Chapter 46
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
LYRA
Everything happens so fast.
One moment I am training with Neilina—Ophelia and Luna watching with interest from the sidelines of our training yard—and the next…chaos.
Similar to how it was yesterday, the ward started flickering above our heads. Unlike yesterday, however, it just…shattered, breaking into pieces like glass.
It doesn’t take long for things to spiral out of control after that.
The air plunges, and Neilina quickly looks to Ophelia and Luna. “Go,” she instructs, every bit of her authority leaking into her voice. “Lock yourselves in your home. Chain yourselves to a tree. Do whatever you have to do until we can fix this.”
They nod, terror swimming in their eyes as they scurry in the opposite direction.
“What do we do?” I ask her, my heart pounding, blood thrumming in my ears. “Casimir isn’t here. And I…” I trail off, the air quivering from my lips. “I’m not sure what to do.”
She chews on her cheek while she thinks. “Our advantage today is that everyone isn’t congregated in one area for a celebration. If they are at home, they know what they are supposed to do should the wards fail.”
“And that is?”
“Lock themselves up by whatever means necessary. Some use chains. Some use carved out areas underground. Some drive nails through their palms and see healers after. They do what they must.” She stops, expression shifting.
“I only have so long before I succumb to the madness.” Her voice tightens. “I need your instructions.”
“Mine?”
“Yes,” she answers with a nod. “Master isn’t here, and you are meant to be his successor. Which means right now, we answer to you.”
I press my palm to my forehead. “I–I don’t know. There’s a temple, and maybe I can—”
I don’t get to finish my sentence. A strike of molten ash streams for me, and Neilina barely erects a wave of her corrupted water in time to stop it.
“Shit,” she whispers sharply.
Just across the way, three Abdites stride—no, more like skip—in our direction. One is a man named Lythe. The other two are Ophelia and Luna, their changed eyes telling me they have lost themselves to the madness.
Their skip turns into a sprint, a child’s grin splitting their lips. The air is ice on my skin now.
Erhé akta maht. Erhé akta maht. Erhé akta maht.
“Play with me. Dance! Dance!” Luna says, a silver stream, solid yet fluid, falling from her fingertips. She twirls in place, the silver splashing in droplets across trees and grass as she does.
Those spots burn away within an instant.
Ophelia moves her hands as though playing an imaginary fiddle. Her stuttering movements call upon black thorns and venomous vapor which pour from petals resembling candlewax.
Lythe’s corrupted magic is more straightforward—he was the one who sent the ball of molten ash soaring toward my head. And he sends another strike. One that is paired with thorn-pricked vapor and flowing silver.
In my desperation, I pull at whatever will come easiest, hating the moment a wall of solid flames is what answers.
“Lyra,” Neilina croaks from beside me once the magic has been swallowed and burned, her head twitching. “I can’t…can’t…hold it back much longer.”
Panic seizes me. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Casimir—we never went over this. I think the–the temple is where I should go. But how do I get there? And what do I even do if I can find it? I–I—
The encroaching Abdites rip me from my thoughts.
“Dance! Dance!” Luna sings like a child, twirling closer, arms flaring out around her.
Ophelia’s imaginary fiddle playing intensifies, her movements turning aggressive. She shuts her eyes and chants, “A fiddle is true. A fiddle is you. A fiddle will show what you can truly do.”
Silver lining? At least the man, Lythe, only has an inverted flame glowing directly between his eyes, stretching out to his temples, not rambling or saying anything cryptic.
In unison, they tilt their heads at me.
Then they attack.
Silver tings in the air as it rushes for my feet and shoulders.
Black, rotten thorns jut up from the ground like teeth and attempt to swallow me like a living beast. All the while, molten ash rains from the sky in a contained storm over my head.
Neilina does her best to help. She throws out solid defenses with her water magic when she can.
Yet her movements are becoming jerky, and her twitch is turning into a convulsion.
I use every ounce of my training I can, pulling mainly at water, fire, and earth.
Flora magic is not going to do much for me right now.
My back starts to tingle, then burns. My vision blurs at the edges, flickering red and black.
Yet right when wild desperation tightens in my chest, a terrible noise resembling a heavy creaking door echoes in the sky.
It is followed by howling winds, then a low-pitched BOOM.
It makes everyone stop—even the Abdites.
A small dot of darkness appears across the way.
Lythe tilts his head at it, frowning. Until he falls to his knees with widened eyes. “A god! A god! A god!”
Ophelia and Luna both snap their eyes to him, their necks craning.
“God? No gods,” Ophelia squeaks. “Gods are locked. Gods are caged.”
Luna giggles, her neck cracking further to the side. “Not all the gods, you remember. One escaped.”
I wish I could ask them what they mean, but a dull ringing sound hangs in the sky, and that pervasive darkness expands, forming a growing dome shape. My brows furrow at the sight of it.
“Lyra,” Neilina grits out. “I can’t…hold on…” Her eyes go distant, traveling far, far away. Until they snap into focus with something unnatural. She tilts her head at me, grinning. “Lyraaaa,” she sings. “Lyyyyraaa.”
Fuck.
Not good. Not good.
I can’t even focus on the approaching tidal wave of darkness, because Neilina directs her magic at me, which catches the attention of Ophelia and Luna, who then turn with giddy smiles, following her lead and resuming their magical attacks once more.
It takes all my focus, all my training to dodge and defend against their attacks.
The voices in the air hiss louder.
Erhé akta maht. Erhé akta maht. Erhé akta maht.
Hate take harm. Hate take harm. Hate take harm.
But more noises join those voices, creating a cacophony of sound. It is like metal screeching together, rounded out with a low-pitched drone. The darkness is no longer a blemish on the horizon; it is a consuming beast. The Abdites giggle as it approaches.
“A god,” Lythe screeches again. “A god! A god!”
What in the gods….
The darkness reaches them, blotting out the sun and stripping away the blue sky completely.
It swallows them whole.
Screams erupt in the air. Hundreds of them, coming together, joining their voices like a choir.
They scream and scream, and yet I am instead dropping to my knees, stunned by the feeling of what’s around me.
I know this feeling. I know this darkness.
I’ve…been here before, surrounded by it.
It’s familiar—like a distant memory caught on the tip of my tongue, nearly accessible yet not.
The overwhelming feeling of it leaves me disoriented.
I open my eyes, searching the darkness. There are odd warps of light, glimmering and twinkling against the sea of unending onyx.
They are like tiny specks of dying stars.
Created and destroyed within the span of a blink.
Yet they are unending—infinite. Beautiful.
It removes the fright from my skin, replacing it instead with awe.
I’ve seen this before. Been enveloped like this once. But…
How? Why can’t I remember?
Right as I stretch my fingertips out to touch it, the darkness falls from the air like raindrops, disappearing before it can ever hit the ground.
The world around me snaps back into focus with blinding color.
The sky is filled with deep maroons and pinks.
The descending sun burns against my fluttering eyes.
Death fills the air.
Luna, Ophelia, and Lythe lay scattered dead on the ground, their glazed eyes wide while burns litter their skin. Their arms are twisted at strange angles, legs bent awkwardly behind them.
My chest caves in on itself, and nausea roils in my gut. Why? And why am I okay? Why?
“Ly…ra…” A choked, wet rasp sounds from behind me.
I whirl around and find Neilina covered in similar burns, blood bubbling—no, boiling—from her lips.
“Neilina,” I breathe, rushing to her.
Up close, her mangled skin and wet breathing are worse than I initially thought. My bottom lip quivers as I take in the wrecked sight of her.
“I’m here,” I rasp, dropping to the ground to cradle her head in my lap. “Stay with me,” I say, trying to keep the panic from my voice. Her eyelids flutter closed, and I tap her cheek, holding my growing sob deep in my chest. “Come on, Neilina, stay awake.”
She opens her eyes, her dimming expression a mixture of sanity battling against madness. Like she is trapped somewhere between the two.
“You need a healer,” I say more for myself than her. With a frenzy bordering the lines of mania, I scan our surroundings, as if one might magically appear. Until I remember who I am—what I am.
I am a Binder.
I squeeze my eyes and reach. Like stretching out fingertips to grasp at clouds in the sky, I reach for something my hands can never truly hold.
Nothing answers.
Nothing.
It’s as if all the healers suddenly disappeared, their magic inaccessible.
I squeeze my eyes closed and try harder. “Please,” I whisper. “Please.”
But just like the first time, I receive no answer. No swells of magic in my veins. Which means…
There is nothing I can do to save her. Not from this. Not with how bad her injuries are.
Neilina stares up at the forming sunset above our heads. I glance up, too. A wave of disgust rolls through me; how can something so beautiful twirl while gazing down upon something so ugly?
Neilina coughs, spitting up more curdled blood. Then, despite everything, from the crook of my lap, she starts to sing. It is a croakish sound. Melodic and agonizing. A tune of madness and truth. Sorrow and pain.
Oh anguished soul, what have we become?
We’ve forgotten that we are our mothers’ sons.
We sow our threads, we pull our weeds–
We have forgotten what it means to bleed.
Blood drips from the sky like forgotten dreams;
Of a melody once sang, soft and sweet.
For once there was a vision of a unified sky,
Now eclipsed by the venom of all who’ve died.
What am I worth,
But the wills of men?
Why can’t I fly?
Why can’t this end?
This ballad is iron.
This ballad is stone.
This ballad is what–
I hope you take home:
We are not broken.
We are merely men.
We are all a bit broken—
But we can mend.
“What is that?” I whisper once she’s finished, trying not to choke on the sob crawling up my throat.
“It is—” She coughs again, more blood driblets propelling from her lips. “A ballad.”
“Does it have a name?”
“A Ballad for the Broken.”
“It’s beautiful,” I murmur so low, I’m unsure if she even hears me.
“So are we. All of us. In all our brokenness.”
Time passes in a near incomprehensible warp after that.
I hold Neilina in my arms, tracing my fingers absently down her skin.
At one point—though I’m not exactly sure when—I begin singing to her as she sang to me.
I sing her the lullaby my mother used to hum when I was a small girl, barely old enough to spell my own name.
I sing her a folk tune of a woman who enlisted in a battalion of men, determined to fight for her cause.
I sing her another ballad about a lover lost at sea.
I sing and hum and cry. Until those wet, rattling breaths no longer echo in the too-still air. Until Neilina’s unblinking eyes have lost their sun—open yet unseeing.
Once she’s gone, I sit in an eerie silence.
A silence that feels odd after filling it with somber music.
Eventually, I kiss her forehead and somehow find the strength to detach myself from her, resting her head gently on the ground even though her body will never feel any sort of sensation ever again.
Firelight flashes in my mind.
I have to burn her body.
I’m not sure what Neilina believed—I realize now we never talked about it.
But the common held belief is that in order for a soul to find its path to the afterlife, a fire must be lit to guide its way.
I—I can’t leave her soul trapped. Can’t let it wander lost somewhere in the Great Between.
So despite feeling the anguished defeat of futility, I again shut my eyes and reach for something I don’t actually think will answer. Yet…
It does. Because of fucking course it’s what answers me.
The connection is weak, the magic barely a hum in my veins, but…
It is there.
Dim tendrils awaken at my fingertips, and before they can fade away into the forming night, I throw the fire at Neilina, tears streaming down my cheeks as my body moves on something superseding my mind. Instinct, perhaps? I can’t be sure.
Neilina’s body brightens with the glow of vermillion and yellow, and I feel the familiar taste of grief on my tongue.
More flames, I think.
Like an old friend, numbness caresses me, beckoning me toward it.
To feel is to give power, my mind hisses at me. It will carve you like a blade. Turn away from the fire before you get burned.
I do no such thing.
I instead pull my trembling lip between my teeth and lift my chin. I stare deep into the face of the flickering glow, not conceding to my grief but not denying it, either. Not this time.
“In Death you walk. In Life I remain. Bound together, yet neither the same. Safe travels, weary soul. For I shall see you soon. But until that day, I’ll give you life by remembering you.”
I stay to honor her, holding steady while the grief claws at my chest and throat, hot tears spouting from my eyes. I do the same ritual for Ophelia, Luna, and Lythe.
I watch them all burn.