Golden Read online

  The two friends were quiet for a long moment. Nat looked at the row of shelves, marveling at the wealth of wisdom contained in one small library. She broke the silence, wanting to unburden herself a little on her friend. “If I succeed, do you know what will be asked of me, when I cast the Archimedes spell?” she asked, walking toward the window so that Liannan would not see the fear in her face.

  Liannan nodded. “All of Vallonis knows. Magic demands sacrifice, as do all acts of creation. And the birthing of the new world will require the greatest sacrifice of all. This is the way of our people, of magic itself.”

  Sacrifice. Nat stood at the window, looking to where Brendon was still standing by Roark’s grave. “Is there no other way?”

  “No,” said Liannan sadly.

  Nat understood the tenets of sacrifice. She had risked her life every day for Vallonis and had not once asked for a single favor in return. She’d had no thought for gratitude or comfort. She’d been a good soldier. The only reward she needed was to be left alone at the end of it all, to be free to have a peaceful life with Wes somewhere.

  But the sacrifice demanded of the spell meant there would be no peace, no future for them. It meant death. The loss of everyone she loved. She would be alone at the end of the story, at the end of her journey.

  “There is no hope then. No hope at all?” she asked, with a catch in her throat.

  Liannan’s voice was kind. “Nat, my friend, there is always hope.”

  A knock on the library door interrupted their conversation.

  “There you are,” Wes said, his handsome face appearing in the doorway, looking relieved to have found her. For the past few days, he had hardly left her side, reading to her while she rested, watching over her while she slept. When the fever turned, she had woken up in a sweat and found him draped over a chair next to her, enduring the uncomfortable position so they would not be parted.

  For the past few days they had read books together, taken long walks through the mountain trails, their hands entwined. Now she nodded but did not smile at him, or go to his side as she usually did.

  Nat avoided his eyes, as Nineveh’s words echoed in her ear once more. Her new dark mantra. You will bring death to everyone around you, death to all whom you love. You will destroy him. Somehow, she had to make sure that didn’t happen.

  She had to save them all from sharing her fate. Especially Wes. But how? Then she realized the answer was so simple.

  She would push him away, as far away from her as possible, to keep him alive. It was the only way to make certain that he would not be destroyed, that he would not share her fate, her sacrifice.

  It was the only way to ensure his survival. Her determination renewed her energy, and when Wes came to stand next to her, she flinched from his touch, from the arm he circled around her waist.

  He shot her a curious look. “What’s going on?”

  Nat hesitated, but Liannan answered and seemed to decide for her. “I told Nat where to find another drakon.”

  “Where?” He raised his eyebrows. That was Wes, always straight to the point, asking no unnecessary questions about how Liannan came upon this surprising news.

  Liannan explained the intricacies of breaching the hidden universe. She handed Wes a parchment. “This is a map of Apis. You will need to sort through the rubble to find the place where the conservatory once stood. There you will find what you seek.”

  Wes pocketed the map. “We’ll leave as soon as it’s safe to,” he said to Nat.

  “You don’t have to come with me,” she said.

  “I don’t have to, I want to.” It was clear there was no arguing him out of it, and while Nat worried this would only make things harder later on, she was glad to have a little more time with him yet.

  “And once we’re in, how do we get out? Through the same door?” asked Wes sharply, already strategizing their journey.

  Liannan shook her head.

  “Of course not, nothing’s ever that simple, is it?” He folded his arms across his chest, his piercing eyes trained on Nat, and she knew he was still wondering why she had rebuffed him earlier.

  She remained rooted at the spot, determined to keep her distance. She turned her attention back to Liannan.

  “It is said that once the red drakon leaves the Red Lands, the hidden universe will collapse, and you will be returned to the conservatory of Apis. Fail to remove him, and you will remain forever in the Red Lands.”

  “Got it,” said Wes. “Tame the beast and get the hell out, or stay and rot.”

  Liannan removed a stone from a jar on one of the shelves and handed it to Wes. It was pure white, almost translucent.

  “What’s this?” he asked, as it gleamed in his palm.

  “A speaking stone. It will grant you a bit of sylph power, the ability to communicate to us in your thoughts. We will use it to advise each other of our location once you are out of the red.”

  “Got it. Magic cell phone.” He winked and shoved it into his coat.

  Nat had to smile at that.

  “So if that’s all, I was going to check on the rest of the team,” he said.

  “There is something else,” said Liannan. “They say the ruined world is dangerous, that it is haunted by the dead. Be wary.”

  “No problem.” Wes shrugged. “I’m sure we’ve taken on worse.”

  “Nevertheless a warrior needs a weapon,” said Liannan, reaching for a black sword that hung on the wall.

  “I’d prefer a rifle if you’ve got one,” he said.

  Liannan ignored his comment as she offered it to Nat, and Wes looked abashed. But Liannan did not seem to notice. “It was my father’s. It is made of drakonbone. He believed in the protector of Vallonis, in the Resurrection of the Flame, in the spell that would make the world anew. Use it well,” she said, handing Nat the weapon.

  Nat bowed as she took the sword, and caught Wes’s eye. He was like a little boy, sometimes, wanting to play with the new toy. She felt a rush of affection for him, accompanied by another wave of sadness. He deserves more than I can give him.

  “Can I?” he asked.

  “Be my guest.”

  She studied his face, his hands as he grasped the sword hilt, loving even the way his fingers crooked over the blade.

  While Wes admired the blade, Nat turned to the window again, looking out in the distance, at the smoldering ruins of Apis. She had once pictured herself returning to the city as a hero, a valiant protector, welcomed within its gates. She had pictured a grand triumph, a celebration of her victory over the drone fleet. Now she would return as a thief, picking through the rubble to plunder the last traces of the city’s magic.

  “While you claim the red drakon, we will take those who can still fight and look for Eliza in New Dead City. If the RSA does not stop her from getting to the Gray Tower, we will,” Liannan told them. “Shakes and Brendon already know and have agreed to accompany me.”

  A handful of sylphs and smallmen, Shakes, Liannan, and Brendon, Nat counted. Against the most powerful sorceress the world had seen. Eliza had stolen almost every marked person’s power for herself, rendering her practically invincible. The odds were horrifying, and she wasn’t alone in her calculation.

  “That’s a suicide mission,” said Wes. “Wait until we return, and we’ll all go.”

  “We cannot take that risk. Eliza must not reach the Gray Tower before Nat does,” said Liannan.

  “Give us a week.”

  “We don’t have a week. By Shakes’s guess, we are behind a few days already.”

  Liannan was right, Nat knew. The longer they stalled, the greater the risk that everything would be destroyed. They would have to gamble with their lives.

  “We’ll get there as soon as we can,” said Wes. “With a drakon and a magic cell phone how can we lose?”

  The girls had to smile
at that.

  “Now if you don’t mind, I need to tell Shakes to get our supplies prepared.” Liannan said her good-bye and left the two of them in the room alone.

  “Hey, stranger,” he said, teasing her for her aloofness. “You ready for this?”

  She shrugged and turned away abruptly, heading for the door and brushing by him without returning his smile. “I’m sorry . . . I forgot I have to ask Liannan about one last thing.”

  Nat saw his face fall and knew she had hurt him with her dismissiveness, but it was nothing compared to keeping him alive. To keeping him safe, safe from the dark fate that hung over her, like a guillotine blade, ready to sever her heart.

  She had made her choice. She would push him away.

  She would save his life by breaking his heart, shattering her own in the process.

  She would travel to the ruins of the old world.

  And leave with a drakon to fight her own.

  16

  AT LAST THE DAY THAT WES HAD DREADED finally arrived—the day he would be separated from his crew. It felt as if there were a doomsday clock ticking away his fate by the second, and now it was chiming. He didn’t very much like the idea of splitting up the team—it felt like a bad move, that their resources would be limited, stretched thin to breaking.

  If he and Nat failed, they would be trapped in some funky alternative universe with an angry drakon. Meanwhile Shakes, Liannan, and Brendon and what was left of the warriors of Vallonis were heading to New Dead City, to stop Eliza, who was insane, not to mention armed to the teeth with mega-magic and Nat’s drakon, in a region crawling with the other half of the RSA force and Avo Hubik searching for the same thing they were. Wes didn’t know which was worse.

  He was worried for his friends. Yet he was worried about Nat more. At first he’d chalked it up to battle fatigue, and the lingering effects of the drakonfire that had raged within her. But ever since Liannan had told them about the red drakon, Nat hadn’t been herself. She was short with him, indifferent and preoccupied. They’d hardly spent any time alone together.

  Did he do something wrong? If so, what could it have been? He’d been racking his brains but couldn’t come up with anything. Had he misunderstood something in some way? Why didn’t she want him around all of a sudden?

  He’d even gotten the distinct feeling that she only let him accompany her to Apis because Liannan had insisted on it. Nat had tried to sell the idea of heading into the Red Lands alone, but no one was buying it.

  And now it was as if she was avoiding him on purpose. Whenever he asked her what was wrong, or if there was any way he could help, she shook him off, as if he were a pest.

  Speaking of shaking, he couldn’t shake the notion that the Nat who had won the battle for them, the one who had emerged from the ashes like a broken bird, was someone else. More and more he was beginning to believe that the fire she had called up that day had indeed burned her inside out, and had left a hollow, brittle shell of a person where his girl used to be.

  Because his Nat, the one who had saved him from death, the one who had kissed him on the deck of the ship, never cringed when he touched her, nor did she ever once act as if his very presence were painful to her.

  That’s what it felt like, that it was painful for her to be around him. It was getting to him, and so the only thing he could think of was that she was not herself. Not his Nat anymore.

  Because this Nat, this post-battle Nat, was all business. Wes wanted to tell her that he, too, was broken and grieving and tired and sad. But one look at her stony, angry face and the words died on his lips, and so they had said nothing of any meaning to each other in the days leading up to their departure.

  It was killing him, but he didn’t show it, keeping his poker face.

  He desperately wanted his Nat back, but he didn’t know how you could make someone be the person you wanted them to be when they didn’t seem to have any interest in being that person anymore.

  • • •

  At dawn that morning, Wes found Shakes standing outside the house, whose white walls reflected the bright sun, making everything sparkle. His friend was standing by the woodpile and smoking one of those fragrant violet cigarettes the sylphs favored, a pensive look on his face. They had both traded in their burnt and bloodied uniforms for what they jokingly called sylph wear—handsome forest-green garments edged with leather patches and trim. In truth, it didn’t look that much different from the camouflage they were used to wearing, except this was green instead of white.

  “Smoke?” Shakes asked, holding out the pack kept neatly in a wooden box.

  Wes declined.

  “So,” said Shakes, who always spoke first when he was nervous. “You guys really going into some other world to fetch another drakon?”

  “Guess so.”

  “Yeah.” Shakes looked around him, at the soft fields of lavender, thyme, and rosemary, their colors intensified by the morning sun. Birds circled the tall gray cliffs and the leaves danced in the air; even the flowers seemed to bend and sway at his ankles. “Check it out, you and me in the Blue. Never thought it would happen. Too bad it’s all ending.”

  “You believe all that stuff now? About the tower and the spell?” asked Wes. “I thought you were a skeptic.”

  “Not anymore,” said Shakes, exhaling slowly. “Don’t you feel it? Like we’re all on the edge of something? And everything could end at any moment? This isn’t going to last. It can’t.”

  Wes thought it over. “Nat says the world is dying, it’s poisoned, and if she doesn’t cast the spell, it’s all over.”

  “Yup. I believe her.” Shakes stomped out his cigarette. He lifted his chin, nodded to Wes. “You take care, boss,” he said, offering his fist.

  Wes pounded it. “You, too, man.”

  They had run countless missions together. They had never been apart for more than a few days. After today, Wes realized he might never see his friend again.

  Shakes looked as if he wanted to say more, thought better of it, then changed his mind again. “Wes . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “About Nat.”

  “Yeah?”

  Shakes made a long to-do about putting away his gear and hiking up his bag. “Nothing . . . just take care. Don’t spoil my wedding, you hear? Liannan will be pissed if she doesn’t have a bridesmaid. And who’s going to be my best man?”

  “You’re planning a wedding?” Wes almost laughed, then saw that Shakes was serious.

  “I was thinking three hundred people. At the Apple. You know, their fancy new ballroom, back in New Vegas.” Shakes chuckled. “Just kidding. But we’re doing it. She already said yes, you know. Wherever it is, whatever this world looks like after Nat casts the spell, we’ll tie the knot. So you guys better make it.”

  Wes marveled at his friend’s sunny optimism. Only Vincent “Shakes” Valez would set out on an impossible journey with very little chance of success, with a wedding in mind. “You got it,” said Wes. “I’ll plan the bachelor party with Brendon.”

  Shakes laughed and slapped him on the back. “That’s my man.”

  They walked together to the front of the house where the rest of the team was assembled. Liannan was already atop her white winged horse. Shakes climbed up behind her. Wes found Nat hugging Brendon.

  “Good luck, Wes,” said the smallman, offering his hand. Brendon had aged in a week, shriveled, as if he were only half of himself now that Roark was gone.

  Wes clasped his hand. “Godspeed, Donny. We’ll see you at Shakes’s wedding.”

  “What wedding?” asked Nat, raising her eyebrows.

  “Haven’t you heard? After all this, Shakes is making a respectable woman out of our Liannan.” He grinned as he helped Brendon upon his pony.

  Liannan blushed while Shakes smiled proudly. A ring glittered on her finger, and she waved it in the light. Lea
ve it to Shakes to find a jeweler in this place. Then she was back to business, addressing the two of them. “Use the speaking stone to find us once you’re out of the red world. Hopefully, we will have located Eliza by then and delayed her from reaching the Gray Tower.”

  She clucked at her horse, and the winged cavalry sped away into the clouds, through a new portal that the sylphs had created that would allow them to return to the gray world. The portal closed behind the last rider, leaving the sky as seamless as before.

  “Here goes nothing, huh?” he said to Nat, who was holding the reins of a beautiful stallion. The horse would take them to the ruins of Apis and return to the village on its own.

  He made a cradle with his hands and helped Nat on the horse, then hoisted himself up on the saddle as well. “Is this all right?” he asked, as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

  She nodded and tugged at the reins, leading the horse out of the grounds and through the village, toward the road that would take them back to the fallen city.

  “Do you plan on talking to me at all on this journey of ours?” he asked. “Because it’ll be awful lonely if you don’t.”

  She turned to face him abruptly, her cheeks crimson. “I’m sorry. I’ve been rude.”

  Actually she had been worse than rude, she’d been so polite it killed him. This was Nat, who had kissed him on the ferryboat, who had risked her life to save his own, and who had shared her drakonfire with him. It just didn’t make sense. She knew how he felt about her and until now he’d believed she felt the same.

  “Will you tell me what’s wrong?” he asked, leaning in to whisper in her ear, and he swore he could feel her skin tingle.

  Every sense of his own was on alert, with her back against his chest, his hands around her tiny waist. He could have held on to the saddle but he wanted any excuse to touch her. Her soft hair tickled his cheek.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “You can’t or you won’t?” His heart beat painfully in his chest, and he wanted to scream, to shake some sense into her, bring her back to him somehow. What happened? How was it possible she had changed her mind about him? But why? And why now?