9. Chapter Nine
Linorra felt a mysterious yearning as she read the poem, so delicately etched into the wooden box. She could feel the crystal key within thrumming with power.
Aaron cracked the front door open, looking out cautiously. He listened for a full minute but didn’t hear anything. He sent Rogue out ahead, as usual, then he opened the door wide and looked out, up, and all around. When he stepped out of the doorway, he turned around to look at the spot where he’d surprised me earlier, then continued out into the garden.
I followed behind, noting that if he walked at his normal speed, then this would be a bit of a jog for me. I was exhausted, having spent a ton of energy learning to heal, but I had been running two marathons a year since I was eighteen and had been training for an ultramarathon, so I knew how to keep going when I was tired. Just put one blistered foot in front of the other.
As I closed the door behind me, Aaron checked to make sure I followed. He looked even more exhausted than I felt, though I doubted he would admit it. It was still dark out, but he had me carry the oil lantern so I could see where I stepped. He set out at a brisk pace, which did require me to jog, but he noticed and slowed down for me. I followed behind, trailing him like a lost puppy.
As I walked, the scent of the redwoods was a balm to me, my link to home. Along with Rogue, of course, who stayed close to me, nearly rubbing against my legs as I walked. With him trotting at my side, looking up at me with those amber eyes, I felt almost safe, like we were on one of our usual hikes.
“Aaron, how do you know Rogue?” I asked. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t asked that yet.
“He showed up about seven years ago,” he said. “I never knew from where. He would just come out of the Rhoya.” Aaron looked at me over his shoulder again, and, noticing my bewilderment, he translated, “The trees.” His explanation did nothing to relieve my confusion as I had previously thought “Rhoya” was a swear word.
“He would stay for a few months, then disappear.” He chuckled. “I almost shot him the first time he appeared. I thought he might be a spy for her.”
“Who?”
“Eve Aetos, the Holy Mother. She’s the leader of all the Rhoyal Diocese of Monash, and they worship her as a goddess.”
And now “Rhoya” refers to the Ministry? These people need a thesaurus.“I thought you didn’t believe in a god here,” I said, shaking my head.
“We don’t. There is only the goddess. They say she was born a mortal, but her spirit was so pure that she ascended to godhood and is now immortal. I’ve never seen her, but she controls everything and everyone from her palace in Neesee. Her daughter, Seleca, is her second. I believe that is the woman you called Psycho Snow White.”
“That’s who you’re hiding from?”
“Yes, and now so are you, I think,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Many reasons, but the main one is that Eve wants my reservoir.”
“She what? She can steal your fragment?”
“She can steal your reservoir,”he corrected. “That is how she really became who she is, not by some kind of ascension. Eve is a greater reservoir for the Absorption fragment. She can absorb any reservoir other than Protection, and she is always looking for the ones that she doesn’t have yet, which includes both Connection and Evocation. If she finds us, she’ll try to kill us and take those two reservoirs. Unless she does us all a favor and steals Seleca’s Connection. She’s the only other one I know of who has that reservoir.”
“If she kills you, she can steal it?”
“Protection prevents her from absorbing it while you’re alive, but yes, it can be done at the moment of death, even if you’re protected. Or, if you voluntarily let her past your Protection it can also be done. Seleca has absorbed more than one reservoir that way. She tried to do that to me when I was sixteen. I’m the only one I know of who has Evocation. I didn’t even know it existed until I accidentally burned down my father’s barn. My mother had to explain it to me. It runs in the family, I guess.”
“But why do they need so many reservoirs? What is the goal?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. She already controls all of Monash. She doesn’t need any more power.”
Ask him more about Rogue.
The thought popped into my head out of nowhere, almost like it didn’t belong to me, but I wasn’t touching Aaron, so I figured Evilina was just doing her strange insistent questioning thing again. She would try to use the information for our sole benefit, I was sure.
“So, Rogue just showed up unexpectedly?” I asked. “Why didn’t you shoot him?”
Aaron shrugged. “I thought about it, but I remembered my mother saying something about a dog girl, so I waited. He sat in front of my cottage door for twelve hours before I finally let him in. Even greater transformers have a limit. For most, that limit is less than an hour. The most gifted struggle with two or three. It has something to do with losing the ability to think clearly, and they say there’s a kind of irresistible urge to go back to your normal body that becomes painful after a while. They call it withdrawing.”
“What’s a transformer?” I asked.
“It’s someone who can transform themselves and the objects around them. Some can turn themselves into animals, although it’s said to be one of the hardest fragments to master.”
“So, shapeshifting,” I said, “only they can do it to others too? That’s creepy.”
“No, not to other living things,” he said, “only to themselves and nonliving objects, like that shirt you wore yesterday. Transformers can take the raw material and transform it into a fine garment. It takes practice, though, like any skilled trade.”
“Oh, that’s why your shirt didn’t have any seams,” I said. “It was transformed, not sewn. That’s amazing.”
“Yes,” he said, turning to look at me over his shoulder. He had a small smile on his face, looked at my legs, then turned forward again. “Did you bring that shirt?”
I knit my eyebrows together but didn’t answer. “So, you let Rogue into your cottage, but how did he get to Monash? And why did he go back and forth?”
Aaron didn’t have an answer for that. I looked down at Rogue. He was practically clinging to me as we walked. “I saw his skin ripple right before Psycho Snow White threw me onto the bridge,” I said.
Aaron shrugged. “Reservoirs are not limited to people. A dragon’s fire is a kind of Evocation, not unlike mine. That’s how I always know when they’re stalking me.”
“Resonance.”
“Yes,” he confirmed, “and the oardoo use a kind of Transformation during their melding season.”
“What’s an oardoo?” I asked.
“It’s a large bird that runs instead of flies. My uncle sells their feathers at the Harvest Festival every autumn. They’re extremely valuable. Once per year, when they enter the melding season, they release all their feathers and grow new ones in just a few minutes. It’s quite a sight.” He laughed, thinking about it.
“Melding season?” I asked.
“Hmm, that’s hard to explain. It would be easier to show you, although melding season just ended. Maybe next year.”
“We’ll be gone by then.”
Aaron didn’t respond right away, but after a moment, he said, “I hope you’re right.”
For the next few hours, we walked in silence. The only sound was the echo of birdsong bouncing off the redwood canopy.
The forest looked so much like home, but there were some clear differences. I knew our trees well, and I knew the feeling of hiking among them. These trees were slightly farther apart and taller. Though my forest had trees reaching greater than three hundred feet, most were shorter than that due to logging. The majority of the trees near the stables were less than a hundred years old. This forest looked to be all old growth, and most appeared to have reached their height potential. It was glorious, but it also made me sad for my own forest. It must have looked like this before humans left their irksome mark.
Another difference was the ground itself. It was rockier, and there were more glades interspersed within the forest. Within some of the glades were hot springs with red crystals growing around the edges. I suggested a swim, but Aaron told me that the pools were deadly and that if I went in the water or touched the crystals, I’d likely die within a few days. Maybe I was protected enough to prevent it, but it was better to play it safe.
After we had walked for about four hours, Aaron selected a place to rest that was hidden between some bushes. I plopped down on a small log with a groan and closed my eyes. Rogue sat down right on top of my feet. Despite the foot warmer, it felt good to rest. My feet ached and I was developing a blister.
You’re not protected from everything, I guess. Remember that.
The thought struck me as odd. My mind had just put the word you and I into the same sentence while thinking about myself. I’d been having weird thoughts like that since crossing the bridge. Maybe it had been the mind-meld with Aaron, or maybe it was just time for a snack. I pulled out a granola bar and offered it to Aaron.
“No, thank you,” he said, sitting down on my right to dig in his own pack. He pulled out his now-favorite orange water bottle.
“Ya know, you could just tell me the truth,” I said. “I’m not going to be upset because you don’t like my granola bars.”
He gave me a wan smile. “I don’t dislike them, it’s just that they are so sweet. What are those dark brown bits?”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Chocolate,” I said. “You’ve never had chocolate? No beer, no sex, and no chocolate. What kind of a crazy world is this?”
He shrugged.
“Okay, tell me this. Have you ever heard of coffee? ’Cause I think you could use some.” I thought I might cry when he shook his head. As far as I was concerned, this was worse news than the worldwide cult-induced brainwashing.
Aaron pulled out a cloth and unfolded it to reveal strips of dried meat. Dragon jerky, I assumed. What kind of a badass do you have to be to keep dragon jerky in your knapsack?
Rogue sat up with interest, paying attention to Aaron for the first time since we’d set out that morning. Aaron offered me a piece, but I waved it away, so he tossed it to Rogue as I poured water into the wooden bowl for the dog.
“Aaron, I just realized I don’t know your last name. Do you have family names here?”
He closed his eyes for a second, then reached out to put his arm around my shoulders in a side hug. “I’m sorry,” he said, pulling me close. “I should have thought of that. It’s Atticus.”
I contemplated his apology, pondering why he considered it necessary. Our morning encounter was likely the first time he’d ever had that kind of contact with someone. It made sense that he normally would’ve offered his full name before diving into something so intimate. Had I known what to expect, and had Aaron’s health not been in danger, I certainly wouldn’t have let him look inside me so deeply after knowing him for only a day.
In truth, I’d never shown myself to someone like that, not even to people I slept with. The closest I’d ever come was with Drew, and she’d left me behind without a backwards glance—until it was too late. I’d promised myself that I’d never be in that position again.
Then something tickled my brain. Atticus. “Oh, that’s the same last name as the author of The Crystal Key,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“A book,” I said, unzipping the front pocket of my pack. I pulled it out and handed it to him.
He set down his meal and stared at the book hard. He removed his arm from around my shoulders, then frantically flipped through the pages, finally getting to the inside of the back cover. He stared at it and lifted his hand to his mouth, his pale eyes glistening.
“Aaron, what is it?”
Aaron stared mutely at the book, his face flushing. Tentatively, I lifted my hand to rest on his shoulder. I didn’t delve, just touched him. He looked up as if he’d forgotten I was there.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“My mother wrote this,” he said. He held the inside cover up for me to see and pointed at the picture of a handsome woman with steel-gray hair. I knew the picture well. “This is her,” he said.
“Whoa! That’s your mom? That is so random.”
No, I thought. His mother set us up on this crazy blind date. She might have intended for Aaron to have this book.
“What’s it about?” Aaron asked.
“It’s about a girl who travels to another world to find a dragon,” I said. I was about to say more, but the words stuck in my throat.
I face-palmed. How did I not see this before?
Aaron looked at me with wide eyes. “It’s about us! There must be a message in here,” he said. “The names of all the characters are unfamiliar, but the girl’s name is similar to yours, and the name Anick, of course.”
“Who is Anick?” I asked.
He almost gave me the look but stopped himself. “Oh, of course you wouldn’t know. He was Eve’s bondmate and Seleca’s father.”
“Bondmate? What is that?”
“Well, my mother is from Earth and she used to say the word ‘husband,’ so you might know that word?” He looked at me to confirm and I nodded. “That term always made my father laugh because ‘husbandry’ is what they call the breeding of oxen at the Groves farm, northwest of here. Then my mother would tell him that that’s why she said it.” Aaron gave me a fleeting smile, which quickly turned sad.
“Anyway,” he continued, “the Ministry teaches that Anick was a great leader who saved the entire world from destruction through noble sacrifice. The Noble Six are the six fragments that he thought were the most useful to a civilized society. He outlawed the use of any others. Our family archives show that the Ministry’s history is all a lie and that he was actually a monster who enslaved and murdered thousands of people. He was like Seleca, except worse. They say he was a thousand years old, but he was killed about a century ago.”
“He’s the one who turned this entire world into a cult,” I said.
Aaron paused. “If a cult is when a single person controls everyone on the planet with fear and violence, then yes.”
“They don’t usually get that big, but . . . wait, Seleca is a hundred years old?”
“At least,” he said absently. “Regular healing extends your lifespan.”
Say what?My eyes widened as I thought through the implications. When Aaron said Anick was a thousand years old, I’d assumed it was just a legend. But what if it wasn’t? I heal myself every second of every day. Am I immortal now? Holy crap. I mean, holy fucking shit.
My hands went up to my mouth in shock, but Aaron was too immersed in the book to notice. I looked down at Rogue. He stared at me as if he knew exactly what I was thinking, then snuggled up to me and rested his face on my lap.
Was this a big deal? I didn’t want to interrupt Aaron’s literary excavation to ask him. I sat there for a long time, scratching Rogue’s head and thinking.
Aaron searched for something, perhaps some kind of sign that his mother knew he would eventually read her book. He found it on page thirty-three, a poem I’d always considered odd. It was the only poem in the book and didn’t quite fit the story, as if it were stuck in as an afterthought.
In the queen’s garden, there is a key that opens up our destiny.
Covered in mud and blood, it pleads the wisdom of dishonor.
It helps you face your enemy and searches out what seems empty,
But if you wait, and don’t misread, you may avoid a slaughter.
It dreams of time beyond the trees and sounds the call to mutiny
Because it cannot help but lead the horses to the water.
For though we may not all agree, our hearts are longing to be free
And so, we’ll follow, fight and bleed until death weighs upon her.
Then through the rubble and debris the saplings grow in twos and threes
From stone to stone, their shade of creed expanding ever broader.
And so, my dragon, use the key; and in time, I’ll have with me
The only thing I’ll ever need, my husband, son, and daughter.
Aaron read the poem. Then he read the poem again. Then again and again.
“And so, my dragon, use the key,” he said finally to himself.
“Yes, it’s the poem written on the box where the girl finds the crystal key. Her family name is Dragonrider. Do you think you are the dragon from the poem?”
“That’s what she’s called me since I was a small child,” he said. “It’s a message from her. It has to be.”
“She wrote something inside the front cover where she signed it,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows, opening the front cover to look inside. It read: Time for Jo.
“My mom said it was probably a coffee joke, but I never got it. Does it mean anything to you?”
“She used to call my uncle that,” Aaron said, looking up at me.
“Well then, I guess you probably have some questions to ask him,” I said.
He nodded his head. “I certainly do.”