Page 58 of Tall Dark and Evil

I focus on the symbols, willing them to budge. All I get for my effort is a growing headache. “Dammit.”

"What’s going on?”

“I want to make that thing carry us up, but it doesn’t want to move.”

“I don’t think it can,” Reiks replies. “I’ve never seen spells like these, but I’ve read about something like them. Eons ago, people used to pray to the gods themselves to protect their children. The gods rarely responded, but when they did, spells like these would surround the kid when danger approached. It’s a powerful spell. Only a major divinity could have crafted it.”

How have I never heard of that?

“You’re still under twenty-five; it’s likely to work until you reach maturity. But I doubt the spell will budge until you’re back to safety now.”

An emotion I’ve long buried hits me like a punch deep inside. I’ve always wondered if someone had given a shit about me—what orphan doesn’t? I figured I might have gotten chucked out of a boat or off a cliff because I was unwanted; a bastard child, or a weakling no one cared to claim. But according to Reiks, someone cared enough to protect me. Someone I can’t remember loved me once, before the Frejr took me in.

These very walls might explain how I survived passing through the barrier, and the tumultuous waters between the shores of the Darklands and the Eternal Realms.

“Hey, what’s that for?” Reiks’s thumb caresses my wet cheek.

“Well, we’re still stuck under the Hall of Peace. I’m allowed a tear or two.” I climb over the yard-high stone that trickled down to us, and am relieved to see the walls of the shield. To my relief, I see it move up with me, lifting over the water. Reiks joins me. “We’ll have to get out the hard way. Stay close.”

My upper body strength is taxed to the limit as we slowly climb up. I hear the sound of screams and more explosions, further away. My heart beats in my chest as I imagine the worst. Mar. She could very well be under the wreckage. But no, she isn’t. She’s too strong to let bombs bury her. So is Valina.

“Do you think Zale made it out?” I ask Reiks.

“He did.” His reply doesn’t leave room for an alternative, although I know he’s trying to convince himself more than me. “That guy’s a cockroach. His entire family was stabbed and burned. Zale turned himself into ice and waited it out.”

I hadn’t heard that version. “He was there when the Devars were attacked?”

“Yep. They rounded up all of the royals. Zale still has the scars to show for it—they stabbed his chest three times. He didn’t survive that to die now.”

I smile back at Reiks before resuming my progress. I feel like we’ve barely moved, but a glance below my feet makes me realize how high we are. I can’t see the water at the bottom of the drop.

I carefully place another foot on a stone that looks sturdy, and shift my weight to the other side.

I almost think I’ve made it, until my foot slips, and I start to fall.

CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT

THE COLLISION

Iremember the song. A clear voice shot through the skies, and screamed a story I’ve long forgotten. The song, I’ve hummed absentmindedly for as long as I could recall.

The ageless man smiling down at me talks in a language I’ve never learned, but I understand every word. “At long last, we meet. My daughter.” He lifted me high and acclaim erupted around us. I watched the crowd scream a name I never wore. Alev of Xion.

I watch the scene play like a spectator, a fly on the wall. The Kind King was old and weak by the time he sired his firstborn. Time means little to the true immortal, but after thousands and thousands of years, they often grew weary. His advisors, those he called friends, had expected him to leave for the afterlife eons ago, like the other elder gods. But he’d remained, lingering at the edges of life. Until the child.Me.

“Alis!” The echo of this scream almost pierces through the visions, but I want to see more. I ignore it.

Then the king was young again, infused with eagerness. He started to make plans to ensure the realm was prosperous. He named the child his heir. The future queen.

I note the eyes of his council, while his are fixed on the child. Five men and two women glare at the bundle wrapped in white silk.

I don’t see which one of them snatches me. I watch them ride at high speed toward the cliffs and throw me upon the mercy of the sea. The fall alone might have killed me. The journey. The barrier meant to keep immortals away from the five other kingdoms. Everything was an obstacle to my making it out of there alive and whole.

But the moment I crossed the barrier, something pulled me toward land. An old magik, hauling me forward until I reached Valina.

I can’t quite pinpoint what, but I see the line of spells lightening my way through the crushing waves, as I fall again. A real lifeline written in the air, intangible but as concrete as anything I’ve ever touched.

I raise both of my arms toward the line, and close my fists on it just as my body crashes on the water at the bottom of the pit.

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