Forgotten

by Sarah J. Pepper

  “The Rippler’s spear,” Jace said, and then cursed. “I swear I’ll kill him if he hurts you, Gwyneth.”

  Shoving his hands onto the shadow growing on Analee’s chest wound, he spoke telepathically. Within seconds, her chest had begun to rise and fall. Without warning, Jace jerked his hands away from Analee’s chest and tackled me. Another spear drove into the ground inches from my head. Jace’s hand grazed it, causing it to disappear.

  “Don’t move,” he said, and took off running toward the direction it came from.

  Something was wrong. This attack was planned. They baited us, not the other way around. I looked in the opposite direction and saw two figures in the distance. We were surrounded!

  Pushing off the sand, I ran for cover. The ground shook under my feet. Sand erupted as a sound wave rippled through the air. It lifted me off the ground only to body-slam me back onto it. Sand gathered in my mouth, scraped my skin, and burrowed into my eyes. Zalen’s laugh ripped through the air.

  He was enjoying this? Was he a traitor? Who was on my side?

  I looked around me. Analee’s body was tossed beside me. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing. I crawled over to her, reaching her as another sound wave followed Zalen’s laugh. It demolished the beach, flipping mounds of sand over. The air darkened, clouded by the sand storm he’d created.

  Sand flew through the air. I pulled my shirt up over my nose, hoping to keep too much of it from getting into my lungs. I didn’t dare to open my eyes. My skin burned as if it were on fire; it wasn’t just from the sand scratching me. Jace was furious. I raised my head, trying to see his hazy outline, but in the sand storm, he was hidden. Another blast sounded; my ears instantly started to ring. I shielded my eyes and looked up.

  A mass of blackness that I hoped was Marco, rushed my way as countless pieces of sand and stone ricocheted around me. He gained speed and then pinned me on my back, just as the sound wave started to throw me through the air.

  My head pounded when I slammed into the ground. Shooting pain spread through me as rock collided into my flesh. My breathing was labored as the weight above me buried me deeper into the sand. Darkness encased me. I couldn’t push Marco off. A putrid scent grew around me as I sunk deeper. Everything reeked of rot and death. Sand slipped into every crease, up my nose, into my mouth as I screamed for someone to hear me. I took a deep breath when the slop filled my mouth; I gagged, taking in sickly flesh and sand. I was being buried alive under dead weight!

  Was Marco my enemy too?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I held a knife to Marco’s throat. He was larger and stronger than me. His eyes were bright green, unnaturally beautiful. His face was unshaven. His hair was in distress, but somehow incredibly attractive. I never fought my own battles before, but I refused to let him bring me to the Master again. He gripped the knife that I held to his throat. He hadn’t even flinched when the blade sliced through his skin. A thick scar trailed across his knuckles – moving like it wasn’t attached to his skin. It slithered under his wrist, hiding itself from view.

  My reflection shone off the blade. Wrinkles creased themselves around my eyes. Even as he kneeled before me, the red -haired man was still at chest height. I pressed my lips together and breathed through my mouth as the stench of rot and decay filled the air.

  His skin peeled away from his face as if it couldn’t stand it. Yellow puss and orange infected blood seeped from his tissue. It slopped to the ground. The liquid flesh sprayed my legs. The rotting man vanished and stood behind me a second later. His decaying hand held the knife in my hand. It was now pressed up against my throat.

  “I won’t allow you take me to her, at least not alive,” I said.

  “It’s not for her, Ocean Eyes,” he said. He pronounced my nickname like it was a joke. “You’ll want to grant this one. Think of it as a gift.”

  “A gift for whom exactly?” I asked.

  “Give your sister’s voice to us, and you’ll give all of us deities a way to speak up against the Master.”

  I’d awakened to the repeating vision while lying on my side, spitting up mucus. Sand coated me, jarring me from my thoughts of what the vision meant. My eyes stung from the debris wiping around me. My clothes were soaked. I tried not to think about how the blood-stained mark must’ve looked. Blood crusted the cuts over my arms and legs, which restricted my movements. Marco’s voice trickled into my mind - calming me, even though the world exploded around us. He held on tighter, blocking the particles. Sand pelted my flesh. I cried out when a large rock hit my leg. Marco cursed and then leaned in closer to protect me.

  “You scared me there, sweet cheeks,” Marco said cheerfully, like we were having a casual conversation at a diner instead of having to shout to hear each other while blasted in a sand storm. “I thought I’d lost you there. I forget how vulnerable you are compared to the rest of us.”

  “Get me out of here,” I demanded.

  “I can’t shift you out of here unless Jace is nearby, because humans have difficulty shifting. He needs to be close to heal you, and he’d have my head on a platter if I shifted him when he’s so close to getting his revenge.”

  The beach jolted when another sound wave blasted. Water rose up from the sea and rained down on us. Each drop felt just as hard as the sand, drenching us in a mixture of sand and salt-water. When the shower slowed, Marco slid off of me.

  “Jace is taking entirely too long, and I’m getting bored. Try not to die while I’m gone,” he mumbled, and then vanished.

  Thanks for the advice.

  Brown curls twisted over his pale blue eyes as he laughed. My aging skin crawled as he wrapped his hand around my wrist. He was taller than me but only by a few inches. Another woman with tanned skin and coffee brown hair watched as he lifted me from my seat on the grassy field. The sweet scent of lilies filled the air.

  Three spears shone in the light. Their tips were thrown into the ground. The woman with wavy coffee-colored hair walked over and touched the spear. It disappeared instantly.

  “You won’t be threatening my sister with these, not yet Rippler,” she said.

  The athletic man danced me around the meadow. “You recall everyone’s past, even the darkest parts?” the Rippler said softly.

  My throat rattled like I’d just spoken. I stared at the scar trickling down his neck. “Especially the darkest parts, Rippler,” I answered, gazing at his scar. “Why? Is there something you’re trying to keep hidden?”

  I breathed a sigh of relief when he pulled away. His touch unnerved me.

  “Many of us keep things buried deep. The Master would say you ask vague questions.”

  “Analee has vague answers, as do you,” I said, reaching for his scar. He disappeared just as my pinky finger brushed against the end of his scar on his neck.

  The vision of the Rippler cut out as an excruciating scream echoed in my mind. Jace knelt on the ground; a thin, dark object intercepted his usual glowing silhouette – another spear. I gasped. The general shape looked like a spear I’d seen in my vision of the Rippler and like the one sticking out of Analee. A broken-off spear stuck through his shoulder. Following the angle of the spear, I looked up to find the Rippler standing on the cliff’s ridgeline. Zalen plucked another spear from the air behind his back, like he’d been hiding a stash of them – from nothingness, he formed a weapon! He created something out of nothing – did every deity defy the laws of nature?

  I forced myself to breathe slowly through my nose; my heart raced. I hadn’t known a lot about fighting tactics, but I knew height was an advantage. Jace needed help. Where had Marco run off to? Surely he wasn’t bored enough to ditch us?

  An excruciating scream echoed in my mind as Jace jerked out the broken-off spear. The wood ground against his bones as he twisted out the spear. I wanted to throw up. Why hadn’t the spear disappeared the moment he touched it like the others? Zalen laughed; it haunted my soul and tore at my eardrums. I covered my ears and buried my face in the sand, waiting for
the vindictive amusement to end. When I looked up again, Jace was in mid-run and tearing off his shirt. He bunched it together. Flames crawled over it until it became a fireball. He chucked it at the Rippler, traveling at a speed that my gaze couldn’t follow. Zalen flung himself along the ridge like his life depended on it. Before he hit the jagged edge, he threw the spear. Jace easily dodged it, slowing his pace. I pushed off the ground and raced towards him, hoping he wasn’t losing too much blood from the wound.

  “Don’t die,” I repeated in my mind over and over again. The sand shifted under my feet, preventing me from covering ground quickly. I looked back up at the ridgeline. I was sprinting directly into Zalen’s firing range, but I couldn’t just leave Jace.

  While Zalen was distracted, Marco appeared on the ridge next to him. He charged the Rippler, as Zalen tried plucking another spear from the air behind his back. They plummeted off the cliff. I heard myself scream. It echoed in my mind. They soared toward the ground, gaining speed – courtesy of the Earth’s gravity. They vanished and reappeared several times, as they neared the sandy beach. Since they both could shift, it was like they were fighting each other to reposition themselves on the planes of this dimension. I’d almost reached Jace when they collided into the ground.

  The impact threw me off my feet and onto my back, knocking the wind from my lungs. I rolled to my side and looked up, frantic to find the others. My mouth dropped. Marco held Zalen in place while Jace used him as a human punching bag. Jace might have been wounded, but his adrenaline surged through him, empowering him through any weakness he should have had. The injury he sustained should have demobilized him, yet, he wasn’t acting like any wound was slowing him down.

  Zalen laughed. “Time has not been good to you, Healer. You’re not the gladiator I remember.”

  Jace paused. The fire jumping off his skin grew so hot that the grainy shape of the beach melted away in a smooth pool of glass. The smell of burnt flesh accompanied the beating of Jace’s fists. Zalen screamed out in pain. I clenched my teeth, covered my ears, and prayed Zalen would stop. My ears bled. My sight, that had been getting more defined the longer I was around the deities, started to blur into shapeless mixes of blacks and whites. I wanted to black out, from the rippling effect Zalen held over sound waves.

  “Mercy, Jace!” I yelled. I couldn’t stand the torture any longer. My mind refused to pass out, but my body was bleeding. I couldn’t breathe in deeply, without smelling the sickly scent of burnt flesh and rotten tissue.

  I gasped for air the second Zalen’s torture ended. Consumed in his fire, Jace rushed over to me and helped me up from the ground. I lost my balance upon standing upright. His grip around me tightened until I regained my composure. His hands skimmed as much of my skin as he could touch, searching for injuries and healing my cuts and bruises immediately. He covered my ears with his hands. The ringing ceased immediately. He gently traced his bloody thumbs over my eyes. The sharp sting vanished into nothing. My sight returned to what it once was – the shapes of people and objects became more defined. With a soft touch, he healed all my injuries.

  “Your healer. Fate has allowed,” Jace said, explaining that the impossible, truly had just happened.

  He’d promised to be my healer if Fate allowed. I’d always assumed fate was a play on word for destiny. He believed blindly that I was a Fate sister, so was he asking permission from me back then? He tenderly stroked my cheek; it was like I’d just given him back his reason for living. I touched the darkened shadow on his shoulder. He cursed when my fingertips grazed over his wound. My fingertips slid over the mess of blood and torn skin.

  “Why do you not heal yourself?”

  “In time,” he said. “I have plans for this bloody wound that Zalen has so graciously bestowed upon me.”

  “You’ve always had a flare for how you get your revenge,” Marco said. “Sometimes I swear you plan them in advance. You could have dodged that spear he threw, but you let him hit you, didn’t you?”

  “Why didn’t it disappear the moment you touched it?” I asked, trying to figure out what had happened.

  “The spear was aimed for me, not anyone else,” Jace said. “If another would have touched it, it would have disappeared. Since I was the target, it stuck.”

  Unsure of what they were talking about, I changed subjects. I told them that there were others along the horizon watching the events unfold.

  Marco muttered, “I can’t see a stinking thing.”

  Zalen laughed. The vibrations passed through me in an increasingly unnerving manner. It was beyond me how anyone could laugh as his skin was charred. Marco released Zalen, after Jace confirmed that no one could find the two people I saw. He vanished and then reappeared on the cliff beside us. He scanned the area and then returned.

  “Not a soul in sight,” Marco said.

  “Whose orders were you following, if not Analee’s?”

  Zalen laughed so loudly it brought me to my knees again. My ears rang so loudly I could hardly understand what the others had said. Jace pounced onto Zalen, knocking them to the ground. He gripped the Rippler’s throat and pressed down, stopping his ability to torture me with his voice. Zalen sucked in air and writhed on the sand. Jace refused to back down.

  “Jace!” I screamed. “Stop strangling the man. He’s not going to be able tell us anything if you keep him from speaking.”

  “He’s no man, Chronicler,” Jace spit. “And if he wants to confess, then he can speak in our dialect.”

  Frustration poured out of Jace’s soul when I denied my call sign. He’d been tormented by those who attacked his beloved. I clenched my teeth tight together and tried not to think about her. Deino died centuries ago, yet, I competed with her now. I’d never live up to her. In Jace’s eyes, I’d fail to meet his expectations. I wasn’t so sure he and the others didn’t actually believe I was telling the truth in not knowing what they were talking about. Marco informed me, like it humored him; Analee could crush me, like – where was Analee?

  I scanned the beach and almost stumbled. Analee stood inches behind me, yet, I hadn’t heard her approach me. Her usual blazing white shape, was still dimmed, especially over her chest where she was wounded. She wheezed with every intake of air. The spear must have been close to her lungs. She should have been dead.

  Jace must have saved her life when he pressed his hand over her wound. Her slave girls curled around her feet. Analee clenched her fist. Zalen coughed like someone was strangling him. I didn’t have to know that her golden-eyes turned black to know what she was doing. She didn’t want answers; she sought revenge for his treachery. I screamed for her to stop.

  “Fine, we’ll play by your rules.” Analee released her death grip. “The Chronicler is giving you a chance at redemption when I’d rather watch you die; so humor her, or we’ll end your pathetic life.”

  “I thought you were immortal, only to die by an immortal weapon?” I said.

  “That’s how Hunters kill us,” Marco said.

  “But we can kill each other,” Zalen corrected. A dark liquid seeped from his lips. “Can’t we, Jace? Does the Chronicler not recall your final betrayal?”

  Jace didn’t bother with a reply. He merely placed his hands over his shoulder where the spear had been; the wound’s shadow on Jace’s otherwise bright silhouette brightened. It shrank until there was no evidence of damage. I touched his shoulder in the same spot where his wound had been. Nothing. His skin was smooth.

  “Cookie, you may want to step away,” Marco said. “Jace is patient, but he enjoys this part of the fight the best.”

  “What part?” I asked, stepping away as Jace’s excitement mixed with my feelings.

  “His revenge,” Marco stated, plainly.

  Jace placed his hand on Zalen’s chest, directly over his heart. The wound that was on Jace’s shoulder grew on Zalen’s chest. Zalen’s white orb started to fade. Dark liquid began to bubble up through his clothing. It wasn’t long before it spewed from his chest. Fire grew
up into an inferno around Jace; pure hatred flickered with each flame.

  “You’ll die by the damage your spear caused me,” Jace said.

  The pleasure he took, in ending the traitor’s life, shook me. How could revenge rule someone’s life like Jace had allowed. Sensing my objection, Jace raised his chin and looked at me. I couldn’t see the color of his eyes or his facial express. However, I felt his raw-power creep over me. My legs barely held me as I welcomed his fiery wrath.

  “Love. Hate. Forgiveness. Vengeance. To truly live in every moment is divine,” Jace said like no one around us existed. His passion would devour me if I gave into his demand, just as his hate could consume him as well; he wanted me, but he’d wait for me to admit the same. I knew in that moment, if he couldn’t have me, hate would eat at his soul.