Chapter 40
40
“I wish you hadn’t come,” Kor calls as he finds his footing on the slick rocks, approaching the shore.
“And I wish you had consulted me so I could have prevented this mistake!” I raise my voice to be heard over the wind and waves. There’s only a few feet of sand and water between us, but it feels like an impossible distance.
“Yes, I guess convincing the whole order you were trustworthy was a mistake,” he replies.
His words hurt my heart.
“You can trust me. And you should trust me about the fact that if you use the gas, the results will be devastating. Our goals are the same, but you can’t use that gas, or people will die. They’ll be murdered. By you .” With the elevators disabled, there’s no way for Kor to get up to the island. But there’s also no way for any help to get to me. I need to convince him to abandon his plan, and I’ll have to do it alone.
He looks sad but not swayed. “We truly came hoping not to hurt anyone, but now that we’re here, we’ll make the necessary sacrifices.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“My Ada.” Kor shakes his head. “Who will do it if not me?” He gestures at his abdomen. “I’ve already damned my soul by drinking the lifeblood of others. And despite that, I’m still probably not long for this world. But before I’m gone, I’ll make a difference.” He raises his arms and looks up at the sky, his long hair whipping in the wind. “The Grand Master chose me for this, and God prepared me for it. I am ready to do what I have to do to save the world—” He stops talking and grasps for his cross, his eyes glowing in rapture.
But when I follow his gaze, I realize it’s not his words that have excited him. Rather, it is two sets of beautiful wings. One belonging to a Valkyrie with copper hair—looking like Kor’s angel painting come to life—and one to a wind horse with a statuesque rider.
Kaylie, Peggy, and Rafe are flying down the cliffside. I’m not alone after all.
Kaylie touches down on the beach, her wings spread wide, her face fierce and beautiful. Kor stares at her with awe and raw adoration.
Rafe dismounts from Peggy a few yards away. He has a magneto gun in one hand and a blade in the other. The heat of Ha’i rises off him like a boiling pot.
Kor looks back and forth between Rafe and Kaylie, then calls toward the hatch, “Backup!”
Rafe speaks. “If you turn over your weapons and allow me to restrain you and your comrades, I will protect you from harm and escort you to speak to the Council.”
“I didn’t come here to be arrested,” Kor says, coolly raising a gun and pointing it at Rafe.
“That isn’t necessary!” I step forward, panic in my voice.
Alfie and Roman make their way out of the hatch and onto the beach. Roman is armed but looks nervous. He stares wide-eyed at the sight of a Valkyrie and a wind horse, and he crosses himself. Alfie is holding a canister with a spray hose that must be the antimatter gas. He aims the nozzle like a weapon. There may not be mist down here, but if he sprays the gas and it does what we expect, it could seriously harm Kaylie and Peggy, and Rafe and I would lose our Sire advantages.
“Don’t—” I start to say at the same time as Rafe moves to intercept Alfie.
Kor cocks his gun.
“No! Kor, can’t we—”
And then he shoots.
I hear the crack of the bullet. Then silence.
Someone far away starts screaming.
No, not far away. It’s me. I’m screaming.
But the rest of my body is frozen. All I can do is stare as a red flower unfurls its petals on the left side of Rafe’s chest. Like a boutonniere.
He looks so dashing, ready for a dance.
Crack. The memory of the sound echoes over and over in my ears.
And then Rafe is crumpling to the ground. I didn’t know Rafe Vanguard could crumple.
Time resumes as I see Kaylie running toward him.
And then I’m running too.
Kaylie is trying to stem the flow of blood, but it’s no longer a boutonniere. It’s now a bouquet, and spreading fast. Becoming a field before my eyes.
Rafe is breathing hard, eyes glassy. He manages to grin at me. “I’ll be fine.” I see his mouth form the words. But I can’t hear them. All I can hear is the echo of the crack and the sound of my own pulse in my head.
Kaylie is speaking to me urgently, but I’m in a daze.
Kor just shot Rafe.
He shot him. Why didn’t I let Rafe bring the Guard? This is my fault.
This is my fault .
“Ada!” Kaylie’s yell breaks through my fog. “His Sire abilities are not healing him; he needs your help.”
Yes. I can help.
I crouch down and make shiin with both hands and align the triangle made by my fingers over the sticky flowers. I conduct, pulsing Ha’i over and over.
Please, please, please. I beg the source within me.
But he’s not healing.
“Why isn’t he healing?” I scream, panicked, knowing I’m exhausting my own Ha’i but not willing to stop trying.
“It’s an antimatter bullet,” Kor says. I turn and see him standing, staring at his trembling hand that is still clenching the gun, face pale.
Peggy is agitated, and she starts bucking and flapping her wings. Alfie turns the nozzle of the gas in her direction.
“Don’t hurt it!” Kor demands.
“We have to remove the bullet,” Kaylie says, ignoring the threat of the gas tank, which Alfie has swung back in her direction at the sound of her voice. She tears open Rafe’s shirt. “It missed his heart, but antimatter in his body for too long, close to such vital organs…” She trails off as she uses a blade from her spoon to cut into his marble chest, through his dragon tattoo. Rafe is so far gone that he doesn’t even flinch.
“The bullet punctured his lung,” she says steadily. “I need to drain the air and fluid, so I need you to remove the bullet.”
I don’t know how I do it, but as Kaylie makes a separate incision, I reach into Rafe’s chest. I focus on the sound of her voice giving me careful instructions. My hand is coated in blood as I pull out the bullet, the antimatter scalding my fingers until I drop it, like a shiny red ruby, onto the wet sand.
I immediately begin pulsing Ha’i into Rafe’s chest, and this time it works. The blood slows. The tissue begins to mend. But Rafe has lost so much blood. He’s not healing fast enough, and I feel my own strength flagging.
“Help me,” I scream to Kor, who’s looking on, horror-stricken.
“I… I’ve never—” He looks to Roman, who looks just as panicked and unsure, tears in his eyes.
“Do you want to have his death on your conscience?” I shriek. I see the indecision in his eyes, the war of pride and guilt.
“Kor, I need you to help me save his life!” I’m choking on my own sobs. “Help me!” I demand again. He has to help me. No matter what he’s said about being okay with collateral damage, I know he’s not a killer.
He drops the gun and comes running.
I show Kor how to align his shiin next to mine, and as soon as our hands harmonize, a powerful flow of Ha’i pulses through the triangle made by our fingers. Rafe’s body jerks erratically.
“Again!” I yell, and with the next push of Ha’i, Rafe gasps in a deep breath, then seems to breathe more easily.
The flow of Ha’i was astounding, more than I’ve ever felt from myself or another person. But now Kor looks shaky and weakened. I remember Rafe explaining how blood doping will give a Sire tremendous power but also cause them to exhaust more quickly. Kor doesn’t look like he has the strength to conduct anymore. But Rafe isn’t fully healed yet.
Kaylie’s face is a mask of horror. She presses her knuckles to her lips in Avant’s royal salute. She doesn’t think their prince will live.
I know what I have to do.
I grab Kaylie’s blade, and without letting myself think too hard about it, I slice into my forearm.
Blood wells up through the cut, and I aim its drip directly into Rafe’s mouth. Adrenaline and Ha’i are rushing through me with such strong force that I see the bleeding slow and the skin around the wound tighten as my body tries to heal itself. I jab at the cut with the point of the knife to keep the blood flowing. Somehow, my mind drowns out the pain. I feel like an outside observer, watching as the warm life inside me spurts out of the messy wound onto Rafe’s lips.
Kor shifts away from us, and I catch an expression on his face that can’t be described as anything other than hunger.
“Should we retreat?” I hear Roman ask Kor.
But I don’t hear Kor’s response as Rafe blinks and swallows my blood spilling into his mouth. So much blood. Until, in a ragged voice, he says, “Enough.” He grips my arm. “Sing me your strength.”
I don’t understand, but in this moment, I’ll do whatever he asks. If he wants me to sing, I’ll sing. So I discard the blade and begin to hum “Yosef HaLevi’s Nocturne.” The cut in my arm knits together as I watch the effect of my blood slowly helping Rafe. He grasps my hands with his as I hum.
And then something in the air changes. I feel Rafe’s Ha’i doubling, tripling, amplifying to levels I would have never thought possible. His body trembles as his Sire healing kicks into overdrive.
Rafe gasps and sits up sharply, his wounds already sealing shut.
The sound of a trumpet forces my gaze up the cliff, where I see the Avant Guard assembled with what looks like a large crossbow the size of a truck. A figure breaks away from the rest, spreads their wings, and flies down to us. It’s Grey. He lands in front of Rafe, blocking him from any potential threat.
“Your Highness, I know you instructed the Guard to hold, but Simon flew up the cliff to alert us that you had been attacked,” Grey explains.
Simon? Flew all the way up the cliff? Good for him.
Grey draws a long sword, turning to glare at Kor, who is scrambling toward the submarine, Alfie and Roman right behind him. “Go ahead,” Grey yells after them, “board your vessel. The ballista will make quick work of it, and you.” We all look up to the cliff, where the Guard have aimed the giant crossbow—or rather, the ballista, another one of da Vinci’s original designs—straight at the sub. The three young men stop running, and Grey relieves them of their weapons.
Rafe stands confidently. Blood coats his chest from a wound that is now nothing more than a ragged scar through the eye of the dragon tattoo that guarded his heart.
He says to Grey, “You and all the Guard witnessed that despite what this man did, he also helped to save my life. Let that be considered when their fate is decided.”
Grey bows his head. “We will inform the Council.”
Rafe turns to Kor. “Are you willing to cooperate now?”
Kor looks up at the Guard and then at me.
“You don’t have a choice,” I say, trying to communicate with my eyes that he should trust me.
Kor nods.
Rafe asks, “Do you have any more of the antimatter bullets and weaponized gas?”
“Yes.”
“What about more men?”
“Two more men. I can retrieve them and the remaining antimatter weapons.” Kor steps toward the water’s edge, where the submarine waits, partially submerged. I’m surprised he’s agreed. He seems a little too eager to get into the submarine, which makes me nervous.
“Not without supervision,” Grey growls. He restrains Alfie and Roman with spidersilk ties and then moves to accompany Kor into the sub. “I warn you, philistine”—he again motions to the Guard standing in wait at the top of the cliff—“if you try anything while inside the vessel, they will not hesitate to obliterate it.”
Soon after they enter, the sub powers down, and then Kor is coming back out, followed by two terrified men. One looks like he is probably the captain of the submarine, and the other one I recognize as the security guard Rafe incapacitated on North Brother Island. Grey is close behind them carrying a large black duffel, presumably containing their weapons.
As Kor allows Kaylie to bind his hands, I can’t help but notice that his cheeks are once again suffused with color, and his strength seems to have been restored.
Grey and Kaylie lead the five men into the station.
With all concerned onlookers gone, Rafe staggers, and I guide him to sit on a rock.
A shadow falls over us as a cloud blocks the setting sun. Rafe looks up and smiles, and my eyes follow his.
No, not a cloud.
Massive wings and shining black scales eclipse the sky. I see a whipping tail, sharp claws, and fierce, intelligent eyes. And then the majestic creature lands in front of us, Prince Alexander riding astride its back.
He pulls Rafe and me up with him, and we fly into the bruised orange of the sunset sky.
On a gravdamn dragon.