HOW CAN a person go from such a lofty air of security and gratefulness to the darkness of hell itself in the space of only one day? That was me as I lay in the dungeon below the Elyonite city after Vlad had awakened me in my cell, bound me, then killed my father with his poison. I knew death was a shadow, but that shadow was an abyss so deep I would have gladly given my life to be saved from it.
Follow the finger to the moon, daughter. Follow it until you can follow it no farther. When I’d first heard the voice before Vlad’s coming, my heart had soared. I knew something was about to happen. Something that would free me from imprisonment—how else would I follow the moon?
But that something wasn’t my freedom. It was the death of my father.
Guards came a few hours later, cut the ropes that bound me, and took away his body without letting me touch him, regardless of my pleas.
For hours I lay on my side, curled up tight, sobbing, begging to hear the comforting whisper that had guided me so many times before. But all I could hear was my own weeping.
Part of me wanted to dream so I would wake in the other world. Maybe I would find my father still alive there. Though I knew he wasn’t.
Devastated, I slowly surrendered to sleep.
How long I was in that dreamless sleep before I heard the tender voice again, I don’t know, but it came to me like a warm breeze over a frozen wasteland.
Follow the finger under the moon, precious daughter.
I was still asleep. And suddenly crying.
I’m precious? Tell me I’m precious again. Tell me my father’s okay. Tell me we’re safe.
Follow the finger under the moon, dear one. Follow it until you can follow it no farther.
I was being given the direction again. The one I’d guessed would take me to the next riddle. Which meant something else was going to happen. The last time I’d heard the voice . . .
The memory of Vlad appearing like a demon in the night with my father smothered me again, and I felt my tears flow, unrestricted now. My father was gone.
No, precious daughter.
The voice was hardly more than a whisper, but at those words the darkness of my dreamless sleep vanished in a blinding light. The next moment I found myself standing in the night desert, staring at a bright moon on the horizon.
But what took my breath away was my father, standing ten feet from me. He looked the same as I’d known him in Eden, but with a slight glow coming from his skin.
I blinked, unsure that I was there, in the desert. Unsure that this could be my father. I was only imagining it. I had to be. But it felt real—I could feel the gentle breeze stroking my cheeks and neck. I could see the moon.
I looked down at the ground, saw my bare feet in the sand. I was here. I had been set free? I was dressed in the same tattered tunic the Elyonites had given me to wear, still bruised and battered from my ordeal in the dungeon. This was me, in the flesh. Right?
I jerked my head up. I was here and my father was here, looking as surprised as I was! And the moon behind him had to be the moon I was to follow. Had I only dreamed he’d been killed? But how had I gotten here?
“Dad?”
He beamed like a young man who’d just returned from a long journey having found a great treasure.
“It’s real,” he said, lost in wonder.
A knot filled my throat. “I . . .” My voice cracked. “I thought you were dead.”
He lifted his hands, turning them to look at his fingers in amazement. “But I’m not dead.” He looked at me again, eyes bright. “It’s real, Rachelle. I was wrong. It always has been real!”
I couldn’t contain myself another second. I rushed up to him and threw my arms around him and held him tight with my cheek plastered against his shirt. “I was so afraid. I thought I’d lost you. I . . .” Emotion choked me.
He was chuckling, delighted, strong arms wrapped around my body, lifting me from the ground and spinning me around. “It’s real! It’s more real than you can possibly imagine.”
Only then did it occur to me that he wasn’t talking about us. I pulled back as he set me down, my hands gripping his shirt.
“You’re not dead, right?”
“There is no death! It’s only a shadow!” He looked around. “Death, suffering, darkness—they’re only shadows that reveal contrast. They allow experience in the world of polarity. Without up you can’t have down. Without darkness you can’t experience light. Don’t you see?”
I did, but I was still wondering if he was actually here, alive.
He gripped my shoulders. “I was foreknown!”
“Foreknown?”
“I was known and knew God before this life. It’s like my whole life only lasted a few seconds. In some ways, my memory of it doesn’t even feel real, not compared to this.” He spread his arms, looking around again. “This . . . this is real!”
I followed his eyes, wondering if I was seeing what he was seeing. “What’s real?”
“You are! I am! Life is, but not the way you think of it.” He reached for my face and tenderly stroked my cheek. “You don’t need to be afraid, sweetheart. Never again. It’s okay. It’s more than okay.”
I immediately recalled my encounter with Justin when the serpent had blinded me. The light. I am the light. Inchristi is me. Inchristi is in me.
He gave me a nod. “You remember now?”
I blinked, unsure if we were thinking the same thing. And with that single blink, he was gone, and I thought, Oh no, what happened? What did he mean that life is real but not the way I think of it?
A loud clank cut through the silence and I jerked up, gasping, half expecting to see my father again.
“Dad?”
A form rushed toward me, muttering curses. I would have recognized him anywhere.
Jacob. Jacob, but where was my father? Had that been real?
He dropped to one knee, hand on my cheek, but I was still disoriented, caught up in what I’d just seen.
“By the fangs of Teeleh, what have they done to you? Are you okay?”
For a moment I just stared at him.
“Rachelle, I beg you . . .”
I threw my arms around him, unable to stifle a sob.
“Please forgive me,” he whispered. “I would have come sooner but they’ve kept me chained. I’m so sorry.”
Follow the finger, precious daughter.
I slowly pulled back, orienting myself. Jacob was dressed as an Elyonite guard with his own armor over their clothing so that he looked half Elyonite, half Horde.
He snatched a bundle from the floor and set it gently in my arms. “Dress quickly.”
“I . . . I saw my father,” I said.
This didn’t seem to surprise him.
“He . . .” I started, but what could I say?
“I know. I’ll explain on the way.”
“You do? We’re leaving?”
“Hurry.”
I hurried, pushing away my questions. Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I scrambled to dress. Pants, tunic, riding boots. And as I dressed, courage filled me once again. My father was alive, just not the way I wanted him to be, but did I know what I really wanted? Either way, I was still the 49th Mystic and I had to find the moon.
Within a minute I looked like an Elyonite guard, however feminine. Jacob, on the other hand, looked and smelled like a Scab dressed in an Elyonite uniform. There was no hiding his face and dreadlocks.
He rushed to the wall and grabbed the torch he’d brought. “Stay close behind me.”
“There’s a better way,” I said. “I lead. You follow.”
He stared at me as I plucked the torch from his hand. “What are you doing?”
I smothered the flame against the wall, and the room was thrown into pitch darkness. “I have the gift of seeing in the dark, remember? Torches will only lead them to us. We find the darkest hallways, the blackest alleys, the places in which only the blind can see.”
“It’s safe, Aaron knows I’m here. But he doesn’t know my loyalties.”
“You’re meant to free me?”
“Yes.” He glanced down the corridor. “He believes I’ll inform on you.”
The connections fell into place. But Jacob wouldn’t inform on me, because his loyalties were with me. They were because he loved me.
“Do all of his men know?” I asked. “We can’t afford an arrow in the back. It’s better to be safe.”
I clicked with my tongue and the room came into my blind view—shapes and sizes. Part of me missed seeing in this way. Either way, seen with eyes or with sound, the world wasn’t as we saw it through such limited senses. Eden had taught me that lesson well.
I took his hand in mine, filled with confidence. “Try not to trip.”
“Where are we going?”
“To find the moon,” I said.
THE MOON sat on the eastern horizon, beyond the great wall that circled the Elyonite city, kissing the top of a plateau that ran north and south as far as I could see. I saw it the moment we emerged from a sewer drain at the perimeter of the palace.
Heavy black clouds covered the sky above us, like a slate ceiling. Deep darkness enshrouded the city.
Two thousand years earlier in the world of my dreams there would have been streetlights, but in a land that had no electricity, flames illuminated only the main streets leading up to important buildings.
We ducked into an alley and ran east, me clicking when I needed to, Jacob close on my heels. Follow the moon. So I did, working my way east as best I could, keeping to the darkest route possible.
I knew by now there were at least four reasons Talya had allowed me to be taken by the Elyonites. The first was so they could see my power as one who could heal. The second was so I could encounter their ruler, Mosseum, and his son, Aaron, and deliver my warning as the 49th. The third was for my benefit—to be put in a situation that would allow me to surrender to the light.
The fourth was so I could learn to love the Horde through my encounter with Jacob.
It took us two hours to reach the city’s eastern wall, make our way onto the roof of a tall building built into the wall, and drop twenty feet to safety beyond. From there, it was only a short run to the edge of the forest.
“And now?” he asked.
“I follow the moon, east.”
“To where?”
“Until I can go no more,” I said. “It’s all I heard.”
He eyed me, silent for a moment.
“This voice you hear. Elyon . . .”
“Yes.” I turned my eyes to the distant moon, filled with the memory of my father’s death. But he wasn’t dead. He was intoxicated with love and joy, and I would never want him to be any other way.
But in this life his body was dead. A heavy fist of sorrow filled my chest and throat, and I closed my eyes.
“Then we follow the moon,” he said.
“You came to take me captive—”
“No.” He paused. “Not now.”
“No? Does this mean you’re turning your back on your own high priest?”
“I don’t know what it means. I only know that life has delivered me here, to the side of a young woman who will change the world. I can’t very well leave her to fight the wolves on her own, now can I?”
“You’re trying to say that you love me.” Not even I had anticipated those words spilling from my mouth so freely, and I quickly clarified. “Not as a woman as such. But you know . . . love.”
He hesitated. “It’s a warrior’s privilege to honor his equal in battle,” he said. “Between the two of us, not even a battalion of the wretches back there stand a chance.”
“I doubt that’s true. And that’s not why you love me.”
“What’s not to love?” he asked, deflecting.
“My skin.”
“Skin . . . Yes, there is that. Does mine bother you?”
“No,” I said, and took his hand again. “Let’s go. We have horses to find.”
It took us another hour to find our way back to the farms we’d seen upon coming into Mosseum City. We took two horses from a barn. Finding two saddles proved to be more challenging, but once mounted, we left the city behind us at a full gallop.
The way was clear to me. The terrain rose gradually to the base of towering cliffs that supported a massive plateau. We’d lost sight of the moon as dark clouds gathered over the cliffs, but a single dip along the plateau marked its place. We rode for that dip, speaking only when we slowed to give our mounts a rest.
“You seem different,” he said the first time we slowed.
“You think so? In what way?”
“You seem . . . more sure.”
It was true and it wasn’t true. I had the Third Seal. My father was dead.
Follow the finger to the moon.
We let the horses walk longer.
“Something happened to you?”
I told him then. How I’d found the Third Seal in another world, how my father had crossed over and been killed by Vlad. How he’d come to me as I slept. All of it. Jacob listened with rapt attention. When I finished, he let out a long breath.
“This Vlad . . . He met with Aaron, Samuel, and myself. Your father was with him, in chains.”
My heart leaped. “You saw him?”
“Yes. I too was in chains. It was Vlad’s position that I should free you and return with the location of the Realm of Mystics.”
“How did my father . . . Was he in pain?”
A short pause. “He was tired.”
I didn’t want to know more. The idea that he was gone but not gone . . . I couldn’t process it properly. Could anyone? And there was still a chance he was alive in the other world, something I would know soon enough. Without the rhambutan fruit in my water, I would dream the next time I slept.
What would I awaken to?
“Vlad’s there, in the other world,” I said. “And I have no clue how I am or how much time’s passed. What I do know is that he’ll do anything to prevent me from finding the next two seals before he destroys the Realm of Mystics. We can’t let them find it.”
“We won’t. How can we if you don’t even know where it is?”
True, but I would, right? At some point.
“I have to find the Fourth Seal, Jacob. I feel totally lost. Time’s running out!”
“So we follow the moon.”
I nodded. “Yes. We follow the moon.”
It was all we said for a while.
“This Yeshua from so long ago,” Jacob said. “He actually lived? He’s recorded in the Books of History?”
“He lived. He lives still. He is Justin.”
We rode deep into the night, pushing the horses to their limit, putting distance on that place of death as much as being drawn by the moon. My destiny lay ahead, beyond the cliffs. The closer we came to them, the less interested I was in talk. Sensing my preoccupation, Jacob remained silent.
The gathering storm broke over our heads just as we reached the bottom of the cliffs. It was as if the skies themselves knew I was coming and had gathered in darkness to stop me. But nothing was going to stop me, not now. Never mind that we could see only a rising stone wall before us. Never mind that there seemed to be no way up the cliffs.
To the moon. Until you can follow no farther.
Jacob rode to the base and sharply reined his horse. “It’s the end!” Lightning flashed and his horse whinnied. “There’s nowhere to go from here.”
Rain began to fall in sheets. I rode past him, studying the cliff. Until you can follow no farther. How literally was I to understand that direction?
There was a fissure in the cliff to our right, and I headed for it. Then urged the horse into the three-foot gap.
“It’s too narrow! You’ll never turn your mount around if it ends.”
Concern edged into my mind, and I pulled up. He was right. A pile of fallen boulders ahead of me was impassable on horseback.
“Then we leave the horses,” I said, leaping over my mount’s head to land on the sand. The horse frantically backpedaled, then turned and galloped away as soon as it cleared the opening.
Jacob watched it go. Dropped from his mount and slapped its hide.
“Very well. Lead on.”
I scrambled over the boulders and pushed on, following the narrow passage as it began to rise. It was dark and I had to click to see my way. Jacob came behind, breathing steadily.
“How far?”
“Until we can go no farther.”
I expected the fissure to play out, because all do. But this one did not. Every time we came to what appeared to be an end, I would quickly find another way, up the side of a steep wall or over towering boulders. I doubted anyone had ever made it as far as we did, even a third of the distance up the cliff’s inner passageways.
We were protected from the storm in that cliff, but the pounding of thunder punctuated with brilliant flashes of lightning made us all too wary of its fury.
For a full hour, scrambling over rock and crag, we climbed. And then we climbed what we were sure was the last short wall, fully exposed to the wind and torrential rains.
I shielded my eyes and peered ahead. The way was blocked by another jagged wall of stone at least fifty feet high.
I ran up to it, searching the face for anything that might give us a foothold. “Find a way!”
Unlike the rock we’d climbed, the surface here had been worn smooth by the elements. Even with ropes and tackle, the climb could hardly be made in such weather. Regardless, we had none. As far as I could see, north and south, there would be no scaling this cliff.
Until you can go no farther . . .
“There’s no way up?” Jacob called.
“No. No, I don’t think so.”
“Then come! We stay here tonight.”
I turned back. “Stay where? The storm—”
“In the cave! Hurry!”
The small opening he’d found was shrouded by mist and rain.
Jacob pulled me into the darkness, and I clicked to see that it extended ten feet before ending at a wall. I stood still, thoughts crashing through my head.
We could go no farther. But surely this wasn’t it!
“It’s the end,” he said. “Unless you have wings, we go no farther in this weather.”
He was right, of course. The floor was sand. Soft. But we had no fire and the wind brought a chill with it. We could retreat back down the cliff we’d just climbed, but that wasn’t what I’d been told to do.
The cold cave would be our home for the night. Without the rhambutan, if and when I fell asleep, I would dream. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
I heard a cracking sound and turned to see that Jacob was bent over a few sticks of wood. He reached into his dreadlocks, withdrew a small pouch, and took some pitch and a piece of flint from it.
“No Horde wanders far from home without pitch in his locks,” he said, striking the flint. A single spark and the resin flared to life. “Whether dried horse dung, wood, or the clothing off a man’s back, fuel can be found almost anywhere. But without pitch it’s useless.”
The small fire lit up the walls. Several dried-out shrubs withered along the smooth stone. Jacob sat on the sand and crossed his legs, satisfied.
“The fuel won’t last long and it will grow cold, but even a small fire will lift the heart. Rest.”
I sat across from him, gazing into the growing flames. Not so long ago I’d faced Talya across many fires, listening to his tales and watching the flames’ reflection in his bright eyes. Where was he now? Finding Thomas. Why Thomas?
“You said you were with Samuel,” I said, looking up at Jacob. “How was he?”
“He was Samuel. The impetuous one who is taken with you.”
“Is that so?”
“It’s impossible for him to hide.”
“Well, that’s good. I’m taken with him.”
“You are?”
“Of course. And with Aaron. And with as many as I can be. Not the way you mean it, but they’re all just lost. Isn’t that why I’m here?”
“I suppose so.”
I stared at the flames. “But there’s something unique about Samuel, don’t you think? I don’t know . . . Maybe because he once saved me from you.” I grinned.
Jacob did not.
“In all seriousness though, there’s a quality in him that draws me. He’s like a boy, full of wonder and unbridled passion. It’s a part of humanity that I never noticed. Or at least can’t remember.”
“Ba’al’s poison is a terrible thing to know,” he said.
And then neither of us said anything for a while.
THREE times, Samuel had all but given up on following through a rain heavy enough to wash away the tracks of their horses. If not for the fact that his stallion was well trained in picking up the scent of Horde, if not for the favorable direction of the wind, he would have lost the trail.
All the way he cursed under his breath. The Leedhan was wrong, naturally—no offspring of Shataiki and Horde could possibly speak truth or deal in anything short of deception. It was in their blood.
Yes, he’d seen how favorable Rachelle had been toward Jacob during the trial and after, in Aaron’s chambers. But she’d been as gentle with Aaron. They mistook her gentle nature for more.
The fact was, Rachelle, whom he’d rescued from the Horde, could not love any Horde as women loved men. To think of it bothered him.
What bothered him even more was that he cared so much whom she did or didn’t love.
Why had he followed Jacob and Rachelle to the Great Divide in the first place?
Why had he surrendered himself to the Elyonites, knowing they held her?
Why had he remained as a guest of Aaron for a full week, after the man had given him permission to leave, unharmed?
Why had he betrayed his obsession with Rachelle to the Leedhan and Aaron?
But he knew why, and he gave himself clear answers for every question. He had followed Jacob because he’d vowed to protect all Albinos from the Horde. He’d surrendered himself to the Elyonites because such a vast body of Albinos was unknown to the Circle, and he would be the one to make this first contact for his father. He’d remained in the Elyonite city to save Rachelle, an innocent Albino. He’d betrayed his obsession with her to the Leedhan because the foul beast’s eyes had confounded his mind.
He wasn’t obsessed. Of course not. And the only reason he’d gone along with the plan to follow Jacob and Rachelle was because he had no intention of returning to Aaron with what he learned.
He was going to save Rachelle from Jacob. His mission was to keep her from falling into a trap.
These were the stories that occupied Samuel’s mind as he pushed his mount toward the towering cliffs, close on their heels with rain and wind in his face.
He pulled up sharply half a mile from the cliffs when one of their mounts pounded past him, headed back toward the city. They’d abandoned their horses? But his own was still intent on the cliffs, aware of Horde scent.
Samuel gave the stallion his head and let him trot the last half mile to a fissure in the cliffs, the only conceivable passage up the rock surface. No sign of the second horse.
He dismounted, tied his mount to a shrub, and started a slow climb, careful not to catch them and be discovered. They could easily have taken refuge along the way. Not once did he hear them, which meant they were either well ahead of him or holed up.
He was forced to make his way slowly, silently cursing the cold and rain. So be it.
The rain had stopped and the clouds were gone by the time he finally reached the plateau to discover yet another lip ahead, rising fifty feet. Surely they couldn’t have scaled the sheer face without tackle. Not here.
Moonlight cast the wide ledge in cold gray. He picked his way south through the rocks, crouching low. But the farther he went, the higher the lip rose. So he doubled back, past the fissure, and headed north.
He’d only gone fifty paces before he saw the dark hole. A cave. And from that cave, a thin haze.
Smoke. He was surprised he hadn’t smelled it earlier. They were in the cave . . . Or was that a passage to the far side? No, a cave. If a passage, they wouldn’t have stopped and built a fire. Then again, it had been raining when they’d reached the plateau. Maybe they’d decided to rest for the night.
The Leedhan seemed to think Rachelle would take Jacob to the Realm of Mystics, but she’d told him she had no memory of her past. Where was she going? Was she following some sixth sense, like a bird that knew its home?
Heart pounding, Samuel crept to the cliff, then edged his way to the mouth of the cave. Held his place for a few long, careful breaths.
A soft grunt from inside spiked his pulse. Then nothing. The beast in his sleep.
Samuel peered around the edge of the cave and let his eyes adjust to the deep shadow. He blinked.
There on the ground next to a burned-out fire lay the Horde’s body. Jacob was on his side with his back to Samuel, lost to the world. But no sign of Rachelle. He could see the back wall, but no one else was in the cave. He’d abandoned her?
He wrapped his fingers around the butt of his blade, considering the option of ending the man’s life now. Yes, his purpose was to follow them to this Realm of Rachelle’s, but . . .
The beast shifted his leg, and doing so revealed another leg. A much thinner leg. Rachelle’s leg. She was sleeping in Jacob’s arms with her back to him.
Samuel pulled back, mind spinning for reason. Jacob offered warmth, yes, but she’d suffered through much colder nights. And with a Scab? How could she stomach the scent of his rotting flesh? Was she restrained? No.
She’d accepted his warmth willingly.
The Leedhan’s claim whispered through his mind like a hissing snake. She’s falling in love with Jacob. And he with her.
Samuel leaned back on the cliff face and swallowed deep, closing his eyes. Had he been so blind? If so . . . If in a confused state of shock due to Ba’al’s poison Rachelle didn’t know better than to fall in love with Horde, the state of the world itself would soon rescue her from that madness.
Jacob was Horde. All Horde were destined to suffer in this life and the next. It was in the defiled nature of Scabs to take advantage of all humans, including one as innocent and confused as Rachelle.
Ba’al had poisoned her in his Thrall.
Jacob defiled her by his presence.
Once again, Samuel considered taking the beast’s life—cut his throat while he slept. But he knew this wouldn’t go over well with Rachelle in her current state of mind. She was under the delusion that the fool had rescued her, oblivious to the fact that he intended to betray her.
No. Not now. He’d come this far for her; he would go as far as required to save her from Jacob. From her delusions. From all that would harm her in any way.
In the end, she would see the truth for what it was.
Samuel retreated, feeling ill.