Chapter Twenty-Two
“No!” I scream at the driving rain, the vicious hunger, the miserable cold, and the invasive thoughts. “No! You can’t have me. It’s just rain, and rain always stops.”
It always stops.
It always stops.
Storms pass.
Pain ends.
We will never quit.
I tell myself this, over and over and over, for hours or years or eternity, rocking back and forth, muttering to myself, keeping the worst of the water away from Bern’s and Kaelen’s faces.
But the rain, unimpressed, shows no signs of stopping.
Finally, when I decide I have to stand and stretch or my back will break, that the men will have to suffer the rain on their faces for a few short minutes, a glimmer of sunlight crosses the ground in front of me, and I look up with dull shock.
It stopped raining.
It stopped raining.
From the position of the sun breaking through the clouds, it must be midafternoon. I take a while to think of what to do next, stiff and hunched over as I am, but finally, bleary-eyed, I look up to a cloudless sky.
I groan and stretch, easing Bern and Kaelen off my lap so their heads rest on the slightly drier grass where I was sitting.
Then I stand and kick the sodden remnants of my first fire out of the way and start the process all over again with the branches and tinder I saved from the rainstorm.
When the fire is finally burning steadily, I slump down next to it and try to decide what the next most important task should be.
Food?
I’m too tired to think of how to find food. Instead, my thoughts wander to the key in my pocket. I haven’t even really had a good look at it yet.
Almost furtively, scanning the area for draugrs or Zhagarn or Fell, I pull the key out of my pocket and examine it, hoping for some kind of sign or magical guidance.
But it’s just a key.
Beautiful, ornate, clearly very old, but just a key.
I get a mental flash of the goddess back in the Pyrrhan throne room.
I will grow stronger as you find the keys and attach them to my amulet.
I can do that. Now would be a wonderful time for a strong goddess to appear.
I unfasten the clasp and, holding the amulet’s locket in one hand, slide the key onto the chain and then fasten it back around my neck.
When I rise, there’s a gentle clinking sound when the key touches the locket.
A bolt of light shoots forward, originating in the amulet and dispersing into a cone of luminescence a few paces away.
Inside this glowing beam, a barely visible female form appears. Although I can’t make out her face, I can hear her voice in my head.
Artemisen.
You succeeded, little one. You retrieved the key.
“Not on my own, and at what cost?” I demand. “Are my companions dead? Will Kaelen and Bern die from their injuries? Or because I can’t find food?” My anger flares up like light from the amulet, surprising me with its intensity.
Artemisen seems unbothered by my tone when she continues, I can help with these small things, even from my prison. The key’s connection to my amulet gives me momentary strength.
Before I can ask what she means, the light sweeps forward and over Bern and Kaelen on the ground. When a wave of it touches me, too, I realize it’s not just light. It’s warmth and joy and music.
It’s the scent of spring flowers and fall apples. The icy breath of winter and the heated sunbeams of summer.
Healing and strength.
I tentatively touch my head, but the ragged wound is gone.
I am the goddess of nature and balance, after all. Her voice in my head holds a hint of amusement, but I don’t find any of this funny.
“And the others? Did they survive?”
Eat and restore yourselves, but then you must push on. You are running out of time, and you must yet retrieve the key from the Scholars’ Temple. You—
Oh, no. I’ve pushed too hard.
Find the next key, Soli. Add it to this necklace, and I’ll come to you again.
“How? Where in the temple? Why—?”
Before I can finish my questions, the light from the amulet disappears.
And Artemisen’s presence is gone.
I’m so frustrated I want to hit something or shout at someone, but I rush over to the men, who open their eyes and sit up. I scan them for any trace of their injuries, but the scrapes and cuts are gone.
“Are you all right? Kaelen, Bern, oh, thank the goddess, in this case literally,” I blurt out, crouching down to yank Kaelen’s shirt to the side to check for his wound.
“It’s gone,” I say, laughing with relief. “It’s gone. Bern! Your arm!”
The soldier stretches both arms out in front of him. Both undamaged, not dislocated arms.
“I’m fine, Soli,” he says, wonder in his voice. “I thought I heard … Was that the goddess?”
Kaelen grabs my hands to hold me still and searches my face with his dark-purple gaze. “Are you okay? I remember fighting to open my eyes, and you were holding us. Protecting us from the rain?”
He pulls the bloody bandages out of his shirt, stares down at them, and then back at me. “You did all this on your own?”
“She made a fire!” Bern jumps up as if he was never injured. “Soli, I knew you could do it!”
I have to smile at his enthusiasm, but a wave of overwhelming exhaustion knocks me off balance, and I clumsily topple back out of my crouch to land on my bottom. Then I sit there, blinking, wondering why my head is suddenly too heavy for my neck to carry.
“Soli!” Kaelen catches me before I fall on my face and pulls me into his lap. “What is it? What’s happening?”
“I have the key,” I mumble, barely able to speak. “With … amulet.”
“Soli,” he says again, gently pushing my hair off of my face with one hand. “Is this just exhaustion? Or something the goddess did to you? What should I do?”
“No … nothing.” I stare at him in wonder, not understanding how the crown prince of Valourian—her true king—is here with me. Holding me. Looking at me with so much care and concern in his beautiful violet eyes.
But he is.
Which means it’s safe.
Safe to give in, because Kaelen will take care of Bern.
Because the strength the goddess gave me healed my body, but it didn’t touch my mind.
And I’m so very tired.
“I can’t fight it anymore,” I murmur, blinking hard to keep my eyes open. “I’m sorry. Trying.”
But the fog is back.
Despite the healing, despite the prince and Bern being whole and awake, the fog in my mind is back.
It’s so heavy …
I close my eyes again and let it be someone else’s turn to carry the weight of the quest for a little while.
It’s so easy to slip into the familiar grayness, where nobody depends on me and nobody’s life is at stake.
Funny, considering I’m the nobody.