Ashes

by C B Samet

  She turned to look at me, her eyes filled with despair. “Do you want to know what I saw in the geysers? I stood before you like this, begging your forgiveness. Even though I hadn’t betrayed your trust at that point, I’d been shown that I would. After Joshua ordered me to restrain you if necessary, I prepared for the worst.” Her lips trembled. “I know a great deal about how the stones work from Baird. It was logical that a healing of this magnitude would severely drain Joshua, if not kill him. It was logical that when you saw the effect on your husband, you’d lose rational thought—choose his life over the lives of thousands. Even Joshua thought that.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I do forgive you, Coco. I wish Joshua had let me find a different solution, but his choice isn’t your grief to bear.”

  She gaped at me.

  Although I didn’t think she’d enjoy me invading her personal space, I stepped in and hugged her.

  Coco returned the embrace, sobbed once, and then stiffly stepped back. “Thank you.”

  I gave a weak smile. “We’d better stay friends now that I’m accepting my duties as Avant Champion.”

  “We’re glad to have you.”

  “I hope so, because I’m officially unemployed now.”

  Coco’s lips quirked.

  When Coco left, Dean Lariat entered my doorway. Her gaze roamed around my office—at the books, boxes, and garbage. I’d given notice several days ago, so I guessed this would be her goodbye.

  “We sure hate to lose our champion.”

  “No one is losing the champion. I’m still here on Crithos.”

  “Then why leave the university?”

  I pursed my lips, before deciding to tell her the truth. “All I ever wanted at this university was to be valued as a chemistry professor—not the kingdom’s heroine merely pretending to be one. I thought my moment of sacrifice and glory had been fulfilled thirteen years ago, and I could have the life I thought I wanted.”

  The Dean stiffened.

  “You don’t need to look sad for me,” I told her. “Life didn’t go as planned, but that doesn’t make my important role any less crucial. For the things I need to do now—my family and my champion role—I have to narrow my focus and stop spreading myself so thin.”

  “You are a good chemistry professor. I didn’t mean to imply—”

  “You didn’t mean to, but you did imply—and it’s okay. I know where I belong now. Thank you for the career I had here. It will always mean a lot to me.”

  When I returned to packing, Dean Lariat lingered for a few more moments before leaving.

  Baird returned to my office.

  “Are you okay?”

  I turned to my friend and mentor. He’d lost the woman he loved to a fatal illness, so I knew he understood my pain. “I’m not going to be okay for a long time, Baird. If you can wait at least a year before asking me that, then you’ll spare me countless lies. I know you lost a dear friend when Joshua died, so I won’t ask you that question either.”

  “I’m here if you ever need anything.”

  I began throwing away papers on my desk—lesson plans, formulas, unfinished notes. “I need you to be the friend you’ve always been. We need to keep sparring and keep preparing for Bellos’ attack.”

  He nodded.

  “And you need to forgive Coco.”

  He blinked at me.

  “She acted as instructed, on orders from the Queen. She’s going to feel miserable about her role in Joshua’s death for a long time. She doesn’t need to lose you as well.”

  He crossed his arms. “I believe you just gave me sage advice. That’s supposed to be my role.”

  “Sometimes we judge the one’s we love the hardest.”

  “Well stated.”

  I wrapped a beaker in thin paper, before placing it in a box. “How is Hans?”

  “Undeterred from becoming a monk.”

  “Considering the quest opened his eyes to violence, devastation, and slimy man-eating squids, I’d say that’s a good thing.”

  Baird ran a hand over one of my books before brushing the dust off the spine. “Perhaps.”

  “Perhaps what? What does that mean?”

  “Laos and Luke and I shared the same concern over his killing Preacher Pinsky. The monk way is not murder—not of an unarmed man.”

  “He may have been unarmed, but he was still a monster. And that was Hans first fight. He was caught in the moment of battle.” And why was I defending the young lad? Perhaps because I knew the crush he had on me, and irrationally felt responsible that Hans killed Pinsky defending my honor.

  “Perhaps,” Baird replied.

  I arranged the boxes of books and supplies from my chemistry office against one wall in my study. As I did so, I looked at the book of magic I’d borrowed from Orrick. I ran my fingers along the stiff leather.

  Magic.

  Whatever invasion King Artemis schemed, might alone wouldn’t drive his forces back. I needed to learn magic and not only stars and stone magic. I needed to learn from Orrick.

  My gaze fell on the glass, cylindrical puzzle box of Isabel’s memories. I needed to learn Isabel’s type of magic—that of a sorceress powerful enough to create Malos and banish Orrick to a tree for seven thousand years.

  I touched the cool, bluish contraption, careful not to touch the symbols that released her memories.

  As I turned it over, there seemed to be a pattern of symbols on one end out of alignment. I hadn’t noticed that before now. I turned the raised piece of attached glass. A clicking noise emitted and the small circular piece opened. A scroll tumbled out and onto the floor.

  I set down the cylinder and picked up the rolled piece of paper. As I unrolled it, I sat near a window for more light.

  The black ink on the parchment was in a language I didn’t know. As I stared at it, wondering if it had been composed by Isabel Dallik, the black lettering moved and swirled as the ink reformed into letters in Crithian.

  Dear Abigail,

  You have suffered heartbreaking loss and devastation. For the role I played in setting events in motion so long ago, I am deeply sorry. I hope you will believe my intentions were to help the world in a time of crisis. My actions saved thousands of lives, but it also damaged the lives of others.

  You will never know the hope you have given me. Seeing you arrive in my son’s future, and how you set him free, has given me peace and strength. You save my family, Abigail.

  You will be the greatest Avant Champion the world has ever known. Magic will help you achieve your destiny. Learn from Orrick. In a few years, he’ll bring you the Spirit Stone and then you will learn from me directly.

  You are Crithos’ strength and salvation.

  —Isabel

  I reread the letter several times, dumbfounded. Isabel knew about me thousands of years ago. She referenced me saving Orrick. Had she known I’d release him before or after she banished him to the forest? My blood had released Orrick from the oak tree. My blood. Isabel’s reference gave me hope that I truly would have the ability to harness the same power of magic that she’d mastered.

  I knew now that I would fully embrace the mantle as Avant Champion as I never had before.

  I knocked on Wizard Oak’s door as a dozen brownies stared up at me. I probably looked underwhelming to them—dressed in my slacks, boots, and cotton shirt. I held Isabel Dallik’s memory puzzle in one hand.

  The old man opened his door and swept me into his arms in a crushing hug. “Abigail! Abigail, such a tragedy.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. How had he known? Had word of Joshua’s death spread this far south? Or had the wizard simply divined the information?

  “Come in for tea.” He closed the door behind me.

  He’d already poured two cups of steaming tea, as if he’d known I was coming.

  I stared down at the object in my hands. “I came to give you this. It belonged to your mother. It holds her memories. I’d have returned it sooner but—”

&nb
sp; “Don’t fret champion. You’ve been a little preoccupied.”

  I thrust the glass cylinder forward. “I saw some of her memories. She was a remarkable woman.”

  “She was a force of nature.”

  “She loved you and Mal immensely.”

  “I believe she did. Perhaps I had my doubts when she turned me into a tree—but I came around. Life as a tree allows for a great deal of reflection.” His eyes sparkled. “I know she loved us.” He took the object and looked it over.

  “You twist and align different symbols to trigger a memory.”

  “Wonderful. Many thanks for traveling out here to bring this to me.” He set it down and handed me a cup of tea.

  “I also came to let you know I’m having plans drawn up for a small house for you on our property. It’ll be bigger than what you have here, but still modest. You can stay as long as you like—or make it temporary, until you find something, somewhere, you prefer.” As I sipped the warm tea, the taste of vanilla and lavender soothed me.

  “That’s a generous offer.” He stroked his white beard.

  When his eyes softened, I felt he knew I meant every word. I loved this man as a friend and a mentor of all things magical. If I was to survive my life without Joshua, I needed to surround myself with love. If Orrick was to survive into his next decade, he needed to not be surrounded by an encampment of boisterous brownies.

  With a bow of his head, he said, “I accept.”

  23

  I looked out across the beautiful shore. The water began as emerald green, and then stretched to a light blue that transformed into deep sapphire. In the light blue sky above, the two cresent moons shone.

  I sat on the beach of my dream world, feeling a cold numbness. In the blink of an eye, my life had been irrevocably changed—as had the lives of my children.

  It wasn’t their fault they’d been born from stone bearers, who held the responsibility to use their talents to help others. Nevertheless, they’d suffered the consequences.

  Mal appeared beside me, wearing his usual black suit.

  I continued to stare at the water. “Do you remember the time all four of us teamed up against the harbor wave? Well—first you had to show me what a harbor wave was, so I’d understand the terror of it. You did that right here. Then we rescued the villagers. Every last one of them.” I stared down at the sand and caressed the grains with my fingers. “We came back later and helped them rebuild.”

  “I am so deeply sorry about Joshua.”

  I felt the depth of pain and truth in his words.

  “Did you know?” I asked. There was no trace of accusation in my voice.

  “No.”

  “Interesting the geysers chose not to show me that piece of information. I saw my own death, but not Joshua’s. Do you remember when you and I first met in a dream? Do you remember when you told me Joshua and I had decade upon decade together?” Despite my words, my voice was fraught with despair rather than anger. I still had no spirit left for anger.

  “I saw him dying of old age. I didn’t know it was because the stone magic took his youth.”

  I remembered Goran’s warning about how the Waterlands showed pieces of the future and that they were subject to misinterpretation. Even Mal had misread a glimpse of the future, when he’d seen an aged Joshua die in my arms. Because I’d never have aged at the same rate as Joshua, Mal had assumed that Joshua and I had spent a lifetime together; not realizing the Healing Stone had zapped the years from him prematurely.

  I listened to gentle lapping of the waves.

  I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged my legs to my body. “I’m lost without him.” My voice was a hollow whisper.

  “Understandable. But you won’t always be. You’ll find your way—your strength. You’ll continue to be an amazing mother.”

  I blinked at him. “You think I’m an amazing mother?” I don’t know why his opinion on the subject mattered, but I felt the reassuring weight of it. He’d never expressed such a sentiment.

  “Of course you are. You provide their needs, education, and enrichment—and you’ve managed not to strangle Rebekah, the little spitfire.”

  I chuckled.

  “Apparently, you are also raising a future queen.”

  I grunted. “It places a little more pressure on parenthood.”

  “You’ll do fine.”

  I laid back on the sand, looking at the perfect blue sky. “And us?”

  Mal took a quick intake of breath. “We need to separate.”

  I felt the words slice through me, even though I’d suspected they were coming. Mal had already begun the process by distancing himself from me during this quest.

  I didn’t understand one thing. “Why?”

  “You’ve seen man is back in possession of his evil. You saw the devastation of this plague—the death toll was higher because man’s evil let fear and brutality win against compassion and benevolence. We still don’t know why evil had returned to nest in individuals. The only thing different about this millennia, compared to every other, is you.”

  A cold shiver coursed through me, which had nothing to do with the ambient temperature. I couldn’t argue with his logic, and I refused to be weak and ask him to stay. A rogue dream tear streamed down my cheek. I was losing my husband and my friend in one terrible week.

  “I’ve stayed with you longer than I should have out of my own selfishness. I’ve ignored my responsibility these last few years because I’ve had the pleasure of your family to distract me. I can’t ignore it any longer.”

  “You’d been isolated for seven-thousand-years. One might expect you’d want to enjoy the opportunity to see parts of the world you never had.”

  He gave me a sidelong glance through his thick, dark lashes.

  “We’re friends,” I added.

  He looked up at me with a hard stare. “And I’ve let our friendship successfully distract me from my obligations.”

  I clenched my fist, knowing and hating where the conversation was taking us. “No.”

  “I think our friendship is only making the world worse.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “It’s the one thing that’s changed. I’m only in existence because of this link we share. I should be on Mulan, nonexistent, until enough evil is absorbed.”

  “You think our relationship is the reason human evil is not being absorbed?”

  “I’ve no other explanation.”

  “And your solution is separation?” I spoke the words through clenched teeth. I felt a stab of irrational betrayal. After everything we’d been through together, he was content to disappear? He was leaving me?

  Mal gave a subtle nod.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Fine?”

  “Yes, fine. We’ll separate. We’ll save the world from our damaging friendship.”

  “Abigail.”

  “No, you’re right. The prince of darkness shouldn’t be amiable with the Avant Champion. The continent cannot be simultaneously bathed in summer sun and coated in winter snow. Perhaps we’ve violated some rule of nature. We’ll end it.”

  He eyed me skeptically, seeing through my veiled attempt to appear agreeable to his suggestion.

  I sniffed. “So, if your theory holds true, we’ll start to see evil recede from humans the longer we’re apart?”

  He nodded.

  “How do we know if it isn’t working, and your theory is wrong? How much time is enough?”

  “I suppose, theoretically, if the flow of evil is the same to and fro, the damage could be reversed in eight years.”

  “Then, in eight years I’ll either see you again, if you’re wrong, or never again, if you’re right.”

  He let silence take a few beats before saying, “Yes. Goodbye, Abigail.”

  I closed my eyes. “As you wish.”

  He dissolved into the breeze, taking a piece of me with him. Although we’d settled on a plan, I knew I would see Mal again.

  I knew I’d
die in his arms someday.

  The next day, I transported to a small, unoccupied area of land to the north—somewhat southwest of Karnelik. I watched the lake water ripple and listened to the birds. Joshua and I had been to this spot many times. I’d seen him naked for the first time in that water, touched his warm, bare skin. I remembered the heart-stopping look of desire in his rich, brown eyes. I remembered the feel of his muscles and tender embrace.

  Raven was right. I had months and years of mourning to do, but I couldn’t stop living while I did it.

  I had always known the stone would take Joshua from me prematurely, since it stole energy from its user in order to function. But I never imagined it would take him so soon, so suddenly.

  I’d been the one to give him that stone. I’d relinquished it as a bribe during college, so he wouldn’t tell my brother, Paul, about the scuffle I’d been in during my studies in Karnelik.

  The Healing Stone had defined who Joshua was. He unselfishly gave his strength—his life force—to heal others. He’d intended to spend a lifetime doing so. He’d be proud to know his legacy had been to save thousands of lives—to save the kingdom.

  Paul, Natalie, and Rebekah would grow up knowing their father had been a hero. I would have preferred they grew up knowing him, but I couldn’t see a way for events to have unfolded differently in the face of that devastating plague.

  Joshua embraced who he was—who magic and destiny declared him to be.

  I had fulfilled one destiny as the Avant Champion and set any further acts of greatness aside. I felt the singe of my selfishness. Coco had been right, years ago, when she’d accused me of leaving my obligations unfulfilled. I wanted a family and a teaching career. In those pursuits, I’d turned my back on my country. Now, hostile forces surrounded Crithos. Chaos and anarchy gripped Kovia, while Bellosian forces plotted against us.

  My gifts, and the loss of Joshua, meant that I couldn’t continue the life I’d built for myself. The cocoon I’d woven around myself was an illusion, and now it was forever shattered. A new life beckoned me.