Chapter 21
FIRED UP
Afull day of travel stretched before us, and I had to tamp down anticipation and dread every second of it. The closer we came to our destination, the closer I came to kissing Jasher—or saying goodbye.
By the time we stopped, my whole body ached from the strain.
“Here, Oracle?” Ahav asked. “The closest village is miles away.”
I scanned the area. A small grove near the river, untouched by monstra fire.
Tall, silver-barked trees with glowing, emerald-green leaves formed a protective ring, their canopies filtering the fading sunlight into soft, dappled patterns on the mossy ground.
Blooming sirenes wafted a sublime perfume while singing a faint melody—a dangerous song meant to lure unsuspecting travelers to their deaths.
I remembered the tune well. How it nearly snared me. Even now, knowing what I knew, I experienced an otherworldly pull. Touch…
By sheer will, I resisted, searching for any other dangers. Tiny, luminous fish darted above the water, sending ripples brushing against delicate vines draped over the riverbank. Neither of which I had any experience with.
As a whole, the area was familiar to me, but it wasn’t filled with people, as I’d seen in my vision. “Here,” I stated with a nod.
“Make camp,” the king ordered his men.
The soldiers got to work.
Jasher helped me dismount. Muscles protested, but I remained on my feet as we tended to our pegacorns. All the while, the water beckoned, an invitation I didn’t wish to resist. Soon, I’d have the answer I’d waited for. Would he stay or would he go?
The king labored alongside the soldiers, digging a fire pit and filling it with logs they covered with a powdery white substance.
“What is that?” I asked.
“A defense against invaders,” Jasher explained, his voice dry. “The powder is a drug to monstra. If ignited, it will confuse them. Me.”
“Only if there’s an attack.” And there shouldn’t be. Please, don’t be.
Hammering sounds drew my attention. Hmm. The soldiers crafted spears from small pieces of metal that elongated as they burrowed deep in the ground. Spears I’d seen in my vision.
“Are the spears a common thing or rare?” I asked as the men draped a dizzying cloth over the spear tips, then strapped goat horns to a set of poles. Those horns produced a low, rich sound with every gust of wind.
“Very common.” He dipped his head closer to me. “I wouldn’t judge the time of a vision based on them, if that is what you are doing.” He motioned to the horns. “The noise grows loud when monstra approach. Their wings stir the air, even from a great distance.”
“Clever,” I replied, impressed with it all. More so? They completed their series of tasks in less than an hour.
When they finished, the soldiers sat around the flames, silent, sharing dried meat and drinking from canteens.
Nervousness sealed my airways. It was time.
My ribcage suddenly felt too small and too wide as I hooked my backpack over my shoulder, linked my hand with Jasher’s, and led him toward the river.
“Should I accompany—” a guard began.
“No,” Ahav interjected. “She’ll return, safe and sound.”
I didn’t miss his use of “she” rather than “they.” Because he knew what I planned, and he was allowing me to do it.
At the shore, a good distance from the others and hidden by thick bushes, I dropped the pack and clasped Jasher’s other hand. He kept his focus just over my head, unwilling to meet my gaze. The sun faded completely, pinpricks of white glittering brightly enough to cast him in ribbons of starlight.
“Look at me,” I beseeched, a soft rasp. “Please. If you want to.”
His body stiffened, as though fused with invisible steel.
Heartbeat, heartbeat.
Finally, he slid his gaze to mine. His eyes were as wild as a storm. “I know what you wish to say. But if you do this,” he all but growled, “I will leave you. I won’t stay.”
I inhaled as though I’d been underwater too long. I’d thought…hoped… “What about the Ember?” I moved my grip to his shirt. “Don’t you want to try to steal it from me?” What are you doing? Begging him to stay?
“You don’t understand.” Torment twisted his features. “I feel him. Ian calls to me. All the time, he calls. Demands.”
Desperation slashed my calm. “Jasher.” Yes. I was begging, and I didn’t care.
“Leave me in the chains, and I’ll stay,” he stated, and it was as if he summoned a thousand memories to the fringes of my mind.
I drilled my knuckles into my temples, reaching for one recollection, then another.
Again and again, they danced away. But I knew.
Regardless of Elowen’s taunt in Kansas, I hadn’t teamed up with different clones.
Always, only Jasher. He’d not been some nameless, faceless member of the hordes.
We’d stood here, done this, said this, before.
“I won’t leave you in chains, even to keep you,” I said softly. I couldn’t live with myself.
“So be it.” He gripped my wrists and forced me to lower my hands. But he didn’t release me. Not yet. “Remember this. You can trust nothing I say. I will betray you.”
“If I shouldn’t trust what you say, I should believe you won’t betray me.” Please. Pick me. I tried one more time to reach him. “We don’t have to be enemies.”
“We do.” He yanked me close, erasing all space. His heart raced against mine. “Pain stalks you, Moriah. It comes hot and fast. Be ready.”
He kissed me—fast, rough, and far too brief. When he lifted his head, he steeled his jaw. His eyes flashed regret. Anger. Hope. Longing. Drawn as tight as a bowstring, he finally released me. Stepped back.
He held up his hands, the cuffs glinting in moonlight. “You do not need to remove them.”
Loss burned through me, torching my composure to a thin husk. But I schooled my expression, revealing nothing. He’d made his choice. I wouldn’t beg for scraps. “If you want to keep wearing them, fine.” My tone sharpened. “That’s on you. Go.” I shooed him off. “Do it. Leave.”
A muscle jumped beneath his eye. “You thought you were my jailer.” With a few twists of his wrists, the chains unlatched with a soft snick and fell. “You were not.”
I watched it happen, shocked, confused. “How? When?”
“Since I used Ian’s trick coin to retract the spikes,” he said, unrepentant.
My discordant breaths became a soundtrack to accusation. “You spied on me. Reported to Ian.”
“Exactly.” Step by step, he walked backward. “Remember my promise. If you aren’t careful, our separation won’t last long.”
My insides lurched.
“This is my favorite part,” Kevin said from his pocket.
“The note of nonsense,” Jasher added, snapping now.
His words didn’t flow easily, but they did flow, as if he’d overcome whatever force held them in.
“You didn’t send it to yourself…but to me.
You trusted me to help you. It’s a code the monstra use.
Look at the first letter of each word.” Then Jasher pivoted on his heels.
Just like that, he vanished in the foliage, the space he left behind louder than his presence had ever been. I stood rooted, shaking, ragged. He’d really done it. He’d chosen Ian, a vicious killer. He’d left.
But he’d also helped me. Kangaroos invade lava libraries. Mangoes adopt lost kittens; oceans moo. Ostriches rehearse. Donuts invent eclipses.
KILL MALKOM OR DIE.
Malkom, the enemy Elowen had mentioned. The one who ran with Sin.
Once, Jasher had compared the note to the poem we’d read in the forest. Foxes in need dream. Hills eat rain.
FIND HER.
Her, meaning me? Tears I refused to shed burned my eyes.
“I’m sorry, Oracle. For your sake, I’d hoped your Tinman would be different than Ian.”
The king’s voice startled me from my brewing spiral, and I spun. He stood in a beam of moonlight, leaning a shoulder against a tree trunk, both at ease and on guard.
I shoved the messages to the back of my mind and squared my shoulders. “So did I.” So Jasher had left me. It hurt. It hurt bad, but I would heal. I always did. Never mind that things were breaking inside me. Right now, I had a mission.
Nothing I could do about this Malkom guy. But Ian? He was going down.
“Tinman is your responsibility,” Ahav said. “Any damage he causes will be laid at your door. You will bear the consequences.”
Unfair. “His actions are his, mine are mine, and yours are yours.”
“Yes, and you let him go. What he does now is on you.” He dropped his chin, gaze pinned on me. “Did anyone tell you it’s dangerous to argue with a king?”
My shoulders rolled in. Sighing, he plucked a leaf from a tree and strode over.
Side by side, we looked out at the water, a momentary reprieve from heartbreak.
“The vision you had yesterday,” he said. “You called Ian evil. Explain what you saw. Please.”
Very well. “Perhaps it was the same attack I saw today. A village burned with monstra fire, as people ran screaming. Then the scene morphed, and Ian laughed. He held a large, glowing emerald. Then he stabbed me.” The sensation of being cut followed my words, and I winced.
To ground myself in reality, I removed my boots and socks and sat, easing my feet into the cool flow of water. Yes, much better.
“So now we hunt an Ember, who is a woman, as well as an emerald that glows?” He sat beside me, though he kept his boots on and away from the river.
“Maybe the emerald contains the Ember’s power.” By fair means or foul.
“That would mean her power is transferable.” He massaged his nape. “An interesting concept.”
Yes. I had an idea. “What if the emerald is marked to her—or Ian—and hides itself from everyone else? Like my journal always hides from you.”
“Marked?” His brows drew together. “Oh, you mean galemarked.”
I hadn’t, but now I wondered. “Explain the difference.”
“Galemarking,” he said slowly, “binds an object so completely, it can never truly leave its owner. Despite distance. Despite time.”
“Okay, yes, I meant galemarked. Ian has or will have the emerald. We find him, we should find the Ember.”
“Then we find Ian.” Daggers undergirded Ahav’s determination. He would stop at nothing to achieve his goal.