Page 17 of Moonstriker (The Summertide Chronicles #4)

Chapter 17

Kit

I was a little sorry about leaving the car behind. It had been ridiculously expensive, exactly the kind of flashy thing people would expect Kit Emrys to drive, and thus, I rarely got the chance to drive anything like it. But it had also been necessary to get where we needed to be, and more importantly, to stop fast enough to keep from hitting the rockslide.

Also, it had been nice to have a truly great car for once. Maybe I didn’t fit my reputation as much as people thought, but sometimes I did like shiny, flashy, pretty things. Who didn’t?

Still, the car was well and truly trapped where it was, so there was no moving it anytime soon.

It had been just like the bags and water and annoying granola bars: a tool to get Aubrey and me to the end of this mess in one piece. Or, well, two pieces.

What mattered was the end result, not what it cost to get there, because the cost of us not getting there was more than anyone in the Summerlands could afford.

Carefully, I folded the map back up and tucked it into a pocket on the side of my hiking pack.

I didn’t need the map anymore, not really. I’d made this hike before by myself.

Three times.

I knew the route as well as I knew any ground in the world, because I had been determined that I wasn’t going to be caught unprepared at any stage of this plan.

“It’s right up here,” I told him, motioning toward the trees. “We can make it almost halfway before nightfall, and then do the rest tomorrow if we’re quick about it.”

He looked dubious, and fuck him for that. Did he think I was doing this on a whim? This was the culmination of a decade of planning, and I wasn’t going to let him be the monkey wrench in the works that screwed everything up.

“It’s not even fifteen miles,” I said, motioning with my hand toward the trail. Was he just determined not to try? So help me, if I had to knock his ass out and carry him?—

With a deep sigh, he finally started putting one foot in front of the other, following me toward the trees. Thank fuck. Maybe he wasn’t as big as Frost, but he was still taller than me, and more muscular by a fair bit. He was heavy.

“Thought you didn’t want to give up and go back to town,” I grumbled at him as we headed into the thick evergreens.

He shot me a glare back. “There’s a difference between giving up and going back, and...whatever this is. Hiking? Rock climbing? I didn’t sign up for that. I would never do that.” Then he gave a literal shudder, while continuing to shoot daggers at me with his eyes.

And that, I couldn’t help but laugh at. Guy was over six feet tall and looked like he lifted heavy things for fun, but a little hiking was too much for him? “What, big strong guy like you hasn’t ever been hiking before?”

His scowl didn’t falter for a second. “Of course not. I”—he looked away, seeming almost embarrassed—“I work for a living. Lifting and carrying, working heavy machinery, and some construction when I got old enough. That’s how I got like this. I don’t go to the gym or parkour or BASE jump or whatever sport is in vogue for rich people this year.”

“BASE jumping? Seriously? How much of a rich wastrel do you think I am?” Given the sour look he shot back at me, I suspected the answer was something like “how big of a rich wastrel is it possible to be?” Thankfully, he didn’t respond, so I didn’t have to hear it.

Though . . . I did kind of like the word wastrel.

I found the trail with ease, pointing it out to Aubrey as we stepped onto the slightly worn ground covered by brown pine needles. I suspected that once it had been much clearer, but it had slowly grown over, because no one came up here.

Still, it stuck in my craw, the notion that he thought I was some kind of pitiful rich boy who’d spent my whole life lounging around, living the high life on the people’s dime.

“I’ve worked for a living since I was a teenager, you know,” I told him, and the tone sounded waspish even to me. “Paid my own rent and everything.”

He raised a brow at me, and while the expression wasn’t well-practiced, it was all the more damning for it. “You have an apartment?”

Damn him. “Not...at the moment. I’d been working for Huxley Dawnchaser for the last year, so he was giving me room and board.”

“So you were staying at his mansion, and he was paying for all your expenses?” He sounded like he thought it was a gotcha, and I half expected him to follow up by suggesting that I’d been fucking Huxley for cash.

“I was his bodyguard ,” I informed him, attempting to keep all emotion out of it. That was hard to do, given the work I’d been doing for Huxley, but...well hells, would Aubrey think it was better or worse, that I’d killed people to protect a monster? That I was a duelist, and I’d killed lots of people, for varying reasons, some valid and some entirely fucking ridiculous. I’d never killed a good person for a bad reason, but I’d certainly done the opposite a few times.

I was pretty sure I’d even killed a good person for a good reason at least once.

The memory of that moment—no. It wasn’t time for that. It went into the box along with everything else I’d done in the name of The Plan, to be looked at after I’d succeeded in saving the Summerlands.

If we didn’t succeed and Slate exploded...Well, this close to the mountain, I wasn’t likely to have much time to dwell on all the terrible things I’d done, no matter the reasons for them.

Aubrey was giving me a sidelong look. “ You were a bodyguard. You put yourself between someone else and danger.” The way he stressed “you” was downright insulting, but I tried not to snap back. Or hit him. He’d believed I was a duelist, so why was this so hard?

“Every day,” I agreed, barely holding down my irritation.

He continued looking at me like I was entirely full of shit, but what could I say? I’m Kit Emrys, most famous duelist currently alive in the Summerlands? True or not, it wasn’t the sort of comment that made anyone think you were a good person or a hard worker.

Besides, even if it did, I couldn’t prove it was true. I wasn’t even carrying my sword, because there’d been too much else to carry on this trek, and I wasn’t going to be fighting an enemy that could be bested with a weapon. The lack made me feel naked, among other things.

It was fucking annoying.

Aubrey was fucking annoying.

Why had Nikka ever thought I would like him?

You will , she prodded, and I scoffed.

Aloud. Oops.

Aubrey looked back over at me. “Problem?”

“Nikka keeps telling me you’re a prince among weasels, and I’m not sure why she’s so determined to defend you. And frankly, for the first time in all the years I’ve known her, I’m wondering whether she’s lost her marbles.”

I wanted to tell him that if he kept scowling at me that way his face would stick in that expression, but I figured that would be taken about as well as the rest of the conversation. Maybe Aubrey really was a prince, but in the end, I didn’t think he and I were ever going to get along. He was a judgy little prick and I...was too.

Yeah, fuck everyone, whatever .

But then he sucked in a hard breath, staring at the road behind us.

I turned to look at the same spot, to see if something else awful was happening, and as such, almost missed that he wasn’t looking at the scenery at all. He was having another goddamned seizure.

I spun back to face him, and with the heavy backpack and water weighing me down, this time—?of course this time—?I didn’t reach him before he hit the ground.

Fortunately, the layers of dead pine needles were probably softer than the pavement we’d not long left behind.

Less fortunately, he went down hard, shaking like a leaf, and it didn’t end quickly.

So I knelt next to him, pulling his head into my lap and just...waiting.

What the fuck did I know about seizures? It was an old wives’ tale that you were supposed to keep seizing people from biting their tongues, I thought. Maybe. I remembered some old chestnut about putting a spoon in their mouth for that, but that seemed likelier to result in broken teeth than protection.

Plus, you know, I didn’t have a spoon even if it didn’t sound like a terrible idea.

Just a backpack full of stuff, or like...my fingers. Seemed like a terrible idea to put my fingers in his mouth while he was shaking uncontrollably.

Though it didn’t sound like a terrible idea overall. He might be an asshole, but he was sexy as fuck with the giant muscles and broad shoulders and pouty plush lips, just like his father. Only it was all sexier on Aubrey, because he wasn’t an entire asshole who only cared about himself.

He at least cared about Titania.

And the way his eyes softened when he looked at her was downright beautiful.

No, bad brain. No distractions, not while Aubrey was seizing.

Although...what the fuck else was I supposed to do? I had no idea.

It was all terrible.

Worse for him, I was sure, but not having something to do had always been a nightmare of mine. There was nothing I hated more than feeling useless, and that was precisely what I was right then.

It was over in a moment, or possibly an eternity, and then we were just lying there in the dirt and pine needles, waiting.

Aubrey was unconscious. Or asleep. Or something. I checked his pulse, and it was steady and strong, so that was good. He was pale, and his skin a little clammy, but that wasn’t a huge shock, was it? This whole thing had to be traumatic, both for body and mind.

Are you sure he’s going to survive this? I asked Nikka, and I couldn’t bring myself to say it aloud. Didn’t want to even think it might be true, that he was going to die while saving the world.

Sure, he was kind of a jerk, but so was I. I sure didn’t want to die doing this, even if I was prepared to do so if necessary.

He is , she promised. The seizures will stop once he’s properly bonded to Slate. His brain just needs to figure out how to communicate with the mountain, and it’s...it’s a lot. It’s hard for even us. There’s a reason we don’t just come visit regularly to satisfy him .

I didn’t fully understand, but even after years of knowing the truth, it was hard for me to imagine the mountain as a single entity that could bond with a human mind. Which, I supposed, was part of the problem. It was more complicated than that. Probably more complicated than my simple mind could handle.

There had to be a reason I hadn’t bonded the mountain in my many trips up to climb the trail as practice, and none of the people in Yomi had done it over the years. It had to be something more than just chance. Had anyone else ever bonded the mountain? There was no way for me to know, if Nikka wasn’t aware.

Maybe it was a new concept, and the mountain hadn’t even thought of bonding a person of its own before. That didn’t seem awfully likely, though.

Maybe it required an adult mind, but one that hadn’t previously bonded a stone, like Aubrey.

I couldn’t think of another person like that in the world.

Wouldn’t that just chap Delta’s ass? If it had nothing to do with genius or an impressive lineage, but something as simple as needing someone who hadn’t done a thing before? I snorted at the idea, imagining her most offended expression.

“Funny?” Aubrey asked, his voice hoarse.

“Nope,” I denied. I wasn’t going to explain what I’d been thinking, since frankly, it was shitty that I was amused about something that was causing him pain. “Just waiting for you to wake up. This might”—I swallowed hard, looking up the trail—“it might take more than a day. I always forget that no plan of battle survives contact with the enemy.”

He lifted a single brow, and this time it looked more natural than before. Was I teaching him to be a sarcastic asshole? Great. “I’m the enemy in this metaphor?”

“You’re...” Dammit, he was. “That’s not entirely how I intended it, but—I’m not saying having seizures is your fault, just that climbing a mountain while having seizures isn’t quite as simple as what I was envisioning when I was planning.”

It was annoying as hell, really, that I’d overlooked something so important.

But I was nothing if not flexible. I needed to find a way to make this happen anyway.

The world depended on it.