P.C. Cast - Burned

“He’s returned to his body. I can feel it.”

Stevie Rae didn’t trust herself to speak. She could only nod.

“He’s not here, though. He’s far away from me. Must still be in Italy.” Rephaim was speaking rapidly. Stevie Rae took a step away from him, still unable to say anything at all. “He feels different. Something has changed.” Then it was like his thoughts were catching up to him, and Rephaim’s eyes met hers. “Stevie Rae? What are we going to—”

Stevie Rae gasped, cutting off his words. Earth swirled around her, filling her senses with a joyous dance of homecoming. The cold Tulsa landscape shimmered, shifted, and suddenly she was surrounded by amazing trees, all green and shiny-leafed, and a bed made of thick, soft moss. Then the image focused, and Zoey was there, in Stark’s arms, laughing and whole again.

“Zoey!” Stevie Rae shouted, and the image disappeared, leaving only the joy of it and the certainty that her BFF was whole again and most definitely alive. Grinning, she went to Rephaim and threw her arms around him. “Zoey’s alive!”

His arms tightened around her, but only for the space of a breath, and then they both remembered the truth, and at the same time, stepped away from each other.

“My father returns.”

“So does Zoey.”

“And for us that means we cannot be together,” he said.

Stevie Rae felt sick and sad. She shook her head. “No, Rephaim. It only means that if you let it.”

“Look at me!” he cried. “I’m not the boy in the reflection. I’m a beast. I don’t belong with you.”

“That’s not what your heart says!” she shouted back at him.

His shoulders slumped, and he looked away from her. “But, Stevie Rae, my heart has never mattered.”

She stepped close to him. Automatically, he faced her. Their gazes met, and with a terrible despair she saw that the scarlet was, once again, blazing in his eyes. “Well, when you decide your heart matters as much to you as it does to me, come find me again. It should be easy. Just follow your heart.” Without any hesitation, she put her arms around him and held him tightly. Stevie Rae ignored the fact that he didn’t return her embrace. Instead, she whispered, “I’ll miss you,” before she left him.

As she started walking down Gilcrease Road, the night wind brought to her Rephaim’s whispered, I’ll miss you, too . . .

“It’s really beautiful,” I said, looking up at the tree and the zillions of dangling strips of cloth tied there. “What do you call it again?”

“A hanging tree,” Stark said.

“Doesn’t seem a very romantic name for something so cool,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought at first, too, but it’s kinda grown on me.”

“Ooh! Look at that piece. It’s so sparkly.” I pointed up at a thin ribbon of gold that had suddenly appeared. Unlike the rest of the strips of cloth, it wasn’t tied to another. Instead, it floated free down and down until it wafted just above us.

Stark reached up and snagged it. He held it out to me so that I could touch its bright softness. “It’s what I followed to find you.”

“Really? It’s like a thread of gold.”

“Yep, gold’s what it reminded me of, too.”

“And you followed this to find me?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, well, then. Let’s see if it’ll work twice,” I said.

“Just tell me what to do. I’m yours to command.” Eyes flashing with humor, Stark bowed to me.

“Stop messing around. This is serious.”

“Oh, Z, don’t you see? It isn’t that I don’t think this is serious. It’s just that I totally trust you. I know you’ll get me back with you. I believe in you, mo bann ri .”

“You have picked up some weird words while I’ve been gone.”

He grinned at me. “Just you wait. You haven’t heard nothin’ yet.”

“You know what, boy? I’m tired of waiting.” I wrapped one end of the golden thread around his wrist. I kept the other end tightly fisted in my hand. “Close your eyes,” I said. Without questioning me, he did as I said. I tiptoed and kissed him. “See you soon, Guardian.”

Then I turned away from the hanging tree and the grove and all the magic and mysteries of Nyx’s realm. I faced the yawning blackness that seemed to stretch into forever. Spreading my arms wide, I said, “Spirit, come to me.” The last of the five elements, and the one I’d always felt closest to, filled me, making my healed soul thrum with joy and compassion, strength and—finally—hope. “Now, please take me home!” As I spoke, I ran forward and, completely unafraid, leaped into the darkness.

I thought it would be like diving off a cliff, but I was wrong. It was gentler, softer. More like riding an elevator down from the top of a skyscraper. I felt myself settle, and I knew I was back.

I didn’t open my eyes right away. First I wanted to concentrate—to savor each returning sensation. I felt that I was lying on something hard and cool. I drew in a deep breath and was surprised to smell the cedar tree that used to be on the corner down from my mom’s house in Broken Arrow. I only heard the soft murmuring of whispered voices at first, but after just a few breaths that changed with Aphrodite’s shout of “Oh, for shit’s sake, open your eyes! I know you’re in there!”

I did open my eyes then. “Jeesh, are you from a trailer? Do you have to be so loud?”

“Trailer? Look, you’re not supposed to be cussing, and that’s definitely a nasty word to me,” Aphrodite said. Then she smiled and laughed and pulled me into a super hard hug that I was sure she’d deny ever doing later. “You’re really back? And you’re not, like, brain-damaged or anything?”

“I am!” I laughed. “And I’m no more brain-damaged than I was when I left.”

Over her shoulder Darius appeared. His eyes were suspiciously shiny as he fisted a hand over his heart and bowed to me. “Welcome back, High Priestess.”

“Thanks, Darius.” I grinned at him and held out my hand so he could help me stand. I had weird jelly legs, so I kept hold of him as the room rolled and pitched around me.

“She needs food and drink,” said a super in-charge-like voice.

“Right away, Majesty,” came the immediate response.

I finally blinked the dizziness clear, so that I could see. “Wow, a throne! Seriously?”

The beautiful woman sitting on the carved marble throne smiled at me. “Welcome back, young queen,” she said.

“Young queen,” I repeated, half-laughing. But as my eyes traveled around the room, my laughter dissolved, and the throne, the cool room, and questions of queendom utterly evaporated.

Stark was there. He was lying on a huge stone. There was a vampyre Warrior standing at his head, and the guy was holding a razor-sharp dagger above Stark’s chest, which was already bloody and covered with knife slashes.

“No! Stop it!” I cried. I pulled away from Darius and started to lunge toward the vamp.

More quickly than she should have been able to move, the queen was suddenly standing between the Warrior and me. She put a hand on my shoulder and spoke one question softly to me. “What did Stark tell you?”

I shook myself mentally, trying to think beyond the bloody sight of my Warrior, my Guardian.

My Guardian . . .

I looked at the queen. “That’s how Stark got to the Otherworld. That Warrior. He’s really helping him.”

“My Guardian,” the queen corrected me. “Yes, he is helping Stark. But now his quest is complete. It is your responsibility as his queen to bring him back.”

I opened my mouth to ask her how, but closed it before I spoke. I didn’t have to ask her. I knew. And it was my responsibility to help my Guardian return.