Emerald Twilight: Bundled Edition

by Ashley, Celia

  Hallie studied him in speculation. His red hair stood in disarray about his head, the pallor of his face nearly gray, dark circles beneath his eyes. In the uncertain light of the forest he resembled a tortured wraith. The whites of his eyes showed all around the blue iris and wide, black pupil, his mouth set in a grim, bloodless line.

  “Perhaps you could teach me to walk like that,” she suggested in the hope of putting him off guard, “so that nothing notices me.”

  His head tilted to the side. “I could teach you many things, Hallie. And I will.”

  Unable to suppress the shiver coursing her spine, she turned her attention to the forest, listening for Burke or the other two. When the creature pulled her down from the edge of the cliff she had fallen more or less in a straight line and thought she’d come back up near that location. The forest had a way of stealing one’s sense of direction, though. As she and Burke moved away from Zebulon she’d gotten quite disoriented once the prison disappeared.

  “I have only to scream, and if Burke doesn’t come something else will.”

  He considered, weighing the potency of her threat, and then his lips curled to expose his teeth. His eyes glittered. “I’m not afraid of anything anymore, Hallie. Not your dishonest Drifter lover, not anything that inhabits this place. Not even you. You alone could have hurt me, could have stopped me. No more. You can’t begin to know the strength I possess now.”

  Oh yes she could. He possessed the strength of the insane, formidable in its unpredictability. And dangerous. “Skelly, there’s safety in numbers. You may not be afraid, but I am. Let’s go find the others.”

  He laughed, a wicked, fearsome sound, not caring who or what would hear him. Lifting his hand, he wagged a finger at her in chastising fashion. “No, no, no. We’ll not do that. No, we won’t. I have other plans for us.”

  “Skelly, I find no comfort in your declaration.”

  He shrugged, an insouciant gesture. Hallie looked past him, praying for sounds of human activity nearby. Where had Burke been calling her name? If she shouted out, no matter the risk, he should be able to hear her, shouldn’t he?

  Skelly was on her in an instant, bearing her down to the forest floor, his hand clamped viciously over her mouth. The uneven distribution of the items in the pack ground into her spine as she wrestled against the weight levered across her body. Above, something light-footed raced through the trees toward the noise of their struggle. Hallie twisted her face beneath Skelly’s palm, sinking her teeth hard into the rounded flesh. He jerked his hand away.

  “You fool!” she cried. “Get off me or you’re dead!”

  “Threats? What are you going to do?”

  “Not me! Damn it, get—”

  He lurched away from her so quickly she had no time to react but lay prone for a drawn breath, staring at his body hovering above hers, his head thrown back, face contorted in shock and pain. Then she jerked herself upright and scooted across the damp soil, where she scrambled to her feet. Her fingers closed around a stout, fallen branch as she stood.

  The creature holding Skelly appeared more flora than fauna. Long appendages extended down from the darkness overhead, speckled and pale and plant-like, wrapping around Skelly’s flailing body with increasing tension, pulling his weight upward by degrees. Towards what, she couldn’t see. Pale blue arcs flew in the air around him, emanating from the enlacing membrane. His mouth drew back in a rictus of pain, his red hair standing on end.

  Briefly, it occurred to her to leave him to his fate, but such an end was not just. If she wanted revenge for his actions, then she must personally mete out that justice, not permit him to die in this way.

  Lunging forward, she swung the branch in her hand against the nearest grouping of appendages which dropped a portion of Skelly’s rigid form a little closer to the ground. Hallie swung again. As she did, another appendage shot down from above, lashing across her upper arm as it missed the strike. Even so, the charge was enough to cause her to release the branch, muscles quivering. Backing up, she dropped to the ground and rolled away as another appendage reached to snag her.

  Skelly was going to die. She couldn’t save him.

  Hallie shirked out of her mangled pack and tore it open. She reached into the depths, eyes focused on the reeling extremities of the creature. She’d gathered up the broken shards of the sound sphere out of sentimentality, but recalling the prick of the razor edges against her skin, she knew firsthand how sharp they were. Grabbing the first one that rolled beneath her grasp, she drew it out and sliced several strips of the webbed sheeting free, then picked up another branch and hastily bound the long shard to the end of it, the clear, hard fragment coated with crimson blood from her fingertips.

  If she couldn’t stop the creature this time, Skelly would have to go to his doom. She couldn’t gamble being killed herself. For anyone else she would have risked it, but not for this man. With luck, the voltage emanating from the creature’s appendages might already have put an end to him. And if not… She shivered as she thought of what awaited him in the trees above.

  Letting loose a piercing cry, she slashed at the pale tissue, blood-smeared crystal arcing with a vivid flash of light. The immediate area illuminated for a blinding instant as the appendage snapped away. Repeating her action again and again, lids lowered against the brilliant, staccato flares, she fought on until Skelly lay in a senseless heap on the ground. The creature had retreated. Blood singing in her veins, ears ringing with the surge of adrenaline, Hallie stood over Skelly’s inert form. After a few moments he rolled over, opening unfocused eyes. Hallie pushed the point of her improvised spear against his throat.

  “Don’t move.”

  * * *

  The depth of the abyss nullified any chance of survival. That much was all he knew for certain. Sweating and shaken, Burke lowered himself to the ground. He felt sick. “I didn’t find her.”

  “She not dead.”

  Burke raised his eyes to Calypso’s, ice-blue now, and glowing fiercely. He shook his head.

  “No! I know this. Hallie not dead.”

  Standing beside the dancer, Emil moved, glancing over his shoulder in both directions. “Then where is she?”

  Burke was gratified to see they had both armed themselves with whatever was handy. Calypso still clutched the pliant branch as well as the largest stone she could manage in her tiny hand. Emil held a branch in each fist, one stout and the other viciously pointed. Good.

  Breathing hard from the long climb, Burke lowered his forehead to his raised knee. He had promised to protect her, to keep her safe, to return her to her home. He closed his eyes, swearing silently.

  A moment later he heard his own voice calling Hallie’s name and jerked to his feet. The other two stared at him.

  “That wasn’t you calling,” Emil said unnecessarily.

  “No,” Burke answered, “it wasn’t.”

  He heard it again at a distance, not quite a precise imitation but close enough. Something in the behemoth forest was a master of mimicry, swiftly learned. Burke felt the hair lift on the back of his neck.

  “Hallie not dead,” Calypso repeated, turning to stare at him defiantly. He wanted to ask her how she could be so certain, but then he remembered a tale of the island people of Lucas and a glimmer of hope warmed him. Now that he felt that gleam, he didn’t think she was dead either. Besides, somehow he would know.

  Attempting logic, he told himself if she had fallen all the way to bottom, she would surely be dead. There was no question of that. Therefore, she had perhaps only fallen a certain distance and then been prevented from falling further. He was positive he had descended at the precise location she’d gone over, based on the damage visible at the top of the drop-off, and he had seen no sign of her. That left him two conclusions. Either she had tumbled off trajectory and landed elsewhere, possibly had even begun to climb out, or the creature she had attempted to disable now had her.

  Both required her to still be alive, of course. And as he had
decided not to believe otherwise he was going to base his actions on that belief.

  The second of the conclusions, that the creature had survived as well, was the most difficult to get his mind around, as Hallie would be in grave danger and he possessed no idea where to begin a further search. He looked at Emil, then Calypso. Neither one was strong, though the dancer was agile. Both, however, looked determined.

  “We need to split up. Follow the perimeter of this pit for a distance in case Hallie somehow managed to get out. If we don’t find her, we return to this spot and what to do next.”

  Emil and Calypso nodded in grim acceptance of his command, renewing their hold on the fabricated weapons in their hands. Burke glanced around for something to utilize for his own. “You two head in that direction, and I’ll go alone, this way. Stay close together and don’t lose your way—”

  “What in the name of all that shines is that?”

  Burke’s head jerked up at the same time Emil spoke. A high-pitched cry sounded through the thick air of the woodland, quickly followed by a vivid flash of light. In the strange context of the forest, the area from which the light had emanated was difficult to discern. The first was followed, however, in rapid succession by others, as well as a very human voice crying out a terse and repetitive chant of challenge.

  “Hallie!”

  That other voice, that voice of mimicry, echoed his shout. Ignoring the chill dread elicited by the unknown apery, Burke hurtled in the direction of the luminous flashes without care or caution, Calypso and Emil hard on his heels. With a crash through the minimal underbrush, Burke stumbled on his injured knee into a scene he knew he would not soon forget.

  Severed appendages of what appeared to be plant matter littered the ground, pulsing with a dying light as fluid seeped from the layers of tissue. Hallie, dirty and bloodied, stood in the midst of the damage, a sturdy branch in her hand pointed at something at her feet. The tip held a glimmering object shining through a crust of rust.

  “Don’t move,” he heard her say to the thing on the ground as it rolled and moaned.

  Shane!

  Burke strode quickly over to Hallie, ducking aside as she swung around with her makeshift weapon in hand. The object gracing its tip sliced through a layer of his uniform. He grabbed the shaft, holding it fast.

  “Hallie. It’s me.” She stared at him, unseeing. On his back behind her Shane turned his head and vomited, viscous fluid running down his cheek into the soil. His condition looked critical, patches of exposed skin crisped as though burned, the fabric of his uniform singed and blackened. As Emil crouched over him, Burke reached out and pulled Hallie into his arms.

  She held herself stiffly, breathing irregular as he stroked his hands along her spine trying to ease the tension there, trying to bring her back from the place she’d gone. After a time she released a shuddering exhalation and relaxed against him, the weapon in her hand slipping to the ground as her arms went around his waist. In full support of her weight, he eased her to her knees on the ground, hunkered over his heels beside her.

  The scent of her soap lingered still on her skin, a faint underscore to the sweat of her efforts, the green of the forest clinging in her hair, the dirt on her clothing. She smelled savagely wild and wonderful and alive. Smoothing the tangled hair of her loosened braid back from her face, he pressed his mouth to the curve of her jaw beside her ear.

  “I love you, Hallie.”

  For a few seconds she said nothing, her blue-green eyes staring at the debris on the forest floor, then she lifted her gaze slowly, the double-grown lashes thick and shadowing her expression.

  “You don’t know me,” she said.

  “Do I need to know everything about you, to know what I feel? I’m not a man who holds this emotion easily or carelessly, Hallie, I assure you. I don’t fall in and out of love at the turn of a pretty head. I love you. If you can rely on nothing else, you can rely on that.”

  Her gaze held his as tears formed on her lashes, shimmered and fell, leaving a trail of shining moisture through the grime on her skin. She shook her head.

  “I didn’t mean to tell you that until we were free of this place, but I realize how stupid that notion is. I wouldn’t want to lose the chance to let you know how I feel.”

  She nodding, saying nothing to him of her own feelings. Had he misread her? Even if he loved alone, his feelings weren’t going to alter. He had loved one other woman in his life and Lese was the product of that union.

  “I—” she began, then stopped with a negligible movement of her head. “Emotions are running high, for all of us. It’s been a long time since I fully trusted mine.” She kissed him anyway, pressing her mouth against his own. Heated blood rushed through his veins. Releasing him, she struggled to her feet.

  She bent to pick up the weapon she’d made, her body lean and defined beneath her rumpled uniform, her natural grace impeded by pain she did not express. She held the spear in her hand, turning it, studying what appeared to be a shard of the object Shane had broken, bound now to the end of the shaft.

  “Do you have more of those?” he asked, indicating the sharp fragment with a nod of his head.

  “Yes,” she said. “In the carrysack, over there.”

  She strode over to stand above Emil, who was talking quietly to Shane. Emil lifted his head.

  “He says that you saved him. He wants to know why.”

  Burke moved to her side, looking over her shoulder at Shane’s prone form. He rested his hand against her back protectively, even possessively, and waited for her answer.

  She exhaled, her mouth moving in silence before she spoke. “I couldn’t have forgiven myself if I let him die that way. And if there’s any justice on this planet, he’ll never be able to forgive himself now. Let him live with that.”

  Burke had never heard her voice sound so flat and cold before. Contrarily, when she turned to look back at him, her eyes glowed like fire in the gloom.

  IV.

  BITTER CLEMENCY

  Her words echoing in her ears, Hallie turned back to Skelly’s damaged body on the ground. She had done him no favors maintaining his existence. He was grievously wounded and not likely to keep up with them once they got back underway—if he managed to rise from his labored position on the ground at all. Yet there was a tale regarding a man who had not returned an injustice to his offender, ensuring in turn the offender should never learn to forgive himself for his actions. If anything in Skelly’s mind resembled conscience, he would be afflicted forever by the fact she had saved his life. Eventually he would hate himself for it and hate her even more.

  Her body ached abominably. She closed her eyes, weighted down by the effort of her recent exertion, the pain of her wounds, the guilt of her unconscious revenge, the satisfaction of it. She had done them all a disservice, she supposed, burdening them with an injured, perhaps dying man. Emil would not leave him, she knew, despite what Burke told the gambler about Skelly’s transgressions.

  Now that she had saved him, Skelly was her responsibility as well. Early teachings were not going to be unlearned merely due to circumstance.

  Drawing a deep breath, she inhaled the familiar scent of Burke’s body, come to stand near. If she opened her eyes she would see his gray gaze in sober contemplation of her, his handsome brow furrowed by concentration, perhaps confusion, the scar along his jaw pale in the twilight.

  I love you, Hallie.

  A small thrill coursed her blood at memory of his declaration, quickly subdued. How could he believe he felt anything like love based on the context and duration of their acquaintance?

  Love. She had reflected often in awe of that concept, and in fear. With Arad love had not flourished. She had convinced herself fondness would suffice. Perhaps that omission as much as any other factor in their marriage had brought about the demise of respect and affection.

  But no, it was more than that. She knew it was.

  As for Burke…

  Her boldness in kissing him even as s
he denied her own emotion sent a shiver dancing over her skin beneath her battered uniform. Lowering her head, she dashed her bloodied hand across her eyes.

  After all these years was she capable of returning love? Of even accepting it?

  Well, there was no time for contemplation of that. She needed to address the business of survival instead. She marched over to her sack and snatched it off the ground together with the shreds of webbing.

  “Careful,” she said, spilling the shards of the soundsphere onto the ground. “They’re very sharp.”

  “I know,” Burke answer drily. She glanced up to find him fingering a clean slash in his uniform.

  “Did I do that?”

  He nodded, regard steady and appraising.

  Her stomach turned. “Are you bleeding?”

  “No. But you are.”

  She waved away his concern, the expression in his eyes too much to bear. In another situation, another place, she might have considered drawing him aside to explore it, to search out the core of that heat, but here, now, the knowledge of it was dangerous. She knew that, and he certainly should. The scent of him was suddenly like a catalyst. She shut her senses to him, fumbling with a sliver of the sphere as she sliced a series of bindings from the sheets that had bound her carrysack to her.

  He dropped to his knees, clutching her wrist.

  “It will be all right, Hallie, I promise you.”

  She avoided his eyes, nodding wordlessly. Removing her arm from his grasp, she began work on another spear. “I don’t want to ask you this, but would you see to him?”

  Burke rose slowly and moved to where Skelly lay mumbling in ragged converse with Emil. Calypso took his place at her side, reaching without question for the strips of cloth and binding another shard into the lee of a long, sturdy branch. She worked swiftly and competently and Hallie raised her head to smile at her in encouragement.

  “You don’t seem afraid anymore, Calypso.”

  “Not afraid,” Calypso answered, working diligently. “Was afraid for you, but no more. I had vision. Vision of you. But okay now. You do this thing and all okay now.”