The Villain
“Act natural,” Trystan hissed.
Sage hiccupped, then promptly giggled at said hiccup.
“She’s as natural as a mooing chicken.” Tatianna grimaced, holding a glowing hand up to Sage’s eyes. Sage scrunched her nose and leaned away, blinking a mile a minute.
“Can’t you undo it?” he asked Clare frantically as the bridge creatures climbed up from the deep water that ran through the entire Heart Village. “Is there a plant for this?”
Clare tossed the red flower Sage had been holding in the direction of the woods. “Not for magical intoxication, Tryst. The only way out is to wait, and it can last hours.”
“Hours!” He stared at Sage, who was now humming a merry tune and skipping around in a circle. I won’t survive hours of this. It was suddenly quiet, and he found Sage’s gaze intent on his face. “What are you staring at?”
“Your mouth.”
Correction: I won’t survive minutes.
“Villain. Why did you return? Another bridge you want to destroy?” a creature asked, and Trystan turned to see none other than Reming. He was taller than Trystan recalled from their last fateful meeting, with sand-like skin mostly hidden behind a long tunic and tight trousers. Sea glass shined where human hair would be, a vibrant burst of colors.
“He destroyed a bridge?” Sage almost yelled, and he clapped a hand over her mouth, pulling her against his chest.
“Ignore her—she’s not feeling well. Reming, I hope we can put that little misunderstanding behind us. We have important business in the Heart Village, so please serve us with a riddle and we will earn safe passage over
the bridge.”
In theory, one could make it across the bridge without Reming and his family’s permission, but their magic was linked to the architectural structure. So in practice, if they didn’t want you to make it across in one piece, you wouldn’t.
Reming eyed Clare and Tatianna as his mother and father joined him. “What do you think, Mother?”
Ellia was considered a great beauty among the bridge creatures—a great beauty among all, actually. She was tall, her figure ample and wide, and her long, colorful eyelashes glittered in the sun’s rays. “I think that—”
The matriarch was cut off by Trystan’s yell. Sage had bitten him to free herself. Bitten him. “Did you just bite me?” he roared. She stumbled out of his grip, looking so joyous, he forgot how furious he was for a second.
“Yessssss.” She drew out the S far longer than necessary, then tilted her head and asked with unfocused sincerity, “Why? Do you want me to do it again?” The last question, said on a mock whisper, was heard by every human, frog, and bridge creature within five hundred yards.
The second was over.
Markeith, the patriarch of the family, folded his arms. The sea-glass crown atop his head pointed into an angle that reminded Trystan of a steel blade’s tip—a blade he’d likely be stabbed with if he didn’t get Sage to cease speaking. “Did she smell a Piony flower?” Markeith asked.
“Oh, you bet,” Tatianna said, gripping Sage’s skirt before she fell over, like a cat holding a kitten by the scruff.
Markeith pushed past his son and mate. “Very well. You may all cross the bridge to the village”—he pointed a sandy finger at Sage, who was plucking at the flowers on her skirt like they were real—“but she must be the one to solve the riddle. Without any help.”
“Oh, c’mon!” Clare griped, waving a hand toward Sage, who looked dangerously close to removing her skirt to get a better grip on the embroidered petals. “She barely knows her own name!”
Reming smirked. “It is she or no one.” “Evangelina.”
Ellia tilted her head, sun striking against the sea glass to create a kaleidoscopic array of colors. “What, child?”
“Clare said I didn’t know my name. It’s Evangelina.”
Ellia smiled lightly, holding out a hand. Sage didn’t hesitate, just wrapped
hers in Ellia’s and, with the purest look in her eyes, said, “Your hands are so lovely.”
They were done for.
Though, to Trystan’s surprise, Ellia looked flattered by the compliment.
“We hold much of our life’s experiences within our hands. What a keen observation.” Ellia’s eyes began to glow lilac as a different voice spilled out of her mouth—an ancient one.
“I am a terror many try to hide.
I am a secret that no one will find. I am only used by the brave.
When issued properly, I will save.
I am the source of everyone’s strife.
If you wield me wrong, I will cut like a knife. What am I?”
“You couldn’t have given her something easier?” Trystan asked, though he was interrupted by Sage stumbling back, out of Ellia’s grip. He almost pulled a shoulder muscle trying to catch her before she hit the ground. As always, his act of valor backfired. In catching her, she ended up in his arms, bridal-style, and before he could get his bearings, she was nuzzling her nose against his neck, shredding his bearings like the magical goats in the office they used to shred unwanted papers. Her rose-scented hair filled his entire being, and he shut his eyes tight against the onslaught of sensation.
“The riddle chooses its solver. We cannot simply make it easier because your lover doesn’t know to not touch plants she doesn’t recognize.” Reming sneered.
Lover. Trystan choked on the word, but Sage was already correcting them, so quickly he almost felt insulted.
She jumped down out of his hold, waving her arms like a fan propeller. “No, no, no, no. We are not lovers!” She whispered behind her hand, like she was telling the bridge creatures a secret: “I’m just his assistant.”
She wasn’t just anything, but he kept that confession behind his lips.
Markeith boomed, “Well, assistant to The Villain. Do you have the answer?”
“Give her a moment to think about it. You’re setting her up to fail,” Trystan said.
“I thought you told me”—her words were still slurred, her gaze drifting away toward a blue butterfly soaring beyond the bridge—“that you would
never make the mistake of underestimating me.”
“Sage, you’re drunk as a pirate; I’m certain there are many things you feel you could do right now. Flying, perhaps.”
She brightened.
“No.”
Her bow-shaped red lips pulled down in a frown. “You’re no fun.” Markeith cleared his throat. “The answer. Now.”
Trystan gripped Sage’s arm as she straightened her spine, but she speared him with a look so sharp and keen, it felt like a blade was running lightly over his sternum. She placed a hand right in the middle of his chest, feeling his heartbeat. “I know what the answer is.”
Trystan swallowed. Reming scoffed. “Do you?”
She stumbled but righted herself, saying with a firmness that her body language didn’t reflect, “The answer is the truth.”
Trystan moved in front of Sage, gripping her shoulders to get a look at her face, because that was—
“Correct. Well done, Evangelina.” Ellia smiled warmly.
Tatianna shook her head in disbelief. “How did you know?”
Sage shrugged carelessly. “When you’ve been lied to so often, the truth becomes easier to discern.”
Markeith gestured to the bridge behind him. “You are welcome in the Heart Village, along with your friends.” A light shimmered above the archway. Tatianna gasped quietly, then followed Clare onto the curved stone surface toward the other side.
Sage pulled her hair out of its plait, fluffing it as she did so and tossing the ribbon into the air. “Thank you.” She stopped right next to Markeith, a magical being, looking bold and fearless. And piss drunk.
“You have a lovely family.” It wasn’t a haphazard comment; it was a genuine compliment. This was one of the most marvelous mysteries about Sage—that she so readily handed out praise but it was always so specific. Like she found her favorite part of every person she came across and then presented it to them. It made him want to ask what she liked about him.
Markeith blinked at her, his green eyes going soft like he was questioning the random admiration. Sage squeezed his shoulder. “The truth,” she murmured, walking past him and the other creatures.
She kept going, and Trystan made to follow quickly—gods knew the kind
of danger she’d find on her own. Tatianna and Clare were ahead of her already, but the duty of protecting her felt charged to him. A godsdamn problem, that.
But Ellia halted him. “You may enter the Heart Village, Villain. But you must leave your magic behind.”
His outrage was swift. “Absolutely not.”
Ellia calmly shook her head. “It will return as soon as you leave the village soil, but not before. I will not allow such destruction anywhere near our citizens.”
It could well be a trap. He wanted to scoff in her face and turn right around. Let them find another way in, past the magic wards that surrounded it. But then Sage stumbled. He watched closely as she giggled and stumbled again, this time looking to the sky and shaking her head with a light smile, glowing. Unafraid to laugh at herself, unafraid to look upon her missteps with anything but a brave sort of joy. She took each moment of her life with a natural good humor, no matter how painful, no matter how tragic. She trekked on with nothing but her will. No magic to protect her. Just faith and optimism and belief in her survival.
Being a cynic doesn’t make you wise. It makes you a coward.
His heart pinched at Sage’s accusation.
“Fine,” he chewed out. His magic had been finicky lately anyway; one less thing to be concerned about.
Ellia stepped aside, gesturing her sandy arm onward, but not before pointing a finger at him and threatening, “Do not cause any harm.”
He climbed onto the bridge, joining Sage in the middle. His assistant was jumping like a rabbit who’d just learned to hop.
Do not cause any harm? Impossible.
And he proved it as soon as he stepped foot into the Heart Village.
