Chapter Fifty-Four
Eliaz
Outside, the sky is set alight on the horizon, a large crack through the clouds – as though the night itself is splitting open to reveal fire.
A sound like the groaning of metal, the nudging open of a stiff, old door, rings out in the air. A roaring beast in the sky. I have to place all my focus on finding the mind I intend to latch onto, a reluctance and a stubborn displeasure flooding into my senses.
But now is not the time to worry about the morals of it, I can apologise later. All that matters is that I reach her on time.
My beautiful, caring, selfless idiot of a sister.
Mere moments after I issue my command, I feel my chosen victim obey, breaking free from the wood that confines them and running my way.
‘Come to me,’ I plea. ‘Help me.’
What follows is the gentle, rhythmic whooshing of wings and the strong wind they generate. The grumbling beast lands by my side with the clumsy clattering of hooves on gravel.
The Pegasus regards me with an irritated huff before bowing its head and scraping its front hoof through the tiny stones, as though to tell me he doesn’t have all day. Neither have I, you ridiculous creature.
‘Impatient, even when I have control over your mind,’ I mutter as I mount the beast.
The wings take a little adjusting to, but being comfortable is the least of my worries. As soon as I lean forward on the Pegsus, I command it to take flight and am subsequently jolted forward as it obliges.
The sky flashes and cries out again as we soar higher and higher into the air, in the direction of the Divide. The wind whirls in my ears with the surprising speed of the creature, wings swift and efficient as they propel us forward.
It is in these moments, when it feels as though everything is crumbling around me, that I wish I had gods to pray to, that I believed in their involvement in human affairs.
Perhaps then I might feel even a semblance of hope when the doom weighs its thick, suffocating blanket over me until I cannot see any light around me at all.
Snuffing out that spark of flame from the darkness of my life, leaving only the princess.
I hope she can forgive me. I will be a much more broken man should she not. Irreparable.
I extend my mind to Calli, trying to locate her in the midst of the screaming, crackling air. I am met with only silence, not even the quiet jittering of her thoughts as they intertwine with mine.
‘Calli!’ I scream. ‘Where are you?’
A muffled string of words, a bubbling, gargling of a sentence that sounds out in the space of my mind. Just enough for me to locate the presence of her consciousness.
I instruct the Pegasus, screaming mentally for it to land, frantic that it does so with the utmost urgency.
We dip, then plummet all together.
The landing is clumsy, the beast’s front legs wavering, sending me tumbling forward to the ground.
The pain that breaks out in my shoulder is nothing compared to the potential pain of losing the last of my family.
I clamber to my feet before breaking into a run towards the Divide, speeding towards my own reflection in its surface.
But before I can pass through, a pulse of energy crashes into me, throwing me backwards. The air crackles as I push myself up from where I landed on my back, the sky now the colour of violent flames – of Eira’s power at its fullest.
I know her strength, how determined and defiant she can be, but in this precise moment, I feel as though I should have fought harder to stay with her. That I have abandoned her in her greatest time of need.
When I look back to where I came from, Grange Castle is engulfed in the same blinding, fiery light that sheets over the sky.
A buzzing culminates in my ear, growing louder and louder. The world heats around me, burning to an almost unbearable temperature.
Everything becomes that dominating light, the heat, the buzzing, the crackling, the pulsing until it all just – stops.
The night drops dead. Eerily silent and lifeless. Dark.
I snap my attention to the Divide, catching the split second it hangs there, teasingly still, before that mirror image of Reyhen and me falls to the ground like a sheet of linen, piling like a river of the night’s sky.
There she stands, my sister, staring back at me, the redness of her eyes bleeding onto her face, her dress, her hands. My throat seizes up.
‘Calli,’ I choke out.
My sister stands there, a statue of stone, jaw hanging loose, the scream stuck in her throat. Her entire body shudders, before it is released onto the world – her horror. She falls to the ground.
As I do.
I was too late.