Chapter 24
WHAT IS THIS LIFE?
Suddenly I was falling. My heart and stomach traded places. The hum of power pricking my skin quieted as a scream rose in my throat—
“I’ve got you.” Strong arms snaked around me, yanking me against a white-hot form.
Jasher. With a wing broken once again—courtesy of a fight with Ian?—he struggled to halt our free fall. I didn’t know how I felt about him right now, but still I clung to his lean, muscular body. My lifeline.
Our momentum slowed but not enough. A floor of jagged black rocks approached at rapid speed. His lips peeled back from his teeth as he arched his back and flapped those massive wings, broken bits and all.
We jerked with brutal, punishing force before hitting the ground. My breath, gone. We rolled, Jasher wrapping his wings around me. A kindness he paid for. The appendages snapped in other places, too, his grunts coinciding with each crack, crack, crack.
Above us, monstra shrieked. Others gave chase, streaming down the sky, heading our way with fury and determination, their neon red eyes promising pain.
“Come on,” I shouted, ignoring aches and pains to lumber upright and pull Jasher to his feet. No time to catch our breath or chat about why or how he’d done what he’d done. He grimaced but didn’t flinch back or object.
We dashed forward. We’d fallen from the nest’s rim into an old settlement fused to the mountainside.
Splintered beams jutted like broken bones from crumbling walls, revealing scorched clay homes half-swallowed by earth.
The acrid stench of ash hung thick, turning every breath into a trial.
An unnatural silence surrounded the place, a scream held in far too long.
Streams of fire sprayed. We dodged, darting through a collapsed doorway that opened into the mountain’s interior. Bone-melting heat kissed my back, driving me onward.
In the center of my chest, a magnetic tug flickered to life, leading me to the right. “Over there,” I said between panting breaths.
The tug led us through a long, narrow corridor made of black boulders. I needed to open a waterway. Needed it more than air. Here, now, I’d never needed anything more.
I searched the air for greater pockets of moisture.
“They follow,” Jasher growled, keeping step behind me.
“I just need to find the water.” And I sensed it… “This way.”
I pumped my arms with more force. We turned a corner—and ground to a halt. King Ahav lay on the bumpy ground, staring up at a crack in the ceiling, where a vein of gold forked and curled into luminous coils. Blood leaked from his mouth.
Jasher crashed into me from behind, and I stumbled forward. I would have fallen, but he slung his arms around me and used his ruined wings as best he could in the confined space to keep us both upright.
“He can’t be dead.” If this was the last loop… He just couldn’t be. An invisible hand reached inside me and squeezed my heart. I tripped over to crouch at his side, then searched for signs of life.
A slight rise and fall of his chest. “He’s alive.”
My elation was short-lived. So many wounds. They peppered his body, as if a monstra had chewed him up and spit out what remained. Even if I cleaned and patched every injury, he probably wouldn’t survive. But I couldn’t clean and patch. No supplies and no time.
“Tell me you have serpens-rosa, Jasher.” Our only hope.
“I do not.” Regret tinged his tone. He maintained his position in the pathway, standing guard.
I swallowed a cry and traced my trembling fingers over the king’s too-cold cheek. “You aren’t supposed to die like this. Please don’t die like this.”
He mumbled something indecipherable under his breath, his head thrashing back and forth.
“Am I responsible for this?” Hot tears brimmed. “Did I make everything worse?” My visions and reality had changed, thanks to my actions. But had those same actions caused this?
“Incoming,” Jasher muttered, and I heard the rhythmic clack of claws pounding against the tunnel’s floor. So many claws. “I can’t carry him out and fight the monstra. He’s dead either way.”
I recoiled inside, hearing his unspoken directive. “No. I can’t leave him. I won’t leave him.”
“Do you wish to die with him?” Jasher asked, matter-of-fact. He remained ready for battle.
My chin quivered. “I’ll be his crutch,” I said, unwavering. Yes, yes. I was a water maiden. An oracle. The Ember! I had reservoirs of strength. I just, I had to try. “Ahav.” Father. “I’m going to stand you up, okay?”
The king opened his eyes, sliding a glassy gaze to me.
Anguish clogged my throat. “Hey, Ahav,” I said softly, petting his jaw. “We can’t stay here. Monstra come.”
He attempted to smile. “Everything will be… all right,” he managed to say between agonized breaths.
And now he comforted me? I offered a wobbly smile in return. “It’s going to hurt, but I need you to work with me, anyway. You can’t die. Understand?”
The monstra drew nearer, releasing streams of fire. I tried, oh, I tried, but Ahav weighed too much, and my so-called reservoirs were already empty.
Jasher blocked the flames with his wings. “Too late to escape.”
The battle was on. Roars ebbed and flowed along with grunts and groans.
At any other time, I might have enjoyed sitting back and watching him do battle.
His skill was unsurpassed. His speed, a marvel.
His strength, a revelation, even in his weakened and broken state. But this was life and death for us all.
“Help me stand you up, Ahav. Please.” The tears streaked down my cheek. As I strained, trying to lift his weight, droplets splashed his cheek, making it look as if he cried too.
“It’s…all…right,” he breathed, volume waning with each word. His head lolled to the side, his gaze fixing on nothing.
No, no, no. I shattered. Head bowed, shoulders rolling in, I sobbed. My whole body shook. But, um, hmm. My tears glowed, catching fire from within and sparkling with flecks of green. That green absorbed into his skin.
What in the world?
He arched his back and bellowed an inhuman sound. I trembled, unsure what to do or how to help. Then a bright pulse flared from his body and swept through the enclosure.
The monstra collapsed. All but Jasher, who stood protected and protective, claws flared and dripping crimson.
“What just happened?” he demanded.
The Ember? “I don’t know.”
Ahav sagged into the dirt and blinked, then jerked upright.
Color returned to his flesh as his wounds wove together, disappearing altogether.
“I see it!” Awe lit his face. His gaze found me.
He eased upright, kissed my cheek, then laughed and hugged me.
“I see the truth. I suspected, but now I know. You are her. My daughter. My beloved princess.”
I hugged him back, clinging. “Yes.”
“You are perfect and wonderful, and I will protect you. I know how now. At last, at last.” He held me tighter before jumping up, striding over and hugging Jasher, too, swinging the confused man around. “It’s so clear what I must do.”
I shot to a stand, floundering. “What’s clear?” I’d never been so happy and perplexed at the same time.
He gave my chin a little tap. “We all have a part to play, my precious Moriah, and I’ll play mine till the end. Return to the palace, and I’ll meet you there,” he instructed, bending to retrieve the array of weapons once hidden under his fallen form. “Tell the guards the path is marked in gold.”
Seriously? That was all I got? “Please. No more mysteries. Tell me everything now.”
He paused long enough to meet my gaze. “I’m the one who must die, so you can live.” In a hurry, he dashed the way we’d just come.
Jasher didn’t stop him, just watched him go.
Ahav planned to die? No. Not happening. There was no reason for his death. “We can’t let him go.” I grabbed Jasher’s hand, intending to follow the king. Out there by himself, in monstra territory, on monstra home turf, Ahav was at a serious disadvantage. He needed us.
But my Tinman snapped, “He’s a good warrior who has snuck in and out of the monstra strongholds many times. He’ll be fine. He said to meet him at the palace, so it’s safe to assume he will not let himself die before then. We require water, princess.”
Okay, good point. “My tears. I can—”
“Your tears have already dried. We need a body of water. Go. Find it.”
The cuffs recognized Jasher’s voice as Ian’s proxy, forcing my body to obey his command without hesitation. He trailed me, sticking close, his promise now echoing inside my head.
Our tables will turn, princess, I swear it. I will be free…and you will be my prisoner.
Suspicions sparked. He’d saved me, but he still had plans for me, didn’t he?
“Open a waterway to my childhood home,” he commanded. “We’ll travel there together.”
The newest compulsion hit like a lightning strike, and I ground my teeth. Was I this irritating when I’d been the one at the helm? “I don’t even know where your childhood home is.”
“Doesn’t matter. The cuffs will take care of that.”
We approached a fork in the cavern, the sound of trickling water drawing me left. Then, suddenly, we were there, standing before a bubbling cenote, the haunting scent of limestone tinging every breath.
Want it more than air.
Without thought, I extended my arms toward the steaming water.
The desire to leave this place frothed inside me.
Though I spoke no commands and offered no instructions, the water broke into a slow whirl.
As I watched, amazed, that whirl increased in intensity.
Going faster, faster still, until the center sank, creating a funnel.
I walked into the void. Unlike before, I experienced no discombobulation. It felt as if I simply glided down a single step.
One moment I stood inside the cavern, the next I occupied an abandoned, surprisingly spacious hut with streams of sunlight cutting through small slits in the straw roof.
Sparse furnishings: three small beds positioned side to side, a tub of water partially hidden by a sheet, a round table with four chairs, and a small kitchenette with a short counter, a sink, and a handful of shelves lined with dishes. A wood-burning stove filled with ash.
A great improvement from my last accommodations.
And just like that, my adrenaline crashed. Pain spiked from injuries I’d forgotten during the race to safety. Weakness invaded my limbs, quieting the hum of power beneath my skin. My knees quaked.
“Get comfortable,” Jasher muttered.
My legs carried me to the trio of beds, and I plopped onto the mattress of the closest with a sigh. “No wonder you hated me,” I mumbled.
For some reason he blurted out, “Malkom is Ian’s master, and Sin is Malkom’s.”
I rubbed my temples. No wonder Elowen considered the pair our biggest threat. “So. What’s your plan? Hold me prisoner forever?”
“Stay within this structure, and do not leave it,” he said, heading for the exit. “I will return.”
“Where are you going?” I demanded.
Long strides took him outside, through a door made of the same straw used for the walls.
“Stubborn Tinman,” I mumbled.
I forced myself to stand, despite my protesting muscles, and tripped to the kitchenette to search for a weapon.
All I found? A spoon. I returned to the beds, where I used the utensil as Jasher had done with his coin, searching for a hidden mechanism.
But the more I worked at the seamless metal, the sharper the spikes became. The more I bled and shook and weakened.
How had he done it? There must be a trick.
In a fit of frustration, I huffed and tossed the utensil across the hut.
Fatigue added a hundred-pounds of weight to my eyelids, and they sank. Darkness cloaked my mind, visions waiting at the door of my consciousness, attempting and failing to enter. Inside my chest, a pulse of energy flickered on and off, spotlighting Ahav, as if an answer waited with him.
Glittery tears. His miraculous rise.
I see the truth. His words reverberated, tapering into an echo.
The truth. I needed to see it too. Needed the truth.
Truth.
The Ring of Truth.
I awoke with a gasp, immediately aware. Yes. That. The Ring of Truth. That was what I needed. The only place I could mine every bit of knowledge from every life I’d lived. Maybe I’d learn more about Malkom and Sin, too. Ian’s “masters.”
Elowen had said I would die if I entered the Ring, but I now understood what she meant. I wouldn’t die physically. Rather, the woman I was would perish. A new me would be born.
I would remember everything. The memories waiting at the fringe of my mind. Those still in hiding, hoping to never be found. The good, the bad, and the ugly. All of it.
Finally, I was ready.
Too many people had fed me too many lies in too many lives, until I didn’t know what was what anymore. That must end. Besides, Ahav wanted us to meet him at the palace. Two tasks, one mission.
I had only to escape my cuffs and—
A jolt shot through my chest. Someone approaches.
Ripping out of my head, I snapped my gaze up and scowled. My visitor had already arrived. “Elowen,” I growled.
She stood before me. Easing down, she settled next to me there on the beds, resplendent in a gossamer scarlet gown, casual and calm. “Hello, Rye,” she said, her tone as elusive as ever. She peered at me with her fathomless smile. “Sister.”