Rival Demons (27 page)

But when we passed through the gate, my eyes
widened as I looked out at the ruins of what must have once been a
flourishing city.

I stood speechless. There was so little that was
really known about the Southern Kingdom, but from the looks of it,
they were having just as rough a time here with the Order as the
north.

We wandered through the debris, stepping over
burned wood, crushed stone walls, toys and ruined furniture. Unlike
the small villages we'd passed on the road, this had been a real
city. From the sheer size of the destroyed area, I would have
guessed at least ten thousand demons must have lived here at one
point.

"This can't be it," I said. "Can I see the
map?"

Jackson handed me the paper, but I immediately
saw that this was exactly where the old man remembered the gem
dealer to have lived.

I kicked at a charred chair. "This can't be it,"
I said again. "There's no way we'll ever find the dealer now. No
one could have survived this."

Suddenly, I felt the events of the past few days
begin to take their toll. I'd been living on adrenaline and hope,
but this was a blow to everything I'd been feeling. My body was
completely wrecked and exhausted. My leg was better, but the spot
where the hunter had wounded me still ached. After two straight
days of nonstop walking, it screamed in pain. Somehow, I'd forced
myself not to feel it. Everything else had been going so well, I
didn't want to admit the desperate situation we were really in
here.

I sat down on a heavy stone and put my head in
my hands.

"Don't give up," Jackson said. "Maybe there's
another city just down the road or something. Or maybe if we look
around we could still find the gem shop and find a clue there."

I shook my head and looked out over the ruins.
"How would we possibly find a gem shop in all this rubble? Besides,
what would we find there? Gems? How is that going to help us?"

"Then let's just sit here and whine about it,"
he said. "That'll help."

Angry, I stared at him through squinted eyes.
"Oh excuse me for expressing some disappointment," I said. "It's
not like we've been through much in the past few months. Hell, all
told this has been such a happy, positive year for me."

Jackson sighed and set the boy down on the
ground. "Look, I don't want to argue with you, okay?"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "I
know," I said. "I don't want to argue either. It's just that I feel
like we have no idea what we're really doing, you know? It feels
like we're doing something that's impossible and crazy and probably
really stupid. I was really getting my hopes up, but now this. When
I saw all this, it was like the weight of the past few days just
came crashing down on me."

Jackson pulled me into a hug and I leaned into
him, loving the feel of his chin as it rested on the top of my
head.

"We're going to figure it out," he said. "We
just have to keep trying. As long as we never stop looking, we'll
find it, okay?"

I nodded.

Footsteps sounded behind us, and I flipped
around, my heart racing.

A man stood at the edge of the rubble, near the
road. He froze as we turned, throwing up his hands as if
surrendering.

"Sorry to disturb," he said. "Just was kinda
going through the ruins looking for something that used to belong
to my mate."

Surprisingly, he didn't seem the least bit
interested in the fact that I was human. He didn't give me that
fearful look so many of the demons in the north had given me.

"You used to live here?" Jackson asked.

"Oh yeah," the man said, squinting and looking
out over the expanse of the rubble. "It's a shame isn't it?"

"I wouldn't have thought anyone could survive
destruction like this," I said. "You must feel very lucky."

The man looked at me like I'd gone insane.
"Well, by the time this happened, no one was living here anymore,"
he said. "The king's centralization project and all."

I raised an eyebrow. This guy seemed to not even
realize we were from the north. For someone who was walking right
along the border between north and south, he didn't seem afraid or
scared or even the slightest bit nervous. What was going on
here?

"We were looking for a man who used to live
here," Jackson said. "A gemstone dealer?"

The man rubbed his chin and thought for a
minute. "You must mean Sorian," he said. "Older demon with a
passion for rocks?"

Jackson nodded.

"He passed into the next world some time ago,"
the man said. "Is that what you guys are doing so far out from the
Center? Lookin' for rocks?"

"Yeah, something like that," I said. "What we
were really hoping to find was a kind of quarry of blue stones. A
place where they were sort of concentrated. Have you ever seen such
a place?"

The man eyed me suspiciously. "You know those
gem deposits are pretty rare, right? Only one per stone," he said.
"Plus, they're dangerous. Hunters like to hang out there. I don't
recommend it."

"We know," Jackson said. "So does that mean you
know where it is? Could point us in the right direction?"

The man shook his head. "I shouldn't even be out
this far, but you know how mates can be. Mine is dying to get hold
of her mother's favorite cooking pot. She keeps sending me out here
to find it in the ruins, but I know that pot's long gone by now,"
he said. "There's no way I'd wander as far outside as the blue
stones."

It was the first sign of fear the man had shown
since we met him.

"Where are you two from anyway? One of the
villages still on the outskirts or something?"

I shook my head. "We're from somewhere even
farther than that," I said. "But we aren't looking for any trouble.
We just need to find those stones if we can. Please, if there's any
information you can give us, we'd really appreciate it."

The man shrugged. "It's your lives you're
risking if you go out there." He looked off into the far distance,
holding a hand up to his eyes to shade them from the sun. "If you
keep walking that way for about a day or two, you'll come upon the
blue stone quarry you're talking about. Still, I would highly
recommend against it. There are some patrols that still guard those
lands, but you're much safer near the Center these days. You
wouldn't want to run into a hunter."

"No, we wouldn't,' I said.

The man shuddered. "I've never actually seen one
myself, and I hope I never do."

He leaned over and grabbed something metal from
underneath a broken wall. He held it up, shook his head, then threw
it back into the pile.

"Wish you two the best of luck," he said. With
that, the man disappeared into a fog of pure white smoke.

I stared at the white fog, confused. "Why is his
power white?" I asked.

Jackson shook his head and shrugged. "I don't
know, maybe it's a southern demon thing?" he said. "We should get
moving."

I realized the boy wasn't with us, and for a
moment I panicked. Then, I saw him crouching low in the rubble.
"What are you doing over here?" I asked.

He looked up at me and smiled. He held his
closed hand out to me as if he had found something for me. I opened
my hand and he placed a pure blue stone in my palm.

Much of the day was already gone, but we decided
to push on toward the blue stones. We didn't have a road to follow,
so we just made sure to keep heading southeast. The best we could
do was hope the demon in the ruined city had given us good
directions.

Along the way, we ran into a lot of animals, but
no demons Every village in between was completely deserted or
ruined. The wildlife out here flourished. The deer-like creatures
here were much smaller with black-spotted pelts and dark black
antlers. Wolves with pure white coats roamed around the tree-line
of a forest in the distance. Tiny green and white flowers grew all
around us and every once in a while, I spotted tiny blue and red
jumping things in the grass.

When I originally pictured the demon world, I
don't know why I'd imagined a drastically different terrain or set
of living creatures. Now that I'd had some time to explore it a
little more, I realized it wasn't all that different from earth.
There was a lot more nature here than I was used to with all the
trees and grass and such, and there was no need for cars or things
like that, but overall, I was comfortable here. In fact, the
Southern Kingdom was growing on me. Somehow it felt like home.

"I think we should make camp before it gets too
dark," Jackson said after we'd been walking for a couple of
hours.

Relief flowed through me. As much as I enjoyed
the scenery, my feet were freaking killing me. "I second that," I
said. "I could use a rest and some food."

He looked around, surveying the space around us.
He pointed toward the tree-line. "I think we should get closer to
those trees over there so we're less out in the open. Let's see if
we can find a good spot that's a little hidden."

It didn't take long to set up our camp since all
we had were a few blankets in our packs. Jackson started a fire to
keep us warm, and we snacked on mushrooms and berries we gathered
from the nearby woods.

The boy never said a word. He wouldn't even tell
us his name. But he was sweet and he seemed happy to have company.
He fell asleep in my lap soon after dinner.

Spending time with Jackson like this was
amazing. It was hard to believe that we had been acting like
complete strangers just a few days ago. Despite all that had
happened in the past year, it never ceased to amaze me how fast
things could change. I wanted to enjoy these moments together while
I could. I never knew when it all might be taken away again.

"Do you ever think about what you'll do if we
actually manage to free Aerden," I said. I figured I was opening a
can of worms with this conversation, but he had promised to be more
open with me, and I wanted to know. "Will you come back here?"

Jackson propped his back against a tall
red-barked tree and I leaned back to stare up at the three moons
and a sky full of stars.

"I won't be coming back to marry Lea, if that's
what you mean," he teased.

I reached up to smack his arm and laughed. "You
better not."

"I honestly don't know what will happen," he
said. "You'll be free too, you know. You could come back here with
me if you wanted. I mean, if that's what we decided to do."

I liked the sound of the word 'we'.

"I won't live nearly as long as you will," I
said. "I'll grow old and wrinkly before you even look like you've
aged at all."

He ran his fingers through my hair, nearly
putting me to sleep with the gentle rhythm of it.

"We'll figure it out when the time comes," he
said. "I think we've got enough to think about right now without
trying to decide on the rest of our lives."

I nodded and closed my eyes, wondering just how
long the rest of our lives might last.

I tossed and turned under the stars that
night.

A man's face kept invading my dreams. His silver
eyes looked so familiar, but I couldn't place him. Where did I know
him from? I slipped in and out of my dreams, confused and anxious.
When I awoke the following morning, I finally understood where I'd
seen his face before.

The shaman. When the Underground's shaman had
come to heal me after my fight with the hunter, I had seen a vision
of this man, his silver beard and eyes so unique and kind and
strangely familiar.

Jackson and I resumed our walk toward the blue
stones, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I should know this
man. It left me feeling a little disoriented.

"Is everything okay?" Jackson asked after we'd
walked a little ways. "You've barely said two words today."

"I'm fine," I said, trying to just shake off the
feeling from the dream. "Have you ever met a man with silver eyes?
Was there someone in Peachville like that?"

Jackson shook his head. "Not that I've ever
heard about. Why?"

"I don't know." I hiked my backpack higher to
take some of the weight off my lower back. "It's nothing. Just a
dream I had."

"I never really sleep well out in the open like
that," he said. "Too many noises and things to wake me up
throughout the night. You probably just didn't get any good
sleep."

I nodded. Yeah, that's all it was.

The boy rode on Jackson's shoulders most of the
way, smiling and taking in the scenery.

The rest of the day passed without event. We got
to see some beautiful countryside, but we still had yet to meet up
with any of the other Southern Kingdom demons. It was weird,
really. Had their population really been so drained by the Order?
From the looks of it, they'd been hit really hard down here.

It wasn't until about dinner time that I started
to feel it.

At first, it was a small buzzing feeling in my
hands and feet. I thought it was probably some effect of all the
walking we'd been doing. I was just tired and my body was
exhausted.

But after another mile, I started to feel it
everywhere like an energy coursing through me with growing
strength. I stopped and just let it flow through me for a second.
Jackson stopped with me and raised his eyebrows.

"What's going on?" he asked. "Do you need to
take a break?"

I shook my head and just continued to feel. I
had never felt it so strong before, but it was sort of like the way
I felt every time I connected to my inner power. A warmth and a
constant current. Only now it was amplified. Instead of a small
stream, this was beginning to feel like a full-on river.

"I'm feeling something." How to put words to it?
"Different."

"Different how?" he asked.