by Jasmine Walt
“We don’t know much about spirit elementals. Could they transfer over their abilities? I guess it’s possible...but I don’t know.”
“Don’t sound so sure,” I say bitterly. “Is it so bad to think this girl didn’t’ die for nothing?”
“I never said she died for nothing,” he says sharply. “We stopped them from using her to hurt others. Isn’t that something enough?”
I scowl at him. “No, it’s not enough.”
“I know,” he says, shaking his head. I’m relieved to see some grief in his eyes. “Just please, give me one moment. I think I know something that might make sense of this.” William strides away, still holding the talisman in one hand, then retrieves a book from his pack. He slides rapidly through the pages, freezes at one and, after a long moment, joins me once more. “Look at this.”
“Hmmm...” I try to make sense of it, but fail. “What does it mean?” I point to a few of the words. “These are the different elementals?”
William rubs the heels of his hands into his eyes, then settles next to me with the open book. “It’s an explanation of sorts. More of a theory, really, because we can’t confirm anything about the Forever Girls, but the rest of it holds up. My father created it.”
“An explanation?”
“Yes. Look at the arrows.” He points to them. “Spirit rules over fire; fire over water; water over air; air over earth; earth over spirit.”
“But water puts out a fire.”
“This isn’t science, Cord,” William says darkly. “It’s talking about what elements we can control. See, as Ankou, we are of the air. But many Ankou have extra abilities relating to the earth, such as our ability to heal it.”
I point to a few other words. “What do these senses indicate then?”
“What connects us,” he says. “Now here’s the other part. They rumored only one Forever Girl would be solely in the spirit. The rest are also grounded in other elements. This means most likely the girl we tried to save was another element. I don’t think the only gift you would have gotten would be psychometry.”
“How do we know which one then?”
“We test it.” He leaves my side and returns moments later with a dish of water and a candle. “You can tap into your Ferrum nature now, right?”
“A little.”
He pushes the candle over. “Channel whatever emotion does that, and try creating a wind to put it out or encourage the flame to grow.”
I try. Nothing happens.
“We already know you have control over the earth from your Ankou nature,” he says. That’s how we heal things. So let’s try the water.” He slides over the small dish. “Touch it and see if anything happens.”
I do as I’m told. All that happens is my finger gets wet. “Maybe all she gave me was that one gift.”
William presses his fist to his mouth and stares at the two items. “No, I’m sure it’s something else. It has to be.”
“Why, William? Why does it have to be?”
As I avert my attention to the page William is looking at now, I regret my words. Scribbled next the image is a letter addressed to William and signed Your Loving Father.
These were his father’s theories. This is the only way his father lives on.
“I could try harder,” I suggest.
William’s face contorts in disgust as he slams the book shut. “No, forget it.” He returns the book to his pack and sits with his back against the wall. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I scoot closer. “I know what you were thinking,” I say. “Maybe you’re right. It makes sense. I’m just new to this. Give me some time. Or maybe she was also Ankou, so it just didn’t change things for me.”
He nods, but he won’t look at me. “Do me a favor, Cord?”
“Sure,” I say hesitantly. “What do you need?”
“I want you to keep the talisman, but my memories of my father—they’re personal. There’s something you can do to severe yourself from your psychometry with an object, but it cannot be undone. Will you do it?” He swivels his head toward me. “For me?”
I shrug one shoulder. “Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I could do that.”
William explains what I must do, and the magic is simple. A small incantation while I hold the object and pass it over fire. It only works, he tells me, if I do it myself. I have to willingly surrender my ability to read this object.
I pass the object over the fire. “Deditionem. Oblitus. Dele.”
Surrender. Forget. Erase.
Then, as William explains I must, I prick my finger and squeeze a drop of blood onto the object and then use another drop of blood to extinguish the candle’s flame.
And just like that, it is done.
William takes the talisman and runs his fingers over it once more. He presses it into my hands and grasps his hands over mine. He looks down into my eyes. “Promise me, Cord. Promise you will keep this forever.”
“I will.” I stare at it a long while before slipping the necklace around my neck. “Can I control what I see as easily as what I don’t?”
William shakes his head. “Maybe eventually, but many with the gift never get that far. The visions come when they come. You can block them from coming, as I taught you, but you cannot make them come. That relies on your compatibility with the object.”
“I see,” I say, even though I really don’t see at all. I suppose it’s like most things; not really important unless it gets me back to Anna. I’ll figure out the psychometry as it becomes necessary to do so. I bite my lip, trying to work up the courage to say what I need to say. “I want you to do something for me now.”
“Anything I can do for you, I will.”
“I want to stop ignoring this.” I wave my finger back and forth between him and me. “Us. You are the only thing in this world that doesn’t terrify me.”
“Cord—”
“No excuses. I’m not asking for forever, William. But I need us to be what we are without letting lifetimes stand between us. I need it to be all right, just for now, or I will go home from this place with a part of me left behind.”
“That had to be the one thing you ask for?” His eyes droop in the corners. His mouth sags into a frown. “I can’t pretend I don’t care about you—can’t pretend you don’t fill that void in my life, bring back to life the essence of the family I have lost—but it complicates things.”
I shake my head slowly. “It’s already complicated, William. I’m the one who has to leave this behind.”
“I know,” he says sadly. “But if you think it would hurt you to leave a part of yourself behind, imagine how it would hurt me if you took all I had in me with you.”
He says the words—words that should rebuild that wall between us—but instead it all comes crashing down. The longer he stares into my eyes, the closer his body comes to mine. My heart skips so fast in my chest I think I have forgotten what it feels like to breathe.
“Damn it, Cordovae,” he says.
And then, his lips meet mine, and rain tumbles from the sky like marbles falling from the heavens.
I get lost in the kiss. The way his mouth presses to mine, the way his tongue prods gently at my own and slides over my teeth. I sink into his arms and wrap mine over his shoulders and around his neck. His hands trail up my sides but hesitate and ultimately freeze just below my breasts. My breathing hitches, and the kiss slows. He breaks away.
“You all right, Cordovae?”
I nod. His kiss proves things can be right between a man and a woman. It proves that I can be aroused instead of repulsed by a man’s touch. But at the same time, I am all at once shy. I’m not sure what happens now. I stare out the cavern’s mouth and watch the rain. For now, this is all right, and that’s all that matters.
William points to the sky. “No clouds.”
The words sit between us another moment. Forming something.
“No clouds!” he says again, louder this time, and he picks me up and swings me around, t
hen gets his father’s book and opens it to the diagram again. “I knew it! Cordovae—look!”
I stare down at the pages. The spirit elemental—she must have been Chibold. Ruling over water.
What that means for me, I don’t know, but William is smiling, and that makes me happy.
32
April 1692
We settle by the fire, and I can’t stop looking out the cavern. Yes, the rain was magical, but I’m more concerned by what—or rather who—I hadn’t seen.
“I hope Tess is okay.”
William takes my hand in his. “She just doesn’t want to be seen as weak,” he says. “What happened, anyway?”
I tell him about the conversation.
“She doesn’t like anyone knowing, that’s all.”
“But if I had known—”
He places his finger to my lips, silencing me. “Then you would look out for her better?” he asks. He doesn’t wait for me reply. “That’s exactly what she doesn’t want.”
“And you?” I ask. “What’s your weakness?”
“You,” he says, his tone only half-joking, his lopsided smile curling up a little more on one side. “Cord, I know you will leave me to return to Anna. I understand it, but I am still angry for the cards we’ve been dealt.”
“Sorry,” I whisper. I swallow around the lump in my throat. “I wish I could stay...that Anna was here.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just don’t make this harder for me. I’ve seen enough people come and go.”
“Can’t we enjoy what time we do have?” I ask, but already I know the answer. We don’t have the time to enjoy whatever is happening between us. Our moment has passed.
He smiles at me sadly, offering a certain kindness in his silence. He sits up and wraps his strong arms around me, pulling my back into his chest, and I rest my hand on the forearm he has draped over my shoulder.
“You’re a strong woman,” he says. “Strong enough to break a man like me.”
When Tess returns, I tell her about the gift the spirit elemental gave me. The gift of her spirit joining with mine, the psychometry, the chibold abilities.
Tess chews on her thumbnail. “What does it mean?” Her hand drops away from her face. “Does this mean you are a spirit elemental now? Are you still Ankou?”
William sips at a canteen filled with animal blood that Tess has brought back for him. “She’s still Ankou.”
“I don’t feel any different,” I admit. “Not now, not like I felt while it was happening. I don’t have much control over it, either.”
“Then it doesn’t really change much,” Tess says, “does it?”
William stands and helps me to my feet. “We don’t know,” he says. “Maybe it changes nothing, maybe it changes everything. But right now we have nothing to rely on. It won’t be long now before the Maltorim find us, and we can’t risk traveling right now or we might have a collapse.”
My brow tightens, and I frown. “I thought we only sleep every decade?”
“Normally, yes. But excessive traveling can cause an early collapse. You might be all right as you had one not long ago, when you were reborn as Ankou. But Tess and I have already gone nearly eight years since our last.”
“Then where do we go?” I ask. “We still have a lot of Morts to move.”
William tosses his items into his pack and slings it over his shoulder. “We’ll have to find other Ankou. Help them for a while until things settle down in Salem. Then we can return there. Hopefully the damage won’t be too far done by then.”
“We can’t do that,” I say. “We don’t have the time. I don’t have time!”
He reaches out to gently touch my arm, but I snap myself away. His expression falls, but he doesn’t say anything. He turns and heads into the forest. Tess stares at me as though I just killed a kitten and follows him outside.
My whole self is shutting down. I don’t know where to go, and I know my best hope is to stay with them until I figure out what I’m going to do. Fear twists knots in my stomach. What if I never figure out what to do? What if I never get back from here...get back to Anna?
I grab my pack and take a shaky breath, then start after William and Tess. As soon as I step out into the woods, I’m grabbed from behind and yanked behind a large berry bush, a hand pressed firmly over my mouth.
“Shhh.” It’s William. Slowly he releases me and lifts a finger to his lips.
Tess elbows me and points into the shadows draping between the trees. Fresh young flowers are springing up along the deer paths, giving the false appearance of a beautiful world in bloom. Weaving between the trees are Morts and Maltorim soldiers. We can’t even risk going back into our shelter, as stepping out into the open again only further risks us being discovered.
The darkness of the night sky pales, and I know we don’t have much time to relocate. But nor do the Cruor following us have much time before they need to seek shelter themselves.
Tess tugs my sleeve and tilts her head to indicate a small passage in the trees behind us. I glance back to William, who gives a reaffirming nod and nudges me to follow Tess.
We walk a few yards before Tess spins back to face us. “They have Marked Strigoi with them,” she says in a warning tone. “That’s the last thing we need. We’ll have to find a new shelter, but first we need to lose them.”
She crouches down and digs her hands into the soil, then starts to rub it over her dress and skin. William does the same, and I follow suit. The soil is sticky from pollen and rain.
“This is to cover to our scent?” I ask.
Tess rolls her eyes. “No, I just like playing with dirt.”
William stands. “Let’s go.”
But we don’t make it another two feet before we nearly walk into a large wolf blocking our path, growling.
William yanks me to the side and starts running, nearly dragging me along, Tess right ahead of us. “Faster!” he yells. “Go, go, go.”
The first rays of sunlight are already starting to peek over the tree tops in the distance. I don’t care what William and Tess think, we’re going to have to travel. I just don’t know where we’re going to go. I don’t know where we could ever be safe now.
The wolf is joined by a leopard, both barreling behind us, and then a hawk dipping overhead. It seems to only be the three of them. The Cruor must have already taken shelter nearby.
Our feet shuffle over the deer path. William and Tess’ heavy breaths are like thunder in my ears. The legs of the Strigoi in our pursuit whip through tall grass.
They’re everywhere.
The world around me turns gray and black, the ground and trees turning to crumbling decay. Panic races through my chest. The forest is dying right before my eyes. Everything falls away to barren, cold, black desert of cracked earth.
“Illusions, Cord!” Tess screams from somewhere ahead of me.
But I can’t see her. I can’t see William. I can’t see anything real, and suddenly it’s like I’m running blind, feeling my way through the forest, branches whipping at my stomach. I am nearly winded as I crash into a tree and push my way around it, feeling the cold rough bark, trying to envision what is really ahead of me.
There’s not a hint of life anywhere in sight, but the scent of wildflowers brings me back. The aroma of spring breaking through winter, the taste of honey on the air. Slick leaves slide under my feet, twigs snag at my hair, and hanging moss tickles coolly against my face and neck.
Slowly, my vision forces its way back, and I can see Tess and William ahead of me, looking back at me over their shoulders, and I can hear the animalistic growls of the wolf and leopard behind us.
I run harder, my legs burning, my skin tingling, almost itching. Smoke blooms up ahead, but forward is the only clear path for us to take. The smoke is so thick I’m choking now, even as I run, and the itching is intensifying—must be cedar smoke. But the lack of oxygen sends thoughts flooding into my mind.
There was a way for Adrian, a Cruor, to walk in a field o
f dandelions. The Maltorim has already used the magic of the Ankou and the blood of a spirit elemental to control the Morts. Now they plan to use the magic of a spirit elemental and the blood of the Ankou to walk in the sun.
If only we could walk in the sun . . .
As we break out into an open field, the pressure of the sun tingles my skin, but the real heat is from the fire surrounding us. A forest fire. How did all that wet wood catch fire?
I cough on the smoke and resist the urge to scratch the hives welting on my arms and neck. Through the billows of gray, I can’t see very far in any direction, but William comes up beside me and takes my hand. Patterns of light shift behind him, and I can’t tell if it’s the daylight through the forest canopy or the dance of the fire.
“Where are they?” I whisper between my coughing fits.
But as soon as the words leave my lips, I sense them behind me. William and I spin around and back further into the clearing. William feels heavier next to me, holding my hand, and I know the sunlight torches him, though it is not bothering me in the same way it had before. With the impending completion of sunrise, my bones do little more than ache.
I can’t see Tess, and my heart beats out of my chest. Where is she? Where’s Tess? My mind screams her name, but I can’t do anything other than stare at the glowing eyes of the Strigoi—only the leopard and wolf visible now—as they prowl closer.
The hawk falls to a patch of wild mushrooms on the ground in front of us, dead.
“Got him,” Tess says from somewhere behind us.
I’m trembling with the urge to turn around and look at her, to get the visual confirmation that she is all right, but I can’t take my eyes off our attackers. I ball my hands into tight fists as the smoke burns my lungs and makes my throat itch.
My wings tingle along my spine, and that is my only real indication that the sun has taken full effect in the clearing. The wolf and the leopard back away, whimpering, and it’s only then I dare a glance over my shoulder.
