by Megg Jensen
“I was poisoned and lost the baby.” Tears choked Tressa’s throat. “When I stayed in the bunker, I was pregnant.”
Bastian’s hand dropped. The pained look on his face tortured Tressa.
“I didn’t know then, I swear it to you.” Tressa grasped Bastian’s hands. “I didn’t find out until I miscarried. If I had known…”
“Things might be different?” Bastian asked, his voice a whisper.
Tressa looked up at Bastian. The boy she'd loved stood in front of her. His eyes pleaded with her. Asking for what? Forgiveness? Another chance?
Then there was Jarrett. She loved him. She knew that deep down he was the one for her.
"Tressa?" Bastian's hand hovered in the air. Slowly it lowered onto her hair.
Her heart beat fast. Too fast. Fire licked in her belly, all the memories of her past with Bastian flooding back. Standing in this cottage with him felt too familiar.
She took his hand in hers, lowering it slowly away from her face. He held her fingers gently, lacing his though hers.
"Bastian, we shouldn't." It came out as a whisper. “Jarrett. Elinor.”
"I can't stop wanting you," he said.
She ventured a glance down and his body echoed what he'd told her. Despite her attempts to think of Jarrett, to push away all of the feelings and memories she shared with Bastian, she couldn't stop. Not here. Not in this place.
Tressa stood on her tiptoes, her lips landing on Bastian's. Her body melted against his, feeling all the familiar contours as his hand fumbled at her top.
"Are you sure?" he asked, pulling back for a moment.
Tressa grasped his face, pulling him closer. She jumped, wrapping her legs around his waist. His hands found their way to her bottom as he stumbled toward the bed, laying her down gently.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Tressa rolled out of Bastian's arms and sat up, her eyes squinting into rays from the rising sun. She looked down at his face, his eyes lightly shut and his mouth open, a small snore dropping from his lips. After making love, they'd sleepily agreed it would be the last time. They both had something they'd needed to get out of their systems. Tressa had no interest in going back to Bastian, and he seemed to understand that.
Her thoughts turned to Jarrett. She wasn't sure if she felt what she'd just done was a betrayal. Her heart still loved Jarrett. Nothing had changed. This was a moment stolen from the past. Irrelevant to her future.
"Bastian," she said, nudging his arm.
He grunted, wiped his nose, then opened his eyes. "Tressa." He smiled, followed by panic in his eyes. "Tressa!" He sat up, the blanket dripping precariously down his naked hips.
"It's okay," she said. "I was going to head south. I thought you should leave before me, just in case the spell keeps you trapped in here."
"Good idea.” He gathered the blanket around his waist. "Last night was—”
"It was last night," Tressa said. She turned her back, giving him time to get his clothes on. "We're adults, Bastian. We don't have to make more of this than it was." Tressa waited, listening to him pull up his pants. She turned around just as he was pulling his shirt over his head. One glance at his taut stomach told her the truth. What happened last night was simply a mirror of their past. Not their present. Not their future. She still loved Jarrett.
Bastian rubbed his chin. "There is one thing." He paused, but he didn't need to finish.
"Elinor," Tressa said. She rested a hand on Bastian's shoulder. "Don't worry, I won't tell her. It would only hurt her, and that wasn't our intention."
"No," Bastian said. "It's just that, I really like Elinor. Genuinely."
Tressa smiled. "I'm glad. You deserve to be happy, too."
"What about Jarrett?" Bastian asked. "I can't say I'm happy about the two of you. If you'd seen what he did on the Isle of Repose…he's a killer, Tressa. I'm glad he's gone from here. I think Connor would have killed him, given the chance. You're the only reason he's still alive."
Tressa fiddled with the ties to her top. "I know. But whatever happened on the island, it wasn't Jarrett's fault. Something had control over him. Connor should understand that. Sometimes our circumstances are bigger than ourselves. It's how we adapt to the aftermath that defines us."
Bastian laughed. "Look how we just adapted." He glanced over at the bed.
"A moment of weakness?" Tressa asked.
"A long goodbye," Bastian said.
She couldn't agree more. Her eyes swept the cottage. Part of her felt as if she'd never left. Another part knew everything she could see and touch was part of her past, including Bastian.
"We'll always be friends," Tressa said. "You, me, and Connor. We've changed, but we'll always have that connection. We got through the fog together, didn't we?"
"Yeah," Bastian said. "And we'll get through this together. After you've done whatever secret mission you're on, why don't you come back here? The three of us can keep digging for the truth about our village."
Tressa almost blurted out a "yes," but she caught herself. She couldn't make any promises, especially not to Bastian. Not again. If something else came up, she'd follow it without a second thought to what lay waiting for her in Hutton's Bridge. "Maybe."
Bastian cleared his throat and straightened his shirt. He had nothing more to say, and what could he say after her answer? "Anyway, thanks for letting Connor and I tear through the cottage last night. I think whatever was written on those missing pages could help us a lot. It could tip the balance in the war."
Tressa silently disagreed. What could words do when people were dying, fighting an enemy who seemed to have an unending supply of fresh warriors? At least with the Green behind them, they could easily triple their numbers. They’d have armor, too.
"I'm glad I could help." Tressa tossed a random dress she'd taken from the wardrobe into her pack. She stalled, hoping Bastian would leave. Suddenly it felt awkward, standing there with him. "I should get going. I have a lot of flying to do before the day is over. I want to get down to the ruins as soon as possible."
“Flying?” Bastian asked, his head cocked to the side. “Is one of the dragons meeting you here?”
A knock at the door broke into their conversation. Tressa breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t meant to blurt that out. It was the worse possible time to tell Bastian she was part dragon. She strode across the room and opened it. "Elinor," she said and stepped back into the cottage, giving Elinor room to enter.
The diminutive woman with the long blond hair swept into the cottage. Her eyes rested on Bastian, then flickered to the bed. "Connor said I might find you here."
"Bastian was just going through the bookshelves, looking for some old book my great-grandmother might have kept here," Tressa said. Bastian stood silent.
"That's what Connor said." Elinor relaxed, slipping her hand into Bastian's. Her smile lit up the room. "Let's go. Farah's asking for you."
"Thanks again, Tressa," Bastian said. He stopped, tugging on Elinor's hand. "Don't forget, we're putting the fog back up this morning. I'll tell the guardians about you, but I can't guarantee they won't try to shoot you down if you attempt to come back."
"Thanks, but I doubt I'll be back anytime soon." Tressa avoided looking at Bastian. "I have a few things to take care of. And Jarrett will need me during his recovery."
"I'm the last one to judge," Elinor said, resting a hand on Tressa's arm. "My father was a disturbed man, and I lived with him for years. But I want you to be careful around Jarrett. Something changed him on that island, Tressa."
"The healers will help him." Tressa tried to sound more confident than she felt.
"Don't let down your guard, okay? Come back safely to us." Elinor stressed the final word of her sentence.
Tressa didn't need reminding. Even if Jarrett was lost to her, if the healers couldn't sever his connection to whatever was trying to control him, she wouldn't be back for Bastian. Not for all the good memories. Not after what happened the night before. It had been g
oodbye.
"I will," Tressa said with a smile. It wasn't genuine, and from the look on Elinor's face, she didn't know the difference. Just as well.
Bastian and Elinor left without a backward glance. Tressa closed the door behind them. She took a deep breath, then strode over to the bedside table. She lay on her stomach, reaching her arm down between the wall and the bed, her fingers searching the small space. After a few moments, she gave up. There wasn't anything shoved down there as she'd suspected.
The morning she'd left for the fog, Tressa had found a handwritten note from Granna. The parchment had been torn from another book. Tressa had hidden the note in her pack when she’d left Hutton’s Bridge. It was the same pack she’d hidden in a tree hollow before winning her place in the Black Guard. It had been months since she’d thought of the pack, which held the note, clothes, a doll, and…
Tressa gasped.
She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten.
She had honey in her pack.
Tressa closed her eyes, thinking of the night she’d abandoned Bastian in the hidden camp with their parents. Her father had asked for honey, and she’d promised to leave him some. She had, but not all of it. She’d kept a small stash in the bottom of her bag.
Her heart raced behind her ribs. At the first chance, she would have to find the tree, her pack, and the honey.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Bastian watched the children run around the village square, kicking a ball made of leather, stitched together with wide wool thread. They whooped and hollered, throwing arms in the air, thrilled to be back home again.
Hutton's Bridge was all any of them had ever known. There was comfort in that. Once it was a town of orphans, the adults mysteriously gone and replaced by the fog. Now it was filled with orphans again, the descendants facing a similar fate.
Connor wandered among the children, Vatra and Fotia nipping at his heels. Just children themselves, they fit in among the younglings of Hutton's Bridge. One day they would change into humans themselves. From the way the children played with the young dragons, Bastian felt they would all easily understand each other. A bond forged by the steel sword of tragedy.
"The fog will return today," Elinor said. She laid a hand on Bastian's arm, her small pale fingers squeezing lightly. "Are you ready?"
Bastian nodded. "I am. I think they are too. The fog is all they've ever known. It should bring them some peace and comfort."
"And you?" Elinor asked. "Did seeing Tressa bring you peace and comfort?"
Bastian rubbed the back of his neck. He gazed at the woman standing in front of him. She'd been open with him since the day they met. She'd given over her inborn healing talents and gifted him with invulnerability. More than that, he loved her in a way he hadn't loved other women, which was why he couldn’t stay silent. Bastian grabbed Elinor’s hand, pulling her behind a building where no one could see or hear them.
"I slept with Tressa last night," he confessed. His shame wanted him to keep it a secret, but after looking into her eyes, he knew he didn't want any secrets between them.
Elinor took a deep breath, her lips struggled to remain firm. Her damp eyes steeled.
"It just happened. It wasn't like I sought her out for sex. Connor and I went to her cottage to look for the missing pages of the book. After Connor left, Tressa told me she’d once been pregnant with our child. It was something we’d wanted for so long. But before she’d had a chance to tell me, she lost the baby." Bastian shrugged, knowing all the explanations in the world wouldn’t make what he’d done acceptable. “Neither of us plans to be together again. Neither of us wants to.”
Elinor stifled a pained laugh behind one shaking hand.
Bastian fell to his knees. He reached for Elinor's hands, but she wouldn't allow him to touch her.
"I suspected as much. Thank you for telling me instead of hiding like a coward." Elinor crossed her arms over her chest, her black dress rumpled.
"I don't love her," Bastian insisted.
"I need some time," Elinor said, her lower lip trembling.
"Of course. Anything. Whatever you need." Bastian stood, his legs suddenly feeling weak and unstable. He looked at the soil under his boots. The ground of his homeland shook underneath him, refusing to hold him up. Bastian glanced at Elinor, her anger emanating through her glare. He fell to his knees, sick to his stomach.
"We are connected, Bastian." She reached out her hand, her fingers curled, squeezing the air.
He gasped, unable to breathe, his heart screeching in pain.
Elinor clutched the air again. Bastian's heart skipped a beat.
Tears spilled from her eyes as she lowered her hand. Bastian fell to the ground, his face resting on the scratchy earth, his breath pushing dirt particles across the ground.
Elinor sank down next to him, resting her cheek on his back. "I'm so sorry, Bastian. I didn't mean to hurt you. I wanted you to love me for me. Not because I hold your life in my hands. But now that you've proven you'll never sever your connection to Tressa, I had to show you that you belong with me alone."
He wanted to ask what she'd done. He loved her, yes, but not like this. Where was that pure excitement they'd found in each other? The respite from the chaos of the world he'd found in her arms had been genuine.
But now...
"Bastian, I love you. Say you love me too," Elinor pleaded into his back.
He did love Elinor. He knew that. Despite what he'd done with Tressa the night before. Yet knowing what Elinor held over him now, his very life in her hands, he couldn't bring himself to say the words.
"Say it," she said, her tone gritty and demanding.
A small fist slammed into his back.
"Say it!"
Bastian shrugged her off and sat up. Elinor knelt, her hands on her legs. Her eyes burned with a fire he'd never seen.
"I love you," he said. It felt hollow. Wrong. But what else was left? He either had to tell her what she wanted to hear or risk losing his life. He thought of his daughter, running and laughing. She'd lost her mother. He couldn't let her lose her father. "I love you." He said it again, thinking solely of his daughter, the words finally infused with meaning and life.
Elinor's lips trembled as a smile bloomed on her face, pushing her angry, red cheeks into tiny apples. "I knew it. I knew you loved me."
Bastian’s stomach flipped as he rose. He held out a hand to Elinor. She slipped her delicate fingers in his and stood. "I want to stay here when the fog appears. With you. I want to live in your cottage. Be your wife. Be a mother to your daughter." Elinor swept her arm to the side, taking in the whole of Hutton's Bridge. "We'll build a beautiful life here, sheltered from the rest of the world. You've told me over and over again that you wished the war was done. Here, we can hide from it."
"I thought you wanted to fight," Bastian said.
"I did. Until I realized I could still lose you to Tressa." Elinor stood on her tiptoes, placing her hand on his cheek. "I know I can't lose you to war because of the gift I gave you. I thought I had all of you, Bastian. Last night you proved to me that I don’t. So now I need to protect you from her. Keep you away. We will stay here in Hutton’s Bridge." Her hand slipped down his face, over his throat, until it came to rest just over his heart. A reminder. A threat.
"You'll forget Tressa soon enough," Elinor said. "I'll make sure of that. Now, are there any other secrets you want to share with me?"
Bastian thought of the whore. He suspected Elinor already knew about his night with the woman. There was still the question of the pregnancy. He refused to presume anything from a lascivious lick of the lips and a rubbing of the belly. For all he knew it was a trick to tempt him back to her bed, or a blatant attempt at extortion. No, he had nothing else to tell Elinor.
"I won't pressure you into my bed," Elinor said. "I want you to come to me freely like before." She stood close, letting her breasts rub against his arm. It quickly aroused him, but for once his mind held sway. Bastian doubted he'd ever
want to touch her again.
"I need to talk to Connor," he mumbled. "We need to get the fog restored as soon as possible.”
"Come back to me, Bastian," Elinor said. “I’ll be here. Waiting. With your daughter as a guarantee of your return.”
Fire burned in Bastian’s eyes. “Don’t hurt her. Or I swear I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Elinor asked. She waved a hand in the air. “No matter. If we all do exactly as we promise, no one will get hurt. I’m so sorry it had to come to this, Bastian.”
He nodded, left with nothing more to say. Bastian trudged toward Connor, wondering how he'd get himself, and his daughter, out of this situation alive.
Chapter Forty
As night settled on the Charred Barrens, moonlight bathed the broken branches of the skeleton forest in an eerie glow. Tressa glided on the scant breeze, descending into one of the many hidden holes in the ground, entering the underground city.
Though the Black didn't receive sunlight underground, they observed the same day to night sleep cycle as those aboveground. Without cues from nature, the people underground had come up with their own method to keep time. The Black marked time in candles, burning four candles of exact height and girth each day. Timewatchers marked the changing of the candle with a loud gong.
The courtyard was silent as she landed during the fourth candle—the time when everyone slept. Tressa paused for a moment in her dragon form, taking in the city. The buildings didn't feel as tall as they had when she'd first arrived. Experiencing the city as a dragon for the first time, Tressa's snout stood even to the halfway mark of the palace’s height.
Within the space of a quick breath, Tressa stood, her hands on her hips. Yes, the buildings had grown again, reaching up to the top of the soaring cave's ceiling. It was amazing how perspective could change so quickly.
She strode into the building where Granna resided, making her way to the chambers where her great-grandmother slept. Tressa burst in the doors, without so much as a knock.
"Tressa?" Granna sat up in her bed, her gray hair rumpled around her face. She rubbed her eyes. “You’re safe! Oh my dear sweet child, you’re safe!”
