Beyond the Gates of Evermoore

“Maybe this can protect us both,” she said, shaking it at him. “Come with me, Lucus! At least try.”

He shook his head again, sadly. “It doesn’t work that way.”

The mist was around them now, swirling against their bodies. The smell of electricity was palpable. It practically choked the air.

“Goodbye Melody Larson,” Lucus smiled. He pulled her against him, clenching her tightly one last time before letting go. “I wish you—”

Moving quickly, Melody reached behind her head and grabbed the heavy gold chain. Throwing her arms around him, she lifted it from her neck…

“Melody no!”

In one fluid motion she flipped the pendant around and dropped it back over both their heads. There was barely enough slack. Only by hurling herself into his arms — and pressing her body tightly against him — could she even hope to do it.

“IT’S NOT—”

She yanked down on the chain… hard, with both hands. It pulled impossibly tight. She could feel the soft precious metal giving way, the gold links straining against one another.

Threatening to break…

“MELODY!”

She launched herself backwards, into the mist. It engulfed her completely. Thrown off balance, and with her entire body weight hanging from his, Lucus tripped forward, sprawling into the fog. They fell together, spinning into the nothingness.

Weightlessness…

There was a ‘pop’ as the chain made it past her ears, slipping down around both their necks. They continued falling… falling without hitting the ground. It seemed like forever. Forever in a single moment.

Never take it off…

Xiomara’s voice rattled angrily through her brain. Her head spun dizzily, as her mind slowly emptied of all thought. Everything that ever mattered slipped away, fading until nothing mattered at all…

Never…

It was the last word Melody heard before blacking out.

33

She woke in a bramble field.

Melody found herself flat on her back, staring upward, to where a blazing orange sun still hung low in the sky. It cast long, mid-afternoon shadows over everything around her. The vine-choked trees, the shattered husks of ancient mangroves… these things stood everywhere in a tremendous, random mess.

She sat up, squinting at the light. Instinctively Melody reached around her neck. Her fingers searched frantically for the heavy, familiar weight of the pendant on the golden chain…

The Heart of Isolomara wasn’t there.

She leapt immediately to her feet. Spinning in a circle, her mind flooded with relief as she spotted it, not ten feet away, draped over some marshy ground. The chain was broken, the jewel face down in the mud. But the pendant, thankfully, was still intact.

And just beyond it…

Oh my God…

Lucus lay on his side, his face half-embedded in the soggy earth. He body was caked in dried mud. His long hair plastered over his chiseled, stubbled face.

He stirred. Groaned…

“Lucus!”

She sprinted immediately to his side. The blacksmith was rolling slowly onto his back, wincing at the sudden sun. She held his face in her hands. Gasped as his eyes fluttered open.