I shield my eyes as birds take flight around us. “That’s a
non-answer!”
But we keep running through the Toliss jungle, and I fluctuate
between wanting to bash him in the face and hug it out like bros
because he came back to me.
“Where are we going?” I shout as branches and boulders fall all
around us. I duck out of the way as lightning strikes the ground near
us and three trunks fall sideways, narrowly missing me. A few hours
ago, I couldn’t get the quartz scepter to conjure any power, and now
it’s made us target practice for the angry sky gods. Kurt’s screams
get drowned out in the rumble of thunder, the ripping apart of solid
rock.
“Kurt?”
He falls forward, flat on his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“She’s calling to me-” He grits his teeth and screams through it,
clutching the Trident of the Skies. His unfiltered power blows through
it in sparks of lightning. His breath is labored, like someone’s got
their hands on his lungs.
“What do I do?”
He shakes his head and pushes himself up, like he’s wading through
cement. “I have to go to her.”
“No!” I pull on his arm.
He wavers on his knees, gasping for air. He gulps it down and it
sounds easier. He grabs my shoulder for support. “It’s like she’s
squeezing my lungs.”
“She can do that?” I hope I’ve never seen Kurt complain about pain
before. “As your friend, I’d like to point out that this is what we
call an abusive relationship.”
“Lucine wants what’s best for me.” He leans on a tree trunk for
support, pressing his hand to his chest like he’s making sure his
heart is still beating.
“We have to get back to the others,” I say. “Shelly’ll know how to
make it stop.”
“No. We have to finish this. Nieve has weaknesses just like
everyone else.” He breathes normally again.
The sky is dark and so are our paths. We follow the light of our
weapons and the animals that scatter away. I scream as I feel the
ground fall beneath me. Kurt grabs on to me by the back of my harness
and pulls me back. With one foot out to sea, I’m a step away from free
falling off a cliff and into the crashing waves.
“Only way out is down,” I say.
And he goes, “Together.”
“On three,” I say, retracing our steps and getting ready to jump.
“Tristan, I’m sorry,” Kurt says.
The wind is screeching in a fury, bringing the sea over the cliff.
“One-” I say, but neither of us waits. We run, run, run, and then
jump.
It feels so long since I’ve taken a dive. I’ve come a long way
from Karel pushing me in the Vale of Tears. I tuck my head between my
shoulders and straighten my legs.
But I don’t reach the sea.
Searing pain digs into my shoulders. Something warm runs down my
chest and back. In the dark, I see a slick body and massive wings
flying beside me. A sea dragon. It wasn’t the wind screeching; it was
the sea dragons. Thick black talons grab Kurt by the shoulder and fly
away. Talons, cutting me and dragging me away.
I scream, and as I feel my body being lifted into the sky, I know
no one can hear me.
My body is cold. There’s a void that is getting bigger and bigger.
It’s like losing a part of myself. I can feel a piece of me missing.
Gone. The scepter is gone.
I try to lift my arms. Feel my chest. Move my legs.
Except I can’t move my legs.
I hold my breath and brace myself to look down. My vision is
doubled and my temples pound. I lift my torso up and even that’s a
challenge. The ground has stopped shaking, but I feel a wave of nausea
hit me and I turn my face to the side and puke last night’s pizza.
When I see my tail, I could cry tears of joy that it’s there and
I’m in one piece. I search the room and I must be dreaming because I
see Adaro. His face is right in front of mine.
I shut my eyes to make his face go away and it does. When I open
them again, I see Gwen. She presses something warm and smelly on my
shoulders. I blink and she’s gone.
Off to the side, Kurt’s hands are chained against a wall. His
blood is smeared all over his torso so that with my fuzzy vision, it
looks like he’s wearing a shirt.
“Don’t say it,” Kurt says. He shuts his eyes and I picture him
trying to retrace his steps to see what he could have done
differently.
“Say what?” It hurts to talk.
“I told you so.”
“I didn’t say it, you did.”
He closes his eyes and leans his head back. “They’ve been coming
in and out. Gwen healed you. She loves you. She won’t let Nieve kill
you.”
The combinations of being without my scepter and the beatings I’ve
taken have left me quiet. I did it. I killed the nautilus maid. I can
feel the sleeping giants stirring awake. I signaled my army.
But I messed up badly. “How did we get here?”
“My father told me that if we follow our hearts to the very end,
we’ll find what we’re looking for.”
I laugh and it hurts. “If what you’re looking for is death.”
“You don’t believe that.”
He’s right, I don’t.
“What made you change your mind?” I ask. “What made you come
back?”
“Lucine herself.” Kurt lifts his legs and swallows the pain. “She
told me to give the Trident of the Skies to the sea witch so we could
be together in peace, away from all this. All I had to do was kill you
myself. Now she has it anyway.”
I sit up like I’ve been set on fire. In the back of my head, I can
see Kurt and me as mortal enemies. We can’t end up that way. Perhaps
this is how it starts. Perhaps this is how it ends.
“Where was this when I was warning you, huh?” I could kick him.
“We were together, Kurt. We were together from the beginning, through
all of this. We watched your father die. And then you still went back
to her.”
“Do you think I wanted this?” He leans forward, pulling on his
chains. “I’ve spent my entire life doing what the king asked of me.
Then I find that he’s-was-my father, and despite that, he chose you.
Forgive me, Tristan, but that hurt me more than I’ll ever want to say.
You have been in a land where time is unmoving, but it has only been a
day of mine.”
Look at us, the mighty champions.
“Nieve promised me that my loved ones would be alive at the end of
this,” he says. “And Lucine-I’ve loved her since I met her. When I was
searching for vengeance for my parents’ deaths, she gave me a path.
She gave me a reason to live for that was all consuming and wrong, but
I wanted it. If she had told me to chop off my limbs and give them to
her, I would have without question. Then she cast me aside because her
mind isn’t right. I know that. When I saw her again, it was like she
had never left me in the first place.”
“To be fair, you seemed to enjoy it,” I say, laughing.
He squints and gives me his cheek.
“The king was right,” he says, “in the end. You and I are not very
different.”
I agree.
“Though now I have better hair.”
I point to my head. “This is your fault.”
“Tristan, why did you go to get the nautilus maid again?”
How do you change a future that seems to be laid out for you? Here
I am, looking at my friend turned family turned enemy turned ally once
again. He’s asking me to trust him. I’ve had too many misses with the
trust thing recently. I never knew how much it would hurt to have
someone betray me.
“Because I had to kill her.”
The fog lifts from my head when I say that.