Golden (10 page)

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.

A
T
LAST
THE
DAY
THAT
W
ES
HA
D
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. Leave 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?

“Let's not argue,” Nat said quietly. “It's a long ride.”

And just as he'd predicted, it was a silent one.

• • •

They reached the still-smoking ruins of Apis by the late afternoon and said good-bye to their mount. Wes wished the journey had been longer, as now there was no reason to be so close to her.

The city loomed above them like the hulking trashbergs of the ruined Pacific. There was nothing but wreckage, smoke and broken stone, singed cloth, shattered glass.

Wes studied the map that Liannan had given them. “There should be some kind of gate around here,” he said.

Nat was three paces ahead of him. “This is it,” she said, approaching a shattered wall. “It used to float hundreds of feet in the air.”

He folded back the map. He vaguely remembered the city in the sky, but he'd assumed it had been built on a mountaintop that he just couldn't see. “It floated?”

“Yeah, the whole city, high above the clouds.”

“Bad idea. Cities should stay on the ground.” He was glad she was at least talking to him, and he wanted to make the conversation last.

Nat shrugged. “Maybe. It was beautiful, though. You had to walk across a void to enter. I was supposed to take a leap of faith, create a bridge with my mind.” She shook her head ruefully. “I don't know . . . it didn't work.”

“Well, the only leap you'll need to make is over a few broken rocks. If we can even find the door,” Wes said with a smile. He examined the pile of rubble before them. “I see a few pieces of the wall, but no gate, no opening. It might be blocked.”

The remains of Apis resembled a mountain of loosely piled stones. He could make out some of the remaining structures—a tower here, a rotunda there, a bridge smashed at midpoint, a ring of turrets, a golden dome, a crenelated parapet, statues with missing limbs—all of it half covered in rubble.

The earth shook beneath them and Nat stumbled. Wes caught her before she fell.

“Sorry,” she said, pushing away quickly before he could enjoy it too much. “I'm not used to earthquakes.”

“Not an earthquake. I think the city's settling. Half of it crumbled when it hit the earth, but the rest of it's still falling apart. Each floor's buckling, falling on the one beneath it and crushing the one below. We need to hurry or this conservatory might be gone by the time we reach it.”

They picked their way through the pile, still looking for a way inside. Nat fell silent again and avoided his gaze.

Wes studied the destruction, followed a line of broken stones, and spied a massive stone arch, still preserved, and a dark corridor beyond it.

“There!” he said, but Nat was already hurrying into it.

They plunged into the darkness. The tunnel was silent as a tomb, for it was one, filled with burnt bodies and blackened skeleton bones, the remains of the citizens of Apis who had failed to escape before the fires.

“Wait up,” he called, coming along beside her, but she brushed him off, turning abruptly down a dark corridor. He could barely see her through the dust and smoke.

He followed her into the tunnel and out into the light. They were inside the city at last and had emerged into what had once been a ring of trees, a pine forest, it looked like. Most were burnt and twisted, their needles turned to kindling. Nat was standing in the middle of the charred trees.

“The conservatory shouldn't be far from here,” she said, over the crack of stones splitting. The air smelled of death and blood.

Wes consulted the map again and Nat looked over his shoulder. “We're here.” She pointed to what looked like the forest. They had gone about the half the distance to the conservatory, walking mostly aboveground or near the surface. When they left the forest, they would need to plunge deeper into the city, into subterranean passages that might be blocked or destroyed.