10. Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
M y arms dangled as I swayed and bobbed to the rhythm of someone walking.
Blood pounded behind my temples as I came to my senses.
I knew being awake wouldn’t last long. My body still felt like it was on fire and tingling all over.
A rigid shoulder dug into my hips as I was bent at the waist, hanging over a man, staring at the moving ground below.
I suspected it was Ace until I saw Ace being dragged through the dirt behind me.
He was on his back, his wings drooped and outstretched to the sides of him.
Panic laced in my chest, constricting my heart.
I didn’t know if he was dead or alive. I assumed the latter since someone had thought to drag him along with us.
I tried to move my arm, tried to get it to do anything, but the most I could move was a twitch of my finger.
I was helpless, being carried by a stranger through the woods with no one coming to my rescue.
I tried to listen to my surroundings. I didn’t hear the sounds of war anymore.
Black spots began clouding my vision again as I drifted off.
I faded in and out of consciousness.
I saw Ace’s wings leave a trail in the loose soil behind us.
Then a man wearing black. The warmth of a palm resting against my cheek.
And then I was laid down. Everything was out of focus when I opened my eyes; it made my head ache.
I closed them again, letting them rest as someone lifted my shirt and touched my bandaged side.
I winced before I heard an elderly woman’s voice cut in.
“I’ll take care of that. You need to go,” she said, and someone lowered my shirt.
I remembered prying my eyes open and seeing the old woman as a man left.
I never got to see his face, never heard his voice.
He had tended to my wounds and saved Ace and me.
I didn’t even know his name. I felt safe in the woman’s presence.
Wherever he had taken us, it wasn’t out of malice.
I wanted to thank him, but I was too weak to move as his figure grew smaller in the distance until he disappeared into the shadows.
I jolted awake to the sun beaming through the trees.
Ace lay in a cot a few feet away; his chest rose and fell gently in his sleep.
I tried to sit up, but every muscle in my body barked from the movement.
Everything hurt. My head pounded from the morning light.
My mouth was so dry. A skin of water lay next to the bed.
Grabbing it, I smelled it before bringing it to my mouth.
I drank every drop of the cool liquid. Some leaked from the sides of my lips, but I didn’t care.
I touched my side, now dressed in clean bandages, as my mind processed what had happened. My first thought was my father.
I leapt out of bed, ignoring the throbbing pain that came with every movement. I stumbled out of the small hut-like home we were in. Now that I was getting a good look at it, it wasn’t much. It was tucked away in the woods. The elderly woman was nowhere to be seen.
Wind chimes, trinkets, and colorful bottles dangled from the nearby branches. Chime trees surrounded the home.
Some believed the trinkets helped with healing; others made wind chimes to represent stories about our history and our people.
There was a narrow path through the branches of trees leading to the small hut.
Soothing, clinking sounds resonated on the light breeze.
One in particular called for my attention as I ran my fingers over the smooth, painted glass.
A sun and moon were one as stars hung and danced below them, twirling in the breeze.
It reminded me of a bedtime story my mother and father had told me growing up.
I forced it aside as I ducked under the low-hanging branches. The smell of ash and fire was easy to follow, even though I didn't know where I was. I tried to sprint toward it, but my limbs were still too weak. The poison slowed me down as my body continued to burn through what remained of it.
I pressed my legs to go, to move through the grimly quiet woods.
My lungs burned, my side stretched in pain with every long stride of my legs, my head pounded loudly in my ears, but I pushed on.
The trees changed, charred from fire. Some lay on their sides, some nothing but a long pile of soot.
The land then became open and nothing remained but cinder and dust where the battle had taken place.
A sound came from my left and water whipped around my arm, preparing to strike on instinct.
But when I turned, the elderly woman stood there.
She had brown skin and peppered gray hair braided to the side, revealing her pointed fae ears, and lines crowded around her mouth and eyes from age as she held up her hands.
“Hello, Emelyn. I need you to come with me,” she muttered, eyeing the water swirling around my arm as I let it fall to the ground. She turned to walk away, and I followed her.
“Where are you taking me?” I glanced around at the remains of the battle and tears pricked behind my eyes. Valla had left nothing. “I need to find my pada. Who are you? Why did you help me?”
“I’m taking you to him.” Her voice didn’t sound reassuring as she went on. “I am—was—your mother’s teacher. I am one of the elder Kumai . We stayed behind during the battle.” My mother had mentioned her teacher’s name was Willow.
“Where is everyone else?”
She didn’t respond. I saw bodies on the ground in front of us a short distance away, answering my own question, and I stopped in my tracks.
They had covered some with a blanket or tarp of some kind.
There was no rise and fall from their chests; they were already gone.
Others lay still breathing, barely. I looked at Willow, her warm brown eyes filled with so much sorrow, but she broke my gaze, unable to meet my eyes as a single tear fell from her.
“Where is my father…?” My voice shook on every word, my body numb.
She couldn’t speak. She only pointed me toward a bedroll, where I assumed he was lying. It took me a moment to build up the courage to walk over there. My eyes grew blurry with tears as I pushed past Willow. Every step made the lump in my throat grow, clogging the airway to my lungs.
I slumped to my knees next to him. His breathing was slow and raspy. I palmed his cheek, pushing his brown hair away from his face.
“Pada…,” I whispered, and he opened his glossy, tired eyes to look at me. A small smile pulled on his dry lips.
“There’s my girl.” His voice was weak, but he struggled to sound like himself. I laid my hand on his chest. A thin sheen of water glowed under my palm as I tried to see the damage. Tried to heal him. He placed his hand over mine. “Eme…it’s too late for that.”
“No.” Tears streamed down my face. “Don’t say that.”
“I asked Willow to keep me here long enough to see you one last time.”
I sobbed at his admission.
“Pada, please…I can’t lose you too.”
He grunted as he moved his trembling hand and reached into his bedroll, pulling out a moonstone necklace. My shoulders quaked. I gave him a sad smile as another sob escaped me.
“This cost me eight skins,” he continued with a light chuckle, as if he weren’t telling me goodbye.
He took his hand away from mine on his chest and tugged a pendant loose from under his clothes to show me he wore a matching one.
I collapsed against him and wrapped my arms around him in a tight hug.
He held me weakly, as it was all he could muster.
He groaned in pain but continued to do it anyway.
As I parted from him, he put the necklace around my neck and wiped away my stained cheeks. “I will always be with you.”
I kept his palm against my cheek, savoring the warmth of him before he tugged it free.
“Now, I need you to go with Willow.”
“No…I’m not leaving you.”
“Eme, I—”
“No, I’m staying. You will not leave this world alone.”
He was too weak to argue. I lay down next to him on my uninjured side and curled my arm under my head as a pillow.
He cradled my hand on his chest, and I watched it faintly rise and fall.
Willow walked up on his other side, and now that I was getting a better look at her, she looked exhausted.
Both her tawny hands glowed as she examined him, and he grabbed one of her wrists.
“It’s okay, Willow, thank you. You can let me go now.
I’m ready to be with my wife.” His words clawed and shredded my already broken heart, reminding me that I had not only lost my mother, but now I would lose him too.
Willow had been keeping him alive with her abilities this whole time.
I could tell she had gotten no sleep with the amount of people in bedrolls she and the handful of other elders were tending to.
Her brow scrunched in pain at the thought of letting a patient go.
A leader, friend, and father.
She shook her head and looked away before looking at me. “It won’t be long without me tending to him.”
I nodded at her truth. My heart sank to the pits of my gut.
A numbness fell over me as I laid my head back down and peered over at my father on his deathbed.
I studied each curve, every line of his appearance, branding all the memories we had together in my heart to be sure I’d never forget them and everything that he was—and would always be to me.
My tears slipped freely as my face remained fierce. Willow used a damp rag and dabbed his face one last time as she murmured under her breath.
“For eternity, let the light of the Mother find you and bring you peace on your next journey. Your fight in this life is finished…Until we meet again,” she said, her last goodbye what we did to those who left us, before she stood to tend to her other patients.
My father’s eyes remained closed. He looked at peace.
I lightly squeezed his hand, and he returned the action.
I lay there for what felt like hours, but it was only a few more moments until his fingers went slack and his chest fell for the last time.
I scooted close to him. Tears blurred my vision as I buried my head into his chest and let all my broken pieces fall away until I was nothing but a hollow shell.
He was gone, and I was nothing short of lost.