Birth Stone

by Kate Kelley

  “Furthermore,” he continued, as he sat and warmed his hands, “the portal wasn’t connected here. If you had transported to Gaia’s Eye, and then traveled here by foot, you would not have arrived here before us. And I would have found you along the way. We left as soon as Poppi regained some of her strength.”

  “Poppi, why are you here?” Lyra asked, watching her tired brown eyes. She glanced at Lyra.

  Oriel answered for her. “It wasn’t safe to leave her alone in Dair Valley. We didn’t know if Navi would follow us.” Lyra noticed Oriel’s protective hand on Poppi’s back.

  “Where’s Persimmon?” Lyra asked.

  “Stayed behind. She’s gathering information at the library.”

  “Information on what?” Lyra asked.

  “Anything she can find on Ganymede, Edwin, anyone else who might be working for him,” Oriel said, biting into an apple. He handed it to Poppi, who shook her head.

  “You’re evading my question, Lyra,” Terrin said lowly.

  “You left me to die,” Lyra said flatly, gazing out into the storm. A strong gust pushed against them. A crack sounded in the sky. Flashes of yellow green. The sky was getting eerily dark.

  “I was going to come back for you,” he ground out, glaring at her. His wet hair hung loose, his thick, close beard hugged his jaw, making him appear even more rugged than usual. His arms slung over his knees as he sat, showcasing his bulging biceps.

  “Could have fooled me,” she snapped back, “You seemed awfully civil with Navi. Who’s with the enemy now?”

  Fury crossed Terrin’s brow.

  “You don’t understand anything. Had I broken off the engagement, I could be potentially severing Terra’s alliance with Ursa. If I severed our alliance, war would come. The King of Ursa would attack us on Navi’s order. Hundreds--thousands--of innocent people would die. Raids. Women, children, slaughtered. And Ursa would win. They have the numbers.”

  Lyra sniffed, pretending not to listen. Terrin scoffed.

  “You don’t know what it’s like to have to think of complete strangers before yourself. To think of the greater good. To make sacrifices.”

  “The plan is to put Iris back on the throne. In that case, your alliance with Ursa wouldn’t need to be made.”

  “We don’t know that. We may still want to keep that door open, even with Iris on the throne. And...we can’t be sure that we will even find them.” His voice was gravel. Oriel and Poppi exchanged glances.

  Anger surged through Lyra. “You’re unbelievable,” she said, throwing up her hands. She sat. Terrin looked at her bare legs pointedly. His eyebrow rose.

  “Where are your pants?” he asked. Lyra turned on her seat and grabbed her pants from in front of the fire. She pulled them on before crossing her arms and returning to pouting.

  “Happy?” she snapped.

  Terrin’s jaw ticked.

  Minutes ticked by, the four of them silent. Poppi and Oriel slept near the fire. Terrin stared at the sky, his eyes not straying from an invisible fixed point. Lyra thought of her brother.

  What was he doing? Were him and Iris still together, huddled up somewhere? Did he have a place to sleep? Food? Another thought struck her.

  Had Techni found them? What if he’d hurt them? What if we somehow manage to go through this portal and all we find are corpses? Had Ganymede found them?

  Suddenly the waiting seemed pointless. She turned to Terrin. His eyes matched the sky.

  “What’s the plan, Terrin? We’re here. Why are we just sitting around? What do I do?”

  His gaze slid to her, the vacancy in his gaze vanishing. “It’s not time yet,” he said.

  “When will it be time?”

  “When Hecate shades Sol,” he said.

  “And that means..?”

  “Hecate--the moon goddess. Sol--the sun god,” he said expectantly, as if she were a child. She shook her head slowly.

  “An eclipse,” he answered for her, his eyes back on the sky.

  Oh.

  “So when the eclipse happens, I’m supposed to open the portal?” she asked, watching the sky now. The sun was behind the clouds. Lightning struck the sky all over, like electric snakes jumping from the clouds. Rain came down in waves, smacking the rocks. Thunder cracked and deafened them. The cave shook, little pebbles shivering like breadcrumbs in a pan.

  “This storm is intense,” Lyra muttered, feigning unconcern. Inside, she trembled at the magnitude of it. A clinking sound began faint and grew, so loud Lyra covered her ears. She crept closer to the mouth of the cave.

  “Is that hail?” Lyra cried. She looked out at the landscape. Trees bent and twisted at impossible angles, cleaning leaves off of branches into the churning, rain-beaten air. Watching the trees twists and turn, it gave Lyra the impression of an angry, woodland sea.

  A loud crack of lightning pierced the jutting rock two feet in front of them, blazing white and then singing the surface black, smoke rising.

  Poppi woke and screamed. Oriel sat up, shielding her. Terrin grabbed Lyra’s arm to pull her back and Lyra ripped her arm from his grasp. The cliff cracked at the singed spot, elongating horizontally in a fissure. Lyra gaped as the giant precipice stalled, then slowly broke away, falling to the river below. Terrin gripped her again, succeeding in pulling her back this time. There was now no cliff at all now, just a cave and the edge of the world at the mouth of it. Something cold and hard hit Lyra’s bruised cheek. Another on her kneecap.

  “Get back!” Terrin snarled at her, pushing her roughly behind him even further. Ice balls, the size of Lyra’s fist, shot in, skidding across the stone floor. Lyra backed up to the back of the cave. Poppi and Oriel were watching, faces grim.

  “Terrin, what do we do?” He was watching the sky again.

  “Terrin!” Lyra yelled over the roaring of the storm. The sky grew darker. It looked like evening, even though it was mid-day. The roar of the violent monsoon mixed with the deep cracks of thunder and the sound of screaming squalls breaking branches.

  Terrin whipped around to Lyra, stalking up close to her. His eyes were sharp, but dark bags circled under his eyes. Upon closer inspection, she noticed that his skin has a ghastly sheen to it. He looked ill. She eyed his neck. An ugly purple bruise peeked out of a cloth bandage haphazardly placed over it. Lyra looked back to his face.

  “You didn’t heal,” she said, masking her concern with a flat tone.

  Terrin blinked. “I need you to try to summon a vision,” he said, ignoring her comment. “Use your pendant. Think of Alec.”

  Lyra scowled. “Why didn’t you heal?” she asked, pushing the matter.

  Terrin scoffed, and looked away. Finally he answered. “I don’t know,” he ground out.

  Oriel stood and walked over to them. “My magic wasn’t strong enough. The scholar’s crystals in the valley were stolen as well,” Oriel said solemnly, “I could have tried healing him with amethyst, but.."

  Lyra’s eyes flashed to him. “Amethyst? I have amethyst on my ring,” she said. She held her ring finger up, adorned with the glistening piece of jewelry. Oriel stilled and grabbed her hand, inspecting the jewels.

  “Yes, it appears you do,” he murmured. Terrin’s face shifted into a mask of impassiveness. A strong gale pushed at their backs.

  “You put it back on,” he said flatly.

  “Yes, Terrin, I used it to transport,” she said, pointing to the cut of obsidian in the ring. Terrin’s face shown surprise for a moment before shutting down again.

  “May I?” Oriel asked, as he prepared to slide the ring off of her finger. Lyra snatched her hand from his.

  “No,” she said stonily, “I’ll heal him myself.” She turned to Terrin, who held the same impassive expression. Lyra swallowed as the wind howled behind them. She lifted her hand to Terrin’s bandage and carefully peeled it off. Terrin’s jaw ticked.

  Lyra sucked in a sharp breath. The wound was mottled blue and purple and green. Dark red blood oozed slowly from the deep punctures as if
his body had slowed down the bleeding but couldn’t fully heal the wound.

  Lyra placed her left hand cautiously over the wound. Terrin gave her a stony stare.

  “We don’t have time for this,” he said through clenched teeth. Lyra closed her eyes and imagined her power rising, warming his wound. Her aura spread to his neck, enveloping it in a lavender glow. Terrin winced. Lyra imagined the wound closing, the blood wicking away, the skin smoothing over. She removed her hand and opened her eyes. The wound remained.

  “Fuck,” Lyra spat, turning on her heel.

  Terrin raised an eyebrow. “Colorful,” he said dryly. He replaced the bandage.

  “Now that we’re done fooling around, the eclipse is upon us. Gaia is finishing her destruction of the land. We act now.”

  “You’ll die if that continues to bleed,” Lyra warned.

  Terrin raised his arms as the storm rose behind him. “So be it.”

  Lyra’s heart clenched. She shook her head, fuming.

  The day was as black as night now. Rain slashed at her cheeks, hail burst on the stone before her. She could hear the crackling of branches and trunks as the wind desecrated the forests below.

  “You need to open the portal now, Lyra,” Terrin said as his eyes scanned the black, flashing sky. Lyra watched the torrent in front of her. She looked down. It was so dark, she couldn’t see anything below. Only between flashes of lightning could she see the outline of the river, waiting.

  “I don’t know how,” she whispered. Terrin grabbed her arm, forcing her to look at him.

  “You need to try. Access a vision of Alec. Connect with his mind!” he shouted over the storm. Lyra shook her head. The weight of her duty was overwhelming her, crushing her and stealing the breath from her lungs

  What if I’m not the one? What if I can’t do it? I couldn’t heal Terrin, even with my ring full of crystals. Even with my pendant around my neck. Even with all of all those precious stones, I couldn’t do it.

  Lyra looked at her ring. All those crystals.

  Something clicked in Lyra’s mind.

  The prophecy. It had said the one who opened the portal would use all of the ends of the earth in her palm to do it. Lightning struck a tree nearby, engulfing it in flames. The fire spread to the next tree over in an instant. And the next.

  “My gods...my ring is the answer. Alec traveled the earth collecting these stones. They’re minerals from all over the earth. And the pendant completes it...”

  Terrin's eyes twinkled as he heard her words, his face washed in relief. She wondered if he knew all along.

  Lyra backed up a pace. She had to try something. She would either die doing this or die in this storm. Either way, she had to try. She placed the hand with the ring over her pendant, clutching it tightly. She closed her eyes and drew on its power, breathing and shutting out the sounds of the storm. She felt each stone with her aura. Feeling the pull and weight of each stone’s power fill her center as she moved her finger over each one.

  Amethyst. Obsidian. Moonstone. Emerald. Rose Quartz. Aventurine. Aquamarine.

  And Spectrolite.

  A great chasm inside of her snapped open, gaping and waiting.

  Alec. Alec. Where are you, Alec?

  She searched for his aura, her mind moving over villages and cities across the land, through the debris of souls and auras and realms. Through time itself, she searched. She remembered something he had said before he set sail that fateful day. He had pointed to her center and said ‘remember me here.’ He’d known about her powers all along. And he knew they shared a unique connection.

  Her center rose and rose until it was in her head. Her soul alighted, illuminating her mind.

  Alec’s face, strong and brave, washed before her mind’s eye.

  He was smiling, but his eyes were sad. He watched someone intently, listening. The outline of sleek, long black hair on the right of Alec widened the scene. He was sitting in a wooden chair, his hand was in the woman’s hand. He was listening to her, hanging on to every word. Lyra couldn’t see the woman’s face, couldn’t hear what she was saying, but Alec thought it was important. Alec nodded solemnly, his shaggy blonde hair ruffling with the movement. Suddenly, his eyes snapped to hers--to Lyra’s--fixed. His blue eyes widened.

  The vision cleared. Lyra gasped in a breath.

  “What did you see?” Terrin shouted. Lyra blinked, staring out to the darkened landscape below. Alec’s hand appeared a few feet below the cliff, like a ghost, ethereal and milky blue. It was reaching up for her. The rest of his arm faded away to a glowing gem. An electric blue glowing gem suspended in the air a few feet below the cliff, it’s transparent facets shimmering with energy and magic. The gem’s glow grew more opaque nearer to the center. Alec’s hand jutted from it as if he was drowning in a sea and reaching for a lifeline. And he’d seen her, in the vision. The vision wasn’t the past. It wasn’t the future. She had been peeking into the present.

  She knew what she had to do.

  “I’m going to jump,” she said resolutely. Terrin studied her through the fireligh of the spreading forest fire, flames engulfing most of the trees. The freezing rain and hail didn’t put a dent in it. Terrin nodded and grabbed her hand.

  “I’m jumping too.”

  “No. We don’t know that you’ll transport,” Oriel said behind them, coming up close. Poppi stood just behind him.

  “We have to go now, Lyra. The eclipse is lifting,” Terrin shouted, eyes trained on the sky. Lyra’s stomach bottomed out. She stared at the ghostly hand, the electric blue gem. She realized Terrin didn’t see it. None of them saw it but her. Terrin was willing to jump anyway. But he might not make it through.

  “Please, just let me do this alone,” Lyra shouted at him. The winds clawed at her, shoving her back a pace. The acrid smoke from the fire tinged the back of her throat, choking her and burning her eyes. An apple-sized chunk of hail smacked her shin.

  “I’m going now, Terrin! Don’t do this!” She screamed. She tried to rip her hand free but Terrin crushed it in his firm grasp. She took a deep, shuddering breath, staring into his eyes.

  “Fine, you stubborn idiot!” She stepped up to the edge, her heel teetering on the broken precipice. For a moment the storm seemed to quiet, the world waiting. Alec reached.

  “Now!” she screamed. They leapt over the edge, in the swarm of whistling, rushing, debris-filled air.

  And she was weightless.

  Chapter 32

  The air’s whistle grew to a scream, vibrating through Lyra’s ears and skewering her brain like a banshee’s cry. Her own voice left her, her stomach in her chest compressing her lungs as they free-fell through electric blue space. How long had they been falling? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Lyra didn’t know. She clung to the roughness of Terrin’s hand, the only tangible thing.

  Cold liquid enveloped her, viscous like syrup. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe. She pushed up with her legs, lungs burning. Terrin’s hand was gone. She pushed and pushed against the liquid until she broke the surface. Gasping in a desperate breath, her mouth opened wide to take in as much air as she could. Instinctually, she treaded. Blue water sparkled in the sun.

  The sun.

  It was bright. The storm was gone, like it had never happened. A splash called her attention forward. Terrin stood on the bank of the river, hands on his hips and breathing hard. She swam to him, dregging herself up once her feet touched solid ground. Water sloughed off of her in rivulets. Her clothes clung to her skin. Once she reached the shore, she tugged off the vest that was weighing her down. She checked for her ring and pendant. Both still there. Finally she met Terrin’s gaze.

  “Where are we?” she gasped. He looked around, his hand shielding the sun from his eyes. Lyra followed his gaze. They were in a valley. Terrin shook his head. Water beads flung from his hair.

  “This looks like Thane Mountains and Dair Valley.”

  “But look at the leaves. They’re green. Bright green. And the sun is warm.
It’s hot, actually. Look at the ground. There’s no storm debris. No charred smell from the burning trees.” Terrin glanced sharply at her.

  “We’re not on earth,” he said carefully.

  Lyra smiled, joy bubbling up through her chest. Terrin returned the grin. “We made it,” she said, a laugh escaping her throat. She spun in circles, taking in the scenery.

  “It looks exactly like earth.”

  “I believe it’s an exact replica, like we believed. Except, look up. The cliff that was struck by lightning on earth is still there.” He was right, it was.

  “It’s a perfect earth,” Lyra whispered.

  Wow.

  “So the gods make themselves a perfect earth here in Eclipsa while they destroy ours,” she said, bitterness finding it’s way into her tone.

  Terrin shrugged. “We ruined Earth with our own sins.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Lyra said, “but anyway, we need to find Alec.”

  “And Iris,” Terrin added with a nod.

  “I saw them,” Lyra said suddenly, remembering her vision, “they were in a house of some sort. Alec and Iris were sitting on wooden chairs. They were crude, but they were well-built. The floor and walls looked like logs.”

  “Is that all you saw?” Terrin asked.

  “Yes.”

  Terrin hummed. “Doesn’t give us much to go on.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Lyra admitted. She closed her eyes, clutching her pendant. She called to Alec with her mind. She ignited her aura. It flickered and died. Her eyes snapped open.

  “Damn,” she cursed.

  “What is it?” Terrin asked, walking in close.

  “My aura won’t ignite. This happened after I fought Navi too.”

  “Magic isn’t infinite. Like our bodies, our aura needs to heal and recharge.”

  Lyra eyed his neck wound. “Speaking of healing..”

  Terrin’s face shut down, and he turned away from her. His skin was still pale, maybe even more so.