Chapter Thirteen
A good destiny has been planned for you, but you must travel the right roads to live it.
I knew the exact moment the healing heat ceased holding feeders at bay.
It began with the slightest cooling deep inside.
As soon as I noticed it, the feeders did as well.
They tightened the path, edging closer, their worms slithering so fast it looked as if the tiny creatures danced to the beat of frenzied music.
We’d made it to the heart of a once-magnificent city, its cracked pavement overtaken by more of those creeping thorny vines and tufts of weeds that had pushed through the fissures.
Long, fat worms without feeders to host them spiraled around the posts of faded, leaning street signs.
Broken glass and scattered debris crunched underfoot, remnants of a once-jubilant time.
Beneath the rasp of my panting breaths, I thought I detected echoes of distant laughter and lively conversations.
A travesty, considering the circumstances.
More and more infected caged us in, blocking everything but the skeletal remains of mismatched buildings fused with those from Ourland that loomed on either side. Their shattered windows tempted me to herd our group inside, if only for a reprieve from the gnawing hunger projected at us.
“Cyrus,” I croaked.
“I know.” He dispersed various weapons to me, and I passed them to the others. “Trainees, take the pritis stones from your pockets. Each has a hook. Your armor has little fasteners over your vital organs. Hook the stones there.”
He didn’t have to say it, but I comprehended things were about to go nuclear. Unease charged the rot-infested air as Winslet and the lord-in-training obeyed, small circles of light appearing here and there.
“W-what about you and Roosa?” Winslet asked.
“I’ll be fine without the stones,” I piped up, the words springing from my mouth without thought. Uh, I would?
A moment passed. “We’ll both be fine,” Cyrus concurred, albeit reluctantly.
One feeder stepped closer, almost brushing against me as I passed him. I gulped. Wouldn’t be long now.
“On my signal,” Cyrus announced, “we fight to kill.”
A shudder rocked me. A choked noise left the lord-in-training.
“Y-yes, sir,” Winslet said.
Domino appeared from thin air. “There’s a problem.”
I yelped, causing panic in my fellow trainees. Winslet fired off a shot, nailing a feeder in the shoulder. He didn’t fall, but he did jerk and growl, stalking after us as we continued.
“Was that the signal?” she demanded, swinging her gun this way and that, ready to launch another shot.
“No,” I said, setting my eyes on the librarian. How I hated his updates. He had yet to arrive with good news.
“I decoded a portion of my book,” Domino said. “Without divine intervention, you’ll be the only survivor. The glowers who remain in this world can’t help. Priority one is dismantling the invisible barrier CURED placed around the fruit field.”
So we were on our own. My heart thudded as I motioned for the librarian to tell me the rest. There was more, guaranteed. How would I survive but no one else?
“There’s a sole path to victory, keeping you all alive.” From his expression to his stride, iron control descended over him. “You must ingest your piece of the Rock.”
That didn’t sound so bad. Like Cyrus had said, it would give me strength. So why the attitude?
Though I wanted to ask that and a thousand other questions, I stayed silent and dug the piece from my pocket. Unlike the crumbles I’d ingested before, this one was completely solid with no give. Although, in the warmth of my hand, the stone softened, becoming malleable.
More feeders stepped closer to us, growing as gleeful as the laughter I’d heard.
“If you do this, you will alter your fate,” the librarian said, solemn. “You’ll walk a new path, and there’ll be no going back to the old one.”
I stiffened. Now that sounded ominous, as if I’d been on a great road, and I would suddenly find myself on a route fraught with unimaginable horrors. “Explain,” I mouthed.
His gaze darted for a split second. “We will be bound together, you and I.”
Okay, what did that even mean? Marriage? I sputtered, trying to form a refusal.
He acted as if he’d heard my thoughts. “Our connection will run deeper than a marriage. To defeat this many feeders, you need the skill of a librarian, and I’m the only one willing to aid you in such a way. The only one with permission, as you heard Ember give me.”
A valid explanation, yet I still struggled to understand, especially since his somber tenor revealed his reluctance. He didn’t wish to do this, and yet he intended to do it, anyway.
Wants you for his own.
Tremors rocked me on my feet. How would my brand-new boyfriend react to a full-on bond with the librarian he’d asked me to ditch? I couldn’t, wouldn’t, do that to Cyrus. We’ll find another way.
“There isn’t another way to save him,” Domino stated, again reading my thoughts. “The passage in my book was clear. Doing this is the only chance he has. Yes, you might lose him anyway, but that will be his decision, not yours.” He canted his head. “Shall we proceed, Arden?”
Yes. No. Indecision tore at me. I needed time to think but so few seconds remained.
“Why?” I mouthed. He risked his own future, and it couldn’t be for the reason Cyrus had suggested.
“I’ve seen ahead.” He lifted his chin. “You . . . matter to me.”
In a mentor/mentee way, right? Surely. The same way he mattered to me. But if the situation were reversed, I couldn’t say I would create a mystical bond with him.
“Get ready,” the high prince stated. “As I count down from ten, move away from each other.”
We’d run out of time.
Cyrus glanced at me, his resolve severe. “Whatever you must do to survive, do it. I don’t care what it is, Lady Pink. Survive,” he repeated.
“Same, sugar bear. Same.” Very well. Decision made. I glanced at Domino and nodded. We shall proceed.
Projecting no emotion, he waved his hand in a bid for me to do what needed doing.
Bottoms up. I hesitated a split second before tossing the piece of the Rock into my mouth and gulping. Only then, after it was done, did I realize I’d maybe kinda sorta, like, consumed part of a god. Did I regret it, though? Not even a little bit.
I waited, uncertain, nervous, and hopeful. One second passed. Two. No change, other than a slight twinge of yearning for what could’ve been. How long until something happened?
“Sheathe the guns. Withdraw a short sword and the injector,” Domino instructed.
Though I trembled, I obeyed, tightening my fingers around the hilts of each weapon.
Cyrus began the countdown. “Ten. Nine. Eight.”
With each new number, we increased the distance between us.
Our audience threw back their heads and released a chorus of shrieks and pops bubbling with anticipation.
“Tell me when you feel it,” Domino shouted over the noise.
Feel what?
“Five. Four. Three,” Cyrus continued.
The heat faded completely, leaving me frozen.
“One,” the high prince shouted and launched into action.
Perfect timing. The feeders launched into action, too, swarming us.
Winslet and the other trainee didn’t hesitate.
They fired off shot after shot as Cyrus and I struck down anyone within striking distance.
In a constant stream of motion, I slashed, stabbed, and swung, pressing the button on my dagger when applicable, causing an explosion inside my victims, ending their lives. Muscles stretched and burned.
When I ran out of CO2, I replaced the dagger with my other short sword.
My blades chopped and sliced through necks, shoulders, torsos, and ankles.
Wherever I struck, destruction followed.
Blood spurted from their severed arteries.
War sounds laced the air. But no matter what we did, or how many we felled, the feeders kept coming.
More and more and more. An unceasing stream.
They swiped at us, snapped their teeth, and crowded us.
But, still, I felt no different. Well, other than the eruption of sharp stings and pangs caused by fresh injuries.
The librarian flickered in and out of view, all but pawing at the ground, ready to be tagged into the fight.
Multiple feeders crashed into Cyrus, taking him down.
“No,” I screamed, slicing through one combatant after another. Fear overtook me, and there was no stopping it.
Cyrus fought his way free with few injuries and sprang to his feet, leaving dead feeders on the ground. Thank goodness. But . . .
Seeing blood stream down his face did something to me. Cracked something wide open in my chest, releasing . . . not a tide of fury but something like it. Something hotter. Stronger. The fear evaporated. How dare they?
It was then. That moment. Sparks ignited, spreading from my heart to my head until an inferno raged. The flames ate up everything in their path, and I no longer had to wonder what Domino had meant. “Now,” I called.
In a blink, the librarian whooshed through the horde of opponents and slammed into me. I gasped. He stayed put . . . as if I hosted him?
The heat I’d experienced before was nothing compared to what I experienced now.
I was enveloped. Engulfed and devoured. And yet, I remained perfectly safe.
Because suddenly, Domino and I were connected, not two people, but one super being.
His power flowed through my veins, my limbs, not overtaking me but fueling me.
His instincts undergirded mine. We moved with perfect synchrony, gliding from cluster to cluster, eliminating multiple feeders at once.
Hot blood wet my clothes and skin as the bodies of my enemies fell, minus their heads or various parts.
My speed astounded. My elegance thrilled.
I dodged stray shots taken by the trainees, who had forgotten how to work as a team.
I, however, predicted their actions and contorted accordingly while simultaneously dodging blows from the feeders.