The Realm of Dust and Bone (The Curse of Fire and Stone Book 2)

by A. B. Bloom

  I nodded my heart pounding. Torn between staying and leaving, I wanted to break myself in two. I couldn’t do that. I was on my path. Zafina was on hers.

  “I’ll see you.” She stood and clutched my hand.

  “You will,” I agreed, but I knew it wasn’t me she would find, if there was any Mae to find at all.

  The path for all of us was dark. I just needed to have faith it was the right one.

  I kissed her cheek and then turned to Augustus, who lingered in the cramped hallway behind Tristram.

  Tristram cleared his throat and pretended to be busy straightening up a pack laden with food.

  Augustus held me tight to his chest, three heartbeats long, his lips skimming my throat. “Remember me where you go, little one. I will always be waiting for you.”

  I met his eye and knew almost instantly he guessed I was a girl out of time. A girl in the wrong place if not for the right reasons.

  Coughing a little, I nodded. “I will. And you remember me.”

  His lips curved into half a smirk. “Impossible to forget, Maia.”

  “Mae.”

  “Little one.”

  Tristram stepped closer, his fingers weaving with mine. “It’s time to leave.”

  I followed him out of the small house, knowing that throughout the rooms and out in the garden under the healing branches of my trees stood our descendants.

  His dark eyes swept my way. “It’s going to be a long road, Priestess.”

  I nodded and squeezed his hand. “But not as hard as the road I took to get here.”

  We set off, our feet in time, our hands linked and all the way the trees above our heads rejoiced at our passing and kept us safe from those who would cause us harm.

  It was ten days later when we crossed the sea. The water was choppy, the long boat that to my untrained eye looked nothing more than a hollowed tree trunk dipped and rose in the unfriendly waters.

  Tristram’s skin faded to an unsightly green and I laughed. “And you braved this by yourself to save me?”

  He swallowed hard, beads of sweat gathering on his brow. “I’d cross hell itself to save you.” He grinned although his lips were white and stretched. “But this was a challenge.”

  “You love her enough to do it though?” The last few days we’d talked about what I’d discovered about his Mae, about me. For the most part when we were together it was as though it was Tristan Prince and I back at Fire Stone, but I knew soon I’d be leaving, and she would be coming back. It hurt, cut me somewhere under my heart where I stored my stash of gold.

  “I love you enough.” He shrugged.

  “I love you, too. Does that sound silly?”

  His eyes met mine, the green seasickness fading a little, chased away by a tinge of pink. “No. To me, you are Mae. That’s all.”

  I smiled. “Watch this.”

  Leaning over the side of the boat I lowered my hand into the water. “Mae! If you fall in, by hell, I’m not jumping in there to save you again.”

  I grinned and touched my fingertips into the water. It swelled around my touch and all at once I felt its resistance, that question, the same question the water had asked me in the bowl down in the jail of the palace. It reached for me as much as I reached for it.

  “I’m Maia,” I whispered. “And you can be calm now, my friend.”

  Before us the waters stretched deep and still. Eerily quiet after the rush of the waves against the wood of the boat. I settled back into the boat and found Tristram’s eyes burning bright like fires. “What?”

  “You are something else.” His hand reached for my waist and he pulled me closer. I didn’t resist as his lips met mine. It was all I wanted. The boat bobbed in the water unguided and unmoored but unmoving all the same. The water itself kept us still.

  My lips were hungry, crashing into his mouth, my hands in the fair gold of his hair. He sighed, pulling me tighter, our bodies at once hard and soft.

  I couldn’t leave this place without knowing him.

  I couldn’t live without him one more moment. It felt fundamental to my soul. I needed him. Needed us.

  Tristram and Mae. It was who we were.

  My hands skimmed under his shirt, brushing his flushed skin and he sucked in a gasp. One of his thumbs ran along my spine, releasing a shiver of anticipation that created a heavy ache in my legs.

  “I’ve wanted you my entire life,” he whispered, his words rushing into my heart.

  “You’ve had me your whole life.”

  We sank into the bow of the boat, lost to one another, our hands and lips searching and finding everything that we needed. And together, finally as one, I felt the enormous power I contained within reach up into the sky, lighting the heavens with our glory before settling back within me burning as bright as all the stars in the night sky.

  He was my chosen one.

  I knew it in my soul.

  “You know I have to go back through those stones.”

  His fingers stroked through my hair. “Aye, I know.”

  I rolled a little so I could watch his face in the moonlight.

  “I’ve learned a lot in Rome. More than I ever expected. I’m a goddess. It’s insane.”

  “I think I’ve always known.”

  I elbowed him gently. “Of course you didn’t.” My face fell. “But I’ve found out something, and I don’t know how to tell you.”

  His eyebrow lifted. “You’ve seen me at my most vulnerable. Now you are going to bring me down?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I came back because I wanted to save you and Mae. I didn’t want you to die on those stones, for your lives to end like that.”

  Tristram nodded, his nose skimmed mine as he leant forward and brushed his lips against my mouth. “But we have to die, don’t we?”

  A tear rolled down my cheek and he caught it on his fingertip, popping it quickly into his mouth. “I don’t know any other way. Claudius said he always finds me. But I know he hasn’t. I haven’t been there to find. Now he is searching for me, the Mage has come for me again, but they don’t realise I know who I am. If you and Mae have the chance to tell the others who we are before it happens then they can pass down the knowledge. We could have an army ready to fight them.” I dragged in a shuddering breath. “The world I live in. Nature is at breaking point; the earth is at its limit, but I can heal it. I can take down those who seek to ruin it. I can give it back what it needs. If you and Mae live out your lives in anyway other than what has already happened, then that won’t be the case.”

  A gentle sob rocked my chest and I clutched him close, tears slipping down my own cheeks.

  “I don’t think I can’t not protect you.”

  “I know. It’s why I’m telling you. Begging you. Don’t you see, you will be protecting her. You will be protecting her from thousands of years of being chased by that man. We have to break the cycle here, and I didn’t realise before that that is what you and Mae did. I thought you died for nothing, but you gave everything. This time when I meet the god of war again,” my words caught in my throat, “When I see you again, I will have knowledge on my side. I will be able to pull glory from an earth that it hasn’t felt in a long, long time.”

  “But they could feel it always with you, with us if we lived.”

  “And have men like that come and find us? Find our descendants? Better he thinks we are dead, that it is over.”

  Tristram’s dark eyes found mine, soul searching and deep. “Promise me you love me in two thousand years.”

  “With all my heart.”

  We stared at one another, the boat gently rocking, reminding us we needed to reach our destination. “Promise me you will help our line, our legacy.”

  “For as long as I have breath in my body, and then I shall swear that Augustus do the same.”

  “That Augustus?” I lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t greet him like that. He might not be willing to help us.”

  Tristram grunted and then mumbled something about helping m
e under his breath as he rolled up.

  “How will we all find each other in this future you speak of?” He looked out at the wide and dark sea, his lips stretched into a taut line.

  “I think it’s the place. It’s our homeland, Tristram. Fire Stone, where we lived and died. The land is ours.”

  “Then we’d better get back to it.”

  He pointed out at the horizon and I blinked in surprise at the dim shape of headland up above. “Has the boat guided us here, while we…?”

  He smirked and I blushed.

  “Aye, goddess it has. Let’s get you home.”

  I nodded but my heart thudded heavily.

  Was I doing the right thing? I didn’t know.

  How could I know.

  Four days later we slipped into the settlement. It was dark but a reassuring slow smoulder from the central hearth told us the people were still here.

  Tristram’s hand guided me over the dark ground and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t need him to. Every blade of grass spoke to me, the trees swayed and whispered ahead of our path proclaiming that their goddess had returned.

  “Remember.” I turned to tell him one last thing, one last idea, an instruction that could keep them safe for a little longer while he helped the girls, helped Mae know who she was before it was too late. He was close, so close I bumped into his chest. His arms wrapped around me tight.

  “Is it wrong I know I’m going to miss you, even though she will be back?”

  I’d wrestled with this for the last few of nights as we laid together, our bed a blanket of wildflowers and springy moss that had grown especially for us.

  “No. I am her. You won’t notice any difference.”

  “Will she remember this?”

  “I think so.” I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  His lips lingered over mine and a heavy sob laboured my chest. “I have to go. I don’t want to be seen. I’m trusting you to fulfil what we need done.”

  “You can trust me with your last breath.”

  Reaching onto tiptoes, I pressed a kiss at the edge of his nose. “I do. Tristram, stay here, let me leave by myself.”

  “Mae…”

  “Please. Let me go. I need to go.”

  My hand itched to feel the stones while my feet wanted to stay on the ground next to his.

  He nodded just once and then without a second look I ran through the woodland to the clearing my father created when he rolled in the stones. The tree I’d grown when I hadn’t known who I was waved at me under the moon. It was taller than I expected, and I sent it a silent plea. Look after them.

  The stones stood proud as though they were waiting for me and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  I was going back with more questions than I’d arrived with, but one thing had changed. I was Maia. Goddess of fertility and abundance, and I would heal the world of its pain and suffering.

  I reached for the stone just as fingers caught my other hand.

  I turned, lips crashed into mine, hard and fast. “I have to go.”

  “I know. But just once more, in case she doesn’t remember, and I have to start all over again.”

  He was going to make this harder. It was hard enough.

  I reached my hand for the stone feeling it warm and tingle with my approach. With one hand on the stone and Tristram still holding my other I was for one defining moment the girl out of time. Past and future. Me and her.

  I let go of his fingers and stepped closer.

  He had to be on the other side still waiting for me.

  He had to be.

  With that last thought, I stepped through and the world cracked and splintered around me and all I knew was black.

  Epilogue

  It had been weeks. Months possibly. He’d given up counting. Given up believing. If it hadn’t been for the others arriving, he would have given up. He’d have taken his own life on the stones just for it all to be over.

  Not being near her was like being flayed alive.

  It was like being eaten by the wild wolves he’d seen circle the forest.

  The newcomers, they brought with them a changing feel. The old castle had shifted into a barracks as though it had been waiting all this time for its true purpose.

  The newcomers they spoke of her. Legends passed down, family memories.

  But still he waited.

  “You can’t sit out here for much longer.”

  He glanced up at the conduit. He’d learned a lot about magic these last months. He’d learned about lots of things he’d never expected.

  “You know she’s coming back. Everyone says she’s coming back.”

  “So why is time doing this to me? Why is it taking so long? Every single minute feels like an age.”

  The old woman shrugged. Disrobed of her earthly guise she resembled the Heather of his dreams.

  If only he could dream.

  They’d stopped when she’d walked through.

  “I’ll wait a bit longer just in case.”

  The old woman shook her head. “You can’t protect her like this.”

  He glanced at the bones. They were still there, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever been able to protect her at all. Maybe it was his role to fail her.

  He shook his head as the old woman dematerialised. No. It was his job to protect her, down to her last breath, he’d sacrifice everything for her.

  Placing his head in his hands, he stared at the dead blades of grass at his feet. The earth here was worse than normal, like it missed her, too.

  So lost in his thoughts was he that he didn’t notice the small purple flower at first, nor the second. It was only when the third sprouted right by the sole of his trainer that he glanced up.

  There she was. Like a vision he’d long given up hope of seeing.

  Tears ran down her face and her body shook. Despite the deep ache in his stiff bones he leapt up and grabbed her as she began to swoon. She was startlingly thin, her skin tanned and stretched across her bones. It was still her though, the most beautiful vision he’d ever seen.

  “I love you.” She fell into his hold and he grabbed her close. Her eyes were closed, her lips whispering silent words, moving with whispers he couldn’t hear.

  “God, Mae. I love you.” He held her tight, his lips in her hair.

  “I love you, Tristram,” she repeated.

  His heart squeezed, his chest catching with an unbreathable breath.

  “No, Mae. It’s me, your Tristan, you are back with me now.”

  She blinked up, her eyes glazed over, tears leaking from the corners, and for a long moment he knew the truth. Her heart was in the past, with him.

  He kissed her anyway, ignoring the banging in his chest, the tingle of apprehension that stalked across his skin.

  It was her, and it was him.

  That was all that mattered.

  “You need to rest.” He kissed the top of her hair again and turned for their home, picking his way from the forest along the well-worn path back to where they belonged. Fire Stone.

  The End.

  To be Continued in The Age of Ivy and Rose

  About the Author

  A book hoarder and coffee addict by heart Anna Bloom loves to write extraordinary stories about real love. Based south of London with her husband, three children and a dog with a beard, Anna likes to connect with readers, fan girl over her favourite authors and binge watch Supernatural while drinking lots of wine.

  You can get to know me better by joining my facebook reader group Anna’s Bloomers where I spend most of my time when not writing!

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