Chapter Thirty-Two Adela
I feel the sharp, bitter burn of betrayal in the back of my throat.
I’m tormented by the creatures on the walls and ceiling of the crypt surrounding us.
Creatures that my family has been responsible for the care and keeping of for generations.
We have fed them, protected them, healed them, and when they passed, we ushered them along the path to fulfill their destiny.
A path that was supposed to be holy, blessed, meaningful. Instead they are being used. Their lives and deaths twisted for the selfish whims of greedy people.
Heat flows through me, around me. My robes and hair ripple slightly, as if I’m standing in a meadow in a strong summer breeze.
The light in the crypt grows brighter, illuminating the creature skulls of the priestesses and priests.
Their eyes are wide and frightened, and trace along the outline of me, but broader, beyond the bounds of my actual body.
They step back, pressing themselves up against the barriers around the skulls.
Who I am and who I want to be are in a delicate balance.
I like the fear on their faces. Part of me itches to wipe them all out.
I could embrace the part of myself that enjoys destruction, my seething desire to just burn it all down.
Sarai. The crypt. The temple above us. The temples of the Pupil and the Spinner.
A simple thought and it would all be gone. Forever.
Except the skulls.
If I could send them to their rest, I might do it. With Kian by my side and the valley safe, I could find a path forward despite the death and destruction I’d be responsible for. But I cannot get through the barrier with my magic.
I also cannot kill Kian. I love him.
“Never.”
“Never say never, little bird.” Sarai resembles a hawk about to snatch and devour a finch.
“I was afraid you would need extra incentive. Thankfully, my ever-faithful Sister Roberta agreed to run an errand earlier.”
As if on cue, there are shuffling footsteps on the stone steps, and then Sister Roberta steps out of the shadows.
Dad and Cecelia stand, bound, on either side of her, plain aspen masks covering their faces.
Roberta must’ve followed directly in our footsteps in order to have gotten to the valley and back so soon after us.
Panic shoots through me. I know she’s not lying about hurting them. I’ve seen the scars on Kian’s body. Punishment for small disobediences. She would go so much further than lashes to be able to access the magic that surrounds us.
She begins to walk around the crypt, pulling down select skulls. “I’ll begin to prepare the matching ceremony while you think, hmm?”
Before I can answer, a vision takes me.
We hear the roaring of adolescent dragons across the valley and head in their direction.
Over the cliffs where they nest, we find the two, locked in a downward spiral and screaming their rage to the sky. At this time of day, their elders are likely out hunting, or have chosen to just ignore the overly dramatic youth.
But we cannot.
The mountain spires they plummet toward are sharp and strong. If they hit one incorrectly and pierce a leathery wing, they could be severly wounded. Or worse, lose their life. They are too young to become conduits for the servants of the goddess.
Stay back, my mate communicates as he flies forward, into the fray.
All he needs is to be seen, and they will cease.
They always do. This is our valley to rule and protect.
We keep the balance of magic in check. The other creatures revere us.
And in return, we keep them safe from outsiders, and each other.
But being seen by an angry, fighting dragon can be difficult. And so I do as he says, staying away. I am our safety.
He circles the dragons, flashing his golden feathers in the sunlight. He dodges in and out. He is being dramatic himself, enjoying the wild maneuvering, which means he does not notice when one of the youth pulls its head back, collecting its breath.
Careful!
It is too late. The dragon breathes fire, which misses his rival and hits my mate. His feathers catch. In an instant, they’re ash. He plummets to the rocks below.
I scream my sorrow and dive after him. At the edge of a sharp rock formation, atop a pile of rubble, he lays burnt and broken, utterly unmoving. I can do nothing for him.
He is dead.
I settle down beside him and wait for him to come back to me.
I come out of the vision, shaking. The phoenix’s grief was as real as my own, as she watched her mate burn and fall to the ground.
But there was a certainty within her that I am only just beginning to understand. She mourned his pain and suffering, but knew he had not fully left her. He could not. They were two halves of a whole.
Like me and Kian.
Yet Kian is no phoenix that can rise from his own ashes. He’s a mortal man. Expecting that there’s any world in which he could come back to me from would be madness, and a risk beyond anything I’m willing to contemplate.
I turn and face Kian. I brace myself, terrified of what sort of judgment awaits me.
He’s shaken. He obviously saw the vision along with me.
But he meets my gaze with a gentleness and grace I do not deserve.
The light of the candles, the lanterns, reflects back in his dark stare, as if there is a fire within him that matches the one in me.
His eyes plead with me, urging me to agree with Sarai. To kill him.
As if she can sense how close I teeter on the cliff of capitulation, Sarai comes to stand before me. “What’s the life of one man—who has abandoned and betrayed you—compared to everything and everyone else that you love?”
She is right and I hate it. One life compared to hundreds and only I can protect them from her violence. She’s left me with no choice. I agree to do what she asks.
I will kill Kian.