The Mystical Knights: The Sword of Dreams (22 page)

             
As Kenzie shifted her weight, suddenly determined to climb up onto the ledge herself, the toe of her shoe, that had been supported against a small crevice, slipped through a tiny clump of soft dirt.  She felt her face contort into a look of sheer panic as she slid backwards, her arms flailing wildly in some instinctual attempt to catch herself.  Just as she was about to shut her eyes and submit herself to the weightless effect of gravity, she felt something velvet and soft snatch her wrist, felt the pressure of her shoulder being nearly pulled from its socket.  Her elbow gave a healthy crack as her knees her knocked into the ledge and she found herself relieved as the smell of earth invaded her nostrils while her glasses squished painfully into her face.

              “What were you thinking?” Rowan demanded from somewhere above her, breathing hard as if he had been the one to nearly fall.  His knees hit the ground beside her head and he grabbed her shoulders, shaking her.  “You could have gotten yourself killed!”

              Kenzie pried away from his strong fingers and glared.  “I was thinking,” she said rather breathlessly, rocking back onto her knees, “that I
can’t
trust you."

              The frustration that had inhabited Rowan's face seconds earlier was gone; he blinked a couple of times, as though stunned by Kenzie's words, and looked down at his knees.   “Don't be like that."

              “How do you want me to be?” she cried and bit her tongue on a few choice words that she wished to say.  “Do you really think I should just forget, Rowan?  Do you think it's that easy to...to throw away memories of someone I loved?  To pretend that we never happened?"  Rowan didn't speak.  He kept his eyes to the floor and didn't move.  "As silly as it is, I loved you Rowan.  Fifteen years old, and I knew love.  Maybe you thought it wouldn't hurt as bad because we were young, but-"

              "I didn't think that."  Rowan finally looked up and looked her full in the face.  For the first time, his eyes truly looked sad.  "I didn't want to hurt you anymore than I already had.  I wanted to nip it in the bud before-"

              "I get it," Kenzie said flatly.  "I understand why you broke up with me.  I can get over that.  What I can't move past, is that you told
me
that I was your last...
experiment
.”  Kenzie cringed as she spoke the word.  It tasted like acid in her mouth and her made her throat burn.  She pulled herself to her feet and pointed at him with an accusatory finger.  “You said that and then you just moved on to Nia.  I don't care if you aren't dating her, you shouldn't.  But you're stringing her on-”

              “I feel differently about her," he softly admitted, unable to meet her eyes.  His hand pressed against his heart as he began to speak again.  “My soul knows her soul.  She makes me feel normal...and happy.”

              Kenzie had become unconditionally numb standing before him in the darkness.  For a moment, she felt powerful—dangerous, even—but something flickered in Rowan’s eyes.  Something sad, unnerving.  Kenzie frowned, her chest swelling to the point of making her want to cry.  With a shuddering sigh, Kenzie awkwardly placed a hand on the top of Rowan’s head.  “You are normal.  I don't know why you think you're any different than anyone else.” 

“How do you know that?”

Kenzie slowly lowered herself back to her knees, gently pushing Rowan’s long bangs out of his eyes.  She had forgotten how long his eyelashes were, how the darkness of them brought out the deep blue color of his eyes.  She looked into those eyes for the first time in a long time, and instead of seeing the pain and the suffering she expected to see, she saw the soul of a friend who so desperately wanted someone to
understand
.  She gave him a flitted half smile.  “I know because you are kind and compassionate.  You are a good person.  But you can't keep stringing her along because you deserve to be true to your heart.  Because you're worth it, Rowan.  And she is too.  I can't explain why you feel differently about her than you did me,"  She could feel tears stinging the backs of her eyes as she spoke.  "But she doesn't deserve to be strung along like a puppet."  Rowan reached up and brushed away a stray one that had slipped down her cheek.

Kenzie sniffled.  "
You
have to tell her Rowan," she said seriously.  "Accept the facts and tell her soon—because if you wait, it’s only going to hurt you both even more.  If you care about her as you say you do, you'll tell her.”

              “I don't know what to say...”  Behind the bleakness of his voice, Kenzie heard the terrified trembling of someone who was afraid.  Utterly and terribly afraid...

              Kenzie leaned her forehead against his, blinking away the rest of her tears that threatened to fall.  “The
truth.
”

* * *

Quinn banged the flashlight repeatedly against the rocky walls, but the light continued to flicker into nothing.

              Thor snickered disbelievingly, shaking his unruly locks.  “I can’t believe you dropped the flashlight...”

              “I didn’t drop it!” Quinn gave the other boy a riddled look.  “The batteries are dying.”

              “And you didn’t think to bring spares?”  Thor shook his head. 

              Quinn glared.  “Well
excuse
me!  How was I to know they weren’t brand spankin’ just-out-of-the-package new?” He tossed the now dead flashlight into the dark behind him.  “At least I
tried
to be helpful.”

              Thor rolled his eyes, skimming the wall with his hand.  “Well
genius
, how do you suppose we find our way through the darkness?”

              Quinn could just make out the silhouette of his friend’s gangly body; his arms were crossed heatedly across his chest, and his weight was shifted towards the right.  With a sigh, Quinn pushed himself to his feet and grabbed Thor by the shoulders.  “We walk onward!  You go first!”

              “Me?” Thor half-yelled, sounding incredulous.  He wrenched away Quinn’s hands and pulled him to his side.  “You go first!  You’re the one who brought the dud flashlight!”

              “Afraid of the dark, are we?” Quinn sneered playfully.  “At least I contributed
something
to this escapade...”

              “Like what?” Thor demanded ruefully.  “A lousy near-dead flashlight?”

              Quinn rolled his eyes exasperatedly.  “Would you let it
go
?  Jeez—you’d think I’d committed a federal crime or something...”  Quinn roughly seized Thor by the upper arm and pulled him forward.  “C’mon...”

              As they walked further into the caverns, the blackness seemed to thicken, creating some extremely dense shadows.  Quinn’s footsteps slowed and his usually even breaths became shallow as he tried to squint into nothing.  His hands instinctively grazed the cold, stony walls.

              “Goddamnit!” Thor hollered as he stumbled forward again, slamming into the ground hard.  A loud snap made Quinn wince while Thor groaned, lying nearly motionless on the ground. 
That seriously had to hurt...

              “You okay?”  Quinn crouched down low and tenderly touched Thor’s shoulder.

              Thor hissed in pain, jerking back instinctively.  “Do-don’t touch it,” he stammered through gritted teeth.  “I—I think I broke my arm...”

              “So that’s what that mysterious popping noise was,” Quinn cynically muttered.  He leaned over the rocking boy once again.  “Lemme see, maybe I have something to brace it with in my bag—”

              “NO!” Thor gasped, and through the dank blackness, Quinn could tell that his face was pale and sweaty.  “Don’t touch it—I’ll be fine.”  Thor rolled forward, groaning and cursing as he uneasily pulled himself to his knees.  Power breathing from his nose, Thor took a deep breath and pushed himself to his feet, trembling from head to toe.

              Quinn could see Thor’s shadow; his right arm was definitely twisted at an odd angle.  His stomach churned squeamishly, but he swallowed the bile down and reached out to steady his already teetering friend.  “Are you sure that you don’t want me to try and brace it?”

              “Yes, I'm fine,” Thor mumbled back, his breaths still shallow and harsh.  "Let’s get moving—we don’t have that much time.”

They moved in silence—despite the scuffling of their shoes and Thor’s heavy breathing.  Their feet must have been kicking up some settled dust, because black fog was rising around their ankles.  Quinn took several deep breaths himself and gave a painstaking yawn. 

“Is it just me,” he began, eyelids drooping, “or is it becoming very hard to breathe in here?”

“It’s a bit difficult.”  Thor agreed, cradling his arm. 

Something clicked distantly inside Quinn’s mind that made him pause in his step.  The dense black fog, the disorientation...suddenly unable to catch a breath...

“No.”  Quinn whispered, leaning back against the wall, waves of tiredness rolling over him.  “It’s one of those smog minions—that black cloud thing that attacked Nia.  Try to keep moving.  Pull your shirt over your mouth.”

“How can you be so—” Thor yawned awfully loudly and smacked his lips, “...sure?”

Quinn snapped his head around to look at Thor; he had already found a place to sit, his head leaning against the wall.  “The shadows above us,” Quinn pointed upwards toward the ceiling, “are moving.”

A soft laughter echoed from somewhere in front of them.  Regardless of his sleepy haze, Quinn’s ears pricked; he
knew
that laughter well.  A cold chill shivered down his spine as his eyelids threatened to close.

“You were always such a smarty pants,” a delectable voice said with a touch of delighted poison, “dear brother.”

Nia hadn’t spoken a word to Fiona; they had marched onward in silence.  Nia reflected upon the thoughts that echoed through her mind. These thoughts weren’t her own; they were the whispers, the constant whir of sounds that nearly always kept her from sleeping soundly at night.  She often found comfort in them, despite their frequent interruptions. 

Just a bit farther...so close, so close...
 

“Do you see that?” Fiona said suddenly as she reached out her hand, stretching the ball of blue crackling flames further away from her body.  Nia gazed over Fiona’s head, cautiously rolling on her heels.

              In the distance was a tiny spot of golden light, shining dimly through the darkness.  With an anxious gasp, Nia felt her heart fly up into her throat, and her feet kicked forward, moving one in front of the other.  Fiona was running too, the toes of her boots just barely scuffing Nia’s heels.

              “When are you going to get the Sword?” Fiona casually asked, not even out of breath.

              Nia’s head was too high in the clouds for her heart to plummet back towards the ground at the mention of the Sword.  "I'll try when we get to that light!"

              Someone came crashing around the corner, knocking the wind out of Nia’s already quaking lungs with the strength of a cannon ball.  The wind had been punched out of her chest with such force, her head spun like a top, dizzy and disoriented, as she fell to the ground with neck-cracking force. 

              “
Why
do we always seem to meet up like this?” Kenzie groaned, carefully lifting herself off of Nia’s half-limp body.  Nia grunted, tenderly fingering her now aching head with lightheaded precision.

              “Good question,” Nia mumbled back, pushing against her elbows as she lifted herself to her feet.  The lightheaded dizzy feel was slowly dissipating, but she couldn’t help but feel sick to her stomach.

              “I’m sorry!  Are you okay?” Kenzie apologized quickly, giving Nia a worried look.  “I just saw the light and I got super excited—”

              “I'm fine,” Nia replied slowly, curiously staring at Kenzie.  Something had changed while they had been separated.  The small, browned haired girl seemed much lighter than she had in weeks.  Her energy had lifted and was bright and nearly cheerful again.  But Rowan's demeanor...

              Nia glanced towards Rowan’s brooding form sulking behind the darkest shadows.  His normally graceful posture was slumped forward and his hands were clasped tightly in front of him, twisting and wringing his fingers nervously.  She had never seen him so uneasy before.  Nia swallowed hard as her lingering eyes settled deeply on his face; the shadows of the cavern hid his vacant expression just enough, but she could still see his taut jaw and the way the hollows of his usually bright eyes had just sunk right into his face.

              Nia cocked her head anxiously, her lips beginning to purse as she prepared to ask him what was wrong, but Rowan slowly stepped into the unearthly blue light that illuminated from Fiona's flames.  Rowan looked absolutely fine; not nervous or on edge.  He gave her grinned at her, but as she smiled back, her eyes found his once more and she felt that pang of unsettlement once more, and she knew
that something was not right
.

              “Rowan,” she said carefully.  “You don’t look like yourself.  Are you okay?”