Chapter Eighteen #2
Aesira took a deep breath, the scent of wet earth filling her. She hadn’t seen rain in almost two years, since the last time Celestria blessed the desert with a wet storm.
“Let’s go,” Bee said, pulling off her shirt.
“No way.” Birdie shook her head. “Mountain temperatures drop at night, you’ll freeze.”
Bee tossed her shirt at Birdie who of course caught it seamlessly.
“It’s raining, Bird. Rain! I’ll keep you warm, I promise.
” She winked then peeled off her pants until she was just in her under clothes and snuck out through the torches.
Her happy squeals echoed through the torrent and Aesira couldn’t help but smile.
“If I’m going in, so are you,” Birdie said, tossing Stone a playful smile.
She stripped off her clothes and ran through the gap in the torches.
Another clap of thunder rattled the cave and Aesira sheathed her sword.
“Get your ass out here, Stone!” Birdie’s shouts were followed by Bee’s laughter and for a moment Aesira’s racing thoughts slowed.
She honed in on the steady beat of rain on rock. The high pitches of Bee’s laugh and the low rumble of thunder in the distance. She could feel the anxious flow of her blood slow and the tightness in her chest loosen.
“Are you coming?”
Aesira was so wrapped up in the sounds around her, she’d forgotten Stone was standing so close.
Except now he’d stripped down to just his pants, his chest bare.
His muscles were lean, his arms toned. The same scarring on his face ran down his chest and over his arms. When he cleared his throat, she snapped her mouth shut.
“I can turn around, if you’d like,” he said. “If you need privacy.”
“Oh.” She glanced down at herself, still fully clothed. “You go ahead, I’ll be right there.” Stone gave her a half smile, then left her to undress in the cave.
After meticulously folding and piling her clothes on the cave floor, she took a timid step out.
The rain bit against her warm skin. She flexed her fingers as the water seeped through her under clothes.
She untied her hair, letting her dark curls spill over her bare shoulders, droplets of water clinging to each ringlet.
Bee and Birdie were still laughing and dancing, though the rain was so heavy now she could hardly make them out through the sheets of water.
“Pretty amazing,” Stone shouted, his voice fuzzy.
“It is.”
And it was. There was something so healing about it. She closed her eyes and held her hands out, letting the rain soak her through, down to her bones.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The sound soothed her. It washed away the swirling thoughts in her head. The constant noise.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Her eyes flew open, the Strix and the blood and her brother forced their way behind her eyes. Stone’s fingers brushed hers. Her arms were still outstretched, rain dripping from her fingertips.
Just rain.
Not blood.
Her heart slammed in her chest when his hand closed around hers.
Birdie and Bee laughed from somewhere behind them but Aesira honed in on the blurry shape of Stone’s face through the rain.
On the heat of his hand in hers. On the weight of his other hand as it wrapped around her waist and pulled her into him.
“Is this okay?” His breath brushed against her ear. He was warm, despite the chill in the air, and she found herself resting her cheek against his chest. The bumps and grooves of his scars were rough against her skin but she closed her eyes and studied the beat of his heart.
Fast.
His heart was beating so fast and so was hers and she wondered what it would be like to kiss him again.
Not like in the Phoenix when they’d both had too much to drink and she had something to prove.
Not like in the Den when they were both pretending.
She wondered what it would be like to kiss him for real.
"Your hair is beautiful when it's down."
His large hands splayed across her back, pinning her close to his chest. He wanted to kiss her, too.
There was no other reason he was always seeking her out.
Grabbing her hand. Holding her close. Whatever this attraction was would never become more than that, but what would it hurt to seek some comfort amidst pain?
“Stone?”
"Yes?"
She leaned away and looked up at him when another drip landed on her lips. When she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, it came away stained crimson.
Blood.
“Stone...” Her hands trembled.
“What is it?” The rain was still heavy, impairing her vision but through the heavy pelts she could hear Bee’s laugh. She peered past Stone.
“Bee?” Another drop of blood landed on her cheek, then another, and when she looked up the laughing she thought she heard, she now realized, was screaming.
The Strix hovered several feet above her, its wings strong against the wind and the rain.
Its yellow eyes, wide and haunting. Blood dripped from its mouth, tinting its chin and white feathers of its chest. It dripped down to where a body lay motionless in the clutches of its talons.
Dark brown curls stood stark against its light talons and Aesira’s head spun.
Eldrin.
Aesira reached for her sword only to remember she’d left it in the cave.
Shit.
The Strix’s piercing shrieks hammered against her ears as she ran for her sword, then another sound.
Another scream.
“Commander!” Birdie was there pulling something from her bag. “Commander, let me help.”
Aesira brushed her off, her sword now eager and hungry in her hands. The Strix’s large wings beat against the heavy rain and thunder, then, all at once, it opened its talons and there was Eldrin, falling from the sky. Dying all over again.
“No!” Aesira lunged, keeping her swords tight in her palms. The body slammed into the ground with a sickening crunch but when Aesira rolled it, it wasn’t her brother’s face that greeted her.
The boy’s hair had once been blonde, now soaked in old, putrid blood.
Still, the curls were the same. The age.
Her heart sped, mind racing through the memories she’d pushed away for so long.
The boy’s head was heavy as Aesira brought it to her lap, her sword laying useless at her side.
A roll of thunder clapped in the distance followed by a beat of wings.
“Wake up.” Aesira shook his shoulders. She couldn’t save her brother but maybe she could save him. She just had to try harder. Be better.
Blood caked his mouth and nose, his body rigid. Someone screamed behind her, maybe Birdie, followed by another shriek from the Strix.
“Commander,” Stone’s voice drifted to her through the heavy rain. “Aesira!”Aesira whipped her head up just in time to dodge the Strix’s talons. She screamed, then drew her weapons from the ground. “We can help–”
“No,” she ground out. The Strix hovered above them, its pallid skin now kissed pink with blood, its moonlit eyes wide and watchful.
Aesira held her breath, let her lungs burn and scream, and only when the Strix dove towards her did she let it out.
Rain pelted her skin. Her lashes. It mixed with the blood left on her from the boy.
Not Eldrin, she reminded herself.
It isn’t him.
She tasted salt and iron and water and rage.
The world stilled until it was nothing but the drip, drip, drip, of the rain and the flap of wings and the hammering in her chest and only when it was close enough for Aesira to smell the decay on its breath did she strike, piercing straight through the heart.