The look on his face, pensive and slow to react, told me everything I needed to know.
“That’s what I thought,” I answered.
“It ain’t like that,” Royce started. “The Hourglass is hidden so they can work without interference, so they can spin their schemes and play dirty without anyone being able to stop them.”
“And why are you hidden? Why is my mother hiding?”
“To stay safe!” He yelled, the tone is his voice telling me that I should have known that. “You ain’t the only one those bastards would kill on site if they had the chance. Your mother. Your father-“
“They’re both already dead!” I yelled. “Those people you’re talking about, they didn’t raise me. And they sure as hell aren’t here now. I don’t care about reasons. I don’t care about any of it. My parents are dead and they’re never coming back. Those people you’re talking about, the ones who gave birth to me, they’re never going to replace them. And this place where Laurel Luna wants me to meet her, it’s not ever going to be home. Home is gone now too. This isn’t about fairytales for me, Royce. This isn’t about fate, or happy endings, or making everything worth it in the end. This is about practicality. It’s about me staying safe, about keeping the people I love safe. And I can’t do that if I’m running around like an amnesiac chicken with her head cut off. I need to have my bearings back. I need to know where I’ve been if we’re gonna have a chance of getting where we’re going. And if you don’t understand that, then I’m not sure Laurel Luna sent the right person.”
Royce stared at me a long time, huffing and glaring at me. For a minute, I thought he was going to lose it for long enough for me to see what his actual eyes looked like for once, all yellow and raven-like. Instead, he bit his lip and said, “Uncle Renner knew. He could have taken us there. But he’s dead. He died protecting you.” He looked away from me, shaking his head. “Hell, if you wanna risk your life, and everything we worked for with it, going down some lunatic’s rabbit hole, I don’t suppose you’re going to let me stop you.”
He barged off, marching a few hundred feet off into the desert and stopping before I had the chance to respond, not that I’d have even known what I would say. This was something I needed to do, and Royce was right. Nothing he could say was going to change that.
“Anybody else?” I asked, turning to Casper and Dahlia.
They both stared at me for a long moment before nodding their respective consent.
“How long is this going to take you? We haven’t got all day,” I asked, moving toward Jiqui. He had his knees in the dirt, spooning heaping portions of various weird looking herbs into a metal bowl.
“Look who got conservative all of the sudden,” he jeered at me.
“How long?” I repeated sternly.
“It’s not eye of newt, Bloodmoon. I don’t have to wait for the harvest moon, if that’s what you’re getting at,” he stirred the contents together in one quick motion. “There. Done.”
I felt Dahlia and Casper settle at either side of me. Suddenly, I felt very guilty about what I had just said to Royce. He should be beside me too, not sulking in some desert corner. But what was that he told me back in the Hourglass, when my body was on fire and he kissed me for the first time to put it out?
We do what we do, Sweetheart.
And I had to do this, whether he agreed with me or not.
“The Neanderthal needs to stay back,” Jiqui stood.
“Ouch,” Casper muttered.
“Call him that again, and you’ll be eating from a straw,” I warned.
“I’ll call him Your Majesty if you want,” Jiqui pursed his lips. “It won’t change the fact that the herbs won’t work on him. He’s not a Breaker, and when lit these herbs form a potent fog that’s more powerful than anything he’s able to withstand. In layman’s terms, his mind can’t take what they’d do to it.”
“Puny human can’t take Hulk’s magic mist,” Casper grunted in his best Marvel’s Mightiest monotone (which wasn’t very good), shooting me a look.
“No, it’s for the best,” I answered. “I need to do this by myself.”
“You will not,” Dahlia said, inching toward Jiqui and his mysterious mixture. “I have things I need to figure out myself, least of all where my husband is. And even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t let you go through this by yourself.”
The look of her, almost maternal, took me by surprise, though it really shouldn’t have. So much had changed since the night Dahlia caught Casper and I breaking into Weathersby. Back then, I was the meddlesome reminder of the woman who was her husband’s first choice. Back then, I was the world breaker. But now, she saw me as something else. Now I was someone she saw as one of her own, someone she might have even cared for. And the same could be said for me. I didn’t see Dahlia as some ice queen anymore, as someone who needed to pull the stick from her butt. She was a complex woman who-though we may have disagreed at times- wanted what was best, what was right.
Unfortunately for her, I couldn’t let her win this one.
“I understand what you’re saying Dahlia, but I need you here. I need you lucid. As much as I’ve always hated these words, Royce had a point. We can’t trust Jiqui, not completely. And if things go South, I need all of you to be at your best.”
“You have the Raven,” she motioned back to Royce unaffectedly. “The prophecies foretell he has great strength.”
“Not like you,” I shook my head, trying to keep my voice steady. “I’ve watched you lose everything; your daughter, your home, and now your husband. Not to mention losing your belief in the people you were raised with and the system you were brought up in. And you never flinched. Even now, your main focus is keeping me safe. I need that strength Dahlia. I need someone to do what has to be done if I can’t do it myself. There are people who need to be kept safe.” I didn’t say the word Damantus and I didn’t mention Casper’s baby or its mother. But she knew what I meant. “You have to do that if I can’t. And I’ll find Echo for you. I swear it.”
“Good enough,” she answered, her eyes weighing something inside of me. “But,” she started, turning to Jiqui, whose balding head shined in what looked to be the afternoon sun. “If you do something to this girl, if she doesn’t see tomorrow, I’ll make sure you don’t either.”
“Well aren’t you just one big happy makeshift family,” Jiqui grinned. “Trust me, if I wanted to hurt her, I’d have just left her here. The Council will find you morons soon enough without my help, I assure you.” He shook his head. “You’re not the only one with designs for the future. The fact that, when last she saw me, my dear niece’s aspirations didn’t match my own, doesn’t make those aspirations any less real.” He picked up the bowl of ingredients and moved it closer to me. “Besides, if it makes you feel any better, I’ll remind you that I was a disciple of Allister Leeman, and a big piece of his puzzle was keeping this little peach alive.” He smiled at me, which totally turned my stomach.
“Just do what you’ve got to do,” I sneered.
“But of course,” he nearly chirped. “If you’ll have your entourage back up a bit. The mist can be quite expansive.”
“And it won’t screw with you?” Casper asked, reluctant to leave my side.
“I’m, as the ancient Romans always said, immune to that nonsense.”
“I failed history, but I’m pretty sure the Romans didn’t say that,” Casper answered, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“It’s okay,” I said, brushing his arm. “I’ll be fine.”
He stared at me for a second, his mouth quirking nervously to the side. “You better be.”
Ushered by Dahlia, Casper joined Royce far off in the sand.
“What’s next?” I asked, turning away from them, careful not to look at Royce’s face as I glazed over it. He was undoubtedly upset with me, and probably equally as worried. I was taking a chance here. But this seemed to be the sort of situation where any decision I made held at least some danger. With
Laurel Luna’s letter in hand and absolutely no memory of how I got here, this option seemed like it held the least amount of danger.
At least that was what I hoped.
Jiqui pulled a lighter from his pocket, sparked it, and dropped it into the mixing bowl. A bright white fog spilled from the bowl’s brim, clouding the air between us.
“Now, Cresta Blut, all you have to do is breathe.”
I was just about to scold him, telling him that my name was Karr not Blut, but the instant I opened my mouth, it filled with the stupid magic mist. It tasted dense and dry, like ancient chalk that had been smashed up and fed to me inside a sandpaper milkshake.
I coughed hard, retching as the mist invaded my throat, lungs, and stomach. It stung as it filled me, like thousands of tiny little needles pricking at my insides all at once. I shook and, though I tried to stop myself, slumped to the desert floor.
God, they were right. They were all right to be worried. There was no way it was supposed to hurt this much. It couldn’t be helping me, opening my mind, and give me this reaction. This was a trick. Jiqui, finding a way around the barriers my birth mother placed on him, was trying to kill me. And he was going to succeed.
My eyes opened wide as I realized what was going on. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t move. All I could do was look up at that bright desert sun. The last thing I would ever see.
And then, it left me too.
Darkness filled the sky. The heat, which had pressed so hard against my burnt skin, chilled into an ice cold gust of wind. And the sun, bright and blinding, was replaced by a giant red moon.
“The bloodmoon,” I murmured, finding my lips to be working again. Seemed fitting.
Realizing that my body was now free, I sat upward. Everyone was gone. Casper, Royce, Dahlia, even Jiqui had vanished like smoke in the distance, like the mist that had sent me here. I was all alone, the black desert stretching out for what looked like eons around me.
I stood, my legs stronger than I’d expected.
“Hello?” I asked in a small voice, not expecting anyone to answer me.
What had happened? Where was I? And how did I get back?
A low growl sounded in the distance. Turning, I saw a pair of dark yellow eyes glowing at me. They sat stalwart for a moment and then darted toward me, moving the way a dog might. As the neared me, and I glimpsed the casing they were housed in, I realized it wasn’t a dg at all. It was a wolf.
Would have ran, but I found my body no longer able to obey my commands.
The monster neared, whited fur and bared fangs. It lunged at me, flying through the air, aimed at my throat.
Before it could wrap its teeth around me though, a sharp glint of light sliced through it, cutting it clean in half.
It was a sword, and looking over, I saw who it belonged to. He was taller than I remembered, and certainly more fierce. He wore a skin of fur over his chest and his eyes shone more fiercly than I had ever seen them before.
Sevie’s sweat gleamed under the light of the bloodmoon as his chest heaved up and down before me.
“Hello Cresta. Are you dead as well?”
Chapter 8
Hers
Sevie’s chocolate eyes bore into me, foreign and tinted in the red light of the hanging bloodmoon. He was harder now, strong and muscular. But the boy I knew was still there. The kindness and empathy that washed over every piece of him still existed in his bright face and arched eyebrows as he extended his hand to me and asked me if I was dead.
“Dead?” I murmured, realizing I had no idea how to answer that.
“It’s a troublesome realization,” he answered as I took his hand. He was stronger than he had been back in the Hourglass and, as he helped me step over the broken body of the wolf he had just cut in half, I caught a glimpse of the sword in his hand. It glistened in the red light, stained with blood and sweat. “I wonder, are you older now? Did things go your way? Did you die an old woman in your bed with my brother at your side? Is that why it took you so long to get here?”
The questions took me aback.
“I do hope that was the case,” he added, his eyes flickering to the dark ground below.
“Sevie, is this real? I mean, are you…you know, you?” Looking around this place, I saw that it was even more barren than the desert I had just escaped from. Wind raged around me, ice cold and terrifying. Still, Sevie was pouring sweat. Why was that? How could he be so hot while I was practically freezing to death?
“Yes Cresta. The last time I checked I was, in fact, myself.” His brows knitted together worriedly. “Of course, that was quite some time ago.”
I shivered so hard that I began to jerk, my teeth chattering together. “S-Sevie, you’re not making any sense. It’s only been a few weeks, a month at the most.”
While I wasn’t one hundred percent sure exactly how much time had passed since I escaped the Hourglass, I knew it wasn’t near the expanse of time Sevie was talking about. To think I had grown into an old woman with Owen by my side; that would take-
“Years, Cresta. It has been years.” He looked out into the distance. “Decades have passed since the last time we spoke, since the last time I spoke to anyone. That is how I know this is death, because times passes but nothing changes. I am as I was, and you are-” He cleared his throat. “You are as beautiful as you ever were.”
He shook his head hard. “I am sorry. I know that things are not as they were. I have had time to see things as they truly are now, as they always were.” He swallowed hard. “And I am afraid that I owe you an apology.”
“Sevie…” I murmured. Though none of what he was saying made any sense- decades had passed and this was death- the idea that he owed me an apology was unquestionably the most absurd.
I had never met a person as caring and kind as the boy who stood before me. Even Owen, who I loved more than life itself- paled in comparison to Sevie when it came to things like beauty and purity of heart.
To state it plainly, Sevie had no equals. And the things I had done to him, even if they were in the name of love, still haunted me a little. He was my perfect, after all. Even if I didn’t believe in that sort of thing, even if it was the stupidest idea that ever graced my ears, Sevie believed it. He had built a life around the idea of me, of his perfect. And I crushed that.
So why on earth would he owe me an apology?
“Please just hear me out,” he interrupted. “When we were together, back in the real world, I thought I could be the person I was meant to be. I thought I could be a Breaker and a brother. I thought I could be your perfect, that I could stand beside you, raise your children, and make a home that was worthy to house someone such as yourself.” Tears began to pool in his chocolate eyes. “But none of that was true. I could never be those things Cresta. That boy died at birth. Do you understand? Sebastian Lightfoot died a long time ago. I couldn’t be a brother because I was born in solitude. I couldn’t be a Breaker because that is not what I am. And I couldn’t belong to you because I have always been hers.”
His voice cracked and the boy that was to be my perfect swept fresh tears off his cheeks.
I put my hand against his shoulder. It was hard and tense, but I squeezed it just enough to let him know I was here…wherever here was.
“Sevie, sweetie you’re not making any sense.”
“I know you don’t understand,” he shook his head and looked to the ground. “I didn’t at first either. All the images came back to me at once. It was a tidal wave of mistakes and regrets. I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea what was real and what were the lies she always told me.” His balled his fist up. His shoulder grew even tighter. “She always lied to me, even in the beginning. How can you build something on lies? How can you expect a house to stand like that?”
And that was when it hit me. This person, whether it be Sevie or a figment of my fevered and drugged imagination, was completely insane. He was looking at the ground, muttering like some lunatic on the side of the road. “It can�
�t,” he said over and over again. “It just won’t stand.”
“What won’t stand? And where are we?” I asked, timid at the idea of hearing the answer.
“I shouldn’t have brought you here,” he said, shaking his head. Tears poured heavy down his cheeks and, wolf hide and muscles aside, he was Sevie again. He was the innocent boy who was too good for the world. He was the soft thing that I just wanted to wrap my arms around and keep safe. “I didn’t mean to. You know that, don’t you Cresta? If I’d have known it was going to be you, I would have never asked for it.”
“For what Sevie? You’re scaring me.” The moon began to shift and the sky darkened. What was once a full and beautiful red moon now sliced itself down to the thinnest of crescents.
“Fate is against us!” Sevie gasped. “I was so afraid!” He shook his head hard. “And so lonely. It had been so long since I spoke, since anyone spoke to me. I hadn’t heard my name in so long that I was afraid I might forget it. And I just wanted someone, anyone. So I begged. And I used my gift. Fate forgive me, I used it to pull you here. But I didn’t know, Cresta. I swear on the world that I didn’t know it would be you.”
Rearing back, I slapped him hard in the face. My hand shook against his hard and weathered cheek. “Snap out of it!” I grabbed his shoulders, much broader than I remembered. “It hasn’t been years Sevie. It hasn’t even been a month. Now I’m not sure what happened to you and I don’t know where you think you are, but-“
“Hell, Cresta Karr. I am in Hell. And I pulled you in with me.”
A hiss, loud and violent, broke through the dark air. Before I could react, Sevie scooped me off my feet. He darted away, carrying me in his arms the way one might do with a baby.
“It’s worse than the wolves,” he huffed. “The serpent is always the worst.”
“Sevie, put me down~” I screamed as he ran through the frigid night air. “You’re not making any sense.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, refusing to either stop or put me down. “It’ll catch us if I don’t keep up. It always does.” Looking over his shoulder, what I saw literally took my breath away. Something large and dark slithered across the black ground. It had glowing yellow eyes and a forked tongue that flickered in and out of its long and terrible mouth.
The Breaker's Resolution: (YA Paranormal Romance) (Fixed Points Book 4) Page 6
