Chapter 69
When I open my eyes, I’ve lost track of how many times it’s occurred.
Lifting my head feels like a chore, but as I slowly come to and I remember the state in which Tiernan had been in when last I saw him, I bolt upright with his name on my lips.
Everything around me jostles, making me reach out to steady myself.
Someone reaches for me instead, and I turn to find a very familiar face staring back at me.
Osheen.
My heart leaps, then sinks. I rub my hand over my face, the movement feeling unnatural and stilted.
There are bags of gods know what lying around and a fabric of some sort over us.
As if … are we in a covered wagon? I feel along beneath me, finding straw and a scratchy sheet.
“Tell me everything has been a nightmare,” I say to Osheen.
He shakes his head, his blue eyes duller than I’ve ever seen them. “We’re on our way to Siad Nahar,” he signs, fingerspelling the last two words.
He fills me in on what occurred while I healed from the magical expenditure.
We’ve been traveling already for days. Sloan and Isobel stayed behind to hopefully get more information on Tiernan and keep an eye on the situation at Paramount.
We’re traveling under the guise of traders and, by some miracle, haven’t drawn the attention of Peacekeepers or anyone else.
My heart feels cracked into a million pieces, but no tears come. It seems I’ve somehow cried myself dry.
Since hearing Caiolair’s voice in my head back in Paramount, my body seems reluctant to retain any warmth.
I sit huddled in the wagon with two blankets drawn over me as I try to stop my occasional shivering.
This time, it’s Chiyo beside me; this time, it’s been two weeks since the debacle at the castle.
“Who or what do you think Caiolair is?” Chiyo signs after I tell her about my encounter when I faced the sovereign.
“I’m not sure,” I say. “But I think he’s somehow tied to Rheon.”
For a while, Chiyo doesn’t speak, then at last, she says, “I didn’t want to leave him either, you know. But he would want us to go on. I’m holding on to the hope that Murtagh’s people will be able to somehow rescue him.”
If he’s still alive.
I look away from her welling eyes, determined not to cry anymore. Not when all I want to do is run right back to Paramount and find the man that my heart aches for.
It’s another couple of weeks of traveling through pastures and brush—abandoning our wagon off route at some point—before we move into a woodsy area.
We settle beside a small brook to rest, but as we’re getting ready to set off again, an odd, prickly feeling crawls over my skin.
It’s similar to that sensation I experienced before we were ambushed last time.
I search the trees for any sign of attackers, but I only find Winnie doing the same.
We lock eyes and then slowly turn toward a thick set of bushes just beyond where we’d briefly camped.
Towering over the bushes is a massive brown stag, each of its antlers as long as my arm.
There seems to be a strange white glow around it, its eyes eerily sentient as it stares at us.
The rest of the camp goes still. No one moves.
No one dares to. Not when that stag could possibly maul us.
Yet it tilts its head almost imperceptibly before it turns and walks away.
Winnie’s eyes snap to mine, and I focus on her lips as she says, “I think we need to follow it.”
She’s been leading us with such calmness and such grace. Neris beams with pride at her friend.
“Alright, let’s go then,” Ava signs.
Osheen helps me onto the horse we’d been riding in tandem and mounts after me. We take our place beside Winnie as everyone mounts up.
The stag never looks back at us but continues to calmly move through the forest. The woods grow denser and denser until we have to ride in nearly a single line.
Soon the trees give way to a wide clearing with a cave set into the rocky hillside.
The stag has disappeared, and Winnie is suddenly tense in her saddle, her horse unmoving.
I look over at her, at the way she fidgets with her pocket and gnaws on her lip.
Her hands are shaking so hard on the horse’s reins that the creature shifts uncomfortably.
“Winnie,” I call gently.
She glances over at me, eyes wide. “Sorry,” she says. “Just … need a moment. Caves bring back … memories.” She blows out a breath and rubs her hands on her trousers.
“It’s alright. Take the time you need,” I tell her, ignoring Ava’s very clear impatience.
It doesn’t take long before Winnie dismounts her horse. “Let’s do this,” she says with a tight smile.
We dismount our horses before stepping into the cave.
Alys casts a light, illuminating the space around us and revealing that the cave only goes several paces deep.
An almost electrifying sensation exudes from the dead end, the hairs rising on the back of my neck.
No one speaks for a while, as if we’re all at a loss for words.
Then Winnie says, “This is it.” Water seeps from somewhere above, streaking down the cave wall. But otherwise, there’s nothing more to it than the strange buzz that, somehow, feels very familiar.
“It feels like the wards outside the Verge,” Alys signs.
Winnie steps closer to the wall, pressing her hands against it before looking over her shoulder. “You all might want to step back,” she says.
So we do. We retreat to the mouth of the cave as she clenches and unclenches her hand against the cave wall.
Her body tenses for a moment, then as all the rigidity seems to flow out from her back and shoulders, a light begins to shine through the wall.
The ground shakes beneath us. It takes me a moment to realize that the stone is cracking, splitting.
Then it crumbles completely, debris scattering, and sunlight pours into the small grotto.
I swipe my arm in an arch in front of my body, a shadow shield forming in front of us as dust and grit pelts against it.
The ground stops shaking, and Winnie turns to face us as I lower the shadows.
The strange, uneasy feeling remains—whatever wards that protect this entrance are clearly still in place.
We all approach again as Winnie presses her hand against the now open cave. “There’s something … tangible,” she says. Her hand seems to meet an invisible wall. “It reminds me of one of your shadow shields. But invisible.”.
Beyond the invisible wall, there seems to be more forest. “What now?” Chiyo asks.
“I think … I can bring down this ward. It’s—”
“A light shield,” Alys signs at the same time I do.
Neris pokes at the space with her finger as Osheen steps aside.
“Oksana had me break through hers often. This one probably takes runes much like the ones to get into the Verge. The problem is that it could reject us depending on what exactly it’s warded to do.” My pulse quickens.
“Well, that’s just great,” says Ava. She gestures toward it as if inviting me to a cup of tea.
I take a deep breath, imagining the light falling away, imagining us on the other side. I remember what Alys and Dayfyd, even Haruka, said about my birth mother. That she had an affinity for runes. Perhaps I do too.
I close my eyes and press my hands against the tangible empty space—symbols come to mind, and I draw them with my finger in the space until the strange feeling begins to dissolve, until my hand passes through nothing but air instead of meeting resistance.
My body grows tired, my head woozy as I step back, blinking. Winnie is the first to move forward again, waving an arm through the archway. Her face is ecstatic. “You did it,” she says.
I smile back wearily. “We did it.”
Gathering our horses again, we step through the now fully open wall to what feels like an entirely different realm. I wave my arm to put up fresh wards that’ll likely need more strengthening later, but Alys gives my shoulder a small squeeze and says, “Well done, sweetling. That was impressive.”
Green mountains fill the backdrop, a large waterfall cascading in the distance into a wide, winding river that seems to never end.
A gentle mist coats the forest, bright unblighted leaves filling out the treetops and colorful fields of wildflowers all around.
On the other side of the forest, a tree towers above the rest, its trunk wider than any I’ve seen before.
The tree from our dreams.
My gaze lingers on it before I turn my attention to the sky. It’s the clearest blue, not a cloud in sight. Everything is almost ethereal.
In fact, this place seems unreal, supernatural within its own right. We all look around in stunned silence until Neris asks, “Is this the Otherworld?”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “But it certainly feels different.”
We roam our surroundings, and I numbly walk toward the stream to fill my waterskin.
This journey was so much longer and filled with even more obstacles and dangers than any of us imagined.
My heart aches with the realization that it may be quite a while yet before I see Taig again.
And as much as I try to keep my thoughts off Tiernan, I simply can’t.
I know Taig’s being well taken care of, but I’m uncertain of the state of my Killjoy.
Something tells me he’s not dead. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking. Perhaps it’s my powers. But I hold on to it—a little beacon of hope.
Ava suggests we set up camp and investigate this new land tomorrow. We split up the tasks of setting up camp, Chiyo and Osheen going off to fish in the river, the rest of us setting up the tents Murtagh supplied us. The sun dips low and a warm glow of orange settles over the otherworldly land.
Briefly, I catch Osheen’s gaze as he returns with a large catch of fish.
He smiles at me, and for a moment, I consider holding on to the anger and resentment.
But instead, I tentatively smile back at him.
As we gather around the fire, the mouth-watering aroma of broiled fish filling the air, Ava leaps to her feet.
“Someone’s here,” she signs.