Rival Demons

by Sarra Cannon

  I understood his fear. We had no idea just who or what might be tracking us. Hunters. Witches. The king's guards. We needed to stay as under the radar as possible.

  Jackson pulled a drawing from his pocket. "Last night, the old man drew this map for us," he said. "He said he remembered his father talking about the gem dealer being located in a medium-sized city just past the Eastern gate."

  He looked down the length of the stone wall and pointed to his left. "If we walk a couple miles this way, we should get the East gate pretty easily."

  "You don't think it will be guarded?" I asked.

  "I'm not sure," he said. "I guess we'll find out soon enough."

  The walk to the gate only took us an hour. Jackson carried the boy on his shoulders most of the way. To be careful, we stayed back from the gate and watched for a while, making sure there were no patrolling guards or anyone there to keep northerners out. After another hour with no activity in sight, we decided to risk it and walk straight through the gate.

  Excitement created butterflies in my stomach. We were so close now to another clue. If we could somehow locate the gem dealer, he would surely know where to find the concentration of blue stones.

  But when we passed through the gate, my eyes widened as I looked out at the ruins of what must have once been a flourishing city.

  I stood speechless. There was so little that was really known about the Southern Kingdom, but from the looks of it, they were having just as rough a time here with the Order as the north.

  We wandered through the debris, stepping over burned wood, crushed stone walls, toys and ruined furniture. Unlike the small villages we'd passed on the road, this had been a real city. From the sheer size of the destroyed area, I would have guessed at least ten thousand demons must have lived here at one point.

  "This can't be it," I said. "Can I see the map?"

  Jackson handed me the paper, but I immediately saw that this was exactly where the old man remembered the gem dealer to have lived.

  I kicked at a charred chair. "This can't be it," I said again. "There's no way we'll ever find the dealer now. No one could have survived this."

  Suddenly, I felt the events of the past few days begin to take their toll. I'd been living on adrenaline and hope, but this was a blow to everything I'd been feeling. My body was completely wrecked and exhausted. My leg was better, but the spot where the hunter had wounded me still ached. After two straight days of nonstop walking, it screamed in pain. Somehow, I'd forced myself not to feel it. Everything else had been going so well, I didn't want to admit the desperate situation we were really in here.

  I sat down on a heavy stone and put my head in my hands.

  "Don't give up," Jackson said. "Maybe there's another city just down the road or something. Or maybe if we look around we could still find the gem shop and find a clue there."

  I shook my head and looked out over the ruins. "How would we possibly find a gem shop in all this rubble? Besides, what would we find there? Gems? How is that going to help us?"

  "Then let's just sit here and whine about it," he said. "That'll help."

  Angry, I stared at him through squinted eyes. "Oh excuse me for expressing some disappointment," I said. "It's not like we've been through much in the past few months. Hell, all told this has been such a happy, positive year for me."

  Jackson sighed and set the boy down on the ground. "Look, I don't want to argue with you, okay?"

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "I know," I said. "I don't want to argue either. It's just that I feel like we have no idea what we're really doing, you know? It feels like we're doing something that's impossible and crazy and probably really stupid. I was really getting my hopes up, but now this. When I saw all this, it was like the weight of the past few days just came crashing down on me."

  Jackson pulled me into a hug and I leaned into him, loving the feel of his chin as it rested on the top of my head.

  "We're going to figure it out," he said. "We just have to keep trying. As long as we never stop looking, we'll find it, okay?"

  I nodded.

  Footsteps sounded behind us, and I flipped around, my heart racing.

  A man stood at the edge of the rubble, near the road. He froze as we turned, throwing up his hands as if surrendering.

  "Sorry to disturb," he said. "Just was kinda going through the ruins looking for something that used to belong to my mate."

  Surprisingly, he didn't seem the least bit interested in the fact that I was human. He didn't give me that fearful look so many of the demons in the north had given me.

  "You used to live here?" Jackson asked.

  "Oh yeah," the man said, squinting and looking out over the expanse of the rubble. "It's a shame isn't it?"

  "I wouldn't have thought anyone could survive destruction like this," I said. "You must feel very lucky."

  The man looked at me like I'd gone insane. "Well, by the time this happened, no one was living here anymore," he said. "The king's centralization project and all."

  I raised an eyebrow. This guy seemed to not even realize we were from the north. For someone who was walking right along the border between north and south, he didn't seem afraid or scared or even the slightest bit nervous. What was going on here?

  "We were looking for a man who used to live here," Jackson said. "A gemstone dealer?"

  The man rubbed his chin and thought for a minute. "You must mean Sorian," he said. "Older demon with a passion for rocks?"

  Jackson nodded.

  "He passed into the next world some time ago," the man said. "Is that what you guys are doing so far out from the Center? Lookin' for rocks?"

  "Yeah, something like that," I said. "What we were really hoping to find was a kind of quarry of blue stones. A place where they were sort of concentrated. Have you ever seen such a place?"

  The man eyed me suspiciously. "You know those gem deposits are pretty rare, right? Only one per stone," he said. "Plus, they're dangerous. Hunters like to hang out there. I don't recommend it."

  "We know," Jackson said. "So does that mean you know where it is? Could point us in the right direction?"

  The man shook his head. "I shouldn't even be out this far, but you know how mates can be. Mine is dying to get hold of her mother's favorite cooking pot. She keeps sending me out here to find it in the ruins, but I know that pot's long gone by now," he said. "There's no way I'd wander as far outside as the blue stones."

  It was the first sign of fear the man had shown since we met him.

  "Where are you two from anyway? One of the villages still on the outskirts or something?"

  I shook my head. "We're from somewhere even farther than that," I said. "But we aren't looking for any trouble. We just need to find those stones if we can. Please, if there's any information you can give us, we'd really appreciate it."

  The man shrugged. "It's your lives you're risking if you go out there." He looked off into the far distance, holding a hand up to his eyes to shade them from the sun. "If you keep walking that way for about a day or two, you'll come upon the blue stone quarry you're talking about. Still, I would highly recommend against it. There are some patrols that still guard those lands, but you're much safer near the Center these days. You wouldn't want to run into a hunter."

  "No, we wouldn't,' I said.

  The man shuddered. "I've never actually seen one myself, and I hope I never do."

  He leaned over and grabbed something metal from underneath a broken wall. He held it up, shook his head, then threw it back into the pile.

  "Wish you two the best of luck," he said. With that, the man disappeared into a fog of pure white smoke.

  I stared at the white fog, confused. "Why is his power white?" I asked.

  Jackson shook his head and shrugged. "I don't know, maybe it's a southern demon thing?" he said. "We should get moving."

  I realized the boy wasn't with us, and for a moment I panicked. Then, I saw him crouching low in the rubble. "What are you doing over
here?" I asked.

  He looked up at me and smiled. He held his closed hand out to me as if he had found something for me. I opened my hand and he placed a pure blue stone in my palm.

  Enjoy These Moments

  Much of the day was already gone, but we decided to push on toward the blue stones. We didn't have a road to follow, so we just made sure to keep heading southeast. The best we could do was hope the demon in the ruined city had given us good directions.

  Along the way, we ran into a lot of animals, but no demons Every village in between was completely deserted or ruined. The wildlife out here flourished. The deer-like creatures here were much smaller with black-spotted pelts and dark black antlers. Wolves with pure white coats roamed around the tree-line of a forest in the distance. Tiny green and white flowers grew all around us and every once in a while, I spotted tiny blue and red jumping things in the grass.

  When I originally pictured the demon world, I don't know why I'd imagined a drastically different terrain or set of living creatures. Now that I'd had some time to explore it a little more, I realized it wasn't all that different from earth. There was a lot more nature here than I was used to with all the trees and grass and such, and there was no need for cars or things like that, but overall, I was comfortable here. In fact, the Southern Kingdom was growing on me. Somehow it felt like home.

  "I think we should make camp before it gets too dark," Jackson said after we'd been walking for a couple of hours.

  Relief flowed through me. As much as I enjoyed the scenery, my feet were freaking killing me. "I second that," I said. "I could use a rest and some food."

  He looked around, surveying the space around us. He pointed toward the tree-line. "I think we should get closer to those trees over there so we're less out in the open. Let's see if we can find a good spot that's a little hidden."

  It didn't take long to set up our camp since all we had were a few blankets in our packs. Jackson started a fire to keep us warm, and we snacked on mushrooms and berries we gathered from the nearby woods.

  The boy never said a word. He wouldn't even tell us his name. But he was sweet and he seemed happy to have company. He fell asleep in my lap soon after dinner.

  Spending time with Jackson like this was amazing. It was hard to believe that we had been acting like complete strangers just a few days ago. Despite all that had happened in the past year, it never ceased to amaze me how fast things could change. I wanted to enjoy these moments together while I could. I never knew when it all might be taken away again.

  "Do you ever think about what you'll do if we actually manage to free Aerden," I said. I figured I was opening a can of worms with this conversation, but he had promised to be more open with me, and I wanted to know. "Will you come back here?"

  Jackson propped his back against a tall red-barked tree and I leaned back to stare up at the three moons and a sky full of stars.

  "I won't be coming back to marry Lea, if that's what you mean," he teased.

  I reached up to smack his arm and laughed. "You better not."

  "I honestly don't know what will happen," he said. "You'll be free too, you know. You could come back here with me if you wanted. I mean, if that's what we decided to do."

  I liked the sound of the word 'we'.

  "I won't live nearly as long as you will," I said. "I'll grow old and wrinkly before you even look like you've aged at all."

  He ran his fingers through my hair, nearly putting me to sleep with the gentle rhythm of it.

  "We'll figure it out when the time comes," he said. "I think we've got enough to think about right now without trying to decide on the rest of our lives."

  I nodded and closed my eyes, wondering just how long the rest of our lives might last.

  Too Late

  I tossed and turned under the stars that night.

  A man's face kept invading my dreams. His silver eyes looked so familiar, but I couldn't place him. Where did I know him from? I slipped in and out of my dreams, confused and anxious. When I awoke the following morning, I finally understood where I'd seen his face before.

  The shaman. When the Underground's shaman had come to heal me after my fight with the hunter, I had seen a vision of this man, his silver beard and eyes so unique and kind and strangely familiar.

  Jackson and I resumed our walk toward the blue stones, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I should know this man. It left me feeling a little disoriented.

  "Is everything okay?" Jackson asked after we'd walked a little ways. "You've barely said two words today."

  "I'm fine," I said, trying to just shake off the feeling from the dream. "Have you ever met a man with silver eyes? Was there someone in Peachville like that?"

  Jackson shook his head. "Not that I've ever heard about. Why?"

  "I don't know." I hiked my backpack higher to take some of the weight off my lower back. "It's nothing. Just a dream I had."

  "I never really sleep well out in the open like that," he said. "Too many noises and things to wake me up throughout the night. You probably just didn't get any good sleep."

  I nodded. Yeah, that's all it was.

  The boy rode on Jackson's shoulders most of the way, smiling and taking in the scenery.

  The rest of the day passed without event. We got to see some beautiful countryside, but we still had yet to meet up with any of the other Southern Kingdom demons. It was weird, really. Had their population really been so drained by the Order? From the looks of it, they'd been hit really hard down here.

  It wasn't until about dinner time that I started to feel it.

  At first, it was a small buzzing feeling in my hands and feet. I thought it was probably some effect of all the walking we'd been doing. I was just tired and my body was exhausted.

  But after another mile, I started to feel it everywhere like an energy coursing through me with growing strength. I stopped and just let it flow through me for a second. Jackson stopped with me and raised his eyebrows.

  "What's going on?" he asked. "Do you need to take a break?"

  I shook my head and just continued to feel. I had never felt it so strong before, but it was sort of like the way I felt every time I connected to my inner power. A warmth and a constant current. Only now it was amplified. Instead of a small stream, this was beginning to feel like a full-on river.

  "I'm feeling something." How to put words to it? "Different."

  "Different how?" he asked.

  "Let's keep walking," I said. "I think we might be getting close."

  Jackson walked close by my side, watching my expression as we moved forward.

  "Stop staring at me," I said with laugh. "You're making me self-conscious."

  He gave me that sexy half-smile I'd missed so much when we were apart. "I'm just getting excited," he said. "Let me know if anything changes, okay?"

  Not even half a mile later, I stopped again. The humming feeling was now a strong charge throughout my body. I felt like I'd been connected to some kind of super battery.

  "We're so close," I said. "I can feel the power of the stones. I don't know how or why, but my body is having a very strong reaction to it. It's like a flood of power."

  Something in my pocket buzzed. I reached my hand in and found the small blue stone the boy had given me. "Look," I said.

  The stone seemed to glow from within.

  "Follow it," he said. "Maybe you can lead us there."

  I closed my eyes for a minute and allowed myself to really connect to the feeling. When I opened my eyes, I could see very clearly where I needed to go. The force of the stones pulled me like a magnet. A hill up ahead blocked the way, but in my heart, I knew what we would find on the other side of that ridge.

  Too excited to walk, I threw my backpack to the ground and broke out into a run. As I crested, the hill, tears sprang to my eyes and I pressed my hands hard against my face. We'd found it. The valley below us was filled with perfect blue stones, the suns shining off of them to create an almost diamond-like effe
ct. Jackson ran up behind me and threw his arms around me. The boy laughed and cheered, even though I knew he didn't understand our excitement.

  For a moment, we both just stood there in awe. This is the place where all of Peachville's stones had come from. This place of power might have been where my troubled past originated, but right now all I could see was hope for the future. Breaking loose, I ran down the hill, placing each step carefully so as not to trip. Jackson ran even faster, hitting the bottom before me. The boy sat at the top of the hill, looking down on us as he played with a small flower.

  Together, Jackson and I searched the large area for any sign of the ring.

  "It's going to be here somewhere," I said. "This is really going to be it. We just have to find it."

  I crouched low and studied every crevice, searching for any place a ring might be hidden among the stones. I lifted the loose stones from the ground and looked underneath. I studied the area from different angles, even going back up the hill to look at it from a new perspective. But the ring wasn't here.

  With each passing minute, I grew more and more frantic.

  We couldn't have come this far for nothing. Please. I had been so certain it would be here. I stood with my hands on my hips, staring out at the quarry. Wasn't there something here that looked out of place? Some rock that could be moved to reveal a secret hiding place? Something.

  Jackson joined me, shaking his head.

  "We've been looking for over an hour," he said. "What if it's not here?"

  His words tore through me like a hot arrow. Even though I'd been thinking it myself, I wasn't ready to hear it said out loud. I refused to accept it.

  "It has to be," I said, a quiver in my voice.

  I went back down the hill and started over, checking each section of rock again.

  When I got to the center of the stones, I saw something on the ground I hadn't noticed before. A very small faceted stone. My heart jumped in my chest. All of the other stones here were raw and uncut. They had no polish or shape to them. But this stone was different. It was shaped and buffed and shined.