Elf Saga: Bloodlines (Part 1: Curse of the Jaguar) (15 page)

“Welcome? For what? Where the hell are
we?”

She gestures to the white land that we are
rapidly approaching. “Unless I am very much mistaken, these are
shores of Yas Yagaroth.”

I stare at the huge island covered in ice and
snow. “Yaga…? But you said it sank.”

“Indeed I did,” Amara agrees. “But it would
appear the ancient scholars played a bit of a trick on us. Look
again. Evidently, Yas Yagaroth did not sink to the bottom of the
sea. It sank to the bottom of the world. Welcome, my dear, to the
South Pole.”

A frigid wind blasts through my hair as the
Valkyrie coasts lower and closer to the churning sea and the
foam-tipped waves.

“I told you, I don’t care about your lost
city.” I lean down over the princess.

“Perhaps you should,” she says. “You and I
have much in common. We’re both dying of rare ailments that even
the Feyeri cannot cure. But the Yagari healing device that I seek
may save your life just as it saves mine.”

“And what if it can’t?” I sit back. “I’m not
sick. I’m cursed. Slight difference.”

“Then that’s all the more reason to continue
your search for Raven here,” Amara says as she holsters one gun and
begins loading the other. “Rajani, be a lamb and take a look at
your crystal ball. Do you see anything of interest?”

Rajani peers down at her navigation globe and
says, “Hey, wait. There’s a new dot. I swear it wasn’t there
before. But I can see another crystal ship on the map now, and it’s
dead ahead.”

Amara smiles, utterly too pleased with
herself. “You see? We have found the missing Coyote’s crystal ship,
and I suspect that Raven will not be far from his kinsman. My
mother told me the stories of the animal spirits too, you know. I’d
be just as interested to meet them as you.”

“Wait, go back.” Nahina slides across the
seats to lean closer to the princess. “What did you just say about
Coyote? Did you say he’s here too?”

“Indeed.” Amara raises an eyebrow. “I believe
you screamed something about him earlier?”

“And why the hell did you go after my mother
like that?” I ask.

Nahina frowns at me, her eyes swimming with
doubt and pain as she slowly sits back and looks away. “Because
they did something terrible, a long time ago, the two of them.”

I blink. There’s only one thing they ever did
together. “Resurrection?”

She nods. “Resurrection.”

“Uhm.” Xiang raises his hand. “What now?”

I sigh and close my eyes. It’s strange, I can
still feel my left eye rolling around behind my lids, but when I
open it… nothing. “Thirty years ago, Lozen asked Coyote to help her
save the world. Coyote agreed, but at a price. He wanted Lozen to
help him seal up the entrance to the afterlife so no one could ever
be resurrected again. And she did it.”

“Okay.” Xiang pouts and nods. “Sure, sure. I
just have one little question. Since when was resurrection actually
a thing?”

“For centuries,” Nahina says. “The Feyeri
have been bringing back the dead for centuries. And they were doing
it right up until Lozen slammed the door. Did you know there’s a
town in Shihoku where almost half the people were resurrected, or
saw it, or were the children of people who were resurrected? I’ve
been there, I’ve spoken to them. They’re real.” Her voice is
shaking and her hands are shaking as she wraps her fists up in her
skirt.

“Yeah, that was Big Mom,” Rajani says with a
sad smile. “I’ve been there too. Good sushi.”

I stare at Nahina, at her black lips and
tattooed chin, her shaved head and patterned dress, and beneath all
these foreign things I see something so very familiar. And I ask
her, softly, “Who did you lose?”

She looks at me sharply, her eyes wide and
rimmed in red, her mouth gaping just a bit as she tries to say it.
“Everyone.”

I wait, and after a moment she continues,
“There was a storm. A terrible storm. The sort of storm that makes
you hide in the corner and wonder if maybe this really might be the
end of the world, because it’s so dark and so bright, so cold, and
so loud. The wind, the thunder, the lightning, the waves. Hour
after hour.” She swallows. “My whole family died. Parents,
grandparents, uncles, aunts, brothers…”

We sit in silence, with only the shushing of
the waves below to remind us that the world still exists and time
still crashes forward.

“How old were you?” Rajani asks so softly
that I barely hear her.

“Eight,” Nahina says.

Another painful silence.

“Years later I heard the stories about a town
where everyone had come back from the dead, and I sailed to
Shihoku, and I learned about the Feyeri,” Nahina says quickly. “I
was so happy. I could bring them back. The Feyeri could bring them
all back. Except they can’t now. Not anymore. The Feyeri can’t
raise the dead anymore because of someone called Lozen, and some
creature called Coyote. They put an end to it.”

Xiang grips her shoulder. She ignores
him.

“But then I heard another kind of story,”
Nahina says. “A story about the lost city of Yas Yagaroth, where
the ancient witches created a machine that can open a doorway into
the past and bring people from one time to another. I know it
sounds insane, but I have nothing left, no other way to save my
family. It’s been seventeen years, but maybe if I can go back to
that night, and find them, and bring them here, then…”

“A portal in time? Fascinating.” Amara slips
away her second pistol. “I too have read of this device, although I
must admit I doubt that such a thing can really exist. But if it
does, it would be enormously valuable. Therefore, I propose a
partnership, Miss Nakaroa. Help me to find the Yagari healing
device, and I will help you find your time portal.”

She gives the princess a critical look. “I
don’t know you. I don’t trust you.”

“I’m not asking you to trust me,” Amara
purrs. “I’m asking you to work with me. After all, I’ve already
brought you this far, to the shores of Yas Yagaroth itself. And as
my companions can attest, I am a woman of my word.”

Rajani shrugs. “She is. More or less.”

Nahina narrows her eyes, looking from the
princess to the white coast ahead, and back at the gaunt young
woman. “Deal.”

“Excellent.” Amara smiles as though she’s
just tricked the fisher girl out of her soul, and she looks away to
survey the white land.

“Gen?”

I almost don’t hear Rajani call my name. I’m
staring back at the sky again, where the gateway was. “It all
happened so fast. It was like I was racing toward a finish line,
and now I’m half a league past it, and don’t know what the hell I’m
doing anymore.”

“What?”

I look back at Rajani. I can tell she wishes
she could leave the controls and come sit by me, so I get up and
stand beside her. “I just… I’ve been trying to find my mother for
so long now, trying to get some answers out of her, and just when I
do... bang! I’m gone. I’m here.”

“I’m sorry, everything was happening so fast,
and I was scared, and Amara said go, and I wasn’t thinking,” Rajani
babbles.

“Hey, it’s not your fault,” Xiang says,
standing up on her other side. “It was crazy back there. You’re the
one who rescued all of us. That was amazing.”

She blushes. “Thanks.”

“Thank you.” He smiles and holds her hand for
a moment, and she smiles back.

“No, no, no touching heartfelt moments.” I
wave my hand in between them. “You can flirt on your own time.”

Xiang looks up, all shocked and innocent. “I
wasn’t flirting!”

Rajani smacks him on the butt. “I was.”

I smile, but it fades. “I guess… I guess
she’s not who I thought she was. My mother, I mean. Or maybe, she’s
exactly who I thought she was, only more so. Angry and crazy, yeah,
but at least for the right reasons. I guess that counts for
something.”

I shake my head and find myself looking back
at Amara, who has once again wrapped herself in several layers of
coats and blankets. Her smirk has vanished and she simply looks
small and cold, and this makes me feel a bit better. “Mother was
looking for Raven. I suppose, since she was planning to kill him,
it’s better if I find him first.”

“Undoubtedly,” Amara agrees, and shivers.

“And you think Lozen’ll be all right back
there by herself?”

“In truth, I have no idea,” the princess
admits. “But she fended off both you and Miss Nakaroa while lying
semiconscious on the ground, so I’d say the odds are in her
favor.”

I nod. Honestly, I don’t think anything can
kill my mother, but it helps to hear it from someone else, just to
know I’m not crazy for thinking it. The little faerie clinging to
my hair swings gently against the back of my head, and I still feel
good, mostly, but there is a dull pain hovering behind my eyes. I
massage my eyelids, saying, “All right then. I guess I found out as
much as there was to find out. So let’s go find Raven before my
head explodes.”

Joseph Robert Lewis enjoys creating worlds in which
history, mythology, and fantasy collide in new and exciting ways.
He also likes writing about heroines that his daughters can respect
and admire
, characters who blaze their own paths
with bright minds and unbreakable spirits
.

Joe was born in Annapolis where he learned to
not drown while at sea, and then went on to study ancient novels,
morality plays, and Viking poetry. Outside of the world of fiction,
he works with a lot of smart people to write and publish books
about technology, software, politics, economics, and history.

Other titles by the author:

Aetherium – a series of steampunk fantasy
adventures

Angels and Djinn – a series of epic fantasy
adventures

Daphne and the Silver Ash – a fairy tale

Elf Saga: Doomsday – an epic fantasy adventure

The Kaiser Affair (The Drifting Isle Chronicles) – a
steampunk thriller

Ultraviolet – a YA dystopian thriller

Zelda Pryce – a series of YA urban fantasy
adventures

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