I was shaking so hard that I could barely hold the staff. Heron took it, wiping the blade on the clothing of the fallen Bubbler. I flinched at the act. That wasn’t right. Hadn’t he suffered enough indignity?
“Seleska?”
I was still staring at the blood on the clothing where Heron had wiped the blade.
“Seleska!”
I looked up then to meet Heron’s fiery eyes.
“If we’re going to live, we need to do what we have to do. Do you understand?”
I nodded, but my heart felt so empty that I was afraid it might never fill up again. My eyes were huge as they drifted back to the dead men.
“And Seleska?”
I looked back at Heron. He moved so that his bulky body blocked the sight of the dead. His eyes were still blazing with fire.
“Heron?” My voice sounded weak even to myself. Nasataa slid down the neck of the billowing clothing and I felt him wriggling into the bag.
“I think that before we risk our lives again, I should give you something.”
“What?” I asked weakly.
“This.”
He leaned down and kissed my lips so gently that I was afraid it might not be real. Afraid I might be just making it up to distract myself. But it was his warm smile that filled up my empty heart again when he had finished.
“Now, follow me. We need to be seen, but not recognized. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said, glad he was leading since I was sure I was far too light-headed to lead anything.
Chapter Fourteen
Having the worst and best moments of my life in quick succession really had my mind spinning.
Heron quickly dragged the bodies of the two men we’d killed into the overhang and pulled at the roots above them, shaking enough earth to lightly cover the bodies. It wouldn’t keep predators out, but a quick glance in the overhang wouldn’t show anything had happened here.
He nodded to me as soon as he was done, and we pulled the goggles down and the masks up before striding through the underbrush.
“Hexon? Malan?” I heard someone nearby call. “Where did the two of you go? We’re done our grid and ready to move on! Hexon? If you make me late for dinner, I will take yours, too! Malan?!”
Heron aimed us toward the calling voices, careful to stay far enough into the trees that you could only see glimpses of us between them.
“There you are!” Someone called. Heron increased his pace, kicking it up to a light jog and I matched him stride for stride.
“Where are you two going? Bubbles from the deeps!”
“What are they doing?”
“We aren’t going to wait while they run around in the woods!”
“Do you think they saw something?”
“No! It’s only them and that’s not even their search sector.”
I followed Heron, not looking to the right or the left as we hurried into the woods, still following a generally parallel path next to the river. This was a crazy idea, but it was the best one I could think of.
When we passed the last of the Bubblers, I recognized her as Atura. She paused, watching us with narrowed eyes.
“Bubblers! Under Article XVSI, I demand that you stop and return to your posts or orders will be issued for your arrest,” she called, but she looked confused as we continued on without stopping. We were too far away and going too quickly for her to catch us on her own, even though she ran a few steps toward us. My only worry was that she might recognize my staff. I didn’t dare look back to see if she did or if she was following.
I was winded and aching when we finally lost them, huddled together in a dip in the ground breathing heavily. We hadn’t heard anyone else in hours, but we’d kept running long after any sound of pursuit. And I was still worried that one of them might pop out from hiding and seize us.
“Do you think they’re following us?” I gasped.
“Running?” Heron asked. “No. In the boat.”
I nodded. “We must be getting close.”
“There was a waterfall,” Heron said. “We had to find the base of the waterfall. If we stick with the river, we’ll find it eventually.”
I nodded, exhausted. We shared a brief hand squeeze of support and started again, this time at a brisk walk. What I really wanted to do was talk about that kiss. Had he meant that, or was he just distracting me? Had he followed me for more than just to keep me out of trouble?
But now was not the time for that. Now was the time to keep my eyes open and prevent disaster.
The sun was beginning to sink through the trees when we heard the roar of the waterfall in the distance. We’d made it. It was there, on the river somewhere and we’d found it!
There was no discussion about food – we didn’t have any and it didn’t make sense to complain about that. No discussion about whether to go looking for the waterfall in the dark. That could mean death if we lost our footing nearby. No discussion of a fire – after all, we were still being hunted.
Instead, the three of us curled up together in a heap at the roots of a tree and listened for the enemy. If only we could last until morning without being found. We were so close. If we could only hold out a little bit longer.
My last thoughts – before I drifted into a troubled sleep – were about how to keep everyone safe.
Chapter Fifteen
I woke to the sound of a twig snapping, sitting up with a start. I’d fallen asleep with my head on Heron’s broad chest and he was still breathing deeply beside me. Nasataa scrambled up into my arms and I hugged him tightly, petting his head as I looked around. It must have been a stray animal or something like that.
Now that it was light, our situation was dawning on me. We’d followed the sounds of the waterfall, alright. There it was, just upriver of where we were, pouring down into a wide basin below that narrowed into the river. Through the dawn light, rainbows danced across the base of the waterfall, and spray filled the air, slicking the rocks all around.
It would have been tranquil and idyllic under any other circumstances.
But up on the cliffs at the top of the waterfall, and down at its base, stone structures stood hard and unyielding. They bulged with bubbles of glass at the sides and sticking out into the water of the river. On the tops of the structures and all around them, Bubblers swarmed – working, guarding, unloading boats from the docks there or loading them with goods. In the distance, long cables brought goods up and down on a wide platform from the structures at the top of the cliffs to the ones at the bottom.
Of course. Why would they let a waterfall interrupt river trade when there were other options? But this complicated things. According to Vyvera’s map, we needed to get to the base of the waterfall. But to do that, we’d have to pass all those Bubblers guarding these very falls, not to mention the other workers and boat Captains dotting the docks and surrounding the river.
My mouth went dry and I tried to fend off feelings of bleak despair as I cooed to Nasataa.
“Who is a good boy, then?” I cooed to him. He flamed my fingers excitedly. “Who is great at sleeping when I need to flee danger? You are! Who keeps everyone warmer at night? Yeah, that’s you, too! Who flames Seleska but doesn’t hurt her? Yeah, that’s you, too!”
And then my own words hit me. Nasataa’s flames were so magical and strong that he could flame things underwater. Maybe that was the key here. What if we swam under the water and created a distraction, setting one of those docks or boats on fire? Would that be enough to get Heron an opening to make it to the base of the waterfall without a mask? We could swim underwater to where he was and join him then. It seemed like a bad idea, but what other idea was there?
I glanced back at my sleeping friend. He seemed so innocent when he slept, lashes framing his closed eyes and all those powerful muscles relaxed against the tree. But he was big and powerful. I needed to remember that. He hadn’t hesitated to help me when those bubblers attacked – and he’d been almost scary in his attack.
Another
twig snapped.
Well, that was strange, wasn’t it?
I put a hand on Heron, grabbing my staff with the other and was about to shake Heron awake when Atura stepped out from around the tree we’d slept under.
“And there you are,” she said.
I scrambled to my feet. She held a simple rod and it looked so innocent, but I remembered those rods from when we fought those Bubblers underwater. The bubbles they had produced had been toxic.
“And here you are,” I said. “You know it’s very impolite to sneak up on people.”
She stepped forward, stepping right over Heron’s sleeping form as she closed in on me. I took another step backward toward the water.
“Is it as impolite as spying?” she asked, one eyebrow arched. Her goggles were on her head and her mask was hanging around her neck. I hadn’t seen her face so close before. She was my age and pretty, with the same copper hair and brown skin that Octon had. And she was about my height, too.
“Who is spying?” I asked. “I’m sure you don’t mean me. I’m just running for my life. Next time that you want to keep someone around, you shouldn’t try to burn them alive. Or attack them in a tent. That’s not how to gain new friends, you know.”
Her dry expression told me she didn’t care for my tips.
“You’re a fool. You ran straight to a Bubbler Outpost. This is the heart of my power. I will offer you and the abomination up as the final payment for my rock.”
“Payment?” I asked, bending down quickly and scooping up a river rock from the shore. “You mean these things mean so much to you that you have to pay for them a bit at a time? I hate to break it to you, but I just took this one for free.”
“Ignorant fool. That’s nothing more than a river stone. The rock I swallowed gives me a power you can’t dream of.”
“Really?” I asked, feigning my best impressed look. “Care to tell me about it?”
“I don’t see a patch in your hand,” Atura said. “Which means that when you back up you won’t be able to stay submerged for very long. I doubt you have any left or you wouldn’t have been running on foot. And that means you’ll be easy prey.”
“I don’t see a patch in your hand, either,” I pointed out.
She grinned and it wasn’t a pretty grin of a happy girl. It was laced with malevolence.
“I don’t need patches – or at least I won’t for much longer. That’s the power my rock is giving me. And with the last payment, that power will fully mature and I will be able to seize my destiny.”
“You know that you sound evil, right?” I said. “It’s phrases like ‘seize my destiny’ that really hammer that home.”
She sneered. “Oh no, foreigner. I’m not the evil one in this story. There are prophecies about me and how I will return magic to the world.”
I froze. There were prophecies about her?
She laughed. “I bet you didn’t know about that.”
Chapter Sixteen
It didn’t matter even if those prophecies were real. Prophecies didn’t matter. What mattered was what people did or didn’t do about them. So, what if there was some kind of prophecy about Atura? So far, she’d shown that she was an awful person. If that was what following a prophecy did to you, then maybe it was an evil prophecy. I gritted my teeth and held my staff out as Nasataa moved to crouch on my shoulders, his head above my own. Hopefully, he didn’t burn all my pretty hair off if he decided to flame!
I braced my staff as Atura held out her rod. There was a snapping sound behind her. There must be more Bubblers back there waiting to pick up where she had left off.
“Now,” she said, “what setting should I use? Do we just want to incapacitate you, or shall we make it hurt, too?”
“We? Are there two of you in that big head of yours?” I asked, but I was getting worried. You weren’t really the hero of the story unless you had a great rival. But Atura might be more rival than I could handle. And we were in her world fighting on her ground.
“I think we’ll make it hurt.”
Her grin made my belly flip flop, but whatever she was going to do was stopped when a heavy stick slammed down on her head. She fell forward, her eyes closing as she hit the sand.
Heron stood over her with a tree branch in his hand. “I don’t think I killed her, and there might be more of them.”
I nodded, hurrying forward to check Atura’s pockets and pouches. Yes! She had more patches. I grabbed them from the pouch on her belt and handed them to Heron.
“You’re going to need these if we’re going to swim under that waterfall,” I said, seriously. Then my smile turned teasing. “My mama always said that when you were grown, you’d ‘have to beat admirers off with a stick’.”
He snorted. “I don’t think she qualifies as an admirer. She stepped right over me like I wasn’t even a threat.”
He checked her breathing and then pulled her up a bit further on shore. I looked at her speculatively. He’d brought up a good point. Why had she ignored bulky Heron to go after Nasataa and me? Was she just that single-minded? It was a puzzle. Maybe that rod of hers made her so powerful that she hadn’t seen him as a threat.
“We don’t want her to drown,” Heron said as he pulled her behind the tree. “And we don’t want to be discovered too soon.”
I looked around. I didn’t think anyone had seen us. While the area was well-populated and busy, we were still too far away to draw much notice.
“Take that rod of hers,” I said. “I don’t know what it does beyond those clouds of red that made Octon so ill, but she must think it will pack a real punch.”
He nodded, gripping the rod with one hand and holding a patch in the other.
I licked my lips. I wasn’t so sure about this part. It was easy to be an adventurer when adventure came to you but hard to step out and choose danger.
“Ready to go?” he asked as I adjusted the straps on the bag and made sure Nasataa was secure on my shoulders.
“Not yet,” I said, giving him a saucy grin before placing a hand on his chest and standing on tiptoes to give him a light kiss – an exact mirror of the one he’d given me.
He opened his mouth to say something and I grabbed the patch from his hand and slapped it over his mouth with a wink.
“Now I’m ready. I think I like being the only one who can talk.”
His lowered brows told me he didn’t agree, so I gave him my sweetest smile to soften the teasing and then leapt from the bank into the river, letting the water sweep over me, swirling my hair out behind me as I faced into the current. The kiss hadn’t just been for him. It had been for me. I needed to know that I was still okay. That there were still people who cared about me.
Okay. It was time to focus and to get to the bottom of that waterfall. Time to stop worrying over Atura and letting my heart flutter over Heron. Who was with me?
Nasataa!
I had one solid ally.
Heron joined us in a blur of bubbles. He’d pulled his goggles and mask on, but when he got close enough, he winked at me. He wasn’t taking the teasing to heart. Or maybe he even liked it. With one last smile, I led the way through the current toward the waterfall. My ankle was feeling a lot better. I hadn’t noticed it healing, but it took my weight without protest now.
After an hour of fighting the current, I was especially glad for a healed ankle. It still felt like we’d barely made any ground despite struggling against the water. We had to resort to walking on the bottom braced against the current instead of swimming at all. Somehow, I hadn’t realized that the waterfall and then the narrowing of the river would make the current so strong. At this rate, it would take us all day to get where we were going.
I wasn’t wrong. By noon – or what I thought must be noon – we were in the center of the channel, but we were only just reaching the wide basin and the river was getting deeper and deeper. On either side of us, boats were docked or coming and going from the docks. The old plan I had of sneaking in to light one of them on f
ire was looking more and more ridiculous. Good thing Heron had that patch!
But now our slow progress was worrying me. The longer we were in this pool beneath the falls, the more chance we had of being discovered, or of Atura recovering and alerting people to our presence. I exchanged more than one worried glance with Heron, but there was no other choice. We were already exhausted from fighting the current and our only choice was to keep going forward. Even Nasataa had grown tired and retreated to the bag where he sent me sleepy images of shells and fish.
I tried to keep the images I sent him comforting, but I was getting a bit worried.
When the first party of Bubblers leapt into the water just behind us, my worry turned to fear.
Chapter Seventeen
How were they catching up to us? We were pushing against the current as fast as humanly possible, and yet the Bubblers moved faster than we could, even though they were swimming. I exchanged a frustrated look with Heron.
They were gaining so fast that we wouldn’t be able to outrun them. Very soon, we would have to take a stand.
There was something strange in the water ahead, blurring it in a cloud of bubbles. What could be causing that? It had slowly been growing louder and louder as we approached.
Wait. Was that where the waterfall plunged into the basin?
We were getting close. If we could only reach that cloud of bubbles before the Bubblers reached us, we could hide in the cloud of bubbles.
My heart raced as I pushed harder, jamming my staff against the river bottom and pushing off as hard as I could.
Heron grabbed my arm, whirling to spin his body and then squaring off, rod raised.
We were out of time.
I spun, too, Dragon Staff raised.
There were five of them. Three held rods and two more held something that looked like a handle attached to a smooth stone with a glowing rune cut into it. The rocks with the runes pulled them through the water. They were like super-rocks.
Was that the secret to their speed?
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