Fates Divided: Halven Rising

Elena watched as Derek’s mouth tensed, then frowned. “Damn it, Elena! What you have to do is more important than my life. Don’t you dare risk yours for mine.”

“Of course I won’t risk my life.” Of course she would. “I’ll get help and we’ll get you out.” She’d do whatever it took to get him back, she silently vowed.

He continued to frown, as if he could read her thoughts. “Go. Before they get here,” he said. “I’ll find a hiding place in the woods. Head straight.” He pointed across the river to a copse of allons surrounded by tall pines, all bowed in as if guarding the magical trees.

Derek stood and pulled her up with him. His lips pressed together and he stared off into the distance, his throat bobbing.

Elena glanced across the creek, then back at him. “Derek—”

“Leave. Before they get here.” His voice came out grave and commanding, just the way it had the first day they’d met. This moment reminded her so much of that day, with him pushing her away.

But the Derek she knew now held her, guarded her. He would never leave her, unless there was no other way.

She clenched one hand on his shirt and pulled him down, kissing him softly on the mouth. She lingered a moment to savor the feel of him, before she turned and ran through the water to the opposite side of the creek.

When Elena looked back, Derek was gone, with not even a shimmer in the air to trace him.

A hollow feeling settled over her. Her clothes were wet, clinging to her calves and thighs like leafy seaweed pulling her under. But she wouldn’t go down. She had to fight for all of them now.

Elena turned and headed for the Sunland forest, determined to create a cure and return for Derek.

Hours later and deep inside the forest, Elena’s clothes hadn’t dried and she was shivering from cold. With the canopy of leaves blocking most of the sunlight, the moisture and cool air had seeped past her protective Fae clothing and into her bones.

The shadows had turned from gray to nearly black, making it difficult to see. She wrapped her arms around her waist and searched for a place to sleep for a few hours. No matter how good her vision, she couldn’t see without any light.

After walking another mile, she found a place she felt would be safe enough to rest in for a while—a tree like the one Derek had discovered when they’d hidden from the Oldlander guards. The upside-down mushroomed trunk was smaller than the one he’d found, but big enough for a single person.

Elena looked around one last time to make sure no one had followed her then crept into the hole. She copied Derek’s technique and used a bush to smooth out her footprints near the base, then blocked the hole with the shrub.

Inching as far from the opening as she could get, she found it more confined inside than it looked like from the outside. She couldn’t lie flat no matter which way she moved. Instead, she rested her head against the bark and covered her feet and legs with dried needles.

A shiver racked her body—from the cold, from fear. What would happen to Derek if Niall’s men found him?

Elena’s eyes burned. She cleared her throat and shifted her shoulder, searching for comfort.

“Deirdre, please come to me…” she whispered into the dark.

It was daylight and Elena stood inside a small village. If she gazed broadly, the village looked fogged and blurry, but if she focused on details—yellow flowers planted inside a red flowerbed, a cart full of grain—the image sharpened.

A dream?

“Deirdre?” she called out.

Elena walked across the street of the abandoned town to what she thought was the front of a store. When she clasped the doorknob, the metal rippled like water.

Her pulse raced with panic, and she ran to the building next door. But as soon as she approached, the image broke apart like soggy bread in water.

The lines of the town ran together in a messy watercolor. Her legs cramped, and something pinned her arms. “Deirdre! Help!”

“Wake up,” a woman’s gentle voice said.

Elena blinked awake, her heart pounding.

“Poor child. It is only I.” Deirdre was kneeling on the ground with her head inside the hole. “Come. We must get you to the village.”

Elena crawled from her tree cave to find it fully light outside. She had slept too long. Anything could have happened to Derek by now.

“How did you find me?”

Deirdre appeared thinner as she stepped over a log. “Not long after we spoke in Emain, I worried you’d end up in Tirnan. I prepared by coming here.” A vicious cough racked her body. She hunched over, her shoulders and chest convulsing as she gasped for air.

Elena bent to help her aunt, but Deirdre waved her away. “I’m fine, but we must hurry. Sunland has been hit hard by the virus. I was in Emain performing diplomatic work when it first surfaced. I wasn’t there when your uncle…”

Her Uncle Beorhtric had been murdered with the virus, and now Deirdre would succumb too if Elena didn’t do something. “Where do we go?”

“To your uncle’s laboratory, where you will find the tools you need.”

“How did you know—”

“The dream. I read your thoughts. I gathered your location and tried to show you the way to my village, but my powers are weak. I came to you instead. I’ve not been gone from Emain long, but time passes differently here. I’ve been infected almost a week now. We haven’t much time.” She paused, her gaze settling on Elena. “I am sorry about your friend…”

Derek. Elena wrapped her arms around her waist. Please let him be okay.

Deirdre was silent as they made their way out of the woods, but her aunt managed a slow jog once they were out in the open. Soon they came to an agricultural field.

Elena stopped, stunned for a moment. The landscape looked so much like the California Central Valley, minus the highways. “This is Sunland?”

“Yes.” Deirdre pointed to a cluster of low buildings in the distance. “And there lies your uncle’s laboratory.”