Page 24 of Moonstriker (The Summertide Chronicles #4)

Chapter 24

Aubrey

Not a baby , came the grumble in the distance, and I stopped focusing on my conversation with Kit, trying to hear the words carried on the wind.

Not a child.

Don’t need to be spoken to like I don’t understand things.

The words weren’t distant anymore then. They were right there in my ears. Right there in the tremble of my gut. In the slight vibration of the tree at my back. In the strange, slightly painful way my head felt, ill-used and sore, like the time I’d had swimmer’s ear as a child.

Was he complaining about how I’d yelled at him the night before? About my grandmother’s almost always pithy takes on life? I hadn’t intended to offend him, but in the moment, it had been instinct to shout back that he had to stop. That he couldn’t always have what he wanted.

The world slipped away and there was only the voice.

Frozen woman and her ugly words.

Okay, that wasn’t about me, because even failing understanding of gender, I doubted anyone would ever call me that.

Don’t know why Iri likes her, the grumbling continued . She’s always been a mean one. Too smart, too quick, thinks only smart and quick ones are good enough. What’s the word?

I knew the word he wanted. It was one I’d immediately pasted onto Kit in my mind, but one that had turned out to be wrong about him.

Arrogant.

There was a pause, and I realized that the word had come from me, not another grumble from the voice. From the mountain.

Yes , he finally agreed. Arrogant. She’s a smart girl, but it’s made her arrogant, especially since the fracture. She doesn’t understand that not everything is about being the cleverest rock in the ground. S’why the ground was never good enough for her .

I focused for a moment, and pushed my thoughts into the world, the same as the one before. Because she didn’t like being the cleverest?

No. Loves being the cleverest, Iri. But...she wanted other clever ones. And humans, they’re...they’re quicker than rocks. So quick. Too quick. Always there and gone. Never stop and wait a minute for you to hear yourself think .

I could understand that frustration. I wasn’t an unintelligent guy, but I’d never been anything resembling fast. I liked to take my time and think a thing through before making a decision or moving forward, or even replying to a question. It sometimes frustrated people, who seemed to be constantly in a hurry around me.

Unless he just meant that we lived and died too quickly, which would also make sense, assuming this was Slate I was talking to. He’d been standing in the middle of the Summerlands since before there had been a Summerlands. Why shouldn’t he think we were so short-lived as to be near-irrelevant?

No , he grumbled. Not that. Too fast, yes, but they never stay the whole time. Never stay long enough to talk. Always take the children and leave me alone again . Always alone .

With a jerk, I opened my eyes, and only then realized that I’d closed them.

Kit was holding me against him, looking worriedly down into my eyes, and for a long moment, I fell into that cool gray gaze. His eyes were so deep. Like the sea on an overcast day. Filled with all the things that made him Kit. He was so beautiful. And he was worried about me.

“You okay?” he whispered, his voice hoarse and oddly croaky.

I couldn’t hold back a sigh at that. Was I okay?

“I think it’s getting easier? Maybe I’m just getting used to it.” I wasn’t in full-body pain this time, at least. My head didn’t feel like it was splitting open, just a little sore, and I hadn’t had any trouble talking at all when I woke.

Kit scowled, but he shook his head. “No, this was shorter. Maybe...maybe once the bond is settled, it’ll stop?”

I considered. The last few hadn’t been as bad. Not as painful and without all the side effects of the first few. Maybe that was it. Maybe I just had to get used to speaking to the mountain. Learn how to do it without losing consciousness, because that was unsustainable. If I had to have a seizure every time I spoke to the mountain, I didn’t think I was going to live terribly long that way.

Still, I’d...I’d spoken to the mountain. We had actually communicated. Exchanged words, not just him complaining and me yelling at him to stop throwing a fit.

More than that, I thought that maybe I was starting to understand the root of the problem.

He was lonely.

I’d have been lonely too, out here in the middle of nowhere with no humans living nearby. All the stones he wanted to visit with lived far away too, and maybe they couldn’t speak to him unless they were nearby. Or maybe they got distracted by their outside lives and just didn’t speak to him regularly. I’d never been much of an extrovert, hated parties and loud places, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be completely alone all the time.

“He’s lonely,” I finally said, though I didn’t move from the safe haven of Kit’s arms. “Everyone always leaves him alone, so he’s lonely. And he thinks Iri is arrogant.”

Kit smiled at that last, shrugging. “I mean, I don’t doubt that she is. She only bonds with the smartest people she can find, so I was right out.”

I smacked his chest with the back of my hand. “Intelligence isn’t everything.”

“I know. I don’t feel bad about it. Frankly, I’m grateful I never bonded Iri. It sounds like a ton of responsibility.”

And that? I had to laugh at him.

“Right,” I agreed sarcastically, drawing the word out. “Because the man who spent years coming up with a plan with his stone to save the world and then painstakingly enacting it is definitely bad at responsibility.”

He waved me off, but then reached for me again, helping me slowly get back to my feet. “That’s different. I didn’t have to stay in one place and do a boring job like run a family. I got to go places and do things and leave the responsible stuff to Rain and Frost. I’d say Ember, but she’s more like me, poor sucker.”

“She’s perfect for Aunt Titania,” I said, sighing as I stretched my muscles and tried to make sure I hadn’t further hurt myself this time. “She needs someone to keep her from getting more like her family—or, like our family used to be. You know, all stoic and serious and emotionless. She still feels like that’s what she’s supposed to do, even though it didn’t work for any of them.”

Kit rolled his eyes. “Of course she does. Brainwashing is a powerful thing, and she spent her whole life being told that was the way to be. But the Summerlands were a better place when the Duskbringer family were true to their emotions instead of trying to repress them. Being cold stoic jackasses is my family’s job.”

“No wonder you worry you’re a failure,” I shot back. “Clearly you’re no good at that.”

His insouciant grin was answer enough, and it gave me a little bubble of...something in my chest.

What was that emotion, even? Joy?

I hadn’t felt that since Mother had died, but...no, it wasn’t exactly that. It was something else. Something that made me want to inch closer and closer to Kit, until I lost track of where he started and I began.

I glanced down at his lips, pink and lush and...

You’re going to leave with him , the mountain grumbled.

I blinked, looking around, waiting for another seizure to take me, but nothing happened. Clouds swirled overhead, and a bird trilled in a nearby tree.

What if I don’t? I tried to ask, to shove out into the air, the way I’d done in my...during the seizure? While unconscious? I didn’t really have the right words for it.

The whole mountain seemed to sigh, from the stones beneath my feet to the trees, to the air itself. No. Don’t want to force you to stay. Want...want to go see with you. See Verisa. See the Tower of the Moon. But I’m too big and awful and frightening. No one wants to be with me .

You’re really not. This is...if Kit and I weren’t doing this to save the world, it would almost be nice, hiking in the woods , I admitted.

Like him , the mountain said, and I could almost feel his attention on Kit. And Slate did...like him. He comes and stays sometimes. Climbs the same little path over and over. He has fractured little sister. Good that someone is taking care of her .

Fractured...did he mean Kit’s stone? I suspected that Kit would have said she was taking care of him and not the other way around, but that was okay. People—and stones, I supposed—were always better when they were taking care of each other.

I felt a hand on my elbow, and turned to see Kit looking at me again, or maybe still, but the worry was back on his face. “You drifted off again. I was afraid you were going to...”

Fall down and break myself, no doubt. I shook my head, then stopped and looked around. “I didn’t have a seizure?”

“No, just stared off into space a minute.”

“I’m—he’s talking to me. We’re talking.”

Cautiously, he smiled at that. “That’s . . . good?”

“I think...I think it is.” I nodded, turning back to the path, filled with more energy than I’d had before. “We should get going. I’d rather not sleep on the ground again if we can avoid it.”

He winced, so I suspected that we weren’t going to make it to the chalet that day, but still. Moving forward. That was the way to be, always moving forward.

I smiled and reached down to twine my hand with Kit’s. What was more, he let me, and smiled right back. Maybe he just wanted to have a hand on me in case I took another tumble, but that was okay. It was a start.

Right then, everything felt like a fresh, new start.

We’re going to be okay , I told the mountain.

He didn’t respond, but that was okay too. I turned back to the conversation with Kit.

“So Slate is lonely. Do you think we could...I don’t know, get people to move closer? I guess they’ve wanted to stay away because you know, volcanoes are dangerous, but I don’t think he wants to hurt anyone.”

Kit cocked his head at that. “I get that. People have avoided the fuck out of me for the last ten years because I’m scary.” Then he paused and made a pained face. “You think he’s fully in control?”

He was thinking of his own time as a duelist, I realized. The fact that he’d worked for, and killed people for, Huxley Dawnchaser. So maybe sometimes people had been sensible to fear and avoid him.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But we’ll find out, and one way or another, we’ll get this fixed.”

Kit smiled back at me, and we went back to the trail.