Chapter 22 #2
He collided into me with a breath-stealing hug. I couldn’t tell who clung harder. I fisted my hands in the back of his tunic and buried my face in his shoulder. He squeezed so tightly, my ribs creaked. We embraced for a centuries-long minute, before pulling away.
“I’m glad to see that you’re aware again,” he said. “I would’ve hugged you earlier, but I didn’t know if you’d remember it.”
“Thank you. I’m better now,” I said, though Zig could tell I was lying.
Zig’s regular pale complexion had dimmed to a waxy gray.
His lips were almost blue, and his eyes, deep brown like my own, had become cloudy.
His usual enthusiasm for life had leached out of him.
Whatever magic bound him to the mages’ bargain was draining him as each day passed, and I couldn’t do anything about it, not anymore.
My stomach twisted in a knot as we both sat down at the round table, the stew no longer as tempting as it had been before.
Rylan also appeared a little worse for wear, as if the travel and the fighting had sapped all excitement out of him.
His hands shook as he took a drink, and he frowned down at his stew, lost in thought.
Farrah joined us, uncharacteristically somber, from either the events of the day or the conversation from upstairs, I wasn’t sure.
I didn’t look at Aven when they sat at the table, unsure of what I’d find.
Instead I took a hearty slurp of the stew, then a drink from the water cup in front of me.
“Um… Ellinore?” Rylan asked. “What do we do now?”
I dipped a piece of bread into the bowl, then shoved it in my mouth. I kept my head bowed, my hair hanging in my face.
“I don’t know,” I said, a confession.
“We should go back to the cave,” Farrah said. “To find another map. Not everything was destroyed, right?”
Rylan sighed. “That map was exceedingly rare. The only way there would be a duplicate is if my great-grandfather made one. And we searched through all the scrolls already and only found the one.”
“Did any of you hear Lord Ethan speak with his retinue?” Aven asked. “They obviously had a plan if they would allow the map to be destroyed.”
“It was a mistake,” I said, chewing around a tough bit of stew meat. “Lord Ethan made a mistake. He had no intention of seeing the map destroyed. It was just to… humiliate me… and taunt me into making a choice. He stumbled during the scuffle. He didn’t mean to drop it into the fire.”
“They did talk often about the southern part of the kingdom,” Rylan said, trying to ease the despair. “They mentioned a river and possibly a waterfall. I’m certain I saw a dot in that area of the map.”
“His fief is to the north, on the edge of the Dark Wood. There would be no reason for him to travel south.” Aven rubbed their brow. “Unless he was questing.”
“I had a chance to look over the map too, though I couldn’t quite figure out the key.” Farrah tapped her spoon on the edge of her bowl. “If we head that way, though, I do know a good route. Like I told you, I know all the shortcuts this kingdom has.”
“I know what we should do,” Zig said.
I snapped my head up to find Zig shoving his hand into the folds of his tunic and removing the scrap of cloth.
“No,” I said. “No, Zig.”
He ignored me and slapped it in the middle of the table.
The scrap was still blank, save for the coffee blob.
No lettering or information had magically appeared since Zig stole it from the mages.
It held nothing, other than a way to lose three days of Zig’s life, if we even found a way to activate it.
“No. Not an option.”
Aven’s eyebrows pinched together. “What is it?”
“A clue,” Zig said, sitting back in his seat. “The mages I made the bet with offered it to us at the start of the quest. But Ellinore refused to take it.”
“How’d you get it, then?” Farrah asked.
“Oh, you sweet, naive child.”
“I’m only a year younger than you.”
“Well, how do you think I got it? Ellinore refused it. So I stole it, right from underneath their noses.”
Farrah’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? You stole from mages?”
“Though I don’t condone stealing mostly,” I said into my stew, “it was a pretty good move.”
“Thank you, dear Sister.”
“Why wouldn’t you take it?” Aven asked.
“Because if we find a way to activate it, then it will take three days off the timeline of the quest.” I gulped a swig of water. “Three days off Zig’s remaining time.”
“Oh,” Aven breathed.
Farrah poked it with a long fingernail. “It doesn’t say anything. How is it a clue?”
“It has to be soaked in magic first,” Zig said.
“Saturated,” I corrected. “Saturated with power.”
Zig shrugged, excruciatingly nonchalant for someone discussing taking three days off having their heart. “Okay. Whatever that means.” He tapped Rylan on the shoulder. “I was hoping you could figure it out?”
“Me?”
“Yeah. You know a little bit of magic, right?”
“Yeah, but,” Rylan started, gaze darting nervously around the table, “I’m not really a mage. I’m just a bard. I don’t have that kind of power.”
“But you said you’ve studied it. You had access to a house full of magical crap. You could totally figure this out.”
Rylan licked his lips. “Maybe? I guess I could try.”
“Then it’s settled.” Zig smiled, though it wasn’t as bright as usual. “Rylan will work on saturating the clue with power or magic or whatever it needs.”
“And?” I prodded. “What if he can’t figure it out?
What if time runs out while we sit around and do nothing?
” Aven wrapped their fingers around my hand, and I realized that I was holding my spoon in a clenched fist so tight that I had cracked the wooden handle.
I relaxed, then pulled my hand away. “My first mistake was allowing all our eggs to be in one basket,” I said, voice low.
“I’m not doing that again. We’re following Lord Ethan. ”
“What?” Aven clenched their fists. “Even if he did have access to the map, he’s the worst quester ever, Ellinore.
I think together we could come up with a better course of action than following him.
Maybe Farrah is correct, and we should go back to the cave, or maybe we travel to the castle and look through the archives or—”
“No.” I loudly cut them off. “Lord Ethan didn’t mean to drop the map into the fire, but he did say he knew where the Elder Beast was when he was goading me.
You said yourself he has no reason to travel south unless he is on a quest. Rylan heard him talk about a river and a waterfall.
He’ll lead us to the invisible realm, and we’ll step in and cut him off. Then we’ll find the Elder Beast first.”
Aven frowned. “But—”
I hit my fist on the table. “But what? We all agreed I was the leader of this group! You’re here by order of the king,” I said, biting the words out at Aven.
“And you”—I whirled on Farrah—“wanted an adventure.” I pointed at Rylan.
“You wanted to witness a quest so you could write a song. None of you are here to save Zig. Only I am. And this is the best way to do it.”
The silence after my outburst was deafening. I pushed away from the table and stood, not meeting any of their eyes.
“I need some air.”
I left the inn and walked down the wooden boardwalk of the port town all the way to a dock that jutted out into the glittering sea. The sister moons cast ripples of light along the rolling water. Fishing equipment littered the dock, the smell of dead sea life overpowering the clean, salty air.
At the end I sat down, dangled my feet high over the water, and took a deep breath.
The one thing I had always prided myself on was my composure, my ability to allow things to bounce off, like the snide comments at the court or the jibes sometimes in the bards’ songs.
I never allowed anyone to see that their opinions got to me.
Even with Aven, I kept them at a distance.
We competed. We bickered. We leaned on each other in a cave.
But Aven didn’t know the real Ellinore. And I apparently didn’t know the real Aven.
I ran my fingers through my hair, my bandages catching on the snarls. What was I going to do? What was the best course of action? I had so little time. Maybe I should break down and summon Dave. He’d said he didn’t know where to look, but maybe he could help in another way.
I fiddled with the thin bracelet on my wrist. If I called Dave, Aven would know everything I’d done was a lie. Could they live with that? Could I?
“Wow, you must really be in your head if you didn’t hear me stomping down the dock.”
I sighed as Zig settled next to me. He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close like he used to do when we were young.
“I’m sorry,” he said, resting his cheek on my hair.
I scrunched my nose in confusion. “You’re sorry?”
“Yeah. I dragged you into something you didn’t even want to do. I made a stupid bet with mages because I was reckless and gold-hungry and, well, a tiny bit jealous of your acclaim and adventures. I kind of wanted to be part of your”—he made a vague hand gesture—“quests and friends, I guess.”
“Not all fun, is it?”
Zig huffed. “Not really.”
“I would have never wished any of this on you.” I turned in his embrace and wrapped my arms around his body. I hid my face in his chest as tears gathered in the corners of my eyes, and squeezed as hard as I could. “I don’t want you to die.”
Zig shrugged. “I don’t want to die either. But I won’t blame you if that happens, Ellinore. You’re doing everything you can to save me.” Guilt settled in my stomach like a stone. “And I appreciate it so much. But you don’t have to shoulder everything alone. I promise the others are here to help.”
“I can’t risk it. I don’t want to lose you.”
“You have me right now. And I’ll be here until the last flicker of that candle. How many marks are left, by the way?”
I reached into the bag at my belt and pulled out the parchment. I unrolled it, and we both stared at the candle. In the dark it emitted a soft glow. We counted the marks that remained.
I gulped. “According to this, when the sun rises tomorrow—nine.”
“Oh. Well. That’s not so bad.” He shrugged as I put the parchment away. “Do you think Rylan will date me for the last nine days of my life?”
I punched Zig in the ribs. “Don’t distract him while he’s trying to activate the scrap of clues.”
“Good call. I’ll date him after he cracks the code. If, you know, I’m around.”
“Please don’t joke like that.”
“Like what?” He rubbed his fist on the top of my head, knotting my hair.
“About how much I’m going to haunt you as a ghost?
You’ll never be rid of me. Even if you move into the castle with Aven and become noble by marriage, I’m going to haunt those halls and bemoan the fact that I never lived in a palace with tapestries. ”
I disentangled from him. I wiped the tears from my cheeks, rolling my eyes at the implication that Aven would even want to date me, much less marry. “You’re insufferable.”
“You’re my twin. So if I’m insufferable, so are you.”
“That’s not how that works.”
He laughed, but it came out as more of a wheeze. “Hey, listen,” he said, tugging on my hair, “you’re kind of in the doghouse with everyone else, so you’ll totally be sleeping on the floor tonight.”
Ah, well, that made sense. “Okay. I won’t argue.”
He grinned. “And don’t worry, okay? If you say we need to follow that stupid lord-of-winged-horses guy, then that’s what we’ll do. We trust you. I trust you. You’re Ellinore the Brave.”
My heart dropped. Oh. I tucked the bracelet under my long sleeve. Zig wanted Ellinore the Brave, so I would be Ellinore the Brave. For him. She’d accomplished amazing things before. She could do this, too. Maybe.