by Sadie Anders
Why hadn’t every person in this bar taken note of this strange person? I wondered if this off-putting feeling was what Raphael had noticed.
Head swimming with mead, I didn’t think before pointing to them. Raphael had to know.
My sudden movement must have alerted them. They had been made. They stood up, not seeming to be in a rush however, and exited the Kylix into the night.
I ran after the mysterious person, but Raphael tried to hold me back.
“Wait,” he said. “It could be dangerous.”
I burst through the Kylix’s door and out into the night. I heard a loud whoosh, and then there was a bright flash of light that briefly disoriented me.
When I could see again, there was nobody there. The streets were empty, with nothing but the quiet, closed for business shops of the alleyway. I stood for a long time in the chilly night, my breath making a billowy column against the cold air. Raphael stood silently behind me.
I turned to re-enter the bar.
“Why did you go after them? They could have been trying to draw you out.”
“I needed to find out what they wanted from me. Didn’t you notice how strange they were?”
“I noticed their searching, their power, but not much else.”
“Yes, but I meant their eyes.”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t notice anything about the way they looked. I didn’t recognize them. All I saw was shadow.”
“It was the color of their eyes, or how otherworldly they looked. It was like darkness if it could glow. I don’t know how to describe it. But it made me very uneasy.”
Raphael nodded his head, deep in thought. He didn’t have an explanation for what I had seen. Neither did I.
Maybe that wasn’t what I had seen. I was feeling a little lightheaded. You certainly couldn’t trust your senses to be faithful in the middle of a night of frolicking and fun. I tried to shake off the uneasy feeling that I had. It was probably nothing.
I also didn’t mention the weird pull that I felt towards the person, the imaginary rope that stretched between us. That was entirely too strange to describe.
“Well, it’s for the best that they’re gone now,” he said. Still, I couldn’t help but feel that they were not, in fact, gone. I didn’t feel alone with Raphael. It was like there was a presence hovering just out of the corner of my eye, even though there was clearly nobody in the alleyway with us.
Raphael wrapped his arm around my shoulders and led me back into the Kylix, the din of joy and revelry overcoming us as we walked back inside.
9
The meadows by the portal gate were covered with a thick layer of mist. Fog had rolled in from the higher ground, the hills surrounding the lovely pastoral area, and had decided to hang in the air. It made it difficult to see beyond a few feet around us.
Our little band of travelers had agreed to meet outside of the city so that it would be more difficult for anybody to follow us. Staggering our arrival seemed to be the best bet, and Raphael and I were the first to arrive. We pulled the car into a line of trees concealed from the clearing, hoping that it would be out of sight from the main road. Since we were out of the city, we took the potion to clear us of our glamours before exiting the car. Maybe there wasn’t a need for it today, as it did eat up some of my energy and power. As the false image disappeared, as attractive as it was, I smiled at the real Raphael coming into view. It was nice to see him again, like coming home to someone familiar.
A yawn surprised me, and I couldn’t stifle it. Raphael laughed and gave me a small kiss on the top of my head, pulling me into a hug. I loved the feel of his arms around me, the safety and security of it. I had awoken that morning, bleary-eyed, in Raphael’s arms, and leaving the bed that we shared together was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. I wasn’t sure how late we had stayed up, and I wasn’t sure how much sleep we had actually gotten once we went to our room. Raphael and I could never keep our hands off of each other for long. The night was a blur of feelings and sensations, and I could tell that my feelings for this man were deepening into something truly special.
Time was altogether impossible for me to keep track of in Asphodel. Perpetual twilight was beautiful but disorienting. And I kind of liked it that way. It was like a never-ending weekend, the kind where you had nowhere to be and no use for a clock.
Except that I did have somewhere to be. I had to find this mystical device that likely didn’t even exist, and I had to do it now. The Furies had not so subtly threatened my uncle if I didn’t comply with their wishes. I wasn’t too crazy about helping them under those conditions, but people kept telling me that when it came to the Furies, you never had much of a choice. You did what they wanted, and that was the end of the story.
But I wasn’t so sure it was that simple. You always had a choice. Your options may not be good ones, but free will existed. I was sure of it, and those ancient harpies weren’t going to convince me otherwise.
Leaving the forest, we walked a little bit towards the main road, far enough so that we were visible by the tree line if someone were looking to find us. While we waited, I thought about the options that I had, how best to use my freedom.
About ten minutes later, Kai approached on foot, a brown satchel slung across his body. I felt guilty. If I had known that he was going to walk from Aporia, I would have altered the plan slightly and given him a ride.
A smile crossed his face as we noticed him. He looked refreshed and rejuvenated, and I could only imagine what I looked like by comparison. Probably as tired as I felt. Probably not my best. I reached up to my hair, smoothing it down.
“Greetings, fellow adventurers,” Kai said, raising his arms in the air.
Was this guy ever in a bad mood? My head ached dully from the night before. Maybe I was crabbier then I should have been.
I raised my hand to wave at him. “Morning, Kai.”
Raphael patted Kai on the shoulder warmly. “Cleon should be along soon. He’s scheduled to come about a quarter hour after you.”
A rustling came from the densely wooded trees behind us. I jumped a little, startled at the sound.
“I have already arrived.” A person pushed back the brush from a tangle of bushes and emerged into the clearing.
Cleon.
So much for sticking to a plan, but I supposed it didn’t matter. It didn’t appear that anybody had followed us. We were alone here at the edge of the copse of trees, just our little adventuring party, now complete.
Raphael huffed and nodded towards the area where we had parked our car. “This way,” he said gruffly.
“Yes, let us begin,” Kai said. “Adventure awaits us.”
Such a silly guy, but I thought he was great all the same.
We piled into the car, Kai and Cleon in the back and Raphael and myself in the front. I thought it would be best to keep Cleon next to the cheeriest one in the bunch, or at least away from Raphael. I could tell that he didn’t like that man, and I didn’t want it to get in the way of what we needed to do here.
The road away from the city was quite scenic. The forest that surrounded the outskirts of Aporia soon gave way to rolling hillsides, green and lush in their beauty, with several rivers weaving in and out of the area. Rustic bridges made of wood and iron crossed over them, and each time we passed over one of these bodies of water, I felt a surge of power, like air suddenly filling my lungs. Each time, it made me feel like we were crossing a threshold of some sort. The feeling was odd, but nobody else said anything about it. Maybe I was the only one that felt it. Or maybe traveling in this realm simply felt different than traveling back home.
The Apollonian had told us to leave the city immediately and head toward the valley of Phocis, to cross the meadows and marshes to get there. According to Cleon, we would be able to drive as far as the village of Mantineia, the last town before the great swamps that made up the interior of Asphodel. Nobody had been able to construct highways through the marshes, so we would have to tr
avel them on the small footpath that the locals had built.
Once we crossed the marshes, the valley of Phocis, the last piece of civilization before we entered the Empyrean, awaited on the other side. That was as far as Cleon could accompany us, and he would wait there for our return. That was the plan, anyway.
I let my head rest against the glass and watched the countryside fly by. Nobody was interested in talking much, so I made the most of enjoying the scenery. I let my mind wander for what seemed like hours, imagining which area I had called home when I was a little girl here in Asphodel.
Had I lived in the lower city of Aporia in the crush of people and buildings? Or had I lived in one of these little countryside villages, with their terracotta roofs dotting the valleys?
I visualized a life here, one in which I was raised by my parents. Birthday parties. Learning magic as a child. Siblings. A pang of regret flowed through me. My life could have been very different if I had stayed in Asphodel. Still, Uncle Julian had done his best to give me a good home, and I wasn’t sure that I would have wanted things to have been any different. And if the situation were bad enough that he needed to take me away from Asphodel, then it was probably all for the best. I had to trust that Uncle Julian was looking out for me, that he had made the right choice.
After a while, the previous night caught up to me, and I couldn’t help but get sleepy. In retrospect, Kai’s rule about partying before leaving on an adventure didn’t seem like great advice after all.
The countryside became a blur of greens and violets as my eyes unfocused. I leaned my head against the window and let my eyes close for a moment, hoping to get rejuvenated enough to focus on this mission. I thought of how warm Raphael’s arms had been, how comfortable our bed at the Kylix was, and how I couldn’t wait for the chance to check into an inn together. Every night that I spent with him was better than the last, and I had a feeling that sharing a moment of solitude with him was the only way that I was going to get through this pointless trip.
I was standing at the edge of a metallic and crystalline city. It was magnificent in its brilliance, reflecting the light of the sun, blinding me temporarily.
I walked through the gates of the city, alone. Although it was futuristic in design, its architecture foreign and advanced, the city appeared to be entirely abandoned, without a soul in sight. Still, I felt drawn to the city center, compelled to continue on. Something, someone maybe, was waiting for me.
As I proceeded, the buildings soared above me, their spires reaching endlessly up into the sky. The crystalline towers worked as a prism, taking the daylight and breaking it into its component colors and casting the ground below in brilliant multi-colored hues.
I looked down at my body. Beams of light cast the same hues on my skin, except I could feel them moving through me, cascading down my arms and legs. Pure white light began to flow from my fingertips. I held up my hand in front of my face, looking closely at the phenomenon. I closed my hand into a fist, and the light was contained.
I kept walking.
I came into a courtyard. A small fountain was in the center, with water bubbling and flowing as if nobody were missing from the cityscape. I felt the urge to climb into the water, to feel the coolness on my warm skin. The water was azure, clean, and inviting.
I leaned over to look down into the fountain. Instead of my own reflection, a being was looking back at me. They were not human. Instead, an inverse silhouette was looking back at me.
A being made entirely of light.
No features were discernible. Merely luminescence with the outline of a human form.
I leaned in closer. Suddenly, I was careening in head first, breaking the surface of the water, my body crashing through.
And I continued to fall.
And fall.
I startled awake and heard myself give a little snort. My eyes flew open. Raphael let out a small laugh but kept his eyes on the road ahead.
Had I been snoring?
Oh, no.
I was sure that the other passengers loved that. I turned around to look at the back seat. Kai was fast asleep, with his head back and his mouth wide open. I didn’t feel so bad about dozing off, then. Cleon was reading a book, but he didn’t look up to acknowledge me.
“What are you reading?” I asked.
He held up the cover for me to see.
Myths and Legends of the Arcadians and Phocians.
He lowered it once again and returned to reading. I turned back around and put my hand on Raphael’s leg. He wrapped his hand around my own and squeezed tenderly.
“How long have we been driving?” The sky was the same purple hued twilight, so it was no use in trying to guess.
“About nine hours,” he said.
All day. I had no idea Asphodel was so large. Then again, I had nothing to base my estimation on. I was completely unfamiliar with its geography aside from what Cleon and Raphael had told me in the past two days.
My stomach rumbled with hunger. I didn’t want to be the kid in the back seat of the car asking Are we there yet? But I wasn’t built to go without my snacks. A girl had to eat.
“How many miles until the village?”
Raphael raised an eyebrow. “Village? Not far.”
I wondered if Raphael had eaten before we had left, or how often he needed to do so. It wasn’t something we had really ever discussed. He hadn’t left my side since I had arrived in the upper city, so he hadn’t gone to hunt. I suspected that this would make him weaker in general, but I had no idea if it was painful for him. Hunger wasn’t a nice feeling.
I wasn’t sure how to ask him about this. He had fed off of me once before, when he had been injured by the Furies as a means to weaken him. When I had offered to let him feed on me again, he had said that it wasn’t something that should be done often. An unbreakable connection formed between magical people who shared this act, especially if the other person was a witch, which is why vampires typically fed on humans from my realm. The connection wasn’t the same, and the effects were far more predictable.
I wondered what the vampires had been doing for food since the Furies had limited travel between the realms.
There was so much that I had to learn, but the first step to knowledge was asking a question.
“I’m hungry. Are you?” I asked simply, trying to sound casual, but the crack in my voice made me think I wasn’t completely successful at that.
“Always.”
“Should we make arrangements for you? What do we need to do?”
“You shouldn’t worry about it, and I can’t do much about it right now anyway.”
He looked over at me, and his face softened when he saw my concern.
“I’ll be okay. Don’t worry, my love,” he added.
Love.
That was the first time he had used that word around me. My heart leapt when he said it. Love. I hadn’t really thought about it because everything had been such a whirlwind, but that was what I was starting to feel. I knew that he was using it as a term of endearment and not in that way, but it still felt good to hear it cross his lips. He squeezed my hand with reassurance.
Before long, we were approaching our destination. Mantineia seemed much larger than I had expected. Instead of a one-street village, I saw a bustling city, not quite as big as Aporia, but still sizable. Fortified walls of white rock surrounded much of the town. They looked ancient, like they wouldn’t stop much of an invasion nowadays, but they were imposing all the same.
As we entered the city limits, we drove across the top of a large dam that circled the backside of the city, the part accessible from the highway, giving us a glimpse of the city below. The dam held back a vast watery plain that stretched into a forest.
The marshes.
The ones that we would have to traverse soon. The dense swamps looked much more daunting than I had imagined. I was expecting something like a little creek, not something to rival the Everglades.
We drove toward the city center, w
here there were fewer private houses and more commercial traffic. Surely, there would be a place to stay nearby. We found a hidden little alleyway where we could park the car for an undetermined amount of time. It would be harder to get back home if we got towed away. Raphael hid our car with a cloaking spell, and we made our way into the city streets.
After walking a block or two, I couldn’t help but notice that we were attracting a lot of stares. I guessed they didn’t have many outsiders here, but I would be surprised if that were true in a city this size. Regardless, people were keeping a close eye on us.
About a five minute walk from where we had started, I found a nice-looking hotel, small but serviceable. The wooden sign above the door read The Waxing Gibbous. We entered, and the guys waited in the main hallway as I circled into the sitting room, a low-ceilinged but quaint area.
The inn looked like a bed and breakfast in England, full of flowery decor and handmade furniture. A fire crackled in the fire place, and several cushy arm chairs sat facing it. A tableful of books welcomed people to curl up and read. My kind of place.
I rang the bell on the counter for an attendant. A mousy-looking witch emerged from behind a curtain to the back room. She smiled when she saw me.
“Yes, yes. How can I help?” she asked.
“I’d like a few rooms for the evening.”
She eyed me up and down.
“It seems to me like one person only needs one room.”
I laughed and then pointed toward the doorway. She jumped a bit when she saw my traveling companions, as if she were actually startled by them.
“I’m sorry. No rooms available.”
That was strange. I didn’t get the feeling that she was booked up. The hotel was completely empty aside from us.
“That’s too bad. Can you recommend another inn?”
“They’re all unavailable.”
Okay, she was clearly being evasive, but I wasn’t sure why.