“So generous,” Heidi said.
Borrick huffed a breath through the nose. I figured this was him being as polite as he could be. That we weren’t falling to our knees in thanks for this bone he’d thrown us was irking him.
“The way I see it, we both have a fair shot at the Tide of Ages, yes? One key each—so we meet at the temple, open the gates, and settle this like gentlemen—or, whatever you consider yourself.” He smirked at me.
“I think you mean, ‘settle this like marachti’ and, uh … whatever we call ourselves,” Carson said, pointing at the marachti. “Seeing as you won’t be getting your hands dirty.”
“We’re Seekers,” I muttered, and Carson nodded, pink cheeks glowing as he realized his slip-up. Borrick didn’t answer. “Fine, you want your version of a fair fight. What’s the catch?” I asked.
“No catch. I’m simply stating facts—that we both have a key—and being reasonable about this. Is that so extraordinary?”
“Well … “ I said, “coming from you? Yes.”
Borrick sighed. “You humiliated me, Brand. I’m here seeking redemption. I would like to take my shot at it—and without being underhanded about it.”
I remembered what he’d said when we’d beaten him at the last moment to the Chalice Gloria; that we were like two sides of the same coin, called to Seeking for the same reasons: parents.
Apparently Heidi remembered too, because she shouted, “So what did Daddy think of his little failure? Disappointed, was he?”
Borrick’s jaw tightened. His lips parted to show gritted teeth, clamped down almost hard enough to shatter them. Fire blazed in his eyes. He was just moments away from changing his mind, from telling his marachti to descend upon us and wrest the orb of ice from our hands after all, his skewed view of fairness be damned …
But he didn’t. Instead, he said brusquely, “I’ll see you at the Tide of Ages.” Then he turned, cloak flapping behind him, and shouted something in marachti. The ones on deck snapped back into action, tugging at the sails—and after a few long moments, the ship left the shore, making its way back out into the shimmering deep blue ocean.
22
“If you hadn’t tried pulling me away from the console, I could have reset the water!”
This was Heidi’s first accusation. It came not long after Borrick had left, and we had begun our slow retreat inland, trudging back across the peninsula’s sands. It also came without warning; Heidi had stomped off into the lead, leaving me to quiz Bub about his boat. Carson had just asked, “So we’re going after it?” when Heidi pivoted and exploded.
I blinked. Later, looking back, I understood how deer caught in headlights actually felt—because that sudden shower of sparks, raining down on me out of nowhere, left me totally frozen …
For all of a second.
“What do you mean if I hadn’t pulled you away? You’d been in there for ages by then! How did two extra seconds slow you down enough that you got locked into a stone box of water for twenty bloody minutes?”
“You distracted me! If you’d just let me get on with it, then that orb could’ve been mine right now!”
“Could have been ours, first of all; and second, open your eyes for once, Heidi! You weren’t even close to resetting the arena, and to blame our failure on me is pretty rich.”
“Your failure,” she snapped back. “Which then led to my failure.”
My turn to explode now. “What has gotten into you?” I stamped up, closing the distance between us, and jabbed a finger at her. Somewhere behind, Carson made a noise, which I figured was a bolt of fear that I’d smack her in the chest and start a full-on fight. But I ignored it, and carried on, blustering into Heidi’s face with everything I could muster.
“Heidi, you have never been the most pleasant person to be around, what with that bloody chip on your shoulder or whatever it is—but today you’ve gone too far. You spend weeks growing steadily more irate because we’re not making good headway on finding this Tide of Ages thing—which, by the way, Carson and I are still completely in the dark about regarding what it does, or even what it looks like—and then when we do finally get here, you decide to go for gold in the Pain in the Arse 2017 awards! You refused to listen to a single thing Carson or I advised on our way out of the first temple—”
“Oh, this again? Get over it, Brand—”
“—and now,” I shouted over her, “you totally mess this second one up for us by refusing to yield, and getting yourself locked in a bloody box full of water for half an hour, like a—a crayfish or something!”
“I was seconds away from—”
“You weren’t seconds away from anything,” I spat. “Best you managed was seconds away from drowning. And how’d you circumvent that? You used Lady Angelica’s potion—the potion that we spent a whole month saving up for, endangering ourselves in temples picking up scraps for Benson. What happened to saving it for the final temple?”
“I did what I had to. Or would you have preferred I drowned in there?”
I bit my tongue on that one. Even through my fury, the answer was no. Right now I didn’t feel much like it though, so I didn’t say so. Folding my arms, I curled my lip. “Well, never mind. Thanks to you, we’ll be lucky to make our way into the final temple at all. We might as well call Borrick back and give him that first orb, and let him charge in and take the Tide of Ages for himself.” Begrudgingly, I added with a scowl, “At least his crew knows how to work as a team.”
Heidi didn’t come back with a reply immediately. The momentary lull, likely to be no more than a couple of seconds, was enough for Carson to finally inject himself into the conversation.
“Let’s just calm down,” he said. “We don’t want to go saying things any of us will regret.”
Heidi disagreed. Rounding on him now, her eyes lit with fire again. “Don’t you dare tell me to calm down—you, who’s so painfully bloody useless that we might as well have left you to Borrick and his last group of slack-jawed brutes.”
Metal clanged as Bub shifted. He frowned, shooting Heidi a steely look.
“Nothing to say?” Heidi challenged. “Don’t want to bring it to three against one with those two, now you’ve changed allegiances?”
Bub glanced to me. A vague look of befuddlement crossed his features. Humans: illogical and beyond comprehension.
Carson tried again. “Why don’t we—”
“Why don’t you go away off,” Heidi spat, and turned and stamped off. Some distance away, she turned back and called, “I tried to get Mira to leave you behind. It would’ve been better for all of us if she listened for a change.”
My fists were clenched so tight that my nails dug painful crescents in my palms. I moved to follow—
Carson caught me.
“Don’t,” he said. But he winced—the tiniest splinter of hurt had gotten to him. “Just … let her cool off for a while.”
“I can help her with that,” I said. “I’ll dunk her in the ocean for a while. How long do you reckon is left of that hour her spell granted?”
Carson consulted his wristwatch. Frowning, he tapped its face. “Not sure.”
“Doesn’t matter. We can find out directly. If she comes up spluttering, blue in the face, it’s a victory for Team Brand.”
“Mira,” Carson warned. “You don’t mean that.”
Didn’t I?
… maybe. I wasn’t sure.
Damn it. We’d been cursed with the Heidi Luo from the grouchiest timeline, and here I was unraveling.
If I’d stuck to my guns, and kept on by myself, none of this would be happening right now.
The thought rung out like a bell, stealing the breath from my lungs, and sapping the adrenaline that had coursed through me in our spat. I sagged, exhaling a long sigh. Eyes closed, I tried to shut it out, and just breathe.
Carson patted my shoulder. That same awkward pat from before.
I figured he probably needed one too. And I could just reach out and brush that awkwar
dness away—or briefly intensify it, perhaps—and hug him.
But the thought echoed and echoed:
I could be alone now—and I wouldn’t need to feel like this at all.
Gently, Carson broke my fugue. “So what are we doing?”
Right. Back to action. Couldn’t just stand here in damp clothes under the sun forever. For one, night was coming.
The question was, what were we doing?
Another echo, this one of when I’d first become entangled with Carson in London. Fleeing the Order of Apdau, I’d become frustrated, seeing him as little more than a hanger-on. And so I’d told him our plan then was to escort him back to his hostel and part ways.
Maybe it was for the best that this became our plan again now. We’d all skip back to London and separate. Or maybe just Carson and I would. Bub could head off on his own journey … and Heidi, who still had the first orb needed to reach this Tide of Ages, she could pursue it, or get back to … wherever it was she came from.
Carson: “Mira?”
“I’m thinking.”
Bub said, “Are we sailing to the temple out in the ocean?”
I opened one eye. “That’s where the Tide of Ages is?”
Bub shrugged, a heavy sound as his armor shifted around him. “It is in the direction Mr. Alain travelled. If the Tide of Ages is what you seek, then perhaps it’ll be found there.”
“Describe the temple to me.”
“I don’t know much of it; just details gleaned from a cartographer. Most of it is underwater, I’m told.”
Underwater—that was what the research had shown and was the reason for sourcing these spells from Lady Angelica in the first place. And it was definitely in this world, no further jumping required.
“I guess that’ll be it then,” I said.
Carson asked, “So are we going?”
I was conflicted. Both sides fought for victory, one to leave and forget this whole ordeal—and the other, the Seeker in me, ready and willing to fight on, and to never, ever cede victory to Alain Borrick.
Finally, I forced out, “Yes, we’re going.” God, it was hard to say. “How long will it take to sail there?” I asked Bub.
“Hours yet,” he answered. “We would not arrive before nightfall.”
“We should hunker down for the night; make camp,” Carson said. “Borrick was right; we both have a key each, so he’s not getting a head start on us, no matter how much earlier he arrives. And besides … maybe the rest will rekindle our spirits; make some of us a little … uh … less … undies in a bunch?”
“For Heidi, that would take some serious detangling … but I guess I’ll take it.” Plus, I was feeling pretty tired. It seemed impossible that the maze, becoming stuck in the swamp, and our failure in the water arena had all occurred in the same day. But then, the road to the Chalice Gloria had been months of research culminating in a forty-hour stretch of insanity-inducing wakefulness, hadn’t it? This sort of thing—periods of general life punctuated by madcap days that could fill entire books—was the life of a Seeker, one I’d need to grow accustomed to. (And maybe stock up on 5-Hour Energy for.)
We chose to build a fire just shy of the swamp, scavenging dried creepers and scraps of wood to build it. Heidi, who had earlier gone only as far as the swamp’s edge before standing sullenly against a tree like an angsty teenager, didn’t bother to help—but when the fire was roaring, and twilight had fallen, and the encroaching night sapped almost all the day’s near-unbearable heat, she crept over again to join us.
“So you can stand us again, can you?” I said.
“Mira,” Carson warned.
I shut up.
Bub fixed Heidi and me with a confused look.
We were quiet for a long time—or maybe just a few minutes. They were the longest, tensest few minutes of my life, though, I was pretty sure.
Finally, Bub pushed to his feet. “I’m hungry,” he said. “I’ll go catch some fish for us. They surface under the moonlight here.”
“I’ll come too, I like fishing,” Carson said, jumping to his feet. “In theory. I mean, I like the idea of eating fish. Also, being far, far away from here right now.”
Bub looked, again, somewhat confused by this, but agreed. He and Carson took to the swamp’s edge to acquire a long, sharp-ended stick for Carson to use—Bub would use his weapon—and then they ambled up the peninsula, chattering all the while; or at least Bub fielded the many quick-fire questions Carson shot at him without pause.
When they were out of earshot, Heidi said, “Cut him loose.”
“Huh?”
She didn’t look at me; just stared into the fire between us, knees bunched together by her chest. “The orc,” she said.
“He has a name. And why should I get rid of him? He’s—” Doing a damn lot more to pull his weight than you, I was going to say. Instead I settled for, “He’s helping us out. He saved us. You’d have been strangled by a plant if not for him.”
Heidi pursed her lips. “I don’t trust him.”
“Why?”
“He knows Borrick. You saw them talk on the beach.”
“So? You know Borrick. Does that mean I shouldn’t trust you too?”
“I don’t care whether you trust me or not. The orc worked for Borrick—you went toe to toe with him after you stole Decidian’s Spear. I don’t trust that he’s not still allied with him.”
“Playing some sort of long game, is he? Seems a bit beyond the capacity of a ‘slack-jawed brute,’ doesn’t it?”
“Slack-jawed brutes can utilize planning and forward-thinking. Especially when it’s provided for them by someone with a brain bigger than their eyeball. God, even Carson manages to think about the future one in a while.”
“Shut up,” I warned.
Now Heidi did look at me, gaze flicking up and over the fire and meeting mine. Flames danced in our pupils, would’ve danced even if the campfire were extinguished.
She opened her mouth—
“Don’t you dare,” I cut across. “Whatever you want to say about Carson, you keep it to yourself.”
“He’s useless,” she said.
“He’s far from useless. But you know who we can boil down to a single-word description? You. You’re a selfish cow, Heidi. You think about yourself and only yourself, and every little thing you’ve done under the guise of teamwork is all for your own sake.”
“I almost got rampaged by orcs stealing the Chalice Gloria for my sake?” she shot back. “Also, ‘selfish cow’ is two words.”
“You wanted to know it was real,” I said. And I was on my feet. Since when was I on my feet? “You wanted to see it, know that the myth was true. Whether I got it, Borrick got it, or it fell into a lake of lava—none of that mattered, as long as you got what you wanted!”
“Is that so?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Fine. And what about you? What’re you, Mira Brand?” Heidi was on her feet now too, voice raised and shrill—like mine had been. In the night, our shouting match surely carried over the cool, still air to where Carson and Bub stabbed at fish.
“You’re weak,” Heidi spat. “And a hypocrite. You spend all your time trying to live up to your ‘famous name,’ trying to prove some stupid point—and yet all you want to do is distance yourselves from your parents. And you should—because them? They did do great things. You? You’re never going to. Not with a weakling like him—” she jabbed in the direction of the fishermen “—hanging on to your every move. You want to be a Seeker? Act like one.”
I was shaking. My fists were balled so tight at my sides that I was sure my fingers would be bloodied when they opened, palms sliced to tatters.
There was so much I wanted to say.
All I could manage was a low, whispered, “Same to you, Heidi.”
We engaged in a silent battle, staring each other down across the crackling fire, tongues of orange licking the night …
Finally, Heidi marched away, heading west.
“Where are you going?”
“You heard Borrick,” she answered. “One key each; a fair shot at it. I’m going to take it—alone.”
And she left us, disappearing into the night like a shadow sliding across the sands.
23
I fell into a stupefied silence.
Should I follow? Surely that was the right thing to do—the movie thing to do, perhaps, bailing her out at an opportune moment after she learned a lesson about herself. But after everything she’d said, her stubborn refusal to acknowledge the reality of her breathtaking levels of stupidity … I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to go after her.
So I watched her recede into the darkness until she was gone.
Then I sat, head in my hands, and just … stared into the fire.
Heidi had left us.
She’d gone on alone.
I was free of her.
So why didn’t I feel good about it?
Sometime, the sound of voices returned, cutting through the night. Carson was cheerful. Bub, too, had a pleased note to his voice. By the sound of it, he was congratulating Carson on a job well done. Carson was not being particularly bashful about accepting the compliment. More than once, he trilled, “Did you see it? When I speared that one that almost got away! He was heading back to the sea, thought he’d lost us—and then HI-YAH! Dinner!”
Bub chuckled, sounding like a parent humoring a young, hyperactive child. “You aimed well.”
Carson rejoined me first. Though my back was to him, I heard him jog up, closing the last of the distance between us.
“Mira,” he cried excitedly. “Look what I got!”
I turned, glancing backward over my shoulder.
My face was flat—and Carson noticed.
“Look at—” He stopped in his tracks. The oversized fish he’d been carrying, speared by what remained of his broken improvised pole, swung like a pendulum. “What’s wrong?” And then, after a beat, a note of alarm lit his face. “Where’s Heidi?”
“She went.”
The Tide of Ages (The Mira Brand Adventures Book 2) Page 14
