Chapter 9 Declan #2
The palms that blanketed the mountain thinned, but only a little, giving way to shorter palms of a hundred varieties.
Leaves wider than my waist and longer than I was tall sprouted from thin-trunked plants that bent beneath the leaves’ weight.
Shorter bush-like plants, unlike any I’d seen back home, squatted and spread in all directions.
In places where the palms thinned, colorful plants with bright blooms stretched toward the sunny sky.
And if the overwhelming variety of foliage wasn’t enough, the sound of countless birds painted with even more colors filled the air.
In the distance, I could almost hear the ever-present roar of the sea, her waters rushing in and crashing against sandy beaches and rocky shoals.
Though I couldn’t see the crystal waters, their salty tang teased my tongue with every breath.
“This place is so . . . alive,” I muttered, cupping a leaf twice the size of my palm to watch an odd bug with an emerald shell skitter away.
I breathed deeply and somehow felt at one with the land, a part of her, as though she and I were always meant to be.
“Now you’re just being dramatic.” I laughed at my own thoughts, then looked around to see what the owl had gotten into.
While I was stripping out of my winter clothes, she had hopped down and began exploring the island floor.
She seemed captivated by the sandy carpet, pecking and scratching, making grains scatter in every direction.
She peeped like a child might chatter at a new experience they found exciting.
A moment into her play, her tiny body froze with her head snapped sharply to one side.
Before I could speak, she darted into the underbrush, returning seconds later with a dusty-green lizard in her beak.
“What? No breakfast for me?” I grinned at my little friend.
She tottered forward and craned her neck, as if to offer the lizard to me.
I shook my head and chuckled. “You really are something. Eat your lizard. I had some of that wine before we left. I’ll be all right.”
She cocked her head, the lizard flopping as she did, then tossed it back and fought to swallow the thing whole.
“Little one, standing here won’t get us there any quicker. It’ll take us all day and probably some of tomorrow to reach the town.”
The owl forced the lizard’s tail down her gullet and dutifully accepted my outstretched arm.
With each passing hour, the day grew hotter and more humid.
The distant cawing of gulls and crashing of waves filled my chest with an odd peace I’d only previously found in the mountains along the Melucian border—but it was different here, somehow rawer and more natural.
It didn’t make sense. The mountains of my home were equally untouched, but something about the island felt more . . . untamed.
Every step felt like falling in love with the land again and again.
I tried to focus on what lay before us. Atikus had been vague about the people of this land, only hinting that I would be viewed as an outsider, and it would take effort to earn their trust. Winning people over had never been a challenge for me, but his words of caution carried a foreboding ring.
Surely, there would be some structure to the island inhabitants’ society, some leader with whom I could speak and ask for direction. But even that vital piece of information eluded the Mage’s instructions.
He’d told me of the Keeper of magic, the mysterious caretaker of the Well, and thus, magic itself. He’d offered no description of this man or woman. He hadn’t even said if the keeper was a man or woman. He’d given no guidance in how to find the mountain beneath which the Well resided.
I grew up thinking Atikus was the wisest, most intelligent man in the world. He’d read every book ever written and could recite them all by memory. He could outthink and outwit even the brightest Mage.
And yet, sorting through the days to come, desperately searching for a plan or approach that might help this insane mission succeed, I began to wonder if there were more things my adopted father didn’t know than those he did.
I was sure the sun moved slower in the island sky than she had over Melucia, but she finally slipped behind the mountains, leaving a stunning visage of a dying flame above the peaks.
As darkness wrapped her arms around us, we found a small patch of sand surrounded by tall palms and made camp for the night.
I lay on my bedroll and gazed at the stars. My mind wandered to my time with Atikus and Keelan in the Rangers’ headquarters. We had not seen each other in several years. It should have been a joyful reunion. And yet, old wounds I thought long healed seemed to open as they entered my world.
I hadn’t meant to sound so bitter, to rant about my pent-up frustration at being Mute or alone or . . . cast aside, but something in the easy way the Mage and Keelan interacted, and my brother’s calm, commanding presence, propelled long-held resentments to the fore.
In our youth, I couldn’t get enough of my big brother. I followed him everywhere. I watched him train with Guardsmen. I even imitated how he’d wave his arms when he got excited telling a story.
I idolized Keelan.
When did that change? I wondered.
At sixteen, Keelan graduated from the Mages’ Guild Academy and joined the Guard.
I remembered standing on the stone step of the Mages’ quarters, a ten-year-old boy, watching my brother, my hero, cross beneath the guild’s arch for the last time.