Joshua and the Arrow Realm (24 page)

The air grew colder and snow swirled down. Flakes fell heavier in white gusts, obscuring the battle in the distance.

“Agri, stop!” I pulled on the great beast's fur, trying to steer him back to help my friends. He slid on snow-covered leaves and skid around. “Agri, go back!”

“Keep. Oracle. Alive,” he said.

“My friends need me!” Then Leandro was upon us. Agri dug his feet in the ground to face the man who'd once been my hero and now came at me like an assassin.

Leandro pulled his horse to face me and we circled each other, my bow armed and drawn back against his sword. He shook the snow off his long hair. The blizzard flung its bone-chilling fingers at me. I shuddered and a flash of silver swung at me. I missed death by inches. Agri lunged at Leandro, who dodged the beast's snapping jaws.

How could I fight a sword with a bow?

How could I wound the man I loved?

He'd once told me we must pass over what is evident and search deeper for the truth. And I knew the truth about Leandro the lionheart.

I lowered my bow. “Leandro, don't do this. I know you're in there. I
am
the Oracle. I can find a way to bring you back!”

He kept silent, his fierce gaze ensnaring me with his dark mission. “Artemis says you must surrender your powers and die. I will rule by her side as brother and king.”

The blizzard raged, enclosing us. We sidestepped around each other in the blowing snow. A gust of wind blew a clear view open behind Leandro to see my friends take on a group of soldiers from the treetops while an agrius beast nipped at Artemis as she dodged her horse left and right. The window closed and my friends disappeared in the white.

Snow clawed at my face, throwing sleet in my eyes, and I didn't see the sword swing—but Agri did. He tossed me off his back and took the knife to his own heart. Leandro's sword plunged into the beast's chest as I crashed to the ground.

“Noooo!” I crawled to Agri who lay on his side, panting in distress.

“Be. Who. You. Are.” The great beast's chest slowed its pumping and fell still.

Leandro ripped his sword from Agri and pointed it at me. Blood dripped down the shaft onto the newly fallen snow, painting a crimson ring.

I knew what I must do.

Fight lion with lion.

M
y bones cracked and stretched into beast. My muscles exploded into massive limbs of rock and power. Rough fur rippled along my skin.

Leandro stumbled back, fear cutting his face.

I shook my mane and lunged at him with a great roar, curling back my lips to reveal spiked teeth.

He dodged aside and sliced at me with his sword. It flew past my ear. Snow bashed angrily at us with mad flakes. The pounding of my lion heart pumped loud in my ears. We circled one another. Man and beast.

Slice. Dodge. Slice.

I backed up to a tree and lost my balance. The second I caught my footing, Leandro swung—and so did I. My hefty paw swiped his sword away, but I overshot, slashing his chest with a mighty blow. He fell. And didn't get up.

My massive knees buckled, and I dropped to Leandro's side in the snow. He gasped for air, palm to his
heart. He pulled away a shaky hand red with blood.

“Kill me now, beast or boy, whatever you may be.”

I became the boy again. Tears ran down my cheeks as I bent over him, the wet snow shooting ice through my clothes that had returned to me. “Hekate came back. Like you warned! She put you under a spell. Fight it, Leandro!”

He couldn't die. Not now. Because of me.

He shook all over, his hand dropped to his side. “No fight left. I am what Artemis created me to be. Nothing more.”

My tears fell harder. “So much more.”

I pulled my mother's picture from my wallet, crumbled and worn, and held it up to Leandro. The one photo I possessed of her face forever smiling at me. “My mother. Your wife.”

Something passed across his face. A memory. A spark of recognition. I saw the glimpse of the man I knew but it faded. “I am no one. An instrument of war. My battle is over.” He pulled the orb from his pocket with a grimace and handed it to me. “Use it on me. Quickly.”

He inhaled a deep breath and arched his back. A great groan rose from him. He tried to sit up, grasped my arms, and looked deep into my eyes with pain and regret—a look of the lost Leandro. “Joshua … you
are
the Oracle … forgive me.” He closed his eyes and fell back.

“No. No!”

Don't die now!

The snow melted on his eyelashes and cheeks, so white in the cold. I pressed my hands to his chest. It rose once.
Rise again!
I bent down to hear his breath, but only the shouts of battle and the
scritch-scratch
of biting snow
filled my ears. I thought of the last time I'd pressed my head to his chest, waiting for him to come back to me. The lonely wind screeched around me as I inhaled his chocolate leather smell, wanting to hold on to it—to him.

The battle cries died away and so did my friend.

Ash! She had the Moria plant. There was just one way to save Leandro—become the lion that killed him.

With giant paws, I scooped him up and carried him across the snow as he'd once carried me to safety.

Snow swirled gently around us, then stopped. The sun came out. Through the woods, it was clear my friends won the battle. Artemis and her handful of men hung over the bog from vines lassoed around their waists, handiwork of the Wild Childs who sat in the branches above with arrows aimed. Artemis dangled in the middle, writhing about, unable to free her murderous Hekate vape fingers. Hydriads poked their tusks in the air at the soldier snacks wriggling an arms-length out of reach.

Ash paced the bog shoreline while Oak yelled at Artemis. “Where's Joshua and Leandro?”

“My brother drove him to the Black Heart Tree where he'll be cut down forever,” Artemis gloated.

“That better be a lie or Ash here will cut
you
down,” Oak growled, shaking a fist at her. “The hydriads can feast on your evil flesh!”

Ash stopped pacing and aimed her arrow above Artemis's head at the vine keeping her from death. Charlie dashed about between the trees calling my name, and Apollo worked to unlatch the wagon cages and free the kid slaves. He'd removed his Wild Child clothing and shone out in his kingly garb.

They all stopped when they saw me staggering along
on my two back feet as I carried Leandro.

“Ash! Help!” I roared from my lion chest.

Charlie ran toward me and slid to a stop. “Joshua?”

Why didn't they understand me?

“The Oracle is mine!” Artemis shook her head, twisting in her vine net. “Help me, Wild Childs! You'll never need to go to the WC again. I can make it so. Not Artemis but me, Hekate!”

They laughed at her and shook her vine from above, sending the hydriads in a frenzy as they tossed their tusks closer to her. She shrieked and twisted her legs up.

I placed Leandro on the ground before them, careful to lay him on his cloak as protection from the snow, and willed myself to be a boy again. The gasps of my friends cut through the silence.

“Need the Moria plant to bring him back!” I said.

Ash shook her head. “It dies in the cold and loses its power.” She stood fast and looked around. “Maybe Agri can find some elsewhere–”

“Agri died to save me … from Leandro.”

Ash's face fell and she knelt beside me, tears ran down her face. My own sobs engulfed me as I stared down at Leandro's still face.
Open your eyes!

“If you're the Oracle, Joshua, you can bring him back,” Oak said quietly.

“Maybe the true Leandro will return to us,” Ash said to me in a broken voice. “He would never have killed Agri, or you.”

But we had no Moria plant to save Leandro. We only had me.

I put my hands on his chest, willing him to wake. I thought of his organs healing inside and his lungs breathing in and out and his heart—his good lion
heart—pumping with life. I thought of all his words of wisdom along the way.
You must trust on faith. Believe in yourself and you will have the power to be whatever destiny drives you to be.

Destiny sent me here on a lightning road.

I looked up at my audience who watched and waited and believed.

Even Artemis was silent. I felt her hateful eyes glaring at me from behind her sunglasses.

I
clasped Leandro's strong hand and pushed his shirt up, revealing the broken arrow scar on his arm that the queen mother had fire branded him with long ago. It pressed against the arrow slave mark on my arm. His brand, a more permanent reminder of his refusal to kill human slaves for the thrill of the hunt. He couldn't refuse the powerful spell that marked him here, though. Marks on the outside do not always make the man on the inside, he'd once told me. Even with all he'd done to hurt me, those acts weren't committed by the man inside. Hekate used my hero to take me down. Was her ancient immortal evil so great no one could defy it?

I cried at the unfairness of my friend dying when we'd been brought together again. “By the gods, come back to me, Leandro!”

Fingers touched my arm.

Leandro smiled up at me with his green-blue eyes,
and his one eye bluer than the other twinkled in the bright sun that chased the storm away. The air in my lungs seized as I choked with gladness. A rippling murmur ran through the crowd before us.

I took Leandro's hand to help him up, but he held me down. “I saw all while under the spell.” His voice caught in a tormented whisper, and he clutched my hand tighter. “I had no control. The things I said … the things I did.” He looked up at Ash. “And Agri … ”

“I knew it wasn't you,” Ash said in a quiet voice.

“Hekate did this to you,” I said. “She did it to Charlie too. She's taken over Artemis and put a spell on you and the soldiers. But how did the spell leave—”

“Death ends it. You brought me back.”

I nodded. He gripped my hand harder. “Thank you.” He glanced at Artemis and her men hanging from the vine. I pulled at him again, but he kept me down. “My wife.”

I opened my mouth but couldn't begin to express all that boomed in my heart.

“The photo,” he whispered.

I tugged it out. He held it up and stroked the corner with his calloused thumb, then looked at me with shiny eyes. “Your mother. My Dee Dee … you called her Diana. Of course! Dee Dee was a nickname … yet you're not my—”

I shook my head. “I'd wished though.”

“So had I, Joshua.” He pinched his lips together. “My wife … she loved another. But who?”

“I don't know.” All my life I'd wished I known, and, until recently, I'd wished my father were Leandro. Wishing didn't get you much.

He nodded once and stared at the photo again before handing it back to me. “You look like her. How come I
never saw it?” His eyes grew shinier, holding my gaze. “She's dead.”

I swallowed hard. “Yes.”

His mournful cry cut through the bog. After he'd let it go, he blew out a shuddery breath, staring at the pendant hanging out of my shirt. He reached for it and we opened it together. “My wife … my son.”

His shoulders heaved as a great sob burst from him, raging against the gods. He closed his eyes. When he opened them, it seemed a great peace fell around him and he spoke calmly. “A lost wife and mother. A lost son and brother. Now we have them between us.”

I closed up the pendant and slid it back under my shirt, afraid I'd cry if I spoke.

He squeezed my hand. “We must find our family.”

We now shared a mission to find our missing family. The words floated in my head new all over again. I had a brother!

Guilt swept through me. “I'm sorry, Leandro.”

“Sorry? For what?” He looked up at me, astonished.

“I killed you.”

“You saved me in doing so. Destiny.” He smiled. “I'm the one who's ashamed. You were doing what a hero should do. You must never feel guilt over that. One for the many, right?”

“One for the many,” the Wild Childs chanted.

“Oak told me that a long time ago.” Leandro glanced at Oak, who nodded. “You were right to try and stop me, Joshua. I see now that Hekate hypnotized me soon after she released you into the Wild Lands. I told her everything about me and you. Then she planted her brother's memories in me.” He shivered. “I can never erase those.”

“Not your fault.”

Leandro bowed his head. “You are growing into your prophesied role, Joshua, as the Oracle. Destiny—again.”

I understood now that being a leader—and a hero—meant having to make tough decisions.

I pulled out his journal. “When you were under the spell, this helped me remember how you were so I wouldn't forget … I didn't want to forget.”

“You helped me find my way back.”

“Tough triumphs,” I recited back his words.

He smiled. “Neither sword nor arrow stopped my faith.”

“Stronger than steel,” I said, returning his smile.

He pushed the journal back in my hands. “You keep it. Add your own adventures. Then we'll have them together even if we're apart.”

I liked this idea so I slid it back in my pocket.

Leandro said no more but let me help him up, and Oak rushed to offer a hand. Silence hung thick in the air as the rest of the audience, my friends—and enemies—stared at me with new awe confirming the truth in my heart.

Apollo knelt to me. To my surprise, Ash, Oak, and Charlie did the same. “Joshua, you have the ancient power to heal like Apollo. The power to transform like Artemis. The power to command water like Poseidon. The Oracle has come!”

The Wild Childs banged their bows and arrows on the trees. Power filled me inside. I
was
the Oracle. My destiny. No questioning. No turning back.