27. Chapter 27
Chapter twenty-seven
We reappear on a cliff next to a lighthouse, overlooking a crystal ocean, Micah still holding me close, and when he releases me, I want to pull him back, to feel his warmth and forget demons and monsters for just a little longer.
But it’s too late. He’s stepped back and placed what I find to be unwanted space between us when I suspect he’s eager for it.
Because no matter what I am here in this place, I think we’ve proven the serpent is a part of me outside of here.
I saw the dire look in his eyes when I told him there was no familiar that replaced the serpent.
The wind whips around us, salt licking at my lips, and I rotate to find the sun setting a golden yellow halo across the horizon. I scan from the sea to the lighthouse and then to a white two-story house to our right before finding Micah again. “What is this place?”
“Home,” he says. “My home. My escape. Yours, too, if you want it to be. Nothing can touch you here.” His eyes twinkle in that mischievous way I’m coming to favor as he adds, “Except me.”
It’s him flirting, I think, but instead it’s sobering. “It’s a test, right? If I can’t rid myself of the serpent, if I don’t pass that test, I don’t ever leave this place, and I spend an eternity fighting Chupas and avoiding that whispering forest.”
“That Chupa is nothing to you. The real you, the Crystal Seer, could defeat it with the same fear I instill in it. And no, this isn’t a test. It’s a chance for you to get to know that real you without the rest of the world looking, without the pressure of being hunted.
The last thing you want is to face a demon in battle who knows more about you than you do about yourself.
Now, let’s go inside. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.
” He motions with his head toward the house.
My reply is a tight nod that is anything but simple or accepting.
He studies me several beats, and I can almost taste the words on his lips he wishes to say to me, but he must think differently as he starts walking.
I glance at the lighthouse, towering high in the sky with the cliff as its pedestal.
It’s bright red, untarnished by sea and salt, and I swear for just a moment, it fades into the wind and reappears.
I blink, wondering if I’m seeing things or simply back to losing my mind.
I jerk my gaze toward Micah to find him far too distant and not at all concerned about leaving me behind, while I’m not at all convinced there aren’t a variety of beasts in this place.
With a spike of adrenaline shooting through me, I dart toward him, huffing a breath as I fall into step with him, almost as if I belong here now when it may well be the furthest from the truth and the closest to a reality that feels moderately comfortable.
My feet crunch on jagged-edged rocks beneath my boots, salt slick on my tongue, a rumble in my belly.
I’m hungry, too, and at least food is a common ground we seem to always agree on.
It’s the basest of human—or, should I say, Crystal Seer—needs, as is perhaps the magnetic pull between us that I doubt even he would deny.
He’s not a man created of denial but rather hard truths and brutal battles.
We travel in silence toward what appears to be a farmhouse well suited for a seaside residence, flanking a lighthouse, but as quaint as it may seem, there is nothing gentle about the hum of the forest nearby.
Nor the way its song seems to escalate with the rush of waves hurtling toward the shore, almost as if they are one, as if everything here is one. “The forest—”
“Is your greatest adversary,” he says, cutting me a sideways look. “Defeat it, and you will defeat anything outside this world.”
The swipe of anger he stirs in me stings. “And you not only took me there without full use of my magic, you left me on the other side of the river.”
“I was there with you,” he says, “to show you how little it affects me.”
“Because you really are king here, aren’t you?”
His lips turn up at the corners. “No one owns the forest.”
Translation: he does not intend to answer, and I wonder why, though I do prefer avoidance to lies.
And at this point, we’ve reached the door of the house, which glistens with a silver hue, almost a sparkle.
Magic, I think. No, I know. I feel the hum of it.
Hum. The hum of the forest is magic. As if confirming my conclusion, the door opens without Micah reaching for it, and I wonder if it would do so for anyone but him.
He waves me forward. “Welcome to my home.”
I don’t move, my eyes colliding with his, and I can almost feel the pull between us, a hand dragging me closer, and it’s unnerving. “What did you do to the beast back there?”
“Nothing. I didn’t have to.”
“What can you do to me?”
“If you become the enemy? Kill you.”
I’m oddly comforted by the raw honesty of this answer. He not only can kill me, he will. Maybe he already should have. “What if I kill you first?”
“I’m hopeful we can both avoid such a fate, especially since I plan to teach you to be the weapon you were meant to be.”
“Can you manipulate my mind?”
“That’s a complicated question. Humans manipulate each other’s minds all the time.”
“Can you—?”
“Not in the way you think I can, but I do hope to influence you. Can I start by feeding you?”
“You know, that seems to be a repeating strategy. Maybe you need to try something else.”
His eyes crinkle at the corners, and he chuckles, rough and deep, a drum beneath the rubble where I suffocate, calling me to the surface where I wait for rescue.
But I don’t want to need rescuing. I don’t want to run from the beast. I want to own my world the way I did the courtroom.
“Maybe I do,” he says. “And to that point, I have an idea, but you’ll have to dare to step inside for me to give it a try. I promise there are no beasts inside.”
I’m not laughing at all. “Don’t fool me like that again. I don’t like traps.”
“Those who mean you harm will fool you every chance they get. If I don’t, right here where it’s safe, where I can protect you, then you won’t survive when you leave.”
There is a little too much logic in his direct response.
It’s a biting warning of what my future holds, driving home my need to own my future.
My instincts served me well in my human life, in the courtroom, at least until Jeremy was involved.
And for now, I decide to dare to trust what they’re telling me.
Micah will only kill me if he has to kill me, if I allow the serpent to turn me into another Jeremy. And I will not.
“All right then, Overseer. Show me what you’ve got.” I step forward, intending to enter his domain, but he captures my arm, warmth sliding up and over my chest, warming me in all the places I didn’t even realize I was cold.
Hyperaware of his hand on my arm, I glance up at him and meet his stare, and he says, “Micah, Ember. To you, it’s Micah.” There’s a rough quality to his voice—sandpaper that is rough and somehow as smooth as the silk of the sand outside.
“Micah,” I say softly, a vibration in my voice I barely recognize as my own.
For just a moment longer, he holds on to me before his hand falls away, and I enter his home.