THIRTY-SIX
Amelia staggered backwards, a blast of wind buffeting her at the same moment as something snapped inside of her chest, making her gasp, clutching at her shirt.
She doubled over, gagging.
Everything stilled so suddenly around her, the silence so absolute, that she felt the shiver of something unnatural trickle down her spine.
Amelia, breathing heavily, looked up slowly. “Silas?”
She peered around the chamber, gasping at the sight around her. Silas was nowhere to be seen.
And all around her, stood stone statues, each in varying postures. Confused, she glanced around for Silas, the Sanctum followers, for Demetrius. But there didn’t seem to be another living soul in the chamber. She breathed out unsteadily.
Approaching the closest statue, winded and confused, she took in the hooded depiction of a person. Her heart stalled as she realised. Amelia gasped, looking around at each statue that hadn’t been there before. They were the Sanctum. They had each been turned to stone.
Her eyes fell to the other statues scattered all around the chamber, the ancient ones from hundreds of years ago. Something wanted to click into place in her mind, except she had begun to panic.
Amelia ran to each, staring into their carved faces. None of them were Silas.
But in that moment, she was panicky, unstructured.
What happened…
His cloak he had given her was heavy across her shoulders as she sucked in a sharp breath, the memories of her time under the rune’s obedience spell slamming into her with such force that she fell to her knees, cracking them on the stone.
“No,” she whispered, blinking away tears from her eyes, recalling the moment that she took the last of him, siphoned it from him, before he had disappeared in a swell of shadows.
She opened her mouth.
The sound she made, that echoed around the vast chamber, wasn’t human.
That feeling in her chest, she knew what it was.
The bond had broken, that tether which had been between them had been wrenched from her soul like a limb torn from her body.
She felt breathless and bereft, mind reeling with the realisation that he was gone.
Gone .
The chamber around her was quiet and terrible.
She was alone, surrounded by the stationary etchings of the people who had forced their hand, who were responsible for this terrible feeling inside of her.
Without his echo sitting within, she had never felt so alone in her entire life.
For a long time, she wept at the feeling, at the loss of him, at the final look in his eyes before he vanished.
She knelt by the pedestal until the sun started to go down, and the pressure of the oncoming night had her trembling, limbs stiff, rising to stand.
Amelia was so distracted, so distraught, she didn’t pause to wonder at the ongoing pulse of the unstable magic. Didn’t even wonder why the Rift still felt the same, nothing changed.
She reached into her pack numbly and pulled out a Waystone chip, staring down at the glowing rune. It was supposed to have been for both of them. They were going to travel back, hand in hand, triumphant.
Together.
Her lip trembled as she stared at it.
She didn’t even notice that the magic was riddling her body, strong and powerful, a mingling of hers and Silas’.
Amelia noticed nothing but her own quiet grief as she took up both of their packs and pressed the chip. The magic worked, ripping her away from the centre of the Rift until she was deposited easily at the large Waystone outside of East Town.
She walked, unfeeling, up the streets towards Brinkley’s cottage, her pack sitting heavily between her shoulders, Silas’ pack dangling from numb fingers.
Amelia didn’t notice that somewhere behind her, the Rift’s border only grew at a greater rate, threatening and writhing.
She didn’t notice any of it as fresh tears, hot and unrelenting, spilled down her cheeks.
“You bastard,” she whispered to herself as she walked past others in the growing twilight, people who had no idea of the maelstrom of emotions rising in her. “You absolute noble, infuriating bastard .”
Her voice cracked, throat closing.
A bell tolled, but she barely heard it. Didn’t realise it was the bell of warning, not signalling the hour.
Someone rushed past, nudging her shoulder in their haste.
Amelia stumbled slightly, but barely flinched, just kept on walking with grim determination.
“The Rift!” someone cried. “It’s grown half a mile in the last hour!”
She paused then, the words filtering through the haze of her pain.
Amelia turned slowly.
The panicked faces around her grew, people packing up their things, lifting children into their arms and running towards their homes.
She noticed it then, noticed everything.
The faint hum of the Rift nearby, continuing to threaten their borders.
The magic soaring through her. Not gone, as she had thought it would be after the Ritual, but waiting there, beneath her skin.
Her brain stalled, disbelief flooding in.
It hadn’t worked.
Silas had sacrificed himself…completed the ritual as was always intended and…it had all been for nothing.
His pack slipped from her fingers, thudding on the cobbles by her feet as it all closed in around her.
She opened her mouth.
And she screamed.
It tore out of her like wildfire, an explosion of agony that echoed around the streets. The earth trembled and the air sparked.
Her magic throbbed wildly, uncontrolled, as if it mourned with her.
The siphon inside her burned bright, drawn to the void of the failure.
It clawed for something, anything, to anchor itself to.
But as her throat closed up and her screams were cut off, people fleeing all around her, nothing changed as her magic simmered.
It had changed nothing.
Silas was gone.
The Rift remained.
They had failed.
Wind howled around her, picking up in ferocity as she quieted.
But the storm in her heart had only just begun.
She found her way to Brinkley’s cottage in a daze, not even sure how she had gotten there.
A hush had descended around the town after news had spread of the Rift’s tumultuous growth.
Someone was at the door the moment she walked up to it, ushering her inside.
A hug perhaps, warm arms around her, which she pushed away.
A seat beneath her, her body collapsing into it.
Eyes stared into a fire, watching flames crackle menacingly as questions flooded into her ears, though the words didn’t come together in her brain, and she answered none.
Someone cried nearby.
Aurora, perhaps. She would understand what it had meant, that Amelia had returned to Brinkley’s home alone. Without him.
Amelia wanted to scream and cry herself, to fall to her knees and apologise for failing them all. For failing him.
But she just sat, just stared, like her body wasn’t capable of bringing forth any thoughts or feelings. It was only capable of merely existing.
She didn’t know how much time had passed before a hot drink was pushed into her hands, and someone encouraged her to drink it. Amelia did and felt a hot liquid sliding down her throat.
Her eyes felt heavy not long after, and the mug was removed from her fingers.
Darkness entered her mind, and sweet oblivion took her.
The next thing she knew, Amelia stood at the edges of a lake, the world around unreal and shimmering, like partial thoughts and fragments of memory.
The ground beneath her feet was spongy and soft, the water of the lake black and still, reflecting the trees and the twinkle of stars above.
At the centre of the lake, Lyana stood, waiting.
She looked the same as always, her red hair tumbling around her in an ethereal way, her skin pale, white gown glowing.
It was her eyes that were different, however.
They had always been filled with a timeless sadness, but this time, they held something different.
Something like resignation, or perhaps…anticipation.
“You came to me,” Lyana said softly, taking two small steps across the still surface of the lake.
Amelia swallowed the weight of grief stuck in her throat.
“I…I didn’t know I was going to. I just ended up here.
” Lyana tilted her head, and her lips twitched into a semblance of a smile, making Amelia frown.
Didn’t she know that it had failed? That the Midnight Realm had won?
“Lyana…I’m so sorry, we…failed.” The last word came out as a hushed whisper, a word Amelia hadn’t said aloud yet.
Her face didn’t change.
“Silas was brave,” Lyana remarked, as though they were not discussing his death. “Foolish, but brave.”
Her teeth clenched together. “You…you said if the ritual was done as Bane described, that things would become balanced, that the Rift would disappear!” Amelia felt her hands curl into fists, accusation lacing her tone as anger replaced where sadness had sat.
“You said if he became the sacrifice it would work!”
That small smile grew by a fraction, and the anger in Amelia withered just slightly, replaced by something akin to fear.
“I said a lot of things,” Lyana murmured, stepping closer still. “What you needed to hear, to make the choices I wanted to you make.”
Amelia’s chest tightened as a cold, cruel wind stirred at the trees beyond the lake, and the stars about them flickered, like a candle about to sputter out.
She swallowed, meeting Lyana’s eyes. “…You lied.”
“To a degree,” she said ominously. “Truths and lies were mixed.”
“Why?” Amelia breathed.
Lyana’s face lost all expression, eyes turning dull. Even her red hair seemed to darken. “I won’t let him get what he wants. Not any longer.”
Amelia looked at the woman with disbelief. “What are you talking about?”
Lyana tilted her chin as she hid her smile.
“You almost ruined it all, you, and Silas. I watched as you tried to rewrite it… you came so close. It might have actually worked.” Her laugh tinkled around the still spaces.
“But of course, he would never have let it happen. Foolish, but predictable. He didn’t even hear the subtle changes I made to the ritual. ”