by Reilyn Hardy
Am I dead? I must be dead.
* * * * *
My bright surroundings fade back to Nevressea. I’m standing now. A large crowd has gathered out in the open and no one seems worried about the hag anymore. Vihaan is helping Rhiannon down from the post, she’s okay. Good.
Some people are cheering, and some are crying — I think. Amelia is, while she stands in front of the pub. Her face is in her hands, knees are bending together. She’s struggling to keep upright.
But I don’t see Jace.
I see the body of the hag — and then I see the head. I move to the crowd of people, trying to push my way through to the center. They’re all tightly crowding around something and I need to see what it is. Maybe it’s Jace, maybe he’s hurt.
He’s on the ground leaning over something. He’s — he’s crying.
I see what’s beneath him and I stop in my tracks. It’s me, with a silhouette of a smile on my face. Cold, dead eyes. My throat is torn open. Slashed. He’s kneeling in a pool of my blood, grabbing my body, wrapping his arms around me. I’m just laying there while he cries.
I’ve never seen him like this, I never wanted to.
Lerra has her face in her hands.
Rhiannon shoves through the crowd and drops to her knees beside Jace. He lets me go and grabs hold of her. He grips the back of her dress, I can hear him.
“I — I couldn’t save him.”
She holds him close while he struggles to breathe. Touching his face, running her fingers against his cheek. I take a step back.
I am dead.
I take another step back. The people, they pass right through me. I didn’t notice at first. But I can’t look at this. I can’t see him crying over me, over my body.
I can’t see this.
My body — lifeless. No.
“Jace! Where are you going — stop!” I hear Rhiannon suddenly, she’s pleading.
I turn around again and I see Jace shoving through the people, she’s struggling to keep hold of him. But he shakes his wrist free of her grasp and he runs. He takes off once he’s out of the crowd that had surrounded him. Us. Me.
He runs right past me, and he doesn’t look back.
Rhiannon — she’s looking at me — no, she’s not looking at me. She’s looking through me. She’s watching him leave her again.
This is all my fault.
The winter night, it’s colder now.
I see her, I see the Spring in her eyes fading into Autumn as the greenery turns to rust. I see the leaves dying, and Winter taking over with it’s frost. I see her heart freezing over. I see it, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
I remember Jace saying when he met her that her eyes were a darker shade of green. She can’t be going back to that. She can’t.
I won’t let her.
But I can’t stop her either.
Do you ever feel like everything is your fault? You hate the outcome of something you did and if you acted a little differently, just a little. If you had done something else instead, everything would be different? No one would be sad, everything wouldn’t be falling apart. That’s how I feel now. Seeing the hurt on Rhiannon’s face as she stares out into the darkness that Jace had disappeared into.
I shake my head and take another step back.
“This isn’t how it was supposed to end.”
“No?”
“No!” I shout angrily at nobody. None of them can hear me.
I stop suddenly.
Somebody answered me.
I turn around and see a woman standing there, someone I feel like I know and yet I’m positive I’ve never seen before. Her hair is dark, flowing over her dark brown shoulders. Branches and leaves cover her, vines twisting around as if they had grown that way. Around her body, down her arms. She looks at me with piercing green eyes that almost glow.
“You’re a chronomancer, Artemis.” She tells me, but I don’t believe her because I’m not.
“No, I’m not,” I tell her. “I know the story. I was supposed to find Glasskeep to become one. I never did. I never looked.”
The corner of her mouth twitches as she reaches to grab my hand.
“You did, you found it within yourself.”
I frown. I don’t understand what she means.
“What?”
“It was never about a place, Artemis. When you decided Lerra’s mother wasn’t a monster, when you decided not to kill her, when you decided to instead risk your life to save Lerra, you accepted who you are — curse and all. You became a chronomancer. You found the courage to resist, even if it meant you might not make it out alive.” She tells me. “A curse is only a curse if you treat it like one.”
I’ve never heard it that way before. I always saw it as a negative. What good was having the courage to resist if you couldn’t protect yourself or anyone you love?
I’m still frowning.
“Who are you?” I ask, she smiles.
“I’m Caliswen.”
I take a step back from her, my fingers slipping from her grasp.
“You’re Mother Nature?”
She nods.
“And I’m also your mother.”
Air is caught in my throat.
“What?”
“You and your brother will have gifts Alekoth and Drarkodon never had. You two will be different, because you two will end it.”
I shake my head again, this isn’t happening.
“But I screwed up. I don’t know where the stone is, the Grim Reaper probably has it now. Mithlonde is going to come back and —”
She shakes her head, and turns to Amelia. Vihaan’s standing with her and he’s holding the stone in his hands.
“She still had it,” I say.
“Don’t be mad at her, Artemis. You were right, she was only doing it for her brother. She just wants him back, to be at peace. I’m sure you’d do the same for yours.”
“Wait, how did you —”
“I’m your mother. I know everything.”
She smiles.
Comforting, only not really.
“The hag,” she continues, “was keeping her until Malachi could come. I don’t think he’ll be coming anymore.”
“Why not? I’m dead. He can come here and take it now.”
“Is that what you want?”
“No,” I say. It sounds more defensively than I mean it to.
“You have light inside of you, you always have. If you hadn’t, you never would have left Newacre just so Jace wouldn’t have to go alone.”
Of course she knows. She knows everything. She just said that. The only thing is, when most parents say that, they actually don’t know everything. Why did mine have to be different? Why did my parents have to be Father Time and Mother Nature?
What makes me so special? Or so unfortunate.
I chew on the inside of my cheek and avert my eyes.
“You believe in me more than dad does,” I say.
“He never left you, Artemis.”
She takes my hand and raises it up to show me. She’s showing me the ring that hugs my thumb. The ring that Weylan gave to me. I see it now, the symbol — a triskelion. I don’t remember it being there before, I remember a smooth, white gold ring. I don’t think it was there before.
“Weylan —”
“He never left you,” she says again. “After the gorgons took your brother, he was done. He had enough, and he left. Made a new identity for himself so you two could be normal.” She’s holding both of my hands in hers now. Walking backwards, she slowly brings me back to the crowd. “You are not disposable, no matter what you think.”
Behind her, I see myself — my body — rising from the ground, hovering and suspended in midair. All eyes are on it now, even Amelia who’s eyes are shining. They all watch, they’re all watching me, including me.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
“Time,” she says.
The symbol of the triskelion brands onto the back of my neck, it glows wh
ite like there is light inside of me. My eyes shoot open, light shining through, and the rips in my neck start to fold over.
They start to heal.
“Will I see you again?” I ask, I can see her fading, or maybe I’m the one fading.
“I’m always with you,” she says. “In the dirt under your feet, in the air you breathe — the water you drink. I’m all around you, all the time.”
She looks up at my body, hovering in the air, and my focus follows hers. My mouth opens and words come out, only it’s not my voice. It’s deep, and it sounds a lot like my father’s.
“The boy who was once lost has finally found his source. The Time Traveler will rise, but not without force.”
Not without force. I don’t know what that means.
I wait for my mother to give me some kind of answer or explanation but she just smiles.
She reaches out and touches my heart.
She fades from me.
* * * * *
I gasp for air and slowly land back on the ground. On my feet. I’m back in my own body, a solid corporeal form and I feel different.
I touch my neck, good as new. I reach my hand out and my dagger snaps to my palm as if pulled by a magnetic force. White lights surge through my veins, disappearing as they travel up my arms. I can feel it.
When you become a chronomancer, you feel powerful. You feel it surging through your veins, just beneath your skin. You feel it burning at your fingertips, the power that is swelling inside of you. You feel unstoppable, unbeatable, and invincible.
Knowledge fills your head. The history of Glasskeep, the history of the chronomancers. The history of my people. The skill used, how to utilize it. It is all buzzing in my brain, text running through my eyes. It is a feeling I can’t explain, it’s a feeling I can hardly comprehend.
“Who are you, kid?” One of the villagers asks me. Speaking while everyone else gapes. Jaws dropping, eyes wide. I remember him. One of the patrons that spoke rudely to Jace and I about the Grim Reaper. One of the patrons who weren’t willing to listen.
I remember him.
“I’m not a kid.”
I spin my dagger against my palm, and catch the handle in my grasp.
“I’m Artemis,” I announce, and look directly at him but he turns away, shielding his eyes. There are still white lights shining from my eyes. They come to a dim.
“I’m the last chronomancer.”
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I wish to personally thank my parents, Robert and Cheryl, and my sister, Rachel. I would have never gotten past my insecurities and moved forward with the publication of The Last Chronomancer if it wasn’t for my family. If they hadn’t pushed me, you wouldn’t be holding this novel in your hands today. Thank you to my editor, Kaz Vasquez, who has been with me and Artemis from the very beginning, nearly ten years ago. Who has read every version of this book I have ever written, and stood by my side to watch it grow and blossom into what it is today. Thank you to Michelle LeBoeuf, who read every draft of this version. Her unconditional support kept me going when I wanted to quit, and I hope I can do the same for her one day. Thank you to Carmen Carrillo, Rachel Fernando, and Heather Hanson, for always believing in Artemis and in me. The three of them have stuck by me through everything, since the beginning, and are responsible for helping me grow as a writer. I will be eternally grateful for all they’ve done for me.
Special thank you to the following individuals who, without their contributions and support, this book would not have been published: Cora and Caleb Hasegawa, Myles and DeAnna Hayashi, Jane Higuchi, Keith and Mary Francis Higuchi, Wesley and Joyce Higuchi, Keala, Terry, Tanya, Jake and Kayla Kimura, Doug, Cori, Courtney and Kelsie Muraoka, Dan, Lesly and Arices Spurling-Higuchi, Nora Knock, Seth Plunkett, and Stanley Benito, Glenn and Jan Tamayose, Ryan, Margie, Brett and Austin Tanaka, and Al, Susan and Kekoa Yoshida.
Last but not least: I beg forgiveness of all those who have been with me over these years and whose names I have failed to mention.
Thank you all, so much.
Contents
prologue
a curious prisoner
the vernal equinox
two decades
causing trouble
coin
black waters
the ashen hills
blood on the floor
the time keeper
where darkness festers
out of a nightmare
the thealey massacre
harvest moon
the whispering woods
natural enemies
a skinharvester drake
the obsidian inferno
the dragon king
clank and clatter
land of the dragons
western eye venom
the truth hurts
carvings on the wall
what makes a monster?
the last chronomancer
Table of Contents
prologue
a curious prisoner
the vernal equinox
two decades
causing trouble
coin
black waters
the ashen hills
blood on the floor
the time keeper
where darkness festers
out of a nightmare
the thealey massacre
harvest moon
the whispering woods
natural enemies
a skinharvester drake
the obsidian inferno
the dragon king
clank and clatter
land of the dragons
western eye venom
the truth hurts
carvings on the wall
what makes a monster?
the last chronomancer