Chapter 12

CHAPTER12

Stupid.

Lore was so stupid. Why would she take that risk?

She could have told Abraxas to punch that stupid man’s muzzle right into his skull and they could have run. She’d have gotten them out of there long before anyone could find them. Lore still knew Tenebrous like the back of her hand. She could have hidden them. They would have found a place to hide while the entire city looked for them. They would have done anything and everything other than what she’d done.

She ripped the spell off of her face the moment they left the city gates. She didn’t care that the marshes stood in front of them or that someone might see her. Now, what was the point? Why would she even try?

The ripples of that spell were enough. Margaret would know they were here. All she had done, everything she’d fought for, and she’d left it in the dirt of Tenebrous, just like the rest of her dignity. Changing her own appearance? That was easy magic. Changing another’s? Much, much more difficult.

“Stupid,” she muttered. “Moron. Fool. Why would you risk everything for something like that?”

“Lore?” Abraxas called from behind them. “Would you slow down, please?”

No, she would not slow down. They needed to put as much space between them and Tenebrous as possible. If they didn’t, then Margaret’s men would find them like sitting ducks. She’d put a flashing orb above their head that pointed at them. If Margaret was looking, and she was, then she’d know where to find them now.

Stomping through the muck only made her feel slightly better. She tried to focus on the here and now.

The scent of moss and mud filled her nostrils. The leather straps of her bag dug into her shoulders, but she almost didn’t feel the weight at all. Her breath sawed from her lungs, making her ribs go in and out in an exaggerated fashion. She should get her breathing under control because she couldn’t hear anything other than that and the thundering of her heart in her ears.

She needed to keep her senses sharp and her wits about her. Margaret would have sent her shadows and her ravens to scope out Tenebrous, and those creatures could see them from above. Which meant she needed to get them out of the marshes faster than she expected. There was only one trail that would take them out of the marsh, and that was the one path she didn’t want to go.

Apparently, she would be forced to travel down her memories if she wanted to end all of this. And still, it made her heart twist in her chest.

“Lore!” Abraxas called again, and this time she heard him stomping toward her. The mud sucked at his feet, giving his position away as he did his best to catch up with her. “I said slow down!”

He caught her arm and all that anger and disgust at herself lashed out. A blast of power sent him reeling away. He stumbled a few times and then landed on his ass in the mud.

Her dragon stared up at her in shock. She stared back with wide eyes and a heaving chest that she tried to get under control, but she couldn’t no matter how hard she tried.

“Are you—”

“Did you—”

They spoke over each other.

She knew what he was going to ask. Did you mean to hurt me? While she had wanted to know if she’d done just that. It wasn’t right. She shouldn’t be taking her anger out on him, but what else could she do? She’d put them both in danger, and maybe it would be best if she’d left them both in Tenebrous.

He wouldn’t let her do that. And suddenly she felt trapped.

Everyone wanted something from her, and she’d forgotten to steel herself against that. Abraxas wanted her to be herself. Beauty wanted her to save Zephyr. Beauty’s father wanted her to save the humans. Everyone wanted her to do something and she couldn’t breathe anymore.

She just needed a little time to get her head back on straight. To roll herself up in whatever control she could grasp out of this situation before it was all pulled out from under her again. And she couldn’t do that when he was staring at her like she’d lost her mind.

“I need a few minutes,” she rasped, stumbling away from him.

“How far are you going?”

“Not far.” She didn’t think so. She wasn’t going to run, if that’s what he was asking her. “Are you all right?”

“I’ve survived worse.” He stood, and she watched to make sure he wasn’t limping or showed any sign of pain. He didn’t, thank goodness. At least he was a dragon and could take a bit of a magical beating. “Are you all right?”

No.

No, she wasn’t all right.

She would not be all right until this was all over and done with, and that would not happen any time soon, so if she didn’t get a hold of this anxiety, it would ruin her. It would swell up over her head and threaten to drown her in her sorrows until she saw nothing but all the people she’d lost.

Swiping a hand over her mouth, she shook her head and gave him the truth. “No. No, I’m not. That spell... Margaret will know where we are. We need to move.”

“I know.”

“You know?” She snapped, her words echoing across the marsh. “And you said nothing? You don’t care if Margaret hunts us down before we’ve done anything? You should be yelling at me right now!”

He didn’t. Of course he did. Abraxas held his hands up as though she had pointed a weapon at him and quietly said, “You’re doing enough yelling for the both of us.”

She was. She knew she was and she still couldn’t stop. Lore could only hope that he wouldn’t be too angry at her when she returned to them, but right now, she had to get some air.

“I’ll be back,” she said, taking another shambling step away from him.

“Will you?”

His words hung between them, a quiet reminder of the last time she’d said that. And all the times she’d done something stupid in the same state as this.

She swallowed hard before responding. “I will do everything I can to come back to you, Abraxas. I’m not going far. I just need to remind myself why I’m doing this. To plan how to keep us all safe from Margaret. I need... I need to get my confidence back, and I don’t think that’s something you can help with.”

His silence was damning.

Lore knew she’d made him angry with all this. They had promised she wouldn’t go running off on her own during this trip, and already she was going to break that promise.

She was a terrible partner. A worse mate, and she knew that would grate on both of them. She had to prove herself to be worthy of his trust or she’d lose him. The painful truth rode on her shoulders so heavily that she stalked toward him with single-minded intent.

Grabbing the back of his neck, Lore tugged him down and kissed him hard. Not a soft kiss or even a reassuring one, but a kiss that bit at his lips and would have drawn blood if he’d let her.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “I just can’t look at the two of you while knowing that I might have caused all our deaths with a stupid mistake that I never should have made. I need time with my thoughts, and I won’t go far. You’ll be able to see me the entire time. I just need to be quiet for a bit. That’s all. I need to pretend that I didn’t just kill my friends.”

“You didn’t.”

“I might have.” She stared up at him, eyes wide and heart in her throat. “I might have killed you. And I refuse to let that simmer in my mind while I can see you. I’ll just start picturing all the ways they could murder you, Abraxas, and I won’t do it any more. I can’t.”

He smoothed his thumb over her cheekbones. “You’ll stay within sight?”

“At all times. Just give me a bit to feel better. That’s all I’m asking.”

And he let her go.

Lore stomped ahead of them, picking the path of least resistance that would get them far away from her home. From the memories that haunted her every step of dying friends, wars, the screams of people who fought to get their freedom and now had it. The freedom she might very well be taking away from them again.

Shouldn’t she feel more guilty about that? Shouldn’t she do something to ensure that the magical creatures never returned to the life they had lived before?

Except, she worried they were the problem. Her mind was so twisted up and she couldn’t even guess at where to start unraveling all this.

“Mothers,” she whispered, her words carrying through the marshes. “If I’ve ever needed you in my life, I need you now.”

But no one responded to her plea.

There was a time when she’d hoped that they would have a more active presence in her life. She’d gotten her birth mother back, and her grandmother, and all the women who had come before her. That’s where all this power had entered her body, through the strings and ties of them. But now, they had left her to her own devices. She had to figure this out on her own.

Instead, she reached out with her mind and let her magic spread out. She shouldn’t. But Margaret already knew she was here and using magic, so what was a little more power when they already knew she was near Tenebrous?

She needed to talk to someone. And that someone was her daughter.

The thin connection looped around Nyx’s thread and then she could feel her.

“Mother?”

She could almost hear Nyx as though she were standing right beside her. As though they walked together through the marsh, even though Lore knew that was impossible.

“I’m here,” Lore replied, trying very hard to speak through the thick wave of tears that burned at the sound of her daughter’s voice. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.” Nyx sounded confused. “I didn’t know you could do this.”

“I can do a great many things now, and apparently this is only one of them.”

How did she explain to her daughter what was happening? Nyx might have absorbed the memories of countless dragons, but she was still just a child. At heart, her daughter shouldn’t know about kingdoms filled with turmoil and conflict. She didn’t want to tell Nyx that she’d already risked their lives, or about the horrible feeling that still stuck to her skin after being in Tenebrous and seeing the starving people there.

All she wanted was to hear that Nyx was well, and that life had continued on in the dragon isles without them. That they were happy and well and that someone in this family was still a good person at their core.

Nyx cleared her throat, and Lore swore she heard the shuffling of leaves. “Are you all right?”

No. No, she wasn’t all right. Would everyone stop asking her that?

She couldn’t lie to her daughter, though. And she couldn’t tell her the truth. Instead, she asked, “Has Draven been keeping his hands off you?”

“Mother!” Nyx burst into laughter and the sound soothed all the aches in Lore’s chest. “You know he has. I don’t know why you and Father are so worried about that. He’s been a perfect gentleman.”

“And why is that?”

“Because he says I’m too young for anything to happen between us, even though I’ve absorbed the memories of a hundred other dragons that have lived hundreds of years.” Lore could practically see the eye roll Nyx ended her rant with.

“That’s not entirely why.” Lore stepped over a fallen log that was covered with bright green moss. “You know, it’s not a mistake to learn more about each other. Even if those memories made you older than you are, which they do not, knowing that he is willing to wait only makes him more serious about you.”

“What’s so wrong with having a little fun?”

And so the argument continued. Lore defended Abraxas’s opinion while her daughter whittled away at any logic in those arguments. It was like she had never left.

Finally, Lore found a spot that seemed safe for the night. The cave had formed out of old mud and billowing moss that must have been pushed up at some point by an air bubble in the swamp. Now it wasn’t much, but it would fit the three of them for the night.

Lore leaned over and stared into the shadows, making sure there weren’t any hidden creatures within before she sat down inside of it.

“It’s so good to hear your voice,” she whispered. And it was. It was so good to remember why she was here and what she was fighting for.

With a wave of her hand, Lore projected their images to each other. To her surprise, they were both in the same position. She sat cross-legged in the dirt in a swamp, while Nyx had settled herself into the crux of a tree with her arms around her legs.

They stared at each other, as though they could reach through the hundreds of miles that separated them and touch.

“Mother?” Nyx whispered. “You look terrible.”

“I feel terrible.” Lore lifted her arms and grimaced at the sight of them. “I’m already covered in mud and I don’t remember ever touching anything.”

“Are you in a swamp?”

“We have to go through the swamp to get to the next part of this journey.” Lore sighed. “I’m glad you’re not here. It’s disgusting.”

“I could have sent the water away from you. Tanis has been teaching me how to use water to my whim. It’s been... Interesting.” Nyx made a face that said she wasn’t having all that much fun with her teacher. “It was better when you were here. I liked the way you taught us to use magic. Like nature was at our beck and call.”

“It is.” Lore knew that elves and dragons learned magic in different ways, though. She was grateful for Tanis being there with them. “How are the other little ones?”

“Taking up all the attention.”

And there it was. The reason she didn’t think Draven should be anywhere near her daughter. For all the memories and magic that she’d built up from those crystals, Nyx was just a little girl. She still got jealous when someone else had more attention than her, and she still wanted all that attention for herself.

Lore shook her head and grinned. “You must learn how to live with them, my darling. It won’t always be easy.”

“They’re not my siblings.”

“They aren’t. But they are your future.” Blowing a kiss to her daughter, she said, “I need to go.”

“Can we do this again?” Nyx’s spine straightened and her jaw clenched. “It was... It was good to see you, mum.”

Mum.

Lore nodded and tried not to let her tears show. “We can, Nyx. Of course we can.”