Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Helaina debated running after him, but she didn’t know where he’d gone nor the way back underground.
It’s one night without it, just one night.
She looked up at the stone tower. The building was circular and oddly placed, almost like the lighthouses she had read about standing alone on distant beaches. A small glow of light emanated from a window at the top.
To her surprise, the door was unlocked. She opened it to reveal a long stretch of stone steps. The groan she released echoed up the narrow flight. She took her time as she ascended the steps, favoring her injury until she reached the top.
Two soldiers were indeed waiting for her, one male, one female.
“Welcome.” The female offered a kind smile. “There are spare chest plates over there. I think one should be roughly your size.”
Helaina said nothing as she took in the small room lined with sleeping pads and blankets. A small lantern flickered in the center.
She walked over to the midnight iron spread out on the floor. She picked one that seemed somewhat reasonable, and went back into the stairwell, grumbling to herself how ridiculous this was. She was running on fumes already, and she was expected to stay up all night, then train more the next day.
Helaina returned to the room, where the male was rolling out a third thin mattress.
He smiled. “You have it latched wrong, let me help you.” He was smaller than the others she’d met and not nearly as threatening.
He walked behind her and adjusted the piece.
Surprisingly, the minor change gave her great comfort.
“Thank you.”
He gave a swift nod in answer, then shrugged toward the mattresses. “It’s not like the beds we have underground, but it’s not bad. We sleep in shifts, two awake, one asleep.”
She looked around at their lackluster accommodations. She wanted the feel of a real pillow and a thick blanket.
“I’m Aaron, and this is Agatha.” He smiled again, brushing his brown hair to the side. He looked so familiar. Something in his face she couldn’t place.
“I’m Helaina.”
“We watched your fight.” Agatha spoke up in a mild voice while braiding her thick strands of hair to the side. “Very brave, I wouldn’t want to face Breyer.”
Aaron let out an exaggerated shiver. “Neither would I. She’s a menace in the ring. Remember when she sliced off Dagnon’s thumb?”
Agatha hissed between her teeth at the memory. “Oh, that was brutal.”
How was this considered normal conversation?
“I guess I should be grateful I walked away in one piece,” Helaina commented.
“If anyone had a chance against her, it would be you. Is it true what she said, that your eyes are a mark of Valhoor?”
Helaina wasn’t used to being so open with her secret, but it was out now. It was nice not having to bury the answers for once.
“Yes, or something like that. My bloodline is traced back to Ures, though. I’m not Valhoor’s descendant.”
“Oh, we know that. There’s only one that can be traced back directly to him,” Agatha said.
“Who?” Helaina asked. She’d never read that.
“Theo, everyone knows that.”
Helaina couldn’t make sense of it. His ancestral god was the same one that cursed her.
“I’m a descendant of Ures too.” The wide-eyed girl beamed at the fact they had something in common. “He gave me the ability to mold metal after my trial. Not as impressive in battle as shadows or skin changing, but I’ve made a lot of our weapons here, even some of the armor,” she said with pride.
Helaina briefly glanced down at the craftsmanship on her chest. It was beautiful. Perfectly symmetric. How wonderful it must be to be able to create art instead of death.
Agatha pushed a delicious-smelling meal in front of her face.
It was still a struggle to eat. That inner voice sometimes ground at her, reminding her to deprive herself, to punish herself for the things she had done.
She didn’t listen; she had held her own today.
She ate, without an ounce of guilt. Picking at bread and fruits and a large cut of cured meat.
“Everyone talks of these trials, yet no one has described them. What happens after you use the dagger?” she asked between bites.
“I think we all stopped swapping stories centuries ago,” Aaron explained. “It’s so different for everyone. They test different parts of you, different weaknesses. Some physical, others mental. No trial is the same.”
Not exactly the answer she was hoping for.
Agatha exchanged a glance with Aaron, and he nodded in agreement with her unspoken words.
“You can take the first sleep,” Aaron offered with a boyish grin. “You look like you need it. I’ll wake you when it’s your turn.”
Helaina didn’t know what to say. It was a small act of selflessness. It meant the world to her. “Are you sure?” She felt her eyelids growing heavier already.
“Absolutely,” they both answered one after the other.
Helaina let a closed-lip smile expand on her face. She’d thought her mouth had forgotten how to make such an expression. She laid her head atop the poor excuse for a pillow. Her belly was full and her skin was warm, protected from the chill by the tower walls.
Seconds later, she was dreaming.
Dreaming of that dark room again. That black forgotten void. She was so tired even her subconscious begged to stay here. Begged to live here. Sure, it was cold and lonely, but it was free of all the expectations and responsibility. She felt shielded from all the guilt and grief in here.
Every time she had this dream, she found it harder and harder to wake up. Something was drawing her here.
Then she heard the screaming. Her eyes popped open.
Aaron and Agatha were gone.
Helaina’s eyes darted in all directions. The only indication they had been here was the bloodied handprints on the windowsill.
Another pained scream, high-pitched and feminine.
Agatha.
Helaina leaped to her feet and ran to the window. Even with the brightness in the stars, she couldn’t see the ground from up here. The torches below had gone out.
Another shrill shriek sounded over the breeze.
She snatched the lantern up and bolted down the circular stairs. Damn her aching leg, she should be faster than this, she needed to go faster.
She reached the bottom and held the lantern up as she scanned for a sign of them.
“aaron! agatha!”
Behind her, near the bridge’s edge, she heard a soft moan. She ran toward the sound, just making out the edge of the canyon.
Aaron lay near the drop-off, drenched in his own blood.
Helaina dropped to her knees beside him, assessing his injuries as best she could. “It’s okay, I got you.”
His armor was so warped and mangled, pressing in upon him.
Tears spilled from the corners of his eyes as blood leaked from his lips. “Can you talk? Can you tell me what happened? Where is Agatha?” She spoke in a hushed voice, fearing they weren’t alone.
“I don’t kn-know,” he choked out. “Darkness swallowed her. I tried to follow . . . I . . .” Aaron clutched his crushed chest plate with one arm. His other arm was torn to pieces. “Get it . . . off. Please. I can’t breathe.”
She heaved it apart. Wetness leaked below his collarbone, seeping through shredded fabric.
Gurgled screams pierced the darkness, the devastating sound ripping through the night. Helaina couldn’t stand the despair in that voice, but she couldn’t tell which direction it came from, and she couldn’t leave Aaron alone like this.
“someone help!”
The screaming stopped. An unnatural quiet took its place. Other than Aaron’s strangled breaths, she heard nothing. Not even the creaking of the old wooden bridge swinging over the canyon.
In the distance, twin pairs of red glowing eyes appeared. She could just make out two tall bodies skulking closer—human in form, although she couldn’t be certain.
Helaina put Aaron’s head in her lap and clutched him tight. She squeezed her eyes shut and focused on her breaths.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.
“Helaina,” a wicked voice purred in the distance.
She wouldn’t look. She heard the crunch of grass beneath boots, the deep groans of satisfaction as the creatures advanced.
“Helaina,” a second slick voice beckoned.
Aaron tried to whisper something, the sound strained and muffled.
I can feel your panic every time you let them out. Theodon’s words echoed in her head.
She would not let herself succumb. Not this time. She had survived too much already to give up now. And this time it wasn’t just her own life on the line.
“Run,” Aaron gurgled out.
“No.” She exhaled deeply, ignoring the sinful calls from whatever was coming for her. She called on what power she had left, anything she could reach for, and ordered it to come forward.
She refused to open her eyes, but she felt the shift in the wind. The same enveloping shadow that shielded her against flames blanketed her and Aaron. She homed all her focus into that shadow, cocooning them in safety and pushing anything else back with all her mental will.
The growls in the distance were sounds of chaotic fury. She felt the sharp pain in her chest as the monsters scratched and clawed at the barrier of shadow. Their nails pierced her own skin with every swipe they took at her wall.
She used that pain to fuel her, to force her shadows outward like a ripple of water.
The monsters clawed harder.
The agony tore a scream from her throat, but she held the barrier, pushing the creatures back. Their howls grew distant as she shifted them farther and farther away.
“helaina!” A different shout rose over the hills on the other side of the bridge. That familiar gravelly voice sounded so desperate.
“I’m here! We’re here!” she screamed back.
Her eyes burst open, and around her she saw nothing.
No twisted shadows, no bloodred eyes.
The sky was empty, and the only thing before her was Aaron, dying.