Chapter 13

Chapter 13

 

Andria stood over Yenko, her hands covered in soot from the fireplace.

Andria’s heart raced, partly with lingering fear that hadn’t yet subsided, and partly from pure exhilaration that their plan had worked. As Yenko had instructed, once Andria had regained control of her mind and found all nine Crows completely immobilized, collapsed on the ground as though they had all suddenly died of heart attacks, she had taken each one and carefully placed them in a chest that Yuta’s old books had been stored in. Then, all the heavy, bound volumes that she’d removed earlier in the day she’d placed atop the chest in lieu of a proper lock.

Now, however, roughly fifteen minutes later, she could hear their caws and screeches, and even see the chest moving slightly from the force of their thrashing within. Yenko, however, had not yet awoken, and Andria didn’t know why. She had used her dress to wipe most of the soot from his shell, after removing him from the doused ashes. He had chosen the extinguished fire as a hiding place, assuming he’d be well disguised among the coals.

Andria heard a sudden flourish of heavy wings and saw the room grow dark. Gasping, she glanced overhead to see the familiar white Dragon, Yuta, descending through the hole in the top of the cavern. Her heart gave a leap of pure relief.

As his the tips of his claws touched the ground, she saw him begin to transform. She forced herself to look away. It wasn’t a particularly pretty sight. She could imagine that it probably hurt a great deal, as his limbs shrank and distorted, scales receding into skin, bones shrinking and deforming themselves until eventually, a person was all that was left. She waited until she heard a rustling of cloth, meaning pants were hopefully being donned, before opening her eyes and running to him.

Andria threw herself into his arms, relishing the warmth of his skin and the familiarity of his touch. She hung on his neck, flooded with happiness and the return of her sense of safety and assurance. It took her a moment to realize that he wasn’t holding her back.

Like a tired parent shooing away a needy child, Yuta carefully removed Andria’s arms from around his neck, and gently pushed her away. Free of her hold, without giving her a second glance, Yuta sprinted to the ashy spot on the ground where his Messenger lay tightly huddled within his shell. Gingerly, he picked him up, and tucked him safely within the crook of his arm. Andria stared, trying not to allow her feelings to be hurt. From what Yuta had explained to her once, Yenko was a very important presence in Yuta’s life, and Andria had only been a part of it for a few short weeks.

She stood and wordlessly observed as Yuta began scrambling across the lair, grabbing first his backpack, then placing Yenko carefully in the bottom. Then, he began tearing through cupboards frantically, trying to find who-knew-what.

After a moment’s silent observation, Andria loudly interjected, “What happened?”

A cupboard half opened, Yuta paused, as though just noticing her presence. After a moment, Yuta replied, “They’re coming.”

“What?” Andria breathed.

Opening another cupboard, Yuta elaborated, “They’re coming to take you. And me. And probably this.” He removed the Stone from his pocket and tossed it to her. Surprised, Andria barely caught it with two hands. She was shocked to find it very warm to the touch, but even more surprised to find that as she held it for a moment, examining the undecipherable engravings, she found it more and more familiar.

At last, Yuta withdrew a covered saucepan from the back of an empty cupboard. He placed it on the floor and removed the lid, revealing a stack of various papers. As he leafed through them, Andria drew her attention away from the unusual Stone and asked him, “But did you find out what they want with me? Or, us?” she corrected herself. He had said that they were coming for the both of them.

“Yep,” he answered, withdrawing from the stack of papers a red, Japanese passport.

“And?” she demanded.

“And,” Yuta replied, an air of annoyance in his voice. “We have to go.”

“Go?” Andria asked, confused. “Go where? People are looking for me. I can’t just leave the country.”

“You can if I let you go,” Yuta said flatly. “We’ll turn you in to the police. Tell them you were kidnapped. They’ll believe you, and then they’ll get you safely on a plane back to where you came from.”

“What?” Andria whispered, the Stone still clenched tightly in her hand. “What about you?”

Yuta rose, grabbed the backpack with Yenko inside, and let it rest on the table. “I’m leaving, too,” he said quietly. “I’m taking the first international flight I can find and getting away from this country.”

It was all too much for Andria to process. Everything was happening so quickly, and she understood none of it, except that Yuta was telling her they were parting ways. She had so many questions buzzing around in her head that she couldn’t even decide which answers to demand first.

“Hurry up,” Yuta said, turning to her. “They’ll be here any minute, and we have to get you as far away from this lair as we can before they arrive. We need to get you into public. Once you’re with the police, they won’t be able to touch you.” He grabbed her hand and began walking towards the far wall.

“No,” Andria said, pulling her hand away. Yuta rounded on her, impatience and confusion clearly evident in his expression. “Why did you keep me all this time if you were just going to turn me in to the police?” she demanded, growing angry. “Why did you keep me here, away from my family and everyone else I care about when you could have just done this from the beginning?” She was nearly shouting now, her frustration, anger, and hurt mounting by the second.

“Because,” Yuta said slowly, as though he were explaining something painfully simple to a mere child, “I didn’t know what they wanted with you, then.”

“So you know now?” she demanded.

“Yes.”

“So then what is it?!” she screamed. Andria stood so she and Yuta were nose to nose, he looking down on her with an expression of pure bewilderment as she fumed and panted angrily.

For the first time since he’d returned, he looked at her. Now that he knew what Kazi wanted with her, he was afraid to look at her again, afraid that it would somehow be true. He stared into her eyes, searching for any traces of her identity he might have overlooked in all the time she had been living with him.

He found nothing, no traces of the strong, powerful Dragon that had been Kazi’s chosen Mate all those centuries ago, nothing of the legend he had known and respected as a child. Somehow, Kazi had been mistaken. This wasn’t her, and it could never be her. But that wasn’t important. Kazi would kill Yuta and his Messenger to get to her, and then keep Andria for questioning and kill her, too, if they decided she knew too much. If he could get her safely out of Japan, they wouldn’t be able to find her, and she would be able to forget all about this nightmare.

“It’s not important,” he whispered. “All that is important right now,” he continued, taking a forceful hold of her forearm, “is getting away from here before they find us.”

Andria recoiled against Yuta’s forceful touch. “Let me go!” she shouted. Adding emphasis to each syllable, she screamed, “I want some answers!” She beat her hand that still clenched the Stone against Yuta’s strong chest. Yuta snatched her other forearm so that he was completely restraining her.

Andria’s eyes grew dark with fury. As she looked into his cold, unfeeling eyes, she began to feel something she hadn’t before, hatred. Every heavy, labored breath that she breathed while staring into his handsome, emotionless eyes brought her closer to screaming. She could feel anger swell within her, boiling like water in a kettle that was about to simmer over.

And then the teapot exploded.

The room went white, all sound vanished. She couldn’t even hear the infuriated scream she emitted. She saw only Yuta’s shocked expression, before he, too, faded in a flash of blinding light.

           

*          *          *          *          *

A strong gust of frigid wind nearly knocked Andria off of her feet. Had Yuta not still been holding on to both of her forearms, she might have lost her balance. Andria slowly opened her eyes and realized that she was still screaming, but no longer from fury. All anger had been quickly and urgently pushed to the back of her mind and replaced by a primal sense of pure terror when the room had slipped away and her feet had begun lifting from the ground.

Now, her feet were back on solid earth, but where on earth they were remained to be seen.

Andria stopped screaming and looked up to see Yuta staring back at her with a look of pure bewilderment. As though suddenly burned, he released her arms, and took a step back.

It took Andria a moment longer to see beyond Yuta and the shock in his eyes to the view in the background. They were outside, in a forest, it seemed. The wind howled through the treetops of the evergreens that surrounded them on all sides. It was dark, but from above, the moon and a brilliant array of stars shone with luminous brilliance, casting eerie shadows all around them.

Andria had stopped thinking. Her hands trembled. Her mouth flapped open and shut like a fish gasping for water. She had been in one place, and then a flash of white, and now she was in another. There was no explanation.

“What,” she began in a voice barely above a whisper, “did you do?”

The question reached Yuta like a smack in the face. “What did I do?” he retorted. “I wasn’t the one waving that thing around.” He gestured towards the Stone in Andria’s clenched fist.

Andria looked appalled. “Don’t blame this on me!” she rebutted, her brow furrowed with dark fury. “You didn’t tell me this rock was a magical rock,” she spat sarcastically, “that would make the freaking room disappear if I waved it too hard.” Angrily, she threw the Stone to the ground, where it rolled and clicked loudly against the trunk of a particularly thick tree.

Yuta said nothing. He leaned tiredly against a nearby tree. To him, at the moment, it mattered very little how they ended up where they had. They could figure it out later. Right then, however, an angry legion of Dragons was still on his tail. What mattered was figuring out where the two of them were, and then finding a place to hide until they could come up with an alternative course of action. They would figure out what had caused the sudden change in location once the immediate threat of discovery had passed.

“Enough,” Yuta said impatiently, his mind exhausted from overuse. “Right now, let’s figure out where we are so we can start moving towards the nearest town.”

It was Andria’s turn to say nothing. Instead, Yuta thrust his hands into his pockets and walked past Andria, his shoulder bumping against hers as he did so. “Why are you going that way?” Andria shouted after him. “Shouldn’t we climb a tree or something first.”

“No,” he said without stopping or looking back. Andria scurried to pick up the Stone she had angrily discarded, and then rushed to follow after him. “It would take too long, and look,” he said, pointing to the ground. “We’re on an incline, meaning this way is downhill. If we head downhill, we’re more likely to find a road, town, or at worst, a stream where we can mask our scent.”

Andria didn’t argue. He was more of a woodsman than she could ever hope to be, so she let him lead without contradiction.

The two marched in silence, weaving downhill between trees. Every so often, they would reach a particularly steep incline, and have to half-slide, half-shimmy downward, using the trunks of trees as hand-and-footholds. Other than that, it was pretty easy terrain. Yuta marched in front, keeping a pace that Andria had some difficulty following. Often, she would notice him crane his head skyward, checking the sky for Dragons and Crows.

Her frustration with him was slow to ebb. Now that she was faced with this new, self-seeking creature of a man, she was having great difficulty understanding him. This new, impatient, frightened Yuta she didn`t like, and if this was the real him, she was better off taking his advice and going home. But the kind, compassionate, thoughtful man that had given her refuge and every comfort of home over the past several weeks, she admired. His compassion, however, was somewhat marred by the understanding that he had only kept her as some sort of bargaining chip to retrieve some answers of his own. If only he would talk to her, maybe she could understand what had happened, understand his motives. But as he marched in front of her, as though he were making a forced effort not to look back at her, she did not believe that then was the time or place for such a conversation.

After about forty minutes of hiking, Yuta stopped.

“What is it?” Andria asked, closing the gap between them.

Yuta held up a hand, a request for silence. He paused for another few moments, and then replied, “Water. Fresh.”

“So a lake, then?” Andria offered.

“Fed by nearby streams,” Yuta added. He frowned quizzically.

“What’s wrong?” Andria prodded. “It could be Lake Towada.”

His frown deepened as he stared at the dirt at his feet. He trained his ears as far into the distance as he could. After a moment of silent observation and careful pondering, Yuta replied, “I think you’re right.” Yuta continued. “This landscape and terrain is exactly the same. If I’m correct, and I believe I am, then less than 100 paces in that direction,” he pointed into the continuing thicket of trees, “there will be a brook. Follow that about 250 paces downstream and it empties into the lake. If we keep going this direction,” indicating the direction they had been heading in, “and we’ll find ourselves looking down over the edge of a fifty-foot cliff.”

“So,” Andria attempted to continue his stream of perplexed thought, “we should head towards the stream?”

“No,” Yuta answered.

“No?” Andria asked, quickly becoming a joint party in Yuta’s web of frustrated confusion.

“No,” he confirmed.

“Where, then?” she asked, eager to continue moving. She was beginning to enjoy her conversations with Yuta substantially less. No matter the apparent gravity of their, or rather his, predicament, all Andria could feel while looking at him was a sense of hurt and betrayal that grew stronger with every passing moment.

“Well,” he began, looking up, over Andria’s head, “I would have suggested that we follow close to the road that lead into town, except we should have hit that road about 100 paces ago.”

Andria spun around to glance back at the path they had carved behind them during their downhill trek, before asking, “Are you sure? What if we’re somewhere else, a different lake, maybe? It’s possible, right?”

Yuta shook his head dismissively. “I know my home,” he stated with a strong degree of finality. And he did. There was no mistaking it, the smell of the crisp lake air, the slope and feel of the rocky terrain. He had climbed these hills a thousand times over on the hunt for dear, bear, snow fox and smaller, more elusive vermin. He would recognize this land even if it were six feet deep in snow, as it was for the better half of the year. Every footfall, every moonlit view of their heavily wooded path filled him with memories and an almost tangible sense of de ja vu.  He had stood in the exact same spot where he now stood many times before, but the familiarity he felt wasn’t of recent times. He had been in that spot just is it had been many, many years prior, seen those very trees just as they had been four or five human lifetimes ago.

It made no sense. The feeling in his gut and what it whispered to him registered in his head as nonsense. But what troubled him more was the scent in his nostrils. Even more unmistakable than the smell of Towada Lake air, and far more fresh in his mind than his strange memories of the nearby trees, was the heavy, familiar scent of Kazi lingering on their scale-scratched trunks. That, to Yuta, was the most pressing matter that needed to be confronted and dealt with.

Andria stared at him, blinking absently as though she were some wild doe watching as her buck grazed nearby. He kept his knowledge of Kazi’s presence to himself, and motioned silently for her to follow as he redirected their march towards the stream. If they could mask their scent, they could at least throw Kazi and whichever of the Lords had accompanied him, off for a short while. Long enough to find town, he hoped.

Andria wordlessly followed.

 

*          *          *          *          *         

Within five minutes, the two of them broke through the tree line and found themselves staring down upon a pleasantly gurgling brook. Like a silver-backed snake, it wound without deliberate direction downward through the forest, bubbling over water-polished sandstone and foaming brilliant white along the seams.

Andria looked over at her surly, silent companion. His expression was blank as he gazed at his reflection in the shallow, swirling water.

“So,” Andria interjected upon Yuta’s private musings, “you said that we should try to mask our scent. How do we do that exactly? Cover our skin and clothes with mud?” She had seen men do such things a couple times on Animal Planet, and the thought wasn’t so much thrilling as it was intriguing to Andria. She hadn’t had many opportunities to be rugged or dirty during her sheltered childhood.

“If you would like,” Yuta sighed, “go ahead.”

Andria could see that his mind was elsewhere, and as much as it annoyed her to have to pry at thoughts that weren’t openly shared, in this case, she was even more uncomfortable being left out of them. “What’s wrong?” she snapped. Before she had a mind to contain her next thoughts, they came spilling out. “You know, I’m really getting sick of this, the serious expression all the time, all of your damn secrets. I’ve had enough of being left out of your plotting, especially when most of these plots have to do with me. It would be nice if you would start treating me like a person whose opinions matter, rather than just something you lug around!” She wasn’t even sure she was really talking to him, but more to herself. For all the interest he showed in what she was saying, she might as well have been.

Andria scowled at him. He was a statue, eyes stoic, unfeeling, overall uncaring. He wouldn’t even look up at her. She felt invisible, like a mosquito buzzing on his shoulder, unable to sting him through his hardened skin, and therefore not even worth swatting at.

She’d had enough. Giving him plenty of berth, she trundled around him, her feet sticking and sucking  in the moist earth. Without looking back, she began a determined march along the bank of the stream in the direction of the shore. The moon brightly lit the way, with the canopy hanging sparsely over the rushing current.

This caught Yuta’s attention. “Wait,” he called after her, closing the gap between them in three long, easy strides.

“We’re splitting up,” she curtly informed him. “I’ll follow the beach until I reach town. I remember seeing the police box from the bus. This way you can do whatever it is you need to do to save your own a*s, and I can get the hell away from here and be done with this nightmarish fantasy and get back to the real world. That’s what you want, right?”

“No,” he said honestly.

“So then you’re keeping me around to use as a bargaining chip again for whenever these Dragons you’re running from find you. Is that it? That’s all I am, right?”

Yuta looked as though he’d been slapped. “I was protecting you!” he spat angrily.

“Protecting me from what?” she screamed, rounding on him. Once more, there was dark fury welling in her clear blue eyes.

Yuta refused to be intimidated. “You,” he spat, “don’t have any idea what these Dragons want, or what they’re capable of.”

“Like murdering a ship full of sailors to protect your little secret?” She spoke in almost a whisper, yet there was no mistaking the obvious accusation, nor the weight with which Andria had seemingly been carrying it around inside of her all evening. Yuta’s heart fell like a stone into the pit of his stomach. “Imagine,” she continued, “what would happen should just one person catch wind of such a carefully guarded secret, especially one already given up for dead by everyone who ever knew or cared for her.”

Yuta stared into her threatening eyes. “Are you supposed to kill me?” she breathed. The faintest traces of the same fear, the very first thing he had ever seen in her, crept into her gaze, but she held herself unwavering. She was afraid of the answer, he could see, but too proud to display this fear to him.

“If I had ever intended to kill you,” he hissed darkly, “I would have just let Miroshi drown you. Would have saved me a hell of a lot of trouble.”

“Then what am I doing here?” she interrogated. “Is it them? Do they want to kill me? Or do they want you to kill me?”

 “No one is trying to kill you!” Yuta shouted.

“What?” Andria hissed in startled confusion. Yuta broke her gaze and slowly slumped down against a tree.

“Kazi doesn’t want to kill you,” Yuta reiterated.

For a moment, she stared intently as though stricken dumb. Then, a small glimmer of relief lit her face, but before it could rest there for more than a solitary moment, her eyes grew dark with understanding and unmistakable resentment. Slowly, with a hiss more venomous than a king cobra, she spat, “Why am I here, then?” Yuta’s gaze flashed up at her, and he was immediately sorry he had done so. “Why am I here?” she repeated louder, more forcefully. “Why are we running?”

“Sit,” Yuta prompted, and was more than partly surprised when she complied without argument. “As of right now, we are not running anymore,” he said finally.

“What?” Andria spat. “I don’t understand. You’re just going to let them take you?”

“Me?” Yuta snorted. “What makes you think they want me?”

“You said Kazi didn’t want to kill me,” she reasoned, “so that means he wants you.”

“No,” he breathed. He made a forced effort not to look at her. “He wants you alright. Just not dead. At least not yet, but he may when he finds out you’re not who he thinks you are.”

A lump of fear rose in Andria’s throat, making it hard for her to swallow. Yuta continued, “When I was in Edo, I found out what all the fuss over you was. Turns out it’s nothing. Just a big mistake. Classic case of mistaken identity.”

“What?” she whispered. “Who does he think I am, then?”

“Someone he used to care about, a Dragon, his Mate. She left him, left Japan half a century ago and no one’s heard from her since.”

“But why would he mistake me for her?”

“Who knows?” Yuta sighed. “I’ve never had a Mate, but they say that you can feel their presence, know their mind and their heart, even hear their thoughts as clearly as if they were a second Messenger.”

Impulsively, Andria tried to recall whether she’d thought any misleading thoughts during her first days in Japan. “My theory,” Yuta continued, “Is that maybe she died somehow, and you could be her reincarnation.”

A loud, snorting laugh escaped Andria. Before she could say anything, he added, “Or it could simply be a matter of appearance. It’s hard to deny, you do have quite a striking resemblance to her.” He raised his eyes again to meet hers, but only for a moment. “And you are right, partly at least,” he went on. “They are searching for me, too.”

“What did you do?” Andria grumbled.

“That Stone you were holding is quite important to Kazi. It used to belong to his Mate. I stole it from his rooms.”

“Why would you do that,” Andria questioned.

“Spite, mostly,” he answered truthfully. “I knew it would piss him off.”

Andria wasn’t so much surprised by this admission, but found it humorously typical. She knew only a little about men, but the more she hung around Yuta, the more he let on how normal he really was.

Yuta idly fumbled with a twig he’d picked up off the ground. After a few moments of silence, he tossed it into the shallow current and watched the creek carry it slowly downstream. “We should sleep,” he offered. Andria was so glad for the suggestion, and her eyes were so heavy, that she said nothing in response.

Andria stretched out on the ground so that her back was pressed against the trunk of a tree, and the side of her face was pillowed by a protruding root. Her eyes fluttered a few times, as though her mind would have her remain awake, but eventually her body won and sleep overtook her.

Despite his own exhaustion, Yuta couldn’t allow himself rest. His thoughts were too busy and troubled, too puzzling to afford pause. Dawn was already breaking over the far horizon. The light and warmth of the new day would inevitably wake Andria hours before she found satisfaction in her slumber, but until then, he would remain her sentinel.