Page 82 of Love, Nemesis
When she finally regained composure, she knew she had to talk to him again. She didn’t know what she would say, but she had to say something—anything.
She stood back up, rushing out of the room and down the stairs. She stopped short at the end of the stairway, searching the house.
“Lethe?” she asked, and heard something outside.
She burst through the door, nearly running into Jasper as she scanned the surrounding area.
“Ana,” Jasper said, calling for her attention as she scanned the valley and mountains.
Cal, Lethe, and Ares’s horses were all gone.
“Where is everyone?” Ana said, turning toward Jasper.
“Gone,” he said, seemingly startled at her urgency.
“Gone?”
“Yeah, Ares has been gone for about half an hour, said he wanted to clear his head and went for a ride. Lethe and Cal set off about ten minutes ago. What have you been doing?”
Ana stepped toward the end of the porch, swallowing hard as she set her hand up against one of the porch posts. Her eyes drifted over the mountains and the remainder of the valley with its abandoned cabins
She inhaled the brisk mountain air, fingers moving to her forehead where Lethe had kissed her.
Now, it felt as if the breezes could move right through her. No longer made of iron, she felt like air.
“What did Ares say?” Jasper asked after a while. “Is he going to attack the State?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, swallowing as she still stared off toward the horizon.
“You aren’t sure? What did the two of you end up talking about up there?”
“That people will ultimately get what they deserve. Justice.”
“And what do you think of that?” Jasper asked, guiding her eyes back to him.
Strengthened with a new, different, resolve, she removed her Atlas. Lifting it to the light, she watched the rays of sun bend through it.
“For the first time in a long time,” she breathed, “I’m determined to prove that wrong.”
The light through the Atlas told her that she had nine months left.
She was going to make every day count.
Chapter 22: The Mystics
THE TREES IN the Mystics were keepers of time, ancient a hundred times over with the majesty to speak for it. The wide, beaten roads told stories of civilizations built, ravaged, and rebuilt again. Lethe felt immortal when he looked at them, knowing that in his years of existence, he’d lived through the nation’s history.
As he and Cal rode through the territory, he couldn’t help but think of the ROSE who had ventured this way before him. In the spirit of their predecessors, they had selected designated survivors of The Ocean’s War to venture south into the Mystics, beyond any chance of return. Their sole mission was to warn any civilizations to the south of what had transpired in the North, to pass along their history along with the same warnings that had braced them years ago for the coming of the Strike.
Lethe found his mind caught in many similar thoughts. To him, this was a somber occasion. Cal, on the other hand, was enamored by it all. His fingers kept reaching out to graze the bark and tree leaves; he nearly slipped off his horse in his attempts to pick a keepsake.
Lethe watched a tree limb pull and then whip back against itself as Cal took a leaf. He cradled it in his hand, inspecting its veins as if it might be very different from the leaves in the State or En Sanctus. Cal had combed his sandy blonde hair and tidied up his uniform, as if presentation had any sway over the fate of their journey. Taking in Cal’s lanky figure and frail, curious eyes, Lethe decided that this venture would need to be quick for Cal. He’d send him back to the State shortly.
In its own way, this venture might be quick for him too.
“What’s wrong?” Cal asked when he noticed Lethe staring at him.
“Nothing. Why do you keep asking me that?” Lethe replied.
