by Jada Fisher
And she would never learn those things, all because I was too weak.
Did she know her death was coming? Did she realize that we were sinking? Did she know that it was all for naught? Did Mal or Krisjian even know that we were dying?
For the second time in less than an hour, my vision began to darken, the edges swirling away into a hazy mist. I’d heard that drowning was peaceful once you gave up, drew that first lungful of water, but mostly, I just felt disappointment. I hadn’t wanted it to end this way.
For once, I hadn’t wanted it to end at all. Not even in the back of my mind.
Closing my eyes, I tried to think of something happy. Of something that wouldn’t make me feel like a failure. It was difficult considering the pain that seemed to wrack every cell of my body, but then Bronn’s face floated to my mind.
Not just any face of his, of course, but the way he looked at me when we held each other in the moonlight. That careful mix of respect, hope, and uncertainty. The fear of losing something or someone he cherished compounded with how much he thought of me. It was a sweet, happy sort of image. One that I so desperately wished I could see again.
It figured that the second time I died, I wouldn’t be as resigned to it as I had the first time. In fact, the longing that surged through me was so strong that it would have driven the breath from me if I had any left. But I didn’t, so instead, I just opened my mouth, letting the water in. To fill me up because I was so empty.
Strange.
It tasted like lavender.
Lavender!?
The realization made my eyes shoot open to blinding brightness and then suddenly, something slammed into my sternum. I hacked, feeling water pushing up out of my lungs, but then that force hit me again.
Alright! Alright! Give me one second, will you?
I was rolled onto my side, and the pounding moved to my back. That was all I needed, apparently, and water came pouring out of my mouth in ragged hacks.
“What…” was all I managed to murmur as I looked around and realized that I was somewhere very familiar. “…this isn’t possible,” I wheezed, gripping the side of the impressive clawfoot tub next to me and hauling myself up into a sitting position.
And yet there was no denying that I was sitting right smackdab in the middle of the same bathroom I had used the couple of days ago to find Sokhanya.
I blinked hazily, wondering if I had died and just ended up in a really strange afterlife, when suddenly, the face of my own personal grim reaper appeared in front of me.
I yelped and pushed myself backward only to slam my head into the tub. Groaning, I held my head and tried to figure out what was going on.
The spirit twisted its head away from me, however, looking at someone crouched on the ground beside me. Oh, my gods, I know, will you SHUT UP?
That stirred me to a bit more clarity, and I blinked several more times, realizing it was Sokhanya kneeling next to me, dripping wet and gesturing emphatically at the spirit.
I really was in Bronn’s bathroom in his people’s city estate. That was reality and for some reason, I wasn’t dead. I knew that I had a lot of latent power within me that I wasn’t able to tap into or understand yet, but teleporting seemed pretty far out of the question. Or at least teleporting without hopping to an alternate dimension first.
“What…” I finally managed to rasp out. “…is going on?”
What’s going on is you’re alive now. You’re welcome.
I stared at the spirit hazily, that skull floating just behind her transparent face that looked pretty upset. “But I thought that I was supposed to be on your death list. You know, it’s my time to die and all that.”
Yeah, it’s your time to die, but not hers. She gestured with a thumb to Sokhanya. Not hers, and she insisted that I— By all the spirits that have come before and will come again, I’ve got it, alright?! She’s alive! Calm yourself, child!
I watched as the spirit whipped her head back to the tiny oracle, the two of them face to face like they were in the midst of a heated argument.
“I… Am I interrupting something here?”
What? Can you not hear he— Oh. Right. The spirit held up a finger in Sokhanya’s face before giving me a truly weary look. Let’s just say that your friend is persuasive so when I came to collect you and save her, she wouldn’t let me right the scales without helping you.
“And that worked?” I asked dubiously.
Well, it did help that she gave us a life to replace yours. One that was upsetting the balance. But that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. I’ve been exceedingly nice to you, Seer, but there’s only so much slack I can give you before things need to be made right.
I nodded wearily. “Yeah, yeah. I get it.” I took a breath and looked around. “So did you bring me here? Or her?”
…that’s not entirely clear, to be honest.
“What?”
The spirit shrugged. It’s complicated, and there was a lot of yelling going on. Yelling that you apparently couldn’t hear. Consider yourself lucky on that part.
I somehow managed to give a half-hearted chuckle, although my throat burned for it. I couldn’t wait to get out of these wet clothes and into—
“Wait! The cave! Mal and Krisjian are probably still looking for us in the cave.”
You think so? That Mal is the practical sort. She has to know that you’d have drowned by now.
“But do you really think they’d leave my body?”
I certainly hope so considering that the castle started collapsing during me and Miss Talkative’s argument. They had no choice but to leave.
“So they think I’m dead then?”
I mean, yeah, that would be the logical assumption.
I closed my eyes against the thought. They were going to think that they lost me again, but I was just fine. Sore, bruised, and damaged, but definitely not drowned.
“I need a phone,” I gasped, swaying to my feet.
I’m sorry, what?
“Phone!’ I gasped. Sokhanya was at my side in a moment, helping me to get up and stagger out of the door. “I can’t let them think I’m dead!”
You’re really going to just call someone in the middle of what’s probably a battle?
“Yes.”
I burst out into the hall, startling a passing maid, and rushed to one of the phones that I knew was by the stairs. I had thought that the dragons were quaint for having landlines, but at the moment, I couldn’t be more grateful.
I grabbed the receiver with shaking hands, punching in one of the four phone numbers I had memorized. It rang once, twice, and I was so scared that it was going to go to voicemail, when I heard Mickey answer.
“Uh, this isn’t a good time.”
Oh no, she sounded wrecked. Like she had been screaming or crying. Quickly, without any thought about tact, I blurted out the first thing my brain cooked up. “Mickey! It’s me! I’m alive! We’re fine.”
“Davie!”
“Yes!” Suddenly, I was crying. I didn’t even know when it started. Just that one moment, I was so relieved to tell them I was alive, and the next, I was just realizing that I had almost died again. I really needed to get out of that habit. “Yes, Mickey, it’s me. And I’m safe and I’m here back at the manor, and Sokhanya is here too, okay? I’m safe. I’m safe!”
“I don’t— How is this— Guys! It’s Davie! She’s fine. She’s in the mansion!”
I heard sounds of protests. What had to be Mal asking how that was possible. I heard a horn honking and then more shouting, and it was all so wonderful that I just cried harder.
“We were going to get excavation equipment. Did you know that? So, we could dig you out or just do something. Oh my God, Davie, you have to stop doing this to us.”
“Noted,” I said through my tears. I wished that I was there with them. That I could hold them, and we could all hug and cry together and I could tell them the amazing and also insane story of how I was even alive. But I just had to do with their voi
ces for the moment, and the knowledge that they weren’t about to try to dig out my nonexistent corpse from enemy territory.
“When I see you, I’m gonna hug you so— Oh, Bronn wants to talk to you. I’m only giving this phone up because he looks like he might actually die if he doesn’t hear your voice. Here.”
I didn’t even have enough time to brace myself before I heard a change in the breathing on the phone.
“Bronn?” I asked uncertainly.
“I thought I lost you.”
Oh geez. His voice was enough to make my sobs start up anew. He sounded so scared. So wounded. I did that to him.
“I know. I’m sorry. I really, really am. But I promise I didn’t sacrifice myself. I wasn’t reckless.”
“I know. I know. Mal told me that you weren’t a self-sacrificing idiot even once during the whole rescue. Her words, not mine.”
“High praise, all things considered.”
He let out a little laugh, and it sounded wrecked. I hated to think of what would happen if I had actually passed. Would he even survive it?
“I… When I see you again, I don’t think I’ll be able to let you go.”
I understood the sentiment. “You’ll have to fight Mickey for it.”
“…I can be patient. But only because she is your sister.”
“You always were a gentleman.”
Another strained chuckle, and then his next words held a weight I couldn’t describe. “I love you, you know.”
Sure, it wasn’t the first time that I had heard it in my life, but boy, did it get me right down to my core. My heart twisted and throbbed at the same time, a bittersweet and wonderful swelling of emotions. “I love you too, Bronn.”
“I… I suppose I should give you back to your sister now.”
“Yeah, that would probably be wise.”
There was another pause, and then Mickey was on the line.
“This doesn’t even feel real. Is this real?”
“About as real as anything in our lives is. You won’t believe where I ended up.”
“Well, obviously close enough to the estate for you to get to a phone.”
“Yeah, but I… You know what? Never mind. It’ll be better to tell you in person.”
“Okay. Alright.” There was another awkward pause. “I don’t want to hang up. We’re about an hour away. Can you just stay on the phone with me?”
She sounded so uncertain in her question, and I didn’t know why. At this point, I would go to the ends of the Earth and all the other realms for my friends. I had lost them once and almost lost them again. I wasn’t going to take that for granted.
“Yeah, I can do that,” I answered, sliding into a sitting position on the ground. Sokhanya mimicked me, plopping down beside me with finality then curling into my side. I hadn’t been expecting the cuddle-like position, but I put my arms around her shoulders nonetheless so she could settle against my softness.
It wasn’t too much later that her eyes closed. I wondered what it was like for her, to know that she suddenly had an entire new world to understand and integrate into. Maybe that was why she had argued with a literal spirit of death to keep me alive.
Or maybe she had taken it to heart when I told her she was family. Because I certainly meant it. As far as I was concerned, Sokhanya was part of our little clan, and we were going to have a lot of learning to do together.
Providing we survived however the dragons retaliated.
13
The Worst of Things
I heard the bottom doors slam open and my sister shrilly call for me. My eyes fluttered open, and I realized that I had fallen asleep along with Sokhanya, the receiver settled between us. I hadn’t even known I’d drifted off; our exhaustion really must have gotten the better of us.
There was a blanket over us, pillows around us, and a water on the stand that held the phone. A bleary look revealed a couple of servants a few paces away, looking over us with concern.
Well, that was sweet. And here I had thought they didn’t like me.
“Up here,” I croaked into the receiver before finally picking it up. I tried to stand to wave to them over the bannister, but I was so stiff and sore that just uncurling my legs took way more effort than it ever should have.
Either a thunderstorm spontaneously appeared inside of the estate or all of them ran up the stairs at once. Naturally, it was Bronn who made it there first, jumping up to catch one part of the bannister then swing himself up right in front of us.
“Davie,” he breathed, rushing forward and pulling me to my feet, crushing me into a hug that was oh-so-wonderful, but also a little painful.
“Hey! I got first dibs!” Mickey protested breathlessly, coming to the top of the stairs and booking it toward me.
By some miracle, Bronn let me go, but my sister skidded to a stop a foot or two away from me. “Oh… Davie… Are you okay?”
Her tone confused me, and it was only after a full beat that I realized what I probably looked like.
Soaked, with the prince’s handprint around my neck. Probably bruises or cuts on my face, the ugly burn on my chest, the friction burns around my wrists. Still wet enough to look bedraggled but at least not enough to drip onto the undoubtedly expensive carpet.
“I’m, uh, not the best,” I admitted in a ragged chuckle. “But good enough for a hug.”
That was enough, and she closed the distance between us, gently embracing me like only a sister could.
“I’m so glad you’re here, little sis,” she breathed into the side of my neck, her form shaking slightly.
“Me too.”
She held me for a good while, her weight comforting against me, but she did eventually let go.
“Huh,” Mal said from behind her before Bronn enveloped me in his arms. “You look way worse in full lighting. Who would have known that glowsticks were flattering?”
“Nothing like sickly green radiation to really bring out the best in a seer,” I responded over Bronn’s shoulder. She chuckled at that. I closed my eyes and let myself be held.
That went on for a bit, but probably not as long as Bronn would have liked, because then the doors below opened again and some of the generals I recognized were coming in, carrying a familiar crystal.
“Huh, you managed to get Baelfyre,” I said, pulling away from my prince slightly.
“Yeah. Um, people were real mad that I managed to grab that and not you, by the way. I’ll be expecting apologies once all of you guys recover.”
“…we didn’t know you needed help, Davie,” Krisjian said quietly, barely able to lift his eyes from the ground. “We would have, you know. But one moment, you were diving down, and the next, you never came back up.”
I waved my hand at him even though I knew it would take more than that to deal with all the trauma our little adventure had caused. “It’s fine. None of us stopped to think if Sokhanya could swim or not. And we didn’t expect to get into a fight with two dragons either. The good news is I’m here now. We’re all here now. Speaking of which…” I stepped to the side and held out my hand to the diminutive oracle, who was still huddled against the wall, half-hidden under the blanket the servants had put over us. “This is Sokhanya, our fellow seer. The first awakened oracle of our generation, actually.”
The girl looked from my hand to the crowd before cautiously taking it. I pulled her up, steadying her once she was on her feet, and made a broad gesture to the rest of them. She couldn’t hear us, but I hoped that she could tell what I meant.
“It’s going to be a bit of a journey for all of us to be able to talk, but I thought y’all should know she saved my life.”
“Is that how you ended up here?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Believe it or not, we came in through the bathtub.”
“What?”
I couldn’t tell exactly who that was, but it made me grin anyway. “Yeah. About that, the bathroom floor is pretty soaked, and the tub is still full of lavender bathwater.”
�
�Lavender bathwater? Like when you…”
“Yeah, just like that. Told you it was a trip.”
Mickey just laughed and shook her head. “Yeah, it sounds like it. Now how about we get you out of those clothes and maybe have the doctor look at you so you two can go to bed.”
“Yeah,” I said with a dopey grin, intertwining my fingers with Sokhanya’s. “But could somebody get a notepad and a pen? We’re gonna need them.”
All things considered, it actually wasn’t the worst off I had ever been coming out of one of our…situations. None of my injuries were major, it was all just a lot on top of each other.
There was a moment where the doctor was tending to me that my mind flashed back to that night with Baelfyre. Where he had treated me so tenderly, trying to coax me with honey to betray his cousin. I’d jolted at that, but Mickey’s hand in mine and Bronn by my side had calmed me down quickly.
But even as I slept, my mind kept returning to that cell. I kept dreaming that I was recaptured, or that the prince was alive and found me, or even that I was being dragged from my bed by too many hands.
I woke up with a start somewhere around four in the morning, according to the clock at my bedside, panting hard and covered in sweat. It had been Baelfyre dragging me out of bed that time, swinging me over his shoulder to carry me to the bathroom where he threw me down into the tub and held me under.
Ugh.
It was so stupid.
The whole getting kidnapped thing had been my idea. I had been pretty certain that we had spies in the castles. Something beyond just Sokhanya and our little ruse had been to make sure those watchful eyes got the information to the right places. And apparently, it had worked, because Krisjian had been able to use his gifts on the servants who had seen but not interfered to find out who had been planted and who was just terrified out of their minds.
So yeah, the whole getting dragged out of bed thing was my idea. They didn’t do anything that I hadn’t already instructed them to do beforehand. I had told them I would fight. Told them I would do my best to be convincing. Even in the car, I had worried that they’d gone too easily, and yet I was still having nightmares about it.