TIED (A Fire Born Novel) (23 page)

“Okay, Mother.” Her bottom lip stuck out, and her shoulders slumped as she let go of Max. “I’ll see you soon, right, Teine?” She faced me, eyes pleading, forehead scrunching in a scowl. “You won’t stay away so long, anymore, will you? Promise?”

“I promise.”

Her face lit up as she ran off. A moment later, she stopped. “Bye, Max.” She waved, winked at him, and dashed under the tree cover, laughing.

“It looks like you have a fan.” I smirked.

He gave me a slight smile, cheeks turning redder.

The trees grew in manicured columns on the opposite side of the clearing, and we continued walking amongst wildflowers and buzzing bees. A long winding pathway formed through the forest and crystals hung from tree limbs, creating glittery rainbow prisms down the trail, highlighting Max’s face in purple and red hues. I gazed at him, mesmerized by the colored light dancing across the bridge of his nose.

“Teine, please keep up,” my aunt said, having walked far ahead.

Rushing water disturbed the tranquility, and I stopped mid-step, remembering the many waterfalls existing throughout the Otherworld. None, however, were so large, or frightening, as the one that loomed ahead of us.

At once, I remembered fearing it as a child. The memory of my father holding my hand as we rushed through it hit me like a punch. I sucked in the surrounding air. So many forgotten memories were packed away like antiques in an attic.

“What’s wrong?” Max glanced around.

“We need to walk through it.” I raised my voice over the deafening gush, not averting my attention from the water plummeting from the towering height of the cliff top above us.

“Through it?” Max sounded like the suggestion was insane.

“Yeah.” I pointed at my aunt, whose serene form disappeared beyond the falls. “It’s the doorway into the Royal Court.” I rubbed my temples, my head aching at the onslaught of memories. “It won’t touch us.” I tried to convince myself it was true. “My father said it was a safeguard against the unwanted.”

Max squeezed my hand. “Okay. I trust your father. Let’s go.” We took a step forward, and Max stopped, gripping my hand. “What happens if we can’t pass?”

I looked down into the churning pool, overspray rebounding off jagged boulders, spiking above the surface, and splashing up on us. “We end up down there.”

He let out a breath. “You’ve been through before, right?”

“With my dad. When I was little. You haven’t?”

He shook his head. “I’ve never been into the Court.”

“Oh.” My gaze stayed glued to the plunging water—the way it seemed to almost bend in a semi circle around the cliff face as if there was no access—no way to get through it or behind it without being pulverized. All the waterfalls Max and I played in when we were little had rock wall paths behind them, if I remembered right. We would sit and watch the water pouring from the cliffs but it would never touch us. From my vantage point, nothing sat hidden behind the falling water except sheer rock.

“We’ll be fine.” Resolution set across the frown lines of Max’s brow. “Let’s just do it quick. Easier that way.” He crouched forward, his palm sweaty against mine.

“Why would my aunt just leave us?”

“She told us to keep up.” Max shrugged. “Come on, let’s run up on it and jump through the side. Just like always.” He bumped my hip with his and smirked. “I’ll beat you.”

I let go of his hand and took off, running as fast as I dared along the ledge, loose rocks sliding under my feet and shooting off the bluff into midair.

“Why are you always cheating?” Max’s breathing quickened, his footsteps steady at my heels. Condensed mist billowed out of the basin, while water ricocheted off the rocks below like a thousand sprinkler heads gone wild, blinding my view.

“We need to jump!” Max reached for my hand, his fingertips touching mine.

I reached back, groping for his hand, and my feet left the ground, plunging straight into the falls.

Max’s body crashed into mine from behind as he landed on top of me, both of us sprawled out on a muddy floor, soaked. “See?” he said, rolling off me and onto his back. “Easy.”

“Yeah.” I huffed, gripping a sore shoulder. “Easy.”

“You okay?” He coughed, spitting out water.

“I think so.” I sat up and glanced around.

All had fallen into darkness, and a pathway wound ahead of us. It glowed as if lit by some invisible iridescent force, casting an eerie green light down what I realized were walls of a cave. Stalactites jutted above our heads like upside down sand-dripped castles in spiked disarray. Condensation fell from their tips to the cave floor, drenching the ground at our feet.

Howling winds whistled through the narrow space, and chills trembled up my bare wet arms as I pushed to stand, my shoulder throbbing.

What looked like an exit light shined in the distance, seeming no larger than a pinhole in the darkness. My aunt was nowhere in sight.

I started down the path, my vision refocusing and adjusting to the lack of light.

Max put his arms around me, warming my bones and pulling me to a stop. “Is it … darker?” His hand slid down my arm to rest against my hand. “Do you hear that?” His voice lowered to a whisper, and he took a step forward before glancing back. “Lay …”

Where the waterfall had allowed us entry stood a solid stone wall. Fissures snaked into it and shimmered like glittered slithering serpents. He raised a finger to his lips. “Shh.”

I nodded, lifting my gaze toward the ceiling, lost in an unending dark chasm above us. As we backed up against the cave wall, liquid seeped into my clothes, cold and thick.

Max yanked on my arm, trying to pull me closer, but slime bled all around me, securing me like glue to the wall until claustrophobia tightened my chest, suffocation bearing on my lungs.

“Max.”

His eyes widened, nostrils flaring as the slippery substance adhered to his body. “Okay. Don’t panic. It’s just some kind of sticky algae.” His fingers flexed.

The stalactites’ drips grew louder, steadier, like footsteps resonating through the cave in a harmonious march. The sound of scraping stone and water played together in an ominous rhythm, and the cave began closing in on itself, the ceiling reaching for the floor.

“Max!” I dug my feet into the pebbles and mud on the cave floor in a fruitless attempt to run.

Sparks flickered from my palms, sizzling out in a weak spiral of steam on the wet ground.

The tiny pinprick of light at the other end of the cave brightened.

Panic overrode thought. I screamed, scrambling to free myself from being crushed by stalactites looming like spikes of steel.

Max’s fingertips brushed my hand. “Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Ar an ghaoithe, mo neart, glaoch orm.”

The wind, my strength, I call.

“Close your eyes!”

A screeching blast pressed through the hole of light. Rocks and sand flew through the narrow passage, causing chaos in the space around us.

The gust enveloped me, drowning his words, and blew me off the wall, throwing me into Max’s waiting, open arms.

“Got you.” He set me on my feet. “Run!”

The light shined like a beacon as we raced toward it, the crunch of crushing stalactites vibrating the ground behind us. Ripping currents of air tore into stone like sledgehammers.

I scrambled through the opening on hands and knees, my palms skidding on dirt and stone as the cave opening collapsed behind me, waves of dust and flying particles blanketing the air.

Blue sky met treetops, falling water careened into view, my nails dug into hard crusted earth, and my injured shoulder gave way.

I pitched headfirst off the cliff shelf.

“Layla!”

Jagged rocks and churning water came into focus.

“Shift!” Max’s voice cried out above me. “Now!”

My attempt to yell died in my throat.

The surface of the agitated water below converged to a peak, like a tongue protruding from a giant mouth waiting to consume needed prey. My body hit with a crippling blow, swallowed by the churning froth, knocking my breath away—lungs filling, suffocating.

Sinking
.

The water shuddered around me, tiny bubbles of air filling my nose as pressure akin to an undertow pushed beneath me, and my body rebounded back to the surface with a lurch.

Bloodied arms cradled my body on the calm surface of the pool, and I scrambled, choking and gasping for air.

“Layla?” Max’s words charged out. He tilted my head back, treading water, his color gone, shirt red, blood feeding the pool and leaving a tainted reflection across the surface.

My heart’s frantic beat increased as I tried to regain my breath. “Oh, my god … you’re hurt.” Flesh, ripped free from bone, lay across my chest, his forearm torn apart.

“It’s not that bad.” He started to swim to the shore with my body resting back on his.

I pressed a hand over the gash to stop the bleeding, my injured shoulder hanging limp under the surface on my other side, and freed myself from his hold. “It’s bad.”

He winced as I scrambled to keep his arm and my head above water while paddling us both back to the bank.

“I’m okay, Layla.” He pushed away from my grasp and re-secured his good arm back around me, cringing. “I just hit that cluster of rocks over there on the way down. It’s you I’m worried about. “

“I’m fine.” I coughed and loosened his uninjured arm from around my waist. “You’re the one … who’s hurt. Let me help.”

“I can swim with one arm.” He grasped me again.

“You’re covered … in blood!”

“You’re the one who almost drowned!”

“You need … a doctor!” I hacked.

“So do you!”

I glanced down, realizing I treaded water with both arms while still trying to pull him along against his will, and witnessed his gashes fade before my eyes, sealing and repairing themselves.

“
What
—Lay?”

“I’m not doing anything.” I shook my head as the pain in my shoulder disappeared, and my lungs cleared.

“Healing powers.”

Our heads shot up in unison.

My aunt stood on the bank.

Heat fed into my palms. My aunt. My family.
Where were you?

She smiled. “I was beginning to wonder if you were both going to drown each other.”

Pebbles cascaded down to the basin from the sink’s rim. “Teine?” Cara’s voice lilted.

“Back up, Cara.” I made my way to where she stood on the bank, Max right at my side.

She inched her feet back. “What are you doing down there? The castle is the other way.” She pointed past the waterfall and her mother standing down the bank. “I thought you were staying for a while?” Creases took over her forehead.

“We can’t. I’m sorry.”

“But …” She glanced briefly toward her mother and back again. “What happened? Did someone hurt you, Max?”

My stomach dropped.

“Are you okay?” she asked, attention flicking between the blood clearly visible on Max’s arm and across the surface of the water.

“I’m okay.” He coughed, too, steadying himself on the bank next to me.

“Then, stay!”

“Cara, dear, please do not continue to pester Teine,” my aunt said. “Run along and play.”

“Yes, Mother.” She bowed and ran off.

“You are upset with me.” The queen meandered closer.

“Yes.” I glared at her. “You saw that. You let it happen.”

“I am sorry to have disappointed you. Please understand—I would not have allowed any real harm to come to either of you. MacKenzie, I trust you are all right?”

“Yes, My Lady.” He bowed.

“Real harm? Are you kidding me? Your little trap, or whatever, could have killed one of us! Both of us!”

She tilted her head and sighed. “I
have
disappointed you, then. I do apologize. The cave is a safeguard, as is the waterfall. Both have existed for centuries. They react of their own accord when a threat is near.” She glanced toward Max.

“Your blood is ancestral, Lay,” Max said. “They were testing mine.” His gaze veered to my aunt.

“Very good.” My aunt nodded. “Yes, that is correct. Your bloodlines are very strong. Very strong indeed, but you see, we have … concerns.”

I grasped Max’s hand. “I don’t give a damn about his blood. I want no part of this world if maiming people is the custom. Who do you think you are?”

“Why, I am the queen and your elder. Please do not forget that. It is my duty to protect my people.”

“
We
are your people!”

“You are very angry. Like your mother or perhaps like your grandmother, fire runs deep within your veins. Her fire ran very deep as well. Her temper too.” The queen’s eyes narrowed. “You have great strength, my niece, but strength must be controlled.” She began a slow walk back and forth along the bank. “MacKenzie, we must be sure that you remain … in control. Loyal to our cause. Loyal to Teine … even if that means risking your own life for hers.” She gestured to the remaining blood. “There are those who would attempt to sway you from us.”

“Your cause?” My fists clenched.

“I am impressed by your courage today,” she said, clearly, ignoring my question. “As well as the courage you have displayed protecting my sweet niece. Our world continues to be indebted to you.” She smiled at him. “Our cause, sweet niece, is a simple one. We have been at war with the Fomorians for centuries. They want what we have.” She gestured toward the land, the trees. “Our world. It is nothing new. For thousands of years we have kept them at bay.” She hesitated. “Your parents, Teine, were hunted, for they were our protectors here.” Her hands rose to the heavens. “In this realm, they alone held back the strength of the Fomore.”

Whatever air remained in my lungs evaporated.

“When your father was killed, the Fomore were cast into Shadow by a powerful Queen. She renounced her position, fled our world with her only child and the light that keeps our realm alive. That child ——stands before me.” She inclined her head. “Your duty waits in front of you—all around you.” She raised her arms to her world.

My eyes closed of their own accord, the shock of reality sinking in. “That’s why I’m being hunted. They killed my father, so my mother cursed them, and now they want revenge.”