“Sorry,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck after he was done fixing his hair. “Didn’t mean to startle you. You all right? You look…wrong.”
Try to be happy.
Ana swallowed what she was certain was the beginning of a sob and, still trying to honor her father’s wishes, decided that if she couldn’t be happy, she could at least try not to make others unhappy.
“Y-yeah,” she croaked, suppressing a wince at her own poorly executed lie. Hurrying to clear her throat, she forced out a nervous laugh—a simple enough feat—and shrugged. “Yeah,” she repeated, sounding more confident this time around. She nodded toward the scene around them. “Just a lot to take in.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Lash’s own gaze cycled around as his hand drifted down and began to rotate a small woven bracelet at his wrist. “Mother’s already managed to send off nine rugs since they arrived. Even got a sack of one of the mage’s private coffee reserves.” He shrugged and chuckled as he said, “He said that it’s like drinking one of Jupiter’s bolts, but she says it’ll be worth it if it wakes her up.” As he finished, his eyes came back to meet Ana’s, and his hand paused at the bracelet for a moment before he pulled his hand away and hurried to scratch under his chin. “Anyway, how’d it go?”
“How’d…” Ana blinked at the question and then blanched as she realized what he was asking. “It was…uh, good. Great. Yeah.” She laughed nervously. “Well, you know. I mean, you already…well, you know what I mean.”
Lash’s eyebrows rose and he smirked at her stammering. “Good to see you haven’t lost your eloquence while finding maturity,” he said with a laugh.
“Right,” Ana answered, only half-listening. Once again, her eyes started to drift to everything that she felt she would be saying goodbye to. Then, returning to Lash’s still-concerned face, she remembered how her father’s comrades had looked at her with fear and concern.
Was she a danger to them because of the mark?
Even her father seemed to recognize some truth to that, though he had certainly resented it. Seeing Lash there, staring back at her, she began thinking of the advisor whose hand she’d hurt without even touching him—without even meaning to or wanting to. Something in her had reacted and…
And what if the next time it reacted it was to somebody like Lash or one of the children in the camp? What if, without even knowing how or why, she hurt one of her people? What if she killed them?
So what if you did?
Ana’s eyes widened. That couldn’t possibly have been her thought. Quickly, she backed away from Lash.
The young man frowned and started toward her. “Hey,” he started. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
The elders were right. If this was because of the mark, then her suddenly having it meant she had to go.
She may not be, but it is.
“I have to go,” she said to him in a whisper. Anything more than that, and she was afraid the tears might come.
And then it’d be too hard to slip away. The moment she was crying was the moment everyone’s attention would be on her, and then there was no way to leave without making a show of it.
That wasn’t how she wanted to be remembered.
Then how do you want to be remembered?
“I don’t care if it’s cursed,” a young-but-stern voice behind her rose up amidst the sea of buyers and barterers. “There hasn’t been a curse yet that I haven’t been able to neutralize or reverse. Now are you going to sell it to me or not?”
Turning, Ana’s gaze fell upon the source, a young mage who was arguing with one of their camp’s middle-aged collectors over a small emerald ring. A pair of intense green eyes lit up with both the thrill of the bargain and the promise of victory as he added several more folded twenty dollar bills to the already sizable wad of cash in his hands.
She was staring, yes, though she could hardly be blamed for doing so. With a swell of brown hair combed back over his head that threatened to fall at any moment across his face, he didn’t look much older than either Lash or herself, even though he seemed to wield a level of confidence that put even some of their elders to shame.
His features, though, were clean and young. He was likely the youngest mage in their entire caravan. Even his clothes—a faded brown leather jacket over a plain white tee shirt that hugged his torso over a pair of expensive looking dress pants—were more up-to-date than the outdated and dull style that the rest of his people wore. And as if to accentuate his edgy yet fresh style, his boots each sported a small bird’s skull tied into the laces. Although this, and his good looks, were certainly something to stop and stare at, Ana found herself drawn to him for an entirely different reason.
…neutralize or all-out reverse…
If this young mage was confident in his abilities to handle such dangerous magic—and he’d have to be to knowingly purchase a cursed ring—then surely he’d be able to undo whatever the terrible mark was doing to her.
Hurrying toward him, Ana ignored the confused calls from Lash and took the mage by the shoulder. Under any other circumstance, the gesture might have seemed too brash and aggressive to her, but with the hourglass of the only life she’d ever known running on mere grains, she had little to lose and much to gain.
“Excuse me,” she began, walking beside him as he, despite her efforts to hold him in place, began to walk off with his new cursed ring pinched between the pointer and thumb of his right hand, “but did you say you—”
“What’re you selling, kid?” the mage demanded, not bothering to take his eyes off the ring as he breathed against the stone adorning it and gave it a polish with the bottom of his shirt.
Kid? We’ll show him a—
No. Ana found herself arguing with herself as a vision flashed in her mind of a screaming toddler suddenly occupying the young mage’s clothes. Though she wasn’t sure what to make of the strange vision, she wanted nothing to do with it or the awful thoughts that seemed to accompany the mark.
“I-I’m not—please wait.” She tried to pull him back again, only to nearly get dragged in the process. With a panicked start, she saw he was heading back to where the mages had parked their cars—all of them were, in fact—and realized they were preparing to leave. “N-no. No. Please, I need your—”
“Look.” The mage turned to face her, but continued his hurried pace, back-stepping with the same confidence and grace he’d exhibited so far. “I’m sorry, but”—he made a note of turning the pockets of his jacket inside out—“I’m all tapped out. Nothing left. No dinero. Next time be quicker on the sale, ’kay?”
Then, turning back and slipping free of Ana’s grip, he quickened his stride, putting more distance between them.
Ana watched, crestfallen, as her brief glimmer of hope flickered and died. The mage, not realizing what he’d refused, licked the tip of his left pinky, rolled it over the cursed ring, and, on the third pass, seemed to pinch something and yank it free in a small, sharp gesture.
Palming the air that he’d appeared to draw from the gem, he casually rolled it between his fingers—reminding Anna of a gesture she’d seen one of the children do with a booger they’d picked when they thought no one was looking—and flicked it away. A moment later, a short distance from where the mage had been standing, the air seemed to spark and fizzle as the invisible wad he’d rejected burned away into nothing.
The curse.
Ana gasped as she realized she’d witnessed the young man cast aside the curse in the ring with the same ease and abandon that children offered to the mined contents of their nostrils.
And she was about to let that get away?
Hurrying after, still unsure of how to ask him for what she needed, she watched as he slipped out of his jacket before stopping beside a dated but well-maintained green muscle car. Though she wasn’t sure of the make and model, she realized that, much like the way she felt about him, she was drawn to the look of it all the same.
Pausing by the rear-end of the vehicle, the yo
ung mage retrieved his keys from his pants pocket and unlocked the hood. Then, pausing briefly as one of the other mages called out to him, he tossed the jacket inside and moved to close the trunk before starting off toward the small group who were beckoning him over.
The trunk sank only halfway before crawling to a stop and hanging ajar like an open invitation.
Ana dared a glance back toward the camp and off in the direction of the Ceremony Hall, where she was certain the elders would be nearing the end of their “discussion” with her father. They would soon step forth, as solid in their reserve and renewed by their voivode’s acceptance of what had to be done. And then, with Ana still bearing the mark and no reason to change their minds, they’d cast her away—condemn her as an outsider—and she’d be lost to them forever.
Or, she thought, I could disappear for a few days and return curse-free with no reason for them to banish me.
It was brash and daring and dangerous.
But what was her alternative?
Chapter 5
There was nothing exciting or exotic about riding in the trunk of a car.
Sure, Ana hadn’t been expecting comfort or style when she’d slipped into the back of the young mage’s car and secured the latch behind her, but the reality of the experience became a very different thing entirely once the mages’ caravan began moving. Immediately after the caravan began moving.
Sybii, Ana had come to learn in the first few seconds of the bumpy drive off the back roads that led to her peoples’ camp and onto the main road, spent more time maintaining their vehicles than mages. Or at least they spent more time maintaining their suspension. On more than a couple of occasions, Ana had helped her father and others to set and replace the shock absorbers in their own caravan’s vehicles. Considering all of the valuables they traveled with—all those antiques and fragile goods—it was in their better interest to ensure a gentle ride whenever they traveled.
Riding in the young mage’s trunk, Ana realized she might have had a more gentle experience if she’d simply tied herself to his bumper and let him drag her. And while that option sounded like certain death to her, the two other observations she’d made didn’t offer much of a different outcome.
First, the unmaintained vehicle’s exhaust line was leaking into the trunk.
Second, this was an older model car, and there was no escape latch built on the inside of the trunk.
Ana was trapped.
Worse, she was trapped in a dark, rapidly heating metal box that was filling with poisonous gas and shaking violently enough to make her teeth painfully clatter together.
It was a question of whether she’d die from the heat, suffocation, or simply crashing about within her high-octane, makeshift coffin.
Yeah, being dragged outside the car was looking pretty damn good.
Smart, Ana, she scolded herself, suppressing another cough—for some reason more worried about what the mage and his people would do if she was discovered than the fate she might suffer if she wasn’t discovered. Real smart.
We don’t have to die here.
Visions of alternatives flashed within her mind. The car bursting into flames while she effortlessly walked away from the inferno. The car turning inside-out and allowing her to “surf” the dying momentum of the resulting metal cube and its crushed driver until it was safe to hop down to the street. Tearing the street apart and forcing the entire caravan to come to a halt and, in their resulting confusion, taking control of one—or all—of their minds and making them free her.
Something about that last possibility—was any of this really possible?—seemed to appeal to this new, dark mentality; the idea of a small band of mages enslaved to obey her every command as she started her new life away from the…
No!
Those visions made Ana feel sick. Worse yet, though, was that they seemed to be her visions; her thoughts. That something that terrible came from her own mind was…well, it was almost the worst thing she could imagine.
Almost.
On any other day it would have been, sure, but that was before, in less than a single hour, her entire life had come to a screeching halt. On any other day she would’ve shuddered at those thoughts and felt genuine concern that she was even capable of generating them, unprovoked and uninspired, within her own mind. On any other day she might have actually stopped and dwelled on what was wrong with her.
But, on any other day, she wouldn’t likely be being ousted from her peoples’ camp, locked inside a mage’s trunk, and wrestling with her own mind on how best not to die.
It was all enough to make her feel light-headed.
That would be the carbon monoxide poisoning.
Ana paused at that, suddenly realizing this new, dark mentality was not without its insight.
“You intend to do something about that that doesn’t involve hurting anybody or getting me discovered before I can talk in private to that boy?” she demanded, feeling dizzy and mentally distant enough to not feel insane for whispering to herself.
Something in Ana suddenly wanted to sigh and roll her eyes at herself. None that are fun.
“I’m sure we’ll cope,” she muttered.
Something beside her sounded—like a can of Coke being opened—and a small beam of light cut through the blackness. Turning toward it, Ana saw a small, nearly perfect circle that had suddenly been punched out of the side of trunk; the bright, desert day seeping through and, with it…
Air.
Ana turned to bring her face closer to the new opening, working to suck in the passing gusts of asphalt-scented, oxygenated air that whipped past.
As far as she was concerned, it was the single greatest thing she’d ever tasted.
But it was proving too tasking to take in a satisfying breath at the angle and speed of the car.
Don’t look at me, the strange thought-voice seemed to scoff at her, you wanted small and boring, you get small and boring.
“Maybe because you think small and boring, you awful…” Ana paused, not sure what it was that she was even addressing.
Was it anything? Or was she truly arguing with her own thoughts? The mark certainly had something to do with it, but whether these thoughts and the personality that seemed to drive them were the mark itself or a deeper effect of it on her mind remained to be seen.
Neither of those two possibilities filled Ana with comfort, though. She was either possessed by some violent, powerful being—a demon, perhaps?—or she was going crazy.
In either case, the magical symbol that had appeared on her arm was responsible for it. And as soon as this awful ride to wherever stopped and she had a chance to talk to the young mage and convince him to rid her of it, everything could go back to normal. No more murderous thoughts. No more unnatural magic. No more banishment.
Just her own simple life.
The memory of her standing before the Ceremony Hall and the ghost of the dread she’d felt at that moment flashed within her mind. She’d be picking up where she left off, alright—right back into the conundrum that, prior to the discovery of the mark, was the single most terrifying moment of her life.
Oh boy. The thought-voice seemed to laugh at her then, a strange thing considering there was no real sound to be heard. If nothing else, it was Ana’s own desire to laugh at herself that seemed to give it away. Who wouldn’t want to go back to that, right? Unlimited, unchecked power to do anything—or crippling fear at the thought of wielding power over a few dozen dusty, old Sybii. Decisions, decisions.
“Watch your mouth,” Ana hissed, still struggling to suck in air from the hissing hole.
The desire to laugh at herself welled up again, and Ana saw the error in her own words.
Of course thoughts didn’t have mouths.
But she did, and there was no use in arguing with a thought when she should be worried about breathing air that wasn’t toxic.
Decisions, decisions.
Still having trouble drawing in air, Ana gave up on trying to fish-lip
her way to a satisfying breath and began looking around, using the new light to her advantage to see if there was anything that might help her further.
We could blow the hood off this thing.
Ana didn’t respond; didn’t stop looking. Though she wasn’t sure what the extent of this new power was, it had somehow managed to put a hole in the side of the car without any real sign of effort. That suggested it could do the other things it showed her in her thoughts. But it did seem to need her permission.
She remembered the advisor whose hand had been injured when she’d called out to her father. Okay. “Permission” seemed an overly generous word for it.
But she’d allowed it to do the things it had done so far.
Though she didn’t respond, it was clear that silence was not consent.
Or, rather, it was clear that the hood of the trunk remained fastened to the car.
Nothing was certain anymore, after all.
What do we really intend to find that will serve any purpose? Like we haven’t been in here long enough to know there’s nothing except that crusty old coat.
Ana paused and looked at the mound of leather in the corner. The young mage’s jacket, which, true to the thoughts’ claims, was the only other thing in there short of a few scraps of paper and some stray nuts and bolts. But maybe it was enough.
Grabbing the jacket, Ana moved the end of one of the coat’s sleeves over the opening, using her left hand to seal it around the edges before pushing her face into the opening on the opposite end. With the bulk of the jacket draped over her head and hanging across her back, she was once again encased in a heated darkness, but this time, one with a current of clean, breathable air.
And the scent of the mage…
Well that’s awkward.
Ana wanted to laugh at herself again.
“Shut up.” Her voice was muffled within the shoulder of the jacket. “It’s just the dizziness.”
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