Chapter Eleven #2
My mind blipped when over twenty of my allies appeared in the skyline. They flew through the clouds, their golden robes somehow acting as wings as they arrowed down upon the battlefield. They were at one with the wind and as majestic as the berries.
Landing with ease, they sprinted across the ground, never missing a beat.
Their robes appeared liquid as the material settled in place, the light radiating from their skin shimmering through the fabric.
The only weapons they brandished were swords.
But then, they didn’t need anything else. As they swung, the blades caught fire.
I struggled not to stare. One day, I would learn how to create a fire-sword, and I couldn’t wait.
Feeders converged upon them en masse, even leaving behind fallen CURED soldiers in favor of attacking the glowers. Like flies drawn to light.
CURED’s forces focused on the glowers too. Gunshots exploded through the night.
The glowers ducked and dodged, expertly swinging those flaming swords.
Lolli fought her way through the throng, hacking at feeders left and right, aiming for the glowers. I pumped my arms faster, coming up behind her. When she reached the front lines, she lifted her gun.
Determined, I bumped her shoulder with my own. She stumbled as she squeezed the trigger, the green bullet grazing a glower’s side. Phew! Not a kill shot.
Before I could interrupt, Lolli fired off another round. This one the glower avoided on his own, jumping out of the way. But only a second later, he went statue still, as if frozen in place. Because of the bullet?
Feeders rushed to him, eager to dine, but other glowers served as shields. The remaining glowers attacked the soldiers nearest the berries. Or tried to. They slammed into an invisible barrier and bounced back, toppling to the ground and writhing.
Perplexed and concerned, I cut down a feeder and followed Lolli toward another glower. Grunts and groans provided a chorus for more rounds of gunfire. Something exploded in the distance, a waft of thicker smoke sweeping over the terrain.
In the ensuing pandemonium, I spotted Archduke Heta. He wielded a spear with incredible speed, unrelenting elegance, and zero mercy. Feeders fell around him in piles. A trainee trailed him, finishing off those he injured.
There was Roman and High Prince Summit, moving in sync as if they’d been partners for years. Both men grinned, gleeful as they slayed their enemy.
My stomach and heart traded places when I spotted Cyrus.
There he was, living poetry as he sliced through feeders with lethal grace.
He was a Grim Reaper without equal . . .
until Miller got in his way. Cyrus jumped to avoid a collision and rammed into a feeder, who swiped its claws across his throat.
“No!” Forgetting everything else, I sprinted over.
A hard weight slammed into me from behind, shoving me down. Air abandoned my lungs in a rush, my goggles flew off my face, and I lost my grip on a sword.
Too-bright light blinded me. A high-pitched ring filled my ears, drowning out all other noise.
The feeder who’d tackled me didn’t suffer from any of the same problems. She clawed at my back.
Searing agony overwhelmed me, but I twisted.
As I held her off with one hand, I unsheathed a dagger with the other.
Though my world spun, I stab, stab, stabbed until she went limp. Cold fluid wet my hand.
Huffing and puffing, I pushed the motionless body off and scrambled to my feet. A mistake. I tripped over a severed limb and fell again, crashing into a pool of blood. Wanting to vomit, I lumbered into an upright position and blinked.
The too-bright light faded at last. I expected the darkness to return. Instead, I saw colors.
No, I saw everything.
My breath caught. I did. I saw the world around me with perfect clarity.
Miles of dirt, littered with both fallen and standing statues.
Winding roads made of crumbling gold bricks.
The mass of feeders, with heads full of slithering worms. The glowers fighting them off.
The CURED soldiers who now focused solely on felling the glowers.
The field of berries. The invisible but shimmering wall the glowers hadn’t yet breached.
Carnival rides in the distance one way, a massive crystal castle in the other—the home of Cyrus’s grandfather, as well as Astan, the true leader of CURED.
I inwardly cringed. The same shadows I’d noticed at Fort Bala slithered around its steepled roof.
I didn’t understand this. How . . . why . . . Domino appeared a few feet away from me, there but not there, a vein bulging in his forehead as he seemed to shout with all his might.
The ring in my ears dulled at last, new sounds hitting my awareness. All the grunts, groans, and shrill screams. Every pop of gunfire. Laughter from Mallow, who led Merlot through the fray while spraying bullets with his automatic assault rifle.
Domino’s furious voice rose above the noise. “You were told. Do not leave Lolli. You were told,” he repeated, practically spitting fire.
Cringing, I covered my ears. As panting breaths sawed between my lips, I scanned the battlefield. Cyrus, Cyrus, where was Cyrus? I’d already messed up and disobeyed the librarian’s command. Now, I wanted only to find the future king and make sure he was okay.
Felix and Winslet worked together against a glower—Ember!
They brawled with Ember. As she swung her flaming sword, Felix spun behind a feeder, using the infected one as a shield.
Ember’s fiery weapon cut through him, and his knees buckled.
The high prince seized his opportunity, shoving the slain one into her, knocking her down. He readied to deliver an ending strike.
Nearby, Merlot miscalculated a blow and paid the ultimate price, quickly taken down by three feeders.
Mallow didn’t notice, but Felix did. With a scowl, he left the fallen Ember behind in favor of rushing to the trainee, but he was too late.
The maddened had already ripped out many of her vital organs.
No, no, no. I climbed to my feet, ready to fly into action. To do something. Anything. But. My neck. My face. The burn of my injuries contrasted with the ice forming in my veins. My limbs trembled, growing heavier.
Felix returned to battle, but Ember was long gone. He took out his annoyance on a different glower. A man not quite as skilled but faster. Lolli fired a green bullet at the guy and missed.
“Where’s Cyrus?” I demanded of Domino.
“You were told,” he repeated. “Do not go near the high prince.”
“I get it. This is my fault. Where’s Cyrus?” I caught sight of Miller, drilling through feeders, and my pulse leaped. Cyrus must be nearby. I started forward, but every step proved a greater lesson in agony.
Raucous sounds drew my attention to the left.
Four feeders advanced on me, closing in.
They ghosted through Domino, not even realizing he was there, and I palmed a dagger.
The moment they were in striking distance, I slashed, slashed, slashed.
Ducked, twisted, and slashed some more. Ducked, kicked.
Spun. Two went down. Two to go. Oops. Wrong. Five others rushed over.
I took down another, then hobbled a fourth. A fifth. My breaths turned choppy, and my motions slowed. Energy waned, new cuts draining me faster. Weakness spread until remaining on my feet required every bit of strength I possessed. Still I fought. Must find Cyrus.
“A high prince is dead, fall back, fall back.” The cry came from Summit as he herded soldiers toward a fleet of waiting vans.
No! He couldn’t mean Cyrus. He couldn’t. But there was no sign of my boyfriend anywhere. “Cyrus,” I screamed.
Another contingent of glowers arrived on the battlefield. Domino waved them closer with almost frantic insistence.
Boom!
Sharp pain sliced through my midsection, and my entire body jerked. Blood rushed up my throat, choking me. Shocked, I pressed my palm to my abdomen, right against the source of my anguish. A gaping, gushing hole.
Lolli stood across the way, a gun in hand, the barrel aimed at me. Streaked with scarlet, she peered at me.
She had . . . shot me?
As she rushed off, I gasped for air I couldn’t quite capture and looked down. Wet crimson soaked my armor, leaking through the hole in the material. Oh, yes. She’d most definitely shot me.
My knees buckled, and down I went. Upon impact, my brain rattled, and my vision blurred.
“Cyrus survived,” I heard the librarian snarl, “but you might not. If you die—do not die, Arden. Do you understand me?”
“Help him, please,” I commanded. Or tried to.
My voice frayed at the edges as blood continued to flood my throat.
The ring in my ears started up again, dull at first but building to a piercing shriek.
Panic sparked again, and this time, I couldn’t tamp it down.
It became a wildfire that consumed my every thought.
I couldn’t breathe. I needed to breathe.
I thought I heard the librarian shouting orders to help me as icy cold invaded my fingers and toes, swiftly spreading up my limbs. Something slapped at my body, and I laughed without humor. Had feeders come to finish me off?
Suddenly, Cyrus appeared in my line of vision.
Concern dominated his features, and blood streaked his skin.
His lips moved, but I heard nothing he said.
When he vanished, I whimpered. Come back!
Then hands slapped at me again, and I realized he was ripping off my shirt and pulling first aid supplies from my plethora of pockets. Domino loomed behind him.
Cyrus pried my lips apart and shoved something metal into my mouth. A terrible pressure sucked the liquid from my throat. Suddenly I could breathe again, the ring fading.
“—live, do you hear me?” he was shouting.
My vision cleared just in time to watch a feeder swipe at him. He paused his ministrations only long enough to shoot the intruder in the face. A quick slash of his sword finished the creature off, then he was back to administering medical aid.
“You’re going to be okay.” He worked hard and fast, forced to pause a few more times to kill an enemy. “You had better be okay.”
I drifted in and out of consciousness, each time drawn back by .
. . something. A faceless someone. A presence who wouldn’t let me step over into the abyss.
At some point, I noticed the glowers fighting around us, keeping crowds of the infected at bay.
Though Cyrus finished cleaning and sealing my wound, he didn’t leave me to rejoin the fray.
“She lost too much blood,” he bellowed. “Get Ember. Ember!”
Domino vanished, and time ceased to matter. Minutes, hours, and years passed, yet Ember arrived only seconds later. She, too, was streaked with blood. Cuts marred her face, and one of her eyes was swollen shut.
“Heal her,” Cyrus demanded as Ember knelt at my side to look me over.
The librarian reappeared, and I would swear the freckles near his eye glittered, creating the half circle I’d mentally drawn the first time I noticed the marks.
“She was warned—” Ember began.
“You will do this, Ember,” Domino commanded at the same time Cyrus roared, “I told her she’d be okay out here. Will you make me a liar?”
My pain was dulling fast, thoughts floating away on a sea of nothingness. The gloom returned to cover my mind, creeping into my awareness.
The glower flattened her palm where my heartbeat fluttered too fast and too light.
Heat seeped from her. A speck at first, but it quickly grew.
Hotter and hotter, soon dispersing. Pain returned with a vengeance, and a scream burst from me.
My spine arched, then flattened, the pain gone as quickly as it had begun. I sagged over the ground, panting.
“I’m good, I’m good,” I croaked.
Ember sagged over me, and Domino snarled, “Ember is drained. She’ll be out of commission for weeks when we need her most. All you had to do was listen to me.”
Guilt pricked me, sharp and sure. I’d never seen the librarian so furious.
Another glower rushed over to gather Ember in his arms and hold her protectively against his chest. The same glower who’d accompanied Domino the day I’d interacted with Mykal.
“Do not ask her to do this again,” he growled at both Domino and Cyrus.
He didn’t wait for a response but carried the unconscious glower away. Many others followed them.
With a hand under my nape, Cyrus helped me sit up. “You able to stand, Pink?”
“I think so.” My gaze flicked to Domino, but the librarian had already disappeared. I winced. Bet he couldn’t stand to look at me. I’d done the one thing he’d asked me not to.
“Good. Because we have a journey ahead of us. We’ve got to get to the castle on foot as fast as possible. It’s closer than the base. CURED released more feeders to combat the glowers. It’s about to be hundreds against two.”
My stomach churned. “We can’t go to the castle.” Astan was there. I gripped his armor. “Please, Cyrus.”
He pursed his lips. “Very well. We’ll head to the base. Let’s go.”