Everlasting

by W. J. May

  But, despite their every precaution, they had somehow veered off course.

  The wind stirred up again, and without thinking Dylan slipped his arm around her tiny shoulders. She leaned into his chest, and together the two of them stared up at the sky.

  Unable to shake the feeling that something was driving them forward. That something was taking them to places beyond their control.

  IT TOOK AN AWFUL LOT to get Tanya out of bed in the morning, but the promise of a hot breakfast was enough to do the trick. Since losing what was left of their provisions in the avalanche, the gang had been collectively pretending that they weren’t constantly starving. That they weren’t swaying where they stood as the days of food deprivation and blood loss slowly took their toll.

  But all of that was about to change. Sometime shortly before dawn, Dylan had tracked down a stag. How he’d done it with just his knife, no one knew. But Katerina suspected it had something to do with the large, wolf-like tears in the creature’s flesh. However it happened, it couldn’t matter less. The beast was hanging now over their fire, dripping deliciously onto the hissing logs as the smoke spiraled slowly into the sky.

  “Aires, I take back every terrible thing I’ve ever said about you.” Tanya wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “And trust me, there have been a lot.”

  Dylan chuckled, twirling a serrated bone between his fingers. The teasing banter was a lot easier to take in stride on a full stomach. As was the fact that at least three of them still had broken bones, and the fourth looked like he’d taken a battle axe to the side of the face. “Well, thanks for that. And don’t let appearances fool you. I really invest a lot of time thinking about the things you have to say.”

  She tossed a bite of meat at him, laughing aloud when he caught it in his mouth.

  “You two are like children,” Cassiel said wearily, rubbing his eyes as the dancing flames reflected across his flaxen hair. “Like drunken children who were never taught to be still.”

  In terms of injuries, out of the four of them he was still definitely the worst off. The days of hard travel had done nothing to heal his wounds, and the subsequent nights of sleeping next to Tanya hadn’t helped. The food had brought a bit of color to his face, but as things stood he was still tired and pale, wincing discreetly every time he shifted his weight or pulled in a breath.

  Dylan took in every detail with a quick sweep of his eyes but fixed a careful smile on his face, moving swiftly around the fire so the two of them were sitting side by side. “Did someone have bad dreams?”

  The fae shot him a strained glare, but otherwise ignored him.

  “It was the one with the fish again, wasn’t it? Tell me it was the one with the fish.”

  Katerina and Tanya fought back smiles as Cassiel’s fingers twitched toward his blade.

  “I thought so.” Dylan shook his head with a sigh. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. The context is strange enough, but when you throw in that bit with your father...”

  Cassiel finally broke down and grinned. His dark eyes flickered up to Dylan’s for a brief, communicative glance before he murmured something in a language Katerina didn’t understand.

  Dylan threw back his head with a laugh, kicking another log onto the fire. “What? The venison wasn’t to your liking?”

  “There was a claw in mine,” Cassiel replied sardonically. “Missing one of yours?”

  Dylan tilted his head with a sweet smile. “Aww, honey, you never complained about my cooking before.”

  “It usually involved a good deal of whiskey.”

  The entire campsite fell momentarily quiet at the word, like they’d taken a group sedative, then Dylan glanced suddenly towards the forest trail.

  “On that note, my budding alcoholism isn’t going to sustain itself. We’re only half a day’s walk from Fairport. It’s just on the other side of the canyon. We can rest there for a little while and stock up on supplies. From there, it’s just three days to Brookfield.”

  “Three days?” Katerina said in surprise. In her mind, the journey had been endless.

  “Three days.” Dylan flashed her a little smile before turning to the others. “Tanya, smoke the rest of the meat. We can eat what we want and sell the rest in the village. Cass, why don’t you scout ahead for the best route to the canyon? From there, it should be an easy shot to the village.” His eyes twinkled, and he couldn’t help but add, “That is, unless you’re too worn out.”

  Cassiel made a very particular hand gesture and disappeared into the trees, while Tanya got started with the fire. With nothing else to pack or prepare Katerina pushed slowly to her feet, staring off into the blinding sunrise.

  Three days. We can make it three days, can’t we?

  The rain had stopped. The storm had passed. The sun was shining. And for the first time in what felt like years, they’d gotten to eat a hot meal. Their luck had changed, hadn’t it?

  Yes, she rubbed the stone in her pocket, it most certainly has.

  She and the others headed off down the trail, all feeling the same way. Like an invisible weight had suddenly lifted. Like there had finally been a positive shift in the tide. Something to tip the scales back into their favor. They continued along that way for half a day’s walk, thinking it over to themselves with secret smiles.

  ...until they got to the canyon.

  Chapter 10

  “OH—COME ON!”

  Katerina wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Dylan so angry. Not even when she’d wandered off on her own back at the festival. Not when he’d woken up with a concussion in a giant’s cave. Not even when he was fighting for his life against a gang of vampires. This was much, much worse.

  He literally fell to his knees with a vicious curse, glaring at the canyon beyond.

  At least...it was supposed to be a canyon.

  What the heck?

  At some point, it had been filled to the brim with what looked like a massive landslide of rocks. The kind of rocks you couldn’t climb. The kind of rocks you couldn’t hope to move. In one fell swoop, their easy gateway to Brookfield had been sealed forever.

  “What are the ODDS?!” Dylan continued to rage, his voice rocketing violently off the high canyon walls. “What are the freakin’ odds? Are the gods against us? Like, seriously?!?! What have I done to deserve this?!”

  The questions echoed back to him again and again. There was no answer.

  “I don’t understand,” Cassiel murmured. He, too, had frozen dead in his tracks and was staring up at the colossus in utter disbelief. “How did this possibly happen?”

  It was a fair question. Unless a mountain of boulders had literally dropped down from the sky, landing squarely in the canyon, Katerina didn’t remotely understand what she was looking at.

  “Limestone...” Tanya knelt down at the base of the nearest boulder, running a delicate hand along the edge. “Maybe the river swelled, and the villagers were trying to build a dam—”

  “And they used giants to do it?!” Dylan pushed to his feet and stormed a couple of steps away, raking his hands manically through his hair. “No, I’ll tell you what happened.” His eyes flashed as he threw a look of pure murder to the sky. “Someone up there hates us!”

  Give the man a target—he’d hit it every time. Give the man an opponent—you’d be sweeping the poor guy off the floor. But this was something different. Something you couldn’t fight, or predict, or even see. Something that was rendering that invincible man completely helpless.

  “SCREW OFF!”

  His voice echoed around the canyon once more, rattling the stones, and sending a host of little shivers running up Katerina’s arms. It was scary enough to see him lose control without the dramatic backdrop. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to cause another rockslide.

  “Hey,” she put a tentative hand on his shoulder, trying to stop the manic pacing, “just take a breath. I know what this looks like, but it’s going to be okay—”

  “No, it isn’t, princess!” He ripped his arm
away, whirling around to face her for the first time. “None of this is going to be okay! None of us is going to be okay!”

  Up close, he looked even worse than she’d thought. The bits of his skin that hadn’t been ravaged by the avalanche had turned a frightening shade of white, and his fingers kept periodically flexing into fists—as if at any moment he might go and tear the boulders down, one by one.

  “I’ve been charged with getting you to Brookfield. A task that’s nearly impossible just by itself.” He leaned in closer, enunciating every word. “My entire job here is to keep you safe, and if this kind of thing keeps...”

  Words failed him, and he turned back to the mountain, staring up at it with the expression of one who was truly lost. Science had failed him. Geography had failed him. Almost two decades of gut instinct and experience were screaming at him to run the other way.

  But he couldn’t. They had to keep moving forward.

  Somehow.

  “We’ll have to go around.” Two deep breaths. That’s all the time he needed to collect himself. Then the ranger was back, prying open a window as yet another door slammed shut in their face. “We’ll just have to go around.”

  “There is no around,” Cassiel replied quietly. His eyes never left the mountain. He didn’t see Dylan’s nervous glance. The way his face tightened with a preemptive apology.

  “Yes, there is.”

  There was a moment of silence, then Cassiel rotated slowly with a look of dawning comprehension. Their eyes met, then he started shaking his head.

  “Oh no, no, no, no. Absolutely not.”

  “What is it?” Katerina asked in alarm.

  “Absolutely not. Dylan!”

  The ranger sympathized, but in his mind there was clearly no other solution. The one road open to them had been closed. They would simply have to open another.

  “It’s the only way—” he began tentatively.

  “NO!” Cassiel interrupted, as fierce as the princess had ever seen him. “We are NOT going to Laurelwood!”

  JUST AN HOUR LATER, the gang was standing in front of a group of densely clustered trees.

  They had been fighting through a strong headwind the entire hike over, but now that they’d arrived the air was suddenly still. Between that, and Cassiel’s almost violent reluctance to coming, just peering into the emerald darkness was enough to give Katerina the creeps.

  Laurelwood.

  The princess knew very little, except what scraps she’d gleaned from obsessing over the castle’s heavily-censored history books. It wasn’t a subject that garnered much royal support, but throughout the years she’d managed to piece together the basics.

  Before the Damaris dynasty had fought its way to power, the land of the five kingdoms had been ruled by the Fae. It was a different time, countless centuries before her generation was even born. The earth was younger. Wilder. Untamed. Yet beautiful and delicate all at the same time.

  The Fae ruled with a different kind of magic than the sorcery her father had used to claim the throne. It was a magic derived from nature. An elemental magic. Katerina remembered Alwyn telling her about it once, when she was a very small child. Even then, she could tell he was jealous.

  When the kingdoms fell, the magic died along with them. Living only inside those scattered Fae who had managed to survive. Lost in the tide of history. Fading from rumor into myth. It had retreated from all but a select few places in the world. Laurelwood was one of those places.

  And suddenly, she was standing right at its doorstep.

  The group stood there awkwardly for a moment, lined up shoulder to shoulder, before Tanya took it upon herself to break the stony silence.

  “So...this is Laurelwood, huh?” she asked with a forced brightness. One look at Cassiel’s scowl was enough to confirm. “It doesn’t look haunted.”

  Uh...yeah, it does, actually.

  “It isn’t haunted,” he muttered. “It’s cursed. There’s a difference.”

  Is there? Because they both sound pretty bad...

  “It isn’t haunted, and it isn’t cursed.” Dylan took the first brave step forward, motioning for the others to do the same. “That was over five hundred years ago, Cass. And even then, it was just a story told to scare away the Red Knight’s army. You’re really going to take it seriously?”

  I think I’m taking it seriously...

  “A curse is a curse.” Cassiel’s eyes flashed before he turned cautiously back to the forest. A quiet breeze was filtering now through the branches, making them whisper and dance. “I don’t care how long ago it was...it’s nothing to be taken lightly.”

  It was impossible not to be affected by the quiet words. Perhaps it was the weight with which he said them. Or the unfathomable look in his eyes. Perhaps it was the forest itself. The fact that it seemed to be reaching out with its branches, beckoning them inside.

  Either way, they had no choice.

  “There is no curse,” Dylan repeated, soft but firm. “The villagers spread the rumor so that the royal forces would keep their distance—”

  “What would you know?” Cassiel snapped. “You’ve been on this earth about five minutes, Dylan. All of you have. You know nothing of the way things were before.”

  For the second time in two days, Katerina studied him curiously. Wondering at his actual age. Wondering how the witch had been able to sense it. From the outside, he only looked to be about twenty years old. But the eyes gave it away. You could see centuries in those eyes.

  It was an uneasy standoff. While the two men had a habit of being at each other’s throats, they were almost always in line. But on this solitary point, Dylan could see no compromise.

  “I know that if we don’t cut through the forest, we’re going to have to climb back up Redfern Peak, before hiking back over Clever’s Pass. And, lest we forget, that entire entryway was recently blocked by a giant avalanche.” He paused for a moment, his eyes asking forgiveness where his pride could not. “This is the only way, Cass. You know it.”

  Without another word, he walked deliberately inside the tree line. The girls paused a moment, looking between the two, before they followed suit. Only Cassiel remained behind. His feet frozen to the same spot. Staring at the forest like Dylan was asking him to walk through fire.

  Fortunately, a willingness to walk through fire seemed to be a prerequisite to their friendship.

  “You coming?” Dylan called without looking back.

  Cassiel lingered there another moment, shivering slightly as he gazed up at the trees. Then he pulled in a deep breath and stepped over the threshold, following the others inside.

  Curse or not, we’re in it now. We’re in it now...and there’s no going back.

  YOU KNOW THAT FEELING when you can tell you’re having a dream? The colors are too bright, the world is too floaty? You try and try to wake yourself up, and when you finally manage to open your eyes it’s only to realize that you’re still dreaming?

  That’s what Laurelwood was like. A dream within a dream.

  They ghosted noiselessly across the forest floor, moving with the instinctual silence one slips into when you enter a library. Even Tanya, the resident chatterbox, had the sense to hold her tongue. Instead, they kept their eyes sharp and their hands at the ready. What they were looking for, Katerina would never know. A nightmare come to life? An army of dead Fae? She was almost too afraid to wonder. But one look at Cassiel’s face kept her moving, and it kept her quiet.

  If he was this wound up himself, then she was on the verge of a heart attack. Jumping at every shadow. Startling at every sound.

  Not that there were many. The place reminded her of a tomb.

  “Why is it cursed?” she finally broke the silence to ask.

  Dylan glanced back, looking wary, while Cassiel looked down at her in surprise.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The curse.” She cleared her throat, trying to make her voice sound stronger. “I know this place used to belong to the Fae, and they lost it i
n the Great War. So, who cursed it? And why?”

  Dylan shot another uneasy look at Cassiel, turning back to the princess. “Kat, I’m not sure this is the best place to be discussing it,” he began in a low undertone. “Maybe when we get to the other side—”

  “Let her speak, Dylan,” Cassiel interrupted, silencing him with a single look. “The girl deserves to know her own history. She is a Damaris, after all.”

  Katerina fought back a flinch at the way he said her name and gave him a tight smile instead. At least he was playing ball. And she couldn’t stand the silence a second longer.

  “This place did once belong to the Fae,” he continued, glancing around at the trees. Even drenched in sunlight, there was something ominous about them. It was as though they were waiting for something. Trapped in a century long since passed, and unable to move on. “It was one of the last remaining strongholds during...what did you call it? The Great War?”

  Katerina’s face flushed as his lips twitched up in a faint smile.

  “We learned to call it something else.” What that was, he didn’t say. He simply kept walking with a quiet sigh, his feet making not a single noise as they swept lightly over the ground. “In the final weeks of the war, the Fae army was divided. One was fighting in the north, another in the west, and the last was fighting right here in Laurelwood.”

  Suddenly, the eerie silence made sense. It might have happened half a thousand years ago, but Katerina shuddered to think of how many men and women had lost their lives in this very forest. How many had taken their last breath, gazing up at the ancient trees. She pulled her cloak tighter around her with a little shiver.

  “The Fae were fighting well but they were heavily outnumbered, and the Red Knight had driven them deep into the woods.” Cassiel was speaking in a flat monotone, as if part of him had been left back in time and all he was describing was playing out before his eyes. “Queen Eliea knew the cause was lost. The men had her troops surrounded and were closing in on all sides. In an act of supreme sacrifice, she went before the Red Knight and offered herself up instead. She surrendered her own life, that he might spare the lives of her people. The Red Knight agreed.”