Sacrifice

by Sadie Moss

  It’s worth a try.

  Reaching toward the ceiling, I pluck at the magic. It responds immediately to my touch, as if it were waiting for me. I pull a strand down, my tongue between my teeth as I gently thread it into the keyhole. With a deep breath and a prayer, I turn the magical key.

  The lock clicks.

  I could scream with triumph at this, but I refrain, since that’s sure to bring all three men running—as usual.

  Callum’s room is cool and dark. His bedsheets are rumpled, which surprises me. I would’ve imagined him as the kind of man who keeps everything in his room neat and perfectly tidy. But apparently he’s not as rigid in all aspects of life as he is with me. I must bring it out in him.

  Thinking of Callum for too long brings up too many conflicting, overwhelming emotions, especially now that I’m inside his room, so I shove my ruminations about his character aside.

  I close the door behind me, then cross to the mirror. My cheeks flush at the sight of it, remembering what I watched last night. All I’ve done is remember it since I ran away, replaying it over and over, more aroused than I’ve ever been in my life. The momentary satisfaction from giving in to the need coursing through me didn’t even last me through the night, and even now, my body hums with desire.

  Up close, the mirror gives no indication how it works. There are no symbols carved into the wood or strange devices lying around that could possibly activate it. When I came up with this harebrained scheme, I’d figured it wouldn’t be that easy.

  Most likely, the mirror works only through manipulation of the weave.

  Taking a deep, calming breath, I close my eyes and center myself for a moment. Just this morning, Echo told me that magic requires steady calm—he’s already reminded me more than once that it responds heavily to emotions. My hands are shaking, and my heart feels like it’s a frightened bird trying to beat away from my chest, so I’m guessing this isn’t the greatest state of mind for accessing the weave.

  I inhale deeply twice more, taking my time on both before I slowly exhale. The room smells of Callum’s musky, masculine scent. Given my conflicting feelings for him, I would have expected his smell to add to my anxiety, but on the contrary, it’s the whisper of his essence that helps me calm down.

  When I’m finally ready, I reach for the weave.

  This isn’t as straightforward as the lock, where I knew innately to use the thread as a key. I stand in front of the mirror, clutching the thread between my fingers as I think critically about my choices. Wrap the thread around the mirror? That doesn’t feel right. The thread would bisect the glass, and the weave is all about flow. Power can’t work when it’s cut off. The lines have to remain open.

  So instead, I place the thread at the top of the mirror where the glass meets the frame, then I draw it in a circle, slowly outlining the glass with the cords of the weave. My fingers return to the starting point, and I feel the magic snap into place.

  Excitement overshadows my nerves. I place both hands on the mirror’s frame and think desperately of home.

  It’s easy. Unlike Violet, I haven’t been here long enough for the memories to be even the slightest bit hazy. I can recall every detail of the village where I grew up, where I spent the entirety of my life. The misty mountains surrounding the small settlement; the forest of ancient trees; the little road I lived on with my brother and mother…

  An image begins to form right in front of my eyes. Greens and browns fade into view, and I realize I’m looking down from above, the picture in the glass becoming clearer like the world coming into focus as I wake from a deep sleep.

  When the image finally stops adjusting, it’s as clear and crisp as if I were looking through a window. I’m gazing down on the main road through the village, each little cabin a square of brown with smoke rising from the chimney stack.

  I want to move closer, so I try to will it so in my head, but it doesn’t work. I lean in, one hand pressing to the glass as I strain to see farther. The image changes, and suddenly I’m zoomed closer to the exact place where I’d put my hand.

  I blink at Marin’s fields, surprised by the sudden shift. But that surprise doesn’t last long as I register what I’m seeing in the new image. I blink in horror as I realize the entire gourd harvest has failed.

  The modest patch of pumpkin, squash, and zucchini is a mess of rotten vegetables and tangled, dried up vines. Orange pumpkins are brown and caving in, while the zucchini has turned nearly black.

  I move my hand on the glass, and the picture follows. I’m over the Noonan farm now, and Josef Noonan is standing over a dead cow buzzing with flies. His only cow, as far as I know, and the biggest source of fresh milk for the village.

  Horror creeps through my veins like poison every time I move the picture. The fields are still barren and desolate. The forest yields no animals, and I see a hunting party returning empty-handed.

  “No… I don’t understand,” I say out loud, my tone nearly hysterical. My village is even worse off than it was before I made my sacrifice.

  My sacrifice didn’t work.

  I almost don’t want to move the image to my home.

  But I do.

  My mother stands outside, an axe in her hand as she chops a tree limb into firewood. I use my fingers to zoom in to her face, and the image rights itself until I’m looking at her from one side rather than above.

  She’s crying.

  The mirror before me blurs momentarily as tears sting my eyes too, but I blink them back, determined to see everything.

  I have to.

  I have to know.

  My mother brushes the back of her hand over her eyes, then stoops to gather the firewood. She carries it into the house, and I touch the mirror’s surface to follow her. Inside our little hut, the fire in the hearth is out, and there’s no dinner in the cauldron.

  My mother sets the bundle of firewood down and then steps into the bedroom. She kneels beside Nolan’s bed, more crystalline tears making tracks down her hollow cheeks. She takes his hand in hers, her eyes falling closed. I can see the heartbreak in her face.

  And Nolan…

  His skin is yellow, the dark circles under his eyes paper-thin. He’s asleep, unmoving, but his breathing is labored and shallow.

  I realize with a shock of pain that my brother is dying.

  18

  No. No, no, no. This isn’t right. It’s all wrong. So farsing wrong.

  A wave of dizziness washes over me. I stumble away from the mirror, and the minute my hands leave the glass, the picture of my mother and brother fades away, leaving only my tear-stained face in the reflection.

  I keep backing away from the mirror until I hit the post of Callum’s bed, sending a jolt of sharp pain through my hip. The physical sensation awakens me, pushes away the lightheaded shock, and I seem to crash back into my body.

  How is this possible? I gave my life to keep my village safe.

  I felt the sacrifice complete, felt the shift in the air the moment it was done. Which means Zelus accepted my sacrifice, fed his power from my offering, but then refused to do anything to improve life for my family or my people.

  Fury and despair tangle inside me until I’m not sure where one ends and the other begins. What kind of monster is he? He sits high on a throne like Kaius, dictating everything around him like a child playing pretend, but completely ignores the portion of earth that relies on him to provide for them. He’s a despicable being, and I realize in a flash that sears through me like lightning—I hate him.

  I cling to the bedpost while I struggle to calm my breathing. My mouth is dry, my throat tight, and my body is so tense I feel like I might snap in half if I move.

  It’s up to me to fix this. I can’t stand by knowing I gave my life to save Nolan only for him to waste away from an infection in his wounds.

  My people are on the brink of extinction, and of course I want to save them too, but it’s Nolan’s large blue eyes I see in my mind. I remember holding his hand as a child, play
ing cards by candlelight, walking into the woods together to join hunting party after hunting party. He is my best friend.

  I have to do something.

  That thought repeats like a mantra in my head as I slip out of Callum’s room and cut through the house, heading up the stairs to the second floor. Back in my room, I change into a more functional travel dress and boots, and at the last minute, I grab a cloak just in case the weather changes outside the city. I carry a small satchel to the kitchen, pausing briefly on the way to ensure the men are still busy with their training outside. I find a book of matches in one of the drawers, then toss some dried goods into my bag, as well as a flask of water.

  Callum’s door still stands open from when I fled after using the mirror. I rifle through his drawers, then his armoire, but I find what I’m looking for in a box beneath his bed.

  A dagger.

  I can’t imagine it’s any safer for a woman to travel alone here in the afterworld than it was on earth. Tucking the sheath into my boot, I mutter a curse under my breath. This blade is well made, better than the one I used to have, but I still wish I’d been able to bring my own beloved knife and hip holster with me into the afterlife.

  I don’t dally now that I’ve made the decision to go, though I do look outside one last time as I settle the bag’s strap over my shoulders. Callum has his leg wrapped around Echo’s neck, both of them sprawled on the ground as Paris stands over them. Then Echo and Callum break apart, and I shrink back deeper into the shadows. The three of them look perfectly wild and masculine like this, covered in dirt and sweat, their muscles bunching and flexing as they laugh and banter as though they haven’t a care in the world.

  And they don’t, do they? Nearly gods themselves, they have everything they could possibly need at their fingertips. They don’t know hardship or loss.

  Not like I do.

  But they are beautiful, and I feel a burst of heartache at the thought of leaving them. Much of my transition here has been rocky and tumultuous, but not every moment has been awful. Quite a few moments have been downright wonderful. If things were different, maybe these men would have become my family. Eventually.

  The pieces of my soul that are held inside each man pull at me, begging me not to go. Or maybe it’s just my own foolish heart, which has grown more attached to them every day, despite all my warnings not to.

  But in the end, neither my heart nor my soul can keep me here. There’s something I have to make right, and I won’t stop until I do it.

  So I commit the sight of my three messengers to memory, then leave the house.

  I don’t exactly have a map of the realm, but I know which direction we walk to go deeper into the city, and logically, that means if I go the other way, I’ll eventually get away from the populated areas and into the Unclaimed Expanse. Violet seemed absolutely certain that portals exist out there which could transport me to earth, carrying even a dead soul across the veil between this realm and the next.

  It’s the one solid possibility I have to cling to, the one bit of hope. So I won’t stop until I find one.

  The road narrows as I walk, the shops and homes alongside it becoming farther and farther apart. The landscape is flat and the road straight. It’s easy to navigate now, but beyond the intermittent buildings ahead, the silhouette of a deep, dark forest looms.

  Didn’t we come out of a barren, almost desert-like area when we left the Unclaimed Expanse last time? I thought the forest was farther away from the main road.

  Confusion fills me, and I lift a hand to shield my eyes from the sun, my nose scrunching up. I usually have a good memory for landscapes, a hunter’s ability to distinguish one tree from another and find little landmarks in the world around me.

  But none of this looks familiar.

  I’ve been running on adrenaline since leaving the house, so fear hasn’t had a chance to overcome me yet. More than anything else about today, that forest reminds me how rash I’m being. I know nothing about the afterworld or what threats might lurk in the wildest parts of it. If bears were the most dangerous predators that lurked in the woods surrounding my village, what beasts await me here? I don’t know anything about the poisonous plants among those trees, or what kind of treacherous terrain I’ll come across in my journey. I’m racing forward blindly into the unknown.

  To make matters worse, the farther I get from the house, the more taut the thread between me and my messengers grows.

  Will it eventually snap? What will happen when it does?

  I massage the area between my breasts and notice for the first time how close the sensation is to my heart. Since Kaius placed a piece of my soul in each of the men, I’ve known we had a connection. That connection has only deepened as I’ve gotten to know each of them—even Callum, although I’m sure he’d be horrified at the very notion that I know anything about him.

  But now, as I walk away from them, I feel it more strongly than I ever have before. Each step I take makes those threads connecting us vibrate like bowstrings strung too tightly.

  By the time I reach the forest, the tightness has turned to pain in my chest. It physically hurts me to be so far away from them. I take measured, steady breaths, inhaling and exhaling through the ache.

  Still, my feet don’t even pause in my steady march toward the outskirts—I have to do this.

  Despite the dark, gloomy look of the woods, once I’ve broken the threshold of the tree line, I realize it isn’t as terrifying on the inside. The strange, purple-tinted sunlight of this world seeps through the canopy overhead and illuminates the forest floor, giving everything a surreal, underwater look. The road continues too, which means I can stay on a well-trodden path for at least a little while longer. It gives me a bit more peace of mind than I originally expected.

  I have no idea what I’m looking for out here. I know eventually the leaves will disappear, the grass will turn brown, and I’ll be officially in the no-man’s-land. But as for the portals, I don’t have an inkling what they’ll look like or how they’ll function. I can’t imagine I’m going to be so lucky as to find some swirling green vortex of magic with a crude wooden sign indicating PORTAL TO EARTH.

  I spur myself on with thoughts of Nolan and my mother. It makes me sick to think that they’ve been mourning my death even as they struggled to survive in the barren landscape that’s all Zelus has left them with.

  If I’d been there to help, maybe Nolan wouldn’t be in such awful shape now. Maybe I could’ve helped feed him, could’ve found more herbs for my mother to use in her healing poultices.

  Done something.

  The road ends about the same time the ache in my chest turns excruciating. I hesitate only a moment before I leave the path, but even a moment’s hesitation is too long when Nolan needs me. I can see him in my mind’s eye, a memory of his face in that looking glass, yellowing skin and perspiring with fever. That image is enough to keep me moving, even as it feels like my soul is being ripped from my body.

  Suddenly, the lush green growth beneath my feet is replaced by thick tangled brambles. There is no slow change over from green forest to barren wasteland. With one step I am still in a warm, green forest, and with the next, the air grows cold and dusty, and the forest turns dead brown.

  I stumble slightly, my body tense as if braced for a fall.

  “What the nish is this place?” I mutter under my breath, my gaze darting around as my heart slams against my ribs.

  When I was running through the wilderness trying to escape my pursuers all those days ago, I was surprised that the landscape changed so quickly. At the time, I thought I just wasn’t paying close enough attention, but now I realize I was wrong.

  The landscape did change.

  Suddenly and out of nowhere, as if some unseen force is rearranging pieces on a chess board. As if the wild magic in this place reshapes the landscape as it sees fit.

  I lose the last of my bravery. I’m officially off the path and in an area nobody is meant to venture to. And as if it�
��s been affected by the shift in my surroundings too, the pain inside me has become nearly unbearable.

  Still, I keep searching for a portal. I can’t give up my quest now.

  At some point, I pick up my pace to a jog, my gaze everywhere as I look for any hint of something not quite normal. Branches whip at my face as I fly past, and the brambles beneath my feet tangle around my boots and the hem of my skirt. I’m moving fast and unsteadily, a dangerous combination, but I feel like I’m outside myself. I can’t stop. I can’t slow down.

  What if the portals aren’t marked? What if I can’t see them without some kind of activation spell? I’ll be lost entirely.

  But then I realize something. I could try to use the weave. It worked on the mirror and on the lock. Maybe it will help guide me somehow.

  I come to an abrupt halt, grabbing a thin, dead tree trunk to steady myself within the heavy underbrush. The ache in my torso makes it hard to focus on the lines of the weave, and it takes me three tries to connect with the magic… only to realize that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

  I attempt to thread the weave through the trees, calling forth images of doorways in my mind. While I can sense the lines of energy all around me—faint, but there—I can’t feel anything of similar or greater power. Something that stands out as different. Like a portal.

  Dejected, I let go of the wispy threads and lean against the tree. How idiotic am I? I ran out of the messengers’ dwelling like my dress was on fire and headed into a dangerous territory with no real idea of how to find what I seek.

  But there’s no turning back. At this point, I’m not even sure how easily I could retrace my steps, given the shift in the landscape a while back. And if I give up now, I’ll be letting go of what may be my only chance to do this. Callum will be so furious with me for sneaking away that it’ll be a miracle if he doesn’t lock me up.

  I brace myself, take a deep breath and massage away the ache, then begin walking again.

  Only this time, my footsteps aren’t the only sound to accompany me.