by Everly Frost
Vlad waits on the tarmac with one other person by his side, but his greeting is not customary.
Instead of the usual bow, he hugs me, his big bear-like arms wrapping around me and lifting me off the tarmac.
I freeze with shock.
He raises his eyebrows at me, still squishing me like crazy. “I have to hug you at least once, Hunter. I figured I’d need to take you by surprise for you to let me.”
“Ah. Yes. That would be correct.” I side-eye the female assassin waiting with him before I relax and hug him back. It’s a bit like hugging a tree, difficult enough to get my arms all the way around his chest, let alone keep my feet on the ground. “You’re going to ruin my reputation.”
He grins. “Along with my own. Don’t worry. You can trust Kirrily.” He puts me back on my feet to introduce her. “Kirrily is my second in command and the best tracker in all the Factions. She has been following Amalia’s movements and I’m afraid to say, Amalia is closing in on the location of the maze. We don’t have a lot of time. The cars are ready to take us to the forest. You can trust my drivers.”
Slade and Cain both give Vlad customary bows but Cain frowns. “You knew about all of this already?”
In his blunt way, Vlad says, “You were the last to know. We should get moving right away.”
Contrary to what he said, Vlad stays put as we file around him toward the vehicles.
He greets Tansy with a rare smile and she lights up the space around them in response. Her green eyes sparkle and her instinctive magic ignites soft rainbows that swirl around her face and body. She is also dressed in a protective suit, over the top of it wearing a soft sweater and long pants that hug her curves.
Vlad is transfixed as he says, “Blessing on your—”
“Alexei Vladimir Mason.” She takes his hands, her small ones disappearing inside his big fists, and rises all the way up onto her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek. “I missed you.”
He freezes, his smile disappearing. An intense fire lights his eyes and he sweeps her off her feet. One enormous arm wraps around her slender waist and the other across her shoulders, pulling her close. She gasps, her head tilted back to see his face, her focus dropping to his lips and back to his eyes.
But the smile on her face rapidly fades, replaced with… confusion.
They are barely inches apart but he doesn’t close the gap, frozen like that, his ferocious gaze burning into hers.
Her lips part as the moment stretches. The tiniest frown appears on her forehead, an expression of puzzlement more than anything else and then… a shot of despair.
Vlad’s expression changes from fierce to gentle to… oddly resigned. “I missed you too, Solnyshka.”
He carefully places her back on her feet, clearing his throat as he waits for her to precede him. The rainbows that glistened in the air moments ago vanish into the background as she hurries away from him.
I catch her arm before Vlad joins us, his footsteps unusually slow and heavy behind her. “Tansy?”
She gives a shake of her head. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
She’s definitely not fine. She brushes past me, hurrying toward the SUVs parked at the side of the building.
I’ve never been able to make Tansy tell me anything she doesn’t want to, so there’s no point in pushing her, but it worries me what passed between her and Vlad just now. I can’t even put it down to Vlad’s ability to offend people with his bluntness, because he barely said anything to her.
The others are waiting at the car for us but I grab Vlad and pin him with a hard stare. “What just happened?”
His shoulders are sunk so low that he is nearly eye height with me. “She figured it out.”
“Figured out what, Vlad?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” He lumbers past me. His answer isn’t good enough but we don’t have time to waste.
I slide into the first vehicle with Slade and Tansy, choosing the seat facing Slade, hoping Vlad will join us, but he takes the other vehicle with Cain, Archer, and Kirrily.
Tansy stares out of the window as the landscape passes us by. What the hell happened? All they did was hug and now they’re avoiding each other.
Slade shakes his head at me—a non-verbal “stay out of it”—but I can’t abide it. Damn it, I’m running out of time to say what I think and the least I can do is make sure Tansy is happy when I leave this Earth.
I reach across to her. “What happened? You were so happy before and now…”
She continues to stare out of the window. “Vlad can’t love me. I don’t know why he pretended to care.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Stop asking me questions, Hunter.”
“But—”
She covers her eyes with her hand, turning as far away from me as she can so I can’t see her face. “Let me close off this part of my heart in peace.”
I persist. “No, you need to—”
“Stop!” She spins back to me and her power flares out from her hand like a whip across the gap between us, a dark lash made of light striking across my torso. I jolt back in my seat as the lash disappears. Smoke rises from my t-shirt where the whip burned it apart. Holy… Only the protective suit saved me. I gape from the damage to Tansy.
“Hunter!” She stares at me in shock, her eyes wide, tears leaking from them. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean that to happen.”
I cough out the smoke that rises into my nose.
Slade twitches opposite me and I can tell that he is seriously restraining himself right now, the silver glow growing at his edges telling me she set off his protective instincts and he’s fighting to restrain himself. It’s lucky her magic stopped as suddenly as it started or we could have had a war inside this vehicle.
I take a deep, calming breath, keeping my response soft. “It was your instinctive magic. It’s stronger now that you’re away from Saber Lane.”
She whispers, “It’s stronger when I’m upset. I’m truly sorry, Hunter. I know you want to help me… I know you care… but nothing can fix this.”
She hugs her arms to her chest and turns away again, curling up on the seat.
Slade’s power fades and calms. He of all people understands rage, the deep burn at the center of your heart. He surprises me when he reaches across the seat to plant his hand on her back, rubbing it the same way William used to calm her.
He says, “We’re here for you if you need us.”
She hunches over, but doesn’t shake him off, accepting his touch, her voice a quiet whisper. “Thank you for not killing me just now.”
He smiles even though she can’t see it. “Something tells me you would be hard to kill.”
A sad smile ghosts around her mouth, visible from the side. “Probably.”
We spend the rest of the trip in silence. The landscape changes as we take the Wilson River Highway deep into Tillamook State Forest. Trees rise up around us, a thick canopy that obscures the view left and right, even thicker when we turn off the highway onto a dirt track, traveling only a few minutes along it before the vehicle comes to a stop.
We will have to walk from here.
I follow Slade out of the vehicle, retrieving our backpacks from the trunk and quickly pulling on a new shirt before anyone notices my torn one. Nobody needs to know what happened between Tansy and me.
I check on Cain and Archer, hoping they had a less momentous trip. They appear relaxed, at ease with each other. Cain helps her secure her backpack before she checks over their weapons. He brought more weapons than we did and I’m not sorry to see Archer don an additional harness sporting multiple daggers and guns. She and Cain are like a well-oiled machine, working together without speaking, but every now and then Cain touches her hand or her shoulder, little touches that tell me he is worried about her. She is the only one who can give us access to the maze.
If Archer is feeling pressure about releasing her wings, she isn’t showing it.
Right now, we’re all ign
oring the fact that we have no idea how she’s going to do it.
Vlad plows forward, indicating the path at the side of the clearing. His weapons belt is also laden with daggers and guns of every sort. I guess I know where to go if I run out of ammunition.
He says, “As soon as we step onto that path, we will be in Mother Serena’s territory. The entrance to the maze is a two-mile hike from here. We’ll be lucky to creep in unnoticed so stay on your guard.”
Kirrily says, “Amalia was last seen in this location. You need to be alert for her as well. As you know, she and Gareth are skilled at blurring—”
“Wait… Gareth?”
Kirrily gives me a serious nod. “Your former Master is here, too. I will leave you now, but I hope to see you again soon—safe and sound.”
The last is said to Vlad. She may be his second-in-command but it’s clear that she cares about the outcome of this mission. For a second, I wonder if she is the reason Vlad can’t love Tansy, but I dismiss that. I’m not getting any romantic vibes between them, only mutual respect.
When Kirrily leaves, I turn to the others. “Amalia and Gareth will follow us. They will wait for us to do the hard work finding the maze and opening it. That’s what I would do. We need to keep an eye out behind us.”
I scan the visually impenetrable tree line ahead, wondering if I will be able to sense Amalia when she’s close. She will hold off coming anywhere near us until we clear the way for her. Especially getting through the coven.
I am filled with sudden dread. I’m giving Amalia everything she wants. I will lead her to the maze she’s been searching for. Archer will open the door. If we get inside, then she can too, and if she gets to the feathers before us… will anything kill her then? Will she be invincible?
The feathers were hidden for a reason. Guarded by monsters for a reason…
I stop so suddenly in my tracks that Slade catches me before he bumps into me. “Hunter?”
“We should turn back. I can’t be this selfish.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We’re leading Amalia right to what she wants.”
He takes my hands in his. “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t. This is a chance worth taking. It’s a fight worth fighting. I’m not walking away from this place without trying. Archer needs this as much as you do.”
He taps the gun resting in a holster across his chest. It contains the Keres bullets. “We are as strong as we will ever be. Between us, we have everything we need to end her.”
I look him in the eye. “Ending her is more important than healing me. Agreed?”
“One goes hand in hand with the other, Hunter. We will get to the feathers first.”
Hope is an awful, treacherous thing. It gives me no choice but to believe him. Despite the churn in my stomach, I nod and take my first steps down the path toward the maze.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It’s impossible to walk quietly. Every footstep carries the crunch of leaves and debris, the ground changing from spongy moss to brittle twigs and back to moss depending on how close we are to a water source. We follow one of the many creeks for a mile while the stillness of the forest around us grows heavier with every step. Only the sound of rushing water signals movement, becoming more distinct as we follow Vlad’s directions to the location of the maze.
Eventually, he stops with a frown. “Do you hear that?”
The whooshing water is loud enough that it doesn’t sound like the creek anymore.
I say, “It has to be a waterfall.”
He presses his lips together in an uncertain line. “Yes, but there aren’t any natural waterfalls around here.”
“Do you think the coven made it?” I ask.
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s the entrance. It won’t be on any map. We’ve been walking steadily uphill for the last mile. It’s not impossible that there could be a waterfall around here.”
Tansy has stayed away from Vlad for the entire trek, but she approaches us now, saying, “I sense magic here. It could be the witches or it could be that we’re close to the maze.”
“I feel it, too.” When I glance at the others, both Cain and Slade are accessing their power, carefully maintaining a safe distance from each other so their powers don’t collide. Luckily, Archer has remained calm and is staying close to Cain. The last thing she needs is to trigger her power unnecessarily.
We push ahead for another half a mile until the pathway suddenly ends.
Two steps ahead of me, Vlad jolts to a stop, teetering on the edge of a yawning cliff.
My hand shoots out. I grab his shirt and pull him back to safety. The others were further behind so there’s no danger of them bumping us off the edge.
I signal to them to stop before I creep up to it, crouching low. A ravine roars below us and the waterfall we could hear crashes about fifty feet to our right, the water flowing fast and furious hundreds of feet below us. A bridge stretches from one side of the ravine to the other, positioned right in front of the waterfall, the spray making the gray stone appear glossy.
Vlad checks our coordinates on the map, tapping it to indicate our current location. “According to the map, this waterfall doesn’t exist.”
“It shouldn’t,” I say. “The terrain in this part of the forest doesn’t allow for a waterfall.” I squint at the waterfall, attempting to estimate its height. The environment is misty high up, difficult to see beyond, as is the rest of the ravine to our left, telling me strong magic is at play here.
Vlad says, “That bridge has to be the gate.”
I can’t help but snort. A bridge that is a gate. It seems exactly the kind of contradiction that would indicate the entrance to a maze.
As the others carefully crowd around the cliff’s edge, I murmur, “There’s no direct path to the bridge.”
Further along the cliff, an enormous tree blocks either end of the bridge, beside which other trees soar high and thick. The entrance to the bridge on both sides is completely blocked.
Archer says, “It isn’t accessible by foot. It looks like we have to fly over there.”
“That’s fine,” I say. “Slade and I can fly each of you across—”
At the back of our group, Tansy suddenly whirls to face the path behind us. “Hunter! Look!”
A woman steps along the path, black hair flowing across her shoulders as she glides toward us. She wears a gentle smile, but her eyes are cold and dead. The back of her burgundy gown slithers across the mossy ground, her effortless ability to navigate the path without making a sound giving her an air of power. She hasn’t made any aggressive moves but my skin prickles with every step she takes toward us.
Vlad launches into action first, making it to Tansy’s side in several strides. I catch Slade’s eye before he joins me and we move quickly with Archer and Cain to form a protective semi-circle around Vlad and Tansy, staying well away from the edge of the cliff.
The woman says, “If you’re here to cross the bridge, you will fail. Nobody has stood on it for…” Her gaze flickers to Archer. “Twenty years.”
Vlad’s expression is set like stone, harder and colder than I’ve ever seen it. “Mother Serena, you will leave us alone.”
She smiles. “Hello, Alexei. Look how you’ve grown.”
He narrows his eyes at her. “Look how you’ve aged.” His blunt response tells me he intends the insult for once.
“Oh, Alexei. That isn’t polite. After all I’ve done for you.” She takes a step forward, but it’s a sudden move, a single pace that carries her across the distance, her form rushing in a blur to stop right in front of him. A wash of power flows with her, her magic rushing around us, making my skin crawl.
Her gown floats around her legs as she rises into the air until she is at eye-level with Vlad. She smiles. “How is that spell working out for you?”
Tansy’s hand shoots out, her expression dark. The same inky light that Tansy struck me with forms around her silhouette, biting the air. “Get back, witch
.”
Serena’s gaze swivels to her, a curious smile touching her lips. Despite the deadly vibes Tansy gives off, Serena floats right into Tansy’s outwardly stretched palm, pressing against it as if she doesn’t care. Her gaze follows the shadows that swirl around Tansy’s chin, cheeks, and eyes.
She says, “Little Tanzanina Gray. You left your safe cocoon at last.”
She takes a deep breath, her cheeks flushing and her eyes brightening as she inhales the darkness around Tansy. The older woman runs her tongue across her lips as if she’s tasting the power in the air. “I see why your aunt tried to steal your power.” Her forehead creases. “But such repression… it’s not healthy, Tanzanina.”
“My name is Tansy. Only my mother called me ‘Tanzanina’ and if you don’t back off, you’ll find out exactly what I’m repressing.”
Serena floats away from her. “That would be unwise.”
The nearest tree shimmers, its branches lowering all the way to the ground in an unnatural movement, its trunk shifting around on itself, as does the one next to it, and the others.
Our semi-circle closes in toward Vlad and Tansy so we can form a circle, our elbows touching as we carefully drop our bags and reach for our tranquilizer guns.
I scan the environment, uncertain what could be coming our way.
The trees continue to shift, their bark peeling back toward their lowered branches, the woody surface smoothing and transforming from rough to silken red material. A woman unfurls from within each one, the tree branches morphing into arms and legs, the trunk into flowing hair and bodies swathed in diaphanous silk that doesn’t leave much of their bodies to the imagination.
Twelve women rise up around us. Serena makes thirteen. The only advantage is that now the space around us is wider.
“Sisters!” Serena calls. “Today we will take the power that belongs to us. We will share it as it should be shared.”