Chapter 42
Forty-Two
I squeeze my eyes shut and wait for the knife to glide through flesh. For blood to pour over my fingers. But Alaric is too quick.
He ducks, and the blade slams into the cave wall instead.
Delphine’s scream is almost as loud as the metallic clang.
Shock waves judder up my arm as sparks fly through the darkness, illuminating Alaric’s horrified expression.
“You actually tried to kill me!” he shouts.
“It’s what you deserve,” I cry, slashing sideways.
This time, my knife tears through Alaric’s waistcoat, narrowly missing his side. He clutches the shred of velvet with a shaky hand and looks at me aghast. “Please, Indira! This is madness!”
“No, this is retribution,” I growl through my tears, which makes me even madder.
I shouldn’t be crying. The boy I’m mourning never existed.
It was all a lie. An act. “You let me trust you!” I slash again.
“Made me believe you cared for me and the future of my people! And your people too! You’re no better than your father.
You knew about the sick people in that warehouse and did nothing to help them!
” Another slash. “You listened to me grieve for Rowenna and pretended to know the same sorrow when you were responsible for her death all along!”
“What are you talking about?” Alaric explodes. “I do care about both of our people! I knew nothing about the sick in that warehouse until I stepped through the door alongside you, and I am not, in any way, responsible for Rowenna’s death. You know this. You know me.”
“It’s impossible to truly know anyone on this mountain when the truth can be forgotten and rewritten at will,” I say, readjusting my grip on the knife.
The look of utter heartbreak that crosses Alaric’s face steals my breath. I didn’t know it was possible for my chest to hurt this much. I feel like I’m trapped underwater, lungs screaming, but I can’t rise to the surface and save myself because he was the source of my air.
“Delphine.” Alaric turns to my maid with wild, pleading eyes. “Help me. She’ll listen to you.”
Delphine shakes her head, and Alaric lets out a pitiful, gut-wrenching sob.
“Stop trying to manipulate me!” I shriek. “I’m so sick of everyone using me!”
I swing my blade again, and sparks dance around us like fireflies as I drive Alaric back, my blade striking stone with each erratic swing.
Bang, bang, bang.
Flash, flash, flash.
The ceiling pitches lower, and the walls press closer until there’s nowhere left for Alaric to go. He drops to the ground and curls in on himself like a dead beetle, which makes me even more incensed.
“Why won’t you fight back?” I yell. “Why won’t you move the earth to protect yourself?”
“You know why.” Alaric’s frantic eyes soften when they lock with mine, and it feels like I’ve been kicked in the stomach and skewered through the heart all at once.
“Stop saying things like that! We both know you won’t fight back because you think I’m weak and pathetic. You don’t believe I’ll kill you, even as I’m in the act of doing it!”
“Fire!” Alaric shouts, and I think he’s goading me until Delphine says it too and points over my shoulder.
“Indira, the bagrava is on fire!”
That’s when I notice the wisps of purple smoke swirling around my feet. When I realize the oppressive heat at my back is fueled by more than just my rage.
Flames fill the front half of the cavern—where my blade first struck stone—and they’re burning hungrily toward us, devouring the bagrava we laid out in a convenient pathway.
I thank Earth Mother the smoke from this part of the plant isn’t noxious as it billows around us, invading our eyes, noses, and mouths, The last thing I need right now is to lose my senses.
“Indira!” Delphine cries, spinning frantically. “What do we do?”
I scan the cave for branching tunnels that might lead to another entrance.
I study the walls and floor for crevasses that might be deep enough to take cover in.
But if there’s a place to take shelter from the inferno, I can’t see it through the thickening haze.
My lungs feel coated in soot, and my vision swims. When I try to scream, I’m gripped by a pummeling cough.
It’s one thing for Alaric and me to perish in this cave—the final battle of the war our people have been waging for years—but Delphine doesn’t deserve to die like this. She wasn’t supposed to be here at all.
I cough into my cloak, and it gives me an idea. Yanking the ties loose, I drop to my knees and spread the fabric out across the damp rocks, pressing it into the little puddles until it’s heavy with water. Then I lift it up and swing the cloak over Delphine’s head and shoulders.
“Run!” I tell her. “Go back the way we came in. You might get a few burns on your legs, but the wet cloak should shield you from the worst of it.”
“What about you?” she yells. We both look down at the dripping cloak. The only one we have, since Delphine and Alaric are accustomed to the cold.
“If I have to burn alive, at least he’ll die with me.” I nod back at Alaric, still curled into a trembling ball. “And Rowenna will be avenged.”
And I’ll finally be with her, I realize. The thing I’ve wanted most since the Vanzadorians returned her in that box.
I close my eyes and try to picture our reunion in the Great Fields Beyond, but the image is blurred and distorted, making it impossible to tell if I’m dissolving into her embrace or shoving her away.
I’m still so furious about her lies and deception—how she manipulated and controlled me—but she isn’t the only one who lied to me.
And I know, deep down, everything she did was out of love.
She was fighting for Tashir and me in the only way she knew how.
We’ll have eternity to mend what was broken and find our way back to each other.
“I won’t leave you,” Delphine says.
“You have to. Think of Cloudia.”
Her eyes well with tears. She holds my gaze for a few excruciating seconds then says, “I’m so sorry, Indira. I wish I could go back and do so many things differently. You weren’t supposed to be so—”
“Go!” I shove her toward the fire.
With a ragged cry, Delphine stumbles forward, screaming as she runs through the smoke and flames.
I send a prayer up to Earth Mother, begging her to protect my friend. Then I wipe my tears on my wrist and return my attention to Alaric, who’s still lying on the ground, shielding his face with his arm.
“Are you going to confess before we die?” I shout over the crackle and whoosh of the fire.
“I have nothing to confess—other than my love for you,” he chokes out.
It’s so sappy and ridiculous, I scream, “Stop it! Just stop with all of these lies and games, and let me die in peace.”
I drop to the ground and lie on my back—making the cave my makeshift funeral pyre.
“What are you doing?” Alaric finally gets up and stomps over, yanking me up by my arm.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I strain against his grip, waving the knife wildly behind me, cursing this infuriating boy who is always complicating everything. “I’d rather die than be part of your tyranny!”
Alaric wrestles the knife from my grip and tucks it into his belt. Then he clutches me tight against his chest. The sweat dripping down my back fuses with his sweat-soaked jacket, cementing us together.
“What are you talking about?” His breath is hot against my ear, even hotter than the fire. “You’re the one who turned on me, remember?”
“Only because you betrayed me first!”
“I never betrayed you!” Alaric tries to yell, but he’s gripped by a violent cough. “Give me the chain, and I’ll get us out of here,” he rasps.
I shake my head. “I’d rather perish.”
“No, you wouldn’t. The bagrava smoke is clearly addling your senses.”
“The cuttings don’t induce hallucinations. They have no magical properties at all!”
Alaric lets out a bewildered laugh that sounds more like a cry. “Please, Indira. You know I deserve to see the memory.” He slides his hand down my arm, grasping for the chain, but his fingers are too slick with sweat to pry mine apart.
“The only thing you deserve is a painful death,” I snarl over my shoulder.
I expect him to hurl equally ugly words back at me, but his voice is unexpectedly gentle when he says, “What about you? What do you deserve, Indira? Is dying for vengeance really what Rowenna would have wanted for you when you could choose to live for something greater?”
I laugh at his audacity. “Rowenna would never consider an alliance with her murderer something greater.”
“What do you think? What do you believe? Aren’t you ready to trust your own instincts and choices? Don’t you want to live your own life instead of skulking around in Rowenna’s shadow? It’s okay to choose yourself. To choose to live. To choose me,” he adds, whisper soft.
I open my mouth to argue, but the smoke strangles me.
At least I tell myself it’s the smoke. The burning in my eyes and chest can’t be tears.
I have no reason to cry, because Alaric’s wrong.
I will never have to choose between my sister and myself because we are two halves of the same whole.
Rowenna’s cause is my cause. She came here and sacrificed everything, trusting I would pick up the pieces, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
It’s what I want to do.
I may have gotten caught up in a few distractions along the way, but I will always choose her—choose us—over everything else.
Alaric will never accept this, though, so I show him what he wants to see—deceiving him how he deceived me.
Summoning my best, most anguished whimper, I melt into him and finally open my shaking fingers. This time, when Alaric reaches for the chain, I let him take it.
As soon as he has the memory, Alaric tucks me against his chest and tears a hole in the back of the cave.
It isn’t smooth and seamless, like the first time I followed him to his hidden memory grove.
Nor is it perfectly controlled, like when he opened the new mine shaft.
This is a bloody gash, ripped open by ravenous claws.
I swear I can feel the earth shudder with pain as we tumble through stone and sediment.
I scream and brace for debris to pummel me.
Crush me. But Alaric shields me with his body, bearing the brunt of the violent collapse.
We tumble out into the frigid dark of the mountaintop, retching and coughing, flames still dancing in my eyes. We lie there, gulping back the clean air, until Alaric says in a scratchy voice, “For a second there, I thought you were really going to choose the fire.”
“Me too,” I say, which makes him chuckle, even though I have never been more serious.
Alaric rolls onto his side, staring at me so adamantly, so fondly, my skin begins to prickle again. I sit up and look away. If I don’t keep my traitorous body in check, I won’t be able to do what needs to be done next.
“I’m still not convinced I made the right choice,” I say archly, and Alaric’s expression immediately sobers.
“Thank you for giving me this chance. I know it wasn’t easy, given what you’ve seen—what you think I’ve done. But I’m sure I’ll be able to explain after I’ve seen the memory.”
“I hope so,” I say, even though I have no intention of listening to any of his convoluted explanations.
Alaric gets to his knees and holds the chain across his open palm. “Do you want to watch it with me?”
I don’t even have to force the shiver that overtakes me. “No, I don’t want to watch my sister die again. I’ll wait over there,” I point to a boulder behind Alaric.
“Of course.” He watches with a patient smile until I’m out of sight.
I press my back against the cold rock and count each thunderous heartbeat, waiting for the golden light to appear.
When it finally blooms around the edges of the boulder, it reminds me of the sun rising over these peaks—gorgeous and glittering, like the dawning of a new day.
Which feels appropriate since this will be the dawning of a new era.
As soon as I hear the far-off strains of Rowenna’s voice, I palm my knife, which I easily snatched back from Alaric’s belt while he saved me from the collapsing cave—then I slip soundlessly out from behind the boulder and slink toward Alaric’s kneeling form.
He looks as small as he did when Delphine and I caught him replaying Besnik’s death. Like a scared little boy, not a murderer. Thankfully, the golden memory is the perfect reminder.
My eyes catch on Rowenna’s face, and I’m torn between wanting to watch it all to strengthen my resolve and the very real fear I might not survive the heartbreak of experiencing her final moments again.
In the end, I look away and focus on the knife in my palm and the rage in my heart as I pad through the scree. When I’m less than a length away, Alaric flinches and lets out a curse, and I silently scream.
My ragged breath and thumping heart must have given me away.
He’s going to whirl around and catch me stalking him like a mountain lion.
He’ll sweep the ground out from under me and kill me like Rowenna.
But several seconds pass, and instead of looking back, Alaric leans forward—further into the memory.
I let out a shaky breath and position myself directly behind him, close enough to feel the warmth of his body and the subtle shake of his shoulders. Close enough to hear burbles escape his throat—almost as if he’s crying.
For half a second, I allow myself to believe they’re tears of regret.
He knows the bone-deep pain of losing a sibling and killed my sister anyway.
But then I gaze into the golden scene and see the vicious expression on memory Alaric’s face as Rowenna empties the gemstone triad into her hand, and my resolve hardens.
Hatred burns like coals in his eyes. His face twists into a cruel smile, reminding me that any regret Alaric feels in this moment is only for himself—because I uncovered his treachery and beat him at his own game.
It’s the final push I need.
As memory Alaric raises his hand to rip the ground out from under my sister, I raise my knife, take a breath, and howl Rowenna’s name as I plunge the blade into his back.