Their gliders flew on, guided by the shifting X. They were no longer required to identify landmarks but surveyed their surroundings nonetheless. The terracotta-hued terrain passing beneath them had a stark beauty all of its own. Scrubby, whitewashed bushes pimpled the flat reddish base, scattered with rocky mesas and buttes of varying sizes emerging from earthy mounds of eroded soil. Larger plateaus made sporadic appearances, granting the landscape a semblance of balance.
Twenty minutes passed before Jaden noticed the bats getting antsy. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s almost twilight,” Taz replied, her voice betraying her stress.
“And that’s supposed to mean something?”
“It’s prime time for Gaptor attacks,” Han explained.
“Oh, something we definitely want to avoid!” Jaden responded. “Let’s land and rest. My legs are aching.”
“Mine too,” Kayla confessed. “A break will be nice, and there’s no point risking an attack when we’re all tired. Besides, it’ll be nice not to see that beast’s ugly mug for another day if we can help it.”
Taz gave a toothy smile, leading them toward a rocky outcropping rising from the barren land.
It was tough to tell in the growing darkness, but Jaden thought the outcropping would make an excellent resting place and provide shelter should the Gaptor make an appearance. He revised his thinking when he noticed the way Taz drooled at the trees skirting the eastern edge. “Those trees looking tasty?” Jaden teased.
Taz’s nose twitched. “Yes, the leaves smell delectable.”
Jaden chuckled. “I’m not the only one who thinks about food.”
“The difference is that I don’t think about it all the time,” Taz retorted.
Jaden laughed. He passed his hand over the disc as they descended, and the map disappeared. The sudden absence of the soft light from the lines made it feel darker. Could it be indicative of their situation? The unexpected, pessimistic inkling made Jaden realize how exhausted he was.
Jaden amended his earlier suggestion. “On second thought, why don’t we settle here for the night instead and pick it up again tomorrow? Keen as I am to get answers, I’m sacked.”
Delighted agreement from the others confirmed he had made the right call. Considering their level of fatigue, the tempting prospect of relaxation was tough to resist. The day’s events had taken their toll, physically, mentally, and emotionally, and the group was quiet as they dropped the last few feet.
Jaden longed to be on the ground already. He desperately needed the respite a decent night’s sleep would provide—and it was the only way he’d have a hope of functioning coherently tomorrow. Who knew what they would be called to do? Shaky with fatigue by the time they touched down, Jaden slipped to the ground, too drained to eat and definitely too tired to care about the others. Dragging his sleeping shell from his backpack, Jaden tossed it onto the dusty desert floor. Wordlessly, he crawled inside, closed his eyes, and shut out all thoughts except sleep.
Chapter Three
Jaden opened his eyes the next morning to find the sky sprinkled with a billion stars. He watched them wink out when bathed by the faint radiance of early dawn. Sitting up, he rubbed sleep from his eyes, noticing the gliders’ absence. Probably out foraging. The thought of food made his stomach growl. He’d missed dinner last night and was ravenous.
Glancing over to where Kayla still slept, submerged in her shell, he quietly rummaged in his backpack for food. The two power bars weren’t his first choice, but they would have to do. Despite chewing each mouthful a hundred times, he was still hungry. He knew he should wait for the food to make its way through his digestive system before eating more, so he tried drowning his hunger pangs with water.
Eager to do something other than think about his empty stomach, Jaden stood and stretched, observing for the first time in the half-light that their little camp was near the edge of a precipice. Wandering to the rim, he studied his surroundings.
The plateau overlooked a deep, shadowed, rocky valley. On the far side, another sheer cliff climbed to the sky. Dark holes of varying sizes, presumably caves, pockmarked the walls of the opposing cliff. Are the cliffs concealed beneath me similarly covered?
Strolling along the edge, Jaden absorbed the stark beauty of the empty terrain, gradually revealed in vivid purples, delicate pinks, chocolate browns, and olive greens as the sun edged above the horizon. It was stunning for a landscape devoid of conventionally appealing elements.
Hearing something, he turned and saw Kayla ambling over. Just the sight of her made his day. He grinned. Her hair, still slightly mussed from sleep, curled in waves around her gorgeous face. Her dreamy eyes and languid movements told him she wasn’t quite awake yet. “Morning.”
Kayla grinned. “Morning. Sleep well?” Her eyes teased his lack of etiquette at going to sleep without so much as a word to any of them.
“Yeah. I was totally wasted. Sorry if I left you hanging with the bats—no pun intended.”
Kayla laughed. “No worries. Actually, we just followed suit and crashed too. Where do you think they are?”
“Out finding food. Have you eaten?”
“No, I like to wake up before I eat, but I suppose the same isn’t true for you?”
“Missing a meal is never good for me. I’ve eaten the power bars we rationed for breakfast, but I’m still hungry.”
“You could always eat what we planned for last night’s dinner,” Kayla proposed, giggling as Jaden pulled a face.
“It’s one thing to eat tuna for dinner when you can sleep off the smell but quite another to have it for breakfast and reek of it all day.”
Kayla smirked. “That depends on how hungry you are.”
“You have a point.” Jaden smiled. “But you’d better not complain about it later today.”
Kayla drew a hand across her lips as though sealing them. Jaden chuckled, and they sauntered back to their transitory camp.
“So, what do you think that was last night?” Kayla asked while they scratched in their bags for food. Jaden raised his eyebrows, and she elaborated. “The moving ‘x?’”
“Not sure. With this quest, my wild imagination has me thinking the weirder the explanation, the more likely it is that it’s the right one.”
“So what’s your wild theory?”
“I’d guess the name in the book, Soquazba, only gave us a general idea of the area we should head toward. If we’d ‘turned on’ the map earlier, we might’ve seen when the ‘x’ appeared. But lacking that information, I’d go out on a limb and speculate the ‘x’ only materialized when we were within range of our endpoint. And to make it interesting, let’s say it also only popped up because we’re the ‘right’ people looking for it.”
Kayla laughed. “Okay, remind me to not ask you difficult questions in the morning if I don’t want wacky answers.”
They settled on their sleeping shells with their food. It didn’t take long to demolish the meager portions. Afterward, they lounged on their shells, waiting for their bats to return. Thirty minutes later, they were still waiting.
“Those bats sure are taking their sweet time,” Kayla grumbled. “Let’s take another look at the map. Maybe we can make sense of that ‘x’ and figure out how far we still have to travel.”
Jaden plucked the disc from the inside pocket of his windbreaker. Two seconds later, the map floated around them. Again, the change was impossible to miss.
Gone was their two-dimensional map with its guiding “X.” Instead, a three-dimensional landscape glowed in front of them, yesterday’s lines shifting vertically to varying heights so they now depicted more readily recognizable features. Most notable, though, was the appearance of a dot, blinking slowly, on the highest part of the map. It reminded Jaden of a cursor on an antiquated computer monitor, waiting for a command.
Agitated by the radical change, Jaden paced. “First an ‘x’ and now a dot! What’s next? A lightning bolt on the exact spot?”
Cradling the ma
p in the palm of his hand, Jaden waited for the landscape to move around him as it had with the “X.” The image didn’t budge. But is the dot flashing a little faster? Convinced it was his imagination, Jaden stopped pacing and glared at the offending speck. Its tempo remained constant. Whirling, he stalked back toward their camp, monitoring the dot. And this time, when the blinking slowed unmistakably, he knew he hadn’t imagined it.
He glanced at Kayla, wanting confirmation she had noticed it too, but she was staring off into the distance, searching for the bats. “Hey,” Jaden called, “check this out. Follow me and watch the dot. Tell me if you think it blinks faster.”
Kayla rolled her eyes. She evidently wasn’t in the mood for games.
Jaden ignored her reaction. He swiveled and strode away, grinning when he heard her blow out a long sigh before stomping after him. She drew level, looking annoyed. But the annoyance faded when, almost imperceptibly, the dot blinked a little faster. Jaden’s smile widened as she craned her neck to get closer, eyeing the dot like a bird watching a live snake.
The dot didn’t disappoint. The further they moved from the camp, the more rapidly it flashed.
Kayla noticed Jaden’s grin. Her brow furrowed. “Try going back the other way,” she ordered.
Jaden complied, and the closer they got to their camp, the slower the dot pulsed.
“Hmm, I have an idea,” Kayla said.
“What?”
“Did you ever play that game as a kid where you hid something from someone and then let them find it by telling them they were getting hotter or colder according to their distance from the item?”
“Who didn’t?” he answered. “You think this might work the same way? That it blinks faster when we get closer and vice versa?”
“I do. Let’s follow it and see where it leads.”
Studying the dot, they left the camp, adjusting their course several times when it became obvious they weren’t traveling in a straight line. But it wasn’t long before they established their destination.
“That hill over there—you think that’s where the dot is leading us?” Jaden asked.
“Yup. It’s the highest point in this area, which coincides with the map.”
Sure enough, the dot blinked frantically when they reached the sharp rise in elevation that marked the outer edge of the mini-butte.
“How’s your climbing?” Jaden asked, indicating the squat rocky face that rose steeply, but for only a short distance.
“Guess we’ll find out,” Kayla muttered. She reached out and gripped a rocky bulge. “Onward and upward!”
Jaden took a moment to watch as she labored up the rock face. Climbing wasn’t her forte. But she hadn’t complained or backed down. He grinned. She wouldn’t let him get to the top and find answers without her. He waited a little longer before scrambling up after her, making sure he stayed behind her in case she needed help. Cresting the summit, he found Kayla eyeing him deprecatingly.
“You didn’t mention you were a mountain goat.”
“You have little choice when you live near mountains and have friends like Markov and Stovan.”
She nodded understanding and flopped onto her back to catch her breath.
Jaden moved to sit next to her. When her labored breathing eased, Jaden retrieved the disc from his zippered jacket pocket and extracted the map. As anticipated, the dot was almost a permanent mark, the period between blinks virtually invisible.
Since the only way to move was forward, they rose and advanced. The apex of the hill wasn’t as flat as it had appeared from the base. The ground underfoot was uneven, strewn with rocks near the edge, giving way to lumpy mounds of earth closer to the center. Creeping forward so they didn’t accidentally roll an ankle, the pair couldn’t avoid noticing when the dot stopped blinking and exuded a soft, steady glow instead.
“I think we’re there,” Jaden murmured.
“Fat lot of use that does us; there’s nothing here! What are we supposed to do now?”
Jaden examined the area. She was right. They stood on the only flat, bare piece of earth amidst the hillocky earth surrounding it. No rocks, no trees, no blaring neon sign declaring they had reached their destination. “Hmm, not sure. Any ideas?”
“Maybe it’s buried?”
“Like treasure?”
Kayla rolled her eyes for the second time that day. “Have any better suggestions?”
“No, but since the area we’re standing on seems to be soil, not rock, your theory has credibility.”
“Wow, thanks,” Kayla acknowledged, not bothering to hide her sarcasm.
Jaden grinned. She was adorable when irritated. She reminded him of an angry pixie. What would she do if he told her that? The thought made him grin all the more because she would most likely clock him.
“What are you smiling at?”
“Nothing,” Jaden hummed, bending over and scratching at the soil so she wouldn’t see the laughter he was struggling to suppress.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Kayla studying him as though she knew he wasn’t telling her something. Then she sighed. Bending, she scratched alongside Jaden. Hardened by decades of weathering, the packed earth was unyielding.
“If we must dig, we’ll need tools,” Kayla grunted a minute later.
Agreeing it would be too much effort to go down to their camp and then realizing they had nothing helpful there anyway, they scoured the immediate area for makeshift implements. Some loose, flat rocks scattered closer to the edge appeared suitable, so they picked out a few and returned to the site, setting their chosen rocks on the ground. It was a pitiful assembly, but preferable to using their bare hands. Selecting a thin piece, narrow on one end and wide at the other, Jaden dug.
Kayla copied him, and it wasn’t long before fine dust coated them. It was grueling work. The soil was baked solid, and the stones were difficult to work with. Their rough exteriors and unwieldy shapes weren’t conducive to the task. But they pressed on, determined to find whatever the dot had led them to.
An hour later, Jaden noticed he wasn’t the only one sweating profusely. Neither was he the only one with hands raw from the fine particles coating the stones scraping against his skin with every downward shove. They were parched and worn out. Kayla caught him staring and gave a half-shrug. In unison, they flopped onto their backs, panting.
“Maybe there’s nothing here,” Jaden said, uncharacteristically ready to pursue another course of action, or at the very least, entertain other ideas.
“There must be something. What other reason could there be for the dot to stop flashing and start glowing? Can you see anything else out there hinting at a different scenario?” she asked, gesturing meaningfully toward the empty area around them.
Jaden scowled, disgruntled by the prospect of more digging. “Is it possible that whatever was here isn’t anymore?”
“If that were true, the soil wouldn’t be concrete.”
They were silent for a few moments, Jaden sensing Kayla’s determination to dig more and Kayla apparently sensing his reluctance.
Jaden gave in. “Look, could we maybe agree to dig for another thirty minutes and then call it quits?”
She considered his suggestion. “Desperate as I am to find something, I’m also tired. And hungry. And thirsty. In thirty minutes, the hole will probably be deep enough to convince me nothing’s buried here.”
“You agree? Thirty minutes more, and then we stop?”
“Yes, another thirty minutes only. But no slacking! I didn’t turn my nails into jagged stumps for nothing.”
“Deal.” Jaden beamed. Her request was reasonable, and with an end in sight, he felt invigorated.
Twenty-three minutes later, they hit a rock. A large one, stretching almost all the way across the opening they had made. They stopped digging, eyeing one another.
“What now?” Jaden asked.
“We still have seven minutes. Let’s try pry it out. Whatever we’re looking for might be under the rock.”
“Not what I wanted to hear, but yeah, I agree. All we’ve hit so far is sand. This rock is definitely out of place.”
With hopes of imminent victory, they doubled their efforts. Burrowing around the rock took an exhausting fifteen minutes. They were so focused on the task, neither noticed how large the rock was until they sat back and viewed it.
Jaden scratched his head. “We’re not getting that out of there without some leverage.”
“There were some trees on the eastern edge of the rocks by our camp. Maybe we could break a branch off?”
“If we could break the branch off, I doubt it would support the weight of the stone.”
“Ugh!” Kayla groaned, throwing the rock she had been digging with onto one of the small mounds of earth a short distance away. “Why can’t we catch a break?”
As she said this, the rock landed and made a soft, clinking sound.
Jaden’s head jerked up. “Did you hear that?”
Kayla sprang to her feet and darted toward the heap, Jaden right behind.
Finding her discarded rock, Kayla snatched it and pawed at the sand underneath. A tiny, rusted bit of metal poked through. Hurriedly scrubbing away the dirt around the exposed portion, Kayla revealed part of a metal bar. Without speaking, they attacked the soil with their rocks, exposing what lay there: an antiquated, round-nosed metal shovel.
Chapter Four
Jaden groaned. “Now we find a shovel!”
Kayla grinned. “No, we found a lever.”
Her face was so full of pride it was impossible not to laugh. “We did! Let’s hope it’s not too rusted to be of use.”
Lifting the ancient tool, Jaden carried it back to the hole. With the nose of the shovel wedged under the widest part of the rock, he directed Kayla to the other side of the handle. They each applied one hand to the open end of the handle and the other hand to the metal bar leading down to the nose.
Kayla’s face flushed with excitement. The dirt smearing her cheeks did nothing to diminish her appeal. Jaden felt a curious ache in his chest as he thought of the dangers they would have to face. He only hoped they would both get out of this in one piece. “Ready?”
Destiny Series Boxed Set Page 30