by Jeri Baird
Each of the questers looked on in shock as the dog and snake disappeared into the woods. It was the first patron used. They all knew it would not return.
“Not Silk. I loved him.” Paal banged his fist against the ground. “How could I have been so stupid.”
Zander’s gut clenched. Dharien had Shadow’s token, but he knew the coyote wouldn’t help Dharien. Unlike Silk, Shadow was safe. No matter what happened, Zander wouldn’t be tempted to use him if he didn’t have the token.
There was no time to grieve. A pig materialized next to Odo. Kaiya jumped up and ran over to release a butterfly. They disappeared as another adder showed. Hissing at Yarra, the snake coiled to strike. The only token she carried was her patron’s. Her eyes wild, Yarra threw it to the ground. The tiny piglet took the strike intended for Yarra and then vanished with the adder.
Another patron used.
Another quester devastated.
Another punch to Zander’s gut.
Kaiya and Waku sat next to a slumped Yarra.
“She was just a baby,” Yarra cried out with her head in her hands. “She was so brave. She saved my life.”
A final pig charged from the woods. Cobie tossed a snake to the ground. This time Paal was ready with a bird token. They sighed in relief as the hawk carried away the snake.
The questers sagged to the ground surrounding Zander who sat with Kaiya on one side and Alexa on the other.
Paal wiped his eyes and held out the remaining butterfly tokens. “We did it with two left. Alexa was right. Working together was the right thing to do.”
Alexa blushed. “Everyone worked hard.” She patted Paal’s arm.
“We still have a few snakes and scorpions, but we’re almost done.” Paal stared at Alexa and Zander. “Let us help you with the panthers.”
His twin shook her head. “What can you do? We don’t know how to fight them. We need to find Dharien. He has a black panther too.” She glanced at Zander, but wouldn’t meet his eyes.
He didn’t want to worry Alexa, but Zander wasn’t sure how well either of them could travel. Pig tusks carried their own poisons, and he could feel heat throbbing through his leg. As he tried to stand, he collapsed. Seeing Kaiya’s look of panic, he said, “Give me a few minutes.”
She crushed lavender and mint into Zander’s water skin. “This will help.”
As Zander waited for the tea to infuse, he slapped at his cheek. He killed the hornet, but not before it stung his cheek. Where was that turtle?
While she pressed a wet comfrey leaf over the swelling, Kaiya said, “It’s not fair. You had all those tokens. You shouldn’t be injured. I hate Dharien for stealing yours.”
Zander caught her hand. “Don’t hate him, Kaiya. It harms you, not him, when you hate.”
She blushed, but nodded. “You’re right, but it’s still not fair.”
“Father taught me a long time ago that life’s not fair. You know that, Kaiya, or we wouldn’t have so many kids in our village who go to bed hungry at night.”
“That’s why I want to hunt. Before you brought us food, I never thought we had any choices. Now, I know how to help.”
“After the quest, I’ll show you where it’s safe. You can’t let the elders catch you.” He grinned and out of habit, ran his tongue over his chipped tooth. “I’d like to see the look on the elder’s face who catches a girl hunting illegally.”
“Drink your tea.” Kaiya fluttered her lashes at him. “And who says they’d catch me?”
Zander noticed the smile she tried to hide. He drank the cold tea, spitting out leaves and stems. “Needs honey.”
As she touched the sting on his cheek, Kaiya teased him. “I think we’ll stay away from bees today.”
Together, they watched the others toss out omens and tokens. It was dangerous, but he couldn’t help laughing when Paal jumped into a wild rose bush running from a snake and came out with enough thorns stuck in his arm to take care of the rest of his thorn omens. Cobie concocted comfrey poultices for the injuries and rosemary tea for clear thinking.
Caught away from the group, Tarni used her patron canary to defeat a scorpion. She turned a brave face to the group. “I thought she was only good for singing.” She collapsed to her knees in tears. Odo comforted her with a hug.
By late afternoon, they’d rid the group of the most dangerous omens. The questers slumped to the ground, retelling the stories of their heroism. Tired, but proud, they mocked their earlier fears. Now, they had a full day to deal with their minor omens and rest. Zander tried to ignore the not-so-subtle glances sent his way. They were all trying to avoid one fact. Alexa and Zander still had the panthers.
When Kaiya changed the bandage on Zander’s leg, Alexa’s eyes narrowed. “I think it’s infected.”
Spasms raced from his thigh to his ankle when Zander stood. He grimaced. “Can you travel? We need to leave soon. I don’t want those panthers anywhere near here.”
She nodded. “Kaiya? Would you make us a tea of rosemary and lavender?” To Zander she muttered, “It’s going to be a long night.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Zander
Zander leaned against the tree, drawing what strength he could while Alexa checked her embroidery for Merindah. Alexa was obsessed with confirming the safety of her friend.
“Are you sure you need to leave?” Paal paced around the questers. “You don’t have to fight the panthers alone.”
Ignoring the fire shooting through his thigh, Zander shook his head. “There’s nothing you can do. You’ve fought your omens. These are ours.”
Cobie picked at a red sting on his hand. “We have a few tokens left. Maybe they’d help.”
Meeting Alexa’s eyes, Zander shrugged. “I don’t think so. None of the tokens are strong enough.”
They left as dusk closed in on the gulch. It would take an hour to hike to Merindah, and then Zander wanted them far from her before they stopped for the night. He hoped the panthers wouldn’t appear at dawn. They’d disappeared from the embroidery, so there was no way of knowing where they were.
Zander moved slower than Alexa. It hurt him to look at her black eye even though it was no longer swollen shut. She held her injured hand at her waist. She said it throbbed too much if she didn’t.
The moon filtered through the trees throwing shadows across their path. Alexa startled when an owl hooted above them.
“With my injured leg, I’m not much protection, am I?”
“That’s why we’re in this together, Zander.”
Grinning through his pain, Zander flung his arm over her shoulder. “I’m still not used to having a sister. Having a family.”
Her smile told him she felt the same.
When they stopped for their third rest, Alexa checked the embroidery. “She’s close. Merindah?”
A startled voice replied, “Alexa? I’m here.”
Alexa found Merindah resting against an elm tree, arms wrapped around her knees. A long scratch, almost healed, curled across her cheek.
“Merindah? Are you all right?”
“I’ve fought my omens. I’m fine.” Merindah’s mouth dropped open. “What happened to you?”
Sliding down to sit next to her friend, Alexa told the story. When she finished, Merindah shook her head. “I told you not to carry your needle in your hem.”
“Maybe I’ll listen next time.” Alexa sought Merindah’s eyes. “The rest of the questers have fought their omens. Will you go to them tomorrow? There are dangers in the forest besides our omens.”
“What about you and Zander?”
“We still have the panthers.”
“Could you believe those butterflies?” Merindah giggled. “I was scared they wouldn’t work against a pig.”
“I’m proud of you for fighting your omens alone. You’re braver than me.”
; Merindah sobered. “It’s the way we’re supposed to do it.”
Alexa shrugged. “I think once the quest begins we can do it however we want. It worked for the others to fight together.”
Noticing Zander’s wrapped leg, Merindah asked,
“You’re hurt too?”
“Wayward pig gored me.”
Digging through her pouch Merindah handed him a jar of ointment. “This should help both of you.”
“How did you earn it?” Zander held it up and sniffed as he tried to identify the herbs.
“I helped nurse a friend of my mother’s who suffered a bad flu. When I returned home, I found the token on my bed.” She pointed to her cheek. “I used it on this thorn scratch, but I don’t need it now.”
Relief flowed through Zander as he spread the oily cream on his wound. The stabbing fire subsided to a dull ache. He patted the ointment on Alexa’s face, hand, and knee.
As the girls exchanged stories, Zander rested with his leg propped up against the tree. He smiled as Merindah giggled at Alexa’s account of how they got rid of the pigs.
Merindah turned serious. “You’re both injured. How will you fight the panthers?”
That was the question with no answer. Silence stretched between them until Zander stood. “Alexa? We need to leave.”
She glanced up and brushed away tears. “We’ll figure out a way. We have to.”
After hugging them, Merindah said, “I’ll see you both on Saturday at the village?”
Alexa’s voice shook. “I hope so.”
“I’ll pray for you.”
After Zander finished tying a new bandage on his leg, he said, “You’ll make a good nun if Moira allows it.”
She blushed. “I don’t know what I’ll do if she doesn’t.”
“You’ll be all right.” He stood and tested his leg.
“See you Saturday.”
The ointment had made him stronger already, but his thoughts were far from strong. Would Moira choose the nunnery for Merindah? What would Fate choose for him if she allowed him to live? Would she allow him to live?
Zander was afraid he’d have to beg Dharien for Shadow’s token. That thought worried him the most.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Alexa
The quiet of the forest seeped into Alexa’s bones. Seeing Merindah had brought out conflicting emotions: happiness that she was safe, and self doubt because her friend had chosen to quest alone. Merindah might have been right when she said they were supposed to complete the quest on their own. Had Alexa wrongly insisted the others follow her plan? Her heart had broken with Paal, Yarra, and Tarni when they lost their patrons. If she hadn’t insisted they work together, they might not have had to use them.
She’d had Shadow’s token in her hand when the pig gored Zander, and again when the snake struck him. Thankfully, she hadn’t needed it.
Zander would never forgive her, but if his life was in danger, she’d use the token. The priest and the fortune-teller had changed the rules and forced them into the quest unprepared. What worried her was why they did it. It was because of Dharien, and that brought her to thoughts she’d tried to ignore.
Zander reached for her. “You’re quiet. Are you scared?”
Grateful for his interruption, she answered, “Just thinking.”
Squeezing her hand, he said, “I think the purpose of the quest is to make us think. We’re tested by the omens, but the real challenge is to our beliefs over who we are and what we want in our life.”
She peered at his earnest face, shadowed in the moonlight. “You did that when you went into the gulch alone?”
He nodded. “I realized how my anger clouded my thinking. I wanted to be a Protector, but now I’m not sure. I wanted to leave Father and do something that made me important. Now I have you. I have a family.”
Remembering how she’d schemed to make Paal fall in love with her, Alexa closed her eyes. Her dream had also changed since she’d found Zander.
Zander continued. “Those days by myself, I felt the anger I’d pushed away for so many years. I’d blamed it on Father and Dharien. I even blamed Moira. My anger led me to cheat in the tournament because I believed it would solve my problems.” His voice softened. “But it made everything worse. I earned the most dangerous omen to fight in the quest, and I worried over the prize money until I couldn’t sleep.” Several minutes passed before he asked, “Alexa? Why did you cheat for me in the tournament?”
She jerked her hand away. “You had to win. You had to teach Dharien a lesson.”
“You didn’t trust me to win on my own.”
Stumbling on a root, Alexa fell to her knees. Was that why she’d stitched the embroidery and tried to control their fate? Because she didn’t trust her brother or herself to survive on their own? Or any of the others? Suddenly she couldn’t ignore the awful feeling in her gut that doubled her over.
She whispered, “This is my fault.”
Kneeling next to her Zander asked, “Why do you say that?”
“If Dharien hadn’t drunk the potion, he wouldn’t have been jealous of you. He wouldn’t have blackmailed Melina Odella into stealing your tokens and changing the quest.”
He rocked back on his heels. “We would still be twins.”
“But if I hadn’t stitched the embroidery, I wouldn’t have gone to your house. I wouldn’t have found out until after the quest.”
“I would have known. I learned the secret in Father’s eyes. I still would have followed him to the bakery that night.”
She tried to stop her tears, but when Zander touched her shoulder, they spilled down her cheeks and fell like raindrops into the earth.
“Alexa?” He spoke softly. “Fate gave us our favors early for a reason. It was right we used them, but not to cheat in the wrestling tournament. That was wrong. We deserved the omens. But we don’t deserve to die because of it.”
“What are we going to do?”
Zander searched her eyes and they answered as one.
“Find Dharien.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Quest Day Four
Zander
They traveled through a dense group of cedar trees, and Zander appreciated the extra light from Alexa’s second star token. Around midnight, exhaustion made them stumble. When it was clear they could go no farther, Zander slid to the ground. “We need to rest. Let’s sleep for a few hours.”
“How’s your leg?”
Although he wanted to lie, Alexa needed to know he wasn’t at full-strength. “It’s starting to throb again. How’s your knee?”
“It hurts.” She shrugged. “Should we take turns watching?”
“I think we need the sleep.” Zander smoothed Merindah’s salve on his leg and passed the jar to Alexa.
After she treated her own injuries, Alexa folded the embroidery for a pillow. Her breath evened out and joined the soothing gurgles of the stream behind them.
His twin’s words nagged him. Had Alexa set this in motion when she used the potion? He rolled to his back on the cool ground and stretched his injured leg. As he stared at the stars, he thought of Moira. A shooting star streaked across the sky. Good luck? Or was there any such thing as luck? He rubbed the black and white stone between his palms.
He wanted to believe he had control over his life. The quest taught that his actions affected the outcome. He controlled the number of tokens and omens he earned by his behavior, but he’d had no control over Melina Odella stealing them. Tshilaba had warned he had chosen to fly toward the blackness. Could he have chosen differently? Or did Moira make him choose the way he did?
Lulled by exhaustion and the stone is his hand, he drifted into sleep.
He and Alexa were wading into a river. She struggled to swim upstream, fighting with the current. He floated away from her, content to let the water take him
.
Zander jerked. Dawn filtered through the trees. They’d slept too long. He tried to rise, but the spasm in his leg pulled him to the ground. “Alexa?”
Her eyes fluttered and then opened to gape at him. Wincing, she pushed back her hair with a purple hand. She spread the embroidery on the ground and pointed at Dharien’s figure and then their own.
Confused, Zander swore. “We went the wrong way last night. We’ll never reach him in time.”
“The three of us have to fight the panthers together.” Alexa’s sleepy eyes widened. “I dreamed it. It’s our only chance.”
Fumbling with his pouch, Zander held out the tiny black horse. Token or omen? It was time to find out. He tossed it to the ground and shuddered as it formed into a horse the size of Helios.
They would only get to Dharien in time if they rode.
Zander’s heartbeat thrashed in his ears. Clutching the wooden heart, he closed his eyes, but the calm eluded him. The green stone Moira had given him for his anger on the first day of magic pulled him deeper into his fear.
He gasped, trying to suck in air as stars flashed in the dark closing around him. Alexa’s mouth moved, but the roar in his ears left him deaf to her cries. He couldn’t fight his fear.
A beam of sunlight pierced through the trees, and Zander understood. He wasn’t meant to fight it.
He had to face it. Everything in his life had brought him to this point. His survival and that of his twin’s depended upon him conquering the fear that paralyzed him.
He flinched when the horse approached. Forcing himself to still, Zander drew energy from the earth and pulled it up into his gut where it formed a ball of light. It seeped into his body and filled him with the energy he needed.
The blackness cleared. He nodded at Alexa to reassure her. Facing the horse, Zander gathered his fear. It surged from his belly through his chest and rolled into his outstretched fingers. He shook his hands once to release it.
The horse pawed the ground, impatient.