Chapter 7
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
Ilay on my back, rocking as if I’d fallen asleep in the back of my dad’s truck, and he was currently easing us across a long stretch of twigs and gravel. It was cold, so cold. Creaking and tapping sounds filled my ears. Though my vision was hazy, relief seeped into my limbs. A dream, only a dream.
A dream…or glimpses of past loops?
The question whispered through my mind, and like a hammer strike, memories of everything that had happened returned in a rush. Elowen’s memory restoration serum. Monster Jasher. Waterway.
Goodbye, Mom and Dad.
Icy air scraped in. I probably had seen past loops, considering Elowen’s serum now flowed through my veins.
I should have refused her. Old me had gone through some stuff.
Truly, I couldn’t quantify the awfulness of what I’d seen.
The battle. The deaths. The room. Who were the shadow woman and her sidekick?
Although, how had I seen all the way back to Andrea?
I tried to sit up, but a throbbing pain cut through my temples, keeping me down. A groan spilled from my lips. The muscles in my shoulders were stretched to the max. And my arms. I couldn’t move my arms. Why?
I squirmed and pulled without results. Where was I? Where was Jasher? Where had we landed?
Rapid blinking cleared my vision. The world around me formed, and a frown pulled at my mouth. I sprawled across a thin layer of hay, inside a rickety, uncovered wagon with cartons of spoiled vegetables and one wooden crate with the scraggliest chicken in existence.
She watched me. Not with fear or curiosity but with what might be pure, unadulterated judgment.
Her eyes shouted, Unworthy! Her feathers jutted at odd angles, and one eye drooped lower than the other.
Her comb flopped sideways, resembling a wilted crown, and her beak bore a small notch. A souvenir from a fight.
She tilted her head, more unimpressed by the second, then emitted a low, offended bawk—less barnyard noise, more commentary. What are you looking at, hooman?
Teeth chattering, heart hammering, I jerked upright. Or tried to. Rope pulled, keeping my arms trapped behind me. I was bound?
Instant fury. I fought for freedom, a ragged blanket dropping to my waist, allowing frigid wind to pummel me. “Jasher?” I called. He wasn’t in the wagon with me. Through weathered slats, I spied the charred remains of a forest. Panic sprouted. “Jasher!”
The chicken shifted, feathers rustling, and let out a sharp cluck that sounded suspiciously like, Really?
“Shh shh. Please be quiet, Oracle.” The low, accented command came from the front of the vehicle, spoken by an unfamiliar male voice. “We’ll reach the shimmer soon, and you can be as loud as you wish. But right now, monstra lurk nearby. Sound draws them.”
The almost-English accent. I was absolutely back in Hakeldama. But what was the date? And why did he think I was an oracle? Wasn’t like I’d introduced myself.
Dread and resolve battled as I craned my neck.
Two gaunt men perched upon a bench seat, one holding reins.
Both wore fur coats with swords strapped to their backs.
The pair didn’t look—or smell—like trappers.
Filthy, rot-infested cannibals who bred rabdogs.
Or “death on four legs,” as Jasher once described them.
And yet, I couldn’t shake the thought: trackers.
Wincing, I zoomed my gaze to the chicken. She puffed out her chest as if she were the one in charge. I admired her total lack of fear.
I could almost hear Jasher’s voice in my head. Don’t you dare name it.
I’d call her Cluck Cluck.
“I’m probably the one on the chopping block, not you,” I whispered. Before, I’d tangled with an entire village of trappers, barely escaping with my limbs.
For a moment, the past superseded the present.
I saw former prisoners chained. Wounded men, women, and children missing body parts and any hint of hope.
Saw the death of a wonderful old man who helped facilitate my escape with a newborn rabdog.
A pup I’d had the privilege of raising into a ferocious beast. Nugget had been my baby in every way that mattered.
He’d saved my life a time or two. I missed him greatly.
My ribs squeezed. “What do you see outside?” I quietly asked Cluck Cluck. Her crate perched atop a vegetable carton, giving her a better view.
She turned her head away, dismissing me.
Fine. I worked myself into a kneeling position. Oh! My backpack lay near the wagon’s edge. Out of my reach. No matter. I’d find a way to retrieve it once I gained my bearings.
The world outside inspired another groan from me.
Not just a forest, but Lawless Forest, where any crime could be committed at any time without repercussion.
Trees abounded, each streaked with soot, their gnarled branches devoid of leaves.
A second wagon trailed mine, two fur-clad men driving it as well. Was Jasher inside it?
“Who are you?” I whisper-demanded to the drivers. Wait. During my previous visit, monstra had roamed nowhere outside of a rainstorm. Had these men lied to keep me docile? “Where’s my friend?” I asked with a little more volume. “Where are you taking me?”
Both men went rigid. The guy who’d spoken earlier withdrew a sword, darting his gaze, as if he truly expected a threat to appear. The other guy urged the horses into a faster trot. Okay, so, maybe they hadn’t lied.
As quietly as possible, I fought harder against my bindings. Contorting. Shifting. Trying to saw the rope against a nail. Nothing helped.
Last time I was here, my mother’s ring had appeared on my finger, warming and strengthening me, even sometimes causing that beautiful golden armor to cover me. Wiggling at my finger, I waited, hoping, praying. Alas.
We sailed through a wall of shimmering, jelly-like air, leaving the burnt remains of Lawless Forest behind, entering a thriving village circled by lush trees. In a blink, the air felt warmer. Safer. A cornucopia of conversations erupted.
The wagons stopped, and I scanned. Okay, so, not exactly thriving as I’d assumed.
Huts and tents in need of repair clustered on one side.
In the center, a boar-like creature roasted over a fire pit.
A beastie. On the other side, half-starved men, women, and children watched the animal spin, unabashedly drooling.
Many women and children rushed over, reaching for the chicken and vegetables. Poor Cluck Cluck. She was indeed on the menu.
As soon as I was noticed, gasps and whispers of “water maiden” rang out.
“Where’s Gerald?” one of the drivers asked the crowd.
“In his hut,” someone called.
The crowd gathered the tainted vegetables as if they were priceless treasures.
“Hands off! That’s mine,” I rushed out when someone lifted my backpack.
To my shock, the culprit dropped the bag as if it were toxic.
The drivers dismounted and came around. One collected my property.
The other man helped me out, surprisingly gentle. “I apologize for the bindings, Oracle,” he said, not freeing my arms, “but we were told to leave them on you until you made a promise to our leader not to run.”
An awful suspicion rose. “And who told you this?” Without the sides of the wagon and what little warmth the blanket provided, icy winds hit full force. A thousand little needles stung every inch of bared skin. And there was a lot of bared skin. I still wore my mother’s blue sundress.
“Your queen.”
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. Ding, ding, ding. Suspicion confirmed. Elowen.
Four men dragged Jasher from the other wagon, and I huffed with relief. Breath misted in front of my face. He still wore his wrist shackles, plus extra chains, and now snarled with fury, fighting against his captors, but he was here, alive, and well.
“—weapons just appeared,” a trapper was telling another. “I took them twice, and three times they returned, strapped to his back.”
Jasher kept his gaze straight ahead, off me and everyone else. Steam curled from his nostrils.
The drivers gripped my biceps and guided me forward, away from the half-shifted monstra.
“Stop!” I demanded when the four yanked Jasher in the opposite direction. “He’s mine. Bring him back! Don’t you dare harm him.”
They ignored me. Jasher did, too. My captors forced me toward the largest hut, not slowing when my feet tripped over themselves. Protective instincts demanded I keep fighting, but my mind shouted, Wait.
We swept past a doorway made of hanging fur. Heat from a crackling fire greeted me with open arms, and I closed my eyes for a moment, savoring the warmth.
A bald man in his thirties sat beside a teenage boy, both too thin, with sharp angles and hollow eyes. They crouched over a book, reading together.
The boy looked wrongly familiar. A memory tugged, unformed and unsettling. My mind couldn’t make sense of it.
“Gerald?” one of my guards said.
The man and the boy looked over, both of them examining me with equal parts curiosity, confusion, and intrigue.
“Queen Elowen says I’m to quote her verbatim, my lord,” the guard added.
My pulse skittered.
The guard’s cheeks pinkened as he cleared his throat.
“Gerald, my sweet, we’re now even. Consider the oracle and her pet monstra payment for my daughter, and our bargain officially concluded.
Send my sweet Iris home. But be careful.
The new girl bites harder than the monstra.
Just make sure she promises not to run before you remove the bindings.
As you know, even in Lawless Forest, a water maiden is bound to her word. ”
My world narrowed to a single, brutal point. Payment.
The word struck like a stone to the chest, knocking the breath from my lungs. I wasn’t bait. I wasn’t collateral. I was currency.
My jaw clenched so hard it ached. Queen Elowen hadn’t just arranged this. She’d calculated it, trading me like an object passed across a table. My life for Iris’s.