A Tangle of Hearts

by Bella Forrest

  “You’ll just get yourselves killed if you go after the Destroyers now, with or without your dragon tears. They will rip you to shreds, and deep down, you know it!” The Druid held his ground, unwilling to let our newfound allies march into certain death.

  Hansa paced back and forth for a few moments, her jaw clenched and a vein throbbing against her forehead. Her left hand gripped the hilt of her sword, knuckles white.

  Jovi stood between Draven and Bijarki to my left. He occasionally threw glances at Anjani to my right. Concern drew a frown on his face, and he took a step forward.

  “My sister is one of the Oracles, Hansa. I don’t want to diminish her chances of survival in this world by losing you and your tribe to Azazel,” he said, his voice firm and his chin high.

  Hansa stilled and stared at him. The seconds stretched long. Then she took a deep breath and dropped her shoulders.

  “What do you suggest we do then, Druid?” she hissed.

  “We use a strategic approach,” he replied. “We collect intelligence on Azazel and the movements of his Destroyers through our Oracles. You send out scouts to reach out to all the other remaining factions still standing in the jungles of Eritopia.”

  “Most of the incubi have already joined Azazel,” Bijarki interjected, running a hand through his hair. He’d seen all this before. He’d been through all this before. The pain of betrayal still marred his otherwise beautiful features.

  “I’m not talking about the incubi here,” Draven said.

  “Then who are you talking about?” Hansa shot back, losing her patience.

  “The Dearghs, the Sluaghs, the Lamias… All the other creatures that call Eritopia their home, as savage as they may be. They’re threatened by Azazel too. Just because he’s targeting the incubi now doesn’t mean he won’t come after them later.”

  “They’re wildlings, Druid. They don’t make alliances!”

  “Then persuade them! And if you can’t persuade them, seduce them! You’re natural born seductresses, after all. There’s nothing you can’t do if you set your minds to it!” Draven replied. “We need them all to join us. If we can’t get the incubi to fight, we get the others. There is a war coming, and we need the numbers.”

  I listened to his impassioned speech. His hand still clutched mine. Our fingers intertwined, and I felt the determination pouring out of him and into my body. I could’ve sworn he was opening up to me further, letting me feel what he felt—hope, despite everything that had just happened.

  Hansa took some time to deliberate, looking around the camp until her eyes settled on Anjani. Her gaze softened at the sight of her sister, and the slightest smile passed over her face.

  “Why would they want to help us? Why would they want to fight alongside us?” Hansa asked Draven.

  “You mean, besides the survival of their species?”

  “You don’t know them, Druid. You’ve been stuck in that mansion of yours for too long.” Hansa smirked. “Most of them live out there in the jungle with no use to Azazel whatsoever. We need more than some bombs and Oracles to spark their interest. The Dearghs and the Sluaghs believe that whatever happens in Eritopia is the will of the Daughters, for example. How will you convince them to go against that?”

  A moment passed before Draven answered.

  “We have the last Daughter of Eritopia.”

  Many jaws dropped once he said that, including mine. He’d been so adamant about keeping this a secret. What was he thinking?

  Hansa’s eyes grew wide, and she tipped her head to one side. “What did you just say?”

  “I said we have the last Daughter of Eritopia. Her sisters entrusted me to look after her until she awakens. I’m pretty sure the Dearghs and Sluaghs will wish to serve someone who has the Daughters’ favor. And the last Daughter, on top of that,” Draven continued, his confidence bolstered.

  “How did that come to happen?” Hansa asked with sheer fascination.

  “We made a deal in exchange for my mansion’s protection. The safety of the Oracle in my home in return for the safety of their sister. We need to gather all forces available and strike Azazel, Hansa. The last Daughter may awaken, like her sisters have predicted, and play her part in this, or she may not. We don’t know for sure. But we can’t shy away from this fight. We have to come together and give it our best shot regardless. Eritopia belongs to all of us.”

  Seconds ticked by before Hansa replied. I figured she was going through all possible scenarios in her head. And, like all of my previous musings, she arrived at the same conclusion—all roads led to the sleeping Daughter, one way or another.

  “So it shall be, then,” she said with newfound calm. “I will send my sisters out to find the wildlings and broker alliances.”

  A sigh gusted from my chest, relieved to see them agree on this. Draven nodded and tightened his grip on my hand.

  “We will return to the mansion and work with our Oracles to gain insight on Azazel, then.”

  Jovi, Bijarki, and I looked at each other and nodded. We had our work cut out for us since Phoenix, Aida, and Vita were still very new at this Oracle stuff and hadn’t fully developed their abilities. Draven seemed to have deliberately omitted that little fact from Hansa, but I couldn’t blame him. We had to sort of fake it to make it. But there was a common sense of determination between us. We’d all give it our best shot and support the Oracles.

  I was eager to return to the safety of the protective shield while the rest of the pieces arranged themselves on the chessboard. Hansa snapped her fingers and called out to her generals.

  Three women as tall and imposing as Hansa stepped forward from the crowd clad in metal plates and black leather. They’d painted vertical crimson stripes on their faces, and long heavy swords hung from their belts.

  Hansa instructed them to form search parties and spread out to find the Dearghs, the Sluaghs, and the elusive Lamias far south, whatever those species even were. Anjani didn’t move. Her arms were wrapped around her torso, and she stared at the ground.

  “We’ll be going soon, then,” Draven said to Hansa. “We have a day and a half ahead of us for the journey. We need to take advantage of the daylight.”

  Hansa dismissed her generals. The succubi scattered, each preparing for their assignments. She came up to us and placed a hand on Anjani’s shoulder, startling her back into the conversation.

  “That’s nonsense,” Hansa grinned. “I’m not letting you risk the long journey back.”

  “Unless you have a better way, we’ll have to. My vision impairment won’t let me use my travel runes,” Draven replied.

  “But I do have a better way. Follow me.”

  Hansa took us to her tent, the biggest in the camp. It was covered in massive black furs. The interior was dressed in layers of semi-transparent fabrics in shades of red and white, the complete visual opposite of the menacing exterior.

  I walked in first with Draven, followed by Jovi, Bijarki, and Anjani.

  At the far end was a slab of what looked like obsidian—a smooth, black crystal as tall as she was. She walked up to it and turned around to face us.

  “This was given to me as a gift from a Druid once. Many moons ago, before Azazel went mad and started slaughtering his own kind,” Hansa briefly explained.

  I whispered to Draven, describing the black crystal. He straightened his back, recognizing the object from its description.

  “You have a passage stone?” he asked, his voice pitched with surprise.

  “What’s a passage stone?” Anjani asked, staring at the obsidian.

  Judging by the perplexed look on her face, she hadn’t known her sister had it.

  “It’s extremely powerful magic from the Druids, thought to be extinct,” Draven explained. “I still have one back at the mansion, but I never use it, because it needs another to connect with. I didn’t know there were any left!”

  “Anjani, you didn’t know about this?” I asked her, and she shook her head in response.

  �
��Little sisters don’t know everything.” Hansa grinned. “I was going to tell her once she advanced through our ranks a little further. The passage stone is a well-guarded secret. Only I know about it. Well, now you know too.”

  “What does it do?” I still wasn’t clear on its purpose.

  “It takes you to wherever there’s another passage stone—provided you know your destination, of course. Otherwise you might not like where you end up,” Hansa replied.

  “This only works if there’s another stone on the other side. How did you know I had one?” Draven asked.

  “I’m no fool, Druid. You don’t strike me as someone who isn’t resourceful and cunning. You’ve been keeping that Daughter to yourself all this time, after all. And besides, Almus had one.” Hansa smiled. “Well, he had two. He gave me this one.”

  I was speechless and, judging by Draven’s expression, so was he.

  “We’ll save that story for another time,” Hansa continued. “By the way, Anjani will be joining you.”

  At the sound of her name, Anjani’s eyes grew wide, looking at each of us with what looked like panic and disapproval. She shook her head.

  “No, no, no. Why do I have to go?” She protested.

  “Wow, don’t get too excited,” Jovi shot back, visibly offended.

  “It is part of our agreement,” Hansa cut them off, her eyes set on Draven. “One of us with you at all times. It’s our tradition. Allies are not friends, Druid. We trust no one.”

  Draven nodded solemnly. “That’s perfectly fine with us, if it strengthens our agreement.”

  “Very well,” Hansa concluded. She took out a knife and pulled Draven’s hand out. I opened my mouth to protest, but Anjani gripped my arm, her gaze urging me to keep quiet.

  “The stone needs the blood of someone who has seen the other stone,” the tribe chief said. She sliced his palm.

  Draven hissed and tightened his grip on my hand even further, until my bones crackled from the pressure, and I yelped. He instantly relaxed his hold.

  Hansa guided his bleeding hand to the stone’s surface.

  As soon as his blood came in contact with the smooth obsidian, its surface began to ripple, similar to what we had seen the other day before we entered the Red Tribe through the limestone barrier.

  “Good. Now it knows where to take you,” Hansa said. “Come see us in seven days, Druid. We will have answers by then—good or bad.”

  Draven nodded and walked through the stone. I followed quietly behind and heard Hansa shout after us as the darkness enveloped me.

  “Don’t get my sister killed, Druid!”

  The warning sent chills down my spine. I held on to Draven’s hand, unable to see or hear anything. I could only feel his touch, as we walked through the immaterial blackness. It only lasted a few seconds.

  Before I knew it, he’d pulled me out into the dim light of a subterranean chamber. I stumbled into his back.

  He held his arms out to stop the others from moving forward. I looked behind and saw an identical slab of obsidian resting against a humid stone wall. Jovi, Anjani, and Bijarki came out of it, one at a time, its surface trembling from the contact before it smoothed itself back to its original state.

  We were standing in front of a deep underground pool lit with fluorescent blue water. The pool looked like it had been carved into the stone. We stood on a narrow ridge alongside it, a step from falling into the water.

  “This is not the kind of pool you’d want to swim in, believe me,” Draven warned.

  One by one, we started shuffling toward the end of the ridge, where a narrow staircase had been carved, leading back to the surface of wherever this was.

  “What’s that smell?” Jovi asked, sniffing the humid air.

  I took a deep breath and suddenly felt a little lightheaded. Draven gripped my arm, having heard my inhalation.

  “Don’t breathe in too much. The water emanates a toxic gas. It was used as an anesthetic by the Druids back in the old days. It’s still highly potent. It’s mostly odorless, but it will knock you out,” Draven explained.

  We reached the stairs and climbed up, one by one. We made it to the surface and found ourselves in the back garden of the mansion surrounded by thick rose bushes with the greenhouse to our right.

  Vita

  [Grace and Lawrence’s daughter]

  Hours must have passed since I’d seen Phoenix disappear into the ground beneath the magnolia tree, since I’d screamed after him from the bottom of my lungs, since Field and Aida had run outside. I couldn’t tell how long I had been there.

  I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to move.

  Aida tried to get me away from there to no avail.

  My hands dug deep into the grass. Dirt pressed under my fingernails. My eyes stung from the tears that streamed down my face. My throat was parched. My voice was so hoarse I could barely speak.

  Field had been trying to dig for hours. He used one of three shovels he’d grabbed from the greenhouse, scooping the black soil, desperately trying to get to where I’d shown him Phoenix had vanished. Every time he went as deep as one yard, the ground rumbled and pushed him out, swelling up with more dirt and filling the hole back up, like nothing had happened.

  “It won’t let me dig,” Field gasped. Beads of sweat rolled down his ashen face.

  He kept trying regardless. He dug and cursed every time the earth rejected him. Aida and I used the other shovels to help. Every time we dug in, the tree’s roots ejected us. Eventually my legs gave out, and I fell to my knees.

  I was exhausted, yet stunned enough to maintain consciousness. Aida collapsed next to me, wiping tears from her face with the back of her hand.

  The sun rose over the mansion, drawing pink and blue watercolors across the sky. Bird song traveled on the wind from the surrounding jungle. I couldn’t process anything. The image of Phoenix getting tangled into the magnolia tree’s roots and vanishing into the ground replayed in my mind, in a torturous loop.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Field said. His dirty palms splayed on his knees as he tried to get his breathing under control.

  “What if he’s…” Aida’s voice trailed off.

  Field looked at her with a pained expression.

  “He can’t be,” I heard myself croak. “He—he can’t be…”

  “What do we do?” She asked without expecting an answer.

  None of us had an answer or a reasonable explanation for what had just happened.

  The sound of movement in the grass caused us to turn our heads toward the house. Serena came from behind it, holding Draven’s hand. Jovi, Bijarki, and Anjani followed. They were back, all in one piece.

  “Serena,” I gasped.

  What was I going to tell her?

  How was I going to explain what happened?

  No words seemed right to describe what Phoenix had done and how hard we’d tried to reverse it.

  She smiled, closing the distance between us.

  My heart twisted into knots, and my cheeks burned. Another wave of hot tears poured from my eyes. I watched their expressions change as they approached us.

  Serena stopped in front of Field, who stood up and rubbed his sweaty palms against his pants.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, anxious.

  When no answer came out, she looked around.

  None of us spoke.

  “Where’s Phoenix?” came her second question, the one I dreaded the most.

  I felt Aida’s arm wrap around my shoulders. I watched Serena’s expression change from anxiety to a heart-wrenching frown.

  Bijarki took a few steps forward until he reached me. His eyes found mine, but I was sobbing too hard to speak.

  “Can somebody please tell me what’s going on? Where’s my brother?” Serena’s voice trembled.

  “We fell asleep last night,” Field started to explain, his tone low and wavering. “We didn’t see him get up and leave…”

  Serena’s expression lit up.

  �
��He’s awake? Where is he?”

  “I tried to stop him,” I managed to say between sobs, and she looked at me with even more confusion in her blue-green eyes. “I tried…”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He stopped in front of the tree,” Field continued. “He stabbed himself, Serena…”

  She gasped, and all color left her face. Her eyes bugged, and her mouth gaped. She lost control over her legs and fell to her knees.

  “Serena,” Draven said.

  She dropped to the ground out of his reach. “Where is he?”

  “We… We don’t know,” Field replied, swallowing back his own tears.

  Serena put her hands on the ground, breathing hard from shock. It tore me apart to see her like that. I shuddered in Aida’s arms.

  “The ground swallowed him,” I cried out. “It just opened up, and the magnolia roots shot out and pulled him down. He’s down there somewhere!”

  “We’ve been digging for hours,” Field said, looking at no one in particular. His hands trembled. “I’ve been trying to get to him, but the earth won’t let me in! It keeps pushing me out! Filling back up! I’ve been trying for hours!”

  Jovi faced Field and clasped his shoulders firmly, trying to calm him down.

  Aida held me tightly, as wave after wave of pure devastation crashed into me.

  I looked up.

  Serena stood up, grabbed one of the shovels, and started digging frantically. But the dirt belched from under her shovel, pushed her back, and filled the hole up again.

  Anjani stood still, looking up at the tree.

  Bijarki came down on one knee in front of me and lifted my chin with two fingers. His gray eyes stormed into my soul. Another round of tears scorched my eyes. My lips were dry and trembling. The pain on his face seemed to mirror mine. I couldn’t take it.

  “Phoenix!” Serena screamed into the ground, breaking down in tears. Her sobs tore into me, cutting deep. Raw holes drilled deeper into my chest with every noise she made. She kept shouting after her brother, and none of us could do anything about it.