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The journey is long and monotonous across the unchanging scenery.
Rachel walks up and down rolling hills until the tediousness becomes almost unbearable. The mirror shows her which markers to look for as she makes her way across the foreign landscape, but they are so mundane, she can easily miss them. The mirror also reflects Orion sitting at the head of a table, talking and sometimes arguing. Sometimes the sign is a strange rock peeking through the wilting grass, other times a patch of wildflowers pop against the rocky face of a hill.
Now and then she takes five minute breaks to drink some water and rest her legs, but she doesn’t waste time. People are counting on her—efficiency is key.
After what feels like eons, the yellowing landscape turns gray and barren. The soil becomes rockier, less stable underfoot. She listens to the crunching beneath her soles, tries to ignore the aches in her thighs and calves and ankles. A bird braves the strange weather, silently gliding through the air. Rolling hills give way to seemingly endless rocky terrain and on the horizon, the silhouette of a mountain range stretches against the ever-darkening sky.
A stream trickles nearby, drawing her attention away from the horizon. She ventures toward the tiny creek to fill her bottle.
Hopefully there isn’t some weird Fae disease contaminating the water.
The water looks clear enough and is cool to the touch. Desperation to quell her thirst wins out in the end, and she takes a tentative sip. There is no odd taste.
Oh well, what happens will happen.
Rachel takes a larger sip and drinks deeply before refilling her bottle.
She spends a few minutes evaluating her surroundings for the umpteenth time, wondering whether this would make a good camping site. The ground is too uneven to get a comfortable night’s rest, though, and there’s nothing to make a fire with anywhere in the vicinity. It’s just rocks, boulders, and gravel. Pressing on in the hopes of finding a more hospitable site is her only option.
Rachel takes the time to put on her jacket, covering her head with the faux fur hood to protect her ears from the raging wind and the blistering cold. Then, she takes a last look at the mirror—the image of a white boulder with an insignia carved into its surface—and shakes her head. There’s no telling if she’ll find the next marker in the dark, but she has to try. Rachel repositions her backpack, stuffs her hands into the deep pockets for warmth, and continues the long walk toward the mountains.
The temperature plummets significantly as night draws closer.
As tired as she is after the long and mildly disturbing day, moving keeps her blood pumping, keeps her warm to some extent. And the faster she gets to the boulder, the quicker she’ll find Orion.
Night falls and Ziggy closes the gap between them so she can see where her feet land. The wind picks up, the whistling she’s grown accustomed to turns into a deafening howl. Shivers run down her spine and up her arms. Rachel keeps her tired eyes on the ground, hunching over as she battles the elements.
“Let me know if you find it,” she calls.
Ziggy, who’s no more than a dot of light in the intense darkness, flashes.
Not even a star is visible in the overcast sky—no moonlight shines the way.
Her legs are sluggish from the cold, muscles scream for mercy, joints beckon for rest. Rachel stops and shakes her head, unable to take another step forward.
“I need to make camp, Ziggy.”
The Fae light flashes once in understanding and flies back to her side.
Rachel sets her backpack on the ground. “I’m sorry. I wanted to go on, but I can’t.”
Ziggy flashes again, slowly floats to the ground, and settles between a few rocks.
Rachel unhooks her blanket from the backpack and shakes it out before taking a seat on top of a rock. She pulls the blanket over her lap with her numb fingers.
“This isn’t going to be the most comfortable night’s rest, so if I’m grumpy tomorrow, you can’t hold it against me,” she says.
Ziggy flashes once.
“I’m probably going to be sore from head to toe, too.”
Another flash.
“Look at you being all understanding and stuff.” Rachel takes a bite of a granola bar and chews slowly, watching Ziggy from the corner of her eye. She swallows and takes a sip of water to wash it down. After her meager meal, she wiggles around to find a comfortable position to sleep in. The problem is that there’s nothing comfortable about sleeping on a pile of rocks.
“Are you going to keep watch for me?”
Ziggy answers with a single flash, before dimming down to a dull gold.
Rachel smiles. “Night-night, bright light.”
Ziggy’s surface ripples in response.
She closes her eyes, half wondering how long it’ll take her to fall asleep with the rock jutting into her hip, before she unexpectedly drifts off into a deep, dreamless slumber.
When Rachel awakens a few hours later, it’s still dark out. The bitter cold penetrates through the blanket and her clothes and seeps into her skin. She spots Ziggy floating nearby in calculated zigzags, probably doing a perimeter check. Rachel groans as she sits upright, stiff after the previous day’s walk and awkward sleeping position.
How many miles had she walked yesterday? Surely more than five. Ten, maybe? Hopefully more than ten. She wipes the sleep from her eyes, yawns, and stretches her sore muscles as best she can.
Rachel sighs as she stands.
Worse things have happened than starting a day without coffee. She rolls up the blanket.
It’s a bit of a hassle to maneuver the blanket back into its original size, but she gets it done and zips the blanket shut. Before she fixes it to her backpack, she has another granola bar, finds her toiletries, and goes about her morning routine as usual—sans the luxury of running water.
“Zigs.” Her voice is still husky with sleep.
Ziggy floats back to her side, brightening as she pulls the compact mirror into the open.
The top mirror shows Orion, fast asleep, whereas the bottom mirror shows the next marker. It looks like a weird tree, where the branches are bare and growing horizontally.
“Let’s see if we can find this tree by the time the sun rises.”
One flash.
Ziggy leads the way through the impenetrable darkness, shining brightly so Rachel can see where she’s stepping.
“Are we far from Amaris?”
There’s an obvious hesitation before the Fae light responds with two successive flashes. Rachel’s brow creases. The last thing she needs now is to run into Orion’s older brother, King Nova.
The sun crests behind the silhouetted mountains in the distance and the darkness slowly dissipates around her, revealing the bleak landscape once more. Light gray stones, in every imaginable shape and size, cover the ground. No matter where she looks, it’s dreary, lifeless, and alien. It’s not exactly what she’d imagined the Fae Realm to look like.
Granted, her fantasies had been more along the line of lush, dense forests for as far as the eye can see, alive with birdsong. Colorful flowers blooming all over valleys, where robust herds of deer grazed near crystal clear rivers. The Fae, she’d imagined, lived in treehouses of some kind, while faeries flew around and pixies played with children. This landscape is nothing near as beautiful as the picture in her head.
The temperature climbs as the sun continues its ascension.
By midmorning, Rachel sees the lonesome, bare tree standing in the distance, its branches growing off to one side. The tree is as gray as the rocks surrounding the trunk, yet it appears so out of place in this depressing world. She stops beside it, presses her hand against the smooth bark, and looks at the mountains in the distance. Judging by how the mountain range has grown since daybreak, she’s made good progress. There’s no telling if the mountains are even where she needs to be, but it sure looks like the obvious route. Rachel takes out the compact mirror and opens it.
Her shoulders drop as the mirror’s black surface reveals her next landmark—a strange rock formation.
“Oh, goody. More rocks,” she mumbles. Rachel searches the area for the next landmark—a needle in a haystack.
The expanse is mostly flat, but in the distance—near the mountain range—three white peaks jut from the earth and reach high into the sky. Rachel double checks the image to make sure those are the rocks she should pass before returning the compact mirror to her pocket. She takes off her jacket and wraps it around her waist. “Five minutes, then we move.”
Rachel takes a seat beneath the tree. She has a drink, eats a granola bar, and gathers her strength for the long journey ahead.
“No rest for the wicked,” she says as she gets to her feet again.
Then, Rachel sets off toward the next marker.
At some point, she catches herself humming a song she can’t place. The song sounded like something her dad used to listen to, something you wouldn’t know you’re acutely familiar with until you hear it again.
“Na-na-nuh-huh. Something-something-something ...” Rachel hummed the rest. “What is that song?”
Unable to figure out the title or any of the lyrics, she gives up and puts it out of her mind.
Her boredom prevails.
“I should’ve brought my phone along,” she says.
Rachel barks a laugh. The absurdity of wanting her phone to amuse herself with catches her off guard. Surely there are more important things she could’ve dragged along. Perhaps a camping stove. A damn pot, so she could boil water. She grimaces as she lowers her hands to her sides, suddenly livid with herself for not planning this trip better before setting off.
Yes, she likes the outdoors. She’s gone camping in the past, had gone on fishing trips with Greg and Luke when they were kids—when Luke was still alive. She knows the basics of camping, yet she’d dived headfirst into a possible suicide mission in a whole other world without giving it a second thought.
“I am such an idiot.”
She runs through the implications of having not brought along the bare necessities of survival, coming up with bizarre worst-case-scenarios if she doesn’t find Orion soon. Even if she finds him, there’s a good chance that he won’t want to come back. What then?
Rachel stares ahead, toward the growing mountain range, where snowcapped peaks reach to the heavens. Even from her position, she’s able to make out the steep inclines and treacherous cliffs. There’s also some vegetation visible, but the meager selection of bare trees are separated by large, rocky terrains.
There are no obvious cave entries or outcroppings that could act as protection against the elements, though.
Her thoughts turn to wild animals, predators that may roam the mountainous region, prowling in search of their next meal. What types of exotic Fae creatures might try to kill her there? A three-headed beast with glowing red eyes, perhaps? Or maybe she’ll be murdered by something more sinister, something akin to the Night Weaver. She could very well end up like that poor person in the school’s boiler room, completely deboned.
She stops in her tracks, closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath.
This negativity won’t help anyone. Get your head straight.
Rachel exhales slowly, opens her eyes again.
Ziggy hovers a few feet away, waiting for her to continue across the desolate landscape.
“Just give me a second.” Inhale, exhale, inhale. “Okay.” She starts walking again, catching up to Ziggy in no time.
When midday arrives, Rachel reaches the three-peaked rock formation. She sits at its base, and takes off her shoes, removes her socks to air her feet, and evaluates the damage. Blisters are already forming from the friction of her socks against her tender heels.
Rachel wrestles her backpack onto her lap and finds another pair of socks and some Band-Aids. It’s the best she can do.
Next, she pulls out some food into the open—an apple and some beef jerky—as she chats with Ziggy about whatever pops into her head. Talking keeps her from dwelling, keeps her sane.
“My water is running out fast,” she says.
One flash.
Rachel only takes a couple of small sips. “Are we near a water source?”
Two flashes.
She sighs and reluctantly closes her water bottle.
As her break comes to an end, Rachel puts on the pair of fresh socks, pulls on her hiking boots, and finds a handful of trail mix to nibble on while she walks.
Rachel continues talking, and Ziggy periodically responds with flashes.
It remains a one-sided conversation for the most part, but it’s better than eerie silence.
The weather changes sometime during the afternoon, revealing a cobalt sky hidden beneath fluffy white dioramic clouds. As the sun’s rays warm the world, the temperature becomes balmy, comfortable even.
“Let’s play a game,” she says. “I spy with my little eye something beginning with an R.”
Ziggy quickly sinks to the ground and lands on a rock.
“Too easy, huh?” Rachel laughs out loud.
The sphere flashes once as it gains altitude again and flies ahead.
“Okay, I spy with my little eye something beginning with a—” Rachel cuts herself off. In the distance, moving parallel to the mountain range at a quick pace, several riders come into view. Surrounded by billowing dust, they seem to be outriding the devil himself as they push their horses to their limits. One of the riders pulls ahead from the rest.
Perhaps those are Nova’s scouts? Maybe he knows she’s in the Fae Realm?
“Hey, Ziggy, should I be worried about those particular Fae?”
The Fae light slows down, as if evaluating the riders moving around the base of the mountain range, before flashing twice.
“Good to know,” Rachel says. “It would’ve sucked if we came all this way just to get stopped by a few male Fae and their pretty ponies.”
Ziggy flashes once. His usual mirth is missing, though. There’s no zigzagging across her path anymore, no playfulness whatsoever. It’s all business.
“I’ll shut up now.”
She’s answered by another single flash.
Rachel watches as the riders disappear in the distance before she relaxes again.
In the silence, her body makes its aches known again. The backpack’s straps cut into her shoulders, the weight she carries settling in her lower back. She reaches up to rub the tension out of her neck and shoulders, groans as she touches the knots in her muscles.
An hour before nightfall, Rachel and Ziggy reach the footfalls of the mountain.
“I think we should get to higher ground, in case those Fae return,” Rachel says, pulling her bottle of water from her backpack. There’s a mouthful left, nothing more. “And we should search for water.”
One flash.
Rachel pulls the compact mirror out of her pocket and studies the image reflecting on the surface. Another rock with an insignia carved into its face. She looks around, but finds nothing that resembles the image.
“Ziggy, come look here,” she says. The Fae light bobs closer. “Can you go ahead and see if this marker is up there somewhere?”
A single flash.
“Don’t go too far, okay? Just do a quick scan and come back.”
Without answering, Ziggy flies off, bypassing the mountain’s treacherous slopes.
Rachel conserves her energy by half-sitting, half-leaning against the rock formation, afraid that if she relaxes too much, she won’t be able to move for the next week. Without water, this is not an option.
Approximately ten minutes pass before Ziggy returns, flashing gold repeatedly.
“Calm down. Did you find the rock?”
One flash.
“Water?”
Another single flash.
“Is it far?” Rachel studies the steep slope she’ll have to take up the mountain.
Ziggy hesitates and grows dimmer. One flash answers her question.
Rachel inhales deeply through her nose, her body begging her to stop for the day. She can’t, though. Her thirst is already becoming unbearable, and she only has a few drops of water left. She needs to move, whether she wants to or not.
“Lead the way.”
She pushes away from the rock formation, and heads to the winding path up the mountains. Her progress is slow, especially with the precarious shifting of loose rocks underneath her feet. Finding any type of traction is nearly impossible in the daylight—risking the ascension at night would be foolish.
They’re able to clear the first flattop mountain, which leads directly into a higher, steeper mountain. She’s ready to stop for the night, but Ziggy is adamant in continuing.
“Really?” Rachel drags her feet as she follows the Fae light. “I’m not going to climb that thing now. We can wait until morning.”
Ziggy flashes brightly, and swerves dangerously close to her head, before shooting ahead. Just as the golden sphere reaches the mountain’s side, Ziggy vanishes into thin air.
“Ziggy?” Rachel walks closer, forgetting her qualms. Losing Ziggy now ... She doesn’t even want to think about it. “This isn’t funny.”
Ziggy half-reappears from the mountain’s side, flashes brightly several times, before slipping into obscurity again.
Rachel exhales in relief and follows Ziggy through the glamor—a carefully constructed image of a roughhewn wall—and into a narrow serpentine passage behind it.
The Fae light bounces in midair a few steps ahead.
“You could’ve been less dramatic about it.”
Ziggy keeps heading down the path, shining brighter as the world grows darker. The passage still has abrupt inclines and treacherous slopes, but at least she doesn’t have to navigate her way across loose rocks. This helps. Not a lot, considering every part of her is in revolt, but the packed ground does make things easier. The darkness is an overpowering force of nature, though, and it threatens to suffocate her in the confined space. The wind moves through the passage, screaming as it erodes the rocks on either side. A gust thrusts her forward, the force of it pushing her onward.
“This wasn’t the best idea,” Rachel says. She squints to see past Ziggy’s glow. The passage is too narrow and twists too often to set up a camp. It would be murder on her already aching body to sleep here. Also, she doubts she’ll get any sleep with the furious wind coming through this place. “You better get me somewhere relatively safe soon, because I’m about to drop dead from exhaustion.”
Ziggy flashes once.
Not long thereafter, her eyelids become lead. She actively works on blinking less frequently, afraid if she shuts her eyes too long she’ll fall asleep while walking. The passage grows narrower, as if the mountains themselves have decided to move closer together to make the journey more difficult. Around one bend, her backpack gets stuck, forcing her to take it off and carry it sideways in her already-weary arms. The farther they walk, the more impatient she becomes. Then, to make matters worse, the passage becomes an even tighter squeeze. The backpack doesn’t fit through anymore. She takes her bag off and leaves it dangling between the rocks, hoping to return to it as soon as she gets to wherever Ziggy needs her to be.
Rachel turns sideways to inch through the opening, praying all the while that she won’t get stuck. Just as she’s ready to throw the fit of a lifetime, the passage suddenly opens up into a large cavern, brightened by moonlight reflecting off the surface of a moderately sized pond. There is vegetation here, too. Green grass surrounds the pond, along with some flowers she’s seen in Orion’s greenhouse. And there, just to the side of the cavern, the rock with the insignia stands.
“Thank goodness.”
She’s about to step forward, towards the semi-subterranean oasis, a slice of heaven after trudging two days through a wasteland, when Ziggy blocks her way. Rachel motions around the ball of light, but Ziggy doesn’t let her pass.
“What the actual—?” her outburst is cut off when the pretty picture suddenly shimmers at the edges.
She pauses, confusion causing her to reevaluate the image. The picture flickers, as if she’s reached the glitch in a looped video recording, and reveals what truly lies beneath the scenic view. Instead of a clear, inviting pond, a pool of yellowish water bubbles in the center of the cavern, emitting a distinctive smell of rotting eggs. She suspects the fluid to be sulfur, or a similar Fae chemical. Instead of vegetation surrounding the pond, there are jagged rocks with dangerously sharp edges waiting.
“It’s a security glamor, isn’t it?”
Ziggy flashes once in answer.
Without a word, Rachel inches back through the narrow passage, intent on retrieving her backpack. She’s ready to make several trips if she has to, prepared to carry every individual item through if she must.
When she arrives at her destination, she quickly unhooks the blanket and tosses it over her shoulder, and pulls out her toiletry bag.
Rachel holds it in one hand and makes her way back to the cavern’s opening, where she sets her belongings in a heap beside the entrance. She makes a second trip to retrieve the food she’s brought along. The third trip is easier. After Rachel repositions the remaining contents, she’s able to fold the bag in half and squeeze it through the tunnel.
Rachel rushes to stuff everything back into the backpack and somehow closes the bulging thing without issue. She straightens, breathless after the exercise.
“I need water, Ziggy,” Rachel says.
Ziggy floats around the side of the cavern, no more than a foot away, and keeping close to the wall.
“If I die here, you tell Mercia I’ll see her in her nightmares.”
Rachel presses her back against the wall, holding her backpack in her hand, and follows Ziggy around the cavern. She tests the surface with the tip of her hiking boot before putting her full weight on the ground. Now and then, the glamor shimmers or flickers around her, giving her an idea of where the most treacherous parts of the cavern are located. Still, she doesn’t want to take any unnecessary chances by rushing.
At the opposite side of the cavern, Ziggy ascends diagonally, as if signaling a rise in the floor. She takes baby steps behind the Fae light. Rachel feels, rather than see, the gradual rise beneath her feet, thighs, and calves. Her muscles strain as she climbs the slope. Subtle changes in the cavern walls become visible as she makes her way higher.
She glances down.
“Oh. Bad idea. Bad freaking idea.”
Rachel swiftly averts her gaze from staring at the ground, which seems miles beneath her feet. Her pulse races. Flashbacks of how the Akrah Cloak dropped her to distract Orion fill her thoughts. Her stomach does a few somersaults. Overcome with a bout of vertigo, she squeezes her eyes shut and forces herself to take the next step forward, even if her mind screams for her to stop. The first step is the hardest. The second step is better.
“Just keep moving forward.” Rachel takes a chance to open her eyes again and focuses on Ziggy.
A few feet higher, Ziggy disappears into the cavern wall, before he reappears a heartbeat later to reveal another glamor.
“Overkill much?”
She presses her hand against the wall to feel the actual opening. Rachel steps closer to the half-visible Fae light, and the cavern wall gives way beneath her palm, vanishing behind the glamor.
Disregarding the illusion completely, she turns on her heels and walks through.
Ziggy’s soft glow illuminates the tunnel, zigging ahead.
“Hold up,” Rachel hisses. She hunches to avoid hitting the low ceiling. Soon, the tunnel opens into a wide chamber, the ceiling now high enough for her to stand upright without worrying about hitting her head. “Thanks for waiting,” she mumbles.
Only then does she see Ziggy bobbing above a dark pool, his light revealing a shimmering trickle of water running down the roughly hewed wall.
Rachel falls to her knees in front of the pool, eyes stinging with gratitude as she submerges her hand.
Ziggy dips lower.
Her haggard reflection stares back, emotion and exhaustion clear beneath the dirt embedded in her skin. She leans down and splashes the cool water on her face and neck, washing away the accumulated grime and sweat. She cups her hand and bows closer to the pool, lapping up the water in a desperate attempt to soothe her dry throat.
Once her thirst has been quenched, Rachel removes her backpack, unhooks the blanket, and rummages around inside for her bottle. Rachel fills the bottle, and places it on the uneven floor beside her before she pulls out her toiletries bag.
“One more day, then we’ll hopefully find Orion.”
Ziggy flashes once, and moves toward the blanket, ready to rest for the night.
