Chapter 60
Huntyr
Instincts are a funny thing.
When you’ve trained for something over and over and over, when it actually happens, your body reacts before your mind has time to think.
I don’t have the wherewithal to realize it’s Tyla draining the life from me. I simply process that I’m under attack and react on instinct.
I yank her hand and rip her forward, my other hand finding her throat. In an instant, I push down on the balls of my feet to surge upward, twisting my weight until she crashes hard to the ground.
And I’m left kneeling in front of her.
Tyla.
Recoiling, I swallow down my horror and crawl away from her, but she only laughs.
Tyla rolls smoothly to her feet. Her spine straightens. Her weight shifts to her heels. Her hands rise into a defensive stance.
I blink.
That’s a fighting stance.
That’s my fighting stance.
There’s a crunch on the ground behind her. One.
Then another.
Then another.
Hordes of Velkai pour out from behind the trees. Crawling. Stalking. Some on all fours. All of them with dead, glossy eyes.
All of them looking at me with wide, hungry grins.
Tyla lifts a hand, and they stop.
They wait.
For her command.
“What is this?” I whisper, barely able to summon the words.
She sighs, almost sadly. “I want you to know that I don’t do this lightly.”
I feel sick. I feel like my stomach is caving in on itself.
“I never thought this would happen, Huntyr. I tried to convince her not to make me do this at first, but there really is no other way. She helped me understand that. I’m sorry, but this is your purpose. This is why you’re here. It’s what has to happen. You have to die to release Mother.”
My head swims until all I can hear are her words echoing over and over in my mind as if my own body is rejecting what I just heard.
No.
That can't be. It’s an arrangement of impossible words strung together.
Tyla doesn’t know of the Mother.
I have nothing to do with the Mother.
Oh Gods, my stomach roils against me, and I suddenly can't breathe. None of this makes any sense.
The Velkai inch closer.
Tyla pulls a blade from her boot.
My blade.
My fucking blade.
The blade I refused to sentimentally name.
I stare at the steel, recognizing the unique curve of the handle, the fraying leather around the hilt, the patch of leather that's worn in color from where my fingers wraparound it.
She brought my blade with her from Velia and now intends to use it against me.
“I’m your sister,” I remind her, unable to look away from it.
She nods slowly. “You are. More than you even know.”
She jerks towards me, shoving that blade—my blade—towards my abdomen.
I didn’t think there was any part of me left unbroken until just now. Because that simple movement shattered whatever small fragment was left whole inside of me.
My instincts take hold again, a hum of alertness rushing through me.
I know now that Tyla isn’t interested in coming back with me.
She doesn’t want a cure.
She wants to kill me.
And I don’t want to die.
Which means there’s only one other thing left to happen.
I reach for my belt, palming the dagger there.
“Don’t make me do this,” I beg her, praying to the Vaereth, to any God who might be listening, to bring her back to me, to save me from what she’s going to force me to do.
Tyla huffs, and her expression doesn’t change in the slightest as she sends the Velkai moving forward again with a simple incline of her head.
My lungs won’t work.
“It’s already done.”
The Velkai rush me.
One moment I’m staring at my sister, realizing it’s either her or me, and the next dozens of hands are reaching for me.
One touch and I’m dead.
So, I move.
Fingernails scrape down my arm as I spin out of the way, slamming my boot into the chest of one even as I pull the sword from the scabbard across my back.
With a single swing, the mist of blood floods the air and coats my skin.
I weave through them all, killing one after the other as I do. It’s a dance, one I mastered a long time ago, one whose steps lead me carefully away from Tyla.
Not her. I can’t face her yet.
A Velkai lunges suddenly, and I pivot on my back foot, ducking the hand that means to wrap around my throat. Another is already extending towards my waist and I twist, driving my elbow into its jaw.
A sharp pain flies up my left arm, and I gasp, glancing over to find a Velkai locking its jaw around my forearm.
“You’re biting me?” I cry out in disbelief. “Seriously?”
I slice my dagger across its throat, pushing the body until it topples backwards.
“You can’t fight forever, Huntyr,” Tyla calls, watching it all with a vacant expression. “You might be Velia’s Huntress, but not even you can kill us all.”
She’s right.
There’s too many.
Even now, more are still emerging from the shadows around the trees.
Still, I keep moving. Keep killing. I don’t know what else to do, because if I stop now, I’m not sure I’ll be able to summon enough strength to keep going. Not when the fractured pieces of my heart are still bleeding inside me.
I shut it all off. All of that pain and feeling.
Like I did when I stood above the bleeding bodies of those first two kills and realized I had been the one to kill them.
Like I did when I ran my sword through the gut of my first lover.
Like I did when I sliced Seraphina’s throat.
I shut it all out and spin towards the Velkai lifting a sword high in the air, and I raise my own against him.
Steel clashes. Flesh splits. I just keep going.
Dead leaves crackle under my footing as the wind picks up, blowing back tendrils of my hair as I continue a brutal procession of ducking, rolling, lunging, and stabbing.
Kill.
After kill.
After kill.
It’s the only thing I can do right.
I didn’t avenge my father.
I didn’t save Tyla.
I’m just a killer.
That’s all I’ll ever be.
Raindrops begin to pepper my skin, and I ignore them all, catching Tyla from the corner of my eye. She doesn’t even flinch when a blade strikes across my chest, ripping the skin apart.
The pain shutters through me, blinding me for an impossibly long minute. Lightning strikes down in the distance as a fist connects with my jaw and I go stumbling backwards.
My knees nearly buckle.
Not yet. I can’t stop yet.
But then Tyla is in front of me.
Hands rip me back by my hair.
A blade presses against my throat.
Desperately, I claw for my last resort. I try to grasp onto that power in my stomach. I reach for it the way Derian has shown me dozens of times, but the tendrils of it slip away, over and over again.
Tyla reaches for me, and I know it’s coming.
The pain.
The feeling of ether being pulled from my bones.
“I would have died for you,” I confess. “I went through the Conclave for you.”
She stares at me. “Your death was inevitable, Huntyr. You were always meant to die for her.”
The ache is instant. Torturous tiny pinpricks erupt against every inch of my skin. My body shakes. My vision blurs. My legs give out, but I hardly feel it when I slam onto the ground.
Thunder booms.
I gasp, but no air comes.
Rain pounds on us.
I’m dying.
Tyla is killing me.
She grips my face and pulls me towards her, drawing my gaze to the sky. There’s storm clouds above us, darkening the skies. And suddenly, through the absolute terror and agony ripping me apart, I feel the briefest spark of relief. Relief tangled with a feeling so warm it's overwhelming.
Because I fell in love with the monster who controls the skies.