by Anna Hill
Lio put an air of awkwardness into the room. Anglo tried to ignore it by turning to me. “When do you want to go to this woman and see what magic she has?”
“As soon as possible. Tonight, most likely. There’s no reason to wait.”
This was all too much for Lio. He got up and stormed toward the door, slamming it behind him. Rhyion sighed.
“You should go speak to him,” Angelo told me. “Say whatever you must to have him comfortable with this. I know that you will not be focused with the task at hand if you know he is back home hurting.”
“Yeah…” I said quietly. “Maybe that’s why he shouldn’t act like a child and put further stress on me.”
This was the first time I’d ever been truly frustrated at Lio, but I was. He was usually the one to calm me down, bring me back to earth. Now he was riling me up.
“Annabelle, he only worries for your safety. You are his life. I understand his feelings. I would be very upset too if I could not accompany you on this task. Be understanding to his needs.”
Leave it to one of my boyfriends to try and solve the conflict with my other boyfriend.
It was sweet, though. They both cared for me, and because they knew how much I loved the other, they cared for each other too. We had a beautiful group, and I appreciated that.
“Okay. I’ll go talk to him,” I said.
Rhyion and Angelo both nodded, and I quickly transported outside, where I could see Lio still stomping out into the woods.
I transported again, this time landing directly in front of him so he couldn’t walk any further.
“Stop this,” I told him.
“Stop what?” He pouted.
“This… this being mad at me because I have to go do something for the good of Elderan. You know this is part of my journey. You know it won’t always be easy. You’re supposed to be here to make things easier on me, not harder. Now I’m stressed about leaving you, knowing how devastated you’ll be.”
He groaned. “I know, I know. I know that. And I do my best to put my feelings aside to do everything I can to comfort you, but it’s hard, Annabelle. It’s even harder now. You were kidnapped once, you realize that? I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. I ached for you every second of every day. It was hell while you were gone. So to let you do something dangerous again…”
I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him. “But you did get me back. And in a way, even that was necessary to our journey. I learned about who Jacob really was. I learned more info about Robert. Even that needed to happen.”
He put one arm on my back and the other around my neck; his hand rested on the back of my head. “I know. But I don’t know if I can survive going through that again. I can’t imagine going days without knowing where you are or if you’re okay.”
“But you can survive,” I told him. “We’re all capable of more than we think. That’s why we’re all bonded together. Each one of us has our hardships. It’s part of the deal.”
He continued to hold me tight. “Well, it’s not the deal I want. What I really want is to have a normal life with you. I want to live with you in a safe place and know that you’re okay in my arms. I want to find happiness with you, have children with you one day. I want a simple little life. Some days I think that I don’t even care what happens to Elderan as long as I get to stay safe on this island with you.”
I had gotten that vibe from him before. I could sense that he was a little happy it was taking Rhyion and I so long to find the answers we needed. It was more time that I stayed out of harm’s way.
“This is about more than us, Lio. We need to sacrifice some of our comfort and happiness for the good of the people.” I stepped out of our hug and back a few steps, using my hands to gesture to the forest around me. “Look at all this beauty. Look at the cabins we get to live in and the fruit trees that provide sustenance. My people do not have that. They have nothing. They’re living in poverty in run-down apartments infested with insects and disease. I can’t live a happy little life with you while all my people suffer.”
He nodded and looked down. “I know that. I understand that.”
I stepped forward again and grabbed both his hands in mine. “But we will have our quiet little life, one day. Or, you know, maybe not so quiet since I’ll be ruling a country and everything. But it will be safe, and it will be happy. I can promise that much.”
“Okay. I will wait patiently for that.”
“Good.” I smiled at him. “Thank you. And things are going to be fine, you know. Angelo and I are going to visit this woman, and we’ll be back before you know it… with answers on how to take Robert down once and for all. I promise, it’ll all be fine.”
He kissed the top of my head. “I will trust you on that.”
I was glad he did, because, frankly, I didn’t completely trust myself.
6
Initially when I found the address again, I was nothing but thrilled. But after getting such a negative reaction from all the boys, I was really starting to worry about going back to Elderan. The weight of the danger was starting to weigh on me.
But I was still determined to go.
Angelo and I waited until nightfall. We weren’t in the exact same time zone as the place we needed to be in Elderan, but it would still be dark there too. Which was what we wanted. The darker it was, the easier we’d be able to slink outside of this woman’s house without being noticed.
When it was time to go, I hugged Rhyion, gave Lio a kiss, and then took Angelo’s hand. I repeated the address in my mind, and within seconds, I had transported us there.
We landed in an area that was, surprisingly, not urban. We were out in the country.
Or, well, the country for Elderan. The country in Elderan wasn’t as natural as the islands we lived on were. You could still see distant factory farms, smog clouding the air, broken paved roads. But there were no stores or crammed apartment buildings.
The house looked like it may have been an old farm. Not one of the factory ones, of course, but a farm from older days, when farmers used to grow food on their own with only the help of their family… when their animals roamed free across the fields.
I had never known a farm like this. I’d only ever seen one in the pictures of history books. In school, they used to make these farms seem like a bad thing. They called them inefficient compared to the factory farms of today. But even back then, I thought they sounded nice, more ethical, healthier.
Of course, there was no farm here anymore. Just a dilapidated old house with chipped paint and wood rot.
I silently took Angelo’s hand as we walked up to the house and knocked on the door.
An old elven woman opened the door; her grey hair fell in messy waves behind her pointed ears.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Are you… Resa?” I asked, hoping I had pronounced the name correctly. I’d only seen it written down, Nessa never spoke it to me out loud.
“Yes. Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Annabelle, and this is Angelo.” I motioned to him. “Can we come in? Nessa sent me.”
“Nessa…” She considered it for a moment. “Right, come in,” she said.
We hurried in, and she quickly closed the door behind us.
The home had no electricity and was extremely dark. She had a fire going in the fireplace and a lot of candles set about the house, but no actual lights.
“How do you know Nessa?” she asked right away, most certainly trying to vet me.
“We used to work together. I was a waitress with her.”
She nodded. “What exactly are you looking for?”
“Pebblerot,” I said. “I can drink it and temporarily have the power to see visions, correct? I can ask questions and get answers to anything I need to know?”
She quickly shook her head as she sat down on an old, brown couch. It looked to be made of corduroy or something. Angelo and I sat on the couch across from her, an old leather thing.
�
�That’s a misconception, actually,” she said. “Pebblerot is complicated. It doesn’t give clear answers, and it’s best used by somebody with experience. So you yourself won’t see visions. I will see the visions, and you will ask me the questions. I will most likely be able to get clearer answers than you will be. Pebblerot really confuses people. They get lost in the visions it does give, and they forget all about the questions they need answered.”
“Okay, well, that’s fine,” I said. “I guess I don’t need to see the visions myself. I just need answers.”
“I can try to get you the answers you need, but as I said, pebblerot is quite confusing. You may not receive answers the way you expect. They may be vague.’
“Well, right now, any answer is better than nothing,” Angelo commented, speaking for the first time since we arrived.
“Right, we’ll go for anything at this point.”
She nodded. “Then we will try. Do you have the 1500 ergots?” she asked.
Fuck, I had completely forgotten about that part of the deal.
“Actually, no… I have no money,” I said, a little embarrassed.
She raised both eyebrows. “Then I cannot help you. I have limited stores of pebblerot. This is my only source of income. I cannot give visions for free, I’m sorry.”
“Please,” I began to beg, surprised by the desperation in my voice. “You have no idea what’s at stake here. The entire fate of Elderan is in our hands. Without your help… everything will fall to pieces.”
She let out a short, sarcastic laugh. “I doubt that, dear.”
“It’s true,” Angelo said. “You are sitting across from the true Queen of Elderan, the woman who will save us all.”
I flashed him an angry glance. He didn’t need to go saying all of that, it made us sound crazy.
And the old elven lady was certainly thinking we were crazy. She looked completely suspicious. “Okay, I think it is time you both leave now,” she said seriously, as she stood up.
“Wait!” I stopped her. “It’s true. I’m… I’m actually a witch. And I am destined to save Elderan… it’s been prophesized.”
Her suspicion turned to sadness. It was clear she pitied me, like she thought I was mentally ill or something. “Honey, witches have all been dead for a hundred years.”
“I can prove it,” I told her, standing up.
“Okay…” she said, a little nervously.
I quickly put out all the fires in her home in an instant. The candles, the fire in the fireplace, all extinguished in a second. And then in another second, I brought it all back.
Her jaw dropped. “How did you—”
“I’m really a witch,” I said, standing up, putting out my empty hands and arms straight out in front of me. “There's no object in my hands. This isn’t any black magic. I can do whatever I want.”
She still seemed skeptical, so she pointed to an empty glass candy bowl that sat on top of a wooden table in the middle of the room. “Fill it with water,” she instructed.
I did as she asked.
“That… You really do have magic.”
“Yes, because I’m really a witch. And I really am the person who is supposed to save Elderan… But I need your help. I promise, if you help me, one day I’ll pay you. One day I’ll be on the throne, and I’ll make sure you’re set for life and you won’t ever worry about your survival again. Hell, I’ll make sure nobody has to worry about their survival. But I need your help.”
She nodded, sitting back down on the couch, and I followed her lead. “I’m… not sure how helpful it will be. I can only do my best.”
“That's all I’m asking for.”
She nodded. “Let me get the pebblerot. I’ll be back. Figure out the exact questions you want to ask me. Be as specific as possible, that helps.”
“Okay,” I agreed. I already had the questions swirling around in my head.
She walked down the dark hallway and into one of the back rooms. When she returned, it was with a small vial filled with black liquid, and she had a piece of paper and a pen in hand as well.
“Immediately after I drink this, you need to ask me questions… and loudly. Again, be specific. I will only have a few minutes, and after that, we’re done for a while. I cannot consume any more pebblerot immediately because it’s poisoning to the body. So we must be quick. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” I said, trying to ignore the pounding in my chest.
She downed the drink, and immediately, her eyes rolled to the back of her head. We could only see the whites of her eyes, and she began to tap her feet in a weird, convulsive way. I could see why she insisted on drinking the pebblerot herself… It did seem to completely take her over.
“Where is King Robert?” I asked.
Her head began to twitch back and forth, and her right hand, which held the pen, was scribbling over the paper on the coffee table. “He is in a dark place… I cannot see. He is surrounded by other men and women… I feel the magic pouring off of him… That is all I get.”
Goddammit… I knew she said this would be vague, but that was far from the answer I needed.
At least I had other questions.
“Am I powerful enough to defeat him?” I asked, mostly so I could go back to assure Rhyion that we now knew for sure that I was capable, since he seemed to doubt it. Personally, I didn’t.
But the answer shocked me.
“No… You are not yet powerful enough. He is fighting your magic with… you. It is you against you. And as long as he has you, you cannot defeat him. The time isn’t right… But it will be. It’s draining out of him as we speak, it’s… limited. The magic he has is not infinite. It will run out. I see him… no long holding onto you…”
Okay, none of that made sense to me. She was scribbling things down as she spoke and I didn’t understand why at first, but now I got it. Because her answers were like a riddle. I was glad I’d get to read them back to myself later to try and determine what it meant.
“How can I get to Robert? How will I be able to find him when I am strong enough?”
She paused for a long time on this one. “I see a boy… a young man. He spends a lot of time with you. Brown hair, dark eyes, a rounded face…”
“Jacob,” I said definitively. She had to mean Jacob. No other man has spent a lot of time around me except for the boys, and none of them could possibly be described as rounded. “What about Jacob?”
“He won’t lead you to Robert, but he is going to hold you back. If you do not destroy him first, he will always keep you from Robert. He is a loyal servant. Get rid of him… and you will be much closer to Robert…”
“And how can I get to Jacob?” I asked.
“This one… I see. Clearly. I see the calendar. It’s August 15th. He crossed out the day. He’s walking into… apartment 34, and he sees you. You’re already inside. This is where you will find what you need to know.”
Holy hell… after all those vague answers, I was losing hope that I might hear something that was actually useful to me.
But this absolutely was. I had a date… and I had a location. It didn’t hit me at first because the apartment we lived in wasn’t 34, it was number 12.
Until I realized that the apartment I lived in with my parents was labeled 34.
I was going to meet him at my old apartment?
I didn’t understand why. There was no reason for either of us to be there on August 15th. But I also wasn’t going to doubt it. It was the only lead I had.
“And will I need anything to defeat him?” I asked.
But there was no time to answer. Just as quickly as it started, the pebblerot seemed to wear off. Suddenly, Resa was sitting in front of us completely still, the pen still in her hands.
She wasn’t lying about this being fast.
“Do you remember what you saw?” Angelo asked quickly.
“Vaguely… You see, it all happens so fast. I’m only out for a few minutes, but for me it feels like much longer. Like these vision
s have lasted hours… This is why I take notes, to remind me of what I experienced.”
Angelo nodded. “It’s especially important for us to understand what you said about Robert fighting her magic with her.”
“Yeah, that was very confusing, but it sounded important,” I agreed.
If all we got out of this was the one lead about Jacob, that would be enough. It was something to go off of. And that encounter with Jacob would likely lead me to more info about Robert…
But I wanted to get as much out of this as I could. Especially when it came to Robert.
She looked over her notes, nodding slightly. “Yes… I saw visions of you. Specifically, of somebody using an object that utilized your magic. That boy… you said his name was Jacob?”
My eyes widened. “Yes, Jacob. What about him?”
“He was the one using this… thing. I don’t know what it was. It looked like some kind of bracelet, but it was more than a bracelet. It was constantly sucking the magic out of the air. Anytime he was around you, it was collecting magic. This is the source of Robert’s magic. As long as he has that magic, you won’t be able to defeat him. But he will run out. Now that you are no longer in their grasp, this magic won’t last forever.”
My jaw dropped and I looked over Angelo. “That makes so much sense… I had no idea why Robert was so intent on keeping me alive. Now I understand the need to force-feed me, to keep me captured instead of killing me. I was necessary to him.”
Angelo looked positively disgusted but said nothing to me. He just turned back to the elven woman. “When will this magic run out?”
She shook her head. “That I do not know. I’m not sure how it works, how he stores it, how long a day of magic lasts him. But he’s had years to collect from you, that’s the only thing I know.”
I nodded and spoke to Angelo again. “Maybe Rhyion will be able to figure it out.”
Resa looked pleased. “So this helped you, then?”
“Yes, very much!” I said emphatically. “Thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate this. You haven’t just done me a favor, you’ve done Elderan a favor. I promise, you’ll be rewarded for this.”