Valek disappeared into the tall grass just as Leif’s horse seemed to materialize from a cloud of dust.
Leif’s green eyes were wide with shock. “She’s never done that before.”
My annoyance transformed to amusement. Rusalka’s black coat gleamed with sweat, but she didn’t appear to be stressed.
“I call that Kiki’s gust-of-wind gait,” I told Leif. “Is Rusalka a sandseed horse?”
He nodded. Before he could say another word, I saw a blur of motion to his left as Valek leaped out of the grass and knocked Leif from his horse. They landed together with Valek on top of Leif’s chest. He held Leif’s machete to Leif’s throat as my brother struggled to get his breath.
“What are you doing here?” Valek asked.
“Come. To find. Yelena,” Leif said between gasps.
“Why?”
By this time, I’d recovered from my surprise. “It’s all right, Valek. He’s my brother.”
Valek moved the blade away, but remained on top of him. Leif’s face twisted into an expression of astonished terror.
“Valek? You have no smell. No aura,” Leif said.
“Is he a simpleton?” Valek asked me.
I grinned. “No.” I pulled Valek from Leif. “His magic can sense a person’s soul. Your immunity must be blocking his power.” I bent over Leif and examined him, looking for broken bones with my magic. I didn’t find any serious injuries.
“Are you all right?” I asked Leif.
He sat up and glanced nervously at Valek. “That depends.”
“Don’t worry about him, he’s overprotective.”
Valek harrumphed. “If you could keep out of trouble for one day, protecting you wouldn’t be so instinctive.” He rubbed his leg. “Or so painful.”
Leif had recovered from his shock and stood.
My annoyance returned. “Why are you here?” I asked.
He looked at Valek then at the ground. “It was something Mother said.”
I waited.
“She told me that you were lost again. And only the brother that had searched for you for fourteen years could find you.”
“
Leif gestured a bit wildly at his horse. “Kiki had found Topaz in the plains, so I thought, since Rusalka was bred by the Sandseeds, I asked her to find Kiki. And…And…”
“She found us very fast.” I mulled over what Leif had said about our mother. “Why does Perl think I’m lost? And why send you? You weren’t any help the last time.” Now, I had to suppress the urge to punch him. He had almost killed me with his machete at Ferde’s house.
Leif cringed with guilt. “I don’t know why she sent me.”
I was about to tell him to go home, when Moon Man walked into sight. “A good guy,” I said to Valek before he could attack him.
“This seems to be quite the meeting place,” Valek muttered under his breath.
When Moon Man came closer, I asked, “No mysterious arrival? No coalescing from a sunray? Where’s the paint?” The scars on his arms and legs stood out against his dark skin, and he wore a pair of short pants.
“It is no fun when you already know those tricks,” Moon Man said. “Besides, Ghost would have killed me if I had suddenly appeared.”
“Ghost?” I asked.
Moon Man pointed to Valek. “Kiki’s name for him. It makes sense,” he said, seeing the look of confusion on my face. “To magical beings, we see the world through our magic. We see him with our eyes, but cannot see him with our magic. So he is like a ghost to us.”
Valek listened to Moon Man. Although expressionless, I could tell by the rigid set to Valek’s shoulders that he was prepared to strike.
“Another relative?” Valek asked.
A broad smile stretched Moon Man’s lips. “Yes. I am her mother’s uncle’s wife’s third cousin.”
“He’s a Story Weaver, a magician of the Sandseed clan,” I explained. “And what are you doing here?”
Moon Man’s playfulness faded from his face. “You are on
“What promise?” Leif and Valek asked at the same time.
I waved the question away. “I will, but not now. We need—”
“I know what you intend to do. You will not succeed with that unless you untangle yourself,” Moon Man said.
“Me? But I thought you said…” I stopped. He had made me promise to untie Leif, but then I remembered that Moon Man had said our lives twisted together. But what did helping Leif have to do with going after Alea? “Why won’t I succeed?” I asked.
Moon Man refused to answer.
“Do you have any more cryptic advice?” I asked.
He held out his hands. One toward Leif and the other to me.
Valek huffed in either amusement or annoyance, I couldn’t tell, but he said, “Looks like a family affair. I’ll be close by if you need me, love.”
I studied Leif. His reaction to the Story Weaver the last time we had met him had been one of fear. Now, he stepped forward and grabbed Moon Man’s hand, shooting me a look of stubborn determination.
“Let’s finish this,” Leif said, challenging me.
I slid my hand into Moon Man’s. My world melted as the warm magic of the Story Weaver took control of my senses.
We traveled to the Illiais Jungle to the place Leif had hidden while watching Mogkan kidnap me over fourteen years ago. The three of us viewed the events through Leif’s eyes and felt his emotions. In essence, becoming him.
A mean approval that Yelena got what she deserved for not staying close to him spiked Leif’s heart. But when the strange man put her to sleep, and pulled his pack and sword from under a bush, sudden fear of getting taken by the man kept Leif in his hiding place. He stayed there long after the man had carried his sister away.
Moon Man manipulated the story’s thread for a moment, showing Leif and me what would have happened if Leif had tried to rescue me. The ring of steel rolled through the jungle as Mogkan pulled his sword from its scabbard and stabbed Leif in the heart, killing him. Remaining hidden had been a good decision.
The story then changed and focused on Perl and Esau’s despair and anger when Leif had finally told them that I was lost. Leif believed he would be in worse trouble if he had told them the truth and they knew he hadn’t done anything to stop the man. Leif had been convinced that the search parties would find the man and his sister. Already he felt jealous of the attention she would get for just being rescued.
When the search parties failed to find her, Leif began his own quest. He knew they lived in the jungle, keeping out of sight just to spite him. He had to find her, and maybe his mother and father would love him again.
As the years passed, his guilt drove him to attempt suicide, and, eventually, the guilt transformed into hatred. When she finally came back into their lives stinking of blood and of the north, he wanted to kill her. Especially when he saw for the first time in fourteen years the pure joy on his mother’s face.
