"YOU want my help?"
Ace bristles, sliding off the hound's stomach and onto the hardened ground before me. "Don't make me say it again, Marks."
I scoff, knowing it's better to bite my tongue than prod the beast. The worst thing I can do is chase Ace off since he might be the key to getting Quin back.
"I need to find Pax. Where's your skinwalker partner?" He asks while taking off into trot towards the rocky forest, completely abandoning his own territory.
"Quin. You mean Quin? I haven't seen him since last night."
He digs his heels into the ground, whipping around. "And that doesn't worry you?"
I swallow. "...a bit."
Ace stares me down in utter disbelief. Then, wringing his hands, he turns and keeps walking, boots crunching against the gravel as they might with snow.
"Alright! Here's the plan. Listen up, Marks, or I swear I'm going to—"
"—break my teeth and use them to dig out my entrails?" I finish, unamused.
"I was going to say: 'to dig out your lungs'—but sure. Let's go with that." Ace clears his throat. "So we need to find Pax and your boyfriend—"
"—not my boyfriend."
"—and somehow keep our two territories Somnian free," he says. "Meaning we should combine our territories, patrol them as if they are one, large mass, and scout for Pax and Quinton in the meantime."
There is no arguing. It would be pointless, as useful as striking up a watered down match to burn down this skeleton of progress.
We patrol in silence. I've forgotten, through all his unstable bursts of anger, how talented Ace is. There's a reason why he's the top of the class, and—from his top two ranking as of now in the exam. Within the hour we've cleaned up my territory, retraining three Somnians and chasing off one particularity opinionated harpie. The Somnians of Ace's land are far more agressive. Stubborn. It's no help that the snow seeps into my pants and bites my skin, or that my vision is obscured by a persistent wall of white from an unwavering blizzard.
Just as the sun falls, we finish up our final rounds and set camp on the border between our two territories. It's odd, feeling the frigid snow to my right and the warmer slap of wind to my left. Odd, but eventually it grows normal.
The heat of the campfire creeps along my legs, recently struck to life by a few unfortunate logs of wood. I pull my feet under me, away from the flames reach, for fear it will trigger an onslaught of memories that I'd rather not face again.
Ace sits across from me, knees brought up to his chest. Silent. The fire's shadows dance along his skin as he studies the flames, mouth opening solely to release a withheld breath.
A soft buzzing rattles the backpack besides me. The device! My fingers fly to the backpack, more than happy to occupy themselves under the oppressive silence. The rankings are up. I don't have to scroll long to find my name, 7th on the list—pushed up from the day of capturing rather than chasing off Somnians with Ace. He and Paxton are somehow back up in 1st.
"We're still in the running," I say, hoping to get any form of reaction from the statue of a man sitting across from me.
He says nothing.
I scratch the back of my neck, drawing my hands closer. "Don't worry, Ace. Pax is an elf, he can fend for himself. You won't be eliminated because of him."
That gets his attention.
Ace springs to his feet, leaping over the fire, soles of his feet licking the flames. He plants his knee on my chest, fingers tightening around my cape to hold me close.
"You think that's what this about? You think that's the only reason I'm looking for him?!" He snaps, baring his teeth like a dog before biting of its master's hand. "I thought you out of all these pieces of faex would understand!"
This is good, I remind myself, it's easier to reason with Ace with emotions than Ace with none. But it truly is difficult to keep my cool with the rawness of his breath close enough to slap my cheek.
"Understand what?"
"That I care about him!"
My brain stutters for a moment. Ace? Caring about something other than his own success? He lets go of my cape, slumping to the ground, his back to the fire.
"The first time I saw Paxton. Everything in my head went quiet." His voice is slow, halting. It's rings of a certain vulnerability usually buried beneath his anger. "I'm not one for all this emotional faex like you and Quinton. But Pax deserves so much better than me. Better than any of us."
He draws his legs close. The flames behind him exaggerate his shadow, allowing its tendrils to crawl along the gravel, teasing the tip of my boots. Ace takes in a shaky breath and continues:
"Pax tilts himself towards other people like a rose tilts to the sun. I tilt like a knife right before it breaks skin."
He looks so... raw. Bare. Peeled of his armor, weapons forgotten in the dirt. He doesn't want white lies or false reassurance. He knows that everything will not be okay. Not unless we do anything about it.
"We will find them," I say, anyway. Not believing my own words
"How? Tell me, Marks. I'm all ears," his voice is snide with bitterness. "Where are they? Tell me one place we haven't looked."
A sinking feeling settles in my gut. "The cave."
The cave is nestled at the top of a cliff, easily eighteen meters off the ground. It's not terribly difficult to climb, seeing as I somehow managed to survive it. However I've only ever descended from the cliff's peak—not vise versa. Quin had been tasked with patrolling the treetops and cliff, easily reaching unfathomable heights due to his hawk form. But the last time I checked, neither Ace nor myself posses such an ability.
It takes an hour of failed attempts to finally give up. Night's cloak of darkness has long since swept over the sky, making it near impossible to find the right footholds and ledges make the climb.
We sleep at the base of the cliff, awoken on the seventh morning—the final day of the exam. After doing a quick sweep for Somnians for both our territories, we return to the cliff. It's like clockwork: one foot after the other, hands numb and bleached from holding the stone too tight, feet fumbling to find the right crevices sturdy enough to keep us from crashing to the jowls of the starving rocks below.
The cave mouth is just how I render it: impenetrable blackness. With a silent, 'I'll-kill-you-if-you-don't-go-first' nod from Ace, I step inside and watch my shadow dissolve into the surrounding darkness.
I can't see or make out anything, so it is too my great surprise when I trip over a lump and land rear-first on the cave floor. Having no vision, my success is left to my hands of which reach out in front of me, searching for the cause of my fall. Fingers ball around something soft, threading threw my fingers like string. Like hair.
"Ace!" My yelp bounces off the cave walls, shaking the ground beneath us.
A rough hand clamps over my mouth, silencing me. "Shh—!" His whisper is brutal against my ear.
It's easier to see now. My eyes are adjusting to the darkness, pupils dilating in spasms to take in the limited light from the cave's entrance. There are three bodies sprawled around our feet, legs tangled and eyes fluttered shut as if in sleep.
One, a round faced girl whose face I do not recognize.
Two, a mess of platinum hair split over the tips of two pointed ears—who, confirmed by Ace's sharp breath upon spotting him, is most definitely Paxton.
And three, a shorter boy, face hidden by the slouched back of a ragged old woman. My fingernails dig into Ace's forearm with the sickening realization of who he is: Quin.
Ace drags me back before I have the chance to strangle the woman and give her an appetizing taste of my mind. He keeps his end firmly clasped over my lips even once we're outside.
"Hey!" He whispers, lips drawn up in a snarl. "Do not blow this? You hear me? Do not let your anger get in the way of taking this old hag down."
It's funny to think Ace is telling me to control my anger. Oh, how the tables have turned. I'd still love to wrap my fingers around the old crow's throat—don't get me wrong.
"We're going up against a Night hag—scary bastards," he says. "They're known for inducing sleep paralysis, and in this case, keeping those three pieces of faex asleep." He uses his freehand to slap his forehead. "Crap! That's why none of us are disqualified! Our partners aren't technically in any mortal danger or 'incapacitated'. As far as the exam sees it—they're just asleep! She couldn't have been nesting my up here for long, or you would be disqualified. My guess is she moves around a lot, meaning we need to act fast."
"Listen—you'll distract the hag and I'll restrain her. Aye! Don't look at me like that! We both know I'm better on the field. Besides, maybe you'll inherit some of your boyfriend's silver tongue and talk your way into getting the hostages back. Just don't let her sit on your chest and you should be fine."
Well, that's reassuring.
"Don't screw this up, nod if you understand."
Begrudgingly, I nod. He removes his hand.
We renter the cave in silence. That is—until I stumble over Pax's left leg and crash into a stalagmite, shattering its base and sending shards in every which direction, including to the back of the hag's head.
The hag screeches, wrenching itself away from Quin and peeling its body off the floor in a terrifying crawl my way. I stagger back, once again landing on my rear. There's a shard close to my foot, of which I fumble for, scoop it up and aim.
She's almost atop of me now—rags and all. With a gust of rotten breath, the night hag leaps forward only to receive a mouthful of rock, sending her straight against the far wall of the cave.
Ace opens his mouth to say something before promptly closing it, eyes darting between me and the collapsed form of the hag.
"We gonna tie her up or no?" I say, dusting myself off. Ace remains frozen, aghast at my luck as I take the rope from his stiff hand and restrain the night hag to a pillar of stone. The device in my backpack buzzes to acknowledge the added points.
Pax, the round faced girl, and Quin are still lost in a groggy haze even with the Night Hag unconscious. Pax's eyes have only just begun to flutter open, but both the girl and a Quin remain fast asleep. Ace, wrenching himself forward at Pax's inaudible muttering, scoops him up in on arm, doing the same to the other girl.
Quin is surprisingly light. His head lolls back over my arm, and his tousled hair is mattered with dust and dirt. Unlike Ace, I drag him towards the cave's mouth, letting the heels of his feet trail along the earth.
Getting three, unconscious teenagers down a mountain cliff without the proper equipment is a daunting task. But with Ace's twisted glare cheering me on, I make due. It takes the majority to the day to move on person after the other. My hands are numb and rope burned scaling up and down the cliff until all three, semi-asleep Juniors are at the cliff's base.
Ace slings the round faced girl over one shoulder and Pax the other, he grunts under the combined weight BYU makes no move to ask for help. "I'm going to keep an eye on these two until they wake. Only twenty more minutes, Marks. Check your territory and I'll see you on the other side," he says, turning to head back to his own, snow cloaked land. For a moment he pauses, head still facing away from me.
"I'll see you on the other side, Warden Marks."
A smile worms it's way into my lips, eyes not straying until he is safe across the border. Then, I turn back to Quin—who has somehow managed to roll into a nearby pine tree. I prop his shoulders up, even tying his back to the tree with a rope so he doesn't slip again. Like Ace said, there's twenty minutes left before sunset, before the Final Exam's end, and before we were recognized as true Wardens. But all of that would mean nothing I had even the smallest Somnian still lurking along the outskirts of my territory. So with Quin still clinging to the tree, I set off to patrol.
It takes ten minutes to complete a full, detailed sweep of the grounds. Nothing. There is nothing. Which might be seen as a good thing but is slightly worrying seeing how long I left the territory unsupervised. Maybe everything is just winding down in the end, I think. Even though my thoughts are blurry with clouds of doubt.
Quin is just as I left him, spine still propped against the bark. With ten minutes left, I have every intention to sit back, pop open one of the dried mango packets, and relax. But the distant patter of footsteps ensares my attention, only worsening when shouts from my western neighbors echo through the tree tops.
I leap to my feet, completely forgetting my backpack in the process of racing to the border. In the blistering heat of the desert, three figure are darting through the sand, kicking up waves of orange dust behind them. At first I have to squint to make them out, then, with a sickening churn of my stomach, realization strikes.
The Wisconsin paring have finally decided to strike up there revenge.
With a fiery tattooed djinn.
"Have fun chasing this one off, es stercus!" The boy of the pair shouts, using a DIY spear to prod the djinn across the border. The Wisconsin girl spits at my feet before turning back to guard her land, her partner by her side.
The Djinn pushes himself off the ground, brushing the gravel off his clothes and looking up at me with uncertain red eyes. I stumble back to remain out of its touch, but the Djinn remains frozen. Something flashes behind those eyes and its head vigorously jerks my direction.
"There's a cloud of karma raining down on you," it grunts. It's voice is gritty, loud and violent like the clash of two stones. "Unbalanced, light and darkness," he wrinkles his nose in disgust. "I can smell it. You have an unpaid wish."
He's fast. Taping my forehead before I even think about running away.
"Time to repay it."
His touch is light and gentle, and much to my relief there are no swirls of light or hallucinations following it. Just utter stillness. As if he's rooted me to the ground. Paralyzed me.
And that is so much worse.
I can watch as the djinn's presence invites a crowd of Somnians now weaving through the trees of our land. Too many to chase off alone, and Quin is yet to come to my aid seeing as he is still asleep. I can watch, but not move a muscle as my chances of becoming a Warden slip through my grasp.
I'd stood one day, on the beach with Brooks after a particularly difficult session with her. I let the memory drag me away, attempt to distract myself from the moving world around me.
I had stood on the beach, toes nestled between the sand as the sea licked my ankles. Brooks had bent down, scooping up a handful of sand within her cupped palm, then no matter how tightly she kept her fingers pressed together, the sand would trickle out from the unseen crevices and cracks of her hand.
That's how I feel right now. Like sand. Falling apart with the single hope of being washed away.
Fahim had warned me, that in order to receive something I want, I would loose something I want. It keeps the balance, he'd said. At the time I thought I'd loose something small. Insignificant—perhaps a coupon to a nearby grocery store. Or my dorm keys.
But the wish is taking something I want more than anything:
My chance to help people.
My chance to belong.
My chance to become a Warden.
I can do nothing but watch as the final rays of sunset slip past the horizon, eaten whole by night's ravenous stomach.
I can do nothing as the Somnians saunter around me while my feet remain rooted in place.
I can do nothing as a horn sounds. Deafening. Rumbling the ground, giving flight to flicks of birds within the treetops.
The Final Exam is over.
And I failed.
It's poetic irony. How I can finally move only after everything is lost. I check the device despite this—neither my name nor Quin's is anywhere to be found.
Despair comes crashing down at such force that I'm knocked to my knees. I have failed everyone.
Brooks will loose her title. Instead, it will be swallowed by Damas' hungry jowls.
Quin has lost his shot at becoming a Warden just by having the misfortune of being partnered up with me.
I, have lost it all. And perhaps, even my mind.
The gravel bites into my skin, wind beating my back, as the grand triumph of horns mocks me from the intercom.
I wish I could slip away like sand slips through fingers.