Chapter 38
I didn’t meet a single soul.
Not a bird.
Not a micc.
Not a squirrel.
Not a kuslar.
Not a deer.
Not an ugal.
My feet froze at the entry to the Sage Brush and a chill seeped into my bones. It felt extraordinary, like stepping into the underworld. The darkness shifted, clawing to claim me as its own. The lanterns flickered like this monumental moment didn’t affect them.
I took a step, and the darkness swallowed me.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t thought about what I would say to him.
Ransom had known, of course, from the beginning. He had tried to tell me in secret ways without alerting anyone to the coming future. He had tried to be gentle, and I had taken it for malice, for unsettling Seer ways.
What a fool I am.
I didn’t come across a single Seer while I walked.
The supernatural blue fire that burned in the center of the ceremonial grounds crackled. I stopped at the threshold, waiting for someone, anyone.
But I was alone.
When I stepped over the entryway, the flames from the pit grew higher, an image of myself swirling amongst honeysuckle vines. The phantom seemed somber, a doleful expression taking over her blurry features.
Books lay haphazardly, bundles of plants hung to dry, and star charts had been left pinned to tables with heavy objects on their corners. I perused the items one at a time, glancing over scribbled words in a mix of Ancient and English.
The fire behind me sparked, pulling my attention. A lone figure stood behind it.
I hadn’t heard him approach.
“Ar vaara innu lo feru, je kunin.”
There is danger in the wild, my queen.
“Ja feru.”
I am wild.
He shook his head. “My answer is no.”
“Panni, Ransom. Please.”
With a flash of movement, his hood fell back, revealing dark ashy circles around his eyes. He regarded me assiduously. “What made the matter clear to you?”
I breathed a sigh. “Silas gathered us together after the funeral. When he spoke, something Elder Macon had told me about… about–” I wasn’t sure I had the right to say, but I was past the point of no return.
“Lo sain? The legend?” He clasped his hands together as he walked over to the star charts.
“The second vision the Elder made.”
Ransom dusted off the sheets, rolling them up and storing them in a clay pot with other rolls of paper. He moved to the books next, closing them and starting a stack.
“I know all about the second prediction. I also know the Legend of the Wild in addition to its epilogue.”
“Lycaon’s story?”
Didn’t Silas say something about Lycaon and his brother—Nyx?
Ransom heaved the stack of thick books into his arms. “If you will follow me, my queen. I can explain a bit more. Stay close.”
He turned down the path we had traversed in total darkness when Silas had taken nightshade. I couldn’t see even inches in front of me, but the swish of Ransom’s robe on the leafy growth below told me I followed in the right direction.
The path stretched longer this time around, and I wondered if there were other corridors or if Ransom could bend the trees like Elder Macon. The Elder was a Seer, after all.
Something hit me.
Or rather, I ran into something thick and hard.
This can’t be Ransom. Is it a door?
I stretched my hands. My fingertips touched something rough and almost flaky, nothing like the doors I had seen in Arcadia, worn smooth from decades of use. I’d run into a tree, meaning I had lost my guide.
“Ransom?” I whispered.
The forest around me made no sound in reply.
Lycaon, this can’t be happening.
“Ransom!” I hissed.
“Is the dark unsettling to you?” A disembodied voice spoke from behind me.
I whirled around but couldn’t see a thing. I pressed my back against the tree. “Quite a bit, yes. And I think you’re twisted for finding it amusing.”
“Who said it amused me? I’m curious to see if you had the Sight in you. The Sight is a gift, but certain things are sacrificed for such a gift. For instance, darkness.”
A shocking flare of blue sprang up to the right, a small flame nestled in Ransom’s cupped hands. His face fell as he studied the flames.
“This place, the Sage Brush, is supposed to feel sacred for those who enter, needing the Sight to guide their way through the dark and winding paths. But for me…” With a flourish of his hand, blue light flew to lanterns hidden in the dark. “For me, the darkness is day. The darkness means nothing.”
The path illuminated, and my body relaxed.
“For me,” Ransom continued, folding his hands again, “this is just another day.” He smiled, motioning to a door. “Please, come in. Aubrey is making breakfast.”
His words jarred me even as I stepped through a doorway into a small living area, furnished with normal Arcadian things, bones and plants and a wardrobe identical to the one in my old room. Then there were Seer things, odd plants hanging above the doorway and symbols decorating the stones around the bed. A bench rested in the center of the room in front of a small fire where Aubrey knelt over a pan.
She glanced up when we entered. “Eden, please, make yourself at home.”
Ransom held a hand out to the bench. He took a seat at the far end, rubbing the ash markings off of the skin around his eyes.
Aubrey laughed to herself. “I knew you’d be here. I sent Ransom out to find you.”
I turned to Ransom. He had such an expression of love on his face for his wife that it almost hurt. He seemed so proud to be her husband.
Silas would never look at me like that. He wouldn’t have the chance.
“So, I gather you know then?” She pulled the pan away from the fire, the aroma of cooked meat filling the room. “What is your decision?”
“I think it’s a bit obvious.” Ransom furrowed his brow.
Aubrey rolled her eyes, carrying the pan to their table, where she pushed aside a pair of books. “It may be obvious to us, but she still has to decide. It is her life.”
“What is your decision then?” Ransom turned to me, eyes dark with focus.
“I want to take Silas’s place. Is that something I can do?” I turned to Aubrey for reassurance.
“It’s not unheard of.” She shrugged, dishing out meat onto three plates with bread already waiting. “That is what Lycaon did, taking the place of the rest of Arcadia. All Nyx ever wanted was the throne. He felt passed over when Lycaon assumed responsibility after their father passed. The only issue being that, of course, Nyx killed their father. The Branches deemed him unworthy, and so the people of Arcadia cut him out of the pack. And that made him unworthy of the title of Alpha.”
“He killed his own father?” I blinked, trying to wrap my head around the morbid history.
“Elder Macon feared that Nash would repeat the past,” Ransom began, massaging the palms of his hands. “He’s been keeping tabs on Nash ever since he started disappearing when we were all still children.”
“You grew up with them?” I rubbed the space between my eyebrows.
Ransom chuckled. “Quite possibly why Silas doesn’t prefer my company. I always bet on Nash when they wrestled.”
“You are such a pest.” Aubrey rolled her eyes. “Eden, would you like coffee?”
That caught my attention. “You have coffee? What kind of magic is this?”
Aubrey and Ransom both laughed.
“We’re Seers, not magicians.” Aubrey brought mugs over for Ransom and me. “But it’s something I always ask for when they send people into town. Only for special occasions, of course.”
The aroma itself was intoxicating.
“Anyway,” Ransom started again, inhaling the steam from his cup. “Elder Macon knew Nash’s whereabouts for most of his absences, but this last one…” Ransom rubbed his jaw. “Nash had been in Kahtentah, living in and around the Lukosan pack. He’d written to Iain often, sending messages with micca and ugals or any creature he could convince to help him.”
I lowered my mug in surprise. “He’d written to Iain?”
Ransom nodded as Aubrey brought our plates and sat between us. “I don’t know how much Iain knew. But Elder Macon said Iain had grown worried after not hearing from Nash. His last message said that he would return before Joulo and he’d be coming through Washita. But he never arrived.”
“He had been gone for a month, though.” I turned to Aubrey. “Why didn’t he return? And why did he return now?”
Ransom shook his head. “I’d been trying for months to find him with the Sight before he returned. A gaping hole stood in place of the usual visions. I caught glimpses of his eyes, his tracks, his surroundings, but nothing helped me find a firm location, and the glimpses were few and far between. And then…”
He met my gaze.
“What, me?”
“I saw you from Nash’s perspective.”
I bit the edge of my lip to keep from interrupting. Questions burned inside of me.
“I saw you start your hike the morning Silas found you. Nash bolted, but that was the first long moment I saw from him. I wasn’t surprised to see him the next day, only I hadn’t had the chance to warn Silas.” He ran a hand through his thin hair.
“We think Nyx worked through Nash to find a loophole in his banishment,” Aubrey started. “That somehow he blocked out interference through the Sight. We’ve been attempting to understand how that would be possible.”
“And so Nash brought him here?” My voice came out much smaller than I intended. But I couldn’t bring myself to speak any louder.
“It’s all speculation,” Ransom offered. “But Nyx must have caught him between here and Kahtentah. Or somewhere in Washita.”
“Like the messenger.” I shook my head, vision blurry.
“Maybe.” Aubrey lay a cold hand on my knee. “But if that’s the case, he’s more powerful than we thought. And…” She shifted.
“And,” Ransom took up the sentence, “it could complicate things if you decide to go.”
The thought of being out of control of my body and mind unsettled me. The idea that I could end up a puppet to such a brutal creature turned my stomach.
I set the plate of uneaten breakfast aside. “As much as I would hate that, I would rather risk it than watch Silas lose everything he loves and has lived for.”
Aubrey nodded. “We don’t have much time if Silas plans to act tomorrow. We’ll need to do this today.”
“What do I do?”
Ransom stood, picking up one of the books on the table. “I think it would be best to meet Nyx at the Little River this afternoon. End this where it began.”
“How do we know he’ll be there?” I questioned.
“He will be.”
Chills ran down my arms and up my spine, reaching as far as the top of my head. The thought of those dark waters still haunted me.
“Since it’s rained, the handful of rapids will be a bit unpredictable. That can work for you or against you. And then there’s the option of attempting to trick him. Maybe you face him head-on, offering a trade.”
“What would he be interested in?”
Aubrey flashed a reproachful glare at Ransom.
Ransom blushed. “Well, he wants the throne. He wants Arcadia. And what better way to edge his way in than pair with a lady of Arcadia?”
“Me? You want me to propose to him?” My words sounded distant to my ears.
“Offer a trade. It’ll be like a contract or a covenant that he has to uphold: he’ll get a mate if he swears to keep the peace. And if he thinks you’re already Queen, maybe he’d be willing to listen. Marrying the Queen means instant access to the throne.”
I stood, beginning to pace on the other side of the fire. “Is there an option where I don’t have to marry the immortal demon wolf?”
Aubrey set her breakfast aside. “You wouldn’t ever marry him. We’ll have Guardians nearby, close enough to attack at the right time. If we can catch him off guard for a moment, we might have enough of an upper hand to end this for good.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“You don’t have to.” Ransom closed the book in his hands, tucking it under his arm. “You don’t have to do anything.”
“But Silas–” I threw my arm towards the door leading back to the Sage Brush.
“Is the King of Arcadia,” Ransom snapped. “We will be committing treason on the highest level by disobeying him.”
He hissed the word treason so sharply that it cut my spirit. Silence filled the room.
Ransom clasped his hands. “But we are willing to go against him because we believe in you. I believe you will succeed.”
“I’m scared,” I breathed.
Aubrey stood and reached to hold my hand. “We’ll be with you the entire time. And I have a plan.”
Ransom made his way to the plants hanging over the door, pulling a small bundle down. He held it out for me to take.
“What’s this?”
“Honeysuckle.” He smiled. “It’s always been yours. Built for the sweetest passion of love as well as the devotion to love lost.”
“Does that make me the love lost?” I held the bundle in my hand. It smelled sweet.
“Veime, myt, dumahn. Past, present, future… Only time will tell.”
My memory flickered with the thought of four-year-old me with Iain asking if I would see him again.
Past, present, future… Only time will tell.
He had insight I hadn’t.
There is life after death.
And I would see him again.