“But I will. I’ll tell them about you, and who you are.” Tristram grasped my hand tight, our fingers tangling together. “I’ll tell them everything.”
I nodded, but I was overwhelmed by a tide of sadness. These people, they were a family I’d never known, but I knew I had to leave them.
I squeezed his hand tighter.
I had to leave him.
“We have to go.”
He nodded. “Aye, I know.”
It was a couple of hours before we were ready to go. My exhaustion from the events of the palace garden had taken their toll and I’d been fighting off a nasty headache. Both Augustus—Vejovis, as was his real name—and Tristram were casting anxious glances at my pitiful state while they conferred in hushed tones about the quickest and safest route for us to take. I heard Augustus explaining that we should stick to the forest as much as we could; the opposite to the way he’d had to take me when under the watchful gaze of the Mage. Unwilling to reveal his identity, he’d gone along with her plans, even to the moments in the healing house. Although he’d been swift enough to assure me his words there had been nonsense. My power had nothing to do with my desire. It was just innate within me. Always there, ready to be awoken when I remembered who I was or when my heart felt the urge to bloom or grow. He’d merely healed me. Apparently, the kiss had been unnecessary. His eyes told me something else, but I couldn’t go there, didn’t want to go there.
My path now was home with Tristram, but I knew my path went further than that…
“I think they’d fight to the death over you given half a chance.” Zafina stepped close and fell onto the stool at my side. She swept a hand across my head and it instantly soothed my head.
“You have the healing touch of Vejovis.” I smiled at her and clasped her hand in mine.
“I’m worried about you.”
“And I’m worried about all of you. It’s imperative you set out for Caledonia. Your skills and power; we won’t know what they are like if we don’t train and teach you all.”
Zafina’s world weary eyes softened. “Don’t worry. We have survived this long. Now we know who we are, who you are, and now we are all together. Before we were scattered remnants of you, with no understanding of the skills and power we had. Now we have identity.”
She clutched my hand close to her chest and my eyes prickled with unwanted tears. “You know, I never thought I’d not want to go home, but now I just wish I had a bit longer.”
We were interrupted by Tristram standing at the doorway. “It’s time to head out, the streets are quiet now.”
I nodded my heart pounding. Torn between staying and leaving, I wanted to break myself in two. I couldn’t do that. I was on my path. Zafina was on hers.
“I’ll see you.” She stood and clutched my hand.
“You will,” I agreed, but I knew it wasn’t me she would find, if there was any Mae to find at all.
The path for all of us was dark. I just needed to have faith it was the right one.
I kissed her cheek and then turned to Augustus, who lingered in the cramped hallway behind Tristram.
Tristram cleared his throat and pretended to be busy straightening up a pack laden with food.
Augustus held me tight to his chest, three heartbeats long, his lips skimming my throat. “Remember me where you go, little one. I will always be waiting for you.”
I met his eye and knew almost instantly he guessed I was a girl out of time. A girl in the wrong place if not for the right reasons.
Coughing a little, I nodded. “I will. And you remember me.”
His lips curved into half a smirk. “Impossible to forget, Maia.”
“Mae.”
“Little one.”
Tristram stepped closer, his fingers weaving with mine. “It’s time to leave.”
I followed him out of the small house, knowing that throughout the rooms and out in the garden under the healing branches of my trees stood our descendants.
His dark eyes swept my way. “It’s going to be a long road, Priestess.”
I nodded and squeezed his hand. “But not as hard as the road I took to get here.”
We set off, our feet in time, our hands linked and all the way the trees above our heads rejoiced at our passing and kept us safe from those who would cause us harm.
It was ten days later when we crossed the sea. The water was choppy, the long boat that to my untrained eye looked nothing more than a hollowed tree trunk dipped and rose in the unfriendly waters.
Tristram’s skin faded to an unsightly green and I laughed. “And you braved this by yourself to save me?”
He swallowed hard, beads of sweat gathering on his brow. “I’d cross hell itself to save you.” He grinned although his lips were white and stretched. “But this was a challenge.”
“You love her enough to do it though?” The last few days we’d talked about what I’d discovered about his Mae, about me. For the most part when we were together it was as though it was Tristan Prince and I back at Fire Stone, but I knew soon I’d be leaving, and she would be coming back. It hurt, cut me somewhere under my heart where I stored my stash of gold.
“I love you enough.” He shrugged.
“I love you, too. Does that sound silly?”
His eyes met mine, the green seasickness fading a little, chased away by a tinge of pink. “No. To me, you are Mae. That’s all.”
I smiled. “Watch this.”
Leaning over the side of the boat I lowered my hand into the water. “Mae! If you fall in, by hell, I’m not jumping in there to save you again.”
I grinned and touched my fingertips into the water. It swelled around my touch
