Chapter 2 #3
“I know.” We ran. Smoke swallowed the road ahead. A wraith burst from the wall of a burning cottage. Irelia grabbed the back of my dress and dragged me sideways. Its arm passed inches from my face. Cold carved across my cheek. We ran around it.
“Maia!” No answer.
“MAIA!”
“Lyra!” Relief nearly took my legs from beneath me.
Maia emerged through the smoke. Blood covered one side of her face.
One sleeve had been torn away. Her knife was broken halfway down the blade.
I ran into her. Her arms closed around me for only a second before she pushed me back and searched my face.
“What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.” Her eyes dropped to my burned hands, then shifted toward the flames behind me.
“Nara?” I couldn’t answer. Maia understood anyway. She closed her eyes.
“She went back for a child.”
“I couldn’t get her out.” Maia touched the back of my neck.
“I tried.”
“I know.”
“She was right there.”
“Lyra.”
“I saw her hand.”
“Look at me.” I did. Her grip tightened.
“You did not kill her.”
“I left her there.”
“She chose to stay.”
“I should have—”
“No.” The word was sharp enough to stop me.
“You do not carry that.” Another wraith screamed nearby. Maia released me.
“East. Both of you.”
“There are still people here.”
“Anyone who can move is being sent to the fields.”
“Ferin is hurt.”
“I know.”
“Fenric—”
“I know.”
“Then we can’t leave.” Maia looked at me. Fire moved through her eyes. For the first time in my life, she looked old. Not because of the silver in her hair or the lines around her mouth. She looked like someone who had spent years fearing a night she knew would eventually come.
“You have to.”
“Why?” Her gaze dropped to my right wrist. To the protection cord.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Anger cut through the grief.
“Stop saying that.”
“Lyra—”
“You knew something was wrong this morning. You knew when Ferin’s charms broke. You knew when the fire turned silver.” Her face went still.
“You saw it turn silver?”
“Everyone saw it.”
“No.” Her eyes searched mine. “That isn’t what I meant.” A scream cut through the road. A man appeared between two burning houses with a wraith behind him. Maia shoved us toward the eastern lane.
“Go.”
“We’re not leaving you.”
“I’ll follow.”
“No.” Maia caught my face between both hands. Her thumbs were warm against my cheeks despite the cold rolling through the road. For one second the burning village disappeared. There was only Maia.
The woman who had raised me. The woman who had taught me which plants healed and which killed.
Who had sat beside my bed when winter fever nearly took me.
Who had patched my knees and washed blood from my hands and hidden things from me for as long as I could remember.
She looked terrified. “Listen to me. If anything happens, you run.”
“No.”
“Promise me.”
“I can’t.”
“Lyra.”
“I’m not leaving you.” Her eyes filled. I had never seen Maia cry. Not once.
“Please.” Irelia stepped closer.
“Maia—” A blur of darkness slammed into her. Irelia vanished from beside me.
“Irelia!”
She hit the road several paces away and rolled hard enough that I heard the air leave her lungs. The wraith followed. I ran. Maia grabbed my arm.
“Don’t.” I tore free. Irelia pushed onto one elbow.
Blood ran from her hairline. The wraith towered over her.
I grabbed a burning length of wood from the road and swung.
The flames vanished when the timber touched the creature.
The wood connected with a solidity the darkness shouldn’t have possessed.
The wraith turned toward me. Its hand closed around my throat. Cold erased the fire. My feet left the ground. I clawed at its wrist, but there was nothing solid enough to hold. Darkness spilled over my fingers. I couldn’t breathe.
“LYRA!” Maia drove a broken ash charm into the creature’s side. Gold light exploded. The wraith dropped me. I hit the road hard. Air tore back into my lungs. Maia stood between us.
“RUN!” The creature recovered. It struck her across the chest. Maia flew backward and hit the stone wall of the well.
“MAIA!” She crumpled. I crawled toward her. A shriek came from behind me. The first wraith had turned back toward Irelia. Another emerged through the smoke near Maia. Two. One moving toward Irelia. One toward Maia. I was between them.
“Irelia!” She struggled onto her knees, one hand pressed to her ribs.
“Go.”
“No.” She looked toward Maia. Maia moved. Barely. Her hand dragged against the stones. The second wraith reached her. I took one step toward Maia. The creature beside Irelia lifted its arm. I stopped. There wasn’t enough time. The knowledge came with absolute certainty.
If I ran to Maia, Irelia died. If I ran to Irelia, Maia died. My entire life narrowed into two directions. The woman who had raised me. The girl who had been beside me for almost every memory worth keeping. Choose.
“No.” I took one step toward Maia. Irelia screamed. I spun. The wraith reached for her.
“No.” Pressure gathered beneath my ribs, sudden and unbearable. Maia tried to push herself upright and collapsed.
“Lyra.” Her voice was barely there. “Run.”
“I can’t.” Heat gathered beneath my skin. The wraith beside Maia bent over her. Irelia tried to crawl backward from the other.
“I can’t.” The remaining protection cord around my wrist exploded.
Silver sparks scattered through the air.
The wraiths stopped. Heat tore through my veins.
I stared at my hand. Silver-blue light threaded between my fingers.
Not from the fire. Not from a charm. From me.
Pain struck through my chest. I doubled over.
Light moved beneath my skin, through my hands, my wrists, my arms. The wraiths turned. Not only the two nearest me.
All of them. Across the square. Between the burning houses.
Along the road. One by one, every faceless head in Edenlo turned toward me.
The darkness at my feet moved. Shadows stretched over the stones toward my body.
Then awareness reached me from beyond the village.
Farther west. Farther than the ridge. The sensation hit so suddenly my knees nearly folded. Hunger. Vast and ancient.
A presence pressing against the edges of the world.
Looking. Searching. Finding. The light inside me surged.
My bones burned. I screamed. Blue brightened beneath my skin.
The shadows surrounding the wraiths recoiled.
The creature nearest Maia stepped backward.
I looked at her. She was staring at me. Not confused.
Not shocked. She knew. I had only a heartbeat to understand that before the wraith beside Irelia reached for her again.
Whatever I had been holding together inside myself came apart.
“No.” The light between my fingers flared.
“NO!” Light erupted from me. There was no sound at first. Only silver-blue light that tore outward so violently that the world disappeared.
The nearest wraith came apart. Darkness shredded from its body in strips, each one igniting completely before vanishing.
The creature above Maia screamed and disappeared.
The light kept moving. Across the road. Through the square.
Over the collapsed fire tower. Every Shadowwraith it touched tore apart.
One vanished between the houses. Another disintegrated beside the fountain.
A third reached the wall of a burning cottage before silver overtook it. Their screams became one sound. I could feel them. Every one. Cold. Hunger. Nothingness. And beneath all of it, a vastness impossibly far away. It turned toward me. The pressure nearly crushed the breath from my lungs.
For one impossible heartbeat, the light faltered.
Darkness pressed back. Not from Edenlo. From beyond it.
From somewhere I could not see. A touch grazed my mind.
Not language. Recognition. The light inside me answered.
The final burst tore outward. The last wraith screamed.
Then there were none. Silence crashed over Edenlo.
Fire still consumed the buildings. A roof collapsed somewhere.
Someone sobbed. But the screaming had stopped.
Silver sparks drifted through the smoke like falling stars.
My hands remained raised in front of me.
I stared at them. At the fading light beneath my skin.
At the village I had known my entire life burning around me.
Irelia lay motionless in the road. Maia lay beside the well.
Neither of them moved. “No.” My knees struck the stones.
The silver-blue light vanished. And the world went black.