Hidden Gem (The Travelers Book 1)

by Gaia Octavia

  I threw myself into the water at the edge of the pond, kicking my feet to splash since my hands were still tied behind me, and yelling nonsense at the top of my lungs. My behavior had the exact reaction I was looking for: stunned silence. It was only for a moment, but it was enough for me to put myself in between Big and the ripples. Patu jumped up at my display and immediately came toward the edge of the pond as Big made his way into deeper water to collect me.

  “Fucking Juta!” Big screamed, “I told you stay put!”

  My mind counted the seconds as I backed deeper into the water, knowing that if I just stayed out of his reach for a few more moments, this would all be over. Suddenly, I saw Emit running past Big, smiling, and holding out his arms as he rushed to fold them around me. As I heard the disturbance in the water behind me, I smiled. Emit was here to hold me, and everything was going to be okay now.

  But in a fraction of a second, I realized two things: the person running toward me was not Emit, but Patu, and he hadn’t been trying to embrace me. He slammed into me with the force of a felled tree, knocking both of us sideways into the water just as the thick length of the giant constrictor sprung from the water to grab me. The constrictor came up empty, though both Patu and I had fallen not too far off to the side of it.

  The beast ignored us, immediately sensing a much bigger target directly in its path. As it shot out again, its blue-green scales glistening as it wrapped itself around Big’s torso, I watched every moment. Big let out a strangled cry and then a piercing scream before his eyes went red under the pressure of the constrictor’s squeeze and the water around us turned a deep, dark red as his body was pulled under.

  I didn’t move, but Patu grabbed my arm and dragged me from the water. I watched as he vomited, crying and moaning. He was shaking so hard that he had to crawl to get away from the water, but I knew the beast would be busy digesting for a few hours. I just laid on the ground at the edge of the water, staring at the clouds in the sky once more, as my brain fought to process what had just happened.

  The boy had rolled over and into himself at the sight of the beast and hadn’t moved since, so after a while I rolled to my side–fighting my way to my feet without the use of my hands–and slowly made my way over to him. I called to him, unable to turn him over, but he squeezed his eyes tighter and continued to cry.

  I sat down next to the boy, telling him that I was here and that he was safe, but I realized that once Patu stopped vomiting, I had no idea what to expect from him. When he finally made his way toward us, he stopped at one of the bags, rifling through it until he brought out a knife.

  My knife.

  I waited as he stood there. I didn’t think he’d saved me just to kill me after, but at that point, I knew I wasn’t going to be handed back to Callas either way and was willing to accept whatever hand fate dealt me. Patu cut the boy free first. The boy didn’t move, but he did stop crying. Then Patu was behind me, cutting my hands free.

  I hissed as the blood rushed back into my long-since-numb hands but didn’t otherwise do anything. Patu sat down a few feet away, still holding the knife. I supposed I didn’t blame him. At some point, he tossed me his full waterskin, but I shook my head, unwilling to drink the stagnant water even though everything in my body was screaming at me to do so.

  “It’s not safe,” I told him, “you should only drink from moving water or you’ll get sick.”

  Patu shrugged, grabbing the skin and filling his mouth with the water. He swished it around his mouth and spit it out, no doubt rinsing the taste of vomit, before emptying the rest of the skin on the ground.

  “We can look for water soon,” I said wearily.

  All I wanted to do was lay down, but the boy and I needed water badly, and while I was in no condition to trap, I could keep a lookout for berries and roots as we searched for water since we both needed food as well. I sighed as the feeling began slowly returning to my hands.

  “Can you walk?” I asked the boy, using my sluggish fingers to mime what I meant after he rolled to look at me.

  He nodded slightly.

  “You?” I asked Patu, who also nodded.

  I sighed again and tried to stand, but my hands were unable to hold my weight as I tried to push off the ground, and I sat back down. Patu put the knife away and came over, helping me up first, and then the boy.

  I forced my legs to start moving, my whole body starting to shake as the chills of a fever settled into my bones. It was unbearably hot out, but now that the adrenaline had left me, I felt impossibly cold and my movements were thick and slow. I gave up on the idea of looking for anything to eat and focused on trying to get my bearings and find us some drinkable water. An hour later, Patu was helping me walk and I couldn’t stop my teeth from clattering. If I didn’t find us water soon, I wasn’t going to find us any water at all.

  I knew I was at my body’s limit; the past few days had been almost unlivable, and I was paying for it now. I almost laughed at the thought of coming so close to being killed by a massive constrictor, only to collapse in the woods–far from any prey–to die. Just as I was about to tell Patu to leave me and take the boy toward the cliffs in search of water, I heard the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard in my life. And though I knew that it meant I was dying, I smiled in blissful contentment at the sound of it.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  ⸙

  EMIT

  “Jade!” I yelled as my eyes focused on the only face I’d been dying to see for days.

  “Jade!”

  I took off running, unable to breathe at the sight of Jade’s swollen, purple face. His arm was around a raider and I shoved the man away even as I grabbed Jade.

  “Em,” he smiled.

  “It’s me. It’s me, Jade,” I said, unable to stop my tears, “I’ve got you now.”

  “Take me to the heavens, Em,” Jade said thickly, “I’m ready.”

  He felt so unbelievably hot. I had to fight back my panic as I smiled down at him.

  “I’m here to take you home, Jade. You’re not going to die.”

  I knew that I was trying to convince myself just as much as him.

  A look of confusion passed over his face.

  “Not dead?” He asked, blinking, “are you really here?”

  “Yes.”

  I laughed as I sobbed.

  “I’m here, Jade. I’ll always be here.”

  “Em, I love you,” Jade said as his eyes held mine.

  “I know, Jade,” I sobbed, “I know. I love you too.”

  I gave him some of my water and he drank what he could.

  “The boy,” he whispered, “the boy needs water.”

  I turned to find a young boy standing beside us, his face swollen and bruised. His injuries weren’t anywhere near as severe as Jade’s, but he looked so small and frightened that I froze for a moment before forcing myself to hand him the water. Eaton passed us, his eyes on the boy. He immediately made for the raider and punched him once in the gut before the raider went down.

  “No!” Jade croaked, though I expected he’d tried to yell it.

  “It’s okay, Jade. That’s Eaton. He’ll take care of it.”

  “No!” Jade said again, trying to force his eyes to stay open. “Em.”

  “I’m right here, Jade.”

  “Em,” he said again.

  I leaned down, brushing my lips against his temple, whispering again that I was right there with him.

  “He saved my life, Em. He saved…”

  But then Jade wasn’t conscious anymore. My fear for him was a living, breathing thing, but I forced myself to turn to Eaton.

  “Stop!” I yelled, though it sounded more like a question than a command.

  Eaton pulled the raider off the ground before he turned to look at me, still furious and setting his body to deliver another punch.

  “Jade said he saved his life.”

  Considering Jade’s message delivered–and not caring what Eaton chose to do with it–I lifted Jade into my
arms and began walking back the way we had come. After a minute, the young boy followed and at some point, Eaton caught up–telling me that it was time we set camp so we could make Jade comfortable and check his wounds.

  When we stopped to camp, I followed his directions but felt drained and couldn’t focus. Eventually, Eaton told me to sit with Jade and that he’d take care of the rest. I fleetingly wondered what had happened to the raider as I held Jade’s hand–careful not to touch the deep purple marks that ran along his wrist. I prayed to the gods that I hadn’t been too late.

  I begged them to take me instead of Jade–to just let him live. I offered them everything I could think of, and when I could think of nothing else to offer, I closed my eyes and I sang to Jade. I sang him his mother’s song. My voice was nowhere near as beautiful as Jade’s, but I sang it over and over nonetheless, hoping that his mother would hear me and help bring Jade back to me.

  The next several days were a blur. It took us longer to get home because Eaton and I ended up having to use a platform we’d built out of wood, a mat, and rope to carry Jade. He’d woken up a few times during the trip, telling me about another raider who had been bringing him back to the man, whose name I learned was Callas. He told me how the bigger raider had died. The thought of Jade placing himself in front of that massive predator in order to escape Callas’ grip, wrenched my heart.

  I’d almost been too late.

  Though he’d been able to talk some, Jade still had a fever and he was weak, so he slept most of the time while we traveled. When we got back to the settlement, Ma immediately took over tending to Jade’s wounds and bringing down his fever. I stayed with Jade in the smaller tent that we’d shared the night before he left.

  While I slept through almost the entire first day we got back, so had Jade. And when Ma brought me some stew and bread, I ate it all before she held me for a long time, promising me that Jade would be okay. By that night, he still hadn’t woken up, so I stretched out to sleep on my pallet right next to his, hoping that Ma was right.

  Because Jade had to come back to me.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  ⸙

  JADE

  My eyes snapped open as I was dragged from bed, the sounds of the commotion outside just starting to reach me. My mother already had Marta in her hands, but she hadn’t woken as I had.

  “Jade!” My mother hissed, handing Marta to me as she forced me into as small a shape as possible behind the pile of furs my parents had given me just hours before.

  I had no time to ask her anything, or even tell her that I loved her one more time. Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated. Just before the flap of hide–separating our sleeping space from the rest of our home–was flung open, she said in a strangled voice I had never heard before, “Close your eyes, baby. No matter what you hear, you stay quiet and you keep them closed.”

  Then she was gone, meeting the intruders in the middle of the room.

  I nodded, squeezing my eyes tight, but I didn’t listen. When I heard men speaking in a strange tongue, and my mother begging them to take her out of the tent, I opened my eyes. As I huddled behind the furs, holding my baby sister, I watched as the largest man of the group struck my mother. I watched her fall. The men laughed, and I was ready to jump up and leave my sister behind to defend her, but then her eyes met mine. I was still behind the furs, but I was able to see everything that was happening just past the edge of the pile.

  “No! Close your eyes,” she said again, even as she turned away from me.

  The men didn’t seem to understand our language, but she never looked at me again. I just wanted my mother to look at me one more time. I wanted her to tell me everything was going to be okay.

  But as I watched the man pull her to him, untying the waist of his pants, she just whispered, “Close your eyes. Keep them closed.”

  Over and over again.

  As she stayed quiet, the man seemed to become more and more angry. His movements became violent and my mother’s body jerked at the force of him. I didn’t understand what I was seeing, but I knew that it was something that shouldn’t be happening. And when he leaned over, tearing her shirt, and biting her breast until she screamed, I finally listened to her directions and shut my eyes.

  Marta had begun to stir in my arms, and at the sound of my mother’s screams, she fully woke. I held her to my chest, desperately trying to muffle her sounds as she became upset. I put my mouth to her ear and whispered the words of the song mama sang to me almost every night, but I couldn’t tell if she could hear me over the sounds the men made while watching what was happening to our mother, or above her screams. When at last, the man shouted and stopped hurting her, I could hear my mother’s quiet sobs.

  I thought it was over. That the men would leave, and Papa would come and make everything okay. But as it quieted, Marta began to wail, and I was powerless to stop her. One of the men came over to where I was huddled–still holding Marta–and said something to the man who’d hurt my mother. I heard her cry out, screaming for them to stay away from us, but the big man lifted his boot and then I heard a sickening, wet crack.

  I never heard mama’s voice again after that. As I was dragged from the room, holding on to Marta with all of my strength, I saw Mama’s face. Or what was left of it. She looked strange, misshapen, and a thick pool of blood had formed where it oozed from her head.

  Once we were outside, the man grabbed me by the hair and shouted orders at the other men, who disappeared back inside the tent. I still hoped that they would come out with Mama. I knew the family in our camp whose father was a healer. He could save her. But they didn’t come out with her, and then suddenly, there was smoke pouring out from under the side of our canvas tent. I watched as large flames began to dance along its length, making their way toward the top and spreading faster than I’d ever seen fire move before.

  My throat closed in terror, but I forced my voice to work, calling for Mama to hurry up and come out of the tent. When that didn’t work, I called for Papa to save her. But when I looked around for him, I found him lying on the ground outside of our tent. His limbs were twisted and bent at unnatural angles–his eyes glassy as he stared at me. He didn’t move, didn’t even blink as I called to him.

  Marta was screaming along with me. She hadn’t learned many words yet, but she was screaming for Mama. Somewhere in my mind, I noticed that the other tents in our small camp were burning, but I heard no other screams and could only focus on the entrance of our tent, praying to all the gods to help Mama walk out of it.

  The man looked at us, saying something in his language before pulling Marta from my arms. I hung on to her with every ounce of strength I had in me, screaming at him to let her go. But he ignored me, and I was no match for his strength. I felt something in Marta’s arm pop and let go in surprise when she wailed in pain. I didn’t want to hurt her, but then the man had her by her other arm, and I desperately tried to calm her by telling her it was okay.

  But it wasn’t.

  Nothing was ever going to be okay again.

  Because as I watched in numb disbelief, the man shifted, tossing Marta over my head and into the side of the tent that had already been eaten through by flames. As Marta’s tortured screams filled the air, I left my body, watching from above as it fell to the ground at the man’s feet, and my entire world went black.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  ⸙

  EMIT

  Jade’s screams tore something loose within me. By the time I was at his pallet, just a few feet from mine, he was already opening his eyes as I called his name. But the screaming didn’t stop. He clung to me as soon as I reached him, digging his fingers into my back and shoulders as if he were holding on for dear life.

  His screams morphed into torturous sobs, his shoulders shaking so violently as the sounds tore from his throat, I thought he might never come back from whatever nightmare, whatever memory had just assaulted him. Someone peered through the entrance, doubtless trying to figure out what
was going on, but I held my hand up and they ducked back out. Thankfully, Jade hadn’t seen.

  “Em,” he sobbed, repeating my name.

  “I’m here, Jade,” I said soothingly, “I’m here.”

  “I let go,” he cried, the last word turning into an endless moan.

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but murmured, “I know, Jade. I know. It’s okay.”

  We stayed like that for a long time–Jade repeating that he had let go and me repeating that it was okay. Because I knew that whatever had happened to him during those years before I met him, he’d been a child, and nothing had been his fault. No matter what memory had gripped him with such raw, bone-deep guilt, it hadn’t been his fault. It couldn’t have been.

  Jade finally stilled in my arms, and he’d been quiet for so long that I thought he’d fallen back asleep. But he shifted, looking up at me with swollen eyes, the dark circles underneath them accentuating the haunted look within, while the swelling of the rest of his face made him almost unrecognizable.

  “I let her go, Em.”

  I didn’t say anything, waiting to see if he would continue.

  “Marta. My sister. She was only two.”

  Fresh tears sprung to his eyes and I wrapped my other arm around him, pulling him closer.

  “You were only eleven. Barely just eleven,” I reminded him, “there was nothing that you could have done–nothing in your power to save her.”

  “He threw her in the fire,” he whispered, “they killed Mama and Papa and then he threw her in the fire.”