by Jodi Ralston
They had landed a safe distance away, rolling, Guard covering him with his own body.
There was no need: The arrow exploded deep in her chest, sending out only a plume of citrus odors, not shrapnel. And unlike the Ravenscar-Shalott meld in Labor, she only jerked and wailed and then sprawled across the ground.
Tomb-wood sap flowed in her veins, but her body was made of something rose-scented. Stone-wood. It only smelled when freshly cut or damaged.
The stone-wood made her strong.
And so humanlike.
Shalott blanched. “Lydia!” But he couldn’t shove Guard off.
“Listen!” Guard sat up to his knees, one hand planted between Shalott’s shoulders pinning him in place. “Listen! She is a temptation, built of this place to mislead you.”
But instead of being repulsed Shalott looked at the fallen false-Lydia. Stilled. Then reached out a sap-covered hand to her. “Maybe I want to be misled.”
The temptress reached back. “Love,” she whispered. “My only. Stay with me.”
“You can’t.”
“Why can’t I? I can have this one.”
“You want a lie?”
Shalott twisted his face until it was buried in his other cleaner arm in the ground. Guard took the opportunity to rip off the tainted sleeve and cast it safely aside. Shalott barely jerked in response, too busy mumbling, “Because I can’t have the real one. I—I’m not enough for her, not rich enough, mature enough, exciting enough, strong enough. Never enough, not like Ravenscar, though I tried once I realized I loved her. Once I realized he wanted her, not loved her. Gods, I tried, but something about him always got my back up, threw me off my game. I couldn’t control my temper around him when he touched her hand. I couldn’t control my tongue when she spoke about this thing or that thing he was doing for her. I just couldn’t . . . control it, but I tried. I tried. I even joined the Society because of him, because his reveal piqued her interest. I followed her to this damned island on this damned lunacy because she needed someone with her, not because she asked me to; she never asked. Never wanted anything from me. But I hoped . . . oh, gods, I hoped when we failed to capture a spirit, when it failed to help, when it explained it was all a pipe dream, I hoped then, then, she would see me. Not her old, quiet, childhood chum, good for a laugh, but not an adventure. Not the angry boy throwing a tantrum under his shadow. Me. Just me, and just let him go.” Shalott’s reaching hand stopped, fisted, then drew in close to his chest, to his face. When he used it to scrape at his eyes, sniffling, Guard dared to remove his hold. Shalott did not sit up. “That is . . . wrong, in so many ways. He was my friend, too, until I realized I couldn’t stand him wanting her and knowing he always gets everything he wants, always . . . Then he was dead, and I thought, ‘This is it.’ He might have gotten there first, but I would be her last. Mistakes aren’t forever. There are second chances. Then . . . all this happened. I can’t . . . How can I go back? Everything’s so . . . ugly there. I can stay here; it’s so much better here. Everything I want is here, and no guilt.”
Not all of that misery belonged rightfully to the male; not all were his thoughts or words. Some were placed there insidiously, sly as a creeping ghoul. For while Shalott gasped them out into the ground, her mouth moved, sharing his words, but soundlessly.
Guard rose, leaving Shalott, and aimed another arrow. “Quiet, or the next goes through your face. You would have to spread your lies without a mouth.”
Shalott moved; Guard could hear him rustling in the grass. When Guard spared him a glance, he saw the man was pale, blinking, but not sunken in his misery. No, he was reaching once more, ready to move from his crouch to crawl after his temptation.
“Shalott!” The male barely jerked, gaze stuck on the falsehood he craved. Guard picked up his discarded clothing and tossed them at him, though they made for poor protection against tomb-wood dangers. “Prepare yourself.” The male didn’t move, body or gaze. “Shalott, is your guilt and lie worth dying for? Worth having the real Lydia die for? If you were to be lost here, so would she.”
That made him sit up straight. He looked around, clutching at his clothing. “Lydia?” He rose with a moan of pain. He rubbed his knee. “Where is she? How could you leave her?” He wiped his face, leaving a streak of dirt in the tear tracks, and began to dress. Slowly, stiffly. Once he was done, his hands fell, and he gasped, “Oh, Bara, oh, Lydia, how could I?”
Then he looked back at Guard, and like Lydia before in Labor’s Trial, he averted his face, as if he couldn’t bear to look at something he saw there.
“Focus, Shalott. We need to find her. Before she too falls to temptation.”
Shalott firmed up his stance and only looked back once or twice—slowed only once or twice, as the reaching hand and querulous voice implored his return. Guard seized his elbow and guided him firmly away.
CHAPTER 14
They found Lydia in a scene much like but much different than Shalott’s idea of paradise. She was standing before a group of children romping with a dog about her skirts. A man stood behind her, his hand squeezing her shoulder, and she leant into him, a blissful expression on her young face.
But the man was not her fiancé. It was her companion. Though taller and more muscular.
“Gods,” Shalott whispered.
“Stay here,” Guard growled at him. “Don’t interfere.”
Guard marched across the way, weaving around obstacles. Playful children tried to trip him. The bounding dog stopped, planted its feet, and growled. Taller-Stronger-Shalott leveled a revolver. Guard spoke over his shoulder to real one, “Duck.” Then Guard, too, dodged, the bullet whizzing past his cheek. His counter? Far more useful and satisfying: he pierced the other’s skull with his arrow.
Lydia, shrieking, whirled, clutching for the fallen form.
Guard grabbed her before she could defile herself on the dangerous sap.
“Now approach, Shalott.”
The male picked himself off the ground and did so. “Bara, you . . . ” He shook his head. “You didn’t even hesitate—been wanting to do something like that for a while, have you?”
“Harm you? No.” Guard looped his non-bow arm around her and lifted the struggling, sobbing Lydia up and faced her toward the real Shalott. “Bind your mouth, however? Now that was tempting long before now.”
Shalott chuckled. Then his jaw snapped shut with an audible clack, and he scowled down at the ground.
“No, speak to her, Shalott. Let her know what is real. She needs to remember herself.”
But she didn’t need it. She saw what was real and wasn’t. Even better, she wasn’t the hysterical type. She was too strong for that. “Oh, Perce—” She reached for the real one.
With a mewling sound, the real one reached for her.
Ah, but she is too weak in other ways. Guard moved so he stood between them. Kept them apart. Blocked her view.
“Remember your mission, Lydia. It is not Perceval; it is your fiancé. It is him you came for, and him you fail if you continue on in this way.”
Lydia reacted as if slapped. She clutched her red cheeks. Looked away. “How—how can I—I—you have seen!”
“Yes, I have.” He grasped her shoulder. But when that did not make her look up at him. He cupped her face. “I have seen a woman risk her safety and collar a spirit to do her bidding. I have seen a woman brave her nightmares on the word of a stranger. I have seen her wear herself to the bone yet shoot true with a steady hand. I have seen you. A woman too strong to fail.”
But her dark eyes, welling with tears, skittered past him toward the real Shalott.
“Not him. Focus. What is more important? Dying here or saving the man you risked death for?”
“Ravenscar.” She blinked. “Roland.” She clutched at Guard’s arms, spine ramrod straight. “Oh, my.”
“Good. Now where is the door that leads to your fiancé?”
“It’s—” She looked behind her.
A figure approached, a man he r
ecognized from Labor, but this one was in flesh color. Like the other temptations. It smelled of citric spice like those tomb-wood obstacles, but so did the statue that concealed the exit in the sandpit. If she had summoned it, he trusted it. He did not raise his bow nor reach for the last of his arrows.
As the construct closed the distance between them, it extended both hands to her. Her own lifted to receive his touch. But Shalott made a soft sound, turning her head toward him. The figure slowed down, a yard away, hands dropping to its sides.
“You have another sleeve, Shalott. Ample makings for a gag.”
Shalott stilled next him.
Taking advantage of that respite, Guard shouldered his bow, swooped his ward up, and carried her toward the figure. She fretted with her ringed hand. When they were close, she whispered, “Ravenscar. Roland. I choose—I choose Roland.” She flung her arm toward him, ready for an embrace. “Oh, my Roland!”
The minute they touched, the figure twisted, growing quickly up and out into a massive tomb-wood tree rooted to the ground. Within the bronze-colored bole, a door opened. Guard, looking back, found Shalott not close for once. Guard snapped, “Come. Now.”
A look of stubbornness then a look of loss crossed the male’s young face, both emotions easy to recognize now; but when Shalott looked at Lydia in Guard’s arms, he set his jaw and marched forward through the door.
Guard followed with his charge.
CHAPTER 15
The first thing Lydia said as soon as they were through the door was “That was horrible.” And her head fell against Guard’s shoulder.
Success sometimes was. Killing those monsters that had killed Father had proven that. But he didn’t say this. Instead he looked about himself, at the small chamber resembling a round, white cave divided in two by a shimmering rainbow barrier. Their side was barren except for the wall lights. The other half of the room, which Shalott advanced toward, held a hoard of treasure, abandoned temptations, piled and strewn.
Most heartening, not a hint of tomb-wood reached his nose.
The place of their victory was pure and clean and starkly beautiful.
“Lydia,” Guard said, “we are nearly finished. Are you ready to claim your shade?”
Of course, Shalott had to turn around and shoot him a dark look. “Have you no heart? She needs rest. She is but human, after all. But what am I thinking? Of course, you have no heart, Cambion. You’re almost a full spirit now, right? Isn’t that how the Trials work, for you? You get stronger at the end? So what do you know of humans now?” Shalott shook his head and then advanced on them. “Hand her over. I can guide her from here. You can go off and do”—He fluttered his hand dismissively—“spirit things.”
“I remain with my ward until her mission is completed.” He did not hand Lydia over. That would be a mistake. Shalott was still a temptation for her. A strong one at that.
“It’s all right, Guard.” Lydia patted his arm weakly. “You may let me down.”
Guard didn’t obey that command either; it, too, would have been a mistake. Though she was strong, as these Trials had proven, strength gave out eventually.
Four strides, and he had carried her to the barrier. He had called it rainbow, but in truth, it possessed only five colors, the colors of the spirit world: yellow, red, gray, white, and black. Appropriate. And beautiful.
Guard knelt and carefully set her on the ground facing it, staying behind her to support her.
Lydia twisted in place and gave him another weary pat, a weary smile, and a weary “thank you,” none of which Shalott appreciated. Then she asked for the journal and summoning materials.
Still crouched behind her, Guard removed the jar, her little knit bag, and the journal from his pouch and handed them over.
She thumbed through the pages till she came to the right one, and then she began extracting materials from her bag, laying them out in a half circle around her. A packet of herbs. A slip of paper, rolled up and bound with a string. A pencil. And a book of matches.
Shalott grumbled and paced the entire time—some humans, it seemed, had emerged energized from the last Trial.
“Quiet, please, Perce. I need to think and get this right. I need to make some changes to my heartfelt plea.” Lydia untied the slip and picked up the pencil and chewed on back end of it. The rest of her words fell to mutters to herself.
So Shalott plunked himself down perpendicular to her, back against the wall, shoulder to the barrier, facing her. Subtly, Guard shifted as if to give his ward more room, but mostly he moved to shield Shalott from her sight. She needed no distractions, and he’d allow none. When Shalott started to protest, Guard rose, stood next to him, and squeezed his shoulder. Tightly. Preventing him from rising and also hopefully warning him against speaking. Shalott clamped his jaw shut and fumed. Quietly for once.
Lydia scratched out something, wrote several new things in, and lipped a few words. Then, closing her eyes, she spoke her summoning ritual. “I, Lydia Aude Lancer, have persevered through the Trials of Time, Labor, and Temptation to find my love, my fiancé, Roland Russell Ravenscar. By the power of my triumph, I beseech the goddess and spirits of this City of the Dead to relinquish to me the shade I seek. Let me restore him to life. Please.”
She opened her eyes, opened her jar, retied her plea, and dropped it inside. It stuck an inch above the rim. The contents of the herbal bag soon followed, Guard recognizing several dried purple flowers as ironweed. She stirred it about with the paper. Then she repeated her plea and stirring twice more. Satisfied, she struck her match.
It snapped.
Pressing her lips tight, she tried again. This time her match blazed to life, and she held it to the paper, shielding the jar’s mouth with her other hand. The paper caught, and everything flared up at once. But smoke only came after there was nothing left to burn. Its swirl was black—shade-black. It hovered a few inches above the jar, not dissipating.
She cupped the smoke in her hands. Breathed it in, once, twice, thrice. The last time she coughed, but it did not seem to bother her, for she was rising with her still smoking jar in hand.
Gripping it tightly in both hands, head held high, spine straight as can be, she marched forth, and—
Ran into the barrier with an audible thunk. She almost dropped the jar as she clutched her nose and mouth, and a loud “Oh!” leaked out between her fingers. Guard restrained Shalott—who fought like a wild cat—with one hand. Where did the male get the energy?
Lydia soon recovered, moving from palming her nose to palming the barrier. It never softened. Rainbows spiraled and spun against her fingertips.
“Oh, I don’t understand. I—” She sank to her knees beside the journal. Setting aside her jar, she leafed through the pages hurriedly. “I was so certain.”
“You were not wrong,” Guard said. “Lydia—look.”
Even Shalott stilled as something took shape in a bare space among the objects. A black wisp, like her smoke, but this grew to human height. It flickered, once, twice, limbs forming, a head. Then color burst through, giving the shade a lifelike appearance.
Impressive.
Most ghosts took a while to settle their forms, and shades rarely had the opportunity to learn how, being only temporary, transitional spirits.
His ward’s fiancé’s inexperience showed through, though, when he stepped toward her. There his concentration faltered. Sometimes his trousers lost their color and just became black shapes, like a three-dimensional outline. Sometimes a spot, here and there, went see-through entirely. But never for very long. He paused for a moment, and a thin stream of inky blackness shot forth from his right hand, remaining attached, becoming a . . . decorative cane. At that, her fiancé smirked.
“Oh, Roland!” Lydia clutched her hands together. “It worked! You came!” She rose, snagging the jar, and pressed her free hand against the barrier. Rainbows patterns bloomed beneath her touch.
Ravenscar looked up, dipped his head in a nod, and said softly, “Firefly.”
Her smile blossomed, too. “Oh, you remembered. You are you, really you! I’m coming to retrieve you, dearest—just, I need you to close your eyes while I do so, please.” She waggled one finger. “Promise me you won’t peek.”
“In a moment, dear. In a moment.” He was no longer moving forward but casting about, inspecting the piles of treasure. He thrust his cane in one. Shook his head. Tried another, wiggling it about, head cocked. He knelt down and started shoveling objects aside.
One of which was a rosebud locket, petals made of pink stone, leaves pastel green, and all set against white.
Victoria’s.
That was her temptation. She had passed through.
Emotions welled upside him—
Distracting things he shunted harshly aside. Of course, she had, Guard thought. Her Tower journey would be nothing so arduous as ours, the bulk of the work being done years ago. And those thoughts joined all those that he’d think on later—though he knew not when he’d have time or why he should—and he chose to focus on safer grounds, on Lydia instead.
Only Lydia.
On her hand sliding off the barrier.
On her saying, “What are you doing, Roland? Can you not hear me?” She knocked on the barrier and raised her voice to an overenunciated shout, “I am here to retrieve you!”
“Of course, you have, dear. But first, I am getting what I came here for. Aha!” That exclamation, like his other words, were softly spoken and even in tone. “There she is!” He snatched something small from the disarrayed pile and rose.
Guard left Shalott and stepped closer and watched the man slip the stolen possession, a dark band, onto his right ring finger.
“A spirit ring.”
“Precisely . . . Guardian Spirit, I presume, from the gray color.” Lydia’s fiancé gestured with the tip of his half-imaginary, half-real cane. “Spirit rings are in rather short supply these days. I’m fortunate the rumors held true and one indeed resided in this hoard. But enough of this. I’m sure my Firefly can introduce us thoroughly after I am in the flesh once more. Go on, my dear, while your jar is still smoking strongly.”