CHAPTER 27 RAYA
RAYA
It’s not until I’m led from the court chamber that I start to feel the full weight of what I’ve done; the futility of railing against the councilman and the finality of that act, the sentence that’ll soon be enacted.
She will be returned to this chamber to answer for her crimes.
My breaths begin to grow sharp and short and labored.
What the hells was I thinking, picking that kind of fight?
Have I really learned nothing from Ezzo?
How the truth makes zero difference when those in charge have a vested interest in propagating the lie?
How they’ll always choose to protect their own power?
The journey to the Council’s prison passes in a blur of realization, fear, and doubt, a rush of moments I only register in fragments.
It’s swirling shadows and the echo of my parents’ increasingly incensed shouts, empty corridors and a portal that deposits us back in Sarotuza.
It’s an explosion of color as we leave the Gray, that’s soon replaced by a maze of moldy brick that’s filthy and stark.
It’s an iron cuff around my wrist and a swell of nausea as I’m shoved—none too gently—into a ferrite-laced cell at the very end of a long line, far enough from the guards’ station for the metal to affect me but not sicken them.
This is where they put the traitors, I’d venture; the rogues, the Hues, the Shades who recklessly accuse an elder of having a secret son.
It’s also where they’ve put Ezzo.
He’s still alive. There are so many emotions warring inside me, that I barely even notice the surge of relief that sings through my blood, nor can I decipher the storm brewing in his expression, why he seems less than happy to see me.
Does he think I betrayed him? As I wade into the cell proper, he tracks my steps with a hard-set jaw and a wary eye, as though wondering if this is some kind of trick or a novel new method of interrogation.
But it’s not a trick, and once the guard leaves us to fester in silence, I lose grip of the last shred of strength that’s been keeping me up.
What in the nine hells have I done? I fall to my knees, the tears coming freely now that he and I are alone in the dark.
After a full day of fighting to suppress it, Killen’s death hits me with a vengeance, the part I played in it and the way he looked with his blood drained and his skin carved, how I’ll never get to tell him I’m sorry.
How instead of learning from my mistakes, I keep making them over, choosing the wrong battles and letting everyone down.
How after all the truths Ezzo’s shown me, I wasn’t even brave enough to stand up and own our alliance.
And for a long second, the air around me stays absolutely still, my sobs bouncing off the walls like thunder, splintered and snubbed. Until, in the space of a blink, Ezzo’s arms are around me, his voice low and gentle as he attempts to soothe the pain raging inside my heart.
“I’m sorry about Killen,” he says, guessing at the worst of my guilt. “I’m sorry we couldn’t stop Adriel from doing what he did.”
What about what I did? There’s not enough contrition in the world to excuse the way I treated him, the way I used his love as ammo and sent him out to wander the streets with a courtesan.
“You couldn’t know this would happen, Raya,” Ezzo whispers into my hair, as though reading my mind. “This isn’t—”
“Please don’t say it isn’t my fault,” I tell him.
Because it very much is my fault—and no amount of empty platitudes will change that.
I could have left that tavern with him myself, not paid another girl to do the lying.
I could have ensured that he returned to the castle safely, not made an excuse to spare me having to wait and watch.
I could have told the future where to stick its twisted prophecy.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Ezzo asks instead, shuffling us over to sit against the wall.
And though I want to say no—to keep this worst part of me locked away—I find myself telling him everything, a full recounting of my history with Killen and every callous decision I made, including the ones that eventually led to his murder.
And Ezzo just listens to the full story without judgement, his arm staying locked around my shoulders no matter how awful my confessions get, even when they make me sound like a monster.
“You can say it, you know, that I’m a horrible person. That I . . . I deserve this.”
“No one deserves this, Raya. No one,” he says, turning to look at me head-on. “And I know it doesn’t feel that way right now, but this pain will get better with time. It won’t disappear entirely, but you will get better at carrying it.”
“Did you get better at it?” I think I finally understand the reason he’d all but given up when we met.
“I didn’t want to get better at it. I haven’t wanted much of anything this past year, to be honest, other than to drink until I could forget, drown out the past.” Ezzo’s admission is its own weight.
“Is that why you let yourself get caught?” I ask, the question little more than a breath.
“The first couple of times, yes,” he says, equally quiet.
“I guess I figured if I was careless enough, the trackers would make the hard decision for me, save me doing it myself.” He confirms what I’d long since begun to suspect.
“But when we were in that square, I wasn’t thinking about dying, I just saw a chance to help the others get away.
And you were supposed to get away, too, Raya.
” His eyes sharpen back to the cell. “They had no reason to think you were working with me, so why didn’t they let you go? ”
“Turns out, I’m not smart enough to save my own neck.” I sigh, hugging my knees to my chest.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, when they put me in front of the tribunal—in front of Councilman Denata—I decided to ask him about what you saw in the Meridian’s church.”
“You asked him about Adriel?” It’s hard to tell if Ezzo’s appalled or impressed.
“Among . . . other accusations.”
“And?” Though at the very least, he’s certainly entertained. “What did he say?”
“He denied it, of course, but he also sent me here, so I’m taking it as a yes.” I shrug, trying to relay the next part lightly, like it isn’t churning my insides with dread. “For ‘further interrogation’, apparently, but I’m betting that’s just a pretense. He won’t want me running my mouth again.”
“Then so much for saving the fundamental thread.” Ezzo’s resigned huff is sadder than I expect. “Unless maybe you already saved it in the court chamber? Do you think your confrontation with the councilman could have been a trigger in some way? The catalyst the future needed to course-correct?”
That might make sense if not for the original vision it showed me, where the arm draped around my shoulders had graduated from comfort to something else.
“Maybe.” I drop my head to the mold-bitten brick, trying to ignore the fact that the idea no longer strikes me as so far-fetched.
“But I’ve never been a very good seer, Ezzo, and I’m fate-touched now, as well, so I wouldn’t put too much stock in anything I say.
I probably read the vision wrong.” Otherwise, why would the future have forced me to lead Killen to his death?
Surely that only brings Adriel closer to poisoning the shadows?
Surely locking us up in here does, too, since there’s not much we can do to stop him from behind bars, and the others aren’t likely to succeed, either, if their efforts are distracted by the need to get us out.
No, my being wrong is the more likely scenario—and far more true to life.
“Why do you keep saying fate-touched like it’s a bad thing?” Ezzo’s voice lilts with the question. “Didn’t you say that’s how every Indigo used to see?”
“Erm . . . yeah, we—” How is that his take-away from this? “We learned a better way to solicit visions, a way that avoids us getting punished by the fates.”
“Punished, huh?” He raises a brow. “Is that your word or the guilds’?”
“The guilds’ . . .” I still don’t understand what he’s getting at. “But being fate-touched can make you lose your magic altogether; wouldn’t you call that a punishment?”
“I think my mom would have called it a gift.”
A gift? I can’t quite believe what I’m hearing. “You think it’s a gift that I might lose my magic? Gods, don’t tell me you’re starting to side with Adriel.”
“No, I’m not starting to side with Adriel.
” He rolls his eyes. “It’s just . . . not all magics are created equal, Raya—some exact a heavier toll.
My mom always described the future as her burden, something she had to see while everyone else got to enjoy the present, skate through life without constantly having to predict.
She made it sound pretty exhausting, actually—hells, I just watch and that’s exhausting enough for me.
So if being fate-touched makes it possible for you to see even bigger and more imperative things—like fundamental paths and cataclysms—then yeah, maybe losing your magic is the future deciding that you’ve already done your bit, allowing you to live your life unencumbered. ”
“I—” Have never thought to look at it that way before; as a Wryvern, that’s not really something I’m allowed to think.
My magic—my lineage—has always defined me.
It’s who I am, who I’ve not become yet, and who people expect me to be.
It’s the only part of me my parents care about.
“I guess that . . . could be nice?” I say, since it’s not the worst fantasy to believe.
“How come your mom taught you so much about this stuff, anyway? Fated paths and fundamental futures, I mean? It’s hardly the stuff most Indigos care about. ”
“My mom wasn’t most Indigos.” His lips quirk with a smile. “She used to talk about them all the time, always insisted that she and my dad were fated.”