Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
ELLIE
“What breaks must be cleansed before it can be mended.”
The Healer's Codex, ancient Tidevein manuscript
The silence that falls feels wrong. Too quiet after all the violence, like the entire world is holding its breath.
Sacha is still kneeling beside Sereven, the fingers of one hand curled around the sword’s hilt.
I’m not sure he’s aware that he’s holding it.
From where I’m standing, I can see the blood pooling beneath the body, spreading outward until it touches Sacha’s knees.
The satisfaction I expected to feel through our bond doesn’t come.
Instead, something jagged and terrible hits me that makes my heart ache.
The grief isn’t for what Sereven was at the end, but for what he used to be.
For the loss of someone who mattered before he chose to destroy everything good in himself and the life around him.
Sacha isn’t mourning the death of the Authority’s High Commander. He’s mourning the death of his brother.
I take a step toward him, then stop. The way he’s holding himself, so perfectly still, makes me hesitate. This moment belongs to him alone. If I intrude now, I might break something that can’t be fixed.
Instead, I turn to Mira, who is still leaning against the wall, blood seeping between her fingers where she has them pressed to her ribs. The sight of red staining her hand makes my stomach clench, and I hurry over to her. Her head lifts, eyes clear and breathing shallow but steady.
“Let me see.”
She moves her hand reluctantly. I crouch down so I can see properly. The cut runs along her lowest rib, deep enough to be painful, but not life-threatening.
“Leave me. I’m fine. Check Varam. I don’t think he is.”
Varam.
I twist around to where Varam lies. His body rests at angles that aren’t normal. One arm is twisted beneath his torso, the other above his head. Blood mattes his hair, painting one side of his face red. One leg is bent in a way that tells me it’s broken.
I straighten and cross to him on legs that feel disconnected from my body. Each step takes effort, like walking through deep water. All the while I’m conscious of Sacha behind me. Of the grief threatening to overwhelm me through our connection if I let it.
When I reach Varam, I lower myself beside him and reach out. My hands are shaking so violently, it takes three attempts to find the place in his neck where his pulse should be.
Please. Please be alive.
I can’t feel anything. I press harder, bending lower to rest my head against his chest.
“Please, Varam. Please.”
And then I hear it. A faint thud.
I hold my breath.
Another thud. Slow and strained, but there.
“He’s alive.” The words echo around the cavern, my voice breaking with relief so intense it makes me dizzy. “He’s unconscious, but he’s alive.”
Hope threads through the grief still flowing through our bond, and I lift my head to glance over at Sacha. He hasn’t moved from his vigil over Sereven, but his head has lifted slightly.
I place both palms on Varam’s chest, and open myself up to the power that flows through me. It moves differently now, easier. Warmth spreads from my hands and into his chest. Closing my eyes, I let the power show me how he’s hurt, and the image builds with intimate, terrible clarity.
Three ribs are snapped clean through. Burns cover his arms and chest. Internal bleeding where organs shifted when he hit the wall.
Swelling around his brain that could steal away everything that makes him who he is.
The damage is extensive, worse than it looks from the outside, and repairing it is going to cost me.
But I don’t even hesitate.
This is Varam. A man who welcomed me to Ravencross without question, who protected me after River Crossing, who supported me when we thought Sacha had been lost. A man who loves Sacha the way a brother should.
And Sacha loves him.
How could I not try and heal him?
I pour everything I am into the healing, coaxing bone to remember its proper shape, and encouraging torn vessels to seal themselves. I draw fluid away from delicate tissue where thoughts and memories live, and reknit skin that has blistered and burned.
Each injury I repair takes energy from me, leaving me exhausted and shaking, but I don’t stop.
I can’t stop.
Because this is Varam. Sacha’s closest friend. The man who waited almost three decades for his return.
My vision blurs at the edges. Sweat beads on my forehead despite the chill in the air. My hands shake with exhaustion that reaches deeper than muscle and bone. But color returns to Varam’s ashen face. His breathing deepens from shallow barely-there breaths to the steady rhythm of natural sleep.
When I finally lift my hands and sag beside him, the cavern seems to spin around him. I brace one palm against the ground to keep from collapsing completely.
Varam’s eyelids flutter, then open. Confusion clouds his expression as he tries to reconcile his last memory with his current position.
“What happened?”
I open my mouth to answer, but Sacha beats me to it.
“He’s dead.” His voice carries no emotion at all.
Varam turns his head carefully in the direction of Sacha’s voice, taking in the scene across the cavern. His eyes move from Sacha kneeling beside Sereven to the sword still protruding from his chest. Sacha turns toward him, and the emptiness in his face makes me catch my breath.
“I’m sorry it had to be you.” Varam’s voice is soft. “I would have taken that burden from you if I could.”
His words accomplish what nothing else could. Sacha’s carefully held composure cracks down the middle. His shoulders shake, a spasm of pain so acute I feel it through the bond. And then it softens. The grief doesn’t disappear completely, but it settles, becoming easier to manage.
When he speaks again, his voice sounds more like the Sacha I know.
“The others are still fighting above us. We need to leave here.”
He stands slowly, then reaches out and grasps the hilt of his sword. The blade slides free with a wet sound that seems to fill the entire cavern. Blood drips from the steel onto the stone.
“Leave the body here. He deserves this as his tomb.” Mira’s voice is hard, stopping Sacha as he stoops toward Sereven’s corpse.
“I am not leaving him in this place.” The words emerge flat and final. “I will not leave either of them.”
Mira looks like she wants to argue, but stays silent at Varam’s headshake.
He tries to stand, dragging himself up the wall until he’s upright, and then sways dangerously.
I catch his arm before he falls, but in my own weakened state, all I accomplish is nearly sending us both crashing to the ground.
Mira spears me with a look that freezes me in place, and she limps over to drape Varam’s arm across her shoulders.
“I can walk,” he insists.
“You nearly died.” Mira’s voice is sharp. “Your skull cracked against stone. You can lean on me or I can drag you, but you are not walking.” She looks at me. “And you …”
“I will go slowly.”
My eyes go to Sacha, who has lifted his arms, calling shadows to him.
They flow from every direction, wrapping around Sereven and Lisandra’s bodies, lifting them.
Sacha doesn’t look at either of them, turning away to stride toward the passage we originally entered through.
Was it only a short time ago? It seems like days. He pauses at the opening and turns.
“Ellie.” His voice is soft, and he holds out a hand.
I move forward and take his hand. The contact sends a pulse of warmth through our bond, and it steadies me more than anything else could have. Varam and Mira are behind us, followed by the two bodies, cradled by shadows.
We retrace our steps along the passages, in the direction the rest of our group went.
My legs ache after the first hundred steps, after two hundred they’re like lead weights, and by five hundred, I can barely drag myself forward.
The healing has drained me more than I realized.
Each step requires conscious effort, and my breathing comes in short gasps.
Sacha scoops me up into his arms without breaking his stride, and I’m too tired to fight him about it. Behind us, Varam leans heavily against Mira, and we continue our slow way forward.
The sounds of the battle grow steadily louder as we get closer to the surface. Steel ringing against steel, voices raised in pain, fury and desperation. The war continues above us while we fought our own battle below.
Light appears ahead. Real sunlight, not the eerie glow of the crystal. The passage opens onto a wide ledge overlooking Blackvault's main courtyard. The air carries the smell of smoke and blood, and the sight that greets us drives the breath from my lungs.
Chaos has consumed the space below. Our people are fighting Authority soldiers in clustered battles that shift and swirl without clear boundaries. Bodies cover the ground between the living, some wearing crimson, others in leather and cloth. Blood fills the spaces between.
What strikes me most isn't the violence.
It's how small it all looks from up here.
After everything we've been through, after finding Lisandra’s body, the fight using power and sword, Sereven's death and Sacha's grief, watching this battle feels like watching the final act of a play whose ending I already know.
I see Meren, earth responding to his will as he reshapes the battlefield moment by moment. Stone barriers rise to shelter our fighters while jagged spears erupt beneath enemy feet. His face shows the intense focus required to balance creation and destruction.
Kalliss commands a charge near the fortress's eastern wall, flames wreathing his hands as he burns through Authority shields.
Fire follows his gestures, seeking weak points in armor, burning soldiers alive before they can scramble free of breastplates.
The heat from his attacks reaches even our elevated position, making the air shimmer.