Breaker of Rings

Chapter 12

"How is it still burning?" Charlotte peered deep into the eye sockets of the golden skull as if its jaw might open and give her an answer. "Don't you have to be within a certain distance to control fires, Bex? We've looked all over and we can't even find a deer, let alone another human." Sighing, she set it back down on the ground on top of an old blanket so it wasn't in contact with the ground; the fewer elements it could touch—and potentially warp—the better.

Bex sat hunched by the fire—another naturally built fire, since the appearance of the golden skull had all the Four Horsewomen on edge. She had offered to start a fire, but her three sisters thought it would be safer if the flames bore none of her magic, so she sat back and watched. The fire called to her as it always did, but she still kept her distance. "I do, yes," she replied quietly, bringing her legs up to her chest and resting her chin on her knees. "But Seth—"

"Don't," Sasha snapped. "Don't give that monster any honour by using his name." All of the water that had been in the golden skull had long since absorbed into the soil, but ghostly streaks remained on the skull, almost like the salty tracks of tears. "It's bad enough that you went over here alone, Bex!"

"Over here?" Bex pointed stubbornly to the other side of the waterfall's pool where their horses remained. In the shallows, it was easy enough to walk across; at the narrowest point where it birthed a river, their horses could have easily made the leap. When she had roused the other three Horsewomen, she had left the skull and its relics where she had found them, not wanting to risk their camp; after much debate, all four of them had crossed over to examine the strange offering. "I didn't even leave the clearing! I could have yelled for Charlotte or. . . ." Bex stopped before any of her sisters could protest. Sasha and Bayley had been too deep in their healing; by the time they would have heard her cries, it would have been too late. Charlotte might have been able to get down in time, but it would have used precious magic and left her weak.

Bayley edged closer to the fire-forger and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I understand," she began softly. "I would have been tempted to investigate too. But what if he had still been here? He could have killed you before you even made a sound, and the rest of us wouldn't have had a chance. I know we're all used to being the only magic users, but that's not the case anymore. We have to be more careful now." The shadows of deep cracks lingered on her skin, as if she had been becoming one with the ancient rocks of the waterfall's wall.

The pink in Charlotte's cheeks spoke to her anger, but she still hugged Bex from the other side, kissing her cheek. "Sometimes you're too brave for your own good. Did you know that? You had no idea what was in that fire, or in the skull." She pointed to the remaining relics, now sitting in front of the golden skull. The feather rippled occasionally in a breeze even Charlotte couldn't sense, and the rock would spin without warning, though there seemed to be no rhyme nor reason to its movements or placement. "You could have died."

Bex fought the urge to look into the golden skull's eyes again, to see those dark tumbling flames. There was definitely a sense of darkness to the relic, but it was underscored with pain too and something she could only call striving. She was certain that the flames—both the internal ones and those that had originally cloaked the entire skull—were of Seth's making, and it felt like something he had done on his own, not at the Skull King's bidding. The carved crown on top of the skull was undeniable, though, so she didn't want to bring that possibility up to her sisters. Any sympathy she showed would be seen as a weakness. So why couldn't she shake the idea that the skull wasn't a threat or a trap, but rather a plea for help—maybe even laden with hints as to how to defeat the Skull King? "But I didn't," she replied simply, "and that matters too. If . . . he got this close to us, who knows what else he could have done? He could have boiled Sasha alive in the waterfall before I had a chance to stop him. He could have set a fire in Bayley's cave that devoured her or sent sparks on the wind to sink into Charlotte's skin. Instead he left a skull with symbols of us." She pointed to the feather first. "Charlotte." The rock was next. "Bayley." Then she reached out to trace the water's path. "Sasha." The flames were obviously for her. "Maybe this is meant to be a sign that we have to be united to defeat him."