Page 36 of Love, Nemesis (Ocean to Ashes #2)

“I’m being serious, you know,” Lethe said, but Cal just nodded.

Lethe wondered if his own nonchalance betrayed him. He really did mean it. Death was imminent, but he wasn’t exactly sure how to communicate that beyond words. It wasn’t really in his nature to be incredibly expressive of fear or dread either.

“You really might die,” Lethe added, trying to add emphasis and unsure of where he was falling short.

“Okay. I get it,” Cal replied, sounding annoyed.

I don’t think so. “The moment I ask you to go back, you sprint. Understood?”

Cal nodded eagerly. “Yes! Yes, I’ll listen.”

“Tie the horses up. Let’s go,” Lethe mumbled, rubbing his head as he walked off.

He started off as Cal rushed to secure the horses. Cal caught up with him after and seemed to shrink away at the brazen nature with which Lethe traveled the path toward the city. They walked in silence now, both sensing the danger as they approached the impending challenge.

Lethe warded off the compulsion to demand Cal leave with every step. If he did want to defeat Ivan Rowe, he could very well use Cal and his Atlas. They were something of a wildcard in the right circumstances.

Ivan had not been as brash as Amiel, nor as calculated as Peter, but Lethe didn’t know what the time in the Mystics had done to the Strike.

He hardly knew if his old profile of Ivan could apply at all.

Strike were very consistent. Peter, Amiel, and a couple of others had already lived for several centuries before the ROSE managed to burn them.

They bypassed huts and tents as they drew closer to the city walls, stone giants that cast a vast shadow across the first rows of houses near it. The bustle of a busy city could be heard from inside, but the tents and cottages outside seemed empty.

“The walls are huge,” Cal said. “You can just hear everyone on the other side. How are we getting in?”

“We ask. My Dear Anne should get us in,” said Lethe as they closed the distance between the walls.

He began to wrestle up his sleeve to expose the names tattooed on his arm.

“The ROSE traded with them during The Ocean’s War and unlike your wonderful establishment, the Mystics love war h–” Lethe suddenly stopped before uttering a slow, drawn-out, “Hmm.”

“What?” Cal said, glancing around.

Lethe pulled his sleeve down. “It might be too late.”

“What?” Cal pushed.

“I’ve never been to the Mystics myself,” Lethe said, as if the fact spelled its own kind of doom.

Cal stood beside him, gaze shifting nervously around the surrounding area, waiting for a guard or watchmen to notice them standing in broad daylight at the city gate.

“What does that mean?” Cal prodded, clearly unnerved by Lethe’s nonchalance.

“I remember these doors,” Lethe said, eyes studious, looking over the great gates covered in markings and symbols. “These are the gates to the city of Vevaldi, in En Sanctus. It was destroyed ages ago. In fact, I stood just like this, in front of those gates once, admiring them the same way.”

“What are you saying?”

“This isn’t real.”

Cal searched the area, following after Lethe as he started to the doors. Lethe took a few more steps forward as if the gates would open at his approach, his eyes focused up toward the sun.

“What’s going on?” Cal whispered.

“We were expected,” Lethe said.

The gates jolted. They opened like the yawn of a beast, jaws cracking wide and exposing streets crowded with people. In the center of the city, a stark, black steeple rose above the crowd.

The Mystics wore an assortment of colorful clothing, mirroring the wealth of the wearers with vibrant tassels, precious metals, and colored beads.

The men and women both colored their dark hair with dyes, feathers, and trinkets, marking their pale faces with symbols like canvases.

The dirt under their feet had thickened into clay, baked in by the intensity of the Mystic summer sun.

“I want you to try and run,” Lethe said, tone firmer. He looked at Cal, the boy’s eyes swirling with confusion.

“Now.”

Cal looked between him and the crowd.

The moment Lethe’s foot crossed the threshold of the city, everyone stopped. They each slammed a foot into the ground, propelling themselves in orderly lines on either side of a narrow path to the black buildings ahead.

He saw the people closer now. They had vacant, glossy eyes.

“Lethe,” Cal said behind him.

“You heard me, Cal.”

Looking over his shoulder, Lethe saw Cal glance between the rows of people before looking back. The boy shook his head, walking forward as if each step might land him in a trap. He continued glancing nervously at the people, removing his Atlas as he stopped in front of Lethe.

Lethe narrowed his eyes. “Cal, you won’t get any reward for being brave here.”

Cal looked up at Lethe, and for a split moment, Lethe recognized a type of determination he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“I don’t know what’s ahead,” Lethe said. “It’s the Strike’s game. It always is.”

Cal nodded, acting as if it wasn’t the first time he’d heard that information. “Okay.”

Lethe knew for a fact that he didn’t completely understand it, and yet here he was, shaking in his shoes, but here.

Removing his knife, Lethe cut a line across his hand and then offered it to Cal.

Cal looked down at it and hesitantly offered his own. Lethe shook it.

“They can do what they want to you, but they can never copy your soul. Welcome to the Riders, kid. I hope you’re prepared to fight like one,” he said, eyes focused on Cal’s.

They’d never done any such handshake in the Riders, but Cal didn’t have to know that. At the end of the day, Lethe knew the biggest advantage to the boy would be his illusion of power, the illusion of choice.

Cal didn’t know what was out in the world—not really. Maybe he would have followed Lethe one way or another. Couldn’t help himself. Curiosity and ignorance combined were an unfortunate streak to any person with opportunity.

All the same, Cal didn’t really have a choice now either. As it often was with the Strike, you approached one, but you rarely ever ran from one. You were released or you killed it. That was the only way to get out.

But the belief that you could run, that was important for someone like Cal, someone who didn’t know what it was like yet to have nowhere to go.

The battlefield had already been set.

The only way out was onward.