Page 43 of Bonded Ever After

Right?

We keep going, and I ask, “How do you think we’d go about killing one of those things?”

He points to his sword. “We’d have to be fast… and deadly.”

I nod.

Hours pass before we spot red on the landscape, a striking color when everything other than the lava is so dark. We come closer and find a black bush not far from our path, covered in red berries. Lots of red berries.

“Should we…?” I ask.

Our fathers had said to collect the red berries.

“Yeah, let’s fill up our shirts and eat them as we travel. Then we won’t have to dig into our supplies just yet.”

Looking all around us, we carefully step off the path and make our way to the bush, stepping over lava rivers as we do so. We each pull one berry off the bush and pop it in our mouths. It’s a bit bitter, but it’s edible. We instantly lift our shirts like aprons and start to fill them up.

We’re mostly done when I see movements in the lower branches of the bush. Kneeling, I spot huge snails, about the size of my fist, with shells that look like they’re made of metal.

I pluck one off the branch and hold it up to Callum. “Should we eat them?”

He wrinkles his nose. “Not yet.”

“Agreed.” I laugh, putting it back.

We finish filling up our shirts and turn to go. I stretch out a hand, stopping Callum from going forward. He looks at me with a question on his face, when the ground seems to move and a long black snake moves across our path, its belly shimmering like metal. We wait until it passes, then hurry back to the path.

“Do you think the snakes are poisonous?” he asks.

“Let’s not find out, okay?” I laugh.

We continue walking, eating the berries slowly. Sweat mists my skin, and I feel like reaching for my water, but I don’t. Instead, I try to focus on drinking the juice from the berries.However long we’re stuck here, we need to ration our food and water carefully. That’s one thing Xarex and our fathers had made clear.

What if our dads never made it out of the Ash Realm?I swallow the berry in my mouth roughly.We can’t think that way.Ican’t.Callum is already unsure about our plan, so I have to be confident for the both of us. Me picturing the two of us stumbling across our fathers’ bodies is the last thing I should be doing.

Still, I think back to the Mist Realm with more fondness. It wasn’t a bad place to be. We might have been able to make it a home. It just didn’t feel like therightplace to me. Something inside of me is just pulling me forward, and I feel like I need to listen to that instinct.

“At least we can see trouble coming, for the most part,” Callum says.

It’s hilly in all directions, but there are so few trees and bushes that the landscape doesn’t hide much. If something dangerous were to come over one of the hills, we’d likely seeit approaching long before it reached us, unlike with the Forest and Mist Realms.

I guess that’s something to be grateful for.

“Callum?”

“Yes?” he asks, a little amusement in his voice.

“Is there some small part of you that feels like continuing forward is the right decision? That there’s something waiting for us at the end of the Phoenix Trail?”

He seems to think for a minute. “In my experience, the thing I can trust most is your instincts. My feeling is that if you think continuing forward is the right move, then it’s the right move.”

I smile at him. “And you know no matter what we find, it’s probably going to just be you and me at the end of this.”

He returns my smile. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“You won’t get too lonely?”

He shakes his head. “I was lonely in Paradise Falls. With you, I’m never lonely.”

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