Howls grew in harmony. The wolves licked their lips.
I’m going to live for myself, Elise told herself. It was a thought that strengthened her body, straight from her bones and into the shoulder that wept. Her fingers slowly let go of Moonlight’s hair, accepting the things outside of her control. She exhaled the doubt in her lungs and wrapped both arms around Zane’s blade, taunting the wolves with her war cries.
“I don’t fear death!” she cried. “I will not have it today. Not today. NOT HERE!”
The pack cowered.
Moonlight and Elise rode as one into death’s arms. The Alpa was lone standing and growled in wrath at the cowards of his pack. It was his final cry, as Elise slashed Zane’s legendary blade into the wolf’s hindquarters.
The Alpha yelped, but Elise did not look behind her. Moonlight pressed onward.
The pack turned on their own. Hungry and starve.
“Soren be with us!” Elise cried as tears of victory streamed down her face.
Moonlight joined with a nicker, and they blazed on towards the village of Fayhollow with strife. The ship of her destiny was within their grasp, and it would not sail without them. The sword had not failed her yet, and neither would Moonlight.
20
“I’ll start a fire,” Rose said as the cart stopped alongside the roadway. She undid the buckles around her ox’s pull, setting her free to roam. They had been following the Winding River north for what felt like days.“She’ll need to feed before we continue. Why don’t you soak in the river? The waters are quite warm this far south. I’ll get something cooking in the meantime.”
The Winding River’s water trickled gently in Billy’s ear. Wading from the shore to reveal an assortment of colored stones buried underneath. Hints of wildflower and the kinds of fish that swam in its waters filled his nostrils. He imagined savory fish lived here and his mouth watered at the thought.
The light reflected like broken glass over the shifting water. Billy scrubbed the filth from his face in the slow-moving current and removed his shoes to soak his feet. The rocks were slimy underfoot, but it was satisfying.
They’d trailed alongside the river for a few moons to arrive at a bend. The closer they got to the mountain ranges in the foreground, the more the river started forking off into other directions. It was to be almost naked to the eye. The frothing waters of the south were to be abandoned before long.
After a moment in peaceful serenity, Billy laced up his shoes and shook off the remaining droplets of water. He intended on helping Rose tend to the fire or eat whatever it was she had prepared, but as he climbed the elevated bank, there was only reminisce of grayish smoke flowing into the air. The small log fire had been abandoned to die. Over along the hillside, Lapis grazed happily on wild grass and weeds. Her tiny tail swung back and forth in bliss. Rose was gone.
“Rose?” he called.
Billy made his way to the rear of the cart, searching to see if she was inside grabbing supplies, but she was not. The back compartment was piled high with crafted wooden crates, the ones he was forbidden from looking at. A sudden urge grew in the hold of Billy's abdomen. “She won’t mind,” he said, dazed.
He was still alone. There was no harm in curiosity.
One of the crate lids warped upwards, inviting him to look inside.
“She won’t mind,” he whispered again.
Billy wiggled his slender orange fingers under the loose lid. He knew he shouldn’t, but he felt compelled to. As he pried, a nail popped off and another after that. They surrendered their hold. He tore back a thin layer of fabric cloth. Stones. No. They were crystals, dark and highly polished crystals. They were covered in markings. Billy had never seen anything like them before.
Was this why they were going to the Capitol?
The crystal’s mirror-like surfaces reflected eerie warnings. Billy felt it. It was the same feeling he’d encountered at Abbott’s burning house. Billy went to pick one up, but before he could touch its surface, his arm was jerked away.
“We had an agreement!” Rose snapped, her hands dripped with water. “You’re under no circumstances to touch what's in these crates!”
“I— I— just—“
“Could have gotten yourself killed! Do you not remember what I told those men? There was truth in those words. Curses, I tell you,” the cords on her neck raised like a snare. “I left for two moments to catch dinner for us to eat, and I come back to find you breaking the one rule we’d established! Can I not trust you to obey a simple request?”
Billy was silent.
“I’ve saved your life, and this is how you repay me? By snooping through my things?”
“You weren’t here. I went looking for you. Whatever’s in those things, they were calling me to them.”
Rose sighed deeply.” Have you touched one?”
“No.”
“Good,” she said as she returned the lid to its rightful place.
“I’m sorry.”
Rose ran her fingers of the winkles on her temple, then wiped her wet hands on the front of her garments. “Never again. Or I won’t stop what will happen. It’s a painful curse that never ends. Give me your word you’ll let them be, or I’ll have no other choice than to abandon you here? An unknown land can hold quite the fear in a man’s eyes.”
“You have my word,” Billy ensured. “For what it's worth.”
The wrinkles on Rose’s face tightened, and Billy could have sworn her pendant hummed with light matching the pitch of her voice. He had no idea what gemstones were capable of, but they were at least valuable enough that Rose had a cart full of them.
After the quarrel had died down and his embarrassment with it, Billy approached the smoldered logs with far too many questions inside his head. Who was Rose, truly? What was inside the crates? And what curse would fall on him? But Billy did not have the guts to ask after betraying her trust. So he left it to mull over for later.
“Supper,” Rose grinned, forgetting her earlier frustrations. She’d cooked fish.
Fish was precisely what Billy craved. Was she a mind reader?
They were to sup on a silver river trout, as Rose proclaimed it. The scales were like ringlets of armor mail with eyes that seemed to match. It had a long narrow top fin that curved back against its tail. The fish was as big as Billy’s forearm and weighed a stone each.
With a bit of aid from her pendant, Rose reignited the smoldering fire.
“Clever little trick,” Billy said, unaware of this newfound phenomenon. “Wish I had something like that back at home while growing up. Would have made a lot of things easier.”
Rose’s cheeks lifted. She tucked the necklace back underneath her clothes for safekeeping. "Go on, eat."
They ate their dinner in silence as the sunset south. The flesh was tender and fell from the stickily bones with ease. Each bite tasted sweet like honey in the spring and crunched in Billy’s mouth from where the fire-charred. It was by far, the best meal he’d had in his existence, better than what Ms. Menagerie fed him. With each bite, it invigorated his taste buds and filled the well in his belly with delight.
Rose paid careful observation while Billy choked down his trout. There was no higher compliment than a silent supper in her eyes.
After supper, Billy’s eyes persuaded him into the landscapes of his dreams. With the arrival of darkness, they set off back onto the road. Lapis groaned respectively as her harnessed burden returned. Towards the King’s Capitol, they pushed and under a velvety sky. Not once had mention of their conversation been struck about the crates. Billy’s mind seemed to have forgotten about the matter altogether, maybe from embarrassment or perhaps by the aid of something external.
The river marshes were another day's travel away.
Rose had warned Billy of their unpleasantness. The wafting of rotten eggs entered his nostrils coming from the northeastern winds, and just when he thought he’d escaped the stench, it returned tenfold.
Billy twisted a bit of grass h
e plucked from the road in between his gingerly fingers.
“What is it?” Rose asked, looking at the boredom on her companion’s face. “Do you regret leaving the girl?”
That was something Billy had not given much thought. True was, no. He had not regretted the decision, but if things did not excite, he would indefinitely. Evinar mirrored in many ways the peacefully unspoiled traits of Woolbury's countryside. Where was the adventure Rose promised under the frame of her canvas tents? Where was this lifting of the veil that had scared Violet into staying?
“You talked about the dangers that surrounded us. What dangers are those? Was it those men we met on the road? Were they dangerous?”
Rose swiveled to look into Billy’s eyes. “I’d been wondering when you’d ask me that." She paused to speak, raising the tension in the question. "I thought it would have been a lot longer ago. No matter. Danger circles us.”
The words made Billy uneasy. He glanced over at the trees and the water to his left. A cluster of birds streamed overhead.
“You see those birds there,” she pointed towards a sparrow digging through the dirt. “They could be spies and those trees over there. They could be spies as well. Evil has no bounds to the length it will go to spy on others.”
“And those men from the roadside? Why were they in Woolbury? Were they spies?”
“Spies? Unlikely. Assassins, warriors, soldiers, man at arms are more like it. I can tell you they weren’t there to hunt for Waxy Caps,” she laughed until discerning the weight in Billy’s voice. “They weren’t there for good intentions. I can theorize that much. Whether or not they came to harm others is another thought all its own. A cloud of mist has covered this world. Odd things are happening, terribly odd things. But that does not mean you ought to be afraid. There’s beauty where you look. But dark people exist. You know at night when you dream, and it turns wrong?”
Billy agreed with the sensation.
“Well, have you ever had a nightmare that never ends no matter how hard you try to prevent it? You think you’ve finally won, but the nightmare is just biding its time to consume you? Things of the likeness are happening right under our noses as we speak,” she waved her hand briskly in front of Billy’s hooked nose, and suddenly the world did not look so pure. “And Woolbury has always had a part to play in these nightmares. Often, they contribute to the cause of uprooting the evil, but other times, quite the opposite.”
“I’m not the first to come here?”
Rose howled hysterically like a fox. “Of course you ain’t! Loads of people come. Most of them all do just fine. Unfortunately, not everyone is as pure of heart as you are. Bad apples exist, but it was long before I was brought into the world. That I can tell you. Before my mother and father as well." She paused again. "I only know what was written. A woman came during our first lunar cycle well over three hundred years ago in Woolbury time.”
“A she?”
“Yes, a woman came through the Archway same as we. Probably innocent and seeking for a better life.”
“What did she do when she came here?” he asked with bated breath.
“She corrupted everything.”
“Why would anyone want to do that?”
“Power can influence and persuaded the most kind-hearted of people to take up their shadow selves. We all have them. Some of us know what to do with them. We lock them behind heavily barricaded doors whilst chained to the walls. Others are not so lucky.”
The whistling of winded-creatures zoomed overhead.
A mother rushed with food to feed her young. Lapis groaned happily as Rose threw her a pellet of dried grass to munch. Billy could not comprehend why anyone would want to destroy natural beauty. The river flowing to his left, the grassy banks littered with wildflowers, or the brisk textures making up the mountains and the woodlands. Even those who are purely evil must contain some level of pity for nature.
“What happened to her? Was she stopped?”
“In a matter of speaking, she was for that time, but evil finds a way to return,” Rose answered, wincing at the thought. “They are masters of cheating their own deaths.”
“Do you think she’s gone?”
Rose often pondered that to herself from time to time, but there was no sense in dwelling on things outside of her control. “What will happen, will happen. Regardless of whether I wish for it not to happen. I do believe there’s a certain responsibility to uphold the values of any world— of truth or honor, defending the helpless, and standing up against bad. My honest answer is no. I do know my position if she were to return. If you do not stand up, who else will?”
Billy wondered if he was brave enough to stand up against something. If he had the guts inside him to look evil in the face and combat it. He knew Abbott could. He always stood for truth and cared for the helpless. All the times he left to attend to his father’s every need. That was the kind of person he wanted to be. His works thus far had lost him a friend in exchange for nothing. And where was he now? His house was burnt to the ground, and mystery lay over the crime.
“Do you think I am brave?” he asked, expecting the sting of the honest truth.
“More so than you know,” Rose chuckled. “You chose the life of uncertainty versus the life of the ordinary. That’s a lot braver than can be said of most people.”
His cheeks reddened. It was a kind compliment but one he did not feel worthy of. “ I hope I may find it to be true,” he muttered under his breath. “Someday.”
21
“I’m going to die in this place! And he’s going to die out there. Why won’t they listen? We’ve told them the truth. They don’t listen. Please, please, believe me!”
They never listen, Quinn thought to herself. If only Martin was here. He knew how to talk his way out of these sort of situations. But he couldn’t anyone. He was gone. Quinn would have to learn to manage, but the wound would not stop festering at the thought.
“I can’t believe any of this. I’ve made things worse!” he sniffled his nose. “I wanted so desperately to save my father’s life. That’s all I wanted. Coming here was supposed to help me. And now, I’ve, I’ve sent him to his death sentence. I’m a terrible son.” A chain of guilt bound around his collar. “I’m a terrible son,” he repeated, hyperventilating.
“At least we don’t have to dig our graves,” Quinn said, smirking. Her head lifted from her locked knees.
The breath was snatched from his lungs. “What? How could you think like that?”
“Just trying to make light of the situation. Besides, we don’t need to think negatively. If anything, we need to figure a way out. Unless you truly like the grave your sitting in. I can fashion a tombstone for you?” Assaulting the warden had been every bit worth it. She deserved it, Quinn kept telling herself to keep the doubt at bay. "We didn’t go out without a fight, am I right?”
“Haven’t you noticed?” Abbott grew stern. His fist pounded on the cell walls. “We’re locked in a cell, where no one can hear us— and they wouldn’t care if we did die in here. You shouldn’t have assaulted her, we may have had a chance. She was beginning to listen—”
Quinn crossed her arms and fought back. “So, it’s my fault that we’re here? Not like you listened when I told you to shut up!”
“Yes!” he yelled. “You were as silent as a mouse! What was I supposed to do? If you wouldn’t have lied to me— if you wouldn’t have talked to me that night, this all never would have happened!”
“Aren’t you forgetting what I’ve lost? My father’s dead because of you!” Hot tears streamed down Quinn’s rounded cheeks. “Selfish! It didn’t make a difference if we’d met or not. You heard that blasted stone. They would have just slaughtered you instead, and my papa would still be alive! At least your father has a chance! How ungrateful you are!”
The stone sat snuggly in the pocket of his corduroy trousers. His hand occasionally brushed over its marked surface to see if it didn’t jump out altogether. He wished it would sometimes. Apa
rt from revealing a prophecy, the Guardian was as worthless as the stone it dwelled in. If only it could do something now. Use magic to transport him out of this cell and away from Quinn or zap her ability to speak.
“A selfish idiot too,” Quinn spat, as matter of fact.
“I’m selfish? Aren’t you the one who stole the stone for yourself? A petty little thief, you took it all for yourself. Your stupid bird, too! You’ve done this all to yourself! Admit it!”
“She’s not stupid!” her fist pounded against the ground. “Don’t say that! Shut your mouth you blond-headed dumb dumb!” Quinn almost had half a mind to leap at his throat with her hands clutched around it, but Abbott turned away as if expecting the outburst.
“Then where is she? Hunting for a mouse or worm? She sure ain’t here!
She abandoned us when she knew things would go bad. Just admit it.”
“Look, I don’t know where she is,” her face reddened, and she broke as tears poured from her eyes. “She’s never done this before. I can’t explain it… I just… I just… don’t know what’s happening.”
“But here we are, in a cell. Under the earth to rot.”
Quinn clenched her first in rage. He was speaking the truth. Ara had disappeared. She hadn’t been able to contact her in any form. Perhaps she did abandon them, but the idea of blaming her infuriated her. “Shut up, why don’t you!”
Under a level of silence, they sat, mulling over their problems and how they could blame each other for causing them. Their ceiling didn’t afford more room for egos. It may have been the size of a rabbit hole. An unpleasant one at that. Earthy droplets fell from the dangling roots of the ceiling. The entire floor turned into a giant mud pit. If it was raining outside, it was unwelcomed. If they did not die of starvation, maybe they would drown in the mud, seemed like a better way to go in Quinn’s eyes.
“He won’t last for long,” Abbott said, breaking the silence. His voice went shallow. “He’s sick. And If I don’t get to him soon, they won’t need to do anything to him. He’ll die nonetheless.”
The Shadow of Our Stars: The Tales of Evinar Page 15
