14. Kiar
Chapter 14
Kiar
A bove ground was complete pandemonium. The humans all fought each other, rabid. Bracken, Clem and I were forgotten as we hid in the branches above them. Just as well. There was no way that I could fight now. Not when Sun was gone.
Not when they’d fallen and the earth had collapsed on top of them…
“He's weak,” Clem said, his voice in a panic. “He's fading.”
He was shaking so hard that I could see his red light flickering from the corner of my eye but to my surprise, it was not from fear, but from anger.
“Where were you when Sun was stabbed?!” he suddenly demanded. “Why was no one there to protect him? There are three of you!”
“Clem!” Bracken warned.
“No. He's right,” I agreed. “We failed him.”
And now Sun was dying somewhere below ground with no one but Hadi to keep him company.
It was obvious that Hadi had warmed to him, that perhaps he was starting to feel for Sun the way that the rest of us did.
That was little comfort.
If Sun was dying, then I should have been there, holding his hand.
“What about your damn visions?” Bracken demanded. “Surely Tsuki should have warned you about this!”
“She didn’t!” Clem wailed. “I saw our allies rising, humans, horses, nocs. She showed me the future should we succeed?—”
Frustrated, Bracken shot into the air before he could finish, immediately exposing our position.
Arrows flew at him from the commotion below. A moment later, Clem barely escaped being hit. Then, to my surprise, an arrow cut clean through his wing, and he flicked it off like it was nothing more than a gnat. I watched, enthralled as the red light intensified around the wound and quickly closed it like nothing had happened.
Was that Clem's power growing? I wondered. Or was it Tsuki's eclipse?
“There!” Bracken shouted, pointing.
I followed his gaze, suddenly seeing the fissure he pointed to. One large enough to take us in even though it wasn't the one that Sun and Hadi had fallen into. No, that one was sealed shut.
The moment my eyes landed on it, Bracken swept down, scooping me up like I was weightless and diving down toward it, Clem following tight on his heel.
Without hesitation, he threw himself–and subsequently me–into the pitch-black hole.
A moment later red light flooded it as Clem entered behind us.
We landed on the uneven earth, quickly looking around with disappointment to see that there was nowhere to go. It was simply a hole. A few cracks ran through it but nothing large enough to crawl through and when Clem's light shone into the spots, there was only more dirt anyway.
“Dammit all!” I cursed, hitting the wall. “Sun needs us.”
“We'll dig through to them!” Bracken suggested and without even knowing where to start, he dug his large fists into the muddy walls.
“There's no need.”
The quiet sound of Hadi's voice stopped us all dead.
Looking around, there was no sign of where his voice had come from.
“Where are you?” I demanded.
“There!” Clem said, pointing to one of the cracks along the side.
We rushed to it and Bracken started to dig frantically again, until Hadi spoke, and we realized that he was below us at an angle.
“I seem to have found some sort of abandoned passageway,” Hadi said. “I don't know where it leads.”
“Stay there!” Bracken shouted down to him. “We are coming.”
He began to dig with renewed vigor, but Hadi didn't say anything for a minute. When he eventually did, we couldn't hear him over the sounds that Bracken made.
Clem placed a hand on his arm, stilling him.
“What did you say?” he called into the crack, and we strained to listen and hear Hadi's voice.
“Sun says that it is an old abandoned military passageway... apparently it follows the river above. There should be an exit.”
Relief flooded me for more than one reason. Sun was okay. He was awake and talking. That was a very good sign.
“We will follow the river above,” Bracken said firmly. “You follow it below.”
I nodded.
“If you get to the entrance first, wait there. The last thing we need is to lose you again.”
“And if we reach it first, we will enter the passageway to find you.”
“We're going now,” Hadi's muffled voice said.
“Go fast,” I said. “And Hadi, keep Sun safe.”
There was a long silence.
“I give you my word,” he said. “Now go! I don't know how much time he has left.”
Every cell in my body protested leaving them behind.
Right here, at least we could talk to them. Right here, I knew where they were even if I could do nothing for them. It was wrong to walk away and it was our only choice.
The same conflict was clear on both Clem and Bracken's faces as we turned to each other.
“There is no time to waste,” Bracken said somberly. “I will fly us along the river.”
Clem lifted into the air and flapped his fluttery wings to Bracken's shoulder, taking a seat on one and lacing his arms around his neck.
“Go fast,” he said. “Avoid getting hit.”
Bracken nodded and offered me his other arm.
I slithered to him, putting an arm around his other shoulder, and wrapping my tail around his waist.
Looking down at the fallen earth that blocked us from Hadi and Sun with one last regretful look, he leaped into the air with a gust of wind from his broad wingspan.
We shot into the sky like an arrow, up into open blue as the moon finally released the sun and the world was doused with bright sunlight again. Through the humans who still fought against each other, we went. I did not know who was winning. I hoped that it was our side, but caring about that detail didn't matter right now. All I cared about was Sun and, I realized, Clem, Bracken, and Hadi too.
We had leaned on each other for long enough that there was no way I could disentangle my feelings from them now.
I had blamed Sun for making me care so much, but perhaps this was a natural development. We were all one, revolving around Sun, but doing it together.
It would be such a shame for us all to lose our chance at this second life now, after everything we had been through together.
“There,” Clem whispered.
I didn’t know how he spotted the river through the trees as we left the battlefield behind us. When I finally saw the streak of water catching the light of the sun, it was in the distance.
My heart sank.
“It's too far,” Bracken said, reading my thoughts. He sounded so disappointed that my heart ached. “They'll never make it to us in time.”
“Then we shall have to be the ones to make it to them as quickly as possible,” I said. “Swoop to the river Bracken and we will not rest until we find the entrance.”
“But we have no idea how far the passageway goes,” he argued. “We have no idea where to start our search. What if we miss it entirely?”
“I won’t let us,” Clem promised.
His eyes glowed red now as he searched below us, and a shiver traveled my spine. Clem was changing and I did not know what to think of that. He had always seemed so meek and now, looking at him, I wondered... How far would his power truly grow? Surely, there had to be a limit.
Swallowing, I pushed the thought down.
It didn't really matter. Clem was one of mine.
“Lower down there, at that hill,” he said suddenly. “We're getting close.”
Bracken followed his order, another shocking development. We were all on much more even footing now.
The thought was nothing but comforting. We were in this together, in life and even death. But not tonight. Tonight, we were finding Sun, and Clem would heal him. We would live to fight another day and we would not stop until our goals were met.