Tainted roots

The sound of the front door opening and closing reminded me we weren’t alone. Reluctantly, I pulled away and found Gemini carrying two mugs of tea, while the other two floated next to her. I suspected she had made it downstairs, even though she could’ve done so in the kitchen, to give us some privacy and for that I was grateful.

Ari however, only gave us the illusion of privacy and was now sitting at the small round kitchen table. Without spilling a drop, the floating mugs drifted to the table in front of two empty chairs, while Gemini handed Ari one of her own. I assumed that was her subtle way of telling us to have a seat, and chose the chair next to Ari, not at all surprised when Koa sat next to me.

I felt the uncomfortable urge to apologize to Gemini. This was the second time she had to wait us out, and she barely even knew us. She didn’t seem upset though, a small smile lit her face as she took a sip of her tea. I did the same and was surprised by the minty, almost floral taste. Cupping the mug in my hands, I stared at its contents as I tried to remember what we were talking about before.

“Why do I get the feeling you know what was taken,” I said, pinning my sister with a hard stare, warning her not to screw around anymore. This had been such a long fucking day, and I’d like to get some straight answers for once.

There were no traces of humor on her face as she clasped her hands on top of the table. “It was a necklace, the pendant was a purple crystal. From its description, it reminds me of—”

“Starling’s necklace,” I whispered, cutting her off. It was Ari’s turn to look confused.

“Yeah, how did you know?”

My stomach hollowed out as I remembered the woman’s words about the keys, how there was more than one and that many others were after the unknown power. Glancing over at Gemini, I found her watching me with a sharp and curious gaze. “How do you fit into this?”

If she was offended by my blunt question she didn’t show it. “I was the latest guardian of the key.”

I was more surprised by her use of the word key than about the guardian comment. Starling had no idea what she carried, but it appeared Gemini somehow did.

“Guardian? What is so special about it?” Koa asked, resting his forearms on the table as he leaned forward.

“All I know is what my father told me.” Gemini shrugged taking another sip of her tea. “He said that it’s a key to a doorway that must remain locked no matter what. That it's our family's duty to keep it out of the hands of those who’d abuse its power. The key has been passed down through my family for generations.”

“Did you sense any weird or ancient magic in it? Ander said he felt blood magic in Starling’s,” I cut in.

Her eyes dropped to her mug as she traced a finger around the rim. “I was told to never use any magic on it, that it could interfere with the magic hiding the key’s signature. But that didn’t stop me from sensing its energy. It’s why I hated wearing it at first before I got used to it. The energy wasn’t blood magic like your friend felt. This one felt like death.”

As I sorted through my thoughts, I stared down at the natural wood grain of the table. “You know something, I can tell,” Ari accused. Her stare was calculating as her eyes swept over my face, reading every small change in my expression.

Releasing a long sigh, I dragged my hands down my face. While I was more than ready to tell Koa and Ari everything, I was still unsure about Gemini. The woman did warn me to be careful who I trusted. She may be an untrustworthy bitch, but she made a valid point. Other than knowing Gemini was a key’s guardian and that she owned this shop, I knew nothing about her.

“If you’re worried I’ll tell anyone, I won’t. Not if this has anything to do with the key. Other than your sister, I haven’t told anyone about it,” Gemini said, having figured out the reason behind my hesitance.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Ari’s small nod of confirmation. “You have to promise me you won’t interrupt,” I directed at Koa, knowing he wouldn’t like what I had to say.

After he heaved out a sigh and promised he wouldn’t interrupt, I gave a short recap about what we witnessed at the beach houses for context. Ari’s expression remained neutral as she patiently listened. Her expression didn't change, not even when I mentioned how it was the same woman I fought in Portland. All she did was nod to herself. No surprise, Koa tensed, the muscles in his forearms flexing as he squeezed his hands together. I could feel the internal struggle warring inside him as he closed his eyes and bent his head down.

I kept going, trying to get through the story before he lost the battle. Gemini’s lips were pursed as she studied the knife I had placed in the middle of the table. The red metal gleamed like fresh blood under the lights above.

When I finished my story, silence descended upon us as they absorbed my words. Koa’s grip on his temper improved once he realized she didn’t try and hurt me. That didn’t mean he was happy the conversation took place. He wasn't. Not even close.

“Is Starling a blood mage?” Gemini asked, confusing me with her line of questioning.

“No, she’s a dragon summoner,” I answered.

“A summoner with a key containing blood magic, and a sorceress with one containing death magic… It could be necromancy, death and necromancy have always gone hand in hand,” she said slowly, almost to herself. “It stands to reason, that there are three others out there; elemental, sorcerer, and summoner.”

“You think there is one for each race?” I asked, rubbing my forehead. “How could there be one with summoner magic?”

She tapped her chin as she sat back in her chair. “Maybe, it’s just a hunch. It might be a coincidence that multiple keys exist with ancient magic of two different races.”

“Forget about the damn keys. What the hell are we supposed to be looking for in the tunnels? And what a help that is! We have a shitload of places that could be counted as the tunnels.” Ari threw her hands up, her agitation showing up out of nowhere. It was surprising she wasn’t pacing out her frustration.

As if she heard my thoughts, Ari shoved away from the table, walking back and forth between the sofa and the table.

“Could it be one of the keys? If there really are three more out there and the tainted are after them, it stands to reason the keys are what we are looking for,” I said running my hands over my hair.

“Two more,” Ari murmured, holding two fingers up.

“I think your math is off. Gemini’s key is with the creatures, while Starling’s is with the woman. That leaves three.”

Ari groaned, not losing a beat in her pacing. “The race of the guardian doesn’t match the race of the magic in the crystal. So if we follow that logic, the elemental one won’t be with the elementals.”

“It makes sense, it was probably done that way so the magics wouldn’t interact and draw attention,” Gemini said softly.

I dropped my head into my hands, weariness wearing on me. “Where are you going with this?”

“Gemini, do you know how long the necklace has been in your family?”

“It has to be at least a few thousand years. Other than that I don’t know,” Gemini said as she stared off into space.

“Ari, I’m tired, it took forever for my headache to go away, I've had a long and confusing day. I’m not in the mood for this. Just spit it out already.”

Ari paused giving me a once-over. “Sheesh, I would’ve thought you’d be in a better mood after getting laid.” She resumed her pacing, still not answering my question.

I drummed my fingers on the table, while I glared daggers at my infuriating sister. Koa’s hand covered mine, stalling my movements as he threaded his fingers through mine and gave a comforting squeeze.

“If the necromancers hadn’t been exiled when the keys were split up, then—”

“One of the necromancers has either the elemental, summoner, or sorcerer key,” Gemini finished.

“We don’t know that, they could’ve been exiled by that point,” Koa said, his voice as weary as I felt. Chances were he hadn’t slept well last night after what he went through.

“They knew about the key. Enough to go through all that work to get here and launch an attack. All the while using Meric as a means to distract us from their real goal, just so they could steal it. No way they just happened across it and thought; hey this looks pretty neat, we might as well take it. Their attack and all the effort they put into it has never made sense, but now it does,” I said as I traced the veins and tendons in Koa’s hand.

“Now our new problem—in an already long fucking list of problems—is whether or not the necromancers are still alive. And if so, are they hiding out in that other realm and we just lucky and didn’t cross paths with them?” Ari finally stopped her pacing, leaning back against the back of the sofa, and crossing her arms.

“Other realm?” There are hundreds of other realms, you need to be more specific,” Gemini said, her voice tinged with amusement, reminding me that knowledge of the creature’s realm wasn’t common.

The thought of having to recount our time in the creature’s realm, had me wanting to bang my head against the table. “Long story short, some Mythics betrayed us and created a moving rift to another realm for creatures to live in. It’s hard to—”

“Oh that realm, yeah, I know what you’re talking about,” Gemini said casually, taking a sip of her tea, watching as we stared at her in shock. I’d been expecting her to be confused, or even outright refuse to believe us.

All I could think to ask was, “You know?”

“How?” Ari asked, hiding her surprise better than me.

“I’ve been there.” Gemini shrugged as if she was talking about going to a restaurant, and not another realm.

“How?” Ari asked again. “And why haven’t you said anything about it?”

“I saw some creatures abducting humans, and followed them through the rift.” Gemini paused, taking a long pull of her tea. “As for why I haven’t said anything, I didn’t know who I could trust. I realized as you have, that at least one Mythic had to be helping them. The risk didn’t seem worth it.”

I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to put a target on herself, not when she was a guardian of one of the keys. Drawing any unwanted attention to herself could’ve drawn attention to it.

“Are there tunnels in their realm?” Koa asked, leaning back in his seat, while still holding onto my hand.

Gemini bit her lip as she stared up at the ceiling. “It’s more than possible, but since I didn’t step foot in the lands I can’t be sure. I don’t even know how many different areas of land there were, or if I even saw them all.”

“We’re pretty sure there are ten different regions… No wait, eleven,” I said looking up at the ceiling.

“How do you know that?”

“Tree tattoos on all of the creatures,” Ari said.

“But it isn’t an actual a tree, it’s a river,” I added, shifting my focus to Gemini’s confused expression.

“Fuck, I really wish we would’ve gotten a copy of that drawing,” Ari said with a groan.

“What drawing?” Gemini asked leaning toward, looking between us.

“Wyatt drew the tattoo from memory, and told us he thought it was a map of the creature’s realm,” Koa explained.

Surprise filled Gemini’s expression as she sat up. Her hands, which she had been wringing together, stilled. “Wyatt?”

“Yeah, he’s the one that told us about the realm and took us there,” I said slowly, not taking my eyes off her.

“You know him,” Ari said, rather than phrasing it as a question.

Gemini swallowed, her body was rigid. “I did, a long time ago.”

“Were you guys…” Ari trailed off while making crude hand gestures. Basically asking if they had ever fucked.

Laughing, I covered my face with my free hand. I was thinking it, but I would’ve never straight up asked that. “Ari, you can’t ask personal questions like that from someone you barely know.”

Ari gasped as if offended. “I didn’t ask if they fucked.”

“Just because you didn’t ask with words, doesn’t mean you didn’t ask.”

Gemini cleared her throat, stopping mine and Ari’s bickering. “Why did you have him take you to the realm?”

“We went there to try and discover why the vampires broke through the Convergence point rift. It sucked, and I’d like to never step foot in that shitty realm ever again,” I said, not in the mood to give a full summary.

“You said you followed the creatures into the realm and never left the ferry?” Koa asked Gemini, waiting for her to nod. He stroked his chin as he observed her for a moment. “That’s the same story Wyatt told us. You were there with him.”

She nodded, her expression not giving me much to go off of. “I was.”

I was more surprised than I should’ve been. She already admitted to knowing him and having been in the realm. I just thought it was strange that Wyatt had made it seem like he was alone in that realm.

“Count yourself lucky for not having to hike through those bullshit regions,” Ari commented as she pulled her long hair up into a ponytail.

“You guys left the ferry?”

“Not by choice,” I grumbled.

Gemini considered us for several seconds before energy flowed over her hands and she made a hand gesture. A piece of paper and a pencil appeared on the table in front of her. “Try and write down what you remember.”

Koa released my hand, grabbed the paper and pencil, and began doing a rough sketch of the tattoo. It wasn't as detailed as Wyatt’s, but it was enough to give Gemini a vague idea. As Ari and I described the regions we went through, Koa wrote the descriptions off to the side. He also wrote down the regions Wyatt had mentioned, but we hadn’t seen; the land of complete darkness, the region covered in snow and ice.

“Okay, now which one of these places has tunnels?” Ari murmured, bending closer to the paper, leaning between Koa and me as if it would help her gain a better understating of everything in that realm.

“There was that cave in the lava region. There may be tunnel systems,” I offered. Ari made a sound of disgust.

“Ugh, I hated that place.”

“It wasn’t too bad, other than the lava, the constantly erupting volcanos, and the wyvern that nearly caught up to us. At least it was better than the wastelands, now that place was awful.”

Ari shuddered at the memory of that region. If there was an underground network there, then I was going to have to pass. The thought of being in that land, much less an enclosed space, made me sick to my stomach. With the fucked up weather in that land, the chances of the tunnel collapsing on us were way too high for my comfort levels. And this time we wouldn’t have a mini snow leopard there to save us.

“What about the building in the forest? There could easily be a basement leading to a tunnel system down there,” Koa pointed out. The dark forest, another place I never wanted to step foot in again.

“There’s a building?” Gemini sat back, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Oh yeah, think of an old, creepy, and formerly beautiful hotel that is haunted,” Ari said flopping back down into her chair, resting her chin on her forearms.

“It's one of the many mysteries we've yet to solve,” I said smothering a yawn.

“We’re getting nowhere sitting around and theorizing. The tunnels could be anywhere under the surface. The only way to find them is to do it in person,” Gemini said tapping her fingers on the table.

I looked over at her in horror. “You want us to go back there, and wander around aimlessly until we happen upon the right tunnel system? Without using magic or getting killed by the creatures?”

“Isn’t that why we’re discussing this?” Gemini challenged.

Dropping my forehead against my forearms, I smothered another yawn. She was right. At the back of my mind, I’ve always known we would have to go back. There was no bowing out of this. Unlike Gemini, we’ve been in the regions and had a better understanding of what to expect. Not to mention the fact that the mysterious message was given to me. It seemed like we kept getting pulled toward that realm. “So are we going through the rift on the outskirts of the city?”

“I doubt they would leave their side of the rift unguarded,” Koa said, pausing for a few moments as he considered something. He shot a glance over at Gemini. “Do you think you’d be able to locate the moving rift?”

“I should be able to, but first you all need your rest. You two are practically falling asleep on my table."

I groaned, my head too heavy to lift. “We had a rough night,” Ari said, slurring her words.

Koa’s hand rubbed light circles across my back as he spoke, his deep voice as soothing as his touch. I tried to focus on his words, but I couldn’t understand a single word he said. Instead, I felt myself drift further and further until I was pulled into a deep sleep.