"Until The Fall" - 39/48
Title: Until The Fall
Author: Rissy James
Characters: DG, Cain, Azkadellia, Jeb, Glitch, Raw, Tutor, the Queen, Ahamo, and some old & new OCs
Pairing: Established Cain/DG; established Jeb/Az
Rating: M
Summary: Sequel to " Of Light". After an annual of living in the O.Z., DG sets out to complete the task given to her by the Gale. Soon, she must learn that there is always more to everything than first meets the eye.
Extras: Cast Page on livejournal.com
Chapter Thirty Nine
Gods, she'd been in this body for far too long.
Had it already been almost forty annuals? She'd seen three Gale queens through these eyes, seen the country torn asunder and born anew. The fall of Locasta the Lightless and the redemption of Azkadellia.
The child whose body she'd stolen had been beautiful. Unruly red hair, mischievous green eyes; there was a radiance and delight about the child that had made her irresistible. Upon taking her, the witch had gained a new name, land and titles. The face she saw in the mirror was that of the girl, and after a few annuals, the girl had stopped fighting, stopped crying. The voice inside had been hushed for seasons out of memory. But for the breathing body she inhabited, the witch would have wondered if the child were still there at all.
This body was Ixian, a proud lineage and descent that could be detected in the cheekbones. For over a hundred annuals, she had stayed out of the O.Z., jumping bodies as it pleased her, always listening on the wind for word of her homeland. The news had always been prosperous, favourable, whenever she'd managed to find an adventurer who had braved the deserts and the mountains to reach the Outer Zone... and return alive to tell the tale.
Soon, the news had grown darker. The fields had failed to yield a crop, and then the death of the youngest Gale princess. It was said she'd been named after the dynastic queen Dorothy herself, the little slipper who'd fallen onto the throne of the O.Z. as clumsily as a scarecrow would tumble to the ground. She'd brought a great treasure, and a greater curse, to her descendants than she ever could have known. The Emerald of the Eclipse, a stone with the power to bring light or dark.
The tidings of struggle and hardship continued to pour out of the O.Z., brought along by the wave of refugees fleeing the country and the famine. Very few made it across the border when Azkadellia's regime began their takeover. Once the young princess had seated herself on the throne, the news coming out of the Zone had ceased altogether - until the day of the double eclipse.
Catticalisa hadn't wasted a moment in returning to the O.Z. To gather the remains of Azkadellia's broken army and turn them to her cause was simple ingenuity on her part. To hide them in the Black Forest, a place that darkened the nightmares of the Zone, feared because of fairy stories, was inspired.
Everything had lined up perfectly; her spies had almost infiltrated the Central residence of the royal family, the Emerald of the Eclipse was reported safely restored to its resting place, and the weaker sister ascended the throne. With the men and weapons an alliance with the Outlander and his hordes could have supplied, she would be set to overtake the fledgling queen.
That is to say, once she'd captured the youngest princess, of course. But things had taken a wrong turn somewhere along her road; the Outlander had taken an annoyingly neutral stance on behalf of the Gales, and her book had finally come up against a spell it couldn't see through. Princess DG remained hidden to her, and the location of the tomb in which the Emerald was sealed continued to elude her men.
The mystery of why the princess had been wandering through the western mountains still held her baffled; she'd literally had DG walk right into her, and still the brat had gotten away, aided by her ever faithful Tin Man - and the Commander. She'd lost more than one man on that day, and vowed that with the royal army of the O.Z. at her disposal (soon enough, of course, soon enough...) she'd deal with the race of Outlanders cruelly and swiftly.
All in good time.
To gain the throne of the O.Z., a fork in the road lay before her. To overpower Azkadellia in battle would require the Emerald, a great channelling force. To take DG had been her intention all along, to make the girl's body hers, and all that the girl possessed.
But then out of the blue, a motley crew stumbled into her camp. A bound and oddly supplicant princess was presented as a gift by the very boy who had escaped her, and destroyed her first attempt at seizing the throne before the fortuitous arrival of Dorothy Gale.
Catt's first instinct had been to kill the boy outright, have one of her men shoot him where he stood.
Instead, more intrigue. The boy had wanted a trade. Freedom from the prison she'd constructed in exchange for the princess he'd thrown at her feet. Release him, and gain her access to the throne of the O.Z.
And just like that, Catt had found everything turned upside down, and in her favour! Two princesses, instead of no princesses... after a bit of a spell, of course.
The truth of the matter was that once she'd had the smug little brat back in her presence, she wasn't about to let him go again. Transforming the illusion spell that she'd constructed around the princess all those annuals ago, making the boy Tory disappear in a flash of light had drained Catt more than she cared to admit to her generals.
The exhaustion was worth it, however, to watch the boy writhe in pain before her. The change had been spectacular. The girl had come out of the throe barely conscious. To see the similarities between Pastor's daughter and the Gale princess was more than seeing past the wide eyes and pretty lips. Full of spark and fire, both girls were driven by guts and heart, thought always coming after action.
There was a decision to be made; one girl would live and become a vessel for the Lady's admittedly selfish purposes, and the other would die.
She'd had the girl imprisoned with the others. Pastor's daughter would keep until morning. All three fools would; the witch would deal with Zero in good time. Her priority was the girls.
She was reclining on a chaise lounge, weighing her pros and cons, when her generals stormed into her tent without announcement. Catt put her hands on her head, trying to stop its mighty spinning. “What is it?” she demanded, her eyes piercing into each of their tense faces in turn.
“There is increased activity from the royal army,” Cole said. “Reinforcements have arrived at the South camp from Morrow. It's rumoured Azkadellia herself has joined the generals. A strike is expected, my lady.”
“Impossible!” Catt snarled. She flew to the cabinet and pulled out her book. It was heavy in her arms as she held it angled against her body. She flipped through a number of pages before stopping and saying clearly, “Show me Azkadellia, Queen of the Outer Zone.”
A frame of brambles broke out around the page before the image swirled into focus. The picture was almost too dark to see, Azkadellia in council with her northern general. “Lieutenant Cain,” Catt ordered, snapping her fingers. Jeb Cain stepped up to her side, glancing over her shoulder to the page, knowing his purpose.
“General Peter Andrus,” he supplied. “Leader of the Northern Guild. Her Majesty's first and foremost military advisor. Also -”
Catt cut him off with an impatient wave of her hand. “Enough, enough,” she muttered. “Where is the camp located?”
Jeb hesitated. “Colibri Fields, my lady.”
She glanced down at her book. “Well then, get a move on! Colibri Fields, show me now!”
The image of the book cast a pale glow on the Lady's face as the light of dozens of camp-fires suddenly appeared. Her eyes grew wide at the magnitude of an army that had only days before been a grouping of scared, scattered ants attempting to hide under a rock.
“Have our troops ready for an assault,” she said, her eyes darting back and forth over the picture that spanned two pages of her magic book. Everything was moving ahead and yet she was falling behind. Morning would be too late; she was going to have to hurry along her plans.
***
DG was stuck. Again.
Finding a way out had seemed too easy. Of course, it wasn't at all simple, life rarely was. This seemed to hold especially true of the O.Z. Maybe it was just because she'd never been held prisoner or had her life seriously threatened on the Other Side, but one thing was for certain. DG hadn't enjoyed her quiet, uneventful life in Kansas enough.
Grass, greener, got it, she thought unhappily.
The doors wouldn't unlock, not even with magic. She'd tried and tried until she singed her fingertips. The muttered swearing from the next cell told her Zee was having similar luck.
She imagined turning herself into a tiny mouse to scurry under the door, or a sparrow to fit between the window bars. The thought of changing into a bird had the automatic effect of making her think about Hass. She hadn't seen him with her own eyes since before she'd crossed the shield. Maybe that was the point, that he was keeping a close eye on her without being detected. Maybe it had gotten too hot and he'd turned back. Maybe he'd been captured...
“I don't hear you kicking the door in frustration,” Zee called out. “And I don't hear you crowing in victory. What are you doing over there?”
DG swallowed back a sarcastic remark about a tea party on the ceiling. There was no point in giving the door another go. She wondered if somehow the metal used in the lock was impervious to magic, similarly to the rusted out cells that honeycombed through the Sorceress' tower in the West.
Or maybe everything had her so frazzled she couldn't have spun a doll if her life depended on it.
DG conjured a light companion in the palm of her hand, just to prove to herself that her magic was indeed working. Before she could banish the tiny wisp, it jetted off through the gap in the wall into the next cell.
“Is this your escape plan?” Zee asked. “It might blind the guards but it isn't going to unlock the doors.”
DG rolled her eyes. “Just testing something.”
A painful jolt shot through her body; Zee had forcefully broken her connection with the wisp as she'd banished it with her own magic. “Ow,” DG said pointedly. Growing steadily more despondent, she went to the barred window and looked out into the empty corridor. She watched the stairs for movement, listened for any of the mundane sounds she normally wouldn't pay attention to.
She wasn't going to give up. She didn't want to wait silently for them to fetch her; she didn't want to be locked away when Catticalisa finally decided who to keep and who to kill.
DG stormed away from the door, hating it down to the very grain, so much so that she was sure she could obliterate it with her magic, even half-focused. It wasn't the stealthiest plan, nor the most effective. And so she sighed, and tried the knob again with a steady flow of her Light. She tried to picture the tumblers inside sliding into perfect position. It wasn't for nothing - there was definite clunking inside the lock, but the door stayed latched.
She began to wish Tutor had spent more time with her on silly little parlour tricks. Summoning a ball of light was pointless; learning to pick a lock with her power, while not befitting of a princess, would have come in damn useful.
Cain and Az were coming... coming to do what, though? Could Az use her magic to bring down the shield? Would Cain try to infiltrate the camp as he'd down at the Sorceress' Tower a year before? Cain, alive, she'd been so happy then. She'd be happier now to see him, and her sister... though at the moment she'd be just as happy to see Zero, if it meant he were there to help her, as she was hopelessly stuck.
“What do we do?” Zee asked her,voice echoing from a room away. It was hard to read the emotion in the voice as it bounced its way to DG, but she thought she was beginning to hear despair, fear, and that wouldn't do at all.
DG opened her mouth to speak, but as she did, a series of dull noises sounded from the corridor outside. Approaching the window quickly but cautiously, she saw a large, dark shape spill out of the stairwell and hit the wall opposite. In the weak and wavering light, she made out the lump's shoulders and broad back before a new stain began to ooze its way across the floor, spreading slowly. She caught her breath in her lungs and kept it there as her stomach began to churn, but even that was stopped cold as the scrape of hard-soled boots skipping lightly down the stone stairs reached her ears.
The torches did little to illuminate the face of the person that came down the steps; DG pressed herself up against the wall next to the door, but kept the intruder in her sights. He bent over the body on the floor and turned the newly-dead guard over onto his back. The intruder went to work quickly over the body, removing the gun and keys from the corpse's belt.
DG's heart began to race a little as the intruder stood straight. He was lean and long of leg; she wanted to stay perfectly still but as the light caught the blonde in the intruder's hair, she couldn't stop herself from crying out.
“Jeb!”
He ran the rest of the way down the corridor and began to try keys on the door. “We need to get you out of here,” he said; he was out of breath, and this close, DG could see that he was extremely pale. There was a slight shake to his hand that belied the conviction of his tone as he fought to find the right key. “Where is my father?”
“I don't know, exactly,” she said, her hands tapping against the door impatiently. “With my sister, if we're lucky.”
The sound of the key sliding into place and the lock turning over was music to her ears. She jumped back as he shoved the door open; she didn't care how pressed for time they were, or how much danger they were in, she stole a hug from him and caught him off-guard. He grunted, and raised a disapproving eyebrow at her as she pulled away.
“Let's get you out of the Forest,” he said, and tried to take her hand.
“What? No,” she said firmly; before he could react she snatched the keys away. She lucked out on the third try and yanked open Zee's door. To come face to face in the flesh with the girl she'd been seeing in mirror visions wasn't as odd an experience as she would of thought; instead, she found herself pettily noticing that Zee was a few inches taller than she was.
“We have to get to the temple,” Zee said, grabbing DG's hand and dragging her along. Jeb followed quickly, but when DG looked back at him, she knew he didn't understand what he was doing or why he was doing it. The corners of his mouth were twitching downward impatiently; oh, she knew that look.
“How exactly are you planning on getting to the temple?” he asked. “And Gods, why? There's a hundred 'Coats between us and there.”
“You're not afraid, are you?” Zee challenged him.
Jeb's eyes narrowed. “A little concerned as to bringing someone back to the queen alive,” he said evenly, and his eyes darted to DG. “That concern doesn't stretch to you. From what I understand, you're the reason the princess is here in the first place.”
“You're not on duty at in Central City, so you want to quit it with the 'princess' stuff?” DG whispered. There was no sand, there was no hourglass, but she could feel her time running out. She left them behind, breaking into a run. It wasn't until she'd skirted the dead guard and gone past the stairwell that Jeb hissed her name and he and Zee were running after her.
They didn't catch her until she was fumbling with the keys again. Her legs carried her past door after door, each slightly ajar, cells empty. He was waiting for her; all the commotion in the corridor had brought his attention. “Why am I not surprised you managed to find your way out of another locked room?” Zero asked, grinning easily at her as he leaned on the door with his arms outstretched in front of him. “You hear to let me out, Darlin', or to gloat?”
She didn't hesitate to begin finding the right key. Jeb caught up to her, Zee half a step behind. A smile crept up on Zee's lips as she realized what DG was doing. She gave a quiet nod as DG found the right key and unlocked the door to Zero's cell.
“There, now you owe me. Don't expect me to come collecting, but don't ever forget it,” DG said simply, as if she'd done nothing for him at all. “Take your wife, and go back to the Commander.”
***
As he glanced up at the solid wall of magic, Wyatt Cain figured he'd never seen anything quite so intimidating in his life. Up and up into the trees, the insubstantial glimmer of the shield winked at him incessantly. There was no way over, no way around, no way through.
To his right, Raw gave a quiet whimper; the presence of so much magic couldn't be doing anything obliging to the Viewer's senses. To his left, Glitch crouched down in the ground-cover, fingers running over the soil as he muttered to himself. Cain was able to catch every second or third word, but wasn't able to tie the syllables he caught into any type of coherence. Glitch, however, seemed to know what he was doing, and Cain left him to it.
“That patched up brain of yours workin' hard?” Cain asked low. They'd yet to see any of the Lady's soldiers but it was only a matter of time. There were a few hours of walking between them and Shadow's Passage, according to the maps drawn by Sgt. Travers. The gatehouse was fortified, and protected by the shield.
“Insects fly unharmed. Birds, too,” Raw offered. “Magic harms people.”
Cain grimaced, and looked away from the shield. The corporal would have been of good use just now.
“First sun is gonna be up soon,” he said, aching inside for a wide open sky, to be rid of the cursed, suffocating dark of the Forest. The quiet, forgotten stillness of the place forced him to memories he'd rather not remember, places he'd exposed DG to when he'd allowed her to weave her spell to hide him from the witch.
The biggest barrier he'd ever encountered was before him, keeping from him the few things that were still dear to his heart. His son, the princess. There was a life of peace waiting for him somewhere beyond all this, in a future that didn't seem so certain any more. If they all came out of this alive and whole, he'd be tying the both of them up and forcing them to enjoy that quiet life with him, damn it.
“It could take days to locate a tunnel that runs close to the camp,” Glitch said.
Cain clenched his jaw ever so slightly; he'd thought of that. “Then the gatehouse.”
“Folly.” Glitch shook his head.
“Maybe not, just hear me out,” Cain said, suppressing a sigh. “You made a couple of guesses about what the kid was up to. Why not set store by that fine example and do the same.”
Glitch's argument was ready. “We'll most certainly be outnumbered.”
“We're both armed, we can handle a detail of 'Coats,” Cain said. He found himself relieved it was dark, as the small grin that crept up on his lips would have been impossible to shut away. “Unless all the palace livin' in the last annual has you outta shape; I recall you takin' on a good number of men by your lonesome on more than one -”
There was an indignant snort from Glitch, and an affectionate chuckle from Raw. Then silence.
Finally... “They'd have to disengage a section of the shield to deal with us. We may not be executed outright. If the witch has DG, she'll be wondering where you are, Cain. She'll be itching to get her hands on you.”
“Best not keep a lady waitin'.”
“You sound very confident that we won't all be shot and killed,” Glitch said as he stood. He brushed off his pants as the others joined him on their feet.
“You see this goin' down in flames?” Cain asked Raw, as he double-checked his ammunition. It was an old habit, and one that wasn't dying easily. He'd been up in the mountains the last time he'd used his gun.
“No flames,” Raw said. “Not for us. Blood, not flames.”
“That's reassuring,” Glitch mumbled weakly.
“Let's not go makin' a racket,” Cain said, as he turned them northerly to follow the shield.
“We can hardly have the element of surprise, Cain,” Glitch said, following behind him on oddly stealthy feet. For the moment they had no choice but to follow the roughly-cut path that wound its way around the shield.
Cain had no intention to take them out of plain sight; not any more. Let the Longcoats see them coming.
***
The past two days spent in the Forest could never have prepared DG for the sight of Deadwood Fall.
The grounds were almost completely open. The only structures were the sets of carved pillars that lined the brick road as it disappeared under the field of flowers, and the temple that dominated the rest of the clearing. The odd little red blossoms seemed to defy the natural laws she'd grown accustomed to on the Other Side; the flowers grew out of every crevice offered by the deteriorating temple. At first she'd thought she was seeing things, the flashes of red her brain's way of telling her she was finally cracking, but no...
“Poppies!” she whispered in awe. Jeb had brought them around the outskirts of the camp, and then down a long, winding section of the forgotten Brick Route that led away from the fires and tents of the Longcoats. “I've had dreams about poppies.”
“Yeah, that's fascinating,” Zee said dismissively. She was looking around appraisingly. “There are no guards out here.”
DG scanned the temple grounds, eyes skipping from the carpet of big-headed red flowers to the saplings that sprang up in the poppy beds. The entire place had an air of abandonment, but the lush growth and bursts of colour didn't seem to exist in the same world as the crumbling civilization behind which the Longcoats hid.
Zee was indeed right. There was no one in sight. The temple was completely unguarded.
“Where is everyone?” DG wondered aloud as she looked down. The poppies had stopped growing abruptly a few inches from where she stood; if she took a couple of steps, she'd have her ankles engulfed by the blossoms that somehow managed to grow from the cracks between the unevenly laid bricks. She bent down to pluck a poppy, breaking the weak stem. She studied it in her hands as it shrivelled and turned as black as the forest around her. She dropped it as it began to smoke; the entire thing had gone up in a puff before it hit the ground.
“The Lady has called her men to prepare for the inevitable attack from the royal army,” Jeb said, and waded into the flowers. He reached out for DG's hand, and she took it without hesitation. “I dare say Az knows you're here?”
“Oh, probably,” she said without commitment. Jeb glanced back at her and rolled his eyes at her. “What? I sent to Az for help. I didn't think she'd bring an entire army with her.” Bricks under her feet and flowers about her ankles, she followed after Jeb carefully, trying to trample as little as possible.
“You told the witch you sent your Tin Man to the generals,” Zee piped up from behind her.
“You're not really one to be making points about honesty,” DG snapped. She resisted an urge to stop and turn on the girl, have this out right then and now. “Since your plan was such a spectacular success, I'm now making this up as I go along.”
“I hadn't noticed,” Zee laughed sarcastically. “And at least I got us here!”
“Would Your Highnesses please respectfully shut the hell up?” Jeb interjected. He led them under a pair of broken stone pillars. An arch had once spanned between the columns, but it had long ago fallen. DG's gaze continued upward, to the solid ceiling created by the tangled branches of the behemoth trees. How did the flowers grow without sunslight?
This place is magic, genius, her mind replied derisively. Don't you remember, it's here that your light will shine its brightest, and blah dee blah?
It's certainly dark enough, was her conclusion, followed by a shudder.
Jeb brought them all to a halt. The temple doors were carved with the angular symbols of the Ancients.
DG stepped up past Jeb, and stared at this hopeless new obstacle. The doors were sealed tight. She looked for a single symbol she recognised, but came up empty-handed. Zee sidled up to her, tilting her head back to take in the grand and intimidating sight of the temple.
“So...” DG ventured. “Speak 'friend' and enter, do you think?”
Zee gave her an indulgent grin. “I doubt it,” she said. “This place is magic, it will understand and respond to magic. Hopefully favourably.”
Jeb snorted. “Hopefully?”
“You can't make this stuff up,” DG said, and took Zee by the hand. She didn't need to be told how this kind of thing would work. If it wasn't instinctual, it wasn't at all. She could pretend all she wanted that she was ready, that she was old hat at this, and not scared out of her wits.
All it took was a faint glow from each upraised hand for the doors to slide open. Jeb made a wordless sound of appreciation before stepping around the two girls and entering the temple with his gun raised. DG followed directly behind him, something she knew Wyatt would disapprove of. She felt safe, and everyone else be damned, she'd always gone on that impulse.
Her first breath inside the temple, DG knew she was in a place like none other she'd ever encountered. The air in her lungs and touching her skin, surrounding her completely was so charged with magic, she could feel its physical presence inside her body. Zee seemed to have been affected similarly, as the girl took a few deep breaths and swayed on her feet a little, all of it going straight to her head.
“We need to do this quick,” DG decided. She looked around, something inside goading her to do this, and do it fast. Most of the floor was stone, but for the aisle that went straight up the center of the temple. It was made to complete the road that stopped at the door; the aisle was a path set in the floor paved with bricks of pure gold. DG summoned a wisp, and then a second, and a third. One stayed with her while the other two dashed forward to illuminate the altar that stood upon a dais at the far-end. Everything in the temple but for the brick path was unadorned and made from old stone.
“What do you intend to do, exactly?” Jeb asked her.
DG didn't answer him, only followed her feet up the golden path to the altar. She pulled the Emerald from her pocket before kneeling on the dais. She thought long and hard on the generations of women in her family who had kept the country and the stone safe; how all that had come unravelled through her decision to turn tail and run as a child.
The Emerald was the last connection to the past. Her family could break free of this.
She gave the stone a kiss for good luck. “Emerald of the Eclipse,” she whispered, standing and stepping up to place the stone upon the altar. She thought of Dorothy Gale, and the past she'd glimpsed at in her dreams, the stone marking a Gale as its guardian. She thought of Azkadellia and the stone atop the Tower the day of the Eclipse. Darkness had almost come to the O.Z., and yet the sisters were able to bring the light back to the country.
The stone had fulfilled its purpose. It was no longer needed, and it couldn't remain.
DG shut her eyes tight, forgetting the others standing behind her near the entrance. She forgot the grey temple world around her, the forest outside, and every corner of the country beyond that.
Please, was her only prayer as she cupped both her hands over the stone. She bit the inside of her lip to force her focus to stay on the stone instead of letting the flood of memories washing over her pull her away.
The warmth of the Emerald began to pulse outward in waves, growing hotter and hotter. She felt no pain from the heat, though her hands started to shake as a sudden burst underneath her palms threatened to break her hold over the stone. Her eyes popped open and grew wider still as she stared at the green light seeping out through the cracks between her fingers.
There was another surge from the stone; she was digging her teeth into her lip outright now as she struggled to keep her hands in their exact position. A third rush of power from the Emerald sent pain shooting through her hands. She cried out and forced her hands flat over the stone. The surface of the stone itself was hot to the touch, and the moment her hands came into contact with it, she felt her own Light pour out of her skin, unbidden and out of her control.
Hold on, keep it grounded... hold on, keep it grounded.
The drain was immediate. When finally - oh God, finally - the spell ended, she fell to her knees before the altar, her hands shooting out and barely stopping her head from hitting the edge of it.
Jeb and Zee rushed forward. “What did you just do, DG?” Jeb asked incredulously as he helped her to her feet. She tried her best not to list against him, but her knees didn't seem to agree with her at that moment.
“I don't know exactly. Did it work?”
Jeb shrugged his shoulders as Zee leaned over the altar to peer at the Emerald. “I don't think so.”
“Are you sure?” Jeb asked.
DG felt her resolve crack, just the tiniest bit. She pushed against Jeb to face the altar, only to see the light of the stone flickering dimly. Something still contained deep within.
Zee rolled her eyes at Jeb. “Try to pick it up.”
The rules about passing the Emerald were tricky and volatile. “Don't,” DG muttered - too quietly, it seemed, as Jeb mounted the dais in a single easy step. He reached for it, baulking for a fraction of a second, only to have his hand repelled by a spark of green and the sound of an electric surge. Jeb swore violently, retracting his arm to cradle his hand against his chest.
Zee giggled. “Silly boy.”
“Enough already,” DG said. She picked up the Emerald, a snatch as quick as lightning, and held it up close. Underneath the stone's smooth surface, a pinprick of light glowed dimly on. Her eyes slid shut. She clenched her hand around the stone, and then just stood, because she didn't know what else to do.
The sound of tearing material pulled her out of her daze; when her eyes landed on Jeb, she saw him tying a piece of cloth around his injured hand. “We can't linger here,” he told DG. “The suns are coming up, they're going to notice us all missing and be on full alert. We have to get out of here before that happens. We can make it to your sister by -”
DG shook her head. “No, I have to -”
“You have to what? Die trying?”
She swallowed hard, and her gaze swung to Zee, who in turn stared at her feet. “We aren't going to die,” DG said resolutely. “We're too stubborn for that, remember?”
Jeb clenched his jaw hard and looked away from her; Zee grinned brightly. Watching her, DG realized they really didn't look that much alike. It was always that first glance that caught her off-guard.
“What do we do, then?” Jeb asked, a fighter of the Resistance waiting for his orders from she whom he followed.
DG pocketed the stone. It had grown cold, and there wasn't the faintest shiver of magic pulsing from it. But still, the light shone from within. “We have to deal with Catt. I need the book.”
Jeb shook his head slowly, sadly. It was a gesture of inevitable defeat. When he raised his head, he refused to meet her eyes. “Let's go then, before the whole camp knows you're missing.”
Author's Note: Look forward to a reunion soon, I swear on the ruby slippers.
Table Of Contents:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20
21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 - 28 - 29 - 30
31 - 32 - 33 - 34 - 35 - 36 - 37 - 38 - 39 - 40
41 - 42 - 43 - 44 - 45 - 46 - 47 - 48