by Melissa Grey
“Do you feel that?” Helios asked. He motioned her closer to the man’s bedside. Ivy stepped toward him and leaned over the bed’s plastic guardrail. The closer she got to the man, the stronger that sickly sensation clogging his aura became. It hadn’t been nearly as powerful with the other victims.
“Is it…,” Helios pondered aloud. “Could it be…?”
“It’s feeding on him,” Ivy said, her speculation solidifying into certainty as she spoke the thought out loud.
“I thought it was feeding on all of them,” Helios said with a dubious look. “Why is this man worse off than the others?”
“I don’t know.” Ivy shook her head. “It’s possible the kuçedra doesn’t deplete them all at the same pace. Maybe this is what it looks like when it’s nearly sucked someone dry.” This was something she would need to discuss with the Ala. From their previous conversations about the Ala’s own experience under the influence of the kuçedra’s toxic malevolence, it seemed a plausible enough explanation, though how the man had managed to age so rapidly without dying was an even bigger question.
Footsteps sounded from the corridor, the nurse’s rubber-soled sneakers squeaking in the hazmat suit she donned every time she entered the ward.
“That’s our cue,” Helios said, tugging Ivy behind the cabinet. There was a very real chance they were going to be caught one of these days; Ivy hoped it wasn’t today. She huddled against Helios’s chest, closing her eyes as she held her breath, listening to the night nurse’s steps as she puttered around the room. The smiling face in the photo ghosted behind Ivy’s closed eyelids. Michael Ian Hunt. Born March 21, 1994. Age twenty-three. Hiker. Dog owner. Geriatric.
A shudder ran down Ivy’s spine. A warm hand pressed against her lower back. Helios, trying to offer her what silent comfort he could.
If poor Michael Ian Hunt was getting weaker, it meant only one thing: the kuçedra was getting stronger.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It was a moat.
Dorian thought calling it such was a generous description for the pungent waters that greeted them when they passed through the enchanted door. No one had tended to the moat for quite some time, judging by the thick layer of pond scum that coated its surface.
“Shouldn’t the moat be outside the temple?” Echo asked, voice distorted as she pinched her nostrils.
“It isn’t meant to keep people away from the temple,” Dorian replied. He tried breathing through his nose, but it made the stench worse when he could taste it. “It’s meant to keep people from exploring any farther.”
Reeds swayed in a nonexistent breeze, reacting perhaps to the faint hum of magic Dorian could feel in the air. He and Echo stood on a narrow, muddy shore. Before them was a rickety bridge, half submerged in the black water and partially grown over with horsetails and cheerful water poppies. The slats of aging wood were held together with rotting rope. It didn’t look like it would bear his weight, much less the weight of three fully grown individuals. The bridge—a rickety contraption hardly worthy of the name—stretched across the water to the other side.
“What is that smell?” Echo asked, voice muffled by the hand clapped over her mouth and nose.
“Rot,” Dorian offered. “Decay.” The moat filled the cavernous room from wall to wall. He spotted another door at the far end of the room. There were no other exits.
“Splendid,” Jasper said in a tone that made it clear that it was anything but. He stepped toward the bridge, but Dorian blocked his path with an outstretched arm.
“Wait,” said Dorian. It couldn’t be as simple as crossing a bridge to get to the other side. There had to be something else. The Drakharin weren’t known for making things easy, and Dorian had no doubt that his ancestors had left behind obstacles to stymie the progress of anyone who threatened to plunder the temple, even after they were all dead and gone.
He scanned the waters for signs of life. The surface was still, but he suspected the calm was an illusion, one meant to lure an idiot into a false sense of security and then to strike when least expected. It’s what Dorian would have done if he had designed a treacherous moat as a defense mechanism.
A shadow passed beneath the surface, almost imperceptible in the inky waters. Almost. Dorian tracked its movement and caught what looked like the flick of a tail. A very large tail. The thing stopped, as if it could feel his gaze on it, and Dorian saw a pale flash of skin before it dove deeper into the water.
“These waters are guarded,” Dorian said. He pointed at a pile of bones on the pebbled shore. “By nix, to be specific. That’s probably what became of the last person who tried to cross. I’d wager they left the remains as a warning to the next fools stupid enough to try.”
“Like us,” Jasper said. He sounded as enthused by the idea of crossing the ominous waters as Dorian felt.
“Indeed.”
Dorian scanned the surface of the moat again. It was still, eerily so. He could hear water babbling somewhere far away, perhaps from whatever larger body of water fed this one.
“And what, pray tell, are nix?” Echo asked.
“Mermaids,” Dorian replied.
“Mermaids?” Echo asked flatly. Dorian occasionally forgot that she was human, for all she was integrated with the Avicen. Mermaids were probably not something she had encountered in her travels.
“Mermaids,” he repeated. “I’ve never had the pleasure of making one’s acquaintance, but it’s said they have a taste for the dishonest.”
At that, Jasper took several healthy steps back.
“What does that mean?” Echo asked, still observing the waters dubiously.
“It means if you’re not true to yourself or others, the nix will know. Legend has it they can spot a lie in your heart before you even know it’s there.”
Dorian had more than two centuries of lying—to himself, to others, to his prince—in his ledger. All those fibs, great and small, would make for a tasty treat for the nix. He peered out over the water and hoped the nix were in a generous mood.
The moment was shattered by a loud splash and Echo’s shout. “Jasper!”
Dorian’s eye snapped to the shore just in time to see Jasper’s multicolored feathers disappear beneath the surface of the water as pale, webbed fingers pulled him under.
Dorian was in the water before he’d even given it thought. As he broke the surface, his heart sang with the feel of water against his skin. He had always been more at home in rivers and seas than on dry land, and this time, when the moat’s water called to him, he answered. He could hear Echo shouting after him. Dorian hoped good sense prevented her from doing something stupid, like jumping in after him. He could only save so many drowning fools at the same time.
The water was deeper than it looked from shore, and dark. The darkness muted Jasper’s amethyst and gold feathers as he churned the water around him in his struggle. Pale bodies, propelled by muscular, fishlike tails, pulled Jasper farther into the moat’s depths. Dorian swam toward him, cutting through the water as if he’d been born to swim rather than walk.
The nix had Jasper by the arms and legs, their sallow hands so bright in the inky blackness that they seemed to glow. Jasper’s movements slowed, and the bubbles that rose as he tried to hold his breath petered out into a pathetic trickle. Dorian pushed himself even harder. He was nearly there; if Jasper could hold on for a few seconds more, they might both get out of this moat alive.
A single nix surged up to block his way, but it kept its hands—and, more important, the wicked spear it held—to itself. Dorian attempted to go around it, but it moved in front of him, keeping itself between Dorian and Jasper. The nix pointed toward Jasper with its spear before gesturing at Dorian with its free hand. When the nix spoke, it was not with words, but as a whisper in Dorian’s mind.
We chose him. He is ours now.
Dorian may have been at home in the water, but speaking while submerged in it was a challenge, even for him. His garbled “What?” was more bubble than sound.
He—the nix jabbed its spear toward Jasper again—belongs—it punctuated the next words with two thuds of the blunt side of the spear against Dorian’s chest—to us.
I don’t understand, Dorian thought, hoping the nix’s telepathic speech was a two-way street.
We demand a gift in exchange for safe passage, the nix said. We have chosen him.
Dorian had forgotten about that part of nix behavior. There was always a godsdamn sacrifice. His chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with his rapidly depleting supply of oxygen.
The nix’s voice boomed in Dorian’s head. Unless there is something else you would like to offer us?
Jasper had gone limp in the nix’s hands, feathers swaying as he drifted deeper into the moat. Dorian couldn’t leave Jasper to them. He had been kind when Dorian had been cruel. He had reminded Dorian what it was like to be loved. To love.
Take me, Dorian thought. Spare him.
The nix’s lips stretched over rows of viciously sharp teeth, sloppy with bits of meat and bone, in a gleeful snarl.
No, the nix said. It spun away from Dorian, swimming back toward Jasper.
Wait. Dorian pushed the thought toward the retreating nix.
The nix paused, slowly turning back toward Dorian. His chest burned. He had to surface soon, but he would not leave this moat without Jasper. There was no alternative. If the nix wouldn’t take him, then they both died here and Echo would go on without them. She could save Caius; she had magic that Dorian did not.
I’ll give you whatever you want, Dorian thought desperately. Just tell me what you want.
The nix unleashed its gruesome grin again. Something that costs you dearly. Something you aren’t eager to give up. Something precious. Give me a truth. One you don’t want to admit, even to yourself. The truth is far more precious than gold and jewels.
Dorian’s lungs screamed for air. I don’t want to lose him.
The nix angled its head to one side. Is that all?
Jasper was going to die if Dorian didn’t reach him soon, but the nix was right. The truth came at a steep price. Dorian had held on to his hate for so long that admitting that Jasper—an Avicen—mattered to him had felt like losing a part of himself. But he remembered the kiss, their first one, that they’d shared at Avalon. He remembered how it felt to pull away from Jasper after Caius was taken. It had felt like an amputation, a severing of something that had been critical to his existence.
I care about him, he thought. I didn’t want to, but he’s…different. Special.
The nix seemed to measure Dorian’s response for a moment. Dorian’s lungs burned. Not good enough, said the creature. Without another word, it gave a powerful heave of its tail and turned, following its brethren deeper into the water.
Dorian opened his mouth to shout, but all that escaped him were bubbles. Panic rose, heady and hot, in his chest, supplanting even the desperate need for air. Stop. He propelled himself after the nix, oxygen-deprived muscles aching.
Stop! Dorian cried as loud as he could with his mind’s voice. His vision blackened at the edges. His body was losing the fight for consciousness. But he couldn’t leave without Jasper. He wouldn’t.
The nix didn’t stop.
Dorian sagged, limbs heavy, body leaden.
I love him.
The nix with whom he’d spoken flicked its tail and slowed.
But that wasn’t all. Love wasn’t what frightened Dorian. It was everything that came with it, the vulnerability, the helplessness. But love wasn’t love without those things. I need him.
Tail churning water, the nix turned with the leisure of a creature that didn’t need air to survive.
Dorian felt as though he was slipping to a place beyond pain. His lungs still burned, but it was a distant ache, like it was happening to someone else. He makes me better. Before him, I wasn’t…good. I was governed by hate and fear and pain, but he saw me. He saw me even when I couldn’t see myself. I was a fool and I blinded myself to it, but I know now. He is mine and I am his and you cannot have him.
The nix’s lips pulled into a grotesque grin. That cost you much to say. It waved the spear at its brethren. As one, they released their hold on Jasper. Dorian swam around the nix to catch Jasper before he sank any deeper. He linked his arms around Jasper’s chest and kicked with all his might, straining to swim as his oxygen-starved muscles resisted movement.
When they broke the moat’s surface, Dorian’s chest heaved with deep, greedy breaths that burned all the way down. Jasper was limp in his arms, and Dorian tried not to consider the possibility that he might be dead.
Echo ran down the shore to meet them. She hauled Dorian out of the water with a strength he hadn’t known she possessed.
“Help him,” Dorian said, pushing Jasper’s unmoving body toward her. Jasper needed air; Dorian had none to give.
Echo nodded, brisk and efficient, but when she tried to pry Jasper from Dorian’s arms, he lurched, clutching at Dorian with desperate hands. Jasper coughed up water on both of them.
He shook violently between bouts of heaving gasps and hacking coughs. Echo asked him if he was hurt, but he either didn’t hear her or he wasn’t interested in sharing. Dorian bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood. Jasper clung to him with weak hands, taking short, shallow breaths.
Jasper’s shirt clung to his chest, and for the first time, Dorian noticed how slender he had become in recent weeks. He felt like he could wrap his arms around Jasper twice. He carded his fingers through the feathers on Jasper’s head, smoothing them down, almost without thinking. He snatched his hand away when Jasper’s golden eyes opened. There was a tiny, flickering spark in them. Then Jasper slipped his mask back into place, piece by piece. It was rather like watching a master craftsman at work.
“You’re cute, Echo,” Jasper croaked, voice raw and pained. “But I think I’d rather have the mouth-to-mouth from Dorian if you don’t mind.”
Dorian’s strangled laugh was filled with more relief than he would ever admit to.
“Good to see you’re feeling better,” he said. Echo watched them with raised eyebrows. Her hands were trembling, but she curled them into fists when she noticed Dorian noticing.
Jasper managed a weak smile before spasms of coughing seized his body once more. Dorian held him as he calmed, tremors dying down to a more manageable shiver. Echo hovered beside the two of them, but Dorian ignored her.
Jasper peered up at him, droplets of water clinging to his blue and purple lashes. “My hero,” he whispered.
And then he winked.
Not even a near-death experience, it seemed, would prohibit Jasper from making light of just about everything.
Dorian choked out a small laugh. His chest still burned. Despite the direness of their situation—Caius was still here, still waiting to be found, or so Dorian hoped—he couldn’t fight the giddy feeling that bubbled up inside him. Half of him wanted to attribute it to the recent lack of air, but the other half—the smarter half—knew it for what it was: pure, unadulterated joy, made stronger in the face of unfavorable odds.
He couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to.
He kissed Jasper, selfishly stealing the breath from his lungs once more.
And unbelievably, Jasper kissed him back.
For weeks, Dorian had been an absolute wretch, tormenting himself with guilt and overwhelmed by his sense of duty to his lost prince. But Jasper kissed him as if none of it mattered. As if he had already been forgiven. A hand came up, ran through Dorian’s hair, catching in the wet strands. It was divine.
He had never kissed Jasper in front of anyone else before. Had never shown him even the slightest crumb of affection when others might see. There was a tangle of reasons, centuries in the making, for his reticence, but now not a single one mattered. Dorian pulled back just far enough to rest his forehead against Jasper’s. Damp feathers tickled his skin, and he sighed as he felt Jasper relax into him.
None of it mattered, because
Jasper was his and he was Jasper’s.
And today—on this miserable excuse for a day—that was enough to save them both.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Nothing else troubled them as they crossed the moat via the rickety wooden bridge that should not have held the weight of three people but somehow did. Jasper suspected it was a magic bridge. It was always magic. Nothing in their lives was ever mundane.
The bridge led them to an equally decrepit wooden door set into moss-covered stone, which deposited them in a small antechamber. Damp seeped through the cold stone walls, settling into Jasper’s already-wet skin. He shivered and Dorian pulled him close, rubbing warmth into his trembling arms. Echo politely looked anywhere but at them.
Jasper curled into Dorian, luxuriating in the warmth he radiated. The memory of their kiss played in his mind on a loop. It wasn’t their first, and provided they both got through this temple alive, it wouldn’t be their last. Not if Jasper had anything to say about it. But this kiss had been different, though no less monumental than the first, shared in a musty wine cellar deep in the belly of Avalon Castle. It was as though every strand of artifice had been stripped away, made flimsy by the urgency of the moment. Contained in that kiss were all the things Dorian never said, all the things Jasper never let himself believe. And to think, it had taken a gaggle of man-eating mermaids to bring that about. When he thought about it, he could still feel the frigid water closing around him, the unfathomable strength of the nix as they carried him down, deeper into the abyss, the burning of his lungs as he tried to hold his breath, the searing pain of water rushing into them when he failed.
Jasper had nearly died.
Not for the first time, and probably not for the last. But on the short list of maladies and disasters Jasper feared, drowning surpassed them all. He had never learned how to swim, his fear of drowning had been so great and so deeply ingrained. He and water simply did not get along, and so long as he kept his feet firmly planted on dry land, it wasn’t a problem.
Right up until it was.