sorcery and science 04.5 - masquerade (6 page)

Today, he watched groups of students scurry across the verdant grounds toward the portals that would lead them home for the summer break. The buzz of their chatter was deafening, meshing into a stew of indistinguishable voices, so he did not hear her. But he did feel her. Jason turned and looked through a veil of streaming water. There she was, coming out of the chemistry building.

“Terra,” Jason said as she passed by the fountain.

Her blue eyes looked up, and she paused in her step. “Jason.”

She wore the dark green silk robes of her class and a pair of black slippers. Her golden hair was braided back and tied with a matching green ribbon.

“Nice ribbon,” he commented.

A smile spread over her face. “Thanks.”

Jason could sense Davin watching them. He didn’t even need to be a Prophet to predict what happened next.

“What are you doing here?” Davin demanded, glaring at Jason.

Jason pushed away from the fountain and stood up tall—taller than Davin. “I go to school here.”

“For now,” replied Davin, then looked at Terra. “Father says you aren’t supposed to talk to him.”

Jason narrowed his eyes and glowered at Davin. Though they were the same age, he’d never really liked Davin Storm. He was such a snotty brat.

“Come on. Let’s get home,” Davin said, leading his sister away.

“I need to stop by the library first,” Terra told him. She didn’t even look back at Jason.

He watched Terra until they disappeared through the library’s front doors, then he took the path leading into the woods.

~ 3 ~

516AX April 18, Ribbon Falls

JASON SAT WITH his feet dangling over the edge of Ribbon Falls, looking down on the crash of water and foam against the pool below. The pale golden rock of the ledge hummed beneath his legs, and the air was light and fresh with the scent of wet leaves and sweet mist.

“I’m sorry. Father told me not to speak to you, and Davin is such a tattletale,” Terra said as she came up behind him.

Jason didn’t turn. He just reached his arm back to her.

“I miss you,” he told her as she took his hand.

“I miss you too.” Terra sat, but she kept her palm pressed against his. “Jason, do you think our families will ever make up so we can be friends again?”

“Terra, I’ll always be your friend.”

She smiled at him. “And I’ll always be yours.”

“As long as your father doesn’t find out.”

“If he found out we’ve been seeing each other every day after school, he’d be furious,” she said. “I…I keep hoping this will all blow over.”

“We could always run away. Go somewhere deep inside the Wilderness, somewhere they’d never find us.”

She let out a soft, breezy snort. “Maybe we should.”

As she shifted her legs, Jason felt a jolt pass from her to him, flooding him with a barrage of fragmented images.

“Sorry,” she said, withdrawing her hand.

He rubbed his head. “The foresights are getting stronger.”

“Yes.”

“Terra, you have to talk to your father. The Selpes want you for your gift. If we’re not allowed to see each other, I cannot protect you. The Selpes have already tried to take you once. They will try again, this time with more soldiers.”

She paled. “They already have.”

“When?” Jason demanded. He could feel his eyes burning with icy fire, as they sometimes did when he was angry. It was happening more and more with each passing month.

“Last week. There were six of them, and they were very good. Fast, smart, organized, disciplined. Worked like a team.”

“Diamond Edges,” Jason guessed.

“Perhaps. They were dressed like bandits, but no bandit group is that good. They were Selpe. I’m sure of it. I only escaped by running through a portal. Then I ended up in North Mist Veil and had a fun time finding my way back home. I didn’t want to go back through the same portal.”

“They were probably waiting at the other end. It was smart of you to find another way back.”

“Smart?” She let out a laugh loaded with despair. “No, I wasn’t smart. I was afraid.”

“For good reason. There were six of them and only one of you. And you’re much smaller than they are. They would have captured you.”

“I need to train harder.”

The words seemed to be directed more at herself than at him, so he said nothing.

“Jason.” Her eyes refocused, and she looked at him. “I thought it was kind of weird when our parents betrothed us, but now…now I’m sad that it’s over. I miss you. I miss feeling your pendant against my chest. When I wore it, I felt like you were there with me. Like you were looking out for me.” She looked away, out past the falls to the forest that surrounded them. “I guess it all sounds really stupid to you.”

“No.”
I feel the same.
He squeezed her hand. “It doesn’t.”

“I wonder if we would have really ended up married.”

Jason thought that over. “Maybe we would have. Or maybe I would have challenged my father to a fight to get out of it.”

“As long as you didn’t challenge my father to a fight to get out of it.” She turned to grin at him. “He’s scary-fast with his Wing knives.”

“Pah!”

“You laugh now, but you haven’t seen him fight.” She swallowed hard. “And you really don’t want to.”

“I’ll just mind-blast him into a wall and then we’ll see how fast he is.”

She pouted out her lip. “Don’t be mean.”

King River was the reason they couldn’t see each other. Father was right when he said nothing good would come of Elitia’s alliance with the Selpes. So far, it had been a whole lot of bad and not much else. But he didn’t want to fight with Terra over her father.

“Fine. When we manage to convince them to be friends again and reinstate our betrothal—and then want to get out of the betrothal—I promise to challenge my father, not yours, to a fight,” he said. “Or we could just refuse to kiss at the wedding ceremony.”

Terra lost her balance and nearly slipped over the edge of the waterfall. “Kiss? Why do we have to kiss?”

“That’s what being married means: lots of kissing,” he told her.

She frowned. “I thought marriage was about joining two families.”

“No, you’ve been listening too much to your father. Marriage is mostly about kissing. Lots and lots of kissing.”

“Ew, gross.” She stuck out her tongue and pretended to retch.

“Apparently, grown ups like to do it,” he said.

“Why?”

“I’m not sure,” he answered. “We could try it and find out.”

“Kiss? You?” she stammered out.

“It’s either me or Davin.”

At that, she looked like she might actually throw up. “I am
not
kissing my brother.”

Jason shrugged. “Well, then. If you want to know what it’s all about…”

Terra looked at him for a moment, then said, “Fine. Sure. Let’s do it.”

Jason turned to face her, setting his hands on her shoulders…then switching to her arms…then her head…then back to her shoulders. They really were getting in the way. Where was he supposed to put them that wasn’t completely awkward?

“You’ve never done this before, have you?” Terra asked.

She was making an immense effort not to laugh at him. It didn’t help. He could still tell she wanted to.

“Of course not,” he said.

“Well, not that I’m an expert,” she began. “But I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to start by patting your kissing buddy down for concealed weapons.”

“No more than you’re supposed to tease him when he’s trying to concentrate.”

“It’s not a test, Jason.”

“Of course not. I never concentrate during those.”

“Ok.” She shifted to face him, closed her eyes, and set her hands on her lap. The hint of a smirk still lingered on her lips. “I’ll let you concentrate then.”

She looked so peaceful there, mist beading upon her skin and a breeze rustling through her golden hair. Jason took some time to commit the moment to memory. Who knew how many more like it they would have together. Then he leaned in and kissed her. He kept his lips pressed to hers for a few still seconds, then pulled back.

Terra cracked open an eye. “That was…weird.” She opened the other eye and swung her legs back over the edge of the cliff. “I don’t get it. Why do people do this? It seems so silly.”

Jason had actually kind of liked it, but he said nothing.

“Anyway, I should probably get going. I managed to lose Davin in the library while he was busy chatting with some girl, but he should be back home soon. If he gets back before I do, I’ll have a hard time convincing him that I wasn’t with you. And he
will
tell Father.”

Jason didn’t care if King River found out. But Terra clearly did.

“Will you be able to get away and come here during the break?” she asked him as she stood.

“The question is more whether you will.”

She put her backpack on. “I’ll try. How shall we let each other know—”

Jason tackled her to the ground. A black throwing knife shot over their heads. Jason rolled and shot his hand up to catch a second knife aimed for Terra’s leg. He sprang up and scanned the trees for any hints of movement. Behind him, Terra got up.

“Elitions,” Terra said, her eyes frozen on the Leaf knife in Jason’s hand.

“Yes,” he whispered back, taking her hand.

At Terra’s nod, Jason ran into the trees, avoiding the main cluster of Elitions he could hear hiding in there. A man with pale lilac hair and amber eyes jumped at them, throwing a scattering of Leaves their way. They avoided the knives—barely—and Jason hit the man with a Phantom mind blast that sent him crashing hard into the nearest tree. He pushed his legs faster, trying to put some distance between them and the Elition assailants. Terra gripped his hand and matched his pace, but from her stuttered breathing, he knew she wouldn’t be able to maintain that speed for long. They wouldn’t be able to outrun the people after them.

Terra seemed to be thinking the same thing. “The portal…Rosewater,” she coughed out.

“It’s too far,” he told her, wishing he could channel some of his speed into her.

“Fight?”

“There are ten of them.”

That was all he needed to say. They both knew they had no chance of winning in a fight against ten full-grown Elitions.

“Then what?” she asked, stumbling in her step.

“I’m still working on it.”

Their assailants were closing in fast, looping around to enclose them. Terra looked about ready to pass out from exhaustion, and the fact that the ground was heavy and slippery from the slowly rotting wet leaves wasn’t helping matters. Jason pulled her harder. There would be time to rest later, when they were safe.

“Hold on,” he warned, regaining his grip on her sweat-slicked hand.

And then they dropped as the ground dipped two meters. The area below was a small clearing in the forest, filled with young and slender trees. One of them was a maple the color of fire, and it had a very odd halo around it, almost as though the tree were a picture—or an illusion.

“Do you see it?” Jason asked, pointing that way.

“The tree?”

“It looks a bit like a portal.”

“Looks…like a tree…to me,” she huffed.

But Jason was sure there was something magical about that spot, so he angled toward it. When Terra realized he was running straight at a tree, she slowed.

“No, hurry. We need to get through.”

“But…”

“Trust me, Terra. That’s a portal.”

And he pulled her forward, yanking them both through the halo. The air there felt heavy and slow, as though time had nearly stopped. Everything—the trees, the ground, the sky—looked milky and diluted, and it began to slowly dissolve. At the same time, the rush of waves on a beach roared up, followed by the arrival of the harsh scent of seawater. The remainder of the forest melted away, leaving them standing upon a rocky shore.

~ 4 ~

516AX April 18, The Sapphire Shore

“YOU WERE RIGHT,” Terra said after she’d caught her breath. She turned to scan the beach. “How did you know it was a portal? That tree looked a bit weird, but I didn’t see a portal.”

“Maybe it’s a Phantom thing.”

All Elitions could see portals, but Jason had come to realize that they didn’t see them quite the way Phantoms did. He had heard other Elitions describe portals as subtle ripples or distortions in the air. That’s not how he saw them. To him, portals were as clear and visible as any other part of the environment, whether leaf, branch, or pond. Maybe that’s why he could see this portal whereas Terra could not. At least he
had
seen it. Jason looked at the spot where they had come through, but there was no longer any portal he could see. He reached forward but felt nothing but a residual tingle of energy.

“It’s gone,” he said. “The portal is gone.”

“Maybe it only goes one way,” Terra suggested.

“Is there such a thing?”

“I once read something about that sort of thing, but I can’t remember the details.”

Since Jason didn’t do the reading at school, he was of no help there. He’d never expected to actually need anything in those books. When this was all over, perhaps he would rethink that habit.

“We should get to higher ground. The tide is coming in fast,” he said and set off in the only direction they could walk.

They made it only two steps before the portal behind them spread open and shot out eight Elitions. Jason didn’t wait for them to start throwing knives. He grabbed Terra’s hand and took off running.

“Where are Orchid and Mystery?” one said.

“They lost a grip as we went through. I think they’re still back on the other side.”

“We’ll pick them up at the end of the portal loop.”

Jason and Terra ran into a narrow passageway between the cliffs, the high rock walls cutting off the rest of the assailants’ conversation.

“Jason, they know something about that portal,” Terra said as they stepped and slid between rocks as sharp as the edge of a Serenity blade.

“The big one is a Phantom,” he replied. “So it does take a Phantom to see the portal. And it would seem it takes one to bring others through.”