The Wilds (Reign and Ruin 1) (13 page)

But he could
not succumb to sleep this night, nor any night, until his salvation
was found and he was rid forever of his nightmares. One more
desperate fight against the dark to suffer through before the
impending dawn, when rescue was sure to be found and he could
rest.

He pulled out
his pocket watch and traced the pattern on the glass. His hands
still remembered the feel of her weight on his arm. The way she
leant into his body for support and protection. He fell against a
wall and moaned his frustration.

***

In yet another melding
of time, the winds blew above me in painted swirls of poppy oranges
and dandelion creams. The curls twisted in upon themselves until
the two colors mixed and became a light gray that melded with the
sky. Night had shifted into day and the sun blew its hot breath on
my face as I rose from sleep. I sat up, my hands clutching the sand
beneath me, and took my bearings. There was nothing but dunes and
the burning sun.

It was a moment
before I remembered my flight, but when I did it the memories fell
against me in furious, shocking succession.

Needles,
Cirrus, cotton, scalpel, blood, blood, blood, run, run, RUN!

The town of
Lucky Creek was no more. And I had found myself in a desert where
the sand stretched out forever in front like a vast, golden sea.
But I would have preferred the sea. The only time I had been to the
seaside was when I was six years old and my father was still alive.
My parents had spread a blanket out on the cool sand and let me
stick my feet in the cold waves. I could remember the birds
screeching above me and the air bubbles that broke the wet sand
from the tide's journey of the sand crabs. My father ran with me in
the waves and picked me up when an especially large one rolled in,
making me scream when he dipped my toes in the cold water. I howled
with laughter and splashed him and later that night, as he washed
the sand out of my hair, he recited rhymes.

There was a
little girl, who had a little curl, right in the middle of her
forehead.

And when she
was good, she was very, very good.

And when she
was bad, she was horrid.

It might have
been the only concrete memory of my father I could remember and I
wasn't even sure if I hadn't made it up. But it was a memory and at
least a happy one. And I should have been thankful for that. I had
always loved the ocean.

The desert was
perhaps the farthest I could have gone from it. My feet were
growing hot in the hard leather boots and there were no waves to
cool them down in. And despite the faint yearning in my chest,
whether legitimate feelings or the symbol's throbbing connection,
my last clear vision was of bloody hands and desperation as I ran
into the white storm. I could never go back to that. I was all
alone, a lost girl in a lone desert with cotton in her hair.

"I guess it
doesn't really matter which way I walk," I thought out loud.

"Not many
people can walk far in any direction without something showing its
ugly mug," a rough voice answered from above my head.

I swung around
and rolled backwards down my sand dune. I landed in a heap at the
bottom, the backpack hooked around my wrist smacking me painfully
on the back of the head.

Untangling my
limbs seemed to be a problem and anyone above could have closed the
gap between us easily enough to strike. But when I finally jumped
up, there was no fatal blow approaching. Instead, I gazed up the
sand hill to see that the pole of wood I had clung to during the
sand storm reached around ten feet high. And hanging near the
middle, his feet not twelve inches from where my head had rested,
was a bound man.

"Oh my God," I
breathed. He was above me the entire time.

The man was
staring down at me boldly and his gaze followed me up the hill as I
approached. He was wild and dirty. The linen trousers that he wore
were torn down the sides of his calves, exposing corded muscle that
was grazed with angry, red scrapes. I looked quickly away from his
bare chest, where I could see the sun had blistered and burned
around the contours of his pecs. His eyes were cunning, like a wolf
appraising whether to eat the sheep alive or use its claws to skin
it first.

I stopped a few
feet from the base of the pole and waited for someone to say
something.
Why are you stuck on a pole?
seemed a really
stupid question. But valid. Unfortunately, I had nothing else.

He licked his
dry lips quickly and cleared his throat. "Do you have any water?"
he croaked. He shook the dark hair from his brow, sending some sand
flying off to the right.

"If I did, I
wouldn't know how I would get it to you." The man chuckled tiredly,
but it quickly turned into a cough. I think the lunacy of the
situation hadn't struck me yet, that I was talking to a man tied to
a pole in the middle of the desert. "What do you mean I can't go
far without something appearing?" I asked.

The man cleared
his throat and squinted his eyes into the sun overhead.

"This is the
land of mirage, the Wilds. There is no control over what happens
here, so dreams flit in and out, wrecking what havoc they can."

The Wilds, the
bit of the map Cirrus wouldn't talk about.

"Are we still
in Palet?" I asked.

"The Wilds is
outside the Middle Canvas but yeah, it's all a part of the same
crazy. You are in uncharted territory now. The dream you ran from
just spat you out like something poisoned, so I doubt there is any
chance they would welcome you back." His eyes made a trail down my
neck and settled on my chest where the dreamcatcher lay. "But I
suspect you need to keep moving, anyway."

"Who are you,
then?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest self-consciously.
"Are you a dream or a criminal?"

"Both," he
answered roughly. "A dream in so far as much as everyone is a dream
around here. Even Cirrus is a dream, although he is loath to admit
the world began that way. And I am a criminal, because I dared to
say it to his face."

"Cirrus put you
up there?" He smiled grimly and nodded.

"My dear older
brother has a flair for the dramatics. I am sure you noticed."

Older
brother?

I cursed. The
chances made me want to punch someone in the mouth. He seemed to be
on the same, murderous page as I was. The man on the pole flexed
his fingers against the ropes that circled his wrists and I could
almost imagine them wrapping around Cirrus's neck. These brothers,
that looked absolutely nothing alike, locked in heavy battle above
the desert sand. The two angels with the fiery sword, just as my
uncle had painted . . .

"Cirrus's
desperation is making him sloppy," he was saying. "From the way he
talked you shouldn't have even found your way into the Wilds."

"Well, this is
just flipping fantastic. How the hell am I supposed to get out?" I
asked.

"Let me off
this pole and I will accompany you into someplace safer; a tame
dream with people on your side." The man leaned down as far as he
could and spoke in a low voice. "Cirrus has helpers everywhere.
People who long for a stricter, ruling hand. You do not want to
fall into their hands."

"How do I know
I can trust you? You're related."

"Only by my
whore of a mother. And it's Lucan. My name is Lucan," he answered
fiercely. "You can trust that after what he did to me, I will pull
his stomach out through his bowels with my fist. You can trust
that."

Right. Okay.
Psycho brother on the war path. I can work with that.

I started
pulling at the frayed knots that were tied around his ankles. They
were crusted and hard from sand and age, but they soon gave way
after much pulling. Sucking at my fingers, I looked up for a way to
untie the ropes at the top of the pole. Lucan swung from his
wrists, grunting and puffing as his feet scrambled at the
splintered plank. I figured that the only way to get Lucan down was
to push the pole over, but that might land him on his face. And he
was already the angriest person I had ever met in my life; did I
really want to stoke the flame with a mouthful of sand?

"I might have
to push you down to get the ropes up high. Is that alright?" I
asked.

"Fine, just do
it," he said through gritted teeth. His arms were straining to keep
from sliding down to the ground. Imagining the damage that would be
done to his back with a ten-foot drop down the sides of a cracked
wooden beam made me cringe.

I gingerly
placed my hands around the tops of his thighs and heaved all my
weight forward. The beam titled back a little, shifting in its hole
as new sand rushed to fill it back in. Lucan, still trying to keep
himself upright with his arms, strained against the pressure of my
hands. They were as hard as concrete under my fingers. It must have
taken a few burly thugs to fight him onto a pole; Cirrus couldn't
have done it himself.

After a few
minutes of pushing Lucan looked like he was leaning back on a
titled dentist's chair. He released a heavy breath and let his legs
fall off either side of the pole. Sweat ran down his forehead and a
groan slipped from between his lips as the remaining ropes fell to
the ground. Released, Lucan slid sideways off the beam and
collapsed in a heap on the sand.

I stood
awkwardly watching this large man breathing heavily into his
forearm. He slowly raised himself to sitting level, but the sand
swirled in little cyclones this close to the ground and it wasn't a
moment before he bent double again with a racking cough. He spat to
the side – ew – and considered me frankly through his sand-caked
hair.

"How about that
water?"

I kneeled down
and unzipped the backpack the coal man had given me. "Don't get
your hopes up. This backpack could be stuffed with cotton, for all
my luck." Happily, it wasn't. Placed pride in place at the top was
a large metal canister.

"That cotton
sure looks like water to me, honey."

"My clothes!" I
exclaimed, pulling out my jeans and tank top. The coal man had even
pushed in my leather jacket, which felt a little bit like home.
"Oh, this is awesome!"

"You want to
keep smelling that piece of hide or pass me over some water before
I start drinking my own piss?" I couldn't stop my nose from
wrinkling up in distaste. Despite looking like he'd fallen off the
back of a motorbike, this guy was pushing the boundaries of
savage-chic pretty hard. He snatched the water from my hands and
quickly poured the best part of it down his throat. And then
emptied the rest over his face.

It was weird. I
am a pretty sensible woman. I've been to college and seen the
beefed-up frat boys toting their jello shots on the unwary. And the
hipster philosophers who buy you flat-whites and discuss the latest
electro-funk and bamboo-crafted glass frames. I have kissed and
fucked a few of them. But I have never been one of those girls who
drinks a Diet Coke while watching the handsome electrician flex
their muscles. I do not get lost in any man's eyes.

But there was
an alien moment as I watched Lucan shake the water from his face.
All I could hear for around ten seconds was the white ringing of
static as I followed the sparkling drops of moisture slide slowly
down his neck and curve around his broad collar bones. It glistened
off golden tanned skin and ran into the dark hair on his chest. And
once I got there . . . well, it was hard not to follow it
luxuriously down his torso and trail off at the waistband of his
toned naval and wide hips; hips that looked like they could grind a
woman to powder. Somewhere in my mind – pushed back very far, mind
you – I was hating myself. Because I was in the middle of the
desert running from a man who wanted to steal a throne I didn't
know I had yesterday. And I had just saved his brother from
crucifixion. And despite the utter absurdity of the situation I was
ogling a shirtless man like MTV Spring Break.

The world
regained speed and I blinked myself back to reality pretty quickly
when I realized there was no water left.

"You drank it
all!" I said, grabbing the canister back and giving it a panicked
shake.

"We'll find
another dream soon. With my help, you'll be swimming," Lucan
replied lazily, stretching over and slapping feeling back into his
legs. He raised himself slowly to his feet and spread his arms wide
to the sky. He breathed in the freedom and let his arms drop. And
in the blink of an eye, his face was all business, all action: the
wolf was replaced with a knight. He gave a short bow.

"Thanks be to
the Daughter of Palet. Long may she reign."

As he drew
himself back up to survey the desert, I walked around to his front
and tapped him pointedly on the shoulder with the empty
canister.

"Would you
please tell me this world hasn't really chosen something as
blatantly obvious as Daughter of Palet to be my namesake?"

He cocked his
eyebrow at my curiously. "It has always been so."

"You'd think
that if I was going to get some middle-ages seal of honor, they
would at least try and make it sounds less like I'm the leader of
some sleazy cult."

Lucan
considered me for a moment.

"It's what the
followers of the Painter call the next in line. Daughter of Palet.
Son of Palet. The patient, the merciful and the peaceful."

Patient.
Peaceful. Well, not making a good job of it.

"Right. Sorry."
I took the awkward silence to dig my clothes out of my backpack.
"Do you mind turning around so that the 'patient and the peaceful'
can change into her real kit?"

Lucan nodded
and showed me his back. I quickly unbuttoned the dress and let it
fall onto the sand. I resisted the urge to give it a good kick, but
compromised by throwing the boots as far as I could. Slipping into
my jeans with a sigh of relief; my body felt real again. It was too
hot for my jacket, so I pushed it back into my pack and let my arms
breathe in the air. It wasn't blazing; in fact, I began to worry
that the nights might get cold. Freezing. Well, at least there was
someone in this party that gave out enough body heat.