Smoke and Mirrors (40)

Forty

The Elven Village

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We never reached the duke’s house that day.

—Not because anything bad happened, I just wouldn’t stop fussing about being hungry, and if Sterling was a little less prideful, he likely would have also admitted that he was getting tired of walking.

We set up camp in a small clearing of the forest, where a tiny, almost miniscule patch of stars could be seen. It was scary how tall the trees were getting, but until that point, I hadn’t seen enough space in them to tell how high they went. But now that I'd seen them, they were at least twice as tall as most skyscrapers I’d seen on the Otherside.

Sterling reached into his familiar old mirror puddle. Most of the times he brought it out now were to reach inside for food or water, so that had partially diminished my fear of getting strangled by them. At least for this part of the trip anyway.

“Here.” He handed me a roll of some kind of bread. “It’s high in energy, so this should help fix anything that fire wall of yours depleted.”

“Oh—thanks.” I took the rolled up food. It almost looked like a thicker version of a tortilla, but the inside tasted like cheese, meat, and some kind of sauce. I finished the whole thing in three bites.

Sterling had just begun eating his, but didn’t comment when he saw that mine was gone. Wordlessly, he handed me another from the mirror puddle.

I ate seven of these things. The only thing that stopped me from eating more was my fear of running out of food for tomorrow.

Sterling never said anything, which I was grateful for. I genuinely was starving, and after creating that much fire, the hunger only gnawed at me worse. But now I was extremely thirsty. My skin, my mouth, everything felt very dry.

“Don’t worry, I brought water too,” he said, as if reading my mind. He reached into the mirror puddle again and pulled out several glass bottles, then handed one to me.

I grinned and quickly opened mine. I downed about half the bottle before stopping to breathe. “Thanks, I really needed that.” I screwed the lid back on and licked my lips.

His eyes were wide as he watched me, then he slowly looked back at his tortilla wrap thing and wordlessly took a bite.

We slept there that night, but our sleep was interrupted when rain began pouring down from above.

“It rains a lot here!” Sterling shouted over the sound of pouring rain. He raised his palms and shot out a shield of mirror against the rain.

I used my own talent to manipulate the rain away from me, so for a while, we would be fine.

“Will we flood?!” I asked, grimacing as the hem of my pants began to stain with mud.

“Good point. Let’s get to higher ground!”

We continued trekking through the rain for a while as the water poured around us. An hour passed and it still rained. Our clothes were wet—especially Sterling’s—and we were tired, but we kept going.

“If you can,” Sterling began, his voice loud, “take out the map without getting it wet and find out where we are!”

I hovered my hand over my pocket and forced the water to stay away from my hand and the map as I withdrew it. I unfolded it and scanned the pathway we were headed on. “The duke’s house should be another hour away!”

He cursed. Water clung strands of his hair to his face like black ink. “Let’s hurry! We’re in a low area. We’ll be trapped if the water gets too high!”

We picked up our speed. My shoes slipped in the mud and at one point, Sterling had to help pull me out. There goes my favorite converse. . .

At some point, I began seeing dangling homes woven from vines in the shapes of giant tear drops. Rope ladders and pulleys connected the homes, as well as swings. As rain continued to fall mercilessly from the giant tree leaves above us, water began rushing in and pooling around our feet.

“Start climbing!” Sterling commanded.

I looked at him in horror. “I have zero upper-body strength!”

He rolled his eyes and lifted a hand towards a tree branch that hovered hundreds of feet above our heads. One of his gel-like mirror tentacles wrapped around it, then slipped around my waist and legs and began lifting me towards the tree. I screamed at first, clenching my eyes shut as my heart raced wildly in my chest. After a while I stopped and opened one eye. The forest floor looked so far away—if he wanted to, this could be the end of everything for me. All of his problems would be gone if he dropped me. He could figure out another way to find that silly old unicorn horn without me.

He flicked a hand, which was incredibly small from my distance, and suddenly the mirror strand swerved to lift me onto one of the vine bridges connecting to the houses. I let out a cry as the mirror tentacle unceremoniously dumped me and the vines began to sway viciously under the sudden impact.

Suddenly, he turned his head. I followed his gaze to see a rolling wave of water tearing through the forest floor, carrying away small trees and shrubs. Sterling would drown if he didn’t make it out in time.

He threw his hands out again and his mirror ropes began carrying him up as well, but it was too slow. The water was coming and if he wasn’t careful, it would carry him away.

I quickly rose to my knees and forced every bit of my focus into the water barreling towards him. I tried to block out the falling rain, the blood in my veins, the giant leaves holding water above and beneath me, the water stored up in the crevices of this vine bridge. I tried to block it all and only control what was headed straight for Sterling.

I felt pressure there, moving and tumbling as it drew closer, then shoved against the pressure. The water slowed, but wasn’t stopping. Soon, it had enveloped Sterling’s feet, which were still dangling off the ground.

He shot off another strand of mirror and wrapped it around the tree itself, then started pulling himself up even quicker than before. I looked back and realised that even more water was coming. I tried my best to slow it, but my muscles were shaking and my heart was pounding from exhaustion.

Then Sterling was here, pulling himself onto the bridge with me.

We gasped in relief and watched the water crash and pour across the ground, carrying away bits of tree debris. I clung to the side of the vine bridge with wide eyes as cold water poured down my skin seeped into my clothes now that I was no longer keeping it off of me.

Sterling sucked in another breath, We were both winded. “Thank you.” He turned away from the scene playing out before us and stared into my eyes. “I wouldn’t have made it if you hadn’t slowed the water.”

I waved a hand at him, my chest heaving as I gasped for air. “Hey, you—you got me up here. There’s no way I could have done that.” I rolled over and leaned my back against the weaved vines.

He rolled over as well and sagged against the side of the bridge, tilting his head back and letting the rain fall on his face. Neither of us worried about staying dry now.

We fell asleep like that.

I awoke to some kid’s finger poking my cheek.

“I don’t know, I think she’s drownded,” whispered the kid.

I blinked slowly and realised that I was staring right into Sterling’s neck. My head was leaning on his shoulder and his head was craned over the top of my head. And we smelled like sweat and clothes that were left in the washing machine for too long.

It took me a moment to realize what was going on. At first I just felt confused, but the moment I realised that, yes, that was indeed Sterling’s neck, I jumped away and fell over, which made me notice how horribly my back, neck, and muscles ached.

Sterling fell over on top of me when I jerked away, then quickly sat up with a grunt.

Then came the giggles of the kids watching us.

I blinked and rubbed my eyes, trying to adjust to the light flooding through the patches of leaves. It wasn’t sunlight I was seeing, but pale blue, glowing light that seemed to radiate off of certain tree leaves.

Three children stood over us, whispering to each other and smiling. All of them were obviously elven with their long ears, and had light blue skin with purplish undertones and teal, glowing, transparent hair.

“We fell asleep,” Sterling said groggily.

I hummed. “Guess this is our payment for sleeping on public roads.” I smiled at the kids, then looked around and realised that none of the adults seemed to be around. Unless. . . “Wait, are these the adult elves?” I whispered to Sterling.

He chuckled. Actually chuckled! “No. These are kids. They wake up sooner than the adults. Don’t they wake up earlier on the Otherside too?” He looked at me curiously.

I nodded. “Oh, yeah. I was just making sure. It’s funny how kids wake up so much sooner than adults, isn’t it?”

He sighed. “That’s their excitement for life waking up. Adults lose that as they age.”

I blinked at him, stunned. “Wow, that’s actually tragically poetic.”

He snorted and drew his knees up to his chest. “It’s not meant to be.” He yawned and stretched his arms, then stopped and scrunched up his face. “We smell awful.”

I nodded, my expression mirroring his. “Yep. I don’t suppose they have showers here, do they?”

He blinked at me in confusion. “Another shower? We just went through a huge one.”

I laughed. “A bath, I mean. I forget you haven’t seen a shower.”

“I’ve seen them in movies the fairies bring. I forgot they’re a thing where you’re from.”

I perked up at that. “Wait, the fairies have movies?”

He nodded. “They—”

“Excuse me, Mister. What section are you from?” asked one little girl in front of us. She scratched her long, pointy ears, then nervously pulled them down around her face like hair.

Sterling smiled. “Soryn. The Reflection kingdom. I’m not from any of Wystilor’s tribes.”

She let go of one of her ears and it sprang up again, jutting out past her head. “Oh.”

“Are your parents awake yet?” I asked, smiling.

One little boy nodded, his round stomach sticking out in the leather shirt he wore. “Yeah. Why?”

I shrugged and looked at Sterling. “What’s the plan?”

He yawned again and drugged a hand down his face. “Let’s check the map. We should be close to the duke’s house. We can bathe and change there.”

I nodded and stood slowly, easing out the kinks and aches in my joints. Sleeping on a vine bridge hundreds of feet in the air wasn’t as lovely as it sounded.