Emily tried to catch him—and almost succeeded. In the end, the fact that he outweighed her by at least fifty pounds meant that all she could do was slow his descent and keep him from landing face first in the dirt at her feet.
Maddy helped her roll him onto his back, sucking in a breath between her teeth when she saw the full extent of the burns across his face. They crouched on either side of him in the moonlight, and Emily placed a hand on his chest. It rose and fell steadily enough, and she could feel the strong and steady rhythm of his heart beneath her fingers. Only fainted then, she thought with some relief.
“He looks bad,” Maddy said. “That happened back there?” She jerked her head toward the approaching flames. Emily nodded.
“This is what comes of having no fur,” Galak said, shuffling around them to get a better look at Corbbmacc. “I was in a fire once, and it just burned some of my hair off. Course, I smelled real bad for a while but—”
“Shut up, Galak,” Maddy said mildly, and the Sarqin broke off, lowering his head and letting some of his mane fall before his eyes.
Celine knelt down beside Emily, placing Rascal on the ground and staring down into Corbbmacc’s face. She reached out toward him, but Emily smacked her hand away.
“Don’t even think about it, Cel.”
Celine scowled.
“I was only gonna get ’is hair outta the way so I could see ’im better, Em.” Defiantly, she did so, pushing the singed strands aside to reveal another line of burned flesh and blisters across his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” Emily said, uncertain if she meant it but feeling guilty anyway.
“But it don’t ma’er none,” Celine went on. “Because yeh’re gonna ’ave to let me help ’im ’ventually.”
“No.” Emily met Celine’s scowl with one of her own. “He just needs rest and time to heal.”
“Mayhap. But we’re supposed to be going after Daniel. Do yeh really think he’s gonna get that time? Do yeh think Daniel has that much time?”
The image of Daniel, broken, hurt, and bound to the top of that wagon in the desert filled her mind, and Emily shoved it away ferociously. She wouldn’t think of that—not right now.
“You can’t help him,” she said, and hated herself for the sting that came to her eyes. “It’ll kill you, Cel. You can’t.”
“Em,” Celine said gently, “I’m the only one who can.”
Maddy got back to her feet. “You two can argue about it later. That fire’s getting too damn close. Whole place is like a fuckin’ tinderbox. We need to get the hell out of here. There’s a cave where we’ve made camp. It’s not far.” She turned to Galak. “You can carry him.”
Emily watched apprehensively as, without saying a word, Galak stooped and swept Corbbmacc up into his arms as if he weighed nothing at all. That brought Galak’s enormous shoulder within a few inches of her face, and she was suddenly overwhelmed by the strong bestial odor that rolled off his fur in waves, totally obliterating the smell of smoke.
Involuntarily, she gagged, covering her embarrassment by rubbing the soot out of her eyes.
Neither Maddy nor Galak showed any sign that they’d noticed her discomfort—or perhaps they simply attributed Emily’s wretching to the thickening smoke. Either way, she was grateful.
She rose and helped Celine back to her feet, offering her arm for her friend to lean on. Rascal flapped up to take his place on his mistress’s shoulder, still eyeing Galak warily.
“C’mon,” Maddy said, turning to lead them away from the fire and out of town.
Weary, heartsick, and covered in ash, Emily and Celine followed her.
***
Emily thought “cave” was rather a grandiose description for the shallow alcove at the base of the mountain, just east of the town, where Maddy and Galak had been sheltering. There was hardly room for the four humans, once Corbbmacc had been laid on Maddy’s stained and weatherbeaten bedroll.
He’d come to for a short time as they’d made their way to the cave, muttered something unintelligible, then passed out again. Emily thought that was probably for the best. Her own flesh felt hot and sore just looking at those burns.
The brittle and yellowing bones of small animals crunched beneath their feet, interspersed here and there with piles of dry and crumbling droppings—probably from bats, she guessed. The remains of what must have been an enormous spiderweb dangled from the low ceiling here and there, caressing their cheeks with a feathery touch that made her skin crawl.
Maddy lit the wick in a small lantern and then set it on a natural shelf that had formed along a crack in one wall. Its light, yellow and oily, easily filled the space, casting a sickly sheen over them all.
Galak retreated outside, and Emily got the distinct impression that he didn’t like the confined space—or maybe the presence of so many humans. He was hunkered down at the edge of the lantern light that spilled beyond the mouth of the cave, apparently watching the ghost town as it became a raging inferno in the west.
Emily kicked some of the bones away with the toe of her boot and sat down on the ground beside Corbbmacc, and Celine followed suit on his other side. Maddy rummaged through a large pack in a back corner and came back with a waterskin. She offered it to Emily.
Emily took it and drank deep of the clean water. It was the first moisture to pass her lips since early that morning, when Corbb had used the jar she’d found at the tavern to catch rainwater. That seemed like a thousand years ago. This was much better.
Emily passed the skin to Celine, then turned to face Maddy.
“So what are you doing here?”
“Isn’t that obvious? Same as you. Off to find Danny.”
“What about him?” Emily jerked her head in the direction of Galak’s black shape against the brightening flames a few miles distant.
Maddy shrugged. “He was one of the prisoners in another part of the mines. We found each other and decided there was safety in numbers. When I heard that the Reavers had taken Danny, he chose to come with me.”
“Only him? What about the others? No one else would go with you to find him?”
Maddy rolled her eyes. “They all had better places to be,” she said tartly. “They all had families they were worried about. Not me, though. Danny’s all I’ve got. Some things are thicker than blood.”
Emily nodded, thinking of Casey and looking over at Celine. The girl had brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She rocked slowly to and fro, looking down at Corbb, apparently ignoring them and lost in her own thoughts. Emily knew what she was thinking, but she forced herself to hold her tongue. Let Celine work through it; she was bound to come to the same conclusion Emily had: she just couldn’t survive using her power any more than she already had.
“You seem better,” Maddy said, interrupting Emily’s thoughts.
“What?”
“You’re better,” Maddy repeated. “Not sick anymore.”
“Oh…yeah. No, I’m not sick anymore. It was all that crystal making me sick.”
Maddy nodded. “I saw others who got sick like that in the mines—some worse than others.”
A thought drifted across Emily’s mind then, bringing with it a low, almost inaudible humming in her ears.
It’s close, the voice had said as she’d been lost in the grip of the knowing. She’d jumped from the window, and the knowing had guided her fall, but a voice had spoken, too. She has it, and you need it.
Emily looked into Maddy’s face.
She has it…
“Do you have any? Did you bring any with you?”
Maddy frowned at her. “Any what? The crystal?”
Emily nodded.
Maddy didn’t answer for a moment, and as the seconds ticked away, Emily felt the knowing’s pull become more insistent, and that was answer enough.
Across from them, Celine had looked up, her gaze moving back and forth between Emily and Maddy, suddenly much more interested in the conversation.
“Yea
h, I brought a piece. I wanted something to do with my hands sometimes. It helps me relax, you know?”
“Can I see it?”
“Why? If it makes you sick—and I’ve seen how crazy you are when you’re around it—I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“That was only because there was so much. I can handle being around small amounts of it. I can use it.”
“Use it for what? I don’t mind lettin’ you see it, but I want to know what you’re going to do with it first. I really don’t want you losin’ it and trying to strangle me or somethin’.”
Emily opened her mouth to reply, but Celine cut in.
“She used a piece to find Daniel, she did. She can see things in the crystal the rest of us can’t.”
“That was how we knew he’d been taken by the Reavers,” Emily said. “Maybe if I use it again, I can see where he is now.”
Maddy got up and went back to her pack, turning her back to them.
“That’s good enough for me,” she said. “It’s not done yet, and I was probably just going to throw it away when it was. Like I said, it was just to have somethin’ to do with my hands.”
She pulled something from the pack and turned back toward them, cradling the object in her arms, and for a moment, Emily didn’t know what it was she was looking at—but she knew what she was feeling. The knowing began to ramp up again, causing her muscles to thrum with that old familiar, tuneless music. It was as if her whole being was crying out for the thing in Maddy’s arms, and Emily was on her feet before she even realized she meant to stand.
It was much larger than she’d been expecting—a narrow shard of crystal as clear as water and as long as her arm. The light from the lantern seem to break apart as it touched its surface, filling the thousands of tiny facets with more colors than Emily could possibly have names for in a thousand lifetimes. It was a kind of miracle—painstakingly cut, facet by facet, shaped by a hand whose skill went far beyond anything Emily could have imagined in the depths of the mines outside Hellsgate. Maddy had created a sword.
Tentatively—almost reverently—Emily reached out to take it from Maddy, who handed it over with a bemused expression.
“It’s just a hunk of rock,” she said. “It’s pretty, and I’m proud of it, but it’s not like it’s good for anything. It would shatter the second you tried to hit something with it.”
Emily wasn’t listening. She was holding the sword up to her face, one fist wrapped around the handle, the other cradling the blade. Between them, the hilt glittered, its X-shaped design seeming to swallow up the light that touched it.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, though whether that was her own voice or the knowing speaking through her, she didn’t know. It didn’t matter; it was true.
It’s the only way you can see, the voice had told her. It’s the only way I can teach you.
The knowing rose up inside her with all its heat—with all its bliss. She let her knees fold beneath her. Dimly, she felt the bones that snapped and crumbled as she sat down on the floor, but she never took her eyes from the magnificent sword’s crystal hilt.
And then she was falling into its depths. This time, there was no fear or disorientation. There was only joy, and an overwhelming sense of relief.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
She is falling through the light; it breaks into dazzling shards of color, each shard a glittering star in a galaxy of rainbows. Heat rolls over her skin, leaving behind a hum of pleasure that sinks deep into her bones and fills her up like a hot gingerbread latte on a winter’s night.
She no longer fears this feeling. It is the knowing, and while it overwhelms her still, she has come to trust it, despite the guilt that often follows in its wake. For now, the guilt is dwarfed by the pleasure and the joy of knowing that this time she has made it happen.
The warmth turns cold, and the lights pull away from her, coalescing into a sheet of white beneath her feet. Cold air whips at her face, pulling her hair back and sending a shiver of gooseflesh down her arms.
She is flying! Her skates hiss beneath her with the familiar sound of steel on ice. Her heart pounds inside her chest, the muscles in her calves scream with effort, her blood sings, and her cheeks sting. Oh, how she has missed this feeling!
She circles behind the net, realizing suddenly that there is a stick in her hands. Where is the puck? Surely, there must be a puck!
She begins skating along the boards, heading up ice and moving faster and faster. Lines flash by beneath her—blue, then red, then blue again.
She hears the scrape of another set of skates behind her, and she knows what to do without looking. She knows! She drifts to her left, letting the knowing guide her as it always has. She would just let the puck come to her.
And there it is!
The little black disk slides across the ice in front of her, and she skates into it, letting it find her stick. In one motion she spins and shoots, sending the puck into the untended goal before her.
Not as satisfying as beating a netminder, but a goal is a goal is a goal.
She raises her hands in triumph, letting her stick fall to the ice and spins to face her unseen teammate.
She doesn’t know whom she expects to see—Casey, maybe, or one of the other girls from Lindsey High. Instead, a boy is coming toward her, wearing a dirty gray tunic and jeans that seem completely mismatched with the hockey skates he wears. His face is framed with a pair of spiraling horns, not unlike those of a ram, and his bright green eyes stare into her with an intensity that makes her distinctly uncomfortable.
It all comes back to her then—the fire at the tavern…their escape…the Sarqin’s attack…finding Maddy…Corbbmacc’s burns…and Celine’s determination to help him.
“Emily,” Derek says, smiling at her. “You’re here.”
“What is this place?”
“Somewhere safe,” Derek says. He clasps her shoulder and gently guides her toward center ice. “It’s a place deep inside your head where we can talk—and we need to talk.”
They stop beside the red line, and Emily gets the distinct impression that there are eyes on her. She looks toward the risers, but the florescents above are too bright, and all she can see is their light reflecting off the glass and a wash of dark shadows beyond.
She looks back at Derek.
“I need to know where Daniel is,” she says. “That’s why I’m here.”
Derek shakes his head. “Actually, no, that isn’t why you’re here, and besides, it doesn’t matter. The Reavers will come to you, and they will take you to Daniel. They’re not far now, and the fire will draw them like moths.” He grimaces, as if he realizes he has unintentionally committed a distasteful faux pas.
A chill runs down Emily’s spine, making her shiver, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the cold rink.
“What am I here for then?”
“You’re here to learn—” Derek stops and shakes his head. “No, that’s not exactly true. You’re here to remember. You’re here because you need to know how to start using your power—the thing you call the knowing—better, and you don’t have a lifetime to discover all of this. Things are accelerating and spinning out of control. When the wizard pulled you out of your own time and place, he upset the normal order of things, and now there’s no way to be sure how things will go—or how much time we have.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. Beneath the harsh lights, his horns cast dark circular shadows on his face.
He begins to skate around her, and she rotates in place to keep him in view. He is agitated, clearly unsure where to start.
“Okay,” Emily says, reaching out to stop him. “I get it.” They look at each other for a long moment, and Emily realizes that those words are, perhaps, the truest ones she has ever spoken. She does get it because Derek is part of her—a future part, maybe, but nonetheless for that.
“Let me start by asking the questions,” she tells him.
Derek laughs a deep laugh—a man’s laugh—and ye
t it is also unmistakably hers as well, and suddenly she feels more confident.
She moves to stand before him, looking up into his face and staring into the eyes that are the mirror image of her own.
“Start by telling me why I can’t call on the knowing when I need it,” she says. “Why is it that Celine can use her power whenever she damn well pleases, and the knowing only comes on its own for me. It toys with me.”
“That’s an easy one. You can control it, you’ve just lacked the discipline and the tools. The first can be learned—and you’ll have to learn it if you’re going to get through what is to come. The second…” He shrugs. “…Well, you’ve got the sword now, right?”
“I need the crystal?”
“‘Need’ is a strong word, but it does help. Crystal is a powerful tool for mind magics, as the wizard knows very well. He could have told you but—” He breaks off.
“But what?”
“I think the wizard’s afraid of you,” Derek says carefully. “I think he’s only just realizing the fire he was feeding when he decided to play God with our lives.”
She stares at him hard for the space of a heartbeat, then decides there is more in that sentence than she wants to unpack just now. Instead, she returns to her question.
“So, the crystal is a tool for controling the knowing?”
“In a way. It helps focus the magic. It gathers it and strengthens it like a mirror can with light.”
He stoops and scoops up a handful of the snow they’ve shaved from the ice with their skates.
“Didn’t you ever wonder why the knowing was always so much stronger when you were on the ice?”
Emily shakes her head. She can’t honestly say she ever gave it that much thought. The knowing was just something connected to playing the game. Why should it have manifested in any other part of her life?
“Ice and snow are just crystalized water. It’s not as good or as powerful as the stuff Marianne was trying to destroy before the wizard could get his hands on any, but it does work on the same principle.”
Together, they watch as the snow melts and the water runs out between his fingers.
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