50
Flare
We emerged from the cave tunnel and onto the northwest cove, an area we journeyed to occasionally for gathering firewood. The aquamarine sea glittered, the low tide trailing its fingers over the frothy sand. Threading my fingers with Jeryn’s, I dragged him to the shore, then hunched to the ground.
My prince wore only his pants, the material buffeting his long limbs as he squatted beside me. The breeze winnowed against my linen shorts and smocked camisole while I raced my fingers through the sand. Having practiced this art piece, it didn’t take long to create.
Twelve months. Three hundred and sixty-five days. One year ago today, we washed ashore. Since then, a thousand hopes, a thousand emotions, and a thousand experiences. Those, and a single desire. The man I’d wanted nothing to do with became the man I wanted to share everything with.
We had learned each other’s fears and wishes. I knew what provoked him, and he knew what comforted me. We had learned one another’s favorites—colors and food and fauna. I knew his passions, as he knew mine.
And finally, I understood The Phantom Wild’s reason for calling me.
Kneeling before the sea, I sketched a vial pendant. Inside the pendant, I added intertwining symbols, including a fur cloak, his scalpel knife, the siren shark that haunted him, and the rainforest flora he’d turned into medicines.
Finished, I gestured toward the artwork with a flourish. “Happy anniversary.” Swallowing, I said, “Now your vial is mended.”
Jeryn blinked at the drawing. For a while, he didn’t respond, staring as though unsure what to do with this gesture.
I hesitated, my heart crumbling to powder. Did he not like it?
But then his chest hitched, and I realized. Other than his necklace, sentimental gestures had been scarce in his life. He didn’t know how to process his gratitude.
Shaking his head, Jeryn muttered something. Then he grabbed my face and crushed his mouth to mine. I smiled into his lips, gasping as he inched back and murmured, “Thank you.”
My soul flapped its wings. Giving him another quick kiss, I pulled back and pointed. “This is my gift to you. But it’s also the key.”
Jeryn frowned, then his features smoothed out in understanding. “Sand art.”
I nodded. “What you felt just now … from seeing this … that’s the key.”
His mention of time had made me think of the calendar I had drawn in our suite, and that had made me think of my sand art, and that had made me think of the piece I’d been planning to sketch for our anniversary. I had meant for it to be a present, but now it became more, because the sand art had also made me think of emotions, memories, and stories.
Tales. Verse. Lyrics.
The places where experiences and lives were chronicled and interpreted. Like the ancient Summer song with its secret map—buried treasure waiting to be discovered. Like the epic story that described the Seasons’ history, which Poet and Briar had translated to one another during a public reading for Reaper’s Fest, a recollection that Jeryn had shared with me. And like every tale that existed in The Dark Seasons, from the ones passed down to the ones newly created.
I thought of each way Jeryn and I had broken through barriers of communication. Words. Sentences.
Then I thought of Aire’s words in the ruins, when he’d sensed past events within its walls.
There was a quarrel in this room between family members.
Another time, a forbidden tryst between lovers.
I thought of Jeryn’s reaction when I first confided in him, when he asked what I believed my mission would be, and when he questioned why I relied on the rainforest more than myself to dictate my purpose.
Lastly, I thought of what he said about my art after we made love beside the waterfalls.
Whatever you made them feel, they would not forget it.
They wouldn’t forget it because people didn’t forget the things that changed them. In all its glorious and diverse forms, art stirred the soul and reinvented kingdoms. My sand drawings were the key. The rainforest had summoned me not to find the answer among its ruins. It brought me here to find the key within myself.
I’d been relying on this realm to designate my worth and steer my destiny, instead of looking inside. But Jeryn had been right. My fate wasn’t about what this world had planned for me. No, it was about how I could contribute to this world on my own.
If I took the stories from this place—from my time with a prince, a year in which we’d learned differently about each other, in which we felt something wholly new toward one another—I could bring them back to Summer through my art. Just as truth lived in books and paintings and music and poetry, I could depict our tale, and the tales of those who’d once dwelled here, who lay in the catacombs but whose essences still filled the ruins’ halls. I could draw the scenes that Aire had sensed. I could show how an ancient society—which had included born souls—had thrived. And I could do that without revealing the ruins’ existence. Even more, I could share how enemies might overcome their hatred long enough to find love.
The legend of this place had existed within a song. Whoever left this rainforest ages ago had hinted its existence through lyrics.
Seek not, find not, this Phantom Wild.
I would bring more of this realm back through images in the sand, across all shores in Summer, for everyone who came to view them. If I did this, maybe the art could inspire my homeland. Maybe people would think differently about born souls.
I had a voice. This was my key.
I told this to Jeryn. Though from his expression, he’d known where I was going with this.
We stared at each other. Hope and amazement clashed with sorrow and longing as our gazes clung. If I’d found my key, that meant it would soon be time to leave. But it wouldn’t be forever. We had made that vow to each other.
So although my heart throbbed painfully, I crawled across the sand. Growling, he tugged me onto his lap, and our mouths locked, the kiss steady like the ocean.
The deep flex of his tongue poured heat down my skin. Pulling back, a wistful grin slanted across my face, and Jeryn’s eyes darkened with a promise. After making love all morning, he’d said we still had time. And we did. We had today, tonight, and tomorrow. And maybe a little longer, enough to squeeze out a few more droplets of happiness.
We stayed like this, clasping until Jeryn combed back my hair. “Let’s build a fire at home. I’ll strip you down in front of it and make you come again.”
Home. He’d said home.
I nodded, my throat swelling. Every time we left the ruins, we carried our weapons—his knife and my machete, which I’d taken to using more than Poet’s dagger. Not only did the blade remind me of my parents, but it was easier to hack through vegetation. After venturing back to the ruins and retrieving two oversized slings that I’d woven, we returned to the cove and set about collecting kindling, since we were running low and the trees here shed their trunks more than anywhere else. Plus, the timbers were drier.
We packed our wood into the slings and set them on the ground, then took a walk by the water, my fingers entwining with Jeryn’s. At one point, his arms snaked possessively around me from behind, and he buried his face in the side of my neck, making me chuckle. Like this, it was difficult for us to walk, our limbs stumbling through the tide.
“You’re a villain,” I teased.
“Correction,” he replied into my throat. “I’m your villain.”
I opened my mouth to answer when two things happened. The sky rumbled, signaling thunder rain. It wasn’t unusual, yet for some reason, foreboding crawled like a spider down my flesh. Next, a red flash darted from the forest’s border.
Jeryn trailed my gaze toward the butterfly flapping wildly in our direction. My little companion had been acting as our messenger between Summer and Autumn, though we hadn’t been expecting her yet.
The prince and I hastened toward the creature. I crooked my finger for the female to land upon, her wings fluttering rapidly.
“What is it, my friend?” I asked. “What’s the matter?”
Jeryn hissed, bothered by something else I couldn’t sense. “Flare,” he warned, drawing out my name in a low baritone.
Glancing the wild’s edge, I scanned the mesh of leaves, searching beyond its depths. Then I felt it—a presence. More than that, an intrusion. The offshoots rustled and shuddered.
Snarling, the prince snatched my waist. He whipped me behind him and ripped out his scalpel knife. We halted, arrested inside a shocked second, then two seconds, then three.
A gust swirled through the foliage. Then an athletic form cut through the underbrush, his movements familiar. Ashen blond hair and blue eyes materialized, along with the flash of two broadswords.
“Aire!” I exclaimed in confusion while scrambling from behind Jeryn.
“What the fuck?” the prince muttered, disarming his weapon.
The knight’s bulk shoved through the bushes. Striding into view, he stalled, relief and urgency contorting his face. “Your Highness. Flare. We—”
“I said, what the fuck?” Jeryn seethed. “I almost impaled you.”
The butterfly landed on my shoulder as I rushed to the warrior’s side. “What—”
Aire held up his hand. “I cannot explain.” He flung his chin toward the southeast. “We docked a skiff on the other side, but it’s not a story for now. We must leave. Now.” A grave look dimmed his features. “They’re coming.”
“Who?” I shook my head. “Leave where?”
Despite the lack of quill and parchment, my gesture and confused features communicated enough. Grasping my meaning, Aire opened his mouth, but I swerved toward Jeryn, too agitated to remain still.
Except my bafflement was cut off by the haunted expression carving through his face. The prince’s eyes flashed as he stared into the distance, his features blanching as if he’d just encountered a ghost.
Following his gaze, I saw it. Blasting through a curtain of fog, the massive Winter ships smashed through the ocean like bulldozers.