“That won’t ever happen,” Nicole said, not looking at the Shiengol. She didn’t need to see his face to know he agreed.
“Well, Azuriah is my great uncle—he’s my mom’s uncle. I’m part Shiengol.”
Azuriah didn’t look old enough to be anyone’s great anything. Nicole blinked. “Hold on. So you’re not fully human?”
He shook his head. “Hope that doesn’t disappoint you. Azuriah is right—humans in my dimension of earth don’t have magical abilities.”
Nicole finally noticed Austin’s expression. He was grinning. She stared at him. “Why are you so happy about this?”
He shrugged. “I was right. I knew there had to be a reason why Azuriah was so involved when none of the other Shiengols seem to care. Besides,” he continued, “haven’t you noticed that he and Jacob look alike?”
Nicole scoffed. “No, they don’t. Jacob is very human. Azuriah is . . . well . . .” How could she say “long, angular, pinched, and scrawny” without coming across as rude? Or making Azuriah more mad at her than he always was?
“Incredibly attractive,” Azuriah said.
“Not the words I was looking for.” She didn’t dare supply her own.
Austin linked his hands behind his head, a pleased expression on his face. “Look at them. Jacob has Azuriah’s hair color and eye shape. Plus, he’s got very, very light blue eyes—like Azuriah’s would probably be if he were human. I don’t usually pay attention to these sorts of things, but it’s pretty obvious when you’re looking at the two of them that they’re related.”
Nicole snorted. “Speak for yourself.” It was hard to feign irritation with her boyfriend, though. She loved that he’d noticed something like that before she did. “So, Jacob. Which of your abilities did you inherit from your uncle?”
He shrugged. “All of the ones dealing with time, plus a lot of my fighting skills and my ability to see emotions.” He glanced at Akeno. “Others I got when Keitus tried to turn me into a Lorkon and the Makalos had to save me.” He took a breath. “I’m still upset with myself. And my dad is right—you all need to visit Keitus’s place as soon as possible.”
“You’re not coming too?” Nicole asked.
Jacob shook his head. “I’ve grounded myself until I can see if there’s a glitch in what Keitus is showing me. If I go back far enough, I should catch something. I need to figure out how he’s stopping me from Seeing so I can get around it.” He rushed to continue. “Don’t worry, I’ll be keying you guys to and from the dimension. But other than that, my help isn’t going to be available.”
After Dmitri agreed to Jacob’s plan, he made sure everyone had what they needed, then excused them. The exploratory group would be leaving immediately.
Nicole was eager to get on the move, especially after all the time they’d spent trying to find the fake talismans. She hoped it would be a quick trip, though—she couldn’t wait to talk to Onyev. She and the others accepted backpacks of food from Arien.
“They have everything you may need in case you get stranded,” Arien said.
Nicole shouldered her bag. “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”
Arien gave her a hug. “Yes, let’s.”
Jacob opened a link to the same place in Keitus’s dimension as he had eight months earlier. Nicole grimaced when she took her first step onto the brittle bones that covered the entire place. She so hadn’t ever wanted to come here again.
The group was silent the entire walk to Keitus’s hideout. The bones crunched and shifted under their feet, and a slight stench of decay wafted around them—not strong enough to bother Nicole, but strong enough for her not to forget where they were.
They knew as soon as they saw it that the building had been empty for a while. It had a sense of vacancy to it that places get after enough time passes. A sort of deadness. Coolidge led the way inside, his magic curled tightly around him. Azuriah’s eyes lightened the room. No one was there.
“How far ahead of us is Keitus really?” Nicole asked.
Azuriah stared at her, nearly blinding her in the darkened interior. “Let’s hope—”
“He’s years ahead of you,” a man with a gravelly voice said from the porch. His arms were resting on the frame on either side of him, exposing dark, yellowed armpits in his off-white button-up shirt. He poked his white-haired head inside, a smile on his face.
Everyone lifted their weapons—guns and knives. Nicole sensed the Aretes shift their already-gathered powers.
“Who are you?” Coolidge asked.
The man entered and lit a lantern, casting long shadows across the room. A slight pot belly hung over his brown cotton pants. He glanced at Nicole. “We’ve never talked face-to-face.”
Nicole frowned. “Who are you?”
The old man shrugged, turning his attention to the group. “Keitus is nearing his prize. You won’t be able to stop him now.” He put a hand over his heart. “You shouldn’t want to—our lives will be infinitely better when he’s ruling us. It’ll be glorious.”
Nicole frowned. “I recognize your voice . . . I think. I don’t know.”
He looked at her. “I can promise you right now that we’ve never been in the same place before. Are you quite sure you know my voice?”
Nicole hesitated, swallowed. “Yes.”
Coolidge pointed his .38 Smith & Wesson Special at the man’s face. “What do you know?”
The man shook his head. “Nothing. After getting what he needed from me, Keitus deemed me useless and tossed me aside.” His gaze drifted to Nicole’s. “I advise you to let him accomplish his desires. He’s powerful—far more powerful than you could ever imagine.”
The man returned to the door. “Now please leave. As you can see, the place is empty, and my last duty has been accomplished.” A sad expression crossed his face. “I have someone waiting to see me. Someone a great distance from me.” He growled, turning on Nicole and her friends. “And if you stop Keitus, I’ll never see her again.” He leveled his glare at them. “I may not be able to do anything to stop you, but trust me when I say that Keitus and his minions are powerful—far more powerful than your little group.”
He jabbed a finger toward the door, his meaning obvious—go.
“Are you sure you don’t have more information?” Nicole asked. She looked at her companions, wondering if they should resort to more . . . indelicate measures.
“He doesn’t,” Azuriah said, whisking past the old man. “Our trip was pointless.”
“Not pointless,” Coolidge said, following. “We know for sure that Keitus is gone.”
“We could have explored the cabin,” Austin said. “Found out what was stopping Jacob’s visions.”
Azuriah shook his head. “The thing isn’t there anymore. That’s one of the reasons why Jacob realized Keitus was missing.”
Nicole linked hands with Austin, sensing his impatience. She felt it too. “Why couldn’t the old man give us more info?” she asked.
Azuriah glanced at her. “He was telling the truth—Keitus stopped including him in his plans when he wasn’t needed anymore. He doesn’t know what’s going on now.”
Nicole grumbled to herself. “Ridiculous.”
The trip back was as silent as the trip there had been, but this time, Nicole didn’t feel right—something was off. Not in the atmosphere around her, but in her mind. A sort of dread blossomed from her stomach, reaching outward, grasping her heart. She needed to return to Shonlin. She—
Nicole gasped. “Oh, my gosh, I just remembered something.” She stopped, staring at her companions. “Keitus has the first three talismans, right? Well, I saw the fourth one in a vision when the Fire Pulser got close to me. He or someone else—one of his minions—is heading to it. From the looks of it, it’ll be a huge trip. Mountains, rivers, lakes, and at least one ocean.”
“There are ways to make the distance shorter,” Azuriah said.
Nicole shook her head. “No. The feeling I got in Shonlin was that the trip itself is par
t of finding the talisman. Every single foot of it has to be traveled to get there. No planes, trains, or cars. No horses, either.”
Azuriah raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure of this? What if Keitus is feeding it to you?”
She frowned. Was that possible? “I don’t know.” Then she remembered what Onyev had told her. Trust her instincts. “No, I do know. My gut tells me we have a few months before he reaches that last talisman. And we need to make them count.”
Chapter Three
Jacob keyed Nicole and the others back to the castle, where they quickly filled everyone in on what they’d learned. Once that was done, Nicole was finally given the opportunity to get home and take a real shower. Her first in over a week.
She didn’t shower long, even though her body ached for the chance to relax. She had to visit Onyev again. Jacob was waiting in her living room. As soon as she’d scrubbed every inch of her body, she rinsed off and hopped out of the shower, dressing quickly.
Once her hair was tied back and she’d put on some makeup, she joined Jacob, Austin, and Lizzie in the kitchen, where Austin was throwing together a meal.
She chuckled, putting her arms around his waist from behind. “I thought you were ‘throwing’ together something fast.”
A guilty smile crossed his face. “Well, Lizzie’s butternut squash looked ready to eat, so I figured we’d have some soup. And then I realized that soup never fills me up, so I had to toss in some breaded chicken tenders and fried green beans.”
“It smells heavenly,” she said. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was to be dating a guy with such amazing cooking skills. “Thank you.”
“Go relax on the couch,” he said. “It’ll be ready in about twenty minutes.”
Nicole grabbed her laptop and plopped on the couch. She needed to find out what was going on with school. Things had been marching forward nonstop since she’d gotten home from the other world, and she hadn’t yet checked in. She dreaded the emails she’d have received from professors and the students she’d been paired with for projects. Hopefully, they’d figured things out, and those students hadn’t been penalized.
Nicole knew she’d be retaking all of last semester’s classes. She’d missed most of them. If it weren’t for the fact that the university had given her a free card to go on expeditions, she would probably drop out completely.
She put her head in her hands. She should probably drop out anyway. She’d turned twenty already and still hadn’t completed more than just one semester of college. How did these sorts of problems find her? And how did they become her problems, anyway?
Nicole wasn’t complaining—she’d learned more from these expeditions than anything she could have been taught in school. College wasn’t exactly the place for hands-on experiences like the ones she’d had. But still. What she wouldn’t give to be a normal student with a normal schedule and normal friends.
She looked up, watching Lizzie helping Austin in the kitchen and Jacob sitting at the dining room table, laughing with them. She loved her friends. They were trustworthy and hardworking. And she couldn’t imagine her life without them.
Nicole smiled, realizing they came hand in hand with her current situation. Not only that, but they were incredibly loyal and were always willing to help her out of the stuff they got stuck in.
Soon enough, Austin announced that dinner was done, and they gathered around the table to eat. Nicole sighed inwardly. Ultimately, she was happy with where life had taken her so far.
***
Onyev beamed when he saw Nicole approaching. “Oh, Nicole, I’m so relieved, so happy to see you.”
Nicole’s eyebrows rose. “You didn’t expect me to live, did you?”
He shook his head. “No, and I wish I could have warned you ahead of time what you’d be encountering. If I’d told you, you definitely wouldn’t have returned. Surprise was on your side this time.”
Nicole scoffed inwardly, but tried not to show her disrespect. “I don’t understand. Surprise almost killed me.”
He sighed. “Yes, I know. I know what is there. Lasia was one of my most loyal guardians in the past. Keitus is incredibly persuasive.”
“Persuasive, as in he’s great at forcing people, or persuasive, as in he actually convinces them?”
Onyev shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure. Either way, he successfully bribed Lasia to stay there. And she’s preventing you and the other guardians from finding the talismans, right?”
Nicole nodded. “I did see where they are—I just have no idea how to get to them.”
Onyev twisted his long, silver beard, his thoughts far away. Nicole watched from the corner of her eye, not wanting to interrupt him. He finally looked at her. “You’re probably still wondering why I didn’t tell you more of what to expect.”
“Well, sort of. I’ve learned to trust you, though.”
Onyev didn’t respond for another moment. Then he said, “If you know ahead of time, you’ll enter the forest with the expectation that something—anything—could happen. Your concentration changes. And that opens your mind to too many influences, which would overwhelm you and do permanent damage.”
Nicole frowned. “I go in there all the time knowing what to expect.”
Onyev nodded. “Firsthand experience is different from secondhand. Me telling you what you’ll find plants pictures in your mind that would most certainly be wrong. And therein lies the danger—when things aren’t what you expect. Experiencing it yourself is always more dangerous physically. But experiencing it through my words is more dangerous mentally. Physically, you have a chance. Mentally? You’d be obliterated. At least now you know what you must do.”
“I have to go back?” Nicole knew what his answer would be, but she still didn’t want to hear it.
“Yes. You’ll have to fight her.”
Nicole felt the blood drain from her face. “Fight her? Are you serious? How? Do you not know what she did to me? If it weren’t for Kaede sap, I’d be dead! And if not, I’d be in a hospital still recovering. She fried me!”
“I’d never heard of Fire Pulsers before I approved Lasia to become a guardian. I didn’t know what they were capable of until your visit, and you now have much more experience with them than I do. You have plenty of people at your disposal who are intelligent and can help you prepare.”
“For some reason, I’m not comforted by that.”
Onyev gave her a sad smile. “I wish I could help. I wish I could travel forward in time. But that isn’t possible.” He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “At least Lasia is the only guardian who has ever been corrupted. I do feel bad that you’re the one who has to deal with it.”
“Yeah, rotten luck.”
Onyev put his hand on her arm. “Nicole, this is within your ability. Don’t think just of your physical powers—”
“Good, because I don’t have any.”
He raised a finger. “But you do have incredible intellect. You are dedicated and diligent, and possess the ability to stick to something when most others would give up. You’ll figure it out.”
Nicole bit the inside of her cheek, hesitating. “Is there any way I’d be able to use my magic?”
He shook his head. “No. I can’t undo the spell preventing powers from entering Shonlin without opening the floodgates for all sorts of magical attacks.”
Nicole’s stomach sank even more than it already had. She’d been afraid he’d say that, based on what had happened last time she messed with the magic protecting that city.
“Is it possible to defeat her on my own?”
“I don’t know. But I do know that Shonlin survives after you—I have chosen future guardians.”
“You just don’t know if I survive.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not very comforting, I know.”
Nicole rubbed her face, needing to think of something different. “What happens if I put down the lantern while I’m in the forest?”
“You can’t exit without it, as it is your l
ink to Edana’s dimension. If you lose the lantern somewhere in the forest, you’ll be trapped in the forest dimension until you find it. The only way out is if someone comes for you, using that lantern. But you see the dilemma, right? If you lose the lantern, no one will be able to come.”
Nicole frowned. How did Lasia gain access to the library, then? She must have had help from another guardian. Or she may have followed another guardian through. Nicole swallowed. She hoped it hadn’t been her. “Will I still be able to function without the lantern in my hand?” How could she otherwise fight?
He nodded. “Of course. You’ll be able to see the glowing orbs—the lights. You’ll be able to fight the Fire Pulser.”
Onyev studied her for several seconds. She waited, sensing he had something to say. When the seconds stretched into a full minute, she started feeling a bit uncomfortable. She was about to start talking when Onyev opened his mouth.
“I’m breaking my own rules by telling you this, but I sense you need some good news. The talismans can’t be joined without a certain amulet. And that amulet doesn’t exist—I destroyed the last one. Of course, a new one could easily be fashioned, if the person has the book that contains the recipe. I sealed it in Shonlin. I’m not sure if it’s still there, in your time. If you can, Nicole, find it and destroy it.”
“What is the amulet called?”
“The Kioma Amulet.”
Nicole nodded. “That’s something I can focus on while preparing to fight Lasia.”
Onyev patted her arm. “Good thinking. Please come visit again and keep me updated on your situation. I know you’d like to continue your life for a while before becoming the permanent Shonlin guardian.”
Nicole sighed. “Yes, I would.”
They said goodbye, and Nicole left Onyev’s leisure room to find Jacob. She had him take her to the library so she could look for the book, but even though they found record of it in the big book on the second floor, it wasn’t on the corresponding shelf in Shonlin. When Nicole asked the guardian about it, he told her it hadn’t been there for years.
Enshroud, Mosaic Chronicles Book Eight Page 3
