Chapter 23
Iam shaking. I cannot speak, and I cannot see straight. My entire body is racked with a pain so visceral I can’t breathe.
I hear it again and again. The scream when Kayan’s wings were ripped from his body, and then the thud when he landed on the ground.
Bent.
Broken.
Gone.
Finn and Briony dragged me back to my chamber kicking and screaming. “We can’t leave him there! We can’t leave him!” Now, Briony hands me a glass of whisky and takes one for herself.
Smoothing my hair from my face, Finn tries to make me look at him but I screw my eyes shut and turn away. “Why did he do it? I told him I’d help. I told him I’d set them free. Why would he risk it?”
I hear it again.
Rip.
Scream.
Thud.
“What will he do to the others?” I look from Finn to Briony.
She has stopped crying, and her voice comes out as nothing more than a reedy whisper. “I don’t know, my lady.”
“I have to see them.” I stand and stride to the door. “Take me to them, now.”
Finn and Briony exchange a look of shock and disbelief. “Alana, that is not a good idea. Not now. Not tonight.”
“If you do not take me, I will take myself.” I throw open the door and run, and I don’t care if they are following me or not.
By some miracle, I make it to the stairs without meeting a single other soul. The castle is quiet. It is as if everyone is mourning, except they are not. No one cared for Kayan. The Sunborne saw his death as simply an added bonus to the night’s entertainment, and the Shadowkind in Eldrion’s employ just sighed and hung their heads. As if they were thinking, foolish boy, we knew this would happen.
The cells are unguarded.
I do not care to wonder why.
I run to the iron bars and shake them. There is silence within. No one speaks.
“What happened? What did you do? I told you I’d help.” I am shouting but still no one answers me. “Tell me what happened, damn you!”
Maura is the one who steps forward. She is not in chains. None of them are. Clearly, Eldrion believes they have learned their lesson. “Kayan...” She chokes on the sob that racks her chest. “He had a plan.”
In the darkness, all I can hear is the sound of the others crying. Holding one another. Broken.
None of us can unsee what we saw tonight.
I press my head against the bars. I want to tell them I’ll still find a way to free them. But the words catch in my throat and refuse to be spoken.
“Alana...” Finn puts his hand on mine, and I flinch. A surge of guilt washes over me as I think of what I did while I was watching Eldrion.
“It’s all my fault,” I whisper. “All of this. It’s my fault.”
Finn tweaks a finger beneath my chin. “Do you want to help them?” he asks quietly.
I frown at him. “Of course, I do.”
He glances back at Briony. She is guarding the door.
“Then there is something you can try. I’ve seen empaths do it before.”
I let go of the bars and turn away from Maura and the others. “What can an empath do to get them out of here?”
“It won’t set them free of the dungeon, but you can set them free of their pain.” Finn presses his hand to my chest, above my heart, and smiles a slow smile. “You can take their pain from them. Absorb it from them.”
“All of them?” A violent shiver snakes down my spine.
“It’s a lot, but I believe you can do it. If you weren’t powerful, Eldrion wouldn’t have brought you here.”
I close my eyes, breathe slowly and steadily, then push back my shoulders and take his hand. “How? Show me how...”
“I can’t,”Finn says, his lips twitching a little as he almost smiles. “When I saw another empath do it, they closed their eyes, waved their hands and –”
I laugh darkly. “And what? Sparkly lights flew out of their fingertips?”
He shrugs. “Something like that. Their wings glowed. The air started to glow. It kind of spread over the person –”
“Person? Just one person? You saw an empath do this for one person, and now you expect me to do it for twenty?”
Finn’s eyes soften. He looks a little bit like a child, as if I just reprimanded him, and he feels embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”
I take his hand and squeeze it tightly because he is the only person here who sees me for who I really am, and who wants me anyway. “I just don’t know if I can.”
“Alana,” he leans in close, whispering into my ear, “Eldrion would not have brought you here if he didn’t believe you were special.”
It’s the second time he has said this to me, and this time, I know he’s right.
“Last time I took something away from someone, it was –” I can’t finish my sentence. The words simply will not leave my mouth.
I don’t think I will ever be able to say Kayan’s name again or think of him without hearing those sounds and seeing his poor, broken body.
The thought that he is no longer in this world makes me want to vomit onto the floor at my feet. The thought of escaping here, and finding Rosalie, and having to tell her that he has gone makes me want to vomit harder.
“Is it right to stop them from grieving?” I ask.
“You’re not stopping them from grieving,” Finn says. “You’re taking the worst of it, the most painful parts, that’s all.”
I try to force myself to breathe, but it’s like the air is getting trapped in my lungs and doesn’t know how to escape.
I start to pace up and down.
Something deep inside is telling me that he’s right, that I can do this. I just don’t know how.
My entire life, I’ve been told to suppress my magic. No one has ever taught me how to embrace it or use it. All it has brought is darkness.
I breathe out slowly, brush my hair over my shoulders, and rub my face with my palms. Then I flex my fingers at my sides, brace myself, and lower the gates in my mind.
Immediately, a flood of emotion hits me. It is so strong, I quite literally fall to my knees.
But when Finn moves to help me, I gesture for him to stay away.
Maura has moved to the bars and is watching me carefully. Some of the others do too, but none of them speak. She tilts her head, looking at me curiously, as if she’s never really seen me before.
I meet her eyes. “I’m going to help you,” I say.
“I don’t want your magic anywhere near me,” she spits, the vitriol rolling off her tongue along with her saliva. But beneath it, like grains of sand in the deepest depths of the ocean, is a heartbreaking sadness that makes me want to embrace her, even though she hates me.
Fear and sadness swell in the air around me. They press down on my skin and burrow their way into my soul. They are so overwhelming, I can barely breathe.
I reach out my hands.
I don’t know why, but it feels like the right thing to do.
I splay my fingers, and there it is – a small ball of purple light.
Maura steps back from the bars; the others do too. “Stop that,” she says. “Whatever you’re doing, stop.”
But I ignore her. My wings are starting to flutter. I feel them glow, too, and I rise to my feet. The purple light in my hands dissipates, becomes thinner. It dissolves into the air and spreads like a blanket over the entire cell.
They watch it, transfixed. Even Maura now does not move. She just holds out her arms as the purple light lands like feathers on her skin.
I glance at Finn. He’s watching me in awe.
I move closer to the bars, holding my arms out so my palms are facing the Leafborne in the cell, and I close my eyes. I imagine dragging the light back inside me, pulling their pain and their fear and their sadness and all the darkness that consumes them into me instead.
It hits me like a tsunami and sends me flying. My back slams into the wall, grazing my wings, and I drop to the floor.
My entire body starts to shake.
I cough, clutching at my chest.
My insides feel like they’re burning.
In my mind, the pain feels as though it’s about to split my skull in half. Then there is another burst of light. It comes from deep inside me, emanating from every pore, filling the room. And then it is gone.
Silence descends.
I look over at the cell. It is silent there too. No one is crying.
Maura meets my eyes and wraps her willowy fingers around the bars as she stares out at me.
“Thank you,” she says.