Page 68 of Avelina

“Once again, not funny,” he called after me.

“You never complained before,” I called back. I heard a loud sigh, then the squeak of the reading chair. Pretty sure I won that one.

Chapter Nineteen

Linorra saw no people as she flew over the land of dragons. It was a beautiful, tropical paradise with giant flowers in every color. There were trees as tall as the clouds and purple mountains in the distance. It was the most beautiful place Linorra had ever seen. She felt joy in that beauty, but she also felt an ache in her heart for her mother, whom she had left behind.

I walked through the trees that hid the house from view, following the sound of waves. There was a chill in the air and the sky was filled with gray clouds so heavily laden with water that the air itself felt squeezed between the clouds and sea.

I had to walk for a few minutes, but I found Aaron sitting on top of a large boulder marked with an enormous X. It rested on the dune like a watchtower, overlooking a beach of black rocks and gray sand, a match to the bleak sky. Here and there lay piles of driftwood, and long lines of brown seaweed had been pushed out by the tide and left behind on the beach. Massive silver and white pelicans nested in one of the larger piles of seaweed, squawking to each other over the wind and waves.

“Do you mind if I join you?” I called up to him, studying the rock.

Aaron glanced over his shoulder at me and shrugged. It was a more lukewarm reception than I’d hoped for, but I took it. A log leaned against one side of the boulder, wedged into a fissure. Cautiously, I scrambled up the log and sat down next to him. He radiated heat, as always, and I sat close to him to use that warmth against the chill. He put his arm over my shoulders, and I leaned into him.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, deciding to ask him about the X-marked stone later.

Aaron didn’t answer right away. He stared out at the sea, which roiled under the gray sky, kicking up a mountain of white foam. I was happy that the fog had lifted, and I could see up the coastline for miles. Somewhere in the distance, I knew, there was a town full of people, living out their lives with no idea that the oppression they experienced wasn’t normal.

“When I was seventeen,” Aaron said, “my Aunt Clare, my father’s sister and Jorin’s bondmate, died in a Transmutation explosion. Her reservoir was a secret, like mine. She wanted to turn rocks from this beach into fortite so we could build an arsenal.”

“What’s fortite?” I asked.

“It’s a rare metal. When you mix it with a chalky black substance called durran and heat it up, it becomes durrite, which is what we make weapons out of, among other things. It’s hard but pliable. Very useful and extremely valuable. Clare wanted to create a steady supply. Transmutation lets you turn one material into a completely different material, but it’s dangerous, and it’s impossible to find someone to teach you because it’s also one of the Unspeakables.”

“It caused an explosion?”

“Yes. We later acquired an old text explaining that you have to go through a series of steps to avoid that. First, you transmute the material to one thing, then to the next thing, and so on, to avoid explosions. Clare knew it could be dangerous to go ahead without knowing what would happen, but she was always stubborn. She thought she could create an army to defeat the Ministry. She was the reason we added the escape hatch. She was the driving force behind a lot of things and Jorin was lost without her for a long time.”

I gazed up at Aaron. He lowered his eyes from the sea to my face.

“I feel like that’s what we’re doing, Lee,” he said. “We’re messing around with the way the world is structured. Even you and I being out here together is an act of rebellion, and it’s dangerous. We don’t know what we’re doing, and we could get people killed, including ourselves.”

I nodded again. “That’s true,” I said. “We could.” I held his eyes. “I am an idealist in many ways, Aaron, but I’m under no illusion that this will be simple or safe. We could get everyone we love killed and still fail. Maybe it’s not fair to ask them to make that sacrifice. Then again, are they really any safer if we do nothing?” I shook my head. “I don’t know what the right answer is. I just know that this is no way to live, and you and I have a better chance of taking down the Ministry than anyone else. If we leave, eventually they will find a way to bring back Anick. Do you want to stand by and let that happen when maybe we could have stopped it?” The question was as much for me as it was for Aaron. My conscience told me that helping was the right thing to do, but Evilina didn’t care about helping anyone except herself.

Aaron rested his forehead on mine. “I just found you,” he said. I thought he might elaborate on that thought, but he kissed me instead. I leaned into it, letting him pull me against him and into a Connection link. His anxiety was like a weighted vest that he could never shed. He was tired of living every day in fear and just wanted to find his family and have a moment of peace. I couldn’t fault him for that. The evoker was burned out.

“I have something for you,” I said, pulling back a little. I showed him the bracelet. “Spirit originally made this for me, but now she says I should give it to you. She made it before she died and stuck it in a sock in my bag. It’s supposed to act like an external reservoir, absorbing ambient fragment to help you stay in control.”

Aaron frowned, but took the bracelet, examining it like it was made of plutonium. He inspected the iridescent stones, then, hesitantly, put it on his right wrist. “I don’t feel anything,” he said.

I shrugged. “Maybe it takes time.”

Aaron considered the bracelet on his wrist, deep in thought for a moment. The edges of his mouth turned up, and he leaned over and kissed me again almost desperately. It felt like he poured his last hope into me, like something in him was unwinding for the first time since he was a child. I kissed him back, knowing that if this thing with him didn’t work out that I’d be wrecked by it. In that respect, I poured all my hopes into him as well.

When the kiss ended, Aaron held his forehead to mine again for a moment, catching his breath, then he stood up, offering me his hand. I took it, and he pulled me up next to him. I was shivering anyway and wanted to head back. A drop of rain hit my cheek, and the heaviness in the air weighed on each of my breaths.

“Come on,” he said, as he headed back toward the house. I started to follow him, but the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I whirled around, staring out at the water. A small dock withstood the precarious waves, protected by a rocky outcrop. A skiff was tied to it, nestled between the dock and the rocks. Beyond that, there was nothing except an angry sky dancing atop a restless sea.

After a moment, I relaxed. The sea was dark and full of mysterious depths. Since everything here was supersized, it made me wonder what kinds of monsters might be lurking within that abyss. Perhaps I’d felt a resonance with one, just as Aaron had with the dragon.

Then, as if I had called it with that thought, a great red fin broke the surface a few hundred yards out in the water. It looked like a shark fin, only it was the size of a sailboat. Any creature attached to a colossal fin like that would have to be the size of a blue whale.

“Gah! What the hell is that thing?” I squealed.

Aaron trotted back up to the top of the boulder. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

I pointed.

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