The Midnight Strider (The Chronomancer Chronicles Book 2)

by Reilyn J. Hardy

  hope for the hopeless

  We all emerge from the lamp and Nadia keeps her hand tightly on the strap while we walk through the Underworld. It’s full of tunnels and dark, shadowed pockets. Sometimes I feel like the darkness calls to me, the way it did in Valfield. I’ll look at Apollo though, and I’ll ignore it. The temptation, the pull. I ignore it.

  I walk beside him, tucking my hands into the pockets of my jacket. Part of me is curious, wanting to ask him what it was like to grow up down here, to be down here for eight, almost nine years. But I don’t. Mostly because I don’t want him to ask me what my life was like without him. What could I even say? It was great. Dad pretended to be someone else to take care of me. I made a friend — I replaced you.

  I glance behind us and look back at Jace, who is walking beside Rhiannon. He’s whispering something to her and she smiles before nudging him with her shoulder, pulling the front of her dress closed. She looks up at him and their eyes meet. Jace was right. I don’t know what it’s like to be attracted to someone, and maybe I’d never understand it. But the truth is, I don’t think love is meant to be understood. That’s what makes it magical. It’s fluid, coming in all shapes, sizes and forms. Varying degrees. Varying intensities.

  Kina links her arm with Rhiannon’s, causing her to break the eye contact she had with Jace. He looks up, catching my gaze and shrugs. I just shake my head and turn forward again.

  Now that Apollo's here, it doesn’t feel like we’re aimlessly walking in circles anymore. I thought my dreams were enough to navigate, but they proved not to be. I led us right to Drarkodon.

  “Hey, what’s this?” Jace says from behind us and I turn around. He’s near a solid structure that seems to morph into a bowl at the very top. He peers in, then looks up at me. “I can see you,” he says. “In here.”

  “So it really was working,” Apollo says beside me.

  “What?”

  He inhales deeply as he approaches Jace.

  “This is the Silver of Sight,” Apollo says. “It belongs to the Fates, or that’s what Drarkodon said. He told me a lot of things, I never really knew which were true.” He puts his hand on the edge and looks at me. “I remember him asking me if I wanted to see you again. If it would make me a little more pleasant to be around. I thought he was playing a prank on me. That it was fake, and I wasn’t really seeing you, just what I wanted to see.” He looks over at Jace. “I saw you both in the Woodlands last year,” he says, turning to me once more. “And again, when you were talking to a man outside.”

  “I passed out in the Woodlands,” I look at Jace, he’s already looking at me. “Jace said I touched the water of the Tree of Life and it turned black.”

  “You weren’t a chronomancer yet,” Apollo says, shrugging. “Weak connection or something.” He knocks his shoulder against me. “I still wish you listened to me.”

  “We grew up knowing two very different versions of him,” Jace says to him. “Growing up, Mae — Artemis — did nothing but follow the rules. I couldn’t get him into trouble if I tried, and believe me, I tried.” He pulls his hands down from the bowl and crosses his arms. “It all makes sense now.”

  I turn to face my brother. “I turned into you.”

  Apollo just shakes his head, pulling away from the bowl. “I never wanted you to stop living your life.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rhiannon pulling the rest of them away from us, trying to give us some space. Privacy, even. Though most of them have ridiculous hearing. It’s the thought that counts.

  “Is that why you never told me?” I ask, crossing my arms. “You knew, didn’t you. You knew about the curse and you kept it from me.”

  “Dad made me promise not to tell. I couldn’t do that to you.”

  “But he could do it to you.”

  “I’m Drarkodon’s heir, Artemis. We both know it.” He leans back against the structure and crosses his arms. “I spent my childhood trying to make him happy and be what he wanted me to be, like it would somehow make up for all the bad. I know you think I’m some kind of saint, but you don’t know the demons I had to fight to give that illusion, and that’s all it was. An illusion. You don’t know the things I did, because they made you forget.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I didn't want you to think badly of me.”

  “What did you do?”

  He sighs, scratching at his scalp. “It doesn’t matter now,” he says. “I’ve done worse since.”

  He looks away from me and I kick his foot with mine. Apollo looks at the ground before looking back up at me.

  “I’m nearly both,” I say. “You can be, too.”

  “I don’t have that kind of courage,” he says.

  “You came here when they wanted to take me. “What’s more courageous?”

  “He’s right, you know,” Nadia says, taking a cautious step toward us. “We can help you with it, I’m sure of it.”

  “How?” He directs his attention onto me. “What did you have to do to get that symbol on your neck?”

  “I drank her blood.”

  He scoffs. “Figures. I can’t exactly drink blood to be good. What am I supposed to drink? Nectar?”

  “This isn’t a joke, Apollo.”

  He gets up from where he’s leaning. “You think I don’t know that?” he asks, stepping toward me. He jabs his finger in the middle of his chest. “You think I like being this way? You think I don’t wanna be good? You think I don’t wanna believe that there’s some kind of chance?”

  “You always had hope,” I say. “You were the one who continued to believe dad would come back.”

  “Look where it got me? I was blinded by my faith in our father because I believed one day he'd save me from Drarkodon, and that he'd save me from myself. But did he?” Apollo shakes his head. “No. I died alone.” His eyes begin to water. He frowns, trying to suppress them but when he looks at me… When he blinks… A tear rolls down his cheek. “You wanna know how I became a necromancer, Artemis? Because I had the strength to kill myself. I was tired of being tortured, and treated like the gorgons’s plaything. I was tired of being abused.”

  When I was younger, I remember being naive. I remember when my father would look over his time pieces and some would stop working because people took their own lives. It’s one of my most prominent memories from before my father left. I didn’t understand why someone would take their own life, and I see now that it wasn’t because they were weak or selfish. I was too young to think that there was such pain in the world that would drive someone to do that.

  Looking at Apollo, seeing his face right before me, looking into his eyes. There’s pain staring back at me. Years of it. Wearing away at him, wearing him down.

  They just want it to stop.

  He doesn’t look at me again. He’s wiping his face with the backs of his hands. I can't fix this.

  “Not to ruin the moment,” Nadia says, stepping between the two of us. “I really love these moments, really, I do. But is there, by chance, hope of us getting out of here sometime soon?” she asks, pressing the tips of her fingers together, looking at each of us with wonder.

  “Yeah,” Apollo says finally. “I found a way out, unfortunately I found it after I became a necromancer, so I couldn’t use it. It’s not much farther.”

  I cringe at his words. Drarkodon was out of the underworld. I released him. His creations were already ripping Aridete apart. Who knows how much worse it’s going to get. Do I even want to return?

  We continue to walk, until footsteps are heard coming from the distance before us. I stop in my tracks and look over at Apollo, who stops too. He takes a step back as a large, ghostly woman, near hag-like in appearance, though slightly translucent, breaks through the wall in front of us. Her eyes are gone, like they were eaten out of her face.

  “What is that?” I ask, I can’t look awa
y. For some reason, she looks familiar.

  “The Enchantress!” Apollo shouts as he starts running in the other direction, grabbing my arm as he goes.

  “Drarkodon never put her to rest?”

  “Apparently not!” he shouts at me, letting go of my arm. “She’s not even supposed to be on this side! She’s supposed to be further down, locked away.”

  “Locked away?”

  “I don’t really have time to explain that right now, Artemis! Keep running!”

  Benny appears up ahead, and he looks like he’s smiling.

  “Thank the Immortal Ones you’re all okay,” he says, just before looking past us. “What the shit?” He disappears again, this time grabbing Antigone’s arm and she disappears too, leaving nothing but a barely visible outline of their bodies. “Well, help is on the way!” he shouts at us, over his shoulder.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Nova asks.

  “I may — or may not have — told the Earth Shaker that — wekidnappedhisdaughter.”

  “YOU WHAT?”

  The ground begins to shake and the Enchantress crashes into the wall behind us. Behind her, I can't look away. The curly brown hair, the piercing blue eyes. He stalks forward, and I take a staggering step back. There are stitches going along his neck. It can’t be.

  I bump right into Nova who tense where he stands.

  “I can’t go back in the Pitch,” he says, shaking his head. “I can’t.”

  “You won’t,” Nadia tells him.

  As she speaks, water begins to rush in from the other direction. We’re stuck between a large, undead necromancer and a tidal wave.

  “That’s new,” Apollo says.

  “Get in my lamp,” Nadia says. “We’re all going in.”

  “Doesn’t someone need to guard it?”

  She nods, looking at each of us before handing it to Antigone.

  “You’re his daughter, reason with him,” she says.

  “I am not going back into that bottle,” Apollo says.

  “It’s not a —” Nadia grabs her lamp back from Antigone for a quick second and smacks Apollo on the back of his head. She hands it back to Antigone. She quickly snaps her fingers before he has a chance to protest again. We land on the pillows and I quickly stand up, moving toward the stained glass wall.

  “Do you think he’ll let us go?” Kina asks.

  I press my hand against the wall, and watch as Antigone transforms back into a mermaid. The same creature I remember seeing on the beach. Mermaids weren’t beautiful, but they weren’t ugly either. Not exactly, anyway. They were natural in their outer appearance, and they looked like what you expected to find living in the sea.

  I spot the Earth Shaker out there, who is larger than the Enchantress herself. It takes me a few seconds to realize that he is the tidal wave. It wasn’t water at all. It was him, reaching into the Underworld for his daughter. His hand, grabbing hold of her, pulling her out of hell itself. He holds her up to his face, made of nothing but the ocean water. I see the outline of his features and wild hair. He doesn’t look like the other merpeople, but for some reason, I don’t think he’s supposed to.

  The lamp slips from his grasp and shoots out of the water. We’re tumbling against the walls, against each other, separated by nothing but pillows that roll with us. We soar through the air, and stop abruptly. My head knocks against the wall and I fall back against Kina, who accidentally kicks Nova in the face.

  I sit up and try to look through the wall, but I don’t see anything. “Nadia, let us out,” I say. When nothing happens, I turn to look at her and she shakes her head at me. She closes her eyes and continues to shake her head.

  “I don’t know what’s out there,” she says. “No one’s guarding my lamp. It could be a trap.”

  “GET OUT OF THERE!” a loud voice rumbles through the lamp. Still, Nadia doesn’t listen. The lamp is turned upside down and we each fall out of the hole and onto the ground, all landing hard against rickety old wooden boards.

  I look up, only to close my eyes.

  Chapter THIRTY

  not kids anymore

  We’re back in Nevressea, the bridge is soaked like the lake flooded.

  Mother Nature stands over us, I avert my gaze. Lucky for me, her attention falls upon Apollo. His eyes are wide and he remains where he sits, looking at everyone and everything like he’s having trouble processing what his vision is showing him.

  “Apollo?” his name barely escapes her lips.

  He furrows his eyebrows and looks at me.

  It’s Mom, I mouth.

  I get to my feet and I help him stand up. I don’t have to look around to know that everyone is staring at us. I’d like to think they’re all staring at Caliswen, as her health seems to diminish right before our eyes, but I know they’re looking at us. We haven’t been seen together since Valfield nearly a decade ago.

  They’re whispering all around us, about us.

  “Ignore them,” I tell him. He nods, he doesn’t take his eyes off of me. The scars on his face seem to shine under the light of the moon.

  “Mom?” Apollo says, his voice is shaky. “You’re my mom?” he asks. When she approaches him, he takes a step away from her. Silence falls throughout the town. No one speaks, not even Caliswen.

  “It made me feel better to think — something happened to Dad which is why he never came for me. Artemis was too young to do anything about it, so I never blamed him. But you — you — I thought I didn’t have a mother, and I never thought of her to save me. But you were here — you were here this whole time, and you didn’t save me. I was your son!” His bottom lip quivers as his eyes begin to water. “I was your son.”

  She steps back.

  I close my mouth, not realizing my jaw dropped.

  He takes a step away from me and toward her. Everyone gasps when she steps back.

  “You have some nerve, to come here and scold him,” he points back at me while he speaks, “when he was the only one who cared enough about what happened to me.” He shakes his head, his face is damp from the tears that have spilled from his eyes, but he doesn’t wipe his cheeks. “You can’t scold us like you’re our mother,” he says. “Because you’re twenty years too late.”

  Apollo turns around to face me.

  “I’d like to leave,” he says, his voice is a little steadier.

  I glance at Caliswen and she nods.

  “Sure, come on.”

  The crowd parts for us as we make our way to the inn.

  *****

  “Do you think I was too harsh on her?” Apollo asks me as he steps out of the bathroom, the towel hanging around his neck. People were kind enough to bring presents to our door, clothes for him to wear, that Jace brought in and dumped on my bed.

  “I think you were honest,” I say, shrugging. “Sometimes honesty can be harsh. Dad wasn’t around either, but —” I shrug — “it’s one thing to be around until the world needs you, and another to never be around at all.”

  “I was wondering where the healing thing came from,” he says, shaking his dreadlocks, he rubs his head with the towel.

  “The what?” I ask, staring at him.

  I can’t bring myself to stop. I never thought I’d see my brother again.

  “The healing thing. You know, with Remacle? Rhiannon? We were kids, and you weren’t a chronomancer yet. You couldn’t have been pulling from Dad’s side, and you definitely weren’t pulling from Uncle Drark’s, since that’s kinda the opposite of what he does.”

  “Uncle Drark?” I repeat after him.

  It seems so normal. Coming out of his mouth, we didn’t have abnormal family problems, and our relatives weren’t the Immortal Ones. But we did, and they were. We have a curse looming over our heads.

  “Apollo,” I start as he climbs onto the bed beside me. He lies back,
running his arms beneath the pillow.

  “Nine years,” he says, turning over on the bed. “Nine years since I’ve slept on a bed.”

  I twist my body to look at him. “Do you wanna rest?”

  He turns around. “No.” He sits up. “I’m —”

  “Rest,” I say as I get up and grab the towel. “You deserve it. I’m gonna check on everyone else. Not every day you come out of the Underworld unscathed.”

  “Not every day you come out of the Underworld.”

  I didn’t mean to be insensitive.

  I hang the towel on the chair in the sitting area before leaving the room.

  Everyone gets up when I come down the stairs, like they were all sitting there, waiting. The table bumps in different directions as they stand, legs of chairs sliding across the floor. Rhiannon is the first to come up to me. She catches me by surprise, and throws her arms around my neck.

  “I love you,” she tells me. She pulls back to grab my face between her hands and kisses my cheek. “Thank you.”

  She hugs me again as I glance at Jace. He just shakes his head, not taking his eyes off of me.

  “Don’t look at me, I ain’t kissing you.”

  Everyone breaks out into laughter. Rhiannon remains with her arms hanging around my neck until I sit down. She sits beside me, and Jace takes the other seat.

  “You two don’t wanna sit beside each other?”

  “We wanna make sure you’re okay,” Jace says, as I look from Rhiannon to him. “You are okay, right?”

  I smile at the two of them. “Couldn’t be happier.”

  “How is he?” Rhiannon asks.

  “Um — I think it’ll take some time for him to adjust, but I think it’ll be okay —” I say with a nod, “I think he’s gonna be okay.”

  “You’re not afraid of him?” someone calls out.

  “Why would I be afraid?” I say as I get up, scanning the pub, but I don't know who said it.

  “He’s a necromancer!” someone else shouts.

  Rhiannon gets to her feet. “And I’m a vampire. What are you trying to say?” She looks at me and touches my arm.