by Jeri Baird
He carried Shadow to Helios’s stall. “I should have listened when Helios threw me this morning.”
“Helios threw you? What does that have to do with losing your tokens?”
“I didn’t lose them, Alexa. Dharien stole them.”
“But that’s not your fault.”
“Wasn’t it? My gut told me to stay away from the festival today, but I didn’t listen. Helios felt it in me. That’s why he tossed me off.” He held out slices of apple on his open palm and waited while Helios sniffed the fruit and then chomped them. He scratched Helios’s nose. “Now you like me, huh?”
Alexa climbed onto the rail to brush Helios’s mane. “How did you cheat? Why did Moira give you the panther?”
Blushing, Zander stared at the ground. “Moira gave me an early favor. When I stare into someone’s eyes, I see their secrets.” He glanced at Alexa’s stunned face. “In wrestling, your next move is a secret. I used it to win.”
“You see everyone’s secrets?”
Zander hid his smile. He could tell by her face Alexa knew he’d seen her plan for Paal. “It’s not as much fun as it seems.” He brushed dirt off his tunic. “I saw in your eyes you cheated for me.”
Alexa picked at her fingernails to avoid his eyes. “She gave me my favor early too. I can control people with my embroidery. What I stitch, happens. Remember last month when you and Dharien couldn’t stay apart?”
“You did that?” Zander grimaced. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Revenge. I thought you deserved each other. But I cut the thread.” She glanced up, but avoided letting Zander look into her eyes. “When you lost your first match, I knew I could help.”
“So you stitched me winning and it worked?”
“Between your favor of seeing and mine of controlling, I guess we both earned our omens. But we had to do it. You needed to win.”
“And now we have the hardest omen to fight in the quest. I don’t know of a token that will beat the black panther. Yeah, that was worth it.” He strode to his room and brought back his quiver of arrows, which he dumped in the straw. He picked out the fox, the mountain lion, and the black horse. Those and the wood heart he wore around his neck were the only tokens he possessed.
“The mountain lion might fight off one panther, but not two.” He handed it to Alexa. “You take it. I can fight another way.”
She shrank back. “No, I have time to figure out something else.”
Alexa handed Zander the red and black stone she’d held for him. He stared at the stone and stuffed it in his pocket before Alexa could notice it was now more black than red. What made it change?
Alexa opened her bag of tokens. “I have plenty. I’ll share.”
“No, you’re right. I have time. I’ll earn more in the next two months.” His voice shook as he held out the black panther omen. “But Alexa. This . . .” He gulped. “It may be impossible to defend against.”
“What about Shadow? He could kill a panther.”
Zander felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. “Never!” He sagged against the stall. But would he need to sacrifice Shadow to save his twin?
CHAPTER THIRTY
Alexa
Alexa walked outside with Zander, and they sat on the stone fence leading to the estate. Fiona scampered along the wall, teasing Shadow, who tried repeatedly to jump on the fence to join her. Alexa laughed when he tumbled backwards.
She stared at the estate she once wanted to live in. She pulled her knees up to sit cross-legged and rested her chin in her hand. What a foolish dream. Now, she had more important things to consider.
How could they defend against the most dangerous omen? Alexa pondered the round embroidery cloth she kept secret. In her mind she schemed. If she stitched two panthers and enclosed them in a cage, they wouldn’t be able to harm her or Zander in the quest, but would she risk another omen?
Her twin nudged her knee. “What are you thinking? Worried about the omen?”
She hesitated, knowing he wouldn’t like her thoughts. “Zander, I can use my favor to control the quest.”
Zander’s head jerked. “No, Alexa. It’s not worth getting another omen.”
She recalled the fortune-teller’s words. “Tshilaba said I was the master of my destiny. We can’t allow Moira to win. Our parents have sacrificed their happiness to keep us alive.”
With the sun sinking in the west, lightning flashed in the clouds looming in the east. Alexa stood and stretched her legs. “I have to go. Mother will worry.”
Zander studied the sky. “The storm will hit around midnight. Come on, I’ll walk you to the border.” As they trekked, Zander begged her. “Please, Alexa, don’t use your favor for the quest. I can earn more tokens.”
~
After a late dinner, Alexa kissed Mother goodnight and climbed the stairs to her room. She lit her lamp, closed her door, and dug the stitching out from under her dresser. After changing to a pale yellow nightshirt, she leaned against her headboard and out of habit, reached for her basket of thread. She smiled as she lifted Fiona out of the basket and unwound silver thread from around her ears. She gave her patron a tummy tickle and settled Fiona in her lap.
Lost in thought, Alexa hesitated for a few moments before she stitched the panthers, black in the forest. With shaking hands, she threaded the needle with a fine metallic thread and enclosed them in a golden cage. She closed her eyes. If it would only work.
As thunder rumbled against her windows, she considered other items that might help them survive the quest. She stitched brown loaves of bread scattered through the gulch and clear ponds with tin cups littering the banks. She stitched bows with arrows and long knives.
The wind howled as she stitched herbs growing throughout the forest; deep purple lavender for calming and pain relief, green mint for upset stomachs, twiggy rosemary for sprains and clear thinking, and broad-leafed comfrey for cuts and insect bites.
Near midnight, as Zander had predicted, the storm hit in full force. Deafening peals of thunder shook the house, sending Fiona cowering under the covers. Lightning flashed and rain beat at the window while Alexa stitched the final questers with each of their patrons. Thirteen figures poised at the edge of the forest ready to enter for the quest. She stitched her name, but didn’t tie the knot. It wasn’t yet time to set the cloth in motion.
As she slept, the storm invaded her troubled dreams. In the early morning, when she woke to a quiet village of downed trees and overturned market stalls, one thing was certain; she would control her own destiny. She would not allow Moira to decide for her. Not now.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Zander
Zander tied his winnings around his neck. He found owning that much money a worry. Even after he paid Elder Warrin the debt he owed and they had agreed on a weekly salary for Zander’s work in the stable, the weight pulled at his neck. The clinking coins spooked the horses. And though he trusted Fulk, he declined the marshal’s offer to lock the coins in his room. He didn’t trust Dharien.
He took one coin from the bag and returned to the festival. A sword had caught his eye when he and Alexa had wandered through the Raskan tents. Then he didn’t have money—now he did. After finding the sword fit his hand perfectly with a weight he could heft, Zander gladly handed over the coin without haggling. Hiding it under his long leather coat, he returned to the stable and shoved the blade under his bed. It was impulsive and he didn’t know how to fight with it, but he felt safer.
Even with the blade, that night he barely slept, and he clutched the bag with both hands. When he woke, drenched in sweat, his first thought was of the coins. Each night after was the same torment, and a week later, he trudged to his father’s house. As he slumped at the door, memories flooded Zander, and he grabbed at the handle to steady himself. He was the son of a furrier. What was he doing pretending to be something he wasn’t?
&nb
sp; He jumped when Father opened the door.
“I watched you win the championship,” Father said.
Shocked, Zander met his eyes. “You went to the festival?”
“I was selling pelts to the Raskans, and I heard you were wrestling for the purse.” His father surprised him when he pulled Zander into his chest and hugged him hard. “I’m so proud of you, Son. After the quest you can build a house or start a business. Moira may be fickle, but she does what’s best for the village. She’ll assign you a good job.”
Zander couldn’t tell Father about Moira’s latest visit. Father might not be so optimistic if he knew of the omen Zander carried. Instead, he stuttered, “I . . . I paid off my debt to Elder Warrin, but I don’t know what to do with the rest of the money.”
“He won’t help?”
“You’re my father. I don’t trust anyone else.” Zander sought his father’s eyes and found them clear and unclouded from mead. He ignored the secret.
Father straightened his shoulders. “What do you want?”
“Would you keep it for me until after the quest? And if I don’t return,” Zander swallowed, “it’s yours to do as you like.”
“You’ll return, Son. You have to return.”
Zander nodded. He wanted to admit he knew Father’s secret, and how he’d found Alexa and their plan for the quest, but the words refused to come. Maybe after the quest, if he and Alexa survived, they could be a family again.
After Father promised to keep the money safe, Zander headed back to the stables. Unable to reconcile his feelings, he felt out of control, and it wasn’t a feeling he enjoyed. He loved Alexa and was grateful he’d found her before the quest, but his life had turned upside down since they first talked in the market stall. He couldn’t keep his old hurts locked away. They rose to the surface of his mind at inopportune moments.
Today, Father had been sober and concerned. Exactly what Zander had hoped for and yet as he left, memories of Father drunk drifted in and swirled around Zander’s feelings of abandonment as a child. He’d grown up with no mother, and Father, lost in mead, who wasn’t even a father most of the time. The two conflicting emotions left Zander feeling off-center and unbalanced. He’d been stuck in class or at the stable too often lately. He needed time alone.
“You and me, Shadow,” he said to the pup.
Zander clutched at the red heart hanging from his neck, and the calm it brought seeped through his body. He dug in his pocket for the red and black stone. As he rolled it between his fingers, he puzzled that the black had taken over even more of the red as the hate in his chest pulsed against the love in his heart. Something in his life needed to change, and soon, or the hate was likely to win.
~
The next day in class, Zander slouched next to Alexa. He glared back at Dharien’s dark stare. Even after a week, purple surrounded one eye from the elbow punch when Zander had bloodied Dharien’s nose. Still, Dharien had appeared smug all week.
Melina Odella paced the room, as if trying to rid herself of nervous energy. “Let’s talk of the rules of the quest. It lasts five days. You’ll enter the forest after the noon meal on day one. You may take your journal, a water skin, your bag of tokens and omens, and the clothes you wear. Your tokens can be used at any time, but the challenges begin at dawn on the second day and end at dusk on day four. That gives you three days to fight your omens. Most of you have earned bread tokens. Use those to keep your strength along with the food you forage. Moira gives you your nights free of threats, but there are natural dangers in the forest to guard against. During the last night, Moira will appear in your dreams to offer her congratulations, bestow your favor, and assign your apprenticeship. When you wake on the fifth day, you’ll make your way to the village. Your families will spend the time of the quest in prayer at the church and meet you at the Quinary when you return.”
The grave look on the priest’s face sent a shiver down Zander’s back. “If any do not return, the families will search the gulch for the body. For those who do, the noon celebration will be your time of choosing. You’ll announce your calling to the village and go with the guild Moira has chosen for you.”
Alexa raised her hand. “Do we have no voice in our apprenticeship? What if we don’t want what Moira chooses?”
From across the room, Melina Odella shrugged. “Sometimes she gives you a choice. Many times she doesn’t. Moira knows better than you what the village needs.”
Zander held his smile when Alexa continued to argue. “But what if I don’t like her decision?”
Melina Odella narrowed her eyes. “Save your complaints for Moira. See if it gets you anywhere.”
Merindah whispered, “Let it go, Alexa. Please?”
The priest rapped the table. “Today we’re going to help you identify the wild foods safe to eat in the gulch.”
Zander frowned. Something was wrong. Dharien should have been in a bad mood since he lost. Instead, he gloated at Zander from across the table. Melina Odella was nervous and avoided looking at him. Even the priest had been jumpy and hadn’t bothered to give Zander a thorn omen since the festival.
Alexa asked, “Is it true Puck’s ghost haunts the gulch? I’ve never gone to the bottom.”
Zander snorted. “Of course it’s true. He talks at me every time I’m there.”
Silence fell over the room. Even Dharien looked shocked. The other teens looked at each other nervously.
The priest’s mouth dropped open, and he blinked several times. “Uh . . .” he stuttered as if at a loss for words.
“What?” Zander’s eyebrows shot up. “You’ve never heard him?”
Everyone shook their heads.
Huh, that was weird.
He thought Puck talked to anyone who went into the gulch.
Melina Odella sashayed across the room to stand behind Zander. “You don’t need to fear Puck’s ghost. Even if he speaks to you, he can’t harm you. Let’s go.”
Zander trailed with Alexa and Merindah behind the others. Merindah stopped to pick a bouquet of irises and chattered about their meaning; something about the three petals representing faith, valor, and wisdom. Alexa kept glancing at him, but she didn’t ask about his hearing ghosts.
The other questers wrote notes as Melina Odella pointed out edible greens, safe mushrooms, and berries they could eat during the quest, but Zander didn’t need notes. He knew the gulch—what was safe to eat and what wasn’t. Father had taught him when he was five. Instead, he observed the teachers. Father Chanse’s eyes darted everywhere but at Zander, and Melina Odella spoke curtly, as if afraid to use too many words.
After the lesson, Zander intended to ask the fortune-teller about his stolen tokens. His gut told him she couldn’t help, but his heart held hope. When they returned to the classroom, the priest dismissed them before the noon bells.
Zander whispered to Alexa, “I’m going to speak to Melina Odella. Wait for me outside?”
Alexa nodded and left with Merindah.
Hoping the priest would leave so he could talk privately to Melina Odella, Zander fidgeted with his journal and token bag. When it appeared the priest was staying, Zander stood.
Unable to meet his eyes, Father Chanse spat, “Zander, what do you want?”
He hesitated. “My tokens were stolen at the wrestling tourney.” Zander searched Melina Odella’s face, expecting sympathy. When she met his gaze, he viewed one secret that pushed the others away, and slammed into his gut.
She had betrayed him! She was the one who stole his tokens.
The words of the man in jail raced back to him. Beware the one you trust. He’d never guessed it would be Melina Odella. Heat flushed through him as he fumbled under his tunic for the heart. He yanked it from his neck and threw it to the floor as he bolted from the room. She’d given him the red heart. Maybe it wasn’t the token he’d believed. He couldn’t depend on
it now.
Dharien slouched, laughing, at the door. Dharien and Melina Odella had worked together to steal Zander’s tokens. What Zander didn’t understand was why. Dharien hated him, but Melina Odella had always been friendly. He’d never trust a fortune-teller again.
When Zander stumbled from the church, Alexa grabbed his arm.
“What’s wrong?”
“Melina Odella stole my tokens!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Alexa
Alexa’s shock at the fortune-teller’s betrayal quickly turned to anger. Adrenaline propelled her into the church. She would confront Melina Odella and force her to return her twin’s tokens.
As she approached the classroom, angry voices spilled into the hall. Curious, she pressed herself against the stone wall next to the open door and listened.
Melina Odella’s terse voice flowed from the room. “I stole the tokens, and now you have them. We did what you wanted. What more do you ask?”
Dharien’s voice sounded like steel. “Promise me Zander will die during the quest, or I’ll tell Father that you and the priest are in love. I watched you kiss, you can’t deny it.”
Alexa’s heart thudded. Why did he want her brother to die? And why did he threaten the priest? Father Chanse would be thrown out of the church if the elders found out he loved the fortune-teller. She strained to hear the fortune-teller’s soft words.
“Zander and Alexa are twins. One of them will not survive.” Melina Odella laughed raggedly.
“They’re twins?” Dharien sounded confused. “I thought Zander—nevermind what I thought. I love Alexa. I don’t want her to die. If this is true, it changes everything.”