Evanescent (10 page)

Chapter Ten

Halfway down the stairs I felt a shiver run along my spine. The back of my neck started to tingle and my stomach knotted. Something in my head was screaming, something primal telling me to run. To run as far and as fast as I could. There was a niggling spark in the back of my brain telling me not to go to Darinda. To avoid the library. To hide myself somewhere that no one would be able to find me. Apparently all the bracelet had needed to wake up was the threat of its own imminent destruction.

“We—” I brought my hands up in front of me, the hand with the bracelet on it running along the chain of my necklace. I rubbed my other hand over the wrist that I had the bracelet on, tugging at the clasp. I wanted it off. Hidden somewhere no one could find it, touch it, take it away from me. Somewhere that Darinda couldn’t find it. Couldn’t use her magic against it.

“Your Majesty?” Kitsuna touched my arm. “Are you okay?”

“No.” I shook my head quickly as nausea rolled through my stomach. “No, I’m really not.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” My stomach clenched again. “There’s just this feeling of
wrong
.”

“
Wrong? Wrong how?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that somehow it feels like we shouldn’t go to the library. The relic doesn’t want to go there.”

“That makes sense,” Kitsuna said gently. “The relic isn’t going to want you to destroy it.”

“But the thing is, I feel—really,
really
feel—like we shouldn’t go to the library.”

“Then where should we go?”

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on what the sensation in the back of my head was telling me. “The labyrinth. We need to go to the labyrinth and see Talia.” The queen of the mermaids, my confidant, would know what to do.

“Talia? Why? Do you think Talia knows something about the relics that isn’t in the library?”

I shook my head. “I just have the feeling that I need Talia.”

“You’re the Golden Rose,” Kitsuna said. “So, let’s go. This is your relic. It responds to you. If the tear thinks you need to see Talia then maybe it’s the right thing to do.”

“Okay, then.” I nodded. “Let’s go see some mermaids and find out what they can tell us about the tear.”

I started toward the labyrinth, silent, while Kitsuna followed me along the twisting path that led to the mermaids’ grotto. I made my way through the labyrinth, trying to figure out if this was actually a good idea or if the relic was somehow messing with my head to keep from being destroyed. I couldn’t be sure.

When we reached the very center of the maze Kitsuna stopped. “I’ll give you two some privacy to talk—queen to queen. Or should I say the three of you? Queen to queen to relic?”

Instead of responding, I pushed open the shrubbery-covered door and stepped into the dead center of the maze, where Talia and her small group of remaining subjects lived. The air here was sharper, and I could smell the fresh tanginess of trickling water in their pool.

“Queen Allie.” Talia was sitting on the bank, her pink tail flicking lightly back and forth across the water’s surface like a small child teasing a kitten with a ball of string. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” I said. “I have something I need to talk to you about.”

“What is that?”

“We’ve found the Dragon’s Tear.” I held up the bracelet I’d secured around my wrist.

She smiled at me, her eyes not even glancing at the bracelet. She kept her eyes focused on me instead.

“Congratulations.”

“And I wanted to know what you know about it.”

“Know about what?” Talia raised a feathery eyebrow at me. “The tear?”

“Yes. What do you know about the tear?”

“I know that it has great power, Queen Allie. Immense, dangerous power. A power that could destroy the World of Dreams itself.”

“Do you know what kind of power?” I asked. “Or how it’s used? The only thing I’ve found about it says that the tear can melt the barriers between worlds. It’s a portal.”

“No.” Talia shook her head. “It’s not.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I only know what the mermaid legends tell us, but according to our myths, the tear melts the walls between this world and the Bleak. Do you know what that is?”

“Yes.” I swallowed as fear crawled instinctively up my spine. “The Bleak. It’s the void between worlds. The emptiness between the World That Is and the World of Dreams. Where the Spirit Dragons hunt out the wicked and eat their bones.”

“The race of men believes that the souls of those undeserving of the light of the Pleiades are forced to reside there after they die. Lost, wandering, hunted by monsters for the rest of time.”

“Yeah.” I swallowed, remembering the one Sunday school class I’d gone to as a kid. “The religions of the World That Is believe in something similar, just without the flesh-eating dragons.”

“Right.” Talia nodded. “So you understand exactly how horrible the Bleak is. If you use the tear it will melt the walls between this world and the Bleak, leaving you trapped inside. Then, once the Bleak has closed around you, you can use the tear to melt the walls between the Bleak and another world. But to move between worlds you must find their weak points and travel inside the Bleak itself.”

“And that’s bad.” I ran a shaky hand through my hair. “Traveling through the Bleak. What with Kuolema and the lost souls that are trapped there and all the other monsters that live in the space between worlds.”

“It’s very bad. But it’s a myth. Nothing more. A story. The Bleak. The tear. Kuolema. All of them are nothing more than myths.”

“Everything here comes from myth,” I said. “This entire world is a myth. Why would this be any different? What I need to know is whether or not your myths can tell us how to destroy the Dragon’s Tear.”

“The tear can only be destroyed with a fire a million times greater than the heat of the flames of all the dragons of all the worlds combined.”

“And where do I find that?” I crossed my hands over my chest and tucked them under my armpits to keep them still.

“I do not know,” Talia said. “And unfortunately I can no longer help you with this.”

“You can’t? Why not?” My jaw dropped open as I stared at her, stunned. How could she not help me? Couldn’t she see that I was lost here? That I had no idea what to do? I was currently wearing a portal into the Bleak around my wrist and she couldn’t help? How could she leave me alone with this? I’d thought she was my friend.

“Our world is in danger,” Talia said quietly. “The very fabric of the World of Dreams could be torn apart, and I must protect my people. That is my duty, just as protecting your people is your duty.”

“You can do that by helping me. Helping me protects them.”

“Helping you threatens them. My people can’t fight. We aren’t warriors. All we can do is flee and hope that this world is waiting when we return. I would stay with you if I could but I must keep them safe.”

“What will you do?” I swallowed, trying to fight back my tears and stay brave. Talia was right. We were queens, and if our people were in danger our first responsibility had to be protecting them. No matter what it cost us personally.

“Gregor and Valkin are preparing our pool for the Sleep. It is early still, but it’s better that we enter the Sleep than risk our deaths.”

“The Sleep?” I looked over at the two bare-chested, well-muscled mermen who were waving their hands about and muttering. A bluish haze seemed to dance between their hands and skim across the water. Everywhere the blue haze touched, the living things that surrounded them shrank back, pulling away from the water.

“Our hibernation,” Talia said as I sat beside her, careful not to put my feet in the cold water. “Normally we only go into the Sleep when winter comes, because we cannot survive outside this grotto. This year, though, we will enter the Sleep early to protect ourselves.”

“So when the lake freezes you’ll stay underneath the ice?” I asked. “You’ll stay underwater until when?
Doing what?
”

“Sleeping.” Talia let her tail skim over the water again. “Resting our minds and communing with the songs of the Pleiades. It is an important time for us. A time of rejuvenation. When the spring equinox comes we will be ready to celebrate the blooming of the world with you again.”

“But it’s summer. The water isn’t going to freeze. It will be months before that happens. We don’t have that long. The Fate Maker will be here in days.”

“We will freeze the lake ourselves.” Talia reached over for my hand. “Gregor and Valkin are making sure that the lake is safe, and tonight we will retreat from the world until it rejoices in rebirth.”

“Tonight?” I asked. “You’re going to freeze the lake
tonight
? And you didn’t think to, I don’t know, send me a message? A ‘by the way, I’m going to disappear for almost a year, see you when I get back
’
note?”

“I had assumed Darinda would explain to you what was happening.”

“And that makes it okay?”

“Your Majesty—“

“You can’t freeze the lake now,” I said, my voice high and nervous. “I need you.”

“You are a fine queen.” Talia patted my hand. “You don’t—”

“I do need you. What am I supposed to do? He wants the tear.” I held it up in front of me again. “And he’ll burn the world to get it. I don’t know how to destroy it or how to stop him or anything else. I need you to help me. To advise me.”

“If I could leave my people to sleep and stay with you, Your Majesty, I would.” Talia’s eyes were wide. “But I cannot. Just as you have to protect your people, I have to care for mine.” She moved closer and reached out to capture my face inside her hands, pulling our foreheads together.

I closed my eyes and squeezed them shut so I wouldn’t cry. “What am I going to do? I can’t do this alone.”

“You have no choice. In the end, you are the only one who remaining who can control the relics. You are the one who must destroy them. If you don’t, the World of Dreams, and everyone in it, will be lost.”

“You aren’t listening to me! I don’t know how to destroy it! I don’t know what to do!”

“I’m sorry.” Talia slid her tail into the water, her palms now braced against the bank, and planted a brief kiss on my forehead. “This is what you must do. Good-bye, my sister queen.”

“I’ll be standing here waiting at the spring equinox.” I didn’t bother to stifle my sob. “I’ll find the relics and defeat the Fate Maker, and I’ll be right here, the first thing you see when you wake up.

“This isn’t good-bye forever,” I said, remembering what my mother would always say when I was little and we were leaving another town behind. “This is only good-bye for now.”

Talia let go of the bank and sank under the water. I stood up and found that the mermen had disappeared as well. I wiped away the tears that had started to pool in my eyes.

It was time to get back to the palace and find out exactly what sort of fire was out there that was hotter than the flames of a million dragons. And then I had to figure out where the fire was and go to it. Because time was running out and no matter how much this relic didn’t want to be destroyed, that was exactly what I was going to do.

Chapter Eleven

“Hey,” Winston said when he found me in the garden later that night. The lights from the palace reflected around him and fairies sang in the distance. It was almost like those old teen movies from the ’80s that my mom had been such a fan of, with crickets and Molly Ringwald.

“Hey.” I shrugged and instantly felt stupid. I mean,
Hey
? Really? Talk about lame. The guy was my boyfriend, my consort—and according to some of the more traditional people in Nerissette,
my husband
—and we had been reduced to
hey
ing each other?

“What are you doing?” He crossed his arms, his skin brushing against mine, and gazed out near the lights of the fairy circles toward the trees. The music swelled from their dance and sparks moved up my arm where it touched his.

“Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“The Dragon’s Tear,” I said. I held up my wrist to show him the bracelet. “We found it today.”

“What?” He looked at me, stunned.

“We found the tear. Me and Kitsuna. We found the tear. Well, Kitsuna found it actually, but I was there.”

“Seriously? It’s the tear? You’re sure?”

“Yeah.” I nodded slowly. “I’m sure.”

“And what did Darinda say?”

“What?”

“Darinda and the other members of the Nymphiad. What did they say? Did they say it was the tear?”

I felt my stomach start to churn at the mention of the Nymphiad. I didn’t want them to see the tear. I didn’t want to take the chance of them taking it from me. It was mine. A magic that only I could control. One thing, the only thing, in this entire world that belonged to me and only me. “I…”

“Allie?”

“I haven’t shown it to them yet,” I admitted.

“Allie.” He put his hands on my shoulders and stared down at me. “You have to show it to them. Let them tell you how to destroy it.”

“I will.” I pulled away from him and turned my face away from his gaze.

“We have to destroy the tear. You know that, right?”

“I know,” I snapped. “I do. I know that we have to destroy it. The Nymphiad has been looking in every book that has the slightest link to the Dragon’s Tear and none of them can tell us how to destroy it. The only people who seem to know are the mermaids and their legends make no sense.”

“The mermaids have a legend about how to destroy the tear?”

“It’s a fairy tale.”

“It’s the only thing you have right now. You’ve found the tear and now we’ve got to find a way to destroy it. What do the mermaid legends say?”

“A fire that’s a million times hotter than the breaths of all the dragons combined. We need a fire hotter than anything else in this world. A million times hotter than anything we have in this world.”

“A fire that’s a million times hotter than the breaths of all the dragons combined?” Winston wrinkled his dark nose. “It doesn’t exist. There’s nothing hotter than dragon fire.”

“I know. Everything I’ve read says that dragon fire is the hottest thing in the World of Dreams. But whatever it is that burns hotter than dragon’s fire, we need to find it and use it to destroy the relic.”

“What are you going to do with it until then? Are you going to hide it? Lie to the Nymphiad about it?”

“No. I don’t want to lie about it. I just want to keep it safe.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Hide it, I guess.” I shrugged, fingering the bracelet. “We have to keep this a secret. Only tell the people who absolutely need to know that we have it. We’re willing to destroy the tear but some of the nobles?”

“They would give the tear to the Fate Maker,” he agreed.

“So we hide it,” he agreed. “Where?”

“The only place it’s safe. My tower. With the rest of the crown jewels.”

“Or we could give it to the Nymphiad?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Not until they know how to destroy it.”

“So we keep it secret. Just me and you. “

“And Kitsuna. She was with me when it was found. She knows I have it.”

“Do you trust her?” Winston asked.

“Yes.” I nodded. “But we need to keep it among the three of us.”

“We will. No one else will know until we need them to. We’ll keep it secret. Me, you, and Kitsuna.” He put an arm around my shoulder and squeezed lightly. “It’s going to be okay. You know that, right? All of this will be okay. You’ll hide the tear until we find a way to destroy it.”

“And if it’s not okay?”

“Then we’ll figure out what to do to fix it. Whatever is going to happen, we will find a way to make it okay.”

“How? Even if we do find a way to destroy the tear, the Fate Maker will be here in less than two days with an army. Are we going to send these people out to fight him?
Again
? What if it’s not enough? What if there are too many wizards or more trolls or—”

“It will be okay.” Winston grabbed my shoulders and turned me so that we were facing each other before wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me close for a hug. “I promise it will be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.
I won’t
.”

“What if you die?” Tears filled my eyes. “What if it’s like last time and you get grabbed by a giant? Or Mercedes is attacked by a goblin with a sword? What if I make the wrong decision, and Rhys and his army are set on fire in a forest with no chance to escape?”

“Allie—”

“Heidi and Jesse died last time. They died, Winston. Dead. Gone. Never coming back again.
Dead.
”

“I know.”

“What if it’s you this time? What if you’re the one who dies? What if we never get our chance at a real beginning? A beginning where we don’t have the threat of a scary wizard hanging over our heads?”

“We will.”

“What if we don’t?”

Instead of answering, he leaned forward and fitted his lips over mine, making my skin tingle as my heart started to pound and my toes curled. He jerked away from me after a second and rested his forehead against me. “I love you. Is that enough of a beginning?”

“What?” I looked up at him. “You what?”

“I love you. I, Winston Carruthers, love you, Alicia Munroe.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “Are you?”

“Am I what? In love with you?” I swallowed. “Yes, but could you maybe kiss me again? ’Cause I really want to be sure that you mean it.”

“Oh, Allie.” Winston buried his head in the side of my neck. “I do mean it. I promise.”

“Say it again?” I asked.

“I love you.” He gave me a light kiss on the cheek.

“I love you, too,” I whispered. “I don’t know what I’ll do if you die.” I felt his arms tighten around me. “Or if Mercedes dies. I don’t know what I’ll do. I need you here with me.”

He ran his hand down my back and pulled me close enough that my head was pressed against his shoulder. “I know.”

“I’m scared,” I said as he let go of me and threaded his fingers through mine, leading me to a nearby bench.

“So am I. I’m completely terrified, but that doesn’t change anything.”

“Do you know what the tear does?” I asked.

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”

“It melts the barriers between the World of Dreams and the Bleak.”

“It’s a portal?” His eyes grew wide as saucers.

“No.” I shook my head. “It’s a trap. A trick. It may melt the barrier, but once you pass through it, you’re trapped unless you can find the weak spot between the Bleak and the next world you’re trying to get to and melt that too.”

“And if you don’t find the weak spot?” Winston asked.

“Trapped inside the Bleak. Forever.”

He grimaced. “Fun.”

“I wish it were really a portal so we could use it…”

“You wouldn’t, though.”

“Not for me.” I shook my head. “But I could send Mercedes home. And you, if you wanted it.”

Winston fell silent, and I looked over to see him staring out at the dark garden, the lights of the fairy circle dimming as they finished their nightly ritual.

“Would you want to go home if you could?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’d like to tell you that if the Dragon’s Tear were a portal that I wouldn’t use it. That I’d stand and fight no matter what happened. I want to tell you that I’d be brave and nothing could make me go through that portal and leave everyone else behind. But…”

“But?” I asked.

“Then I think about my mom and my dad.” Winston’s hands were now shaking. “I think about playing hoops with Dad and family game nights. I think about what it’s like to score the winning touchdown during a football game and what life was like before we came here, and then all I want to do is find a way back home.”

“I’m sorry that—”

“I want to go back to the life that we had. I want to go back to that day and come up with some reason not to go to the library. I’d do anything to find a way to travel back in time and stop you from picking up that book, but we can’t. We can’t change that moment. Even here, you don’t get a do-over on life.”

“Not unless Esmeralda had another secret she wasn’t telling me.” I shook my head. “Even if we could travel back in time, there’s a chance we could mess with the space-time continuum, and I’m not sure but all those sci-fi novels Mr. Brinnegar made us read last year seemed to make a big deal out of how bad that would be.”

Winston laughed. “My dad was so mad when he found out that we were reading sci-fi in English class. He was screaming at Principal Daughtry about how he sent me to school every day to learn useful information, not how to deal with alien cultures in the far-distant future.”

“It has come in handy a few times here. Think about it: if we hadn’t read all those novels we’d never know that it’s a bad idea to travel back in time and stop the old me from grabbing that book.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I would if I could.” Winston leaned close to me. “And I wouldn’t give a crap about the space-time continuum.”

My pulse fluttered, and I tried not to act too affected by the feel of his breath on my skin. I mean, he was my prince consort now, and my boyfriend. This shouldn’t be that big of a deal. That didn’t change the fact that every time he got close to me my brain and my skin went all tingly.

“I would, too,” I said. “And if we can somehow find a portal, somewhere, I’ll send you and Mercedes back. I promise I will. I’ll get you home to your family again.”

“No.” Winston shook his head. “I said that
if
I could change things I would, but I can’t. I can’t change things so that means I’m staying right here with you.”

I leaned my head against his shoulder and sniffled once before I clung to him, drawing strength from the boy sitting next to me. “What about your family? Football? All those things you miss about our old life?”

“I’d miss you more.”

“You wouldn’t miss me. You would forget that I exist.”

If he and Mercedes went back, they would forget that I’d ever been a part of their lives. I would no longer exist and Winston would end up with someone else. Probably lots of someone elses, with the way all the girls at school flirted with him.

“I’ll never forget that you exist,” Winston said. “I can’t forget you. You’re Allie. You’re my best friend.
My girlfriend
.”

“I wouldn’t be if you went back.”

“That’s why I’m not going back—even if you do find some super-secret, hidden portal that would get us there.”

“You could be safe—”

Winston pressed his lips against mine again, shutting me up before I could keep arguing.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and breathed in the smell of brimstone and boy that was unique to Winston, my toes curling inside my brown leather hunting boots.

He scooted away from me, and I had to fight the urge to slap myself in the forehead.
Way to keep it cool, Allie.
Then he tugged me into his lap and kissed me again. “Nothing is going to happen to me,” he said while he stroked his hand down my back. “No one is going to kill me.”

I shook my head. “You can’t know that for sure.”

“I’ll always do what I promise you, Allie. You know that, right? I will always be here to keep you safe. I just told you
I love you
after all. I can’t die after that. It would be anticlimactic. Think about how much this would suck as a movie if I copped it in the middle of the big battle?”

“This isn’t a movie.”

“I know that.”

“You can’t promise me that you’re not going to die.” I turned away so he couldn’t see the tears that were forming in my eyes. “No one can promise that… Look at my mom. She said we’d always be together—that we were a team—and look what happened to her. She kept all these secrets and now I’m here and she’s there and who knows what will happen to either one of us?”

“I’m not your mom,” Winston said, “and I promise you that no matter what, I am going to be here when this is over. I’m not going to die, and I have no intention of leaving you here alone.”

“You’ll be safe there. Here you might die. Think about it. Heidi and Jesse died here. They
died
, Win. We buried them. They are never going home again
no matter what
.”

“I could die there, in the World That Is. The difference is that here I get to be with you.”

“You can’t—”

“Quit telling me what I can and can’t do, Alicia Munroe. I won’t leave you here while I run away.”

He kissed me again and instead of arguing, this time I decided to enjoy it. Even if the Fate Maker was coming for me in two days, it didn’t mean I was going to let him ruin the time I had left.

“Your Majesty,” Ardere said, appearing in front of us.

Winston let go of me and turned to bow his head to the gold dragon who had been acting as his mentor.

“Troops have been spotted along the north road. We’re going to fly a night patrol to scout out their plans if we can.”

“I’m coming.” Winston nodded and turned back to kiss me once again.

“Don’t.” I grabbed his arm. “We need you here in case they attack the palace. He said two days, but it could be a lie. They could be out there waiting in the dark. It could be a trap.”

“I have to go.”

“No, you can stay.” I kept a tight grip on his arm. “Other dragons can go out on patrol, and you can stay.”