Chapter 9 #2
Does he know about Kyzari? That she’s not his?
The ground trembles in thumping increments.
“But first, a parting gift.” He pockets the satchel and leans close, brows pinched as he studies me. “I’ll help to fill in your blanks with this trick I’ve been working to hone …”
He claps his hands over my ears.
I jostle despite being skewered, trying to rip my head aside to avoid eye contact.
“Hold still,” he growls, jerking me straight, using his fingers to pry back my lids. “I’m not the best at this. One wrong move and I might strike something important, and that would spoil the whole reveal.”
I scream. Not from the pain of being stuck through, but from the agonizing way he plows into my mind like a blunt spear.
His pupils swell, my body loosens. All the color seems to dissipate from the world, leaving only two bold disks of black I plummet amongst, distantly aware of my mental walls crumbling—the ones eternally standing guard around the most important parts of me.
My guts threaten to turn inside out as he spears past my thoughts of the diary. Of Kaan. Kyzari.
Elluin.
Instead, he narrows on a darkened corner I hadn’t noticed was even there until he stabs it. Brutally. As if he’s trying to slay something he can’t quite see the shape of.
There’s a painful pop, like he just pierced some sort of membrane.
I gasp, jolting as a torrent of raging burden gushes out and burns through me like a caustic flood of poison, stuffing nooks and crannies I’ve been ignoring for over a hundred phases.
Casting me … back.
“Do you remember now?” Tyroth asks, his voice a grating echo as I—
I’m kneeling on the ground in Pah’s office. His young miskunn crouches on his desk, a shackle around her frail neck. Remorse glints in the creature’s big silver eyes as Pah slams my bangle down, making Hulo flinch.
But it’s me he’s looking at. Me he’s speaking to.
“Tyroth’s pairing was refused, so this is the only way. It’s going to happen one way or another, but the miskunn foretold the world’s end if the Neváns die by any hand other than your own.”
It takes me a moment to realize he’s telling the truth. For his words to sink in.
For the tremble to start.
“No,” I say, soft beneath Pah’s oppressive aura. My tongue hardens in synchrony with my stiffening spine. “No, you fucking monster. I’d rather die!”
I shove up and turn to stalk from the room, grabbed and held down by a brother I loathe; one who hates me as much as I hate him.
I bash, kick, scream. See a Runi ushered in, heart thrashing as I recognize Mior’s short white hair, wide eyes, kind face. Kind just like her pah’s. But—
Pained.
Which can mean only one thing.
I whimper. Shake my head. Try to shuffle back, only for Tyroth’s grip to tighten so much I feel the budding promise of bruises around my upper arms and shoulders.
My childhood friend kneels before me. Her brown skin is such a contrast to the white robe bunched around her petite form, a golden Mindweft button pride of place at the base of her throat.
Despite the empathy in Mior’s eyes, I’m too aware of the strain on her face. Of the way she’s trembling as much as me.
I jerk against Tyroth’s firm grip. Catch a boot to the ribs I barely feel, my next words ground past a choked whimper. “Please—don’t do this, Mior. Please—”
“I have no choice.” A tear slips down her cheek, mirroring my own. “I’ll be gentle, I promise.” A soft smile, then, “I would never hurt you.”
My face crumbles, all the fight leaving my body as Mior settles her hands on my cheeks. Her chin wobbles, and in her beautiful eyes, I see her heart break.
“Forgive me, Veya …”
I tip into those pools of blue ringed with gold, bits of me shedding free, like feathers torn out by the wind.
Compassion flutters past—gone. Empathy goes next … Sadness … Morality. I tumble until I’m a skeleton of stoic compliance, only a thread of thought to stitch me through.
Mior leaves, tears on her cheeks I can’t comprehend. Pah kneels in her place and grips my face, looking at me through stern eyes that used to hurt.
“Now, daughter. What must you do?”
My response is immediate. “I must go to Arithia and poison the Neván family.”
“Except?” Tyroth growls, staring at me with burning intensity.
I blink. Think.
“Elluin Raeve Neván. Elluin is to live.”
I hear myself whimper as I …
I—
—journey across the plains, into the dark. Through a secret entrance in the wall that surrounds Arithia.
Garbed in the skin of another, I move through the dark palace like a waif, smearing the blood of a zatha beetle on the toothscrubs of Ahdrik Neván.
Of Eudora Neván.
Haedeon Neván.
“No—”
There’s the sound of cracking stone.
I fall to my knees. Feel no pain despite the heaviness still wedged in my hand and chest.
I’m almost back in Dhomm when my emotions sprout like bladed feathers, slitting me from the inside out.
There’s nothing but pain and chronic grief, my gut knotting as I think of—
I scream for the carter to stop.
He doesn’t.
I jump—
Fall.
Wake in Pah’s office and beg him to cut my throat.
He just stands there, arms crossed, watching me break apart on the ground.
I reach for his blade—
He kicks me in the belly so hard I vomit, ordering two guards to retrieve Mior.
I see a pair of blue eyes ringed with gold. Tumble again … much faster this time.
Further.
Around me, things smudge so much that when I finally come to a stop, nothing looks right. There are pieces missing, I’m sure of it.
“Am I okay, Mior?”
Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes, a tear slipping down her cheek that almost reminds me of … something. “You are now, my friend.” She takes my hand, holding it more gently than it’s ever been held before. “I’ve hidden it somewhere safe and quiet. It’ll never hurt you again.”
There’s the glint of something slashing through the air. The only warning I get before blood sprays my face. Before Mior’s head falls off her shoulders and tumbles across the ground—
The world comes into focus, and I find myself shuddering on the ground, coiled amongst a scatter of bloody shards—bits of stone still stuck in me that I hardly feel.
It was me.
All this time, I thought it was Pah …
But it was ME.
Tyroth steps away, the pebbling skin at the back of my neck telling me his dragon’s nearly upon me. But it’s hard to feel any fear as the newly recovered memories flay me from the inside, one precise slit at a time.
I murdered them.
Took Elluin’s family from her.
Caused her to be torn from The Shade.
Caused Slátra to chase her to The Burn and allowed Tyroth to infiltrate her kingdom.
I turned her into an orphan …
A groan dredges from my throat, like someone just grabbed a handful of my guts and ripped them free. Another.
Another.
I groan until nothing’s left—just a hollow ache that feels terminal.
Tyroth spits beside me, mutters a barbed command. “Zugthen, Bharon.”
Feast.
I hear his retreating steps, forcing myself to look back over my shoulder. Up into the eyes of the death I deserve.
All the air escapes my lungs.
The once-majestic creature limps toward me, frayed wings loose at his sides, dragging through the magma with each hobbled step. He doesn’t gleam in the molten light as he did, his scales gone matte, talons so long they almost curl in on themselves, making his movements slow.
Pained.
Again meeting Bharon’s dark eyes, I struggle to find a single ember.
What’s left of my heart breaks into tiny pieces …
He destroyed you, too.
I drop my head, heaving breath while I wait for everything to stop. For the soul-splintering hurt to end.
Please end—
A cold breeze curls past the broken runes, planting an icy kiss on my cheek that I certainly don’t deserve.
All my breath knocks free as a warm claw closes around me, talons scraping stone as they pluck me from the ground, jolting me with a blaze of pain that has nothing on the flare eroding what’s left of my heart.
I wait to be brought toward Bharon’s mouth and tossed in. Chewed on. Wait to be dished the brutal punishment I’ve earned.
Instead, he pulls deep whiffs of air.
A moment of stillness, then everything lurches forward in galloping increments before we launch.
Plummet.
Then we’re no longer in the hot sulfuric air but buffeted by clumps of snow and wind so cold I’m half convinced I’m being scored across the sky like a bit of sketching coal. And perhaps I’d believe just that, were it not for the sound of beating wings.
It takes me too long to realize we’re flying north, toward the sun.
Even longer to accept that Bharon’s not going to give me the death I crave.