Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Quin stares at his brother, whose hand he’s clutching tightly. A bold, angry tear trails down Quin’s cheek. “I’ll find it. How long do I have?”
“Six hours, your highness, but—”
“Those pastries were meant for me! He only came in to . . .” Quin grits his teeth. “Send out the vitalians, shoot a flare if you find it. I’m hunting for it too.”
Quin pats Nicostratus’s hand and murmurs, “I’ll save you, brother. I’d give my life to save you.”
He rides through the capital to the Amuletos manor, where he spies Chaos leaving through the side gate with a woven basket slung over his shoulder. He snags Chaos off the path and deposits him on the saddle before him, flicks his reins, spurring his horse on.
From behind Quin, I see Chaos’s breathless expression. “Maskios! This is a crime.”
Quin grimaces and mutters but Chaos’s objections aren’t that strenuous. He makes himself comfortable, back pressed to Quin’s chest, their thighs tight together, and they don’t speak until Quin is steering his horse towards the cliff path. “White chryslaced fungi. Help me find it.”
“White chryslaced—who’s been poisoned?”
Quin grits his teeth. “I have until sundown to save him.”
“Tell me,” Chaos demands, “What did he consume? What are his symptoms?”
Chaos’s voice comes out husky and his head bows forward when the situation has been made clear. “It’s the wrong time of year.”
“What?” Quin hisses, bringing the horse to an abrupt stop.
“You won’t find chryslaced fungi here.”
“I must.”
“You won’t.”
Quin’s voice rises to a desperate yell. “Don’t tell me I won’t! I must and I will. My brother is everything to me. Everything. I’d jump off a cliff for him; I’d give him my heart. I’d do anything. We will hunt every crevice of these mountains until we find our miracle!”
Chaos takes the reins from Quin and steers the horse back down the path. “We will find your miracle,” he murmurs, ignoring Quin’s fury. “But it won’t be chryslaced fungi.”
He rides swiftly from the mountains and into the swamplands. “You’d really do anything for this cure?”
Quin leans toward him when he slides of the horse. “You’re not planning to hold me hostage, I hope.”
Chaos lifts his hands to Quin’s cheeks, smiling. “Aquamare can be used in place of the fungi. I’ll find it, and you’ll unmask yourself.”
Quin rips out of his hold, and Chaos diligently buries himself in swamp as he fishes for the cure.
Quin stirs on his horse as he watches Chaos search the waist-deep water.
“How are you sure aquamare can be used?”
“Grandfather was once poisoned like your brother. Also the wrong time of year for the fungi. He’d studied water roots in depth—though they look different, the way they break down is the same, and it’s this burst of poison they both release that’s the antidote.”
“Why don’t the vitalians know of this?”
“Back then they wouldn’t listen to him. He was par-linea. This cure survives only through his notebooks and . . . well, me.”
I can feel Quin wants to leap off the horse, to hunt for the cure too, but he doesn’t know what to look for, and his leg . . .
After an hour of wading around, yanking and pulling at weed, even going under completely to search the depths, Chaos finds what he’s after—an insignificant-looking hunk of yellowed root. He’s waterlogged, muddy and tangled in reeds, but he’s laughing as he wades back with his prize held high. “Your brother is saved. Take off your mask!”
Quin fixes his gaze on the sun sinking behind distant hills. “There’s no point. I won’t be seeing you again.”
The mud at Chaos’s feet suctions around his boots and he’s rooted there, frozen, his grip still tight on the aquamare.
Finally, he’s able to speak. “Since I won’t be seeing you again, there’s no threat in me knowing the you behind your mask.”
“You won’t like him. Or perhaps you will, but for the wrong reasons.”
“I don’t care about your face! I want to know who’s beyond the magic. I want to know who I’ve spent this time with—”
“We’ve only shared a few moments.” Chaos doesn’t notice the rasp in Quin’s voice.
“Moments can be real too, if you want them to be.”
Quin’s fingers squeeze a deathgrip on the reins. Very deliberately, he relaxes his hands.
“But they can only be truly real if you let yourself be vulnerable. If you can expose your true self. Without that, what we’ve had will never be deeper than banter and rivalry.”
The tension in Quin’s body tightens. “What?”
The aquamare scrapes across Chaos’s cheek as he throws up his hands. “I thought you wanted to be friends.”
Quin moves in close and snatches the aquamare. “I can never have friends.”
I stare back as Maskios leaves Chaos behind. He won’t have a word for it, but he will barely eat or drink anything for days. And even three years later, he’ll still be going to the clearing in the royal belt, to the cliffs, to the canal under the bridge, and to this solitary swamp.