Soul Seekers03 - Mystic (15 page)

“You’ve got less than a second to tell me where he is,” I warn, taken by surprise when instead of resisting me, instead of answering me, he drops his head back and freely offers his neck. His deep purple eyes rolling skyward to meet mine, bearing no trace of the soft lavender gaze I remember.

“Do it,” he says. “If it pleases you, I won’t move to stop you.”

At his urging, I shove the knife in. Slicing through a soft layer of smooth, ivory skin—only to gasp in disbelief as a stream of golden fluid seeps from the wound.

That’s why he glows. It comes from inside!

“What are you?” I whisper, watching as the fluid coagulates, then dissipates, as the gash seals shut, leaving no sign it ever existed.

“I already told you.” He straightens his spine, cricking his neck from side to side as he turns to face me for the first time since I arrived.

“I know what you told me, but you’re more than a Mystic. That much is clear.” My gaze rakes over him, trying to get my bearings, trying to make sense of his being here.

“Am I?” He shrugs. “I’m not sure what I am anymore.”

Our eyes meet, and for the first time since I got here, I’m no longer sure what to do. He’s not acting at all like I expected him to.

“Why are you following me?” I snap, in desperate need of some answers. “Why are you here? There’s no way you can ever convince me to go back if that’s what you’re thinking!” The athame wavers before me, though it’s no use where he’s concerned.

“I don’t even know if I can return. I wouldn’t dream of taking you.” His dark gaze appraises me, and for the first time ever he looks weary, broken, and as lost as I currently feel. “Besides, you’re fully healed now from what I can see. Exactly how long have you felt better, Daire?”

I stare at him without blinking.

“Much longer than you let on, I presume.”

I stand mute before him, staring at the place on his forehead where the chair landed. Noting how, just like his neck, it bears no trace of trauma.

“I’m not interested in apologies,” he says. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“What are you interested in?” My gut clenches. “I demand to know the truth.”

“Why do you think I’m here?”

“Because you’re following me—stalking me! You think that just because you saved me you can claim me!”

He shutters his eyes, mumbles something unintelligible under his breath.

“You held me in a locked room—bolted from the outside—with no way to escape! You held me hostage against my will—and tried to keep me weak, so I wouldn’t be able to leave!”

“Is that what you think?” His face clouds with pain.

“That’s what I know! Now where the hell is Dace?” I start to push past him, only to have him grab hold of my arm and pull me tightly against him.

“Don’t,” he says, his gaze fixed on mine. “Trust me, you’re not ready for that. It’s worse than you can imagine.”

I try to jerk free, but it takes a few attempts to succeed.

“You won’t like what you see,” Axel warns, but I dismiss it with a wave of my hand. Following the set of tracks that lead to my broken, bloodied, but still breathing boyfriend.

twenty-two

Dace

I wake from the dream with bleary eyes, a foggy brain, and the memory of Daire’s sweet scent clinging in a way so insistent, so real, I instinctively roll onto my back and thrust a hand before me in a foolish and desperate attempt to make contact. Trying not to picture myself as I really am—a tortured mind, a wretched body, with five stupid fingers grasping at air—refusing the truth my heart knows too well.

She’s not there.

Never will be.

This is a place of deep fetid darkness and gloom. Home to demons, those who hunt them, and the soulless, like me.

A light as bright as Daire’s has no place here.

Even that strange glowing man was quickly overcome. Took only a matter of minutes to see his radiance permanently snuffed and diminished.

Still, my longing to gaze into her glittering emerald eyes and taste her sweet lips manages to persist. My need far too fervent to be tempered by something as simple as truth, I continue to grasp and pull and yearn until I wear myself out, burrow deeper into the earth, and wait for the dreamstate to claim me again.

twenty-three

Daire

I drop beside the crumpled form, my fingers frantically digging through layers of earth. Clearing his back of debris, I grab hold of his shoulder and try to roll him onto his side, only to have him mumble something incoherent and push me away.

“Dace—please, it’s
me
!” I cry, trying to make him face me again, but he’s quick to deny me.

“He’s gravely injured and severely traumatized.” Axel’s voice drifts from behind. “He’s been down here too long to believe it’s really you.” His tone is straightforward, containing no hint of smugness, and yet the words manage to grate to no end.

Determined to ignore him, I lean closer, press my lips to Dace’s ear, and urge him to open his eyes and see that it’s me. Only to have my heart sink in despair when he shrinks from my touch and squeezes his eyes tightly shut.

“Either end me or leave me!” he croaks in a voice so damaged, I barely recognize it as his.

“I will
never
end you. And I have no intention of leaving without you,” I say, managing to force him onto his side until his face is just inches from mine. “Dace, please!” I beg, reaching for the key at my neck and holding it up before him. “You must remember this, I’m sure that you do. I wear it as a symbol of our love and I gave you one to match.” I slip a hand under his bloodstained sweater, hoping his key is still there, that he didn’t lose it on his hellish journey here. Breathing a sigh of relief when I curl my fingers around it and bring it to his face. “Tell me you remember. Tell me you haven’t forgotten the time we spent together.” I press the keys together until they’re perfectly matched, then I lower my lips to his and kiss him until he finally relents and kisses me back.

His lids flutter open. His eyes meet mine. And when I see the emptiness inside, my heart collapses in my chest.

Soulless.

It really is true.

But when he brings a hand to my face, and cups his palm to my cheek, I know that some semblance of Dace has managed to stick.

“I’ve dreamed you so many times,” he says. “How do I know I’m not dreaming now?”

“Because I’m here. This is real. And I would’ve been here earlier but—”

“So I am dead.” His face floods with inexplicable relief. “I finally managed it, and now we can be together for eternity.”

“No!” I shake my head, desperate to refute it. “No one’s dead. We’re both alive. And now I’m going to get you out of here.”

But before I can finish, he’s already turning away. Closing his eyes in denial, he says, “You died. I saw you die. I watched the whole thing.”

“Not the
whole
thing!” I cry, my throat parched and constricted, but I force the words past. “So much more happened, but we’ll go over it later. For now, I need you to trust me enough to help you get out of here. Okay? Dace?”

He slips from my grip. His consciousness fading, voice drifting, he says, “I’m soulless … no good to you now…”

I try to prop him up, heave him onto my shoulder. But in his unconscious state, it’s like lifting an unwieldy lump of dead weight.

I glance over my shoulder, glaring at Axel as I struggle with Dace. “The least you could do is help,” I say, only to stare incredulously as he remains resolutely in place. “If you had an ounce of decency in you, you would—”

Before I can finish, he says, “It’s not my job to help him.” I sputter in outrage, about to comment on his unbelievable selfishness, when he goes on to say, “I shouldn’t even be here. It’s my job to
guide
him, no more. But now I’m afraid I’ve overstepped some of my most sacred boundaries.” He shoots me an uncertain look, rakes a hand through his platinum curls, and though I have no idea what he’s getting at, I’m far from amused.

“Listen, Axel,” I say. “Here’s the thing: You either help me lift Dace, or you get the hell out of my way. I have no time for word games, and absolutely no interest in your existential dilemma. With or without you, Dace and I are out of here.”

I pull on Dace’s jacket again, finally getting some traction, when Axel heaves a deep sigh and comes around to Dace’s other side. Easily propping him onto his shoulder, he looks at me and says, “I should probably explain. I’m Dace’s spirit guide.”

twenty-four

Daire

“You?” I stare. The disbelief in my tone is nothing compared to the disbelief I wear on my face. “You’re Dace’s spirit guide?”

Axel nods in almost imperceptible assent. His stride quick and purposeful, his gaze fixed straight ahead.

“And why did you fail to mention this earlier? Why did you save me and not him?” I glare hard at him, but no matter how long I hold the look I can’t get him to return it. “You left him for dead. Left him abandoned and soulless in the dreariest dimension of the Middleworld. You haven’t done a single thing to protect him. So excuse me for being suspicious.”

“My oath was to guide him,
not
to protect him. There’s a difference.”

I gaze at him wide-eyed. Every word he speaks just makes it worse. “That’s it?” I cry, my hands curling to fists, blood rippling to my cheeks in a combination of anger and frustration. “That’s your defense? You’re going to argue semantics? Is that the best you can do?”

He ignores the outburst and carries on without a word. And when we pass through the vortex, I steel myself for the onslaught of demons, only to watch in disbelief when the few remaining ones take one look at Axel and flee.

“If you are Dace’s spirit guide like you claim,” I say, after we’ve traveled quite a ways, “then why’d you choose me over him?”

For the longest time, he refuses to engage. Remaining stubbornly silent through a succession of veils before he says, “I chose you over Dace, as you put it, because I knew that you were the key to ultimately saving him.”

I stare at his profile for a long time, before I say, “That doesn’t make any sense.”

He nods in acknowledgment, but steadfastly refuses my gaze. “On the surface, it probably doesn’t,” he says. “But the fact is, Dace loves you and you love Dace. You are fated for each other.”

I continue to stare. My interest now piqued.

“As Dace’s spirit guide, it’s my job to guide him. Much like Horse does, only I do so in different ways.”

I switch my gaze to Dace’s battered, unconscious form. Barely able to keep my anger in check when I say, “Well, you’ve done a really bang-up job there, haven’t you, Axel?” I scowl. “Really. Stellar work. Way to go.”

He ignores the slight and goes on to say, “While I am always attuned to him, and my influence is strong, it is only to the degree that Dace is willing to allow it, or acknowledge it. I am the nagging tug he feels in his gut. I am the gentle push toward a particular choice. I’m the intuition he doesn’t always choose to act on. I’m there to guide and influence only. It is not my place to interfere with his choices. There is such a thing as free will, and I have to say that Dace Whitefeather has never failed to exercise his.”

I weigh his words in my head, but remain unconvinced.

“Think of life as a classroom. You humans arrive here in order to learn and grow. And most of that learning and growing comes from the mistakes that you make. It’s just the nature of things. Humans would never learn anything if their guides were always interfering, or trying to protect them.”

“But you
did
interfere! You just said that you saved me to save Dace. I was already dead, I took my last breath, when you gave me the kiss of life!”

Axel’s lips flatten. His face grows conflicted.

And in that moment, I know that I’m right. His expression providing all the proof that I need, to know that his feelings for me go far deeper than he’s willing to admit. Far deeper than they rightfully should.

He pauses a long, thoughtful moment, before he turns to me with a regretful gaze. “By allowing you to live, by restoring your breath, I’m afraid I’ve broken my most sacred oath.”

His expression is broken. He’s speaking the truth.

A truth that reveals just how much I’ve misjudged him.

Axel wasn’t hiding me because he’s secretly in love with me.

He was hiding me because he wasn’t supposed to save me.

“It’s true,” he says, having eavesdropped on my thoughts. The look that follows assuring me there’s no need for embarrassment. “Dace was meant to die, not you. That’s why I was there—it was time to guide him home. But instead of Dace, I ended up taking you.”

“So it really was the prophecy, then?” I gaze off into the distance. The entire foundation of what I knew about life feels suddenly tenuous.

“Cade’s forcing it was a little premature, but only a little. It was going to happen anyway. But now, because of what he did, everything’s changed.”

“Because I died instead?”

“Partly.”

“And the other part?”

Axel looks at Dace.

“So, let me get this straight, you were there to whisk Dace to the Upperworld because it was his turn to die?”

He nods.

“But then everything got messed up, and I died instead?”

He inhales deeply, lifting his shoulders and dropping them again.

“And so, somewhere between the Lowerworld and the Upperworld you decided to save me, even though it went against your most solemn oath. And you did so in order to ultimately save Dace.” I stare hard at him, but he doesn’t respond. “And then you proceeded to hold me hostage so no one in the Upperworld would discover what you did, while everyone in Enchantment assumed I was dead.”

He turns away.

“So all of this time you were basically protecting yourself?”

He closes his eyes.