Smoke and Mirrors (42)

Forty-Two

Army of the Banned

---

We were led to our room which—surprise, surprise—was meant for a married couple and not two separate people who didn’t want to sleep in the same bed if their lives depended on it.

“You’re sleeping on the floor this time, right?” I asked.

Sterling looked at me incredulously. “Of course not. I slept in the bathtub the last time we had to do this. You sleep on the floor.”

“Okay, but you’re the son of a mermaid. You probably like sleeping in bathtubs.”

“And you’re the daughter of the king of water. What about you?” His eyes challenged me to argue.

I sighed and uncrossed my arms. “Wanna flip me for the bed?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Like, flip a coin?”

“Yeah, duh. Want to?”

He seemed to think it over, then shrugged. “Alright, fine.” He pulled some kind of a silver coin out of his pocket. “This is the only one I have; it’s from Soryn.”

I nodded. “I call tails.”

“Tails?” He scrunched his eyebrows together. “We call the sides Roof and King. One side has the palace on it, and one side has my great, great, great—”

“Yeah, I get the picture. Fine, I call Roof.” I rolled my eyes.

He flipped the coin and it landed perfectly on its edge. As in, neither ‘roof’ nor ‘king’. “That’s the problem with these coins. They never land the way you want them to.” He picked it up.

I hummed. “Two out of three?”

He flipped it again, this time catching it in his hand. He beamed. “I get the bed.”

I jerked my head up. “Huh?! No fair! You caught it this time!”

He gave a smug twist of his lips and showed me the coin. “Unless you want to go whine to the duke or something, the coin says you get the floor.”

I groaned. “Fine.”

I slept on the floor near the door that night and used my own heat to stay warm. However, sometime during the night Sterling must have brought his pillow and blanket, because when I woke up, he didn’t have either, and I had both.

Maybe he really did have some shred of decency somewhere in that icy heart of his. I watched him sleep for a while, my brows knit in thought. I never would have pegged him as the kind of person to give up his personal comfort for someone he hated.

—Unless he doesn’t hate you, a thought whispered.

I grimaced and shoved the thought away as if it burned.

***

The duke’s army consisted of less than a hundred men, most of which were either fairly young and weak, or beginning to grow too old to fight. None of them looked particularly intimidating.

“How will we threaten anyone with this?” I whispered to Sterling.

His eyes slid to mine. A bird whispered in the background. “Illusions are one of the ways the people of Wystilor fight best. It’s all a mind game to them. These people may not look strong, but it’s their mental strength that’s important.”

We stood over the banister of the duke’s tree house and looked out over the men.

I sneezed suddenly and water shot out around us, but I quickly pulled the water back to myself before I lost it to the thirsty ground. The last thing I needed was to go into battle dehydrated.

The duke leaned close to a giant tree root that overshadowed him. He pressed his ear to it, then appeared to whisper. The root glowed for a moment, then returned to normal.

“What is the duke doing?” I asked.

Sterling looked down at him over the edge of the banister. “The elves practice a language that uses trees to carry messages from one person to another.”

“Woah, really? How?” My lips parted in awe.

He shrugged. “It’s just how the Maker made them, I guess.”

The duke straightened and walked up to the front of the army. “Prepare yourselves, men! We do not want unnecessary violence, so do not do anything to provoke the enemy. Wait for my signal. We want to retrieve the Fire prince and return home, understand?!”

“Aye, sir!” They saluted the duke with their fists balled and an extended pinky held out. It looked funny, but they seemed to take it very seriously.

My stomach flipped as reality hit me. This was the beginning of a battle—and if mom’s group didn’t give Adrian back to us, we were ready for war.

***

I shuddered as the darkness wrapped around us like a blanket. I’d thought other parts of the forest were dark, but nothing compared to this. The darkness dripped from leaves and clawed at my skin. I wasn’t sure if I was seeing real creatures, dancing shadows swaying away from my flames, or another hallucination.

Suddenly, a massive presence of water caught my attention. I dimmed my flames significantly and told everyone to stay quiet.

The biggest deer I’d ever seen in my life stepped out of the darkness just ahead.

Its hooves were the size of a house. The legs were huge and had to be taller than any skyscraper I’d ever seen. I had to crane my neck to see the rest of it, which disappeared in the massive canopy of giant leaves. It dropped its head down and I saw that the nose glowed a faint greenish-blue, which was definitely unlike any deer. Except maybe Rudolph. Huge antlers caught an enormous branch and snapped it easily from one of the trees. It plummeted to the earth with a loud crash that startled all of us. With the loss of that branch, the huge tree dropped three of its leaves, which were like large tarps that slowly floated down to rest over a large, barren expanse of land. The deer stepped on it, pounding it into the earth around the other leaves.

I stood frozen in shock at the size of this thing. I knew the trees had gotten bigger, but I had no idea how big or how tall until I realized that they continued to go far past this creature.

“Men, back up,” the duke hissed, waving the soldiers away.

All of us moved back.

I shivered as I felt the blood race through my veins.

The deer began to walk off, but I was still shaken after that.

We eventually found where it was rumored the hideout of the ‘rebellion’ was. We had no idea if there was a rebellion, or if we were even at the right rebellion if it was a rebellion, but we began exploring the area anyway.

One older soldier found a stick protruding from a smooth rock surface and tugged on it. The surface began to slide back into the rock with a scrape, revealing a secret passageway. Those of us watching gasped, then called the other soldiers over. “Look at this! A hidden entrance!” the soldier exclaimed.

Sterling and I glanced at each other from across the group of soldiers and nodded. We had agreed to go inside first and talk to the people before bringing the army to interfere.

I inhaled and waited for him to reach me by the cave’s entrance, then together, we walked down the stone steps that seemed to lead into an endless, black abyss. My burning fist was our only light and the flames licked at the stone walls.

“Be careful down there,” the duke warned.

I braced my arm against the side of the wall to keep myself from falling. It was jagged and rough beneath my touch, and crumbled like pieces of sand.

A year ago, if someone would have told me I was going to light one of my own hands on fire and descend into the black abyss of a cave on the hunt for my cousin I didn’t know I had with my husband who could shoot reflections out of his hands, I would have said they were absolutely right.

—Then I would have run and called the funny farm on them.

But somehow my brain didn’t question things anymore. Giant deer in a giant forest? Sure. An enormous rabbit with a transparent face? Why not? Seriously, nothing could surprise me anymore! I had the nerves of a battle-hardened Grecian warrior. There was nothing that—

Something bumped the top of my head and I screamed, clutching onto Sterling’s arm for protection. Not that he’d give it.

“Shh! It’s just part of the ceiling!” he hissed. “Do you want everyone to know we’re here?!”

I blinked up at him. “I thought that was eventually the plan?”

He sighed, but didn’t make me let his arm go, which I was grateful for. I wasn’t sure that my battle-hardened Grecian warrior nerves could handle it. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with first, then we’ll worry about talking to them.”

We didn’t have to wait too much longer because suddenly the stone stairway opened up to a large room that flickered with dancing firelight. Shadows were thrown ominously about the room, causing cracks and indentations in the rock walls to appear even deeper than they were.

I heard laughter. Sterling placed a finger over his lips, then closed his eyes and lowered his hand to the ground. A fine thread of reflection slipped out from one of his fingers and curved along the uneven ground like a snake. It slipped around the corner and disappeared out of my sight.

A moment later his eyes shot open and he was yanked forward. Since I was still clutching his arm, I went with him.

“What are you doing here?!” a voice asked. A voice I recognised so very well.

“Mom?” I pushed myself up from the floor and stood, dusting myself off.

She held onto Sterling’s mirror thread tightly. “Tessa, what are you doing here?! And with him?” She jerked her head towards Sterling, her dark hair swishing around her face. She’d cut it shorter since the last time I’d seen her. It floated around her ears like a picture frame.

Sterling stood and allowed his reflection in her hand to break and slip past her fingers, then called it back to him. It disappeared inside his own hand. “I could ask you the same question, madam.”

She dusted her hands off on her dress as if his reflection was filthy. “And yet I’m not the one intruding, am I?”

A man walked around the corner just then. “We having a problem here, Adara?”

She turned and twisted her lips into a grimace. “It seems our hideaway has been found.”

The man looked like a shadow elf. His dark, translucent skin wrinkled around his forehead as he frowned at us. “Is that so? Welcome then. Adara speaks much about you.” His eyes found mine and stared at them intently. As if he was searching them.

I shuddered as memories of the shadow elf I’d killed flooded my mind. I tried to push them away, but they didn’t want to budge.

“We’re here for a reason,” I croaked out. “I know you have Adrian.”

Mom’s eyes widened. “Adrian? Why, yes we do. He’s safe though, no harm has come to him. You know I’d never hurt my own nephew, don’t you?”

I shook my head. “Oh, no. I don’t doubt that! Well, until just now, I wasn’t even sure you had him. . .” I let my sentence trail off as a thousand conflicting thoughts ran through my head. “Look mom, the thing is. . .” I fidgeted with the hem of my shirt, intimidated now that I was standing in front of my own mother. “Well, Seraphina stole the unicorn horn that I and a lot of kids need to fix our powers. To get it from her, she wants Sterling and I to rescue Adrian.” I licked my chapped lips. “So, could you, maybe, hand him over?”

She smiled sadly. “We’re trying to get the horn back too, Tessa.” She waved to the man behind her. “That’s what our entire group was formed for. We realise what kind of chaos our worlds will be if we don’t get the horn back, but only she knows where it is. Her son is the only thing we could think of that would get her to listen to reason without hurting anyone.”

I furrowed my eyebrows. Hadn’t Seraphina said that this group—supposing we even had the right one—had been around for centuries? Then why would mom make it sound as if it was new?

—Unless Seraphina knew they were trying to get the horn from her and she wanted me to think they were bad, when actually. . .

Sterling shook his head. “So you kidnapped her son? That doesn’t exactly make you the good guys here. Adrian did nothing.”

She eyed him disdainfully. “You’re right—we’re not the good guys. But we’re not the bad guys either. We’re the sort that’s too light to be dark and too dark to be light. Our group here hovers in our own network, doing what we have to do to make the world a better place.” She frowned. “But then what would you know about making the world a better place when you’re following exactly in your father’s footsteps?”

Sterling clenched his fist and I noticed a muscle in his jaw clench. He didn’t say anything though, surprisingly.

I frowned at her. “Can I see Adrian?”

She turned to me and shook her head. I’m afraid not. Not after that escape stunt you pulled with Shi and Sterling. There’s no way I’m letting you around him.”

I opened my mouth to argue, then snapped it shut and dropped my head with a sigh. “Okay.” As much as I hated to admit it, what she was saying made sense. Kidnap one person to save the lives of millions? I likely would have done the same thing if I thought it would help.

After all, who was I to talk? I killed a man. Mom hadn’t done that.

Several other people walked out of the tunnel then, wearing masks that hid their identities and made them all look like faceless, wide-eyed ghosts.

Sterling turned to me, his eyes wide.

We were in danger.

“You see,” mom continued, walking closer, “Seraphina knows our terms. If she wants her son to be safe, she has the power to do so any time she pleases. All she has to do is give us the horn, and herself.”

I frowned and backed up a step, panic setting in as I realised the group of masked people was growing to be more and more as they emerged from the tunnel. “Herself?”

“Yes. She committed a crime when she stole that unicorn horn.” Mom tilted her head at me, her short hair flopping to the side. “You can join us, you know. You want to fix your Talent and the children’s Talent. We want the same thing.” She flicked her eyes to Sterling. “You don’t need him or a prophecy to dictate your life.”

My thoughts were being pulled in so many directions. Alarm bells were ringing, saying we needed to get out and get out now. My interest was piqued, wondering what kind of a life I could have if I joined my mother, ditched Sterling, fixed my Talent, and lived my life the way I wanted to.

Sterling was obviously listening to his own alarm bells, because he began backing away from them and tried taking me with him. But part of me wasn’t sure I wanted to go. My mom was the only person who really got me. Who really knew and loved me. My dad barely knew me, Sterling hated me. . .

If I stayed, I would be loved.

“Think it over,” mom said coolly. “We’d love to have you join us.”

“Tessa, come on,” Sterling hissed, yanking me backwards.

We plummeted into one of his mirror doors and quickly fell to the other side, just outside the cave where the army was.

I grunted with the impact as I breathed in the scent of fresh rain and fallen leaves.

“That was too close,” Sterling stated, standing and dusting himself off. “Way too close. They were closing in on us.” He offered a hand to me.

My brain felt muddled as I sat there on the grass, reflecting on the last five minutes.

“My mom is one of them,” I mumbled, completely ignoring everything he just said. I looked up at him and took his hand. He pulled me up to my feet. “And she wants me—to join her.” I shook my head. “None of this makes sense.”

He frowned. “It all makes perfect sense. Everything Seraphina said is true—even down to my father helping them kidnap the—” He glanced around at the soldiers, who were listening intently to our conversation. He shook his head. “Nevermind. We’ll discuss this more later.”

The duke hurried forward. “What happened in there? Did they have the prince? Did they agree?”

I stared blankly at the ground, my mind still inside that cave, replaying my mother’s words.

“Not. . . exactly,” Sterling said slowly. “We need to get out of here quickly. They have their own army down there. We’ll discuss what to do when we get back.”

As we walked back to the duke’s house in silence, the same question looped like an annoying Spotify commercial through my mind.

Why did my mother’s group want the horn? Was it really to fix the children, or was it for something else I didn’t know about? Was Seraphina good, or bad? Was Adrian really alright, or was I just naively falling for some line my mom fed me because she was my mom?

“Tessa?” Sterling asked quietly.

I looked up at him. “Hm?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it and looked away. “We’ll finish this conversation later.”

I nodded and continued walking, but I was running on autopilot.

***

When we made it back to the duke’s house, Sterling and I retreated to our room to finish the conversation.

“What are you thinking?” he asked the moment I closed the door. “You’re never this quiet.”

I sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, then drew my knees up to my chest and hugged them. “I don’t know. Part of me wants to believe mom. She’s my mom, after all. But. . . all the evidence. . . kind of makes Seraphina sound. . . good? I don’t know.” I groaned and placed my face between my knees.

Suddenly, everything around me turned whispy and faded, almost as if my head was swimming, or the room was changing.

I saw Adrian chained to a wall in a dark basement. My mom was there with him, uncaring and cold as she watched him suffer. He seemed unconscious. Blood ran from cuts and scars all over his body, some way too deep to be non-deadly. He groaned weakly and I saw him uncurl his left hand, which was missing one of its fingers.

I gasped and sat up as the room returned to normal. Sterling was watching me thoughtfully without a clue of what was going on in my head.

I blinked. “Did you see that?!” I asked, but I knew he hadn’t.

“See what?”

I shuddered and began to cry, my body tensing as that horrible image of Adrian filled my mind. “I—think I hallucinated or something. It was horrible.” Tears started rolling down my eyes and my hands were shaking. “Adrian—is hurt. She lied, Sterling. I know she did. He’s not safe at all!”

He scooted closer to me, his expression confused. “Hey—it’s okay. It was just a hallucination. The pollen, remember? I’m sure he’s fine.” His tone held doubt though, and that made me feel even worse. He seemed to sense this because he patted my shoulder hesitantly, then wrapped me in a full-on hug. He smelled like apples and his arms felt so strong and reassuring, even if I knew they provided no real security.

But my eyes widened at the action. He had never done anything like that before. I was so confused about so many things—this just added to it.

“Deep breaths.”

I shook my head, scrambling for a response. “Mom—wants me to join her. That’s been her plan all along. That was why she stole me away as a baby! If she has her choice, she’ll come for me next.” I felt so stupid now. We had been so close to her and her group kidnapping us both, and I would have willingly followed. How could I be so dumb? “I don’t even know if Adrian is alive.”

“We’ll get him back. She won’t get you, I promise. I won’t let anyone hurt you, do you hear me? No one.”

I sniffed and hugged him back, my arms tight around his shoulders as I cried.

I didn’t know what was going on anymore, but maybe Sterling didn’t hate me quite as much as I thought he did, which added a whole new level of chaos to the mix.

I let him comfort me anyway. Who knew what tomorrow held for us? Maybe we didn’t even have a tomorrow. Maybe all we had was now, and I needed to take advantage of every moment of it.

“I don’t even know where to start,” I admitted, stepping away. “I feel so. . . lost, I guess.”

He clasped his hands behind his back. “Let’s not make any rash decisions. I know we need to act fast if Adrian is in as much danger as you say, but if we act too quickly, we could lose more than just him.”

I looked out the window. “I know. Any suggestions?”

He sat on the edge of the bed in silence for a moment. After a while, he tilted his head and looked at me. “What if you joined your mother?”

I turned to him with furrowed eyebrows. “Join her? Are you, like, alright? Did you bump your head or something?”

He rolled his eyes and leaned forward. “I’m serious. Your mother wants you to join her. If you do, you could have access to not only Adrian, but information that could take down their entire group.”

I felt my stomach drop at his proposal. “Wait, you’re actually serious about this.”

He nodded. “How else are we going to save Adrian, stop them, and keep the kingdoms intact without disrupting society as we know it? If you can get them to trust you, this could change everything.”

I turned away sharply, wrapping my arms around myself. My heart pounded like an old pair of tennis-shoes I once threw in the dryer. “I don’t know. I’ll. . . have to think about it.”

“We don’t have a lot of time. I agree—the plan needs thought. Lots of thought. But if we can get you on the inside, it could change everything.” He raked a hand through his hair. “You really can stop them.”

“Seraphina would help. She seems pretty good about thinking through elaborate plans to get what she wants.” My tone was dry.

His frown twisted into a smirk. “Guess it runs in the family.” He sighed. “Sleep on it tonight. We’ll discuss it with her tomorrow.”

-------

Here's a make-up chapter for missing two weeks in a row *awkward cough*