After collecting some branches, Daniel and I built a small fire far enough inside that the light couldn’t be detected from outside the cave. We sat there in silence as the wood crackled and burned. In the blazing red light Daniel’s features looked harder. I noticed the tiredness in his eyes, the strength of his jaw, and the shadows curving alongside his face.
Realizing I was staring, I picked up a stick and began to poke the fire. “So . . . tell me about her,” I said, trying to start a conversation.
Daniel glanced at me. The reflection of the embers danced in his eyes. “About who?”
“Kai,” I said. “What’s she like?”
Daniel’s expression was a combination of disbelief and discomfort at my having asked the question. “Knight, it’s been a long day” was all he said.
He looked away from me and I let the matter drop. We’d only just agreed to give trusting each other a shot, so I supposed asking him to share personal stories over a campfire was pushing it.
In retrospect, the only reason he’d told me about Kai in the first place was to balance out what I had told him about myself. I’d revealed my innermost fears, doubts, and vulnerabilities to him and he’d felt pressured to share something with me in return. We had traded secrets as a sort of eye-for-an-eye gesture made in an attempt to restore equilibrium to our relationship.
While I was in no mood to expose myself to such a personal degree, I couldn’t help but wonder if the same approach would work now.
It’d been said that an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind, but maybe this tactic was the only way Daniel and I could ever talk to each other without our natural guardedness getting in the way.
I’d always had trouble opening up to others, worrying that people would mistake any sign of weakness as confirmation of my being a damsel princess. And my doubts about who I was only added to the distance I liked to keep between me and everyone else. While I cared about and relied on SJ, Blue, and Jason more than anyone, I’d even kept them at arm’s length for the same reasons.
But I didn’t want to be that way anymore. I couldn’t be that way anymore, especially now. Daniel and I were alone out here and we needed to rely on each other.
Unfortunately, as more time passed since our talk in the genie lamp, the more I felt my shields going back up. They weren’t rising for any particular reason; it was just my way. However, I instantly recognized that this was a problem I needed to nip in the bud.
I didn’t want my guard up with Daniel, at least not at the moment. On enemy terrain, antagonists after me, deep in monster-infested mountains—I needed to push away my doubts about him. Things could go very wrong for both of us if I didn’t.
Which was why, in an effort to keep strengthening my reasons to trust him, I allowed myself to test this eye-for-an-eye vulnerability theory. And I hoped that being open with him would inspire him to be open with me, thus reinforcing my confidence in our partnership.
Sitting there—cold stone under my butt and the smell of burnt wood tickling my nose—I took a deep breath.
Okay, here we go. It’s no big deal. Just lower the shields for a bit. Talk to him like a human being. Tell him something . . . real.
I gulped at the thought but forced myself to go through with it anyways.
“You know, when I was little I always wanted to be a great swordfighter,” I began.
Daniel raised his head.
“My parents never wanted me to,” I continued, stoking the fire. “I think my mom learned to accept it after a while, just like she learned to accept me, but my dad . . .” I shook my head. “Anyways, most people have always treated me like they do at Lady Agnue’s—like despite my training and spirit, I could never be strong enough to accomplish those kinds of dreams. It didn’t help my ego to have two older brothers who are both ridiculously skilled swordfighters. I think that’s one of the reasons I didn’t like you from the start. You were such a great, natural swordfighter. Meanwhile I’d been practicing for close to ten years and you defeated me without breaking a sweat.”
I got the confidence to glance up at Daniel. His expression was hard to read, but I decided to finish my thought without worrying about his judgment. I put my stick down and leaned back against my hands as I blew a strand of hair out of my face. “I know I have nothing to worry about now. I’ve punched enough antagonists in the last few weeks to know I’ve got some skills of my own. And having realized that I’m relatively epic with my wand in the form of a spear, I can finally accept that sword fighting was never a natural talent for me. But things were different when we first met. I hadn’t found my spear or my confidence yet, and in less than a minute you made me feel like an idiot and a weakling. I hated you for that. Now though, after everything, I guess I’m actually grateful.
“My life has been so geared toward fighting and struggling against the norm that sometimes I think it might make me persistent to a fault. Maybe if I’d accepted my lack of ability with the sword sooner I would have experimented more with other weapons and found my spear before this year. Just like maybe if I hadn’t been so stubborn about protecting my image in the eyes of my friends, I wouldn’t have made all those mistakes and we might still be with them now.”
I sighed and shook my head. “I know what’s done is done and I’m moving forward and all that. But I’m smart enough to realize that I’d probably still be on that self-destructive path if it weren’t for you. So like I said, despite what our past bickering might suggest, I appreciate that you put me in my place, Daniel. In all honesty I may never stop hating you for it. But I am grateful. Whatever happens, I want you to know that.”
It felt like my right hand was tingling, but I ignored it. I swallowed hard. Daniel stared at me and clenched his jaw. I could see his hands tense as they curled into fists, knuckles whitening.
It was understandable. Both of us had trouble with being vulnerable. But I hoped he would bite. I needed him to talk to me if I was going to keep my guard down around him. If I’d just revealed even more of myself for nothing, then the resulting humiliation would be like a bomb on the bridge we’d only just begun to build between us.
After a minute Daniel raised a hand to his forehead. His expression changed from uncomfortable to sad. He let out a deep breath.
“When I was chosen as a protagonist I was angry,” he began slowly. “I know that might sound stupid to you, but I was happy with my life as a common. When I read my prophecy and learned about you, that feeling of anger only grew. I’m not the kind of person that takes their problems out on other people—never have been. But it was a lot to absorb at once. And I’ll admit that when I first met you I took some satisfaction in making you feel, I don’t know, small, I guess. I mean I was mad. I thought some selfish, prissy princess was going to destroy my life. But the more we hung out, the more I realized that I was—” Daniel stopped. “What’s wrong with your hand?”
“What?”
Daniel gestured to my right hand. I brought it to the light of the fire. It was silvery and rippling and looked like melted metal. No wonder it was tingling.
“Is that still because of the watering can?” he asked, referencing our run-in with the witch in the Forbidden Forest. At the time—in exchange for our lives and some enchanted saltwater taffy we needed for our quest—we’d agreed to give up our defining characteristics of internal strength for two weeks. As part of the exchange we’d had to grasp onto a magic watering can that seared our hands and made them temporarily look like liquid metal. When the effect faded, we were supposed to receive a brand with the name of the quality that defined us. However, the watering can didn’t take anything from me because I hadn’t figured out my source of internal strength yet. As a result, I was left with a blurry splotch on my hand.
The witch said that if I ever figured out my special trait the mark would morph into a temporary tattoo of the word—announcing the quality—like it had for my friends. But since our run-in, this liquid metal effect had happened several times and the
blurry mark remained the same.
“Yeah,” I replied to Daniel, shrugging off the phenomenon. “I’m pretty sure either it or I might be broken.”
I held up my hand to show Daniel as the rippling metallic skin rescinded past my fingertips. It was almost gone. After another beat, my hand was pale and smooth again and the smudgy mark on my palm remained indiscernible. My core internal strength continued to elude me.
“See,” I said. “Nothing.”
“It can’t be healthy for your skin to keep turning to metal,” Daniel replied. “You should probably see a doctor about that.”
“Right. I’ll make an appointment tomorrow along with the dentist and the chiropractor. It’s not like we have anything else going on.”
Daniel smirked.
“What were you going to say before?” I asked, itching to know the answer to the question much more than my casual tone let on. “The more we hung out the more you realized you were . . .”
“Forget it.” Daniel shrugged. “It’s not important.”
Like heck it’s not.
“I bet I can figure it out,” I said cockily, leaning back against my hands again with a twinkle of mischief in my gaze. “The more we hung out the more you realized that you were outmatched by my brilliance, humbled by my princess grace and charm, unworthy to do battle—in terms of wit or weaponry—with someone so magnificent?”
Daniel let out an amused huff. “Yeah, that’s it.”
Relaxing my snark, I spoke sincerely. “Daniel, come on. Tell me.”
His expression turned serious and I wondered if I’d spooked him. Getting Daniel to share was like getting a wild animal to eat out of your hand—tricky, delicate work that depended so much on circumstance and timing. If either was wrong, or if you pushed too hard, it would flee from you in an instant.
“I was wrong.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Sorry?”
“The more we hung out, the more I realized I was wrong about you,” Daniel explained. “You weren’t the person I assumed you were. You were so different from the snooty princess I had imagined. And you weren’t meant to destroy my life.”
“But what about your prologue prophecy?” I asked. “Doesn’t it say I’m the one with the potential to ruin Kai and foil your happiness?”
“It does.” Daniel nodded. “But it’s like I told you in the lamp, I’m not holding that against you. For one, my prophecy—like that of most main characters—is vague. So without footnotes to explain the details I can’t make assumptions about what’s specifically going to happen. More importantly though, Knight, whatever does happen, it’s my prophecy, which means it’s my responsibility. I accept that and I’m committed to doing everything I can to ensure it doesn’t lead to a horrible ending. And part of that means—hard as it may be for me to swallow—accepting that the very person who could destroy my happiness is possibly the best chance I have at saving it.”
I hadn’t noticed how dark it’d gotten. The sun had set somewhere over the mountain. The sky was a swirl of clouds tinged with bright crimson. Our small fire burned smaller as time ticked on without either of us tending to it.
“Remember how I told you my prophecy also says you’re supposed to be a key ally to me and Kai?” Daniel asked. “I’m beginning to understand why. It’s only because of your help that I might have a chance at rewriting my fate and changing the Author’s course for my life. Every crazy choice you’ve made has pushed us to get here, closer than anyone’s ever come to finding the Author. So like I said that day we flew to your godmother Emma’s house, I was wrong to judge you off the bat and I’m sorry. But more than that—and don’t turn this into a big deal—”
He shot me a pained, almost frustrated look, like it physically hurt him to say the words. “As hard as it may be to believe, the truth is I guess I’m grateful for you too.”
SNAP!
The sound of a branch cracking somewhere nearby caused us both to whip our heads toward the cave’s opening. I clambered to my feet and approached the mouth of the cave. Daniel was at my side a moment later. We stared into the bleak twilight before instinct kicked in. “Put the fire out,” I said.
He went back to extinguish the embers. I wandered across the stone platform surrounding the cave, closer to the ledge. I stopped when I was four feet from it. There was a deep crack etched into the rock there. Definitely an avalanche hazard.
The area directly beneath the ledge was hidden from view, but I could see the vast forest at the base of the mountains. In the low light, it looked like a patch of dark fur on the back of a gravelly creature.
I pulled out my wandpin.
Lapellius.
The delicate accessory extended to its full wand form.
Dang, that was a cool trick.
My wand’s soft, off-white glow shimmered against my arm, catching the light of the crystals in my sleeve. Everything was silent for a beat, eerily so. I glanced black to gauge Daniel’s progress with the fire. But a distant whooshing sound, as if something was hurtling through the air, brought my attention back to the front of the cave just in time.
A large boulder came barreling toward the mouth of the cave. It approached in an arc like a Twenty-Three Skidd ball lobbed from a distance. The trajectory caused the boulder to sail over my head by about seven feet—missing me, but not by much. It did, however, come very close to killing Daniel.
I instinctively dove to the right when the boulder entered my peripheral vision. Daniel did the same, but he’d been standing under the mouth of the cave at the time. When the boulder hit, large fragments of stone rained upon him. One chunk fell on his leg, causing his knee to buckle and his body to crumple.
“Daniel!” I rushed to help him but was cut off by another boulder.
This one’s arc was much lower. It plowed into the ground between Daniel and me. The impact was so powerful it knocked me over and almost caused me to tumble off the ledge.
I landed on my back. When I did I felt a crumbling vibration—the ledge was coming loose. I felt two more impacts against the rock. Unlike when the boulder crashed, these were steady and purposeful like heavy footsteps. Tilting my head to the left, I identified the cause. Firmly gripping the edge of the platform only a few feet away was a pair of enormous black claws. With haste I threw myself away from the ledge and stumbled to my feet just as the monster that owned the pincers pulled itself into view.
It was hideous—ten feet in length and shaped like a lobster crossed with a caterpillar. Its entire body was covered in black, shiny scales that resembled beetle carapaces. It had no eyes. Its domed body was smooth and only had one orifice right up front—a mouth the size of three watermelons. In that mouth were two rows of teeth so white and well aligned it made me wonder if monsters visited orthodontists.
The creature’s body clung to the rock by means of at least two-dozen legs that ended in tiny grippers. The legs were long but bent. Meanwhile, the creature’s two front claws were another kind of formidable. At the center of each set of pincers extended an intimidatingly sharp, pearl-colored talon.
Protruding from the creature’s back were strange extremities. Like swelling vertebrae, bulbs the size of cantaloupes stuck out of the creature’s spine from neck to tail. Some were translucent and looked like vacant crystal balls. Others were filled with a golden, glowing energy that churned angrily. Odder still, I thought I saw faces swirling around inside them.
The creature lunged at me. His right claw thrashed down with the needle aimed at my head. I dove out of the way, rolling to the side. The needle pierced the rock but did not break. The crack on the ledge deepened; the rocks rattled.
Spear.
I leapt to my feet and jammed the blade of my staff into the creature’s side as hard as I could. It barely cracked the surface. The scaly shell was thick like an armored breastplate.
More annoyed than injured, the lobster flicked its tail to the side, smacking me to the floor. I dropped my spear. My left hand barely grabbed the ledge in time
to keep me from falling down the mountain.
I desperately tried to pull myself up, but my sweaty palm slipped on the gravel and dirt. When I finally got a good enough hold to hoist myself onto the ledge I saw the lobster lean back on its hind legs and screech, revealing the only part of its body not covered in scaly armor—the high part of its chest.
When the monster finished screeching, it skittered toward Daniel, whose leg was still pinned under rocks from the avalanche.
I scrambled to my feet and grabbed my spear from where I’d dropped it, but it was too late. Swift and merciless, the lobster thrust one of its pincer needles into Daniel’s chest.
“No!”
For a horrifying moment I thought Daniel was slain. But the needle that sunk into Daniel glowed brightly, as did Daniel the moment it went into him.
In the blink of an eye he dematerialized into some form of glowing energy that looked like a gas. He was absorbed into the lobster’s needle. A heartbeat later one of the empty translucent orbs on the lobster’s back started swirling with the same golden energy as some of the others. For no more than a second, within the energy of that newly filled orb I saw the vague outline of Daniel’s face.
I was dumbfounded but focused. I was also determined, angry, and brimming with conviction. So when the creature turned to pursue me again it got more than it bargained for.
It came at me with one vicious claw after another, but I was too fast for it this time. I jumped and evaded each attack with the speed of a jackrabbit. Glancing back, I saw that Daniel had not finished putting out the fire before the attack had begun. Small chunks of kindling and firewood still blazed behind me. An idea formed inside me that was equally hot and untempered.
The lobster backed me up closer to the part of the cave that hadn’t been affected by the avalanche. I picked up a grapefruit-sized piece of fallen rock and chucked it at the creature’s perfect teeth.
The throw was hard and my aim was true. Enraged, the lobster opened its mouth to screech. As it did, I transformed my wand into a lacrosse sword—the weapon of choice for my favorite sport, Twenty-Three Skidd. The lacrosse sword had the staff of my spear, but the blade on top was longer and there was a basket at the other end. This basket was ordinarily intended for catching and lobbing Twenty-Three Skidd balls, but I had other plans. I spun the staff and scooped up a serving of blazing kindling from the fire. I hurled the flaming projectile into the lobster’s wide-open orifice.
Inherent Fate Page 8
