by Brindi Quinn
I was too tired to inch away.
“What is the necklace for?” asked Scardo reluctantly. Call it change of heart, or realization of futility, it looked like he’d finally given up and decided to join in with the conversation.
Darch was the one to offer an answer to the question that I, too, had been tossing around.
“According to what Ardette gathered at Druelca, the pendant releases the tap on an Elf’s power, making it so that the power freely comes out with emotion, and as such, is amplified greatly.”
Power emitted.
“With . . . emotion?” Though my voice held inquiry, I’d suspected it was something like that all along.
“To put it simply: the greater the emotion, the greater the power emitted.”
I understood. Those bursts of warmth were bursts of emotion. Bursts of affection. Bursts of love. The warmth had been strongest when he’d confessed, when I’d been injured, when we’d been reunited after time apart. During times of great affection or concern. During times of commitment. During moments of passion.
But even that first night in the Cave of Discovery, I’d felt a little bit of it . . . .
This proves it. The warmth is yours.
I looked up at Nyte and realized for the first time that my hand had, at some point, moved on its own. It was clutching the bottom of Nyte’s cloak in a shaking grip similar to the one he’d given mine earlier. Maybe his too had been an act of the subconscious.
Despite the heaviness of the situation, Nyte looked away awkwardly, possibly blushing, though it was too hard to tell in the firelight.
“But will it really kill Aura?” asked Kantú nervously.
Darch shrugged. “No clue.”
“Let us find out,” said a woman’s cold voice that belonged to neither Kantú nor me.
It caught us all off guard. All of us except for Nyte, that is.
“Finally you have chosen to reveal yourself, cousin?” He stood, and pulling himself from my loosening hand, walked to the far side of the cave where the entrance lay. “Hiding in the shadows is a disgrace.”
Again, his long ears had detected what the rest of ours couldn’t. How long she’d been standing there, listening, I don’t know.
“Hello there, Rend. Didn’t expect to see you butting in on an important meeting. You know, dishonor and the like.” Ardette stood and flashed her a dazzling smile, the first faux charm I’d seen from him since entering the suitable cave. “Kantú, on the other hand, was a given.”
“Hey!” Kantú folded her arms.
Rend ignored both of them.
“Cousin,” she hissed, “I do not understand why this is even a matter of debate! Why do we not simply take the artifact off and see what happens? I will gladly remove it for-”
But her opinion only served as a switch, triggering some internal defense system within Nyte. He immediately became fueled with the impulse of furious resolve.
“I refuse!” He jumped away from her, appalled. “If there is a chance that she will be harmed, no matter how slight that chance might be, I will not take the artifact off! What barbarity are you spitting, cousin?!”
His eyes were angry, threatening, and worst of all, a little murky.
Nyte? No, just calm down!
Now, Aura, do it now.
What?!
Take it NOW!
The room was quiet a moment in the aftermath of the extremeness of his reaction.
At last Scardo said, “Um, excuse me, where did you say you got that necklace?” His voice was timid.
Nyte shot him an irate glance. “Elder Pietri gave it to me . . . after he found me in the forest that day.”
Ardette let out a deep laugh and tugged at his collar.
“That, my friend, is a lie. Why you continue to carry such delusion is beyond me.”
“What?” spat Nyte, seething.
“Recall the time I met you at Druelca . . . ghastly event I witnessed, pulling out that poor Squirrelean’s whiskers, all because he refused to supply you and your friends with malt. Little bugger lashed back at you, didn’t he? Tore your shirt open, didn’t he? And what was upon your neck just then? . . . Bingo. That necklace.” Smile falling, Ardette walked right up to the fire and looked through the dancing flames at Nyte. “Now, tell us again where you got it, and I’ll refrain from sharing the rest of that disgusting story.”
“You are the one who lies.” Nyte also took a step forward so that he was dangerously close to the inferno.
The two men were separated by flame, but the tenseness between them might have been even more scalding.
“Elder Pietri placed it around my neck. I remember it vividly. Just after he found me in the wood! He said that it was the signaling of a new life, free from the chains of my past! You dare to question me, evil Daem of Druelca?”
“Evil!? Nyte,” I said, scolding, “knock it off!”
“Huh?” Nyte shook his head, also shaking away the murkiness. “What have I . . . ?”
Ardette growled, but Darch placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Ardette,” said Darch gently, “look in his eyes. You see it, don’t you? He’s not lying. Whether it’s the truth or not, he honestly believes that’s where he got the necklace. The only way to settle this is for you to recover his memory as quickly as possible, right?”
Ardette let out a loud sigh through his scowling teeth.
“Fine! But the only way I agree to let him hang around, is if I can tell Rend everything. If you three idiots won’t help, I’m certain she’ll be glad to keep the two of them from falling all over each other!”
“Wait!” cried Scardo, white at the thought of more sacred knowledge leaking out.
But it did nothing to deter Ardette.
“Come along, my dear Rend.”
With that, he grabbed Rend’s wrist and stormed out of the suitable cave before Scardo or any of the others could stop him.
“I have not agreed to assist you in any way, you contemptible . . .” Rend’s angry protests floated back into the cave, even after the two of them had disappeared into the night.
At their departure, Scardo was a stuttering mess, but Grotts actually looked a little . . . relieved.
“B-b-b-but-”
“Aw, let ‘im go. Cat’s outta the bag now, isn’t it?”
Cat’s out of the bag? Ha! Cat was out of the bag a long time ago, wasn’t it, Grotts?
Indeed, he and Kantú were sharing a coy glance.
“Miss Havoc?” Nyte turned his back on the now dying flames and crouched before me at eye-level.
“Are you normal now?” I asked, hoping.
I was relieved to see that his eyes were his.
“Yes. See, I am normal.” He pointed to his chest and grinned, but right away the grin fell and was replaced by a sadness-lined frown. “I am sorry that I overreacted. Something shameful came over me. Something . . . dark.”
“Don’t worry, Nyte.” I gave him a soft smile. I understood that it hadn’t been him, in the same way the addiction wasn’t really me. They were just parts of us, influenced by the darkness spawned from our roles as Heart and emulator, not really our wills. Those moments of intensity were hard to watch, but it wasn’t because it changed the way I felt about him. “You were being kind of intense, but even that part of you, I . . .”
Nyte leaned forward.
I was still tired and hot, but at his closeness, my breath held itself.
“I will beat this.” He whispered loud enough for only me to hear.
“I know, and I’ll help, as your memories’ ally.”
For some reason, I wasn’t really that worried. Nyte was an emulator, but somehow that wasn’t as bad of a thing as I’d thought it would be. Sure, being an emulator meant that he’d go mad, but only if we continued to squander his power. So it was simple: I’d just stop using the warmth for now.
But do you really think you can stop? Cut yourself off completely?
Of course. I’ve been doing really well lately.
We’ll see . . .
The pendant was still untucked from Nyte’s shirt. It caught my eye and held my gaze, though there wasn’t really anything special about it. It was just a green-black stone held upon a woven rope. For a ‘rare artifact’ it wasn’t much to speak of, but it was because of the necklace that I’d been able to use Nyte’s power in the first place. Even so, it was only a piece of jewelry, and though where he’d gotten it was up for debate, that would all be cleared up as soon as we got more andap.
You’re being naïve! This is serious! Taking off the necklace will kill you!
Even that didn’t bother me. How could a necklace kill someone? I guess I simply didn’t believe it that night while I watched the firelight’s shadows dance across the cave’s walls. I didn’t believe it then . . . but oh, how wrong I was.
Chapter 11: The Dragon
The new terrain of black rock and potholes was some place called the ‘Nalla’. Apparently, it was the only shadow depository in all of Abardo. Upon closer inspection, the black rocks were actually just boulders containing bits of obsidian. The deeper we traveled, the more obsidian we encountered, until even some of the largest rock chunks were entirely obsidian, glassy and dark. The potholes also grew in number and depth. At first, they were only small tide-pool-like pits filled with stinky, green water. Where it had come from, I didn’t know, as it hadn’t rained in the Crystallands the entire time I’d been there. The air felt no damper in the Nalla, but the area must have had some precipitation for the green water to accumulate. The tide-pools eventually evolved into deep, cavernous bowls, some so deep that the bottom couldn’t be seen.
We walked between these potholes, ever more intrigued by their increasing depths, but my mind was also elsewhere, a place beyond the chasm of smooth, corroded basin.
Before the reprimand, before the swoon, Nyte had said something . . . remarkable, something I wasn’t sure how to take. It had happened so quickly, but I knew I’d heard it right.
He’d said that he intended to make me his bride.
Bride. Marry Nyte. Elf and Wife.
My heartbeat sped every time I replayed those words inside of my giddy head. Had he really meant that, in all seriousness, he wanted to marry me? Was marriage the same in Elven culture as it was in mine? Did he really want to spend his life with me, living together, sharing a home . . . sharing a bed? And if he did, how did I feel about it?
I was madly in love with Nyte. That much was certain. But marriage? It wasn’t something I’d even considered. Second decade or not, one didn’t take another’s hand until finishing apprenticeship and having a steady role within the village. Even then, the mayor and other village officials usually monitored the matchmaking by throwing courting parties for the eligible young folk. I’d been so preoccupied with making it through training that I hadn’t even given thought to the issue at all.
I loved Nyte. I never wanted to be away from him. The thought of being together with him made my heart pound, but marriage . . . it was such a foreign concept.
Me, married?
And then there was something else – that small something. How would the small something feel if I were to marry Nyte?
Damned small something, why won’t you leave me alone?!
One thing was clear, I needed to talk to Nyte about it, no matter how nervous and anxious and heart-pounding that encounter might become. I needed to find out more.
But I wouldn’t get the chance to discuss it with him privately, for in the end, Rend had decided to aid Ardette, and she was doing her job of separating Nyte and me annoyingly well. As we traversed the obsidian terrain, she stuck to Nyte’s side, treating him like her prisoner – a task she derived extreme pleasure from. In fact, I suspected it was the happiest she’d been the entire journey.
It didn’t help that Ardette stayed by my side as backup. He’d reverted to his old false-flattery-giving, fakely-nonchalant self, and it was almost too much to take. Dodging shoddy advances and ignoring haughty comments from the pair of them, I clung to the hope that eventually one of them would leave us alone long enough to have the discussion we so badly needed, but for now we’d have to settle for group small-talk and reserved glances.
The Spirit of In-between didn’t show up for several days after the incident, and when it did, it stuck mostly to the air above us, keeping a safe distance away from Darch. Whatever the bird knew, he certainly didn’t want to share it with us. Kantú was annoyed by this and viewed it as a betrayal of their friendship. She’d even stopped throwing out coaxing handfuls of bird-food in an attempt to force him to come back.
The Nalla was widely uninhabited, or so it seemed, for we saw no fellow travelers – or any other people, for that matter – as we walked along. There was, however, a logical explanation for this. Grotts had previously mentioned that the new area wasn’t the ‘safest’ of places – that had been our whole reason for scouting out the suitable cave in the first place, and at the time, we’d just trusted him without knowing exactly what about the land was ‘unsafe’. We now understood what he meant.
The potholes were interesting things to peer into and throw your voice down, only to hear the reverberating echoes it collected on its way back out, but there was also something dangerous lurking within their waters. At first, I didn’t believe it.
“DRAGONS?!”
“No, not dragons,” explained Grotts. “They’re dargons, relatives ‘o the beasts long extinct.”
“Yes, Miss Heart, think of them as miniature dragons. Larger than a lizard, but much smaller than a dragon,” said Scardo.
I veered away from an approaching, particularly deep-looking pothole, imagining the sorts of dragon-like creatures that might come crawling out at any moment.
“Oh, I get it!” piped Kantú. “Dargons. Like ‘darling dragons’?”
“Ahh, if ya wanna think of it like that, I guess,” said Grotts.
“Aaaalright!” She proudly stuck out her hand for a fist bump from the gruff man.
Looking embarrassed, he obliged.
“Smaller than a dragon?” I asked, grinning at the two of them. “Well, how big is a dragon?” I really had nothing with which to compare it.
Grotts wrinkled his face. “Er- I’d say ‘bout as tall as Kugar’s Inn.”
“Eh? That tall?!”
“Yeah, but ya really should ask Ardette; he’s the dragon expert, after all.”
Surprised, I scrutinized Ardette, who was at my side making strides even with mine. “He is?”
Why’s that?
“An expert, am I? What, because I’m a Daem? How racist of you.”
Grotts shrugged. “Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”
“Even if it is-”
“Aw, can it, Ardette.” Darch bounded up next to us and threw his arm around the Daem’s neck. “Just tell them about dragons; they’re curious.”
Ardette elbowed Darch in the stomach. In retribution, Darch grabbed Ardette’s ear and forcefully blew into it.
“Ugh! Dammit Darch!” said Ardette, batting him away and then rubbing his ear against his shoulder to clear out any remaining Darch breath.
Rend and Nyte sniggered. Darch smiled pleasantly.
I sidestepped another, much smaller, pothole. “What does Ardette’s being a Daem have anything to do with him knowing about dragons?”
“That is because Daems are the descendants of dragons,” said Scardo.
“They are?!” asked Kantú and I in unison. Though if anyone looked to be of reptilian descent it was Scardo himself.
I eyed Ardette’s horns. “Descendants?”
“Yep,” said Grotts. “In old times, Dragons’ veins were fueled with fire. As their descendents, Daems’ veins are filled with smoke.”
At this tidbit, I immediately halted.
“But I thought Daems were filled with shadow!” I cried, flabbergasted.
They bleed not blood, but shadow.
Legendary men of darkness.
‘Plus, the whole b
eing-part-shadow thing doesn’t help misconceptions, I suppose’.
I continued to study Ardette while awaiting elaboration. In the absence of movement, the afternoon sun bore into my cheeks, more of a sear than a kiss.
“Well, yes, I suppose shadow does sound more alluring, doesn’t it?” Ardette said after a moment, bringing his bored eyes to my forehead, but the boredness immediately lifted upon reaching their destination and was replaced by something else. Something unfavorable. I knew that look. I knew it well enough to know that I was about to become a source of entertainment for him. “Why, how about a taste to determine for yourself which it is, my cherry pit?”
“Ehh-”
With an unsettlingly abrupt Cheshire grin, he flickered his hand to smoke or shadow or whatever it was and brought it to my lips, about to force a ‘taste’ on me, but I turned my head away just in time, not really all that annoyed, but too intent on finding out more to play along or react strongly.
“No thanks.”
I pushed his hand down.
“So,” I continued, curiosity keeping me from hesitation, “your people used to be dragons, but then . . . what happened? You just evolved or what?”
“That, my pit, is a secret,” – Ardette brought his now-solid hand to my face once more and pressed his pointer finger lightly against my lips, an act which caused Nyte to make a tortured gurgling noise from somewhere behind us – “but become my lover, and I’ll tell you.”
“Not in a million years,” I said resolutely and absolutely, once again pushing his hand away.
Gah! How annoying!
I wasn’t in the mood for games. I genuinely wanted to know more about it, about Daem history, but why had I actually expected him to tell me what I wanted to know? That was something far too unlikely to hope for.
Coming to this realization, I folded my arms, let out a small, sulking puff, and looked away, avoiding direct contact with Nyte’s surely-anxious gaze as I did. Seeing his expression would only make the situation more insufferable.
“No? Pity. Well then, do you wish to know of your ancestry, my cherry pit?”
Despite my annoyance, the comment caught my attention.
