A Girl Named Calamity by Danielle Lori

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

DEALING WITH MISTAKES

Iwoke with a start. My heart beat fast while a cold sweat covered my skin. I looked up at leaves and found that I was lying on the forest floor. The sun shone through the branches, and I blinked to adjust to the light.

What the woman had said flooded my mind, and I leaped to my feet. At this point, I believed it could all have been a dream. But how did I end up in the middle of the forest? I spun in a circle but saw nothing but trees.

Turmoil waged inside me, and I looked at the sun halfway across the sky. It had been later than this when I’d visited the woman’s shop. Did that mean I had lost a whole day?

The stars weren’t out so I couldn’t use The Star of Truth to direct me anywhere. I began to walk aimlessly through the forest while the woman’s words went through my head.

Time for you to die.

I shook my head. Thinking about that while I was alone in the forest probably wasn’t the best decision.

I couldn’t kill myself.

I shivered. I didn’t know how to interpret what happened. But I’d heard her voice in my head . . . and it was mine.

I walked for hours with her words running through my mind and creating more confusion than the first time I thought about them.

“How did you get away from him?”

I froze at the voice as my heart kicked into overdrive. I hadn’t even noticed the crystal growing red as I had been too consumed with my thoughts. It took me only a second before I took off running. I stopped short when the old Mage appeared before me. I tried to run around him, but he appeared in front of me again. I tried three more times before I gave up. He could move in the blink of an eye, and it was only a futile use of my energy.

“Good choice, dear.” He held out his hand. “Shall we go now?”

I reached for the knife in my sheath, but only grabbed air.

He shook his head reproachfully. “Do not make this difficult. Come with me now. I don’t want to have to use harsher methods.”

If this man took me, I believed I would never make it back alive. He was the embodiment of evil; I could feel it wafting off him in waves as though he had been bathing in it. The panic inside me twisted, and I couldn’t stop myself from turning to run. When he didn’t appear in front of me, I believed I would escape.

Until my heart stopped and so did my feet.

My grandmother used to threaten me with tales of creatures who would eat children if they didn’t do their chores. I could only imagine they were after me because I was doing a terrible job with Alyria’s future. They were the creatures of my every nightmare as a child, and they were now coming straight for me.

Thin, sickly limbs that were skeletal with bits of sagging flesh attached. Faces that were more mouth and teeth than anything else.

They ran towards me in an awkward ramble, switching from two legs to four and I backed up, my blood running cold. One made a screeching noise, and I spun around to run, but a hand latched onto my wrist and we disappeared.

* * *

I awakened to the screeching of a metal door. The stone floor was cold, and I shivered. The soft light of a wall torch shone only enough light for me to vaguely see the man entering the cell.

“How was your night?” the old Mage asked.

“The accommodations were wonderful, thank you,” I said sarcastically while shivering. All of a sudden, my lungs closed up, and I grabbed my throat. I struggled to breathe with panic assailing me. Air traveled back into my lungs, and I sucked in large breaths of air.

The Mage scowled. “Don’t be sarcastic. I don’t like it.”

He’d left me here the night before with not even a word. I’d realized that the monsters were most likely only an illusion he’d created, and I felt sick for falling for it. I’d fallen asleep to the sounds of dripping water, the claws of rats on the stone floor, and missing home more than anything.

Sleep had always been something easy for me to find when I was stressed. Now that I was awake, I needed to deal with my situation. I wished I didn’t have to. I wished Weston would find me. And that just made me feel worthless.

“We have a long day ahead of us. Let’s go,” the Mage said before he grabbed my arm and we appeared outside. The sun was just rising over the horizon, and I wondered how many days it had been since I disappeared from Weston and if he was even looking for me.

“What do you want?” Weston was right: I had a bad habit of asking questions I already knew the answers to.

“I want the seal open, of course. And you are going to take me there.”

I swallowed. “I don’t know where it is.”

“That may be true, but you’re going to find it. Well, which way are we going?” he asked expectantly.

A cold sweat covered my body, and I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to torture me if I told him I couldn’t find it. He would assume I was lying. This was going to be a major problem. Because I didn’t think I could locate the seal if I tried.

“South,” I managed to get out. The Mage grabbed my hand and in a blink, we were standing in a foreign city. A gold dome-shaped palace was visible from our spot on the street, and I watched the city’s people mill around. It was very inconvenient that he could just pop us around. I didn’t know how long I could do this before he grew tired of it. But I didn’t have very many other options. Try none.

“Southwest,” I lied out of my teeth.

“If you are lying to me, I will show you pain that you’ve never felt before.”

I doubted it. It would be hard to top the Saccar, but I didn’t argue with him.

I nodded my head. “Understood.”

We appeared in a field of dry grass; a fire contained many elephants in a ring of flames. But it didn’t grow. It seemed only to be a cage.

After I had him take us in a few different directions, he’d apparently grown tired of it.

“I think you play me,” he growled.

I shook my head. “I’m not. This isn’t easy.”

“Let me just demonstrate what I can do if you choose to play me for a fool.”

I flinched. “No, that’s not necessary.” But severe pain attacked my mind, and I fell to my knees and held my head. It ate on my thoughts and memories like a flesh-eating disease. I screamed out in pain and agony until it finally stopped. I lay on the ground, sweating and shaking while the Mage looked at me from above his nose.

“If I continued that you would eventually become a mindless being.” He smiled. “Now, where to next?”

“I think we should head out on foot now,” I croaked.

I’m so utterly screwed.

* * *

The Mage bought a couple of horses while I gazed at the water lapping at the beach. I had never seen the ocean before, and I couldn’t even enjoy the fresh breeze blowing off it with the nervous pit in my stomach.

I couldn’t find the seal, and I was sure I was going to die by the hand of a Mage. The potion shop woman did say it was time for me to die.

I wasn’t ready. That was all I knew.

But I was only a farm girl from Alger. I couldn’t do much to fight a Mage.

I guided him through the exotic trees, staying close to the beach. I wanted it to be the last thing I saw when I died.

Call it intuition. Call it hindsight.

I knew this man would kill me.

I begged Alyria to help me. Why had the breeze spoke to me in Alger and outside of Sylvia, but no more? I had the feeling I’d failed it. And it no longer supported me.

We’d been riding for so long that I watched the sun set over the water.

“I think it’s time for some pain. Maybe then you will decide it’s time to find the seal.”

I tensed at his words. I couldn’t handle the pain again, but neither could I pull off this charade anymore.

“I can’t find the seal.”

“What do you mean you can’t find it?” he shouted.

I flinched. “I just can’t! I’m not the right girl!” I hated to admit it. But at this point, I believed it.

His eyes hardened. “Then you are of no use to me. I may as well kill you.”

Before I could respond, the pain hit me. I grabbed my head and screamed. I vaguely remembered falling off my horse, the pain of hitting the ground was nothing compared to the agony in my head. I screamed as claws buried themselves into every piece of soft tissue in my mind. Raw and bloody, but the claws kept digging and scraping again and again. I could feel them searching around in my memories and thoughts and tugging on them.

As more memories were being torn away, they snapped back into my head at an alarming rate. The pain diminished, and I was left shaking and sweating.

“Breathe,” a familiar, deep voice said. I sucked in ragged breaths, and relief shot through my body.

My gaze went from blood splattered forearms to a familiar assassin’s face.

“You all right?”

I nodded, looking over at the dead Mage and my relief magnified by ten.

“Took you long enough,” I muttered.

He chuckled. “You are more resourceful than I ever imagined. How did you get away this time?”

I was really curious to find out what happened to him when he just disappeared with everyone else. But playing the escapee farm girl sounded like a better plan at the moment. For my ego, anyways.

I got to my feet and walked toward my horse.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To Undaley,” I said coolly.

He laughed. “No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am,” I said as I began to mount my horse.

“You’re staying here.”

“No. I’m. Not.” I was tired of being a pawn. Tired of feeling relief when Weston showed up, and I wouldn’t willingly follow him to the seal.

“Stay here.”

I cringed and waited for my body to comply, but all I felt was the swirl of magic around me, like a strange warm caress that gave me the shivers. It dissipated with the breeze, and somehow, it didn’t work on me. Elation settled in my stomach, and I smiled. Somehow, someway the woman had done this. Or he had used it too many times. I laughed, maybe all those times taunting him had worked in my favor.

“What woman are you thinking of?” Weston asked in a puzzled tone, and it really pleased me. It was nice for him to be confused for a change. “I know I haven’t used it enough. It takes years to stop working.”

He would know.

“Why don’t you figure that out yourself? I’m leaving,” I said about to mount my horse, but he yanked me back down. I tried to pull his arms off me, but he held tight. He had one arm wrapped around my waist and the other right under my neck across my chest. Seemed a little over the top, considering he could have probably held me back with his pinky.

But I wouldn’t complain because it worked great for my little plan. And it might have felt nice . . .

“You missed me, Weston? This kinda seems like a welcome home hug.”

He squeezed me. “More like an I’m inches from snapping your neck hug.”

“You always know exactly what to say to make a woman feel special.”

“You’re delusional if you think that was the only way I could control you.”

Oh, so this little hold was supposed to show me he could still physically control me if he couldn’t compel me anymore. There wasn’t anything I could do about that, but there was one thing I could eliminate.

“You are delusional if you think I am stupid enough to let you.” Before he could process what I meant, I bit down on the arm right next to my face. I bit so hard that I could taste his blood in my mouth.

He shoved me away, and I stumbled to stay standing. I turned around and watched him look at his arm with disbelief. I imagined he was shocked that I had ruined his little plan to get me to open the seal. I never expected the real reason.

I licked the blood off my lips, and his heated gaze locked onto the motion. I had only bitten him and yet he looked at me as if I’d just had sex with him. Granted, I didn’t know what that looked like, but I was imagining. My skin flushed.

His gaze finally left my lips and met mine. He took a step towards me and then clenched his fists and stopped himself. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”

“No, not really,” I said coolly.

He shook his head and rubbed his jaw in disbelief. Then he laughed coldly. “If you wanted to eventually get away from me, this was not the way to do it.”

“You won’t be able to force me to open the seal now. There is no reason you need me around,” I explained.

“Except for the pain that we will both feel.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Who gave you this idea?”

A strange woman who I was uncertain was even a woman . . . Sounded insane, so I settled with, “None of your business.”

“I’m sure they didn’t explain that once my blood hit your tongue, that you can’t be away from me. Ever.”

My stomach sank as I looked at him with wide eyes. No, she definitely didn’t tell me that. Why had I trusted what the woman/thing told me? She had fooled me twice now. And naive was definitely still tacked onto my name. Thinking about her only gave me the chills, so I pushed them away.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, feeling very apprehensive about my decision. “You’re away from Maxim.”

He shook his head. “That’s fucking different, Calamity!”

“Don’t yell at me!” I now felt like I had made a very bad mistake.

“That’s because you fucking did!”

“Shut up! It was the only way to keep you from making me open the seal. If you wouldn’t have taken my blood in the first place, then this wouldn’t have happened!”

His eyes narrowed. “It was my right, and I’d do it again.”

“Your right? In what strange land do you live in?”

“Alyria, actually. You must not follow the laws because a woman is the property of a man. Considering I am the only one in your life, that makes you mine. Now that we’ve shared blood, that makes you undeniably mine.”

I clenched my fists. “Say that again and I will kill you myself,” I growled.

“If you kill me, then you’ll most likely die, too.”

When I blanched, he laughed deeply.

“Welcome to bonding, sweetheart.”