by Jessica Gunn
Her eyes bugged wide. “Teleport?”
Oops. “Uh, yeah. Maybe we’ll just drive instead.” She bit the inside of her cheek, her eyes searching mine. Likely for my sanity. Luckily for her, I still had that. Marginally. “Yes, teleport. It’s part of the magik thing. But like I said, if you’d—”
“What do we get for being there right this second?” she asked.
“Um.” She caught me off guard and I didn’t know how to respond. “We don’t have to sit in a car and pretend nothing’s changed for the next seven hours? Also, we’ll be safe at my team’s house.”
“House?”
I nodded. “I live with my team, Rachel included. You’ll at least know her.”
Sandra’s lips thinned. “I’m not living with you, Ben.”
My stomach tightened. I didn’t think she would, but she had to stay with us for the next few days at the very least. Not that people who stayed with us tended to be safe. A flash of the Ether Head Circle twins burning alive sped across my mind.
No. That wouldn’t happen to Sandra. That’d been a completely different circumstance.
“You don’t need to live with me forever,” I said, my tone even. “Just the next eight to nine days. Maybe a few after that.” Nothing else might matter two weeks from now, anyway.
Her eyes narrowed down her nose again, but in curiosity, not anger. I knew that because her ears went red when she was mad, and that color had subsided there minutes ago. “Why only nine days? What’s going on?”
The end of the world? Our son being used as a power conduit?
Did she really expect me to tell her those things?
It’s the truth. And not telling her the truth was what had gotten me in trouble with her in the first place.
“Sandra, it’s a lot to take in. I’m not going to lie.”
“Tell me what’s going on,” she said, her hard stare unforgiving.
With a deep, anchoring breath, I told her everything I’d left out six months ago.
Chapter 17
Krystin
Something tickled my legs. That and the sunlight beating against my eyelids forced me quickly from slumber to a fully awake state. I jerked and that same something that tickled my leg then flapped away. A bird.
“What?” I asked, watching it fly like a speedy bullet into a set of nearby trees. Other bird songs filled the air around me, an unhelpful answer to my question.
My tank top and shorts clung to me, moist from some recent rainfall. Not enough to make the ground muddy, thank god. I ran my hand through the greenest grass I’d ever seen. Slowly, I sat up, taking in the blue sky and white clouds. Where am I?
A slow, creeping sensation broke out on my arms, crawling up to my shoulders like a spider. It fogged my head, undoing all the work the bright sunlight had done, and burned my cheeks as if I had a fever.
“Krystin?”
I spun and found Shawn lying not far from me. He’d propped himself up against a tree trunk, bags underneath his eyes. His cheeks were rosy too.
I rushed to his side and placed a palm against his forehead. “What’s wrong?”
“Where are we?”
“I don’t know.” He was hot to the touch, burning up. His brow was slick with sweat. I wiped my hand on my shorts and stood again, the action causing the world to sway. “Whoa.”
“Yeah,” Shawn said. “Whoa.”
I glanced around at our surroundings once more, but nothing looked out of the ordinary. Except… “This isn’t the woods around Hunter’s Guild.”
Shawn shook his head. “No. And I didn’t recognize the bird using you as a perch, either.”
“How long have you been awake without me?”
He shrugged. “Twenty minutes, tops. Probably because I don’t have magik right now and you do.”
“Why would that matter?”
“Seriously?” he asked, pointing at me. “Nine months ago you were bugging me for not feeling Cianza Boston. Open your mind, Krystin. There’s one nearby.”
My stomach dropped. The fever. The shakes. The creepy, unnatural feeling. “Shit.”
Shawn nodded, closing his eyes at the same time. “It’s a big one.”
I gulped, looking back again to where the trees and grass seemed to stop. As if it were the edge of the world. “No way. No fucking way.”
“What?” he asked, but my mind was already moving a million miles a minute. He forced his way to standing and stumbled behind me as I made for the edge of the horizon. “Krystin?”
“Hold on.” Another twenty, thirty, forty feet in total brought me to—I shot out a hand and pressed it against Shawn’s chest. “Wait! Don’t!”
Shawn stumbled but held himself without tumbling us both off the edge of a massive cliff. The ground cut off without warning into a sheer drop of at least two hundred feet, possibly more, down into a luscious green valley. To our immediate right, sounds of water rushing met with the beginnings of a series of massive waterfalls that formed cliffside pools leading the water into the valley below. A river of clear blue water wound its way from the base of the waterfall into a small settlement or city in the distance.
My breath hitched as I took in the awe-inspiring sight. “It’s bigger than Niagara.”
Shawn nodded. He now stood beside me with a hand on my shoulder. “This doesn’t look real.”
But it had to be. The waterfall’s sounds pounded into my ears, directing my line of sight back to the large settlement at the bottom of the valley. Its buildings looked as if they’d been carved from white metal, each a squat circle with a rectangular roof. Some rose into the sky, stories high, and others appeared to be only one floor.
In the distance, harder to see as it was farther away, sat a giant pyramid. A thick fog hid all details except for its shape.
Shawn squeezed my shoulder, trying to get my attention. “Krystin, look right at the bottom.”
“What?” I asked, trying to see what he meant. And then I saw. How had I not noticed it the first time?
Between the pool at the bottom of the waterfall and the settlement in the distance sat a massive courtyard absolutely brimming with big, colorful trees and flowers in shades I’d never known existed. Stonework paths weaved around the trees and flower beds in an intricate design that led to a clearing made entirely of stone in the direct center of the courtyard. There sat an impossibly intricate design that, viewed from inside the courtyard, probably looked like a jumbled mess. But from up here, the intertwined “S” and “D” stood stark against the rest of the weaving design.
The entire courtyard seemed to be as large as the city. And circular.
“Oh, fuck,” Shawn exclaimed, reeling back from the edge of the cliff. “That explains it.”
I nodded, also backing off. “We’re in Alzan. We have to be.”
He was shaking his head, kneeling his way back to the ground. “How? How the hell did we—?”
“I don’t know.” But like Shawn, I was starting to really feel the effects of the cianza. It wasn’t as bad as that time in Boston when we’d fought Giyano and Kinder at a bar near the Commons. But that cianza was much smaller compared to this, if the size of the courtyard happened to be an indication.
Not much about cianzas was known, aside from the obvious. They were geological magik points where good and evil met neutrally until too much power from either side came in and disrupted it. We, being the magikal community at large, had long assumed these points themselves to be relatively small, but differing in size depending on the power of the cianza. But they were small in the ways that suns were “small” but massive, sometimes having enough mass to explode and make black holes.
In the same way, cianzas, like the one in Boston, might actually be only a few feet wide in diameter, but its effects and range of effected zone might be a mile across.
This cianza, Cianza Alzan, might actually be a few miles wide in diameter. Which was about the only reason we’d feel it all the way up here.
“No wonder everyone�
�s terrified of it,” I said, daring to step forward and look down upon the damn thing. “If it’s the size of the entire courtyard…”
“This city shouldn’t even exist,” Shawn said.
I turned to him. “What do you mean? You came and told me we had to find Alzan.”
He shook his head. “No, I said we had to unlock the Alzanian power. Until recently, no one but Lady Azar actually thought it existed, I think. They were all worried about something there isn’t archaeological evidence for.”
I looked back to the courtyard. To Cianza Alzan. “Well, I can see why the Powers went to the trouble of hiding it on its own plane of existence. Christ.”
Shawn didn’t respond to that. His silence wasn’t a good sign. “Krystin.”
I went to him this time and helped him stand. “Even without your magik, you feel it.”
“I think I feel it worse.” His words were shaky now, his breaths shallow. “How is that possible?”
I swallowed hard. “What if Giyano was right and our magik really is tied to these things?” I felt the cianza too, but it wasn’t totally debilitating. Although I wasn’t sure what’d happen when we got closer.
“Maybe.”
I looked one last time at the settlement city on the other side of the courtyard. It appeared to be farther away from the cianza than this cliff. But teleporting or using any sort of magik this close to a cianza was a terrible idea.
“Can you walk?” I asked, working an elbow underneath his shoulder.
He nodded weakly. “I think so.”
“Good. That city is farther away from the courtyard than we are now. If we skirt the edge of the cianza and get into the city, we should be fine. You’ll feel better. Then we can figure out what to do next.”
“And our magik?” he asked, looking down at me.
I shrugged. “The Powers let us get to Alzan for a reason.”
His eyes narrowed. “You hate the Powers. Why would you trust in them?”
“I don’t hate them. I think they’re lofty do-nothings who won’t lift a finger in this war until Darkness comes knocking on their door.”
He stared at me blankly.
“Oh, fine. Look, we’re here for a reason. A prophesied one. If you can walk, let’s go.”
He nodded, slowly at first, until he pulled in a deep breath and started walking. “Your lead, Krystin.”
Fantastic. Because I wanted to lead us into a city filled with people we didn’t know and a massive cianza looming in the distance—all on another fucking plane of existence.
Totally normal.
A good two hours, maybe more, passed as Shawn and I slowly made our way down the cliffside and past the courtyard, skirting the perimeter of Cianza Alzan the best we could. Getting down from the mountain we’d emerged onto from our plane of existence proved the most challenging part. But now that we were on flat ground and nearing the city settlement, the trek got easier.
Shawn leaned on me down the mountain. Now, farther away from the cianza, he walked by himself beside me.
“Almost there,” I said, glancing him over. “You doing okay?”
He nodded, his eyes tight. At least he’d stopped sweating so much; his face was less warm now. But that could have also been because Alzan appeared to be a bit of a paradise compared to Boston. Where it’d been hot and humid as hell back home, here the sun shone less intensely and a breeze kept it from feeling too hot out. And now that we were in the shade of tall marble stone buildings, goosebumps broke out on my skin. And my stomach growled.
Shawn paused, looking at me. “You too?”
I grabbed my middle. “Yeah. I hadn’t eaten in a while to begin with when you showed up at Hunter’s Guild.”
“Same.”
I dug into the pocket of my shorts and pulled out a handful of coins and a single ten-dollar bill. “What are the odds they’ll take American?”
“Probably not good. Maybe they’ll make an exception for the Son and Daughter, though.”
I winced. “Are you sure you want to broadcast who we are?”
He pointed on ahead of us to a group of people talking over a cart of fruits. They wore long, tan tunics over white pants and sandals. “I think they’ll figure it out.”
“Better get it over with then.” I walked straight for the people around the cart. We’d have to speak to someone eventually, hopefully someone who understood how we’d gotten here and what we were supposed to do now. The city, what little of it we’d seen, seemed pretty calm for what might be a battlefield a few days from now. Maybe they didn’t know Lady Azar and her legion of Shadow Crest soldiers were coming. And if not…
“Krystin, wait,” Shawn said.
“No. It’s time to get this show on the road.”
I left him behind as I approached the group of people, mostly men, speaking around the fruit cart. They stopped their conversation as I approached, looking me over with curious gazes.
“Hi,” I said, hoping—belatedly—that they spoke English. What if they didn’t? “How much for some of your fruit?” I didn’t direct the question at any one person. I couldn’t tell who actually owned the cart.
A woman stepped forward with a warm smile. She had light hair and brown eyes that sharpened with the look of a merchant trying to make a good deal. “Three pieces of silver for one.”
Pieces of silver. Well, the coins in my hand were neither bronze nor silver, but would they know the difference? I pulled out a combination of nickels and dimes until I had six and handed them over. “Two pieces of fruit please.”
The woman looked over my coins with a confused expression on her face. Then her eyes narrowed in on the ten dollar bill. “What currency is this? I’ve not seen it before.”
“Looks stranger than what they use at the outer peninsulas,” a man chimed in, chuckling.
I bit my lip, unsure how to go about this. Asking outright about our shared destiny seemed like a crappy idea. But sooner or later someone was bound to realize we weren’t from this plane. I just wish I knew who to trust with the Son and Daughter information.
“You can have all of it if it pays for the fruit,” I said, then pointed over my shoulder at Shawn. “My friend is very sick and he needs something to eat. We’ve traveled a long way and were definitely not prepared.”
“Then why did you travel?” the woman asked.
“Accident, I assure you.” I lifted my handful of coins. “Will this cover it?”
“Where did you travel from?” the man asked. The others took the moment to leave rather than get caught up in this. Which was pretty much the sentiment I seemed to cause everywhere I went lately.
Shawn finally joined me at the fruit stand and said, “Far away.”
“The outer peninsulas?” the woman asked, an eyebrow raised.
Obviously, Alzan itself was just a city, and after time they would have expanded in this plane of existence. Now, I wondered how far they’d gone in either direction, and if the outer peninsulas were actually as far away as they sounded.
And then I wondered if this plane was just a mirror of ours, and if so, where in the world were we?
I gulped. And how the hell did we get back home?
“Yes,” I said before Shawn could answer for me again.
The man’s careful eyes studied us. “You do not look like you’re from there.”
“Not originally.”
“Krystin,” Shawn hissed.
Right. The less information we half-assed, the less of a situation we might find ourselves in. “Will these cover the cost of fruit?”
The woman eyed us for a moment longer, then pulled back and smiled again. “Sure, friends.” She scooped up the coins from my hand then reached for two fruits that looked like apples.
Please, God, let them actually be apples. But this was a whole new plane of existence and I had no idea what the rules—or types of food—were anymore.
“Thank you,” I said, taking them from the woman and handing one to Shawn.
Sh
e glanced wearily at Shawn as he ate the apple-lookalike without a single moment of hesitation. “If your friend is sick, you should bring him to the healers.”
“We know what’s causing it. He’ll be fine in time and with some distance from here.”
Her eyes narrowed, brow furrowing. “Distance?”
“Let’s go,” Shawn said, a huge bite of the wannabe apple in his mouth. “Keep moving.” To the woman, he said, “Thank you for your hospitality and understanding.”
I nodded. “Yes, thank you.”
But as we walked away, the man called, “Wait a minute. Stop right there.”
I gulped and looked to Shawn. “What do we do?”
“We don’t know they’re stopping us,” he said quickly.
“Probably something to do with us not looking like people from the outer peninsulas—”
A rough hand landed on my shoulder and turned me around. Behind me stood the man from the fruit cart. “You’re not from here, are you?”
The apple rolled from my hand to the ground. “No. We told you, we’re from the—”
The man shook his head. “I mean from this plane.”
Silence filled the space between the three of us, and for the first time in nine months, I wished I still had my telepathy so I could know what this man and Shawn were both thinking. We had to give this man an answer, and I sure as hell wanted my story to match Shawn’s.
I looked over to Shawn, who was still chewing that same large bite from before. He stopped and looked back at me, shrugging. God, damn his fucking love of shrugs. “Fine,” I said, looking up at the tall man. “No, we’re not. We’re the—”
“Invaders!” the man shouted. Almost immediately everyone else in the areas, including the owner of the fruit stand, froze. Then they all screamed. Half ran away, but the other half, armed with broomsticks and swords and angry fists, turned to us. “Invaders from the origin plane!”
My stomach dropped and I turned to Shawn. “See what your fucking shrug gets us now?”
He glared at me. “At least we’ll probably still be here when Lady Azar attacks, even if it’s in prison as the Son and Daughter.”