“Are there many threats to the Queen?”

  Coco frowned. “As you know, we have no formal army, only the guard. The threats are present but manageable. She has concerns about continental strife on Bellos.”

  Concerns an ocean away? How could they possibly affect Crithos?

  I nodded pensively. “Did she share with you any additional details about our rescue of Lord Eustace?”

  A hidden agenda perhaps?

  Coco massaged her neck with one hand. She took a sip from her goblet of water. “I have instructions to assist the Avant Champion to the best of my ability in full capacity for the duration of her quest.”

  Hmm...sufficiently vague.

  I proceeded cautiously. “That is generous of the Queen—and you—to provide such a service. Did she provide any details about the nature of the quest?”

  Coco arched an eyebrow. “You’re the Avant Champion. Don’t you possess details of your own quest?”

  Her accusatory tone riled me, but I kept my voice friendly. “I’ve an outline and a few generalized guidelines. I wouldn’t classify them as details.”

  Coco stood and brushed off her pants. “It seems the Queen trusts leaving the details to you.”

  I wanted to bang my head against the nearest tree but settled for hurling a twig into the fire. I let her observation stir my already unsettled mind. Was the Queen’s opinion of me so high that she trusted me with the details of a rescue mission when I had no experience whatsoever with one? What if I didn’t meet the expectations of me since they had not been clearly defined? Was my esteem of the Queen so high that I truly dreaded the possibility of failure?

  Yes.

  Truthfully, I didn’t want to fail Queen Rebekah. Failure may have no greater consequence for me than feeling the weight of her disappointment, but avoiding a blunder was worth the effort. If those efforts also secured lasting peace for the Hunju—a far-fetched achievement I was sure—the quest would be an even greater success.

  She started to walk away from me.

  “Coco.”

  She stopped.

  “Can you tell me what I have done that seems to have offended you?”

  As the Champion, I usually received praise from strangers and pleasant conversation from acquaintances. My notoriety comprised one of the reason’s Joshua and I lived in a reclusive place. I needed to understand why someone I had thought a friend prickled at the sight of me.

  Coco bristled. “You’re the Avant Champion. And what do you do with your power? You teach chemistry. You hide out in the university. You do nothing to help your country.”

  My jaw tensed as I clenched my fists. “I. Saved. The world.” The words came out between seething breaths. “Now the world can take care of itself.”

  “You abandoned us after one act of bravery.”

  My cheeks flushed with anger and frustration at her accusation that I was negligent in my obligations. “The commitment you ask of me leaves no room for my freedom or my choices.”

  “You have an obligation—”

  “—which I have fulfilled,” I snapped. My fists clenched over a branch, and I thrust it at the fire. Sparks of red embers burst into the air.

  I started to regret attempting civil conversation with her. I had obviously been mistaken in thinking we could be friends. Coco and I possessed vastly different agendas. She aimed to make a martyr of me—perhaps also of herself—and I had plans for a peaceful life with Joshua.

  She glared at me before turning and leaving.

  I stared at the dancing flames of the fire, not feeling its warmth.

  I rested on my dream world beach, wearing leggings and a simple tunic. Malos appeared next to me. More accurate, I admitted to myself, would be to say I summoned Malos next to me.

  He appraised his surroundings with satisfaction. “I’m pleased you brought me here again, Abigail.”

  I am not.

  “I feel as though this is not a healthy interaction to nurture.”

  “Our interaction is whatever you choose it to be—useful, pleasurable, dark—”

  I shot him a look.

  “—or nonexistent,” he finished with an accommodating bow of his head.

  “The Gunthi monks believe all things have a purpose. I brought you back again to ascertain that purpose.”

  Even though I didn’t tell him, I sensed the purpose of his existence in my dreams was something I would have to decipher and not some- thing he could simply tell me.

  “Very well. You are on the precipice of some type of quest. Perhaps if you share details, I can be of use.”

  I glanced over at his dark eyes, thick lashes, and wavy black hair. He presented an attractive version of evil—the same way crimson dappleberries looked delectable. Partaking of either would result in agonizing death.

  “I’m not ready to confide in you, so I’ll have to think of other uses for you.”

  “I’m all anticipation,” he purred, looking at me through heavy lidded eyes.

  “Not like that.”

  He grinned, undeterred.

  “My heart belongs to Joshua,” I reiterated.

  “Battle strategy perhaps,” he offered.

  I hesitated and bit my lip.

  He arched a dark eyebrow at me.

  “Intending no offense, Malos, but you’ve lost to seven champions.”

  He smiled, dazzling white teeth enhancing his dark hair and dark eyes. “Six, point in fact. Isabel Dallik was my creator, not my destroyer.”

  “Right.”

  “Does not failure blaze a trail to success?”

  Even as he spoke the words, unoffended by my statement, I sensed something deeper beneath his satin voice.

  “You don’t consider them failures?”

  His eyes flickered over my face and down to my lips before he turned his gaze back to the ocean.

  I tossed a handful of sand at him, reminding him he was an apparition, and he couldn’t touch me any more than my sword or the sand of my dream could touch him.

  “I, too, believe all things have a purpose,” he said.

  Disturbing questions stirred. What did that mean in the context of who he was? Did he want to fail because some future conquest would be worth the wait? What was worth subjecting himself over and over again to eradication?

  “It’s all a game of strategy, of chess, dearest Abigail.” His tone implied I was ill equipped to guess the larger scheme at play.

  I frowned. “But I have no way of knowing how our meetings and my actions will play into your strategy.”

  His eyes softened and the seductive allure vanished. “You don’t. I can only give you my assurances our acquaintance has been a wholly unexpected and pleasant surprise on my part. Inexplicably, I find I have no desire to manipulate you nor mutate our interaction into something contrived to my advantage. I think you would be wise to me even if I tried such a scheme.”

  He had more faith in my ability than I did.

  “And do you think you’ll never have the desire to manipulate me?”

  “Fair point.” He took a deep breath. “I cannot foresee what will happen as I become more evil. I can tell you I am strongly averse to the idea of hurting you in any way, but I cannot promise such will always be the case.”

  We remained silent a long moment, listening to the lapping waves.

  “There is a Che stone capable of binding one to his or her word. I’m not certain of its utility in binding the promise of apparitions, but there is some substance to me separate from you.” He lay back on the sand. “Perhaps when your quest is concluded, we can seek such an artifact.”

  “You would be willing to bind yourself against harming me?” Such an act seemed bafflingly self-sacrificing and against everything for which Malos stood.

  “I don’t pretend to understand my position on this matter fully, but I would feel more at ease if you would be more at ease with me.”

  “I think I am becoming more at ease,” I admitted, begrudgingly. The first brick of something like trust settled into a nook along my vertebrae. A little tremor of fear ran down my spine. Somehow the longer I sat and conversed with him, the more I trusted him.

  On that disconcerting realization, I ended the dream.

  As for a binding stone, I would have to contemplate such a manipulation of will and the consequences of it. His offer felt genuine, which, in and of itself, garnered trust. However, we couldn’t grow mutual trust through an agreement with consequences more severe than only breaking the trust, so this stone didn’t seem like the best choice.

  The second day, the marsh greeted us with sweltering heat and humidity. The sun evaporated the stagnant water, creating a musty haze with the pungent smell of sewage. A line of herons stood in the tall grass, hunting for breakfast. Frogs perhaps.

  We kept our same unrelenting pace with Windish in the lead, followed by Coco, then me, then Joshua in the rear.

  I stared at Coco’s blond ponytail as it swished. We hadn’t spoken since her accusations that I continually failed to maximally use my talents.

  No part of me had wanted to be the Avant Champion. I had not aspired to the role. After defeating Malos, I felt like I deserved the life of my choosing.

  With my abilities, I could be turned into a dangerous weapon. Even the Queen had alluded that the Marrington administration feared I would overthrow the government. The kingdom loved me enough after the battle, they would have acquiesced had I seized power.

  For what?

  I knew nothing of leadership or politics. Nor did I desire to be someone else’s instrument to manipulate.

  Coco seemed to think I was leaving an obligation unfulfilled. I felt it had been fulfilled on the battlefield.

  Besides, I was helping the kingdom and doing the Queen’s bidding at this precise moment. Where had it gotten me? Trudging through the swamp.

  I’ll keep my life at the university—helping students, enlightening minds.

  Along our path I noticed a log partially obscured by grass and water. The brown bark appeared smooth and had a green shimmering tint as though a film of moss or fungus had grown on it. The enormous size astounded me. It was as big around as Joshua’s torso. Although there weren’t any trees visible as far as the eye could see, this log was the size of a mature redwood.

  How had it landed here?

  Above me, Carrot screeched and dived down toward me. I startled.

  The log moved. It darted lightning fast. I reached for my sword as two fangs sank into my thigh. In the instant before I became blinded by pain, I saw large, dark eyes buried in the triangular head of the largest snake I had ever seen.

  Carrot landed with precision as her talons sunk into the snake’s eye.

  The creature hissed and writhed to free itself from the hawk’s claws.

  I tumbled forward as the monster drew its head back from me, releasing my leg from its fangs.

  “Mount Kapri,” I swore, my eyes watering from the white-hot pain coursing through my leg.

  I continued my hand’s trajectory to pull my sword, fully intending to decapitate the snake with the strength of the Warrior Stone. Fury burned through my veins and set the stone glowing red.

  When I wrenched the handle of my sword and pushed on my uninjured leg to stand, my strength failed. Despite my efforts, my body crumpled into the muddy ground. The stone flickered and extinguished.

  My thigh continued the relentless sensation of someone burying a hot poker stick into it. I lay on my back and tried to reach toward the puncture wound. I could not. I was rendered completely immobile. I could not even close my eyes against the bright, blazing sun. Moving as little as a finger proved impossible.

  Joshua loomed over me before swatting at the snake with his sword as it made its second attack.

  Carrot still shrieked in battle mode.

  “Black Marsh adder,” I heard Windish say.

  The stomping and sloshing of feet was followed by the malicious slithering and hissing of the snake.

  Although I couldn’t speak or move, I still breathed. I felt tears flowing from my eyes. The hot sun beat down on my face and seared my pupils. Agony throbbed in my leg with every frantic heartbeat. I felt completely helpless.

  I glimpsed Windish wielding his two-meter-long wicked blade. The sound of tearing flesh was followed by a large thud of what I imagined—hoped—to be the snake’s head.

  “Abbey?” Joshua kneeled at my side with his glowing Che stone of healing casting its soft white light near me.

  I felt the heat of the torn muscles and blood vessels in my leg healing. More tears flowed now. I would have screamed with the pain if I were capable of moving my mouth. I hated everyone watching my weakness, my incapacitation.

  “What’s happened to her?” Coco asked.

  “Poison,” Windish said, not an ounce of concern in his voice. At least he blocked out the sun from blinding me since I could not blink or close my eyes.

  “Poison?” Coco asked.

  “She is stoned,” he added.

  “Stoned?”

  “Neurotoxin,” Joshua gasped in a voice of understanding. “The venom is some type of paralytic.”

  “She’s paralyzed?” Coco’s tone of concern touched me.

  Windish’s big head nodded. I couldn’t clearly see his expression, and wondered if he enjoyed the moment. The mighty Champion flaccid and vulnerable in the mud. He shifted his weight, and I could discern a scowl that conveyed nothing more than his usual temperament.

  “How long does it typically last?” Joshua asked.

  “Hour,” he replied in a bored tone.

  Mother Moon! An hour languishing like this?

  At last the pain in my leg subsided to a dull ache. Joshua stroked a hand over my cheek, his brow knitted with worry.

  “You’re okay, Abbey. You’re breathing even though you can’t move. I’m going to try to reverse the effects, but I haven’t encountered this before so it may take a bit.”

  I’ll just wait here, I tried to say, but of course nothing happened.

  I knew how Joshua’s Healing Stone worked. He could only heal injuries of which he understood the mechanism. Traumas healed the easiest. Communicable diseases were more difficult until he comprehended how to enhance the body’s natural defense mechanism to overcome them. I would have remembered if Joshua had mentioned a prior patient with neurotoxin exposure.

  I had been effectively reduced to a heap of flesh in the steaming mud. I tried to quell a lump of panic in my throat.

  “This is slowing us down,” Windish remarked.

  I wanted to scowl at him. At least I visualized sticking my tongue out at him.

  “I can carry her,” he offered.

  Was he elliptical? Over my dead—

  “That won’t be necessary,” Joshua said. He shot me a look as though he knew what thoughts flittered through my mind.

  I felt Joshua lifting me into his arms, mud clinging to my flaccid limbs. I started to panic, my mind feeling claustrophobic and trapped in a body incapable of obeying it. My heart pounded, reverberating up into my temples.

  12

  How was I to keep my sanity? I tried to star travel and even that proved ineffective. My eyelids fell shut, which granted me a reprieve from staring at the bright sun, but made the claustrophobia more pronounced. I felt as though someone had taken my conscious- ness and locked it in a black box.

  My consciousness. And my subconscious?

  Malos? I thought.

  I pulled myself deeper into my mind the way one pulls a thick coat in and around them in a heavy wind.

  “Malos? Malos?! Mal—” “Abigail, please, enough with the shouting.”

  Although it pained me to admit it, relief washed over me. “Mal,” I sighed.

  I heard a smug grin through his “Hmm.”

  Probably a sign of being in a catastrophic state when one is relieved to hear the voice of the prince of darkness.

  “I prefer the beach, Abigail,” he suggested into the dark void.

  I thought of the beach, and in an instant, we appeared together there again. He wore his usual black suit, and I wore my leggings and tunic—untarnished by the swamp mud.

  I lay curled into a tight ball, digging my fingers into my arms as though to keep my body from falling apart. Slowly, I uncoiled, able to move my imaginary body freely.

  “Not your usual start to a dream. Were you having a nightmare?”

  I tried not to ponder the sound of careful concern in his voice. “Mostly.”

  He arched an eyebrow.

  I took a deep, steadying breath, letting my panic evaporate, but not oblivious to the fact that I took comfort in Mal’s presence.

  “Neurotoxin. Apparently I’m paralyzed for the next short while.”

  “Ah, yes. The Black Marsh adder, also known as the death adder. Paralyzes its victims, swallows them, and slowly digests them even as they still live.”

  I shuddered.

  He looked me up and down as though taking in my measurements. Seeming to decide I would be small enough for it to swallow, he asked, “You’re not dying, are you?”

  “No. Snake’s dead. I’m safe.” I realized from Mal’s standpoint, if anything happened to me, he was back to oblivion for hundreds of years.

  “So you’re paralyzed and you sort of withdrew to the depths of your mind?”

  “I think I fainted. I was scared,” I admitted—again, strangely to the ruler of evil.

  “And you summoned me?” he asked softly, a hint of self-flattery in his voice.

  I frowned. “I didn’t know what to do. I felt trapped.” Thankfully, he didn’t outright analyze my decision to request his company.

  “So, what would you like to discuss as a distraction from your current state of distress?”

  I flexed my arms, wondering if I would be able to know when I could move again.

 

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