CHAPTER 30 RAYA
RAYA
The moment the portal spits us out in the Academy, my leap of logic is confirmed. I instantly sense the change in the shadows, the oppressive nature of a power that’s stifling the magic in the air and sapping it of color.
“Do you feel that?” I ask the others, scanning the entry hall for hostile eyes.
It’s not the same hall the public portals lead to, it’s much less extravagant and smaller in size, a sparsely decorated rotunda that hosts a ring of doors labelled only by shade and rank.
The private offices of the elders and guild masters, I’d venture, where they conduct their business when they’re called to convene.
“Yeah, I feel it.” Akari looks to Saleen who also nods in reply. “It’s like my magic is . . . heavier, somehow. Sticky.”
Sticky seems a good word for it, as if someone’s gone and added a thickening agent to my blood. Not quite the overwhelming deadness I’d felt in Adriel’s presence, but I can only assume that is soon to come, that we’re not yet in range of his full power.
“What about you?” Though my hand was only briefly clasped in Ezzo’s, he’s still stood close behind me, almost as close as Chase is standing to Cemmy and Akari is to Saleen. “Is it affecting your gifts?”
“Doesn’t seem to be affecting mine.” Cemmy leans against the wall in demonstration, her physicality remaining very much intact. “Could be we’re less sensitive to the effects—though I wouldn’t bank on it lasting. Ez—can you see where Adriel is holed up?”
“I can try.” Ezzo blinks into his gift. “But . . . it’s kind of a mess of trails in here, to be honest; I’m not usually surrounded by so many Shades at once.
” His eyes are clouded white and narrowed with the effort, trying to make sense of the picture to which the rest of us are blind.
“Okay, so . . . you were right, Raya, he did bring Alara with him, and she’s on the east side of the castle, moving up towards the fourth floor. ”
“That would be the dorms,” Akari says. “So maybe she’s gone to fetch the acolytes for him? They would be in bed at this hour.”
“That could explain why the freshest trails seem to be moving from there towards . . . what looks like the court where they held my trial.” Ezzo also validates my theory that Adriel would be drawn to his father’s chamber.
“Only three of them so far—a Yellow, an Indigo, and a Violet, so if he’s after the seven colors, she’s still missing a bunch. ”
“And are the typics with her, too?” I ask, since he’s not yet mentioned them.
“No, I can’t see the typics—but I also can’t see into that room at all, it’s like the trails around it just . . . stop. Like there’s a void in the shadows.”
“Then that’s got to be where he is, right? In the court chamber?”
“I mean, I would have thought that, except . . . I’m actually seeing his absence of trail towards the top of the castle—but in a really odd place, as though he’s standing on the tower instead of in it. And there’s an Orange trail there, too, so either someone’s about to jump, or they’re—”
“About to get pushed,” I finish that sentence for him, though I don’t think that’s just any someone, I think it’s his father.
“He’s going to kill the councilman—we need to split up.
” I snap to a decision the moment I realize what Adriel means to do.
“Saleen—take Ezzo, Cemmy, and Chase and see if you can free those acolytes; Akari and I will go after Denata.” Not that he deserves our help, but he’s currently the only one who knows a damn thing about voids.
If he dies, we may never learn how to stop his son.
“No, absolutely not.” Saleen steps between us. “Splitting up is a horrible—”
“Yes, of course it’s a horrible idea, Saleen, but we can’t be in two places at once.”
“She’s right, Sal,” Akari says, putting a hand to Saleen’s arm.
“They need a Shade and Raya needs an active power; this is the safest way to do it.” The look that passes between them is a silent battle, a war of attrition Akari eventually wins.
As much as Saleen may hate the idea, she’s smart enough to recognize that we’re right, that unless my mother chooses to relay my message—and that’s a feeble hope, if that—we’re on our own here, there’ll be no cavalry coming.
“Be safe, Raya.” Ezzo’s whisper is low and quiet, a tiny exhaling of air as he brushes past me.
You too. There’s no time for me to breathe a reply, no time to lament the fact that this may be the last I ever see of him.
Now that we’ve reached the end of our fundamental path, the future can’t guide our steps anymore; it’s already done its part, led us to the critical thread in the tapestry. What happens next is solely up to us.
“So . . . just in case we die and I don’t get another chance to say this: I’m sorry for giving you such a hard time about the open question, Ray. And the Hue.” Akari, however, has never been one for holding her words back—even while we’re mid-crisis and shimmering towards danger.
“Eh, I would have done the same in your shoes.” I shrug. “I’m sorry for always being such a stick about Saleen.”
“Eh, I would have done the same in your shoes.” Akari parrots the sentiment, because—let’s face it—neither of us would have put our money on Saleen being the linchpin that would keep this strange little group from collapse.
Though I guess I should have known that she’s the only one who could have convinced Akari to risk the future she’s been working towards.
Because while I was never in love with Killen, Akari’s never not been in love with Saleen.
I’m not surprised their paths led back to each other.
And yours led to a Hue. It’s amazing, isn’t it?
How fast things can change? How one truth can unravel a whole history of lies?
Just a few days ago, I genuinely believed that Ezzo’s kind was a blight, that it was righteous to hunt them—to kill them—even when they were barely surviving.
Maybe if I had asked the right questions, I would have seen the lie sooner, stopped believing everything the Council fed me as fact.
Then again, I never was much good at doing that, and I’d always been too afraid of disappointing my parents to break with the guild’s sanctioned method of asking.
Councilman Denata was afraid, too—of a fucking baby.
All because he was born with a power the Council didn’t like.
And now, here we are, thirty years later, and that fear’s about to cost us our lives.
If it hasn’t cost him his already. The closer we get to the seeing tower, the slower the shadows appear to stir, thickening to quicksand until we lose the ability to shimmer altogether and start having to wade through the clotted dark.
“We’ll never make it to the roof like this,” Akari yells as we scale the stairs one grueling step at a time.
“How did they even get up there? It’s not like there’s a way to climb ou—” Her voice shocks to silence as we finally reach the room at the top of the tower, and the furious tempest raging inside.
“By my colors, Ray—can you—? Are you seeing this?”
It would be impossible not to see it, not to notice how Adriel’s reformed the tower’s apex into a cyclone that devours the sky. He’s not merely bending the shadows anymore, he’s perverting them, mushrooming the roof to form a jagged ledge over which he can suspend his father.
Oh Gods—what was I thinking? We can’t fight this kind of power. My realization comes too little too late, a split second after he’s whirled towards us and deadened the magic in our blood. A split second after that, we’re both sucked into the swirling night.