Avow

CHAPTER 34

The next morning, Scarlet crouched high in a tree in the Avalon forest and watched the creepy beings from the day before mill around the clearing below. She counted eight of them.

Scarlet pulled back on her bow and set a bloodstained arrow in line with the nearest creature. Silently cutting the air, her arrow struck her target’s heart and he fell to the ground with a grunt, his body breaking apart into ash.

Scarlet’s heart raced in excitement. Without hesitating, she pulled out seven more arrows and shot down the remaining beings without batting an eye, all of them falling to ash as their little weird buddy had.

If Scarlet hadn’t been trying to be so sneaky, she probably would have laughed in victory as she carefully climbed down the tree.

An ash being charged at her from the bushes in front of her and Scarlet yanked a dagger off her back and thrust it into his stomach.

Ash guy down.

She heard rustling from the trees behind her and turned to see two more attackers coming at her. Pulling out another knife, she cut into the creaturemen until they were ash as well.

Out of breath and eyes burning, Scarlet turned and saw three more coming at her from the large boulders in the clearing.

Really? This didn’t seem fair.

With a sigh, she dropped her bag and loosened her arms as the men of ash neared. One by one, she stabbed and sliced. She took blows to the face, she was kicked and bloodied, and she was choked and slammed against trees.

But in the end, she prevailed and found herself standing amidst several heaps of ash with no more creatures charging her.

Her nose was bleeding and her eyes were burning nonstop. She had an hour, if that, to live. Scarlet looked around and her heart fell. The fountain was too far away. Even if she sprinted she wouldn’t be able to make it before her body gave out.

She had failed. All her plans, all her best intentions, were all for nothing. She wanted to scream in frustration. She had been so close. So close.

She heard the sound of a gun cock behind her.

Slowly turning around, Scarlet’s mouth fell open when she saw who was standing on the other side of the gun barrel pointed right at her head.

Raven.

How was she still alive?

“Hello, Scarlet,” Raven said. “Give me the map and I might not shoot you in the face.”

Scarlet blinked. “The…what? What are you…? Why—“

“The map to the Fountain of Youth, Scarlet. I need it.”

“I don’t have the map.”

“Yes you do. That man you spoke with yesterday, Mr. Brooks? What a nice gentleman he is. I struck up a lovely conversation with him after you left and he told me how you offered to trade him a map to the Fountain of Youth for some of his valuables.”

“I don’t have—“

“Don’t lie to me.” She nodded to something behind Scarlet and suddenly Scarlet found herself being wrestled into the arms of two ash creatures she hadn’t seen coming.

She kicked and struggled, but the decrepit beings quickly disarmed her and held her fast. A third being yanked her backpack off and handed it to Raven, who riffled through it before throwing it to the ground with a frustrated noise.

“Where’s the map?”

Scarlet spit out the blood that was trickling into her mouth from her nose. “I told you, I don’t have it.”

Raven cocked her head. “You don’t look well. Perhaps I’ll wait until you fall dead and then I’ll just riffle your pockets and that little cabin of yours.”

“You’ll find nothing useful.” Scarlet’s eyes burned as she smiled in triumph. Maybe she hadn’t reached the fountain, but she’d kept the map safe.

Raven looked livid. “Take me to the fountain.”

“No.”

”Very well. I guess you’ll be coming home with me until you change your mind.”

The ashy creatures pushed Scarlet forward and she didn’t fight. She needed to buy herself time to figure out a way out of this.

“What are these things?” Scarlet asked, wriggling in the hands of one of the man beings.

“I call them my dead helpers. They’re corpses from the Avalon graveyard that I brought back from the dead.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“It’s effective.” Raven pushed her forward. “I’m actually quite glad things worked out this way. Now I’ll have a map and a sacrifice.”

“What?”

“Certainly you know about the sacrifice that the fountain demands.”

Scarlet tried to remember what the journal said.

Touching the Avalon is fatal, but from the sacrifice comes eternal water and the Avalon fruit which heals all who are addicted.

Raven laughed. “You’re out here searching for the fountain and you don’t even know about the sacrifice? The fountain requires a heart and therefore death, before it will release its water or its fruit. One touch of the Avalon tree will drain your heart of life and give me that fruit.”

Scarlet blinked. She’s been so concerned about the caves that threatened immortals, she hadn’t stopped to consider what the passage had meant about a sacrifice.

Someone would have to die in order for the fountain water to be accessed?

Scarlet would never be cured.

All this—all this time and effort and hope was for nothing. Scarlet was dying, and she would always be dying.

Now she was pissed.

Whipping to the side, Scarlet kicked the gut of the creature on her right and then wrestled herself out of the arms of the other being until she was loose enough to kick Raven’s gun from her hand. Scarlet dodged the creaturemen and snatched a bloodstained knife from her pack—now lying on the ground abandoned—before slicing into the ashy beings until they crumbled.

Raven caught her by the hair and yanked Scarlet’s head back, pressing a very sharp, very mean looking knife against her throat.

“Tell me where the map is or I’ll slit your throat.”

Scarlet started laughing wildly, blood from her nose streaming down her cheek. “You are so stupid.”

Raven gripped her tighter, but Scarlet only laughed harder.

“Shut up!” Raven yelled into Scarlet’s ear.

Her laughter dead in her throat, Scarlet whipped around and reversed their position, holding the knife to Raven’s throat with one hand as she pulled Raven’s head back by the hair with the other.

“You can’t kill me, you know. I have fountain water in my body.” Raven sneered.

Scarlet hit Raven as hard as she could with the handle of the knife, dropping the unconscious witch to the ground.

For a moment, adrenaline kept Scarlet feeling strong. But then the world started spinning and things went fuzzy. Her heart was pounding so hard her chest felt like it was tearing in half.

Blood filled her mouth, her hands went numb, and hot pain shot through her limbs. She tried to move, but her feet were made of lead and carried her only to the ground, where she dropped on her knees. Her eyes were seeing white and she knew this was it. This was the end.

She let her body fall to a heap on the earth beside her enemy, wanting to cry and scream for everything that was unfair and everything she couldn’t fix.

But instead, she whispered, “Tristan.”

Because somewhere inside her, Tristan was there, coming for her, feeling her, scared for her. He was sad. He was scared. And he was so in love.

He was getting closer, making her pain more acute, but her death more bearable. He loved her so much, it filled up more than the air in his lungs and the blood in his veins.

He was powerful. He was mad. He was everything she wanted forever.

And she was losing him.

She felt his gripping love for her wrap around her soul and tuck her in, rocking her to sleep through the blinding pain that took the light from her burning eyes and stole her away, once again, into death.