Chapter 46
Chapter
Forty-Six
My head pounds, an ache so painful that I can barely think. I hide in the darkness, in the pain, somehow wishing I could let my mind rest here where it cannot be found.
But the wave of pain subsides, and beyond the ringing I hear a voice, one that sings with pride.
My brows draw together as another surge of pain floods the forefront of my mind. I screw my eyes further shut than they already are, feeling the heaviness with which my eyelids are closed, but I couldn’t open them if I tried.
“You did good, boy.” The voice sounds so far away. “You can see him now, but remember, the king wants…” The words fade away, replaced by the sound of my own voice, a groan working its way up my throat.
“She’s awake.”
No, I am not. I’m not awake. I don’t want to be. I want to stay here, in this nothingness.
“Good. It is time.”
It feels like an eternity, the time I spend here in the darkness. The pain doesn’t leave me. It is by my side like a loyal friend. Its touch never leaves my body.
“Time to face the music, witch.”
Barton.
I try to fight the pain, to push it away from my skin and force my eyes awake, but it doesn’t work.
Light appears within the darkness, bursting into the space I hide in, and I cannot ignore it.
I try again, putting all of my focus into just opening an eye. Just one will do—I just need to see. But as soon as I do, I slam them shut once more, shielding them from the stinging light. No, it doesn’t sting. It burns.
I am being dragged. I can feel my feet scraping along the ground. Concrete, it grazes. No…brick.
I feel someone pull me into their arms, and I cling to them, not wanting to know what comes next.
My hazy mind reminds me of everything that has happened on these bricks.
All the blood that has been spilled, all the lives lost. I understand now that this is my fate, to move on to whatever is next, to meet Hazel there.
Maybe I will see my parents, and perhaps even Finnick.
It’s as though I can see him now, standing on these very bricks as my arms are yanked behind me, someone fastening them behind a piece of wood that lines my spine. He is there, standing with Silas. Maybe he is welcoming me, asking me to join him where he resides.
I let my eyes fall closed, committing the image of my brother to memory. Maybe if I think of him now, I will find him in the after.
“This woman.” Hawthorne's voice infiltrates my thoughts. “This girl has been found lying to the authority. Hiding contraband within the ruins of her childhood home, hoping that no one would catch her.”
I feel my head lull to one side, and I try to pull it up, to open my eyes. I need to find someone else, someone other than Hawthorne, to focus on.
I wouldn’t want their faces to be the last ones I see if it was me.
Captain Barton’s face is the last thing I saw before the darkness welcomed me. I won’t let it be the last thing I see before I meet my end.
I force my eyes open, and the first set of eyes I meet is Cedar’s. Tears well in her eyes. They shine like a silver coin under the water. Beautiful, but obscured.
I try to smile, but that’s when I feel the fabric stuffed between my lips. A gag. But she must see it in my eyes, because she tries to smile back, even as her lips tremble and tears glide down her smooth cheeks.
Elara stands beside her, her hair the colour of scattered moonlight, as if she ran through a forest that attempted to consume her.
She stands utterly still, like a ghost, like she is barely even there.
Cedar shakes beside her, like an autumn leaf waiting to drift to the ground.
She shakes her head in disbelief, but she doesn’t take her eyes from mine.
I let mine drift, let them float across the crowd as Hawthorne speaks again, but I drown out his voice, my focus falling on Maeve Pines, her arms wrapped tightly around her daughter’s shoulders as she buries her head in her mother’s chest.
She swallows thickly as she meets my gaze. I do my best to nod. She did everything she could. She kept us safe until we were the ones holding our fate in our hands, and this is where we found ourselves.
My attention skates across the tops of heads until I see Silas. His gaze is tortured, as if he wasn’t the very person who handed me over. The person who watched as Barton sedated me, who knew that Rylan was Hawthorne’s son, but didn’t tell me until that very moment.
Rylan.
What happened to him? I don’t remember what happened, what he did as I was crawling away from Barton’s form. I couldn’t look anywhere but at the man who dragged me through the grass.
Silas blinks away tears before he looks at the person beside him. I follow his gaze, and my stomach surges as I let go of a violent breath.
I see auburn hair, longer than I remember it, and unruly, darkened with dirt…
or soot. Brown eyes that look hollowed out, deep pockets of blue smudged beneath his lower lashes.
He is too thin. His frame so much frailer than it should be.
He looks delicate, as if a mere breeze could knock him off his feet.
But he is here. It’s not my imagination this time.
Finnick is truly here.
My brother stands at the back of the crowd, his hands shackled in chains in front of him, a shield waiting right behind him. It’s not a dream.
Silas looks back at me, his gaze pleading, and I laugh.
I laugh.
Tears slide from my eyes as Hawthorne turns to face me, his eyes wide with disconcertment as he watches me, but I can’t stop.
Finnick is alive.
My brother is alive.
I was right.
And then there are three words. I feel nothing but relief, nothing but satisfaction as they are spat from Hawthorne’s abhorrent mouth.
“She will burn.”
The sound of horse hooves echoes through the square, and as I look up once more, I see the white blur of Merlin’s mane tossed back as he gallops through the square, his hooves attacking the bricks one by one as he draws closer and closer, feet digging into his belly.
Feet that connect to long legs, ones that lead my gaze to see Rylan, a bow and arrow in his arms, the arrow nocked, and his stormy gaze fixed on his father who stands in front of me.
Tension flares in his jaw as he lets the arrow fly, his teeth bared as he lets out a scream. I don’t see the arrow fly across the crowd. I only see Hawthorne stumble back, the head of the arrow protruding from his shoulder.
Suddenly, there is so much black, shields flocking like a murder of crows and flying towards where Rylan continues to ride through the square.
Barton appears before me, a torch in hand as he lights the pile of wood I stand upon. This is it. This is the moment.
I look out once more, meeting my brother’s numb gaze as heat licks at my ankles, wanting his to be the last face I see. The one person I have longed to see for years now is finally in front of me. I don’t want to see anyone else.
Heat climbs up my legs, and one final tear escapes my eyes, its coolness a welcome reprieve from the burning warmth surrounding me.
And then it is as if the moon explodes behind my eyes, and I fall, and fall, and fall into an endless abyss.