Chapter 32 Foreshadowing #3
The air was too thin, too weak for her withering lungs. An exhausted cramp stabbed into her ribcage, but Em fought on.
Roden’s counterblows were clumsy, sweat beading along his brow.
His ankles almost gave out from under him as he struggled to keep space between them.
The guiding magic of Destiny’s Song kept her on the offensive, leaving him in desperate defense against her wild flurries.
His nostrils flared, breathing heavy. This was nothing like the cunning, agile opponent she’d fought in the Yarros Arena.
With a flick and a jab, Em twirled and ripped Roden’s weapon from his hands. She aimed the tip of her blade right toward his chest.
He held his hands out in innocence. The whites of his eyes grew.
Em stalked closer, and the warmth of his body overshadowed her. She’d already stabbed one companion today; what difference did it make if she impaled a second?
The sharpness of his jawline, the glimmer in his violet eyes reflected the sunny skies over them, and the subtle aroma of pine he carried filled her senses. She remembered how large his callused hands were compared to hers when they danced at the Fae Masquerade—
Shit. Em shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut to erase the intoxicating presence of him. Not now.
Her cliché plotline tugged at her again, tempting her to meet his pleading gaze, to embrace the heat building in her belly. She gritted her teeth and poked the tip of her blade against his sternum.
“Em?” Roden’s breath caught, shaky under the threat of her bloodied sword.
She met his eyes this time, matching his hardening glare.
“Stand down, Roden Trislee.”
“Stop this at one,” a third voice challenged.
Em glanced over her raised arms, Gair’s bow and arrow aimed at her from across the street. Behind him, past the flow of his indigo ranger cape, Ming and Polo watched her with pure fear. Any hope of their alliance slipped away as sweat trickled down her spine.
Sasha’s moan, followed by a thump, caught everyone’s attention.
The dryad collapsed, blood spewing from her.
Em’s vision clouded at the gory sight of the other girl.
“Check on her,” Gair ordered Ming. Without a second thought, the mentor-in-training rushed to Sasha’s side with Polo hot on her heels.
Em surveyed between Roden and Gair’s piercing glares, a soup of panic boiling into her veins.
Where she once burned with fury, now the weight of her damnable choices crashed down on her.
The creased curl of Gair’s sneer, the bowstring resting along his freckled cheek, the sharp shaft aimed toward her.
In one release of his gloved hands, Em would be dead.
“I needed Inky,” the words bled from her mouth the same way the red trickled from her stinging wrist. “It told me if I don’t write Novella’s time, weather, or anything about the world…
everything will fall apart… if I don’t… Gair, please, I don’t have a choice…
I’m trying to save everything… save us…”
“Sasha’s dead!” Ming’s shout cut Em’s pleas short. Her heart skipped a beat. “She doesn’t have a pulse! Her spirit’s left her human form.”
No. Em tried to risk glancing toward Sasha’s corpse again. Red smeared across her vision, heating her woozy gut.
“I hope you’re happy, princess,” Roden growled. Her attention tore back towards him, and she pressed her sword a little harsher against his chest, earning a hissed flinch from him. A bead of maroon rose along his skin.
“Put the sword down, Em.” Gair’s arms barely flexed. A quiet creak whined off his shifting bow as he tightened the aimed arrow. “And we can solve this mess.”
“Gair, please… I just need to fix Inky…”
“Now!” Gair’s fingers whitened along his grip.
Em let Destiny’s Song go, and it clattered uselessly into the dirt at her side. The blue glow flickered out. Pangs throbbed in her sore arm muscles from the loss of energizing magic from the prophecy sword.
Roden let out a shaky, deep breath, hand resting on his chest.
Tears bit into the edges of her vision, but she blinked them back. A singular, determined thought struck her mind, draining any sense of regret or fear out of her.
She needed to get Inky and run.
Gair’s bow whined as he relaxed his aim.
In a blink, Em tore away. She cut across the street, pumping all four of her pulsing limbs, screaming past the pain. Her own saliva flicked into her eyelashes, but she wiped it away as she tore towards Sasha’s collapsed body.
“Stop her!” Gair shouted.
An arrow whizzed over her head, and Em stumbled as she ducked under her arms.
Ming lunged for her ankles. Em shoved the Tiefling girl aside with ease. The intern dropped and rolled away with a yelp.
Dirt skinned against her knees as Em dropped beside Sasha’s bloodied, limp corpse. Sobs rose in her chest, but she swallowed them back. Both girls had made their choices—but Em had to save Novella.
Even if it meant killing the dryad’s human form.
Trying not too hard to think about her choices, Em scooped the split halves of her withered quill pen from the pools of blood and ink. Something warm soaked into her skirts. Em shifted and risked peeking. More blood. Dark, hot, thick blood. Bile snaked into her throat, and she choked.
Em lurched away from Sasha’s body, the fresh coppery air of death hanging about the once gorgeous girl. She vomited, her foamy barf intermixing with the blood.
Another arrow screamed past her, and Em jumped away, dropping onto her stomach as she smeared the vomit off her mouth. The soft comfort of Inky clung to her sticky fingers. She stuffed the broken pen down the front of her dress.
Let them try to take it again from me.
“Stop Em!” Gair shot another arrow. Its horrible accuracy told Em he was simply warning her, not intending to actually hit her. But the desperate shouts and the rush of her other companions charging her awoke a last surge of adrenaline through her weary body.
Em bolted, not caring where she went. She clutched her chest where Inky’s broken remains hid, her last bit of hope in the broken pen.
Roden and Ming were gaining on her, cutting across the village street from either side. Em picked up her skirts, darting down an alley, then around another bend. She dodged between barrels and crates, shoving past villagers and ignoring the screams rising in her wake.
As she ran, she ripped her journal out of her pocket along with the lower half of Inky.
Ink spits from the quill, still draining from being snapped. It clung to her fingers, twisted and smeared and—words.
Words began sprawling along Em’s bloody arms. Her story bled from Inky’s corpse and soaked into her skin. Small, scratchy font grew across her like welts, swirling and spreading as every one of her sins was exposed to the world on her body. Her own plot became tattooed onto her.
Em fought with what little ink was left in the broken pen to bring Inky back to life. But nothing worked, her words scratching ineligibly across the pages with each bump or jolt she made.
She ran and ran, struggling to breathe past her sobs. If only she could find a corner hide in, to write herself out of this mess. Distant shouts, alarm bells, and chaos rose behind her.
Another arrow from Gair whizzed past her ear.
Shit.
“Inky, get me out of here!” Em screamed. “Please!”
The pen didn’t respond.
Afterall, it was as dead as Sasha was.