49. Raya
RAYA
“I saw her from the window! She had changed so much!”
- MATRON CLARA
The old battlefield in Zetka was barren and empty, further proof of the lies we had been fed our entire lives. How had no one stumbled across this land? How has no one wondered? Our horse cantered quickly across the cracked, desert ground. We had no choice; Elian had told us. There was no other way to get to the other side of Zetka, we had to cross the old battlefield.
Ghosts of the dead seemed to linger around us, warning us.
Go back, they seemed to say, leave the battlefield, before it takes you too.
I shuddered, pulling my horse closer to Khol’s. At least we had left the snow behind on the mountain, warmth finally seeping into our skin.
“I know where we are now,” the words slipped from my mouth hours later, as the horses crested a hill covered in grass and wildflowers.
“Matron’s house should be…” The words died in my mouth.
My childhood home. It stood like a mythical creature. I had only been away for less than a year, it felt like forever. The chipped red paint on the front door. The windows warped from the sun. It was battered and worn but it was home. My shoulders sunk, months of fear and anticipation and love and sadness slowly sinking away.
“This is where you grew up?” Joy asked from behind me. I nodded.
“This is the place.” I breathed in the scent of home, pine and wildflowers and water from the stream behind the orphanage.
Memories of my childhood came rushing back to me faster than I thought possible. Helping Matron Clara wash clothes in the stream, Alias and I catching fireflies. The sun staying up all day and into the night in the summer months, eating dinner outside. Swimming in the water, skating in the winter. We had done all of it while training for the Sage Guard. It hit me then, that Matron Clara had created a beautiful life for us, with only the nurse Isla to help her. She made our training bearable, even when the work was hard and tiresome, we were still loved. I smiled to myself. Another memory surfacing; the last time Alias and I were in the field behind the orphanage.
“Finally,” Alias whispered from behind me, as if greeting an old friend, as if he had waited years, rather than days, to be here. We stared in silence at the place we discovered when we were only children, the only place we called home.
“I’ll miss it,” Alias said. “Will you?”
“Of course, I will,” I said looking back at him. “But we’ll see it again soon enough,” I said, attempting to calm our combined nerves.
I clicked the horse onward, quickly pushing into a run.
“Raya, wait!” Joy shouted, but her words were lost in the wind, I was home. I would not wait another second to see Alias.
I pounded against the red paint of the front entrance, the door already opening before I could knock twice. I fell into Matron Clara’s arms.
“Raya!” Her voice was so familiar I almost erupted into tears. She smothered me with her large body. Opening my eyes I saw the others behind her. I smiled at them softly.
“Matron,” I breathed, hearing Khol, Elian, and Joy finally creak up the porch stairs behind me.
“Is he here?” I asked, pulling back hastily.
“Who?”
“Alias.” I looked into the kitchen and back out the front door. “He told me to meet him here, he sent a letter.”
“He isn’t with you? You left for the Sage Guard together, did you not?” I nodded, only half listening to her words.
“They got…” Khol stepped through the doorway cautiously. “They got separated.” He smiled warmly, Clara returned the gesture.
“I’m sorry.” Clara followed my gaze. “He hasn’t been here.” She lifted a hand to cup my face, but I pulled back.
He must already be at the field. I took off, out of the door, around the house and up the hill. Soon the tall grass began to tickle my thighs through my loose trousers. I could feel Khol, Joy, and Elian behind me.
He clearly isn’t here.
She’s acting crazy.
How can I make this better?
I reached into their minds easily, prying out thoughts without them knowing. I sighed. Stopping under the tree we had often sat beneath.
Where was he? Why ask to meet me and not show up?
I had just about given up on my oldest friend, until footsteps crunched behind me.
“Raya?” The familiarity of Alias’s voice, mixed with the almost forgotten eastern continent accent almost brought tears to my eyes. I laughed to my feet and into his arms. Our embrace crushing.
“Where have you been?” I whispered, my arms still firmly wrapped around him.
“I guess I could ask you the same question.” He smiled into my hair, before pulling me back to check my face. “I’m so sorry about Jala and the safehouse. I’m sorry I let them hurt you.” I nodded.
“I told you we’d come back, I knew we would.” I smiled and something odd flashed in his face, but it was gone before I could study it.
“How are you?” he asked, and we pulled apart softly.
“I’m okay. Really.”
I looked back at Khol, he and the others were keeping their distance, giving us space to reunite. “You?”
“Fine.” He smiled back.
It took me a moment to realize then neither of us had answered the first question. Where had he been? I couldn’t tell him where I had been, it wasn’t safe to tell him about The Circle, I would be putting thousands of lives at risk. He had figured out where I was, but he didn’t yet know who I was protecting. I remember Elian’s words.
Raya, he is a member of the Sage Guard, he knows you are a Sorcerer.
I steeled my breath.
“Where have you been?” I asked again. Alias’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“Raya…” His voice caught in his throat. “Did you see Matron yet? She was so pleased to see me, I never really thought she liked me!” He laughed, the smiled not truly meeting his eyes.
But Matron Clara had not seen Alias. He had not stopped by to see her.
He was lying to me, why?
I thought back to my lessons with Khol, my training in The Temple. It felt like years ago, rather than a few weeks. I smiled.
“Yes, I saw her just a moment ago.” My voice did not waver, his smiled slipped ever so slightly, not noticeable to anyone who didn’t know him.
“Alias…” I walked toward him, resting a hand on his shoulder, and suddenly tears burned against my eyes and my heart began to sink.
“Why are you lying to me?” Once the words left my mouth, I knew they were the right thing to say. He glanced to Khol, Joy, and Elian, then over his shoulder, then back to me.
“What do you mean?” His words were rushed.
“Alias, I spent my whole life, almost twenty years, learning everything about you.” A tear slipped from my eye. “I know when you’re lying.” I smiled softly. Alias looked over his shoulder again. Silver lining his eyes. He blinked and a tear fell from each eye. It felt like a punch in the gut.
Wrongness coated my entire body, my skin beginning to itch.
“Why am I here, Alias?” I asked, my voice breaking over his name.
“Raya,” he whispered, shaking his head, reaching up to touch my face, and I stepped away.
“Alias,” I repeated his name, softly. I could tell it was breaking his heart, whatever he was doing was breaking his heart.
He stepped back as thunder clapped overhead. It took me a moment to realize that I made it happen. Rain began to fall in small droplets, soon becoming big, fat ones.
“Something isn’t right.” I heard Khol’s voice from across the field. “This is Raya’s power,” he whispered to the others as he moved toward me.
The rain soon soaked us and my hair plastered to my face, my scorch marks pulsing with power.
“Raya.” Alias pushed his sopping hair from his face. “I’m sorry.”
The air left my lungs. Fear now replacing the blood in my body.
“Why?” I forced myself to ask.
“I couldn’t stop them,” he stuttered. “And I had… I had to get you away, get you out.” He rocked on the balls of his feet.
“I convinced them we needed you alive, but the others… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Tears fell fast and fat down his face.
“Alias,” my voice cracked.
“What did you do?” Panic blossomed under my skin as Khol and the others arrived at my side.
“They’re the enemy… but you’re not like them, you’re not a, a…”
“A Sorcerer?” I finished for him. He nodded solemnly.
“What did you do?” I repeated the question, and Khol tensed beside me. Wind thrashed against us, rain pelted us, but I felt none of it. Lightning struck only feet away from me, but I did flinch. I closed my eyes. Dipping into Alias’s brain.
“Did you find her?” Captain Jala asked. I was seeing through Alias’s eyes. I felt him nod.
“Good job.” Captain Jala stood next to a giant metal contraption.
“Pass the coordinates onto Regiment 4 and we’ll finish this. We don’t need another outbreak of witches,” she sneered.
“Sorcerers,” Alias corrected her. She shrugged nonchalantly.
“Get the coordinates, drop the firebombs and we can wipe our hands of this whole ordeal.”
I was sucked from his mind. A sweat breaking out on my back.
“Alias,” I sobbed.
“What?” Elian asked. “What is it?”
I choked on another sob.
“They’re dropping firebombs,” my lip quivered as I spoke.
“What’s a firebomb?” Joy asked at the same time as Elian said,
“Where? Where are they dropping it?” His voice became frantic, he already knew the answer.
“It’s a Sorcerer made weapon,” Khol muttered under his breath.
“They’re dropping it on The Circle,” I cried.
And Elian erupted in flames.