Chapter 58
Huntyr
The Wastelands are a disgusting place. I’ve only ever heard them described, and somehow they’re worse than I ever imagined.
The ground is grey and charred as if a vicious fire had ripped across it.
The thick canopy of trees is nothing more than hard branches long-since killed and devoid of leaves.
Even the sun itself seems to dim the moment I step over the line that seems to clearly divide the Wastelands from the rest of the world.
The horse Tyla had taken is dead on the ground at my feet.
I stare at it for a long time, my brain entirely unable to process what I’m seeing.
Until I hear footsteps.
My hands fly to my weapons, brandishing them with unforgiving speed, only for me to turn and recognize the loving face of my sister, her hands raised in surrender.
My chest locks at the sight of her.
“It’s only me,” she says with a soft grin.
It’s not, though.
It’s not her.
This version of Tyla seems taller, with a stronger spine than I’ve seen in years. Her skin is flushed and filled with color. The veins I’ve grown accustomed to seeing across her skin are nowhere to be seen. Even her hair seems thicker and glossier.
She practically looks like a stranger.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I ask, still gripping the weapon tightly in my hand.
Tyla tilts her head to the side pensively. “Of course, I’m your sister.”
“My sister wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Her eyes flash for a moment, and she kicks at the ground by the horse. “That’s a bit ironic, don’t you think? An assassin giving me lessons in morality.”
Again, that icy pressure fills my chest and gut, sliding over me with inky precision. Yes. I’m an assassin. I know every body that lies in my past. I’ve memorized every one of their names, starting with that very first couple and ending with Seraphina.
But now I’m not the only one of us with blood on our hands.
Images of more dead souls flash in my mind. Rhen, the guard, the horse. She did that. Tyla did that.
And suddenly all I can think about is my father.
She’d been this… creature all along, and I had trusted her with his story, with my story.
“Did you know?” I bring myself to ask, the words feeling like ash against my tongue. I’m not even sure I want to know the answer. “All this time, did you know what you were?”
Her breath catches, and for the briefest of moments her eyes soften and she looks at me with such love it makes the heartache of this feel so much worse.
“Tell me you didn’t. Please.”
“Of course not, Huntyr. I never lied to you.”
I don’t expect the words to be the gut punch that they are. They don’t ease the pain of this. Not in the slightest.
“How did this happen? How are you a Velkai?”
Tyla folds her hands in front of her, her fingers steady while mine threaten to tremble. She holds no weapon, and I realize with no small amount of horror that it’s because she doesn’t need one.
She steps towards me, and instinctively I shuffle backwards.
“Why is it so strange?” she questions, her voice inquisitive as if she truly doesn’t understand why I feel like my entire world is falling apart. “You lived your whole life unaware of your powers, too.”
“That’s different.”
A chuckle. “It’s really not.”
I force a shuddering breath through my lungs. I force myself to try and reconcile this version of Tyla with the girl I’d shared a bed with every single night of our childhood.
“I don’t understand how we got here,” I confess, unable to force the two visions of her into one.
“She and I are more alike,” she tells me, staring at my feet. “That’s why it’s easier for her to talk to me, and once she explained it, everything became clear.”
“What became clear, Tyla?” Riddles. She’s talking in nothing but riddles, and I need answers. I need clarity. I need to know what happened to my sister so that I can fix her.
“That it had to be this way. It all led to this.”
Her words strike through me. The very sentence I had chanted to myself on the ride here. The words I repeated over and over to ground myself in my mission, my purpose.
The two visions of her snap together.
No matter what has happened, no matter what she’s done, she’s my sister. She’s the only real family I’ve ever known. The only person to give me true unconditional love. Sure, I protected her. I provided for her and maintained her health, but she saved me in more ways than she will ever know.
It was Tyla who helped wash away the blood from my fingers when I couldn’t stop myself from picturing the horrors of what I’d done.
It was Tyla who stroked my hair when I woke up screaming from my nightmares.
It was Tyla who helped me hold onto the last shred of humanity that existed inside of me.
Now I have to do that for her.
Forcing myself to steady my breathing, I push my dagger back into the sheath on my hip and extend my left hand towards her, palm facing up. She won’t hurt me. I know it. She couldn’t hurt me anymore than I could hurt her.
“Come with me,” I beg her. “We can fix this. We can find a cure.”
All along I’d been searching for her cure. I would just keep looking.
The air between us feels heavy, charged. Time seems to stand still as she stares at my hand extended between us. She’s held my hand more times than I can count through the years, and none have felt as important as this.
Take my hand.
Tyla peers up, eyes moving from my hand, to my arm, to my shoulder, to my face.
And slowly, she lifts her hand and places it in mine.
The relief is sudden, like a wave crashing over me, and I squeeze her fingers gently.
My thoughts race. I can’t bring her back to the fortress. Derian won’t allow it, and she won’t be safe there. We’ll have to go elsewhere. Maybe I can find the alternative healer Taric knows, maybe he’ll know how to fix this. Someone has to know how to fix this.
I turn on my heels to lead her back to my horse—
Agony rips through me.
Everything I am tugs. Something is clawing its way out of me. My broken soul is unraveling thread by thread. My very essence is being ripped forcefully out of my body, and I can’t see past the pain of it.
I can’t think.
I can’t breathe.
My knees buckle and slam heavily to the ground as my legs crash out from under me. A gasp flies out of my mouth, and I feel Tyla’s hand clench around my own when I instinctively pull away from her.
There’s nothing on Tyla’s face when I look at her. No emotion at all.
“You have to understand, Huntyr. Mother needs you.”
My sister might really be gone.