Chapter 44
Icy rain beats down on us barely one hour after we leave the cave. The timing is abhorrent, but we ride on. We desperately seek someplace for shelter, but the wide valley with its smattering of short trees and little else leaves us open to the elements
I cling to the pommel of the saddle as Tiernan urges Ghendor forward. All our horses gallop madly as though riding into battle.
When the rain dies down at last, we dismount in a pasture of shaggy, drenched cows grazing in the wet grass.
I’m soaked straight through my tunic and leather vest, even down to the band of fabric underneath.
My trousers cling to me, making my thighs rub together.
Even my socks are wet, my boots squelching with every step. The others look as miserable as I feel.
The mountains are in the distance now, and there seems to be nothing ahead of us but endless pasture. My hope sinks.
I wrap my arms around myself, trying to stop my teeth from chattering and my body from shivering.
Tiernan strokes Ghendor’s soggy mane. The stallion tosses his head and huffs, clearly as annoyed as the rest of us.
Ava waves us over to her, but pinpricks race across my skin. It stops me dead in my tracks, terror slamming into me along with an image of a surprise attack.
“Ambush!” I shout.
Several figures in dark blue with black hooded cloaks materialize around us before anyone can react.
It’s eerily reminiscent of the attack outside the Verge months ago. Except this time, there are no assailants in white among them. We all draw our weapons, though I fumble for my dagger, my fingers numb. My hands shake. I might have to take a life in order to save ours.
We position ourselves in a circle, facing outward. Tiernan is on my left and Ava squeezes in on my right. One of the attackers steps forward, a black mask covering their eyes beneath the hood. My pulse skitters, and I grip my dagger tighter.
“Stay close and do not shadow wield,” Tiernan says into my mind.
I don’t have time to respond before he pushes me behind him to fight against a man with a large, curved blade. He drives the man back as combat erupts all around. The attackers vanish and reappear in a dizzying, chaotic pattern.
A familiar, fractured presence presses into me.
I know that aura. Like eroded stone. Like a dam with a crack in it, just waiting to break.
My eyes lock on to a cloaked figure of short stature and subtle curves beneath her muscular frame.
She stands farther away from the other attackers.
I can’t see her face, but her posture seems stilted, nervous.
Somewhere to my right, Alys is lying in the wet grass. Chiyo doubles over at the waist, one hand still gripping one of her throwing knives. Pain distorts her normally fierce features.
Beside me, Ava is bleeding through her white tunic, a cut on her upper arm.
My heart hammers erratically, and as one of the attackers charges me, I breathe in and let my dagger loose.
It rotates through the air and finds its home in his shoulder.
At the same moment, pain rips across my side.
I don’t have time to look down, as my dagger doesn’t stop the assailant.
But the knife now embedded in his chest does.
I glance over at Chiyo, who drops to her knees, her hands pressed firmly against her stomach. Isobel steps in front of her with her sword held in both hands.
My ribcage feels too tight; my friends are getting taken down one by one.
The appearance of a large attacker somehow halts the fighting. He says something while confusion claws at me. Tiernan grabs me by my shoulders, his face wrought with pain, tears glistening in his dark eyes.
“Durvla,” he says into my mind. “Please forgive me.”
My head reels. Why is he choosing this moment to beg for forgiveness?
Before I can ask, he kisses me with a bittersweet fervor that steals my breath away and crushes my heart.
I’m steered into someone, strong hands restraining me from behind, draining me as though a dampener has been clasped around my wrist again.
I watch helplessly as the scene unfolds with uncanny sluggishness.
Tiernan turns from me, stepping toward the attackers. Darkness scatters around him as he swings his arm out in a wide arc.
In the distance, the figure lifts her hand. The shadows clear, and an object flies from her hand through the air. Closer and closer until it locks around Tiernan’s wrists.
Shackles.
His knees buckle. He glances over his shoulder at me, lips firmly sealed and bound hands unmoving. But I don’t feel the nudge of his magic in my mind, or the whisper of his voice in my head.
I feel nothing. As if my body has shut down. As if all magic has ceased to exist.
The large man steps in front of Tiernan, a dark stone ring on his finger. A scream builds in my throat a heartbeat before the man presses his hand against Tiernan’s shoulder and vanishes them both from the spot.
All the others wink out of existence one after the other, leaving behind only the shaking ground from the stampeding cows in the field.
The grip on my arms loosens, allowing me to wrench myself free and spin to face my captor.
The sense of my magic flows back into my body as tear-filled eyes stare back at me.
Ava steps away, wrapping her arms around herself.
Rage bubbles up inside of me, mingling with the sob that breaks free.
“What did you do?” I shout at her. “What did you do?!”
She takes a limping step back and closes her eyes, shaking her head as a solitary tear rolls down her cheek. “I did what I had to,” she signs firmly. “I did what Tiernan asked me to do. To save you. At all costs.”
I fall to my knees as if the numbness of whatever Ava did to me still lingers. Hurt and anger pours from me, channeled into a scream as I press my hands over my face to muffle it. Tiernan is gone.
He’s gone.
That shadow show was to divert the attention from me. To take the blame for me. It feels like the ground has crumbled out from beneath me, and I’m falling with no end in sight.
We spent so much time avoiding discussions that needed to be had. I spent precious energy being cross with him. Ruined every moment we had. Moments that could’ve been our last. And now, just when things were good between us—just when I thought we could conquer anything thrown at us together …
A hand rests on my back, but I don’t bother to glance up. I don’t bother to even shove them away. I take one breath, then another, and another, until I no longer have to remind myself to breathe. Until someone hauls me to my feet.
I’m surprised by the bright blue eyes that stare back at me. Osheen’s. His gaze is steady, firm. “We have to go,” he signs, releasing me. “Chiyo and Alys are hurt.”
A couple of dead bodies of Zenith members were left behind. It seems more damage was done to our little clan. Chiyo’s horse is without a rider, but Ava sits atop her horse with Chiyo slumped in front of her. Chiyo is paler than ever, her hand clutching her stomach. My heart falls.
Osheen taps me on the shoulder and signs, “We’re going back to the cave. Need help mounting up?”
I shake my head and move on my own toward Ghendor.
The stallion seems to lower himself for me as I slip my boot into the stirrup and swing my leg over his broad back.
Pain flares in my side, doing nothing to help the dizziness that swoops in.
It feels incredibly lonely atop the steed by myself—exposed to everything, vulnerable.
My hands are slick, shaking as I grasp the reins.
What if they kill Tiernan?
A fresh sob catches in my chest, hurting so badly that it summons more dizziness.
Everyone else mounts their horses, and we follow Ava, riding back toward the cave.
Each gallop of Ghendor’s hooves causes a fresh blaze of pain to ignite in my side, but I bite back the cries and keep my focus on the road ahead.
Osheen leads Chiyo’s horse, the mare following along obediently.
As we dismount in the cave, Alys summons magelights, letting them float up to the cave ceiling. She seems alright aside from a slight limp as she carries her bag of supplies across the cave to plop it down. With some effort, Ava helps Chiyo off the horse and carries her over to her mother.
Alys gets to work on her, glowing hands pressing against Chiyo’s stomach while Chiyo writhes in pain.
As much as I want to go to her, my legs are leaden, incapable of moving.
I see Tiernan in my mind’s eye again. Stepping in front of us like a martyr.
He’d shoved me into Ava … and she’d done something to temporarily suppress my powers.
I briefly recall her referring to herself as an Obstructor back in the Verge.
Why hadn’t I asked what that meant? Why hadn’t I known this?
They’d planned this.
Pain ripples through me again. I double over, dry heaving. As the world spins around me again, Isobel appears in front of me, peering into my face. “Are you hurt?” she asks.
I don’t respond. I straighten my posture, trying to take a deep breath, but a stabbing sensation lances through my left side again. I cry out and hunker over, my hands tightly over my side.
“Let me see,” Ava signs, suddenly replacing Isobel.
I step back from her, one hand desperately trying to suppress the pain, the other stretched toward her. Subtle shadows thread unbidden through my fingers, but I don’t bother to rein in my control. “You let him take the fall for me. You knew.” Tears spill down my cheeks.
“Durvla, we can discuss that later.”
I want to scream at her. She let Tiernan take the fall. She let him be snatched from us. From me. Sardonic laughter claws out of my throat, but another stabbing sensation cuts it off. I lift my hand from my side and my palm comes away bloody. There’s a slash through my leather armor.
“I know you hate me right now,” Ava signs.
“But we need to see how injured you are.” This time I don’t resist. She unfastens my armor from over my shoulder and lets it drop to the cave floor.
She tugs my tunic up to reveal a bloody gash against my side.
Ava waves her hand to draw my attention from it.
“You’re losing a lot of blood. You need to sit down before you faint. ”
So, I do, since it would be better than cracking my head on the stone floor if I collapse. It isn’t a moment too soon either. I’m no outsider to darkness or its tendency to forcefully close its arms around me.
But I’m too overcome to fight, so I surrender to nothingness.