by Jadie Jones
“You set me up,” I say and spit the sour taste from my mouth. A first round of tears burns the backs of my eyes but I will them back.
“The good doctor had served his purpose,” Asher answers before Vanessa has a chance.
“What purpose?” My voice cracks, the question coming out like a demand.
“He’s the chief of surgery. Well, was,” Asher says. “He was the only one who could grant me permission to save your life that terrible, terrible night.”
And then he lists every piece put in motion, every trick and trap they’d set along the way. How Vanessa spotted me on the playground at my preschool in Vermont. How Dana introduced herself to my father at a horse show and told him she was looking for work. How Asher volunteered at a local fire department and calculated the average time it would take the truck to get from the station to the barn.
The room spins, and I catch myself on the bed post.
“God, you’re pathetic. This, Asher? This is what you’ve waited a thousand years for? You’ve got to be kidding me. Vanessa,” I plead. “He’s a monster. He’s just using you.”
“Right. I’m just the stand-in. The runner-up. Your substitute. Maybe the first time around, but not anymore.”
“Listen to yourself! You don’t even know what you’re talking about. He killed Spera. He will kill me, and he’ll kill you, too,” I argue, practically yelling.
Her eyes darken as they move to Asher. I follow her gaze, my throat constricting as I take in the sight of Lucas trapped in Asher’s hand. His mouth is still, but his eyes beg me to run. To leave him behind. That’s not going to happen.
“Don’t you dare look at Asher! He’s mine, selfish girl. But your selfishness worked to our advantage. All your poor mother asked of you was to stop riding. But you couldn’t give her even that, could you?” Vanessa rants, pacing back and forth. “You made it so easy.” She stops and turns to face me. Her eyes lower with malice. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to ride alone?”
She lets out a wild cackle like she’s made some kind of joke. Something in her laugh triggers the memory of being chased through the woods that last night at Wildwood. Part of me already knew Asher had everything to do with that night, but I can’t accept that Vanessa was there. That she had anything to do with it.
“Have you put it together yet or do I get to tell you about the fun we had chasing you through the woods that night? Although I have to hand it to you, you put up one hell of a fight. That horse has quite a kick in him. Well, had.”
The memory of her leaning over me to tie my hair back in the hospital the first time we met is crystal clear in my mind. The bruises along her collar bone, the marks she’d blamed on her husband. They made a perfect horseshoe.
My eyes leap to Dana’s face. She killed Hopewell. She killed him. And she burned my father’s farm to the ground.
“Don’t you just love surprises?” Vanessa smirks.
“No. You’re lying. You wouldn’t do that.” But even as the words whisper from my lips I know they’re not true.
“Still think there’s hope for me? Still think you can save me, Tanzy?” she mocks and takes an angry step for me.
Dana folds her arms and watches me with an ugly expression.
“Shh.” Vanessa brings a finger to her lips and closes her eyes. “Somebody still has a secret.” She saunters toward Lucas.
“You touch him and I will end you.” I cling to this truth, the only thing I know for sure. The only thing I’ve got left.
“I have no intention of harming this poor, confused creature.” She reaches up and pets his scarred cheek twice before giving him a sharp slap. “But you might.”
“You have lost your mind.”
“Is that so?” she says more to Lucas than to me. “Because I see a secret locked inside.”
Lucas’s eyes plead with me over the top of her head. What are you trying to tell me?
“Tsk, tsk Tanzy. That’s cheating. And he can’t hear you anyway. He’s not a mind reader. He’s not much of anything really. But I bet we could still have some fun together. Don’t you think so, Lucas?” She nuzzles her cheek against his bare chest and then runs a nail from his sternum to his navel, leaving a line of blood. I mask a flinch and level my glare at her green eyes.
“Just tell me, Vanessa. Go ahead. There’s nothing you can say that would make me want to hurt him.” Lucas is not like Asher, and never will be. I know that in my soul. And she won’t be able to convince me otherwise.
“Are you so sure about that?” Dana interjects.
“Of course I’m sure.” I look to Lucas’s face. I want him to see what smolders within me for him. That I am sure. That I know his heart. But he won’t meet my eyes. What’s wrong, Lucas?
“Why don’t you see for yourself?” Vanessa sings and grabs my hand. Instantly we are on the seldom traveled trail at Wildwood Farm, moving along the lip of the ravine.
“You don’t have to show me this. I relive it every day,” I say. But the girl who watched the river for hours waiting for her father to surface also believes Vanessa might still be on my side, might be trying to show me a way to save us all in this very moment. I grip my fingers around hers and stare her in the face, watching closely for any sign.
“This is how I remember that day. The first day. The beginning of everything. See it through my eyes.” The view shifts down the trail forty or fifty feet, staring head on at Teague and my father as they lead the way through the overgrowth. My fifteen-year-old self follows close behind on Moonlit. She stares into the trees to her left, searching for the black apparition.
The view begins to zoom in as Vanessa slinks closer. The shapeless static jumps to the ground in front of Teague. He rears to his full height and then bolts forward. The sound of Teague gathering a stride before the lip of the ravine makes me instinctively close my eyes, but the memory plays on. He jumps, straining for the other side that he’ll never reach.
My younger self tumbles from Moonlit’s galloping retreat and runs toward the place they went over. Vanessa’s perspective lowers as she crouches lower in the underbrush. But she’s not watching my younger self. She’s watching the quivering dark still visible on the trail. A human form begins to take shape in the shadow. Legs, arms, and a head emerge and solidify. The features sharpen and color fills in the void. As his face turns down the trail to Vanessa, my body goes still. Lucas. He takes one more step toward my grieving, fifteen-year-old self before slipping back into the cover of the trees.
I stagger away from Vanessa. Lucas’s eyes search my face as my knees surrender to the crushing weight of this betrayal.
“You killed my father.” It comes out in a whisper, but the words echo in my brain, banging from side to side like a battering ram.
“What are you going to do about it?” Vanessa asks in feigned sweetness.
“You can do whatever you want to him, love. I’ll be happy to hold him for you. It would be so fitting for Lucas to serve as your third kill,” Asher says.
His words fade as the pieces from that horrible day at last slide together. My guide thinks Lucas changed. Even Asher thinks he changed. But they’re all wrong. Lucas is still a killer. He wasn’t protecting me. He was hunting. And he fed on my father. That’s why they never found his body. Whatever Lucas left behind turned into earth.
The sound of someone sobbing works its way through my thoughts and pulls me to the surface. It’s me. I’m crying.
“Asher, we don’t need her. I have enough of what we need from her. We have hundreds of horses to match. Tanzy even hand-picked a few, so we’ll start there.”
The horses . . . Moonlit. I hand-delivered my beloved horse for slaughter. What have I done?
Vanessa pauses, no doubt anticipating a reaction. But I can’t lift my eyes from the floor, each second heavier with deceit and failure than the last.
“Raffin is wrong. She can’t possibly be the true Vessel. The Vessel is a fighter, a warrior. She will have to guard your child against every
attack. Do you see her defending your child any time soon? There’s not an ounce of fight left in her. She’s worthless to us. To anyone.” Vanessa’s words deliver a pain more overwhelming than betrayal; they deliver the truth.
She’s right. I don’t have anything left to fight for.
Yes you do, a familiar voice skirts the farthest regions of my mind, drowning out whatever Vanessa is saying. Fight for me. Fight for yourself.
Spera?
We are one.
But I’m not ready. It’s too much. And I don’t know what to do.
I know. And you don’t have to. Today is not important. But you must live to fight. Because they need you. They all do. You are the final piece. You are the only piece.
I’m not sure yet what Spera means, but I know she’s right. All of these lies and tricks and effort—they are for me. A thousand years of waiting and scheming. Incredible, impossible measures taken on both sides to keep me hidden and to draw me out. They need me. And only me. No matter the cost of the past, no matter the price of what lies ahead, I am the only piece.
Vanessa says something to Asher, her perfect face now little more than that of a stranger. But I don’t hear her words. I only hear the steady lub-lub of her pulse, see it rising and falling along her ivory neck. Blood courses through her veins like that of a mortal. I don’t know what she is. But she can die.
In a single motion I spring to my feet, snatch her by the throat and slam her against the wall. Dana instinctively moves toward us, but I stop her with a look. And I know Asher won’t attack, Lucas still captive in his hand. No one can help Vanessa now. And no one will. But if there’s one thing my Origin taught me well, there is suffering far worse than the peace of death.
I bring my mouth so close to her ear that it feathers across her skin. These words are for her alone: “You’re wrong, Vanessa. Asher doesn’t need you. He doesn’t want you. He doesn’t think about you. He thinks about me. Only about me. Your blood won’t open the veil. You are not the Vessel. You are not the true queen. I am. We both know that. Asher knows that. The only thing that he really needs is me. I am the final piece. I am the only piece.”
I run a steady finger down her ivory cheek and pull back to look her dead in the eyes. Their jade centers are fractured with doubt and coated in glistening pain. And then, loud enough for all of them to hear, I deliver the words that Spera announces in me. A promise. A warning. The last truth either of us has left. "You're wrong about one more thing, Vanessa. This is the beginning of everything. This day, this moment, is only the beginning."
And then, I leap across the room and crash through the closest window pane. The shattering glass announces the final break as I leave them all behind.
Epilogue
Landing in a puddle of broken glass and rain water doesn’t hurt. I thought it would. Even hoped for it. Maybe then I could assign a word to this feeling that has taken hold of me. Dana. Vanessa . . . God, Vanessa . . . And . . .
I can’t even bring myself to think his name. I force thoughts of him aside and race across the open lawn to the cover of the trees. I glance back to the dark house, but no one has followed me out.
“You sure do know how to make one hell of an entrance. Well, exit, I guess,” a voice I’ve never heard says from behind me. I whirl to face the sound. The adrenaline still coursing through my veins instantly makes me ready to defend myself.
“Whoa, no need. You can put those fists away,” the girl says and steps from a cloak of dark shadows.
Her pale skin and white-blonde hair make her look like a ghost in the misty gray fog. The weak light filtering through the canopy of limbs stripes her face. As she steps closer she nervously tugs at a piece of her chin length hair, dyed hot pink on the ends. Her other hand clutches the faded strap of a well-worn messenger bag slung across the front of her black sweatshirt.
“Who are you? And don’t even think about answering me with some kind of question or riddle. I’m all done with those.”
“Jayce,” she says, hands in the air. “My name is Jayce.”
“That’s a name. That has nothing to do with who you are.”
“I’m on your side,” she insists, working to keep her nervousness out of her voice. It only shakes a little.
“I’m on no one’s side.” I pass her to move deeper into the forest. I am the only piece. Only. From here on out I am doing this alone.
“But you do have a side. And we need you,” she says, following close behind. I ignore her and start to run ahead. Her footsteps stop. “Fine! Make a go of it on your own. They’ll find you one way or another. And if it were me, I’d want to bring just as many people to that fight as they will.”
I pause and glance at her over my shoulder. I’d be foolish not to see what she knows before I take off.
“There are others like us? How many?” I ask, turning back to her.
“Probably hundreds. There’s no way to know for sure.” She jumps at a sound of something rustling in the trees. “Where’s your Shield? I saw Lucas go in the house. Asher didn’t kill him, did he?”
“No.”
“He’s still alive? You left him in there?”
“He’s just as bad as Asher. Maybe worse. He killed my father.”
“He’s your Shield, Tanzy. A Contego.”
“I don’t care what he is. All I know is he’s the reason my dad is dead,” I counter.
“A Contego takes an oath of protection. It’s wordy, but the gist of it is that they’ll defend your life at any cost, theirs or anyone else’s,” she says, taking a few steps in my direction. “That day on the trail, Vanessa was waiting for you. Lucas tried to stop you guys from going any farther. He didn’t know your dad would die because of it, but that’s not his concern. He can only care about you.”
“How do you know about that?”
“We all do. It was the beginning. For all of us. Don’t you get it yet?” Her words sink in like heavy stones.
The beginning. The place my life truly began. The beginning that Lucas had been so desperate to prevent no matter the cost. He tried to stop all of this.
“I have to go back,” I whisper, tugging gently at the braided grass bracelet he had tied around my wrist. Was that really just a few hours ago?
“No way, chica,” Jayce says and shakes her head. “Not now, anyway. We have to have the element of surprise on our side to get all of us in and out of there in one piece.”
“But what if they kill him?” I can barely get the words out.
“They won’t.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“He’s the perfect bait,” she answers with a shrug. “They’ll keep him alive as long as you’re alive.”
I can’t stomach the idea of leaving Lucas with Asher, but Jayce is right. There’s no way I could get him out right now.
I’m so sorry. I understand why you did what you did. I will make it up to you, Lucas. I will come back for you. I send the message to him with everything I’ve got, tucking my hands under my chin in prayer as I refuse to accept the staggering odds that it will never reach him.
“Don’t bother, Tee. Whatever’s up there isn’t listening. And we don’t have time to waste.”
“Don’t call me that like you know me. You don’t know me. And this is not a ‘we,’” I snap, gesturing between us.
“Oh, I know you. I know the heart of you,” she says, her voice thick. Her fingers shake as she reaches toward the middle circle of my mark. “You made it quick. You didn’t have to.” She lets her hand drop and steps ahead of me.
Cavilla. The girl I watched Spera kill in the Origin. The girl she prayed for. With a start, I realize that the faint stripes across her face and hands don’t change with the light as she moves. Cavilla’s blood, the tiger’s blood, has found a new home in Jayce. It takes a couple of seconds for the shock to wear off before I can follow her.
“It’s Tanzy,” I say and fall in step beside her. “Just Tanzy now. Please don’t call me anything else.”
/> “You got it,” she says.
“How do you know all of this?”
“Because I know what it is to be Asher’s queen. I know the power. And I know the price.” She levels her blue eyes at mine.
“How were you his queen? You died.” I almost regret the question, but the time for tact has long since passed.
“Don’t you mean you killed me?” She delivers the news like a punch line, but she’s the only one of us who manages to smile. “Your Origin wasn’t my first rodeo. And it wasn’t Vanessa’s, either. She played Spera like a fiddle. And from the sounds of it, she played you, too.”
“So what’s to say you’re not playing me now?” I fight the instinct to create distance, instead stepping closer to Jayce’s lithe frame. She clearly knows what I’m capable of, and I’m going to use it to my advantage.
“I guess you’re just going to have to trust me. The way I see it, you’re running low on options and information. I can give you both.”
“What else do you know?” I press, giving her one shot to give me something I can use.
“That no one is strong enough to stop him on her own,” she says.
The worthlessness of her answer has more of an effect on me than the sudden tremble that flutters across her shoulders.
“And you really think the two of us are enough?” Agitation snips the end off each word.
“Of course not. But it’s not just us. We have Hope on our side.”
“That’s beautiful. Really. Maybe if the world doesn’t end you can go into business making warm and fuzzy cards for warm and fuzzy people,” I bristle. Hope? She thinks having hope can stop Asher?
“I’m not talking about warm and fuzzy feelings of hope, Tanzy. I’m talking about the name Hope. That doesn’t ring a bell for you?”
“I only know one person by that name, and trust me, that’s not who you’re talking about.” I slam the door closed on the subject of my mother as fast as I can. I’m barely holding it together as it is, what’s left of me bound together by rage and fueled with the guilt of leaving Lucas with Asher.
“You really don’t know anything, do you?” she snaps, balling her fists at her sides. Part of me wishes she’d throw a punch, that she’d give me a place to release the adrenaline pouring unchecked into my veins. But a bigger part of me has already left her behind. I turn away from her and start down the hillside.