by E. A. Copen
Ash nodded to him when he put the pen down and Dex stepped back into the crowd.
Dex stopped in front of Ike and gave a salute. “See you out there, Commander.”
Ike grunted, watched Dex take his place at the back of the room, and went to the table to add his name. Another five people broke to follow Ike while most people headed for the door.
I got in line.
As the line moved forward, my palms dampened with sweat, and my heart pounded in my ears. Would he recognize me? Maybe he’d lost his memory. Maybe I’d changed too much. Why else wouldn’t he have looked for me when he got back? We’d been inseparable the day he went into that rift. Surely that much hadn’t changed. He’d saved me. Even if he didn’t return my feelings, that had to mean something, didn’t it?
A dozen different scenarios ran through my head. What would he say when he saw me? What if he hated me? It was my fault he’d gone into the rift. If I hadn’t stood there like an idiot, we might’ve both been okay.
“Ember?”
I looked up. The line had cleared in front of me, though I hadn’t moved. My heart jumped into my throat. There he is. Touch him. Make sure he’s real.
“Ember Dixon, is it really you?” He rushed around the table and stopped just in front of me, as if he were suddenly unsure again.
I swallowed and shrugged, but my voice was still tight when I said, “Who else would I be?”
His grave face faded, replaced by smiling eyes and upturned lips. The five years we’d been apart melted to nothing, and he put his arms around me, squeezing the air out of me. “I can’t believe it’s really you. After all this time…” He stepped back from the hug, but kept his hands on my arms, giving me a good look up and down. “God, it’s good to see you! How are you? What have you been doing?”
The guy behind me cleared his throat.
Ash’s face fell, and he pulled me out of line so we could talk. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question. The last time I saw you—”
He put a finger to his lips. “Not here. Too many eyes and ears. But you’re right. I do owe you an explanation, and you’ll get one. I promise. Just… give me some time. I need to process this. You’re still not in a guild?”
I shook my head. “Looks like you’ve started your own.” I nodded to the people waiting behind the table.
“Them? We’re not a guild so much as a group of like-minded individuals that share a common goal.”
“And a common fashion designer. One you should fire.” I pinched the hem of his cape and lifted it, only to let it fall limp. “Who wears capes these days?”
He shrugged. “They’re practical. Listen, Ember…”
“Don’t try to talk me out of this hunt.” I wagged my finger at him. “I just found you. I’m not letting you out of my sight again. Not for a long damn time.”
“Promise?” He grinned and winked at me.
Heat flooded my cheeks. It’d been a long time since I’d talked to anyone that much, and I’d forgotten how he used to be so flirty and carefree. “Don’t be stupid. You’ve got a whole gaggle of bodyguards to watch you shave and shit. You know what I meant.”
Ash shrugged again, conceding the point. “I won’t stop you from coming along. In fact, I’d be honored to have you join us. It’ll give us time to catch up.”
“Good.” I walked over to the paper sitting on the table. They had filled in all but one line of the twenty, so I took the last one.
The document completed, Ash picked up the scroll and rolled it up. “Those of you who’ve signed on, welcome to the hunt. Our prey is a rather famous beast some two hundred miles from here. It’ll be quite the journey through hostile territory. I advise you to gather your things, settle any outstanding affairs, and meet back here at sunrise. In the meantime, I’m sure you’re all dying to know about the pay. The daily standard rate of most guilds in the area runs about two hundred dollars per day base pay. Is that right?”
“Give or take.” Ike nodded.
“I’m offering four hundred,” Ash said, “plus whatever you can carry back. Dragons have many organs with magic properties. Scales sell for a week’s wages. We can easily part out the dragon between us and make each of you more than a year’s pay with plenty left over. That’s to say nothing of the treasures it might be hoarding or the magicite crystals you can harvest and sell. I ask only that you leave me one piece. You may have everything else.” He scanned the room. “But the heart is mine.”
A chill ran through me with his last sentence. I’d never heard him speak with such finality before. It was almost as if someone else were speaking through him.
I dismissed the thought. Five years lost in a rift would change anyone, and Ash and I had both needed a little more confidence back then. Maybe Ash had changed for the better. He still seemed like himself when he talked to me.
“We meet back here at dawn,” Ash said, and the meeting ended. He turned around, speaking briefly with the necromancer, before striding toward me.
The necromancer woman watched him go a few steps before turning her ice-cold eyes on me. If she stared any harder, her eyes would’ve bored two holes in my forehead. It only got worse when Ash put his arm around me and led me to the tavern stairs. “I think it’s high time you and I got reacquainted, Ember.”
Chapter Four
It was too early for the main floor of the tavern to be busy, though there were a few customers already seated. They had empty plates and half-full glasses of beer in front of them. My stomach reminded me I hadn’t eaten since the previous morning, but the dwindling cash in my pocket meant I had to choose between food now and supplies for the road.
“Have you eaten?” Ash stopped by a table and pulled out a chair.
It took me a minute to realize that he wanted me to sit. “Careful,” I said sitting. “I might get used to being treated like royalty.”
“That might not be such a bad thing. After all we’ve been through, I’d say we deserve a little spoiling.” Ash sat across from me before picking up one of the paper menus stuck between the metal napkin holders in the center of the table. “The toast and eggs are probably safe if you’re hungry. I wouldn’t trust the breakfast special if I were you.”
I sighed and shifted my weight. “My last job was a little light. Mail runs don’t pay what they used to.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never done one.” He pushed the menu away. “Order what you want. My treat.”
“Are you sure?”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s breakfast, Ember, not a six-course dinner. Get what you want.”
“Okay, but only if you agree to deduct it from my pay.” I grabbed the menu and scanned it with hungry eyes.
“Shall we address the elephant in the room?”
I looked up. Ash held my eyes with his intense gaze, his elbows propped on the table so he could fold his hands. Slowly, I lowered the menu, a lump forming in my throat. “Where were you? What happened? Why didn’t you look for me when you got back?”
“Wow. That’s… More elephants than I was expecting.” He lowered his hands and leaned back in his chair with a sigh, looking around. “Where to begin?”
“How about what happened while you were in the rift. How long were you in there? What did you see?”
“I saw…” His eyes lost their focus, leaving him transfixed on an unassuming crack in the wall. He stared at it for nearly a full minute before he tore himself away from whatever memory had been playing in his brain. Ash shook his head. “I don’t remember what I saw, or how long I was in there. The time I spent away feels like a dream after waking. I know it happened. The passage of that time weighs on me, ages me. But I can’t grasp the memory of it. It feels almost unreal. I know I went in, and I must have come back out. The next thing I remember is waking up screaming in a hospital bed.”
“Hospital?” I frowned and pushed the menu away, my hunger forgotten.
Ash nodded. “An old Coalition field hospital,
if you can believe it. Members of the Institute had repurposed it.”
I shuddered. That explained why he was traveling with necromancers. The Institute was short for the Institute of Undead Studies. Imagine PETA for the undead, but run by the Church of Scientology. They were part corporation, part cult, and part scientific research facility. The Institute recruited the most skilled necromancers into their ranks and rented them out to guilds as needed. Joining wasn’t mandatory for necromancers, but the Institute had a way of making it seem so, especially if you were skilled.
“They had picked me up on a run into the Appalachian Outlands and brought me back thinking I was infected with the vampire pathogen,” Ash continued. “I had a fever and chills, but it never developed into anything more than that. The Institute told us to get lost as soon as they realized I wouldn’t turn, and I left. Probably too soon. I wasn’t well for a long time. Some people from the Institute went with me. They helped me. Nursed me back to health. It took eleven months, Ember. I fought fever and sickness like I’ve never experienced. I was malnourished and weak.” He lifted his hand and watched his fingers flex. “I had to get strong again so I could find you.”
“So you looked for me.” I folded my hands on the tabletop and leaned forward.
Ash shrugged. “I tried, but have you ever tried looking for one person in this messed up world? I checked the guild directories in every city, in every kingdom or province I traveled to. I even asked about traveling caravans. No one knew an Ember Dixon.”
That wasn’t surprising. I wasn’t famous, and most of the jobs I did were so mundane or low-profile, I wouldn’t expect most people to remember my name if they had worked with me. Record keeping was also spotty outside of government agencies and the Institute. Short of pulling my official record somewhere I had worked, or seeing my name on a sign-in sheet, there was no way he could’ve found me. It was pure luck that we’d ever run into each other again at all.
The tavern server wandered over with coffee and took our order. He was a balding man with a thick Georgia accent, the kind only rural folk had. There weren’t too many rural people around anymore. Cities were safer with their high walls, their guards, and their guilds. It made me wonder about the life he must’ve left behind to wait tables in a dingy Atlanta tavern. After I put in my order for toast and eggs, he scurried away, sliding into the back of the bar to prep the food himself.
“What about you?” Ash asked, drawing me back into the conversation. “I thought you would’ve joined a guild, or started your own by now.”
“We always talked about that, didn’t we? Starting our own guild?” I fidgeted with my fingers, not looking at him.
How could I tell him the truth? What did I even say? That I was dying, slowly but surely, thanks to the crystals that had infected my blood the night a rift swallowed him? What would he think of me if he knew? Part of me wanted to trust him like I always had and tell him the truth. The old Ash would’ve hugged me and promised that we would figure it out together. But this new Ash… He was older, maybe more practical. He had a hunt to run, and if he found out I was infected, he might leave me behind.
I couldn’t let that happen. I’d already lost him once, and Hell would freeze over before I let it happen a second time.
I shrugged. “It just didn’t feel right without you. I’ve been doing odd jobs ever since, just going from place to place, trying to make a living. Which reminds me… Running a hunt this size is pretty expensive, Ash. Is the Institute funding it?”
“No.” He wrinkled his nose as if the very idea repulsed him. “No, I’m funding it. After I came back, I lucked into a few lucrative jobs. I’ve got a sizeable nest egg stored away, and big plans for it.”
“You still want to start that guild?”
“Please,” he scoffed, picking up his coffee. “That was a child’s dream. I have bigger plans.”
“Bigger?” I arched an eyebrow. “What could be bigger than founding your own guild?”
Ash smirked and leaned in, his voice a whisper that made goosebumps form on my arms. “How about founding your own kingdom?”
I almost choked on my coffee. What he was talking about wasn’t impossible, I supposed, though it was close to it. After the fall of the United States government, the Coalition of the States kept the east coast united until it, too, fell apart. Now, everything had been split into twelve independent kingdoms or city states. The kingdom of Atlanta stretched from the southern border of the Chattahoochee Forest to the waterlogged ruins of Jacksonville in the south. There was an unofficial western border where the old state line between Georgia and Alabama used to stand, but most of Alabama was overgrown. It was all forest and swamp land down there.
To the north was the Virginia Commonwealth. East was the Kingdom of Carolina. West of the No-man's-land of old Alabama was Texahoma and so on. Somebody had claimed most of the land. Anything that was left was an undesirable mess full of monsters, deadly rifts, and overgrown land. Founding a kingdom meant negotiating with existing powers, building a city from the ground up, and somehow enticing people to come live in it. Others had talked about it, but the effort and financial capital required was out of reach for nearly everyone. Even if Ash had sizable savings tucked away, there was no way he could’ve had that much cash.
“You’re not serious,” I said, still shocked.
“It’s a long-term plan,” Ash said. “But it’s like you always said. Shoot for the stars. Even if you miss, at least you tried, right?”
I put my coffee cup back on the table. “Ash, do you have any idea how difficult that will be?”
“Anything worth having is worth fighting for. You said that as well.”
“Yeah, but I was talking about dinner or a place to stay, probably. Not ruling my own kingdom. That sounds—”
“A little crazy?” He met my eyes and held them. “I can promise you I’m quite sane.”
“That’s just what a crazy person would say,” I muttered and shifted in my seat to keep from staring at him.
“I don’t think it’s crazy to make big plans. You and me, we grew up with nothing but each other until Old Jim took us in and taught us how to use a sword. He taught us that nothing was impossible if you will fight for what you believed you were entitled to. We’ve bled for this world. Nearly died a dozen times over. Hell, I fell into a rift trying to scrape together enough money to…” He trailed off and sighed. “Is it so horrible to dream of owning a small patch of the world we’ve bled for?”
“No, I suppose not.” I stared down into the dark brown liquid in my coffee cup.
“This hunt is the first in a series of jobs I have planned to raise the funds and attention I need to make it happen, Ember.” He reached across the table to put his hands over mine. “And now that I’ve found you, I want you right there with me while I make it happen.”
I stared at his hands overtop mine, a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach. If he knew the truth, he wouldn’t have held my hand like that. “It’s been five years, Ash. You don’t know what I’ve been doing, where I’ve been.”
“I don’t have to. I know you. I want your wit, and your sword, on my side.” He retracted his hands. “But you don’t need to answer now. Take some time and think about it. For now, the hunt is plenty to keep us busy.”
I grunted in agreement. “Yeah, just don’t go expecting me to call you Lord Ash or anything.”
Ash laughed. “I was thinking Emperor Ash.”
“Dream on.”
Our food came. It was just eggs and toast, but it might as well have been a feast as hungry as I was. I dug in, completely focused on clearing my plate while Ash barely touched his food.
“These other guild leaders, Dex and Ike. What do you know about them?” Ash asked.
I shrugged and swallowed a mouthful of eggs. “Not much. I just got into town last night. Actually, I ran into Dex. Guy’s got an ego the size of the Atlantic, but nothing to back it up that I could see. He runs this crappy bar. He’s a smooth talker
. A people person, I guess you could say. Or maybe he really just likes to hear himself talk.”
“Good to know. And the other one?”
“Ike?” I chugged down the rest of my coffee, which had gotten lukewarm. “Don’t know anything about him.”
Ash frowned and ripped his toast in half to dip it in his eggs. “He’s a Tolliver. They’re practically royalty in the guild world. It was his ancestors that founded the first guild, you know. Fought the Coalition when they tried to shut them down. Odd that he’d want in on this hunt. As I understand it, he’s a stickler for rules and regulations. His guild, the Iron Company, is one of the largest, most well-respected guilds in the South, so he doesn’t need the cash. He certainly doesn’t need the fame. Why do you suppose someone like that would sign on?”
I shrugged and swallowed the last of my eggs. “Goodwill? I mean, just because he’s monster hunting royalty doesn’t mean people like him. Maybe it’s a P.R. ploy. Imagine the draw of being able to hire the guy who killed a dragon.”
“Maybe. And maybe he’s got ulterior motives.”
“Now you’re sounding paranoid.” I put my fork down and pushed my empty plate away.
Ash smiled. “Well, a man in my position can’t afford not to be. Listen, Ember… It’s not widely known that I’ve been through a rift and back. I’d like to keep it that way. If someone like Ike were to find out, he might tell someone else, and they might tell someone else. I’m sure there are people out there who’d love to capture me and dissect me to find out how I survived. I’d rather not go through that.”
I nodded. “Sure. Of course. Your secret’s safe with me.”
Ash sighed, relieved. “Thank you.”
A memory flashed through my mind. Ash and me as kids, sitting on the ruins of a rocky garden wall overlooking a murky pond. Icy wind bit at my cheeks and pulled my hair, but it was Ash who’d been shivering. Tears trailed down his muddy cheeks as he repeated, “Please don’t tell Old Jim! I just… I just wanted to hold it.”
