Read Collide and Seek: Act 4-5 (Bitter Ashes Book 2) Online
Authors: Sara C. Roethle
Collide and Seek: Act 4-5 (Bitter Ashes Book 2)
Collide and Seek
Act Four and Five of the Vaettir Serialized Dark Fantasy Romance
©2014 Sara C. Roethle
Act Four
Chapter One
J
ames ran with me in his arms for hours, never seeming to tire. My black dress was finally almost dry, but the remaining dampness from our narrow escape down an ice cold river still made me shiver. I attuned myself with the bumping up and down of James' gait, finding it surprisingly tolerable, though it would have been nice to know where we were going. I imagined at some point I would be delivered to Aislin so we could find the charm, an object that would somehow allow one of the Vaettir to rule all others, but I was too weak and delirious to ask.
I felt myself slipping in and out of consciousness, and my bleary thoughts turned to Alaric. He'd claimed that his betrayal was the only way to save me, that if we both ended up in a cell, he wouldn't have been able to rescue me. I called bullshit. We could have fought our way back to those vines to follow Sophie and Maya out into the human world. I'd made the right choice in taking James' offer. He might terrify me, and he might have tortured me, but he worked for the other side. From what I'd seen of Estus' little clan, any side was better than his.
The trees above us faded in and out of view as I warred with my heavy eyelids. The October air of the forest that would have been pleasant had I been dry, chilled the damp parts of my clothing in an almost painful way. The only warm part of my body was the side pressed against James.
It seemed odd that he was carrying me like a bride on her wedding day, rather than in a fireman's carry, but the uneven weight distribution didn't seem to fatigue him, and I was more comfortable that way, so I didn't complain. My long, dark brown hair was caught between our bodies, but I didn't complain about that either.
We seemed to run on for days, though the sun never fully set, and I was only partly conscious when he finally set me down on the ground. I looked at him in confusion, wanting to ask for an explanation, but I couldn't form the words.
“We'll stay here for the night,” he explained as he walked around, observing our surroundings. “Once you've . . . recovered, we'll find the charm. I'm assuming you know where it is,” he added with enough menace to let me know that what he actually meant was,
you better know where it is, or else
.
“The hearts showed me an image of where it is,” I explained dizzily, thinking back to all the hearts Estus had hidden within the wall of the Salr, “but we might need Aislin's help in finding the right place.”
“They just showed you a
picture
?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes,” I replied as I looked at the light slowly fading from above the trees. It would have been nice to argue with James from a safe, standing position, but my legs felt like congealed pudding. “It was a very unique picture, and it gave me a feeling of
distance
. The charm is far away. With a little research we could probably find the right place, and I think if we get close enough, I'll be able to sense it. If Aislin is as old as Estus, she might even know where it is.”
“We'll need to have the charm in hand
before
I take you to Aislin,” James replied.
I mustered the strength to turn my head in James' direction. “I thought you said-” I began.
James shrugged like it didn't really matter. “I lied. Aislin wanted me to sneak another executioner into the Salr to make use of Estus' hearts. I thought this way would be easier, though I'm beginning to reconsider my choice.”
“What!” I asked again as a surge of adrenaline enabled me to sit up right. “So there's no deal for me?”
James rolled his eyes at me. “Trust me. If you and I can deliver the charm to Aislin, we'll both be given whatever we want.”
“
Trust
you?” I snapped. “You just admitted to lying to me about everything. Why the hell should I trust you now?”
James laughed. “Do you have any better options?”
I was fuming, but he was right. Aislin was still my best chance. It wasn't a very good chance, but given that the other option was to just wait around for Estus to find and kill me . . . Alaric and Sivi had both probably lied about their offers of help too. Of course, Sivi's offer of
well, you'll be alive while I murder everyone
, didn't have enough sugar coating to be a lie, and Alaric, he'd betrayed me after fully gaining my trust. At least James was upfront about being a scheming, sociopathic jackass.
“The charm can be found inside a giant tree,” I explained with anger still tinting my voice. “The tree is surrounded by large burial mounds that protect the charm. The place is very old, and hidden. I got the feeling that you could walk right by it and never know. It might even be underground.”
James stood with a huff. “That's it?” he asked sharply. “That's all you got? You couldn't have asked for a map?”
I let myself slump back to the ground. “It wasn't like I was just discussing things with the hearts over a nice cup of tea. I seem to recall you urging me to get things done before Estus came to kill us. We had a bit of a time constraint.”
James sighed and came to stand over me. “It's fine,” he said, more to himself than to me. “Our plan is still the same.”
“So you know how to find the tree?” I asked hopefully as I looked up at him.
“No, but I know someone who might be able to help. We'll visit her in the morning.” He began to walk away. “I'd tell you to wait here,” he added, “but I doubt it's necessary.”
“Where are you going?” I asked, suddenly nervous.
“I'm going to find us some dinner,” he replied, his voice already a good distance away.
With a tired sigh, I curled up into a ball on the ground in an attempt to get warm. I sincerely hoped that dinner would come with a fire. I hadn't quite recovered from our swim in the icy river, and the increasingly chilly air was not helping matters. Not only that, but I felt like I had expended myself a little too much back in the Salr.
I'd used the energy of the souls I'd released to knock Estus into a wall, then to “heal” the vines of the portal that was our only chance of escape. At the time, using the energy had felt marvelous, almost as good as it had felt to release all of those long tortured souls, but something told me I'd overdone it. I raised a shaky, pale hand in front of my face and could barely even force my eyes to focus on it. Yep, definitely over-did it.
I was still curled in a ball on the hard ground when footsteps alerted me to James' return. I peeled my eyes open to see that he carried a dead rabbit in one hand, and some kindling for a fire in the other. I had no idea how he had killed the rabbit, and I didn't want to know.
Without a word he set the rabbit down and began building a fire near me. I watched in awe as James used the old-fashioned method of spinning a stick with one of his shoelaces against a piece of wood.
“You're like a giant boy scout,” I commented.
“Ha ha,” James replied sarcastically. “Not all of us spend our entire existence among the comforts of the Salr.”
James turned his attention back to his task at hand, and soon had enough heat to light the dried grass and small twigs he'd gathered. He began expertly stacking smaller logs over the flame before the friction he'd created could dissipate.
I let out a sigh of relief as the fire roared to life and engulfed me in its warmth. My eyes slipped closed, allowing me to feel a measure of peace for a time as my numb extremities came back to life, then I smelled cooking meat and came to a horrible realization. The only thing we had to eat was rabbit.
“I don't eat meat,” I commented weakly with my eyes still closed.
“Then you won't be eating,” James replied, like it didn't matter to him either way.
“Good luck finding the charm after I die then,” I replied just as casually.
“You already told me where it is,” he replied. “Your death wouldn't be much of an inconvenience.”
My heart climbed up into my throat for a moment, but I managed to force it back down.
“The charm is protected by death magic,” I explained. “You'll never be able to get to it even if you find it.”
“And when did you become so wise?” he asked sarcastically. “You only just found out what you were a few weeks ago.”
“The hearts told me,” I lied.
My theory was actually just an educated guess. The images the hearts had shown me had been muddled at best, but through them I could feel the mounds. I somehow knew that if I reached them, I would be able listen to them, just like I had with the hearts.
“If you won't eat the rabbit, then you'll just have to wait until morning,” he said finally.
“Fine,” I mumbled as I scooted closer to the fire. If I was going to starve, at least I'd be warm.
I thought about my situation as James ate the cooked rabbit meat. An entire clan, and the person I disliked the most was the one I ended up with. I was beginning to think my whole life was just a cruel joke. I'd had an ounce of happiness with Matthew, then I took his life away. After years of solitude, I'd had about two seconds of happiness with Alaric, then he betrayed me. I'd killed the man who was good to me, while the bad one was still alive and well.
“How long did you serve Estus?” I asked suddenly, wondering why James was so willing to betray him, while Alaric was not.
James turned thoughtful eyes to me. I almost thought he wouldn't answer, but then he said, “Thirty years, give or take.”
“So what?” I questioned skeptically. “You served him since you were a baby?”
James' eyes glittered with amusement. “For a know-it-all, you know very little.”
I frowned. “Enlighten me.”
“The Vaettir age slowly, some among us get to be very old indeed,” he explained.
I rolled my eyes. “I know Estus is like, really old, and Sivi too, but you can tell that they're older.”
“How could you tell that Sivi is old?” he asked, though I had a feeling he was trying to prove some sort of point to me.
Come to think of it, I wasn't sure. Maya had told me a bit of Sivi's history, but I'd known she was ancient upon first meeting her, even though she appeared around twenty-five.
“I could just sense it,” I replied, not sure of how else to explain it.
“The more powerful Vaettir can live for centuries,” James explained. “Some even longer. Sivi is nearly eight-hundred years old.”
The news was shocking, yet I wasn't terribly surprised. I sat up and gathered my legs to my chest. The last hints of cold had been chased from my bones, and I was feeling better despite the lack of food and water.
“Then Estus must be over a thousand,” I commented, trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about.
James shook his head. “Estus is younger than Sivi.”
I scrunched my face in confusion. “But he looks so much older than her.”
“It's a power thing,” James explained. “Most of us have become more and more human as we become disconnected from what we used to be. The change ages us. Sivi remained what she always has been, and so, has not aged.”
It all made sense in a theoretical kind of way, though my mind didn't quite want to embrace what James was telling me. I'd seen too many things over the past weeks to ever believe the Vaettir were similar to humans, but the idea of someone living eight-hundred years and not aging past twenty-five was difficult to stomach.
“So why is Sivi serving Estus, and not the other way around?” I questioned. “If she's powerful enough that she looks a good fifty years younger than Estus, why is she stuck scheming behind his back?”
James shrugged. “Estus is beloved. He is a seemingly human figurehead for a race that has become all too human. Our people would never follow a creature like Sivi.”
The woodsmoke was beginning to sting my eyes, but I still wasn't ready to lose the warmth of the fire. Instead, I rolled over so that my back was to James and the fire, and squeezed my eyes shut.
“Is Aislin a seemingly human figurehead as well?” I asked, suddenly wishing that I could still see James' expressions as he spoke.
“More or less,” James replied. “She's more powerful than Estus, but is struggling to gain control since many of our people were born during less enlightened times, and are unwilling to follow a woman.”
The statement had me rolling back over toward the fire so I could give James a look of disgust.
He raised his hands in a surrendering gesture. “Hey,
I
follow her. Don't shoot the messenger.”
With an irritated sigh, I scooted away from the fire so I keep an eye on James. The silence stretched out, only to be broken by the hoots of a distant owl, and the chorus of crickets that surrounded us.