Chapter 3 #2
I jogged to where I’d seen the taller girl fall.
The riders were circling. Looking, too. The one holding the smaller girl was trying to get her restrained, and she was fighting him tooth and nail.
She was losing, but she fought anyway. She didn’t give up, kicking, hissing, trying to get him in the face.
The horse was getting agitated, and the rider was cursing, and then he pulled his hand back and hit her. I yelped, then covered my mouth. The rider’s fist had descended so hard that the poor girl went limp and still, only groaning as he tied her hands and legs.
“Shit, motherfucking motherfucker,” I said, taking a step in that direction.
Something caught my attention before I could help the girl. I saw a flash of skin from under a bush, then made out green eyes even as the rain picked up and I heard the riders doing some cursing of their own, judging by the tone of their voices.
The taller girl had somehow crept under a bush and several branches, and she was nearly invisible there, her sodden hair streaking over her face and acting like camouflage.
I snuck up to her, and her eyes were tracking me.
She was on her side, looking at me, but watching the horses whenever they came close to where she was.
The rain fell harder, and the riders got more and more frustrated. The smaller girl, now tied to the horse, was getting some of her strength back. She tried kicking the horse, which was none too happy about the situation, going by how it was prancing around.
After a little while longer, one of the riders said something. I didn’t catch the words, but he sounded pissed, all right. All three of them were pissed. They had no right to be, seeing as how they were fucking assholes abducting and hurting people.
They rode off a few minutes later, heads swiveling as if they were hoping to catch sight of the other girl, the one who was still looking back and forth between me and them.
Her expression was furious. Instead of being scared like I would have been in her situation, she appeared determined, her jaw set, the muscles there working.
She spent several long minutes under that bush, even after the riders had gone.
“I think you can come out now,” I said and beckoned to her. I walked to where they had ridden off to. If I was a ghost after all, I was apparently haunting this girl, and I might as well do a good job of being a supportive specter.
The underbrush rustled, but she was almost silent as she came back out and stood up. Her cloak was muddy—even muddier—and soaked completely through, as was the rest of her. She wore fantasy movie clothing, by which I mean old clothing.
Or, no—old-timey clothing. It was neatly woven and tidy, or had been, before her ordeal, but the cut was simple, and there was no metal on her clothes that I could see.
No zippers, no shiny buttons, no buckles or traces of bright dyes.
She did, however, have a dagger in a sheath tied to her leather and buckle-less belt.
That reminded me a lot of my guys, since they were the only people I knew to carry around pointy weapons. Well, them and the cola asshats.
“Hey, do you know if I’m haunting you?” I asked as I jogged back toward her.
She looked at me, then shook her head.
“Hey.” I jumped in front of her.
She sighed and stopped, then walked around me. At a minimum, she could see me.
“Hey, wait.” I hurried after her.
The girl was making her way back to the Stone.
“Excuse me, but do you think maybe you could stop for a moment and talk to me or give me a sign or something? Because I don’t know about you, but I’m freaking out because I’m either dead or dreaming, and if this is a dream, then, dang it, I should go see a doctor.”
The girl grumbled, stopped, and looked at me over her shoulder. She gave a quick headshake, then jerked her head back toward the Stone. She wanted me to follow her, then. Well, what else was I going to do?
Despite her cloak, her hair was sticking to her face and neck in wet strands.
She walked right back up to the Stone, and this time, she put her palm out, just like the other girl had done.
Before she touched the Stone, she looked at me, and then, holding my gaze, she put her palms against the rough surface.
I felt the Stone singing more than I heard it. I couldn’t say for certain that this was how it had been for me that first time, especially since the girl didn’t seem surprised at all.
She did something too, but not in the fumbling way I’d done when I’d wanted my guys to be okay. No, she used the Stone’s power as if she’d done it before and had a good handle on the how-to.
She pulled her hands back, but she was still doing something. I could feel it like I felt the raindrops on my skin. All the while, she watched me.
A thick fog billowed up out of nowhere. It hid everything, distorting all sound.
The girl had done this; there wasn’t a doubt in my mind about that. She pulled her hood down over her face and waved at me, then made a noise that sounded a lot like shoo.
“Look, it’s not like I want to be here,” I said.
She made the shooing gesture and noise again, slower and more pronounced this time, as if she thought I was slow to catch on.
Well, what else was new?
“You know what? Fine. I guess if I’m haunting you, I’ll find you again anyway.”
I walked off into the fog. I had no idea what else to do.
The fog thickened, and eventually the rain stopped. I’d been walking for a while before something felt different. At that point, I knew I’d left. Not just the Hill of Tara, but that place and time—if it was a place and time and not just my imagination.
Some of the awareness that had shown me Kinnek and Vergis remained, and with a quick glance, I made sure they were safe and sound, doing their thing back on the Hill, the light slightly more purplish than it had been earlier.
I was still alive, I realized, still in my mate’s arms, and with the same perspective shift that had let me see the darn Stone in the rain and then the Stone in the present with Kinnek and Vergis, I saw Inkiri smile at me.
His expression was perfectly serene, so much so that it hurt to watch him, for no good reason I could tell.
How I had managed to drift back and forth between places, I had no idea, but I wanted it to stop, wanted to sleep normal human sleep. That inexplicable knowledge told me that the more of that I did, the faster I’d be recovered from the magic I’d done in Esaka.
In the end, I tried to make my disembodied consciousness stand still and closed my eyes. That finally worked. The blackness of true sleep and simple dreams came for me and swallowed me whole.