Chapter 26
Stale air hits my face as I stumble out into my old bedroom.
I pause for half a second, barely recognizing my surroundings.
There are no branches forking across the walls, here.
No magic thickening the air, no fireflies spinning lazy corkscrews.
Just colorless furnishings and the Book of Disciplines, collecting dust on my side table.
My eyes pass over it, uncaring. I shout again, my voice fracturing around my sister’s name, but only silence answers. Stillness.
My heartbeat sputters. When I look back through the door, Amriel lies so still—dying or dead, I can’t be sure. Goddess, but I need Carina more than I’ve needed anything. Except I can’t let go of this knob. If this door closes, there’s no going back.
I muster every fiber of strength, fashion them into a scream. “Carina!”
Something ruptures inside me—my throat or my heart or my soul—but my sister doesn’t answer. No one does.
My frantic gaze flits to the window. Outside, pale sunshine floods the sky, and I realize.
The temple.
My family has gone to pray, or will have soon.
My throat closes up. If they’ve already left, I have no chance. But Carina lingers on the floor below sometimes, waiting for Brynne and Evelyn to join her. If she’s there right now, standing by the window…
I scan for something to prop the door with. I can wedge it open and race down to the landing, find Carina and bring her back.
It’s my only hope.
My eyes slide across the Book of Disciplines again, then snap back.
That should be heavy enough. I release the door just long enough to dart toward across the room and pluck the book off the side table, then race back before the portal can close.
I catch the door and wedge the book haphazardly against the jamb before stepping back.
The door stands open. Velindra still shimmers on the other side.
Now I just need my sister.
I race from my room and down the hall, my steps thudding against the floorboards. The corridor flashes past, and then I’m careening down the stairs. Down, down, down…
I nearly run right into her. Carina stands on the landing, gazing out the window, a faint smile curving her mouth. Her hair has grown, a silky brown cap that encases her scalp.
Relief screams through me, driving me to my knees, and I skid to a stop at her feet. I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life.
She turns, looks down at me with widened eyes.
“Carina, you have to help me.” I paw at her stiff gray skirts. “Please. You have to save him. Heal him.”
The color drains from her cheeks, but… Why isn’t she moving? Why isn’t she running?
“Sariah…?” she says around a frown. “Is that…you?”
My brow puckers. Of course it’s me. “Please. He’s dying, and he needs you. I need you.”
She presses a hand to her mouth, her fingers trembling against her lips. “Sariah, you’re… Your hair. And…your clothes. What even are those? And…Ishanna’s breath, what happened? What did Amriel do to you?”
I stare up, caught in the whirlpool of her eyes. What did he do to me? What did he do? He opened my mind. Showed me how big the world can be. Showed me everything.
Whatever he did, I need him to keep doing it.
“He made me fall in love,” I choke out. “But now he’s dying, and I need you to heal him. Please. Please. I’ll never ask you for anything again, if you’ll just do this for me.”
Stark shock moves across her face. I edge closer, my hands clasped in supplication, the same stance we use for prayer. It’s blasphemy to appeal to her this way, but I don’t care. In this moment, she’s my goddess. The one with the power to grant me peace or despair, as she wishes.
Not Ishanna. If Ishanna even exists.
“Please,” I say, my voice breaking into pieces. This one word seems to be all I have left. “Please. Please.”
A frozen moment passes in which I’m sure she’ll refuse, but to my relief, she nods. Faintly, and without conviction, but it’s enough.
A cry bursts from my chest. I spring up, taking her by the hand and pulling her up the stairs.
We fly, yet every moment lasts a lifetime. The passing moments collapse to a whirl of swishing skirts and straining limbs. Of frantic footsteps. Sunlight glaring off the metal sconces lining the corridor.
I run, Carina’s hand folded firmly in mine. Her fingers feel so thin, so delicate, but they hold the power to remake my world.
We round the corner and burst into my room, where I stagger to a stop. The slap of my boots echoes against the floorboards, heavy with finality.
No.
No.
No.
The door is gone, the Book of Disciplines toppled, its open pages staring upward. Betrayal gushes through me, because Ishanna and her Book have failed me even in this. Now Amriel is miles away, dying on the ground. Alone and in pain, when that was the one thing he didn’t want.
My knees hit the floor, then my hands. Pain ricochets through tendon and bone, but it isn’t enough. I want to hurt like Amriel does. I want the gaping wound scissoring through my chest to swallow me completely.
Gasp after gasp fills my lungs, but nothing relieves the spots dancing in my vision. A cruel hand wraps around my throat and squeezes, and—
“Sariah?” Carina shifts beside me. “What’re we doing? How do I get there? Not the same way you did, right?”
I turn my head and blink at her. Blink again. The same way I did? The same—
Goddess help me.
In the next second, my hand is in my pocket, pulling out my gyre. I still have one ring left. A one-way trip for a single person.
I crawl toward my sister, thrusting the gyre into her hands. She takes it, but her eyes flare as she backs away. She handles the instrument like it might burn her.
“Think about Amriel,” I blurt, my voice scraped raw. “You’ve met him. You remember. Just think about him, and nothing else. He’s on the ground, in front of a castle, in Velindra, and I need you to think, Carina. Think about going to where he is.”
Her bottom lip trembles as the gyre flares, that single functional ring spinning, leaking light.
I shuffle closer, too weak to stand. The gyre is only meant to take someone to Velindra from the Wildwood, not all the way from Aethrolia, but it’s not that much farther, and I have to believe this will work.
I pile all my hope into a single, splintered plea.
“Please. Save him. Make him live. I’ll do anything. ”
The gyre’s whine pitches higher. Carina whimpers, her eyes finding mine. She thrusts out the gyre. “Sariah, no. I’m sorry, but I can’t—”
The air detonates. The whole room shakes. I pitch forward, my fingers pressing into the cold wooden floor.
I stay like that for long moments. Long enough to swallow the sobs marshaling in my chest. To remember how to breathe.
When I look up again, Carina is gone.