by Halie Fewkes
“Yeah, I guess,” Michael grumbled.
The trip back to the Dragona wouldn’t have taken so long if we could have gone normal speed, but with Michael carefully choosing every step he took, it dragged for endless hours.
Archie and I both offered to carry him, but he flatly refused and hobbled along by himself. We stopped many times to let him rest, and while we waited on the edge of a field of crab-grass, I tried to strike up a new conversation.
“Why do Escalis call us Tallies?” I asked Archie as Michael sat on a log across from us, not paying any attention. “Like the ones on the bridge. I heard them say it.”
“Tallies?” Archie repeated. I saw that he found the strangeness of the name amusing. “It’s just their name for Humans. They call us all Tallies.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know.” The question didn’t seem to be one that he found interesting, so I didn’t dwell on it further. I decided to pull out the box Mizelga had given me so I could inspect it while we waited.
The outside had been engraved with symbols and delicate flowers twisting around every side. Their colorless petals seemed to shimmer in the sun even though they were only carved from wood. The vines of the flowers were intertwined with the markings and symbols across the faces, and each symbol glowed with an unknown meaning, as though burning to be heard.
“What’s that?” Archie asked. Michael stood to look too.
“I don’t really know. Mizelga gave it to me last night while you were sleeping.”
“What’s inside?”
“I was just about to open it.”
“I’ll bet it’s something useful. Even the box looks like it’s got some magic in it,” Archie said. I lifted the lid and saw nothing spectacular, just fine black sand and a small note that read, “This will stay where you leave it.” I sifted my fingers through to see what the sand concealed, but I couldn’t find anything. Had it been stolen?
I passed the box to Archie, who observed it skeptically, scanned through the sand as well, and handed it to Michael, who also found nothing of significance.
“Pour a couple grains out and see if they do anything,” Archie suggested.
I got up and tilted the box over the stump. The sand rolled to the edge, but as soon as it left the confines of the box, it hung suspended in midair, unsupported. I poked it with my fingers and it moved in the direction I pushed it, but stayed floating. I poured a little more out and swirled it around in the air.
“That’s sort of awesome,” Michael said, which was impressive because I had the feeling that not many things amazed him. He poked at it, but for some reason, it wouldn’t budge for him. He pushed harder using his whole fist, but the sand remained stationary, hovering where I had left it. He withdrew his hand, which was then peppered with tiny bleeding holes in his skin. Of course, he needed more wounds. Archie tried to push it as well while Michael walked slowly away, but he didn’t have any luck either. It wouldn’t move for anyone but me.
Michael came back carrying a dead log, and without saying a word he smashed it onto the hovering sand, favoring one side of his body in doing so. Every single grain was immoveable and the wood got stuck in the air, held up by nothing but the grains embedded in the bottom.
“Why would it only move for you?” he asked, the unfairness clearly bothering him.
“I don’t know… Maybe because it belonged to me?”
“If it’s yours, why did Mizelga have it?” Archie wondered.
“I think I might have known her before. She told me to come talk to her once I remembered. It’s weird.”
“It is.” Archie picked up the box and ran it over the sand to scoop it up. As soon as the sand passed into the confines of the box, it fell to the bottom and looked normal once again.
We walked for hours more before Archie released the rabbit from his bag, and I was about to start off again when I saw West. I blinked my eyes to make sure I was seeing clearly, but it was definitely him, staring straight at me with solemn eyes. He stood beneath a distant, leafy maple tree that was tilting at an alarming speed, surely about to crush him. My heart stopped, and I screamed, “LOOK OUT!” but he didn’t move.
I looked quickly to Archie and Michael as the tree crashed its rustling leaves into the ground, snapping the bottommost branches.
I saw worry in their eyes, but they were looking at me rather than the fallen maple. Archie asked, “Are you seeing things again?”
“Wait… You didn’t — the tree?” I put my hand to my forehead and turned back around to see the forest undisturbed. “I’m sorry. I… I thought I saw West.”
Archie and Michael glanced at each other, and Michael said, “I’m sure he’s back at the Dragona already. He’ll probably laugh at us for taking so long.”
“Right,” I said, taking a shaky breath as my heartbeat began to calm. “I’m sure he is.”
I didn’t see anything frightening the rest of the journey until the Dragona came into view, and Archie startled me by abruptly stopping, peering ahead with a concentration that meant he heard something in the bushes too.
Chapter Fifteen
I calmed down as I noticed his intrigued grin, and he asked, “Smell that?”
I glanced around and sniffed at the air, my mind automatically registering the scent as a tama cat. No question. That, I could remember.
“It’s up ahead of us,” Archie said. “We’re going to run into it.”
“Good,” I replied. “I’m starving.”
Archie pulled out a hunting knife and disappeared into the bushes. The intensity of his attention and the silence he moved with gave away that he was a practiced hunter. That tama cat would never know he was coming.
Michael sat down to rest, and I followed stealthily after Archie, stopping at precisely the right angle to see him throw his hunting knife with impressive speed. The large cat died almost instantly as it sliced into her neck. Her paws were the size of my hands, her golden shoulders easily stood taller than the alpha male of any wolf-pack, and she was very leanly cut — meaning she had been hungry too.
“Is there anything you can’t do?” I asked, gesturing to Archie’s killer aim.
“Actually, yes,” he said, approaching the cat to withdraw the knife. “I’ve never been very good at skinning animals. Would you do the honors for me?”
“Um, no?” I replied, folding my arms with a grin. “Hunting rule number one: you kill it, you gut it.”
“I was hoping you had forgotten that with the rest of your memories.”
I dropped my jaw, but couldn’t keep from smiling as I exclaimed, “That’s horrible! You can’t say that to somebody like me.”
Archie only shrugged as he started on the cat’s hide. “It’s the truth.”
My delicate mental state never stopped Archie if he had a joke to make, and that was one of the reasons I liked having him around.
“You know what else is the truth?” I asked, knowing my retort was a bit late. “You really aren’t any good at skinning that thing. Here, give me the knife so we don’t have to wait three days to leave.”
I opened and closed my hand several times. Archie just flipped the knife blade up toward his arm so as not to brandish it, and then he held it behind him to say I couldn’t have it. “For one, Allie, I can’t believe it took you that long to think up an insult so unimpressive. For two, there’s no way you could get this done faster than me. I’ll just be a minute. If you get a quick fire going, we can eat this and leave.”
“Take your time,” Michael called from behind us, sprawled across a moss covered log to catch his breath.
In the late afternoon, we reached the Dragona with full stomachs. Archie went straight to find Anna and Sir Darius while I took Michael to the medical wing. I found myself too stubborn to ask the healing mages to look at me too, and simply headed back to my room where I hoped to crash into my bed.
Liz busted my door in as soon as I had my eyes closed. “I’m glad you’re back!” she exclaimed, pu
lling me from my bed with a hug tight enough to mirror her relief. “My hero of a sister, you are!”
I smiled to myself, glad to have Liz to come home to. “You don’t even know how glad I am to be here. Why call me a hero though?”
“Because you guys helped the Dincarans escape! You made such a commotion on the west side of the city, they managed to escape over one of the walls unseen. Most of them are here now, and they’ve told Anna and Sir Darius all about the battle. It’s still horrible, of course. They left half of their wounded behind so they could get out, but you gave them the chance.”
“They left half behind?” I exclaimed before realizing, “It was that shanking Tekadan leader! He made them leave their wounded.”
“It’s alright, we’ll get them out. Sir Darius is briefing a team of mages right now who should be able to jump in and free them. This is what the Dragona does. But anyway! Allie, are you alright?”
“Getting better at least,” I said, running my fingers over my temples and through the roots of my now shoulder-length hair. “I touched a patch of thistleweed, and the fever I got—”
“I know the feeling,” she cut me off. “I’ve had it before! I touched one leaf and I—”
A knock at the door interrupted Liz’s story, and she frowned dramatically before pulling it open.
Before Archie could say anything or even come inside, I saw a dreadful sadness in the slouch of his shoulders and asked, “Is West alright?”
I had never seen Liz shift moods so quickly, nor had I ever seen her eyes so deathly serious as she turned on me and asked, “Why, what would be wrong with him?”
“Nothing, I just wanted to make sure he made it out of the Breathing Sea.”
She exclaimed to me, “What? I thought you all came back together. Archie, he’s alright, isn’t he?”
I shouldn’t have ambushed him so quickly. I should have let him start the conversation. Liz also saw the bad news in his eyes as he struggled for the right words.
“Archie!” Liz said, as though he had the power to change the outcome with his response.
“I… I never saw him, and Anna says our mages can’t find him either. I didn’t want to say anything when we still had hope,” he looked sorrowfully at me, “but I think the Siren songs got him. I know I had to fight to keep Michael from jumping back in after them. Nobody would have been there to stop West.”
I felt water in my eyes with the realization of what that meant. Liz still didn’t comprehend.
“So how do we get him back?” she pressed.
I could see on Archie’s face that he was afraid to tell her the truth. Liz’s breathing began to quicken. In the highest octave of the Human register, she asked, “Archie?”
“I don’t think we… Liz, there’s nothing any of us—” Archie was unable to finish as Liz turned around and stormed off to her room in a mess of devastation. “That’s what I thought,” he said to himself.
I stepped hesitantly out into the tunnel to watch Liz disappear, her sobs echoing back to us.
“She’s not… mad at you,” I told Archie, turning my eyes to the ground as breathing became nearly impossible. This couldn’t be happening.
“I know, she’s just upset with the world,” he said. “This isn’t fair.”
I leaned against the wall and tried to keep from breaking down, from crying, from collapsing to the floor. And at precisely the worst possible moment, Jesse the coward rounded the corner.
He sneered when he saw us. “And here you two are, safe as worms in the dirt. I tried to tell you this would happen! Your stubbornness just cost West—”
I instantly had a rock in my hand from the cave floor, and I hurled it at Jesse, pulling West’s dagger from my calf in the same motion.
“HOLY LIFE, ALLIE!” Archie shouted as my rock shot past the instigator. I hadn’t meant to hit him, just to express the violent anger I couldn’t convey with words.
As Jesse bolted, I immediately wished I hadn’t done it. Now I was furious with myself, and I had a dagger in my hand.
“I wasn’t trying to hit him — I just hate him!” I said as Archie yanked the blade away from me. West was gone. My hair was gone. Nothing was right, and I shouldn’t have reacted so violently.
“You can’t just threaten to kill people!” Archie shouted.
“Shanking life, I know!” I said, unable to vocalize the regret already sinking in. Far angrier with myself than anybody else, I turned and thundered off toward my room, distancing myself from Archie, from Jesse, and from my outburst of rage. I quickly grabbed my hairbrush from my room then stomped back into the tunnels, amazed I didn’t run into anyone as I strode moodily through the Dragona. Still no one as I got outside and into the trees, and still nobody all the way down to the lake.
I threw my head in the water and sat angrily on a nearby boulder as I pulled my brush through hair that wouldn’t reach my waist again for years to come. My half-wet tangles fought against every stroke, and I cursed everything in sight. The boulder beneath me probably received the worst as I punched and kicked and vented on it.
An overhead screech suddenly tore through the air, and I looked to see a falcon circling before it flew off over the lake. The thistleweed fever must still be in my mind. I was clearly imagining things.
Although, in case that really was a falcon, I needed to leave.
“Stay where you are,” a deep and coarse voice said from behind me. My anger vanished as I turned to see a massive sharp-toothed Escali pointing a bow at me, his strong arms holding it still so he had perfect focus on his aim. In one fluid motion, I swung my legs to the backside of the boulder and dropped to a crouch behind it. An arrow screamed over my head, and my incredible reflexes were the only reason it hadn’t struck my heart.
My feet rested on the ledge where the shore plummeted into deep water, so I was truly stuck.
“Why don’t you come out, Allie? We both know nobody is close enough to hear you,” he said. I was startled to hear my name, and he hissed a chuckle as I held my breath. A blade thudded softly into the grass where I could see its pommel of dented sun rays. My blade. The second one I had brought to Treldinsae and dropped on the bridge. “Come out and we can talk.”
“I can talk from here,” I said, knowing I was about to find out what I meant to the Escalis, one way or another. “Just tell me what you want.”
He was almost to me, and I could sense him pulling back on the bow again—
He snarled a loud curse in Escalira, and I peered around the rock to see he had somehow caught fire. What? Flames scorched his entire body as he leapt quickly into the water, surfacing with a furious snarl that caused a woman behind us to laugh.
“If you don’t want to burn to death,” Anna stooped to pick up the bow and arrow he had dropped, her red hair literally flaming, “then enjoy drowning.” I could see the blisters on his skin already magically healing themselves when Anna shot him with his own arrow.
As soon as it made contact, the Escali froze and lost his grip on the edge of the lake. Anna and I watched his motionless body drift backwards and slowly sink. Anna said nothing, but her hair slowly stopped flaming as the Escali dropped from sight.
“Thank you,” I said, unsure of what else to say.
She remained silent as she bent and picked up the arrow shaft from the surface of the water. “Was he trying to shoot you with this?” She held it up, but the head was missing.
“Yes,” I answered, “Why? Does it mean something?”
“Yes,” she answered as she picked the one out of the water that hadn’t hit me. She held it up and I could see that the arrowhead consisted of swirling neon colors. I knew exactly what that was. “He was trying to take you alive.”
“And I still don’t know why,” I said, glad that somebody else could finally confirm I wasn’t imagining this. “Sir Avery does. Can’t you make him tell me why I’m in so much trouble with the Escalis?”
“I can’t make Sir Avery do anything.”
“T
hey know my name, Anna. That Escali had the blade I dropped in Treldinsae. He was here specifically to find me. They recognize my face. They’re trying to get something from me, or make me pay for something I once did. I don’t know.”
“Then it was awfully foolish for you to come here by yourself, Allie. Use some common sense! If you’re being targeted, you can’t wander around outside — especially alone.” Now her face betrayed the fear she was trying to hide.
“I know. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” I felt suddenly guilty.
“Don’t let there be a next time, because I probably won’t be down here.”
“Why are you down here?” I asked.
“It’s a good place to come and think, and I’ve got a lot of thinking to do after what happened in the Sea…”
I folded my arms over my chest, as though to shield my heart. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever reach a point when it didn’t ache. “It’s my fault. I pushed us to go in after the Dincarans.” I clenched my teeth together and tried to swallow the lump in my throat.
“I’m not about to argue with you, if that’s what you want,” she replied, her green eyes filled with understanding and strength, from which I couldn’t break my gaze. “That was your decision, and this is your fault. All you can do is own it.”
I only nodded in response, unable to reply. Anna turned her eyes out over the water and said, “I see a lot of myself in you, Allie. And I want to tell you something I wish someone had told me before I became a leader… The decisions you make… they’ll hurt you more often than you want, but that doesn’t mean they were wrong.”
I nodded again, thinking of tally marks. West was just one more hash to add to my list, on the side I wished to avoid. Had all fourteen of those death marks hurt this much?
“I think I know what my power is,” I said quietly. “I can understand the Escalis. Every time we run into them, I know what they’re saying.”
Anna nodded wordlessly as the sun sank lower in the sky and pink clouds reflected off the water. “You must just have incredible luck then, since you keep escaping impossible odds.” At last she sighed and said, “Let’s go back to the Dragona. We’ll get you paired up with another mage of languages to train with soon.” Anna picked up the Escali bow and neon tipped arrow and followed me through the trees as I led the way back to the Dragona. We were quiet the whole way back until we were about to part ways, and she stopped me.