Windswept

2. Skin Deep-1

2Skin Deep“We need to get moving,” Jayce says from behind me.

I blink away the sting in my eyes without answering or turning around. Once I can see clearly, I focus on Vanessa’s stone manor, which is visible in slivers. My mother’s second abandonment has undermined her warning. All I can think about is freeing Lucas, of having someone by my side who will not leave me.

I take a step forward.

“Wrong way, Tanzy,” Jayce cautions.

I keep walking. “I left him in there. I will bring him out.”

She pulls alongside me. “Slow down. I promise I’ll help you save Lucas, but not right now.”

“Why would you help me? You don’t think he’s worth saving.” My insides clench. Didn’t I make the exact same decision when I left him to die less than an hour ago? Lucas’s expression, hollow and stricken, appears in my mind’s eye.

“Your mom might think he’s not, but I do,” Jayce says.

“You answer to her, don’t you?” Frustration blurs the edges of my vision.

“No,” Jayce counters. “And for the record, I don’t agree with her. Take you, for instance. She’s kept you in the dark this whole time. She might have considered it best, but it’s not how I would’ve played it.”

“Oh really? How would you have played it then?” I stop and turn to face her.

“I would’ve told you the truth. Given you as much information as possible. Let you make your own choice. Right now, the best way you can help Lucas is to understand who everyone thinks you are and what you’re up against.”

“Thinks I am?” I snap. I know exactly who I am. I witnessed my first life and my purpose as the Vessel less than twenty-four hours ago.

“You are Spera reborn. No arguing there. She was the only candidate Asher ever branded in the front.” Jayce nods at Asher’s signature brand of interlocking circles burned in the flesh above my heart. Spera earned three of them in her short, brutal life, and they appear on me now exactly as they were inflicted upon her a thousand years ago. “But no one has ever been able to prove that the match of your soul and the horse’s Vires blood creates the true Vessel.” She assesses my face for a reaction. “Do you want to be the Vessel?”

“No.” The answer is a reflex, words jerking from my mouth like a knee from the prompt of a doctor’s hammer. My blood isn’t so quick to reject the question, carrying it from limb to limb. A life absent of this constant mortal fear is more tempting than I’d like to admit.

Jayce holds my gaze for a second longer, and then frowns as she considers Vanessa’s house from our closer vantage point.

“I don’t envy you,” she starts. “When it comes down to brass tacks, you really are alone in this. I promise I’m on your side. Lay low for tonight. I’ll get help, and I’ll tell you everything I can. At sunrise we’ll go for Lucas. You have my word.”

Indecision swells in my chest. I am alone, once again, and desperately so. I trusted the person who reached out to me last time, and it was one of the worst mistakes I’ve ever made. Yet I find I have little choice. I have no money, no shelter, and no identification. I don’t have anywhere to go from here.

Jayce could lead me straight into a trap. I half expect her to. At the same time, the horse’s strength filling my body makes me more powerful than any human I might face. Unfortunately, none of the creatures holding Lucas captive fall into this category. I will need all the help offered to me to stand a chance of rescuing him.

I scan the side of Vanessa’s house one last time, committing each detail to memory so I’ll recognize any changes between now and dawn. Vanessa never does anything by accident. Her every move is a message.

“Okay,” I say, consent bitter on my tongue. “Let’s go.”

“Follow me.” Jayce turns down the hill. “There’s someone here to help us.”

The woods grow thicker as we descend into the valley. What little light manages to filter through the fits of rain, the lingering fog, and the canopy of n***d branches overhead diminishes further as evening settles around us. Every few minutes, Jayce turns her chin a few degrees to the side, ears straining for proof I’m still behind her. I don’t offer her any kind of verbal confirmation. In fact, we don’t talk at all. There’s entirely too much to say.

I am acutely aware that my body is covered by nothing more than a tattered linen dress—the dress I woke up in after I was guided through Spera’s memories. She was wearing this dress the day Asher cast her into a pool of fire, which destroyed her body while preserving her soul.

That day, the sun was high, the sapphire sky cloudless. The earth was flowering in the warmth of a thousand-year-old Egyptian spring.

Now, winter throws blades of wind through the forest, whistling as it carves a path down the mountain, rattling the n***d limbs, snapping my tangled, black hair like the tail of a whip. Bursts of freezing rain claw at my exposed skin. The wind shifts, and the precipitation pelts my cheek, but I am numb to the pain, awash instead in the memory of Lucas’s scars and how he came to have them.

Lenya.

Vanessa.

Shivers begin at the base of me and spider-web through my body like a growing c***k in a pane of glass. Slow at first, and then fast. I am moments away from shattering to pieces.

At last, the mountainside levels off. A fifty-foot swath of manicured lawn is rolled out in front of us like an emerald carpet. At its end, rose bushes, still flowering despite the season, mark a boundary in front of a new section of woods. Beyond the roses, the crooked boughs of trees grow too close together. Some lean unnaturally far. Others twist around each other. Blackberry vines, rope thick and covered in thorns, spiral around the trees and blanket the floor.

Adrenaline pours into my veins, sending up flares of heat in my chest. Jayce strides across the grass, her gaze fixed ahead. I stall behind a tree and watch her slide between two bushes, waiting for a rush of sound or for a blitzing shadow to descend. Neither comes.

I exhale, shake my tingling hands, and peer harder into the woods ahead. The pink streaks in Jayce’s hair are barely visible from here, but I can see them well enough to know that she’s standing still on the other side, probably waiting for me. In the gap between us, tendrils of mist and vapor somersault in the wind and bend in bursts of lingering rain. It is impossible to tell shadow from fog, wind from warning. I have no choice but to follow, to walk into the living gray.

I step into the open. The grass is soggy. Puddles of frigid rainwater chill my bare feet until they burn with numbness. I dash across the open green, slowing just enough to turn sideways before maneuvering through the hedge. Thorns tug at my dress. The sound of fabric tearing spurs me through faster, and I trip into the clear. Jayce stands beside a tree bent so low it runs parallel to the ground. She regards me in silence, an eyebrow raised.

“You know, for the strongest, most fierce, chosen soul, yadda yadda yadda, I wanted to believe you’d be . . . you know, strong and fierce,” she says, her expression deadpan, and then she hops over the tree trunk without waiting for a response. I stare after her, mouth open, emotions spinning.

Spera. Spera was strong and fierce. Spera would be leading Jayce through these woods, not the other way around. The sooner everyone realizes Spera and I are different people, the better.

“I didn’t choose this, you know,” I say, nearly spitting.

“Oh, and I did?” Jayce retorts over her shoulder. “You aren’t the only one inconvenienced by this whole nonsense, princess.”

“I’m the only one who has to die for it,” I bark before I can stop myself.

Jayce spins around. “Don’t act like you’re the only one who will suffer or die before this is all said and done.” Her pale eyes darken. Silence hangs between us. Her jaw is clenched, her ivory skin drawn tight over her small knuckles.

“I never should have agreed to follow you.” I heave a sigh.

She glares at me, gray eyes narrowing to slits. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say any of that just now. You have no idea how big this picture is, how far the reach. And that’s not your fault.” She whirls back around, hair whipping over her shoulder, and strides through the trees.

I mutter a swear and hasten to her side. Ahead of us, a tangle of brush grows in a wall. Jayce steps up to it and reaches through with her hands, prying twigs and brambles apart. She fights her way to the other side. I limp behind her, my raw feet screaming in protest as I tread over broken limbs, hard and sharp.

We emerge along the slick edge of a swollen creek. I hang back while Jayce brings a finger to the surface of the churning, murky water and draws a spiral. The current stills under her touch, casting a wide circle across the surface. The wind ceases all at once. Loose leaves, tossed wild a moment before, fall limply to the earth.

Turquoise flashes erupt beneath the surface along the outermost band of the ripple Jayce created. They race toward the center of the circle, gaining speed and brightness the closer they come to impact. They meet, and the turquoise turns silver. A woman’s head emerges from the glow. Tendrils of silver hair frame her weathered, blue-black face. A robe of azure velvet is draped over her shoulders, and is bone dry the moment it appears. Her waist breaks through the water, and her eyes fly open, their bright silver centers leaping from the dark canvas of her skin like they’re lit from within.

Maris. My mind splits down the middle. Vanessa introduced me to Maris, which does very little for the fragments of trust I have left. Maris also gave me a way to travel a thousand years into the past to witness Spera’s life. Whether doing so made me more or less vulnerable, I haven’t decided.

Asher knows my face.

I know what choice I was born to make.

Am I safer, knowing?

Or less safe, being known?

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I hiss. I quiver with readiness, nearly unable to stand still. My weight shifts to the balls of my feet.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Jayce asks.

“She knows Vanessa.”

“As do you,” Maris interjects, leaving no wake as she glides to the bank.

“I didn’t know Vanessa was working with Asher!” I counter, defending myself, wishing my teeth wouldn’t chatter. The information sounds strange in my ears. Vanessa was my friend, an incarnate of Lenya—who drowned herself moments after Spera was killed. She saved my life, I saved hers. We saved each other, just like our previous selves. Our fast, deep connection made so much more sense once I realized what we’d already been through together. How could our friendship mean nothing to her now?

How could it have meant nothing all along?

“Vanessa had us all fooled,” Maris says. “We learned her true identity yesterday when Jayce saw her cross the veil. Since then we’ve been trying to find where she took you. I’d hoped Lucas might be a step ahead of us. I see he was not.”

She casts a wary glance up the long hill, and then her eyes climb skyward. I follow her gaze, wondering what she sees, and if I should trust anything she says.

“I do not ask for your trust.” She returns her gaze to me. “Only for your hand.”

I cringe, remembering she can read every thought, every secret, and make a mental note to keep my mind empty in her presence.

“Why do you want my hand?” I ask, balling my fingers to fists.

“Our enemies are close. Too close. If we all join hands, I will be able to seal our sounds inside so we can speak freely,” Maris whispers.

“How do I know you’re not an enemy, too?”

“You don’t.” She flexes her fingers, but waits for me to decide to make contact.

“For Pete’s sake, Tanzy. This isn’t The Bachelorette Candidates’ special edition. You’re not getting married. You’re just casting a damn spell.” Jayce grabs my arm with one hand and Maris’s arm with the other, and joins us together. “There. Hashtag let’s-do-this-already,” she says, clamping her palms in ours to complete the circle.