40 | ACT II, SCENE XII

P R E V I O U S L Y

"Are we interrupting something here?" asked a pleasant voice from behind us. Horrified, Tristan and I both broke apart and looked up.

The Dessari had found us before we had found them.

VEZORT ISLAND, OCEMOND SEA.

EDWINA

TAKEN ABACK BY SHELL SHOCKED surprise, Tristan and I untangled ourselves from each other and got up awkwardly. The mischievous glint in his deep blue eyes vanished at once, and I managed to arrange my face back to its cold look.

They had found us.

We were the hunted, and they were the hunters.

Standing over us, watching us with a dreadful, cruel glint in their eyes, was a group of over one dozen men.

The Dessari.

They were all ivory skinned, with almond shaped eyes the colour of the warm blue sea. None of the men were mounted, there were no horses in sight. All of them had bronze colored hair. They were dressed simply in travelling clothes, yet a man at the front was dressed more richly than the rest. He had been the one who had spoken.

A malicious glint sparkled in the depths of his soulless eyes.

Suddenly, the man chuckled.

It felt hollow and empty and soulless, and I knew that something was wrong with him.

"Travelers," he spoke again in an accented lilt, "are you lost? Or under danger of attack?"

"We are good, thank you very much, stranger," Tristan said stiffly, trying to keep his tone warm but the ice crept into it steadily, one inch at a time.

The lines of the shady man's face lightened as he gave a honeyed smile to us.

"Are you... looking for something?" he asked cheerfully, wringing his hands.

"We were-" I began.

"We were not-" Tristan cut me off brusquely, tightly clenching my fist as a signal to shut up.

"Looking for a piece of... the Logogram?" the strange man asked with a twinkle in his eye.

My jaw nearly fell, Tristan sharply drew a breath as we both huddled closer to each other in an involuntary second.

"No," I said. "We are definitely not looking for it."

"Oh, come on!" the strange man said jovially. "You can trust me," he winked. "Everyone knows that Pandora hid the first piece on this Island. Besides... what would a strong young man and a beautiful woman like you be possibly  travelling around with swords for?" he asked, giving another wink of his blue eyes, this time directed right at me. "Is she yours?" he beckoned to me.

I nearly jumped at him, ready to tear out his throat. Tristan's hand shot out just as I was about to lunge and firmly pulled me to his side, a hand circling my waist. He ignored my muffled hiss of protest and gave the stranger the coldest glare he could muster.

"She's mine-"

"-I'm not anybody's!"

"And if you are smart enough, you'll stay away from her before she cuts off your cock and wears it around her neck," Tristan growled threateningly, ferocity lingering in the depths of his voice. My lips couldn't help but pull up in a grin.

The way he talked about me... the admiration coloring his voice, it made my heart melt.

"Of course, of course," the queer man forcefully beamed. "Oh! Forgive me my manners, I forgot to introduce myself. Reynald," he said, putting out his hand for us to shake.

Tristan gave me a look, then extended his hand reluctantly, and Reynald winced as his fingers almost got crushed in Tristan's steel handshake.

"Ah, you have a firm grip, young man," Reynald  panted delicately, his face twisting into another lopsided grin. "Well, travelers," he said, "perhaps you're too shy to ask. Alright, alright! Just if you want to know," his voice dropped to a low baritone, and he pointed to the other end of the clearing. It was the forked opening Tristan had entered a few minutes ago, and Reynald was pointing to the other side of the fork. "It's there," he said ominously, "they say Pandora hid a piece under a Jade Oleander."

Hmm... Jade Oleanders were strange trees, often possessed to have magic powers united to them. They were very strange indeed. Legend had it that the trunks were colored black, the leaves purple. I'd never seen Jade Oleander in my life, but then... no one else had either.

There existed tales.

Only tales.

"There's a full bunch of those trees on this Island. Maybe it's straight in there," another of the company spoke up for the first time, pointing to the forked route in the green shrubbery.

I looked at Tristan hesitantly, and saw the same reluctance dulling his gaze. The myths said that the Dessari were placed in Vezort Island for the very purpose of protecting Pandora's piece.

Then why the hell were they telling us where it was?

Unless it was a trap?

"Is that so?" Tristan asked curtly. "We will take that route then."

"Of course, of course," Reynald said enthusiastically, clapping his hands. That was when I knew that he surely had a plan cooking to trap us.

"Our many thanks, stranger," I muttered, cocking my head to one side. He happily grinned at me, then suddenly, all the men disappeared in the blink of an eye.

"How did they vanish?" Tristan spluttered all of a sudden. "Such powers are only possessed by gods!" he hissed.

"There's something seriously fucked up in this place," I shook my head, ears alert for any following footsteps in the other branch of the forest.

"Talk about being direct."

"I swear. Why was that creepy lunatic helping us?" Tristan frowned. "The Dessari were formed to protect the location of the pieces of the Logogram! Why did he seem so intent on telling us about it?"

"I don't know, Valmont. I'm just feeling horribly uncomfortable. Something isn't right here. Now shut up and come on," I rolled my eyes and pulled his arm, marching on and turning around. He swore under his breath and followed me as I took the lead on the path, to the black Tower we had previously seen. "I get a feeling we shouldn't be here."

"No, you shouldn't be here. I, however, have to. That's what happens when you pledge your life to serving your kingdom-" suddenly his voice cut off mid sentence, and I turned around to find him stopped in his tracks.

"What now?" I groaned. "Are you feeling violent again?"

"No. I'm just feeling creative with my weapons, you lunatic," Tristan shot me a mutinous glare, refusing to move, feet planted rooted to the spot.

"Look, Valmont. My tolerance for idiots is extremely low today. I used to have some immunity built up, but-"

"-woman."

"-obviously there's a new strain," I went on.

"Edwina," his voice cut through and he forced me to look up and turn to the path I was so merrily marching on. His hand turned my head skyward with a glare, making me look at what he was watching.

I expected to see the black Tower we were making our way to.

"Holy shit!" I hissed.

The Tower had disappeared.

Gone. Evaporated. Disappeared and demolished, no sign showing that it had ever been there. It had evaporated into thin air. Either our internal compasses sucked, or we were just lost.

"That's right, woman," Tristan hissed angrily. "That tower, it's gone. Guess what? We're lost."

• • • • •

"Where the damned hell did it go?" he fervently asked himself, as we both tried to hide the panic making its way into our voices.

"Did we take a wrong turning?" I asked anxiously, my voice keen and profound.

"No."

Suddenly, I saw something shimmer from the corner of my eyes. I turned to the right and nearly shouted my head off at the sight.

"This Orchard appeared out of nowhere!" I exclaimed, pulling Tristan forward with me. A kind of an orchard, tightly walled and fenced by high silver gates, had suddenly come into view out of thin air which brimmed over with enchantment. The tops of trees were visible from above the delicate twisted metal, but they weren't oranges or plums or lemons.

Violet colored leaves visible through branches of dark black.

Jade Oleander.

Was this what Reynald had been talking about?

And how the hell did the enchantments here work?

We had to go in and see. Because the suggestion that the piece of the Logogram would be buried under a Jade Oleander made absolute sense. I adamantly dragged up Tristan to the ivory gates before he could let out a sound of protest.

"Halt," said a voice, female.

Beside me, I found standing a woman unnaturally tall and breathtakingly beautiful. She unnaturally white, with cinnamon hair and eyes like my sister - sky blue. The woman drew herself up as we approached, but a red painted fan with gold birds covered the lower half of her face.

"Yes?" Tristan asked coolly.

"You cannot enter," she answered in a high, beautiful voice. She wasn't immortal - why did she behave or sound like one?

"We want to enter," I told her firmly, and the strange woman's searching eyes flicked to me, penetrating to my inner depths.

"My name is Remora, sister of Reynald and Duchess of Vezort. You can go into the Orchard if you answer one question," she told us.

"Go on."

The woman haughtily laughed with a cunning gleam in her eyes. I could not tell if she was smiling though, for the fan still covered the lower half of her face

"Am I beautiful?"

Tristan raised an eyebrow in amusement, and I gave him a stern glare.

"Yes," I told Remora suggestively. Well, she was beautiful, but for that fan she covered her face with.

The strange lady gave a keening, harsh laugh that sounded more like a bark. And then she withdrew the fan.

Tristan and I almost gasped, holding back at the last moment to keep from drawing attention

Remora's mouth was split from ear to ear, a bright red smile cutting across her skin. Blood dripped down from the brusque, jagged cuts, pooling at the chin where it congealed in a sticky mass. She smiled, showing white teeth stained with red.

"And now?" she pressed further. "Am I beautiful now?"

Alarm bells went off in my head as I identified just what Remora was.

A deadly, lethal ghost spirit.

"They are called Ghails," Cosmo had said. "A deceptive, creepy, trickster spirit that often heralds death. People call her to be the incarnation of Aurea, who was so brutally murdered by her husband, who was my father, Uranus."

"But what is so creepy about her?" I had asked.

"The woman will ask you if you think she is pretty. If they answer no, she will kill them with a pair of knives. If they answer yes, she will pull away the fan covering her face, revealing that her mouth is slit from ear to ear. And then she'll ask her question again. If the answer is no, she will slit your mouth so it resembles hers. If the answer is yes, she will leave you for then but will appear that night at the threshold of your chamber and kill you."

It is impossible to run away from her, as she will simply reappear in front of the victim, making it their fate."

I put a warning hand on Tristan's back as he gave me a careful look, then glanced at Remora's bloody mouth, wide open and grinning wickedly at us.

Slowly, I took a few steps back, pulling Tristan along with me. He opened his lips to hurl some more profanities but I shut him up with a practiced glare.

"How the fuck do we get rid of her, woman?" he whispered.

"Every time you open that big mouth of yours it robs me of my ability to think. So shut up and let me think," I hissed furiously, clenching my fists and wracking my brains.

"Throwing pieces of fruit or hard candy at her will make her pause, giving you time to run away. That, or a cleverly manipulated answer."

"Well?" Remora asked again, coming a bit closer. "Am I beautiful now?"

"You are... er..."

I couldn't think. I told myself to calm down, not to panic. Neither of us had fruit or candy with us, and cleverly manipulated answers were the last thing I could think of with the strange woman staring right into my eyes.

"Yes?" she pressed further.

"You are-" Tristan was furiously trying to think, only the tightness of his grip on my arm showed that he was more worried about my safety and less about him escaping from the woman.

"Tell me," Remora pleaded coyly, her voice a strange, musical laugh.

"You are not so bad!" I almost shouted at her.

She stared at us, shocked.

The fan left her hands and dropped.

The moment it touched the ground, a loud cannon shot boomed from inside the Orchard, shaking the air and the ground.

At once, someone began to shout. So many voices. Distorted, strange voices. Voices. Voices that iced and laced my blood with poison, voices that told my instincts that the right thing to do was to run before Remora found us. Because swords or our powers would have no effect on a spirit.

The voices. There would be more of them inside. They'd come after us. More Ghails. More Dessari.

"They're going to come after us," I whispered, but Tristan had already whirled into action, channeling his power into huge bolts of lightning taking shape in his cold hands. He whirled bolt after bolt at the Jade Oleanders, knocking them down into the Orchard inside the walls.

More shouts followed from inside, as I joined him.

I squeezed my eyes shut, letting fire flow through me and drawing out a circle of fire around the walls. No one could cross it unless I willed it, and we both put a considerable amount of effort as crashes sounded with Tristan breaking off the Oleanders.

Remora was still in a frozen state, but her expression quickly thawed and she gave a shrill, keening laugh, turning around.

It was us who froze.

There were nearly two hundred, armed Dessari behind us, crowding near the periphery with gleaming eyes and gleaming swords.

"We will need to kill them all," Tristan hissed angrily, testing himself and squaring his shoulders. "Else we don't get out of here. Not in one piece."

I gravely nodded to him, gripping the spear and bracing myself as he raised his sword.

The dead men's screams tore the air apart.

• • • • •

Next chapter brings us... very close to one of the most important plot points in the story! Also, there's hopefully gonna be a surprise next week because it's been something I've been working hard on and I think you all are really going to enjoy it! Do drop a vote, and have a golden day :)