ASMO #2
The tug came in the middle of the night, in the middle of my search for Marik.
It was minor enough but quickly grew into something uncomfortable.
I rubbed the spot over my heart, but that didn’t help.
It got worse. I took my hand off. And it still got worse.
But it still was nothing like the first night I felt it.
Now, the forest is eerily silent. So different from home, always filled with the roar of the sea or the distant sounds of city life.
Then again, maybe the forest is always this silent.
But something tells me tonight is different.
Something tells me the deer and rabbits and squirrels are gone. Hiding.
Because something is wrong.
My dagger is fisted in one hand, my other hand splayed, the shadow sword only a thought away.
I’m not sure what I’m listening for or who I’m looking for. Marik or the queen—maybe both.
Maybe they’re together. Maybe I’ll stumble upon them locked in an embrace, her back pressed against a tree.
I shake my head. No. She wouldn’t.
Her scream echoes through the night, and my blood roars. Panic turns into a living thing in my chest, crawling over my skin.
She yells something, and I forget the plan. There is no point in being silent and searching if she dies.
There is no point to anything, if she is who I think she is.
There is no more point to everything I’ve worked for in my life. To being king of my court. To keeping Marik out of hell and out of Thera’s grasp. If he doesn’t take the throne below, I’ll have to. But if I’m right, that means I’d be leaving something above.
Mae screams again. “HELP!”
My careful trek through the forest turns into a sprint.
A cambion is tugging her into the woods. She’s shoving and planting her feet and flailing, but those things are too strong for her to fight off with sheer strength.
The whites of her eyes are glassy. I can smell her fear.
The cambion is speaking to her in its true voice. Its demonic voice. It’s no longer trying to play.
My vision turns red, and its head goes flying. I want to curse at myself for using the shadow sword from so far. I could have killed her.
She whirls, but she doesn’t see me still in the shadows. She’s trying to peel the dead cambion’s fingers from her forearm, but her hands are shaking too much.
I emerge from the shadows, head swiveling, but no other cambions or dark creatures come for us. “Mae!” I whisper-shout. “Are you okay?”
She’s silent, and I feel like my chest might explode if she doesn’t answer within the next five seconds.
Her cheeks are so soft against my hands, always rough and calloused. I force her gaze to mine, her amber eyes full of unshed tears. “Are you okay?”
She gives me a shaky nod, and I force myself to step away from her. There is no damn reason I should be fighting myself to not pull her into my arms.
She looks fine. Unharmed. Except for the burn that I know is underneath the cambion’s hand.
“Get it off me,” she croaks, holding her shaking arm out to me.
I peel the cambion’s fingers back, revealing pink, bubbling skin underneath.
Mae sways on her feet. “What the fuck was that?” Her voice is low but no longer shaking.
“What did it say to you?” She shakes her head. I tilt her chin up and force her to look at me again. She’s still blinking back tears. “Mae, this is important. Think. What did it say to you?”
Her throat bobs. “It said my High King was waiting for me.”
“Fuck.” I run a hand through my hair and turn back toward the forest. Still, nothing else emerges from the shadows.
“What does that mean? Asmo, what’s going on?”
“Marik’s missing,” I snap. “That must be what it meant.” What the hell is Marik doing? Captured by a cambion?
“It was trying to take me into the woods.” She freezes. “Do you think he’s in there? What about Koa?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I left Koa in the library. We have to go back.”
Her voice is panicked, and I want to tell her that Koa is a big boy, but I don’t. And for that, I really should be given a monetary reward or something. I wave my hand in dismissal. “He can take care of himself. I have to find my brother.”
My fingers dance along the edge of the blade of my dagger.
The burn on Mae’s arm is bright pink and beginning to blister.
Yet, she’s acting like it’s not hurting at all.
She must be in shock. “Listen to me,” I say.
“Go back into the castle. Go into your wing, and do not open the door for anyone. I’ll come get you when it’s safe. ”
Why I even offer to return for her, I don’t know. I need her to stay away from me, not find reasons to be near her.
She plants her feet and glares up at me. “What are you talking about? I’m coming with you to get Marik.”
I blink. Is she forgetting who she is? “Damnit, Mae. No. You’re the High Queen. I can’t put you in danger like that.”
“Shut up, Asmo. I’m coming. Tell me what I need to know.”
Something stirs, deep within me. Like a sleeping snake has awoken from the challenge in her voice.
With a shake of my head, I shove it as far down as I can.
“Fine. Listen to me closely. That thing was a cambion. They’re designed to lure you into a dangerous location before they torture you.
They feed on fear. Do not trust what you see.
Trust me and stay by me. Do not let any of those things touch you.
They mute your magic. Do whatever you need to do to kill it or incapacitate it to keep it from touching you. ”
If a cambion somehow got its hands on Marik, he might be in a lot of trouble. But we’ve been trained to deal with these things. Was he just distracted? Was he not suspecting it? Did it sneak up on him?
I hand Mae my dagger. What the fuck is The Herd doing letting her walk around without a weapon? And how in the hells did Koa not wake up when she walked out? “Use your magic first. Use this as a last resort. They usually travel alone, but if Marik was taken, I’m assuming there’s more of them.”
She grabs the dagger and holds it with the weakest grip I’ve ever seen. Okay, maybe that’s why nobody’s letting her walk around without a weapon.
“How did you kill that one from so far away?” she asks.
“Magic.”
“Oh, duh,” she says with a delicious roll of her eyes.
Fuck. I’m in trouble.
“Come on,” I say, heading down the path through the trees.
My head is on a swivel, waiting for anything to pop out.
Waiting for something to grab the queen behind me.
My senses are on alert, but Mae’s hearing is probably better than mine.
I stop and turn to her. “What do you hear?” She stares at me blankly.
“You’re a deer. I’m a snake. Your hearing is better than mine.
Do you hear Marik? Do you hear anything? ”
She tilts her head, then motions down the path. “I hear voices, but I can’t tell what they’re saying.”
“Probably more than one, then,” I say, turning away from her and setting back down the path.
“Asmo,” Mae whispers behind me. I grit my teeth. My name on her lips should not be making me feel this way, Mother damn it.
When I turn, she’s pointing into the forest. I put myself in between her and the direction she motioned toward. Whatever she heard, I’m not risking it snatching her. A groan comes from about ten feet away.
Damnit, Marik.
I step from the trail, Mae close behind me. I can feel her. Too fucking close.
Marik is in a clearing, his arms tied behind him around a tree trunk. Blood drips from a cut on his temple. He’s unconscious. Warning bells toll. Marik and I have taken on dozens of cambions before. We know how to get out of situations exactly like this.
Something is wrong. I just don’t know what yet.
A branch cracks behind me and Mae tries to pass me. I throw my arm out and give her an exasperated look. She mouths an apology and I know I’ll be thinking about the way her lips moved all night.
“Pretty, pretty High Queen, come to rescue her High King,” a high-pitched voice whispers, echoing through the trees.
“Can she save him? Will she dare?” another voice comes from the opposite direction.
Fear radiates from Mae like a beacon. I pull her to me, setting her in front of me and caging her in with my arms. I lean down, the scent of a flower I can’t recognize wrapping around me, and whisper, “There are only two. Go free Marik, and I’ll protect you.
They’ll come for you as soon as you’re away from me, but I need to see them so I can kill them. ”
She looks up at me, and it takes all my willpower for my gaze to not drift to her lips. Motherfuck.
“Go. I’ve got you, Mae,” I manage to say.
She stares at me for another beat of my heart and then leaves my arms. A high-pitched scream cuts through the silence of the night, and a cambion sprints toward her, reaching for her.
I hurl my dagger. It lands true. Right in the undead boy’s temple.
Mae stumbles to Marik and begins working on the ropes that tie him to the tree.
Another cambion sprints from the trees, and I hurl a ball of fire toward it. But it dodges. Mae turns, and of course, makes eye contact with the cambion.
“Fuck’s sake,” I mutter, summoning my shadow sword and severing its head from its body.
“You didn’t tell me not to look at it!” Mae whisper-shouts.
I ignore her and motion toward Marik. “Hurry up. We need to go.”
She saws at the ropes and the tension gives. “He’s passed out. Can you carry him?”
Of course I can carry him. He’s my brother. I’ve carried him through the barren wastelands below, just as he’s carried me through the blackened coals that Father had us walk over. I toss him over my shoulder. “Let’s go.”
Elle and Luca are waiting at the front doors of the castle. They lead us inside, to the grand formal living room, and I toss Marik onto the couch. He’s still limp, but I know he’s fine. We’ve had so much worse. I just don’t know how the hell a cambion knocked him out. There’s got to be more.