Chapter 52 #2
Those screeches—shrill and raw—were close. Closer than they had been a heartbeat ago. The ground beneath my palms trembled with their approach, vibrations rattling up my bones until they echoed against my ribcage.
I crawled forward, dragging myself as fast as I could, though “fast” was an insult to the word. My movements were slow, every scrape of my palms against the wet stone like fire under my skin. A baby would win a race against me.
Amelia screamed.
My head jerked back violently at the sound, my whole body twisting with it, dragging me back to sit.
My eyes went wide when lightning split the sky open in a crack that seemed to tear the world apart.
For an instant, the forest was drenched in white brilliance, and in that merciless flash I saw them.
More than ten.
Creatures, all sharp limbs and rippling shadows, rushing towards me with a speed so frenzied it was maddening to watch. Their faces twisted in grotesque hunger, their wails piercing enough to shred the silence that followed the thunder.
They were all coming for me.
I scrambled back, palms skidding on the slick earth, my body jolting with every frantic movement. The strange, stolen strength the cave gave me almost made me forget the knife buried in my stomach. Almost.
When the next bolt of lightning forked across the sky, I saw the first creature break free of the shadows, stepping past Amelia and Merton, its gaze fixed on me.
But then, when they got to a point, the creatures wailed a high, keening cry, convulsing, their bodies twisting as flames crackled up from their feet. Their screams bled into the sky as they shrivelled into nothing before they could reach me.
My chest heaved as more came, only to meet the same fate.
I flicked a glance to where I’d left Merton and Amelia, making sure they were safe, before I pushed myself upright.
My legs trembled so hard I almost sank back down, but I stayed standing, one breath at a time.
And when I realised I could take a step — just one — I forced myself forward.
Before crossing the cave’s perimeter, the wound from the ceremonial knife had been a river of blood, crimson bleeding out with every heartbeat. But the instant my foot touched this space, it stopped. The pain, the weakness, everything. My body felt like my own again.
I knew it was a lie. This place wasn’t healing me—it was masking the truth, numbing the agony rather than curing it. A thin veil between me and death. Yet even knowing it was a lie, I clung to it like a lifeline.
Behind me, the creatures screamed and burned, but I didn’t look.
Lightning split the sky, briefly bathing the world in silver light. The cave ahead glowed faintly under its flash—the same as it had the day Kalimetryna died. Nothing had changed, except for the faint shimmer in the stone.
I moved closer, rain dripping from my lashes when a voice split through the storm.
“Sanora!”
I froze.
That voice—deep and thunderous—ripped me apart. My heart cracked, shattered in my chest, because it belonged to Thrax.
Through the torrent, I turned, my vision blurring with tears that mingled freely with the rain on my face.
A part of me wanted nothing more than to run into his arms, to see him, to feel him just once more before the end.
But I knew what that would mean. I didn’t think I could survive watching Thrax break.
If I let him reach me, I would not be able to walk away.
He would not allow me to leave, and I would not have the strength to resist.
Time was running out.
The cave might be masking my weakness, but the knife inside me was still working, draining my life slowly. Any moment now, it would finish its job, and I would die.
So I couldn’t look back.
His voice echoed again, closer this time. “Sanora!”
I shook my head violently, urging my shaky legs forward. Faster. Away from him. He couldn’t meet me here. He mustn’t hold me back.
“Sanora, don’t you dare!”
I have no choice, I wanted to scream, but my voice broke, my tears betraying me as I stumbled towards the mouth of the cave.
“Sanora!”
He was close now. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he’d gotten to where the twins were, and he was closing in rapidly.
I grabbed the slick wall for support as I entered the cave, the knife still lodged inside me, aching dully with every step.
The walls around me glowed faintly, as though stars had been captured and imprisoned within the stone. I followed the path until I reached the place where it had all begun.
Where Kalimetryna had died fourteen centuries and twenty-three years ago.
There, beneath the top of the cave that had broken that day, the rain did not fall. I stood directly under the broken opening, yet not a drop touched me. The storm roared outside, but inside, the sky’s rage was absent.
“Sanora,” Thrax’s voice echoed again. I whipped my head back. “Sanora,” he said, softer this time, quiet and pleading. “Come out, please.”
My brow furrowed. He’s not coming inside?
I traced my steps back, and with another flare of lightning, I saw him at the mouth of the cave, his hand raised against an invisible barrier, striking it hard.
“Sanora, come out. Don’t you dare try that.” His voice was loud with terror and rage. “What makes you think I won’t kill myself the moment I become mortal? Huh? You know it’s pointless without you. Come out of there, Nher.”
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
His hand continued to slam against an unseen wall at the mouth of the cave, the sound unheard. Did the barrier seal him out the moment I entered? Locking me in to avoid interruption?
“Sanora,” his voice turned pleadingly soft again. “If you stay in there too long, you won’t be able to come out again. Come out, please.”
But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
I turned away from him, heart splintering as I tried to shut out his voice—the voice I loved more than life—and forced myself back into the cavern.
In the dream, the ground had been stone. But here, it was sand. I frowned, trying to remember if Kalimetryna had shattered the earth as she burned, but my memories slipped like water.
A pin.
I could see a pin in the ground.
Right where she had lain.
The same pin from centuries ago was in the same spot Thrax had driven it into her, but I hadn’t known it had sunk through her and into the ground.
He had come here for years. Why hadn’t he removed it?
“Sanora, please come out,” his voice begged again.
I blocked him out, kneeling, reaching for the pin. My fingers closed around the cold metal and I pulled, teeth gritted, but it would not yield. My body screamed in protest, dizziness washing over me. Carefully, without dislodging the knife in me, I sank into the sand and sat.
Any second now and I would shut down. I could feel it.
Tears blurred my vision as I blocked out Thrax’s relentless pleading and pulled harder.
With everything I had.
Pain ripped through me, but I didn’t let go. I dragged every last fragment of strength from my dying body, tears burning my eyes, until finally—finally—it shifted. Barely.
A cry tore from my throat as it continued to move, slowly and agonisingly. Blood gushed from my wound with the effort, spilling down my shirt as a wet cough exploded from my chest, crimson flying everywhere.
The instant my blood touched the floor, the pin shot free, flinging me backward. Last minute, I managed to hold myself from landing on my back, stunned.
My blood was the key.
My blood had released it.
I stared at the base of the pin. The part buried in the ground was rotten and corroded. Not silver, but blackened, eaten away, though the shaft above still gleamed silver.
I didn’t know if it was because of the time it had spent buried in there or if it had something to do with why Thrax had been coming here all these years?
Either way, I didn’t wait to think.
I lay down, in the exact place Kalimetryna had.
I had no clue how this worked, but nothing exactly screamed I was doing the wrong thing. And if this pin could take a life, maybe it could give one back.
Maybe it could give life to Thrax.
Tears streamed down my face as I let his voice in. I let it be the last sound I heard. His voice was a tide pulling me under—begging, breaking, threatening to drag me back to life himself and kill me all over again, then pleading again, whispering he couldn’t live without me.
I can’t live knowing I did nothing to help you, I wanted to say, but blood filled my throat, cutting off air, cutting off words.
In that moment, a strange peace washed over me. His voice—even angry—was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. I clung to it, smiling weakly, because if this was the last thing I heard, then at least it was him.
I lifted the pin.
Thrax’s voice broke against the barrier behind me, pleading with a desperation that shredded my heart.
With shaking hands slick with blood, I angled it to my own body. My grip faltered once, twice, but I forced myself steady.
Ours is a fate that’s already been written, and we cannot successfully run from it even if we try.
“Sanora!” His roar splintered through me, a thunderclap of grief.
And then I pressed it in, feeling its cold bite pierce through flesh and soul alike.
There was no pain, no agony. All I could feel was bliss, an unearthly calm that seeped into me, soft and consuming, until it felt as though every fracture inside me was mended. And briefly, I wondered if that was what had made Kalimetryna smile so peacefully on the day she died.
I understood now. I could relate.
As the world bled away, distant and soft, the cave walls blazed to life, glowing with a brilliance that swallowed the darkness whole. It was as though the stars themselves had fallen into the stone, lighting my final moments with a beauty too fierce to belong to this world.
And it was beautiful.
With my last breath, I let the glow wash through me, let it carry my love, my sacrifice, across the barrier to where he stood. And though my lips no longer moved, my heart whispered the one thing I desperately wanted for him.
Live.
I could have imagined it, but as I let the light claim me, I heard a voice, one that unmistakably belonged to Kalimetryna.
“Now, it’s time to live your life.”