by C. S. Moore
Amanda glanced at the wolf one more time just to make sure he was really there. His furry lips twitched into what could only be described as a smile. She shrugged her shoulders, still perplexed as to why Cole couldn’t see him or feel him. Her wolf’s presence was about as subtle as being hit by a train.
“Nothing, I’m just in shock. I couldn’t find you, and I got scared… which is not the best emotion for me to feel right now.”
Cole hugged her closer to him. “Why do you say that?”
She remembered the feeling of the darkness within her spreading like fire through her body and shuddered. “I don’t know if I can explain it right… it’s like the demon’s poison feeds on my fear. I can feel the poison spread and my spirit weaken when I am afraid.”
He looked at her with worried eyes like she might turn into a dandelion puff and float away on the breeze. “Don’t worry. I’m here, and you don’t need to be afraid. I won’t let anything happen to you, ever.” He paused. “Let’s stay together, Amanda. I don’t think ‘divide and conquer’ was the best idea you’ve ever had,” he said, looking at her with concern. “I think we should stay here tonight. We aren’t going to find anything but injuries in that darkness.”
She made a face, wanting to argue. They had to find Madgie, but she didn’t feel like she should argue with him when he was so worried. Cole busied himself throwing together a shelter that would hide them and help keep them warm. He’d said a fire was a bad idea with Carter out in the forest. It would give away their position for miles away. When he was finished, she was amazed with what he’d constructed.
He’d woven long bamboo shoots into a small dome that was just large enough for both of them to squeeze into. After the shelter took form, he left and came back with an armful of wild roses. She was curious about why they needed roses and wondered off-hand if it was an ill-timed romantic gesture. She was going to ask him, but he’d started weaving them carefully throughout the shelter before she could form the question.
“Wow, it’s starting to look just like the rose bushes scattered throughout the forest.”
Amanda walked over to the pile of roses and picked one up. She studied the flower. It seemed so fragile compared to the roses she was used to seeing. The flower had just two layers of thin petals with a small yellow ball of pollen at its center. How can two things sharing the same name be so very different? she wondered. She was looking for the best place to weave it when a thorn stuck her thumb.
“Ouch!”
Cole laughed and gently took her hand. “I think you’ll live through this one,” he said, caressing her. Cole turned her hand over and traced her palms. His brow crinkled together as he noticed the strange pattern that rose on her skin. “What’s this?”
She looked down. There was an elaborate design pressed into her skin. It was too faint to make out all of the detail, yet for some reason she knew the pattern. She’d seen it before. “I don’t know. It must have something to do with the…” She didn’t know what to call what had happened to her, so she went with the easiest. “Incident. I noticed it a few minutes before I found you.”
“There’s so much we don’t know,” he said, dropping her hand and going back to work. Cole stuck the last of the roses in place, and she was shocked at how well the dome blended into their surroundings.
“Wow! That’s pretty amazing, you know?”
“Well, I just hope it does us some good. Come on, let’s get some rest. We’ll pick our search back up in the morning.”
She crawled through the small opening and was astonished at how roomy it felt once she was inside.
Cole came in after her and threw himself on his back. “I wish there was someone to talk to about all of this with. I feel like I’m of no use to you. I have no idea what’s going on. I don’t even know what happened to you.”
“Look at what you’ve already done,” she said, gesturing around them at the intricate dome. “I’d still be out there tripping over blades of grass. You’ve been so much help for me already. I’m just sorry for the trouble I’ve gotten you in to.”
“Don’t feel bad. I’ve wanted to leave the Hovel since the day that they took me,” Cole said.
“Really? I thought I was the only one who wanted to leave. I mean, we aren’t supposed to want to leave. It’s our duty to be there and serve, right?” Amanda asked in a rush.
“Of course you aren’t the only one who wanted to leave. I was snatched away in the night, taken from my family when I was ten years old,” he said angrily. “They say it’s for the greater good, and they say it’s our duty, but that doesn’t mean they can do what they did to us. The Dredging, it’s kidnapping. A Scar hadn’t even taken me yet,” he shouted. “I had two brothers. Did I ever tell you that? One older and one younger, we were so close…” he trailed off.
She was surprised. He’d never told her he had siblings. She knew he had a family, but he never talked about it much. He had it so much harder than I did. I didn’t have anything to leave behind.
“I’m so sorry, Cole,” Amanda said, leaning into him.
She wasn’t good at physical contact, but she had to be near him. Amanda couldn’t stand the pain he’d been through in his life. It wasn’t right. He was too good to suffer. He wasn’t like her.
“Don’t apologize,” he said, drawing her into his arms.
She went rigid, but allowed him to pull her in. “Is this okay?” he asked, squeezing her.
She wanted to tell him just how ‘okay’ it was but was too shocked by the thoughts running through her mind. Amanda tried to remember if she’d ever daydreamed about lying wrapped in someone’s arms and supposed she had, but her daydreams had been way off. Amanda had dreamed it would be calm and somewhat peaceful. This was, if anything, the complete opposite of peaceful.
She was hyper-aware in a way that she’d never experienced, and her heart hammered in her chest as if she’d just run a mile. Just feeling Cole’s warm chest move up and down with each breath sent shivers through her that weren’t entirely unpleasant. She guessed he was feeling it too because she felt his body still, as if he was afraid to move. Then he rolled to his back, taking his arm to his side, leaving her feeling like the sun had been shot out of the sky.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She realized she hadn’t answered his question and spoke up a little too fast. “No, no, it’s fine. Go ahead and snuggle up. It’s cold tonight anyway.”
He didn’t hesitate at all, moving as quickly as a kid on Christmas. He threw his arm back around her, and the same electricity returned.
“I’m just no good at this,” she said quietly.
Amanda rolled to her other side so that they were face to face. The muscles in his arm tightened in surprise but stayed firmly around her waist. She was going to continue talking, but he took her breath away. His large chocolate eyes were so bright and full of excitement. She had to look down before she could speak.
“I haven’t, you know, ever been touched a lot. Growing up I didn’t have parents who hugged me or a grandma who gave me kisses. The only thing I knew was the orphanage, which wasn’t all that bad… until I had what they thought was a mental episode. After that it was Burberry Psychiatric Institution and doctor after doctor, pill after pill, telling me everything I saw and felt from these spirits was just in my mind.”
“I wonder why Scars started finding you so young. That must have been so terrible,” he said, holding her tight.
“I’ve always wondered… but the crazy house wasn’t that bad. There was no doubt in my mind I was crazy. That wasn’t hard to deal with. I just wanted their pills to stop what I thought were hallucinations. The Dredging was much worse. I was sitting alone in my room when the bars fell off the window and the glass slid up slowly. Two cloaked strangers crawled into the opening and said you’re a Healer, come with us… well, you know how the Dredging was.”
“Can I ask you about something, Amanda?”
She wasn’t positive she wanted to say yes,
he sounded so hesitant. “Yes,” she said nervously, wondering what he could want to know.
He took a deep breath. “When you left, when you ran away from the Hovel, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you take me with you?”
They lay in silence for a few moments while she tried to think of what to say. She couldn’t believe he would’ve come with her. It was a thought that had never crossed her mind
“I… I didn’t know you would have come with me,” she stuttered.
He pulled away and looked at her face as if she’d slapped him. “You can’t mean that! All we’d after the Dredging was each other. How could you not think of me?” his voice wavered.
“I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
“Never meant to hurt me? What did you think it would do when you left me? How was I supposed to feel?” he asked, his eyes pleading.
“Cole, I was a thirteen-year-old girl feeling unbelievably guilty for wanting to run. I wanted more than anything to tell you, but this voice in the back of my head kept telling me you’d be disgusted with me.”
Cole opened his mouth as if to protest, and Amanda put a finger to his soft lips to silence him.
“I was ashamed and, like a coward, couldn’t bring myself to face you. I was running from the very thing that I was born to be, that you were born to be. How could I face you?” she asked, turning away from him.
They were silent for a long time, until he put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that conversation to go like that. I’ve just wanted to ask you that question ever since you came walking back into the Hovel,” he said apologetically. “When you came back, I didn’t know how to feel. You left me there, like what we had never even mattered to you. Do you know what they did to me?”
He paused, looking torn. “I wanted to be mad at you. Even tried to make myself hate you.”
Amanda sucked in a breath and closed her eyes, willing herself not to cry.
“But when you looked up at me, all of the pain and anger evaporated. Even after two years, I couldn’t stop my heart from swelling at the sight of you.”
She turned back to face him. His eyes were moist, but he kept his tears held back.
“I never stopped thinking about you, Cole,” she said, putting a hand to his cheek. “Your smiling face got me to sleep every night. you kept me sane.”
“I guess we both went through some stuff those two years.”
She took his hand off her shoulder and held it tight. “Let’s get some shut eye. We’ll need our strength tomorrow.”
Amanda rested her head on his arm but never did doze off. She could hear Cole next to her murmuring spells of protection throughout the night. Even after all she’d put him through, he’d still risked everything to help her.
Amanda finally gave up on pretending to sleep when the first sign of dawn pierced through the foliage. She found that even with no rest it was a rush to wake up next to Cole.
He smiled at her with tired eyes.
“Okay, let’s find Madgie!” she said excitedly. After such an amazing night, she felt a little guilty about where the old woman could be, probably not snuggled in the arms of a handsome young man. She moved to get out of the makeshift tent when Cole spun her toward him. He had a look of apprehension before he spoke.
“Listen, I don’t want to talk like this… but if we don’t find Madgie, what’s our next step?”
Amanda remembered Madgie’s counseling about where she should go after she escaped the Hovel. “She told me I had to find someone, an Ancient named Shiphra. Madgie said this woman is the only one who can hide me from the Ancients and the only one with the knowledge and the power to find Kaedin.”
Cole looked taken back. “Who’s Kaedin?”
Amanda took in a deep breath. She didn’t know if she had the strength to talk about the child whose face hadn’t left her mind, the little girl who was stronger and braver than any person she’d known, the spirit she’d doomed.
“Kaedin is the reason we’re out here. I was in her Scar when this happened.” She gestured to herself and took a breath. “I left her there with that thing. If I don’t find her soon, she’ll fade, and it will be my fault. Kaedin found a Healer. She should have been freed from her terrible prison, but because it was me, she’s still there.”
Amanda didn’t realize she was crying until warmth from the tears stung her cold skin. She looked up at Cole’s face and saw the worry in his dark eyes. Amanda knew he wouldn’t like it. He’d rather find some way to help her than find a rebel Ancient that might have the ability to find a specific Scar, which was unlikely. How could she tell him finding and helping Kaedin was something she had to do, without hurting him? He gave up his peaceful life at the Hovel to help her, to be with her, not go on a wild goose chase.
She reached for his warm hand and placed it between both of her cool ones. “Don’t worry. We’ll think about the future when it gets here.”
“Then it’s no longer the future, it’s the present. Shouldn’t we make some sort of plan if we’re going to be hunted down by the world’s most powerful beings?” he said bluntly.
She knew they needed a plan, but not more than they needed to find Madgie and ask her what to do.
“Wait! It’s Madgie!” she said in an excited whisper.
He kept his warm fingers tightly wound with hers and closed his eyes. “This way?” He pointed, and she nodded slightly, afraid to speak because if they could feel Madgie she could feel them and so could the other Healer near them. “Carter,” he murmured.
They began to slowly close the distance between them and the others. Cole kept her behind him as he muttered spells of invisibility and stealth. She’d never used stealth spells, and they were disorienting, even to her. One of them was an echo spell that threw their spiritual signatures out all around them. Up and down, left and right. First, she felt them somewhere on a rocky ledge. Then they were crouching in the forest of bamboo shoots, but they never left the straight path that he had them on. They were everywhere.
It was making her dizzy, and she knew where they stood.
She couldn’t imagine that anyone would be able to pinpoint their exact location. Amanda didn’t question Cole. She knew where he was going. He was taking the quickest path to Madgie. She knew this because she could feel Madgie the same as he did. Her spirit felt muffled like a shout from under a pillow. They were out in the open now, nearing the middle of a clearing. I don’t like this.
“Something is wrong here.”
As she said the words, a cold vise tightened around her ankle, but when she glanced down there was nothing. Amanda attempted to fight the unseen force but lost her footing and fell awkwardly to the ground. Cole turned to look at her, losing his focus. Their echo spell failed for one millisecond, and she felt the sharp sting of an energy sphere rip the flesh from her shoulder. Amanda cried out in pain, unable to stifle it.
Cole was at her side gently catching her slumping body.
“Please no. Amanda, are you all right? Talk to me.” His words sounded like marbles shaking in a jar, and she couldn’t feel his touch.
She was going into shock but managed to choke out one word, a warning to Cole. He shouldn’t be coddling her. He should be running from…
“Carter,” she whispered.
Cole pulled out of his shocked state quickly enough to block the next dark spell hurled at her. It erupted in a cloud of smoke inches from her face.
That would have killed me, she thought groggily. He just saved my life.
She looked up at Cole, expecting to see the relief she felt, but there was something else there. A look she’d never seen on his face before. Hatred. He took his cloak off in one fluid motion and put it on top of her shaking body.
Jumping to his feet, he shouted into the darkness. “Carter!”
A cackle of laughter erupted at the edge of the clearing, and a dark cloaked figure stepped into view. “You’ve always been passionate, Cole, but in this case…” He gest
ured to the ground where Amanda lay, clutching her shoulder and chattering her teeth. “As in all others, you must detach emotion. You and I had the same training. You should know better. Feelings have nothing to do with the fact that she’s tainted, and the Ancients have put death upon her. Why fight it?”
She tried to speak through the involuntary spasms of pain rippling through her body. “Madgie?”
Carter tilted his head to address her, and Cole protectively put himself between the two. The shadowy figure smirked at the gesture as he spoke. “I’m surprised you don’t know where she is. After all, you two were always so attached.” Carter snapped his fingers, and the grip on her tightened. She looked down and saw what held her was no longer invisible, and it wasn’t a metal vise or cuff as she had thought, though it was just as cold as ever.
Madgie’s hand held her tightly in a death grip. Her friend’s body appeared lifeless, stiff and unmoving. Amada heard sobs tear through the sky, her own, but quickly reined them back. She still felt Madgie’s spirit. She was alive, just under some kind of binding spell. Madgie’s face showed nothing but pain. Cole’s anger spread to her, and she no longer felt the sting of her shoulder. She only felt hatred for Carter.
“Madgie did nothing wrong! Release her,” Amanda shouted over the field, causing the tall meadow grass to sway.
Carter looked confused as he watched the grass, but only for a moment. “I’ve been ordered to bring all of you back, dead or alive. So be happy that she’s among the living. I wasn’t sure I could take her alive. Old bat put up quite a fight.”
In his nonchalance, Amanda had almost forgotten they were in the middle of a fire fight, until she saw another dark smoke cloud erupt against Cole’s shield. She could only focus on her rage and nothing else, anger at Carter was the only thing keeping her conscious.
