Chapter Six Sylas #2
Speaking was a big mistake, because Crooked Voice uses my distraction to throw a punch at my side, sending me flying into the second poacher.
This one wastes no time, kicking me in the shins.
I keel over, holding my side. The one behind me kicks me with the strength of two hammers.
If Railesza doesn’t come back soon, I won’t be able to move.
Raiek will keep me alive, but he doesn’t heal injuries.
Crooked Voice laughs. “Did daddy dearest take away your fight when he died?”
My rage simmers; it studies my enemies, bides its time. Crooked Voice was part of the unit who killed Dad. I have a chance to avenge my father, and I will not miss.
I reach for another dagger from my right boot and stab into the second poacher’s leg. He wails, falling backward. I seize the first dagger, flip around on my stomach, throw it straight at the third poacher. It sinks into his chest, and the man falls into the water with a splash.
Crooked Voice’s eyes widen.
“If you don’t pull him out, he’ll drown,” I say, as I pull myself up.
He bares his teeth. “He’s just some low rank.” He throws his knife in the water without looking away from me, his relic earring glowing as his blade finds its mark. Unlike us, poachers have no qualms sacrificing their underlings to fuel their magic.
He draws another knife and dives straight at me.
It happens so fast I pull him down with me in my tumble.
Somewhere along the scuffle, he drops his weapon, and his hands reach for my neck, trying to pry open the Imortalis.
He’s distracted. Seizing the moment, I knee him in the stomach.
He recoils. I throw a punch, and it lands on his jaw.
He returns two blows to my abdomen, and my vision blurs.
I see the silhouette of another knife. The world darkens, and I only feel the rip across my shoulder.
Fight, Sylas. My father’s voice echoes again.
But I have no fight left. The poacher drives his fist into the cut, and I scream.
He pins me down with his knee, and I look around desperately.
A glint of the moon on metal catches my eyes.
I stretch my hand as far as I can, until my fingers feel the cold of the blade.
Once I have a firm grip on the hilt, I drive the knife straight into Crooked Voice’s back.
He howls. I gather whatever strength I can and kick him off.
At the same time, Railesza slithers up my arms, fangs sinking into my veins.
Cool relief washes over me, and I welcome it like a traveler tasting his first drop of water after an endless trek in the Farbon Desert.
My vision sharpens; my limbs regain feeling.
Railesza’s venom eases my pain until it stops.
“Thank you,” I rasp.
My green aspier hisses, before coiling herself around my arm.
I push myself up. Crooked Voice lies in front of me, groaning in pain as Raiku unhooks his fangs from his arm—the poison will take its sweet time.
Then my aspier slithers to the other poacher curled in a fetal position, moaning while holding his leg.
Raiku hovers around his neck, and a single bite later, the moan stops, and the man goes limp.
I crouch next to Crooked Voice’s face. “Who do you work for?” More groans of agony, but no reply.
“Why did you ambush me four months ago?” I ask.
He struggles to speak. “Kill me.”
He would rather die than betray his kind; I respect the loyalty, but I don’t forgive it.
“Kill me,” he rasps again, coughing up blood.
“No,” I say. “I’m not going to kill you. You don’t deserve a quick death.” He mumbles something I don’t care to decode.
“You deserve worse,” I say as I walk away, leaving him to simmer with Raiku’s venom. He’ll die, unless someone comes for him. And even if he survives, he will never speak again, never move again, never kill anyone again.
Raiku crawls to a small bunch of purple leaves farther from us. The Purple Bittercress. I snap it up, and offer my wrist to my black aspier, but he stills, his tongue flicking, his head reaching for something east of us.
The scream comes seconds after.
My legs move before my mind processes what I’ve heard. Lyria’s voice. Then complete silence.
Raiku glides across the dirt, guiding me to her. I don’t know how fast I’m running, but my lungs burn, and pain blooms in my legs. Yet there’s no sign of my sister.
It smells like burned skin, salt and cedar, and my stomach churns half in horror half in panic. I follow the scent, pausing to let Raiku slither around my ankle. The closer I approach, the tighter my insides twist.
The trees start humming again, a somber song of death.
Not Lyria. No, not Lyria. Please.
In the crook of a large trunk, my sister kneels, her arms around her middle. She’s crying, hurt maybe, but she’s alive. I breathe out. She’s alive.
Railesza slides off me, but she stops shy of Lyria. I look down, and I can’t breathe. My body is a shell, no longer my own, and my mind races in a million directions.
Beau lies in front of her, his clothes torn and soaked in blood.
I kneel beside him, feel for a pulse, find nothing, and start pumping his chest. Railesza moves around his wounds, biting several places along his veins, and I ease on the compressions. She will save him, like she saved me.
I don’t know how long I stay there doing compressions, but eventually, Lyria’s delicate hands grab mine, lifting them from Beau.
I look at her puffy, red eyes and her mud-stained face.
Fresh blood cakes the side of her neck, her clothes, and the arm where her aspier sits.
Her head shakes so gently as she squeezes my palms.
I try to jerk my hands away, but she holds them still. Does she not understand that I have to continue the compressions? Beau will die if I don’t.
“Sylas,” my sister croaks. Her words die on her lips, because she starts sobbing the moment her eyes fall on Beau.
My chest constricts again, and breathing becomes unbearable.
It’s impossible. Railesza’s healing is unparalleled; she draws magic from the Imortalis.
Beau will wake up soon, and we’ll laugh about it at dinner tonight.
“Sylas.” Again, her small voice cuts through the string of hope I refuse to let go.
“No.” I shake my head. “No.”
I run my fingers across Beau’s neck, feeling for any sign of life. Nothing. Railesza switches veins three more times, trying to heal the open wounds, but it doesn’t work. There’s nothing to be healed.
The trees have moved, seemingly to give Beau one last look at the moon.
But even the glow of the moon cannot hide the dulling of his bright blue eyes—eyes that will never blink at me in surprise again.
I rest my hand on his clenched fists on his abdomen, and something soft brushes against my skin.
Clutched in his hand is a single white flower, sprayed with red.
Then the grief I’ve so carefully tucked away for the past months swallows me whole.