Page 23 of A Legacy of Stars (The Lost God Legacies)

23

STELLA

T hey’d been on the run most of the day, trying to put distance between themselves and Katerina and Jeneva, though Stella felt confident they wouldn’t follow. The women were strategic, taking a shot when the opportunity presented itself, but they had their own caves to visit and their own memories to retrieve. Katerina and Jeneva were allies—no doubt a pair of women would be underestimated in the competition, and that made them targets. They didn’t have the luxury of hunting when everyone else was hunting them.

Still, Teddy had driven Stella on, insisting they leave the horses boarded at the crossroads and travel on foot to attract less attention, but after a day of hiking, even in the slightly cooler weather, Stella was regretting listening to him. Her feet were screaming from the tough terrain.

But Teddy was right. The summer had brought thick mudslides to the lower hills and they would have had to leave the horses in a less hospitable environment. Stella was glad that Shark was somewhere he could be taken care of, even if it meant they would have to go back to pick him up later.

In what was either a stroke of good fortune or a very obvious trap, her and Teddy’s caves were only a couple of miles apart, so they could make most of the journey together. She was glad for the company, even if Teddy was quiet and broody and constantly doubling back to cover their tracks. Their progress was slow, but if they kept this pace, they would reach the first cave—Teddy’s cave—by nightfall. If all went well, he would retrieve the memory while she stood guard, and then they could camp in the cave for the night and head to hers in the morning.

Stella had wanted to prove that she could do this herself, but now she was glad to have someone watching her back and she’d grown to almost like his quiet company. Teddy was serious, but also attentive. He knew the forest well, knew which berries were safe to eat, and had a talent for foraging mushrooms. As far as traveling companions went, he was very resourceful. Perhaps he had simply realized that she complained far less when her belly was full.

He’d also taken to asking her to tell a story to pass the time, and while it was annoying that he asked strangely specific questions about the most innocuous parts of each tale, the conversation was a good distraction from her blisters.

The afternoon was hot but not nearly as hot as it was farther south in Olney, and she was grateful for that. Still, all the hiking made her wish she was in something other than leather armor.

“Can we stop for a break soon? I need some water.”

Teddy sighed. “I’d like to go a few more miles before we stop, but?—”

He drew his blades and spun toward the forest to their right.

A blur of color came sailing out of the thick foliage so fast it took Stella a moment to realize it was Dixon and Drew.

The sky went suddenly dark, clouds blotting out the bright sunlight as a swirling tempest took form overhead. The tree branches groaned.

Dixon looked up, his magic surging, ready to defend Drew from whatever Teddy was summoning.

Stella could wield storms, but not like this. Her storms were chaotic and wild. She could sense an organized rhythm in Teddy’s magic, like he was carefully weaving threads on a tapestry.

Teddy sprang into action immediately, his swords moving like an extension of his body. He called down lightning and directed it with his blade. Dixon and Drew had the element of surprise. They had attacked him , but they were the ones immediately on their heels. Teddy came at them so hard that there was little for Stella to do but stand there and watch his back.

She’d always known Teddy was powerful—could sense it when he was close, like an electrical charge running over her skin—but now she could begrudgingly admit that Teddy Savero was mesmerizing in action. She’d never seen his father fight, but her mother had talked about it like it was a thing of legend. Teddy commanding lightning and wind with one hand while he wielded a blade with the other was some of the most precise magic and fighting technique she’d seen in her life.

How could anyone stand against him?

Dixon fought against the storm, sending the bolts of lightning scattering into the nearby trees. They sparked into flames. Stella yanked the fire from the branches, rolled them into a fireball, and lobbed it back at Dixon. He barely deflected in time, pulling a blast of cold rain on it just as it singed his leathers.

Teddy was fighting Drew. Dixon was covering them. Stella searched the woods around them for any sign of Rett or Christophe. They had to be there. That must have been what Skylar’s note meant. The bugs in the woods were the Roach and his friends.

She drew her bow, aiming into the trees beside her. She listened closely, trying to tune out the clashing steel and swirling wind behind her and just focus on what felt out of place in front of her.

An arrow shot out of the trees and she only had time to shift her weight enough that it skimmed the outside of her arm.

“Bleeding gods,” Stella groaned. It wasn’t deep, but it was enough to draw blood.

She fired back, half looking at what she was doing, half going entirely on instinct. The satisfying grunt as her arrow struck flesh came a second later.

“Fucking slut witch!” Rett came barreling out of the brush despite the arrow stuck in his thigh.

He tackled her to the ground.

Stella kneed the arrow lodged in his leg and he howled and rolled off of her.

Before, when Stella had been fighting some faceless assassin, it had been hard to wrap her mind around killing someone. But, surely, confronted face to face by the man who had promised to hurt her so Teddy would feel it, Stella would be able to finish the job.

Pain flashed through the bond. She heard Teddy grunt, but didn’t dare look at him.

“I’m fine,” he shouted to her over the storm, but the clouds were pulling apart, sunlight shining through. Whatever had happened was enough to momentarily break his connection to his magic.

Stella sprang to her feet and drew her short swords as Rett scrambled to stand. He yanked the arrow from his thigh with an animalistic growl.

Stupid . Now it would bleed like crazy until he was healed.

He drew his short swords and charged at her again, forcing her to block a blow that rattled down her arms.

Sweat pooled on her back and neck, the loose curls from her braid clinging to the clammy skin. She was tired and hungry and she just wanted to get to her cave and complete this stupid challenge. Most of all, she was so sick of people trying to kill her.

Her satchel and bow and quiver rattled against her back as she went on the offensive. She charged at Rett and knocked him back until she could see Teddy in her periphery. Rett’s blade cut into the skin just above her armguard and she grunted as she pulled away. Blood sprayed across the dirt at her feet, but it was a surface wound. It would heal in a minute.

She needed to get her and Teddy out of there. As she began to fight Rett, she called to mind the map of the area and the rest of Skylar’s note. The river is safest .

They were close to a river crossing. They could cross the bridge, but that would add at least a day to their journey; while that was doable, she preferred not to cut it so close.

She broke a strike and kicked the wound on Rett’s thigh again. He countered by slicing one of his blades across the top of her hand. Stella’s shirt sleeve was damp with blood. Odd that the wound on her arm was still bleeding. Superficial cuts healed in moments for her thanks to the remnants of goddess magic in her blood.

She twisted away from Rett and pulled her sleeve up. The cut looked the same as when it had first been inflicted.

When she looked up, Rett was hunched, catching his breath, but he smiled smugly. “Not healing in the way you’re accustomed to, eh? Treated my blades with a little something special for you. Let’s see how you do fighting like the rest of us mere mortals.”

Stella parried him, but he was stronger, and she was tired from the hike. She managed to knock away one of his short swords, but he just drew his dagger and kept coming.

Stella ran toward him, swiping her blade across his shoulder. Rett caught her wrist and plunged his dagger into her side. Her leathers were finely made but still no match for the wickedly sharp blade.

The pain was momentarily blinding, bright and white, sparks exploding in her vision. She instinctively slammed her forehead into Rett’s nose, and he stumbled back, wrenching his blade free.

Blood poured from the wound in Stella’s side, and she stumbled.

“Stella!” Teddy’s voice was panicked, but he was still fighting Drew and Dixon, so he didn’t turn to look at her.

“It’s fine,” she said.

Rett coughed, wiped blood from his mouth, and laughed menacingly. “She’s not all right. I got your girl good. Told you I’d stick her with one tool or another. Maybe both if she’s a good girl.”

He grabbed Stella’s arm and squeezed, but she could barely feel it over the blinding pain in her side.

Teddy’s rage was like a forest fire burning through their bond.

The storm came on so fast and furiously that the wind almost knocked them both over .

“Get your fucking hands off of her.” Teddy’s voice was the ominous low rumble of thunder that came before a lightning strike. “Call a storm, Stella.”

Stella summoned her storm magic the second before a bright lightning strike slammed into the center of their fight.

Everyone went flying in different directions. Stella hit the ground hard, her side protesting the impact, blood pouring into the dirt beneath her. Summoning the magic had saved her from being killed by the shock, but it didn’t save her from the impact of being thrown ten feet from the blast. For a second, she stayed there, hugging her satchel across the front of her body and staring up at the sky.

Then she remembered the urgency. She groaned as she pressed up to her knees. She crawled to her short swords, which had landed a few feet from her, and then to her bow. She fastened her short swords at her hips and looped her bow across her chest. With great effort, she forced herself fully upright just as Teddy sprinted to her side.

“Let’s go!” he shouted.

“Are they dead?” Stella asked.

“Probably not all of them, but you know the first rule of elemental combat. Don’t burn through all your magic when you don’t know what else you might face. Better to retreat.”

“To the bridge?” she asked.

“To the bridge.” He grasped her arm and tugged her down the trail.

They ran for a few minutes until Stella needed to stop. Her entire side was covered in blood, her wound still bleeding profusely. An arrow whistled past her head and Stella took off running down the trail again.

The sound of her heartbeat in her ears was nearly drowned out by the sound of the rushing river. Every deep breath was agony, her side screaming for her to stop, but the arrows still flying around them were a clear sign that they couldn’t. They rounded a bend, and she unhooked her bow and drew an arrow from her quiver.

Shooting was an instinct. She had a goddess-blessed gift for it from her Aunt Sayla, the goddess of the hunt, but Stella had been shooting a bow since she was old enough to hold one. It was one of the first and most useful things her mother had taught her and something they had bonded over.

She drew her string back, ignoring the pinch in her side, and loosed the arrow, then turned and continued to run.

A loud curse rose behind her. She knew she’d hit Drew’s shoulder, and he’d have a very hard time shooting until it was healed.

Her footsteps synced with Teddy’s as the narrow plank bridge came into sight. They ran out onto it as swiftly as they dared, but the wind whipped so high up and the bridge swayed beneath them. They slowed to a walk, holding the ropes on both sides as they hurried across.

Nearly halfway across the bridge, Teddy stopped short and Stella slammed into his back.

“What’s wrong?” Stella glanced over his shoulder and saw Christophe Wallthrew standing on the other side of the bridge, waiting for them.

“It’s a trap,” Teddy said.

She turned around to go back the way they came, but she could just make out Drew and Dixon descending the trail toward the edge of the long bridge.

Teddy turned to look at her, his hand brushing her bloody side. “I thought you healed quickly. Why are you still bleeding so much?”

Stella had wondered the same. “I don’t know. Maybe they?—”

Rett’s words flew through her mind again. “Let’s see how you do fighting like the rest of us mere mortals.”

Teddy grabbed her arm. “What is it?”

She brushed her fingers to her side, staring at her blood. “I think maybe they used Godsbane.”

Teddy’s eyes went wide. “Does that mean you can’t use your magic?”

She snapped a flame to her bloody fingers. “No. I think it just means I won’t heal the same way or be able to do intricate memory recovery until it’s out of my system.”

“How long will that take?” Teddy asked .

Stella shrugged. “Longer than the next two minutes. It looks like our best way out is down.”

The river rushed far below them.

“The fall could kill us,” Teddy said.

“Not if you break it with a gust of wind while I ease the water up a bit.”

He looked at her skeptically. “That’s a lot of coordination.”

“We have about thirty seconds until we have to jump either way.”

Teddy stared down at the water and fear seared through her chest. “Might be a bad time to mention that I can’t swim.”

“What?” Stella stared at him in disbelief. “How is that possible? You’ve spent a month every summer in Olney.”

“A prince cannot be bad at things.”

“Bullshit. Jalen is a terrible archer.”

Teddy laughed, both from the stress and at the truth of that assessment. “He is. But I never learned to swim, and the older I got, the more awkward it would have been.”

Stella grimaced down at the current. “All right. Hold on tight and do not let me go. When we jump, you need to send a gust up to slow our fall. I’m going to try to steady the current, but it’s going to be rough and very cold. Whatever happens, do not let go of me. I cannot fight the current to get to you if you do.”

She felt the first prickles of a storm as she glanced to where Rett and his friends charged onto the far end of the bridge. The whole structure swayed with the added weight.

She met Teddy’s golden eyes. “Trust me.”

He nodded and lifted her onto his back. Stella wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and jumped.

The wind tore at her hair and she swallowed a reflexive scream as they plunged toward the water. They fell for what felt like an eternity.

Stella reached her magic wide. Water summoning had always been so sluggish for her; the violence of it was similar to fire, but it was slippery, harder for her to channel and control. It tore through her energy stores so much faster than fire and required the sort of attention that she didn’t have while free-falling in the arms of a prince who would drown if she let him go.

Teddy’s sudden windstorm arrested their fall just enough for her to draw the water up.

“Hold your breath,” she shouted, her words instantly lost in the wind.

They plunged into the column of water. The jolt rattled her bones and stung her exposed skin. Stella gasped out half of her air at the shock of the frigid water.

Teddy instantly let her go as they descended into the vicious current. She had to claw her way back to him.

They went down and down and down, until finally the descent arrested. Stella released her legs from Teddy’s waist and kicked hard, propelling them back to the surface.

Stella gulped in air as Teddy flailed beside her.

“Stop panicking,” she said, yanking him closer as the current tugged them swiftly away from the bridge.

Teddy did not stop. His fear was a living thing in her chest. Stella fought the swirling current. Hooking her arm across his chest, she curled herself around his back and pulled him long to float with his back resting against her body.

“Breathe,” she said in his ear.

He relaxed the slightest bit, but his hands held a death grip on the arm she had across his chest. The water battered them from all sides, driving them downstream. Stella tried to ease the passage with water magic, but there were so many rocks and eddies. Each time they clipped a boulder, she lost focus, and they both went under. Each time they swallowed water, Teddy trusted her less.

She glanced back at the bridge. It grew smaller and more distant by the second.

“Stella!”

She whipped her head around at the terror in Teddy’s voice.

Rapids. They were heading toward rapids.

She kicked hard, but the current was so strong. She heaved her water magic out, trying to propel them toward the shore. Pain tore down her side from the movement. She gritted her teeth and pushed harder, kicking wildly. But they were entirely at the mercy of the river.

She held on to Teddy tightly as they plunged into the violent rapids. The roaring water blocked out all other sound and blended with the roaring of her heart.

Her shoulder slammed into a rock, and she cried out. They started to sink, water splashing into her mouth.

They slammed against a large bolder, Teddy’s body taking most of the brunt of the impact. Water pinned them there.

Stella was burning through her magic at an alarming rate. She was violently shivering, still bleeding, and summoning her least efficient magic to try to ease a raging river, all while trying to keep a lump of a prince from drowning.

She was walking a fine line between using too much and not enough. If she burned through her magic, she’d pass out in the middle of the river and they would both drown. But if she didn’t use what she could to ease their path, they’d surely be bashed on the rocks.

Teddy coughed and sputtered, his body rigid with fear, but she felt him pushing out his magic, weaving it with her own.

Unfortunately, it seemed it was not his strongest summoning, either. It made sense. The mountains of Argaria had many gentle streams from snow melt, but the rivers and lakes were frozen half of the year. He wouldn’t have had a chance to practice water summoning.

Together, they steered the current to propel them around the largest obstacles. Stella’s muscles burned under the strain of keeping them both afloat and the sheer exhaustion of fighting nature. She glanced downriver for a good place to stop, but the current kept picking up.

That’s when she realized the roaring was getting louder.

“Is that—” Teddy started to flail as he put together what she already had.

They were headed toward a waterfall.

He shoved his magic out, trying to arrest the current. Instead, the water in front of them bowed momentarily and the current behind them slammed their bodies into the wall of water. The impact ripped Teddy out of her arms. The jolt of it rattled her bones.

Stella flailed for him, her frozen fingers grasping at nothing. She caught a flash of his scarlet shirt and, for the first time all day, was happy he’d worn such a conspicuous color. She dove into the current, using it to propel herself forward with strong, practiced strokes.

It was reckless to swim this way in a river, but if she didn’t get to him now, he would die and it would be her fault. Death whispers rose with the roaring of the waterfall. Insistent panic hit her so sharply in the chest that she gasped. Surfacing, she tugged on their bond. A terrified jolt echoed back. She turned her head and caught sight of him pinned against a rock. The rapids surged around him.

His head was stuck under the water and the bond in her chest pulsed with panic, fear, and grief. Stella threw a wild flare of power at the rapids behind her, pouring every bit of magic she could into it.

Her body dropped instantly, hitting the rocky riverbed so hard she almost let her magic slip.

The current slammed against the shield of water she’d formed. Her body flashed hot and cold, the effort of holding back the river heating her chilled skin. She jumped to her feet and turned her shield into a tunnel curling around them.

The control was difficult, but it lessened the pressure and let some of the current go over their heads. Stella felt herself approaching the end of her magic. She ran to Teddy, stumbling over river stones, her legs burning with the effort.

He wasn’t breathing. His lips were blue. The death whispers turned to shouts.

She shoved down her fear. Sweat beaded on her skin, steaming in the cold air. She collapsed beside him, rolled Teddy onto her back, and pressed to stand. She staggered the ten feet to the riverbank.

The second her feet touched dry land, the river crashed back into its normal rhythm behind her.

Stella’s magic sputtered, her eyelids growing heavy. She was so tired .

She dumped Teddy’s limp body on the ground and knelt beside him. She pulled hard on their bond, but nothing happened. She placed her hands over his chest in the way her father had taught her years ago and pressed hard against his sternum in a percussive pattern.

“Please,” she rasped. “You can’t die. I won’t let you.”

She was so exhausted. Every muscle in her body was burning, the pain so bright she knew she was close to passing out. She stopped, pinched his nose, and blew air into his mouth. Then she continued her compressions on his chest.

She used the last thread of her magic to reach down his throat and into his lungs, and she tugged as gently as she could manage. She pulled all the water from his lungs. It was difficult to trust herself with such delicate magic when she was so panicked.

If he slipped away, he would take a part of her with him.

Finally, Teddy coughed. Stella frantically rolled him onto his side as he sputtered water. She continued to pull with her last thread of magic until she was certain there was nothing but air left in his lungs.

A sob tore up Stella’s throat as he rolled onto his back and looked up at her. His eyes were luminous in the late afternoon sunlight, but his lips were still purple.

“It’s annoying that you look this handsome when you’re half-dead,” she rasped.

Teddy’s eyes softened, and he took her hand.

Stella’s eyes burned as she gasped for air. “You weren’t breathing. I hate you for scaring me like that.”

But she didn’t hate him at all. She hated that he made her care. Hated the unbridled terror she’d felt when she thought she wouldn’t be able to save him. Hated how she couldn’t stop shaking now—not from the adrenaline still pumping through her blood, but from the fear of losing him.

For so long, she’d thought Teddy was cold and judgmental. But he wasn’t either of those things. Away from courtly eyes, he was incandescent—lit up by the lack of critical assessment—focused, attentive, and funny. She was startled by how much she liked spending time with him—how something that had seemed impossible when they set out had become almost intuitively easy after just a few days.

“I’m fine now,” he soothed as he tried to sit up.

Stella tried to help him, but a sharp pain tore through her. She gasped. When she pressed her hand to her side, it came away bloody.

“Stella—”

A wave of pain rolled through her and the world went dark.