Her arms and legs refused to move. Her breath came ragged and labored. Her skin felt clammy from sweat. She drew on the last of her strength to seek Nick’s power again and then turned her head into the dirt and dissolved into sobs.
“Take a deep breath,” Nick whispered in her ear. She felt his arms circle her body. “Breathe, Meg. Just breathe.”
She focused on his words and on what he had told her to do. She had started to hyperventilate from sobbing, but as she concentrated on her breath, on drawing it slowly into her lungs and exhaling it with the same control, she found comfort and the edges of calm.
“That’s it.” He flattened his hand against the side of her face, pushing her hair away and wiping tears from her cheeks. “It’s all right,” he said. “You’re all right.”
She nodded, though she could not be certain those words would ever be true again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MEAGHAN FROWNED into the mug in her hand, a series of unsavory swear words coursing through her head, but she thought better of voicing any of them. Nick’s temper met her from the other side of the small fire he had built, stiffening his face, and she understood any complaint would merit a stern lecture. She had choked down the first mug of jicab tea, and then the second when he had refilled it, but the third seemed impossible. She did not know how much longer she could drink this stuff. Her initial dislike of the brown liquid had now grown to outright hatred with each subsequent dose. It tasted terrible. It looked like mud. It twisted her stomach into protesting knots. It was a vile, nasty, torturous concoction.
And it helped, though she loathed admitting it. It calmed her nerves and eased tension from her body. She brought it to her lips and sipped, hoping Nick would lose interest in watching her soon so she could dump it out.
They were back in the woods. Nick had carried her after she had passed out. She had never roused. Not while he had moved her, not while he had built the fire, and not while more magical bombs had exploded overhead. She had slept, then awoken to daylight and tea. The battle still raged in the ravine below them. A quick release of her link to Nick’s power told her as much. She blocked out the emotions again and closed her eyes. Even the brief few seconds she had tapped into the pain and confusion had weighed on her heart.
She felt Nick sit next to her on the log, his thigh brushing hers as his arm circled her waist. Then he removed the mug from her hand and pulled her against him. She opened her eyes, and then turned her head into his shoulder.
“I don’t know why you keep doing that,” he said. The ringing no longer filled her ears and she could hear him, and the frustration in his voice, clearly. He drew a hand to her cheek. “I can feel your distress,” he continued, “even now. Your fear and your pain, too. But they’re not yours, are they?” She shook her head, though she knew he did not need the confirmation. “Why did you do it?”
“I wanted to know if they were gone,” she whispered.
“You didn’t need to. I looked five minutes ago.”
“I wanted to check for myself.”
He brought his hand to her brow. “And the first time? You were already watching them.”
“I needed to know what it felt like. I needed to know what they were going through.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because,” she hesitated, not sure how to answer. “Because I felt like I had a responsibility to know.”
“Because they’re your people?” he guessed. She looked away, not confirming what he had said, but not denying it either. “If you wanted to know what it felt like to be in a battle, I could’ve told you.”
“Hearing about it isn’t the same as feeling it.”
“It’s not,” he agreed, “but you felt everyone, Meg. That’s not the same either.”
“I suppose not,” she conceded. Drawing the cup to her lips, she sipped from it before she remembered what it contained. She lowered the mug to the ground. “I didn’t realize you’d fought. How many battles have you been in?”
“Three,” he responded, then stood and moved to the fire. “Being assigned to you has given me some protection. I’ve only had to fight in the battles closest to my village. Many of my friends have been in dozens of battles throughout the kingdom.”
“Have you had to kill anyone?”
“Yes,” he answered. His voice remained neutral, but she caught a glimpse of pain on his face before he turned from her. “We should go,” he said, kicking dirt over the flames to suffocate them. “It’ll be dark soon.”
Meaghan picked up her mug from the ground. After dumping out the remainder of the tea, she stood and went to the backpack, putting the mug away before slinging the bag over her shoulders.
“Can we get down into the ravine?” she asked.
“Past the edge of the battle there’s a path leading to the bottom. I’ve already scouted it out. It should be safe.”
He turned and led the way back to the field. Half an hour later, they descended a steep slope into the ravine. A full moon guided their way, unobscured by the few clouds hanging in the sky. Although the bright night provided easier travels along the rocky path, it also gave Meaghan a clear view of the battle. From this far away, she could barely make out the figures as people. Those who remained standing looked like toy soldiers fighting on a board game. And those who lay dead on the ground looked like patches of color blanketing the field. Like wilted wild flowers, she realized and turned her head, disturbed by the image.
“Have they been fighting this whole time?” she asked Nick.
“The Mardróch don’t sleep,” he responded. “Don’t look again. You’ve seen enough.”
She trained her eyes on the earth as her feet moved over it, but her mind remained on the battle. “They must be exhausted.”
“They have potions to help them stay awake.” Nick stopped walking, placing a hand on her arm to keep her beside him. “You need to focus on something else. This isn’t good for you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. Have you forgotten I can sense your fear?”
“No, I’m—” she started to protest, then turned her eyes to the battle and felt her heart race. Somehow, she had managed to tune out her own emotions. But they still remained. She tore her eyes away. “I didn’t realize.”
“It’s all right. It’s hard the first time. We all find a way to cope.”
Nick began walking again and Meaghan followed his pace.
“How old were you when you saw your first battle?” she asked.
“Sixteen,” he responded, but said no more about it. He took her hand in his and changed the subject. “This reminds me of our first trip to the mountains the week after I moved into the apartment. Do you remember it?”
It still embarrassed her to think about it. “I was horrible to you.”
“You were.” He squeezed her hand. “Until you and I went hiking alone the second day.”
“You mean until we got lost the second day,” she said.
“I wasn’t lost. I knew where we were.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t lie to me. You were as scared as I was. I could tell.”
“I was, but not of being lost. Using my power on Earth was tiring. By the time you thought we were lost in the woods, I had been using it for nearly two days without a break and I was exhausted. Since the emotion I was hiding fit the situation, I dropped my guard.”
“What were you afraid of?
“You,” he confessed. “You terrified me.”
“I did? But,” her eyebrows drew together, “why?”
He shrugged. “Building a bond with you was the only task I’d been given and within a week of meeting you, it was clear I’d failed. You hated me. At least the hike helped. By the end of it, we’d had our first full conversation.”
“About Alfred Hitchcock movies,” she said and laughed. “How did you even know about him? It’s not like you grew up watching the films like I did.”
“Uncle James,” Nick answered. �
��I came to Earth a few months before I moved in with him and Viv. They put me up in a hotel on the other side of town and taught me everything they could so I didn’t seem out of place when I met you. James told me once they were your favorite movies, so I asked him to bring them to me. I watched all of them at least twice.”
The effort Nick had made to get her to like him surprised Meaghan, and it made her feel worse about the way she had treated him.
“I didn’t hate you,” she said, her voice soft with her shame. “I was angry with my parents for inviting you and I took it out on you. I didn’t get much time with them after I started college. Our camping trips were sacred to me and I thought you were an encroaching stranger.” She paused as reality changed how she viewed the memory. “I didn’t know they were your aunt and uncle. That trip must have meant more to you than it did to me.”
“The trip did mean a lot to me,” he told her, halting them both once more so he could lower his lips to her forehead. “It was nice to be able to spend with them again. But the trip meant more afterwards when I realized you and I could be friends. Not all Guardians are lucky enough to get along so well with their charges.” He released her hand and stepped back. “You impressed me that day, you know, the way you took control and found your way back to the campsite. It was the first time you reminded me of your mother. Or at least of how people describe her.”
Her birth mother, Meaghan realized he meant. She swallowed the lump forming in her throat, unsure if she felt fear or pride from his comment, but saved from deciding by a groan coming from below them. She scanned the path ahead and spotted a pile of clothing where the trail met the floor of the ravine. Not clothing, she realized, but a man, broken and bleeding. She ran toward him.
“Meg,” Nick called after her in warning. She slowed, letting Nick catch up to her. He gripped her shoulders, pulling her behind him. “Stay here,” he instructed. He approached the man, then knelt down beside him and turned him onto his back. The man’s groans turned to cries of pain.
“I need the backpack,” Nick told her.
She brought it to him, remaining at his side to examine the man closer. Blood pooled underneath and next to his body, soaking through his clothing and staining his skin. Red coated his face where he had been lying in it, and his white hair stuck to his head with clumps of blood so thick they appeared almost black. A hole gaped in his chest, showing bone and muscle that rose and fell with each breath. She could not understand how he still lived.
Nick opened the backpack and pulled out the jicab root, scraping off three times the amount of bark Cal had told him would be safe. He rolled it between his fingers until it formed a ball. “This will help,” he said. The man parted his lips, accepting the bark, and chewed without question or instruction.
“Thank you,” he whispered. He turned his gray eyes in Meaghan’s direction. The pain in them shined bright, and after a moment, so did the recognition. “Queen Adelina,” he choked out, bubbles of blood foaming on his lips. “Have you come to take me to a better place?”
“It’s not Adelina,” Nick told him. “It’s Meaghan.”
A wisp of a smile graced the man’s mouth, slicing through the agony on his face, and Meaghan knew the root had taken effect. She knelt beside Nick and held the man’s hand. Despite her link with Nick’s power, she could sense the man’s emotions as soon as her fingers brushed his skin. Pain, mostly, which had begun to fade. Pride. And strong happiness. The latter came from his recognition of her. But she felt no fear in him, despite the fact death had made a cruel game of taunting him.
“You’ve returned,” he spoke again, forcing the words from his mouth. “I killed one for you.”
At first, she did not understand what he meant, but then Nick put a hand on her shoulder, using his touch to guide her focus to the bushes beside the path. Half-hidden beneath the largest bush, she saw a distinct brown cloak and the grotesque skeletal hand of a Mardróch. She checked her shudder and panic and turned back to Nick. “He killed one? I thought they were unstoppable.”
“Their cloaks are impenetrable, but their faces are exposed.”
She saw a spear lying on the ground beside the man. Dark blood caked the metal head and streaked thick red rivers down its shaft. She peered into his face and smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “Your bravery and sacrifice will not be forgotten.”
“You’ve returned,” he said again, his voice no more than a soft breath. “You’ve returned to save us and now I won’t die in vain.” His eyes slipped shut. “Thank you, my Queen.”
He exhaled one last breath as the root sped him to a painless death and then Meaghan felt only her own grief.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE HOURS slipped by, lost to heavy sorrow as Meaghan and Nick left the ravine behind and wandered into another thick forest. Many miles now separated them from the body of the man they had buried, but he refused to allow Meaghan to leave him behind. Every detail of his death haunted her. She could still feel the pressure of his fingers against her palm. His emotions, though lost in his death, had come back to life within her. His gray eyes still burned their recognition and expectations into hers. And the distinct smell of copper from his blood clung to the inside of her nostrils, reminding her of its presence each time she took a breath. She could not find the words to speak, so she stared ahead, barely noticing the trees as she walked among them. Branches and leaves brushed her face, battered her arms and legs, but she did not care. It seemed only right that her body felt the pain plaguing her heart.
She broke the silence only once, to confess the regret burning most in her mind, “I never asked him his name.”
“Dell,” Nick told her and his voice carried the same weight as hers. “His name was Dell. He was the Mayor of the village on the other side of the ravine.”
Meaghan nodded, settled by knowing at least that fact and offered a wish of peace to the stars for the man’s soul. She could not find the will to ask Nick how he knew Dell, and Nick did not offer an explanation. Instead, he took her hand and left her to her thoughts.
When the sun rose again, they exited the woods into a small clearing. A cabin, about half the size of one of Faillen’s huts, stood in the center. It looked weather worn. Its plank walls rippled. A thick blanket of moss covered its roof. And its front porch bowed in places. But despite its flaws, it seemed solid and the thought of having a place to sleep indoors replaced Meaghan’s emptiness with a sliver of joy.
Nick crossed the clearing, setting the backpack down on the cabin’s front porch before turning to stare into the trees. Meaghan followed his gaze, almost missing the crystals hanging in the branches surrounding the cabin. Unlike the ones that had protected them in the cave, these did not glow. Their dull smoke color blended into the receding night sky.
“Is there something wrong with them?” she asked.
“Nothing I can’t fix,” he told her. Moving to stand underneath one, he extended his hand toward the crystal. Though he was not tall enough to reach it, he kept his hand there and spoke, his words inaudible as his lips moved. After a few seconds, the crystal glowed white.
He moved to the next crystal and she followed him. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Reciting a spell,” he told her. He extended his hand, focused, and repeated the exercise. “The crystals will hold the spell even if I’m not here so the cabin stays protected.”
She nodded and he lit the next crystal. “If they hold the spell even after the person who recited it is gone, why did these go dark?”
He looked at her, his eyes masked in shadows and she understood even before he said it. “The Guardian who recited the spell is dead.”
More death, she thought and tiredness chased away her joy. What sort of world, what sort of hell had she entered where death dictated every turn? She looked away, toward the forest, and toward the portal that had torn her from home. She felt Nick’s hand on her shoulder, but she refused to draw her eyes back to him. His other hand found the small of
her back and then she was in his arms.
She pressed her head into his chest and gave into her sorrow. He held her, not speaking as she cried and then his lips found her temple and trailed kisses down her cheek. His touch soothed her, and chased away her tears. He ended his affection at the corner of her lips. Bringing his hands to her cheeks, he stepped back from her.
“Everything will be okay, Meg. I promise,” he said. He waited until her eyes met his before he dropped his hands. “I need to finish these crystals. Why don’t you see if you can find some food for dinner? If you stay near here, you’ll be safe. Just yell if you need me.”
Though she did not feel hungry, she left him to search the forest, making a circular pass around the cabin. When she found nothing, she went deeper into the woods. Foliage appeared thick, lush, and green, but bushes that should have held fruit had turned brown, dropping their leaves with the slightest touch. She gave up and returned to the cabin after finding nothing more than two apples on the low branch of a gangly looking tree.
Nick sat on the porch. Next to him, a dying raspberry bush taunted her efforts. This one had held a handful of berries he had already picked. He handed her half of them as she sat down. She gave him one of the apples, setting the other on top of a porch step.
“That’s all I could find,” she told him.
He shrugged and threw his half of the berries into his mouth. “I’m surprised you found those,” he responded. “The castle is about twenty miles from here. We’re on the outer border of the land Garon cursed to prevent anyone from living too close. Nothing providing sustenance can grow there.”
“More death,” she said aloud this time. She rested her forearms on her knees, crushing the berries between her palms, and stared at the ground. The juice stained the edges of her fingers and oozed between them, trailing down her knuckles. She ignored it. “Garon brings nothing but death,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “How can you stand it? How can anyone stand to live here?”
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