Authors: Elana Johnson
I climbed out of bed and migrated closer to Cris, groping for the magic inside of me that had meshed with Castillo’s. It felt cold, and distant, perhaps because I wasn’t confined in the compound with its swirling magic. Or perhaps because of the many miles separating us.
Cris took a step back without looking away from Kiev. “Who’s coming?”
Kiev snarled and his face twisted into a mask of extreme hatred. He lunged forward at the same time Solis unsheathed his sword. A whistle rent the air. A primal yell echoed through the bedroom. The thump of a body followed.
I didn’t see the blood from the wide, smiling wound across the driver’s neck because Cris pressed my face to his chest and walked me backward. “Shh, shh,” he whispered into my hair. “Solis,” he said louder, and that seemed to be enough for the guard to take care of the necessities. I held tightly to Cris’s body, imagining I could feel the scars on his chest through the thick fabric of his suit.
He moved me down the hall and into the kitchen. “I shall be back in a moment,” he said. “Wait here.”
“Cris.” I shook my head. “I have no doubt Kiev saw something, and that it was not the Heonian army. He has betrayed us.”
A fire lit Cris’s eyes. “I’ll fetch Lucia. Stay here.”
Magic tickled the back of my throat as I stood in the kitchen. It unsettled me, as my magic had never itched to be released this way. I wanted to hurt Kiev for betraying us. Hurt him worse than Solis had done with his blade.
Torture him the way I’d tortured Gibson.
The thought scared me, and I pushed it away. But I couldn’t erase it completely. I feared the wicked magic Gibson had used against me had in fact infected me. I’d never felt the urge to hurt someone with my magic.
My power surged just as Lucia rushed into the room. “Come. We’re leaving.”
I followed her out the back door and into the darkness where Solis manned one of the carriages, nodding as he got an impromptu lesson from the second driver. The fierce look on his face told me that, if needed, he would confront an army by himself.
Cris threw our suitcase in his carriage where Matu stood loading baskets of food and traveling bags filled with clothing. “Get in the carriage, Echo,” Cris said. “Lucia, Matu’s coming with me. Can you manage?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Lucia gestured toward the carriage, urging me to seek shelter. The thought that Lucia could manage my defense scared me. I strode toward the carriage, but my magic pulled through my body, yanking back the other way. I stood still, trying to decipher the meaning of it. It felt bad to go that way, yet my magic had never led me astray.
I hummed a protective song, casting the spell around the two carriages. I forced myself to move toward the carriage. “Cris.” I suddenly didn’t want to be separated from him.
“Get in the carriage, Echo. Please.” He tossed in the last of our baggage and looked at me desperately. “I’m dangerously close to loving you,” he said. “I’ve given you the most expert driver, and I have the two best guards in the country. Please, get in the carriage.”
We held each other’s gaze for one, two, three heartbeats before I got in the carriage. Worry seethed beneath my skin, and I kept the protective rhyme buzzing through my vocal chords. We jerked to a roll, moving much faster this time. I peered through the windows into the darkness, seeing nothing from my limited perspective.
“Don’t look,” Lucia said. “You won’t like what you see.”
But I couldn’t look away. Mere minutes passed before fire lit the sky behind us, with smoke finding its way toward the heavens. The air took on a muddy green color, similar to what I’d imagined years ago after Oake’s warning about Nyth’s rumored wickedness.
I dropped the curtain, sealing us in the midnight murkiness inside the carriage.
“Matu said their intentions for us aren’t good,” Lucia said. “But that we’ll outrun them.”
“Who are they?”
Through the darkness, I felt her penetrating gaze. “Your village countrymen.”
Fear like I’d never known struck me full in the chest, leaving me gasping for air. “Cris said he sent word regarding negotiations. Why would they wish to hurt us? Have we been betrayed?”
I didn’t need Lucia to answer; her grim glance was confirmation enough.
“The driver?”
“Matu suspects Kiev was a native of Chonal, and that he’s told falsehoods about your true intentions.” She adjusted herself and opened her arms to me. “Let’s talk no more. Keep that protective spell going, but rest your mind.”
#
Morning found us pausing near a small stream in an area of the land I’d never seen before. Red rock towered above us, through which a stream carved its path. The horses drank greedily, and our driver muttered to himself about the lack of grass. He unhitched the teams and took them further along the stream to where the rocks gave way to grasslands.
I watched him do all this through the tiny window of the carriage. Lucia told me we couldn’t get out, that we had only stopped to rest the horses. She handed me my breakfast—an apple and a slice of dark bread. I nibbled on the fruit, knowing my knotted stomach wouldn’t be able to handle much more than that.
“We’ll separate now that day has broken.” Lucia ate with gusto, seemingly undisturbed by the events of the previous night.
“Our carriages will be recognized anywhere.”
“Yes,” she said. “We’re going directly to Nyth. The High King will dare not kill his only recognized heir inside his own borders.”
Her words brought little comfort. The High King had many ways to torture that the public couldn’t see. The scars on Cris’s chest testified of that.
#
I didn’t realize until later that I hadn’t once looked at the sky. I pulled back the curtain, but could hardly make out the stars from the dirt on the window. I hummed a location spell, inserting Castillo’s face into my mind. The rebound took a long time to come, but the vision showed him standing in my old courtyard, his eyes heavenward.
I switched the image to Cris, and found his face edged in moonlight as he rode in the carriage. My heart squeezed at the determined look in his eye, the strength in his expression.
Perhaps he can be the king his country needs
, I thought, ending the spell, but unable to erase my husband from my mind.
We didn’t stop once the next day. I slept on and off and ate whatever Lucia put into my hands. By evening, I wished for nothing more than to get out of the vibrating carriage. I hurt from sitting all day, from the constant jarring of my bones against my muscles and my teeth against each other. The curtains remained drawn tight, and I hadn’t seen the sun for over twenty-four hours.
When we slowed to a stop, relieved tears pressed behind my eyes. Lucia got to her feet unsteadily and crawled out of the carriage. Regret shot through me. Clearly her joints ached, too. She straightened and took a few steps away and then back. Her face gave away none of her discomfort. She extended her hand to me, and helped me down the steps to the dirt below.
“Where are we?” I saw no village, no lamplight in the distance, no second carriage.
“Somewhere safe.” Lucia joined the driver in setting up our camp. He’d pulled two traveling bags from beneath the carriage and already had one of them open. Lucia tugged on the fabric, and to my great astonishment, they proceeded to set up a tent.
“We’re to sleep out here?”
“There isn’t room in the carriage for all of us,” Lucia said. “Vené and I will sleep out here, leaving you the carriage to yourself.”
I set my mouth into a tight line and got to work. The remaining travel bag held two sleeping rugs and two pillows. I laid them out and when the tent took its shape, Vené took them inside. Lucia returned to the carriage and retrieved the basket. We ate another cold meal of cheese, bread, and red grapes.
Immediately afterward, Vené disappeared into the tent, leaving Lucia and I to bathe in starlight. I lay on the ground, my head cradled by my arms as I looked into the night. My thoughts worried for Cris, and where he was.
“Do you trust Vené?” I asked to chase away the thoughts of Kiev’s betrayal or Cris’s torture at the hands of his father.
“I must,” Lucia answered. “He’s the only one who knows how to drive the carriage.”
“What if he’s taken us somewhere dangerous?” Once the question left my lips, I couldn’t hold back the others. “What if we’re supposed to be with Cris? What if we’re not safe here after all? Do you even know where we are?”
Lucia did me the favor of remaining quiet for a few moments, as if seriously considering my questions. A lesser friend would have chuckled at my rapid-fire questions and immediately reassured me that my fears were unfounded.
“I don’t know all the answers you seek,” she said. “But Matu assured me Vené had no ill will toward us.”
“But—”
“Either way,” Lucia continued, “It will do no good to fret over him. Either he will take us to Nyth, or he will not.” She sat with me a while longer, and then she ushered me into the carriage.
Vené had taken the cushions from the benches and formed them into a mattress on the floor. A thick blanket lay over the top. Lucia made sure I was snug before closing the door. Another click told me that she’d locked it.
I lay awake for a long time, thinking about her words.
Either he will take us to Nyth, or he will not.
I appreciated her candor, but it only tightened the knot in my stomach.
#
Grandmother’s voice wraps around me, whispering my name. I jolt awake, blinking to find my bearings. My farmhouse bedroom comes into view, and Grandmother beckons to me from the doorway. In her hand she bears a flickering candle. Before I leap from bed, she moves down the hallway.
The light goes with her, casting pools of fire against the wooden planks. She pauses for nothing as she exits the house through the back door. She practically skips down the steps and continues into the large garden behind our house. I follow quickly, my breath steaming before me in the chill of the night.
“Grandmother,” I call. “Where are we going?”
She neither answers nor turns. Her purpose seems to be singular, and it’s to flee. The candle gutters in the wind, and Grandmother cautiously cups her hand around it. I follow her for what feels like miles. My legs are younger and stronger, and I should be able to keep up. But I find myself falling further and further behind.
When I can take it no longer, I call, “Grandmother! Can we not rest?”
She continues on without so much as a backward glance. I press on after her until my foot comes down on something sharp. I cry out, expecting Grandmother to come running to see what has happened. She doesn’t. She’s so far ahead of me now that the candle provides no light.
I look down at my foot and gasp. My blood pulses from my body, lighting the sky with a beat of crimson every second. I stumble backward as if I can escape my own limb.
I recognize the light surrounding me, bleeding from me as song-magic. Every step I take will leave a magical imprint behind. My trail will be easy for the hunters to follow.
“Come, Echo,” Grandmother whispers, and I jump to my feet, expecting the pain to come now that the shock has faded. It doesn’t, and I take a tentative step. The blood-light is gone and so is the wound. I marvel at it as I sprint after my grandmother.
We march for days, through grasslands, past the city walls of Umon, and into the southern hills. The candle never burns out. Grandmother never stops; in fact she seems to gain strength the further we go. But I’m tired beyond words. We board a ship with violet sails and begin to cross waters so wide that I cannot see the other side.
A power calls to me, an ancient strength I recognize. The magicians of Relina, their songs and authority stemming from ages past, send their influence reverberating through the sky, which lightens the further we go. It turns from navy to eggplant. This magic feels like home, like a warm blanket on a cold night.
When we dock on the sandy shores of a jungle land, a man waits to greet us. “Ski’i,” he says to my grandmother, who suddenly looks forty years younger. “Welcome home to the land of your birth.”
Grandmother weeps and steps onto the sand. She embraces Grandfather and together they journey up the beach without me. I scramble after them, sure they’ve forgotten to include me due to the joy of their reunion. The sand gives way to brush and trees as they walk arm in arm.
Eventually they come to a village hidden among the towering trees. They weave through the structures, neither looking right nor left. The largest dwelling bears a doorknocker of exquisite gold, and the door looks as though it will break from the pressure of pure magic contained behind it. There is no doorknob.
Grandfather knocks on the door, his hand pale in comparison to the brightness of the gold. The door creaks open, and he and Grandmother’s faces are bathed in the most beautiful light. Soft and pale pink, it welcomes them with a song of gladness. They step into the rosy light and vanish from my sight.
I blink away the spots in my vision only to find the door closed and the magic gone. I run toward it and pound my fists against the wood. It isn’t so brittle now, and I cannot produce even so much as a dent.
I sob against the door, unwilling to accept that Grandmother led me to her native land of Relina only to forget me the moment she arrived.
Her voice whispers my name, and I silence my crying.
“Echo, you must unlock the door,” she says. “Use the key.”
“What key?” Rising desperation threatens to unseat me again. A shape forms to my right, and I spin toward it. “Mother.” She turns and races into the hulking trees, disappearing as fast as she came. In her place, a man forms. My father.
People I have only seen in paintings and envisioned through stories haunt me. Surely this place has turned me mad. That, or my exhaustion from following Grandmother for so many days without rest conjures illusions. I shake my head to rid it of such things.
“Unlock the door,” Grandmother whispers again, her voice more urgent than before. The smell of smoke joins her voice, singeing my nose and causing me to shrink against the door.