Page 65 of Where We Belong

He could, actually. But I shake my head, heart racing with nerves. Taking responsibility is a new feeling, fragile at best. But I’ve made a decision, and I’m trying to stick with it. I’m going to the land of knowledge to find out what this ritual entails. If it will kill me and how I might get around that. Then, I’m going to find out how to free Eira from the shackles of my awful brother.

My uncle clasps his hands behind his back. “Very well.” On impulse, I hug him. He freezes for half a second before wrapping his arms around me, chuckling. “You are very much like your father, Ashley. You have made me miss him ever so much.” My throat tightens as Aiden fusses with the collar of his white ruffled shirt behind us, pretending not to watch. “I shall leave you.” He clears his throat, giving my shoulder a squeeze, then, with one last look at Aiden, he climbs back into his carriage. Just as it lifts away, something tumbles from one of the back doors and crashes onto the ground in front of us.

“Cook!” Eira cries, sprinting toward the crumpled heap that is our friend. I hurry over to help pull him up. As always, his toothy grin is instantly contagious. Relief floods through me, first, because he didn’t crack his head open. But also, we could also use every bit of lightness we can get amid the tangled mess of tension. Aiden and Eira, Aiden and Kaed, Aiden and me. Maybe Aiden’s mind magic is the gift of pissing people off.

“I heard you had some secret mission,” Cook says cheerfully, brushing grass from his clothes and tossing his brown hair from his forehead, “and I had some time off, so I thought I’d join in the fun.”

Kaed scratches the back of his head, looking irritated as hell. He’d send Cook straight back if he could, but his mother lives in Cinder Cliffs and we can’t exactly abandon her son outside his homeland.

“Are we ready?” Kaed asks sharply.

“Yes, Captain Never Laugh,” Cook replies, snapping into a dramatic salute before bumping Aiden with his shoulder. Aiden lets out a short breath and the world’s smallest smile. Kaed stares at Cook for a beat and runs his tongue over one of his canines, before rapping the iron door three times with the tip of his curved sword. The sound scuttles straight up my spine. I don’t even need to look at Aiden to know he’s rubbing his ear against his shoulder like he’s trying to scrub it off. At the third strike, the door swings open. On the other side, it’s dark. Frost clings to twisted branches and pale mist twirls around the trunks.

“We’re supposed to go in there?” I gasp, circling the door and peering around it. On this side, it’s still bright and warm, full of birdsong. Summer. Safety. “How does it even—”

“The quicker, the better,” Aiden strides straight through, hand in hand with Eira. Cook follows. Kaed turns to me and opens his palm. Without thinking, I slip my hand into his. It fits perfectly and I wonder how I ever faced anything without him before. Hazel eyes find mine and he asks softly, “Ready?”

“I was born ready.”

He lets out a quiet laugh. “Indeed.”

Cold bites into my bones as our breath turns into fog. It’s like walking into a nightmare. What was I thinking? That this would be easy? In a world with Creeds, Mer Armies, and truth monsters? Yeah, right.

Chapter 59

Ashley

Together we rise and grow and praise,

we storm and conquer the city,

Apparently, I nearly killed us all. The trees are, of course, enchanted, and you’re absolutely not allowed to touch them under any circumstances. I feel like that should’ve been in the briefing. There are only two types of trees in this hellhole: one is poisonous and the other is the antidote. As soon as a poisonous one is touched by someone who isn’t trained, they and everyone around them can get infected. Problem is, they all look exactly the same. The same pale lines running down the ebony bark, the same twisted branches and massive waxy leaves, all spaced at identical distances like someone stamped them across the forest. And, according to Aiden who can’t stop throwing out facts as we trudge along, all books in the land come from paper milled from these trees.

Kaed and Cook seem to know exactly where they’re going. They’ve both done this loads of times, so we trudge on in a surprisingly comfortable silence. I can’t imagine what Cinder Cliffs is like if this is the entrance, but they assure me it’s nice. After what feels like hours of dodging homicidal shrubbery, we finally reach a clearing. It’s a little brighter here, though I can’t work out where the light is coming from because the branches knot together overhead.

Something is calling me toward the centre of the clearing, and glancing around, I’m not the only one. Cook looks downright delighted and saunters ahead of us towards a wide puddle. Perfectly still. He shimmies off his backpack. “Oh, this is a good one.” Kaed did try to brief me before we left, but there wasn’t much he could say. Just that there are trials we must pass to enter Cinder, illusions that change all the time, so no one ever knows what’s coming or how many there will be. There’s an enchantment on the forest that doesn’t let people talk about the trials once they leave. I tried to push him, to see what would happen, but his tongue kept getting stuck behind his teeth every time he tried to explain. I asked him to write it down instead, but the pen flew from his hand.

Cook taps his lips with his finger, pacing around the puddle, looking into it and muttering under his breath. Kaed glances down, then looks up at me and down at the puddle again.

“You have to choose,” Cook says animatedly. “But it’s tricky. Very tricky indeed. You must make the right choice.”

“Or what?” Eira asks.

“Or we lose,” Cook mutters, shaking his head. “It’s not as straightforward as follow your heart, your instinct. It’s about what you know.” He taps his temple. Eira gulps. It’s always nice knowing I’m not the only one who’s scared. Still, that isn’t why I came. No cowering. No hiding. No running. I don’t want to look into the water at all. But I do. Hand in hand with Eira.

I peer down, and it’s like staring through a murky window into another world. I take a small step forward. One minute I’m standing in the clearing, the next I’m there. Sweat beads along my brow. Violent lava churns across the ground. In the centre rises a tower of cracked stone. Kaed is clinging to the very top of it. Barely. He looks exactly like he did in the cells. That smell consumes me: iron, magic, wards, and vomit. He’s broken, bloody, and bruised. Chunks of brick crumble beneath his boots, tumbling into the molten river below as he scrambles desperately. His fingers slip. There is no smoke coming from his back. No magic in his veins. No strength in his body. He’s human somehow. And if he falls, he will die.

I’m standing at the top of the tower, close enough to save him. I can pull him up and my hands are already reaching for him, but something yanks me sideways, dragging my body toward the other edge of the tower. A thick iron chain groans as it lowers slowly into the lava below. People are clinging to it. So many people. They scramble over one another, desperate to climb higher as the molten river rises up to swallow them. The chain is hooked to a massive pulley, lowering them inch by inch. And when they look up at me, every single face is mine. My green eyes. My freckles. My burns. It’s me. Me as a child. As a teenager. Me high. Me drunk. Me scared. Begging for help. The choice twists inside my chest. Them, us, or Kaed. One or many? Me or him? My heart pounds so violently I can barely hear their screams anymore. The heat surges when the chain drops another inch. Panic rips through me and the world shatters, snapping me back into the forest clearing where Kaed paces in tight circles and Eira sits on the forest floor, biting her thumbnail. It must be Cook who pulled me back into myself.

“You can’t follow your heart here,” he says quietly. “You must use logic. Intellect. These woods read your poisons and push you to find the cure.”

“What’s he doing?” I whisper, finally catching my breath. Aiden strolls carefully between the trees in the distance, hands clasped behind his back like he’s birdwatching.

“Oh. He already passed,” Cook replies.

Of course he did. I tear my eyes from Aiden and rack my brain. Would I save Kaed over myself? I’d like to think I would, if it came down to it. The instinct for self-preservation is still there, but it’s transformed into something much quieter now. Something almost selfless. I’m here, aren’t I? In a poisonous jungle-forest, letting my mind be torn apart just to learn how to free my dad’s people. Free Eira. But would I save him over dozens of people about to die? Use what you know, Cook had said. What do I know? I know Kaed would want me to save myself. I know he would want me to save others before him. That’s who he is. I know him. I know our bond. My chest tightens. The bond. I know that to free them, to free myself, I must be bonded to him. And if I am bonded to him, protecting him will matter more than anything else. More than my own safety. So maybe choosing him isn’t selfish. Maybe it’s proof that I’m ready. To save everyone. To save myself. But how can I save anyone if I can’t save myself first?

I stare back into the puddle, knowing what I have to do. What I must face. Another step towards the puddle and I’m standing on the top of the tower again. Kaed roars to my left, the cries of the Ashley’s ringing out to my right. I run to the edge of the tower, close my eyes, and let myself get angry. Really fucking angry. The anger turns into magic and the magic turns black. It floods my heart, splits through my chest, and surges into my palms. Black flames and smoke explode from me, racing down the side of the tower, devouring the lava below. It vanishes, and the ground is swallowed in an inky inferno. The Ashleys release the chain and lower themselves into it. Kaed. I spin to the other side of the tower and find him. His panic-stricken face tilts up toward me, tears spilling from his hazel eyes, the dark tattooed lines on his cheeks disappearing into his rough beard. His neck scattered with deep, bright red cuts. He reaches for me, and our fingers brush. Then he slips.