Page 35 of The Book That Held Her Heart

One Good Deed Burns Another, by Charity Jones

Chapter 17

Livira

For no obvious reason three of the skeer had broken from their column. Whether the trio’s route would lead them directly to Livira’s group wasn’t clear, but they would certainly come far too close for comfort.

“We should go…up?” The returning Carlotte took a firm hold on Livira’s arm.

“They can’t see us.” Yolanda, always so certain, allowed a measure of uncertainty to enter her voice, mixed with amazement.

“You! Stop!” From the back of the column a small figure emerged from the forest of armoured legs.

Livira had never seen a ganar in the flesh, but she was sure that she was due many years of nightmares about the huge metal versions that had hounded her within the library. This one was less than four feet tall, almost as broad, and covered with a long coat of golden hair that fell in slightly curling sheets.

“Stop!” the ganar repeated and held up a plain iron ball indistinguishable from the one that Evar and Arpix had brought with them into the library.

The three skeer froze as if every joint of their armour had seized at once.

“Back in line!” the ganar barked, running his fingers across the sphere’s surface in complicated patterns.

The trio returned to their places, the middle one seeming to fight the command, its body stuttering with effort. The ganar stood for a moment, looking first towards Livira and the others, his gaze not quite settling on them, and at the ball in his hands, as if perplexed. Then, with a brief hunch of his shoulders, the ganar headed back into the column.

“That’s the ball Arpix found. He used it to push the skeer away. They couldn’t come within a hundred yards of it,” Livira said. She wished she’d had more time to talk to Evar and the others about their experiences outside the library prior to intercepting her escape from King Oanold’s evils, but everything had happened so quickly. She wished a lot of things about what happened after their reunion had been different…

“Arpix?” Carlotte looked amazed. “Fighting skeer?”

“Not fighting, no!” Livira laughed off the notion.

“He killed a cratalac,” Leetar said, quietly. “Meelan told me.”

“Arpix?” Livira and Carlotte said it together in matching tones of disbelief. “Killed a cratalac?” Carlotte finished for them both.

“With quicksilver.” Leetar nodded as if she could hardly believe it herself. “Meelan told me.” The way she said her brother’s name hurt Livira’s heart.

“Wait, how do you know about cratalacs?” Livira turned to Carlotte.

“They’re the worst thing in this forest. I saw one once, and I do not want to see another!” Carlotte shivered. “The stories they have for scaring children here, they’re about cratalacs. They scare the grown-ups too.”

Yolanda remained silent, watching the skeer column draw away towards the fallen night-ship. Livira went to stand beside her. “Maybe we could get one of those metal balls for King Chertal. Then he could defend the citadel.”

“Absolutely not.” Yolanda shook her head absently.

“Why not?” Livira wouldn’t care about seeking the girl’s permission, but she had no idea how they could steal an item they couldn’t touch, and her hope was that Yolanda might come up with a solution.

“Haven’t you been listening?” Yolanda looked up at her and blinked. “Every interaction with the past damages reality. Nobody knows quite how much it can take before…” She moved her hands apart while fluttering her fingers.

“Well, leaving Carlotte here is going to do more damage. So, let’s do this and take her back to our time.”

“There are other ways to deal with that situation,” Yolanda said darkly. She steered her gaze towards the night-ship. “What I’m interested in right now—no, ‘terrified of’ would be a better way of putting it—is that the skeer could see us. Your friend and her king are a danger. Your ill-advised book is a terrible threat. But a whole species that can look through time…I can’t understand how any of us still exist!”

“Maybe we could guide the king and his army to ambush—”

“I’m going in.” And, without giving Livira any chance to object, the girl took off, flying directly at the night-ship’s central mass.

Livira steeled herself against a sense of growing dread and reached out a hand to both Leetar and Carlotte. “We’re following. If we lose her, I don’t give much for our chances of ever getting back.”

Livira’s words proved sufficient motivation and moments later she was hauling the other two through the air. Despite Livira’s best efforts the white child was streaking away. Leetar’s and Carlotte’s doubts were anchors holding Livira back, and she had doubts of her own to do that.

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