Joshua and the Arrow Realm (27 page)

I die. You die!

My feet pushed off the screaming faces of the dead as I propelled myself down, banging into the monster's trunk. Bo Chez's face flashed before me. I jerked back, not wanting to touch him carved into the flesh of his murderer, but the fire belt twirled me into his frozen form. His eyes stared into mine, his mouth a firm line of determination and a hand still up in farewell. I placed my palm to his—giant sobs wrenching through me.

With a final heave, the tree belched out a great tongue of fire and threw me from its limbs—and from the man who'd raised me. Down I fell through the cloud cover, bouncing off branches. Pain struck everywhere. I grabbed on to a limb, dangling high above the ground. My friends circled the tree below like toy figures. I called to them, but only a lone whisper puffed out.

“Joshua!” Leandro shouted. Explosion after explosion shook the Black Heart Tree. Smoke blew thick and my friends disappeared. A wrenching scream split the air as wood crackled and crashed down. I flattened myself against the trunk. Burning branches smashed around me. The monstrous tree tilted and I scrabbled down it.

A fierce sting struck my chest as a jagged branch pierced my skin. My feeble fingers couldn't pull it out, and my chest burned like the fire raging overhead. Embers bit my flesh. Leaves of fire spun in the air, and the ground reached up to pull me down. The world became a silent tomb shutting me into a dark cave.

The evil giant fell, taking me with it.

S
now blew down on my face. I tried to open my eyes but they were stuck. The world had disappeared. Was I dead? I lay alone surrounded by darkness. A clap of cold wind carried voices to me.

“Joshua, wake up,” Leandro said. His voice cracked open my lonely world.

Why's he telling me this? I am awake
.

“Joshua, don't die, please,” Charlie said with a moan. “
Mon ami
… my brother.”

“He got stuck bad,” Ash said.

“He's leaving us,” Oak said with a wretched sigh.

I'm right here
, I protested. But my mouth wouldn't move.

“No. He's still with us,” Leandro said.

“He has to be … after all we've been through and all we've got to do,” Apollo said in a low voice. “Look, he's still holding your son's bow.”

Something cold and smooth fell into my hand.

“The orb,” Charlie said. “It's glowing!”

Fingers pushed my bangs back. They felt so cool, driving away the heat and pain that racked my body. “It's chosen to heal him,” Leandro said, a chink in his voice I'd never heard before. “It's claimed him as its master now.”

“It can do that?” Charlie said.

“Once its master is dead.”

“But Joshua isn't a Storm Master.”

“Only one mixed mortal could be the greatest Storm Master there is—the Oracle. He is here to battle the greatest storm of our world.”

“What does that mean?”

“It belonged to his grandfather, a Storm Master. Now it belongs to Joshua.”

Thanks, Bo Chez
. Wetness trickled down my throat. It tasted of soothing honey.

“Joshua, we'll get you and Charlie to the Lightning Gate,” Apollo said. “You're going home!”

My voice came to me again. “No home. Bo Chez is gone!”

Silence encased me. “Sorry, my friend,” Leandro said in a mournful voice.

“So alone.”

“Bo Chez is gone but you're not alone.”

“Tired … so tired,” I mumbled.

Fingers hooked mine. “There is no sleeping today, young Joshua,” Leandro said, his voice rising. “We must get you back to Earth. Your job may not be done yet, but it is done for today.”

“No job … I didn't do anything.”

“Yes, you did. Your job is to vanquish evil—and you did. Artemis's army is carting the ash of the evil Black
Heart Tree in a metal box right now to sink in Poseidon's lake. Hekate won't rise from that. If she does, I'll take her down myself!”

“Bo Chez is in that ash.” I tried to sit but fell back. “Bo Chez!” His name was a knife to my heart.

I tightened my fingers around Leandro's, my eyes still glued shut, but I'd know him blindfolded. His rich, earthy chocolate scent made me feel safe. “Come back to us, son.”

He called me son.

The burning sensation crept back. Pain, such pain, it shot through me everywhere. Something was ripped from my chest. A great suction let loose and I inhaled great gulps of air.

“It hurts,” I whispered.

“Pain is good,” Leandro said with a sigh. “It means you're alive. And you're alive, aren't you, Joshua?

A muscled hand covered mine and held it tight. My shivers melted away with the warmth of Leandro's cloak.

I don't want to go. I want to live.

My friends needed me. This world needed me. Bo Chez wanted me to stay—I wanted to stay.

I opened my eyes and blinked in the bright world. My friends stood next to horses chuffing clouds of steam in the cold air that had brought the snow back. It fell in a slow dream.

“My chest hurts,” I said. The pain receded as my skin knotted up and the glow of the lightning orb in my hand faded.

“Well, it would with this in it.” Leandro knelt beside me with a bloody stick in his hand.

“Yeah, I remember now. The Black Heart Tree shot me.”

I healed myself! But not Bo Chez. The grief was too raw to bear.

“You sure took care of Hekate,” Ash said, coming forward.

“That witch tree is toast with you around,” Oak boomed.

“For sure,” Apollo said and Artemis agreed.

I stood with Leandro's help and slung his bow across my chest. Even with my wound healed, my every muscle ached and nausea swept through me. The orb couldn't heal my permanent sickness that had taken over.

Leandro's fire belt sprawled on the ground. I picked an end up and handed it to him.

“Thanks for getting it back to me,” he said, winding it up on his belt. “It's been useful in our adventures.”

It couldn't save Bo Chez.

I stumbled with the thought and Leandro caught my elbow.

“How'd I get here? I was falling and—”

“The Grand Tree saved you, right Tree Girl?” Charlie said.

Ash nodded. “It caught you in the palm of its hand on a blanket of leaves before it crashed.”

The Grand Tree. The orb. My friends. They'd all been there for me.

“Strong as oak you are too, like your grandfather,” Oak said with crinkled eyes sparkling like tarnished gold. “Now this old tree must say goodbye.”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to the Wild Child camp. The others are already there.” He jerked a thumb at Ash and they mounted a horse each. “I need to figure out a plan to find the children of the slaves and relocate them with their parents. First,
I've got to get their parents out of the WC.”

“But Hekate's spirit is gone and Queen Artemis has returned. She'll let the WC slaves go, right?” I said.

“Yes, but let's see how this bodes with Zeus,” Artemis said. “He has the might to stop anyone. If we could bond the realms together, we may have a chance. It'll be a challenge. Not all rulers are so easy to deal with, like Ares of the Dred Realm. If Zeus discovers an Oracle lives, he'll seek to crush him, like Hekate. Not to get his power—to end it. Now that Zeus has shut down all the Lightning Roads to Earth except to the Arrow Realm, and the WC is located here, his eye is on this realm. It's what keeps him in wealth and slaves.”

Oak nodded. “He wants to keep things the way they are, with him as head ruler and his minions with ancient powers at his disposal. You'll have to fear him coming for you now, Joshua.”

Ash steered her horse to me, the mystery girl who got us here, and looked down at me with a serious face. “Whenever you're in trouble, Joshua, you don't always have to be brave. Just scram and cram. Promise me?”

“I promise.”

“And don't get stuck, you hear?”

“You either.”

“Family is all we've got. Blood or not. When it's gone, it's never really gone.” She put a hand to her heart. “Remember this.”

I pinched my lips, the lump in my throat too thick to form words. She shook her reins and trotted back to Oak's side.

“Family,” Oak said gruffly, then cleared his throat. He and Ash melted away together in the woods.

I gripped the pendant in my hand. Somewhere out
there I had a brother. It barely soothed the pain inside me.

“Time to go home, boys,” Leandro said and we each mounted a horse. It took several tries to lug my legs up and over. This world was killing me slowly. The myth's reality sank in. I couldn't stay and gain all the Oracle's powers at once. Leandro helped me get on, the white streak in his hair blazed down as he bent to secure my shoe in the stirrups. The details in this fleeting moment would be forever seared in my memory, along with knowledge that he was a good man.

“I have no home. No one, no—” I choked up inside.

“You have me,
mon ami
,” Charlie said, nudging his horse into mine. “Come home with me. We'll figure it out. My dad really isn't all that bad.”

I stared at the ground my head spinning along with the pain coursing through me.

Stay. Go. Come back
.

My life now bridged two worlds.

“Home is where you're wanted,” Leandro said quietly to me, tapping the reins on his horse and sharing a look with Artemis.

“Wherever home is,” Apollo said.

Resolve set in and I nodded at my friend turned king. He'd appeared older since I got here days ago. The line of his jaw, how he carried himself, and the confident way he controlled his horse all told me the king had returned. He opened his mouth to say something when trumpets blared and sleet beat down on us. Charlie yanked the reins of his horse and nearly got tossed.

“Zeus and his Storm Masters! He must know the Oracle is here. He's after you!” Leandro said. He thrust a hand to Artemis and Apollo. “Get to the castle. Be safe!”

“Not without you,” Artemis protested, her horse jigging side to side as hail the size of gumballs suddenly battered us.

“Our people need you to fight together. Find a way to change Nostos!”

Apollo put a hand on Artemis's arm. “He's right.” He had to shout to be heard over the pounding ice balls.

Artemis nodded and turned her horse around. “We'll take the back way in!” Her horse lunged forward, eager to race, but she held it back. “Leandro, take great care.”

He bowed his head and flung his fingers at her. “Go, my queen. I'll find you!”

She dug her heels in and galloped away, and with a final glance back, she rounded the trees and disappeared. Apollo gave me and Charlie a hardened smile. “Thank you.”

We came here for him and we'd done our job. He'd been rescued—for now.

“Bo Chez will always be with you.” Apollo put a hand on his heart. His king's ring
pinged
with hail. “Light of Sol go with you, my friends!”

“Go with arrow fire, my king,” Leandro said, raising his bow in the air. Apollo nodded and sped off after his Olympian sister.

“To the Lightning Gate!” Leandro wasted no time. He reined his horse in and raced off with us close behind.

We were wanted—again.

T
he trumpets blared again, fainter this time.

Hail pummeled us from Zeus's Storm Masters, as we thundered toward the Lightning Gate. If Hekate terrified me, the idea of meeting Zeus terrified me more. My every limb ached with each jolt of the horse as my sickness worsened.

“I can stay,” I yelled to Leandro.

“You will die.”

“You don't know that.”

“I see you suffering. Your body is shutting down.”

“I can fight it! Send Charlie home. Keep me here. Together we'll fight Zeus!”

My purpose grew stronger in me even as the pain rocketed.

To save this world, my world.

To find my brother, his son.

“If you stay and activate all the lost Olympian powers
at once, it'll be too much for your mortal body. You will die.”

“I'll survive. I'll change this myth. I'm ready to be the Oracle.” The intense pain that speared my body told me otherwise as I wobbled on my horse. Death came for me now on this world. Time to get to Earth before it got me.

“No!” His voice sliced into me, then grew quiet. “We need you to survive. You can't stay yet.”

“Joshua, I can't go home without you!” Charlie looked sick at the thought as he leaned over his horse, his bangs flattened in black spikes down his forehead from the pelting hail.

We flew around a bush, and the massive Lightning Gate blasted up before us in a clearing. Its giant presence thrust through the crowded woods like a spaceship to take us home. Its bronze columns gleamed with power.

Leandro dragged me off his horse. The gate stood deserted. No need for guards with all the slaves sent home. Charlie stumbled behind me, and Leandro shoved us both under the portal.

“Get home! I'll come for you another time.”

“Promise,” I said.

“By the gods, I promise.”

“Promise by
you
, not
them
.”

He squeezed my shoulder, his face streaked with sleet. “For the love of Olympus and all who have fallen, I swear I will find you again.” He said in a softer voice. “For the love of my son, your brother … I'll find him for both of us.”

I looked into his eyes and believed him.

He pressed his gate key into the gate and jabbed in the Earth code from his scroll.

Rough voices slashed the air from the road leading to the gate. The ground trembled. Hooves pounded toward
us. Wind swirled, shooting down branches at us. The sky darkened and thunder boomed. The hail magically stopped like a switch turned off, but tornadoes funneled toward us, ripping trees from the ground as Zeus's Storm Masters closed in.