by Beth Ball
She followed a trail of pollen and the whisper-groans of the roots that lay hidden, stretching into worlds dark and vast, far below.
Jasper exhaled relief when she returned. “I have been waiting for you,” he said. A breeze blew, and she turned to her former trunk.
Thick moss grew up the sides, and many branches were bare that should not have been.
“I did my best to keep you alive and with me,” Jasper said. His voice was tired.
She smelled moss on him too. A new kind. He was sick.
“Were you able to keep me nearby?” Enidia asked.
He chucked sadly on the breeze. “Not well.”
She stepped forward till their trunks touched. Enidia ran her arm branches down his sides and trailed her leaves over his.
“You protected me, that day, from the girl.”
“I did, my love.” Jasper held his limbs still.
“I do not know if I can return to my trunk . . .”
A shudder of pollen fell from above. “Then join me in mine.”
Enidia leaned her palm against his bark.
Jasper accepted her with a sigh of surprise. There, inside the shelter of his trunk, he waited, the same as he had always been. He wrapped one arm around her waist. With the other, he traced the line of her face with the tip of a finger, held her close, and brought her lips to his.
Later, Enidia would step back into the trunk he had kept alive for her. She would help bring his body and her own back to health. They would smile at the sunlight together and greet one another with warm scents each morning.
But tonight, they explored this new kind of freedom the girl had sentenced them to. Inside Jasper’s trunk, the two dryads clung to one another. Roots intertwined. The spaces of their arms, faces, bodies perfectly shared.
And they found it wasn’t so different from the freedom they’d known before.
Chapter 21
Cerdris froze as a single silhouette separated from the stretched shapes in the alley before him. A towering devil of some kind, with horned wings that spread gently in an absent breeze . . .
His hands shook as he slowly turned, his neck craning back to stare at the monster behind him.
“Guardian, human, not monster.” The creature clicked his tongue between his teeth. “Shouldn’t a writer know the difference?” His golden eyes narrowed at Cerdris before he turned his attention to the fox over his shoulder. “I’m not sure your alarm was justified, Juliet.” The guardian raised an eyebrow and motioned the fox closer. “What harm are we anticipating from him?”
Cerdris swallowed a shriek as a large gray hand reached across the space between them, and the guardian poked him in the chest. Juliet trotted to the figure’s side.
The guardian nodded as though listening to the fox speak inside his head. “Interesting, interesting. Oh.” The golden eyes brightened. “A story thief, is he?” Wide gray lips spread into a crooked grin. “And what have you to say to that, boy?”
“I, umm . . .” Cerdris’s breath caught in his throat, only the shallowest wheezes reaching his lungs.
“Well, go on.” The guardian leaned closer, and Cerdris’s trembling worsened. “How much were you planning to make from Mistress Arelle’s stories after you sold them to the guards?”
“I wasn’t, uh . . .” Breath screeched through his narrowed throat. Mother had told him stories of the guardians before she passed, but the ones from her tales looked nothing like the black-clad creature before him with a sweeping cape and long, twisted horns.
“Mummy may have omitted a few details,” the creature said with a smirk. “Let me finish this sentence you’re having such trouble with.” He tugged at the elbows of his leather jacket, showing sharp wrist bones between his gloves and sleeve. “You weren’t going to share any of your profits with her, were you? Or warn her of the danger you planned to inflict.”
Cerdris looked down and shook his head. He needed the money, and with her job for Otmund, with board covered too—
“Do not change the subject.” The guardian pressed his fingertip against his temple and closed his eyes. “Have you any notion as to the power, the magic, of Persephonie’s stories?”
He shook his head again. Was this creature reading his mind?
“Guardian,” the figure growled with a lunging step forward.
Cerdris cried out and fell back onto his hands. His right wrist struck the stone. The impact lurched up his arm and clamped his jaw shut.
The guardian drew himself up tall once more and straightened the waist of his jacket. “Apollo, to be precise, one of five.” He swept into a low bow. “Had you behaved differently, you and I might be on the same side.” The sideways smirk returned. “But I cannot abide someone trying to cheat one blessed by fate.”
“I-I really didn’t mean to cheat her,” Cerdris stammered. “Persephonie is my friend. She—”
“And that,” Apollo snarled, “is what makes my task additionally unpleasant as well as why you will be allowed to live, albeit not here. Now, give me the pages.”
He couldn’t be serious. Was the guardian part of some strange saudad prank that Persephonie had arranged? Or, gods. Drugas was calling in his remaining debt early and had arranged an elaborate ruse to scare him into paying.
Apollo chuckled, the sound crackling like ice along Cerdris’s bones. “This Drugas you fear has no hold on me, though I wonder if he would be as easy to intimidate as you.”
“No, he—”
“That wasn’t a question.” Apollo waved his hand once more, and the golden orbs of his eyes flared brighter. “Her magic has the power to heal and to kill, to create and destroy, yet you would trade sacred stories for the chance at a few gold coins.” The guardian revealed sharpened teeth, the canines overstretched like the fangs of a wolf. “Give your pages to me, and omit none.”
Cerdris couldn’t breathe as terror gripped his throat. He couldn’t surrender them. Doing so would mean—
The golden eyes turned to Persephonie’s fox. “Juliet, where are the pages?”
Soft paws poked at his side. Juliet was trying to help him! No. A weight lifted from his pocket. The alley’s edges grew darker. Still he could not breathe.
“Come, Juliet.” Apollo’s voice had grown muffled. His boots echoed dully against the cobblestones. “See if you can arrange a note to Persephonie for me, from this false friend of hers.”
His pages—weeks of work. He couldn’t let this Apollo steal them. Cerdris rolled onto his side, crawling after the towering figure.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” The guardian’s voice faded, replaced by the grating of leather against loose flecks of stone.
A sharp pain at the back of his head as Apollo hoisted his body from the ground by the hair. What type of magic was this? He clawed at the straps of leather across Apollo’s chest, but his hands weren’t working properly. They merely flapped like fish tossed onto the dock.
“I think it will be best for me to remove you from this situation entirely.” Apollo’s breath rippled in waves of heat over the side of his face, crawling down into his ear.
No, Cerdris tried to shout. His throat made a low, creaking rasp instead. There was nothing beyond the low voice and a distant, gray gold. His vision turned black as the world faded away.
Lucien’s guards dragged forward the shaking figure of a beaten werewolf guard, tossing the body at his feet. “The famous Drugas,” Lucien drawled, drumming his fingers on the arms of his chair. “Tell me, where are these mystical stories I was promised?”
The guard lifted his head and shoulders, propped by his elbows on the marble floor. A pool of congealing blood spread beneath him. “I-I can explain, my lord. The writer—”
With a simple flick of his wrist, a whip cracked from the side of the chamber. The guard screamed as the leather struck his flesh.
“My patience is waning.” Lucien rose. “Answer my questions directly, and our time together shall be brief.”
He took the guard’s whimper as assent to th
e terms. A pity. The ones who fought back were worth sparing. The others . . .
“Do you or do you not have the pages for me?”
The guard had courage enough to look him in the eye. “I do not.”
Another wave of his finger. The whip cracked. The guard screamed.
“Do you know the whereabouts of the writer who was to acquire the stories for us and our cause?”
The guard’s shoulders shook, and his head drooped down. Gentle sobs racked his body.
“Micaela,” Lucien drawled. The shadow tiger padded into the lantern-lit glow, tugging the umbral dark of the Shadowlands with her. “Take our guest below, and see what he remembers.”
His tiger growled her eager assent, her black tongue flicking over the soft edges of her lips.
The man’s screams echoed throughout the chamber long after Micaela had dragged his broken form from Lucien’s sight.
Such a shame.
Lucien returned to his padded chair and rested his rotting face against the soft, scarlet velvet. Perhaps the fault was his—had he missed something along the way? He chuckled to himself as he traced the ivory inlay of the chair. Elusive challenges had a charm of their own.
“This city will still be yours,” he whispered to the shadows. In the dark, southern reaches of Azuria, across lands of Shadow and Bright, Alessandra’s power grew. He would not fail the goddess. The souls of Andel-ce Hevra, he was certain, would one day soon be hers.
A rattling chain was the first to greet Cerdris as he awoke into a cold, shadowy domain. “Ach.” He raised his hand to his head, hoping to ease the pounding behind his skull.
The tinging rumble of metal against stone followed his movements.
A sharp breath filled his lungs with dank, stale air. “Where—”
“Welcome to the Court of Apollo,” a low, rhythmic voice said out of the darkness around him.
Cerdris’s bindings clanked as he spun around. The voice seemed to surround him. His chains came from the floor. Were there no walls here to protect him?
The disembodied voice chuckled. “You will see me soon, as your eyes learn to adjust. But rest assured, I mean you no harm.”
“How can I be sure?” Cerdris tried to rub his sore wrists. He winced as the metal dug into his forearms instead.
Jangling chains came nearer. “Very good.” The voice lifted somewhat, like a smile. “I see why he selected you.”
Selected . . . No, it couldn’t be. Had he truly been taken to Apollo’s lair? His connections in Andel-ce Hevra. His debt to Drugas. What would Persephonie think?
“Ah, I have been hearing much of her these last few days.”
How could everyone in this shadow-space hear his thoughts and yet he remained blind to them?
“A cruel gift from the guardian, in my case,” the voice answered.
Cerdris lowered his head into his hands. He needed to think. To figure out where he was and why. “Who are you?”
The footfalls drew closer, and an armored warrior emerged out of the swirling shadows around him. Dark green eyes narrowed as the warrior took him in. “A figure of legend in saudad stories. One who betrayed the guardian Apollo. A fae cursed with true immortality. One who has known love and loss. Take your pick.” The warrior glanced over his armored shoulder.
“I don’t understand.”
His new companion nodded. “Ah, so you have not yet gleaned all the saudad stories. Or perhaps this is a story Persephonie does not know. Better still, did she keep it from you on purpose, knowing you sold her tales to her enemies?” The warrior slowly turned.
Two curved holes gaped open along the back of the warrior’s armor, framing cruel scars between the metal panels covering his shoulder blades.
Cerdris drew back and away with a gasp. What must this figure have endured to sustain such injuries? And enemies . . . what did he mean?
The warrior crouched down in front of Cerdris, just outside his arm’s reach. “What indeed, Story-Stealer.”
“Wait, I didn’t—”
“No. Apollo stopped you.”
Cerdris said nothing, waiting as his eyes adjusted to the light. He studied the figure before him.
The warrior’s face was equal parts fierce and beautiful. His skin was a deep bronze, a few shades darker than Persephonie’s, and the loose strands of his shoulder-length hair played between deepest brown and pure black.
“It is good that you wish to describe me, Story-Stealer.”
Cerdris gritted his teeth at the repetition of the name.
“Hmh,” the warrior laughed. “Let us return to what you asked me before. I am Emryc, disgraced protector of Circe, the first Chosen of Cassandra.”
These names were familiar to him. Persephonie had mentioned them in passing, but she told him of Faela and Meris instead.
A calculating smile spread over half of Emryc’s face. “I am glad to see that I am not entirely forgotten.” The warrior’s dark green gaze flickered over Cerdris. From amid the thick locks of his hair, the pointed tips of bronze fae ears emerged. “Apollo has a new job for you,” Emryc continued. “It will grant you a purpose here and, as he says, make supervising you an easier task.” Emryc rose and held out his hand. “Come.”
The iron chains fell to Cerdris’s side with a clatter. Was the warrior setting him free?
Emryc’s mirth was deeper this time. “The lord of this realm desires an audience with his story-keeper before you begin your first day of work.” He strode into the swirling mist, each step confident, methodical.
Cerdris scrambled to follow after him. His head spun with the first rise to his feet in what must have been days. He was unfamiliar with this term, story-keeper. And where did Apollo make his court?
“Come along, Story-Stealer,” the warrior called over his shoulder. “Fate has smiled upon you.” Emryc paused momentarily, glancing back at Cerdris behind him. “You get to record my story first.”
Chapter 22
“THE FIRST CHOSEN OF CASSANDRA”
Furious shouts and the tling of metal sent Circe sprinting down the hall toward the throne room. Their attack wasn’t meant to happen for another day. She called upon the river of Cassandra’s magic that flowed from deep within. “Let me and Emryc return to the light,” she whispered.
Circe gritted her teeth as she slammed her shoulder into the reinforced wooden door, the iron barbs biting her bared skin. She spun into the room, hands raised to shoulder height, magic singing at her fingertips . . . and froze.
The multicolored lanterns that drifted around the room hovered in a circle around the king, Emryc, and Daugath. Fomorian soldiers stood with weapons drawn in a line behind King Lefre. The gemstones in their chests glowed garnet, a sign Daugath had told her to look out for. “It means they are moving into a state of blood fury,” he had said. “They’ll stop at nothing to fend off the threat to their sovereign.”
But it was not the king who was under threat. Circe gasped as she took in the scene before her. Emryc, her warrior, knelt at the feet of the king, his sword kicked away out of his reach. Lefre held the curved blade of an axe against the back of the fae’s neck. Opposite the two figures, Daugath’s chest heaved, his amethyst gemstone pulsing pale purple light. Out of it, a gentle trickle of violet twirled through the air, drifting toward one of the king’s hovering lanterns.
King Lefre’s voice boomed out across the throne room. “Our final guest has arrived,” he called, raising his gaze toward her with a smile. “I had almost despaired of your making it in time.”
“Circe—” Emryc groaned. His warning stopped short as Lefre pressed the axe blade harder against the skin of his neck. The scarlet answer of his blood shone bright in the lantern light.
The king turned his face to the corner of the room and gave a slight nod. Rows of metallic footsteps stomped out of the darkness toward her. She had missed the hidden guards in her eagerness to aid her companions. Emryc’s voice from their first years of training together echoed in her mind. “Awareness of yo
ur surroundings will save your life. Lack of attention will lose it.”
Daugath’s head whipped toward her, his bright eyes almost white. They had only a moment to decide their course.
Cassandra help me. Emryc would sacrifice himself to see her freed, she knew as deeply as she held their most sacred stories. And if either she or Daugath attacked the king or his forces now, they would seal Emryc’s fate.
The king’s deep voice broke through the storm of her thoughts. “While your goddess may not answer, storyteller, I can help you sort through your more pressing questions.”
Circe’s blood pounded in her ears. No, no, no, no, no. She had to do something.
“Answer me this, saudad.” The king spoke into the recesses of her mind as Daugath had done in their time in the caves. “Will you join your two companions on their doomed path, or will you continue in service to me as you were promised?”
The general had explained how the telepathy worked to some extent, but they’d had little time to practice with so much to plan. A waste, considering how their plan had fallen apart the same night as Emryc’s arrival.
“Hold,” the king called, his hand raised to the guards who had almost surrounded her.
Their metallic clomping stopped.
“I await your reply,” the king said.
“Our thoughts flow like a river through a canyon,” Daugath had told her. “The roar of the river may be heard from far above, giving a picture of its breadth and depth. The accuracy of this matters not, for the impression is the same.”
Finally, it made sense to her. As deeply as she knew their most sacred stories . . .
“Mighty king,” Circe cried, striding toward the center of the throne room. The nearest guard seized her around the waist. The force of his grasp drove the breath from her lips, but she swallowed the groan of her bruised ribs.
The lines of Emryc’s wings tensed. He was preparing to make a final stand against the king. It would end in his death. Daugath’s bleeding gemstone glowed lavender, the same shade as the urns he’d housed inside his cave.
