“And there’s more,” said Samuel. “Look.”
He pointed down the shore to where it ended at the other end of the cavern. In the wall on the other side was another tunnel, and it sloped steeply upward into the mountain.
“Yes!” said Calvin, excited. “Finally, a way out of here!”
“Maybe,” said Melaine. “It could be another dead end.”
“Time enough to think of that on the morrow,” said Cara. “For now, we rest.”
“It’s my turn to take watch, Captain,” said Samuel, rising from his seat by the fire. “You should join the others and sleep.”
Cara nodded wordlessly. We dispersed to make our beds against the seam of the cave’s floor and wall. Melaine didn’t bother with a blanket—this far into the earth, the air around us was warm, almost stuffy. She simply threw down her bag and lay her head upon it.
“Thank you for dinner, my Lord,” she said with a small smile.
“No problem,” I said. “About time we had something hot to eat.”
“Indeed. I rather thought that hot meals would be more readily in supply on this trip. I suppose it only goes to prove that few things are what we think they will be in advance.” She looked over at me, and her smile grew.
“You talking about the trip, or me?” I said.
“You have been most surprising, my Lord,” she said. “More resilient than I thought you would be when first we met. More dedicated. Stronger. Smarter. In many ways, someone I have come to respect.”
“Don’t get all mushy on me,” I said, embarrassed and trying not to show it. “You’re all right, too.”
Blade’s fire went out as he laid himself down to sleep. I listened through the darkness for Melaine’s reply. It didn’t come before I passed out.
A RUINED PICNIC
MILES
“THEY NEARLY TOOK ME TO Medicorp while I was sleeping,” I finished. “If I hadn’t woken up this morning, my mom was going to toss me in the car and drive me there herself.”
It was the next day, and we were in the school cafeteria. I’d just finished telling them about what had happened—or almost happened—with my parents. I didn’t want to be bringing problems to the table, but I knew that if we didn’t deal with our folks, life on Earth was going to become even more dangerous than it was in Midrealm.
Sarah pinched the bridge of her nose. “I was afraid of that. I guess we should be grateful that she didn’t.”
“Oh, I’m fine too, by the way,” said Blade nonchalantly. “Since it was obvious you cared.” I gave him a little smirk. He returned it, along with a thumbs up.
Sarah winced. “Sorry, Blade. It’s just that Miles’ mom has been on edge about our ‘disorder’ for a while now.”
I braced myself. I knew the reaction I was about to get. “Sarah, we need to meet up with these two ex-Association people.”
“Briggs and Anna?” said Sarah. “Why?”
Did she really need to ask? “We can’t keep doing this forever,” I said. “I’m telling you, I was this close to ending up in the hands of the Association. We need a fallback plan when things go wrong, when we can’t come back from Midrealm. And we can’t work something like that out on our own. We need their help.” I felt my breathing begin to quicken and shoved the feeling down. I couldn’t have a panic attack here in the cafeteria, here in front of the others.
Sarah didn’t look happy. “I understand what you’re saying, but I didn’t want to risk that yet. We still don’t even know these guys.”
“Hey, I told you, they’re cool,” said Calvin. “They’ll be able to help. I know it.”
Raven, silent the whole time, leaned in over the lunch table. “I agree with Miles. My mom’s the other one who’s nuts about Medicorp. I just know I’m going to wake up one day and find myself in a hospital bed over at Butler Hospital’s crazy ward, followed by a personal introduction to Terrence right before they inject me with some kind of untraceable poison.”
“Wow,” said Blade, his eyes going wide. I thought I saw his skin go a shade paler. “That’s dark, yo.”
“She’s a goth,” Calvin said with a shrug. “What do you expect?”
“We do sort of specialize in the infinite blackness that is existence,” said Raven, leaning back in her chair again.
I leaned forward. “Sarah, I want to set up a meet with them. Today.”
“I second the motion,” said Raven. Her hand went up like a kid in class.
“We get into a fight, everyone wants me to give orders,” said Sarah wryly. “But we want to put our lives on the line with stranger danger, and suddenly it turns into a democracy.”
“Isn’t it?” said Raven, incensed. “Or are you some kind of dictator?”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Calm down, Raven. It was a joke. If everyone wants to meet with them, we will. Calvin, can you set it up to happen after school? Tell them we’ll come to them. We just need an address.”
“Of course,” he nodded. “I’ll ask them right now.”
“Fine,” said Sarah, sighing. “I just hope we’re not making a big mistake.”
Relief flooded through me. Instantly, I felt my breathing grow calmer, my heartbeat slowing to a manageable level. “I think it’s the right move. We can’t do this on our own forever. The more help we have, the better our chances. And they’ve already proven they’re not going to just kill us out of nowhere. They could have done that a long time ago.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sarah said. “You’ve convinced me. You don’t have to keep arguing.”
“Okay, there’s just one more super important question,” said Calvin, leaning in closer again.
My brow furrowed. Calvin’s face was deadly serious.
“What is it?” said Raven.
He held out his hands. “Tell me exactly what the Elves look like,” he began.
“Ugh,” said Sarah and Raven, standing and walking away from the table.
“I’m out, too,” I said. “Sorry, Calvin. Hopefully they’ll tell you some other time.”
I got up and dumped my tray in the trash before heading outside to the school’s athletic field. The sky was overcast, giving the sunlight a muted feel as it glinted off the metal bleachers and glowed in the green blades of grass.
Off at the the edge of the field, where there were a bunch of tables and benches for kids to eat outside, I spotted Clarissa. She was eating alone. Part of me wanted to go ask if I could sit down. But it was probably better this way. Clarissa and I could never be something real. Not now. Probably not ever.
“So what was that all about in there?”
I turned to see Sarah standing behind me, leaning against the wall of the school building. She was in a light brown hoodie over a green shirt, wrapping her arms around herself to combat the fall chill. The light wind in the air blew her blonde hair across her face, making her look like Tess for a moment as she peered at me.
I shrugged. “What was what?“
“The conversation we just had. The ex-Association guys. Are you mad at me or something?”
“Of course not, Sarah,” I said. “I know you’re the boss.”
“I’m not the boss,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. “Sure. Whatever. You are. But we need this. Anna and Briggs already proved they’re trustworthy. And if they have an idea that can help us not get captured by Terrence, we need it. Waiting and hoping that nothing bad will happen is the stupidest thing we could possibly do. We need as much help as we can get, from anyone we can get it from. Right now, that’s them.”
“I guess you’re probably right,” she said reluctantly. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
“What I’m doing?” I arched an eyebrow. “You’re the boss.”
“Oh, give me a break,” Sarah muttered. She walked away, her hair catching in the wind and flying in orbit around her head.
The musty air of the caverns greeted me as I woke in Midrealm, underground for the second time in a row. I sat up to find a pleasant orange
glow bathing our stony little campsite. That meant Blade was awake.
“About time you woke, my Lord,” said Melaine. I raised a hand and she snatched it, hauling me to my feet. “The others have been here for nearly an hour already. Did you enjoy your beauty rest?”
“I did, actually,” I grumbled. “I couldn’t get away from my family back home. They’re pretty worried about how much I’ve been sleeping.”
“Oh, how terrible for you to be so well-rested,” she said, her voice sarcastic and sweet. “It must be a heavy burden to bear. I am so glad that I do not have to bear it.”
I rolled my eyes. Just like Melaine to make me feel guilty for sleeping so much when she knew I couldn’t help it. “If it’s such a burden, you should volunteer to take the watch all night. Then you wouldn’t have to sleep at all.”
The corner of her mouth twisted. She grabbed my shoulders and lowered me not-so-gently to sit on the floor. A couple of leftover trout remained from the night before—now freshly cooked. She picked one up and tossed it to me—I yelped as the scorching hot fish seared my fingertips and I nearly dropped it to the dirty floor.
“Ow,” I complained, sucking on my burned forefinger as I gingerly used the edge of my shirt to hold the fish until it cooled off.
“My apologies, my Lord,” Melaine said with a smirk. She grabbed her own fish, wrapping it in a handkerchief, and took a bite. She sat down, her attention on her meal as she tucked in.
Her face was turned to the side, and I found myself studying her tattoo. It ran from under her shirt, up her neck and along the side of her face, ending in the middle of her forehead. It reminded me a little of a celtic knot design, but it was different—harder, somehow. More angular. It was a warrior’s tattoo, there was no mistaking that.
Then I noticed something I’d never seen before. Usually, Melaine was wearing gauntlets, or at least leather gloves. But now her hands were bare, and on her left ring finger I saw a gold band with an opal set into it.
“Oh my gosh, are you married?” I said.
Melaine stared at me like I had sprouted a third eye in my forehead. “I’m sorry?”
I pointed. “Your ring. Is that an engagement ring?”
Melaine stared at it, then back up at me. She still looked like I was crazy. “A…what? Did you hit your head? You’re speaking nonsense.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “Let me start over. You’re wearing a ring on that finger. On True Earth, that symbolizes that you’re either married, or engaged to be married to someone. So when I saw it, I wondered whether you were married. Or engaged.”
Melaine laughed. “I see. For a moment I thought you had a fever of the mind. And the answer to your question is no. When men and women in Midrealm are married, we do wear rings, but we wear them here.” She pointed to the middle finger of her right hand. It was bare.
“Ah, gotcha,” I said. “I was going to say, if we’d known each other and you hadn’t even mentioned your husband all this time, I was going to be upset.”
“Why?” she smirked. “Do the people of True Earth have nothing better to speak of than their spouses?”
“Don’t listen to her,” Samuel grunted from the other side of the fire. “She doesn’t know what it’s like to be married, how completely that person becomes more than half of your life.”
I was surprised. “Are you married, Samuel?”
He looked at me, aghast. “Of course not! I do know what it’s like.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not that bad. I want to get married some day.”
Melaine’s eyes lit up. “Truly? To Lady Sarah?”
I almost gagged. “What? To Sarah? No way. Not in a million years.”
She looked confused. “Why not? She is very beautiful. And besides, who else could you marry? You are a Realm Keeper. You are immortal. What kind of marriage could you have with a mortal?”
“That doesn’t stop some of them,” Samuel muttered.
I took another bite of fish. Now that I wasn’t starving, it didn’t taste as good as it had when we’d first cooked them, but at least it was something. “What do you mean?” I asked Samuel. “Have Realm Keepers married mortal women before?”
Samuel looked at Melaine, asking a question with his eyes. She shrugged. He glanced over his shoulder, seeing Blade was out of earshot. “Barius was married to one of the last Realm Keepers,” he said. “Her name was Lady Reiko. She was the Keeper of Water, like you.”
“Are you serious?” I asked. “Holy cow. That’s nuts. How did they…how long were they together?”
“More than a score of years, I think,” said Samuel, taking a drink from his water skin. “He was a young man when they wed.”
“It must have been terrible for him,” I said thoughtfully. “When Terrence…turned, I mean.”
“It gets worse,” Melaine said darkly. “He was there.”
My eyes must have looked like spotlights. “What? You mean when it happened?”
Melaine nodded. Her eyes grew sad, and she looked down into her lap, her meal forgotten. “Barius went with them to the outlands. He was with them when Terrence unleashed his power and killed the Realm Keepers. When Terrence escaped, Barius led the march of the Runegard back to fight in the Battle of the Circle.”
“Were either of you there, too?” I asked. “Or Cara? Cara must have been there.”
“She wasn’t,” said Samuel. “No other living Runegard was. Barius is the only one who was there when the Realm Keepers died, and who survived the Battle of the Circle.”
I realized my mouth was hanging open and shut it. “Holy crud,” I said quietly. “I mean, I knew he could take care of himself. But I had no idea he was that epic.”
“Epic?” said Melaine with a smirk. She kicked my knee, smearing dirt on my pants. I brushed it off. “What kind of a word is that?”
“It’s a good word!” I said. “I meant it as a compliment.”
“Wow, that smells great,” said Calvin. He wandered over from the sleeping rolls toward the fire, looking eagerly at the fish that sat on spits above it.
I looked up at him, opening my mouth to speak. But Melaine kicked my knee again, harder this time.
“Ow!” I said.
“Don’t mention Barius,” she said quietly.
I cocked my head. “Why?”
She looked at Calvin in exasperation as he plopped down just a few feet away. She tossed her head to the side, and I rose to follow her as she stepped out of sight behind a series of stalagmites that jutted from the ground like a stage. The waterfall fell into the lake close by, muting the sound of our conversation.
“I do not know that Barius would enjoy it if all of the Realm Keepers were aware of his wife,” she explained softly. “He is a private man in many ways. And he would be most upset if Lady Raven were to find out.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
Melaine double-checked over her shoulder to make sure Calvin was out of earshot. Then she said, “Lady Raven looks nearly identical to how Lady Reiko looked, though she is considerably younger.”
“Wait, she looks like his wife?” I said, taken aback. “Um…I’m sorry, Melaine, but that’s a little weird.”
“No, you idiot,” she said, striking me in the chest with her palm so hard that I winced. “If anything, I believe that Barius may see her as a sort of childish version of his wife. Perhaps like one of the children that the two of them were never able to have.”
I nodded slowly. “Oh, wow. That makes sense. He’s super protective of her.”
“We’re all protective of you,” Melaine said. “We have to be. You’re like wandering children in a den of wolves. But yes, Barius is especially attentive to her safety. If she were to know why, it could make her uncomfortable. And you know Lord Calvin even better than I—if he were to know, it would slip out eventually.”
“Oh, for sure,” I said immediately. “But why tell me, if you’re so worried about her finding out?”
Melaine looked at me like I
was an idiot. “Because you are trustworthy,” she said, as if it were obvious. “And besides, you’re my Realm Keeper.”
She smirked and punched me on the shoulder again before wandering back to the fire.
Once Calvin had eaten his fill, we set off toward the tunnel at the other end of the lake’s shore. I looked regretfully at the lake and the fish it contained—we didn’t have any way to store them easily for travel, so we had to leave them behind. But hopefully we’d be out of this place soon and could find food in the wilderness. Maybe the others still had their horses. That’s where most of the food had been kept.
The tunnel rose sharply into the rock wall, making our walk even more tiring than normal. Soon Calvin was panting hard for breath. It was a strain on Blade, too, but he was too proud to show it, especially since I handled the incline easily. That came from years of long-distance running, building endurance and lung capacity. Plus, Blade smoked. It didn’t affect his body in Midrealm any more, where he couldn’t satisfy the habit, but the body he’d brought over when he first came already had years of lung damage that would take a lot of clean living to repair.
Blade and Calvin didn’t have to suffer for long. In what seemed like no time, we came around a corner and found a solid wall of stone staring at us.
“Crud!” shouted Blade, kicking the wall in anger.
“Oh, man,” I said, dismayed.
Cara turned to us, her eyes weary but unbroken. “Very well. It was a good try. But it looks like we’ll have to try the goblin colony again.”
“No! No way!” Blade said. “You weren’t there, Cara. It was nuts. I’m not going back there, not for all the money in the world.”
“Our only other option appears to be sitting here until we starve to death,” she observed.
“Perhaps there is another way,” said Melaine. “Something we missed. Another passage.”
“We didn’t miss any passages, Melaine,” I said with a heavy sigh. “It’s a dead end.”
“Hold on,” said Calvin.
“For what?” said Blade, scowling. “You weren’t there either, Calvin. I’m not even kidding, man. There were just too many of them. We can’t fight them all. Even if we did, PETA here would complain.” He pointed at me.
Wyrmspire (Realm Keepers Book 2) Page 31
