand strong.
Earth is one of my elements. I shouldn’t be able to be poisoned by an element that’s part of me.
Colors swirled around me, and I closed my eyes, trying to focus on my earth magic. It had to still be there, inside me. But no matter how deep I reached, there was nothing.
Letting go, I collapsed on the ground in a heap. I wanted to cry, but tears refused to form. My tear ducts had dried out.
Without treatment, nightshade was deadly.
This was it.
I’d failed the test.
Failed at the hand of my own element.
Pathetic. I didn’t deserve access to Hecate’s Eternal Library.
But all wasn’t lost. Hopefully Mira or Harper would succeed where I’d failed.
I rested my head on the ground and stared up at the stars streaking the sky like a time-lapsed photo.
My lids grew heavy, and I could barely keep them open.
No, I thought. Fight it.
My skin grew hot. Burning hot.
My fire magic?
Maybe it was there. If I could find my fire, maybe I could find my earth magic, too.
I smiled at the thought.
Then I closed my eyes, inhaled the sweet, delicious air, and sank into darkness.
34
Gemma
“What are you drawing?” Ethan’s melodic voice echoed in my mind.
My journal appeared in my lap, and my pen in my hand. I sat cross-legged on a comforting blanket of hot sand. Waves lapped the shore, and I tasted the salt air on my lips.
The Dragon Twins (Dark World: The Dragon Twins Book 1) Page 12
