Queen of Skye and Shadow complete box set : Queen of Skye and Shadow Omnibus books 1-3

by Thea Atkinson

Now it was just a layered open sandwich of rusted metal and foliage.

  The lake lay in front me me and what I'd imagined was earth was really a bank of filthy cement. It stretched out for hundreds of yards out into the darkness beneath parts of roof that still clung to their girders.

  I had no idea what he meant by opening myself to the water. Should I just sit there, staring at the surface? Should I pray to it?

  In the end, I figured I might as well strip down and get in. Maybe being open and respectful meant giving myself over like an old world baptism.

  It was frigid.

  But I persevered, walking in slowly, crossing my arms over my chest. Was I being a fool? Things had shifted in my life faster than they had when I'd first fled New Denver as a kid. Maybe if I'd never met Hunter I'd be a different person and he'd not be hunting me down now to make me pay for turning my back on all he stood for. Maybe if I'd never fled in the first place, I'd just be one of the thousands of residents of New Denver quietly living my life.

  But I knew that wasn't true. Hunter might not have come for me and threatened the town, but he'd come eventually with his brand of justice. Eventually everyone would cowtow to the imperial judge or face his wrath.

  Even so. I was no one. Not anyone worth following, anyway. I wasn't a good person. I'd done horrible things in the name of survival. I wasn't leader material.

  They had it all wrong. All of them.

  And that's what made this thing I was doing all the more foolish. I'd dared to believe them for one hot minute. Thought past my worthlessness and dared to think I might have something to offer of value.

  I made it as far as my chest and the thought of my foolishness in light of everything I knew about myself made me feel so stupid I dunked myself in to shock myself. Payment for believing. I'd been stupid.

  And then something touched me on the shoulder.

  I went under with a gasp as the footing went out from beneath me.

  -12-

  I started to beat at the water with my arms, trying to find the surface. My legs wanted to flail in propulsion so I'd rise faster. I couldn't let that happen. As sure as I was that those instinctive things rode my nerves the way a pony rider drives her horse home, I knew panic would get me nowhere.

  I had to stop all that.

  I had to force my eyes open. Fight the urge to gasp in air to fuel my muscles because the adrenaline robbed them of energy.

  It was tough. But I did it. The water was murky and it stung as my lids ground open, but I strained to keep them that way as I spiraled in the water, echoing the movement of a dolphin as I strained to see what was in the depths with me.

  And what was there in the depths to threaten me?

  Nothing.

  Nothing big enough to grab me, anyway. Some fish catching sight of me and flitting away. A few strands of water lily tubers.

  But whatever it was that had touched me, it wasn't just a fish. I hadn't imagined Marlin on the asphalt in the courtyard of the library and I hadn't imagined the touch on my shoulder. The difference was that this time, I wasn't going to run.

  I was going to relax. I needed to. I had to resurface and grab air.

  I broke the water with a gasp. The water rippled away from me in circles and flattened out a few yards away. A water spider skated over the surface a few feet away but nothing else marred the glass.

  I hadn't imagined it. Something had touched me. It wasn't a fish or a bit of vegetation. Murky as the water was, I would still have seen something large enough to manhandle me. There would have been a shadow at least.

  I pulled in an unsteady breath and paddled slowly to the water's edge on my back. I felt vulnerable and edgy. I didn't dare turn around and swim forward, and I couldn't stand the thought of not looking.

  So I settled for a slow and methodical back stroke to keep my movements minimal no matter how badly I wanted to swim like the devil to the shore. I aimed for where I'd left my clothes and I hoped I was on the right track.

  By my estimation, I should have made it there already but when I rolled over, the edge was still as far away as it had been.

  And the water's surface was as glassy as if I'd not moved an inch.

  I swallowed loud enough that I could hear it.

  "Fuck," I said.

  Now I knew something wasn't right.

  I treaded water, eyeing the edge and telling myself it was all an illusion, but when I strained to touch bottom, my toes found nothing but water. Even the fish seemed disinclined to touch me.

  I rolled into a breaststroke and butterflied my arms out twice. This time, the momentum made the ripples around me lap against the edge.

  But I didn't move an inch.

  "Fuck a duck," I said.

  I'd seen plenty of strangeness in my time, short as it admittedly was. I'd watched my mother raped and beaten, forced to cook and toil for men who cared nothing for the person she was or what they were doing to her. I'd witnessed men's murder and taken part in mercenary acts that in a civilized culture would be shameful. I stood by as Hunter's justice's meted out what they'd been told was morally acceptable in the name of law. I'd seen a man rise from the dead.

  But when the ripples in the water began moving back toward their center as though they'd been reeled in like a fishing line, and leaving the water shiny as a mica stone, I thought I'd never see anything quite so disturbing.

  I almost rethought my decision to face what was coming. It had the weight of pending judgment. Not the sort that Hunter might order, but the kind where you don't just expect it, but want it because the agony of shame is far greater than the punishment—and even knowing you deserve it, you're terrified of facing the pain.

  The kind where you feel like one thread will unravel the whole mosaic that is you and that it's hanging in plain sight for anyone to pull.

  "What in the hell are you waiting for?" I shouted.

  The sound of my voice lifted birds hidden in the tree that hung over the far end of the lake. Beyond it, I could see the shadowy lines of rusted girders and clothing waving in the breeze.

  Expecting a thing and having it happen are so far removed from each other emotionally they might as well meet one another on the other end because in that second, whatever was in the water decided to wait no more and I near drowned myself in tense fear.

  The water itself churned up all around me, gathering the way a storm cloud might on the horizon. It rolled in one great wave that came from the center and came at me.

  I had time to suck in a breath and hold it before the water met me head-on. It thrust me back toward the edge and I went under twice. I spluttered to the surface, rolling in and out of the wave, sinking below once more as it moved me.

  I fought it. Lord, how I fought.

  And I broke the surface long enough to haul in a life-saving breath before being cast forcefully along with the waves to the shore.

  I ended up on the crumbled tiles of the mega mall with just my bra clinging to me, straps hanging over my shoulders. Somewhere along the way, I lost my drawers. I bolted for my clothes and rammed my legs into the pants, stumbling backwards and hopscotching until I could get them up over my hips.

  I could hear my breath. I was shivering. Was I cold or just scared? I had no idea. Every nerve was a jangle of electricity. I had the feeling if Marlin's music box were anywhere near, I'd have enough juice to power it from dead to full-on.

  Marlin had said to open myself. To let things just be. I'd entered the water because I didn't know what else to do. Now, I wasn't sure any of this was a good idea. I hugged my arms as I searched for my shirt. This was ridiculous. It was the things of fairy tales and novels. The world didn't work this way. There might be magic in it now, but so far, it hadn't been a pleasant experience. What made me think this would turn out well?

  I spied my shirt hanging from the back of a plastic chair and snagged it. I was getting the hell of there.

  In the words of an old novel, I was getting the hell out of Dodge.

  I
spun around as I pulled the shirt over my head. It stuck on the wet material of my bra and fetched up on the sticky wet of my skin.

  "Fuck," I said again. I didn't wait to find the fit, but started heading back the way I came, my head still working through the neck hole. I planned to work my way back out, avoid Marlin altogether, and find a pony to take me any damn where but New Denver.

  Except when my head did make it to the other side of the shirt, I could see I wasn't alone.

  A woman stood in front of me. At least I thought it was a woman.

  She was petite. Ghostly looking. Her long hair was blue-tinged and coiled in and around itself like seaweed. She looked like she was trying hard to appear human. The aura that surrounded her made her hard to bring into focus since it kept wavering in and out of phase and shifting colors from white to blue to green to yellow.

  I had the distinct impression I should find her beautiful.

  But she was not.

  She was terrifying looking.

  "What are you afraid of?" she said.

  I swaggered on my feet, fighting dizziness. Would she be offended if I told her she scared me?

  "Tell me, Skye," she said in a voice that sounded like a frog learning to speak. If she had vocal chords, they were new and untried. "What's your greatest fear?"

  "It was you," I said, looking for her hands. I almost expected them to be fins. "You touched me."

  She canted her head to the side and the long hair moved in the air as though it were still floating in water.

  "I wanted your attention."

  "You've got it."

  "Then answer."

  I considered telling her I was afraid of being hurt. Afraid of death. Afraid of pain, but I knew it was all untrue. I'd already faced each one of those fears. I'd been hurt. My mother's death was a betrayal. What was there left in life to threaten me? Not Hunter. I wasn't afraid he'd hurt me. I wasn't even afraid he'd punish me for betraying what he wanted of me.

  No. It was what he might want me for that bothered me in the end. He'd wanted me to take over. He'd wanted me to continue his legacy. He'd told me things about myself that were too true to stand still for. I was perfect, he'd said. My emotionless measurement, my ability to stand back and really see things made me the ultimate heir. I wasn't tethered by pity, and so I was free to wield justice the way it should be.

  It sickened me, just thinking about it.

  And yet there was something deeper. The reason I'd left, ultimately. Hunter had upheld me. He'd put a golden standard alongside a ruler in a doorframe and expected me to measure up.

  "Failing," I said, finding the truth and confessing it. "I'm afraid of failing."

  She shook her head and that hair moved again in ways that made me uneasy.

  "No," she said. "I can tell by your aura that you are only telling half of the truth."

  "Who are you that I should be so honest?"

  "You know who I am."

  I sank down onto my haunches, unable to keep my knees from buckling.

  "You aren't her," I said. "You can't be."

  "And if I was, then what do you think that would mean?"

  I peered at her, squinting to get through the light of her aura and meet her gaze. It was unsettling, and it hooked me, making me feel queasy.

  "I think it would mean the world is in a heap of trouble."

  "What are you the most afraid of?" she said again.

  I closed my eyes and saw Hunter's face. I relived his judgments and my blind obedience and felt the nausea of knowing that his justice came too frequently, came too painfully.

  Then I saw all the faces of the people I knew in New Denver. I saw Marlin. Dallas. I saw Lance and felt a warm rush of longing spill over me.

  "Failing people," I said. "Of not being what they need. Of being just one more leader like we have now."

  I wasn't sure what to expect next; I just knew the admission left me feeling lighter. For all of twenty seconds, I felt like I could lift off and levitate. And then the weight came crashing back.

  Because the truth was I wasn't just afraid of failing people. I would fail them. Letting them down was inevitable, and here I was, in a position to do exactly that and I'd known it all along and I'd come anyway because I wanted them to think well of me even if I couldn't do what they asked. Even if I wasn't what they needed.

  "You want to be that thing," she croaked out and I realized I'd sank down to my knees in front of her.

  I had to look up to see her face.

  "Yes," I said. "God help me, I want to be the kind of person you can count on. I want to make a difference. Someone has to."

  "And if the power to make a difference comes at a risk, are you willing even then to take up the cause?"

  I wanted to ask what risk, but I knew it didn't matter. I'd lived a life of selfishness and fear, smothered my bad deeds and memories of a torturous past in the ideal of justice and out of guilt and shame.

  I wouldn't do that anymore.

  "I don't care what the risk to myself is," I said. "I don't want to live in a world like we have."

  She lifted her hand toward me, tracing symbols in the air with her finger. I felt a tickle of contact on my forehead though her fingers never met my skin.

  "Now take it," she said and swept her arm toward the water.

  Confused, I followed the line of her finger to see the crest of a sword's hilt break the surface of the water. It shone as though lit from above even when the trees cast shadows over the lake.

  "Take it," she said. "Use it. It's been waiting for a new hero. One worthy of its power."

  I fell backward, planting my hands behind me.

  I didn't need to ask to know what the sword meant but I wanted to hear her say the word. I needed to hear it to believe it.

  "You know the sword?" she asked and I nodded dumbly.

  I was the one who said its name.

  "Excalibur."

  She made a sound that might have been a chuckle if frogs were able to laugh and while part of me wanted to look at her and know she still stood there and hadn't crept up on me, I couldn't take my eyes from the sword. It had risen high enough above the water that I could see it's point. It's reflection in the water was nothing but light instead of shadow. I heard my breath sound like a rasping wind in my ears.

  "You would give me this blade?" I said.

  "I give nothing. There is a price to pay, but it's not to me and not decided by me."

  "What is it you want then?"

  She shook her head, and the tangles of seaweed in her hair wafted with the smell of sulfur.

  "Not me, child. The sword. It chooses. And it has chosen you."

  "But I'm only one person," I said. "And things will get worse. Hunter will not back down."

  "One person may wield the weapon, but you are not alone."

  "Will it be enough to stand against the Blood Blade?" I said, lifting my eyes again to where she stood.

  But she was gone and I was left telling myself that it had to be.

  -13-

  When I found Marlin again, he was lying on his back on the asphalt with one foot crossed over a bent knee. I stood over him, holding Excalibur at my side.

  I looked down at him with fresh eyes. He had never said so, but he too must have met the Lady of the Lake. Seen her. Heard that gravelly, croaking voice that struggled to make the human sounds of language around whatever must have been vocal chords.

  I had the feeling we were the only two living people in all of the world who had done so. At least in this generation. Maybe in centuries. And that made me see him differently. He wasn't just a portly human man with greasy hair and a music box that he could juice with his own energy.

  He was my brother in arms.

  And I no longer felt alone.

  The feel of the coolness of my shadow must have alerted him that he wasn't by himself any longer and he eased his eyes open. He pulled the white wires from beneath his cap. The sound that emitted from the small globes at the end was agg
ressive but tinny.

  "You don't spook easy," I said.

  He shrugged and the look on his face told me he had seen far more frightening things than a woman standing over him with a sword as big as she was.

  "Is it as light as I think?" he said without looking at Excalibur.

  I side-stepped, my gaze flitting to the sword and back to his face. I hadn't thought about its weight, but now that I'd been asked, I realized why.

  "It feels like part of me," I said.

  He nodded as though he understood. I watched him roll over onto his side to push up into a squat as he gathered the books around him into a pile. He shoved them beneath his arm, holding them against his side as he stood. The white wires hung over his shoulders.

  "What else can you do?" I asked him.

  "You mean besides carry books?"

  I watched as he shuffled the tomes around his waist, spilling two in the process. They fell face down, their pages splayed open.

  "I hope whatever it is, you can do it better than that."

  I meant it as a joke, but somehow it came out differently and I cringed when I saw the hurt look on his expression.

  "You aren't used to being nice, are you?" he said.

  "If I wasn't being nice I would have mentioned the awful caterwauling coming from that music box," I said, this time with a smile.

  "That's better," he said. "You'll get the hang of it eventually."

  He strode to the library door, where an old cement flower box stood in remarkably pristine condition. He dropped the books onto the edge and pumped his elbows back and forth.

  "Are you preparing for take off?" I said.

  He gave me a side eye. "Careful with the humor," he said. "You don't want to hurt yourself."

  He closed his eyes and worked at the air with his shoulders. The wires fell down his back and swung back and forth as he moved. Music wafted and waned.

  I stood back, expecting him to whack me with his fists by accident but then he pulled his palms together and pressed them one to the other over his heart. He inhaled slowly, loud enough that I could hear a wheeze coming from his lungs.

  "Touch me," he said.

  "I don't think—"