Taste of Darkness

“Hey!”

I cut in before they could launch into a verbal battle. “You did the right thing, Loren. He needs to rest after yesterday.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t like to miss out. And I’m with him on this one. I wouldn’t want to be left behind, either.”

“Why is he so tired?” Quain asked in concern. “Is it because of...me?”

“I don’t remember him saving anyone else’s life yesterday,” Loren said.

“I know I owe him one. But what did he do to break the spell? I wasn’t dead. I was just...” Quain glanced at me. “What was I? I didn’t feel anything.”

“You were paused. Neither living nor dead, just suspended. Sepp once explained it as a fake death.”

“And now Tohon’s trapped in this fake death?” Quain asked.

“Yes. And according to Sepp, Belen is, as well. He used that information to try to stop Kerrick from killing him,” I said. Tohon had told me he’d turned Belen into one of his dead soldiers. I didn’t know who to believe, but I knew who I desperately wanted to believe. Either way, Belen had been missing for over a month.

“Estrid and her top staff are also frozen,” Loren added.

“Yeah, but it didn’t matter. No offense, Quain, but Tohon had to be stopped,” I said. “By taking out Sepp, no one would have been able to awaken him, or so we thought at the time. Cellina can’t create more dead soldiers. In the end, by killing Sepp we’d have saved thousands of lives.”

Except Wynn had hit Kerrick with her knife before he could finish Sepp off. Eventually Sepp, Wynn, and Cellina had escaped and Flea had awoken Quain.

“If it makes you feel any better, it was a very painful decision,” I said.

Loren put his hand on his stomach. “Like a bad bout of indigestion.”

“Thanks, I feel all warm inside.” He bumped Loren with his shoulder. “So now that Sepp’s still alive, what does that mean?”

Loren met my gaze. What indeed?

“It depends on Cellina,” I said. “If she likes being in charge, she’ll leave Tohon frozen. If she truly loves him...”

“She’ll come after Avry,” Loren said. “She’s the only one who can heal Tohon.”

Not exactly. Danny’s healing magic had awoken during his adventure with Kerrick in the north. But not many people knew about him. Yet another worry flared. Had Tohon told Cellina about his experiments with the Death Lily toxin? The people who survived being poisoned with the toxin all developed healing powers. Tohon had been injecting it into children, hoping to make healers. Danny and Zila had lived through it, but I’d rescued them. If Tohon had kept it secret, all should be well.

If not... I considered. Danny remained with the northern tribes and Zila stayed with Kerrick’s brother, Izak. Both were in Alga Realm, safe on the other side of the Nine Mountains for now.

“But Avry won’t heal Tohon,” Quain said. “Right? You agreed with Kerrick’s decision to kill Sepp.”

“Right. I won’t.”

“And we all know you can’t be threatened, bullied, coerced, or bribed to heal someone you don’t want to.” Loren smiled.

Quain rubbed his neck. “Yeah, we learned that lesson the hard way.”

“I’d say Kerrick had the most learning to do. Fun times.”

I wouldn’t go so far as to call them fun. However, those days when we’d been all together had been...nice, despite the danger. And now... Grief and sadness filled me. Would I lose everyone I loved before this war ended?

We lapsed into silence. The farther we moved away from the infirmary cave, the greater the chance of encountering an enemy patrol. The night insects buzzed and chirped.

When the sun rose, we stopped for a quick breakfast and continued. In the daylight, the monkeys searched for any signs that Kerrick had passed this way.

“Would he even leave a trail?” I asked.

“If he was too sick to do his tree mojo, he might have broken some branches,” Quain said.

And I still hadn’t felt a ripple of his magic. Which meant he was either unconscious, already inside a Lily, or dead. I leaned against a tree’s trunk for a moment as a wave of misery swept through me. No. Not until I had proof.

Pushing away those dire thoughts, I straightened. “I’ll meet you guys there. You’re slowing me down.” I sprinted down the trail.

They picked up their pace and we reached the Lily cluster a few hours after dawn.

“There’s no sign Kerrick came this way,” Quain said, examining the ground.

I shot him a nasty look.

Loren punched him in the arm. Hard.

“What?”

Ignoring them, I pulled off my cloak and knapsack, setting them down. I moved closer and studied the six Lilys. The cluster grew among the trees. Giant white man-size flowers topped thick green stalks. Thorny vines jumbled below and the scent of honey and lemons filled the air. Get too close to a Death Lily and either the petals snatched you or the vines ensnared you and pulled you in. Once trapped, you couldn’t escape even if armed with a sharp knife. The thick and fibrous petals and leaves resisted punctures and tears.

Death Lilys moved fast for a plant, hissing a warning a second before they grabbed their victims. Once you were caught, it pricked you with two barbs and injected its toxin. One of three things happened next. You die, and it feeds off your flesh, spitting your bones out when it’s finished. Or you don’t die, it spits you out, and you suffer horribly, dying later. Then there are the very few who don’t die at all and become healers. Like me.