Decree, page 4
She stared a lengthy moment, then lowered her eyes to a pair of men on the other side of the tent. One of them was caught in the grips of a deep slumber. The other was fraying at the seams.
“Evander?” she croaked in a whisper.
His eyes flashed up with such swiftness she might have imagined it before returning with burning intensity to the fae. How long he’d sat there, she would never know. There was something immovable about him, as if the world could burn to cinders, and still, he would stay at Eden’s side.
Her fingers curled around Jesse’s sleeve, pulling him closer. “What happened?”
The wolf glanced over his shoulder, then sighed. “It had been days without water, long enough to bring each of us to the brink, so Eden gave him blood. Lots of blood,” he added quietly, “enough to heal Evander and get him searching. But there wasn’t anything to be found. By the time the riders came...he’d already slipped away.”
Her face stilled and she lifted herself higher, staring across the tent.
The fae might have been sleeping, but he must have had a pulse—because the vampire never ceased his efforts. Even now, he was cradling Eden in his arms, murmuring soft comforts, trickling little drips of water down his throat. He’d been doing the same thing for hours. It had been the first thing he’d said—when those dark-haired warriors rose up from the sand. A pleading request, not for himself, but for his beloved. He looked straight past those silver blades, begging for a flask.
A vampire asking for water. Never had they seen the like.
“You remember the storm,” Jesse murmured softly, bringing her back, “and I did speak to you—not once since we left the mountains have I stopped. But...is there nothing else?” He tensed ever so slightly, catching her eyes. “Do you remember nothing that happened in between?”
There was something strange in his voice, something that made her heart beat a little faster.
A prickle of fear tugged at the corners of her memory, and she fought past the instinctual urge to turn away. There was no point in avoiding it. Jesse had clearly seen whatever happened for himself. But try as she might, the answer eluded her—like stirring the bottom of a muddy pond, clouding the water too thick to see. A single image floated to the surface, baffling, yet undisputable.
“I was in a nest.”
Jesse’s eyebrows lifted for a fleeting moment before he cleared his expression into an easy smile. That hand was back, smoothing ceaselessly at her hair. “You should get some rest—”
“He’s waking up,” Evander interrupted suddenly.
There was a faint stirring, as Eden shifted uncomfortably—his body strewn across the vampire’s lap. For a moment, it looked as though he was trying to open his eyes, but he was too weak for that. In the end, he merely lay there—shivering slightly, despite the pressing heat.
Evander was transformed, almost radiant with relief.
“That’s right,” he murmured, bringing their faces together. “Take your time.”
Another few moments passed, then the fae’s eyes fluttered open—dark and bruised in the hollows, like someone had ground into them with a pair of fists. They drifted aimlessly over the ceiling, wide and dazed, before settling gradually upon Evander.
The vampire lit with a tender smile. “Te lunti, mios.”
Eden’s lips cracked open, but he was unable to speak.
Moving quietly in the corner, Kiera and Jesse pushed to their feet. She’d thought she might be able to stand, but the first step she took, her legs crumbled beneath her. The shifter caught her with a practiced sweep of his arm, scooping her off the ground and carrying her across the tent.
The immortals were oblivious, lost in their own world.
“Ne riesta toh mai,” Eden stammered, looking more agitated by the moment. When the vampire stilled in confusion, he repeated in the common tongue. “Where are the children?”
It was the first time that word hadn’t been met with an onslaught of annoyance from his mortal companions. The mere fact that he’d asked the question filled them with terror instead.
We are right in front of you. Can you not see us?
Evander actually glanced over his shoulder, like she’d spoken the question out loud.
“It’s sun-blindness,” he said quietly. “An unsettling discomfort, to be sure. But it will pass in time. I’m surprised he’s able to see me.”
Her heart pounded like a drum.
I’m not. He would find you anywhere.
“They’re here, my love,” the vampire soothed, trailing fingers through his hair. “They’re standing right beside me.” He smiled again, working through the tangles. “You look awful.”
Eden stared a moment, then let out a rasping laugh. “Too awful?” he asked, coming back to himself. “Have I lost your interest?”
“I am repulsed,” Evander replied, drawing him closer. The water was still clutched in his hand, he set it down slowly. “What was I thinking?”
The fae opened his mouth to answer, then closed it instead. For a moment, it looked as though he might turn his face into the vampire’s knee and fall right back to sleep, but he glanced around the tent—blinking swiftly, as if to force those cloying shadows from his eyes.
“We made it out of the desert?” he asked softly, as his vision slowly cleared. “You were able to...” Another face shimmered into clarity, pale and framed with tumbles of auburn hair.
His breath caught, as his eyes lit with the image.
In truth, he had never expected to see her again. Not only because of his own predicament, but because whatever miraculous journey the girl was taking, he wasn’t sure she would make it back.
Perhaps it was mere pragmatism, though he didn’t often lend himself to such things. Perhaps it was the natural reaction of someone who’d buried so many friends. Whatever the reason, it had settled inside him like a stone, cold and unyielding. But despite his preparation, he’d never realized, not until that very moment, how much he’d come to think of the lovely girl as a kind of sister. He’d never realized, until that very moment, how truly devastated he was going to be when she was gone.
He tried to swallow, then gave the slightest nod. “Nice of you to join us.”
Her eyes warmed to his. “Hope you didn’t have too much fun while I was away.”
For the first time since halfway across the desert, a flash of humor shot through the fae’s eyes—one that deepened into a fierce affection when he spotted Jesse standing at her side. They were together once again. The four of them. Inexplicably, rather miraculously, alive. He threw a quick smile to Evander, but before he could speak, the flap of the tent pulled suddenly open.
A girl stepped inside, no older than eleven. “Good,” she said curtly. “You’re awake.”
The friends stared back at her, frozen in awkward silence.
She might have been small in age and stature, but there was nothing about her that seemed like a child. A sharpened scythe hung from her belt, and there was something oddly intimidating about her expression—like they had better behave, or she wouldn’t hesitate to use it.
“The Nassi have prepared you food,” she announced without preamble, “it’s best to not keep them waiting.” She turned to leave without another word, but paused a moment in the frame, throwing a reluctant look over her shoulder. “You should probably bathe first.”
A ringing silence fell over the tent.
For whatever reason, despite how many fantastical things the friends had faced over the course of their travels, none had ever struck them so strange. At any rate, they’d just come from the gates of hell, and didn’t have any courage left for this little girl.
“I think we should go with her,” Jesse whispered, looking thoroughly terrified.
A different day, the friends might have mocked him, but it looked as though each one of them agreed. Even the vampire gave the child a second look, as he turned to collect the fae. They made their way slowly across the tent, testing the limits of strength and balance, wincing all the way.
Keira hobbled alongside Eden, stretching up to whisper in his ear. “Nassi?”
He kept his eyes forward, leaning heavily on Evander. “A name from the ancient tongue,” he replied softly. “I believe it means sister.”
The flap yanked open again, and all four of them flinched as they stepped into the burning sunlight. They were not so far outside the desert as they might have thought, but tucked inside an oasis within it. The place was a splash of green in an otherwise barren horizon. Palms and scrubs grew in random pockets, and the vibrant tents made it look as though a cluster of unlikely flowers had sprouted from the ground. There was water nearby, they could hear the splashing, though the source remained elusive. And it seemed Eden had been a tad wrong in his translation.
Nassi didn’t mean sister. It meant sisters.
Kiera’s eyes widened as she stared around the campsite—for it was indeed a sprawling camp, though it looked like the people who lived there had been settled quite a while. And such a people they were! Never had she seen such striking beauty, such vivid radiance. Grown like arid flowers in the desert sun, they were a tribe of extremes: draped in gauzy linens, yet armed with silver blades; swirling images of sun-bright gold, painted against the darkest of skin. There were over a hundred of them, all of whom looked up and stared as the friends made their way slowly through the camp.
Only women. Not a man in sight.
How does that work?
Unable to settle, her eyes flitted from one thing to the next. Most of them were the same you’d find in any camp, but there were a few oddities she couldn’t explain: pieces of copper lining the perimeter, bags of herbs strung from every door. And in the distance, a sharpened palisade was staked around the entire camp, bigger than any she’d ever seen, angled strategically outwards.
These weren’t pointed sticks, but downed trees. Not the frothy palms, but some of the spearing cypress they’d seen closer to the beach. Each one must have been carried from the shore.
Kiera quickened her pace, catching up to their guide.
“What are those?” she asked, pointing to each in turn.
The girl followed her gaze. “The copper is for the spiders,” she said nonchalantly, “the herbs are for the snakes.”
Kiera stared at the back of her head, those dark braids bouncing behind her. She wondered at her meaning, and she wondered at her tone. How old could she be, really? And how used to it she already was. To have been raised in a world where snakes and spiders burrowed up from the ground beneath. A place where the most valuable commodities a person could have were water and shade.
Jesse pointed to the sharpened fence around the perimeter. “What about that?”
The girl threw a quick glance over her shoulder, bright eyes sweeping over his face. If the rest of the camp was any indication, there was a chance she’d never seen a man in her entire life.
“The fence is for the scorpions.”
...what?
The friends shared a quick glance, unable to tell if she was joking.
They continued walking instead, forcing one foot in front of the other—making silent vows that if they were lucky enough to return to their own shores, they would never set foot in this forsaken wasteland again. But that was the dehydration talking, the fatigue. If they were being honest with themselves, there was an arresting kind of beauty to it as well. Nowhere else in the realm would they ever see such a thing—a glittering little paradise, tucked in the middle of all that sand.
“It’s beautiful,” Kiera murmured, watching as a cloud of tiny fuchsia birds drifted from tree to tree. “I can’t believe that anything can even grow.”
Their surly little guide kept right on marching.
“There used to be lots that grew,” she answered shortly, winding through the tents. “They say this land used to look much different, back when our grandmothers’ grandmothers rode beneath the devil’s sky. Now, these springs are some of the last of their kind.”
Springs?
The moment she heard the word, Kiera suddenly saw them—nestled away in little pockets all around the camp. They burst from the ground where the trees grew thickest, bubbling up from deep in the earth’s crust and splashing turquoise in the sun’s bright light. She saw now why the tribe had decided to linger. Given her recent experience, she couldn’t imagine why they’d ever leave.
“Most of them are for drinking,” the girl continued, tallying them as she went. “That one is for the horses. And that one is where we bathe.” She turned around and motioned for them to stop, holding a tiny hand between them. “Wait here. I’ll go ahead and tell everyone to leave.”
There was a slight pause.
“Because of the vampire,” she added bluntly.
Jesse lifted his eyebrows, watching as she disappeared amongst the palms. “Not the friendliest, but she’s oddly compelling.”
Evander remained silent.
The friends stood in an awkward huddle in the middle of the camp, feeling the weight of a hundred pairs of invisible eyes, as they concentrated on looking non-threatening and staying upright.
The first was easy, the second required some work.
Given how many days they’d been stranded in the desert, a few canteens of water was hardly a sufficient cure. The fae was still teetering on the verge of consciousness, and no matter how many times Kiera convinced herself the worst was behind her, the picture would tilt suddenly, and she’d find herself tumbling right back into Jesse’s arms. It didn’t stop her from trying, much to his chagrin.
“Are you actively trying to knock me over?” he finally asked, securing her more firmly to his side. “Or is this some kind of tribal dance you’re doing for attention?”
She bit her lip distractedly, straining for a better view. “It’s this sand,” she complained. “It keeps tilting.”
He threw her a sideways look. “Yeah,” he muttered, “it’s the sand.”
Only a few minutes later, the girl returned, bearing a heavy parcel. She rifled around for a moment, then lobbed it towards them—looking awfully pleased with herself.
“I found you some better clothes,” she announced, waving them forward. “Those cloaks you have are better suited for trekking through mountains or rain—it’s obvious you’re not from these shores.” She flashed a quick look over her shoulder, unable to hide her curiosity. “Your shoes aren’t the best either, but I only found something for the woman. We don’t have anything in a bigger size.”
The friends shadowed after her, still a bit stunned at the pace things were moving. Jesse had caught the satchel, and was rifling around inside. There was little more than the girl had mentioned, only a few flasks, already brimming, and a stoppered glass vial—filled with what looked like honey.
“That’s not food,” she warned, tossing another look over her shoulder. His eyes flashed up curiously, and her cheeks flamed red. “It’s for snake bites—works on some spiders, too. It won’t help against some of the bigger things out there, but it’s usually the little ones that get you.”
Kiera studied the vial, wondering what those ‘bigger things’ might be.
They had yet to mention the castle or the dragon. They had yet to mention their names. But there would be time enough for that later. Each of them had ventured a bit closer to that dangerous line than they realized, and there were hurts that needed tending. They were in need of repair.
Eden took another step, then stopped abruptly, still gripping onto the vampire’s arm. Twice, his eyes swept through the trees, but it brought him no assurance—only a flagging, uncertain hope.
“Am I hallucinating?” he asked shakily, speaking into Evander’s ear. “Or is that real?”
The vampire smiled and coaxed him forward. “It’s real.”
Kiera saw it a second later, a deep-cut pool tucked in a circle of palm trees, blinding splashes of turquoise water, sparkling with the brilliance of a gem. While the other springs had been calmer, this one teemed with noise. A heap of rocks had been placed along one side, and the water shot up from underneath, cascading down the glinting surface, and making wide ripples in the pool.
It wasn’t terribly large, roughly the same size the tent where they’d awoken. But given the sunbaked purgatory of the last few days, it was better than anything they could have dreamed.
The fae took a step closer, but stopped at the water’s edge—staring around with an almost trepidatious expression the others had rarely seen on his face. It took a moment to understand.
“I’ll be right here beside you,” Evander assured him, slipping off his shoes. “You won’t fall.”
It was a mark of how far things had deteriorated, that Eden said nothing to protest this. He merely took off his own shoes and stepped in to his ankles. A shiver rippled over him. Then a smile.
“Oh...this is heaven.”
Without a second’s pause, he let go of the vampire and slipped all the way under, vanishing a moment before surfacing in the center of the pool. His cloak swirled around him as he stepped right under the waterfall, closing his eyes in pure ecstasy as the water came down upon his head.
Evander’s eyes followed every move, warm and smiling.
“You must join me, lios,” he called, breathless with delight. In all likelihood, they would be unable to dislodge him. “There’s a chance I might...how did you phrase it? Oh yes—I might fall.”
Resistant as he was to the idea, even a vampire couldn’t resist the lure of a sunlit pool in the middle of the desert. Evander unclasped his cloak and waded in after, submerging for a full minute, before reappearing suddenly next to him, streams of water seeping through his raven hair.
The mortals watched from the shore.
“It’s not full of snakes,” Jesse assessed quickly, “it’s not boiling them alive.” He cast a quick look around the dusky trees before extending his hand with a grin. “Shall we?”
