Chapter Twenty-One #2
I spot him slumped against a tree, and I sprint to him, sliding across the ground on my knees.
Blood drenches his tunic, and I lift the fabric up, scanning for a wound.
A task made much easier by the lightened sky from Kiran’s wall of flames.
But even despite having the bright orange glow, I see no wound—no source to explain the pool of blood.
Until Meiji lifts his arms and croaks, “No. Not there. Here .”
He holds up his hand-less arms, bright-red blood spouting from the amputated stumps. My eyes bulge in my skull while the blood drains from my face, and I whip my head back to the humming Abdite.
She smiles when she sees my stare. “Oh, just wait. The show will get better. Much, much better.”
Ice fills my veins, but I still manage to focus on Meiji. “I’m going to get you out of here. Where’s Griff?”
His eyelids flutter, and his head lolls to the side. I snap my fingers aggressively in his face. “No— no . Come on. Stay with me. Where is Griff? ”
“Behind…hind…” He slumps forward, and I curse under my breath.
Blood. He has lost way too much blood.
The Abdite steps forward and giggles like an innocent child.
“See what I can do, Master’s Chosen. Watch what power I’ve discovered in the dark.
” She drops her hood and removes her cloak entirely, revealing an arm with a gnarled hand tattoo running along her forearm.
Iron-colored, shifting light funnels in the palm’s hand, awakening with an eerie glow.
And just like Lexamon’s mark, her wielder’s mark has been corrupted.
My heart thunders in my chest because I’m still able to recognize what remains of her wielder’s mark. I had wanted to be one of them once upon a time. Typically, it’s a variation of a hand or folded hands with pure white light formed in the palms. The mark of a healer.
But what happens when a healer is corrupted?
The Abdite stretches out her hands, a vile smile tugging at her chapped lips. “It demands to be fed. It demands to be unleashed. Demand, demand, demand.” Her head tilts at a weird angle as she swivels her gaze to me. “Are you ready, Lyra Izacalli?”
My name on her lips is like a shock to my system.
“Whatever you plan to do, please, I beg you…don’t do it. I’ll go with you. I will. But not if you harm anyone else.”
She angles her head further. “The key will come with me?”
I swallow against the dryness in my throat and dip my chin. “Yes. I’ll go with you.”
The Abdite pauses, considering my offer.
“This will please the Master. Very well.” She lowers her hands.
But within a second, they rise back up, as if with a mind of their own.
She inhales a loud, scratchy breath, and her neck cracks as her head suddenly bends backwards.
“Feed me. Feed me. Feed me .” Her voice is low and raspy, and it sounds like she’s never been given water a day in her life.
The palm on her arm glows once more, and it stretches to her fingertips, her skin lightening to a state of eerie translucence. Those voices return again, and they sing alongside the hysterical mumblings the Abdite rants under her breath. Erhé akta maht. Erhé akta maht. Erhé akta maht .
Brilliant white light seeps from Meiji’s skin, and it enters into the Abdite’s fingers like a coursing stream.
“Watch me siphon. Watch me steal.” The Abdite’s eyes roll to the back of her head, and she sucks in a pleasured breath. “Delicious. His vitality tastes so delicious. A healer’s life essence is always the best, so pure and full. I want to taste more. More, more, more. ”
She pulls more aggressively with her fingertips, the brilliant light thickening into something like strings.
I blink, stunned at what I’m witnessing. She…she is siphoning the very life from Meiji’s body, pulling it into her fingertips like nothing more than a puppeteer tugging on its marionette’s strings.
And with stark clarity, I realize—
Healers give life; corrupted healers take life. Instead of possessing the magic to cure and give back, she’s corrupted her magic to destroy and take. But I will not watch her drain Meiji’s life force before my eyes.
I find my feet and rise, and I open my palms, willing my magic to surface. I think of the vines and thorns I summoned in the throne room. Think of the way they speared through the air like weapons at my command. Still, nothing happens; nothing comes.
Fuck it.
Not having magic has never stopped me before.
I sprint at the Abdite and knock my full weight into her, throwing her back. We both land on the ground with a loud thud .
The Abdite squeals with delight. “You’ve figured it out, haven’t you? That I can siphon a person’s very life away. It feeds me. Feeds my magic.” She squeaks with joy again. “Ah, clever, clever girl. The Master will be most enamored with you.”
I spring to my feet, looking around for anything I can use as a weapon. “I have a hunch the feeling won’t be mutual.”
With another quick sweep, I catch the blue-stoned, hilted dagger glinting under the moon, strapped to Meiji’s thigh. I scurry for it, unsheathing it and holding it at the ready between the rising Abdite and me—even though I haven’t the slightest idea how to use it.
But the concept is pretty straightforward, right? Use sharp point and stab.
She giggles. “That won’t do anything to me. Do you see my skin? You can cut and cut, but it won’t hurt me.”
I click my tongue. “Doesn’t mean I won’t try.” And then I charge at her—recklessly, I’ll admit.
She grabs my wrists and holds me at bay, giggling all the while. I dislodge from her hold, and I manage to plunge the knife into her side. But, for some ungodsly reason, it’s like stabbing jelly. Her translucent skin swallows the cold metal like nothing more than a fish on a hook.
Her shrill voice pierces the night air. “I told you. I told you. That won’t hurt me.” She cranes her neck and stretches out her arms again. The string of light begins to flow into her fingertips once more, thickening, growing denser like a braided cord.
A savage cry escapes me, and I lose myself in a blind fury. I plunge the dagger into her side, her arm, her chest. Again, and again, and again. All the while, she is giggling, overjoyed at the display.
A loud boom sounds in the distance, and the night air suddenly dims back into darkness.
Kiran’s wall of flame is gone.
The Abdite whips her head toward the sound and hisses. I seize the moment and ram my blade into her left eye.
The Abdite jerks back from the impact, alarmingly silent. Slowly, she tips her head forward, the knife jutting out of her eye socket like a gnarled limb. “You. Can’t. Hurt. Me,” she seethes.
An airy, boyish voice hardens into a weapon of its own. “I can.” And then within a blink, steel sweeps through the Abdite’s neck like a knife easily cutting through warm butter.
The shock remains on her face as her head tumbles to the ground.
Griff and I lock eyes, his stare impossibly saddened yet lined with a cold rage. And then, to both his and my horror, breathy words spew from the decapitated head. The same frenzied words I’ve been hearing since the Abdites arrived.
“Erhé akta maht.”
And then life finally fades from the Abdite’s eyes .
Griff pants in ragged breaths, staring coldly—distantly—at the severed head. Crusted blood pools along his temple, trails of fresh blood still trickling down his cheek. He slides his gaze back to me. Then, those cold-set eyes roll to the back of his head as he collapses.
It takes me a moment to fully come through the disorienting haze of everything that’s happened. A second too long to process. A moment too long to reorient myself to the chilling reality awaiting me.
My feet move quicker than my mind, dragging me to Griff. With two fingers pressed against his neck, I sigh with relief when I feel his pulse hammering steady. I fall back for a moment and tip my head, only to shift my gaze afterward toward the tree.
Meiji has tipped sideways, his body slumped at an awkward angle.
My heart plummets into my stomach as I rush toward him.
This time, I kneel gently beside him, and I loathe my wince at the gruesome sight.
His skin is paper-thin, lined with age. His muscles have atrophied almost to the point of eradication, leaving nothing but bone beneath the surface.
Every weak intake of scratchy breath is wet and rattles.
Through painful wheezes and stuttering attempts at words, Meiji gurgles, “Po…cket. My…po…cket.”
Through lowered brows, I search the pockets of his breeches. My fingers land on something cool and circular, and I tug it free, revealing an emerald ring. My fracturing heart deflates. His words clamor through me, leaving behind a trail of needles in their wake.
I am Meiji Himari, son of Lord Himari. I am an instructor at Bathara, and a former member of their Philator aggregate.
A proud healer, and a scholar at heart, I am also an older brother, and a man who’s debilitatingly in love with a woman named Nuha.
I plan to make her my wife once we return from this trip, actually.
Then, I will hopefully be a husband, and perhaps someday, a father.
Meiji holds my eyes with his yellow, crow-lined stare. “Tell…her…I love,” he pauses, his breaths growing sharp and ragged. He fights against it. “I love her, and…that I am…sorry…I couldn’t…couldn’t uphold…my…promise.”
His breaths come in quick wheezes now, the effort to speak clearly torturous. I clutch the ring in the palm of my hand and nod. “I will,” I swear. “I will make sure she knows. ”
Meiji attempts a smile before his eyelids flutter closed. He rasps two final words. “End…it…”
A series of hurried footsteps approach, crunching against the grass. They halt not far behind me, but I don’t turn to see who all is there.
“What in the realms of hell…” Kiran’s voice is breathless—awed, but in a heart-wrenching way.
Without a word, without a single expression of emotion, I rise and yank the dagger from the eye of the fallen Abdite.
Not once do I flick my gaze in the direction of the silhouettes I see observing me.
I return to Meiji and clutch the weapon in my shaking hands, hovering the metal tip over his chest.
Should I pierce through his heart? Is that the fastest way? What would allow me to give him the quickest death; would offer the least amount of pain? The temple, the neck? No, no…I think the heart is the right thing to do.
Gray’s gentle words come from directly behind me, followed by a soft touch to my shoulder. “You don’t have to do it, Lyra. I can be the one who…offers him peace.”
I inhale trembling breaths through my nose. The dagger remains firmly in my grip, still hovering in midair, as Meiji’s wet rasps fill the space like a crushing sound of sorrow. My fingers squeeze the hilt of the dagger more tightly, and my knuckles turn white.
Gray tries again. “It doesn’t have to be you.”
“Yes,” Draven’s voice carries, low and solemn. “It does.”
“You can’t force her to take a life,” Gray counters, but not aggressively. I think everyone is too filled with…exhaustion, sorrow, remorse?...to even attempt fighting right now.
“I promise you,” Draven replies, holding steady.
“I would not force her to do this. But we weren’t here; she was.
We were not the ones who spoke with the dying; she was.
” He pauses. “If she can’t, then I will do it.
But first, you must offer her the chance to see this through. It’s the way of the Jurafen.”
Gray sighs and drops his hand from my shoulder, receding.
Draven’s right—I was the one who saw the events unfold. I am the reason things ended this way. It has to be me.
Only me.
My fingers settle on the leather, and I gently shut my eyes and whisper the ceremonial words under my breath. “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 plunge the dagger through Meiji’s heart.