The Realm of Dust and Bone (The Curse of Fire and Stone Book 2)

by A. B. Bloom

  I went to scream, although I knew it would be futile—but to make noise was better than to do nothing—when a long arm of the Beech tree swung towards the man and clocked him on the side of the head. He cursed loudly, rubbing at his hair and I quickly stole the opportunity to spring away.

  He rounded closer, his face a furious mask. “You little witch.”

  I grinned though. “Maybe. Who knows?”

  The Beech tree swung again, and I skipped back out of its path. The other man, shorter, uglier even, if that were possible, made a grab for me, but beneath us the earth rolled and shifted until he tilted and landed on his knees.

  The purple gem at my throat heated and I knew already who was there. Before my back pressed against his chest, I knew it.

  “My Baduri.”

  “My Liege.”

  He turned and pressed his back against mine so he could circle us around, keeping me out of the reach of the two red-faced attackers.

  Ignoring his protective stance, I dropped to the ground, and reached for the soil. The Beech was unrolling wondrous vibrant green leaves. It stung against my palm as it dragged power straight from me. It was okay: it hurt, my head whirled, but I knew it was okay. Somehow, I knew the tree and I were one of the same. He would take what he would need and then give me what I needed.

  “Mae, get up. For fuck’s sake.” Tristram glared down at me, parrying the advance of one attacker with his axe. It splintered, the handle snapping. I grabbed at it as it fell not far from where I was crouched. “Mae, get up, you need to run.”

  “No. I don’t need to run.” I stood and handed him back his axe. He stared at it in amazement, his lips parting slightly as he looked at the new handle the Beech tree had just twined around the sharpened blade. Smooth and wide, the handle fitted perfectly into Tristram’s strong grip. In my own hand, I swung a long sword carved from wood, but there was little doubt its edge was as sharp as Tristram’s axe. It glinted in the dim sunlight as thought it had been polished for this moment since the dawn of time.

  “I believe this is the moment we kick their arse.”

  Tristram’s eyes narrowed, analysing me with shrewd observation briefly, before he spun away dropping the full force of his rage onto the shorter man’s head. I ran with my Beech wood sword, slicing at his friend’s arm. Blood spurted into the earth, absorbed almost instantly. The Beech tree broke out in red leaves, shimmering and shaking, like a cheerleader waiting for the next score. I jabbed again while I tried to keep one eye on Tristram. Although he didn’t know it, I was the stronger of the two of us. Admittedly, it was only my magic giving me the edge, while his muscles powered through every graceful move he made. If I hadn’t been fighting for my life, I would have stopped and stared. He was beautiful. Much like the Tristan in my own world, but also different at the same time. Powerful, edgy, and rugged. Blonde and broad, but with a startling beauty. A spark of flame kindled in the pit of my tummy, but I chased it away as I parried the approach of the tall man again. This Tristram wasn’t mine. He belonged to her.

  Distracted as I was, my opponent took the chance to swing for me, catching me tightly and wheeling me in. His breath fanned on my neck, cooling the sweat gathering at the end of my hairline. “Hey,” he called. Tristram, his own adversary in bloody parts on the ground, turned, his eyes wide, his chest heaving with exertion.

  The man’s fingers grabbed at my clothing, yanking at the wool of my dress as his hand roughly squeezed my breast. “This yours?”

  I grimaced as his lips landed on my cheek, pressing hard enough to make me squirm. I couldn’t move. The more I fought, the tighter his hands hurt my flesh. With an inner resolve I didn’t know I contained, I stood stock still. Tristram’s face chiselled into a mask of pure anger.

  The earth pounded at my feet, rivers of energy and magic running towards me. The Beech was going to pay me back. I knew it, could sense it almost as though the tree was talking to me directly. I couldn’t hear its words or thoughts, but I knew its intent.

  I shook my head at Tristram, just slightly. Don’t worry, I tried to tell him. Just don’t worry. This won’t be what ends us.

  Then I knew it.

  I knew the whole reason for everything. Every death, every drop of blood. Every passing year between now and when we would meet again at Fire Stone, our blood cursed to hate one another but unable to avoid the pull of our destiny.

  Nothing could end us.

  Together Tristram and I. Tristan Prince and I, had a purpose. Together we were something. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it all the same. The trees told me. The Beech, swiping out and hammering the man with his hands on my skin to one side, knew it.

  The Beech pulled the man up, dragging him on towards his trunk. The man screamed as high as any child while Tristram launched himself across the space separating us and pulled me into his arms. I breathed in the hot and sticky strength of his embrace.

  His hands roughly grasped at my face, cupping it in his palms. The jet gaze I’d always known swept across my mouth searching for damage. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” I shivered in his hold. “That was insane.”

  His eyes narrowed and he pushed me back. “Who are you?”

  “What do you mean?” I swallowed hard. We’d just survived an attack. Shouldn’t he be asking about the trees helping me, about the wooden sword as sharp as any metal smelt by our blacksmiths, or about the man currently being encased within the trunk of a Beech tree.

  “Do you mean my magic?” I stuttered.

  “No.” His hands rested on my shoulders. “I mean who in the name of the gods are you, because you aren’t my Mae.”

  I stuttered a little, his dark gaze watching my every move.

  “Tristram. I’ve been manhandled by some disgusting boar of a man. Can we just get back?”

  I didn’t mean this. What I wanted was for him to let me go, so I could run from him and save him from this fate we were playing out.

  “No. Talk.”

  “You won’t want to hear or listen.”

  His smile was small, not a smile at all. “I’m sure I will, My Baduri.”

  “My father doesn’t want me talking to you. I told you.”

  His head tilted to one side as he thought about this. “No. You speak differently. You smell different. The way you move is different.”

  My heart raced in my chest. “You’ve hardly seen me to even say that.”

  “The other day at the river. You were scared, but you didn’t seem yourself. You were confused, muddled. So why do you look like my Mae if you aren’t?”

  I cursed internally. I didn’t need this. I needed to be fleeing to save him, meeting the red army so they could do what they needed while I learned what I needed. What Mae and I both needed.

  His fingers tightened on my shoulders. “I am her, Tristram. I am her.”

  “You lie.” His quick gaze blazed with smouldering depths.

  “No. I’m not lying. I am her. I don’t even know if you want to hear the truth, to know the things that I could share with you.”

  “Don’t talk in riddles to try to confuse me.” The flash of anger I knew all too well from Tristan Prince at Fire Stone flared. His lips stretched into a tight line and the skin along the bridge of his nose tightened while a pulse thudded in his throat.

  “Why don’t you want to know about my magic? About the secrets I’ve been keeping from you?”

  “Secrets? Do you think I haven’t known our entire lives what runs in your veins? Do you think I don’t know who you are? What you possess?”

  I gasped. I wished I could see my recollections of Mae’s life clearer. This wasn’t in the memory bank for either of us.

  “So you know why my father wanted me to hide it from you? Because you would want my power for yourself.”

  He frowned, confusion etching deep into his forehead and he thrust an agitated hand into his hair. “See now you talk like her.”

  A flare of jealousy blossomed at him talking of the
other Mae. I was that Mae right now. He was my Tristram right now.

  This was some awful love square with the four of us, years apart at the centre of it.

  “I am her. Tristram, you need to keep our people safe. The army coming for us; they want me, and by all that is holy you have to let me go. If you don’t, we are going to die.”

  “You said this the other day, but how do you know? How do you know we are going to die?”

  My eyelids fluttered shut for a moment and I sifted through scattered thoughts and memories: the dreams I had in Fire Stone, they were memories of Mae’s life. I sought them out, trying to find a way to explain. “Remember the day your father died, and Alana ran through the forest to find us?” He nodded but didn’t say anything, a dart of agony flashing across his face at the memory of his brother and father being slaughtered.

  Softly, I continued. “I knew it was her before she stepped through. The forest, the earth, and all the things that live in it, they tell me things. Give me things. It’s like they need my power and I need theirs.” I kept my eyes shut as I spoke, it was easier that way. “If you don’t let me leave, then you and I will both die, and the forest will die with us. All that will remain here is our blood and our bones on those stones. The power that I have, which I think you are meant to protect, it will die with us.”

  I paused, unwilling to meet his gaze. His lips brushed mine, the lightest of caresses and then again, sweeping back and forth. “You taste like her,” he mumbled against my mouth. His tongue teased between my teeth and a raging fire of heat bloomed in my stomach, growing and seeping into all of my limbs.

  “How do you know?” I murmured against his kiss.

  “Because I’ve always known what she would taste like. Always known what she would feel like in my hold.”

  I opened my eyes to find jet orbs staring back at me. “I am her. I’m your Mae, same as you are my Tristram.”

  “Tell me.” His expression and determined gaze dug down deep into the centre of my soul.

  “But I’ve already lived this life. It’s how I know how we die. I’ve met you many, many years from now and loved you all over again.”

  His eyes widened. “So why are you here?”

  “To save us.”

  Chapter Five

  “Come.” He grasped his fingers with mine, tangling us together. He hadn’t pushed me away; he was still connecting us. My heart fluttered wildly in my chest. I wasn’t the only one to feel the deep tie that anchored us together.

  We walked in silence for a while. All the time I knew eventually I’d have to let go of his hand and walk away. For him, for them. For us.

  “Where is she, if you are here?” His question took me by surprise.

  “I think she’s still here. I think.” I shrugged. “I’ve stepped through the stones before, briefly. I didn’t even know I’d done it until I got back, and you found me. I’d been missing for days, you were frantic.” I stopped talking, remembering the way he’d reacted when he’d seen me again. Like I was the sun and he’d thought for a moment he’d been about to live in blind darkness.

  He nodded thoughtfully.

  “I can’t believe you are accepting this.” I cast a searching glance in his direction, hoping to hide it under my lashes.

  “My father said that I was a terrible baby. Always crying, never satisfied. My mother used to nurse me above all the other children. Always carried me, never able to put me down.”

  “Needy. That sounds like you.” I smiled. It sounded like them. Both of them.

  “But he said on the day you were born, the moon shone with blood, brilliant and red. It filled the sky and I stopped crying. I never cried again.”

  “Until I pushed you off that rock that time.”

  Tristram’s gaze roved over my face. “I can’t believe you aren’t her, but I know it all the same.”

  “We are the same. Just from different times. But her and I are the same. I know it. Feel it.”

  “So, anyway. The blood moon rose, and I stopped crying and fussing. My father always said he believed I’d settled because I must have sensed you’d arrived.”

  I nod slowly. “That makes sense actually.”

  By my fingers he pulled me to a stop. “It does? Because not much is making sense to me right now.”

  I nodded up at him, basking in his golden glow. “In my present you’d been sketching me on scraps of paper since you were a child, but you’d only just met me, now at eighteen. Yet you knew what I looked like from the time you were a child.”

  “We’ve only just met? You haven’t known each other forever like us?”

  I ignored his mistake on who he was talking too. In all honesty I wanted his focus settled on me. “No. But it’s like we’ve always known one another. I can sense it.”

  “That’s how we are. Like I know when you are going to speak, or I turn to answer a question before it’s left your lips.” His gaze wandered to my mouth once again and my tongue tingled with anticipation.

  “And you and him. You are close?”

  I nibbled on my lower lip. “The way I feel is the same for both of you. Everything is the same.” I shook my head. “I know that sounds crazy.”

  His fingers gently squeezed mine. “No. I think I understand.”

  “Tristram. You have to let me go. It’s so important that I learn who I am, what power I have. If you try to stop me again then we will both die.”

  “I can’t let you go. Her, you, both of you. It’s inconceivable to me.”

  “You have to learn. Look at me. I’ve stepped through thousands of years and you’ve sat the other side of the stones and watched me go.”

  “I must be soft. The other me.”

  “You aren’t. Let me go. When I’m done, hopefully, if I succeed in whatever it is I need to do, you and Mae will get to live happy long lives together.”

  “And what will happen to you?”

  I hesitated. I hadn’t even thought of that. If I succeeded, learned who I truly was and stopped Mae from dying on the stones… what would happen to Tristan and me in the present? Would I step through to find he no longer existed because we were no longer cursed to meet again at Fire Stone?

  “What’s the matter, you’ve gone pale?” Tristram leant closer, forest and warm skin filling my senses.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what will happen. What if I don’t see you again? What if I step through and you aren’t there waiting for me because I’ve changed everything?”

  “I can’t believe that. I’ll always be with you.”

  “But I don’t know. What if I leave and your Mae comes back and then you are with her, but I, but I…” The end of my sentence tangled in my throat. The thought of Tristan Prince not waiting for me on the other side of the stones slayed me to my core. The prospect of never discovering how far his kiss goes, where we could end up, what we could be… There was no worse prospect in all of existence.

  “Mae?”

  “Yes?” My voice wobbled, unsure and unsteady.

  His fingers brushed against my cheek, wiping away a stray tear. My breath caught in my chest, rasping slightly. I could see his kiss coming before he’d even thought of it himself. “Don’t, please. I’m her, but I’m still not the real woman you are in love with.”

  His chest caved slightly, dropping under the pressure of his sigh. “This is complicated.”

  “It’s not. You have to let me go. Don’t try to save me. Save our people; keep them far from the enemies grasp until I get back.”

  I wished I could reach inside Mae’s memories and find out what led to Mae’s death on the stones. If I could warn Tristram what was coming, his job of protection would be easier. I did know one thing though. “Don’t trust the Druid.”

  “Your father?”

  “Let him think I’ve been blindly taken. He can’t know I’m here. He wants me, now more than ever. He’s been waiting a long time to see me again. If he if got wind of what I was doing, it would be the end of everything.�
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  “What are you doing?” His hands were still on me, warm and firm.

  “I’m trying to learn my magic to know who I am.”

  “Then I should come with you, find out what this is between us.”

  “No.” I pushed him away, ignoring the flash of betrayal in his eyes. “No. We die together. It can’t happen again.”

  “But, Mae. I’m meant to protect you. I’ve known it for as long as I’ve known anything.”

  “This time I’m protecting you. And then when you see me again, it will be your Mae and you can love her, live with her.”

  His mouth opened to protest but I stole his words with a kiss. Hungry and desperate, it made the gold in my veins shimmer and burn so bright I could see it everywhere I looked. Screw it! I kissed him harder, my arms winding around his neck, my body flush with his. He sighed into my mouth, his breath warm and enticing, his body responding to mine like a fire on a summer’s day. This could be the last time I saw either of my Tristram’s, I’d make it count. His tongue danced deep with mine, tantalising short probes followed by long and slow licks that made the pit of my stomach ache.

  At our feet the trees responded to my silent request, curling roots up his legs, tethering him down with my love. They’d set him free just as soon as I was on my path. The right path. The one that would lead to me to somehow saving those I loved both now and in the future.

  When the roots of the trees told me it was time, I broke the kiss. For a long moment I stared at him, my gaze sweeping over his beauty one last time: his long lashes resting on his tanned skin; his lips still pursed, plump from our kiss. Then with a gasp in my throat, I ran from him, my feet flying over the earth that pulsed beneath my soles, the whole time hearing him shout my name.

  Out of sight, I paused. I wasn’t going to be able to run the entire way to the red army. I needed a sensible plan. Finding the nearest tree, I placed my hand on the bark. I needed a plan, but to make the best plan possible I needed knowledge.