Chapter Forty-Six
Azazel
“Talon and I were banned from playing together for a whole week. Father said I’m growing too attached to him.”
“Ihave to get you inside, okay?” Stars, my voice was shaking worse than Talon’s hands.
If he cared or noticed, Talon didn’t let on. He only nodded, his face turning an ashen shade. Nervous I’d hurt him, I gently tucked my arms under his back and legs, lifting him up.
“Fucking universe, you’re heavy. What have you been eating?” Maybe now wasn’t the best time to attempt to be funny, but it did earn me a muffled laugh, blood spurting from his mouth. Yeah, definitely not the right time.
After a lot of struggle and an embarrassing amount of effort opening the door, I got Talon inside.
My head pounded, the piercing pain in my back making me dizzy as I set him on the sofa.
None of the others had made it back. Not yet, at least. But I couldn’t let myself focus on them when Talon looked like he was barely holding on.
“I’m going to try to heal you while we wait for help, okay? Just stay still.” I pressed my hands into his abdomen, trying to will my magic to life.
Heal him. Stitch him together. Thread his skin and…and…
That was the problem with someone not trained as a healer or medic, we didn’t know what the fuck to do.
Even worse, I could feel how uncooperative my magic was being. How it crumpled beneath the weight of my pain and faded away as if on a phantom breeze.
“Az,” Talon mumbled, his voice hoarse and faint.
“Don’t speak. You need to preserve your energy.” And I needed to preserve mine if I was going to help. But there was no time. No way. No path forward. All I could do was pinch my eyes closed and grit my teeth, begging the stars for help they probably wouldn’t give.
Please, don’t let him die. Don’t let me lose another sibling.
“I’m so sorry for what I’ve done, Az.” My eyes shot open, landing on his.
Shaking my head, I opened my mouth to protest, but he spoke over me.
“I’ve done such awful things. I took my own sister’s life.
I murdered Nova’s parents. I slaughtered innocent servants.
I framed you. I lied. I…I took you all for granted and then had the gall to blame you for it. ”
“Talon, stop. We…we can work through that later. For now, just focus on breathing. On staying alive. Nova will be back soon with help. It’s going to be okay.”
Was it though? By the way he grimaced, his eyes fluttering and hands going limp, I wondered if he knew something I didn’t. If the end was inevitable.
“We both know this is it.”
Frantic now, I shook my aching head, dried blood tearing at my hair as I moved. Tears began to pour down my cheeks without warning, my breaths rapid and my chest burning.
“Don’t talk like that.” Again I ordered my magic to comply, feeling it tingle against my fingertips and watching with genuine fear as it barely closed the edges of the gaping wound.
“Please, just let me say sorry. Let me die knowing I at least tried to be better,” he croaked, a small drop of blood sliding out of his nose.
No. No, no, no, no!
“You’re not going to—“
“Az, please.”
One of his hands grabbed mine, the hold so loose I’d have thought he wasn’t trying if I didn’t know better. Still crying, I nodded, choking back a sob.
“Remember that one time we snuck out of Castle Zade with a bottle of Father’s expensive whiskey?” he asked, his smile revealing bloody teeth.
Nodding, I said, “He had four guards chase us down and drag us out of the woods.”
Despite myself, I laughed, remembering how smug we’d been even after our beatings. We’d found an empty bottle from the trash and got the idea to steal a fresh bottle and pretend it was empty when we were inevitably found.
“I still remember drinking it with everyone the following month. How we’d laughed when Dove burped so loudly it echoed,” he said.
My laughter died out quickly, her name making me feel sick.
His face had gone slack, tears filling his red-tinted eyes.
“I’d take it all back if I could. She was one of the only good things in this world.
Even when the two of us faced off after I’d killed our father, she barely tried to fight back.
I think she loved me even when she knew I was going to hurt her. I didn’t deserve her. Any of you.”
Stars, there were the sobs again.
“I…I should’ve…been there for you, Tal.” I was speaking between hiccups and gasps now, barely able to see him through the blur of my tears. “I shouldn’t…have let my anger and…hurt get in the way of…helping you.”
“It was never your fault, Az. My mind has felt like a prison this last year. A place full of hatred and fury and blame. I don’t know why I thought you were my enemy, but it was like a lifetime of insecurities had fed the paranoia, and I truly couldn’t get myself to think differently. I…I hated you. All of you.”
“I could’ve done more,” I insisted.
Talon only shook his head, the movement sending blood bursting out of his mouth like vomit. I pressed my hand into his cheek, wishing more than anything that I could change the past. That I could right what was wronged.
“Be good to her, okay?”
I knew who he meant. Nova. Even as he was dying, Talon was still thinking of her. Instead of making me jealous or angry, it only tore my heart apart. My hiccups grew louder, my breaths desperate now. “I will…I promise. I love her.”
“I know you do. I can see it in your eyes. Something that was never there before.” His eyes were fluttering closed, blood seeping from them now too. His shaking had stopped, and I wondered if he no longer felt any pain. “Hope.”
“Please don’t leave me,” I whispered, barely able to speak through the immense sorrow.
Just then, my front door burst open, and I was momentarily fed false relief. Had Nova and Desi arrived? Was it too late?
When Cal darted through the door, I knew all my faith was lost. His vibrant blue eyes searched the space, blood splattered across his brown skin and his cloak ripped. Pri, Q, and Zura all rushed in behind him, each of their gazes locking on Talon and I at the same time.
“No,” Priya mumbled, her voice growing to a shout as she again said, “No!”
They ran at us, three sets of hands hitting Talon’s torso at the same time. All four of us frantically pressed into Talon’s shredded shirt, a bright, silvery light shining from our skin as we worked to heal him.
“Hold on, Tal! Hold on!” Quinn shouted, his fingers curling as he squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth.
Maybe if they’d gotten here even a few minutes sooner, it’d be fine. But I could tell by the way the wound slowly sealed that it was useless now. Talon was laying in a pool of blood, the sofa stained, his breathing slow and uneven. When he smiled at us, I knew it was the end.
“I love you four so much. This life was only good because you all were in it.” Priya was sobbing so loudly it pierced my ears, Caleb’s groans making my chest tighten. “Take care of each other, okay?”
When Talon’s auburn eyes stilled and his lips parted, we were all forced to accept the goodbye.
***
Jonah had to carry Nova inside. She must have been so badly hurt that she passed out.
Desi had burst through the door seconds before, darting to where we all stared at Talon’s body.
I’d already told the others what I knew, but we all awaited Nova’s recollection of events.
If only for that closure. A final good memory, perhaps.
Desi healed us slowly, the work so hard she keeled over and vomited at one point.
“I can only do enough to make sure you all live. These injuries are too extensive and I’ve already had to heal other rebels today.
You’ll have to rest and heal naturally. Nova too, though she had it worse than any of you. ”
“What was wrong with her? She’ll be okay, right?” I asked, barely any life to my voice. But I needed to know. I couldn’t lose her too.
“She’s mostly fine now. Her skull was fractured, she had four broken ribs, her hip was dislocated, two of her fingers were shattered, her left ear drum had burst, her nose was cracked, and her neck was severely bruised. That’s not including all of the smaller injuries she had.”
“Stars above,” Zura said, her hand moving to her mouth.
Somehow, more tears poured out of my eyes. How had I not run out of water yet? I leaned down and pressed my lips to Talon’s forehead before standing and making my way to my bed, where I stroked Nova’s hair.
“She was probably trying to get to me, but couldn’t make it,” Desi added, her voice softer now. I didn’t buy that though. I knew Nova.
“She’s one tough woman,” Caleb mumbled, his hand still gripping Talon’s so hard his knuckles were turning white.
“I don’t know what the six of you were thinking, but Commander Maitoza is livid. As soon as you all are healthy enough, I’m to escort you to her,” Desi said, her voice deeper than normal.
“We just wanted to help,” Priya shot back, her eyes narrowed.
“Helping would have been shadow walking people out like we agreed!” Desi was livid, her body shaking as she glared at Priya. Blood soaked her clothes and hands, probably from all the injured she had aided today.
“If we’d done what we were told, Talon would still be alive,” Quinn mumbled from where he sat at the base of the sofa, his back pressed to the cushion that still held Talon’s unmoving head.
We needed to bury him. To clean up. To move. Anything.
But if we did, he’d really be gone.
“Yeah, and he’d still be a piece of shit who murdered his sister, so maybe this was for the best. At least he got to redeem himself,” Priya said, her voice almost a hiss as she spit the venomous words.
I could tell she didn’t fully mean them.
Or, at the very least, that they hurt her to say.
Her face was strained, her perpetually pink lips pale as she tightened them into a frown and her chocolate eyes dripping with each rapid blink.
Her short hair had been coated in blood, pieces sticking out here and there.
She had more gore on her than the others.
She’d always been the angriest of us all, the quickest to kill when told and fight when provoked.
No one said anything for a while. Perhaps because we all knew she was right and feared arguing or agreeing.
That was for the best. The silence let me imagine a life different from this one.
One where our families loved us, and their families before them did the same.
A world in which we all laughed and smiled in places not hidden.
Where we spilled juice and played in mud as children, then spilled liquor and danced beneath rain as adults.
Somewhere far away, another life where magic didn’t exist, that led to me meeting Nova naturally.
We’d hold hands and sneak kisses, only for our friends to catch us.
Talon and Dove would be there, both of them happy and loved by their family.
I’d have never been raped in that world, because Benadell Zade would have called me adorable and pesky.
She’d have baked us cookies and told us to go outside.
My mother would have had ten children, not because she had to, but because she wanted to and could.
My father would have chased me around the castle—no, a cottage—when I was a toddler, offering tickles and teases when he caught me.
I could see myself meeting Nova’s parents, her mother loving me instantly and her father purposefully running over my foot with his chair, only to eventually call me son when I asked them both if I could marry their daughter.
Celeste would have called me pretty boy and told me she was happy Nova found me.
Death would crawl on my lap and bite my finger as I carved Nova and I’s initials into rings I hand made.
In that place, that perfect place, everything was right.
“I’m going to give you all some space. If you need any help with…digging, let me know.”
Desi’s voice shattered my mirror world, the sparkling silver frame cracking as the glass fled its confines. Real life came barreling back into my consciousness, where Nova had nearly died and Talon lay truly dead. Where war loomed and all of our parents hated us. The world we’d earned ourselves.
“Thanks, Desi,” I said, my voice oddly hollow, void of the pain that felt like a beast consuming me.
After the click of the door sounded, signaling Desi and Jonah’s departure, Caleb stood.
“What now?” he asked. I turned to face him, his bloodshot eyes and rosy cheeks making tears once again trickle down my face.
“We bury our brother,” I said.